“I couldn’t even drive us home, so Brandy drove my car, proudly displaying her new license on the dashboard. I swear, nothing fazed her. I don’t know how she was always able to stay so calm under pressure.”
“Practice,” A.J. said with a sigh. “She had much bigger problems to deal with than most kids. Getting in trouble at the DMV barely registers when your life’s in constant turmoil.” He grabbed his glass off the table and tossed back a gulp of whiskey.
“I’m sorry, A.J. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.
“No need to apologize. It’s just that I was thinking about her on the drive here. She shouldn’t have been living like that, in that environment. I should have done something to get her out.”
“A.J., give yourself a break. You were 18. There is absolutely nothing you could have done.” Her fingers twisted the napkin on her lap, and Jason reached over and laid a reassuring hand on hers.
A.J. leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I know that as an 18-year-old, she was considered an adult, but the truth is she was a high school senior living with an addict. Those last couple of months, that creepy guy with the pills was always over there as well. It just wasn’t right.”
Rain drew in a sharp breath. “I remember him, Bruce, right? Do you think he had something to do with it? The cops checked him out, decided he wasn’t involved.”
“It all had something to do with what happened,” he finished, his voice edged with anger.
“I’m really sorry I brought it up,” Rain said again. She stared at her plate as her stomach churned miserably.
“No, I’m sorry,” A.J. said. “We all loved her. She deserves to be remembered.” His eyes closed, then suddenly flew open as he lurched forward. “What the…?” he shouted, whipping his head around.
“What is it?” Jason asked, looking around the room warily.
A.J. shot up from the table, his chair scratching the floor. “I felt something behind me…around my neck.” He lifted his hand to the back of his neck, a bewildered look on his face.
Rain’s mouth went dry. “Were you being choked?” she whispered.
“No, no—it felt like an embrace.” He frowned and reached for his drink, draining it in a single swallow. “Wow. My imagination must be on overdrive. The memories are really getting to me.” Carrying his glass to the kitchen, he snatched the whiskey bottle off the counter and poured a refill.
“Hey, I’ll have one of whatever you’re drinking,” Jason called. “Maybe I’ll get lucky too.”
A.J. sent him a withering look but reached into the cabinet for another glass. “Hilarious. Let’s all make fun of the crazy guy,” he grumbled.
Rain stood and began circling the table, collecting plates. As she pushed A.J.’s chair in, her bare foot landed in something cold and wet. She yanked her foot back, eyeing the floor suspiciously. Another mysterious puddle. Her eyes drifted over the remains of their dinner, searching for an overturned glass.
Nothing seemed amiss. Setting the plates on the island, she returned to the table with a dishtowel. She debated with herself as she mopped the floor. Was it worth mentioning a puddle? It was probably just a spill from dinner, she decided. Sliding a glance toward the guys in the kitchen, she turned quietly and carried the towel to the laundry room.
Chapter 14
Rain was adding milk to her coffee when A.J. strolled in through the front door the next morning, his cell phone in hand. “Good morning,” he greeted her.
“Hey,” she answered sleepily. It was 9:00, but she had slept fitfully, her mind troubled by thoughts and dreams.
“So, is there any chance you have your scuba diving certification?”
She held her mug up in midair and just stared at him for a moment. “Wow. Random.” She took a sip and grimaced. “Jason always makes the coffee too strong.”
“How do you know I didn’t make it?” A.J. asked playfully.
She rolled her eyes in response and added more milk. “Now it’s cold,” she muttered, popping it into the microwave.
“Yeah, Jason did make it strong today. And just for the record, he doesn’t think it’s funny if you request a half-caf mocha latte.”
“I can imagine,” she laughed, reaching for a cereal bowl in the upper cabinet. The microwave beeped and she tested the temperature carefully. “Well, this is now half coffee, half milk. But at least it’s hot.”
“So, do you?” A.J. prompted.
“Do I what?” She really needed to ingest some caffeine. She savored a long sip and looked around, wondering where Jason was. Outside, the clouds hung heavy and thick in the sky.
“Have your scuba certification. Jason got his in college, and I got certified on one of my trips to the Caribbean.”
Rain dumped cereal in a bowl and pretended to think. “Hmmm, I’m trying to remember if I bothered to get certified on one of my trips to the Caribbean. It’s hard to say, there have been so many, but I don’t think I got around to it.”
“Yeah, I sort of figured it would be a long shot, but Jason and I were trying to think of ideas for things to do today. It’s not really a beach day.” A.J. nodded his head toward the kitchen window, which showcased the gloomy, overcast sky.
Grabbing a banana from the bowl on the counter, Rain frowned at him and located a knife. “And scuba diving is what you came up with?” She began slicing the banana neatly into her bowl.
“Well, it would be cool to dive Candlewood Lake.”
“Candlewood? Why not just scuba dive in this lake?”
A.J. laughed. “There’s nothing
in
this lake.”
“Of course,” Rain replied sarcastically. A sudden slam of the front door made her jump and the knife sliced deep into her finger. “Damn it! Ow.” She dropped the remainder of the banana and the knife as the crimson blood began to well up. Biting her lip against the sharp sting of pain, she turned around to the sink and flipped on the water.
A.J. was immediately beside her, examining her finger under the flow of water from the faucet. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I thought I closed that door.” He searched through a few drawers until he found the clean dishtowels and handed one to her.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.” She smiled at the look of concern on his face as she wrapped the towel around her finger. “Don’t worry, the new plan for the day isn’t the ER. Can you grab me a bandage, though? Under the sink in the bathroom.” Suddenly chilled, she shivered and hugged her upper arms into her body. Was it possible to go into shock from a small knife wound?
He returned immediately with the entire box of bandages and some first aid cream and insisted on helping her clean and cover the cut. “I’m not sure this is really a two-person job,” she commented, but she let him play doctor. It was nice to have someone take care of her for a change, she mused. “So, now that the finger is saved, are you going to explain to me what’s so interesting about Candlewood Lake?”
“You didn’t cover that in history class?” he asked as he poured milk on her cereal and got her a spoon. “Eat, you need your strength to heal.”
She rolled her eyes but smiled and accepted the spoon, dipping it into her breakfast. “You forget, I wasn’t in all those AP courses with you guys. I’m the slow one.”
He looked exasperated as he leaned across the island toward her. “You are not slow. You always got good grades, Rain.”
“Yeah, but I had to work at it, unlike you and Jason and Allie. I didn’t have half the extra-curricular activities you all did. I was always studying.”
A.J. shook his head in disagreement. “You were editor of the school paper. And on the school council, whatever that was.”
Rain swallowed a bite of cereal and gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Those things certainly got me far in life.”
“You were prom queen.”
“Another highlight on my resume,” she countered.
“Everyone liked you. Nothing wrong with that.”
She shrugged and dug her spoon back into her bowl. “If people liked me, it was because of Rick. Our entire school seemed to think he hung the moon.” A.J. opened his mouth to argue but she put her free hand up to cut him off. “Fine, fine, you win. Now that we’ve established how likeable I was, are you going to explain the lake stuff to me?”
“Our lake, Silver Lake, is a kettle pond, formed by glaciers. But Candlewood Lake is man-made, it was created around the 1920s,” A.J. said patiently, as though that explained everything.
“Okay. That does sound vaguely familiar, but you’re going to have to give me a little more than that.”
A.J. smiled and his blue eyes shone. “Oh, I’m just getting started. It’s actually a really cool story. The government took all the land to be used for the lake by eminent domain. Candlewood Lake is the largest lake in Connecticut, so think of all that land before it was flooded. It was mostly farms, from what I remember, and the owners were paid a fair price at the time but forced to move. A lot of them just left everything there: farm equipment, vehicles, houses. Plus there were roads, bridges, and other structures. And now it’s all underwater. So you can go scuba diving and check it all out. Granted, the visibility probably isn’t as good as the Caribbean, but to me it sounds like exploring an underwater time capsule.”
“That does sound awesome! You guys should totally go, don’t worry about me.”
He shook his head and reached for her coffee cup. Taking the milk out of the refrigerator again, he carefully refilled her mug and set it in the microwave. “Of course we’re not going without you. We’ll go another time, when Allie is here. We came up with a Plan B: a miniature golf tournament, and the winner buys ice cream after.”
“That sounds more my speed. Although my injury may affect my game.” She held up her bandaged finger. “Not like I had any chance against you two.”
“You have to stay positive,” A.J. insisted with an encouraging grin as Jason came through the porch, flushed and sweating.
“Stay positive about what?” Jason asked, grabbing a large bath towel from the closet in the hall.
“Oh, Rain and I were just sharing some ideas on how to endure another day with you.”
“Very funny.” Jason gave A.J. a dark look as he mopped the sweat from his face with the edge of his towel. “It’s humid as hell out there.”
“So we decided to go with the mini golf plan. Winner treats everyone to ice cream.”
Jason settled the towel around his neck and nodded. “I guess I had better bring my wallet then,” he commented magnanimously as he headed back through the porch toward the outdoor shower.
“See,” called A.J. as he slid the heated coffee toward Rain. “It’s that attitude that makes you so difficult to bear.”
****
Rain rested her head against the backseat of Jason’s car. Her eyes grew heavy in the comforting darkness, and she pulled their picnic blanket over her lap. Exhaustion was settling in, and she stifled a yawn as she reflected on their busy day.
A.J. had pulled out a win in miniature golf, much to Jason’s irritation. Rain came in a not-too-distant third, but only because they insisted on giving her a few do-overs when her ball went wild. He made a big production of treating them all to ice cream afterward, and they walked along the sidewalk and window-shopped as they ate. When the sky grew dark, they took refuge in a pizza parlor, drinking bad coffee and watching the Yankees game while waiting out the passing rain showers.
By the time they’d headed back to the house, the clouds were breaking up, revealing the late afternoon sun. Music and fireworks were scheduled that evening at a high school a few towns over, so they’d packed a picnic dinner and gathered on the football field to enjoy the festivities.
The night air had turned chilly, and now Rain buried her chin in Jason’s sweatshirt. She had resisted taking it from him at first, but her light sweater had not been enough to keep her warm. It was the same sweatshirt she had pilfered from his room a few weeks ago, and guilt pricked her conscience as she huddled inside the thick cotton.
Why did she have to feel this way about him? Jason was unavailable. Even if he ended his relationship with Cara, she doubted he would ever be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice. He had surely learned his lesson when it came to Rain.
It was hard for her to accept that he had once wanted her, and she had been the one afraid to take a chance. At the time, she’d taken the feelings she had for him and buried them deep, where they couldn’t complicate her life. Denial had become her closest ally.
She hadn’t even been able to be honest with her best friend. Brandy had tried to break down Rain’s defenses one night, questioning her about Jason. And Rain had refused to admit that their passionate kiss had stirred something powerful inside her.
The motion of the car pushed her closer toward sleep as she thought about that conversation with Brandy. It had taken place on a winter night only weeks before Brandy’s disappearance. They’d been in Brandy’s room, sprawled out on the twin beds, trying to study.
Brandy had lit a cigarette and blown a smoke ring. “I hate calculus. I don’t know why I’m bothering with this at all.” She fished out a small plastic baggie from her night table drawer and examined the contents. Pills and capsules in a variety of colors and sizes lined the bottom of the bag, and Brandy considered her choices before selecting two. She tossed them down her throat and followed with a swig of the rum and diet soda she had been mixing all evening.
“Why are you doing that?” Rain asked in what she hoped was a nonchalant voice. She was getting more and more worried about her friend lately. “Do you even know what those are?”
Brandy shrugged and took a drag of her cigarette. “I’m pretty sure those were Valium. Or Vicodin.” She laughed. “Something with a ‘V.’ They help me calm down and sleep. It’s not like I can swipe the entire bottle with the labels and directions, Bruce and my mom would notice that and get pissed. Not that I care. But it is expensive stuff.”
“If Bruce is dealing, he’s going to notice. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that.”
A look of annoyance crossed Brandy’s face. She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do. It didn’t happen much in her life. “Maybe you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.” She gestured at Rain with her cigarette and then flicked the ash into an empty soda can.