You Don't Want To Know

Chapter 15


Dern hadn’t counted on Ava Garrison being as sharp as she was. From what he’d understood, she was a basket case, one step out of the loony bin, but the information had been wrong. After hauling her out of the bay on the first night, he’d discovered that she was far more intelligent and intuitive than he’d been led to believe. In fact, he decided as he kept to the shadows as he made his way back from the main house to his apartment, she was a force to be reckoned with.

“The best laid plans . . . ,” he muttered under his breath as he quickly climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and stepped into his temporary home.

Rover was anxiously waiting for him and giving him the evil eye as only a dog can do for being left to his own devices. “You can’t always come along, y’know.” Dern scratched the shepherd behind his ear and was, it seemed, immediately forgiven. The old dog grunted in pleasure as Dern scratched his back.

“Our secret, okay?”

As if he understood, Rover let out a soft woof, then, when Dern straightened, padded over to his spot by the fire and settled in. “Good boy,” Dern muttered as he fired up his laptop and stuck his connection device and jump drive into the appropriate USB ports.

Within seconds he was connected to the Internet and double-checking all the files he had on Ava Church Garrison as well as Church Island, Neptune’s Gate, and the people who had lived and worked on this miserable scrap of an island. The history of the island was in one file, ties to Anchorville in another, and there was another dedicated entirely to Sea Cliff. His jaw tightened as he thought about the crumbling asylum. He’d scaled a fence and walked through the old hallways where staff members and patients had once worked and lived. Aside from a thick layer of dust, stagnant air, and a general feeling of neglect, the building was intact. On the outside, however, where the wind and rain buffeted the walls, the feeling of abandonment was more pronounced. Picnic tables were rotting, their paint peeling, the dappling of seagull droppings ever-present.

With his collar turned toward the elements, he’d walked around the outdoor area inside the fence. The old familiar paths in the grass had become overgrown, barely visible with the new growth of weeds and the concrete walkways had cracked.

Disuse and despair, that’s what remained.

Sea Cliff hadn’t been built as a prison, and yet that’s what it had come to symbolize.

At least for Dern.

He just had to keep up the charade.

For as long as it took.

He started to second-guess his reasons for being here but quickly dismissed any lingering doubts. Ava Garrison wasn’t going to ruin his plans. If she became more of a problem, he’d just deal with her.

It wasn’t as if she were the first woman to get in his way.

She wouldn’t be the last.

That thought stopped him short because he had a tiny, niggling suspicion that dismissing Ava Church might not be so easy to do.





The dock was empty.

Even through the shifting fog, Ava saw that her boy wasn’t standing near the water.

“Mommy!” His voice called to her, and she threw off the covers. Naked, the breath of winter’s air caressing her skin, she reached for her robe, but it was caught on the hook of the door and wouldn’t budge.

“Mommy . . . ?”

Oh, God, he sounded frightened. “Noah! I’m coming.” She flung open her bedroom door and found herself in the boathouse where the smell of diesel and brackish water filled her nostrils. Why was Noah here? Her eyes searched the murky waters, but all she saw was her own naked reflection and that of a man standing behind her, just over her left shoulder. Austin Dern, his eyes full of secrets, met her gaze in the undulating surface. He, too, was naked, and when he reached for her, placing a hand around her torso, strong fingers pressing into the flesh over her ribs, she gasped.

“Mommy?”

Noah’s voice again. She turned and Dern disappeared, like a puff of smoke as she reached for the door of the boathouse and stepped outside. Dawn was streaking the morning sky as she raced barefoot up the path to the porch and inside. Taking the back stairs, she ran to the second floor and heard Noah’s tiny voice calling her.

“I’m coming, baby!” she yelled, flying along the hallway, her feet slapping the wooden floors, the spindles of the railing near the front stairs rushing by in a blur.

At Noah’s door, she heard him sobbing. “Oh, honey,” she said brokenly. Her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him again. It had been so long, so damned long . . . She yanked on the doorknob.

Nothing.

Again, she grabbed hold of the glass knob and twisted hard.

It didn’t budge.

“Noah?” Oh, God, had he stopped calling for her? “Mommy’s here, just on the other side of the door. You didn’t lock it, did you, sweetie?”

She pulled with all her might, her muscles straining, her shoulders aching. Through the door, she could hear his sobbing, his soft little cries.

Her heart shattered into a million pieces. “I’m coming!” Closing her eyes, she grabbed the door handle with both hands, twisting and throwing herself backward.

The glass knob came off in her hands, cutting her palms and fingers. “Noah?” she called, and heard him whimper.

Looking through the hole left by the broken knob, she saw into her son’s room where all had gone quiet except for the tinkling notes from the mobile as it spun slowly over his crib. The tiny seahorse and crab seemed to be laughing at her, and she knew in her heart that her son was gone again.

Falling onto the floor, she lay in a shivering puddle of despair and terror. “Noah,” she whispered brokenly, her tears mingling with the blood dripping from her clenched fists, “where are you? Where? ”

“Ava!” Wyatt’s sharp voice cut into her sobs. “Ava! Wake up!”

Strong fingers wrapped around her shoulders, and she blinked hard against the sunlight streaming through the windows. Wyatt was leaning over the bed, shaking her gently.

“What?” she whispered, then sat up and scooted into the pillows toward the headboard, away from him. The dream, so real, clawed at her brain; she actually looked at her hands for any trace of blood, but they were unmarked, not so much as a scratch upon them. A dream. Only another dream.

She pushed her hair from her face, trying to get her equilibrium, to come to terms with the fear and disappointment. As frantic as she’d been to get into her son’s room, at least in the dream she’d known him to be alive.

“Are you okay?” her husband asked.

She looked up sharply at him. There was that damned question again.

“You were having a nightmare. Crying out. I thought you’d want to wake up.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. It had been so damned real. If she tried, she could still hear Noah’s plaintive, frightened voice.

Hearing the whir of Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair, her eyes flew open again. She saw that the door to her room was open. Wyatt was the only one inside, but through the doorway, she could see both Jewel-Anne and Demetria, hovering. Ava sent an angry glare at the nurse, who herded Jewel-Anne and her contraption out of sight. “I could use some privacy,” Ava said.

Wyatt was already walking around the foot of the bed. “I heard you screaming and I ran in here. I wasn’t thinking about anything but seeing that you were all right.” He closed the door gently, then leaned against it. Worried eyes assessed her, and she pulled the covers up to her chin.

“I’ve had bad dreams before. A lot,” she said, her voice less sure than her words. She felt a quivering inside, and she swallowed back the panic that rose within. Maybe they were right. Maybe she really was cracking up.

“You were in the guest room?” she asked, striving for normalcy.

“No, I came in this morning. Caught a ride with Ian. I left you a text. Didn’t you get it?”

“No . . . I . . .” She found her phone on the bedside table. She must’ve turned it off. Suddenly she remembered working on the computer until falling asleep. She hadn’t bothered turning off or charging either the phone or the computer. She’d even let the computer go into sleep mode, had left it on the bed next to her. Glancing at it now, she noticed that the screen was still dark, but that didn’t mean that someone hadn’t seen that she’d been reconstructing the night Noah disappeared. Hit one button and the computer would come to life. Wyatt could have waited until the screen went dark again before waking her. But he would have had to have timed it just right or gotten incredibly lucky because he couldn’t have predicted her nightmare.

No, it was unlikely he’d seen the screen.

So her secret was safe from him. He couldn’t know how desperately she was still trying to force together the jagged pieces of that horrible night.

“You’ve been here a while?” she asked.

“Dr. McPherson said you were very definite about needing your space, that no one was to disturb you. You’d made that clear.”

“You talked to her? Already this morning?” She picked up her phone and turned it on. “What time is it?” The face of her phone read ten-thirty. She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t slept in past seven in years, since she was a college student, and only then after pulling an all-nighter the night before. A tiny light on her phone was blinking, indicating she’d received at least one message while she was dead to the world.

“How about I bring you some coffee?” Wyatt said, and her head snapped up at his kindness. A simple offer, and yet she was touched.

“Thanks. But I’ll be right down.”

“I’ll be in the office.” He smiled. “Join me.”

“Okay.” Her heart lifted a little. Maybe there was still a chance for them after all. They had loved each other. Passionately and fervently. “Forever,” she’d whispered after saying “I do” in the garden at the small ceremony where she’d pledged to be his wife forever.

So why was it she felt she couldn’t trust him? Couldn’t trust any of them? She knew the answer to that and wouldn’t go there, not yet. She plugged in the phone and saw that aside from Wyatt’s text, there were two other calls, one from Cheryl, rescheduling their next hypnosis session, and the other from Detective Snyder. It looked like a third call had come in, but the number was unfamiliar and no message was left.

Hmmm, she thought. Could it have been a wrong number?

While the phone was charging, she confirmed with Cheryl for a session the next day, then dialed Snyder’s number, got his voice mail again, and left a message asking if she could stop by the station the next day and go over information about Noah’s disappearance. Phone calls made, she then threw on her clothes, ignored anything remotely concerned with makeup, and hurried downstairs where she found Virginia already starting on lunch by peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink. “Good morning,” she greeted her.

“ ’Morning.” After finding a mug in the cupboard, she poured coffee from the glass pot in the coffeemaker, then heated it in the microwave.

“I was told not to call you for breakfast,” Virginia said, glancing over her shoulder.

“It was fine.”

“There are muffins or bagels, I think.”

“I’m good,” she replied, and snagged a chocolate biscotti from a glass jar tucked into a corner of the counter. “This’ll do.”

“Humph. Not much of a breakfast.” Virginia clucked her tongue as she peeled the thin skin off another potato, and Ava, determined to smooth things with her husband, headed to his office on the first floor.

She found him seated at his desk in front of his open laptop, his cell phone cradled between his shoulder and cheek while he scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. As she entered, he held up one finger, and when she tried to back up, he shook his head and waved her into a chair near the French doors that led to the veranda. She tucked one foot under her other leg as she settled into the chair, took a long swig of coffee, then dipped her biscotti into her mug.

“Sure . . . I’ll be there . . .” Wyatt glanced at the small desk clock situated on the corner of his desk. “Let’s see. How about four?” His gaze shifted to Ava and he rolled his eyes as he listened to a long diatribe on the other end of the phone.

Smiling, she turned her attention to the window where the glass was still heavy with moisture, the sun just beginning to warm the panes.

She’d just swallowed her last bite of biscotti when he finally hung up. “Sorry,” he said, “had to do a little lawyer hand-holding. Orson Donnelly again.” He leaned back in his desk chair until it groaned in protest. “Between you and me, he’s a real pain in the ass.”

“He’s the one who gave you the reference on Dern?” she asked.

“Yeah. Dern worked for Donnelly’s son before Orson sold his place. He mentioned the guy was out of work, and since Ned had already taken a hike and Ian was a . . . less-than-enthusiastic rancher, I called him, had him fax over his credentials, double-checked with Donnelly that Dern wasn’t the reason his ranch was failing, and hired him.” He cocked his head to one side. “You have a problem with the guy?”

“Just curious as to how he just showed up one day. Everybody else who works here I knew before they were hired, or in Simon’s case, because he married Khloe.” That much was true. She’d known Graciela because she was a friend of Tanya’s younger sister, a local who had grown up in Anchorville. Demetria, too, had lived across the bay but had worked at Sea Cliff before hiring on as Jewel-Anne’s personal caretaker. Even Ned had been a friend of Uncle Crispin’s, whom he’d hired on years before.

So Dern was the outsider.

“I thought I’d give Ian a break.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Maybe now he’ll have a chance to find his true calling.” He leaned forward and, placing his elbow on the desk, said, “Want to talk about your nightmare?”

“Nope.”

“It was about Noah again.”

She didn’t bother answering, didn’t need to.

“That’s one of the reasons you’re on medication. So you can rest. Get quality sleep. My uneducated guess is that either the prescription isn’t working, or you’re not taking your meds.”

“Hmm,” she said.

Frustration darkened his face. “You’d rather hallucinate, or nearly drown, or scream your way through some terrifying dream than take the meds?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I know you don’t want to feel doped up. I understand that. But you’re not doing yourself any good or the rest of us, who have to be on edge worrying about you, listening to you scream in the night, or fishing you out of the drink before you drown. If Dern hadn’t been nearby the other night, I shudder to think what would have happened to you.”

“I can swim.”

“Ava.” He shook his head in disbelief. “If you hadn’t drowned, there’s always hypothermia and . . . you weren’t yourself. Who knows if you’d really be able to save yourself!” He made a sound of exasperation. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

“How about trying to back off a little?”

“Seriously? And risk you hurting yourself?”

“What are you really suggesting, Wyatt? That I go back to St. Brendan’s?” She hadn’t even been home a month and he was trying to wash his hands of her. “Is that what you want?”

“No!” He looked at her sharply, his hazel gaze drilling deep into hers. “Of course not. But I’m running out of options here.” His fingers splayed into the air, as if he was about to fend off any other objections. “I just wish you could quit fighting me. I lost a son, too, you know. I’m just trying like hell not to lose my wife as well.”

Her throat closed and tears threatened her eyes as they always did when he was kind to her. “He’s alive.”

“I want to believe that, too. Really. But whether Noah’s alive or . . . not, he’s gone, Ava. You have to accept that. He’s not coming back. If he’d been kidnapped that night, then why hasn’t anyone contacted us? Why no ransom note? And . . . and if he was sold to another couple who was so desperate for a child, why hasn’t he been found? There were pictures of him plastered all over the media. The newspapers. Television. Radio. The Internet, Facebook, and MySpace and you name it. We tried everything. You remember what a circus it was!”

She did. Those first few days filled with hope and despair and panic and the soul-numbing fear that they’d find his body.

Wyatt’s face was lined with concern. “You have to face facts, Ava. Noah is gone. It kills me, too.”

“But last night, I heard his cries.”

“You were dreaming!”

“No, they were coming from his room.”

“It was just the wind or . . . or this old house creaking or God knows what, but something was permeating your mind, infiltrating your subconscious and twisting it into some kind of weird manifestations within your dream.”

“I know what I heard,” she said, and from the corner of her eye she saw Jewel-Anne zipping toward the elevator. Jewel slid a glance at the open door of the den but didn’t meet Ava’s eyes.

Wyatt caught the exchange and pushed back his chair. He rounded the desk and softly but firmly shut the door. Then he crossed the floorboards to stand directly in front of her. “Ava, please, I’m just trying to keep things together.”

“I’m not trying to thwart you, Wyatt,” she said, her voice raspy with emotion. “I just have to do whatever I can to find out what happened to Noah.”

“Even if it means sacrificing your health? Our marriage?”

“I don’t want to sacrifice anything, Wyatt. And I shouldn’t have to. I just want to find our child. Let me do it.”

She walked out without waiting for his answer.