Heartbreaker Page 4

  “Impressive.”

  “Yeah.” Lynn took another drag on her cigarette. To outsiders, being an anchorwoman sounded like a dream job. Only someone in the business knew how stressful and uncertain a career it was. Gain ten pounds, develop a few crow’s-feet, and it was over.

  Then what?

  That was the fear that nibbled constantly at the edges of her mind. She was thirty-five—and she feared it was starting to show. How much longer did she have?

  “Owen, Tim needs to see you. Something about tomorrow’s schedule.” The voice behind them that materialized out of the darkness belonged to Jess. Lynn tensed.

  “Can’t you handle it?” Owen swiveled around to look at his brother.

  “Nope.”

  Concentrating on her cigarette, Lynn didn’t look at either man. But she was conscious of something—a small shimmer of wordless communication—in the air between them. It dissolved as Owen turned back around with a disgusted grunt.

  “I guess I’d better go, then,” he said to Lynn as he stubbed his cigarette out on the heel of his boot and stuck the butt in his jacket pocket. “Don’t forget to use that liniment.”

  “I won’t. Thanks.” Lynn smiled at him. He smiled back at her, stood up, and strode off into the night.

  “What liniment?” Jess walked around the bale and sat down in Owen’s place. Pushing his cowboy hat to the back of his head, he leaned his flannel-clad elbows on his knees just as Owen had, and looked sideways at her. His profile was etched in orange against the distant glow of the fire. The ridge of his nose had a bump on it, as if it might have been broken once. His lips were a shade too thin, his chin and forehead a hair too prominent. He was not quite as good-looking as Brad Pitt, Lynn was pleased to decide. And for her, at least, he was totally resistible.

  “None of your business,” Lynn said, glancing away and blowing a cloud of smoke into the cold night air. “Go away.”

  “You seemed ready enough to talk to my brother.”

  “I like him. I don’t like you.”

  “Now why is that, I wonder? Most people like me fine.”

  Lynn slanted him a glance of disdain. “People? Or women?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “In that case maybe you should start a fan club.”

  “Maybe I will. Wanna join?”

  “In your dreams.”

  Jess laughed. “I guess that means you don’t want me to rub that liniment on for you.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “You’ll be sorry in the morning. The second day is a whole lot worse than the first when it comes to being saddle sore.”

  “I’ll live.”

  “You’re wasting time, you know.” The words were soft, provocative.

  Lynn took a final drag on her cigarette, dropped it, and ground it out with the toe of her boot as she exhaled.

  “You lost me. I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “We’ve only got eight days left for that vacation fling.” He grinned at her as she stiffened with outrage, then warded off any reply she might have made by bending to retrieve the butt she had discarded. “By the way, you don’t want to leave that cigarette on the ground. It might spark up again, start a fire.”

  Lynn’s lips tightened as she watched him stash the butt in the pocket of his denim jacket. He was right, she knew; she should have remembered how careful Owen had been.

  “I’ll remember that.” The words were abrupt. She stood up, wincing as her sore muscles shrieked a protest. “I think I’ll go check on Rory.” It was all she could do not to rub her thighs, her knees, her butt. God, she ached.

  “Give the kid some space, why don’t you?” Jess stood too, looking down at her. Like his brother, he was tall. Lynn felt more vertically challenged than usual in her flat riding boots. At work, and nearly everywhere else as well, she always wore three-inch heels.

  “I don’t need your advice about my daughter. All I want you to do is stay away from her.”

  “You’ve got a dirty mind, you know that?” His voice was almost a drawl.

  “Only when it’s warranted.”

  “And you think it’s warranted with me?”

  “Lynn, there you are!” Pat materialized out of the darkness before Lynn could reply. She looked from one to the other of them, beaming, completely oblivious to the atmosphere. “And Jess too! That’s perfect! We’re dividing into groups to sing in rounds. Come on, we need you!”

  “Count me out,” Jess said with a shake of his head, his expression relaxing into an easy smile. “I’ve got the singing voice of a frog. And I’ve got chores to do too, if you ladies want to make it to Mount Lovenia tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait! I’ve got my camera in my saddlebag, in case we see an eagle!” Pat sounded ecstatic at the prospect.

  “Believe me, we will, sooner or later. Excuse me.” With a smile and a nod for Pat and an unreadable glance for Lynn, Jess took off. Lynn found herself being dragged toward the campfire by Pat.

  “I have to tell you, I watch you on the news every night. You are so good at what you do! And Katie is so envious of Rory for having a mother who’s on TV,” Pat said, her hand curled around Lynn’s arm so that there was no evading her.

  “Is she?” Lynn gave up on trying to get away. Obviously, if Pat wanted her to join the group, she was going to join the group. Without resorting to outright rudeness there was no hope of escape. “Believe me, Rory is envious of Katie for having a mom who stays home all the time.”

  “Kids.” Pat shook her head, her smile rueful. “Isn’t that the way of it? With them the grass is always greener.”

  It was a moment of connection, mother to mother. Lynn found herself liking Pat, and she smiled back at her even as she was pushed down on a hay bale in the midst of the assembled group. It was nice to know that Katie didn’t think her mother was so perfect either.

  It was almost an hour later when Lynn finally managed to creep away. The strains of “This Old Man,” sung in rounds, followed her as she fled.

  You’ll enjoy sing-alongs by the campfire.…

  Remembering the wording in the brochure was starting to drive Lynn nuts. How could anything sound so much better in print than it was in reality?

  A high-domed tent, positioned a short distance from the others, had been set up as the women’s shower. Extracting her towel and the sweat suit she meant to sleep in from the rest of her gear, Lynn emerged from her tent and headed toward the shower, careful to skirt the firelight. They had moved on to telling ghost stories now, and she had no wish to be roped in.

  Rory, though, looked rapt, probably because she had taken advantage of her mother’s absence to move. Whereas before she, Jenny, and Melody had perched together on a burlap sack, she now leaned against a tree at the edge of the crowd, talking to Jess Feldman as he hoisted something high into its branches.

  Lynn took a deep breath, fighting the urge to march over there and drag her daughter away. It would be useless anyway. Rory in her growing truculence would in all likelihood refuse to come with her, and Lynn didn’t think she could physically force her daughter, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. Violence had never been part of their relationship. She had never even spanked the child. Maybe, Lynn reflected, that was precisely the problem. Maybe she should have.

  Motherhood, Lynn decided with a sigh, was not a job for sissies.

  At least she had warned Jess Feldman. Unless and until matters escalated, that would have to do.

  Even as she watched, he finished his task and, with a hand on Rory’s elbow, strolled with her back to the group. They sat down side by side on a burlap sack.

  Lynn had just decided that, counterproductive or not, she was going to have to dump rain on her daughter’s parade, when Jess stood up. The assembly was looking at him, clapping. With a grin and a bow he headed toward the front of the group and seated himself on a bale of hay. Once there, he waited for the clapping to die down and then started t
o talk.

  Lynn presumed he was telling a ghost story, though she was too far away to be sure.

  At least he was no longer alone with Rory.

  Uprooting herself, Lynn resumed her pilgrimage to the shower tent, her thoughts grim. The question ran through her mind again, unbidden: Was she having fun yet?

  Not!

  Fortunately she and Rory slept in the same tent, so she’d be able to monitor her daughter’s whereabouts at night. Each woman had been placed with four girls. Lynn’s group included Rory, Jenny, Melody, and Lisa Hind, a newcomer to the school.

  Of course the other three girls, fast friends, excluded Lisa. Lynn had already had a chat with them about that.

  Not that talking seemed to do much good. To any of them. About anything.

  Lynn sighed. This was a vacation? Give her work any day.

  Ducking inside the shower tent, Lynn was grateful for her lack of height for one of the few times in her life. She could stand upright with several inches to spare. Something brushed the top of her head. Lynn reached up to discover a lantern flashlight hooked over a tent pole, obviously put there to provide illumination. Turning it on, Lynn eyed the facilities. Primitive, but adequate. A showerhead attached to a hose dangled through a hole in the roof. Lynn presumed it was connected to a water tank set up outside.

  With a quick glance around to make sure her shadow wouldn’t be thrown on a nylon wall for the world to view, Lynn stripped out of her clothes and fumbled, shivering, with the valve that controlled the flow of water.

  A hot shower was just what she needed to soothe her aches and pains and wash away the grit, horse smell, and insect repellent, which, combined, made for a pungent eau de trail.

  The valve proved resistant. Lynn took hold of the hose to steady it, grasped the cold metal handle in her other hand, gritted her teeth, and twisted. Success! She could hear the water coming, creaking and gurgling as it rushed through the narrow channel.

  Releasing the valve, she stepped back and turned up her face in anticipation.

  Water gushed forth, cascading with surprising power over her face and hair and down her body.

  Ice water.

  Gasping, Lynn jumped back out of the stream. For a moment she stared, naked and shivering, at the pouring water as realization slowly dawned: Arctic was as warm as it was going to get. There was no hot water.

  Even as you experience the wilderness you will be provided with every amenity, including showers.

  The word hot had not been mentioned.

  When she got back to civilization, Lynn vowed, whoever had written that freaking brochure was going to get sued.

  5

  June 20, 1996

  10 P.M.

  MICHAEL STEWART WAS HOME. Her brothers Thomas and James would be with him. From her hiding place in the root cellar Theresa heard the braying of the burros they used to haul gear from the camp to where the truck was kept, out near the gravel road some five miles away. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, she felt a glimmer of hope.

  Daddy would save them. He would work a miracle, as he always did.

  A miracle was what it would take to defeat the demons in the cabin, Theresa knew.

  But miracles were what Daddy was all about.

  Elijah whimpered, squirming in his nest of old clothes that were being stored until they could be turned into rugs or quilts or something useful.

  “Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”

  Theresa found him by touch and picked him up with a hand over his mouth, thrusting her little finger between his lips to pacify him as she felt around for the nurser she had jury-rigged out of a plastic water bottle and a rubber glove.

  The root cellar was so dark that she could see next to nothing. It was small and cramped, hardly more than a crawl space, gouged out of the dirt and rock under a portion of the cabin more than a century before. The storage-room floor was its ceiling. The only entry was a trapdoor behind the washtub.

  So far the demons hadn’t found the trapdoor. They had entered the storage room only once, for what seemed like a cursory look around, and left again.

  Hearing their footsteps directly overhead, Theresa thought her heart would stop.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” she whispered to Elijah.

  Sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, Theresa unzipped his fuzzy blue sleeper to check his diaper—a ragged shirt she had reclaimed from the clothes pile and tucked inside his plastic pants. She nudged his mouth with the makeshift nipple, which he accepted greedily.

  Crooning meaningless words in his ear, Theresa rocked him back and forth. His warm, solid little body nestled against her, and one tiny hand curled around her finger as he sucked.

  The root cellar was cold and musty-smelling. The Stewarts used it to store canned goods and other staples. Earlier residents of the camp had used it to hold everything from potatoes to mining gear.

  Elijah gave small grunts signifying baby contentment as he gulped down the mixture of reconstituted milk and blackberry wine Theresa had concocted for him. He had done nothing in the root cellar but eat and sleep, and for that Theresa blessed the intoxicating effects of the wine. Poor baby, she hoped it wouldn’t do him any harm. But even if it did, it couldn’t be as bad as what would happen to him if they were discovered.

  They would die.

  At first Theresa had been scared, so scared, that Elijah would cry and give their hiding place away. She remembered a story she had read once about a mother in the Old West who had been hiding with her children from marauding Indians. When the baby started to cry, the mother had suffocated him with her own hands rather than have him reveal their whereabouts and risk death for her and the other children.

  One life sacrificed for many. It had undoubtedly been the right thing to do.

  But Theresa knew she would never be able to sacrifice Elijah to save herself.

  Knew it, that is, until she heard her little sisters being herded into the front room with her mother. The girls were crying. Sally said something, her voice pleading. There was the sound of a blow.

  A few minutes later the screams began.

  In that instant Theresa faced a terrible truth: To save her own life she would sacrifice Elijah.

  Please, dear Lord, she prayed again as she had prayed every time she thought of her baby brother since confronting her own capacity for evil, please keep him quiet.

  Please don’t let either of us have to die.

  6

  June 21, 1996

  10 A.M.

  BOUNCE; THUD. Bounce, thud. Bounce, thud.

  The pony—Hero—trotted dutifully after his mates. On his back Lynn bounced into the air and smacked down against the saddle with a hideous repetition that made Chinese water torture seem kind by comparison.

  Bounce, thud. Bounce, thud.

  Oh, God, her butt hurt. The discomfort she had experienced yesterday was nothing compared to the pain she was feeling today.

  If the two extra-strength Tylenol tablets she had taken that morning were dulling anything, she didn’t even want to imagine what she would feel like without painkillers in her system.

  Doc Grandview’s Horse Liniment had proved useless too—except maybe as an insect repellent. If she were a bug the odor would certainly repel her. Twelve hours after she had massaged it into her aching muscles, the smell was still strong enough to make her wrinkle her nose when the wind blew a certain way.

  Worse, the slimy stuff was nearly impossible to wash off. Despite all her efforts with soap, a washcloth, and cold water, the skin of her thighs and butt still felt greasy and adhered to her jeans in a most unpleasant way.

  Would somebody please wake her up and tell her this was all just a hideous, horrible, very bad dream?

  “Mother, you’re not keeping up.” Rory dropped back to ride beside her. Collegiate had offered riding lessons, for which Lynn had been paying through the nose all year. Obviously, they had taken. One glance told Lynn that Rory was experiencing none of the difficulties
that plagued her mother. In fact, except for her obvious fear of being embarrassed by her parent, the child looked to be having the time of her life. Her eyes shone beneath the wide brim of the pink cowboy hat she had insisted on buying. A rosy flush colored her cheeks. Her long blond ponytail bounced rhythmically in time to her movements. She looked happy, healthy, and at home on the same kind of merciless animal that was meting out such punishment to Lynn.

  “I’m trying my best,” Lynn said, gritting her teeth against another jarring landing and summoning up every bit of her self-control to keep from snapping at her daughter. For Rory’s sake, she would wrestle alligators. She would twist a tiger’s tail. She would sleep in a roomful of rats. She could certainly be a sport about getting a little saddle sore.

  A lot saddle sore, she amended with an inner groan. Would this accursed day never end?

  The most horrible thing was that it couldn’t be much past ten o’clock in the morning. They hadn’t even stopped for lunch yet, and the schedule had promised an all-day ride. The prospect made Lynn want to weep.

  Bounce, thud.

  They were crossing an open meadow now in a loose kind of double-line formation, having left the forest behind for the moment. Lynn was—at least before Rory joined her—alone at the tail end of the posse of vacationers, though she had a vague awareness of a couple of the outfitters, including Jess Feldman, even farther back, bringing up the rear. The sun was bright, the air was crisp, the sky was cerulean blue with fluffy little white clouds scudding across it. Snowcapped mountains formed a breathtaking horizon, stretching away into the distance like row upon row of shark’s teeth for as far as the eye could see. There were even tiny purple wildflowers blooming in the stubby green grass through which they rode. How, Lynn asked herself, could she feel so miserable in such a beautiful setting?