With an Extreme Burning (30 page)

“You may see it that way, Mr. Mallory, but the fact is we're doing everything that can be done and we are making progress.”

“Right,” Dix said.

Status fucking quo, he thought.

It's him, it's Elliot!

Fear pushed Cecca toward the edge of panic. She couldn't get free of his clutching hands, his body pinning hers. He was half aroused; she could feel his burgeoning erection hot against her thigh.

He murmured, “Francesca,” and tried to kiss her again.

She managed to tear her right arm loose. In the next second she spat in his face, brought her knee up, and swept the Mason jar off the windowsill and slammed it against the side of his head.

Her knee missed his groin, but the jar connected solidly, part of the glass fragmenting on impact, a shard of it cutting her palm. He grunted in pain, released her and stumbled away to one side. She had a brief impression of glazed eyes, blood streaming down from his temple. Then her back was to him and she was running.

She ran through the parlor, across the hall, dragged the front door open. Get inside the car, lock the doors! She plunged through, hitting the screen door with her shoulder; took two steps and then was violently yanked back and half around, a sharp wrenching in her left shoulder. She thought in that first confused moment that he'd caught her. But it was her purse, the strap of her purse had caught on the screen-door handle. In her panic she heaved backward, trying to free it—and the strap broke and she backpedaled off balance into the porch railing, the purse flying past her head. She twisted around as it hit the front walk and burst open, spilling its contents in a wide fan.

The car keys!

She stumbled down the steps. Didn't see the keys, bent to scoop up the purse, pulled it wide open so she could look inside, and the keys weren't there either—

Thudding footfalls. Her head jerked up; he appeared in the doorway. Holding his head with one hand, the left side of his beard glistening with blood. Saying dazedly, “Francesca, for Christ's sake,” saying something else she didn't hear.

She took flight again.

Out through the gate, past the station wagon, across the empty yard. The barn was straight ahead, its sagging doors drawn shut but not locked, a gap like a skinny mouth yawning between them. She raced toward the doors, looking back over her shoulder.

He was behind her, chasing her in a lurching run, still clutching his head, still calling her name.

Just as she reached the doors, her foot slid on dry, loose earth and she went down hard on her left hip. The jarring pain was one of several; she barely noticed it. She lunged upward, grasped the latch on one door, dragged herself upright, and then scraped the door back and squeezed her body inside.

A half-darkness enveloped her, broken and thinned by fingers of dusty sunlight poking in through gaps in the walls and roof. The air was close, thick with the smells of hay and manure and harness leather; it clogged her nostrils, her throat, wouldn't let her catch her breath. She looked around wildly, trying to penetrate the gloom. Empty floor, empty stalls, loft above with remnants of moldy hay and nothing else—

Pitchfork.

It was propped against one of the vertical support beams for the loft. She hobbled over and caught it up. Rusted and crooked tines, a cracked handle that immediately became slick and sticky with blood from her cut palm. She whirled around with it, facing the door as it creaked open wide.

Elliot stood silhouetted there, backlit by the daylight outside. Looking for her, seeing her. Coming inside.

Instead of backing up, she went toward him. Now that she had the pitchfork, a weapon, some of her terror had been submerged by an adrenaline rush of fury. She jabbed the tines in his direction, belly high.

“Stay away from me,” she said. “Don't come near me, you son of a bitch.”

Elliot stopped, swaying a little, as if he were still dizzy from the blow with the Mason jar. He was in one of the shafts of incoming sunshine; she could see his red-stained face clearly enough to tell that the dazed expression was mostly gone, that in its place was an emotion that surprised her. What she'd expected was a fury to match her own, an implacable hatred. What she saw was fear.

He touched his temple again, stared at the blood smears on his fingers. “Jesus, Francesca,” he said shakily, “you almost broke my skull.”

“I wish I had.”

“Why? I didn't mean … I misread the signals …”

“What signals? What're you talking about?”

He took another step forward, his hand held out to her as if in supplication. She reacted by advancing on him, closing the distance between them to ten feet, jabbing again with the pitchfork. “I'll put this all the way through you, I mean it.”

He stopped, spread his arms. “I wasn't trying to attack you. Is that what you thought? Rape?”

“Rape?”

“It wasn't like that, I swear to God. I thought you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Playing games, being coy.”

His apparent confusion had infected her, but not enough to make her relax her guard. She was sweating, a thick, oily sweat, and that smell combined with the barn stench was making her nauseated. “Turn around,” she said. “Walk outside and keep walking.”

“Francesca—”

“Do it, goddamn you, or I swear I'll stick you.”

He turned, hunching his shoulders. And walked and continued to walk without looking back. She followed at a cautious distance, blinking when she came out of the dark barn into the sun-glare. He went halfway across the yard before his step faltered and his head swiveled toward her.

“Keep going. All the way to your car.”

No argument; he did as he was told. His obedience had built an odd, grim sense of power in her. Now she was in control. Now he was the one scared and cringing. She hated the feeling—and relished it at the same time.

When he reached the Lexus she told him to stop. He stopped. “Francesca, what are you going to do?”

“Never mind what I'm going to do. Your car keys—where are they?”

“Jacket pocket.”

“Take them out, put them on the hood. Then back up. Keep backing up until I tell you to stop again.”

Once more he obeyed. When he was far enough away she moved forward and picked up the keys and put them in her blazer pocket.

“I wasn't going to force myself on you,” he said. “You have to believe me. If you go to the police … the university, my tenure … I'm sorry I came on so strong, I mean it, I'm sorry …”

“Stay where you are. Don't move.”

She backed up between the cars, not taking her eyes off him; backed through the gate to where her purse and its spilled contents lay spread over the walk. Elliot hadn't moved except to take out a handkerchief; he was dabbing blood off his temple, rubbing it out of his beard. She got down on one knee, the pitchfork in her right hand, and used her left hand to pick up wallet, change purse, compact, lipstick, comb, pen … key case. The case was partially hidden under a summer-dead bush; that was why she'd missed seeing it earlier. When she had everything in the purse she straightened and walked out to the station wagon.

Elliot made the supplicating gesture again. “
Please
don't report this to the police. I'll never bother you again, I'll never come near you, I'll buy this place and insist you have the commission … all right? Francesca? Just believe that I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I made a mistake …”

“Shut up,” she said.

He shut up.

“Walk away farther. Over by the chicken coop.”

“Please,” he said, and walked away.

The feeling of power was gone now; so was most of her anger. She felt … empty. She opened the car door, threw the pitchfork down, slid inside, and immediately locked all the doors. Now she was aware of the dull throbbing pain in her palm, of the blood that was dripping from the cut onto her clothing. Handkerchief in one of the blazer pockets … she found it, wrapped it around the hand.

Elliot was standing in front of the chicken coop, arms out slightly from his sides—a forlorn figure, like a poorly made scarecrow. Cecca started the engine, ran her window partway down. “I'll leave your keys in the mailbox,” she called to him.

He called something back that had the word “please” in it.

She made a fast U-turn, drove fast out of the farmyard. Once she cleared the gate, she ran her gaze up to the rearview mirror. He was still standing by the chicken coop, fumbling with cigarettes and matches—diminished and diminishing.

At the end of the lane she stopped long enough to throw his car keys into the mailbox. Then she turned east on Hamlin Valley Road, drove straight to town, and straight home. In her driveway she shut off the engine and set the brake. But she didn't get out. She just sat there.

I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I made a mistake
.

Truth.

She'd been wrong.

Elliot Messner wasn't the tormentor.

Misread him as he'd misread her. Overreacted. He was a macho asshole who didn't really like or respect women, who until today had been secure in the belief that he could seduce—not rape, seduce—any woman he wanted because she must in turn want him. But that was all he was. Not dangerous; just a pig. Report him to the police? No, she wasn't that vindictive. She'd punished him enough out there—punched a huge hole in his ego and given him a scare that he wouldn't shake for days. He might not learn a lasting lesson from what had happened, but he would never forget this afternoon.

Neither would she.

She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. This is what living on the edge has done to me, she thought. Before, she would have been able to handle Elliot; she wouldn't have panicked, she wouldn't have resorted to violence. As it was, she had almost allowed herself to become the sort of person she despised. She'd worried that Dix was a potential killer. Well, so was she. If Elliot had come at her in the barn, she would have stuck him. She would have run that pitchfork all the way through him and killed him dead.

She kept on sitting there. Very calm now, still very much in control. Except that she couldn't seem to make herself get out of the car.

TWENTY-TWO

She was about to remember something.

Eileen knew it, felt it in every bone and fiber. The memory was like thunderclouds massing thickly on the edge of her mind. Ugly, terrifying … she kept wanting to run away from the coming storm. But she couldn't, not anymore. She was so tired. All she could do was lie here, helpless, and wait for it to overwhelm her.

The stream of people going in and out made it even worse. Doctors, nurses, visitors—so many people. They wouldn't tell her why she was there. They kept smiling at her, touching her, poking and prodding and taking her temperature and making her eat food she didn't want and walking her to the toilet to pee and saying things designed to cheer up patients.
Her
job, wasn't it? She knew all the tricks … except this one, what was going on with her. She wasn't sick, she was just so tired and discombobulated all the time. She shouldn't be lying in a hospital bed. Why wasn't she home in her own bed? Why wasn't she with her—

Maybe I am sick, she thought. Maybe that's what I don't want to remember, how sick I am.

“Amy,” she said, “am I sick?”

“No. You'll be okay, really.”

“Why can't I go home?”

“Um, your doctor says you have to stay here for a while.”

“Doctors. What do they know?”

Amy laughed. She had a nice laugh, sweet. Such a pretty girl, almost as pretty as her mother, but with Chet's features. I wish I'd had a little girl, Eileen thought. Not that I'd trade the boys, but … the boys …

Cecca. So many people visiting but not Cecca. Why hadn't she come back?

“Where's your mom, Amy?”

“Right now? I don't know.”

“She was here but she didn't come back.”

“Yes, she did. Yesterday. But you were asleep.”

“Did Dix tell her?”

“Tell her what?”

“The accident. The trophy.”

“I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Harrell.”

“The trophy Katy saw.”

“Katy Mallory?”

“But she wouldn't say where.”

“What kind of trophy?”

“I told Dix about the accident. Did I tell him about the trophy?”

“What accident? You mean his wife's?”

“Pelican Bay.”

“Pelican Bay? Where's that?”

“Oregon. Oregon coast.”

“Oh, right. Isn't that where you and Mom almost …
that's
the accident you mean. Does that have something to do with what happened to Mrs. Mallory?”

“Tell your mom. Amy? Tell your mom.”

“I will. Right away.”

Eileen closed her eyes. It was only for a few seconds, didn't seem like any longer, and yet when she opened them Amy was gone and the blinds were closed again—somebody had come in and closed the blinds. She'd been asleep. But she wasn't rested. She was even more tired. Her mouth was sandy and her head ached and she was all twitchy. No, worse than that. Frightened. Terrified.