Kiss River (30 page)

G
ina left work and drove straight home in her rattle-free, air-conditioned car. She’d thought of stopping off at Henry’s, where she knew Clay was doing some repair work on the house that had seen both fire and flood, but she was anxious to check the online support group to see if there was any more news about moving the children to the state institution.

She was surprised to see Lacey’s car in the parking lot of the keeper’s house; Lacey usually tutored kids on Saturday afternoons. There was also a truck in the lot, and at first Gina thought it was Kenny’s. It was dark red, just like Kenny’s, but this truck was dented and muddy, while Kenny took great care of his. Another of Lacey’s boyfriends, Gina thought as she got out of her car.

There was no sign of Lacey or her guest when Gina walked into the house. Sasha greeted her merrily and accompanied her into the office, but before Gina was able to log onto the Internet, a short, piercing scream rang out from upstairs. Gina’s hands froze on the keyboard, and Sasha lifted his head and looked to
ward the living room, waiting, as she was, for the sound to come again. Were Lacey and her friend just fooling around? But the scream was quickly followed by shouting, and Sasha got to his feet, a growl rising from deep in his chest.

Gina stood up, too, her hand on the dog’s head, and walked through the living room to the foot of the stairs.

“Lacey?” she called up to the second story.

She heard a thud, the sound of something—or someone—falling on the floor above her head. A door opened, then slammed shut, and Gina stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, unsure whether she should go up to Lacey’s room or call the police. Sasha put his front paws on the bottom step and Gina instinctively curled her fingers around his collar.

Suddenly, Brock Jensen appeared in the upstairs hallway. Sasha barked as Brock bolted down the stairs, running past Gina without even seeming to notice her or the barking retriever she was keeping in check. He practically flew out the front door.

It was Brock’s truck, of course. She remembered seeing it in the parking lot at Shorty’s. Letting go of Sasha’s collar, she rushed up the stairs to Lacey’s room, afraid of what she might find. In the hallway, she knocked quickly on the door, then pushed it open without waiting for a response.

“I’m all right,” Lacey said quickly. She was on the floor, leaning against her dresser, her eyes open but narrowed in pain. A dark bruise was already forming on her cheek and she was rubbing her jaw. She had on her denim shorts, but nothing else, and her long red hair rested on her breasts. Sasha nearly jumped into her lap, and she hugged the dog close to her.

Gina dropped quickly to Lacey’s side. “What happened?” she asked, smoothing the hair back from Lacey’s face so she could get a good look at the bruise. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“What a pig.” Lacey choked out the words. She tried to get to her feet, leaning on both Gina and the dog, but flopped down on the floor again. “Could you hand me my bra, please?” she asked.

Gina retrieved the bra from the footboard of the bed and helped her into it, fastening it for her against her back.

Lacey tried to get up again, and this time she managed to get
over to the bed, where she sat down on the edge of the mattress. She looked up at Gina.

“Is my face a mess?” she asked. Her right cheek was already starting to swell.

“We should put some ice on it,” Gina said. “But first we need to call the police.”

Lacey shook her head. “Don’t bother. I invited him up here. They’re not going to do anything.”

“What happened?” Gina asked again, sitting down next to her on the bed.

Lacey shrugged. “He wanted to have sex again, and I didn’t. What I really wanted was to talk about what happened to your raffle money.”

“Oh, no, Lacey.” Gina felt an irrational twinge of responsibility for what had occurred in this room. “Is that why you’ve been hanging out with him?”

Lacey shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “He got testy when I asked him about the money. He was already pissed because I wouldn’t sleep with him again. I asked him to leave, and he smacked me.” She pressed her fingertips gingerly to her jaw. “Is it black and blue?” she asked.

“It’s getting there,” Gina said. Lacey’s fair skin was rapidly growing purple on the entire right side of her face, and the bruise hurt just to look at.

Lacey turned her head to the right, then the left, as if trying to work a kink out of her neck. “I have to make up some excuse for why I’m bruised or Clay will give me a hard time,” she said. “That’s the only bad thing about living with him. He still sees me as his little sister.”

“He loves you,” Gina said. “He just wants to protect you.”

“I know.”

“Lacey…” Gina hesitated, not sure if her opinion would be welcome right now. Sometimes it was easy for her to forget she was only a guest in this house. She’d come to care deeply for Lacey, but damned if she understood her. “I worry that you’re playing with fire with some of the guys you go out with,” she said carefully. “You barely know Brock, and everyone thinks he’s a little strange. Who knows what he could have done to you. He could have killed you.”

“I know him.” Lacey looked defensive as she reached for her T-shirt where it lay on her pillow. “He goes to the same Al-Anon meeting I do. I wanted to try to get close to him. You know, to figure out if he took your money or not.”

“The money’s not that important,” Gina said, but she knew this was not the time to argue with Lacey about her behavior with men. “I’ll get some ice.” She stood up and headed for the hallway.

On the stairs, Gina discovered that her knees were shaking. Too much adrenaline. She could still hear that scream, the way it cut through the still air of the house. In the kitchen, she filled a plastic bag with ice, and she was tying a twist tie around the top of the bag when Clay opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she dropped the bag on the counter to return his hug.

“Are you trembling?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” she said. “But Lacey fell and hit the side of her face. I’m getting her some ice.” She let go of him to turn back to the counter, hating that she was lying to him again.

“Lacey fell?” he asked. “What happened? Where is she?”

“She’s in her bedroom. She tripped on the rug in there and hit her cheek on the dresser.”

“Ouch.” He winced, seeming to buy the story. He reached into the drawer where they kept the dish towels. “Here. Wrap this around the bag.”

He put his arm around her as they walked up the stairs together. “Is there any new information on Rani today?” he asked.

“I haven’t checked my e-mail yet,” she said, touched that he cared enough to ask.

Lacey was still sitting on the edge of her bed. She’d put on her T-shirt, and the bruise was already a few shades darker than it had been when Gina had left her to go downstairs.

“Looks painful,” Clay said, sitting down next to his sister as Gina handed Lacey the bag of ice and the dish towel.

“I’m so clumsy sometimes,” Lacey said. “I walked right into the edge of my door.”

Gina cringed.

“Oh, yeah?” Clay looked at Gina, then back at his sister. “Was
that before or after you tripped on the rug and crashed into your dresser?”

Lacey looked confused. “What?”

“I told him how you tripped,” Gina said.

“Oh.” Lacey seemed to deflate, sinking lower into the bed. She knew the jig was up.

Clay folded his arms across his chest. “All right, girls,” he said, suddenly all business. “How about the truth. One of your asshole boyfriends smacked you, didn’t he?”

“Don’t worry,” Lacey said. “I won’t be seeing him again.”

“No, but you’ll see some other asshole,” Clay said, his voice rising. “And maybe that one will finish the job.”

“Will you two please get out of here and leave me alone?” Lacey said.

Clay ignored her plea. He leaned over and touched her cheek, pressing lightly against the bruise, then running his fingertip down to her jaw. “Are you sure nothing’s broken?” he asked. “This looks pretty bad.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Good-bye.”

Clay stood up and held his hand out to Gina. “Come on,” he said. “We’re not wanted here.”

As soon as they had closed Lacey’s door and stood together in the hallway, Gina turned to him. “I’m sorry I lied,” she said. “She didn’t want you to know, and I didn’t know what—”

“It’s all right,” he said, running his hand over her arm. “You were caught in the middle. She really got slugged, though. That was no little slap across the face.”

“I know.”

“Do you know who the guy was?”

“Brock. You know the guy—”

“Brock Jensen?” There was fire in Clay’s eyes now that he could attach a face to his sister’s abuser.

“Yes. I think she wanted to find out if he took my—”

“I’ll see you later.” He turned toward the stairs, then shot down them every bit as fast as Brock had earlier.

“Clay!” she called after him. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

But he was already out the front door. She sat down on the top step, wondering what she should do. Should she follow him
to Shorty’s, which was undoubtedly where he was going? Should she call the police and tell them they’d better get over there? Or was she simply making too much of the whole situation? Brock probably wouldn’t be at Shorty’s anyway, and Clay would be fine once he’d gunned his Jeep all the way to the restaurant and gotten some of his steam blown off.

Instead of taking either course, she walked downstairs and into the office, to see if she could learn anything new about her daughter’s fate.

C
lay spotted the banged-up red truck in Shorty’s parking lot. He pulled into the empty space next to the truck and got out of his Jeep, then headed for the front door. He was wired, his hands already balled into fists. He had never felt quite like this before. He’d sat in the courtroom during the trial of his mother’s killer, watching the murderer sit stone-faced next to his attorney. He’d been on search and rescue teams hunting for the bodies of brutalized children. But he’d honestly never felt this keen-edged rage before.

“Hey, Clay!” Kenny was at the bar, but Clay walked right past him without a word on his way to the back room.

“Afternoon, Clay,” Walter Liscott called out from the chess table, and Clay ignored him as well. He looked toward the pool table. Brock was turned away from him, leaning over to make a shot, the tattoos on his back nearly visible beneath his thin white T-shirt. Clay walked over and touched his shoulder.

“Hey, I’m setting up a shot here,” Brock said without turning around.

“Turn around, you son of a bitch,” Clay said.

Brock straightened up slowly, then turned to face him.

Clay pulled back his arm, then let it fly, his fist connecting dead center with Brock’s face. He heard the
crack.
It was a great sound.

Brock put a hand over his bloodied nose. “What the hell are you doing, dude?” he asked.

“How do you like it?” Clay said, punching him again. He had never hit anyone in his life, and it felt good. Too good. He hit him one more time. “Now you know how my sister felt,” he said.

“Your sister’s a whore,” Brock was stupid enough to say.

“And you’re a freak.” Clay pushed him until Brock was half lying on the pool table, and then he pummeled him hard, his fists smashing into his face and body over and over again. He was vaguely aware of people around him, some shouting, others cheering. Someone told him to cool it, and he could feel Kenny’s ineffectual attempts to drag him from the table. Even old Brian Cass was trying to pull him away from his target, but he could not be stopped. Blood was flowing, flying. His hands were covered with it, and he didn’t know or care whether it was Brock’s blood or his own. One thing he did know, though. One thing crept into his awareness and made him fight with even greater fury: He was not only beating up Brock. He was beating up the building that had collapsed on his wife and unborn child, and the sloppy construction workers who’d put that building up in the first place, and on his overinflated ego that had led him to send Terri in his place. He was beating up on God.

T
he call from the emergency room came at six o’clock in the evening. Alec was swimming with Jack and Maggie in the sound behind their house when he heard his cell phone ringing on the deck. He waded through the water as quickly as he could, but by the time he’d run up the beach to the deck, he was too late. Olivia had left a message, though.

“If you can find someone to watch the kids,” she’d said, “please come to the E.R. Nothing too serious, so don’t panic.”

Nothing
too
serious? He tried to call her back, but was told she was with a patient. He called the kids out of the water and told them to get dressed quickly. Then he phoned the mother of one of Jack’s friends to see if she could watch Jack and Maggie for a while. She agreed, and within minutes he had dropped them off at her house and was on his way to the E.R.

He did not like being called to the emergency room for any reason. Even though it had been over ten years ago, being in the E.R. always brought back the memory of the night Annie had
died there. And right now, he didn’t know how worried he should be. “Don’t panic,” Olivia had said. She didn’t say, “Don’t worry.”

He arrived at the emergency room to find that the waiting area had been transformed into Shorty’s back room. Kenny Gallo was there, along with Walter Liscott in his wheelchair and Brian Cass and a few others. There were a couple of cops, guys he knew well. One of them, Pete Myron, had obviously been keeping an eye out for Alec and approached him quickly when he walked into the room.

“What’s going on?” Alec asked him.

Pete took him out of the waiting room and into the back hallway, near the treatment area.

“Do you know Brock Jensen?” Pete asked.

It took him a moment to realize who Pete was talking about. “The guy with the tattoos?” he asked.

“That’s him. Apparently, he beat up your daughter,” he said.

Alec thought of Maggie, safe at their neighbor’s house, and then realized that Pete was talking about Lacey.

“Where is she?” He peered behind Pete’s head, trying to see into the main treatment area. “Is she all right?”

“She’s at home,” Pete said. “We sent someone over to check on her. She’s fine, except for a few bruises. But Jensen is a mess. He’s being stitched up right now. Clay broke a finger.”

“Clay?” He was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Clay found Jensen at Shorty’s and beat him to a pulp.”

“Clay?”
Alec found this hard to believe. Clay was no wimp, but he was definitely a pacifist. He hated violence. More importantly, he held the concept of revenge in disdain. Even at Zachary Pointer’s trial, while listening to witnesses describe how the man had shot Annie, Clay kept saying, “I won’t support the death penalty for him. I just won’t.”

“Lacey’s not pressing charges,” Pete said. “And Brock’s wisely not pressing charges, either. So there’s not much for us to do.”

“Where is Clay?” Alec asked. He had many more questions, but figured it was time he started asking them of his son.

“In there.” Pete pointed behind him at the treatment room. “He’s with your wife.”

Olivia was sitting at Clay’s side, wrapping a bandage around his finger, when Alec found them in the third curtained compartment of the treatment area. Clay had a nasty-looking cut high on his cheekbone and a swollen lip, but otherwise he seemed to be all right. He looked up when Alec opened the curtain.

“Hi, Dad,” he said simply, as if this sort of thing occurred every day.

“What the hell happened?” Alec asked.

Olivia didn’t take her eyes off her work. “Just your usual barroom brawl,” she said.

Clay looked reluctant to speak. He sighed, sounding tired. “Brock Jensen was at the keeper’s house with Lacey,” he said.

“What do you mean, he was with her?” Alec could not picture his daughter with Shorty’s tattooed wonder. “He didn’t rape her, did he?” Alec asked.

Clay looked away from him, avoiding the question. “He hit her,” he said. “When I found out, I went to Shorty’s and…” He looked up at Alec, a sheepish half grin on his face. “Doesn’t sound like me, does it?” he asked.

No, it sure didn’t. “Why did he hit Lacey? Did he force his way into the house or—”

“I’m sure she invited him, Dad,” Clay interrupted him. “She’s not terribly…discriminating.”

He didn’t want to hear that. He’d seen hints of Lacey’s promiscuity, things he’d ignored. Things he wished he could continue to ignore.

“You didn’t answer my question about rape,” he said.

Clay looked annoyed, but Alec had the feeling it was actually Lacey he was annoyed with. “As far as I know,” he said, “anything that happened between them was consensual.”

Olivia had finished bandaging Clay’s finger and was now examining the cut on his cheek.

“Do I need stitches?” Clay asked her.

She shook her head. “A butterfly will do,” she said, selecting one of the small bandages from the metal tray at her side.

“How bad is Brock beaten up?” Alec addressed the question to his wife.

“Broken nose, a fair share of contusions.” Olivia was using
her flat, reasonable doctor’s voice. “And he’ll probably need some plastic surgery on his cheek.”

He had to stop himself from smiling. He couldn’t help it. He was a gentle man, the father of a gentle son. And yet he couldn’t help feeling a primitive sense of masculine pride that his son had defended his daughter and come out the winner.

Clay suddenly sat up straighter, his gaze falling somewhere behind Alec’s head, and Alec turned to see Gina stepping through the curtains. She was instantly at Clay’s side.

“Are you all right?” she asked, real concern in her voice. She touched his swollen lip in a way that told Alec the two of them had moved beyond friendship to something more.

Clay took her hand. “I’m fine,” he said. “Is Lacey with you?”

“She wouldn’t come,” she said. “I don’t think she wants anyone to see her face. Although it doesn’t look that bad,” she added quickly, as if wanting to allay Alec’s fears. “And the policewoman was still there with her.”

“I’m going over to see her.” Alec pulled his car keys from his jeans pocket.

“Don’t, Dad,” Clay said.

“Why not?”

“Just…give her some space. Talk to her on the phone.”

“And I’d like to talk to you, too,” Olivia said to Alec. She had pressed the butterfly bandage to Clay’s cheek and now stood up.

He rested his hand on her back. “As soon as you get home,” he said.

He and Olivia waited until Jack and Maggie were in bed that evening. They sat on the glider on the screened porch, listening to the rippling waves of the sound lap at the narrow beach behind their house. He held her hand on his thigh. Both of them had spoken to Lacey, who insisted she was fine, that they were making a big deal out of nothing and it was ridiculous that Clay and Brock had both needed some serious medical treatment because she’d received “one little smack.” He’d wanted to see her face for himself, but she was adamant that he not come to the keeper’s house. He would see her on Monday, anyway, when she came to work at the animal hospital.

“You wanted to talk about Lacey?” he asked Olivia.

“Yes, but first I want to talk about Gina.”

“What about her?”

“Have you decided what to do about the lens?”

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

“You told Clay you’d think about it, though.”

This was going to be one of those nagging talks, he knew. One of those “you’re doing everything wrong” talks. They were rare for Olivia. Very rare. For that reason, he’d learned to pay attention to what she said, no matter how irritating the conversation might be. She was usually right.

“And I will,” he said. “Think about it.”

“If it’s true that Gina is related to the Poors, then you really should help her raise the lens. It obviously has sentimental value to her. For whatever reason, the lighthouse seems to have become her link to her relatives. Clay said she has no family. That’s why she’s trying so hard to adopt that little girl in India. She wants to give her a family and create a family for herself.”

Alec stiffened. “If the lens has sentimental value to her, why didn’t she just say that in the first place? Why did she give us the song and dance about being a lighthouse historian?”

Olivia was quiet, and he figured she had no answer to that question. The gentle splashing of water against the sand filled the silence.

“Alec, honey.” She turned in the glider until she was facing him. “I need to say something to you and I’m afraid to say it.”

“Afraid?” He couldn’t imagine where this was going.

“Just…let me just talk for a minute, okay? Don’t say anything back. Let me just talk.”

He nodded.

She held both his hands in her lap. He wanted to wrap his arms around her. He hated that she felt fear in talking to him. He didn’t think she ever had before.

“Years ago,” she began, “you were desperate to save the lighthouse. And the reason you were so desperate was because it reminded you of Annie. It’s where the two of you met. It’s where you spent time together. You both loved it. It had so much meaning for you. I understand that.”

He nodded again.

“Now, though, you are equally as desperate to leave the lens where it is, at the bottom of the ocean, for the same reason.”

“What do you mean?”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh,” she said. “Let me finish. The lighthouse
still
reminds you of Annie, and no longer in a good way. Once you learned the truth about her, you wanted to bury everything that reminded you of her.”

She was right. He hated the lighthouse he had once held so warmly in his heart.

“Either way, sweetie,” Olivia continued, “whether you wanted to save the lighthouse, or want to let the lens stay in the sea, either way, your decisions are still based on your feelings for Annie. It’s a piece of glass, Alec.” She squeezed his hands hard. “You’re giving it so much power over you. A piece of glass.”

He opened his mouth to speak, although he wasn’t yet sure what he would say.

“I’m not through.” She interrupted him before he could utter a word, and he saw tears in her eyes as she locked her fingers in his. “I love you so much. These past ten years have been the best of my life, by far. But…please don’t get angry with me when I say this. I feel very strongly that you
must
tell Clay and Lacey the truth about Annie.”

He could no longer be silent. “Why should I?” he asked. “They have absolutely no need to know. Why should I ruin the image they have of their mother? Lacey knows Tom is her father. That’s all she needs to know.”

“You’re still protecting Annie’s memory,” she said. “It doesn’t deserve that protection. And it’s harmed your children.”

He was beginning to get angry. “This is a little self-serving of you, don’t you think?” he asked.

She started to cry. “I’m worried about Lacey,” she said, removing one of her hands from his to wipe her eyes. “It’s creepy, don’t you think? That she’d take someone like that guy with the tattoos home with her? And to the keeper’s house?”

He knew what she was thinking, because he shared the thought. Annie used to do that. Take men to the keeper’s house when Mary Poor lived there. Annie would sleep with anyone who came along. She’d slept with Alec within minutes of meeting
him. She was always hungry to give pleasure rather than receive it. Always taking care of other people. But Lacey didn’t know about that.

“I didn’t think promiscuity is inherited,” he said to Olivia.

“That’s what’s so spooky about it,” Olivia said. “But we have to face facts, Alec. Lacey’s always had a string of boyfriends. No one special. She’s…she’s Annie all over again. She looks identical to her. She didn’t go to college, just like Annie.”

“Annie went to college.”

“But never got a degree,” Olivia countered. “Lacey’s made stained glass her career, just like her mother did, even though she used to talk about being a veterinarian like you when she was younger. You and I both know she had real interest in animals, and she had the brains to do it if she wanted to. But she put that interest completely aside and lost herself in the stained-glass studio.”

He knew that Olivia understood the obsession to emulate Annie O’Neill better than he did. Long ago, struggling with envy and confusion, Olivia had suffered from that obsession herself.

“She’s the community do-gooder, just like Annie was,” Olivia said. She gripped both his hands again. “Alec, she needs to know,” she said. “And
you
need to let go of that attachment you have to the light, whether it’s positive or negative. Either way, Annie is still running your life.”

Alec was quiet for a long time. He knew Olivia was right, on all counts, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

“I’m just not ready to ruin Clay and Lacey’s image of their mother,” he said finally. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but I can’t do it. But you’re right about the lens. I’ll call Clay and tell him I’ll do anything I can to help raise it.”