If She Should Die (7 page)

“You look sad,” Jeremy said.

“Too much rain and too many gray skies.”

“And too much bad news. About the body in the water. It’s creepy.” He looked away for a moment, then said with one of his abrupt changes of subject, “I want to go home and see Rhiannon.”

“Me, too. But don’t tell her you had a banana split or she’ll pout all evening.”

Jeremy’s deep laugh boomed and his whole face seemed to light up. He looked like a male version of their beautiful mother, and Christine often felt bad when girls approached him based on his striking adult male looks only to find they were talking to an adolescent. But Jeremy rarely seemed to mind, thank goodness. He was remarkably adept at accepting his life.

Christine paid the bill and they set out for home. The rain had tapered off to a drizzle, but she still drove slowly while Jeremy listened to the radio, bobbing his head and singing along with even more gusto than usual to “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz, which happened to be his favorite song. Jeremy loved rock music and his voice was fairly good. Unfortunately, music annoyed Ames. Jeremy had to content himself with a boom box and a karaoke machine she’d bought him for Christmas, and even those things Ames had banished into a dingy back room of his basement.

When they entered Christine’s large modern stone and sand-colored wood house the cat shot from behind a chair and flung herself at Jeremy’s feet, rolling upside down and stretching her legs into the air.

Jeremy dropped to the floor and picked her up. “Rhiannon, I missed you!” The cat rubbed her mouth along his jaw to leave her scent. “Everybody thinks Dara just named you for that song she liked so much, but I know Rhiannon was really a witch.”

Christine was surprised Jeremy recalled Dara telling him about the witch of Celtic legend, but then, what he remembered often surprised her. “Rhiannon is happy to see you,” she said as the cat lolled happily in Jeremy’s arms.

“I miss her all the time. I sure wish she could stay with me at Ames’s house, but Patricia won’t let her. She only likes Pom-Pom.”

Christine, who loved almost every dog she saw, definitely found Pom-Pom an exception. The dog was eight pounds of sharp teeth, ear-shattering yips, knotted grayish-white hair, bad breath, and bad temper. Christine had no idea what misbegotten canine mix had created the ankle-biting monstrosity Patricia inexplicably adored and no one else could bear.

“You got any clean clothes for me to wear tomorrow?” Jeremy asked.

“I have some older things, but I just bought two new pairs of slacks and two shirts at the Gap three days ago.”

Jeremy brightened. “You did? Are they downstairs in my room?”

“Yes. And I’ve just about finished decorating it. Run down and see what you think.”

With the cat still in his arms, Jeremy immediately dashed to the kitchen and the upstairs entrance to his basement “apartment.” Christine hoped that within a month he would be living here full-time.

Christine walked into her kitchen and felt a rush of pleasure at the sight of gleaming chrome appliances and the walls painted in cheerful shades of pistachio green and lemon yellow. Ames, with his inflexible traditional taste, didn’t like the modern lines of her home, but he had almost quailed at the sight of this shining, vibrant room. Christine remembered having trouble hiding her amusement at his efforts not to express his overwhelming dismay that she’d spent so much money on a house he considered a frightful concoction of strange angles and loud colors.

While she poured water into a huge fern hanging at a window, Christine gazed beyond the deck and into the backyard, which she hoped would be a riot of colorful flowers come summer. On this dismal evening, though, that scene was hard to imagine. The wall of evergreens bordering the back of the lawn raised dripping limbs against a gunmetal sky. A forlorn sparrow sat on the edge of the bird feeder, and rain had beaten down the heads of six daffodils that had bloomed too soon, tricked by a few early warm days. Water stood in all the cracks between the flagstones of the walk leading down the slope to the patio outside Jeremy’s basement entrance,
a patio she hoped would accommodate some summer barbecues.

Christine filled the coffeemaker, and in a few minutes the smell of Jeremy’s favorite raspberry-chocolate blend coffee filled the kitchen. She took his favorite thermal mug out of the cabinet and her own sturdy earthenware cup she favored over china.

“The place looks so cool!” Jeremy exclaimed as he bound up the basement stairs and into the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me you got me a Ping-Pong table!”

“Early birthday gift,” Christine managed as Jeremy gave her a bear hug. “You can have your friends over to play.”

“Like Danny. Since he doesn’t live beside Ames anymore, I hardly ever get to see him. And I’ve got my own door to the outside, too. People don’t have to go through
your
place to get to
my
place!”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s super. Hey, will that coffee keep me awake? ’Cause I have to go into the store early tomorrow.”

“We’re not opening until ten.”

“I have to go earlier.”

“Why?”

“It’s a secret. Let’s go watch TV.”

Christine pretended to concentrate on shows that seemed to enthrall Jeremy, but she really wasn’t paying the slightest attention. All she could think about was Ames in Charleston viewing a ravaged body that might be his daughter’s. At ten o’clock she felt ready to scream with tension when the phone rang. She leaped from her chair and grabbed up the receiver. “Hello?”

A ragged voice emitted a couple of agonized sounds before Ames said, “H-her.”

“Ames? I can barely hear you.”

“The body. It’s . . . it’s Dara.”

She’d been sure ever since Deputy Winter told them about the body being washed ashore that it was Dara’s. Now her mind did not want to accept it. “You can’t be sure,” she said quickly, wrenched by the sound of his tormented voice. “Not until they’ve run tests. They have to do DNA testing—”

“The ring.”

“What about the ring?”

“In the plastic wrapping they found her ring. The ruby-and-diamond ring I gave her for her high school graduation.” He sounded like he was choking before he ground out, “It had her initials engraved inside.
DMP
. Dara Marie Prince. And the graduation date . . . Oh God, Christine—”

“Ames, are you on the road?”

“No. Home.”

“Is Patricia there?”

“What? I don’t know.”

“If she isn’t, I’m coming right over.” Jeremy stood by her side now, his expression frightened. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Don’t come over.”

“Yes, I insist—”

“Don’t come, Christine.” Patricia’s voice, crisp and cold, had replaced Ames’s. “I’m here. I’ll take care of my husband. You look after Jeremy. We don’t need him here on top of everything else.”

The phone clicked in Christine’s ear.

And so the hope Ames had held on to so fiercely for three long years had been crushed on a cold, rainy March day when the Ohio River washed up the forlorn remains of his once-beautiful daughter and left them on a soggy bank like a grotesque offering.

A desolation that surprised her washed over Christine. She turned her face into Jeremy’s chest and cried.

An hour later they’d trudged off to their respective bedrooms. Christine had finally controlled her weeping, and Jeremy had retreated into silence. He took Rhiannon downstairs with him, though. Christine knew he would find comfort in Dara’s little black cat, who always curled beside him to sleep.

As she changed into a nightgown and washed her face, Christine was certain the sleep she wanted so badly wouldn’t come for hours. She was too disturbed and shaken. But after she forced herself to read a few pages of a less than gripping murder mystery, the book toppled from her hand and she slid sideways against her stacked pillows.

She was dreaming of arguing with Dara over Sloane Caldwell. The dream was a playback of the last contretemps she’d ever had with Dara, when the girl had openly flirted with Sloane and even sat down on his lap during a party, stroking his face, rubbing her breasts against him, and licking his ear. Christine had been furious at the display, letting her temper get the best of her as she called Dara a tramp. Dara had laughed at her. “It’s not my fault you can’t hold on to Sloane,” she’d jeered. “He’d rather have me and you know it!” Sloane had looked acutely embarrassed but said nothing.

Christine had slammed out of the party, refusing Sloane’s attempts to take her home, asking a friend to drive her instead. The next day she’d broken off her engagement to Sloane. Less than a week later Dara had disappeared.

The phone rang and Christine awakened abruptly, Dara’s sneering face dancing vividly in front of her own. She jerked up in bed and grabbed the phone on her bedside table. “Yes? What is it?”

“Did I wake you?”

“No.” Christine always said no whether or not she’d been asleep, as if she felt guilty for not being alert at all times. “Who is this?”

“You
were
asleep or you’d know my voice. It’s Streak.” Streak Archer? Wilma’s son? And what time was it? Christine peered at the bedside clock. Twelve forty-five. “Chris, I’m with Jeremy,” he said urgently.

“Jeremy is downstairs in his room.”

“No, he isn’t. Now wake up and pay attention. He’s down at the bridge at Crescent Creek with the cat. I found him when I was jogging.”

“At the creek? What’s he doing?”

“Don’t ask questions. Just come. Your brother is more upset than I’ve ever seen him. He needs you
now
.”

Christine bolted from bed, pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt, and a jacket, and rushed to her car. The constant rain of the last four days had stopped, but she didn’t notice. The streets were nearly deserted, mist creating halos around streetlights. The Prince home was only a half-mile from her own. She passed its large brick facade and saw two lights burning, one in Ames’s study and another in Patricia’s bedroom. Patricia had probably retreated to her room to let Ames suffer alone. Or maybe he’d sent her away. Ames couldn’t bear for people to see him as anything but strong and controlled.

Christine turned down Crescent Creek Road, a narrow asphalt lane that ran beside Ames’s property. Only three small homes sat along the lane before the asphalt stopped and the gravel began. Her light car, a blue Dodge Neon, bounced over the road damaged by the heavy rain of the last week and a hard winter. Some trees appeared on either side of the road, mostly small locusts. She rounded the final curve leading down to the creek. Here the trees and undergrowth were denser, everything gleaming
moistly in her headlights. She stopped the car, put on her emergency brake, and stepped out onto a slick patch of mud and gravel. Immediately she spotted leaning against a tree the ten-speed bike Jeremy kept at her house.

“Christine.” She looked up to see Streak Archer in a running suit. At fifty-three he looked at least ten years older, with thick, silver hair and deep lines running across his forehead and down his cheeks. A scar bisected his right eyebrow. His real name was Robert, but people had called him Streak since he’d been the fastest thing anyone had ever seen on the Winston High School track team.

“Where’s Jeremy?” she asked anxiously. “Is he all right?”

Streak came to her and put his hands on her shoulders, gazing at her with his sad, hooded eyes. “He’s not hurt and he’s calming down some. I’m just glad I had my cell phone with me. I hate the damned thing, but Mom made me promise I’d carry it when I ran in case I ever got hurt in some desolate spot.” He smiled wryly. “Guess she knew best. It came in handy.”

Streak was the son of Wilma Archer, who had been in the store earlier that day. Streak and Ames Prince had been friends since childhood, when a young, lonely Ames had found comfort in the Archers’ warm, noisy, openly loving home so unlike his own with his austere father and invalid mother. Wilma was like a mother to him and Streak like a brother.

“Jeremy is upset about Dara, isn’t he?” Christine asked tensely.

“Yes. Mom called and told me about their finding the body, then about Ames identifying it as Dara’s.”

“Jeremy got very upset in the store when he found out about the body, but later this evening at my house he calmed down. Then Ames called. Jeremy seemed unnerved but under control. Maybe he was too calm when
he went to bed. I should have known that was a bad sign.”

“When I found him he was sobbing, throwing petals from silk flowers in the creek, saying he was sorry and talking about a dream with dark water and not being able to see or breathe.”

Dread washed over Christine. “Apparently that’s a recurring nightmare. He’s mentioned the dream a couple of times since Dara disappeared, but he didn’t seem too distressed by it, and frankly, I didn’t pay much attention. Today he went into more detail about it. It’s awful.” She sighed. “Streak, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s bothering him. He’ll get upset over something trivial but not say a word about something that deeply troubles him like this dream. He must have had it again tonight and it set him off.”

“I think you’re right.”

“I need to see him.”

“Sure you do.” Streak put his arm around her. “Watch your step. This gravel in the mud is treacherous.”

“I’m surprised you’re out jogging tonight.”

“I jog every night unless there’s pelting rain or a snowstorm. Helps keep my own nightmares away.”

Nightmares of Vietnam, Christine knew. Streak had been only nineteen when news came from an exotic place called Qui Nhon that he’d been shot in the head and the bullet had lodged in his brain. He was sent from the field hospital to Saigon, and although he was alive, doctors warned there was next to no hope. Ames told Christine that a deeply religious Wilma had spent all her time in church and Streak’s father had put in compulsive eighteen-hour days working the farm while they waited for the inevitable news that their son had died. But Streak had hung on, although doctors again warned that if he survived, he would be brain-damaged, maybe little more than a living corpse.