The Millbury boat ramp parking lot was deserted. I wasn't surprised - in less than twelve hours December would arrive with its frosty gales and nose-biting chill. The water stretched sullenly in flat, dull grey. I walked over to the asphalt boat ramp, looking down into the shallows. In the summer there would be a school of tiny, silvery minnows gathered here, eager for bits of bread or crackers to nibble on. Now only gravel and silt lay there, motionless, still.
I squatted down by the water's edge to stir a small whirlpool with my finger. The water was chill, maybe 40°F. I stood and pulled my parka close around my neck. At least there was no wind, but the air was crisp. My breath had a delicate tracery of white puff lining its edges.
At last Adam pulled into the lot in his marlin blue Santa Fe, trailering a small wooden rowboat behind. The boat was clean and looked well cared for, with a white body and natural wood trim on the edges. Adam deftly backed his vehicle up to the ramp and eased the rowboat into the water. When he was in position he jumped out to hand me the tow line before finishing the release. In a moment he had parked the car and was holding the boat so I could climb in.
Once I had settled myself onto the back seat he joined me, one arm cradling a large bouquet of wildflowers. He placed them reverentially in the center of the small wooden craft. The aroma drifted up around me, of daisy and goldenrod and something crisp.
He gave a push with his oar and we were gliding through the water, moving through the narrow inlet and toward the lake proper.
I slid my hand into my pocket, feeling the reassuring presence of my cell phone there. Jason had been less than thrilled with my plans and had made me promise to keep my cell on me at all times. He was deep in the middle of his training event and would not be free for another hour. By then an ebony darkness would have immersed us.
Adam smiled at me as he worked the oars, turning us right to head out into the main lake. As they said in Ireland, the day was soft. A gentle mist added an ethereal glow to the water's surface. The setting sun was drifting toward the horizon, its shimmering golden wash reflecting off the tiny water droplets in the air.
Adam's voice creaked out of the mists. "I only know what John told me, of course," he murmured. "Still, I think I have a sense of where to go. In any case I am sure Eileen will appreciate our efforts, as clumsy as they might be."
"I'm sure she will," I assured him.
He rowed in silence, drawing us out toward the center of the lake. It was immensely serene. A small flock of mallards flew across our heads toward the south, but otherwise nothing stirred on the lake. There was no sign of life from the shore. I was beginning to understand how Eileen had slipped from life all those years ago. It was like being in another world.
Adam pulled in the oars, settling them into their metal rests. We were about centered now equidistant from the various shores. The mist ebbed and swirled around us, sometimes hiding the twinkling lights of docks, at other times washing them into a muted glow. Marion's Camp, to the far south, was a distant blur on the shore.
Adam leant forward carefully, his thin frame balanced in the boat. He took up the flowers and looked at them for a long moment.
"For Eileen, a precious jewel amongst women. With hair of spun sunshine, with a laugh of a thousand dancing butterflies. A soul which warmed the world and a heart which knew no boundaries. We will always love her and miss her."
He made a gentle sweeping motion with his hand, strewing the flowers in a shimmering cascade across the waters. They floated, delicately, speckling the surface, turning the area near the boat into a radiant meadow.
I nodded to him in appreciation. "That was lovely."
"Thank you," he murmured hoarsely, staring down at the flowers.
I looked out toward Marion's Camp again. The fog had swirled and I could make out one of the buildings now. "Oh, you can actually see it," I commented absently.
"What?" he asked distractedly, his gaze still elsewhere.
"The camp," I clarified. "You can see it even from here."
"Oh, yes, of course," he agreed. "When I was a kid you could see the girls' campfires long after dark if you took a rowboat out here. They were like fireflies in the mist."
Thoughts swirled and ebbed in my mind as I stared at the distant structure. "You grew up in Texas."
He gave a soft shrug. "My grandparents had their house here. I would visit."
I nodded, breathing in deeply. The wildflowers were all around us now, filling the dense air with their delicate fragrances. Goldenrod, daisy, and ...
I slid a hand into my pocket, pressing the call button for Jason. I knew it was the featured icon on my screen, knew that he would pick it up no matter what else was going on at his event. I tilted the phone so the microphone pointed toward the opening of my pocket and hit the volume-down button a few times to mute his voice.
"Is that juniper I smell?" I asked Adam in a quiet tone.
He glanced over sharply. His gaze slowly evolved from surprise to resistance to acceptance in the way a sand dune shifts under a steady wind.
At long last he nodded, a look of almost relief coming to his features.
"It is juniper," he stated calmly. "A widow donated a case of the after-shave to the senior center. Few others seemed to like the scent so I took it home with me."
"I never smelled it on you before," I mused, keeping my voice even. I drew in long, slow, steady breaths, imagining myself balanced in a safe place. I was the willow in the wind.
He gave a wry smile. "Some of the women at the senior center are quite sensitive to fragrances," he pointed out. "Now that John is gone, I might have a chance with a few of them. I wanted to make sure I gave it my best shot."
"John was your rival," I murmured softly.
Adam's face turned hard. "John was an idiot," he snapped, his eyes going cold. "He held the most precious jewel in his hand and he tossed her away as if she were a worthless piece of coal. He let Eileen slip through his fingers!"
The pieces were shimmering into alignment, each one connecting with the other in logical succession. "Your grandparents had a cottage here," I echoed, his previous statement finally coming into focus. "You moved into it when you retired."
He nodded, leaning forward. "As a child I used to come up every summer. Texas would get as hot as the hinges of Hell; I was thrilled to escape. My parents would bring me to Sutton and leave me here in my vacation paradise." His voice caught for a moment. "When I was seven I met Eileen."
His face gentled and his focus became hazy. "I still remember it as if it were yesterday. She was wearin' a pale blue dress with white daisies embroidered around the neckline. She looked like a flower fairy come to life. Her voice was a love song in three part harmony. When I said 'howdy' with my Texas accent, she burst into a delighted laugh." His breath held. "It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard."
He looked down to the white petals floating alongside the boat. "Every year I counted the days until I would come up and be with her again."
I pursed my lips. "Why didn't the other men know you, then?"
He gave a quick shake of his head. "What, them, associate with mere help? My grandmother was the cook for the camp, while my grandfather handled maintenance and heavier tasks. Even the local farmers felt they were above such meager connections." His eyes shadowed. "Also, my grandparents had only recently arrived from Hungary. I spent much of my time translating for them or helping them with chores. It didn't leave me time to socialize."
I leant forward, drawn in despite myself. "So what did happen that night on the lake?"
He looked at the grey water, his brows heavy with sorrow. "She was an impetuous fool, as always," he sighed. "She loved wrapping them around her little finger to show them just how much power she had over them. I have no doubt she drank too much and flirted too much." He gave a short laugh. "For all I know she half wanted to fall overboard to see which one of her brave suitors would rescue her." His hand shook as it ran through his hair. "She should have stayed on shore. She should have stayed with me."
My voice was soft. "You loved her."
His eyes glittered with tears when he looked up at me. "I adored her. I worshipped the air she breathed. She was more than an angel to me. She was life itself."
I held his gaze. "And you blamed John for her death?"
He gave his head a quick shake, snorting in disbelief. "John? That buffoon. He wouldn't have hurt a fly." He swept his gaze across the flowers drifting in a spreading collage around us. "No, I blame all of them – and I blame none of them. They were caught in her silvery web as much as everyone else was. They were foolish kids. They thought they were immortal."
I knit my brows together in thought. "But if there wasn't anything incriminating about Eileen's drowning in the book John was writing, why did it have to be stopped?"
He stared at me in shock. "Because it was about her!" he cried out in abject misery. His voice echoed with a staggering amount of pain, more than I would have thought his thin frame could bear.
My face must have reflected the utter bewilderment I felt. "Of course the book mentioned her," I finally responded. "Wasn't that the point, for John to write about his life and the people in it?"
Adam gave a quick shake to his head, his face darkening. "John said he was writing a memoir," he clarified, as if to a young toddler. "I thought the content would be focused on his explorations in Asia, the romantic way he met his wife, his grand adventures around the world. I even encouraged him in the project. It would have been a meaningful legacy to leave to his son. Jeff has never been to his mother's homelands."
Adam's lips pursed into a tight line. "But then, the more John worked on the early years, the more he began to babble about his relationship with Eileen." A growl came to his voice. "My Eileen."
A kernel of understanding began to coalesce in my thoughts. "He was going to write about how much he loved her."
Adam's voice was tight. "That I could have taken. Heck, every man in Sutton loved her, as well they should have. She was a beautiful angel who graced our world. Every person she came into contact with was stunned by her. To have yet another man praise her would only have added to her legend."
I shook my head in confusion. "But then what was it?"
He leant forward, his eyes flaring with heat. "He said that she loved him!" he cried in outrage, his body shaking with fury. "That he had an engagement ring in his pocket and that she was going to accept his proposal that night! That is why he took her out in the rowboat. He was trying to get away from the other boys. He wanted her all to himself!"
I shook my head in confusion. "But Charles said that she was going to leave shortly for Hollywood," I pointed out.
He scoffed. "As if Charles knew anything," he countered. "That incompetent dullard could barely get two sentences out together." His shoulders firmed. "She was going to wait for me to save up that nest egg she knew I was working on. We would live in Sutton for a year or two and get married at the camp, with daffodils and daisies. When we were ready we would buy a beat-up Ford and drive across the United States."
His eyes looked toward Marion's Camp, and past it. "I had the whole route mapped out for us. We would stop by St. Louis and listen to music at the blues clubs in Soulard. We would visit Mesa Verde and the cliff dwellings in Colorado. Every day would be a marvelous adventure."
I kept my voice gentle. "But she didn't need to wait for a nest egg," I pointed out. "Her sister said –"
"That sister of hers was a joke!" he scoffed. "Always teasing me, telling me I wasn't good enough for their family. She would say anything to cause trouble. I'm surprised she's sober long enough to say anything at all these days."
I took in a deep breath. Clearly logic was not going to work here. Perhaps the safest route would be to humor him. "So you felt she was going to end up with you?"
His eyes shone with fervor, reflecting the rich glow of the setting sun. "I knew it with absolute truth," he corrected. "Just that afternoon she had told me to meet her on the shore the next morning. She said she had something to tell me, something wonderful. She knew I would be thrilled." A child-like smile spread on his face. "I know with crystal-clear certainty what it would be. She would tell me that she would be mine and that once she graduated we would be married."
I leant forward. "So you adored her and she adored you. Why would you be concerned about what John might write as his mistaken version? You said yourself that every man in Sutton adored Eileen. This memoir would just be one more part of her myth."
He shook his head fiercely. "John had political connections, he had access to loans, and he had a network of friends which staggers the mind. He was fixin' to have the memoir turned into a screenplay. He was even discussing casting ideas! The whole world would come to believe Eileen was his." His face twisted in a grimace. "My Eileen, my precious, beautiful, personal treasure, would be known all around the world as John's girl." His eyes became blazing coals. "There was no way in Hell I was going to let that happen."
I nodded. "So you went to talk with him."
His arms crossed defensively in front of his chest. "I just wanted to make my point clear," he insisted. "I didn't want to hurt the man. He didn't have long to live, in any case. I told him he had to change the project. Write about Vietnam. Write about Asia. Write about anything else he wanted."
I could see the scene as clearly as if I had been there. "But John didn't want to change it."
His brows furrowed in anger. "The bastard claimed she was clearly the focus of his story. When I tried to explain that she loved me and not him, he laughed in my face! He laughed! He laughed about Eileen's love for me." His brows became rigid lines in the mist. "I had to defend her honor."
"Of course you did," I agreed soothingly.
Relief eased his tightness. "I'm so glad you understand," he murmured, reaching under his jacket. His hand came out with a black matte pistol with an oddly long barrel. It took me a moment to realize he had a suppressor attached to it.
Adam's voice was calm and reasonable. "You'll see why you need to get into the water now."
My world coalesced into the end of the barrel, its nonjudgmental length pointed straight at the center of my chest. A long moment passed before I remembered to breathe again. "In the water?" I echoed, my mind not quite connecting thoughts properly.
"It seems a fitting tribute to Eileen," he commented, his eyes not leaving mine. "It's a shame, of course, but it has to be done. John has inspired me, after all. I will tell my story. It will be my name linked with Eileen's for the world to appreciate." His lips eased into a smile. "Her eternal summer shall never fade." He made a small motion with the gun. "But first you have to go."
I strove to keep my voice steady. "You can't shoot me – I might cry out. Every homeowner around the lake would hear my scream."
He gave a dismissive glance at the thick fog which swirled around the boat in the last fingers of sunset. "Half of the homes are now empty for the winter season. For the other half?" he shrugged. "Your body will be found in a few days with a hole through it," he agreed. "By then I'll have crafted a story that explains exactly what happened, involving a mysterious assailant."
His eyes grew steely. "So, your choice. Quick death or slow. Either is fine with me. Which would you prefer?"
I could almost see the muscles in his finger tightening on the trigger; I made my choice. There was no way I could spring at him quickly enough to disarm him before he shot me. Even if I tried to tip the boat, I would undoubtedly end up both with a hole in me and in the near-freezing water. At least if I went in uninjured I had a chance.
I moved toward the side of the boat, easing myself over its edge. The barrel of the gun stayed squarely on me every second. My body slipped into the water and I gasped as the cold hit me. It was like an iron vice squeezing at my chest. My lungs began to spasm with hyperventilation, and it took all my years of yoga training to rein them in, to hold myself to shaky, long draws.
The water soaked into my clothes almost instantly; the leaden weight of them pulled down with an insistent drag.
I kicked off my shoes and yanked my arms free of the heavy jacket, letting both fall into the murky depths. The weight gone, my struggle to stay afloat became less frantic, but the cold pierced me with a pain that nearly overwhelmed all other thought.
My voice shook with the cold and my efforts. "P-p-p-lease – don't –"
His tone was almost gentle as he kept the pistol pointed at my body. "Don't fight it, dear. Give in to the silence. I hear it's like falling asleep. Think of your most wonderful vision. Let it take you away."
I closed my eyes and brought up an image of Jason before me – his strength, his dedication, his resolute loyalty. For a moment my shivering almost stopped.
Something tugged at my hand.
If I could have, I would have screamed. As it was, the chill had soaked so deep into my bones that I felt myself an ice sculpture barely managing a tremor of life. I reverberated with a deep coughing noise.
The touch came again. Strong fingers closed on mine.
He had come for me.
I took a last look at Adam, at the gun aiming down, and I tried to fill my voice with resignation. It probably didn't matter. My teeth were chattering so hard that the words could barely get past my frozen lips.
"Good bye."
I stopped kicking, took in a deep breath, and immediately my body sank down beneath the surface.
Jason spun beneath me, wrapping my arm across his shoulder, and then he was swimming hard, pulling me with him, as sleek as a seal through the dark depths.
It was a dream. It had to be. Maybe my mind had already begun to shut down. Maybe when I closed my eyes I had slipped into unconsciousness and the sensations around me were merely my body turning off its various functions one by one. The pain had vanished, after all. I was left with numbness, sluggishness, a sense of release.
I could not seem to connect thoughts to each other. Just the slow trickle of air from my mouth, the steady motion of limbs beneath me, and the firmness of Jason's back pressed into my chest.
My air reached its end and I pondered what my next breath in would feel like. What was it like to breathe water? It seemed so unimportant now. I was already crossed over into the final frontier. My frozen body knew it. It was only my mind which was resisting the inevitable. The opening of my mouth was a mere formality, a final punctuation mark on the long, winding essay which had been my life. My lips began to part -
Jason breached the surface and I gasped in unison with him, drawing in as much air as I could hold. The world swam with spots, as if a mischievous child had scattered chocolate jimmies in profusion across a greying landscape.
He rolled me over onto my back, wrapping an arm around me in a lifeguard's rescue and setting out at a hard pace. I stared up at the swirling clouds, glimpses of Orion peeking through. My eyelids were heavy, but I forced them to stay open, to stay concentrated on those bright lights. Time lost all measure.
Jason staggered, caught his feet, then swept me up in his arms. There was a murmur of voices around us, the thick weight of a blanket swaddled over me, and we were hurried toward a house. I barely saw the rec room; we were ushered into a large bathroom where a shower was already going at full blast. My hands were curled into claws and my body shivered with violent tremors. Jason stripped off my pants, then shirt, then half carried me into the shower, propping me up with his own body.
I knew logically that the water was not very hot – there was no sign of steam coming from it – but it felt as if they had set the shower on sauté. Jason immediately reached behind me to turn the temperature down even further and at last the liquid tumult became tolerable.
I stood there, full in the stream, focusing on my breath, on Jason's arms around me.
At long last the shivering began to ease, he carefully inched the water temperature up, and my hands released their tight curl. I moved them around his body, drawing him in against me, and he let out a low moan as he cocooned me in.
His voice in my ear was half anguish, half joy. "Oh, Morgan ..."
"It's all right," I sighed, and I wasn't sure if I was reassuring him or me. "Everything is going to be all right."