Storm Surge (22 page)

Clinging to a sense of security she recognized as altogether false, Paige left the Timeless Inn and hobbled across the street, intending to continue up to the huge double doors with a request to speak with the gardener or groundskeeper in order to show him the photo of her father. With any luck, the man wouldn’t be as clueless as she in terms of family ties and could tell her straightaway if any kinship existed. Even if he knew nothing about her parents, he would be family. Maybe that alone would be enough to make her feel a little less dispirited.

As she reached the property, she saw that the landscape wasn’t quite as well maintained as it had appeared from her room at the bed and breakfast. Despite the vivid shining of the sun, a huge portion of the grounds remained shadowed and overgrown. Paige hesitated on the sidewalk, pacing back and forth in front of the long walkway leading up to the home. The perfect spot for an ambush. Less than a week ago, such a frightening thought would never have occurred to her.

After a moment, she pulled out her phone and sent Liam a text, telling him she’d possibly found someone related to her father, and if he had the chance at some point, she’d appreciate the bolstering adjunct of a little company in tracking the man down. A few seconds later, she received a reply.

I know you. You’ve left the B&B. Get back there until you hear differently.

His written tone left something to be desired, but she appreciated the sentiment. Turning her back on the overgrown estate, she stepped off the curb to return to the Timeless. Movement in her peripheral vision jerked her back around.

Nothing but a squirrel in a tree, attracted, no doubt, by the huge nut standing in the road. As she took another step, she again caught sight of movement. This time, however, she spotted someone in furtive retreat. “Hello?”

Through the swaying of rhododendron blossoms from forced passage through the bushes, she finally glimpsed a battered green hat. “Look, I only wanted to talk to you.” The man stopped, nearly invisible in the greenery, but didn’t speak. Paige shifted her weight from foot to foot in indecision. After a moment, she backed away.

No. She wasn’t some ingénue in a cheap horror movie making bad decisions left and right. Whoever this guy was, she had no desire to go in after him. She’d wait for Liam and they’d tackle him together. Frankly, she was getting a little tired of the eccentric behavior of the people she’d met in this town. They all couldn’t have been so peculiar when she lived here. Of course, she’d only interacted with a few residents since her return. The fates had not favored making this easy for her.

Paige returned to the inn and climbed the stairs slowly to her room. At the door, she examined the knob to make certain the single hair remained in place before turning the key and going inside. On a hunch, she walked straight to the window and peeled back the curtains a couple of inches in order to see the yard across the street once more.

Nothing.

She let the curtain fall back into place. Returning to the bed, she gathered the photos she’d left spread across the coverlet and put them back in the box. Her phone rang. She answered without looking.

“Liam, I’m back in the room safe and sound—”

“I’m sorry, not anyone named Liam. Hope you’re not too disappointed. This is Felicia Woodward. Paige?”

“Yes! God, I’m an idiot.” Paige sat on the floor beside the carton of photos, leaning her spine against the mattress. “Thank you for calling me back.”

“Not a problem. You’ve got a hoot of an accent. Billy warned me about that. I love it.”

Paige closed her eyes. The woman’s voice—no longer the stilted message on her voicemail, but her actual voice, filled with nuance and energy—came rushing at her through the years. Somewhere back in the days of early childhood, she had known this woman and liked her very much.

* * * *

“I’ve got tonic—‘pop’ I guess you’d call it down South?”

Paige smiled. “I still call it soda.”

A head taller than Paige with short salt-and-pepper hair, Felicia Woodward bent for another look in the refrigerator. “Wine? Too early, I guess. Water. Milk.” The woman wrinkled her nose, sticking her tongue out between her teeth. “That belongs to Billy. He likes it. It’s probably out of date.” She opened the container and sniffed. Her face contorted. She hurried with a comical leap to the sink and dumped the white liquid down the drain, then filled the plastic bottle with water to soak. “Or I could make us some coffee. How’s that sound?”

“Perfect. I’d love one. Do you need any help?”

Felicia shook her head. “You just stay right there.” She pulled a can of coffee out of the closet.

Paige stood instead and crossed the floor to look out the window of the country-style kitchen. The stone circle was visible through the trees, silicate particulates winking in the afternoon sunshine. “They look quite beautiful from here.”

Felicia glanced through the glass and returned to the preparation of the coffee maker. “Quite a marvel, they are. Some people don’t like them. Believe they’re evil or a sign of devil worship or some such nonsense. I don’t think anyone’s really figured out how they came to be there. One might suppose the native peoples set them into place, though I don’t know if that would have been something they’d do. But the stones aren’t evil. They’re magic.”

Paige shivered involuntarily. “Magic? How so?”

Felicia favored her with a long, speculative look. “Sometimes you can feel something when you’re standing within the circle that you can’t feel anywhere else, as if your connection to the earth is stronger. Of course, that might just be my former Wiccan phase cropping back up. You had the chance to visit them yet?”

“I have. I don’t know about feeling anything special, but I did see something there.”

“You’ve seen the shadow, then.”

Paige turned her back on the window, folding her arms across her chest. “You and Liam, you speak so matter-of-factly about ghosts, as if they’re nothing out of the ordinary.”

Felicia pushed the button to start the coffee brewing. “I don’t know that the shadow is a ghost. I’m not really sure what it is. But ghosts are ordinary. They’re everywhere. Just not everyone can see or sense them.”

“I never saw them before, but now I’ve come home, I’m getting quite the education on what exists among us.” Including psychos, she almost added, but maintained silence on that matter. At least for now. Depending on her comfort level, Paige decided she might bring the subject up later, if only to bounce the situation off someone who wasn’t directly affected.

“Who’s Liam?”

Paige smiled at the change of subject. “Liam Gray. He…he lives in the house I grew up in. Bought it off my dad.”

Eyes flickering with an emotion Paige couldn’t decipher, Felicia reached into the cabinet to grab two mugs. “Grab the sugar bowl, will you? It’s on the other side of the stove.”

Paige retrieved and delivered the lidded bowl to Felicia.

“I’m sorry about your dad. And your mom. Deb wrote to me when she first got sick, did you know that?”

“No,” said Paige, “I didn’t.”

“We hadn’t communicated in quite a few years, but we started writing regularly after that, and calling. Old-fashioned things, letters are, but holding a letter in your grasp, putting it away somewhere to pull out again later and re-read beats an e-mail hands down. It’s like having a piece of the person with you.”

Paige plucked at a stray hair lying on her sleeve. “You kept them? My mother’s letters?”

“I certainly did. In a shoebox. Like when we were kids.”

Paige drew an agonized breath. She hadn’t found any box of letters from Felicia when she’d gone through her mother’s possessions and wondered what had happened to them. As if reading her mind or her expression, Felicia smiled at her with a nod.

“I’ve got the ones I wrote to your mother in the same box. She sent them all back to me just before she died.”

A constricted exhalation shuddered out of her lungs. Oh, God, she was going to break down right here in front of her mother’s oldest friend. Paige turned away so Felicia wouldn’t see the tears coming faster than she could blink them away.

“Cream and sugar?” Felicia asked in a way that indicated to Paige she’d seen her tears but wouldn’t fuss about it. They were going to have coffee, and that would be that. Even so, Paige’s breath throbbed in her chest, as if she couldn’t quite draw in enough oxygen.

“Here. Come sit down. I’d offer cookies but that son of mine ate every last one before I left. Potato chips might be a good substitute.”

“Where are they?” Paige volunteered in haste. “I’ll get them.” Following the jerk of Felicia’s chin toward the pantry, Paige whipped out the bag and removed the clip from the top, then set the open bag between them on the table as she sat.

“You all right now?”

“I’m all right.”

“Good.”

For a full five minutes, they sipped their coffee and munched on rippled chips without speaking. The kitchen became silent enough to hear the wall clock’s battery-driven motor in between chewing and the rustle of the coated bag.

“So,” said Felicia at length, “this Liam, is he someone your mother would approve of?”

Paige’s cheeks heated. She’d hoped she hadn’t given herself away. “I think Mom would approve of anyone who wasn’t Dad.”

Felicia lowered her mug to the table. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“Okay, not anyone,” Paige backtracked, “but you know what I mean.”

“Your mom only ever wanted the best for you, to keep you safe.”

Paige stopped with her hand mid-way to the open potato chip bag. “Keep me safe? She was the one who needed protection. Dad never went after me the way he did her.”

Felicia lifted the mug again, taking a long, noisy slurp of tea. “It might be time to unlearn what you’ve collected in that head of yours over the years.”

Sitting up, Paige pulled her hand back to her lap. “What do you mean? This is why I’m here, you know, to see what you might be able to tell me.”

“I figured as much. But let’s talk about Liam first. You like him, do you?”

Paige nodded mutely.

“How long have you known him?”

“We met…we met the night I got here.” Goodness, how ridiculous. How could a person develop an attachment to another that quickly? Lightning fast connections didn’t have a good track record. Not for her anyway. But then again, she hadn’t known any other kind but the swift physical interactions, which she’d experienced in plenty. It was the affection, the emotion, unnerving her.

“Don’t worry,” Felicia said with a smile, “I’m not judging. Love works in mysterious ways, or so the saying goes.”

“I didn’t say anything about love.”

“Right. You didn’t. And your face?” Felicia indicated the bruises with a nod.

Paige darted her gaze to the mug, to the cartoon on the side depicting a man in a hospital gown and the words
get well soon
. “Not Liam.” She yanked the mug off the tabletop, the tea sloshing around inside, and drank.

Felicia tipped her head to the floor near Paige’s feet. “What’s in the box?”

“Photos. I haven’t looked at them all yet, but they’re mostly of me. Some have other people in them, with or without my face, and I don’t know all of them. I thought if you wouldn’t mind going through some…?”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind going through them. I’m honored.”

“Not all the photos are old. Some are relatively recent. Liam found the box in the attic, which makes me think Dad had them. I just can’t figure out how he got them. They don’t look like the fodder of a private investigator.”

Felicia’s expression remained a study in neutrality. After a moment, she got out of her chair, lifted the box from the floor, and set the container on the table between them. She flipped the lid back. “I know how he got them, Paige. I gave them to him.”

They had moved into the living room, box and all. Paige couldn’t remember how they got there. They hadn’t said anything, but had gotten up as one accord and gone to a place where they could settle in. This conversation wouldn’t be a short one once it began. Paige sat on the sofa’s far end, staring out the window, not quite ready or willing to start the exchange. The sky had gotten darker. She supposed the rain was finally coming.

“Paige, it was your mother who asked that I give the photographs to your father.”

Paige believed Felicia when the woman spoke those words. She couldn’t imagine, however, why they might be true.

“At first, it was one or two here or there, but then she started sending them on a regular basis, passing them through me because…because it was safe to do so. Before she died, she sent a huge envelope. The newer ones she didn’t mark with any caption in order not to reveal your location.”

Paige lifted her hands and rubbed her eyelids with the curve of each palm. “What was she trying to do? Make him feel guilty?”

Felicia’s prolonged silence drew Paige’s gaze. She dropped her hands back down to her lap. Felicia’s brow had furrowed and her mouth was turned down. She looked exasperated and perhaps a little angry. Paige clasped her fingers into a knot to keep them still.

Despite her expression, when Felicia spoke again she sounded calm. “How much do you remember about those months before you left?”

“I remember Mom’s eye blackened. I remember the blood running from her mouth,” Paige said.

“Not the night you left. Your daily life leading up to that moment.”

“What do you know about that night?” Paige demanded.

“Think, Paige. It’s important.”

“I remember it wasn’t the only time. I remember seeing Mom apply makeup to her face to cover marks. I was told recently the police had been called to the house, but Mom wouldn’t follow through and told them everything was fine.”

Felicia reached for the mug she’d carried in with her and lifted it, taking a mouthful, swallowing carefully. “Those incidents stand out because they were traumatic. What else do you recall?”

Paige leaned forward, elbows grinding into her legs a couple of inches above her knees. “What are you digging for? What is it you want me to say? That was all a long time ago. Why would I want to remember anything about that?”