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.' That's what she called it. We worked on that."

Sara and Kate were silent as they waited for him to continue.

"My dad, my real father, Henry, had a video camera. I asked him if I could borrow it and he said yes. Henry was always kind and..."

When Jack trailed off, Kate felt the bad memories threatening to take over. She guessed that Henry was yet another loved one who had been taken from this man. "What did you do with the camera?"

Jack got himself under control. "Filmed her. She wrote newscasts, read them, and I recorded it all. She wrote tragedies and funny stories, everything. She wrote parodies of the people in town, then did them in accents. I'd laugh so hard I'd fall down. She wanted to learn how to report any story with a straight face."

As he remembered, Jack smiled. "She got really good at it but I tried to trip her up. I used to stand behind the camera and make faces at her. I would switch what she'd written with some comedy routine and see if she could keep from laughing. One time I replaced her story with tongue twisters. She read them perfectly, but afterward she knuckled my scalp so hard it was sore for two days."

"You did love her," Sara said.

"Oh, yeah. I did."

Jack held the necklace out on his open palm. "Her birthday was just days before school was to start. I asked her what kind of party she was going to have. That made her laugh. She said that people like her never had birthday parties."

He paused. "I knew what she meant. She had the kind of life I would have had. But my mother had the good sense to divorce my worthless father and marry Henry Lowell. Men like Roy Wyatt didn't waste money on birthday cakes for kids."

"So you gave her a party?" Kate asked.

"I did." He smiled. "I wanted to buy her an engagement ring but I thought it was a bit early for that."

"A tad," Kate said. "You got her the necklace?"

"Yes. I used all my savings from years of grandparent gifts and went to the local jewelry store. Mr. Hall was selling necklaces with initials on them." Jack chuckled. "I had a hard time deciding if I should give her my initials or hers. Mr. Hall persuaded me that my young lady would probably prefer her own name around her neck."

"Did you have guests at the party?" Kate asked.

"Absolutely not! When it came to Cheryl, I was totally selfish. Just us. That's all I wanted. I bought a little cake from the bakery but didn't put a name on it. The women there were curious, so I said it was for my father."

Jack closed his eyes for a moment. "Cheryl and I sat right here, on these steps, and had our own little party. She loved the necklace and said she'd wear it forever. I made a video of her cutting the cake. She acted like it was a newscast." He held up his hand like headlines. "‘Cheryl Morris's sixteenth birthday rocks the world. World peace is declared.' She was very funny."

Jack's voice had a catch in it. "What happened was all my fault. I think the bakery told Roy that I'd bought a cake. Whatever happened, he came looking for me. I was so excited about her birthday that I'd left my bike at the front of the house. Roy saw it."

He hesitated. "Cheryl and I were eating cake and laughing when Roy showed up. He was a real a-hole. He'd had just enough beers to put him in the stage of ridiculing us. A few more and he would have been using his fists."

"He made fun of you," Sara said. It wasn't a question.

"He humiliated us. Said we were fooling around with each other. He..." Jack let out a breath. "At the time, I didn't know what he meant, but I remember his words. He said that it looked like Cheryl was going to be just like her mother. He looked her up and down and said he'd sure like to be her first customer. Then he looked at me and said that maybe it was too late to be number one."

"Yeow," Kate said. "Nasty!"

"Roy was," Sara said. "He never missed an opportunity to hurt someone."

"Cheryl ran into the house and slammed the door. Roy..." Jack took a moment to calm himself. "When he left, Roy backed his truck over my bike. He said he had enough problems without me knocking up the town slut's daughter. He said I was never to see her again."

Kate swallowed. "And all this when you were eleven years old."

"What happened after that?" Sara asked.

"I called my mom and she came and got me. I said I never wanted to see Roy again. When Cheryl didn't show up at school, I thought it was because of me. The next Saturday, I walked to her house."

"But she wasn't here," Sara said.

"The storyteller knows." Jack affectionately kissed the top of her head. "Cheryl and her mother were gone. The house was locked but I could see that the inside was a mess and it was empty. I walked all the way to the sheriff's office and told old Captain Edison that my friend had been kidnapped."

"He was a nice man," Sara said.

"He was," Jack agreed. "The deputies were laughing at me, but Captain Edison treated me with respect. He let me ride in the front seat of his patrol car and we came here, to this house. I don't remember how he did it, but he got the door open and we went inside. The house had been ransacked. Clothes, personal items, kitchen things—they were all gone."

"What about Henry's camera?" Sara asked.

"Gone. Captain Edison told me that sometimes there were things in adult's lives that made them need to leave a place quickly. He figured that's what happened here. And he said that Roy had..." Jack stopped talking.

"What did he do?" Sara asked.

"The captain was kind but I didn't understand it all then. He said that Roy had told him Cheryl was trying to do unlawful things to his underage son. He said Roy yelled that the Lachlan sheriff's department was so busy spying on him that they ignored abuse that was going on right under their noses."

"That poor girl," Kate said.

"That sounds like something Roy would do," Sara said. "He always said that everyone was worse than he was—but they weren't. Did he spread gossip about young Cheryl?"

Jack took a deep breath. "Probably so, but no one said anything to me. I think gossip was why Captain Edison thought it made sense that they'd left town in a hurry."

"What happened after that?" Kate asked.

"Nothing—except that my life changed. I told Dad—Henry—that I'd lost the camera. To pay for it, I started working for him at his construction company. That's when I found out that I loved building things. It was because of Cheryl that I found my life's work. Renewing these old houses has been good for me, and Dad taught me everything. He—" Jack gave himself a few moments to quiet himself. "After Roy died, I found the video camera in the back of a closet in his house."

Both Kate and Sara gasped.

"That means he went back," Kate said.

"To that dear, innocent girl," Sara said.

"I've often thought that he was the reason Cheryl and her mother left town."

But Cheryl and her mother didn't leave, Kate realized as they stared quietly at the shadows made by the fallen tree. They had been killed, then irreverently and cruelly dumped into the ground behind their house. A tree was planted over them, hiding all evidence that they had ever existed. No one had discovered them for twenty years. Worse was that no one had even tried to find them. Except for an eleven-year-old boy who was patted on the head and told to forget about a girl he'd grown to love.

"Do you think that Roy—" Kate couldn't finish her sentence. Was it possible that Jack's father had murdered Cheryl and her mother? For that matter, was the second skeleton the mother?

Jack said, "I think—" but cut himself off. In front of them appeared three flashlight beams heading for the tree roots. Young voices came to them.

"Kids," Jack muttered, then grabbed his crutches and disappeared behind the big branches toward the beams.

Sara and Kate were left sitting on the porch. "Thank you," Sara said. "No one has been able to get through to Jack since Evan died. His mother and I've tried, but he is one stubborn boy."

"It's the same with my mother. Ever since my father died, she's been grieving." She hesitated. "I'd like to hear about my father."

"Sure," Sara said.

Kate waited but she said nothing else. "Was he—?"

Jack appeared out of the dark. "Flynn told his wife about the skeletons, she called every person she knows and now the whole damn town is planning to come see them tonight. They're bringing coolers full of beer. Like it's some kind of party."

"They'll want to take souvenirs," Sara said. "Small bones that they think no one will miss."

Jack took his cell out of his pocket and quick-dialed a number. "Gary? So you've heard. I want your entire team over here immediately." He listened. "Yes. All of them, and bring the dogs. I want barriers set up, and put up those big motion-detector lights, too. As many as you have. That all? Send someone to buy some more, but I want you here fast. Yeah, I'll pay time and a half."

Jack put his phone back into his pocket and looked at Kate. "Gary heads the security team I use for my construction jobs. He's on his way, and his men will be here soon with barriers and whatever else they need." Jack left as fast as he could, wanting to meet Gary at the front as soon as he arrived. And he needed to send any other gawkers away.

Sara got up. "This has been a long day. Do you mind if we postpone talking about Randal until a less hectic time? I'm pretty worn-out right now."

"Of course." Kate stood up. "I have to be at work at eight tomorrow morning, so I need to get some rest, too."

They heard the crunch of gravel, headlights appeared, then they heard Jack talking to someone.

"Do you know how to drive a pickup?" Sara asked.

"Yes."

Sara took Kate's arm and leaned on it. "I think Jack will want to stay here. After all his soul-baring to two women, I think he needs men and dogs and all things male."

Kate smiled. "Probably so. Personally, I could use a meal, a hot shower and a couple of episodes of Madam Secretary."

Sara laughed. "Me, too. Let's go home."

Kate liked the sound of that word.