Gathering Lies Read online

  I knew, however, that the Thornberry deer usually went still when faced with an intruder. Since hunting had never been allowed on Esme, they had no reason to fear man, and would stand motionless for moments assessing the situation. If the intruder approached them, they would seem to tiptoe silently backward, as if hoping not to be seen, till they were hidden by brush.

  This noise was more stealthy than that of the deer. It would stop when I stopped, and begin again when I took another step. For the first time in my life, I began to feel afraid of the Esme Island woods. After all the years of considering the tall trees and shady groves my friends—my companions in both loneliness and love—I now felt surrounded by danger.

  I began to walk faster, thinking that this path must surely lead to the shore, that it must have been an old path used for carrying in supplies from the ferry. On an island there are few places one can go, and all paths lead eventually to the water.

  Irrationally, I thought that once at the water, I’d be safe. Why I thought that, I didn’t know, because the truth was I’d be trapped. But as I picked up speed, the sounds behind me did, too, and I knew for certain, suddenly, that I was being followed.

  I no longer stopped to look back. If Luke had followed me out here, I reasoned, or even Gabe, they would have called out to me. They wouldn’t be trying to hide their presence.

  Or would they? Images of Jane on the ledge of that ravine rose to my mind, making my breath short and my legs wooden from fright. I shouldn’t have come out here alone—we should have stuck to the pairs plan. What was I thinking of?

  I looked for a side path, somewhere to duck in and hide. Whoever was following me had picked up their pace to match mine, but if they couldn’t see me around a bend, if I could duck into an offshoot without them being aware of it, they might think I’d run straight ahead. I might even be able to see them as they passed.

  There was no offshoot, no place to hide. The firs and bushes on either side combined to make a thick wall. I turned off my flashlight and began to run. The sounds behind me told me that the other person was running, too, no longer attempting to hide the fact. Branches whipped at my face, and I stumbled several times over fallen trees. I knew that if I fell, if I didn’t get up immediately, he would be here. He’d have me.

  I ran faster and faster, and somehow managed to almost fly over the brambles in my path. It seemed as if the path would never end, and I realized suddenly that I must have been running parallel to the shore, not toward it. I was inland, running to the east or south, not the north. There was nothing this way, nothing for a long way but more woods.

  I was so certain of this, it came as a shock when the path came to a fork. The one to the left was so well hidden, I almost passed it. At the last moment I swung onto it, hoping the noise I was making in the underbrush would seem to be coming from the path on the right. My shock was even greater when within moments there appeared before me a clearing. The full moon illuminated the clearing, and I could see that in the middle was a small cabin. It was built of wood that looked relatively new, and appeared quite different from the other two cabins on the island. There was a window on either side of the door. No light came through from inside.

  I had never known the cabin was there, and I was stunned.

  As I drew up short, I realized that the sounds behind me had stopped after I’d taken this fork. Still, I couldn’t trust that my pursuer wouldn’t double back and come this way. I ran silently over the grass toward the cabin, thinking that if I could get inside I might be able to lock the door behind me. There might even be something in there I could use to defend myself. Eventually, someone at Thornberry would realize I had been gone too long and come looking for me.

  At the door I touched the knob, then hesitated, wondering if someone actually might be inside. As far as we knew, there was no one else on the island, but what did we know? Luke had turned up, then Gabe. Was there someone else out here who hadn’t bothered to find his way to our door? Or someone who was deliberately hiding here?

  At this point, it hardly mattered. I needed a place to hide for a while, to think. I turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping inside. Everything was dark, and I realized there was no moon shining in. I reached behind me for an inside lock and couldn’t find one. Panicked, I knew I would have to shove something up against the door. But what? I didn’t dare risk using my flashlight and letting whoever had been following me know I was here.

  I stood for a moment listening for sounds from the outside. Nothing. No footsteps running across the grass, no sound other than that of my own breath, labored and heavy. I reached into the dark for something, anything, to prop against the door.

  My hand touched living flesh. Fingers wrapped around my wrist. It was then I knew the breathing I heard was not only my own.

  He had somehow gotten here before me.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but not in time. A hand clamped down to cover it, bruising and hard.

  13

  “Be quiet.”

  I heard the voice in my ear, muffled, an undertone.

  “I’m taking my hand away now. Don’t make a sound, Sarah.”

  I knew then who it was, and as the hand came away I whirled around and swung at Luke’s face. My eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and I could almost see the handprint after I’d connected. Though I tried to keep my voice low, anger boiled up, astounding me with its ferocity.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? What the hell is going on?”

  Luke’s own hand went up to touch the smarting skin. Even in the dim light, I could see that his eyes were blazing.

  “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, dammit!”

  “Oh, really? And just how are you doing that? How did you even get here? I left the farmhouse before you did.”

  “You went around the shore. I took the shortcut through the middle.”

  “Like hell you did. You were following me.”

  “I was not following you, Sarah. I’ve been here a good ten minutes.”

  “Well, someone was following me. Who else—”

  “I don’t know who else, dammit! But from the way you’re acting, you’ve gone and led someone here!”

  He turned his back to me, and I heard him light a match. The glow from a candle cast a dim illumination around the room. I saw now that the windows were covered with black tar paper. It was nailed around the frames so that no light could escape. Along one wall was a cot with a sleeping bag on it. Beside it was a bottle of water.

  Then my gaze fell on a long table. Some loose manila folders lay on it, next to a pen and a white lined tablet. Beside the tablet were two stacks of bond paper, one shorter than the other, indicating that someone had been reading and then laying the already-read pages down next to the main stack. A few inches away was a computer disk with a Disney label. On it, in thick black ink, were the words JUST REWARDS.

  “That’s my book,” I said, feeling numb. “You’re the one who stole my book.”

  Luke didn’t answer, and as I looked at him I could see the thoughts behind his eyes, scurrying around like so many disturbed mice. I should have hidden the manuscript and disk, the eyes said. I should have locked the door.

  But he’d forgotten. Or he’d been too sure he’d never be discovered way out here.

  “What’s going on?” I said, my throat so dry the words cracked.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, crossing over belatedly to lock the door. The lock was there, higher than I had thought it would be.

  “Oh? What exactly am I thinking, Luke?”

  He pulled out a chair in front of the table. “Sarah, sit down. I can explain.”

  I almost did sit down. But then I noticed a small propane tank in a corner. From the tank ran a line, and that line went into a small generator; plugged into the generator was an AC power supply.

  There wasn’t much else in the room, and very few signs of damage. My gaze traveled to a flannel shirt on the table, next to my ma
nuscript. I lifted it up. Beneath it was a cell phone. A green light blinked, the same kind of light that blinked on mine when it was “on” and waiting for calls. Or for calls to be made.

  “You’ve had this all along?” I asked, my throat still dry.

  I was certain of the answer. But I wanted to hear it from Luke’s mouth—that he’d had a working cell phone all along and had betrayed each and every one of us by keeping it to himself.

  “I…yes,” he said. “I keep it here all the time.”

  “All the time?”

  “I, uh, built this cabin ten years ago. I use it sometimes rather than heat up the big house.”

  “And the phone. It works?”

  “It works,” he admitted.

  “The towers are back up?”

  “Some.”

  “From the first?”

  “Almost from the first.”

  It felt as if all the air went out of me. My knees were weak, and I sat on the chair positioned in front of my manuscript. Anger mixed with confusion, and I didn’t know what to think.

  “You’ve been in touch with the mainland? With Seattle?”

  “A couple of times. It hasn’t been easy to get through. But, yes.”

  “Have you called for help? Are there rescue teams coming? The Red Cross? Anyone?”

  “I…People know we’re here,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

  “Are they coming to rescue us?”

  He hesitated. “Not right now.”

  “For God’s sake, Luke!”

  “They have their hands full, Sarah! It’s a mess out there!”

  “Well, you could have informed us of that, at least. Why haven’t you?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “What reasons? All this time we’ve been worrying about the people back home, about how we’d ever get off this island, whether we’d even live, in fact—and you have a cell phone?”

  He stood with his arms folded, distanced from me in every way. “I’m sorry, but everyone would want to use it, and the battery wouldn’t last long enough for that.”

  I shook my head, still dazed. “Forget that—for the moment. You said you’d explain.”

  “About the book? I took it to keep it safe, Sarah.”

  “Safe? It’s in the hands of someone who’s betrayed us all—” I stopped, my heart missing a beat. “You’re working for the Seattle Five,” I said. “They sent you here to get the book and—”

  I clamped my mouth shut on the words the evidence.

  “And what?” Luke said softly. “What, Sarah?”

  “And the disk,” I recovered. “They wanted you to find out how much I know.”

  “Oh, come on. Listen to yourself. I’m an engineer and I live in New York. What possible connection could I have to a bunch of renegade cops in Seattle?”

  “I don’t know…I don’t know. But there’s something, and dammit, Luke, I’ll figure it out.”

  He stood at one of the tar-papered windows, as if looking out.

  “Why did you think someone was following you?” he asked, after a minute.

  “Because I heard them.”

  “It could have been a deer.”

  “Sure, I get stalked by deer all the time.”

  He gave me an irritable frown. “Was it someone from Thornberry, then? Did you see anyone follow you from there?”

  “I wasn’t looking. I left all of you—I thought—playing that stupid game.” I studied his face. “Why wouldn’t it be someone from Thornberry? Is there somebody else on the island? Someone we still don’t know about?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Dammit, Luke!” I flew to my feet. “You’ve got to give me something. Anything. If you don’t, I’m going back to Thornberry right now and I’m telling everyone about this cell phone and the fact that you haven’t, apparently, been using it to help us in any way.”

  His voice turned hard. “You can’t do that, Sarah. You absolutely cannot tell anyone.”

  “Oh, really? Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I can do anything I damn well please.” An unpleasant thought occurred to me. “Unless, of course, you’re planning to stop me somehow.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, Sarah, I don’t know what to do with you now. I have to think.”

  “Well, while you’re thinking about ‘what to do with me,’ I’m leaving,” I said, turning to the door.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  I reached for the lock. Before I could blink, he was at my side, his hand stopping mine.

  “You can’t go out there again, not alone. Whoever was following you may still be there.”

  “And what would he—or she—want from me, Luke?” My head was beginning to clear, and I could think of only one answer to that: Lonnie Mae’s evidence.

  Which brought to mind the missing Allegra case. “Is this manuscript all you stole from me? Or was there something else?”

  I watched his eyes as he formed an answer, and thought I saw a brief flicker when he said, “What else are you talking about?”

  “Anything,” I said. “I don’t really know.”

  I went over and touched the top page of my manuscript, which looked as if it had been barely touched by the quake. The pages were still clean and white, barely rumpled.

  “I see you’re on page seventy-three,” I said. “How’s it looking, so far?”

  “I’m not an editor,” Luke answered, “but I think you’re doing an okay job.”

  “Well, gee, thanks. I’m afraid you won’t be reading the ending, though. I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  I picked up the manuscript and disk. “In fact, you won’t be reading any more of this at all.”

  The cell phone began to ring, a low, muted sound.

  Luke took a step toward it, making a motion as if to answer it—but then stopped himself.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Take it.”

  “It can wait.”

  “Maybe so, but I can’t. I can’t wait to hear who’s calling and what they have to say.”

  With that, I grabbed up the phone and held it to my ear.

  A shockingly familiar voice said, “Luke? Luke, is that you?”

  “Mother?” I said, stunned.

  With a click the phone went silent, and Luke grabbed it away from me.

  Suddenly I was afraid again. What had he done to my mother?

  I no longer knew this man. I couldn’t even imagine what secrets lay hidden within him—or what he might be willing to do to preserve them.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I said, backing off.

  He reached out a hand, and I whacked it away. “Don’t!” I said.

  He frowned. “Sarah, relax. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “I don’t give a damn about me! What have you done to my mother?”

  “Nothing! Absolutely nothing. She’s all right. I promise you.”

  “I don’t want your damn promises! I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “I’m the same person I always was, Sarah.”

  “No. That person would have confided in me, told me what he was up to here. Luke—” My voice shook. “Why was my mother calling you? What in the name of God have you done?”

  “I’m telling you—nothing. She got in touch with my father because she was worried about you after the quake. He gave her the number here, so she could call me and I could reassure her you were all right.”

  “Then why did she hang up when she heard my voice?”

  “Sarah, for God’s sake! She probably lost the connection. That’s been happening all the time since the quake. Don’t make some sort of conspiracy out of it.”

  I stared at him. Was he right? Was that all it was?

  “I want to call her back,” I said.

  He shoved the phone into his back pocket. “No. It’s a waste of power, and I need to preserve that as much as possible, till we’re rescued.”

  Luke stood facing me, his face rigid. A gul
f the size of an ocean lay between us.

  “Did you kill Jane?” I said, my voice low as the telephone’s ring had been.

  His eyes narrowed. “Kill Jane? Now you’re sounding crazy, Sarah. You think I could do something like that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. And what about me? Are you the one who attacked me at my cottage?”

  Luke shook his head as if dealing with a six-year-old child whose fantasies had run amok. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear him say, tsk, tsk.

  “Sarah, be reasonable. Grace and I found you on the path. We didn’t go near your cottage. Besides, we were together. We’re each other’s alibi.”

  “Interesting word, Luke—alibi. You and Grace need alibis?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I just want you to reason this through, see it logically. Where has that legalistic mind of yours gone?”

  “Screw my legalistic mind,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “You know what really bothers me about all this? You knew Jane. You met her before she burned Ransford down, and you must have seen what she was like, how afraid she was. How could you not tell her you had a working cell phone? Why didn’t you help her get in touch with her children? Dammit, Luke, if you had, Jane might never have burned your house down!”

  “I told you,” he said angrily, “the cell phone’s battery won’t last forever. Besides, most of the phone system in the city is down. I probably wouldn’t have found out anything, anyway. It would have been a useless waste to try.”

  My tears turned to anger. “That’s not good enough, dammit. Why have you been keeping this place a secret? You’re working us, Luke. You’re conning all of us.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said coolly. “Maybe it is time for you to leave. Go back to Thornberry, Sarah.”

  He leaned back against the table, his arms folded, waiting for me to leave. A heavy silence filled the room.

  “So all of a sudden it’s safe out there?” I said. “There’s no one out there stalking me?”

  “What the hell,” Luke said. “You’ve always preferred taking care of yourself. I’m sure you’ll be all right.”