Sleep No More (27 page)

His roguish expression made her realize the innuendo of what she'd just said.

"I was thinking of a nice houseplant," she said in a reprimanding tone that lowered his suggestive brow. "Or a garden gnome."

"No gnome, please." He raised his hands in mock horror. "The one in your shop already bit me in the leg."

She laughed. "Oh, yeah, Siegfried, my attack gnome. Better than a watchdog."

When he laughed, she decided she loved hearing his laugh as much as he'd indicated he liked listening to hers. It was a very, very nice feeling.

It was nearly ten-thirty when they left the restaurant. And Abby decided it was time to address reality again.

As he drove north on Highway 17, she said, "I suppose I should talk to Sergeant Kitterman tomorrow morning, now that he's on the case. I'll admit to him that I was sleep-driving. It'll sound like some petty excuse I'm making up if I wait until they've concluded their investigation of the accident and find me at fault." She paused. "Not that I'm saying it excuses me from responsibility--it'll just look like a pathetic cry for sympathy. You know what I mean?"

Jason was quiet for a bit. "I've been thinking. Do you remember saying something about red lights to Sonja?"

"I did? I don't remember that part."

"You said, 'Red lights,' then when Sonja asked you what about them, you said there were two, but that was all you remembered. Then everything went black."

"Hum. I did have that dream...."

"I wonder if the two got scrambled in your mind, or if it really did have something to do with the accident. If it's memory, maybe that third party they're looking for was there
before
you. Maybe you woke up and saw red lights in the road and that made you veer off into the swamp. Or maybe it was Kyle's taillight you saw."

She frowned, trying to recall anything about the red lights in her dream. "In my dream they were like car taillights; two about five feet apart, a couple of feet off the ground."

"Let's suppose there was a car in the road and you swerved to miss it. Maybe Kyle was already dead. Maybe the 911 call had already been made. If so, that person would have a very good reason not to want to be identified."

She could hardly let herself hope. "Someone else was in the accident with Kyle?"

"And you came upon it afterward."

She looked at Jason. "God, do you think it's possible?"

"Someone is risking a lot to warn you off." He reached across and took her hand. "Which leads me to the other thing that's been bothering me. You said there was glass on you when you awakened in the marsh... from where?"

"The driver's side window."

"Were any of the other windows broken or cracked?"

"Not that I know of. The windshield was fine. But it's not like I took a good look around the van before I got out and went to the road."

"We'll call Kitterman first thing tomorrow. We need to find out exactly what kind of damage your van sustained. And we'll see how our ideas about the red lights fit with the accident investigation findings."

"Okay." She watched the road for a while, thinking that this trip hadn't been a waste after all. Unfortunately the questions it raised could only lead to more unsettling findings. Who would be so callous as to flee a scene with a fatality? And who would be so desperate to keep their identity a secret that they'd be willing to threaten her? Were they willing to carry out that threat?

She leaned her head against the side window and watched the shadows move past as they traveled down the road. What would she do without Jason?

As the miles rolled underneath the car, Abby grew drowsy, holding onto Jason's hand and the spark of hope in her heart that she hadn't killed Kyle Robard after all.

M
aggie sat in the living room with her photo album in her lap. It was quiet. Uncle Father was working late in his office next door. He'd been so sad today. He used to be happy on Sundays.

She worried that she wasn't doing her job--God had sent her to take care of him, after all.

She opened the album, feeling sad, too.

Uncle Father had made this book for her when she'd first come to live with him. Already the pink fabric edges were getting fuzzy even though she was extra careful with it. It had to last her whole life now. There would never be any new pictures of Momma and Daddy.

She traced the curve of her mother's cheek in one of the pictures. It was a really old one. Maggie was seven. Both Maggie and her mother had on hospital clothes. A tube went into Maggie's arm. It was after she had had her big operation; the one that fixed her heart. She sat on Momma's lap and held Momma's long braid like a rope. That's what Maggie missed most about her mother. The smell of her hair and the way it felt when Maggie helped her brush it. Momma's hair was orange-gold, like Maggie's. But Maggie's didn't feel the same. And it didn't smell the same.

Maggie turned the page. Momma and Daddy were dressed up, going to a fundraiser. (When Maggie was little and didn't know better, she had thought it was a fun-raiser. She'd always been so mad that she had never got to go see the fun.) It was for Momma's and Daddy's special group, COC. Maggie had kept this picture because this was the night when Momma came home so happy because some rich man had promised a lot, lot, lot of money.

Because of COC, sometimes Maggie got to fly to places where most of the people had beautiful brown skin and black hair and there weren't hardly any trees. But sometimes she had to stay with Grandma, because Daddy said it was too dangerous. When it was dangerous, Maggie didn't want Momma and Daddy to go, either. But Momma said they had to go help the children who didn't have parents anymore.

Two years ago it was dangerous, and they went away. They didn't come home.

Now Maggie didn't have parents.

Grandma moved to a place like Tidewater Manor right after that. It was in New Jersey, where Maggie used to live. That's when Maggie had come here to live with Uncle Father.

It was God's plan. Uncle Father needed her.

But sometimes she felt so sad. Sometimes she just wanted to brush Momma's orange-gold hair.

Maggie ran her finger over Momma's hair in the picture, trying to remember how it felt. It was getting harder and harder to remember--

The alarm on the back door went off, startling Maggie and making her heart beat fast.

She waited for Uncle Father to shut it off. But it kept screaming.

"Uncle Father?" she called, starting to sweat with fear.

A loud clatter came from the kitchen.

Maggie jumped up and dropped her album on the floor. "Uncle Father?"

She started toward the kitchen, but stopped.

The back door had been locked. All of the doors were locked and their alarms on. Uncle Father had made sure.

She leaned toward the kitchen. "Uncle Father?"

The air was moving through the house, like the door was open.

She grabbed the phone and dialed Uncle Father's cell phone. He said to call right away if she got scared. He promised he would come right over from the church.

She heard it ringing through the phone.

And then she heard it playing the ring tone... in the house.

"Abby?"

Abby roused and blinked, orienting herself. They were passing the tractor supply store on the edge of Preston.

"We're almost home," Jason said.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You needed it. You're still running on a deficit." He reached over and ran a hand over her hair. "How are you feeling?"

Like I want to finish what we started before dinner.
The taste of intimacy he'd shown her had only ignited her need for more. But more probably wasn't in the cards. Jason didn't seem the kind of man to take a relationship halfway, to live only for the moment.

She said, "Good."

"While you were asleep, I was thinking about some of the things you said while you were with Sonja. Do you remember talking about the fire?"

She did, vaguely. And she immediately wanted to turn her mind away from the memory. "A little."

"Sonja thinks that since you jumped right into that memory, perhaps you still have unresolved issues."

"Well, duh." Irritation shot through her veins. "How am I supposed to
resolve
the fact that I burned down a house that had been in my father's family for over a hundred and fifty years? How am I supposed to
resolve
ruining my sister's life? How do I
resolve
the pain I caused? Just how does one do that?"

"It will never go away, I understand that. But you can forgive yourself. Accept it for the accident that it was. I think that's what Sonja meant." Jason's tone was steady, unresponsive to her anger.

Abby sat there looking out the passenger window. "I don't want to talk about this now."

He reached over and took her hand. "Abby, please. Just work with me for a bit here."

She didn't respond.

He asked, "Where did the fire start?"

She sighed. He was not going to leave this alone.

"In the dining room," she said through tight lips. She closed her eyes and saw the charred pile of rubble that had been left in dawn's light the next day. Blackened bones of a home, still exhaling the last of its life in tiny smoke trails. "The house was fully involved when we got out. By the time the fire department arrived, they couldn't save it."

And Courtney--oh God, Courtney, her baby sister. Abby could still hear her screams. Sometimes they woke her from a dead sleep. Other times they came from the blue light of day.

Right now their echoes haunted her in a way that both broke her heart and turned her stomach. She kept her face to the window to hide the freshness of the pain. Forgiveness. Jason had no idea what he was asking of her.

The car was slowing, pulling to the curb in front of the brightly lit Shell station.

She didn't look at him when she asked, "Why are we stopping here?"

"Because I want to look at you."

She turned, her lower lip between her teeth.

He was looking at her with such intensity that she immediately looked away.

Reaching around, he gently touched her chin. "Look at me, Abby. I want to help you."

"Fix me," she corrected, as she turned his way. "You want to fix me and it can't be done."

"What?" He looked as startled as if she'd just accused him of being a thief.

"It's what you do. Fix people. But there is no fixing me, Jason."

"I am not trying to fix you. There's nothing to
fix
." He sighed and ran a hand over his face. "I'm not trying to upset you, either. I don't know much about what happened, and what you told Sonja raised some questions."

"Like what?" She'd tried to ignore him; she'd tried to start an argument. Nothing worked. He wasn't going to give up. It was probably best if he knew it all, then he would understand why she'd made the life choices she had. And maybe, he'd find a way to have a relationship with her and live with them.

"Did they have a theory on how it started?" Jason asked.

"I lit an antique oil lamp that was on the sideboard, and then knocked it over. Sleepwalkers aren't very graceful."

"Why did they assume it was you?"

"Because I'd done lots of everyday things before, turned on the TV, took a bath, went out and planted flowers, turned on the stove.

"And that lamp was a big deal. We always burned it during Sunday dinner, some family tradition that was started way, way back. I'd just been given the privilege of lighting it the Sunday before."

For a moment, he looked thoughtful. "How long had you been having trouble with sleepwalking before the fire?"

She gave her head a slight shake. "Maybe a year, maybe a little less."

"You woke up in the living room--"

"I was sleepwalking."

"But you said the fire was going strong."

"The oil accelerated it. It was an old house."

"How did you get out?"

"My dad found me unconscious in the living room--"

Abby's cell phone rang. It was so unexpected, so shrill in the quiet of the car, she jumped as if she'd been pinched. She pulled it out of her purse. "It's Maggie."

She answered.

"Abbbeeeeee! Help!" Maggie cried. "I n-n-need help...."

A
bby's hand tightened on the phone. She fought the panic that threatened to sweep away reason. Maggie needed her; she had to keep her head.

She gestured toward the street ahead and whispered, "Drive!" to Jason. Then into the phone, she asked, "Maggie, are you at home?"

"Yes. Oh, Abbbeeeeee...."

Abby nodded as Jason glanced at her for confirmation. His face showed none of the panic that was ricocheting like a stray bullet inside her.