Beneath Devil's Bridge(56)

He squeezes my hand. He whispers again, so quietly I need to lean close to his mouth in order to hear. “Follow the truth, Rache. Even if it hurts. Even if it takes you where you don’t want it to go. It’s not too late.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes shut. “The truth . . . sets you free.” His breathing changes. He struggles to get his next words out. “It’s . . . the secrets that fester. You . . . think you’ve buried them, gotten rid of them somehow, but they’re like this damned cancer. The minute you’re down, the second you grow tired, it starts to grow again, and it catches up with you.”

I swallow. I watch his face. My pulse is racing.

“Luke?”

Silence. He’s asleep.

I hesitate, then kiss him again on his brow and whisper, “I’ll come again. I promise.”

I go to look for Luke’s nurse and find her in the nursing station. I ask her about his prognosis.

“It’s doubtful he’ll last the night,” she says gently. “One can never really tell, but there are signs, and they are there. I’m sorry.”

Tears slide down my face.

“Will you be okay?” she asks.

I nod because I can’t speak. I go sit for a while by the gas fireplace that flickers in the living room area of the hospice. I need to gather my wits before the long drive back home in the darkness. At a table in the corner of the room, a man sits with a woman who is bent forward. She is reed thin and has a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The man holds her hand. I imagine she’s his mother.

The pain in my heart is suddenly unbearable.

About twenty minutes later, the nurse finds me.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “He’s gone.”

I am completely lost for words. I can only stare at her.

“Would you like to see him?”

I hesitate. Nod. And come to my feet. I feel disoriented as she leads me back down the corridor. The door to Luke’s room is now closed. A ceramic butterfly hangs on the door handle.

He’s free.

She sees me staring at the butterfly.

“We hang that there so staff knows the occupant has passed. So people don’t enter and get a shock.”

The nurse reaches for the door handle, and suddenly I say, “No. I . . . I did see him. I saw Luke. What’s inside there—he’s gone.” I turn and march hurriedly for the exit and push out into the cold. I stop in my tracks, and take a deep, shuddering breath. My hands are shaking. Wind gusts and swirls fiercely about me. Dead leaves clatter along the walkway. I glimpse the moon between gaps in the scudding clouds. I think about the moon in the sky and the burning Russian rocket on the night Leena died.

This is it.

No more secrets.

No more walls.

The now is all we’ve got. I want truth. The whole truth. I’m no longer afraid of looking too deep. I’m ready no matter what I find.





RACHEL


THEN


Wednesday, November 26, 1997.

“There! He’s pulling in!” I point as I see Clay’s beat-up old Subaru turning into the driveway, his headlights painting the rain silver.

Luke keys his radio. “Go. Go. It’s him.”

Sirens engage, and officers—most of them RCMP—move fast. One vehicle, its light bar flashing, pulls into the driveway behind Clay, blocking his escape. A second vehicle parks across the driveway on the road. A third goes around the back of the block, in case Clay tries to run through to his backyard and jump the fence. Luke and I exit our unmarked car wearing bullet suppression vests. We are armed. We stride down the driveway toward Clay’s vehicle. My heart pounds with a primal kind of rage as I hold in my mind that photograph Lacey brought to the station in the bottom of Clay’s gym bag. It showed a girl of around eight years of age being sexually abused by an unidentified older male.

Lacey’s words circle in my head.

It’s one . . . just one of them. I . . . couldn’t bring the others.

Clay flings open his car door and exits into the rain.

“What the hell—”

“Clay Pelley, you’re under arrest,” I say. “Turn around, put your hands up on the roof of your car.”

“What in the hell for?”

“Turn around. Hands on car. Spread your legs. Now.”

Slowly he turns, places his hands on the roof of his Subaru. Rain drums down on us as I pat him down, then cuff his hands behind his back.

“Clayton Jay Pelley, you’re under arrest for the possession of child pornography and for statutory rape of a minor.” I turn him to face us. “We have warrants to search your shed, your home, your office at Twin Peaks Secondary School, and to impound and search your vehicle for evidence in connection with the death of Leena Rai. You have the right to retain and instruct counsel,” I say. “And you have the right to silence, but anything you do say can be used as evidence against you. Do you understand?”

“This is ridiculous. I—”

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Clay?”

“I—” Clay curses viciously. “Yes. But this is—”

“Take him away,” I say to the officer nearby. And to another I say, “Impound the Subaru. Tow it.”

Luke waves the other officers toward the house.