Penumbra (21 page)

T
he hospital was still and quiet, the fluorescent lights a feeble attempt to illuminate what should have been day. Jade paced down the corridor to the front door and stopped. The storm was imminent. She opened the door and tasted metal on the air. Lightning forked a mesh of spidery veins across the heavy gray sky, and Jade ran for her car, parked beneath the water oaks in front of the hospital. She’d made it only a few feet when the clouds opened up. Rain dropped in a solid sheet. Beneath her feet, the ground trembled in the grip of booming thunder. Another bolt of lightning split the sky, and Jade ducked just as a limb in the oak tree burst into splinters, showering around her. The smell of sulfur was strong. Beside her, the trunk of the water oak sizzled in the downpour. A gash ran twenty feet up the tree where the bark had been peeled away by the lightning.

Jade fumbled with her keys, unnerved by the worst storm she could remember. She got in her car, her hands so wet they slipped on the steering wheel, and drove slowly around the hospital to the back entrance, the place where the janitors and orderlies gathered to smoke and exchange gossip.

Jade maneuvered the Hudson so that the passenger side of the car was closest to the hospital door. Before she could get out, the hospital door opened and a tall black man stepped into the rain, a bundle of sheets in his arms.

Jade reached across the car and opened the passenger door, and the man eased Marlena into the seat.

“Thank you, Tom,” Jade said.

“Good luck,” he said. He turned and went back inside the hospital, his clothes thoroughly soaked.

“Where are we going?” Marlena’s face peeped from beneath the folds of the white sheets. She forced the words through her rigid jaw.

“Someplace safe,” Jade assured her, though she had no idea what to do. Her only thought had been to get Marlena out of the hospital, away from Junior Clements. Jade couldn’t take Marlena to Ruth and Jonah’s and endanger them. Her own house, a place she’d once considered safe from harm, had been violated. The shop was no better.

“Where will it be safe?” Marlena asked, despair chattering in her tight voice.

Jade thought of one place where Marlena would be completely safe. She put the car in gear and eased through the puddles to the road. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I know a place.”

When Jade turned right, Marlena looked at her. “Don’t take me to Mother’s. Please. I can’t go there.”

“I’m not,” Jade assured her. “We’re going to Frank Kimble’s. No one will ever think to look for you there.”

“Frank’s?” Marlena said the word as if she didn’t understand its meaning.

“It’s perfect,” Jade said. “No one ever goes there. Frank doesn’t even use the upstairs at all. He—” She turned to look at Marlena, who was staring at her. “It’ll be fine.”

They passed the bank and the corner drugstore, where a lone man stood on the sidewalk in the rain. Jade pressed the accelerator harder. They left the town behind, lost in the curtain of rain. The clouds seemed to sit on the horizon, a dark, angry presence that promised no let up.

Lightning forked again, and Jade heard a loud pop. Marlena cowered in the seat.

“It’s okay.” Jade reached across and touched her sister’s chilled arm. Marlena felt as if she were already dead. “It was Junior who attacked you, wasn’t it?” she asked.

Marlena looked out the window, her face blank.

Jade pressed the gas more firmly, until they turned off to Frank’s house. In a flash of lightning, the third story was illuminated above the trees.

“The Kimble house is haunted,” Marlena said softly.

“The dead can’t hurt you.”

“Not like the living, that’s for sure.”

Jade slowed the car at a turn in the driveway and stopped. “Are you positive you don’t want to go to your mother’s?” Marlena slowly shook her head. “Not there.” “Why?” Jade eased the car forward.

“She’ll call Lucas. I’m his property. I see that now. All along, that was my value to Mother. I could be sold to a wealthy man.”

They pulled up to the front steps and Jade got out and ran around the car to help Marlena. “Can you walk?” Jade asked as she stood beside the car, rain stinging her exposed skin. It was a summer storm, but it held within it the coldness of winter.

“I’m going to find out,” Marlena said. She let Jade swing her legs so that her feet were on the ground.

As Jade pulled her up, Marlena faltered and almost fell. Jade grabbed her hips and steadied her. “Marlena, I can’t carry you, but I could drag you on a sheet.”

Marlena shook her head, the rain running into her eyes and mouth. “I can do it. Just help me.” She put her arm around Jade’s shoulders. Together, they moved slowly to the house and up the steps.

The front door stood open, and Jade half-dragged Marlena into the foyer and across the wooden floor to a chair in the parlor. She eased Marlena into a sitting position and knelt down at her knees, reaching up to touch the pale face that looked like death. Jade stifled a gasp when she saw that the sheet wrapped around Marlena’s body showed a creeping red stain.

“Let me look,” Jade said, easing Marlena back and pulling the layers of sheet away. Three stitches had pulled loose, and blood oozed from the opening. Jade closed her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Marlena asked, too weak to even right herself.

“You’ve pulled out some stitches, but it doesn’t look too bad.” Jade rose before she lost control and began to weep. She was terrified. She’d moved Marlena out of the hospital to an isolated place where she might bleed to death.

“I’ll be back in a minute.” She hurried into the kitchen. For a long moment she grasped the lip of the cold porcelain sink and held on. She’d acted on instinct, and now she was afraid. Before she could continue, her fear had to be conquered.

She thought of the time Ruth had cut the palm of her hand with a butcher knife. The wound was laid open like a split made in a roast. Blood poured across the kitchen table, dripping onto the floor. Ruth washed the wound and them applied a pressure bandage, but the blood could not be stopped. Jade had been ten, and she watched Ruth sway and fall to the floor. Terrified, Jade had run to get Jonah, and after that everyone said she’d saved Ruth’s life.

She took a deep breath. She could take care of Marlena. Frank would be home soon enough. Once he was with them, he’d know what to do. Until then, she had to stop the bleeding and get her sister to rest, maybe drink some soup, something hot to ward off the chill of the rain.

Jade had no idea where Frank kept scissors, or even if he owned any. She opened drawers until she settled on a large butcher knife. When she went back to Marlena, she cut one of the sheets into long strips and fashioned a bandage she could tie around her sister’s hips, applying pressure to the incision. She had to keep the wound from opening further.

Once Marlena was trussed and sleeping on the sofa, Jade went to the kitchen and began to search the cabinets for something to eat. She found coffee and a single can of tomato soup. She made both, glad to have something to do to keep busy, glad she had hot food to offer Marlena. While the coffee was brewing, she went to the telephone in the kitchen and called the sheriff’s office. There was no answer. She hung up and went back to the kitchen. Her gaze fell upon the butcher knife she’d used to cut the sheets. It was a sharp knife, well-balanced in her hand.

She put it on the counter within easy reach.

The roof of the cabin sounded like it was going to collapse under the onslaught of rain. Dotty sat on the floor in the kitchen, the only light coming from a hole around the woodstove exhaust.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said softly. She held the naked woman’s foot in her lap and carefully worked at the manacle lock, using a bobby pin from her hair and a nail she’d found and sharpened. The boy buried his face against the woman’s thigh, hiding the severely burned portion as if he were ashamed.

“I’m going to get you free from here, and then you’re going to help me get away,” Dotty said, glancing into the boy’s one good eye. “Right?” It was taking everything she had not to fall on the floor and scream. She could barely look at the boy or the woman.

“We can’t leave,” the boy said, clinging tighter to the woman. “Zerty will hurt us more. He’ll hurt us bad.”

“He will not,” Dotty said. “That bastard is going to pay for what he’s done. Now, I’m getting out of here and you’re coming with me. You know the way.” She looked at the boy, glaring. “I’ll take her, too, because no living creature deserves to be chained up like this.”

“She’s my mother,” the boy said.

Dotty stopped her furious work on the ankle. “What?” she looked up at the woman, noticing for the first time the beautiful violet eyes that were so empty. “What’s wrong with her?”

The boy shook his head. His words came out with a struggle, but he managed. “She couldn’t live being afraid all the time, so she just left. In her head. It makes Zerty furious, because now she doesn’t even cry when he hits her.”

“That evil motherfucker.” Dotty pried the last bolt on the ankle band free. The skin beneath the manacle was raw and infected, but there wasn’t time to worry about that. Dotty threw the metal to the floor and scrambled to her knees. “We’re going to have to get out of here on foot, but we can do it.”

“Where will we go?” the boy asked.

She studied him, aware that she’d assumed he was slow-witted because of his looks. “To town. To Drexel. Do you know the way?”

He shook his head. “Zerty never let me go to town. He says I’m a freak and I have to stay in the woods.”

Dotty stood up slowly. She could feel panic knotting in her chest. “You are a freak, but we have to get away from here. We have to go. We can’t stay here.” Her voice was rising, and she saw the look of dismay on the boy’s face. She stopped talking and walked over to the woman. If she stayed, she would become this creature. She knew it. Her body shook as she inhaled. “What matters is that we all get out of here. If we can get to the road, we can get a ride.”

“It’s about ten miles through the woods,” the boy said.

She nodded. She touched the woman’s chin, lifting her face. For a second she stared into the vacant eyes. The woman didn’t blink or flinch. She simply wasn’t there. Dotty gently brushed back a strand of the woman’s matted hair. “Dantzler Archey is going to pay for this,” she said, and her voice was strong and firm. “That bastard is going to pay.”

She walked to the wall where the exhaust pipe for the wood-burning stove came through. “Here,” she said, tapping it with her knuckles. “This will be the easiest place to get out.” She picked up a piece of kindling. “We’ll have to knock the boards down.”

A
s Frank approached the old house, a pack of dogs came out from under the porch, teeth bared and hackles raised. In the barren yard, they looked like plague animals. During the war, Frank had seen starving dogs and starving people. One female hound, her ribs and spine prominent, had teats dragging to the ground. The dogs snarled rather than barked, and he wondered how the animals managed to stand upright they were so poor. He stood in the yard, the rain a physical force as it pelted him. His shoulders and face were numb from the stinging deluge.

The door of the unpainted shack opened a crack and a gnarled hand signaled him closer. He took three steps and waited, the dogs more agitated than before. He’d seen hungry dogs feasting on the bodies of the dead. He held perfectly still. “Who are you?” a voice called out.

“Deputy Frank Kimble with the Jebediah County Sheriff’s Department.”

The door opened wider and an old man stepped onto the porch. “Yeah, he said you’d be comin'.”

Frank nodded. He didn’t move forward. The old man was no threat, but there was no telling who else was in the house. If Hubbard was there, and if he was desperate, it would be a stupid thing to threaten him.

“I’m looking for a man called John Hubbard. He’s wanted as a witness to a kidnapping and rape.” He wanted to give the old man every chance to understand what he was involved in.

“So you say,” he said. “Hubbard says differently.”

“I’d like a chance to hear his side of the story.” The rain was so loud, Frank found that he was yelling.

“Can’t do it,” the old man said. “He ain’t here no more.”

Frank felt the tension leave his shoulders. The hand that had crept up to his waist, where his gun was tucked in the holster, dropped back to his thigh. “Where’d he go?” he asked.

“I took him into town. About an hour ago.”

“Into Drexel?” Frank asked, surprised.

“Yep. Took him to the drugstore and let him out. He’s a sick man.”

The dogs had relaxed, but they hovered under the edge of the porch. Frank took a step closer so that he could hear the old man easier. The dogs growled a warning.

“Could I come up on the porch and talk to you?” he asked.

“I don’t have much truck with the law,” the man said.

“I’m only looking for Hubbard. A young girl was kidnapped. There’s a big reward for her return. If you help out, you could claim some of that money.”

He’d spoken the magic word. Money. The old man stepped fully onto the porch. “Git, you mangy dogs!” He stomped hard on the porch and the dogs scattered. “Come on up here,” he said. “Tell me about the re-ward. How much is bein’ offered?”

Frank smiled as he took the four wooden steps up to the porch. Stepping out of the rain was like entering a new world, one where his senses had the luxury to perform properly. “A good bit of money. The missing girl is Suzanna Bramlett. So, what did Hubbard tell you?”

The old man wore coveralls and no shirt. He pulled at one strap and rubbed a hand over his unshaven face. “Said some men attacked him and his girlfriend in the woods. Said he had some kind of condition where he fell out. When he came to, everyone was gone.”

“Who was he going to see in Drexel?”

The old man shrugged. “How much money can I git?”

Frank pulled his billfold from his pocket. “How about five dollars for now?”

The old man took the bill and studied it. “That ain’t much re-ward.”

“It’s all I have on me now,” Frank said. “When the girl is recovered, there’ll be more.”

“Johnny didn’t say who he meant to see. He just said he had to get to Drexel and make things right.” He pulled his lips in over toothless gums.

“How long was Hubbard here?”

“Let’s see. He came in sometime Friday. Looked like hell.” Frank nodded. “Where’d you find him?”

“Wanderin’ down one of the old loggin’ trails. He didn’t have a clue where he was. Said he had a car, but we looked on the road and never saw it. I wasn’t sure if he was lyin’ or not.”

“He has a car,” Frank said. “Did he say anything about the girl?”

The old man shook his head. “Nary a word about a girl. Talked about a woman. The first day he was here, he was sick. He had some kind of fit, and when he was over it, was like he was havin’ a nightmare. He screamed about some woman.”

“What’s your name?” Frank asked.

“Lemuel Dearman,” the man said. “Where do I collect my re-ward?”

“Once the girl is found, I’ll be back around with it.”

He nodded. “I’ll be here.” He started back in the house and then turned back. “You can sit here if you’d like, but it’s gonna be a spell before that rain lets up.”

“Do you have a vehicle?”

The old man snorted. “Cost more than five dollars for me to drive in weather like this.”

“Take me to my car down by the river, and I’ll drive back out here later and give you ten more,” Frank said.

The old man smiled. “You got a deal.”

The wind and rain roared around the Kimble house, shaking the windows and rattling the shutters against the outside walls in a manner that made Jade remember the stories about the house. She sat in a wing chair, the butcher knife clutched in one hand, the house in total darkness. The power had gone out ten minutes earlier, probably from a tree falling on the line. The phone was out, too. She’d gone back out in the rain and pulled her car to the back of the house. Her intent had been to hide it in the old shed in the back, but once she got the doors opened, she’d found another car. Dotty Strickland’s car. And no sign of Dotty. Her first reaction was anger, that Dotty had come to Frank’s house waving her ass under his nose, but that anger had quickly given way to concern. Dotty was not a woman to set out on foot for anywhere.

Jade watched her sister’s pale face in the constant flashes of lightning and tried to sort through the possibilities of what had become of Dotty. Someone might have come to the Kimble house and picked her up. But that didn’t address the car hidden in the back shed. Jade had the terrible sense that if she walked up the beautiful staircase Mose Dupree had imbued with a life of its own, she would find Dotty’s body in one of the unused bedrooms. To halt the macabre thoughts, Jade bit down on her bottom lip until she tasted blood.

She’d given up on calling Frank at the sheriff’s office even before the phone went out. It had to be a tree on the line. The other possibility, that someone had cut it, was terrifying.

She felt panic like a clenched fist. She had to remind herself that Junior Clements had gone to Pascagoula to deliver the body of the man killed on the highway. He’d be gone for most of the rest of the evening. She picked up Marlena’s chill hand and held it, tracking her thoughts in another direction. Jonah and Ruth would be worried sick about her, but there was no one to worry about Marlena. Jade wondered if she’d even been missed in the hospital yet. Tom and the other janitors would not tell. They could not risk their jobs.

She thought of Lucas, his handsome face so devoid of anything tender. Would he even acknowledge that his comatose wife had walked out of a hospital and disappeared? Things were not right between Marlena and Lucas. They were so bad that Marlena had not even wanted her husband called and told about her recovery. Guilt was a possible answer, but so was fear. Lucas was not a man who would take his wife’s infidelity with calm understanding. And Marlena had not wanted her mother called. Jade pondered that. Lucille had always been domineering and controlling. She’d packaged Marlena and sold her for her, Lucille’s, betterment. Lucille would be more than angry at Marlena’s behavior, behavior that could, and most probably would, cost Lucille her comfortable lifestyle. Lucas would not support ingrates.

A gust of wind knocked the shutters against the house with such force that Jade started. She released Marlena’s hand and stood up, pacing the room. It was near the end of August, a time of stifling heat, but the ferocity of the storm had blown in a chill that went straight to her bones. She decided to go out the back door and see if she could find some dry wood to light a fire. The flickering of a fire would be cheerful and provide some heat for Marlena.

The compress bandage she’d rigged up had staunched the bleeding of Marlena’s wound, but Jade knew a doctor was needed. There was a greenish cast to Marlena’s skin and a coolness to her forehead that bespoke death. Since arriving at Frank’s, she’d slipped into a stupor. She could answer when spoken to, but her responses were monosyllabic and monotone. As soon as Frank returned, he would take Marlena to Dr. McMillan. As soon as Frank returned, things would be okay.

She picked up one of the towels she’d gotten to dry Marlena and held it over her head as she opened the back door and dashed across the yard to the shed. If there was dry wood, it would be stacked in the shed. As she entered the darkness, she felt a rush of apprehension. She paused in the darkness, listening. The storm was so loud she couldn’t hear anything except the whine of the wind and complaint of the trees. She moved slowly into the shed and stopped again; the sense that someone watched her was so powerful that her skin prickled and danced.

There was no person in Jebediah County that frightened her except Junior Clements. Dantzler Archey, who lived God knew where, also scared her, but both of those men were gone. She’d seen Dantzler driving out of town, and she’d heard the nurse tell Junior that Mr. Lavallette needed him to drive a body. There was no need for her skittishness. She stepped firmly into the darkness and made her way around Dotty’s car to the back wall of the shed. She bent over and felt along the wall, hoping for some dry wood and praying that there would be no rats in it.

Her fingers found a log as big around as her upper arm, and she picked it up. She found another and grabbed it, too. She could tell it was good, dry wood. Frank had probably cut it the winter before, and it had aged and dried in the shed. She found a dozen more pieces and stacked them in her arms. Just as she stood up, she felt a puff of warm breath on the back of her neck. She froze, the wood clattering to the floor as she let it drop. Her fingers curled around one stout piece.

“I told you I’d see you soon,” Junior Clements said, his voice disembodied in the darkness of the shed.

Jade didn’t speak. Her response was the fire log that she swung with all of her strength. It caught Junior a solid lick. He cried out in pain and stumbled backward. Jade threw the wood at him and darted out of the shed.

“You goddamn nigger bitch! You’ll pay for this. You and that white slut.”

Jade rushed into the back door, flung it closed, and threw the thumb bolt into place. She leaned against the door and panted. Remembering that the front door was unlocked, she ran through the house, slammed it, and threw the lock.

“Jade?”

Marlena’s voice was weak. Jade began checking the windows, making sure the locks were turned. Of course, Junior could simply break the glass.

“Jade?”

“I’m coming,” Jade said. She hurried to her sister and knelt beside her. She had to hide Marlena. “The storm is getting worse. I found a safe place.” She spoke quickly, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s the storm,” she said. “Marlena, I’m going to help you to the pantry.” She could move a chair there, close the doors, and maybe Junior wouldn’t find Marlena.

There was the sound of glass breaking in the front parlor.

“Jade, what was that?”

Jade grasped Marlena and picked her up. “It was a tree limb crashing through one of the windows,” she said. Struggling beneath the weight, she carried her sister through the kitchen and to the small pantry where glass jars of preserves lined the wall. She dragged a chair from the kitchen table and eased Marlena into it.

“Stay here,” she told her. “Don’t say a word.”

“There’s someone here, isn’t there?” Marlena’s voice was dead. “It’s Junior, isn’t it?”

Jade tasted the terror. “He hurt you, didn’t he?”

“He’s back.”

Jade saw her sister’s lifeless expression in a flash of lightning. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Stay here. Don’t make a sound.” “He’s going to kill us both.”

“No, Marlena. He isn’t.” Jade stepped out of the pantry and closed the doors.