The Second Silence (39 page)

But she’d dealt with men like him in the past. Fear was the commodity they traded in; if you withheld it they were powerless. ‘Are you threatening me, Robert?’ she asked, as forthrightly as she could muster with her heart going a mile a minute. ‘Because if you are, let me warn
you
that I’ve been known to bite back.’

Robert’s face closed as suddenly as a fist, and his pale eyes glittered. He didn’t lunge toward her, he didn’t so much as
move,
yet she felt a rush of panic that sent her darting up the few remaining steps.

She was breathing as hard as if she’d climbed six flights.

Had he followed her? She glanced about to see if anyone would hear her if she screamed. But the aptly named Church Street was quiet, its buildings shuttered. A bicycle stand glimmered in the darkness a few yards away. Her eye fell on an old Schwinn that wasn’t chained—as few bikes in Burns Lake were—and she thought about straddling it and pedaling as fast as she could to her car, parked two blocks away.

Then the moment of panic passed. She glanced at the key ring in her hand, feeling somewhat foolish.
He didn’t threaten you, not really,
she told herself. What had shaken her so profoundly, she realized, was the ease with which he’d zeroed in on her deepest insecurity. What else did he know?

Mary didn’t realize how shaken she was until she clipped the bumper of the car in front of her as she was pulling away from the curb. She gripped the steering wheel hard, as if her arms might float away otherwise. It occurred to her that Trish would wonder why she’d bolted without a word. She made a mental note to leave a message on her sister’s answering machine when she got home.

She was approaching the intersection of Main and Bridge when a dark gray Volvo—unmistakably Noelle’s, with its dented front end—caught her eye. Her daughter had stayed home tonight to keep an eye on Doris, who wasn’t feeling well, so hers was the last car Mary would have expected to see idling on the shoulder in front of the 7-Eleven with a sheriff’s cruiser pulled up behind it.

Noelle, caught in the harsh glare of its headlights, stood arguing with the cop, a large, heavyset man with his back turned so Mary couldn’t see his face.

She jammed on her brakes hard enough to skid the last few feet, screeching to a stop inches short of the cruiser’s bumper. Not bothering to shut off her engine, she leaped out and dashed to her daughter’s rescue.

‘This is ridiculous. I was
under
the speed limit, and you know it.’ Noelle’s exasperated voice floated toward her. ‘Now if you’ll just excuse—’ She spotted Mary and cried out, ‘Mom!’

The sheriff swung around clumsily, gravel skittering out from under his boot heels. Wade Jewett. She should have known. ‘Stay out of this, Mary. It’s got nothing to do with you.’ He shot her a fierce glare before turning back to Noelle. ‘Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take a breathalyzer test.’

Noelle froze, clearly stunned. But she quickly regained her senses. ‘I’ll do no such thing. I’m not drunk, and you know it.’ She started to brush past Wade, but his meaty hand closed over her arm.

‘Wade Jewett, you take your hands off my daughter!’ Mary’s voice, trained by years of having to shout in order to be heard at loud parties and press conferences, didn’t fail her now. It rose over the hum of traffic, the roar of a mother bear rearing up to protect her cub.

Wade turned to sneer at her with almost buffoonish contempt. ‘A little late, aren’t you, Mary? You should have been there when she was pouring the first drink.’

In a weirdly elliptical moment that seemed to spin out and out, Mary had time to note the half-moons of sweat under his arms and a tuft of something that looked like Kleenex caught in the handcuffs swaying from his belt. She sensed his nervous excitement the way she knew to cut a wide berth around certain dogs. This wasn’t a random ticketing, she thought. Wade Jewett had been lying in wait.

‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you? You’ve just expanded your repertoire.’ Mary eyed him with disdain. ‘Oh, yes, we knew it was
you,
back in ninth grade, making all those anonymous calls to me and my friends.’

The sneering grin dropped from Wade’s raw hamburger patty of a face. ‘You don’t know shit.’

‘Your brother told us. Even
he
thought you were disgusting.’

In the blink of an eye his mask shifted, and Wade Jewett, lumbering outcast of Lafayette High, stood revealed in all his naked adolescent priapism. ‘Skeeter? That little shithead wouldn’t’ve had the balls to do that to m—’ He stopped, realizing he’d put his foot in it.

‘I didn’t say anything at the time because I felt sorry for you.’ She pressed on coldly. ‘You were such a creep, and if that was the only way you could get a girl to talk to you … well, how pathetic was that. I had no idea, of course, how much lower you would sink.’

‘That’s enough from you, lady. You just shut your mouth and step aside or I’ll—I’ll
…
arrest you for obstructing justice.’ Mary caught the furtive gleam in his eyes as he swung back to Noelle. ‘Ma’am, like I said, I’m going to have to ask you to—’

Something clicked in Mary’s head, as distinct as a frozen twig snapping in two. Lunging forward, she swung at Wade with her purse, delivering a hard wallop to his back that sent him lurching forward, dust from his heels spinning up into the headlights’ glare.

The next thing Man- knew she was being tackled and slammed against the cruiser, her arms rudely wrenched behind her back. She heard Noelle cry out, and an instant later there was the jingle of cool handcuffs snapping about her wrists.

‘You look as if you could use a friend. Either that or a hacksaw.’

Mary looked up to find Charlie, a tall charcoal-haired man in jeans and a rumpled navy sport coat that had seen better days, walking along the fluorescent-lit corridor toward the jail cell where she’d been cooling her heels for the better part of an hour. He was smiling at her the way people do when humor is the only means by which to cope with an untenable situation. She didn’t smile back.

‘What took you so long?’ She rose from the inch or so of hard bunk she’d deigned to occupy.

Charlie jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Deputy out front gave me a hard time.’

‘Let me guess. Wade Jewett, right?’ Mary cast a disgusted glance at the door to the squad room.

Charlie nodded, the tail end of his smile still tugging at a corner of his mouth. ‘I hear somebody finally gave that fat-assed bully a kick in the ass he deserved.’

This time Mary
did
smile back. ‘I’d have done more than that if he hadn’t handcuffed me.’ She looked past him. ‘Where’s Noelle? I thought she was coming with you.’ By rights her daughter ought to be sharing this cell with her, but in all the confusion of her arrest Noelle had luckily managed to slip away. Apparently Wade Jewett had decided that one family member behind bars was enough; two might create a scandal.

‘I told her it might be a while, and she didn’t want to leave Doris that long.’ Charlie paused, as if gauging how much Mary could stand to hear, then said, ‘There was some question as to whether or not you’d be allowed bail.’

Mary shuddered at the thought of remaining locked up in here all night, listening to Avery Wilkinson, the town drunk, snoring wetly in the cell next to hers. ‘Well, are they letting me out or not?’ she demanded fiercely.

‘One of the deputies is signing off on the paperwork as we speak.’

‘How did you manage it?’

‘I threatened to run a front-page piece on police harassment. Wade backed down pretty quick after that.’ Charlie flashed her a grin, then glanced at his watch, adding with his usual deadpan delivery, ‘Just in time to catch a drink down at the Red Crow.’

At the mention of the Red Crow Tavern, Avery Wilkinson, in the cell next to hers, lifted his shaggy gray head to mutter blearily, ‘Have one for me, pal,’ before plopping back down on his bunk. Mary exchanged an amused glance with Charlie.

She didn’t dare laugh. If she let herself laugh, she’d start to cry, and who knew where that would lead? This was beyond surreal. Like the bad acid trips her classmates in college used to talk about, something that she, an eighteen-year-old mom with baby food stains on her clothes and a permanent case of exhaustion, could barely relate to at the time.

‘What I need more than a drink is a shower and a change of clothes.’ She stepped forward to wrap her hands about Charlie’s knuckles, adding softly, ‘And, hey, in case I forgot to mention it—thanks. What would I do without you?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘You’d manage somehow. You always do.’ She caught a faint edge in his voice.

Minutes later they were being ushered out the door by a pimple-faced young deputy. Wade Jewett, seated at his paper-strewn desk, only glowered at them impotently as they passed.

In the parking lot behind the station Charlie turned to Mary, remarking dryly, ‘I seem to recall your once commenting that nothing ever happens in a small town.’

‘I stand corrected.’ Mary took the arm he offered, and they began walking toward his Blazer, their shadows stretching stilettolike in the pool of light cast by a lone streetlamp. ‘Did Noelle seem upset when you talked to her?’

‘Some, but she was mostly irate, which I take to be a good sign.’ He touched her elbow. ‘Speaking of which, I think it made quite an impression on our little girl, your going to bat for her like that.’

Mary felt a secret little thrill. Robert’s taunt earlier this evening seemed distant now, like something from another lifetime. She hadn’t yet gotten around to telling Charlie
that
part, but she knew that when she did, it wouldn’t hurt quite so much. Smiling, she said, ‘I’ll call her from the car to let her know I’m on my way.’

When they reached his Blazer, Charlie didn’t immediately reach for the door. He just stood there, looking at her, his long face pooled with shadow, his eyes glinting with words unspoken and emotions long submerged. They were alone, the only sound the distant barking of a dog.

‘I don’t know what I’d have done if anything had happened to you.’ He spoke with an intensity that hit her like something too hot gulped down on an empty stomach. ‘Promise me you’ll never pull another stupid stunt like that.’

Mary opened her mouth to protest that she’d done what
any
mother would when he abruptly pulled her into his arms. With a sigh she burrowed into the warm refuge of his embrace. Charlie smelled faintly of woodsmoke and the honest sweat of a man with a good deal invested in those he loved. She could feel his breath ruffling her hair and the hard muscles in the arms pressed to her back.

‘I’m not going to make a promise I can’t keep,’ she murmured into his collar. ‘I’d do it again in a heartbeat, and you know it.’

‘Yeah, I know. That’s why I love you.’

His words hung in the still night air. She turned them over in her mind, the way she’d once turned over in her hand a pretty blue stone he’d fished from the creek to give her. She could almost feel it in her palm, smooth and warm. Did she dare say it back? Did she dare venture that far out on a limb?

She drew back, holding her hands braced against his shoulders. Running a thumb along his jutting collarbone, she smiled to herself, thinking what a challenge he must present to the legions of women who’d like nothing better than to fatten him up. But she liked him just the way he was. What she’d have liked even more would be to lie down with him every night and wake up every morning with his lanky limbs draped over hers.

An inexpressible sorrow swept over her.

‘Oh, Charlie. There are lots of promises I wish I could make.’

‘Yeah, I know that, too.’ He sounded sad. In the distance the dog barked on and on. Closer by a car engine rumbled to life. Finally, after what seemed an interminable silence, he cleared his throat. ‘Hop in. I’ll drive you to your car.’

Minutes later they were at the intersection of Main and Bridge, where Mary was relieved to find her car exactly as she’d left it, except for one thing: a slip of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. She’d been ticketed for illegal parking.

CHAPTER 14

‘IT ISN’T GOOD OR BAD.
In fact, it’s pretty much what I expected.’ Lacey looked up from the psychologist’s report on her desk.

Noelle felt her insides begin their familiar tumble. Lacey hadn’t given any details over the phone; that was why she’d come dashing over in her shorts and T-shirt, hair still damp from the shower. Not quite recovered from last night’s run-in with Wade Jewett, she now had this to contend with. Well, either way, it was better to
know.

‘What does it say?’ she asked, nervously glancing about her lawyer’s office—the top floor of a Victorian mansion housing the Emily T. Cates Memorial Library—as if the answer might somehow lie amid its cozy clutter and seat-sprung plush chairs smelling faintly of cat.

Lacey peered at the report through the dainty half-rim glasses perched on the end of her upturned nose. ‘It is Dr Hawkins’s assessment that you appeared anxious and somewhat high-strung, yet showed extreme concern for the well-being of your daughter. She has reservations, however, about your ability to cope with the demands of a young child in addition to the burden of caring for your grandmother. In short, though you don’t qualify for Mother of the Year, you’re not a menace to society.’ She looked up, frowning. ‘It’s what she wrote about your husband that worries me.’

Noelle felt her tumbling insides lurch to a standstill. Had Robert done something to Emma? Harmed her in some way?
Maybe I
had
to believe he was a good father because the alternative was unthinkable.

‘My daughter is all right, isn’t she?’

Lacey looked momentarily confused. ‘What? Oh, yes. I just meant that … well, let me put it this way, if it were up to her, Robert would be canonized. He clearly had this Hawkins woman eating out of his hand.’ She made no attempt to hide her disgust.

Oddly, Noelle felt her tension ebb. It was strange, she thought, how a thing you’ve been dreading, when it finally hits you, can come as almost a relief. She felt as if a rope to which she’d been tethered, chafing and pulling, had snapped, leaving her to drift weightlessly.