Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (9 page)

I pushed my hands downward against the inside wall of the cavern to keep myself from tumbling over. My stick fell to the dry, sloped floor twelve feet below and I heard it rattle in the empty echo chamber over the roar behind me as it rolled to a stop at the low center.

I lowered my head, gasping, and that’s when my hard hat joined the stick. The impact shattered the headlamp, and suddenly it was quite, quite dark.

F-word. Definitely. F-word, f-word, f-word. I held perfectly still, my disorientation so complete that I was sure that if I moved I would tumble into the empty cistern, break both legs, and die of starvation if I wasn’t eaten by rats first. Rashidi would find my body when he got back from Florida, and Ava would cry pretty tears. Nick would cash in his tickets to St. Marcos and spend the money on a diamond ring for a new girlfriend.

Long seconds passed, or maybe they were minutes, and my breathing slowed. I inched my body back off the ledge and lowered it carefully into the water. The cold pushed in on my lungs. I held on to the ledge with both hands and turned my head toward the light above me. The top of the ladder was clearly visible, descending from the beautiful square of white. I knew to an absolute certainty that if I stayed there any longer, the Loch Ness monster would come for me. It was only twenty-five feet to the ladder. I could do this. I just had to stay calm.

I let go of the ledge and frantically overhand-crawled my way toward the ladder. No way in hell I was letting my face touch that black water. My lungs burned. My water-shoe-clad feet kicked to no effect. I was splashing so much I couldn’t see in front of me. Where was that damn ladder? I kept thrashing forward.

Pain shot through my wrist as my hand had smashed into the ladder. I grabbed hold of salvation with all four limbs.

Thank God.

I pulled myself out of the water step by step. When I was halfway up, the creepy crawlies started. Leeches? Spiders? I slapped at my arms and legs until I realized I wasn’t hitting anything but me.

I screamed up the hole. “Were you just going to leave me to die in here on my birthday, you big heartless jumbie?”

No answer.

Halfway up the ladder, I realized that I was leaving a hard hat and a shattered light in my water-storage facility. It wasn’t working, though, so I wouldn’t be drinking broken glass any time soon. As for the raft, so what. I was out of there.

I pulled myself through the hole and stepped off the ladder into the promised land of my dining room under the beautiful yellow beam of the drop light. My trembling legs dripped a puddle on the floor. Suddenly, my half-finished, dimly lit house looked blessedly civilized. I scrambled for the shower, dragging the drop light with me, and scrubbed liquid soap into a bubbly lather. It occurred to me that I was washing with the same water I had just fallen into, but somehow it was different in the light and after going through carbon and ultraviolet filters. I scrubbed my skin nearly raw toweling off, but with a clean, dry pair of shorts and a tank top, I was a new woman.

Who would never go into a cistern again in her long-legged life.

Fifteen minutes later, things took a decided turn for the better. Nelson and Graham of WAPA called to let me know they were on their way to connect Annalise’s power supply. It was all I could do not to jump up and down and squeal.

I turned off the drop lamps and was enveloped by the false twilight of the storm. All I could hear was the stampede of rain on the roof as I ran through the house in the dark, flipping every light switch into its on position. I walked to the center of the great room and checked the time on my iPhone. I closed my eyes and waited.

Before long, a buzz that turned into a crackling noise filled the house. Oso whined from somewhere across the house and I felt a shock, like waking up from a bad dream. Like defibrillator paddles to the chest. I gasped. The floor beneath me trembled, and for a split second, I wondered if the current had exploded something vital, but there was no acrid scent in the air. No crackle of flames. No tumbling chunks of masonry. I remembered to take a breath, and it came out in a gasp.

Then a light like dawn filled the room and I let my head fall back. My chest heaved. There was a loud popping noise, and then came the light of one thousand suns. It was Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and the Fourth of July.

“Oh, Annalise,” I said. “Do you like it?”

She didn’t answer.

Pouty child, I thought. I know you do.

Light filled every nook and cranny of her space, and I saw her like never before. Cobwebs in the corners. A streak of dust across a window. The deep rusty red rock of her fireplace echoed in flecks in the tile floor.

She was beautiful. I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

I still had a lot of work to do, but I set to it with a joyful heart. And now that we had electricity, I could fill the house with music. I plugged my iPhone dock into the wall and selected a playlist I had made just for this day. U2’s “Beautiful Day” came on at max volume and I laughed aloud.

The occupancy inspector was still due to arrive, but it was past five o’clock. What self-respecting citizen of St. Marcos would come out after hours in weather like this? I resolved to occupy Annalise illegally for my first night. So what? Rashidi had for months. Besides, I was born to be a rule-breaking rebel.

I sashayed down the hall to the kitchen, picked up my to-do list, and read my next item, now doing step ball changes in place. “Unpack clothes.” I could do that. I got busy putting hang-up clothes into closets. I pulled out a special outfit I had bought for the next time I saw Nick, a teddy made of peach-colored gauze. Not my usual sleeping look, but sleeping wasn’t what I had in mind. I counted the days until he’d be back, even though I knew by heart that it was three and change. Only three.

I walked back to the kitchen to get a glass of water yelling, “Only three. Three, three, three, three, threeeee.” Oso trotted over to see what the heck was going on, and soon we were barking, singing, leaping, and shaking our groove thing along with Katrina and the Waves to “Walking on Sunshine.”

“Good evening,” a man’s voice called out. “Excuse me, miss?”

My party came to a screeching halt.

Standing in my kitchen was an overweight but not obese black man dressed in a brown uniform and looking like what I hoped Rashidi’s cousin’s uncle, the permitting inspector, would look like.

“I’m . . .” I fumbled for words.

He grinned. “I knock, but no answer, and I hear the barking and the singing, so I poke me head in. I hope that OK, miss. I from Permitting, and my name Charles.”

His uninvited entry was considered normal on the island, even if it’s rude bordering on criminal where I’m from. I’d been on St. Marcos long enough to be glad Charles wasn’t put out with me for not hearing his arrival. My Southern hospitality kicked in automatically.

“Oh, good evening and welcome, Mr. Charles,” I said. “I can’t believe you came out in this rain, but what a wonderful sight you are.”

Mr. Charles soon set about doing the things he needed to do in a most leisurely fashion and with several breaks, whether he needed them or not, for some cold ginger beer from my cooler. Good manners must have kept him from remarking on the scaffolding in the great room over the tan sofa and rattan coffee table. Hand-washed laundry hung upon the structure to dry, like flags on the tall mast of a sailing ship in a dead calm.

Mr. Charles presented me with a signed copy of the occupancy permit. It wasn’t clear whether he’d actually done anything except consume my ginger beer, but I had my permit. Rashidi had come through. That piece of paper entitled me to the honor of spending my first night alone in a large house with a capricious spirit, completely isolated high atop a hill in the midst of a dark rainforest filled with unusual noises.

I showed Mr. Charles out, poured myself a bowl of dry Life cereal, and sat at a barstool to eat. Why hadn’t I found a way to get the gate installed before I moved in? Regret coursed through me.

The sun had set and the rain had stopped, leaving a heavy stillness in the air. I wiped dampness from my upper lip. The urge to jump in my truck and rush back into civilization was overpowering. But if I did, there were no streetlights for the drive back up through the rainforest, and I would be returning to a gigantic and—hopefully—empty house. It was a good thing I didn’t have rum to go with my fancy crystal glasses, because I couldn’t have withstood the craving for a nerve tonic right about then.

I put my bowl in the sink and opened the pantry to put the cereal box away, and saw that Granddaddy Bushrat had returned to chew through a bag of Frito’s. He leaped from his perch on the pullout shelf past my left ear and onto the floor.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” I bellowed in a voice I did not recognize as my own.

I grabbed an extra-large can of Bush’s Baked Beans and hurled it at the thief, who was thankfully heading down the hall, otherwise my throw would have smashed the new cabinets. Instead, unbelievably, my wimpy girl-arm achieved a moment of athletic greatness and Señor Raton was muerto.

“Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh,” I whooped.

But “eeewwwwwwwwwww” was the next thing out of my mouth when I realized that someone was going to have to clean up the mess, and I was the only someone around. Gagging, I set to the task with an old spatula, a gallon of bleach, and tattered rags. Rain splattered on my head as I dumped all of it into the outside garbage can and almost included the contents of my stomach. Getting a couple of big cats was definitely at the top of the next day’s to-do list.

When I came back in, I stood beside Oso and looked around at my progress. I
was
the butt-kicking empress of the rainforest, and I had taken out a ferocious creature armed with nothing more than my wits and a can of beans. Who needs a big jumbie house, anyway? Bring it, rainforest.

And then my phone rang.

It was Nick.

“Hi, baby!” I said. “I survived it!”

“That’s great, I’m proud of you.” His voice sounded strained, even considering the cell connection in a rainstorm. “But we need to talk.”

The blood drained out of my face. Oh, no. That’s what my law school boyfriend had said just before he told me he’d met someone else. I started to pace around the kitchen. “What is it?”

“Derek—he found us, and he threatened to take Taylor.”

“Oh my God, no!” I said, giving myself a mental slap. I was a certified freak. My only problem with Nick was his family, not other women. The poor guy didn’t even know he was a victim of my issues, and I needed to keep it that way. I was a total therapy candidate.

“He’s a chicken shit. He ran off when I called the police.”

“Still, that’s scary.” My pacing had taken me to my bedroom, and I walked around the bed to the patio door then reversed course.

“Yeah, it is. Especially for Teresa, because she’s leaving. I promised her I’d find us a new place.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Us? But isn’t Taylor moving in with your parents?”

“He was, but Teresa begged me to keep him. I couldn’t say no.”

Really, how could he say no? He couldn’t. I knew that. Somewhere deep inside me I even knew I would have thought less of him if he had. But the ramifications of his yes jumped across the phone line and sucked all the oomph out of me.

“Of course,” I said. I lay down on my bed and stared up at the leaky ceiling.

“Let me buy a ticket for you to come here. I miss you,” Nick said.

“Oh, Nick.” My voice caught on his name. “I miss you, too.”

“Then come.”

If only it were that easy. I closed my eyes to keep the tears in. We hung up a few minutes later, both of us sad, with nothing resolved. For the next two days, Nick re-asked me to come to Dallas approximately once per hour, and I kept re-explaining why I couldn’t go. He didn’t understand the gravity of my situation at Annalise.

Early in the evening two days later, Rashidi knocked on my front door.

“Hey, this is a surprise,” I said. Normally, the twinkly-eyed, blue-jean- and t-shirt-clad sight of him was cheerful, but now, not so much. I was feeling down-in-the-dumpsy, alone down-in-the-dumpsy.

He raised his eyebrows. “I expect so. I come by to check on you, since you not returning my calls.”

I mentally crossed my fingers. “I’m sorry. Cell reception is bad up here today.”

“What’s this I hear from Ava that Not-Bart can’t come and you moping around?”

Ava really did have such a big mouth. I tried to hold back my tears and felt my face turn in on itself. “Oh, Rashidi,” I sighed.

He beckoned me outside with one finger and we went down the front steps to the spare carpet of new grass that sprang up after the storm. He patted the ground beside him. It was a lovely evening, if a little warm. In June temperatures over eighty-five are not unusual, although it rarely rose above ninety or dipped below seventy-five. I stripped some leaves from a dangling branch of the flamboyant tree as I passed it, then collapsed beside Rashidi cross-legged, my full pink knit sundress pooling over my legs.

“So why you upset?” he asked.

I tossed my handful of leaves into the air. The ever-present wind caught them and carried them across the yard and down the hill, where I imagined them disappearing in the nearly impenetrable tan-tan bushes interwoven with yellow blossoms of Ginger Thomas. The seedpods on the tan-tan rattled and I pictured the tiny leaves gently bumping the pods and releasing their music. Wind chimes. A melancholy sound.

“Because Nick’s not coming. He’s going to have Taylor for another six months. At least. And I can’t leave Annalise.”

Rashidi looked at me through narrowed eyes for a moment. “You love Not-Bart and you tryin’ to convince me you can’t go because of a house? That crazy. You not worried because you hear the old owner out of prison, are you?”

“What? No, I hadn’t even heard that. He’s out?”

“Well, he out of jail, but he under the ground, six feet under, so it not a problem.” Rashidi grinned. “Ain’t no problems up here bad enough to hold you, the way I see it. I stay up here and keep an eye on things.” He waved his hand over his head. “What the worst can happen? Someone don’t do he job? Pumpy come steal more tile? I bring women in the house and romance them up? None of that gonna kill you.”

Jeez, I hate it when logic gets in the way of a good snit. “Even if I do go, the baby will be there.” I knew I sounded peevish, and I looked up into the sky dotted with fast-moving white clouds, wishing they’d disappear into the wild blue. Was I this person? Was I?

Rashidi laughed. “Wah, that child got some dread disease, something contagious what gonna kill you?” He slapped his knee and laughed at himself. My palm itched. He needed a smack. Or maybe I did.

“I don’t know the first thing about toddlers,” I confessed. “They terrify me.” I wondered how my mother had done it and why I wasn’t more like her.

“Ain’t nothing to know. Most everybody figure it out when the time comes they have to. I expect you be the same.” He laced his hands behind his head and leaned back on the thin grass with his eyes closed.

I bit my pinky nail to the quick, then attacked another finger. After mauling that fingernail and three others, the logjam inside me broke.

“Well, crap. What are we doing talking? I’ve gotta go pack.”

Rashidi met my eyes. A ghost of a smile swept across his face, then disappeared. I raised one eyebrow, and he nodded, three times, slowly. “And I got to find a woman.”

It seemed someone had accepted the inevitability of Ava being Ava.

I ran to get my suitcase.

I stood in line at the ticket counter the next day waiting for my turn. When I reached the counter, the former Mrs. St. Marcos glared down at me, tall and scary in her tight navy-blue uniform. By night, pageant diva. By day, fearsome guardian of American Airlines’ gates.

“So, Katie Connell,” which she pronounced Con-NELL, “it hot and the line long. State your business.”

“Good afternoon, Jackie,” I said, and bowed my head forward with a brown nose. “I want to purchase a ticket to Dallas.”

“You know you can do that on the computer. Or even the phone if you old school.”

“Yes, but I want to go right now. Today. This saves a step.”

Her eyes rolled.

Here it comes, I thought.

Jackie let out a loud, five-second-long chuptz. I couldn’t generate half the spit on a day’s notice that Jackie just had instantaneously. Impressive.

She held out her hand. I stared at it.

“Passport, credit card.”

“Right.” I dug, found them, and slapped them into her hand.

My phone rang and Jackie withered me with a glare. I admired how seriously she took her job. Really, she wasn’t better suited to any role I could think of, except maybe warden of a women’s prison. I looked at my phone.

It was Nick. I picked it up.

“Hi, beautiful,” he said. “What are you up to?”

“Hi, baby.” Had he guessed I was coming? I hadn’t told him. “Nothing much. You?”

“I need a ride.”

Prickles raced up the back of my neck. Nick could be anywhere in the world, but all of a sudden, I didn’t think so.

“Hold on.” I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “I changed my mind,” I said to Jackie.

I’d just
thought
her earlier chuptz was impressive.

“You for real?” she asked.

“Sorry. Plans changed.” I held out my hand for my documents.

“Like I got nothing better to do. Get on with you, then. Tell people dem you sorry and move on out the way.”

“Thank you.” I turned obediently, gave a little wave, and mouthed the word “Sorry” at the line of people. To a man, woman, and child, they ignored me.

I took my hand off the mouthpiece. “Where are you?” I asked.

I pushed my way through the crowd. A phalanx of big, meaty men was blocking the way between me and the entry gate. Every eye in the ticket area joined mine as we swiveled our heads to catch a glimpse of whoever it was that merited this much muscle.

“Three guesses,” Nick said.

I was scared to jinx it. “The grocery store?”

A hollow-cheeked man was strutting behind the behemoths. Aviator shades covered his eyes and his expensively layered black hair hung in strings past his shoulders. Somehow he looked handsome, even as malnourished as he was. His clothes suggested that he’d come straight to the plane from whatever club he had graced with his presence the night before: self-consciously frayed jeans and an untucked shiny gray long-sleeved shirt rolled up at the cuffs and unbuttoned halfway up and halfway down.

“Slither,” a teenage girl behind me breathed.

I looked closer. She was right. The singer made it to the curb, where an Escalade with tinted windows was waiting. The passenger’s side front door opened and a tall blonde got out, her bones straining against the confines of her spandex dress. She opened the back door and got back in. A face I knew leaned toward the open front door from the driver’s side.

Trevor. Of course. Ava had said Trevor produced for Slither. The musician slunk into the passenger seat and closed the door.

Nick said, “Wrong. Next guess.”

“Your office.”

Excitement over, the walkway cleared. If Nick was here, he was sure to be through the gate already. I trotted toward baggage claim with my rolling suitcase trailing behind me and my carry-on bouncing back and forth against my hip. My back was sweating under my laptop backpack. I tucked my pocketbook under my arm and clutched my iPhone in one hand. I weaved through the surprisingly large throng, wondering who they were and whether they were aware it was hurricane season. I looked around for Nick and couldn’t find him. My skin was tingling. My body knew he was there.

“Wrong again,” Nick said, but his voice was in stereo. His warm hand touched my shoulder and I smiled. When I turned around, I nearly combusted at the sight of him.

I tried to rein it in. I was no Meg Ryan, and this wasn’t Katz’s Deli. I threw my arms around his neck and leaned my head back. My eyes loved this face, the sharp cheekbones, the sparkling brown eyes, the crooked nose. I pushed my nose into his chest just to get closer to his smell, a musky-woodsy scent uniquely his.

“You’re here,” I said. “You’re really here.”

“I really am.”

We beamed, unable to tear our eyes off each other. Until a certain small person interrupted us.