Whispers (16 page)

He didn’t seem surprised by her outburst, why would he be? But something had changed since that morning. She’d said his apology was too little, too late. But the fact was, she’d heard the honesty behind it. Against all reason, she believed that he truly was sorry. And though forgiveness seemed far off, so did the act of betrayal. She was a different person now. Perhaps he was too.

“
You know Digger’s been living out there running the business all these years, right?” Reilly said. “I hear he’s certifiable now.”

“
I can deal with him.”

“
What makes you think so?”

She raised her shoulders and brows. “What makes you think I can’t? I’m not a little girl anymore who needs someone to look after her, okay? I appreciate your concern, but I can handle a visit to the mortuary on my own.”

“
Damn it, Gracie, would you quit trying to show me how tough you are and just listen to reason? He’s a nut case that lives miles from anyone else and spends his days and nights with dead bodies. You just shouldn’t go alone. I’ll take you.”

“
And that’s supposed to make me feel safer?”

“
Maybe not. But it’ll make me feel better.”

“
I guess I didn’t make myself clear this morning, Reilly—”

He made a sound and shook his head. “You did. Forget I said anything—sorry I butted in. You want to go to Digger’s house by yourself, go ahead. I won’t even offer you a ride.”

“
I don’t want to go,” Analise said.

Gracie stared at him, still angry, but she knew she should welcome his offer. There was history between her family and the Youngs. Bad history. Over the years she’d heard stories about Digger and the family business—a business run by multiple generations of men who took on the name Digger after their predecessor died. Stories that would make a young girl’s blood run cold. And even though she knew most of them were small-town rumors with no basis in fact, if she was honest, she didn’t want to go see him alone. She didn’t want to go at all.

Rumors about the fiendish morticians weren’t the only kind that had circulated in Diablo Springs. There were more personal tales involving her mother and the current Digger’s father. Some of those stories blamed his father for her mother’s death. Some of them blamed him for Gracie’s conception. None of them had an ounce of proof to back them up. But there wasn’t an ounce of proof to refute them either. Whatever the truth, Grandma Beck had hated the Youngs and Gracie, by default, had grown up with a suspicious fear of them. Stepping into their lair was up there with having all her teeth pulled without anesthetics.

She took a deep breath and let it out.

“
Where is everyone?” she asked.

“
They piled into the bat-mobile and went to the Buckboard for something to eat.”

“
Why didn’t you go?”

He looked at his feet and shook his head. “Thought I’d wait for you.”

There was nothing duplicitous in his tone or expression, and she found herself taking his words at face value. It was stupid of her to feel so raw about something that happened years ago. It was done and over.

As if reading her mind, he said softly, “I’m not the worst thing that could happen to you, Gracie.”

That brought her eyes up and around to lock with his. He stared back, unflinching.

“
No. No, you’re not.”

Which was far from being the best thing, but she didn’t say that. He pulled his keys from his pocket and waggled them with a pointed look. “My Jeep is probably better in this weather.”

She turned to Analise, noting how pale she looked. “Maybe it would be better if you and Brendan stayed here while I go to the mortuary.”

But she really didn’t want that either. She’d grown up here, but somehow in the passing years the house had changed, changed into something no longer familiar. Something she didn’t trust with her loved ones.

“
I have a better idea,” Reilly said. “Why don’t we drop them at the Buckboard? They can get something to eat.”

The way he said it raised Gracie’s antenna, but before she could question him, Brendan said, “That sounds great. I’m starving.”

He grinned widely, looking pleased with himself. He reached for Analise’s hand and brought it to his lips. Once again the gesture struck Gracie. She’d never seen him do it before this morning. It seemed so out of character.

“
How about you, Sugarbear?” he said. “You and the baby hungry?”

Reilly’s eyes widened at that, but to his credit, he didn’t comment. Analise’s face flushed red. She looked like she wanted to slug Brendan, but she held back. Gracie wanted to hit him as well. What was wrong with him? Did he really feel the need to broadcast the pregnancy to everyone? On the tail of that thought came a slap of reality. Like it or not, it couldn’t be ignored or kept secret.

“
That’s settled then,” Reilly said, avoiding Gracie’s eyes.

“
What about the dogs?” Analise asked. “They’ll be scared if we leave them behind.”

“
If everyone is gone, they’ll be fine locked in the kitchen. I promise,” Gracie said. Analise looked like she might argue, but in the end she kept quiet and followed her mother back into the storm.

***

THEY piled into Reilly’s Cherokee and took off. Reilly had to drive slowly and navigate around places where the water had risen so high it flooded the road out completely. He was glad of the lifted body of the SUV and the traction it had.

“
I can’t believe how much the water in the streets has risen just since I drove to the clinic,” Gracie said, staring worriedly out the window. “If we don’t leave here soon ...”

She left the rest unsaid. Watching the rain pour from the sky, Reilly thought
soon
might be too late. He was worried they wouldn’t make it back from Young’s.

The Buckboard had been the only restaurant in town for as long as Reilly could remember. The doors were unlocked at six and they served breakfast until ten, when the bar opened. After that it was burgers and sandwiches until midnight or whenever the last of the customers staggered out. On special occasions, Ernie Ives, the owner, would add some variety and more red meat to the menu, but for the most part the residents of Diablo Springs made due with the usual fare. Reilly and his brother had worked in the kitchen for summer jobs, drank their first beers at the bar, and brought their first dates there for dinner. Reilly had a fond memory of Corrine Murray giving him head in the men’s room his senior year. Ah, the good old days.

He pulled to a stop at the entrance and Brendan and Analise got out.

“
Be careful,” Gracie told them.

“
We will,” Analise said.

There was a tension between Gracie and her daughter that was thick enough to cut. It didn’t take a genius to guess it had to do with the baby. The kid who’d brought Analise to this isolated place—both figuratively and literally—looked placidly out of big blue eyes, innocent and unaware of the strain around him. He was either the world’s greatest actor or he truly didn’t realize the chaos he’d caused. Reilly didn’t know what to bet on.

They waited until the two had disappeared inside before pulling away.

“
So, you’re going to be a grandma,” he said, grinning at the look that crossed her face.

She nodded. “I just found out this morning.”

And he was the jerk who was rubbing it in. He felt like apologizing, but he’d been doing too much of that. Instead, he said, “Too bad. She’s pretty young. Can’t be, what, fourteen? Fifteen?”

Gracie stared at her clasped hands. “She’s sixteen.”

Reilly looked away from the road to stare at her. She took a deep breath and met his eyes.

“
Yes,” she said, before he had to ask.

It felt like an avalanche started somewhere inside him. It rumbled and crashed, gaining momentum as it brought realization down through his mind. It was seventeen years ago that Matt had raped her ... and that meant. .. Analise was Matt’s daughter—a child seeded in violence. And Gracie Beck loved her anyway.

He felt a sudden burn of tears in his eyes and looked away. He didn’t cry, hadn’t even shed a tear when they’d told him Matt was dead. But this ... this caught him like a sucker punch below the belt. It stole his breath, left him feeling exposed and vulnerable—two things Reilly never let himself be. It made him want to lash out, but not at Gracie. She’d already suffered enough grief from him and his brother. He cleared his throat, willing away the ache in the pit of his stomach.

“
Did your grandmother know? About the baby?” he asked, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

Gracie shook her head. Reilly exhaled, wanting to ask more questions but not be responsible for the answers.

“
Is the baby why you left like you did?”

She looked at him then, her eyes round and sad. “She threw me out, Reilly.”

“
Because of the ... because you were .. ”

“
Raped?”

The word brought forth a mental picture of how she’d looked the morning after, battered, emotionally and physically beaten. Sitting across from her at the sheriff’s office, he’d wanted to help her. But he didn’t.

Just the night before he’d seen her at the barn dance the McGees held every year. She’d moved through the room like smoke, dressed in a short skirt that gave tantalizing glimpses of thigh. She’d been a kid when he’d left for school, but she’d been all grown up when he came back that summer.

“
I saw you at the dance that night,” he said. “I think that’s the first time I ever noticed you—as anything besides the kid that lived down the street, I mean.”

“
It was.” She looked down at her fingers. “I was trying to make you notice me. I thought you were the homegrown hero—a sure ticket out of Diablo Springs. That backfired, didn’t it?”

The sound she made was almost a laugh, but it was too bitter to be humorous.

He swallowed, feeling the confession coming up the way the avalanche had gone down. It hollowed him out, demolishing any obstacles or objections that might have kept it in.

“
I knew Matt had a thing for you, but I didn’t know what... I didn’t know how bad it was. You were on fire that night and there wasn’t a guy in the room who wasn’t wondering what you were wearing under that skirt.”

Her lips thinned and her eyes turned hard. “So I was asking for it?”

“
No,” he said. “Hell, no. That’s not what I meant. I just—Christ, I goaded him, Gracie. I told him you were going to be mine. And you acted like it wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Unbelievably, he was blushing. He could feel the stain of red heat creep up his neck.

“
I think I drove him to the edge. It’s my fault, what happened.”

She stared at him, eyes steady, their color matching the turbulence outside the window. “You believe that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Matt spent his whole life watching out for me. Since we were little. You know about my dad, right?”

“
They used to say he was cruel.”

“
They were being nice. He was a sadistic bastard. He did things ...” Reilly stopped. He wouldn’t go there. Even she couldn’t expect him to go there. He shot her a quick glance and saw that he didn’t need to. She knew. Whether by rumor or assumption, she knew.

“
Matt always took for both of us.”

“
He was alone, though, when he took from me.”

He shook his head. “I’ve used that reasoning a million times since. But I knew better. Matt wasn’t ever leaving Diablo Springs. He died here. He died of it. And there I was the hot-shot golden boy, coming home to glory. He was proud of me, but he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t been jealous. And then I had to take the one thing he had that was good.”

“
What was that?”

“
His fantasy about you.”

Reilly glanced at her again, expecting to see the full blast of her fury, of her scorn. But what he saw there made that ache inside him bellow with agony.

She said, “What happened—what he did—it was like a ticking bomb. It might not have happened that night. And maybe he wouldn’t have had you there to lie for him. But it would have happened. Do you understand?”

Reilly nodded but he wasn’t positive he did.

“
I went out with him once. He asked me a hundred times before he wore me down and I said yes. We went to the movies and as soon as the lights went out, his hands went to town. He scared me so bad I ran all the way home. After that things got worse.”

She took a deep breath and looked out the window. “You didn’t drive him to it. He was already there.”

Reilly shook his head, but inside a heavy weight shifted and eased back. He wanted to thank her, but he couldn’t make the words come out. He was afraid of what would follow them, what else he might confess. Angry with himself, he reached over and turned the air up a notch. The sound of it blowing filled the car.

After a moment, he picked up another thread of the conversation, a safer one this time, or so he thought. “Why did your grandma throw you out then? You said it wasn’t because of—” Once again he couldn’t force that harsh word out. When had he become such a coward?

“
She found me on the front porch. It was pretty obvious that I’d been raped. Matt had on this black T-shirt and black jeans and he’d been hiding in the bushes when I came home. I didn’t seem him until it was too late. I remember he pulled his shirt up so the collar covered the bottom of his face. I don’t know why because I knew who he was and he knew I knew, but he kept it up the whole time. Maybe he was ashamed to show his face. I don’t know. Grandma came out after it was all over and I was crawling up the steps. Matt was already halfway to the springs. When she saw him ... this shadow tearing across the ruins all dressed in black ... I can’t explain it, Reilly. It was like she caved in from the inside, out. I was curled up crying and she started running through the house shouting. She kept screaming ‘aching, aching.’ I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what to think.”