Home to Whiskey Creek (9 page)

Milly made shooing motions. “You two have a seat and relax. The night is young. Let’s enjoy it. Before Noah leaves, I want him to get out his phone and check his calendar—that’s how you young people do it these days, isn’t it?—so we can pick a date to have him over for dinner.”

Noah glanced up to catch Addy’s reaction, and saw her stiffen.

“Noah was just telling me that...that he’s swamped, Gran,” she said. “We wouldn’t want him to feel obligated to take time out of his busy schedule.”

“Oh, phooey! A man’s got to eat, doesn’t he?” Milly handed him cream and sugar. “You can make time for us, can’t you, Noah?”

Obviously expecting him to follow her lead, Addy tilted her head.

Any sane man would decline Milly’s invitation, to protect his ego, if for no other reason. He’d already been flatly rejected—in advance. Even his offer of friendship had been thrown back in his face.

But her reaction to him didn’t make any sense, especially considering how she’d once felt. She couldn’t even tell him
why
she didn’t want to see him again.

“I’ll make time,” he said. Then he saluted Adelaide with his cup. “When would you like to do it?”

9

A
week from Saturday. That was the date they’d settled on. November 2. Then Noah would come to the house again, this time for dinner.

Adelaide couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to accept Gran’s invitation, knowing she didn’t want him there. For once in her life, she’d tried to be firm, even if it came across as harsh. But her rejection shocked him more than anything else—shocked him enough that he became determined to win her over.

She shouldn’t have created a challenge. A man like Noah couldn’t resist a challenge. He was a professional athlete, after all, someone conditioned to attack the difficult, to prevail. She should’ve been all dewy-eyed and swooned over him, as if she hoped to drag him to the altar. Then he would’ve run away as fast as his muscular legs could carry him.

It was a stupid miscalculation on her part. And now she had to face the prospect of spending an entire evening with him and acting polite because Gran would be there.

She couldn’t sit across the dinner table looking at him all evening. Her emotions were too scrambled. She’d spent two whole years fantasizing about him. She’d all but
stalked
him at school, loitering at strategic places in the halls simply because he had to go by there to get to class. And not only did she have the residual pangs of that to deal with, she had to cope with the fact that he reminded her so much of the man who’d changed her life forever.

She wished he’d leave her alone. She needed space. After that graduation party fifteen years ago, she’d spent the summer on pins and needles, trying to appear “normal” while everyone else mourned the loss of Cody and she pretended to do the same. No one had ever confronted her with questions about that night, not even to ask if he was alive when she’d last seen him. Maybe it was too unbelievable that the most popular boy in school would waste his time on a lowly sophomore, because even the people who’d seen her in his company hadn’t mentioned her. That included Kevin, Tom, Derek and Stephen, who’d dragged her into a different part of the mine before raping her. They were gone when Cody came back—everyone else was gone—but must have guessed she was the reason he’d returned.

If so, they probably assumed she wouldn’t be powerful enough to overcome him. Or they’d decided to keep their mouths shut to preserve their own secret. That was all she could figure.

Regardless, as that summer wore on, people stopped talking about the tragedy and, finally, most of those who’d been present at the party went off to college. Then Addy’s life got a little easier. She ran into Cody and Noah’s parents occasionally. But she didn’t have to live, on a daily basis, with the constant reminder that Noah posed.

She’d been so grateful for the reprieve, so relieved when he left, that she hadn’t really missed him. She’d scarcely thought of the girlish desires he’d evoked, even though they’d once consumed her. She’d felt only anxiety, fear and regret when he came to mind.

But now that he’d walked back into her life—or, rather, she’d walked back into his—everything seemed to have reversed itself
again.
Cody wasn’t Noah and, despite the family connection and their similarities, she was quite clear on that. Noah hadn’t attended the graduation party that had ended so tragically. He’d been with his best friend, Baxter North, at a different party, one that included midnight street hockey instead of alcohol.

“Where are you going?” Gran asked, obviously surprised when Addy scooped up her keys.

“For a drive.”

Gran lowered the volume on the TV, which had been blaring to compensate for her lack of hearing. “You feel well enough to do that?”

Addy zipped up the sweatshirt she’d pulled on with a pair of jeans. “I’ve been cooped up all day and I need to get out of the house.”

“But I’m not sure it’s safe, not until Chief Stacy catches the person who abducted you,” she argued.

“No one will bother me while I’m in my car, Gran. If the man who cut my screen door thinks I’m anywhere, he’s going to assume it’s here.”

Her grandmother didn’t like her leaving. Addy could tell by the disapproval on her face. But Gran didn’t try to stop her. She was probably afraid to push too hard for fear she’d get the kind of backlash she’d always gotten from Adelaide’s high-strung mother. “Don’t be gone long, okay? It’s almost ten-thirty.”

Addy welcomed the late hour. It brought darkness and solitude and a chance to enjoy the crisp fall air. Halloween, one of her favorite holidays, was only a week away. She had so many fond memories of the hayrides and trick-or-treating in this town. She wanted to savor all the good things she associated with Whiskey Creek. She also needed a respite, needed to feel inconspicuous and anonymous and in control of her life, even though her love for Gran was forcing her to give up everything that had insulated her from the past. She’d thought that when she returned, she and Noah would have little or no interaction.

Her Toyota 4-Runner started immediately, but it wasn’t running smoothly. Over the past several months, she’d had it in and out of the shop. It was getting old and should be replaced—but she couldn’t afford another vehicle right now.

Feeling the engine’s rough idle, she wondered if she should venture out. But she couldn’t make herself go back inside. She had her heart set on seeing if she could find what they’d hit when she grabbed the steering wheel of her abductor’s truck. Whatever it was, they’d smashed into it hard enough to do some damage.

That meant there should also have been an exchange of paint.

Although she’d been pretty disoriented at the time, she knew which way he’d turned out of Gran’s drive because she knew where he’d been planning to take her. Anyone heading to the mine from Gran’s would go left. Only one road went in that direction—the main road that snaked through town—and they hadn’t been in the vehicle long before she caused the accident.

From what she could remember, it was something like...an eighth of a mile.

Addy crept along, studying every obstacle on the right-hand side. When she’d grabbed the wheel, she’d jerked it toward her, simply because that was the only way she could use her body weight, and they’d veered into a slight gully before slamming against—

There it was. The cinder-block retaining wall separating the lawn mower shop from Lovett’s Bridal.

After a brief check in her rearview mirror, she put on her brakes, but someone was coming up behind her, so she turned into Lovett’s and waited for that car to pass before walking over to take a closer look. This had to be the place. She could see the damage. The wall had a big crack in it and streaks of paint—white paint.

Standing back, she took a picture of it with her cell phone. She wasn’t sure why. She just wanted some kind of proof that the vehicle Kevin, Tom, Derek or Stephen had used had been white.

Feeling uneasy about being out alone, she hurried back to her 4-Runner. But once she was inside, with her doors locked, she wasn’t quite ready to go home. She needed more time to regroup. So she drove through the center of town, past A Room with a View, a B and B that had taken over one of the prettiest Victorians; A Damsel’s Delights, which reminded her that she still had to thank Noelle for the necklace she was wearing; 49er Sweets, with its barrels of saltwater taffy; a photography studio called Reflections by Callie, owned by one of Noah’s closest friends; Harvey’s Hardware; Whiskey Creek Five & Dime and several other stores, most of which hadn’t changed since she’d left.

Just Like Mom’s was coming up on her right. Other than a few updated Halloween decorations, it hadn’t changed, either. Painted a tacky purple, it had a forest of fake flowers stuffed into window boxes that desperately needed to be emptied and cleaned. In order to sell it, she knew she should throw out the contents of those boxes, plant real flowers and give the place a facelift. But she’d come to
help
Gran, not upset her. She had to ease her grandmother into the idea of cutting ties with Whiskey Creek.

The restaurant stayed open until eleven every night except Fridays and Saturdays, when it closed at midnight. Since it was nearly eleven, there weren’t many people inside. When she passed she could see Darlene, with her brassy yellow hair, through one of the wide front windows holding a pot of coffee as she made the rounds.

Addy needed to determine how things were going at the restaurant, whether it was even viable to sell, and only Darlene could tell her. But before she dove into the management of the restaurant, she wanted to wait until she wasn’t sporting so much evidence of her ordeal.

Maybe she’d go in after the weekend, on Monday.

Beyond the restaurant was Crank It Up, Noah’s bike shop. It was as dark as the rest of the businesses, but she parked at the curb and gazed in at the posters she could see, thanks to the streetlights, near the register. Noah was featured in one of them, wearing a silver, sleek-looking helmet, a Crank It Up bike shirt and black spandex shorts that showed the muscles in his legs as he balanced, at a complete standstill, on a big red boulder. She didn’t recognize the cyclists in the other posters, except the autographed one of the disgraced Lance Armstrong.

She leaned forward, studying the Halloween Specials of bike tune-ups and other gear advertised on the windows, the green awning that hung over the walkway and the horse hitch that had been turned into a bike rack out front. Noah seemed to have done well for himself.

Would Cody be a partner in Noah’s business if...if she hadn’t caused that cave-in?

The thought of what she’d cost Noah made her sick. She hadn’t meant to kill Cody. She’d been acting out of desperation, pain and humiliation, had merely been trying to get away.

But that didn’t change the harsh reality.

With a sigh, she twisted around to look down the street. Normally, she loved the Halloween decorations shop owners put up at this time of year. But tonight the glowing jack-o’-lanterns and gauzy ghosts that adorned so many windows, doors and trees seemed to be jeering at her. The fake cemeteries were even worse, since she knew Cody had been buried just around the bend, in the real cemetery located next to the only “haunted” B and B in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

She wondered if the newly dubbed Little Mary’s really had a ghost—because if the girl who’d been killed in 1871, possibly by her own father, could come back, maybe Cody could, too.

Feeling a chill, she rubbed her arms. She didn’t need Cody’s ghost to frighten her. His four live friends posed enough of a risk.

She imagined Kevin, Stephen, Tom and Derek sitting at home, watching TV with wives or girlfriends who had no idea that they’d raped a girl when they were younger. What would
she
do if she were one of those women? If she learned that the man she loved, the man who slept with her at night, had done something so heinous?

You tell anyone about graduation and I’ll kill you. I’ll stab the old lady, too.

One of those men was frightened that word would get out. They should all be frightened by the possible consequences. In California, there was no statute of limitations on aggravated rape, and aggravated rape included rape by more than one person. It’d been fifteen years, but they could still go to prison.

The only problem was...if she came forward,
she’d
have to face the consequences of her actions, too. And, even though part of her felt terribly guilty about Cody’s death, the psychologist who’d helped her recover, once she got out of school and had the money for therapy, insisted that none of it had been her fault. Dr. Rosenbaum said she’d been naive not to be more careful about the company she kept. But sixteen-year-olds were often too innocent for their own good. She’d said that Addy had done nothing to deserve what had happened, nothing to provoke them. Dr. R. also said she was required to report the assailants, but since Addy refused to give their names, that hadn’t gone very far.

Anyway, Addy knew she’d never speak up as long as Gran was alive, even if she decided to do so later. Dr. Rosenbaum had agreed that dragging it all to the forefront would probably do her more harm than good, since there was no guarantee that justice would be done, so she didn’t press her for the information.

After starting her truck, she drove two blocks over, to the high school. She was sitting there, staring at the stone face of the main hall and the words
Eureka High
when she noticed headlights coming up behind her.

A moment of panic made her heart skip a beat. She was afraid she should’ve listened to Gran once again, until she saw the police decal on the side of the door.

Sagging in relief, she rolled down her window as Chief Stacy pulled alongside her.

“There you are,” he said. “Your grandmother told me you were out, but damned if I could find you.”

“You’ve been looking for
me?
”

He smiled. “I have great news.”

Addy tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Given that he was searching for a man she didn’t want caught, she wasn’t sure his idea of good news would match hers.

His next words confirmed it. “I’ve found the owner of that knife.”

She imagined, as she so often had, what it would be like if the whole nasty truth came out. Some of the citizens of Whiskey Creek would take sides, probably a lot of them. She’d have her champions, but she’d also have her detractors, people who remained stubbornly loyal to the men who’d raped her. Noah and his family would likely go into denial and refuse to believe Cody could do such a thing. They’d be furious that she’d dare besmirch his memory. And if the case went to trial, the defense attorneys would do all they could to portray her as asking for what she got by dressing too scantily, or coming on to Cody, or...something.

Maybe it wouldn’t even go to trial. She could
claim
they’d raped her, but how would she prove it at this late date?

Nothing was ever cut-and-dried, especially in a small town like this, where the Rackhams and their friends held so much sway. Only one thing was certain: no one would come out of it unscathed.

“Who—” she cleared her throat “—who is it?”