Too Close To Home

The outhouse was at the far edge of the campground.

Missy was curled up sleeping on the bench seat at the very rear of the van. She straightened when I turned into the rutted lot and shifted into Park. I looked over my shoulder in time to see her confused and panicked look as her eyes darted around the interior.

Gran, who sat just behind me, turned her head and spoke before I could.

“It’s all right, honey,” she said, her tone as soothing as the slow, soft syllables that marked her speech and belied her energetic personality. “You’re safe. We’re just stopping so that I can use the facilities.”

“We’ll be at the Cherokee Rose in under an hour,” I added. “Where there’s a nice, clean bathroom. With a toilet that flushes. But if you can’t wait…”

Missy shook her head and managed a weak, exhausted smile. Then she turned to rest her forehead against the side window and stared out at the darkness.

Katie was beside me in the front seat, still snoring softly.

Even half-asleep, my sister was beautiful—petite and curvy with pale yellow hair, hazel eyes flecked with gold and a peaches-and-cream complexion. An angel, people were always saying. And I agreed, not only because she was pretty but because she’d been my guardian angel during the earliest years of our childhood. Maybe that’s why I’d stood up for her that morning when she’d stripped off her apron, come running from the kitchen and unexpectedly climbed into the van.

“I’m going, too,” she’d announced breathlessly.

Gran shook her head.

“You and I have talked about this before, Katie. You have to accept that there are things that you simply can’t manage.”

I hated it when Gran used that tone with Katie. Katie’s asthma, according to Aunt Lucy, was the only reason her involvement with the Underground was limited to playing hostess and cooking—something she already did for the paying guests at the Cherokee Rose. But there was more to it than that.

“She’s not like Brooke,” I’d once overheard Gran tell Aunt Lucy. “Katie’s not strong emotionally. You’ve seen it yourself. Tears one moment, anger the next. Face it, Lucy. She’s never gotten over her mother abandoning her. Or the abuse.”

As I looked at my sister, I saw uncharacteristic determination in the way she lifted her dimpled chin. Just a couple months short of her eighteenth birthday, Katie was my senior by a year and a half. But over the past couple of years, she’d grown so timid and unsure of herself that I’d begun to think of her as much younger than me.

Now I wondered if the root of that problem was not our mother, but Gran. Although she pushed me to be independent, to take on challenges and pursue my ambitions, she still made most of Katie’s decisions for her. And encouraged Katie to stay close to home. Where it was safe. Usually, Katie seemed content to do whatever Gran wanted.

But not today.

“Go back inside, Katie,” Gran was saying, and her tone made it sound as if she were speaking to a child. “Like a good girl.”

Though twin red blotches were already standing out against her pale cheeks and she’d started wheezing, Katie didn’t move from the backseat. Nothing about her expression changed as she dug in a pocket, took out the inhaler she always carried and gave herself a puff of medicine before tucking it away again.

In that one quick action she reminded me that she was fragile, at least physically. I opened my mouth, ready to suggest to Katie that she’d be more useful if she stayed at home, when she did something she’d never done before. She leaned forward and stretched out her hand to clasp my shoulder.

“Please, Brooke. Don’t leave me behind. I can help, if you’ll let me. I want to make Gran and Aunt Lucy proud of me, just like they are of you. I’m a good driver. When you and Gran go to the house, I’ll sit with the engine running. In case we have to leave fast.”

Maybe it was Katie’s courage that inspired me. Or maybe it was the yearning I heard in my sister’s voice. But it prompted me to do something I’d never done before. I told Gran that Katie was brave and helpful and that she was going with us. I was surprised when Gran hadn’t protested.

Now, I nudged Katie’s shoulder.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Katie yawned, stretched her arms upward until they touched the van’s ceiling, then yawned again as she turned her head slowly, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she looked around.

“Pit stop at Camp Cadiz,” I said. “You interested?”

“Ugh,” she muttered. “An outhouse. No way.”

She snuggled back down into the seat and put her arm across her face.

I turned off the engine and the radio, but left the headlights on, aimed in the direction of the outhouse.

I’d planned to sit and wait for Gran. But I shifted in my seat just in time to see her step out and nearly fall headlong into a pothole that she hadn’t noticed in the dark. And it occurred to me that the stretch of weedy meadow between her and the outhouse would present similar hazards, without benefit of the van’s door to grab onto.

I scooted out from behind the wheel and met Gran as she was carefully stepping over one of the logs that kept cars from driving into the campground. I took her arm and held it tight. We walked across Camp Cadiz together, our bodies throwing long shadows in the headlight beams.

Tina kicked and cried out in her sleep.

“Mommy! Daddy!”

I tightened my hold on her.

“Soon, little one. You’ll see them soon.”

I dug through memory, came up with the lullaby that Aunt Lucy had sung to Katie and me when she’d first brought us home to the massive, redbrick hotel. Our great-grandfather had built the Cherokee Rose back when Maryville had been a center of river commerce and no one had thought the swampy northern Illinois town of Chicago would ever amount to much. Gran had grown up there, as had Aunt Lucy and our mother, Lydia. It would be our home, too.

I began singing softly to Tina.

Soon, her body relaxed and her breathing grew deeper and more regular. Asleep again, I thought, allowing my voice to trail off.

I began thinking again about the skeleton that lay on the ledge above us. If nature hadn’t undermined the makeshift grave and eventually deposited the remains onto the ledge below and if I hadn’t been desperately searching for Tina, I would never have found the body. And someone’s guilty secret would have remained hidden forever.

I wondered suddenly, horribly, if my own secret might someday be exposed in just that way. By accident. It was too easy to imagine Missy’s bloated corpse somehow escaping its tomb of steel, floating to the surface within sight of human eyes.

I shook my head, tried to clear away the flood of grim memories by focusing on Tina. I pressed my face down against her sleep-dampened curls and listened to the deep rhythm of her breathing as I inhaled her odd, slightly sweet baby scent. An innocent kind of smell. Perspiration and talcum powder, I thought. Or maybe baby shampoo. The kind that doesn’t sting eyes.

I’d rescued her, I reminded myself. Rescued an innocent. The way I’d rescued so many others in the years since Missy’s death. I’d preserved the Underground and, over the past eight years, helped many dozens of helpless women escape to new, better lives. And I’d given up the only man I’d ever loved because I couldn’t tolerate lying to him and I dared not tell him the truth. Wasn’t that enough to make up for breaking the law, for abusing in death someone who’d been so badly abused by life?

I couldn’t convince myself that it was.

The rescue, with enough people and the right equipment, was quick and safe. Tina, Possum and I left the ravine at a place several yards distant from the exposed root system of the massive tree. I handed Tina over to a paramedic and then, with Possum by my side, followed the tree line to the yellow-taped perimeter that Chad was creating several yards back from the ravine. The tape was a standard item in my pack. Chad always seemed to have it with him, too. And I wondered briefly what that said about our expectations.

Chad paused in his work and reached down to ruffle the fur on Possum’s head.

“Good job, Possum,” he said. “I’m going to get you a big rawhide chew. And maybe a tube of new tennis balls.”

Possum responded as he would to anyone whose voice was so full of praise. He wiggled most of the back half of his shaggy black-and-tan body.

Then Chad straightened and turned toward me. His body blocked the glare from a high-powered lantern that was set up nearby, but there was still enough light to see the dark patches of perspiration staining his uniform shirt and the long, bloody gouge that some branch had carved beneath his right eye. It nearly intersected the puckered, white line that paralleled his strong jaw—a scar that Chad’s daddy had put there more than a decade earlier.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’re fabulous.”

I felt my cheeks redden and my pulse quicken in response to the admiration I heard in his voice, and I knew without doubt that I wouldn’t have reacted that way to just anyone. Only Chad.

Quickly, I focused my attention on Possum, who was butting Chad’s hand with his broad head in an attempt to get more petting. I ordered him to lie down and stay—probably more firmly than I should have—and waited until his body was sprawled comfortably on the ground. Then I helped Chad finish tying off the tape. I took my end all the way back to the dangerous edge, finally wrapping it around a sapling that was about fifteen feet from the cottonwood tree where I’d found the bones. After rejoining Chad beneath the lantern and taking a moment to survey our work, I turned and looked him squarely in the eyes.

“Okay, now let me take a look at your face.”

He shook his head. “No big deal,” he began. “We need to—”

“No,” I said, cutting him off midsentence and probably midthought. “Before we do another thing, you let me take care of that cheek.”

From long experience, I knew just how stubborn he could be. So I didn’t wait for his reply. Or his permission. I grabbed his chin, tipped his injured cheek in my direction and peered at the wound.

“It’s only a scratch,” he said.

“Bull. Shit. Hold. Still.”

I gave his chin a quick pinch to make my point.

One way or another, I’d been dealing with Chad’s stubbornness and patching him up for years. The first time was just after he’d come to live with a family that took in foster kids. Their house was down the hill from the Cherokee Rose. Even though Chad had been a boy—and, at twelve, I’d written off the opposite sex as pretty much useless—I’d been predisposed to like him. His family situation had distracted most of Maryville from their ongoing gossip about ours. Our mother was merely a runaway and a thief, who’d abandoned her children in a crack house in Los Angeles. Chad’s father had murdered his wife, attempted to slash his son’s throat and then had claimed that God had told him to do it.

The wound on Chad’s cheek was ragged and deep. I pulled an antiseptic pad from my emergency pack and began gently washing blood and bits of debris away from it.

“It doesn’t look as if you’ll need stitches,” I said when the cheek was clean.

“Oh, good,” he said, self-mockery evident in his voice. “I was real worried that another scar would ruin my ruggedly handsome good looks.”

“It’d take a heck of a lot more than that,” I muttered, contradicting him as I always did, knowing that when he looked in the mirror all he saw was a face with a scar. And maybe felt again, just for a heartbeat, the hatred that had put it there.

But, as he always did, he shrugged.

Stupid man, I thought. Why can’t he see that despite the scarring along his jaw, or maybe because of it, he was utterly desirable?

Too desirable.

At almost nineteen, when he’d joined the military and gone away to fight in the Middle East, he hadn’t been at all desirable. At least, not as far as I’d been concerned. I’d watched him grow from a scrawny, carrot-topped boy to a rangy acne-prone adolescent male. I missed him only because he was my best buddy and the boy next door, never anticipating that a few years away would transform him into a six-foot-tall hunk with green eyes and copper hair. I hadn’t expected that old friendship would eventually evolve into new intimacy. Or that in a matter of months, our enthusiastic lust would abruptly transform itself into troublesome love. But that’s exactly what had happened.

Get over it, I told myself.

I looked away from his expressive eyes and back at his bloody cheek.

He did a good job of pretending that he didn’t feel anything when I smoothed a layer of antibiotic cream over the wound. Then, as gently as I could, I used several butterfly closures to pull together the edges along the deepest part of the wound.

He flinched.

“Sorry,” I murmured.

“Doesn’t hurt,” he lied.

“Have I ever accused you of being accident prone?”

“Often,” he said, flashing me a smile.

Halfheartedly, I scolded him for moving as I grinned back. It was an old joke and a good memory. We’d met when he’d crashed in front of the Cherokee Rose while attempting a skateboard stunt involving empty wooden peach crates and a plywood ramp.

Chad’s expression grew serious, though he was careful not to frown.

“You and I have a jurisdictional issue to resolve,” he said. “Fact is, you’d need a surveyor to figure out whether we’re standing on county land or if this is still Maryville Township.”

I made a sound that was more acknowledgment than an answer as I concentrated on anchoring a square of gauze across his cheek with a final strip of tape. Then I used another antiseptic pad to wipe away the blood that had smeared across his face. Finally, I stepped back to survey my work.

“That should hold you for a while,” I said.

Chad slanted his green eyes in the direction of his cheek as his fingers sought the gauze pad and briefly explored that side of his face.

“Thanks,” he murmured “Now about jurisdiction…”

When I attended the statewide police training institute, I’d heard a lot of talk about interdepartmental politics and jurisdictional disputes. Boiled down to its testosterone-spiked essence, the unwritten rule was You Don’t Piss on My Turf; I Won’t Piss on Yours. But in southern Illinois—where a mile-long stretch of roadway might cross federal, state, county and local jurisdictions—cooperation between law-enforcement agencies was not only customary but essential. So there was no reason, besides the personal, that Chad and I shouldn’t work together.

“A shared investigation would keep you from screwing up,” I said.

“Might keep the rookie out of trouble, too,” he retorted.

A couple hours later, I headed for home.

Chapter 4

I lived on a three-acre tract that had been hewn from the forest. From those felled trees came the logs that built the original cabin. Over the years, plumbing had been brought indoors and electricity had been added. Now the cabin was snug and modern, with a spacious living area, an eat-in kitchen and a bedroom that was an easy fit for one. Or two.

Before I went inside, I settled Possum into his kennel, made sure his water bucket was full and left him happily chewing on a rawhide bone. As was my habit, I brought Highball inside with me—his age and arthritic limbs had earned him a spot in the kitchen. I fed him a snack, patted him on the head and turned off the kitchen light. For a moment, I stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway, listening to the soft chuffing and whining sounds Highball always made as he prepared for sleep.

The big dog had been my confidant, comforter and protector since I was fourteen. So many things in my life had changed since then, but Highball’s unconditional love was a constant. For a moment, I considered walking back across the darkened kitchen and settling down on the cool floor beside his bed. As I had so often in the past, I would stroke his velvet ears and pretend he understood when I told him all about the evening’s events. But a trickle down the inside of my shirt—a tickle that I tried to believe was perspiration, not a spider—convinced me that my time could be better spent.

I made a beeline to the bathroom.

I stripped off my clothes, put them in a plastic bag destined for tomorrow’s laundry and washed off sweat and grime under a stream of lukewarm water. Then I washed again. I ran the water so hot that it almost scalded, stood beneath a shower of needle-sharp droplets and scrubbed my skin with a loofa sponge until I was pink. No amount of soap and water could purge emotion or chase away unclean images of violent death. But still, I scrubbed. Finally, when the hot water ran out and my flesh turned to goose bumps, I stepped from the shower.

As I toweled myself dry, I checked carefully for ticks and found one. It had embedded its tiny head in the soft flesh behind my right knee, and its body was already swollen with my blood. Ignoring a twinge of nausea, I grasped it with tweezers, exerted steady pressure to pull it free, then crushed it. I disinfected the site with alcohol, then conducted another careful, paranoia-driven body search and found nothing.

After dressing in underwear and a soft, oversize white T-shirt that smelled comfortingly of bleach, I walked down the long hall to the front of the house and sat down at my desk. Now that I was clean, my attention turned back to the crime scene. I pulled a yellow pad from the bottom drawer and a blue pen from the middle drawer, then jotted down details while they were still fresh in my mind. When I’d finished filling a page with notes, I pushed away any thought of the evening’s events. But I couldn’t help remembering the moments before I’d left Chad at the scene.

“It’s going to be hours before the state forensics team arrives,” Chad said. “And, once they’re here, there won’t be much for us to do besides stand around and watch. You and Possum gotta be worn out. So why don’t you take the kid to her parents and let me do the waiting?” Then his lips twisted into a half smile. “On your way back to their house, you could make sure the trail’s flagged in a real obvious way. The state guys are city boys, all of ’em. It wouldn’t do to have to call you and Possum out for another search.”

The idea, even in jest, was appalling. And confirmed just how exhausted I was.

“Call me—” I began.

“In the morning. Sooner if something turns up tonight. Okay?”

Then, in a gesture that blended cop and friend seamlessly, Chad put his arm around my shoulders and gave them a quick squeeze.

“Be sure to get yourself something to drink, maybe something to eat,” he said before pushing me gently in the direction of Tina and the waiting paramedic. “Hell, eat and drink something for us both.”

Mostly because I’d promised I would, I went back to the dark kitchen for a snack. The light from the open refrigerator slanted across the room and touched Highball’s bed. Though in years past, the sound of my bare footsteps would have awakened him, he snored on undisturbed.

The contents of my refrigerator hadn’t changed since I’d surveyed them hours earlier. Except now—and despite missing dinner—food held absolutely no appeal. I shook my head as I let the refrigerator door swing shut and left the kitchen empty-handed.

If Chad were relying on me to eat for him tonight, he was out of luck. Besides, missing a meal wouldn’t hurt him. His uniform was getting a bit snug through the waist again, and I briefly wondered if anyone else would tease him about his love handles. Or count push-ups for him.

Despite the smile I managed, the thought of Chad with someone else—anyone else—hurt. But most unguarded thoughts about Chad hurt. Especially lately. Though he still kept a change of clothing in my hall closet and used my sofa and my shower when exhaustion made the treacherous drive into town seem impossibly far, it had been several months since we’d shared a bed.

My decision. The right decision.

“Please, Brooke,” he’d said on the last night that we’d spent together. “Let’s get married.”

The request was a familiar one.

His first proposal had involved champagne, soft music and candlelight. He’d knelt down on one knee and offered me a ring. This time, he simply whispered across the pillow as we lay in my bed, quiet and relaxed after lovemaking.

I said no.

Amazing how so small a word, so softly spoken, could hurt so much. Hurt to say. Hurt to hear. Hurt more each time it was repeated.

That night, I decided that I’d said no to Chad for the last time. Perhaps I should have figured it out sooner, spared us both the pain. But, for a time, I’d convinced myself that a happy ending was possible. Now I knew that I would never say yes. Could never say yes. Because of what I’d seen. Because of what I’d done. Because of the secrets I was bound to keep.

I shook my head at my reflection in the medicine-cabinet mirror, told myself that I’d done the right thing and now it was time to move on. As if determination was all that was needed to drive away longing and tears. Then I popped several vitamin C tablets, washed them down with a large glass of water and headed for bed. After pulling the bedroom door closed behind me, I crawled beneath the blankets and closed my eyes.

Gun fire shattered the night.

Three shots. Coming from the direction of our old blue van.

Gran and I were on our way back from the outhouse and I was a little ahead of her, walking on the path back across the campground. When I heard the shots, I froze and, for a heartbeat, stood illuminated by the van’s headlights, unwittingly presenting the perfect target. For a moment I was sure that Dr. Porter had somehow followed us, found us and was attacking my Gran and me. That was my thought as I grabbed Gran’s arm, pulling her down beside me as I flattened myself on the ground.

More shots shattered the night, but this time I glimpsed the hot muzzle flashes within the van.

My grandfather’s gun.

I’d left it in the purse on the floor of the van. Next to Katie’s feet. But there was nothing for her to shoot at—

That was when I scrambled to my feet and raced toward the parking area, half-raising my arm to shield my eyes from the bright headlights and raced across Camp Cadiz. As I ran, I prayed that I was wrong.

Gran’s frantic cry came from somewhere behind me.

“Katie!”

Impossible to tell from her voice if her fear was the same as mine.

I didn’t wait for her to catch up.

I swerved to avoid the water spigot at the campground’s center, pushed myself to run faster though I was already running as fast as I could. Just as I had when I was so much younger, when I hadn’t been able run fast enough to save my sister. But this time I knew that the situation was hopeless and that I would be too late.

It was too easy to remember how angry Katie had been. Angry at our mother, who’d abandoned us for her own selfish reasons. Left us alone and unprotected in the hands of a child molester. But our mother was long gone, and tonight there was only Missy who had also abandoned her children. I’d left her unprotected in the van. I should have known better.

A final few steps took me abruptly out of the headlights’ glare. Darkness closed in around me as I leaped over the log that separated grass from gravel and stumbled to the front passenger-side door. I yanked it open.

Katie was kneeling up in her seat, facing the rear of the van. Her elbows were braced on either side of the headrest, and she held Grandfather’s gun clutched in both hands. Her wheezing was counterpointed by the hollow click, click, click that echoed through the van each time the heavy hammer fell on an empty chamber.

I followed the direction of her gaze.

The dome light was more than enough to illuminate Missy’s body. Bullet-riddled and covered in blood, she was still held securely in place by her seat belt. There was a gaping hole where a blue eye had once been.