Endless Fear Page 6

  She took another swallow of brandy, then leaving out the theatrics, explained as simply as possible how she had come to be in this condition.

  “Where and what is Turtle Rock?” asked Vanessa. “Is it a famous landmark?”

  Thane draped an arm around his fiancée’s shoulders. “Nothing famous or historical about it. It’s just a big rock about a mile or so along the cliff that looks like a giant turtle. April named it. She used to sit on it for hours when she was a kid, just staring out to sea, lost in her own little world.”

  Vanessa seemed disappointed by the explanation.

  “Fool place to go in the dark. And right after a storm!” Aunt March sat next to April in the matching chair. Her arms were folded under her ample chest and her ruddy face was heightened by her irritation. “You could’ve got yourself killed. A fine how-do-you-do that would have been for the wedding festivities.”

  Raising her head from her task, Cynthia glanced over her shoulder at her elderly sister-in-law, then back at April. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to worry any of us, did you, sugah?”

  There was a slight reprimand in Cynthia’s soft drawl, but April wasn’t sure if it was meant for March or herself. Nor did she care. The brandy tasted better with every sip. “No.”

  “Of course not. There, all done.” Cynthia wrung out the washcloth, set it aside and rose. “None of the cuts are deep. Rub in a little salve just before you climb into bed.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was the mention of bed or the effects of the brandy, but the need to clean up and go to sleep hit her in a rush. “I’m going to take a bath and hit the hay.”

  Setting her empty snifter on the end table, she stood. But the soles of her feet weren’t ready to bear weight.

  Without thought to the consequences, Spencer leaped to her aid and swung her once again into his arms. He could feel his twin glaring at him, but surely Thane realized he was the most likely person in the group to help April upstairs.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” she whispered, then giggled unexpectedly. The outburst both surprised and embarrassed her.

  Spencer only chuckled. “Say goodnight, Gracie.”

  “Who’s Gracie?” April was totally puzzled.

  Silence fell over the room. The expressions turned her way ranged from disbelief to pity.

  Vanessa’s eyes rounded incredulously. “You must have been in South America a long time.”

  The silence grew heavier. To save April any more embarrassment, Spencer whisked her from the den, and a short while later deposited her atop the fluffy toilet seat cover in the upstairs bathroom. “There. Now you’re within easy reach of the tub faucets.”

  “Who’s Gracie?” she asked again.

  “No one for you to worry your pretty head about.” He stood bent-kneed with his face on a par to hers. The willpower to pull away from her had deserted him. She seemed as unaware of the leaf caught in her hair and the dirty smudges on her face as she was of the effect her innocence had on him. He plucked the leaf free and flicked it into the waste basket, wishing he could absolve his guilt with as little effort. The lack in her education was a direct result of his actions. If only being sorry could change that.

  “Was she a friend of Lily? Was that why everyone got so quiet?”

  If she’d stomped on his foot he couldn’t have straightened faster. “No. It’s a joke. An old television show. Start running your bath water. I’ll get you something to put on.”

  By the time the tub was filled, Spencer had returned with a beach towel and a man’s teal terry cloth robe with the initials S.L.G. on the breast pocket.

  The room was as steamy as a sauna and felt just as restrictive to Spencer.

  Feeling altogether lightheaded and unaccountably naughty, April smirked at him. “I do have my own robe, you know.”

  A hint of color tarnished his neck. “I didn’t want to prowl around in your room. You can return it tomorrow. Now climb out of those filthy clothes and into that hot tub.”

  Another giggle spilled out of her. “Are you planning to stick around and scrub my back?”

  Imagining that scenario unhinged Spencer’s poise. The misty air clogged in his lungs like wadded cotton. He backed up and bumped into the wall. A second later, he was in the hall, pulling the door shut after him.

  Grinning, she limped across the room and locked the door. Standing there, she heard Spencer retreat, heard the opening and closing of a door farther down the hall and then something akin to muffled voices raised in anger. Probably just the brandy buzzing in her ears, she decided, turning toward the tub.

  A while later, clean and dry and dressed only in Spencer’s robe, April padded on tender feet across the thick carpet and down the darkened hall to her room. Apparently, everyone had retired for the night. She couldn’t reach her own bed soon enough. The effects of the brandy were wearing off, and her fatigued body felt like the loser in a twelve-round boxing match, with the bruises to prove it.

  The old house seemed in as much pain as she, creaking and groaning, settling deeper into the cliff above Haro Strait. Or was she hearing the moans of Farradays past, ghosts, who could find no peace at Calendar House until their slayers were brought to justice? The thought and the noises set her nerves on edge.

  April entered the sanctum of her tiny room. Rather than the relief she’d expected to feel, she was surrounded by a prickling sense of something amiss. Warily, she moved about the room, trying to calm her accelerating heartbeat. The weird sensation that someone had been here, invading her private haven with their unwelcome presence, refused to go away.

  Outside, the wind keened through the madronas like banshees wailing at the moon. April made a perfunctory search of the room, but nothing seemed to be missing. Finally she came to the conclusion her mood was playing tricks on her. Again. Or maybe it was the relentless wind.

  Worry nettled her as she donned a nightgown, laid Spencer’s folded robe on a chair, and headed to bed. Was she losing her ability to differentiate between fact and fancy? Maybe she’d better put a call into Dr. Merritt after all.

  April pulled back the bedspread. A startled squeak leapt from her throat. She wasn’t imaging this.

  Someone had been here.

  On her pillow lay July’s Barbie doll. But April doubted her seven-year-old sister had pulled off the doll’s head or spread its long blonde hair across the pillowcase or arranged its headless body in a sprawl reminiscent of her final images of Lily.

  The dreaded vision flooded into her mind, bringing with it both the inexplicable guilt and her desperation to know the whole truth. April pressed her balled fists against her closed eyelids in an effort to coax the buried memory out of the darkness and into the light. But it did no good. The futile attempt only gave her a headache.

  Opening her eyes, she immediately confronted the dismembered toy. Someone’s idea of a cruel joke, or another warning to make her leave Calendar House? Well, too bad, she thought, plucking up the doll and jamming its head back in place. Her anguish gave way to a revitalizing determination. Someone had wasted their time. The harder they tried to make her leave, the deeper she’d dig in her heels.

  She unbent the Barbie’s limbs and tucked the doll beneath her sweaters in the dresser drawer.

  * * * *

  The next two days April stayed off her feet as much as possible. July promptly appointed herself entertainment chairman, seemingly determined to keep her older sister from boredom. It was a new experience for April, being revered for her existence, freely given and accepting hugs and kisses. She discovered forty-eight hours could pass swiftly when spent with someone you loved. They played everything from Nintendo to Checkers. However, the little girl made no mention of her missing Barbie doll.

  By the third day, the rain had returned, railing against the windows in icy sheets, and April found she could walk without wincing. She dressed in faded blue jeans, high-top Nikes, and a gold Arizona State sweatshirt. Drawn by the aroma of frying bacon, she headed down the back stair
well into the big country kitchen. The Barbie doll was tucked into the waistband of her jeans and concealed by her sweatshirt.

  Helga was at the stove. A grease-spattered, beige apron trussed her ample middle, protecting her tan-and-white checked dress. August, Thane, and Spencer, the epitome of casual in Levis and soft hued sweatshirts, huddled around one end of the black Formica table drinking coffee and dissecting some sports item in yesterday’s newspaper, while at the other end Vanessa and Cynthia had their heads together as they discussed wedding details.

  Spencer heard her come in, felt his pulse joggle, but didn’t look around. He’d never have the right to claim April and for both their sakes, he had to stop wishing it were otherwise.

  Aunt March shuffled into the room with July at her heels. “Well, whadda ya know…. She can walk again.”

  The remark made April feel as self-conscious as she suspected it was meant to. Trying to ignore the heat stealing up her neck, she smiled at the old woman and then at the other upraised faces. “Yes, the feet are good as new.”

  As the family exchanged “good mornings” April strode to the coffee maker and filled a white mug to the rim. Why she let that crusty old lady get to her, she couldn’t say. She sensed eyes boring into her back. Aunt March, again? Had she been the one who’d left the gruesome doll on her bed? She balanced the hot cup with both hands and turned to face her family, but caught no one looking at her.

  “Better all take your places before the food gets cold,” Helga declared, hefting a platter of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast toward the table. The rustle of folded newspaper and the scrape of chairs followed straightaway.

  April walked to the vacant seat next to her young sister. Setting the coffee mug on the plastic placemat, she extracted the doll from her waistband, set it on the center of the table and said with practiced calm, “Look who turned up in my room, July.”

  The child let out a squeal as April’s gaze sped from one adult face to another in pursuit of any betraying flinch. The effort proved a waste of time. Disappointment followed her into her chair. Whatever enlightenment she’d hoped to gain by this ploy hadn’t materialized. She’d never seen a more innocent-looking bunch. Not one guilty twitch, not one clenched jaw, nor one telltale red ear-tip in the lot.

  What the hell was that all about? Spencer wondered, covertly studying April’s fallen expression. The pointed way she’d plopped the doll on the table and drawn everyone’s attention to it reeked of something rehearsed. And the failure to elicit a reaction from anybody but July seemed to have taken the wind out of her sails. The urge to touch her hand consolingly stole over him. Don’t! he warned himself. Whatever her problem, his involvement was guaranteed to make it worse.

  * * * *

  Several days later, April congratulated herself on the boldness of her actions with the Barbie doll. She may not have smoked out the culprit, but apparently she’d shown her tormentor anonymous notes and childish pranks couldn’t frighten her away from Calendar House.

  Intent on taking advantage of the unusually mild afternoon, she left her room and headed down the hallway toward the main staircase. Nothing and no one, she determined, must stop her from regaining her memory. But when would that be? What few recollections she’d experienced this past week had had nothing to do with Lily’s fall, just her cruelties. April chewed the inside of her lip. The hatred she felt at each of these times only increased her fear that she had been the one arguing with her mother on the landing above the stairs.

  She descended to the foyer, thinking the house seemed unduly quiet. Sun refracted through the leaded glass windows on either side of the massive pine door, emphasizing the purples, greens, and blacks of the Oriental carpets. Adding yet another slash of color, her red parka hung from a hall-tree hook. Catching hold of it, April padded across the rugs and stepped over the threshold onto the porch outside.

  She slipped into her jacket and hastened down the steps to the deserted apron in front of the house. The air was crisp, and few clouds littered the sky. It was much like a spring day; only the occasional lick of a winter gust said otherwise. The sun felt good on her face, but the glare was blinding.

  Squinting, April reached for her sunglasses in her pocket, then remembered she’d left them on the dashboard of her rented car which, along with the other family vehicles, had been relegated to the garages earlier in the week. Well, she had to get them or the glare would give her a headache before she even began her walk.

  Leaving the asphalt, she started down the grassy slope toward the garages. The sudden roar of a motorboat engine belched from the belly of the boathouse, startling not only April, but a pair of sea gulls who had been perched on its rooftop. Squawking like a couple of disgruntled old maids, they lifted into the cloud-patched sky, wheeled over the protected bay and out across the glistening water.

  April moved down the path toward a stone and mortar building—a miniature copy of the house, laughingly called a shed. Strange how much smaller it appeared than her memories of it, she thought, circling the elaborate structure.

  As children, the twins and she had been fascinated by it and its cache of ladders, rakes, nails, hammers, shovels and various garden sundries. They were allowed inside only when accompanied by an adult. Of course, when they had reached their teens and understood its function, their curiosity had died altogether.

  Now her curiosity was peaked by the powerful boat motor. Momentarily forgetting her sunglasses, she crossed the road. The tide was in. The ramp, bridging shore and dock, stretched as flat as the water today. April advanced onto the dock, enjoying the bob of motion.

  As she neared the metal boathouse, the engine silenced. The flat notes of Karl’s off key whistling, accompanied by a metallic clank, echoed from within. Was he alone? Why did the thought of that make her hesitant?

  Stifling the inexplicable feeling, she strode through the open door. The light inside was fluorescent, dull after the sun’s radiance. She blinked, peering at the exposed framework walls and the score of orange life jackets, fishing nets and poles, gaff hooks, and buoys hung about on nails. The dock cuffed the inside of the building on the front and two side walls like a giant U. Aged creosote and brine tangled with the odor of fresh motor oil.

  Her gaze fell on the sleek royal blue-and-white speedboat taking up the body of the boathouse. It skimmed the water, slung on large straps supported by a ceiling hoist as though it were in traction, April mused, realizing the purpose was more likely to protect the boat from the tide’s whims. Seeing two heads dipped close together over its motor eased her tension.

  “Okay,” her father instructed Karl. “That should do it.” August shifted to the boat’s wheel and stopped. His eyes widened as they always did when something unexpected intruded on his train of thought. “April, this is a pleasant surprise. What brings you down here?”

  “The noise.” April acknowledged Karl’s friendly grin with one of her own. “What’re you two doing?”

  Her father leaned toward her and dragged a grease-stained rag from his rear overall pocket. He wiped his hands, then poked the cloth back. “Karl and I are installing one of my gadgets. A keyless ignition.”

  “Something new?”

  “Nope. Never found a buyer for it, though. Still, it’s a convenience I appreciate. No good inventing things if you can’t use them.” The subject seemed to draw his attention back to the project. He fiddled with something beyond her line of vision on the dashboard. “Okay, Karl, here goes.”

  The motor sputtered. Sparks flew at Karl. He swore and stumbled backward. August rushed to him. “Must have crossed the wires. Are you all right?”

  “Sure. Surprised me is all.”

  All but forgotten, April left them to their work.

  The garages were a couple hundred yards from the dock, up the asphalt lane. Made of stone and mortar like the house and tool shed, the building had originally been a stable. With the advent of electricity and motorized vehicles, the barn gates had been replaced with garage doors, th
e packed earth floor with concrete, and the oil lamps with electric lights.

  Six truck-wide doors graced the front, while two human-sized ones allowed access at either end of the building. The one nearest the dock stood open. April hastened inside.

  Murky light slithered through the grimy window set eight feet up the back wall, but it was enough for her to see the cobwebs massed on the high open beams supporting the roof, and that the car parked here was not the one she sought.

  From somewhere deep inside the garages, a car motor started.

  Imagining how the building must have looked in her great-great- grandfather’s era, April proceeded through the swinging doors separating each stall from the next. Surprisingly, the individual chambers were huge, better suited to the luxury cars of the sixties than the compact, gas-efficient models now occupying them. And yet, for all the modernization April felt the old building had retained a sense of its originality. She could almost smell the hay and the horse manure lingering in the shadowy corners.

  The idling motor grew insistently louder with her progress. Evidently, whoever had entered the building before her and left the door ajar was going somewhere, most likely Friday Harbor.

  In the fifth stall, she found her rented compact. The rumbling engine emanated from the sixth. Although the cells were partitioned, the ventilation left a lot to be desired, April thought, getting a whiff of exhaust.

  Best to get her sunglasses and leave. She spotted them on the dashboard, and seconds later was stuffing them into her pocket.

  The running motor revved. Exhaust crept beneath the wall like smoke from a blazing room. April coughed, frowning disgustedly at the wall as though the person in the unit beyond could see her and would stop the car. Or exit the garage. Surely, the engine was warm by now.

  April felt an uneasy prickling. Maybe she’d better see if the driver in the next stall was all right.