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Authors: Lisa Jackson

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BOOK: You Don't Want To Know
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“Then a Bud.”
“That we got.”
At the counter, George instructed his kid to zip up his jacket, then after snagging a couple of leftover fries from the boy's plate, left some bills on the counter and lumbered outside.
Rosie closed the door behind them and locked the dead bolt.
“About as warm and fuzzy as a mad porcupine,” Dern observed.
Ava felt her lips twitch just as Rosie deposited the bottle of beer and a glass onto the table. “Anything to eat?” the waitress asked, almost as a dare.
“I'm good,” Dern said.
“Clyde's closin' the kitchen.” She gave Dern another once-over, then, with her rounded back as stiff as she could make it, turned and swept through a gate that separated the dining room from the cramped area behind the counter.
Ava agreed. “Not the cuddly type.”
Dern ignored the glass and took a long pull from his bottle. Ava watched him swallow, the movement of his Adam's apple, then forced her gaze back to his eyes. He, of course, was watching her right back.
“So you didn't answer my question. Why is it I feel that you're following me? And don't,” she said, holding up a finger, “even suggest that I'm being paranoid.”
Setting his bottle down, he shook his head. “Wasn't going to. It's true. I've kept an eye on you. But no, I'm not following you. I saw you jump into the bay, then I was missing a horse, and then I did see you leave for town. I was going to walk down myself, get some fresh air and a couple of things I need.”
“Huh.” She wasn't buying it.
“Beer, toothpaste, and coffee.” When she didn't say anything, he added, “Life's essentials.”
“But instead of stopping at Frank's, you showed up here.”
“I did see you come in.” He lifted a shoulder. “Thought we could talk without half a dozen of your relatives eavesdropping.”
“Is that what they do?” she asked, and a slow, crooked smile crept over his lips.
“Yes.”
She couldn't deny it.
Leaning back in his chair, he nodded. “Not that it matters. Every family's got its quirks.”
“What about yours?”
“You really want to know?” He seemed skeptical.
“Sure.”
Lifting a shoulder, he said, “It's all split up. Folks divorced when I was around ten. Never saw my old man after I hit high school.”
“Siblings?”
“A sister in Baton Rouge, a brother who's God knows where. We lost touch around fifteen years ago.” Dern's eyes darkened a bit. “Not that we were that close anyway.”
“No cousins?”
“None that I ever knew. Guess I grew up a loner. Learned how to fend for myself.”
“So you're . . . not married?”
He snorted as if the question landed somewhere between funny and ridiculous. “Not anymore.” Lips twisted a bit. “We were high school sweethearts, if that term's still in use. It didn't work out.”
“Why?”
“Too young, probably.” Again a shrug. “I was in the army, came back from a tour and was slapped with divorce papers. Decided not to fight it, as she'd already started living with someone else, and I went back to school.”
“No kids?”
He shook his head. “Probably a good thing in retrospect.”
“And then what? After college you became a ranch hand?”
Again, the flash of a self-deprecating grin. “Isn't that the normal progression?” He finished his beer. “Just found out that I work better with animals than people. So, what about you?”
“You don't know my life story?” She shook her head and finished her wine. “I thought it was all public information, common knowledge.”
“I'm not from these parts, remember?” When she didn't respond, he added, “I worked for Rand Donnelly on a ranch outside of Bend, in Central Oregon. Grew up farther east, near Pendleton.” He reached for his wallet. “Didn't you check my references?”
“I didn't even know you were hired.”
“Seriously? I thought you were in charge.”
“Once upon a time, maybe.” When she picked up her purse and pulled out her billfold, he slapped a couple of bills onto the table. “I got it.”
“I said I'd buy you a drink.”
“Next time it's definitely on you.” As she climbed to her feet, she saw him take notice of the rips in the knees of her jogging pants.
Before he posed a question, she said, “Let's just say that on my way down here, I embraced my inner klutz.”
“You're okay?”
Again that question. “A few scrapes, but I'll survive,” she insisted.
He held the door for her and they walked outside. Her waterlogged flashlight wasn't of any use, but Dern had an app on his iPhone that offered up enough illumination.
They trudged up the hill together, following the main road in silence. As they turned into the lane, Rover was waiting for them and tagged along after Dern as if he'd known the man all his life. Ava couldn't help but ask herself why she felt more comfortable with this stranger. After all, Dern was a man she'd met only a few days earlier, yet she somehow thought she was more in touch with him than she was with her own husband.
A man you'd planned to divorce, remember?
Before Noah had gone missing, they had been separated most of the time, the Christmas party planned as they tried to fend off what had seemed inevitable. Then, once their son had vanished, they'd clung to each other only to have the tattered fabric of their marriage unravel further. Through their grief and fear, there had been serious discussions about ending their marriage . . . or at least that's the way she remembered things.
Now, hands deep in her pockets, her breath fogging in the cold air, she remembered her erotic dream in which Wyatt had morphed into Dern and she'd made love to him. Wildly. Without inhibition. Feeling his calloused hands slide over her buttocks and up her rib cage.
Or had it been Wyatt?
He left the rose for you, remember?
Feeling the tiny prick on the edge of her finger with her thumb, she closed her mind to all the bizarre possibilities. She would never make sense of her dreams, and besides, she was being distracted.
From finding Noah.
She couldn't let it happen, she determined as the wind blew off the sea and seemed to send an icy draft through her heart. Her single intent was to find her son. Period.
CHAPTER 26
“I
think I've met you before,” Ava said the next afternoon in yet another session with Dr. McPherson. “I mean, before Wyatt hired you. At the time you went by Eve.” They were in the den, and Ava, rather than make a scene, had agreed to the session, more to get information rather than give it.
Rather than arguing, the therapist was nodding as she sat in a chair, her hands clasped at her knees. “We've been over this, remember? We discussed the fact that I met you at the party you hosted at Christmas, the night that Noah went missing.”
Ava's heart stuttered. “When?”
“At the party. Then again when you were still recovering at St. Brendan's,” Evelyn said so patiently it grated on Ava's raw nerves. “That's where your husband asked if I would agree to see you as a patient once you were released from the hospital. He knew I had an office in Anchorville.”
“I would have remembered,” she said, but a hint of a memory sizzled through her brain, something so quick and fleeting she couldn't hold on to it.
The doctor's smile was ingratiating. “You're still blocking that night out, Ava. It's coming back in bits and pieces, but there are still holes. I'm here to help you fill the gaps.”
“Okay, let's start with the first one. You were introduced to me as Eve Stone.”
She nodded. “I had been married, but it didn't work out. My divorce wasn't quite final at Christmas, and I hadn't officially gone back to my maiden name until a few months later.”
“You looked different.”
“Amazing what losing fifty pounds and lightening your hair can do.”
Was this right? Had she ever heard this story before? “And you came with . . . ?”
“Actually, your cousin Trent invited me.”
“Trent?” This didn't sound right.
“We knew each other in college.”
“At U-Dub?” Ava asked, using the familiar name for the University of Washington in Seattle.
“Oregon. We were both psychology majors for a while.” An amused smile tugged at the corners of her lips, and for a second, Ava stared at her. Had she been wrong about this woman all along? She'd been insistent that she wasn't involved with Wyatt and now . . . now Ava nearly believed her. “I went on to Washington for grad school,” the psychologist added.
“Trent didn't.” That much was true, but Ava felt as if something was left unsaid, that there was still a piece that didn't feel right.
Evelyn reached into a side pocket of the large bag she'd plopped onto the chair next to her. “I did a little soul-searching last night, and I really don't think I can help you if you can't trust me.” She pulled a business card from the pocket of her purse and slid it across the coffee table to Ava. “Here's the name and number of Dr. Rollins. He's in Seattle, of course, but I've worked with him and he's familiar with the island and your family. He used to work at Sea Cliff when your uncle was running the hospital.”
The name was familiar, and the image of a large African American man came to mind. Smooth, mocha-colored skin, oversized glasses, white beard, and short-cropped hair, if he was the man Ava remembered on her few visits to the hospital. “That's where I met him. At Sea Cliff. He still has patients in Anchorville and shares an office with a couple of other doctors. Dr. Rollins is in two days a week.”
Ava picked up the business card.
“It's imperative that you trust your therapist,” Dr. McPherson said earnestly. “So that you don't hold back. I would be glad to make the referral and consult with Dr. Rollins or whomever else you choose. I'll do whatever it takes to make the transition more comfortable for everyone. Whatever you want.” Dr. McPherson almost seemed relieved. “I'm not sure anyone will be willing to come to the island, but you can suggest it.”
Ava glanced at the card with Dr. Alan G. Rollins's name, number, address, and e-mail listed. “And Wyatt is okay with this?”
“I haven't told him.” Her smile seemed sincere, though it all could be an act. “As you said, this is
your
life. I'm
your
doctor.”
“But he hired you. He claims he's my guardian.”
Evelyn lifted a shoulder. “He could stand on ceremony, I suppose, but I don't think he will.” Getting to her feet, she slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “He only wants what's best for you, you know.”
“So he tells me.” Ava clutched the business card in her fist.
The therapist's eyebrows pulled together, and she touched Ava lightly on the shoulder as she passed. “Let me know what you want to do,” she said, then walked quickly out of the room.
Ridiculously, Ava felt abandoned. Now that she could be free of the psychologist her husband had chosen for her, the woman she suspected of sleeping with him, Ava wasn't so certain she wanted to let go.
Don't second-guess yourself. You know what you saw!
“But maybe I was wrong,” she whispered, walking to the bookcase where a number of family pictures were displayed. Her gaze landed on a picture of Wyatt holding Noah on the beach, the wind ruffling Wyatt's hair, Noah's eyes squinted against the stiff ocean breeze. Ava's heart squeezed as she picked up the photograph and traced the outline of her son's face.
Sad, she replaced the picture and saw that it was next to a snapshot of Jewel-Anne astride the palomino mare with Sea Cliff rising on the hill in the distance. In the shot, Jewel-Anne was grinning from ear to ear, her body round in the saddle, a shadow of the person taking the picture falling in front of the horse. The photograph had been taken before the accident that had robbed her of the use of her legs, and back then, Jewel-Anne could actually grin. Heavy for her height, she'd been pretty, her face unmarred with the lines of unhappiness that had formed since the accident.
Setting the framed picture aside, Ava walked to the window overlooking the garden where the tracks of Jewel-Anne's wheelchair were visible in the gravel and the ferns shivered in the wind. What if, as everyone believed, Ava truly was paranoid? She thought of her recent session with the therapist. What if Wyatt and Evelyn McPherson weren't involved? What if Ava's tormented mind had conjured up her husband's infidelity?
A wife always knows.
Someone had told her that a long time ago.
But that someone may just have been wrong.
 
Later, in the rec room that smelled of furniture polish, Trent confirmed that Evelyn McPherson Stone had been his date at the Christmas party. “Come on, Ava, you remember me introducing you to her,” he said, racking the balls on the pool table.
She didn't.
“In the kitchen. We came in through the back door and caught hell from Virginia for it.” He centered the triangular rack, the colorful balls spinning on the dark green felt. “You were hurrying through, too, looking for something—more glasses, I think? Anyway, Virginia was mean as a snake that night. She told you something about not being able to work this way.”
As he whipped the rack off the neatly positioned balls, Ava tried to bring back the memory. From the kitchen, she heard the sound of Virginia's off-key humming. Vaguely, she recalled the cook's rebuke and her unusual bad mood. At the time, Ava had attributed Virginia's scowls to the fact that she had to work that night and her daughter had remarried Simon; Virginia hadn't been happy about it.
Yes, Ava had hurried through the kitchen, nearly knocking into a waiter carrying a platter of hors d'oeuvres. He'd spun deftly away, not losing a single appetizer from his silver tray, but Virginia had been beside herself, struggling to keep her tongue inside her head.
“It all happened near the pantry and the back staircase,” he recounted. “I remember because Virginia was all bent out of shape and had shooed us out of the room so the caterers could work. Man, she was in one helluva mood.”
“That's right,” Ava said as the image grew stronger. She remembered being distracted, looking for the extra wineglasses as Wyatt was about to make his annual holiday toast. Somehow they'd ended up three glasses short, and Ava had remembered the extra stemware boxed in the shelves near the pantry in a closet where they'd stored odds and ends, everything from extra keys to lightbulbs to holiday decorations.
In her search for the glasses, she had come across Trent and he'd been with a woman she'd never met before: Dr. McPherson. “You introduced her as Eve.”
“I know. I still call her that. It's how we were introduced way back when at a party before a Ducks football game,” he said, referring to the University of Oregon athletic team. “We were tailgating, I think.”
Is that what he'd said at the party? It didn't sound right, but she couldn't completely remember, and now, as he leaned across the table, trying for what seemed an impossible shot, she recalled shaking the woman's hand as they were introduced.
He flashed her a smile. “You'll remember it all soon, right? It's coming back to you.” He leaned over the table, snapped back his cue stick, and sent the ball spinning.
Crack!
The billiard balls spun to all sides of the table.
“I hope.”
“Be patient.”
“I think I have been.”
“Never your strong suit.”
She couldn't argue that fact as he took the next shot, sending the cue ball into a cluster of other balls. The five spun into a corner pocket.
“It's just that there are holes in my memory, and they don't seem to be closing.”
“They are. Just not as fast as you want.”
She wasn't so certain. “Ever since Noah disappeared . . .”
“Before that,” he said, eyeing the balls remaining on the table. “After Kelvin died.”
She held up a hand. “That's not right.”
“Sure it is. That's when you started having . . . mental issues.”
“
Before
the baby was kidnapped?”
No. No. This was all wrong
.
Trent's head snapped up. “Not kidnapped, Ava. There was no ransom note.” He walked closer to her. “No one contacted the family after Noah went missing.”
“What do you think the word
kidnapped
means? Someone
took
Noah. Out of his bed!” Her heart was beginning to pound a little more wildly. “That happened.”
“He went missing. Yes. We don't know how.”
“He was two years old. He couldn't just get out of bed himself and . . . and what . . .” Her heart turned to ice as she imagined her child climbing out of his bed as he had at least once before and wandering around his room, walking into the hallway. “I don't know what you mean,” she finished. But she did. Then another thought occurred to her. “You think that
I
had something to do with my child's disappearance?”
He dropped his pool cue. “Of course not!” he said, rounding the corner of the table to give her a supportive hug. “I don't believe for a second that you would knowingly do anything to hurt Noah.”
“Knowingly?” she whispered, appalled, her despair palpable. Did he really believe . . . She caught a glimpse of the scars on her wrists; that memory, too, was blurry and repressed. After her son's disappearance, hadn't the police zeroed in on her? Hadn't Biggs thought she might be involved? Not only had she been the last person to admit to seeing her son, but also in most cases, she knew that family members were the first suspects. . . .
“That's not what I meant.” Trent was irritated. “Don't twist my words around, okay?” His quick anger flared for a second; then he sighed and shook his head. “Come on, Ava. Don't do this.” He gave her another fierce hug, silently reminding her of their long-lasting bond, one that started in childhood.
Now, though, she felt his tension, sensed his hesitation, a lack of conviction. For the first time, she recognized a fissure in that once-solid connection, a crack in her relationship that she feared ran far deeper than she'd ever suspected.
 
Dern was getting in too deep.
That much was obvious to him as he strode across the wet grass to the stable. With the dog at his heels, he glanced at the looming house and wondered about Ava Church Garrison and wondered why she fascinated him so much.
A mistake.
He couldn't get even remotely involved with her, and it wasn't just because she was married. No, there were deeper reasons, the very essence of why he was here working for the damned woman.
Yet he was having trouble maintaining his distance from her, and he could tell himself over and over again that he'd followed her into town last night because it was part of his job, but that would be a lie, and he wasn't into kidding himself. He was intrigued by her—more than he should be. She was troubled, haunted, but beneath those sad eyes and worried, full lips, he saw another person, a glimpse of the strong, vibrant woman she'd once been.
BOOK: You Don't Want To Know
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