“But what about Gabe?”
“Brad was out there with him on the porch, and neither one of them was going anywhere. Bobby had gone to the trucks, to wait for the ambulance. There wasn’t much I could do except turn up that bottle of bourbon … and cover up the broken window, if I could find it.” She paused, remembering the truth, and building her lie along its framework. “I picked up some plastic sheeting and duct tape, and went hunting for the problem. I found it in the master bedroom. Water was getting all inside the place, and since the ambulance still hadn’t arrived, I tried taping up the holes. And you know how well that worked out.”
He scribbled something on the form that was attached to his clipboard. “But you’ve left out the most important part: How you actually cut yourself.”
She glared at him. “I didn’t cut myself. I got cut, when I fell.”
“Poor phrasing on my part. I’m sorry. Please go on.”
The rest is a little blurry. It happened real fast, and then I lost a shit-ton of blood, as you may note from my records,” she said, sounding huffier than she meant to. “There was a window seat, you see—and I stood up on it, to reach the window. But I was doing all that in the dark, and I lost my balance. I started going backwards, and tried to catch myself forwards, out of reflex. My hands went through the glass, tearing them all to hell. I dragged myself back downstairs, and that’s where Brad and the medics found me. The end.”
Dr. Jacks performed another brief round of scribbling. “But there was a phone call. You called your ex-husband moments before the accident occurred,” he said carefully.
“You’ve never butt-dialed anyone before? Never in your life?”
“Is that what happened?”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s what happened. I was falling down a flight of stairs with my phone in my pocket. Believe me, I felt stupid about it when I found out.”
Dr. Jacks sat forward, and fiddled with his pen. “All right, that’s … possible. But you spoke to Carrie, and asked about Andy.”
“I have no recollection of that, whatsoever. Look…” Dahlia sighed heavily, and adjusted herself on the pillows. She wanted to push the button for more meds, but she restrained herself—even though her arms ached like mad. “I’ve seen my arms—I was watching, when the surgeon took off the wraps to get a look at them. I know it looks like I took a razor to them, up and down. But if I were going to slit my own wrists, why would I carve up my fingers, too?”
“Working with a piece of wet glass, in the dark … the cuts on your fingers could’ve been accidental.”
“If I really wanted to die upstairs, why would I try so hard to get downstairs, and to get Brad’s attention?”
“Second thoughts? It happens all the time.”
“Honey, if I wanted to die, I’d use one of my guns, and do it quick—without any fanfare. And without all this goddamn pain,” she added through her teeth, when a sharp flare of agony shot up and down her right hand. “I sure as hell wouldn’t do it when Gabe was in desperate need of help, and there was an ambulance on the way.”
“But suicide attempts are rarely logical or well planned. You’d been under a lot of stress at work—”
“No more than usual.”
“You were the boss on this operation, far from home—”
“It’s Nashville, not Nevada.”
“You’d recently signed off on a divorce.”
“You’ve got me there.”
“And, I am led to believe,” he said, gently but firmly, “that you lost a house in this divorce. An old one, like the one you were working on in Saint Elmo.”
She snorted. “Ha! It wasn’t a third the size of the Withrow place, and it needed almost as much work. It was a beautiful house, and I loved it, and I hated to lose it. But you know what I do for a living? I fart around in nice old houses, taking pieces of them with me. For fuck’s sake.” She leaned back and winced. “It wasn’t the end of the world.”
He was quiet for a moment. “No, I suppose it wasn’t.”
“So would you please sign off on me, or whatever it is you have to do? I just want to go home.”
“Even though you’re going home alone, to an empty apartment?”
“Even so, yes. I’ve got a good GP in Nashville who can look after me from here on out, and … and … what do I have to promise you? That I’ll seek therapy if I find myself depressed, or having dire thoughts? I can do that. Do you want me to promise I’ll talk to someone before I do anything drastic? That’s fine. For that matter, if you want me to leave my guns with Daddy, so he can keep them locked out of reach—that’s fine too. Just tell me what you want from me. What do I have to say to convince you that this wasn’t my own doing?”
“It’s not a matter of making promises,” he said in his most soothing voice. It made him sound like a liar. “This is a formality. We can’t really keep you here against your will, unless there is demonstrable proof that you are a danger to yourself or others. You can leave in the morning,” he said with another click of his pen. “No one will stop you. The hospital has to cover its bases from a legal standpoint, you understand. I’m only doing my job.”
She was relieved enough to melt right into her pillow fort, but she couldn’t allow herself that cautious joy quite yet. Not until she was actually free and clear, and on the road back to Music City Salvage.
But when Dr. Jacks left, she relaxed enough to nap. The hospital wasn’t so bad. The food was shit, but what could you do? The drugs were good, and that more than made up for it.
She had her own TV remote, and her cell phone. Even with the cracked screen, she could entertain herself for one more night.
It was really rather peaceful, except for the beeping machines and the intercom, and the weird guy down the hall who kept waking up yelling for someone named Brenda.
But it wasn’t a poltergeist-plagued work site.
Her father called from a hotel, and gave her the rundown on the day’s work. They’d gotten the last of the windows and floors, and the chestnut barn had been taken down to splinters. In another few days, the whole shebang would be razed to the ground, and then it’d be over. Did she still want some of the furniture that’d been left behind? She could have it, if she did.
She told him “no thanks,” and that she’d buy her own later. Take it for the shop. Maybe one of the guys could upcycle it into something cool … for someone else.
That was all right with Chuck. He understood. Anyway, he’d see her in the morning, bright and early, with bells on. All right. Good-bye.
Dahlia napped some more. There wasn’t much else to do, and even surfing the Net on her phone was more than her ragged fingers felt like doing for very long. Drugs and sleep were a better way to pass the time. When she woke up again, she found some flowers and a card. According to one of the nurses, Bobby had brought them by, but he didn’t want to wake her.
She was touched, until she read the card. The flowers were from Andy, so now she didn’t want them. She didn’t need his stupid, guilty gesture because he’d heard through the grapevine that maybe Dahl had tried to kill herself in a grand old house … and you know what? Fuck him.
“Give them to somebody else,” she told the nurse. “Someone who will appreciate them better than I do. They’re pretty enough, but I don’t want them. Find an old person, or a little kid, or something.”
She didn’t know where they ended up, and didn’t care.
It was twenty minutes until visiting hours were over, and that was a good thing. Once the visitors quit coming and going, the hospital got quieter. There were fewer kids tramping down the halls, and fewer people asking doctors too many questions, and giving nurses too many demands.
But there was still a quarter hour left on the clock when a quietly cleared throat announced that Augusta Withrow had arrived. Dahlia smelled the older woman before she opened her eyes—that fancy perfume that suited her perfectly, with an afternote of tobacco and expensive hand lotion.
“Hello there.”
br />
“Ms. Dutton, I hear they’re sending you home in the morning.”
She wriggled herself back to a mostly seated position. “Yes ma’am, that is correct.”
Augusta let herself inside the room, and took the chair that Dr. Jacks had left beside the bed. “That’s good to hear. I heard what happened, and…” She hesitated. “And I’m sorry,” she concluded.
“Everyone got out alive; that’s the important thing.”
“Yes, yes it is,” she nodded. “But I suppose you feel that I wasn’t honest with you, or your father.”
“What good would honesty have done?” Dahlia asked.
“I could’ve warned you about … her. I could’ve told you about Aunt Hazel’s room, at least. I might’ve sounded like a madwoman for it, but it would’ve given you some measure of sanctuary.”
“I figured it out.” She corrected herself. “Well, Hazel told me.”
Augusta raised one thin eyebrow. “You saw her?”
“She seemed like a nice lady. Where will she go, when the house is gone?”
“I’m sure she’ll come up with something. Always an innovator, that one.” She squeezed her hands around a small purse, then opened it with a pinch of the clasp. “I brought you something.”
“That wasn’t necessary…”
She withdrew something small and rectangular, and fiddled with it. “I went back to the house, while your father and his men were working on the carriage house roof. You left this behind—or someone did, I’m not sure who.”
“What is it?”
“A camera,” she said as she handed it over. “It was running … I don’t know how long … before the battery went out. I wasn’t sure if I should give it to you or not, but I thought … there might be something on there, something you could share with your father, if you needed to. The place is empty now; I felt it myself—not a hint of anyone, even Aunt Hazel. He might not believe you.”
“He doesn’t need to believe me. He can believe Bobby, or Brad, or Gabe. They all saw things; they all had stuff happen that they couldn’t explain.”
“They didn’t receive the worst of it, though.” Augusta gazed thoughtfully at Dahlia’s hands.
“Gabe might argue.”
“Gabe didn’t almost die. You were the one she wanted. Maybe because you’re a woman—it might be that simple. Or maybe because you were alone and angry.” She used those words like she’d heard them before.
“What made you think that?” Dahlia asked.
“Dear, you wore it like a suit. But she picked you, that’s my point. The time may come when you want someone, somewhere, to understand. So, here, take the camera. I don’t know much about these things, with their little memory chips and whatnot, but it was recording the night … the night that everything happened. Someday, you may want to see what it caught.”
Then she rose from her seat, and closed her purse.
“Ms. Withrow?”
“Yes?”
“You knew they were buried there, didn’t you? In the little family plot that wasn’t supposed to be a plot at all.”
She frowned, and for a second Dahlia thought she’d guessed incorrectly. “They? What do you mean, they?”
“Abigail and her boyfriend, the one she killed. Your grandfather buried them there, and he never said a thing.”
Either Augusta Withrow was a world-class actress, or she was genuinely confused, and more than a touch appalled. “Good God, no. So that’s where she went? Right down into the ground, next to the house?” She shuddered, and Dahlia caught a whiff of her hair spray. “No, darling. I only knew about the baby. She threw it in a ravine in the woods, but my father went and got it. He buried it in the fake cemetery, beneath a rosebush.”
“I thought you said…”
“I know what I said. You didn’t need to know every damn thing.”
Dahlia turned that image over and over in her head after Augusta was gone. A boy who’d seen something terrible—and tried to do the right thing. Part of the right thing? Well, he did something. The overgrown plot was where everything secret went to disappear, so why not the poor little corpse. Why not his sister. Why not her lover.
Put them all in the ground. Plant the seeds, and harvest the ghosts.
* * *
In the morning, her father arrived as promised—with open arms and a big bouquet from everyone at Music City. She accepted the flowers and then the hug, and she returned it gently. She sniffed the flowers deeply, declaring them perfect.
Bobby and Gabe had already headed north to start sorting the inventory, and Brad was driving the other truck—so it was just Dahlia and Chuck on the way back to Nashville. They talked about safe things: the loot they’d acquired, and what the price tags would look like.
“My insurance premiums will surely rise like Easter morning, but this was still a good pick.” Chuck’s head bobbed heartily. “The copper on that roof alone, and the chestnut, and those mantels … and I saw the rose transom you pulled out. That thing’ll go for a fortune!”
“It ought to. It hasn’t got a crack, and that’s a miracle.”
“The big scene from the dining area, the one with the orchard, and the birds, and all that … it’s got some damage—but it shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred bucks to repair. Once it’s fixed, I’m going to list it for about thirty-five hundred. We can get that easy, I think.”
“List it for four,” she suggested. “It’s right up Teddy Milson’s avenue, and he always tries to jack you down a few bucks.”
“Good call, good call. I’ll drop him an e-mail with a picture when we get it off the truck.”
He said that like it’d happen with a click of ruby heels, or a snap of fingers. But back in Nashville, it took almost as long to unload the trucks and catalog the haul as it had to collect it from the estate. Dahlia insisted on participating, and her dad insisted that she stay home for at least another day or two—but when she came back, she still had a leisurely week of labeling boxes, calling some of their usual clients, and taking pictures for the Internet.
But not with Brad’s old camera.
She kept that in her messenger bag, untouched. She didn’t want to watch whatever it’d caught—not yet—but she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, either, and Brad had never asked about it. Maybe he’d assumed it was lost. Maybe he was glad it was gone.
Hard to blame him. Hard to blame anyone.
* * *
“Now, I don’t know what happened back there,” Chuck told her, as they sat in his office and finished off a pair of sandwiches from a nearby takeout place. “I don’t expect you all to tell me, if you don’t want to go into it.”
“Good, then I won’t. One of us needs to sleep at night, and you’re the boss, so it’d better be you.” She popped a potato chip into her mouth and chewed it slowly. She swallowed, and asked, “The um … the cemetery, though.”
“What about it?”
“Daddy, come on. You saw the tarp. Brad or Bobby would’ve told you, I’m sure.”
“About the soldier?” He took a big bite of his BLT and almost killed it off. “They told me.”
“So what did you do about it? Did you report it to anybody?”
“Nope!” He shook his head. “Not our problem. Leave it for the wrecking crew, or the park service. We got the truck in past the closest grave—it was a squeak, but we didn’t run anything over. Or anybody. I told Bobby to go throw some dirt down there, cover the hole back up again, but that was the full extent of my involvement. As far as you know, we never found a thing in that fake cemetery, or in the house, either.”
“Just rats and bugs and bats.”
“That’s right, Dolly-girl, my Snow White child. Plausible deniability.”
She toasted him with another chip. “To plausible deniability.”
He toasted back with a bit of bacon. “I’m just sorry it got so crazy for you, so fast. In all seriousness, Dahl—if I’d known, I never would’ve taken the offer. I’d have sent t
hat old lady packing so fast…”
No, he wouldn’t have. He was too happy to assume the best, and ignore the worst. But hindsight is 20/20, and it’s a goddamn liar.
“Then it’s just as well you didn’t know.” She held up a tablet and showed him their eBay page. “Because Teddy’s loss is some other dude’s gain. A couple of guys got bidding on the orchard glass. It went for almost five grand.”
Chuck whistled. “It hasn’t been a week, and we’re already on the verge of breaking even—with a third of the stock still sitting on the floor, and another third waiting in the storeroom. I’d list it now, but we don’t have anyplace to put it! You know,” he said, more quietly, less joyfully. “We really needed this. The way Nashville Erections screwed the pooch, if the Withrow place hadn’t come through … I don’t know.”
“Yeah, Daddy. You do know.” She scratched at the edge of her left-hand bandage, and stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter, now. It may have been the worst job ever, but Gabe will be back on his feet in another few weeks, and once these wraps come off, I’ll have some sexy-ass scars. Chicks dig scars.”
“Are you switching teams?”
She laughed. “Hey, if the right girl came along and wanted to settle down, I’m sure we could work something out. If she’s willing to look past my stitches, and she’s handy with power tools, it might just be true love. For real, Daddy—next time I clean these cuts, I’m going to show you. It’s gross as hell, but the swelling’s gone down, and I’ve got some motion back already.”
“You’re doing all right with that tablet and stylus. With your sleeves pulled down, no one would ever know you did a slice-and-dice through a window.”
“I’m just lucky that my left hand got the worst of it. The right one only got a couple dozen stitches. So long as I’m using those super-fat markers you keep around for labels, my handwriting looks just about normal … but the wraps do make for slow typing. Eh.” She shrugged. “I was never very fast, anyhow.”
“Atta girl. Look on the bright side.” Chuck’s phone chimed with a message. He checked it, and beamed. “Scars, broken bones, and all—the Withrows are the gift that keeps on giving!”