Lily woke choking, heart hammering. Images from the dream reeled through her mind, a disjointed film played in double time. The lake, the sun on her shoulders, AJ in her arms . . . the horrifying absence of weight when he’d slipped from her grasp. The strain she’d felt, diving for him, the promise she’d made God, her first useless bargain . . .
Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she almost expected to lower them into water. She could smell it, smell the odors of water, damp earth, and fish. She saw it, the small, protected cove where she had first gone to swim with her mother, where she had taken AJ and almost let him drown.
She stood up. She hadn’t bothered taking off anything other than her jeans and boots when she’d come up to her bedroom after dinner last night, and she pulled the jeans back on now, shoved her feet into her boots. She wasn’t that girl, and AJ wasn’t a baby, either. But she knew where he was. After the dream . . . so vivid . . . she knew where to find him.
Downstairs, she took the keys to the Jeep from the hook by the back door. She and AJ had ridden Butternut over to Monarch Lake on that long-ago morning, but she couldn’t spare the time to saddle Butternut now. Nor did she leave a note for her dad.
12
Fixed you . . .
I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m in trouble, and I don’t think I can stop . . .
The contents of the notes, their implicit threat, haunted Dru. She’d been restless all of Thursday night, finally falling asleep near dawn, only to waken with a jolt a bare half hour later when light from the rising sun cracked the window blinds. She checked Shea’s bedroom and, finding it empty, went through the house on bare feet, quickly and silently.
The smell of fresh-brewed coffee permeated the air, but the kitchen was empty. She turned in an anxious circle, then heard Shea’s voice coming from outside. Walking to the back door, Dru felt on the offense; she had one thought in mind: wherever AJ was running to, he was not taking Shea. Dru would get the .38 if she had to; she would make him understand.
Fully expecting to see him, she was perplexed for a moment after she edged aside the mini blind and didn’t find him there. She darted her glance over the wedge of lawn she could see, the side of the garage, part of the concrete apron. It looked as if it had rained during the short time she’d slept, but there was no sign of AJ. Shea was alone, in one of the chaise longues, her cell phone to her ear, and as Dru watched, she lowered it to her upraised knees. Whomever she’d been talking to, the conversation was over now.
Dru opened the door, making a show of it, calling out, “Good morning, honey,” as if it were any one of the hundreds of ordinary mornings they’d shared.
“Bring a towel,” Shea said, “if you’re going to sit. It rained earlier.”
Dru retraced her steps into the kitchen and grabbed the dish towel from the oven-door handle. Outside, she mopped the chair. “I never heard it,” she said.
“It came down hard, but it didn’t last very long,” Shea said.
Dru hung the towel over the deck railing and settled into the chaise, stretching her legs, crossing her ankles.
“Uncle Kevin called,” Shea said. “He got your message about the wedding.”
“Is that who you were talking to?” Dru was only a tiny bit ashamed of her prior suspicion.
“Kara’s in the hospital in Topeka. She’s the youngest daughter, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Dru said. “But Topeka? What happened? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She had to have an emergency appendectomy. Uncle Kevin said he was glad they weren’t in the middle of nowhere when she got sick.”
“Still, what an awful thing to have happen so far from home. Did Kev want me to call him back?”
“No. Not unless he could help some way with our issues.” Shea’s voice took on a note of irony.
“They wouldn’t have made it to the wedding after all,” Dru said.
“No,” Shea answered.
They shared a silence.
“I tried calling AJ’s mom earlier.”
“Why?” Dru was annoyed.
“I wanted to ask about the break-in, what was taken. I wanted to know if she’s like the cops, if she thinks it was AJ.”
“Did she tell you?”
“She didn’t answer, and she hasn’t called back. It seems weird. Where could she be?”
“I have no idea,” Dru said. Out hiring a dream team to defend her son. That was the thought that seared a path through her brain. They’d get AJ off, the Axels, with all their money. He’d be like OJ, declared innocent in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If that trial had proved anything, it was that justice in the United States could be bought and sold like any other marketable commodity. It flat-out pissed Dru off. She stood up. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want a refill?” Dru nodded at the mug sitting empty on the table at Shea’s elbow.
Shea said no, and she turned down Dru’s offer of toast, too. She wasn’t hungry.
You should eat anyway . . . You’re going to make yourself ill . . . The guy isn’t worth it . . . You’ll find someone else . . . The plethora of useless and unwanted advice trailed through Dru’s mind. She stood, looking down at Shea. “If AJ came here and asked, would you go with him?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re really worried about that?”
“Is it so far-fetched? You love him, right?”
“My God, Mom! How many times do I have to say it?” Shea got out of the chaise, grabbing her mug. “Something has happened to him, something terrible, or he’d have been here, or called, long before now.” She paused in front of Dru, fear mingling with disgust in her expression.
Dru raised her hand, intending to tuck fallen strands of Shea’s hair behind her ear, intending to say she hadn’t meant to start anything, but Shea evaded her touch, brushing by her. She turned at the back door. “You made up your mind not to like AJ in the first five minutes after you met him. Who knows why? Because he’s related to Jeb Axel? Because his family has money? Because as soon as you found out he’d fought in Afghanistan, you decided he had mental issues—that he was Dad?”
“Wait, no—” Dru tried to interrupt.
Shea wasn’t having it. “You’re so judgmental.”
“No,” Dru said. Was she?
“All my life you’ve told me how I should feel about stuff—people, situations—Dad, Kate, even poor Becca. It’s just how you are. I should be used to it by now.”
“What is so wrong with me wanting you to be safe?” Dru shouted it toward the back door, flinching when it slammed. Her knees weakened, suddenly, inexplicably. She felt light-headed, and bending over, she braced her hands on her thighs.
An hour later she was sitting at the table, trying to merge the address list for the wedding guests into a label document when Shea appeared in the doorway. Dru kept her eyes on the computer screen. It was safer.
“Erik just called,” Shea said.
Dru glanced at her.
“He wanted to know if we’d heard from Kate.”