Ruin Falls (30 page)

Well, my children are still missing
, Liz thought. She had to pause a moment before speaking, and when she did, she ignored her mother’s query. “Mom? What would you have done if Dad—”

There was silence on the other end, a caving vacuum that Liz knew wasn’t related to the weak signal.

“—if Dad had done something like what Paul is doing to me?”

“Why, what a strange question to ask, Elizabeth.”

“Yes,” Liz said simply. “I suppose it is.”

The silence lasted longer this time.

“I imagine a lot of women would’ve gone to a judge,” her mother said at last. “It was the era of divorce back then; everyone was doing it.” Her voice struck a derisive note. “Even here. Those things used to happen only in big cities.”

“Right,” Liz said, wondering why she’d bothered. Divorce wasn’t on the table right now; it was practically a given. At issue was only how to find her children.

“But I wouldn’t have,” her mother said.

It took Liz a second to register that she’d spoken.

“I was raised to believe that the man made the decisions, and that he knew what was best for his family. It’s old-fashioned, I suppose.”

Liz bit back the rejoinder that leapt to her lips.
You think?

“How I would’ve missed you, Lizzie,” her mother burst out.

For the past thirty years or so, only Jill had used that name. Coming from her mother, it triggered a childish rush of tears.

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” A gap before the next words came. “But I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me to fight. Oh, child, if Daddy had decided to do something like this, I don’t know that I ever would’ve seen you again.”

There was another pause as Liz took that in, and then her mother
spoke again. “You know how word gets around in this town. Do you remember Mrs. Watters, from church? Marjorie Brackman is a good friend of hers.” Her mother took in an audible breath. “Oh, honey, I never would’ve had the strength you’re showing right now.”

She was crying, and Liz spoke through tears of her own. “Thank you, Mom.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

J
ill didn’t answer Liz’s cursory knock when she got there, but neither of them stood on ceremony at each other’s houses. Liz nudged the door open, walked inside, and collapsed on the couch.

Just as fast, she was upright again.

Whimpers were coming from the second floor. Liz followed the sound, the strangled cries growing louder.

“Stay away!” Jill cried out hoarsely.

“Jill? It’s me! What’s wrong?” Liz ran up the flight of steps.

Jill was crouched in the hallway, arms wrapped around Andy’s enormous rocking form.

“Jill?”

“I said, stay away!”

Andy’s big body was folded in on itself, his elbow twitching as if he were shooting infinite passes.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

Andy started to buck in his mother’s hold, craning to look up at Liz.

Jill fought to hold on while waving Liz away. “It’s okay! He’ll be okay! Some of his memory is coming back, that’s all. The doctor said it might happen this way, in bits and chunks.”

“But—” Liz stopped. “That’s good, isn’t it? If his memory is returning?”

“It’s scary for him,” Jill said, and indeed Andy was mewling again, making tiny sounds more suited to a newborn creature than a man-sized boy. “Go downstairs. Please, Liz.”

Liz turned to go. It was hard to see—no lights had been turned on and full dark had wrapped itself around the house—so she had to pick her way, taking care.

“Aunt Liz?”

Liz stopped. She hadn’t heard those words in so many months. After
Mommy
, they were the words she’d been most longing to hear.

“Shhh, Andy,” Jill said, smoothing her son’s hair. “Go on, Liz. I’ll be right down.”

“Where are your kids, Aunt Liz?” Andy let out another tortured mew.

Liz had to turn away, lest Andy see her reaction, and become even more distraught. She headed down the hall toward the steps, hand extended to reach for the railing. She would let Jill remain behind, try and keep her son from tripping and falling into the holes in his memory.

“Are they in the woods?”

Liz came to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs. Her foot hovered in the air over the first step, and she had to cling to the banister to keep from falling down the whole flight.

“Did he take them into the woods? Are they with … are they with—” Andy let out a bellow so deep that the walls shook. “Are they—argh!” he cried, tearing at a clump of his hair. And then the words emerged like a burning coal from his raw, red throat. “Are they with Paul?”

Liz’s ankle had turned when she’d almost fallen. It throbbed as she made her way back to Jill and Andy, walking through darkness as if in a dream.

“How do you know that, And?” she asked softly. “What do you mean about the woods?”

He stared up at her through smeared eyes.

Jill continued to grasp his shoulder, though her hold on him had loosened.

“I was—I was at your house,” Andy said.

All other sources of sound had vanished. There was no rush of water through the pipes, no refrigerator humming, nor leaves rustling outside.

“You—you and my mom were outside. In the—in the—” His voice began to pitch again.

“Garden,” Liz said, hushed.

“That’s right!” Andy said, his relief so great it made his eyes stream. “In the garden! You both like to garden!”

“Yes,” Liz said quietly. “We do.”

“Liz—” Jill said.

“Shhh,” Liz hissed at her.

“Paul—is that your husband, Aunt Liz?”

“Yes,” Liz said again, still low. “It is.”

“He told them something. I can’t remember exactly what.”

“That’s okay,” Liz said. “Just tell me what you do remember.”

“Something about getting ready to go on a long walk. Through the woods.”

“The woods,” Liz echoed. “Did he say which woods? Are they nearby?”

Andy shook his head back and forth. “I told my mom a long time ago.” A pause. “I think it was a long time ago. She asked me the same thing, but I couldn’t remember.” He looked up. “I don’t remember any more than that, Aunt Liz! I’m sorry!”

Liz hardly heard his last desperate bleat. “Did you say you told … your mom?”

Her gaze dropped to Jill. She was shifting on the floor, away from Andy as if not even conscious of the movement. Her gaze wouldn’t meet Liz’s.

“You knew this?” Liz asked.

Silence.

“You knew?” Liz cried.

Jill lifted her head, chin thrust out. “Knew what, Liz? That Paul once said something about some woods? We’re in the Adirondack Park, dammit. We’re all about woods up here.”

It was like being plunged into a cold sea. Every part of Liz stopped functioning and she was left gasping for breath. Her throat worked
soundlessly for a second until finally she burst out, “
Anything!
Any … tiny … bit of
any
thing—I’ve been dying for! You know that, Jill! You have to know that!”

Her friend let out a sob. “I didn’t think it had any meaning! Lots of things come back to him and are discarded. I had no idea this was any more real than—”

Liz began to back away, feeling a pulse each time her ankle came down.

“Lizzie!” Jill screamed. “He got so upset! Every time Andy started talking about this. I couldn’t let him get upset! You know what the doctor said. It was the worst thing we could do, to let him get …”

Liz held on to the banister as if it were a lifeline, belaying down the stairs to spare her wounded ankle, and hobbling out of the house at a run. The last thing she heard was Andy’s voice rising again—something about was Aunt Liz feeling sad—and Jill shouting at him to be quiet, to just please, please shut up.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

L
iz knew something was wrong the instant she got out of the car. She stood motionless in the curved sickle of her driveway, and took a craning look around.

The house stood in shadows, its front porch a sagging sweep. The woods grasped in their usual way, branches reaching toward the property.

Maybe it was just the aftermath of betrayal, tipping her whole world a few degrees. Jill had known her, stood by her, supported her ever since they were in kindergarten. How could her best friend have abandoned her during the hardest time of her life? Andy’s words may not have meant much, but they were better than nothing, and they indicated that Paul had been preparing the children.

Smoldering fury filled her, directed at her husband, but also at Jill. Liz reached a hand out to the car to steady herself. A grim vision returned to her: Andy’s trembling body, his precarious mental state.

Jill had simply prioritized her child. Would Liz herself have done any different?

She took another glance around. What felt so wrong?

The tops of the tallest plants—the hollyhocks and cornstalks she’d had Andy leave behind—weren’t standing at attention. This time of year, tips and fronds could always be seen from this vantage point.

Liz headed in the direction of Roots, taking out the new phone to call Tim.

She limped a little, going downhill past the looming outline of the house, then kept to the perimeter of woods. The wreckage appeared before her and she came to a shuddering halt.

It was possible that nobody else would’ve registered this, certainly not in the dark. But as if she herself had been bodily violated, Liz felt the full extent of the disruption, the terrible tearing hands.

Bush beans and Armado cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and four varieties of onion, all the crops planted to winter over, had been scooped out of the ground. Cuts had been made in the earth with a trowel or spade, far deeper than was required to lift the tender young roots. The field of holes looked like empty eye sockets, blank and staring.

For Liz it was like botched surgery, an amputation or incision performed by somebody who didn’t know how to wield a knife. Whoever had done this hadn’t taken care as he walked, so anything left behind had been trampled. Blooms were broken at the stem, seedlings destroyed before they’d had a chance to grow. Sunflowers were bowed by someone’s brushing body, the leaves on succulents had been crushed into an oozing mess.

Terror hit Liz like a train. The Shoemaker had come back.

All was empty and deserted now. If he had been here, he was gone.

Liz checked the house, but as expected, it was undisturbed.

A moon had risen, casting a ghostly, lonely light. Only Roots had been laid to waste, its bounty needed wherever Paul was.

Liz walked toward the thin woods on their property. They were incapable of hiding anyone, of being the location Andy had spoken about. She howled a great, billowing cry of grief.

“Where are you? You bastard, you want my plants, you want my children, then take them when I’m here, confront me to my face!”

She didn’t know whom she was speaking to: Paul, or the Shoemaker, or both.

From behind her came the beat of footsteps, and she remembered calling Tim. She spun, feeling her ankle twinge, then stopped short at the sight of his face.

Tim’s expression was so fierce that at first it seemed he had to know what had happened—was reading the soil as Liz did with her fingers and her soul. But then she realized that something else was driving him, that Tim had troubles all his own.

He strode toward her and she met him at the same speed, her ankle forgotten. He clutched her wrists, and bound, she reached to stroke the sorrow on his face.

She hadn’t realized how dirty she’d gotten, touching crevices and gaping wounds in the garden, until she took in the sight of Tim’s dirt-streaked face. She tasted salt and earth when he bent down, opening her mouth with his.

Liz let out a moan of loss and hunger.

Tim lifted her into his arms, moving back with her across the ground. He parted the leaves on a tree, setting her down on one thick branch. She felt the scrape of bark against her thighs, then the rasp of Tim’s hands. His form was so solid and reassuring, like a part of the tree itself. She rocked against him, off balance on her perch.

Tim kept her from falling. They clung to each other before Tim pushed himself away, the effort captured in his averted eyes, veins standing out like reeds in his throat. But Liz’s hands sought him, and he finally let out a grunt of surrender. And as he made himself part of her, they both cried out, their sound soaring up to the sky. Tim touched her as they moved and moved together, taking each inch of her cold, dead flesh and bringing it achingly back to life.

“I’m sorry,” he said when it was over.

Liz raised her face to his. “You are?”

“No.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Why should you be? You’re not the one who just cheated on her husband while her children are missing.”

“I don’t know that you can call it cheating when your husband’s the one who kidnapped those children.”

“Ah,” she said, looking off into the night. “So it is a kidnapping.”

Tim was reaching for his holster on the ground. “In all but the legal sense, yes.”

Silence descended.

Tim handed Liz her phone, and she pocketed it as she readjusted her clothes.

“Should we—” Liz began.

“You should know that—”

They both broke off, shaking their heads.

“Could we not?” Liz said after a moment. “For a little while?”

“Sure.” Tim held her gaze. “Of course.”

Liz looked away.

“You called me,” Tim said. “After you tried that number Mackenzie dug up, right?”

Liz couldn’t imagine recounting the disappointment she’d lived through, nor sharing the information—in all its dread incompleteness—that Andy had offered. Never mind the awful crippling of her garden. A weary wave broke over her.

Tim was watching. “Mackenzie will try to get info on the owner. Kind of like a reverse phone book. But that can take a while. I was hoping you might get lucky and someone would pick up.”

The possibility hurt to consider.

“When you got here,” Liz said. “You looked so upset. Broken almost.”

Tim squeezed his hand into a fist, and aimed his gaze away. “There was an incident today. An attack on a school bus on Wicket Road.”