Silk and Stone

“I can’t … I just can’t talk for Jake. It wouldn’t be right. You keep lovin’ him, Sammie. You’re right inside his heart and soul. You been there since the day he drew the first words out of you. It’s a powerful bond—a man who can feel the good and the bad inside people—loving somebody the way Jake loves you.”

  Sam stiffened. “He’s come home, Clara, but he hasn’t said that he still loves me. I need to hear him say it.”

  “Words are just the icing on the cake,” Joe interjected gamely.

  “He never had any trouble saying it before.”

  Clara stared at Sam shrewdly. “You give him the old ruby back yet?”

  Sam felt the blood draining out of her face. Her confusion, her questions, suddenly had a symbol. The seed of the bitter feud between her aunt and the Raincrows. Jake wanted it. What did he think it would tell him? What would it do to their lives again?

  “Did you give it back to him?” Clara repeated sternly

  “No.”

  “Good. Don’t. Don’t never give it back to him.”

  Sam thought of the paths, those taken and those not, that had brought them, finally, together. The time he’d saved her from suffocating in an old trunk. How he’d tracked Charlotte and her when they’d run from Aunt Alex. And, with chilling comprehension, how he’d hunted Malcolm Drury down.

  She thought of Jake locked in a cell, staking his trapped and battered hopes on her, scarring a vow into his skin. Believing she would be the one person who opened all the doors for him, and waiting for her, waiting endlessly. Believing that she would keep the ruby for him.

  And the one question she was too afraid to ask began to haunt her.

  If he could find anything he wanted, what kept him from knowing she’d buried the ruby beside his grandmothers spring?

  Tim glared at Alexandra and dismissed the reporter’s notes with a disgusted flick of one hand. He radiated high-strung menace. “What do you want from me? An apology? I’ve played by the rules I learned watching the two of you. I’m sorry I’m not as good at it as you. But that’s all I’m sorry for.”

  “You seem to forget,” Alexandra said slowly, “that you’re at the center of this mess. I’m concerned about your predicament, first and foremost.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mother. You would have traded me like a stunted colt when I was a child if you could have. I don’t doubt you’d still like to.”

  “Oh, please. Must your excuses always hinge on slights you imagined you suffered as a boy?”

  “I didn’t imagine that you despised me, Mother. I didn’t imagine that Samantha was the child you wanted to raise, not me.”

  “How can you say that? You’re my son. I have tried to protect you from yourself all your life. I’ve given you opportunities few children ever have.”

  “I’m a Vanderveer. That’s the only thing that’s ever meant much to other people. You didn’t give that to me. All you did was destroy the one person who ever really made me feel loved. You and Orrin took that away.”

  “That is one of the most ridiculous accusations you’ve made to me in your life. And it has nothing to do with the subject at hand.”

  “Yes, it does. I don’t care about proving my worth to you anymore. I just don’t give a damn who knows what about me—or about you and Orrin.”

  “Until you snap out of that mood, at least stay out of my way and keep your mouth shut.”

  “I’m not the one you have to worry about.” A caustic smile played on his mouth. “I’ve been to see Gwen. You know, I always treated her the way you treated me. I counted on some strange combination of love and fear to keep her under my thumb. But I underestimated her. Just as you’ve always underestimated me.”

  “Are you saying Gwen went to the newspaper with stories about us? I don’t believe it. She’d have done it when she asked for a divorce, not now.”

  “The reporter came to her with information. She panicked. She confirmed everything he already knew, and even filled in the details.” Tim took a step closer, leaning toward her. “It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction to hear what she’d done. Because I get to tell you why she was nervous enough to talk. She feared she was being spied on by another side of our family.” His voice had dropped to a lethal whisper. He bent his head near Alexandra’s. “One of your precious nieces had already come to see her. Charlotte showed up on her doorstep with Ben Dreyfus in tow.”

  Alexandra stared at him with sick fury. “What interest could Charlotte possibly have in meeting Gwen?”

  “Gwen didn’t talk to her long enough to find out. But you can put the puzzle together, can’t you, Mother? Charlotte’s just scouting for Sam. Oh, this is rich. Your pet is after you with all her pretty claws sharpened this time. But she’s not the one who dug up dirt about us. It’s Jake. I don’t know how he did it, but I’m convinced he’s the one. I doubt he’s forgotten all the times you tried to take her away from him. Especially after he was sitting in jail.” He hesitated, studying her face. “That scares you, doesn’t it, Mother?” His voice was an accusing, satisfied hiss. “Jake’s come home, and he’s going to destroy us.”

  She slapped Tim. He drew back, his face flushing deeply, his eyes glittering. Alexandra trembled furiously. “Don’t wallow in your self-destructive cowardice,” she whispered between gritted teeth. “You really have no idea how ruthless I can be. Neither do Jake and Samantha. Any harm that’s been done to me pales in comparison to the harm I inflict in return. Get out of here. I’ll take care of this problem. As always.”

  Tim’s expression had become a stony blank. “Not this time, I think.” He turned and left the room. Alexandra waited until she heard the front door slam. Then she turned to Orrin. He sat with his head against the back of his chair. His face was ashen.

  Alexandra composed herself by sheer willpower. She was quivering inside. “We can assume we’ve found the source of our trouble,” she told him. “Now we simply have to determine a way to eliminate it. I promise you, we will. We’ll be fine. We can pretend this episode never happened.”

  “Pretend,” he said. He slurred the word. Then his eyes closed and he slumped sideways in the chair.

  Chapter

  Thirty-One

  He couldn’t think when he was with Samantha. Couldn’t think about anything but her. Her unanswered questions loomed over every brief, quiet moment when they were not dissolving into each other with blind need. So he’d visited his campsite for the first time in days, and gathered his totems to bring here.

  The sun had dropped to the rim of the vast, rolling sea of mountains below, casting long shadows across the ledge of Sign Rock. Jake sat there with his collection of newspaper clippings spread before him. His own ancient guidemarks. Like the wind filling a high mountain cave, the familiar gnawing dread began to expand inside his chest. He had the terrible sense that something had gone wrong.

  He trailed his fingertips over each sallow piece of paper, sorting through them, driven by something urgent and deep, an intuition that scalded him. Someone had intervened. Hands other than his own had touched what he was touching.

  Samantha? No. He would have felt her presence easily. And if she’d examined his belongings, he’d have felt her silent concern—and her guilty invasion—every time he held her.

  He closed his eyes. His hands lay flat on the photograph of Alexandra, Orrin, Tim, and Tim’s wife.

  Charlotte. Charlotte and Ben.

  He drew back in horror. He’d spent years chipping slivers of hard bedrock away from the hidden truth, infinitely methodical and patient, pushing Samantha away so she would not be caught under the hammer.

  He had looked away from his work, looked only at Samantha, and shattered the stone. Now he pictured the truth bursting into sharp, glittering fragments as deadly and indiscriminate as shrapnel.

  The wind caught his collection and scattered it into the high currents. He staggered to his feet. What door had he opened? What demons had he freed from Pandora’s box? Jake turned back toward the Cove quickly,
sick with fear.

  “Going fishing has always relaxed me and helped me sort through my problems,” Ben said darkly. He gave Charlotte a sideways glance as he cut his Jeep’s engine. “I had hoped, with pathetic optimism, that the mood might rub off on you.”

  She pointed defensively to a patch of shiny fish scales clinging to the grimy, stained thighs of her jeans. “I cleaned. I gutted. Turning trout into nice little filets relaxes me.”

  “Then why haven’t you spoken to me all afternoon?”

  “Because I didn’t want to go fishing. I wanted to visit Sammie and see how she and Jake are doing. See if he really has come out of his surly cocoon. Find out whether he’s explained anything to her. I want to know if he’s told her his hobby is collecting scrapbook material on our relatives. And I want to ask Jake if he has any inkling why our mutual cousin’s ex-wife is jumpier than a lobster in a pot of hot water.”

  She climbed out of the Jeep and slammed the door. Ben followed her to the door of her condo, muttering under his breath. Charlotte searched for her key in a pocket of her jeans, then lost patience and tried the knob hopefully. “Oh, great, I left the door unlocked again.”

  Ben shook his head. “As your lawyer and your main squeeze, it’s my responsiblity to tell you that you qualify as an ‘attractive nuisance.’ ”

  “Don’t worry. I have a built-in security system. Little invisible antennae that set off an alarm when anyone messes with me.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  She shoved the door open, then batted her eyes at him. “But I gave you my secret entry code.”

  “Oh, you let me inside the premises, but you haven’t given me the combination to the safe yet.”

  She stepped into the darkened living room and beckoned grandly for him to follow. “There’s nothing in my safe, but I’ll show you my—”

  Tim moved out of the shadows and kicked the door shut between her and Ben.

  It was nearly dark. Sam tried to concentrate on her loom, but kept wondering where Jake was. The low, mournful strains of a jazz disc played on the boom box by her feet, taking up some of the lonely silence. When she heard his footsteps on the porch she leapt up, then stopped herself. Something wounded and proud made her sink back to the bench of her loom. She tuned the portable player to a pop-rock radio station.

  If he were going to wander the woods with his secrets for company, she would pretend to be content with her loom and Rod Stewart.

  She jumped when she heard the front door slam. Bo’s large, long-nailed paws clicked alongside the loud thuds of Jake’s quick strides. Jake walked into her workroom with all the calm of a human tornado. Her heart pounding, she peered at him between the vertical strands of thread.

  Have a nice walk? came to her lips, but by then he was pulling her off the bench. He said nothing, but held her in a tight, almost ferocious embrace. The breath bubbled out of her in a confused sigh, and she put her arms around him. Conversation was lost—as usual—in anticipation of another irresistible plunge into bed.

  But he tilted her head back with his hands cupping her face, then studied every feature as if making certain nothing about her had changed. His scrutiny was so intense, so desperate, alarm shivered through her. She had barely begun to come to terms with his talent, or gift, or curse—she wasn’t even certain what to call it. How well could he read her emotions, her thoughts?

  “Clara and Joe were here while you were gone,” she said hoarsely. He didn’t look surprised. “I asked them questions. You’ve obviously kept Joe guessing about you, but not Clara. She told me I was right about you. What Hoke Doop said is true. You have a … gift.”

  He shut his eyes and cursed softly, bitterly. Sam rested her head against his shoulder. “I’ve always believed in you—your loyalty, your love. Having you in my life was the one miracle I never doubted.” She slid her arms tighter around him and lifted her head. He opened his eyes. There were tears in them. Sam whispered, “Because of you, I can believe in this other miracle too.”

  He didn’t say a word. No agreement, but no denial either this time. His unexplainable, unspoken suffering was wrapped around them like a silk web—deceptively fragile, as binding as steel. Sam burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. She felt the accelerated rhythm of his heart against her own chest. “It must color your whole life,” she continued, hoping something she could say would wedge further inside the wall around him. “Who you are, how you deal with other people, everything and everyone you love. Or hate.” Her fears merged into a tight knot in her throat. “It might explain why you tried to make me think you didn’t want me anymore when you went to prison. And why you tried to keep me away after you came home. If you knew something about our lives you couldn’t tell me. Something that might hurt me.”

  He dug his hands into her back. Could he sense her dread that she’d stumbled on the truth? Sam looked at him again. “We can’t go on this way. You have to tell me everything. If you know what I’m feeling right now, then you know I’m afraid, but you also know I can deal with it.”

  But suddenly his head jerked up and he twisted toward the radio. Sam’s startled attention went from him to it. “What—” she began, but he held up a hand.

  “… We’ll update you on Governor Lomax’s condition as details come in,” the announcer was saying. “Recapping that story, Governor Orrin Lomax collapsed at his home in Pandora this afternoon and was taken to the hospital there. After doctors determined the governor had suffered a stroke, he was flown to the university medical center in Durham, where he has, at this time, been listed in critical condition. Mrs. Lomax was with the governor when he became ill, and went with him to Durham.”

  Sam gripped Jake’s sleeve. The news was less shocking than the vivid emotions playing across his face. Satisfaction. Uncertainty. Every muscle in his body had tightened in defense. She called his name softly, urgently, as if trying to wake him from a nightmare.

  The phone in the living room began to ring. She ignored it, her attention riveted to Jake. He pivoted toward the sound, head up, one hand closing like a hot clamp on her shoulder. His face was grim. “Get the phone,” he ordered in a low, gravelly voice.

  Sam shook her head. “Whoever it is, they’ll call back. Please, talk to me. Tell me why you look as if you’re about to explode.”

  “Answer the phone,” he repeated. A shudder went through him. “It’s important. It’s Charlotte.”

  “Sammie.” Charlotte ran to her the instant Sam and Jake rounded the corner of the waiting area outside the doors to the emergency ward. The sight of Jake beside her sister, his expression fierce, clamped a torrent of words inside Charlotte’s throat. Panic gave way to caution.

  Sammie threw an arm around her shoulders and stared at the red scrape along Charlotte’s jaw. “Tim did that to you?”

  “He tried to grab my hair. I jerked away from him, and he caught the side of my face with his fingers.”

  “How’s Ben?”

  Tears slid down Charlotte’s face. “He dislocated his shoulder when he rammed the condo’s door open. And he got two cracked ribs when Tim threw him across my living room. Sammie, he was all broken up like that, but he kept trying to get up and fight. You remember how huge Tim is. It was David and Goliath, with me in the middle. All I could do was keep a stranglehold on Ben and hiss pathetic threats at Tim.”

  “What did Tim want?” Sammie asked. Her eyes glittered with fury.

  Charlotte shook her head warily, watching Jake. When he reached out and took her chin with one huge, big-knuckled hand, she froze. How much should she say in front of him? It might be better to tell Sammie the details, then let her decide how to confront Jake.

  A doctor pushed through the double doors of the treatment rooms and motioned to Charlotte. “We’re going to keep your friend overnight. We’ve given him a shot for the pain. He’s not very coherent, but he keeps asking for you.”

  Charlotte stepped away from Jake’s bewildering grasp, then took one of Sammie’s hands. “
Come with me.”

  “Jake too,” Sammie said quickly. “You have to tell us what Tim wanted. What he said.”

  “No. Please. Please, not right now. Just come with me, big sister. I’m feeling really small at the moment.”

  Sammie frowned and looked at Jake. He nodded. “Go on.” She touched his arm. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Charlotte dragged Sammie into the examining area. The doctor pointed them toward a curtained cubicle. Charlotte ran to it and slipped inside. She forced a sob back when she saw Ben ensconced on a gurney, bare from the waist up, his right arm in a sling and a girdle of white tape binding his rib cage. She bent over him. He gazed up at her with groggy devotion but more than a hint of unhappiness. “Is it obvious,” he mumbled, “that I’m a pit bull trapped in the body of a poodle?”

  “You’re no poodle,” she declared tearfully. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead, then carefully took the hand of his good arm in hers. She was dimly aware of Sammie standing close beside her. “We’re not going to keep telling the doctor that you fell off a fishing dock. We’re going to tell him the truth. My own cousin did this to you. State senator or not, he can’t get away with this. I’m going to call the sheriff and report him.”

  Ben scowled sleepily. “I don’t want to bring assault charges against him. I don’t want to sue him for my medical bills. I want to kill him.”

  “Don’t say that. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  Charlotte bowed her head. Sammie took her by the shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”

  “He stood over us,” Charlotte said raggedly. “He looked as if he’d beat us both to pieces if we got up from the floor. He wanted to give us a lecture, he said. He talked about me—what he did to me at Highview—the truth, just like it happened. He said he hated his mother and took it out on us, Sammie. He … pulled his hair back from the top of his ear—well, where the top of his ear used to be—and he said, ‘See? See what you did to me? It’s not as bad as what she did to me.’ ”