A Willing Murder Read online

  FOUR

  Kate was behind Jack as he got out of the hole. As soon as he stepped onto the grass, his shoulders fell down. He struggled to walk away from the tree roots and what they contained. But he got only a few feet before he slumped down onto the crutches. If it hadn’t been for them, he would have fallen.

  She saw his shoulders begin to shake. He was crying. The brother he’d so recently lost and now his connection to what they’d found in the tree were breaking him.

  If there was one thing Kate knew about, it was grief. She’d dealt with her mother’s since she was four years old. She’d had to learn how to comfort her mother, how to steer her toward the bedroom so she didn’t lie down on the floor and curl up.

  She didn’t know this man well, but she could see that he needed help. Sara was inside the house, her camera aimed at places that the setting sun was hitting. Kate rapped on the window and motioned for her to come out.

  Sara put her arm through her camera strap as she ran to the door.

  Outside, she went to Kate, who nodded toward Jack. He was leaning on his crutches and he looked in danger of collapsing. “He knows who it was. Someone he loved.”

  That was all the explanation Sara needed to make her run to Jack, Kate beside her. The look on his face was something Kate had seen too many times. Grief was an emotion that took over a person’s body and mind. It pulled at your soul until it was the only thing that existed. There was nothing else, no one else, just the deep, all-consuming grief.

  Sara put her arm around his waist and spread her hand wide on his stomach. It was as if she wanted to take his pain into herself. Her face seemed to age as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  Kate knew Sara’s feeling of helplessness. She’d felt the kind of love that wanted to share someone else’s pain but couldn’t. She put her arm around Jack’s shoulders and her hand on his heart. Slow, deep beats. It was as though his heart was trying to decide whether or not to continue. Did it gladly and gratefully give over to that oily, drowning, devouring grayness that was grief? It wanted Jack to say, “Take me. I’m yours. Do with me as you will.”

  Kate knew it was up to her to direct the two of them. They needed to sit down before they fell. She pulled, pushed, maneuvered. Sara clung to Jack, her small body almost merging with his. Whatever the actuality of their relationship, there was a bond between them that was so strong they were almost one person.

  There was a concrete porch and steps at the back of the house and Kate managed to get them there. She helped Jack sit, Sara still clinging to him, and Kate took the other side.

  The three of them were close together, tight, bodies mashed side by side, needing the warmth, the sharing of humanness. Needing not to be alone. It was going to take some time for Jack to come back to now, back to reality. He had to let go of that pull to another world where pain no longer existed.

  As Kate waited, she watched the fading light illuminate the tree in front of them. The sun hit the red blossoms and seemed to catch fire. It was the magnificent tree’s last blaze in her long life. Tomorrow she would fade. Tomorrow she’d give up the secrets she’d held inside her for so very long.

  The light was red, then yellow, then red again, and the tree was as flamboyant, as spectacular, as any fireworks.

  When the show at last died out, Kate could feel Jack’s body beginning to strengthen. His soul was returning to his body. The grief was there—would always and forever be there—but for now, it was retreating. She knew that it would return, slowly coming from inside him, to hover and plead. “Come with me,” it would say. “Let me take you away from this pain. Let me give you peace.”

  But for now, the Gray Lady of Grief was retreating back inside him.

  Kate reached into her pocket, pulled out the necklace and held it out so Sara could see it. “This was in the mud.”

  Sara kept her tight hold on Jack. She was the medicine he needed, and until she saw that it had taken effect, she wasn’t going to release him.

  He pulled his arm from between him and Kate and took the necklace. “Twenty years ago, when I was eleven years old, I gave this to Cheryl Morris for her sixteenth birthday.”

  Neither Sara nor Kate spoke. This was a pivotal moment. Would he talk? Would he release a piece of what was tearing his insides out?

  It was growing dark and the Florida night sounds were beginning. But there was no rush as the three of them sat at the top of the hard, cold concrete steps.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t realize who it was when I first saw the...” He looked at the tree on its side. “But they left town. Everyone said that. Why didn’t I know?”

  Kate and Sara waited in silence for him to stop accusing himself and go on.

  “That winter I was court-ordered to spend every weekend with Roy,” Jack said softly. “I lived with the man who was my true father, but Roy was...”

  “I know,” Kate said. “Biological.”

  “It was all right because—because...”

  Kate could feel him weakening.

  Sara sat up straighter and took Jack’s hand. “Because Evan was there. He was about seven then, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. But he wasn’t there that summer. Krystal and Roy were fighting, so she’d taken my brother to her parents in Colorado.”

  Kate guessed that Krystal was Roy’s second wife and Evan’s mother.

  “I was bored and alone,” Jack continued. “Roy was always working on cars, and always angry at me because I wasn’t interested in them. I was, but I didn’t want to be around his constant belittling of me. I rode my bike to get away from him.”

  “To here?” Kate asked.

  Jack took a while to answer. “Cheryl is why I wanted to buy this house.” He looked at Sara. “It took me a year and lots of lawyer hours to get it. Remember?”

  “Yes,” Sara said. “I told you to give it up but you wouldn’t.” She paused. “What was Cheryl like?”

  “She was the prettiest girl in our school. Petite and blonde, with big blue eyes. And she was nice to everyone. And really smart. People liked her.” He took a breath. “She used to say that I saved her life.”

  He looked back at the tree, the blazing color now gone. The approaching night had taken away its last bit of spirit. “I was riding past her house and I heard what I thought was a scream. I went to see what was wrong.”

  Jack shook his head in memory. “This place always was a dump. The landlord was a bastard. Squeezed a penny until it squealed. There was some dangerous iron equipment in the back. Farm machinery, I think. Rusted and sharp. Cheryl had been hanging out clothes to dry when the pole gave way. She was tangled in the rope and the pole was across her legs. She couldn’t get out.”

  “You saved her,” Kate said.

  “I wanted to think so,” Jack said. “Roy had been on my case that morning telling me I was a worthless piece of crap, so I needed to feel like a hero. Cheryl invited me in once I’d freed her and gave me lemonade and cookies.”

  With every word he spoke, Jack seemed to regain energy. The pleasant memories were replacing what they knew had happened to the young woman.

  “We became friends,” he said. “Her mother was always gone and I wished Roy was, so we spent most of the summer together.” Jack gave a snort. “And I was young enough that she considered me safe. Cheryl was so pretty that all the guys were after her, but she refused to go out with any of them—which made them try even harder.”

  “And, of course, the girls were jealous,” Sara said.

  “I’m sure they were but I was eleven. What did I know? All I cared about was that for one whole summer, Cheryl Morris, the prettiest girl in school, maybe in the whole world, was mine.”

  “What did you two do?” Kate asked.

  Jack lifted his chin. “Cheryl wanted to be a newscaster. Not a journalist. She dreamed of being on TV and ‘keeping the world informed