Johnston - Heartbeat (21 page)

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” she said, staring out the window. “I suppose if you’re going to have second thoughts about whether or not I’m a murderer—because of Brian—I’d rather you had them now.”

Jack’s pithy response made Maggie flinch.

“I guess that means you have a few reservations,” she said.

“All right, Maggie. You want to hear what’s going on in my head? Here goes. Why is your kid a forty-five-minute drive away in New Braunfels? Why not someplace a helluva lot closer to home?”

“Brian gets very good care where he is. And the surroundings are lovely and quiet.”

Jack snorted.

Maggie met his glance for the two seconds he could spare from the road and said, “It’s also easier to hide Brian from Victoria by keeping him out of San Antonio.”

“Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why can’t Victoria see her grandson?”

“Uncle Porter is the one who makes the rules,” Maggie said. “I just follow them.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “What does Porter Cobb have to do with anything?”

Maggie picked at a loose thread on the leather seat, and it began
to
unravel. “Uh-oh.”

Jack fought the annoyance he felt at Maggie for pulling his truck upholstery apart, knowing his irritation had nothing to do with the leather seat and everything to do with her clandestine behavior. “I’m waiting, Maggie.”

She used both hands to snap the thread at its start and said, “You really should get someone to restitch these seats.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he warned.

“It’s a long story, Jack.”

He gestured at the confines of the pickup cab. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Maggie settled her back against the door and folded one knee on the seat between them. He wanted to reach out a hand to her but had a feeling she’d put the farthest distance she could between them for a reason. He was waiting
to
hear what it was.

Maggie’s heart was hammering in her chest as she prepared to tell Jack what she hadn’t repeated to another living soul in ten years. She had relived that awful morning in April 1987 a thousand times in her head. Every recollection was as vivid in her mind’s eye as when it had happened. The memory never seemed to fade; the pain never seemed to ease. She was finally about to share the burden with someone else.

“The day my life fell apart,” she began, staring at the dark road ahead of them, “the temperature was below freezing, with a wind chill cold enough to create icicles along the eaves. Woody—my husband—had
to
go
to
work in downtown Minneapolis, even though it was Saturday. I was still wearing the T-shirt and sweatpants I’d slept in when I woke up the boys and fed them a bowl of oatmeal. They wanted to go skating on the pond, but I told them they couldn’t.”

She turned to face Jack and explained, “The pond was still frozen over, but we’d had warm weather over the previous week that thinned the ice, I dressed the boys warmly and sent them outside to play in the backyard, then called a friend of mine to talk.”

Maggie looked down at her knotted fingers.
If only I hadn’t made that phone call,
she thought.
And
if
only pigs had wings they could fly.
There was no turning back the clock. At the time, she’d needed very much to hear a friendly voice.

“I looked out the back window several times while I was on the phone,” she continued. “Every time I did, Brian and Stanley were fine. Since they didn’t have their skates with them when they went outside, it never occurred to me they’d go near the pond. I had no idea . . . . ”

Maggie felt tears sting her eyes. An invisible band around her chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. When she gasped a breath, it became a sob.

Jack reached out to her, but she brushed his hand away. “Don’t.” She wanted the comfort, but not until she was sure Jack wasn’t going to change his mind about whether she de-served it.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You don’t have to do this right now.”

“I want to.” Maggie dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her Polo shirt and waited for the constriction in her chest to ease. It did, a little, and she began again. “I guess Brian must have dared Stanley to go out on the ice. Brian was always the instigator, and Stanley was always fearless.” The corners of her lips quavered when she tried to smile, so she gave up and went back to playing with the remnants of the loose string on Jack’s leather seat.

“Looking back, I think Brian must have started yelling for me when Stan first fell in.” She shook her head, trying to remember exactly what his voice had sounded like. An annoyed screech, maybe. Just Stanley teasing Brian. “I thought they were playing, you know, like when Amy was on the swing and shrieking with laughter. So I ignored him.”

“What tipped you off that something was wrong?”

“I don’t know. All of a sudden I just . . . knew. When I ran to the window, the first thing I saw was Brian lying flat on the ice. He had hold of Stanley’s hands, but I could see the weight of Stanley’s coat and boots were pulling Stan under, and Brian was sliding in right along with him. The ice around them was cracked, breaking away.”

“Jesus,” Jack muttered.

Maggie had known from that first instant that it was hopeless, that she wasn’t going to get there in time to save her sons. But her body had leapt into action. “I dropped the phone and ran.”

Maggie suddenly realized she had unraveled so much of the string that Jack’s leather seat was falling apart at the seam. She let go of the rippled black string and took a shuddering breath.
¹¹
I yelled for Brian to let go.”

“To let go of his brother? To let him drown?”

She nodded jerkily. “I wanted one of them to live,” she said, her throat aching. “I didn’t want to lose them both.” She took a hitching breath. “But my son . . . my brave, loyal son shouted, ‘I can’t let go, Mom. Stan will go under.’”

Oh, God. It was so cold where she stood, watching her sons about to die. Her skin was gooseflesh, her lips were blue. And her heart was frozen solid.

Maggie made a soft, keening sound and felt Jack’s warm, strong hand close over hers. If only someone had been there that day, someone strong enough to save her sons. But Woody had been at work.

Anger bubbled and boiled inside Maggie, anger that had been simmering for years, anger that had never been expressed because its target—Woody—was dead.
Why weren’t you there, Woody? Why did you leave me alone? What happened to our marvelous fairy tale? What happened to all our dreams?

Woody hadn’t needed to go to work so early. He could have stayed at home longer with her and the boys. If Woody had been there, he could have helped rescue their sons. She wouldn’t have been forced to make all the decisions herself. And if Woody hadn’t been able to save Brian and Stan, he could at least have shared the guilt she had felt all these years for letting them both drown.

“Maggie? Are you all right?” Jack asked.

She swiped at her tears with the heel of her free hand. Jack held on to the other one and wouldn’t let go when she tugged to free it. He was tenacious, she would give him that. Just like Brian.

“Even when I begged him, Brian wouldn’t let go,” she said, angry at her son, too, for being so damned noble. She had selfishly wanted him to live. It wasn’t fair to blame her son for loving his brother enough to cling to him past life. But she did.

“I stood watching Brian being pulled under the ice, screaming for him to let go of Stanley. But he held on until Stan’s weight finally pulled him under, too.”

“Jesus. You must have felt so helpless.”

How did he know?
she wondered. It was exactly what she’d felt.

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” he said quietly.

“I’ve told myself that a million times,” Maggie said with a shake of her head. “But in those few precious seconds when something might have been done . . . I did nothing.”

She turned to Jack and saw her pain reflected in his eyes. “It all happened so fast. Stanley sank like a stone and dragged Brian right in under the ice behind him. And they were just . . . gone.”

She tried again to pull free of Jack’s hold, but he said, “Let me help you, Maggie.”

She stopped struggling, but her heart was pounding. She ached for her lost sons. “It’s too late, Jack.”

She had stood paralyzed while her sons were drowning. Shame as fresh and raw as what she’d felt that day washed over her as blood rushed from her chest to her neck and up across her cheeks leaving them awash with a guilty flush.

“What did you do after they went under?” Jack asked when she didn’t continue.

I screamed. I begged God to save my sons. But God wasn’t listening.

“I spread myself out on the ice as wide as I could and inched myself toward the hole where they’d gone under. It took forever to get there, because the ice kept cracking.”

She remembered how she had shivered with cold and fear until she’d thought she would shake the ice apart. How the damned unforgiving ice had crackled around her, threatening to break apart and tumble her into the cold black depths of the pond. How the sharp ice crystals had scraped her bare hands and arms, drawing blood as she clawed her w ay across it on her belly.

“One of the strings on the hood of Brian’s jacket had caught on the ice, but my hands were so stiff and numb, it was hard to grab hold of it.” Her shoulder muscles had knotted with excruciating pain as she used the thin cord to pull her son back from a watery grave.

Jack felt his insides clutch. He was there with Maggie, standing in the frigid wind with gooseflesh on his bare arms, his heart in his throat. He tried to imagine the presence of mind it had taken for her to lie down rather than to try walking onto the ice. The courage it had taken to slide out onto the brittle surface, knowing that if she fell through the ice, she would likely drown as well. He looked at her with awed respect. How many other women would have managed to do as much?

“I finally dragged Brian out of the water,” Maggie said, “but the surface began to break away around us. I was afraid both of us would go under if I didn’t get us out of there.”

It was her excuse, Jack realized, for why she hadn’t stayed to hunt for Stanley. “You couldn’t save them both, Maggie.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “I should have done more.
Something!”

“What else could you have done?” he argued. “It wouldn’t have helped Brian if you’d drowned yourself.”

“I wish I had!” she cried. “Oh, God, I wish I had.”

He squeezed her hand so hard he feared he would break her bones, but it took that much pressure to get her attention. When she finally looked at him, he said, “I’m glad you didn’t die, Maggie. I’m glad you’re here with me now.”

Jack stared down at the fragile female hand clasped in his own. Maggie hadn’t died with her sons, but she had stopped living. It was apparent in her barren apartment, in the lack of so much as a pet to keep her company. And she had stopped feeling because, as he knew now, feeling was too painful.

Jack wanted to comfort her. Wanted to keep her company. Wanted to make her feel everything again . . . with him.

When Maggie began talking, he realized the story wasn’t over yet. She held on tight to his hand and continued, “Brian was so cold, he wasn’t even shivering. He wasn’t breathing, either.”

Jack lifted her hand as he brushed his knuckles gently, reassuringly across her cheek. “Go on, Maggie.”

“I carried Brian to the house, but I have no idea how. The police said with all the water that had soaked into his clothes, he must have weighed close to a hundred pounds. I grabbed the phone to dial 911, but my girlfriend must have realized something was wrong and had already called. I could hear them at the door.

“One paramedic went to work on Brian while I hurried the other out back to show him where to look for Stanley. Then I raced inside and called my husband.”

She leaned her head against the seat and sighed. “I wonder sometimes if things would have been different if I’d taken the time to calm down before I called Woody. Once I got Brian out of the water, I kind of lost it.

“I was blubbering so much on the phone with Woody, it’s a wonder he could under-stand what I was saying. He wanted to come home, but I told him to go directly to the hospital to be with Brian, while I waited for the dive team that was going to search for Stanley.”

Jack heard in her voice the fact she hadn’t expected to find Stanley alive.

“It took two men thirty minutes to find him,” she said quietly. “His Timberwolves scarf had caught on a rotten log at the bottom of the pond.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie.” Jack pulled her hand onto his thigh and held it there.

Jack swerved onto the New Braunfels exit off I-35, grateful to be out of the worst of the traffic and onto the small-town streets shaded by live oak and pecan trees. “Where to now?” he asked.

“Not far,” Maggie said, giving directions. “Only another five minutes.”

Jack hoped that was enough time for her to finish her story. He wanted it all said, so she could let it go and answer the rest of his questions, like why Victoria Wainwright was not allowed to visit her grandson. And why Porter Cobb was now calling the shots.

“When I got to the hospital, I was surprised that Woody hadn’t gotten there before me. Of course, none of the efforts to resuscitate Stanley had worked. When I asked about Brian, nobody could tell me anything, because there had been a terrible car accident and everyone was working on the victim.”

Jack felt a chill run down his spine. “It was Woody, wasn’t it?”

He watched Maggie swallow painfully before simply nodding. Her blue eyes were as bleak as he’d ever seen them.

“An eyewitness said Woody was going too fast to make the turn onto the hospital road. When he finally braked, he caught an icy patch and skidded right into a tree. He was thrown through the windshield.”

Jack saw why Victoria might blame Maggie for her son’s death, since Maggie had called Woody out onto the road. But she wasn’t responsible for Woody’s reckless driving.