Shattered (33 page)

Nonsense words.

Carol lifted a shaking hand to Kelly's face, smoothing back the tangled hair, greedily examining the adored familiar face with all its ravages, the face she had feared she would never see again, Kelly's face. “Kelly,” she whispered, searching those eyes in love and fear, hoping and daring not to hope that, having found Kelly alive, she might also find her sane and sound. “Kelly, it's Mama. I'm here. Baby, talk to me.”

She said, quite clearly, “I'm not Kelly. My name is Tanya. Kelly is dead.”

Carol's heart stopped.

For those few intense moments since she had flung herself against Kelly, the world had ceased its forward motion. This cold and ugly tower with its terrifying stains on the floor, the chains on their wrists and the madman who had put them there—all of it had faded beneath the joy of finding her daughter again. But now it all came tumbling back.

Carol twisted around to look at Carlton. He was smiling. “Tanya and Kelly were companions, you know, for almost a year,” he explained. “They became quite close, which worked out well for all of us. The girls had someone to keep them company, I had someone to use to keep the other one in line when it was necessary. I wanted a matched set, and they were perfect—until, of course....” And his face darkened with the memory. “Well, you know what happened. Kelly took it quite badly, I'm afraid. Sometimes she becomes a little deranged on the subject, pretending to be Tanya, as though that might bring her back or some such nonsense.” He shrugged. “I really don't mind. We all have our little games, don't we, lover?”

He bent as though to reach for Kelly and Carol flung herself between them, drawing Kelly's face against her shoulder and holding her tightly. “Get away from her, you bastard!”

Ken Carlton laughed. “Like mother, like daughter. Looks as though I have my matched set after all. Too bad it can't last.”

Carol ignored him, stroking her daughter's hair. “Kelly, honey, it's okay, don't be afraid. I'm here, I'll take care of you now.”

And this time when she held Kelly's face, and looked into her eyes, she saw confusion there, and uncertainty. Kelly said in a small voice, “Mama?”

Hot tears scalded Carol's eyes, tightened her chest. “Yes!”

She clasped Kelly to her, and in a moment Kelly's arms went hesitantly, slowly around Carol's neck. Carol sobbed with joy, and the tentative embrace tightened, became more certain.

“Don't cry, Mama,” Kelly said. Her voice was husky and tremulous. “It wasn't so bad.”

But then Carol couldn't stop crying. She held her daughter and she felt those small strong arms tighten around her, and tears soaked her face and choked off her breath and once again the world stopped. She was holding her daughter, and the moment was complete unto itself.

Ken's hand came down hard on her shoulder, pulling her away. “All right, that's enough. The storm's passing and we've got to get moving.”

Kelly clutched at Carol when Ken tried to pull her to her feet, and Carol grasped her hand. “Ken, listen to me,” she said, gasping on the last of her tears, “this isn't going to work. You know it isn't. My husband and my partner both know I'm with you. Walt Marshall saw me leave with you! They know we wouldn't stay out in the storm. They probably have the Coast Guard looking for us now. You're not going to get away with this one, Ken. In your heart you know that. I don't care what you've done in the past, it's over now. Just let us go. There's no point in going further.”

Ken just smiled. “You still don't get it, do you? The beauty of being me is that I can get away with anything. I have a passport, I have a boat, I have bank accounts in ports all around the world. Do you think I'm afraid of your husband or the Coast Guard or the police? I'll be out of their jurisdiction long before they find your body, and you'd be surprised how many countries do not have extradition treaties with the U.S.”

He walked across the room and picked up his tool pouch, bringing it back to where they huddled together. He leaned down again, but this time it was not to reach for Kelly. He took Carol's chin in his hand and tilted her face upward toward his. He said, in a soft and pleasant tone, “Have you figured it out yet, Carol? Why it was so important for me to bring you here? I'm going to kill you, yes, but only because I have to. Perhaps it will comfort you to know that you will be a better mother to Kelly in death than you ever were in life. You will teach her her finest lesson, as she watches you die.”

He unzipped the pouch and reached inside, bringing out another pewter necklace on a leather thong. He dropped it over Carol's head.

Carol's right hand was handcuffed and held tightly by Kelly's. Her left arm, as desperately as she tried to lift it, would move only a few inches. She couldn't have wrenched away from Ken, even if she had known what he was about to do, and she didn't.

He took hold of her blouse with both hands and ripped it open. Kelly screamed. Carol was too shocked to make a sound.

Carlton said, in a tone that was most polite, “You belong to me now, and clothes are not allowed unless I say so. I don't say so.”

He reached for her again, hands pulling roughly at her bra, and suddenly the small, breathless sounds Kelly had been making at her mother's side became a roar. The roar was a word and it reverberated throughout the enclosure: “NOOO!”

She lunged to her feet, swinging upward with her chained hand. Carol was flung backward but carried by the momentum, both emotional and physical, and she scrambled to her feet as the chain tightened between them. Startled, Ken stepped back. The tool pouch fell and scattered its contents at their feet. In a single motion, Carol and Kelly swung forward. Ken threw up his hands to stop them but too late. The chain caught him across the throat and the three of them tumbled to the floor in a heap.

Ken was stunned, groaning and gasping for breath, as Carol and Kelly scrambled quickly away from him. Carol gasped, “Kelly! Hurry, baby, we've got to—”

But Kelly was scrambling on the ground for something and she didn't turn when Carol cried out. Carol was on one side of Ken; the three-foot chain stretched across him to Kelly. Any moment now he would regain enough consciousness to grab that chain and bring them both down. Carol screamed, “Kelly!” and pulled on the chain.

Kelly spun around on her knees. She had the awl in both hands.

Carol cried, “Kelly, no!”

Kelly raised the awl in the air above Carlton's throat. Her eyes were fastened on the soft tissue below that was her goal. She said breathlessly, “I'm going to kill him. I have to kill him. You know I do, so he won't hurt anyone else. You know I have to, Mama, I have to!”

Carol knew that if she jerked on the chain Kelly would drop the awl. She would drop the awl, but she might not move fast enough and Ken would have them both. Awareness was beginning to congeal in his eyes. Kelly was the only defense they had, and even that might not be enough.

Ken's eyes moved from the ice-pick-sharp tool poised just inches above his throat to the eyes of the girl who held it. Carol saw him swallow. Carol dared not speak, or even breathe. Her eyes were riveted on Kelly.

Kelly's knuckles were white on the handle of the awl. The set to her jaw was sharp and square, like her father's. Her eyes were enormous and dark and on fire, but it was a cold fire, the fire of a long dark dream finally brought to life, the fire of justice served, of grim and desperate certainty. Carol thought she had known heartbreak. But until she saw that look in her daughter's eyes, she had not begun to understand what heartbreak was.

Carlton met that look in Kelly's eyes without fear. He said quietly, “You're not going to hurt me, precious. Put it down.”

Kelly's hands tightened on the handle of the awl. “I'm going to kill you,” she said, with equal quietness, equal certainty.

“No, you won't. You need me. You depend on me. You can't hurt me.”

For a moment, Kelly seemed to falter. Carol thought desperately, No, Kelly, don't, but she did not know whether she meant
don't kill him
or
don't back away
.

And in the next moment it didn't matter because Kelly arched her back and raised the awl for its downward plunge before Carol could react, before she could stop her, even if she had wanted to, had intended to.

“Kelly!”

The voice was male, and it came from behind them, and it was as dear to Carol as her own life. She knew it, her breath caught in her chest for the love of it, but she dared not take her eyes off Kelly. Kelly stopped her motion in midair, a confused hesitation crossing her face.

Carlton saw his chance and tensed to take it, but the next sound from the doorway was equally as identifiable, though less familiar. It was the sound of a round being loaded into a chamber, ready to fire. The low rough drawl commanded, “Freeze, you son of a bitch.” John Case's footsteps, slow and measured, approached.

Sweat began to bead on Ken Carlton's upper lip. His eyes were locked on Kelly's. Kelly's eyes were locked on his. The muscles in her small arms trembled with the effort to hold the deadly weapon steady—or perhaps to prevent herself from driving it home.

Behind her, Guy's voice said, “It's okay, honey. Daddy's here. I'll take care of you now.”

Kelly dropped her head, and then her arms. A sob broke from her throat.

In two swift steps, Guy was upon them, sweeping them both out of the path of danger and into his arms.

~

Epilogue

They wore cable knit sweaters and jeans, for although the sun was bright, the late November wind had a bite to it as it swept across the deck of the big gothic gray house on the beach. Faraway someone tossed a stick for a black dog and watched it trudge into the breaking surf to retrieve it; closer in, a man and a woman tossed a Frisbee against the wind, laughing and chasing when it went awry. Other than that, the beach was deserted.

“This is my favorite time of year,” Carol said, cupping her hands around a mug of hot brandied coffee and smiling at the antics of the Frisbee players.

“Thanksgiving is just around the corner,” Laura said.

“You're invited. We're having turkey.”

“Thanks.” She swung one foot onto the cedar picnic table and sipped her own coffee. “I'm going to New York for Christmas,” she announced.

Carol stared at her, and Laura looked embarrassed.

“Winston has a buying trip,” she explained. “And I thought—Rockefeller Center, Saks Fifth Avenue, all expenses paid—why not? Could be kind of—I don't know, romantic.”

Carol smiled. “Good for you. Bring him for Thanksgiving. And don't worry about the office. I'm closing the whole place down for the holidays.”

Laura chuckled, and then let the amusement fade into a smile of quiet contentment. Her eyes, too, went to the Frisbee players on the beach.

After a time she said, “She looks so good, Carol. Sometimes it's eerie. Almost as though she'd never been away.”

Carol nodded. “For us, too. Sometimes she forgets, you know. She wakes up in the morning and she's fourteen years old again and none of it ever happened and, God, I want to keep it that way. But I know I can't.”

“What do her doctors say?”

Carol smiled. “She's doing good. Better than they expected. She'll make a full recovery.” And now a quiet determination came into her voice. “I know she will.”

Laura reached across the space between their chairs and squeezed her hand. “I know she will, too.”

Another moment passed in sun and wind and comfortable silence. Then Laura said, “Is it true Carlton is pleading insanity?”

Carol nodded. “He'll get life in a mental hospital. I don't know whether to be furious or relieved. It spares Kelly, but...”

She didn't finish. She kept thinking about that moment when Kelly held the awl above Carlton's throat, when Carol could have stopped her but she hadn't. These days, however, she thought about it with less and less guilt.

Laura said nothing, and didn't have to. Carol knew her friend understood what she had left unsaid.

“There are parts of it,” Carol said in a moment, “that the doctors don't think Kelly will ever remember. I'm glad.”

Laura agreed quietly, “Me, too.” Then, “Will she be able to start school next year?”

“We're bringing in a tutor after the holidays and we think she'll be ready for classes by next fall. She'll probably only be a year behind. She's so bright, Laura. And she picked up her music right where she left off.” Carol gave a throaty chuckle. “I never thought I'd be glad to hear that CD player going again. And you should see the sound system Guy’s getting her for Christmas. Never mind, you don't have to see it; you'll hear it. No matter where you are on the island, you'll hear it.”

Laura chuckled. “I consider myself forewarned.”

Carol's smile was wistful as she looked down the beach. “Sometimes,” she said, “it’s almost as though we turned back time.”

Laura looked at her across the brim of her coffee cup. “If anyone deserves to do that,” she said, “you three do.”

Carol smiled gratefully, and they were silent for a time, watching the beach.

The Laura asked, “So how are you doing? Are you going to be up for cooking a turkey?”

Carol had spent most of the summer recovering from surgery for a pinched nerve in her back, and she winced at the memory. “You better believe it. I might not be able to lift it out of the oven,” she admitted, “but that's what husbands are for.”