Summer Shadows (6 page)

“I didn’t loom,” he muttered. “I never loom.” His father loomed.

“You loomed.”

“Ah, Mrs. Patterson.” Barnes called her back to the issue at hand.

“What happened that I don’t remember?” Abby asked, dark eyes wide. “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I? Tell me I didn’t hurt anyone!” Her voice shook as she gripped Marsh’s hand so hard it hurt, like it was a lifeline to save her from drowning.

“Easy, Mrs. Patterson.” The policeman held up his hand to stop her jumping to conclusions. “You didn’t hurt anyone.”

Her shoulders slumped in relief and Marsh thought he heard her mutter, “Thank You, Lord.”

“Do you remember stopping at the traffic light at Thirty-fourth and Central?” Barnes asked.

Abby stared at her lap, eyes narrowed in fierce concentration. Her free hand moved in little circles, like she was telling herself to hurry up and get with it. With a look of frustration, she shook her head. “Nothing.”

“You were at the light when the ambulance crew arrived.”

“Ambulance? But I’m not hurt, am I?”

Marsh, the nurse, and the policeman all shook their heads.

“So who is?” Abby rubbed her hand down her leg and winced.

“What?” Marsh asked.

“Easy,” said the nurse.

“I am hurt.” Abby opened her hand and looked in disbelief at the four red slashes traversing the center of her palm. Marsh turned the hand he held over. There were four slashes across that palm also. Slowly she closed her hands, and Marsh watched in fascination as her fingernails matched up with the slashes.

“I did this to myself?” Abby stared in disbelief.

“You were clutching your steering wheel so tightly the police had to pry your hands loose,” Barnes said.

She was shocked. “But why?” she whispered.

Barnes looked at Marsh. It was obvious he didn’t want to
answer her question. Marsh moved a little closer to Abby, like he could protect her from the unpleasant news, whatever it was.

“You were the eyewitness to a hit-and-run, Mrs. Patterson.”

“What?” Her voice was stark, more a breath than a word. Marsh wouldn’t have thought it possible, given her pallor, but she paled even more. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Who was hit?” Marsh asked when it became obvious that Abby’s emotions rendered her speechless.

“A little girl named Karlee Fitzmeyer.”

“A little girl?” Abby cried. “Oh, dear God, please, no!”

Marsh started at the unexpected and terrible anguish in Abby’s voice. Certainly he expected distress but not at this emotional level. The nurse and Barnes looked at her in surprise too.

“She’s going to be all right,” Barnes hurried to say. “The car swerved and almost missed her. It was more like it sideswiped her, sort of tossing her out of its path. When she fell, she broke her arm. Besides brush burns, that’s about it.”

It was obvious Abby hadn’t heard any of the policeman’s explanation. She dropped her face to her hands and shuddered. “Maddie! Oh, Maddie, baby!” There was a keening sound of such deep pain to her near whisper that the hair rose on Marsh’s arms.

“Who’s Maddie?” Barnes asked Marsh.

“I don’t know. I only met Abby today.”

“Mrs. Patterson.” Barnes’s voice was loud, firm. “Mrs. Patterson, Karlee will be fine. And that’s Karlee, not Maddie.”

Abby continued to sob.

Marsh and Greg Barnes looked at each other, at a loss about what to do.

“Maybe she knows Karlee?” suggested the nurse.

“But she just moved here,” Marsh said.

“Do you know Karlee Fitzmeyer?” Barnes asked.

Abby didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, but she did manage to shake her head no. Marsh watched her weep and ached for her.

“Abby?” He slid an arm around her shoulders. He could feel her trembling. She turned into him, grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, and hung on. “Shh.” He stroked her back. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Did she die?” Abby asked in a cracked voice, her face still buried in Marsh’s chest. “Is she dead? How old was she?”

“She’s got a broken arm and brush burns,” Barnes repeated,
his voice soothing. “That’s all. Her life isn’t in danger. She’s very fortunate.”

“Thank You, God,” Abby muttered, her voice quivering with emotion. Slowly her trembling eased, then stopped, and her breathing returned to a normal cadence, though she remained with her cheek resting on Marsh’s chest. “Thank You, thank You, thank You. Not Maddie.”

“Who’s Maddie, Mrs. Patterson?” Barnes asked.

“My daughter,” Abby whispered. “She’s dead.”

Marsh felt another great shudder pass through her and wrapped both arms about her. How did you offer comfort for what was obviously such an immense hurt?

“Hit-and-run?” asked Barnes.

“A man trying to dial a cell phone ran a stop sign.”

“Were you driving?” The policeman’s voice was gentle.

Abby pulled away from Marsh and shook her head. “My husband. He’s dead too.”

Marsh flinched.

“How long ago?” Barnes asked.

“Three years last month. May 12.”

“How old was your daughter?” Barnes’s eyes were kind.

“Two.”

For several minutes no one spoke. Marsh found himself staring at Abby’s bent head, wondering how so fragile a person could survive such pain.

“It’s important that I remember so that you can catch the driver who hit that little girl, that Karlee, isn’t it?” Abby asked in a tired voice.

Barnes nodded. “It would be a great help. We’ll pursue other avenues of investigation, of course, but there’s nothing like an eyewitness account.”

The ravaged face Abby lifted to Greg Barnes tore at Marsh’s heart.

“But what if I never remember?”

W
HERE HAD SHE
come from, that little girl? He had turned the corner like he’d turned millions of corners, and there she was, right in the middle of the road. What in the world was she doing there?

He could feel himself still shaking as he remembered. Adrenaline surge. It was a wonder the steering wheel wasn’t vibrating in his hands. Instead he forced himself to focus, to keep himself centered.

Concentrate!

Drive!

Get away! Get away! Get away! Fast!

He ground his teeth, torn as he was between fury and relief. He was furious with that little pink girl for the trouble she was causing him. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for him personally. So much was at stake. On the other hand, he was relieved because he didn’t think he’d hurt her badly.

He had swerved to avoid her and almost succeeded. When he glanced back in his rearview mirror, he saw her somersault through the air, but she hadn’t gone far or high. She’d be all right in the long run.

You hope
.

“She’ll be fine!” he shouted at his conscience.

Which was more than he could say for his car. In the process of saving her bothersome little life, he’d
smashed the car’s right side to a pulp scraping along the vehicles parked against the curb. The screaming whine of metal scraping metal raised goose bumps, even in memory.

He knew the right front fender was pressing against the tire. It pulled as he drove, forcing him to wrestle with the wheel. But he could still drive.

He had raced around the block, over the bridge, off the island, and away from the scene as fast as he could drive.

No one knows
, he assured his jangled nerves.
There’s no way anyone’ll ever know
.

He took big breaths, trying to slow his breathing before he began to hyperventilate. He inhaled slowly to the count of fifteen, pulling the air deep into his diaphragm. He held the breath for fifteen, then exhaled over the same count. By the third time, he was dizzier than ever, gasping for oxygen.

Where was a paper bag when you needed one?

As he tried to calm himself, his mind raced with one big question: What should he do now? He couldn’t go back and admit guilt. Even the thought made him nauseous. He swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat.

If I went back, I’d always be the one who hit and ran
. He shuddered at the loss of face such a situation would mean.
No, I won’t do that to myself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my bootstrap pulling, it’s never admit you’re wrong
.

He thought of Johnny McCoy. He’d laugh himself silly before spitting a chaw of tobacco. “You’re no better than me, hotshot” he’d say when he could catch a breath. “Under them fancy suits and that fancy-dancy car and that superior education you got yourself, you’re still a no-good Piney. Always was and always will be, no matter how you try to forget. You can’t rewrite where you come from.”

Yeah, well, he wasn’t willing to let family heritage control his destiny. The very thought chilled him all the way to the marrow, even in the heat of this sunny June day. There was no way on God’s green earth he was going to be like Pop, sleeping away his life, letting Mom earn what little money they had. On days he was feeling kind, he wondered if Pop had narcolepsy, he slept so much. On the 364 other days of the year, he hated Pop.

Forget Pop. Forget McCoy. What are you going to do?

He ran his hand over the steering wheel and fondled the tan leather seats. He loved this car; he really did. It was absolutely gorgeous and handled like a dream. Some psychiatrist could probably have a field day with his affection for a piece of metal and machinery, but it was a symbol of how far he’d come.

He sighed. It had to go, of course. It was too damaged in too telltale a manner. He hadn’t come this far to throw everything away over his sloppy, sentimental attachment to a piece of metal. He scowled out the window, furious all over again at the bad hand life had dealt him.

Stupid little girl!

Okay, so the car had to go. But how? Where?
That was the trouble with living inside the law these days. He wasn’t used to thinking like McCoy anymore.

At the thought of McCoy, the answer—obvious and inevitable—leaped to his mind. The Pine Barrens, that 1.1 million acres that covered much of South Jersey. Deep. Secret. Impenetrable. If what they said was true and the Mafia got rid of all those bodies there, why couldn’t he get rid of a car?

He’d laugh if he weren’t so upset. Here he thought he’d never find a plus to being raised in Atsion, in the Pines. Hard as it was to imagine, everything he’d hated as a kid was going to save him as an adult.

A
BBY WALKED TO
Marsh’s car with hardly a wobble. She thought she was doing very well, considering. Apparently Marsh didn’t agree. When she veered just a smidgen to the right, he grabbed her elbow.

“I’m fine.” She pulled her elbow free and proved herself a liar by lurching to the right again. If only she didn’t feel quite so woozy.

“Yeah, you’re fine and I’m Santa Claus.”

She closed her eyes for a minute. A sarcastic care-giver. Just what she needed. He made Helene, the sadistic PT, look gentle and loving. Why had she ever given the police his name?

She grimaced. The answer to that one was easy: She didn’t know anyone else in Seaside except Nan Fulsom, her soon-to-be boss at the library. She had rejected calling Nan as soon as she thought of her. There was no way she was going to get to know Nan while lying flat on her back on a hospital gurney, all woozy from drugs. It was not the way to begin a strong professional relationship.

Not that she actually
knew
Marsh, not like you know people you call in times of trouble. In fact, all she knew about him were his name and where he lived. And that he owned a monster dog named after a city.

“Have you ever been to Fargo?” She put out a hand to steady herself on a red convertible.

“What?”

She nodded, feeling like he’d confirmed her original opinion of him. “I didn’t think so.” She lurched to the right another time.

With a sigh that would have done her mother proud, he took her arm again. This time when she tried to free herself, he tightened his grip.

She glared at him. “Please let me go.” A shallow acquaintance like theirs meant that she didn’t care a fig whether she fell flat on her face in front of him, irritating man that he was. Of course she’d prefer not to do so. Some modicum of dignity and decorum was always desired, especially after the way she’d sobbed all over him mere minutes ago.

She glanced at his shirt and saw a wet amoeba-shaped patch over his heart. It’d take some doing to recover her self-respect after the pathetic scene that had caused that watermark. She tilted her head to look at his face—he was one tall man—and saw the unfocused glaze in his eyes. Instantly she recognized boredom and preoccupation. Just when she was remembering how nice he’d been when she drenched him, he checked out. Still, she’d take his ennui over her parents’ smothering any day.

She shuddered at the thought of their reaction to her hysterical amnesia. That’s what they’d called it in the hospital. Hysterical amnesia. Given what they had told her about her condition when they dragged her from her car, hysterical seemed a good if scary adjective. Should Mom and Dad hear of it, they’d probably sedate her, bundling her back to Scranton in an ambulance before she even blinked. Their cotton batting would suffocate her once again.

Even the thought of it made her pull at the neckline of her T-shirt for a decent breath.

“You can’t tell my parents,” she blurted.

He stopped, blinked, and looked at her as if he were trying to figure out who she was. “I can’t tell your parents what?”

“That I have hysterical amnesia.”

He gave a nod. “It’d scare them.”

“No. It’d imprison me.”

The bored look disappeared, but the look he gave her wasn’t much better. Clearly he thought she was several cans short of a six-pack.

“They would coddle me and love me and make me nuts. They have ever since the accident.”

“They care.”

She agreed. “While I appreciate it, they go about it in a way that’s killing me. That’s why I’m here, you know. In Seaside, I mean, not here at the hospital. I had to escape or die.”

He looked at her, eyes narrowed in thought. “Parents.”

That was all, just the one word, but the way he said it caused her to wonder about how he got along with his parents. Given his chirpy little personality, she wouldn’t blame them if they stayed as far from him as they could. It was probably a case of the more they stayed away, the more sarcastic he got, and the more sarcastic he got, the more they stayed away, ad infinitum. When he grasped her elbow again and began towing her along at a fast clip, she couldn’t decide whom she felt sorrier for: him or his parents.