The Edge of the Shadows (17 page)

THIRTY-TWO

B
ecca hadn't been wearing the ear bud for the AUD box, and she was grateful for that. Normally, she didn't wear it when she was with Ralph Darrow anyway since his whispers and his words were identical. Now, in the kitchen, she'd been picking up mostly on whispers that seemed to be coming from Seth. They spoke of fire and Coupeville and the sheriff's department and even throughout the light talk about Ralph's diet, those thoughts had been there, popping up like ground squirrels checking the air for intruders. They'd kept popping up until Parker mentioned Laurel Armstrong's name, and that put an end to everything other than
here comes major trouble
, which she herself was thinking right along with Seth.

Ralph was studying the picture of Becca's mom. He was also reading the article. He was one second away from making the jump to page five, where the fifth-grade picture of Hannah Armstrong would smile up at him. Someone had to stop him from doing that, and blessed Seth did so.

He said, “Hey, lemme see that, Grand,” and he plucked the paper from his grandfather's hands. “Hmmm.” He pretended to study the picture. “You sure this is the same lady that's on those flyers? I seen one at South Whidbey Commons. What d'you think, Beck? This look like your cousin? Only, what'd she be doing on Whidbey Island?”

“I never met her,” Becca said, turning her back to them and stirring energetically at the French beef stew. She had cornbread in the oven as well. She opened the door and the fragrance was heady.

Behind her, Parker said, “But that was her name, right? And if you never met her, this
could
be her, huh? How amazing is that? You ask me about her and here she is.”

“Check it out, Beck,” Seth suggested.

Come on take it Becca
told her that Seth had something in mind, so she cooperated although she didn't wish to expose her lying face to Ralph Darrow. But she swung away from the stove and went to Seth. She pretended to study the picture and then said, “C'n I hold on to this?” to all of them in general.

Ralph was examining her in a way she didn't much like. Becca said, “The name's the same. I just wish I knew . . . Gosh, it would be nice to know what she looks like 'cause I could tell the sheriff this Laurel Armstrong he's looking for lives in Nelson.”

“Could be you ought to do that anyway,” Ralph noted.
Because you surely know something young lady
constituted one of the few times his whispers didn't match his words.

“Yeah,” Becca said, and she repeated her request with, “C'n I keep this, Mr. Darrow?”

He nodded and gestured to the pile of
South Whidbey Record
s that lay on the chair seat. “Plenty more where that came from.”

They were through for the moment. But the reprieve didn't last.

• • •

BOTH PARKER AND
Seth left soon after the dishes. Becca went to her room, homework in mind. She was ten minutes into it when a knock on her door told her that Ralph Darrow wanted to speak to her. She said, “It's open, Mr. Darrow,” and the door swung inward as she turned from her work. She put on her phony glasses. She wasn't using the ear bud, and she didn't intend to use it now, not with the grave expression on Ralph Darrow's face.

He stood in the doorway in his striped pajamas, his robe, and his slippers, with his long gray hair unbound from its usual rubber band. Becca was glad she hadn't yet washed her face of its hideous amount of Goth eye makeup. She was even more glad of this when
get to the bottom of this
preceded Ralph Darrow into the room.

His words confirmed what Becca's fears were: He'd not for a moment forgotten what Parker Natalia had said about Laurel Armstrong. “So, Miss Becca,” Ralph began as he lowered himself to the edge of her bed, the only place to sit aside from the desk chair that Becca herself was occupying. “There anything you want to tell me about this cousin of yours up in Nelson, B.C.?”

He was watching her in that way he had of watching Seth. He'd be making a serious evaluation. She settled on saying, “There's not much to tell, Mr. Darrow.”

“How's she related to you?”

“Like I said. She's my cousin.”

“Through your mom or your dad?”

This was probably a trap, but Becca had no choice. She didn't know who her father was, and sometimes she wondered if Laurel herself knew, given the many lovers she'd had. So she couldn't risk telling Ralph this supposed cousin was from her father's side of the family lest he then ask questions about her father. She said, “My mom's side,” and she hurried on with, “Actually, I think she's my mom's first cousin, which makes her . . . my second cousin or something? Truth is, I only actually
think
her name's Laurel Armstrong. I guess it could be Laura Armstrong. I mean, my mom mentioned her a few times is all. And when Parker told us he was from Nelson . . . the name just popped into my head.”

Ralph nodded thoughtfully but his whisper of
road apples
didn't suggest he believed what she'd said. She remembered his long ago words about Darrows walking on the right side of the law, and she knew that one of his primary worries in having her on his property had to do with his deciding to believe her initial story. And yet despite her lies to virtually everyone else, the story she'd told to Ralph Darrow had been the complete truth: She
was
waiting for her mother's return to Whidbey to fetch her; she'd
been
intended to stay with a woman called Carol Quinn who had died unexpectedly the night of Becca's arrival; she was
not
a runaway. The only truths she'd left out were her real name and the name of her mother. And now that name hung between the two of them and if Becca admitted that she'd lied to Ralph Darrow in this one small matter, she had a very good idea what he would do.

She couldn't risk telling him. She also couldn't risk his opening the
South Whidbey Record
that even in this moment lay beneath her geometry book. She couldn't point to the picture of Hannah Armstrong and say, “Okay. This is me. And the guy looking for us is Jeff Corrie,” because that would lead to why Jeff Corrie was looking and
that
would lead to what Hannah Armstrong could do, which was hear people's thoughts, which even in this moment she could hear from Ralph Darrow as clear as anything,
what's the truth about this child's mother?
It was the single question Becca herself wanted answered.

Then he asked another, one that Becca and her mom hadn't once considered because they'd assumed she'd be carefully ensconced in Carol Quinn's house, where more subterfuge than simply having an identity for Becca would not be necessary. “What's your mom's name, then?” Ralph Darrow asked her.

Becca refused to give in to the panic that swept toward her. She glanced away, past the old man to the shelf on which sat her few books. The name she came up with was Marilla but she knew better than to go for something so strange, so she said, “Rachel,” because of
Anne of Green Gables
from which book the name Marilla itself had come. So had Rachel. Rachel Lynde, Marilla Cuthburt's friend and neighbor. A nosy woman with decided opinions who had, at the end of the day, a very good heart. Just like Ralph. She hoped.

“Rachel King,” Ralph said.

“Rachel King,” she acknowledged.

“Who left you here to stay with Carol Quinn?”

“They went to school together.”

“Who was also married,” Ralph pointed out.

“Huh?”

“Carol Quinn was married. Makes me wonder why you didn't stay on with her husband, Miss Becca, once you discovered Carol Quinn had passed.”

Because Carol's husband hadn't known she was coming. Because Carol Quinn herself had been sworn to secrecy about Becca's identity. Because the story was going to be that Carol needed help around the house and here was this girl on the island who needed a place to stay and it was all supposed to work so well and so easily . . . except Carol had died of a heart attack and when Becca arrived and told Carol's husband her name, the man hadn't a clue who she was or why she was there.

She said, “It sort of seemed . . . I mean, it was, like, an intrusion, Mr. Darrow. I went to the house and there was the sheriff and an ambulance and it didn't seem right. So I ended up at the Cliff Motel, more or less, till I came here to stay with you.”

Runaway and trying to keep out of sight except the fact that she's going to school
 . . .

Becca seized on this. “You don't have to worry. I know it all sounds like a total made up story, but you got to figure that I wouldn't exactly be going to
school if I'd run away from home. First, I wouldn't have the stuff I would need to get myself enrolled. The paperwork? You know? And second”—she gestured to her homework—“I probably wouldn't be trying to figure out geometry. And anyway, to be
totally
honest . . .” She hesitated over this last detail, reluctant to bad-mouth the place that had given her a welcome and shelter.

“Yes?” he prompted. “My being a fellow who likes total honesty, Miss Becca, do go on.”

“Well, d'you think I'd've chosen Whidbey Island to run away to? I mean, wouldn't a city be better? Seattle? Portland? It's easy, don't you think, to hide out in a city. It sure as heck isn't easy to hide out here.”

Truth to that
said he was inclined to believe her. So did the fact that he slapped his hands on his knees and stood. He nodded thoughtfully and then looked around him. He seemed to settle on the shelf where she kept her books. He said, “Okay then, Miss Becca,” and he walked to the shelf and studied it. She thought he was looking at
Seeing Beyond Sight,
but to her dismay he picked up her childhood copy of
Anne of Green Gables
instead, the one thing she'd brought with her from her other life.

“Now this is a book I haven't seen in years,” he said as Becca prayed fervently that he wouldn't open it. “It was Brenda's favorite. Seth's aunt Brenda, my girl. It was also a book Seth's sister loved. All of those
Anne of
books in the series.”

He started to open it, but that couldn't happen since
To my sweet Hannah
was written in Becca's grandmother's hand right in plain sight. So Becca said the first thing that came into her mind, “I got it at Good Cheer,” which was the thrift shop in Langley. “I was gonna send it to my pen pal for her birthday. I don't think it matters that it's used, do you?”

Ralph turned the book over in his hands and looked up from it. “Didn't know you had a pen pal, Miss Becca.”

“Just started last year.”

“Now, that's a nice thing. Where's she writing from?”

Becca said the only place she could think of quickly, “Africa,” and then she embellished. “Uganda. Derric set it up 'cause she's from the same orphanage as him. We been writing back and forth only . . .” All at once, Becca saw that Ralph Darrow might prove helpful to the search for Rejoice. She said, “Here's what's sort of strange, Mr. Darrow. She was real good about writing back soon as she got my letters, but then she stopped.”

“Got adopted, maybe.”

“That's what I thought at first, but then I started to wonder because it always seems like something bad's happening to people in Africa, you know? So I looked up the orphanage online and it's closed down. I don't know where she is or how to find her.”

Ralph replaced the book on the shelf. He touched the top of
Seeing Beyond Sight
, but he didn't bring it down. Instead, he said, “Might ask the minister at Derric's church about that one. He's the fellow who got folks interested in that orphanage in the first place. Derric can tell you the fellow's name, can't he?”

“Oh sure. He can. That's a good idea.”

It was, in fact, a terrible idea. Bringing Derric into her search for Rejoice when he couldn't even bear to think about his sister was not the way to go. But the minister of Derric's church was a possibility.

She said, “Yeah. I'll talk to him. Do you think—” But then her words drifted because Ralph Darrow was staring at her. His eyes had gone blank and so had his face.

Becca realized that he wasn't studying her but rather looking just above her head. She swung to see if there was someone at the window beneath which her desk sat, but there was no one. It came to her that Ralph was staring at nothing, and nothing at all came from him in the form of whispers.

She said, “Mr. Darrow?” He did not respond. Louder then, “Mr. Darrow? You okay?”

For a moment still he did not answer. Then he blinked and seemed to rouse himself. He said, “Well, goodnight then, Miss Becca. Hope you get through that . . .” He frowned. “It's U.S. History you're working on, isn't that what you said?”

She swallowed. The book was open. The geometry problems were in plain sight. “Yeah,” she said. “U.S. History.”

“Don't stay up late, then. School in the morning.”

THIRTY-THREE

D
erric's church was called the Congregation of Christ Jesus, Redeemer. It was located in an autumn-brown meadow at the end of South Lone Lake Road, within seeing distance of the wide and tranquil lake itself and within smelling distance of a thoroughbred ranch. The church was a roughly converted barn, and its congregation consisted of islanders with the skills to turn the barn into a house of God, the intention to reach out to all people in need, and the limited time to do both. People in need came first. Hence, the rough conversion of the barn, which would be icy in winter, steaming on rare hot summer days, and had terrible acoustics throughout the year.

Becca knew she had to go there on a Sunday since she had no idea how else to track down the church minister, who did his ministering on a part-time basis. A phone call to the church gave her a recording with the information she needed: the time of services, the minister's name, and the message that people of all faiths were welcome.

The very next Sunday after her conversation with Ralph Darrow, Becca set off on her road bike with plenty of time to get to the Congregation of Christ Jesus, Redeemer. Although the sun was out, the days were rapidly cooling now, and billowing white clouds scudded across the sky.

She didn't want to be seen at the service, so she pedaled past the place and continued down to the lake. There, she could keep the church in sight. She could also watch some Canada geese who were paddling placidly on the lake's still water. Hidden from sight, she saw Derric and his family arrive, and she watched them enter.

She hated seeing Derric only at school, and she hated not talking to him on the phone. Although he had a smart phone, she did not and thus had no way to text him. His computer privileges were history for now, so all they had were the moments they could snatch out of the school day to be together.

He'd cooperated fully with his mom: He'd gone to the psychologist she'd insisted he see. He wasn't happy about it, but he'd come up with no other way to get himself back into his mother's good graces. He'd spent three sessions so far with the man, but from what he'd told Becca, the only subject that came up between them was the party at the beach, his drinking, the fire, and his mom.

Becca wished he would open up about Rejoice so that he could somehow cope with his betrayal of her. But until he was ready . . . there was nothing she could do to bend him to
her
will. At least, she'd finally learned that.

The church service was over an hour long, accompanied by a lot of singing. There was a lengthy period of silence during which she figured the minister was preaching, and then more singing commenced, after which the service was over.

When people began to leave, Becca crept up to the parking area. She remained out of sight behind a long woodshed, where cords of logs were neatly stacked for heating the barn in the coming winter. From there, she could see the minister greeting his congregation as they left the church. Among them were the Mathiesons, and she fixed her gaze on Derric. He looked so sad. He made her heart hurt.

She waited till the last of the cars drove off. The minister went back into the church. He was probably going to close the place up fairly quickly, Becca thought, so she hurried into the parking area and through the great doors of the barn.

It was very plain inside. There were folding chairs, not pews. There were colorful dahlias in vases on a simple altar decorated with a cross. A lecturn stood to one side of the altar, and on the other side was a large wooden stand with a Bible open upon it. Along one wall there were bulletin boards with posters and pictures arranged upon them.

The minister was closing the Bible and scooping it off the stand. He was older than Becca had thought he would be, with hair coming out of his ears, very thick glasses, and old-fashioned hearing aids behind each ear.

He was called James John Wagner, Becca knew. She, however, would call him Reverend.

He set the Bible on the altar and began to straighten the chairs into parallel curves that fanned out neatly from a central aisle. He hadn't seen Becca, so she said his name. When he looked up, she told him her own and went to help him.

She was surprised when he said, “Derric Mathieson's girlfriend. It's very good to meet you, Becca. You just missed Derric and his family. Or”—with a glance at the door—“did you come with them?”

“Came on my own,” she said. “Derric doesn't know.” She hoped this was sufficient to clue James John Wagner into the fact that he wasn't intended to mention her to Derric.

Young love's difficulties
let her know that it wouldn't take much for her to secure Reverend Wagner's confidence. So she said, “I sort of don't want him to. I don't want him to worry or anything.”

Pregnant
flashed through the minister's mind, but he seemed to dismiss this with
my trial in life to jump to conclusions.
Since from his thoughts it seemed that jumping to conclusions was something the minister was working to expunge from his life, Becca figured this could prove useful to her purpose.

Reverend Wagner smiled and said, “My lips are sealed, then. Shall we have a seat?” He gestured to the fan of chairs and Becca walked over to one.

He didn't sit next to her but rather he swung one of the chairs around to face her. He kept a respectful distance, so they were knee-to-knee without actually touching each other. He said, “Seems like something might be bothering you if you've shown up to talk to the likes of me.”

She said, “Yeah.”

“Troubles with Derric?”

She shook her head. “Troubles with the place he came from.”

The reverend frowned. His mouth said, “Africa?” while his mind said
parents and times haven't changed when it comes to race have they
. Becca was momentarily confused till she put his thought into the context of his age. He was an old guy—maybe seventy or something?—and he was thinking about the times when races mixing could lead to trouble. She supposed it still could in some places in the country, but as far as she knew, Whidbey Island wasn't one of those places.

She said, “The orphanage? Children's Hope of Kampala? I was writing to a girl there, a pen pal thing. She stopped answering and I didn't know why so I looked online and ended up seeing that the orphanage is closed.”

Reverend Wagner said regretfully, “We hope it's closed only for now. The need hasn't gone away. But funding has been a struggle from the first.” He smiled sadly and added, “You wouldn't be here to offer yourself as a secret benefactress, would you?”

“I wish,” she said. “But d'you know . . . what happened to the kids? I mean, the kids who were left there when the orphanage closed? Did they get sent to another orphanage? See, I know from Derric and his mom that you guys at this church were involved with the place. So I was wondering if maybe you know. 'Cause, basically, I hate to lose touch with my pen pal. I have a book I want to send to her and some pictures and stuff and . . . I guess I got worried when she stopped writing.”

Reverend Wagner nodded and said he understood her concern, that he wished more kids would take an interest in the challenges faced in third world countries. Then he asked her the name of her pen pal, which, naturally, he was going to need if he was to find out where the girl had been sent.

Becca knew this put her into deep waters since, of course, she had no clue what surname Rejoice had been given when the orphanage had found her. But since she'd said she was writing to her, she had to tell him something, so she said the girl's name was Rejoice Nyombe, Nyombe being the only African name she'd ever heard.

Naturally, Reverend Wagner said the worst at once. “That was Derric's original last name, wasn't it? Is Rejoice a relative?”

She shook her head. “That's even what
I
asked when Derric set me up with her as a pen pal. But Derric said it's a real common last name in Uganda. He said they could be distant cousins, but he doesn't know.”

“Ah,” the reverend murmured. “Rather like all the Adamses in America. How old is she?”

“She's about thirteen, I think. She told me she doesn't know for sure.”

He looked thoughtful, and he pulled on the lobe of one of his large ears. “Unfortunately, thirteen makes it doubtful that she was adopted,” he said. “It's always the smaller children who are easier to place. If you were writing to her at Children's Hope . . . And that
is
where you were writing to her, isn't it?” When Becca nodded, he went on with, “So at the time of its closing, she might have gone from the orphanage into one of the convent schools. Or to work, for that matter. Sometimes when there are too many children . . .”
God forbid
spoke of the reverend's worry regarding this matter, and that whisper did nothing to reassure Becca about where Rejoice was or what might have had happened to her.
To work
suggested child labor, or worse. The “worse” Becca didn't even want to consider.

“I sure wish I knew why she stopped writing to me,” Becca said.

“That concern speaks well of you.”

“D'you think there's any way that you can find out where she is?”

“I'm not sure,” he told her, “as the directors in Kampala have all dispersed.”

Becca looked down at her feet. She let her body project the dejection she felt. She said, “I don't know what else to do.”

Reverend Wagner reached out and patted her hand. “Let me try to get some information for you,” he said. “It may take some time, but I'll give it my best. Shall I tell Derric if I discover anything?”

God no, Becca thought. She said, “I'm living over with Ralph Darrow. D'you think you could call me there? Derric doesn't know that me and Rejoice've stopped writing, and if something bad's happened to her . . . ? It would probably bum him out.”

“At Ralph Darrow's, then,” the reverend said.