Isabella Moon (45 page)

KATE STOOD
at the back window watching Myrt and Earl tumble over each other as they chased last year’s leaves blowing across their dog run. Heavy clouds, dark and gray, crowded the sky, making the day wintry and dull. All winter she’d looked forward to spring with its bright skies and fragrant, budding trees. Now she wondered if that sort of day would ever come for her again. She pulled Caleb’s sweater tight around her, trying to get warm even though the air in the house wasn’t at all chilled. She was cold from the inside, and she knew that no blanket or sweater or blaze in the fireplace could warm her.

They’d spent most of the previous night talking in front of the fire. She, curled in the capacious mahogany and leather chair that had belonged to Caleb’s father, and he, leaning forward and listening intently from the couch. Of course, she had done most of the talking; she still felt raw and emotionally stripped from all that she had confessed. Caleb had waited to speak until she finished.

“That bastard will never hurt you again,” was all he said.

She knew that it was only bravado talking, but she was reassured enough to finally fall asleep there on the couch an hour or so before dawn. He hadn’t pressured her to come to his bed, and she was grateful. When she’d awakened, she found a note signed
Love, C.,
telling her that he had to go into work for a while but would bring her some clothes from the cottage.

Everything was out in the open between them. All their secrets were told. The only thing that truly stood between them and a future together—if she decided they had a future—was Miles. There was still Caleb’s skepticism about Isabella Moon, but that was just going to have to run its course.

The child had picked her and not someone else. Why? She would probably never know. As Kate stared across the grass, she almost felt lonesome for the child. Perhaps her absence left room for Caleb, or maybe for the rest of her own life. She just prayed that Miles would disappear as well, leaving her in peace. But she knew Miles well enough to know that it was damned unlikely.

After a lunch of soup and crackers and cheese from Caleb’s well-stocked refrigerator, Kate tried to call Francie at her mother’s house. But when she heard Lillian’s cultured voice tell her to “please, leave a message,” she dropped the phone’s handset back onto its cradle, unnerved. It was as though Lillian were keeping track of her, reminding her of her charge—to watch out for Francie.

“I’m so sorry, Lillian,” Kate whispered to the Heavens. Lillian, wherever she was, would have to understand. Francie was going to have to look out for herself for a while. How could they both have fallen for such dangerous men? It was hard to believe that Paxton and Miles could exist in the same universe.

Kate had once thought that there was a vast gray gulf between good and evil. It was obvious to her now that that divide was not a gulf, but a single sharp line. There
was
no gray area. She’d lived in evil the whole time she’d been in Miles’s shadow, including the years in which she thought she’d escaped him. She was desperate, so desperate to make her life good. What it would take, she didn’t know. She hoped that coming clean with Caleb had been the start.

“You need some real food,” Caleb said, pulling out a package of thick steaks from the grocery bag on the counter. “I bet you had popcorn for lunch. Did you even get any breakfast?”

“I ate just fine, thank you very much,” Kate said. She felt better wearing her own clothes, more at home. “I even shared with Myrt and Earl.”

“You’ve got to quit spoiling those dogs,” he said. “Nothing’s worse than a fat beagle.”

Even as he spoke, he was opening the steak package to trim the fat off of the meat and put it in the dogs’ bowls.

“I don’t think
I’m
the one the dogs have to worry about,” Kate said. As Caleb trimmed the meat, she opened the bottle of cabernet sauvignon he’d bought to go with dinner. He’d also bought some prestuffed potatoes, a bag of salad, and ice cream for dessert—
her
favorite, mocha chip, not the butter pecan he preferred. He was trying so hard to take care of her. Standing there in the warm kitchen with him, it was almost as though the past two weeks had never happened. She could almost believe that life could go back to the way it was. But then she chanced to glance at the front door, where Caleb’s twelve-gauge leaned, loaded, against the wall.

Her hand shook a little as she poured wine into two of the stemless wineglasses she’d bought for him for Christmas at the gourmet shop in town.

She held out a glass to Caleb. “Should we drink to something?” she said.

He took the glass and leaned to kiss her gently on the cheek. He smelled of wood smoke and soap. The shadow of his beard was rough against her face.

“Us?” he said.

Kate tried a smile, but it felt false to her. She sipped the bittersweet wine, almost wishing it were something stronger. She’d never enjoyed being drunk, nor had she ever liked any sort of mind-altering medication. But now she recalled the morphine-induced stupor into which Miles and the fake doctor had put her after she lost the baby, and knew she wouldn’t mind living again in that kind of fog for a week or two. Wouldn’t have to think in that state, wouldn’t be afraid, no matter what happened to her.

They went to the couch, where Caleb had set down her bag. She’d changed her clothes there in the living room and the bag’s contents were spread across the cushions.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What a mess.” She gathered up the clothes and shoes and underwear scattered about and tried to stuff them into the bag.

“It might all be kind of random,” Caleb said. “I did the best I could.”

Kate moved the bag and its overflowing contents to a nearby chair. “I can’t believe you went there,” she said. “Miles could have shown up any time. He’s like that. He likes to surprise people. Scare them, really.”

“Listen,” Caleb said, pulling her down to sit beside him. “We could be wrong. That clothes stunt could’ve been Janet.”

Kate shook her head vigorously. “No way.”

“Listen, Kate. Please.”

“He won’t give up,” Kate said. “He’s come back for me. I shouldn’t have come out here. Now you’re in danger, too.”

“We don’t know that.”

“The picture at the cottage,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me, but Isabella was warning me.”

“Coincidence,” Caleb said. “And maybe the picture just fell out of some papers.”

“He’ll kill us both,” Kate said, looking into his eyes. There was no ignoring the doubt she saw in them. She knew she couldn’t expect him to believe her. It didn’t matter that she’d finally told him the truth. Their whole relationship had been based on lies.

“Come here,” he said.

She let him wrap his arms around her and they sat together for a time. She tried to relax, but it was no use. If Miles didn’t come today, he would come tomorrow or the next day or the next.

When the fire died down and the room began to cool, Caleb said he needed to take a few minutes and chop some wood. They’d spent so many pleasant nights in front of his fireplace over the winter that they used up all that he’d bought in the fall.

“I meant to do that today,” Kate said. It had been a lost afternoon.

“Do you think you could eat?” Caleb said, stroking her hair. “I know it’s early.”

“More wine,” she said. “I think I want a lot more wine.”

Caleb kissed her hair. “Get on up,” he said. “I got two bottles.”

Kate followed behind him in the kitchen, putting together the salad and turning on the oven for the potatoes. The wine had mellowed her somewhat. She wasn’t terribly hungry, but Caleb was trying so hard, she couldn’t bear to disappoint him.

Outside, one of the dogs set to barking and the other began to howl, its voice straining. Kate froze.

“Relax,” Caleb said. “It’s probably a groundhog.”

“Sure,” Kate said. The dogs were always barking at something: a deer grazing near the woods, skunks, the rumble of faraway cars.

Caleb took kibble from a container beneath the sink and put it in the dogs’ bowls with the steak fat.

“Let’s just put the potatoes in the microwave,” he said as he headed toward the door. “I’m hungry.”

Kate turned off the oven, put the potatoes in the microwave, and set it to cook for twelve minutes. As she worked, she realized that she was also counting in her head. It wasn’t evening yet, but outside the windows the afternoon was grayer still, as though it might snow.
Forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…

She refilled her wineglass.

Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight…

Outside, the beagles were yapping furiously, as they often did when Caleb brought their dinner out. She told herself that looking out the window would be giving in to her paranoia. Turning the pages of a magazine sitting on the table, she didn’t even notice that it was a sports magazine she didn’t care for.

Seventy-two, seventy-three…

Now there was no sound from the yard.

Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight…

When the back door opened, Kate jumped.

“You’d think I never feed those dogs,” Caleb said. “I think it’s about to turn cold again. They’ll be sleeping in the doghouse tonight.” He stopped and looked at Kate. “What’s wrong?”

She laughed, letting go of the tension that had filled her chest. “Just being a scaredy-cat,” she said.

“You really do need some more wine,” he said.

He took her hand and led her back to the kitchen.

“Shit. I forgot to do the wood,” he said.

“Let’s just eat,” Kate said. “Now you’ve got me hungry.”

He left her in the kitchen to get the wood basket from beside the fireplace. “We can’t eat in front of a cold fire,” he said. When he opened the back door, the dogs began to bark once more.

Kate busied herself clearing the coffee table of its magazines and what-nots. She set out silverware and salt and pepper and sour cream for their potatoes. Keeping herself together, keeping things as normal as possible, was going to be important to her sanity. Miles might confront her at any time: on the street, in some parking lot, at the cottage. He might even draw out his game, stalking her over months, maybe years. Just to let her know that he was watching. She hadn’t completely given up the thought of leaving town. Maybe she could convince Caleb to go with her, to get out of town and start over somewhere, perhaps out on the West Coast.
Maybe, just maybe, it was like Caleb said. Coincidence.

She went to the stereo and turned it to the light jazz satellite station they liked. Seeing what a mess she made when she’d dressed, she stuffed her clothes into the duffel bag, leaving only a long silk scarf trailing across the back of the couch. She smiled to imagine Caleb trying to pick out what clothes she might want.

In the kitchen, the timer
dinged
and she went to get the potatoes from the microwave.

When the back door opened, a blast of chill air swept through the kitchen. The sound of the dogs was louder, more furious.

“I hope you got a lot of wood,” Kate said. “Now it really is cold in here.”

“Johnny Appleseed says maybe you can put
this
on the fire.”

Kate stiffened at the sound of Miles’s voice. She didn’t want to turn around. She wanted Caleb to come up behind her and put his arms around her waist, laughing and teasing her about being such a scaredy-cat. She wouldn’t shy away, or hesitate, but would let him touch her and hold her and they would figure out how to get past everything that had happened. But that wasn’t the way things would go, she knew. From the direction of Miles’s voice, there was the sound of something heavy dropping to the floor.

Kate turned to see Miles standing in the open doorway. He looked much as he had the day she’d left him, down to the splattered blood on his clothes.

Miles kicked at the ragged mound at his feet.

“What do you think?” he said, sounding winded.

It was the boots that she noticed first, or perhaps that was where, in her stunned state, her mind told her it was safest to look. She and Caleb had picked them out together at an outfitter’s in Lexington, and she remembered how she had liked their bright green and yellow laces because they reminded her of a child’s shoelaces, though the boots themselves were sturdy hikers and quite expensive. Now, both the laces and the boots were almost unrecognizable. They, along with Caleb’s blue jeans, and the saddle-brown field coat she’d always looked out for as he walked the dogs out in the fields and woods, were covered with amorphous blossoms of blood. But it was the raw mess that began at the coat’s ruined collar that made Kate turn away and vomit on the floor. Miles had tried to remove Caleb’s head from his body with some kind of tool—perhaps even the axe that Caleb had planned to use to chop the firewood—but hadn’t gotten very far.

“Aw, Mary-Katie,” Miles said.

Kate retched more.
She couldn’t have seen what she had seen! The idea of it was impossible. Was she dreaming? Would she wake up and find Caleb watching over her, ready to comfort her from her nightmare?
She had forgotten the sound of Miles’s voice, the subdued drawl that intensified theatrically when he was dealing with good ol’ boys. But he was here with her now, and the years that she’d been away from him suddenly melted away as though she had never lived them.