You Don't Want To Know

Chapter 20


No one was in the bed with her.

Of course.

The side of the bed where Wyatt, or whoever, would have lain wasn’t mussed. There was no impression on the mattress, no warmth radiating from a recently vacated space. No smell coming from the sheets.

It was all in Ava’s fractured mind.

Again.

She was so weary of it all.

Worse yet, her body felt as if someone had touched her and caressed her, though that’s as far as it went. Other than a little puncture on her finger that she didn’t remember getting, she showed no signs that she’d done anything other than sleep and toss and turn in the night. No sense of sexual release was present, no soreness between her legs, no stains on the bed where she lay.

Once again, all in her mind.

Though it was still dark, the house was stirring. Light seeped in under the crack in the doorway, and she heard the sound of dishes rattling. Outside, a seagull cried as the wind buffeted the house, the gusts rattling the old panes in the windows.

Her erotic dream wouldn’t quite leave. It chased after her, nagging at her mind as she showered and dressed, even causing her to stop for a second and stare at her reflection as she was brushing her hair into a ponytail. A sex dream. With Wyatt. And Austin Dern.

She made a growling sound, pure frustration, before snapping the rubber band into place and brushing her teeth. She rarely remembered her dreams, but this one seemed branded in her brain.

Outside her room, in the open hallway, she walked past several doors until she came to Noah’s room and pushed open the door. At least she could cross the threshold now without falling apart.

The room was just as she’d left it the other day, and though she told herself it was time to put his baby things away, she didn’t have the heart. She imagined him in the room, cooing and talking nonsensically to himself. How often had she played in this room with him, seen his little hands stretch out to her? If she closed her eyes, she knew she could still smell him. To reinforce the image, she walked to the bureau and opened the canisters and jars of baby shampoo and ointment that had sat unused for so long, their sweet scents bringing back memories. She sniffed one small tub of cream.

A floorboard creaked.

She glanced into the mirror over the bureau and saw Wyatt’s reflection as he stood in the doorway.

Startled, she nearly dropped the tube of ointment but managed to set it softly on the shelf.

His eyes were dark with emotion. “Don’t do this to yourself. To me. You’re only torturing yourself, you know.”

“It’s not a bad thing to remember.”

“Do you think it’s a good thing to live in the past, to hold on to false hope, to ruin your life and everyone else’s because of some ridiculous and painful conviction, this . . . this fantasy of yours that our son is somehow still alive and will come back to us?”

“I can’t give up hope.”

“You can’t live a lie!” He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Ava, please . . . quit fighting us.”

“Us?”

“All of us who love you, who want to help you. Please.” A muscle worked in his jaw, and he lowered his head so that his forehead touched hers. “Quit fighting me.”

Something inside of her broke. “I don’t mean to.”

“It hurts, I know. But we have to move on.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. It’s hard, but you have to do it.”

She leaned her head against his shirt, heard the steady beat of his heart and wondered if he was right. She was the one resisting the comfort he offered.

“I have to ask this,” she said, afraid she might sound foolish, “but did you come to bed last night?” She tilted her head to look up at him. “To our room? Our bed?”

His jaw worked. “Yes,” he admitted. “I heard you cry out, so I came in. I wondered if you’d remember.”

She felt a sense of relief. At least she hadn’t imagined that which was so real, but still, something felt off about it. “Did we . . . ?”

He chuckled without any humor. “No. Not really. I, uh, didn’t think it was the right time.”

“So you just left?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“You’ve been . . . pretty stressed, and besides, last night I wasn’t even sure you knew who was with you.”

“What?” Her heart started pounding.

“You were dreaming. Talking in your sleep.”

Oh, Lord, had she actually called him someone else’s name? Dern’s? Please, please no! She felt a flush of heat climb up her neck.

“Did you see the rose?”

“No. What rose?”

“The one I stole from the vase in the hallway and placed under your pillow.”

“No . . .” She shook her head, remembering how she’d patted the bed next to her, feeling for warmth.

“Then it’s still there.” He kissed her forehead. “God, I hope we can make this work, Ava,” he said with a smile, but she heard the note of resignation in his words, as if he had already given up on the notion they could work things out. “I’ll see you later,” he said. “I’m just running into the office in Anchorville for a few hours. I should be back by midafternoon.”

“All right,” she said, still trying to sort things out as he left. She waited until she heard the front door slam, then hurried in the direction of her room. There had been no rose in her bed. None. She would have found it.

“Now who’s crazy?” she whispered, entering the bedroom to find Khloe straightening up, the bed made. Lying upon the neatly smoothed quilt was a single white rose, its petals barely edged in pink, like those usually kept in the hallway vase.

“Where’d you find that?” Ava asked, motioning toward the crushed flower.

“In the bed, that’s where! You could have warned me for Christ’s sake. I pricked myself on the damned thing.”

She held up her right hand, and sure enough a bit of blood was blooming on her index finger. Khloe stuck the finger into her mouth, then headed for the adjoining bath. “You have Neosporin, right?” she said, her words a little unclear, as she was obviously still trying to staunch the blood flow with her lips. “And bandages?”

“Think so.”

Didn’t Khloe know? She’d been in that bathroom as often as Ava.

She heard the sound of the medicine cabinet door creak open, and while Khloe rummaged around in the bathroom supplies, Ava walked closer to the bed and picked up the rose.

“This wasn’t in here last night,” she said.

“What? The flower?” Khloe called through the open door.

“Yeah.”

“Then when? Oh, damn!” She walked into the room wrapping a small Band-Aid around her finger. “Never was ambidextrous . . .” She spied Ava with the rose in hand. “Careful. Graciela’s supposed to pull off all the thorns before putting the flowers in the vase, but she never bothers, claims we should buy thornless.”

“But the thornless variety isn’t named the Church Isle White or developed by my great-grandma.”

“Guess not.”

“So really, this was in the bed?” Ava asked.

“Right under your damned pillow. Surprised you didn’t get lacerated by it. Jesus!”

Ava glanced down at the scratch on her own finger and Khloe caught the move. “Oh. Looks like you did.”

“I guess.” Ava wasn’t convinced.

Khloe shook her head. “How else do you explain that?” She pointed her bandaged finger at the mark on Ava’s.

“I can’t,” she said, and that in and of itself was disturbing.



Fifteen minutes later, she was downstairs, where she grabbed coffee and, upon Virginia’s urging, a container of some berry-flavored yogurt and found out that Wyatt was already in town.

“Said he’d be back before noon,” Virginia said as she took stock of the pantry and scribbled the missing contents on a notepad. “I can’t believe I’m out of chicken stock again. How can that be possible?”

Rather than answer, Ava hurried upstairs, grabbed her laptop, and headed down to the library. With Wyatt gone, she figured she’d have some time to herself.

Jewel-Anne usually took her breakfast in her room, then hung out there until physical therapy with Demetria in the late mornings; Jacob was off at school or hiding in his dungeon of an apartment; the staff was busy; and Ian, if he wasn’t fishing, usually had coffee in town before returning to the house. He spent a lot of time in the boathouse and the small apartment attached to it, though he actually slept at the main house in a room on the third floor, preferring “the luxury of central heating” to the drafty studio with its ancient woodstove.

So she had some time when she wouldn’t be disturbed and could actually escape the four walls of her bedroom. Besides, the wireless Internet connection worked better down here, closer to Wyatt’s office where the modem was located.

She spent several hours organizing her notes, eating the yogurt, drinking coffee, and adding in news stories she hadn’t previously read on the Internet until she heard sirens, distant and faint, their plaintive wails echoing across the bay. She felt a chill but ignored it and switched off her computer. As her laptop wound down, she caught sight of a picture of Noah taken only a few days after his birth. She pushed her computer aside and walked to the library shelf where she picked up the photograph. “Funny little man,” she said of the red, swaddled baby lying on the couch. Hers had been a difficult delivery, not that she remembered much of it. That blessed event—so soon after Kelvin’s death—was tucked away like so many others and probably for good reason, as her son had nearly died in the process. The months counting down to his delivery had been trying as well, and sometimes she’d been in a full-blown panic that this pregnancy, too, wouldn’t go to term. As it was, Noah was born earlier than expected, but he was healthy.

Ava had the same kind of blurry images of the hospital and doctors trying to stay calm, of bright lights and pain, as she had of the boating accident that had taken Kelvin’s life. Those same kind of disjointed, frightening memories, but at least Noah had been born.

She looked at the picture, felt her throat tighten, then set the picture aside and walked to the window to view the garden where the small memorial stone and bench had been placed. Then she moved through the library and down a few steps into the recreation room and around the billiard table that had stood in the center of this area for as long as Ava could remember. Her grandmother had referred to the table as “that gawd-awful monstrosity” with its fading green cloth and dark oak rails.

Through the French doors, she walked outside to the garden and that scrap of space dedicated to her son. As dry leaves, kicked around by the wind, skittered across the path, she sat on the bench and looked down at the marker. Her son wasn’t buried here, but on this cloudy, blustery day, it was the place where she felt closest to him.

“Where are you?” she asked herself, then spied other marks in the wet earth. Large footprints, obviously belonging to a man, were visible along with the tracks from Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair.

More often than not, when Jewel-Anne rolled herself outside, she wound her chair through these garden paths. No matter how overgrown or bumpy the path was, she would bring one of her dolls with her and talk to them as she rode through the dripping rhododendron and overgrown hydrangeas. Ava had often seen her at this very spot, staring at her son’s marker, set only a few feet from the back of the house.

Now she rubbed her hands together against the chill of November. The holidays were fast approaching, and her insides froze a bit as she projected to the future and another lifeless season. All her life she’d looked forward to the yuletide, but after losing Noah, everything had changed. Every thing.

She glanced out toward the bay where the whitecaps swirled and the gray waters ran far too deep.

Why was it that everyone other than herself was content to let Noah’s memory fade, to just accept that he’d “disappeared.” They’d explained it to her, of course. There had been no ransom note, no small body had been found, very few leads—and all of those long exhausted. Even Wyatt had accepted that he would never see his son again, and that’s why he’d suggested this memorial.

She glanced down at the rock etched with her son’s name. Everyone’s acceptance of the fact that Noah was gone frustrated the hell out of her.

Over the rush of the wind, she heard the back door open and the whine of Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair on the ramp.

Great. So much for time alone.

Ava was just climbing to her feet when her cousin wheeled along the pathway to the garden. Bundled up in a thick jacket, her brunette doll wearing something similar, Jewel-Anne rounded the corner.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked. These were the first civil words she’d spoken to Ava since their argument in Wyatt’s office.

Ava considered not answering her but really didn’t have the energy for that kind of game-playing and one-upmanship. “Thinking.”

She rolled along the uneven path and stopped at the bench, her gaze focused on the stone. “Me too. I guess it helps. I miss him, too, you know,” she added, almost to herself, and Ava felt a little of the ice around her heart melting. “That’s why I come here. Because somehow Noah seems closer.”

“Yeah.” Ava’s voice was husky, raw with emotion. “I thought you had physical therapy.”

“I blew it off.” She slid a glance up at Ava. “It’s not as if it’s doing any good.”

“But the doctor said—”

“The doctor,” Jewel-Anne snorted. “What does he know? He just writes me prescriptions and suggests occupational therapy or a shrink or things to keep me busy, but none of it means crap.” Tears filled her eyes, and she brushed them hastily away before saying, “You’re a good one to talk. You never do what you’re supposed to. Oh, by the way, Khloe told me to remind you that you’ve got another appointment with the shrink. She’s on her way.”

Ava’s heart sank at the thought of another session with Dr. McPherson. The last thing she wanted to do was sit around and talk about her “feelings” with the psychologist. Then again maybe she could shock her with the sex dream.

Jewel-Anne’s phone beeped and she pulled it out of her jacket pocket. “Oh, great,” she said as she read the text. “Mrs. Marquis de Sade wants me in the ballet studio. Pronto.” She scowled at her phone, then tucked it into her pocket. “I guess I’d better go or she’ll come looking and be all pissy.” Deftly, she maneuvered a quick one-eighty with her chair and rolled away toward the house.

Ava watched her leave and wondered about all the times she’d spied Jewel-Anne in the garden, the wheels of her chair glinting in the sun. She’d often wondered what it would be like to be confined to the chair and had felt compassion and, yes, even guilt that her younger cousin was wheelchair bound, but then Jewel-Anne would say or do something so heartless and downright cruel that all of Ava’s empathy evaporated.

Give her a break. At least try. What would it hurt?

Alone again, Ava knelt down and ran her fingers over her son’s marker. Thank God there was no little body lying in a casket beneath the leafless, thorny rosebushes whose blooms had perished months before.

And that was a blessing.

So to think that she was closer to him here was an illusion.

Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes for a second, tried to get a grip on things. Again, she felt as if she were being watched, as if she wasn’t alone in the garden, that there was another presence. Her skin prickled and it wasn’t from the cold. She opened her eyes, her gaze scouring the overgrown shrubbery. She found no one other than a seagull swooping toward the bay.

And yet . . .

Looking over her shoulder at the house, she thought she saw movement in one of the upper windows, a curtain shifting in . . . Noah’s room?

Her heart clenched.

Who would be in her son’s room?

It’s nothing. Maybe Graciela dusting or . . .

But she was already moving, her footsteps hurrying, faster and faster, up the steps, through the back door, running through the kitchen and nearly knocking over Virginia and a hot tray of biscuits, dashing through the hallways and taking the front stairs two at a time.

At the second floor, she didn’t hesitate, just ran like wildfire to Noah’s room. The door was ajar.

Heart in her throat, breathing hard, she stepped inside. More memories washed over her and her oh-so-willing mind’s eye wanted to see him in his crib, but he wasn’t there.

But . . . her heart jolted when she spied the shoes.

Noah’s shoes.

Left as if he’d just kicked them off.

No!

Stepping into the room, she smelled the scent of salt water, and then she noticed the shoes were wet, water puddling on the edge of the carpet.

Eyes rounding in disbelief, she edged closer, snatching up the tiny red sneakers with the Nike logo. They smelled salty from the seawater and her throat closed. “Noah.” Nearly collapsing, she thought of her son, conjuring up his image. In her fractured mind’s eye, she witnessed his tiny body floating downward in the cold waters of the bay, his hair caught floating and swirling in the ebbing tide, his eyes, wide in his little white face, staring up at her, silently accusing her.

“Baby!”

One little hand reached up for hers, but she was like stone, unable to move.

“Mama!” he cried, and she let out a scream.

“Noah!”

But he wasn’t with her; she wasn’t on the edge of the bay but in his room. “Oh, God, what’s happening to me?” she whispered as the image of her son faded and she turned only to find she wasn’t alone.

A man stood in the doorway, filling it, his dark silhouette blocking her escape.