Rebecca continued to stare. Her mind besieged her with so many questions she hardly knew which one to raise first.
“And then there’s this one. I thought you’d find it especially interesting.”
She looked.
It was a photograph of a woman, on her knees, vomiting.
Beside her was a dog, its brains blown onto the gravel.
“When he took that one,” said Pete Mundy, “he was no more than twenty feet away from you.”
(v)
Rebecca felt her gorge rise afresh, had to cover her mouth. He handed her a Diet Coke. She drank greedily, then sat beside him, waiting for the explanation she knew was coming. The rooming house was quiet
and dark. She wondered how it must feel to live your whole life in one place, if not happy, at least content.
“Sheriff Garvey is right,” said the deputy, soft and boyish once more. “I do have some pretty wild theories about what’s going on in Bethel. I told you I don’t like all these strangers in my town. I don’t like all those visitors to Stone Heights. I don’t like trespassers, or people who shoot dogs to send messages. I don’t like people who can make a phone call and get out of jail free. I don’t like reporters, I don’t like spies, and I don’t like that you’re mixed up in this.” She glanced at him. He was gazing, sadly, at the photo of his son. “It’s surveillance, Beck. That’s what I told the sheriff. Stone Heights is under surveillance. You asked about federal. I figure these guys are private, like their licenses say, but who the fuck can tell? Pardon my French. The point is, people are waiting for something to happen. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. I don’t know when it’s happening. But, whatever it is, I kind of doubt it’s going to be good for Bethel.”
Pete waited for her to fill the gaps in his knowledge. She did not.
“The thing is, whatever’s going on, since you arrived it’s…intensified, I guess is the word. It’s like, you came to town and this whole wave came with you. All these strangers. All waiting. And Sheriff Garvey—well, whenever I try to look into this, he tells me to leave it alone.
Orders
me. Gets all furious. He’s protecting somebody, Beck. I’d kind of like to know who. I’d like to know who’s giving the sheriff
his
orders. I have a hunch it’s not Mr. Ainsley”
Beck shut her eyes. She was exhausted and lonely and angry at the world. In this mood, she was prone to life-changing mistakes. “I can’t help you,” she said. “I’m as much in the dark as you are. Anyway, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”
“Leaving the rest of us to cope.”
“I’m sorry, Pete. I am. But it’s not my mystery. I have a job. I have my daughter to look after. I’m afraid the town—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he interrupted. “I meant, I’m sorry we won’t get the chance to know each other. Because, you know, what you said before—about me being married—”
Her head was resting against the leather seat. Her eyes remained
closed. Her hands were in her lap, but her fists were clenched. “I don’t want to hear this,” she murmured, possibly just to herself.
“The separation is for real,” said Pete, doggedly. He was very near. “We’re not getting back together. Laurel and I are just working out the details.”
There, in the closeness of the cab, Beck felt it. Felt the tug of human weakness. She had yielded before, and not only with Jericho. There were moments when sheer bone-wearying loneliness made it easy to believe whatever nonsense a married man whispered—or at least to pretend to believe it, when what you really believed was your own need for ordinary human warmth, a need so strong you would do harm to another woman to get it.
Eyes still closed, she shook her head. “No.”
“Beck—”
“I saw how you looked at that photo, Pete. The photo of your boy.” Clenching tighter. “I don’t know anything about your marriage. I don’t want to know. But you would never harm that boy, and if that means going back to his mother, then you’ll go back. Whether you love her or not.”
She did not need to see his face to know she had struck home. She felt the sudden stillness in the truck, like the last moment before the avalanche, and waited for him to say what too many men had said to her over the years, that he would have thought she would be the last woman to worry about another woman’s marriage. Men were boys, mostly, and even the sweetest boy, upon failing to get what he wanted, could throw a tantrum.
“You’re a good woman,” he said, starting the engine. He backed out into the road.
They rode back to town in silence. Beck kept her eyes shut. She was hoping to doze, so that she could forget the ache, and the doubt, and the desperate urge to change her mind. Her several selves were at war, independent versus needy, suspicious versus trusting, the new Beck versus the old. The drive up the mountain tonight would be the longest of her life. The thought of returning to the cold insanity of Stone Heights
suddenly appalled her. When they were a block from Corinda’s, she turned to him and said, “Pete, look. I might not be as good as you think—”
He covered her mouth. “You were right the first time. I do love my boy. I’d never hurt him.”
“I know, but—”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect him.” He walked her to her car, and even ventured a chaste hug. Behind the glasses, his eyes were grim. “I bet you feel the same way about your little girl.”
“Oh, yes, I do.” His fervor surprised her. “I do.”
“Then I guess we pretty much understand each other,” he said, and turned away.
Rebecca stood in the sprinkly snow, watching the taillights of his pickup until they were out of sight. Part of her wished he would turn around and give her another chance, but most of her wanted to be quit of Bethel forever.
CHAPTER 17
The Folder
(i)
“Okay, fine,” said Pamela. “So your new boyfriend showed you a bunch of photographs. So what?”
“Somebody took them on the property. And Deputy Mundy is not my boyfriend.”
“You’re saying we’ve had a trespasser.”
Beck nodded. They were in the great room, on one of the sofas near the window. Outside, the floodlights pounded their unnatural yellowy brightness into the night. “Exactly. And on more than one occasion.”
Pamela’s smile never touched her eyes. “We’ve had trespassers every day, Rebecca. I’m sure some of them have cameras.” She waved at the photos. “If it makes you happier, call your boyfriend and tell him to arrest the photographer.”
“He’s not my—”
“So you keep saying. But that’s not what Audrey hears in town.”
Beck decided to let this go. “They can’t arrest him. Pete says he checked out of the rooming house today, and nobody’s seen him since.”
“So it’s
Pete
now.” A sneer.
“He’s just a friend.”
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“Pamela—”
“What is it with you and married men?”
“I didn’t wreck your parents’ marriage,” she said.
“My late mother was of a different opinion.”
“I was a kid—”
“And he gave you presents, didn’t he? That’s what he did. That was always his style when he wanted a woman.” She stood up, began to pace barefoot across the floorboards. “He’d shower her with expensive gifts. Jewelry. Fragrances. Whatever it took. You weren’t the only sweet young thing he went after, Rebecca. No matter what you might think, you weren’t special.” She laughed. “My father’s a piece of work. Did you know he keeps records? I’m serious. All the gifts to all the ladies. He has folders and folders of them. It must come from being in the intelligence business. Nothing’s official until it’s on the record.”
Beck said nothing.
“Your folder’s very thick,” said Pamela. “I haven’t finished working my way through it yet.”
“You don’t have any right—”
“Makes fascinating reading. You can have it when I’m done.”
Rebecca kept her temper, but only by furrowing her palms with her fingernails. “We have to talk about these photographs, Pamela. We have to decide what to do.”
“You’re not interested in reading your file?”
“I’m interested in the present and the future, Pamela. If you want to wallow in the past, that’s your problem, not mine.”
A thin smile. “Interesting response. I wonder what could be in the folder that you’re afraid I’ll find.”
“Come on, Pamela. When exactly do you plan to stop this shit and grow up? I don’t care what you spend your time doing. There are things going on that we have to deal with, but you just can’t get over yourself, can you? You’re worse than Jericho. My Nina is more mature than you are, and she’s just seven.”
“You—how dare you—”
“I’m going to bed,” said Rebecca, with bitter satisfaction. She headed for the stairs. For the first time since walking in the door Sunday night, she had gotten the better of her adversary. But she knew that such advantages were transitory.
(ii)
Upstairs, she brushed her teeth and brushed her hair and wondered how the face in the mirror had aged five years in just two days. She rubbed her eyes. She should have talked to Pete Mundy Shared her suspicions and fears. Told him Dak’s story about national security told him Lewiston Clark’s story about Scondell Bloom, and let him help her choose between the two.
God knew, she needed the help.
Back in the bedroom, she lay down with a sheaf of printouts about the financial firm, and woke an hour later because her cell phone was ringing. She let it ring. She stood up and opened the window, letting in the night sounds, but heard no helicopter. So maybe her thesis had been wrong.
The ringing continued.
She decided to answer. Maybe she would get voice mail again.
She did, but it was the same message as before: “I have to go, because Grandma is calling me, and I didn’t tell her I’m calling you—
Just a minute!
—I’m in the bathroom and I guess I better go, but call me, Mommy, okay? Call me soon, so I can tell you about the d—”
And again it ended.
Audrey must be right: it was some weird effect of the mountains. What she could not understand was why, when she’d accessed her voice mail in town earlier, the message wasn’t—
She froze.
In the floodlights, a human figure was moving furtively across the snow-whitened lawn.
He was heading for the house.
(iii)
Pamela didn’t believe her, but Audrey, who admitted to having not seen a thing, wanted to make peace, and so they dutifully trooped to the
security room behind the kitchen and flipped through the monitors. An animal or two, trees swaying in the night breezes, but no people.
“There was somebody,” said Beck.
“Look for yourself,” said Pamela.
The images from the cameras were digitally stored, Beck pointed out. Pamela, the filmmaker, and the only one who knew how to work the equipment, replied that she was not about to waste her time tracking down Beck’s nightmares.
“I was awake.”
“Daydreams, then.”
“I know what I saw.”
Pamela straightened. Like many tall women, she often carried herself slightly hunched, as if her height was a burden. But when she wanted to, she could look down on most people, and right now she wanted to.
“Has it occurred to you”—addressing Audrey, even though her glare was directed at Rebecca—“that all of these little problems seem to have started when she arrived?”
Beck muttered an expletive. Pamela advanced on her like a boxer cutting the ring to size. “Think about it, Aud. The dead dog. The helicopter that keeps buzzing us. Now the phantom visitors in the night. What is it going to be next, Beck? A power outage? A home invasion?”
About to reply in kind, Beck found her mouth covered by a soft, pale hand. “Come on, you guys. Stop. This isn’t why we’re here.” A nervous chuckle. “How about a little Christian charity?” To their general surprise, she covered Pamela’s mouth, too. “Now, come on. I was baking oatmeal cookies. They’re ready to come out of the oven, and they’re
very
good.”
Beck forced herself to reply in kind. “I bet it’s not real oatmeal. It’s some kind of macrobiotic oat husk—”
“Don’t encourage her,” muttered Pamela, changing sides for the moment, or perhaps just targets.
But they all marched into the kitchen anyway. Audrey slid the tray out. The cookies neither looked nor smelled like any oatmeal Rebecca could remember. “They need time to cool,” said the nun.
“I’ll be upstairs on the computer,” Pamela began.
Then they all heard the thump.
Audrey said it was her father falling, and headed for the stairs. Pamela said it was a branch tumbling from a storm-blasted tree, hitting the house. Beck said it was a man on the roof.
Pamela had already started in on her, and Beck was starting in right back, when Audrey shouted.
They followed her pointing finger upward.
A shadow passed over the skylight.
“An animal,” said Pamela.
“It’s a man,” said Audrey, very tense. “I saw his face. He was looking right at us.”
CHAPTER 18
The Accident
(i)
In the security room, Pamela lifted a panel and turned a key, and all around the house, a security mesh began closing, thick metal grates covering the doors and the first-floor windows. She pressed a button and an alarm klaxon sounded. The volume made everybody jump. On the monitor, a shadow shot past one of the cameras, hitting the ground hard.
“What was that?” said Audrey.
“With any luck,” said her sister, very complacent, “that was our friend from the roof.”
She pointed to another monitor. Sure enough, a man lay on the frozen ground, writhing and clutching his leg. They could not see his face.
“We have to help him,” said Audrey.
Pamela snickered. “We don’t owe him any help. He’s a trespasser. We wait for the police.” She pointed. “When you sound the alarm, they come automatically.”
“We can’t just leave him,” said Audrey. “He’s hurt.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go out there,” said Beck. “Pamela’s right.”
The phone rang in the kitchen. The sisters, still arguing, made no move to answer, so Beck picked it up.