Fairytale (20 page)

“Tell me what you have, Mac. I don’t give a
damn if you heard it from a talking jackass.”

Mac sniggered, then stopped himself when he
seemingly realized Adam was not making an attempt at levity.
“Ahem...All right. Here it is. One morning the parish priest, a
Father Anthony Giovanni, walked into the church to find two babies
at the altar. Twins, maybe, but not identical. The other one was
blond. Anyway, there was a note, but that gave them nothing. Just
said to take care of the girls, and was signed John. The only other
clues were a pair of identical, handmade storybooks. One was tucked
in beside each kid, and each book had a name on the inside cover.
The names were Brigit and Bridin.”

The last vestiges of doubt were rapidly
disintegrating. Funny, how they felt the same way the ground would
feel if it were crumbling beneath his feet. “You’re
shitting
me?”

“No, I’m not. The old nun said there were
pendants inside the books as well, though she couldn’t remember
exactly what they looked like.”

Adam knew what they looked like. At least, he
knew what
one of them
looked like. A pewter fairy twined
around a quartz point. The one Brigit never took off.

“This retired nun says she knew both Sister
Mary Agnes and Brigit, and that she got the story straight from
Sister Mary Agnes,” Mac continued. “Anyway, the twins were taken to
the children’s shelter attached to the church. The nun—Sister
Ruth—says Bridin was adopted right away. Brigit was sickly, though,
so no one wanted her. She lived with the sisters until the night of
the fire.”

Adam tensed. “And after that?”

“Never seen again. Someone said she’d gone
back into the flames after Sister Mary Agnes. The old nun died in
the blaze, but no sign of the girl’s remains were found. Two
eyewitnesses reported seeing an older man rushing into the burning
building. From the descriptions, the local cops i.d.’d him as a
transient who went by the name of Razor-Face Malone.”

“Malone?” R. F. Malone. My God, not her
husband. But an old bum who’d saved her life once? Is it
possible?

Raze wouldn’t like you bad-mouthing
me.
Zaslow’s words rang in Adam’s ears. What the hell did it
mean? Had this
Raze
turned against her? Was he working with
Zaslow? Did he have something to hold over her head?

“I told you it was interesting,” Mac went
on.

“Was it arson, Mac?”

“Nope. Faulty wiring. No question about that.
Besides, old Razor-Face wasn’t a firebug. Just a little delusional.
According to police records, the few times he was picked up for
vagrancy he’d done some talking about fairy princesses and some
enchanted forest. Rush, he called it.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Adam mouthed the words,
but no sound emerged. Icy chills raced up and down the back of his
neck, and he rubbed it with one palm to chase the feeling away.

“That’s it for now, pal. But you know, you’re
onto something here. Until now no one knew the woman going by the
name of Brigit Malone was the same kid who disappeared in that
fire. The question is, why?”

“Why,” Adam repeated stupidly.

“I still have feelers out on this, Adam.
Looking for anyone who knew Razor-Face Malone. And I’m still
pulling in tidbits about Brigit Malone, the businesswoman. Trying
to see what came between the night of the fire, and the day she
turned up in town. Nothing earth shattering so far. I’m trying to
track down the missing twin sister, too. You want me to keep on
this, right?”

“What?”

“I said, should I keep digging? Or do you
have enough?”

Adam gave his head a shake. He could no
longer feel his lips, and there was a loud buzzing sound in his
head that seemed to be drowning out Mac’s voice. “Yeah,” he
managed. “Yeah, keep digging.”

“Are you sure you’re all right, Adam? You
sound...”

“I’m fine. Listen, check out a guy named
Zaslow, too.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just hung up the phone,
vaguely aware that the pad and pen he’d been holding had fallen
from his suddenly numb fingers. “I’m fine. Unless you count the
fact that I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’m living with a real live
fairy, that is. Other than that...I’m fine.”

She hadn’t slept well. Couldn’t. There was
still a faint trace of wood smoke in the air, clinging...like a
specter from the past trying to haunt her dreams. Before dawn, she
rose. She needed good, clean, dawn-fresh air. Earth under her
feet.

She dressed quickly, pulling on an ancient
pair of faded, frayed cutoffs and an oversized t-shirt that had
been tie-dyed and trimmed in beaded fringe. She wondered for a
moment why she’d brought these things. She hadn’t worn them in
years. Hadn’t intended ever to wear them again. They clashed with
her role as a normal, respectable businesswoman. They would give
her away as a phony.

But she didn’t really feel as if it mattered
anymore. If anyone had ever bought the act, it was a miracle. She
couldn’t play the part anymore. Hell, for a while, she’d even
fooled herself.

But she knew what she was. She was strange. A
misfit wherever she went. She’d been more at ease living in that
condemned, rat-infested heap of bricks with Raze and the other
homeless people, than she’d ever been moving among “civilized”
types. She was wild and wanton, constantly at war with desires so
hot they burned her at night. She’d dreamed of Adam last night.
Dreamed of him as she’d never dreamed of him before. All night,
images of the wild sex she wanted to have with him had drifted
through her mind, in vivid, electrifying detail.

She might as well stop fighting the wild one
inside. Because the wanton was a part of her she could no longer
deny. And this morning, she felt more like that wild child than
ever. She finally admitted that she’d be more content to feel her
bare feet sinking into soft brown earth or lush grasses, than she
could ever be in high-heeled shoes, clicking over shiny parquet.
She was filled with nervous energy. She wanted to run like an
untamed thing. A mustang filly, kicking her heels up behind her as
she raced until her lungs burned. She wanted to dance and jump and
spin and cartwheel.

She just wasn’t normal. And it was high time
she stopped trying to pretend she was.

She slipped out the back way, not bothering
with shoes, leaving her glasses behind and her hair flying free.
She took her time. The sunrise would be incredible. She could smell
it in the air. Already, out over the lake, the midnight-blue sky
was paling, and there was a narrow ridge of pink lining the
mountains where they made love to the sky.

Oh, and the water! Look at the water!

There was a path, a jagged path fraught with
loose stones, bordered by boulders and so steep it seemed
impossible to travel by. She would try it later, she decided. But
for now, the cliffs were her destination. That beautiful
outcropping of rock where she and Adam had sat together in the
rain. She’d watch the sunrise from there.

As soon as she sat down on the cool stone,
she felt stronger. Not a bit happier about what she had to do, and
certainly no clearer about her own lost identity. But physically
better. The morning breeze and the waves crashing below seemed to
rinse away the exhaustion of a sleepless night, taking it with them
back out into the depths to leave it there. And the sun’s upper lip
was fiery orange as it kissed the sky...

As it rose, she remembered the way Adam had
kissed her. Gently, then deeper. Parting her lips with such care
and tenderness, working his way inside...just the way the sun
slowly worked its way into the sky. And finally, taking,
possessing, filling her. Transforming her into
something...something she didn’t know or recognize. Or freeing that
part of herself she’d been fighting for so long. Fully formed now,
it seemed. The wanton. The wildness raged in her now, and she
wondered how she’d ever cage it again.

God, why couldn’t she be like other women?
Cool and sleek and in control?

The sun beamed its full force down, warmth
and light washing over her...through her. The headache burned away.
She was strong again. But no more knowledgeable than she’d been
before. “Who am I,” she whispered, and choked away her tears to
voice the question again, louder. “Who am I, dammit? Where do I
belong? What cruel god created me, and why, for heaven’s sake? What
the hell am I
doing
here?”

Each question was louder than the one before,
and the final one was shouted as she shook her fists at the sky.
Fury and rage and confusion all exploding from her in the form of
questions she already knew had no answers. Questions that had
plagued her even at St. Mary’s. And then she had to be rid of it.
All of it. She stood up, filled to brimming with nervous energy and
anger, and sick to death of worry and remorse. She didn’t want to
think about it anymore.

For the first time in years, Brigit only
wanted to feel alive. She wanted to feel wild and free, and filled
with reckless abandon the way she used to feel before she’d decided
to become responsible and respectable. She wanted to do something
utterly thrilling.

She looked down at the waves rolling to shore
below, and slowly, she smiled. “Yes,” she whispered. Then she
turned around, and walked several yards. When she faced the lake
again, she drew a breath, and the wild one inside her grinned. She
ran right up to the edge, stretched her arms up over her head, bent
a little at the knees...and then she dove.

God, it was wonderful! Just like flying. She
pointed her body like an arrow, and watched the stone walls
speeding past her in a blurred gray rush. The air whistled past her
ears, whipping her hair up behind her, whooshing over her body.
Then she punctured the lake. Stabbed into it, torpedoed down deep.
And she arched her back, and pushed with her arms, and shot up
toward the surface. Her head broke through, and she flung her hair
backward, tipping her chin to the sky and inhaling the fresh
morning air until her lungs were filled to bursting.

It felt good to be wild again. She’d stifled
herself for too long. She’d lived calmly and quietly and become
staid and complacent. No more, dammit! The turmoil inside her
needed release, and a little wildness was exactly the way she ought
to vent it.

And since she still had a lot of venting to
do, she began swimming away from shore, burning all the energy that
had been pent up inside her for so long.

She swam faster, harder, and her heart pumped
and her muscles burned. But it felt good. It felt good to take her
anger out this way. She had every right to be angry with the way
things had turned out.

Growling with effort, she paddled onward.
Raze had been taken from her, was being used to force her to lie
and steal one more time. And she slashed her hands through the
water as if Zaslow’s evil face were there on the surface. She took
out her fury toward him on the lake.

When she was too tired to swim another
stroke, she slowed, and floated on her back, rising and falling
with the swells of the blue water. And she knew the source of her
anger as well as she knew her own reflection in the mirror,

She cared deeply for Adam Reid. And she was
being forced, against her will, to betray him.

“I don’t want to do this,” she whispered, and
the waves gained strength until she couldn’t float anymore. So she
rolled over, still breathless, panting, and just treaded water. “I
don’t want to betray Adam.”

A wave slapped her face, sloshing water into
her mouth, and she realized that her anger and her energy were
spent. Only remorse for what lay ahead of her remained. Tears fell
to blend with the waters of Cayuga. “I...just...don’t...want
to.”

But you know you have to.

Another wave slapped her. She swallowed more
water, and turned to look back toward the shore. And then her heart
skidded to a halt in her chest, because she’d swum so far the shore
was a hazy outline in the distance. , She blinked in shock. “Oh,
God, what have I done?”

Closing her eyes, she called on that wild one
inside, knowing instinctively
she
was the stronger one. The
braver one. “Have to try,” she told herself, and she began swimming
shoreward.

Ten strokes...twenty. Why didn’t the shore
look any closer? Forty...fifty. She paused to catch her breath. The
water’s caress was chilling her overheated flesh, and her lungs
were beginning to ache. A sob tore at her breastbone, but she
battled it into submission, and launched herself shoreward once
more. But she knew her progress was minuscule at best. Before she’d
made it halfway, she was too exhausted even to keep her head above
water. Damn, she’d been an idiot. A fool. She’d let the caged one
take control, and it was going to cost her. Her longing gaze swept
the shoreline once more. “It’s too far...”

Try!

Slap!
She spit water out of her mouth,
and nodded tiredly. She had to keep trying. She was a lot of
things, but not a quitter. Not a coward. She began paddling again.
But her muscles screamed in protest, and burned with every
movement. Another wave splashed her, pushing her under. She fought
to the surface, choking and spitting, and then another swept her
under. Her arms ached and her legs cramped when she broke surface
yet again, straining onward. A few more strokes...and that was all.
She tried, but it was simply impossible to go any farther.
Impossible. And she’d given it her best shot.

Numbly, she lifted her arms again, tried to
kick her feet, but the merciless water pulled her into its cool
embrace, and closed over her head.

He’d almost reached her when she went down
for the last time. Dammit! It was all but impossible to keep an eye
on her with the morning breeze rippling the surface, and those
swells out there where she was. He’d been looking for her, intent
on telling her what he knew and asking her what the hell was really
going on.