The Waterfall (2 page)

Daisy and Joshua's only child, a daughter, couldn't wait to get out of Vermont. She moved to Boston and got married, and when she and her husband were killed in a hit-and-run accident, they left behind a fourteen-year-old son. Sebastian came to live with Daisy. But he hadn't stayed in Vermont, either.

Seven acres of fields, woods and gardens, and the rambling yellow clapboard farmhouse were all that remained of the original Wheaton farm. Daisy had sold off bits and pieces of her land over the years to second homeowners and local farmers, keeping the core of the place for herself and whoever might come after her.

It was said Daisy had never gone back to Joshua Falls after she'd helped pull her husband's body out of the frigid water.

The Widow Daisy. Now, the Widow Swift.

Lucy grimaced as she walked up the gravel path to the small, classic barn she'd converted into office space. She could feel the decades yawning in front of her and imagined sixty years on this land, alone.

She stopped, listening to Joshua Brook trickling over rocks down the steep, wooded embankment beyond the barn. The falls were farther up in the hills. Here, the brook was wide and slow-moving before running under a wooden bridge and eventually merging with the river. She could hear bees buzzing in the hollyhocks in front of the garage. She looked around her, at the sprawling lawn, lush and green from recent showers, and the pretty nineteenth-century farmhouse with its baskets of white petunias hanging on the front porch. Her gaze took in the stately, old sugar maples that shaded the front yard, the backyard with its vegetable garden and apple trees, and a stone wall that bordered a field of grass and wildflowers, with another stone wall on its far side. Then, beyond that, the wooded hills. So quiet, so beautiful.

“You could do worse,” Lucy whispered to herself as she entered her office.

She had learned most of what she knew about the Wheaton-Redwing family not from closemouthed, elusive Sebastian, but from Rob Kiley, her only full-time employee. He was parked in front of his computer in the open, rustic space that served as her company's home base. Rob's father was the boy Joshua Wheaton had saved sixty years ago—one of the circuitous but inevitable connections Lucy had come to expect from living in a small town.

Rob didn't look up. “I hate computers,” he said.

Lucy smiled. “You say that every time I walk in here.”

“That's because I want to get it through that thick, cheapskate skull of yours that we need a full-time person to sit here and bang away on this thing.”

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked. She didn't peer over his shoulder because that drove him nuts. He was a lanky, easygoing Vermonter whose paddling skills and knowledge of the hills, valleys, rivers and coastline of northern New England were indispensable. So were his enthusiasm, his honesty and his friendship.

“I'm putting together the final, carved-in-stone, must-not-deviate-from itinerary for the father-son backpacking trip.” This was a first-time offering, a five-day beginner's backpacking trip on nearby trails in the southern Green Mountains; it had filled up even faster than he and Lucy had anticipated. Rob looked up, and she knew what he was thinking. “There's still time for J.T. to join us. I told him I wasn't a substitute for his real dad, but we can still have a lot of fun.”

“I know. This is one he has to figure out for himself. I can't decide for him.”

He nodded. “Well, we've got time. By the way, he and Georgie are digging worms in the garden.”

Lucy wasn't surprised. “Madison will love that. I just sent her to check on them.”

Rob tilted back in his chair and stretched. Sitting at a computer was torture for him on a day when he could be out kayaking. “How'd she do driving?”

“Better than I did. She's still lobbying for a semester in Washington.”

“Grandpa Jack would love that.”

“She's romanticized Washington. It's everything Vermont isn't.”

Rob shrugged. “Well, it is.”

“You're a big help!” But Lucy's laughter faded quickly as she slipped her hand into her pocket and withdrew the bullet. “I want you to take a look at something.”

“Sure.”

“And I don't want you to mention it to anyone.”

“Am I supposed to ask why not?”

“You're supposed to say okay, you won't.”

“Okay, I won't.”

She opened her hand and let the bullet roll forward in her palm. “What do you think?”

Rob frowned. “It's a bullet.”

“I know it's a bullet. What kind?”

He picked it out of her palm and nonchalantly set it upright on his cluttered desk. He'd grown up around guns. “Forty-four magnum. It's the whole nine yards, you know, not just an empty shell.”

She nodded. “I know that much. Can it go off?”

“Not sitting here on my desk. If you dropped it just right or ran it over with a lawn mower or something, it could go off.”

Lucy stifled a shudder. “That can't be good.”

“If it went off, you wouldn't have any control over where it goes. At least with a gun, you can take aim at a target. You might take lousy aim. But if you run over a live round with a lawn mower, there's no chance to aim at anything. Thing can go any which way.” He sounded calm, but his dark eyes were very serious. “Where'd you find it?”

“What? Oh.” She hadn't considered a cover story and hated the idea of lying. “In town. I'm sure it's no big deal.”

“It's not Georgie or J.T., is it? If they're fooling around with firearms and ammunition—”

“No!” Lucy nearly choked. “I stumbled on it in town just now. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, so I picked it up. I was just wondering if I was panicking unnecessarily.”

“You weren't. Someone was very careless.” He touched the dull gray metal tip of the bullet. “You want me to get rid of it?”

“Please.”

“Do me a favor, okay? Check J.T.'s room. I'll check Georgie's. If I find anything, I'll let you know. You do the same. I don't keep a gun at home, and I know you don't, but they wouldn't be the first twelve-year-old boys—”

“It wasn't J.T. or Georgie.”

Rob's eyes met hers. “If you won't check J.T.'s room, I will.”

Lucy nodded. “You're right. I'll check his room.”

“The cellar, too. I nearly blew myself up at that age screwing around with gunpowder.”

“I don't have gunpowder—”

“Lucy.”

“All right, all right.”

Rob was silent, studying her. She'd known him from her earliest days in Vermont. He and his wife, Patti, were her best friends here. Georgie and J.T. were inseparable. But she hadn't told him about the weird incidents.

Lucy tried not to squirm. Sweat had matted her shirt to her lower back. So much to do, so many responsibilities. She didn't need some crackpot targeting her. “Just get rid of the damn bullet, okay?”

Rob crossed his arms on his chest. “Sure, Lucy.”

She could guess what he was thinking—what anyone would be thinking. That she was on edge, frayed and crazed, more than would be warranted by a rapidly expanding business, widowhood, single motherhood and an impending trip west. That he wanted to call her on it.

Lucy took advantage of his natural reluctance to meddle. “I'm sorry if I seem a little nuts. I have so much to do with this whirlwind trip to Wyoming this weekend. You can hold down the fort here?”

“That's in bold print on my resume.
Can hold down forts.
”

His humor didn't reach his eyes, but Lucy pretended not to notice. She smiled. “What would I do without you?”

He didn't hesitate. “Go broke.”

She laughed, feeling better now that the bullet was out of her pocket. These incidents had to be unrelated. It was kooky and paranoid to think they were part of some kind of bizarre conspiracy against her. What would be the motive?

She left Rob to his computer aggravations and bullet disposal, and went outside. She'd ask Rob later what he thought about this Widow Swift business. She had a good life here, and that was what counted.

“I made lemonade,” Madison called from the front porch.

“Great. I'll be right there.”

Lucy reminded herself it was only in recent months her daughter had come to feel aggrieved by their move to Vermont.

“I'm pretending I'm living in an episode of ‘The Waltons,'” Madison said when her mother joined her amidst the hanging petunias and wicker furniture. Indeed, she had filled one of Daisy's old glass pitchers with lemonade and put on one of her threadbare aprons. Sebastian hadn't taken anything of his grandmother's before he'd sold her house.

“Did you ask the boys if they want any?” Lucy asked.

“They're still out back digging worms. It's disgusting. They smell like dirt and sweat.”

“You used to love digging worms.”

“Yuck.”

Lucy smiled. “Well, I'll go ask them. And since you made the lemonade, they can clean up.”

The two boys were still hard at work on the edge of the vegetable garden, precariously close to Lucy's tomatoes. Not that she minded. She wasn't as enterprising a gardener as Daisy had been. She'd added raised beds and mulched paths to take up space and had cultivated a lot of spreading plants, like pumpkins, squash and cucumbers. She had little desire, however, to can and freeze her own fruits and vegetables. This was enough.

“Madison made lemonade. You boys want some?”

“Later,” J.T. said, too preoccupied with his worm-digging to look up.

He, too, had Colin's coppery hair and clear blue eyes, although his sturdy frame was more Blacker than Swift. Lucy smiled at the thought of her kind, thickset father. She had inherited her mother's slender build and fair coloring, and both her parents' love of the outdoors. They'd recently retired to Costa Rica to run a hostel, leaving behind long careers at the Smithsonian. Lucy planned to visit them over Thanksgiving, taking Madison and J.T. with her and working on the details of a Costa Rica trip she wanted to offer to her clients next winter. It was a long, painstaking process that involved figuring out and testing every last detail—transportation, food, lodging, contingency plans.
Nothing
could be left to chance.

Flying to Costa Rica to see them, Lucy thought, made more sense than flying off to Wyoming to see Sebastian Redwing.

J.T. scooped up dirt with his hands and piled it into a number-ten can he and Georgie had appropriated from the recycling bin. “We want to go fishing. We've got a ton of worms. Want to see?”

Lucy gave the can of squirming worms a dutiful peek. “Lovely. If you do go fishing, stay down here. Don't go up near the falls.”

“I know, Mom.”

He knew.
Right.
Both her kids knew everything. Losing their father at such a young age hadn't eroded their self-esteem. They had Colin's optimism, his drive and energy, his faith in a better future and his commitment to making it happen. Like their father, Madison and J.T. loved having a million things going on at once.

Lucy left the boys to their worms and returned to the front porch, where Madison had brought out cloth napkins and a plate of butter cookies to go with her lemonade. “Actually, I think I'm more Anne of Green Gables today.”

“Is that better than John-Boy Walton?”

Madison wrinkled up her face and sat on the wicker settee, tucking her slender legs under her. “Mom—I really, really don't want to go to Wyoming. Can't I stay here? It's only for the weekend. Rob and Patti could look in on me. I could have a friend stay with me.”

Lucy poured herself a glass of lemonade and settled onto a wicker chair. Her daughter was relentless. “I thought you couldn't wait to get out of Vermont.”

“Not to
Wyoming.
It's more mountains and trees.”

“Bigger mountains, different trees. There's great shopping in Jackson.”

She brightened. “Does that mean you'll give me money?”

“A little, but I meant window-shopping. It's also very expensive.”

Her daughter was unamused. “If I have to sit next to J.T. on the plane, I'm inspecting his pockets first.”

“I expect you to treat your brother with respect, just as I expect him to treat you with respect.”

Madison rolled her eyes.

Lucy tried her lemonade. It was a perfect mix of tart and sweet, just like her fifteen-year-old daughter. Madison untucked her legs and flounced inside, the sophisticate trapped in the sticks, the long-suffering big sister about to be stuck on a plane with her little brother.

Lucy decided to give her the weekend to come around before initiating a discussion on attitude and who wouldn't get to do much driving until she changed hers.