The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) Read online

Jeb flashed suddenly to being eighteen again, he and Rachel making out here, on the rug in front of the burning stove. Trixie had been curled in her basket by the fire, snow falling thick and silent outside. It was into this boathouse they’d run for drinks from the fridge during the hot summer months, days of bathing suits and diving from the dock into the glacial water, lying in the sun, canoeing across the lake to explore the ghost squatter settlement in the woods on the opposite side of the lake.

  Trixie went to lie on the woven rag mat in front the stove even though it wasn’t lit—some old memories died hard. Some were wired right into the neural pathways of one’s brain. They were a part of you, in the way a tree grew around a piece of metal, which then became part of the trunk, a part you couldn’t extract without killing the tree.

  “Still no power down here?” he said as wind whistled in under the door.

  Her gaze ticked to his. Worry darted through her eyes. Quickly she opened her kit, snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

  “No. My father kept meaning to wire the place, but—” Her voice caught. She pulled up a chair and sat in front of him, drawing the lantern closer across the table.

  “My dad liked the romance of kerosene lanterns, candles, the fire in the pit on the beach.” She removed several packets of sealed antiseptic wipes. “We were going to renovate, after his death. But . . .” Her voice faded as she focused on tearing open a pouch.

  “We?”

  “Hmm.” She removed the wipe.

  “You mean you and Trey?” he insisted.

  Her dark eyes flashed up. She met his gaze for a moment, but Jeb was forced to blink against the glare from her headlamp. She returned to her task at hand. Outside, far across the lake, Jeb heard the wind howling like lost wolves. Goose bumps whispered over his skin.

  “Let me see this.” She lifted the wadded and bloody compression pad he was still pressing to his head. She began to wipe away blood with disinfectant. It stung. Jeb focused on her mouth.

  “How long has your father been gone, Rachel?”

  “Ten months now. Cancer.”

  “That’s a lot of loss in a short space of time. First your father, then Sophia and Peter. Then Trey leaves?”

  “Yeah, I’m a regular pariah.” She fell silent as she cleaned farther along his wound.

  “Your father left you this place?”

  “And the newspaper.”

  Surprise rippled through him. “The Snowy Creek Leader?”

  “Hold still, Jeb.”

  He thought of the woman, the editor he’d called yesterday. Cass Rousseau.

  “So you run the paper?”

  “I’m the publisher.”

  “Cass Rousseau is your employee?”

  Her jaw tensed. “I said hold still, dammit. I need to see if you’ve got any debris in here.”

  “I never saw it,” he said, wincing again as she seemed to move more briskly. “You taking after your dad, your grandfather.” He tried to smile. “You’re following in their footsteps, becoming the social crusader.”

  Abruptly she set the cloth down on the table and ripped open a pack of butterfly sutures, her mouth a flat, tight line. “The newspaper business is not some crusade. It’s just business, pure and simple. Social crusading was Sophia’s job, not mine.” She held the edges of his gash together, applied a suture, then another. “Sophia was the one always going on about social justice and equality. She was the astute, philosophical one, like my dad and granddad. Me, they say I was more like my mother. I was the athlete. The coddled baby of the family. The one who used to live in the moment.” A bitterness laced her words, and Jeb heard self-disdain.

  “Used to live? You’re talking past tense.”

  Her gaze ticked back to his. She held his eyes a moment, then looked away again, a fall of dark hair hiding her face. Compassion washed through him. She seemed so alone.

  Rachel finished applying the adhesive sutures in silence. The shutters rattled in the wind. Choppers continued to pass overhead and sirens could be heard in the distance.

  “You should get that stitched if you don’t want a scar. But it’s not terribly deep,” she said. “You’re lucky.”

  “Yeah, you got that all right. I’m the lucky one.”

  She breathed in deep, clicked off her headlamp, and removed it before peeling off her latex gloves. “You said it was a tire iron that did this?”

  “Just caught the sharp tip.”

  “That’s luck in my book. You’d be dead otherwise. Skull could have been crushed. There’s still a chance of internal swelling and a mild concussion.”

  Silence hung. The wind moaned and fingered under the door. Cobwebs in the corner lifted softly. She studied his face, his eyes, and Jeb sensed she was trying to see beyond physical injury. She was still unsure about him.

  “Where else do you hurt?” she said.

  He gave a wry smile.

  “Okay, where does it hurt most? Talk me through it.”

  “Ribs. Breathing. Everywhere.”

  “Jacket off.”

  He tried, winced. She helped him. Her hair fell across his cheek and he caught the scent of smoke from the fire. Her hands were warm, soft. Rachel was made of up of memories, of all the things that had been good in his life, before life as he knew it had been stolen from him.

  She draped his leather jacket over the back of a chair. “Now let’s get your T-shirt off so I can see the rest of you.”

  Jeb tried to lift his arms, a soft groan escaping him, pain sparking across his chest as Rachel helped him pull the shirt over his head.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered as she caught sight of the red welts, the bruising developing. “Can you lie down?”

  She helped him onto his back. When he caught her eyes again, he saw they were dark with worry. Rachel placed her hands gently on his ribs, palpated. He watched her face, the seriousness in her features. This cabin was cold without his shirt. Wind whistling and flagpole chinking outside. Water slapping against the dock. He shivered.

  “I’ll get the fire going and get some warmth into here in a sec,” she said, speaking faster.

  “Do you remember when we used to sneak in here, Rach?” he whispered.

  She cleared her throat. “You might have some broken ribs.” She sat back. “I need to get you to the clinic. You should get proper stitches on that gash, X-rays, and your ribs taped up.”

  “You do it. Tape me up.”

  “Jeb—”

  “Do it,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  “I have basic wilderness first aid. You should get X-rays—”

  “I’ve dealt with worse in prison. I’m going to be okay.”

  “They beat you, in prison?”

  He said nothing.

  She looked sick. Abruptly she started unrolling a piece of medical tape. “How did this happen?” Her outrage was sharp, sudden.

  “I went home, saw the place had been trashed, so I set up my bedroll down by the water, under a hemlock, thinking I’d start clearing things out in the morning. I was sleeping down by the river when they came.”

  “Who came?”

  “I don’t know. There were three of them in two vehicles; one truck, dark blue or black, long box. And a light-colored SUV. Maybe silver.”

  “Can you lift your arm up, extend it over your head?”

  He did. She felt along his rib cage. He closed his eyes, wincing as she pinpointed the pain.

  “There?”

  He nodded.

  She ripped off a piece of tape, peeled off part of the backing, and began to stick it in a vertical line alongside the point of pain. “Did you catch the vehicle plates?”

  “No.” He winced again as she plastered the strip of tape down the side of his torso. “Just the letter D on the truck plate.”

  “And you’re sure they were me
n, not kids out for some kind of joyride?”

  He snorted. “Damn sure.”

  She peeled the backing off another strip of tape, laying this piece down parallel to the first, on either side of the key area of pain.

  “They were dressed completely in black with ski masks. This was premeditated—they came expressly to trash the place, and they came for me. Somehow, they already knew I was back.”

  Her hands stilled for a moment as she noticed something. “That’s a nasty scar,” she said quietly, nodding toward the puckered line just above his left nipple.

  “It’s old history.”

  She held his eyes.

  “Prison. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Rachel’s mouth tightened as she peeled the backing from a third strip of tape, which she stuck across the other strips, stretching it tightly around half his torso.

  “I saw the gasoline cans,” she said.

  “Do those vehicles sound familiar to you?”

  She looked away, breathed in deep. “They’re standard ski resort issue. A dime a dozen.” She got up, went to the freestanding wardrobe, an antique piece of furniture her father had bought over a decade ago in Oregon. She opened the door, took out a T-shirt and a flannel lumberjack shirt. She brought them to him and helped him ease first into the T-shirt, then the soft flannel.

  “My dad’s,” she said wryly. “I never could get rid of his gear down here. Or the stuff in his office. They’ll fit.” Her fingers touched his neck as she eased his arm into the fleece shirt, and she stilled near his tattoo. Her eyes glistened. “I’m so sorry, Jeb.”

  He met her gaze. But she lurched suddenly to her feet, took several paces away. She dragged her hands over her hair. “I knew they’d be out to get you, Jeb, but I can’t believe someone would do this—risk a massive wildfire, endangering a whole community on the other side of the valley.”

  He said nothing.

  She swore softly. “We should go to the police.”

  “The police—you serious?”

  She stared at him, realization dawning in her eyes.

  “You told me Adam believed I was back,” he said.

  “Oh, Jesus, you don’t think Adam . . . he’s—”

  “He is the police, Rachel. It was his brother who claimed I turned north when I know for a fact I turned south and went home that night. His mother was chief constable at the time of the investigation. It was her team of investigators that took me down. Luke’s gone now, but it still leaves Adam with something to hide.”

  She paled as the gravity of his words sank in. “So you think it was one of those three guys, or even Adam, tonight?”

  “They lied for a reason. They framed me to protect themselves, or someone else.”

  “What about vigilantes, Jeb? There are so many people here who hate you with such violent passion. They blame you for Merilee’s mother dying of a broken heart. They say it was you who ultimately caused Amy’s suicide. What if it was enraged townsfolk? What about Merilee’s father? Or her brothers? If they know you’re here—”

  “But would they all know so quickly?”

  Rachel stared at him, a flicker of guilt in her eyes. “You think this is because I went to Adam.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She stomped over to the stove and dropped to a crouch. She yanked open the stove door and started balling up newspaper, which was stacked in a copper pot on the side. She rammed the balls into the stove, then cracked pieces of kindling over her knee. She laid the kindling over the paper. She lit the fire, watched while it caught, added some logs, then closed and latched the stove door. Orange fire flickered warm and comforting behind the glass window. She went over to the boathouse door and wedged a rolled-up towel into the gap between the door and the flooring.

  “It’ll warm up soon,” she said, dusting her hands on her jeans. “You want to lie there, or sit here on the sofa where it’ll be warmer?”

  He got to his feet, wincing as he moved, and he slowly lowered himself onto the sofa by the fire.

  The warmth from the stove was almost instant, the atmosphere cozy. Outside, the wind howl seemed a little more distant. Trixie came over to snuffle his hand before going to curl back in front of the flames.

  Rachel went to the fridge, got out two bottles of water. She handed one to him. “You want anything to eat?”

  He shook his head, opened the bottle, drank deeply.

  “You still don’t drink alcohol?” she said.

  “No. You?”

  She lowered herself into a chair to his side, and he could tell she was thinking back to the gravel pit. “Sometimes.”

  “Like earlier tonight?”

  She met his gaze. “Yeah. Like earlier tonight. Like when I heard from Quinn that a dark-haired man with a fish tattoo down the side of his neck followed her at school.”

  “You were scared.”

  “Damn right, I was.” She leaned forward, arms resting on her knees. “For almost a decade I’ve been led to believe you did this thing. It all pointed to you and no one else. When Quinn described you, of course I was afraid.”

  “And now?”

  She watched him in silence, warring with something inside herself. As wan and exhausted and soot-streaked as she was, she’d never looked more beautiful to him, bathed as she was in the coppery glow of flame light.

  “You were attacked,” she said quietly. “Left for dead, your place torched. That much looks to be fact. This forces me to ask why. It plants doubt in my mind about those guys who testified about you driving north. And it makes me wonder how news of your return could have traveled so fast. The only way that could happen is if those guys called each other. That forces me to wonder about Adam.” She inhaled deeply.

  “You’re asking me to believe that upstanding members of this community, my friends, could have been responsible for a brutal sexual assault and murder. That these fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, have been harboring a heinous secret for all these years and now they want to stop you from exposing them? How do you think that makes me feel, Jeb? It makes me feel . . .” Her voice caught, and her eyes glittered in the firelight.

  “If it’s the truth, it makes me responsible, too. It makes me feel that I should have believed in you, stood up for, fought for you. That I should have trusted my heart and my instincts all those years ago.” She paused, struggling. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry that we fought that night. That I said things I didn’t mean. I’m sorry about being with Trey.”

  “You slept with him, didn’t you? You lost your virginity that night?”

  Pain, remorse, twisted over her face, and it tugged at his heart.

  “Hey,” he said quietly. “You were eighteen. We were all young. We made mistakes.”

  “How can you be so goddamn generous, Jeb!” she snapped. “We locked you away. We stole years of your life.”

  “You know what matters now? That you believe me.”

  She surged to her feet, went to the window, stared out at the lake, arms folded tightly over her chest. “I don’t know that I do,” she said. “Everything you’ve told me makes sense, but so did everything they said back then.” She was silent for a long while, just the crackle of flames and wind outside, the slap of water against the dock. The distant thudding of helicopters fighting the wildfire.

  “My grandfather used to talk about the banality of evil,” she said, staring out the window. “It was a phrase first used by a woman named Hannah Arendt, a German-American political theorist. She used it in her 1960s thesis, where she postulated that all great evils in history, the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premise of their government or state. She argued that they participated in evil things with the view that their actions were normal.” She paused, then turned to face him.

&nb
sp; “I believed in the authorities back then—the cops, the lawyers, the parents, elders in this community. I trusted them. And in so doing I accepted their premise that you were guilty. I went along with them. And it makes me sick to the stomach that I—we—might have been so wrong.” She came over to him, seating herself on the coffee table in front of him. So close he could touch.

  “You’re right about one thing,” she said quietly. “We do want the same things. I want to keep Quinn safe. And now I also want the truth. I want proof. However it comes. Someone tried to kill you tonight. Someone is responsible for arson. And I want to know who and why. But I’m not going to fall into the same trap this time. I’m not believing anything until I can prove it to my own satisfaction.” Her gaze lasered into his. “I’m going to help you, Jeb. But I’m going to do it for me. For Quinn. For Sophia and Peter. For the Zukanov family.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re going to stand back. I don’t want you involved.”

  She gave a snort. “I am involved. Look at me now, here, with you.” She took a drink from her water bottle. “You said you’ve already set up an interview with Cass Rousseau?”

  “Yesterday.”

  She moistened her lips, screwed the cap back on the bottle. “Cass never mentioned it. What time? Where?”

  “Shady Lady Saloon. Happy hour. When everyone’s coming down from the bike park, thirsty. In full view of tourists, locals. I plan to tell her why I’m back. And I’ll name those four men to start. Shine a media spotlight on them.”

  “It could be libelous if we run something like that.”

  “Not if it’s handled right. It’s a fact that those four testified. Clint, Levi, Zink, and Luke. It’s public record what they said. It’s a fact my conviction has been overturned, that the judge felt I didn’t get a fair trial. It’s a fact I didn’t drive north—because I know I didn’t. Which means those who said I did lied. I’m going to say that. I’m going to make it known that someone in this town is covering up the truth, keeping Merilee’s family from closure. If there’s an innocent one or two among them, they might weaken under the public scrutiny, turn on each other to save themselves. That’s my goal—rattle their cages until something shakes loose.”