Still Lake (19 page)

Sophie merely raised an eyebrow. “It's a little late to be telling me, isn't it? Who are you going out with?”

“Patrick.” There was just a trace of defiance in her voice, which surprised Sophie. But then, everything about the situation was a surprise. Patrick
Laflamme was supposed to be immune to Marty's jungle charms. And he was hardly the type Marty usually went for—he was steady, responsible and very polite.

But Sophie knew when to keep her mouth shut. “Sounds nice. Any idea when you'll be back?” She half expected a rude response, but Marty merely shrugged.

“Probably early,” she said. “He's a hard-working little Boy Scout.”

Sophie turned her face to hide her smile. “How depressing,” she said.

“Not really.” Marty was being almost chatty. “Have you taken a good look at him? He's worth the trouble.”

“I hadn't noticed. Are you intending to corrupt him?” she asked lightly.

“I'm doing my best.” Again that mournful tone. “And he's trying to reform me.”

Sophie turned at that, no longer able to hide her curiosity. “Who do you think is going to win the battle?”

“I don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell,” she said. “He'll probably have me going to church and singing in the choir before long.”

“You're not usually that persuadable.”

“Patrick's different.”

Thank you, God, Sophie said inwardly.

The front doorbell rang. “That'll be him. I'll be back early,” Marty said, running out of the kitchen.

Sophie dried her hands on her apron and followed her sister into the hallway. Patrick was standing in the doorway, freshly shaved, wearing a coat and tie. He had a bouquet of bright yellow flowers in his hand. “We won't be back late, Miss Davis,” he said politely.

It always depressed her when the meticulously polite Patrick called her miss. At least it was marginally better than ma'am. “I have complete faith in you, Patrick,” she replied.

Marty turned and stuck her tongue out at her sister with surreptitious malice.

“I won't let you down, ma'am.”

Oh, God, there it was. The dreaded ma'am. “Call me Sophie,” she said cheerfully.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Maybe there was something to be said for bad boys and losers, she thought morosely, watching them as they drove up the driveway in Patrick's meticulously well-kept pickup truck. At least they never made her feel like an aging spinster.

Another car was coming down the driveway, passing Patrick's on a wider stretch. That was something else she needed to find the money for, she thought, depressed. The driveway needed work.

Doc pulled up by the kitchen door and got out. He wasn't alone, and Sophie could see Rima sitting
in the front seat. She waved at her, and Rima nodded back, looking lost in her own world.

As sad as it was for Doc, Rima's illness had been a blessing for Sophie. While she didn't know the details of what kept Rima housebound and mostly silent, she did know that she hadn't “been right” in years, according to Marge Averill. Doc had had plenty of time to hone his skills, his patience and his caring on his own wife, and he'd helped Sophie deal with Grace's sudden, unexpected deterioration.

Sophie left the porch, heading for Doc's car, but he forestalled her. “Rima doesn't feel much like talking today,” he said, his gentle smile accepting. “It was all I could do to talk her into taking a little drive, but I wanted to check on that cut of yours and bring you these.”

He handed her a bouquet of bright yellow flowers, and she looked down at them, smiling. So Marty wasn't the only Davis woman with a gentleman caller who brought her flowers. “How sweet!” she said. “I don't know if I've ever seen these before. What are they called?”

“Judas tears. Rima grows them in her garden—they're pretty rare around here. Rima's flowers are her pride and joy—just about the only thing that interests her. I was thinking it might help her if we moved to a warmer climate, where the growing season was longer, but she won't have it. Born here in Colby and she'll die here.” He glanced back at the
car with tender care. “But not for a good long time, I hope. I guess we're just a couple of hardcore Vermonters.”

“Shouldn't I thank her for the flowers?”

“No need,” Doc said. “I'll tell her you appreciate them. She'll just wait in the car while I check on your mother. She was pretty restless this morning, and I'm a little worried that she might start getting delusional.”

“Delusional?”

“Don't you worry, Sophie. You aren't alone in this. I'm here for you. If Grace starts imagining things we can control it with drugs. How's the head?”

“Just fine. Not even a headache.”

“Why don't you put the flowers in water while I check on Grace? You wouldn't want them to die, would you?”

She looked down at the pretty bouquet. She'd been wrong, she thought. The flowers were unusual, but she'd seen them somewhere before, and recently. She just couldn't remember where.

They looked like the same flowers that Patrick had brought Marty. That had to be it, she thought. But for some reason that wasn't the connection she was looking for.

She was arranging the flowers in a small blue vase, trying to remember where else she'd seen them, when she heard Doc and Grace's voices com
ing from her room. The tone was a little strained, which surprised her. Doc was devoted to Grace, as he was to all his patients, and even as Grace deteriorated she'd shown a surprising interest in Doc's comings and goings. There'd been a time when she'd almost seemed jealous of the time Sophie spent with him—she certainly did her childish best to keep them apart. Keeping Doc for herself, it seemed. She had no choice but to share him with Rima, but she wasn't about to let Sophie and Marty spend much time with him.

She heard her mother's door close quietly, and she turned with the vase in her hand as Doc walked into the kitchen, his expression gloomy. “She's not good, my dear,” he said gently. “I'm afraid she's going to need to be on some kind of tranquilizer. She's very agitated tonight. I think I'll take Rima home and come back out and sit with her. If need be, I'll give her something so that she'll sleep through the night.”

Sophie didn't bother to hide her stricken expression. “But what happened? She didn't seem any different this morning. I know my accident upset her, but I made it clear that it was just a drunk driver….”

“What are you talking about?” Doc said sharply. “You told me you misjudged the curve and slid off the road. You didn't say a word about another driver.”

Shit. “I didn't want to worry you, Doc,” she said,
embarrassed. “I was nearly run off the road up by Dutchman's Falls. It was an accident, and the driver was probably too drunk to realize he almost killed me.”

“Maybe,” Doc said in a grim voice. “And maybe it was no accident.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Who would want to hurt me?”

Doc just shook his head. “I'll be back as soon as I can. Just keep an eye on Grace, will you? I don't want to risk her wandering back down to the Whitten place. I don't think she'd be safe.”

Sophie set the vase down on the kitchen table, her hands shaking slightly. “What are you saying? You think John Smith is trying to hurt us?”

“I don't know,” he said. “All I know is that things have felt wrong, strange, ever since he moved in here. I don't know what it is, but I've always had good instincts. And it just doesn't feel right. Keep your mother safe, Sophie. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to her. Or you.”

Great, Sophie thought as he drove up the driveway. As if she weren't paranoid enough, now Doc was imagining murderers lurking in the woodwork. Leaving her alone to worry about it.

She put dinner on the table, then went to her mother's door and knocked softly. Not that Grace had shown much interest in food recently, but she couldn't afford to miss meals.

“Dinnertime, Mama,” she called.

“Not hungry” came the voice from the other side of the door. She sounded like a cantankerous seven-year-old, and Sophie sighed. Just when it looked as if Marty might be improving, Grace was getting worse.

“You need to eat,” she said. “At least come out and keep me company.”

A long silence. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” she said, startled. For a moment she'd sounded like the old Grace, rational and on top of things. “Even Marty's gone out, and Doc took Rima home. Come on out and keep me company.”

The door opened a crack, revealing her mother standing there, her gray hair tangled, her clothes mismatched, an oddly lucid expression in her faded eyes. “Poor Rima,” she muttered obscurely. “What's for supper?”

“Shepherd's pie from the leftover roast lamb,” she said, following her mother back into the kitchen, only to come up short as Grace blocked the doorway.

“Where did those come from?” her mother asked in a trembling voice.

“I bought the lamb at Audley's, Ma,” she said patiently. “You had some last night, and you liked it—”

“I mean the flowers,” she said sharply.

“They're from Rima. Doc brought them out for
me. They're pretty, aren't they? I thought that was so sweet of her, to think of us even while she's having such a difficult time…”

“They're not from Rima,” Grace said. “They're from him!”

God give me patience, Sophie thought wearily. “Yes, Doc brought them in, but Rima sent them. Come and sit down, Ma. I'm sure the flowers were meant for all of us, not just me.”

“Oh, my God, maybe they were,” Grace said obscurely, distressed. “Sophie, I have to talk to you.” She took Sophie's hands in her gnarled ones, and she looked deeply troubled.

“Of course, Mama. What's worrying you?” Sophie kept her voice low and reassuring.

“Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot!” Grace snapped. It was the first time she'd shown anger in months. “You have to trust me. I know I'm a dizzy old broad, but I'm not nearly as wafty as you think.”

“I don't think you're wafty.”

“Of course you do. That's what I wanted you to think. I was hoping to keep you safe, but it's too late. It's gone too far. He's going to kill you. He's probably going to kill us all.”

“What are you talking about, Mama?” Shit, Doc was right about the delusions. Grace was having a dilly of a one.

“Doc. He's a murderer. He kills women, Sophie. It wasn't that boy they convicted, it was Doc who
killed them. Killed them all. And he's killed more than those three people.”

“Why would Doc kill people, Grace?” Sophie asked gently. “He's a healer, and the kindest man alive.”

“I don't know,” Grace said stubbornly. “I only know that he'll try to kill you, and soon.”

“And how do you know that?”

“The flowers.”

Sophie wanted to burst into tears. How could her mother have gotten so deluded so quickly? “I'll get rid of the flowers,” she said patiently. “Then we'll have some supper and some hot tea, and then Doc will come back and you can ask him whether he really wants to kill me…”

“No!” Grace shrieked. “You can't let him in the house, Sophie. You can't trust him. Where's Marty? He'll kill her too, I know he will. And me. He'll have to silence me before I tell everyone the truth. Of course, no one will believe me. Even my own daughter thinks I'm a crazy old loon.”

“I don't think you're crazy, Mama,” Sophie said. “I just think you're a little upset, and you need to calm down. No one wants to kill me, no one wants to kill anyone.”

“I can prove it to you,” Grace said, her voice high-pitched and desperate. “I have notes, pages and pages of notes, that will prove it beyond a
shadow of a doubt. I've got them hidden in my room. Let me just get them for you….”

“Prove what?” Doc asked, his voice calm and soothing as he stood behind the screen door on the porch. Sophie hadn't even heard the car return, she'd been so caught up in worrying about Grace's delusional state. He would have barely had time to drop Rima off before coming back here. Thank God, Sophie thought.

“Grace is worried that—” she began, but Grace interrupted her before she could finish the sentence.

“I was afraid that the shepherd's pie had poison in it,” Grace said. “I think there are spirits in this place, wanting to do us harm. Make the spirits go away, Doc. They frighten me.” Grace's brief spell of paranoid lucidity had vanished, and she looked like a terrified, pathetic child.

“I'll take care of it, Grace,” he said gently. “I brought something to help you sleep, and I'll stay with you so that no one can hurt you. Would you like that?”

Apparently Grace had forgotten all about her previous fantasies. “Would you, Doc? Would you promise to sit with me all night, never leave my side? That's the only way I'll feel safe.”