Most of All You: A Love Story(91)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


You know what you have to do, right? You must. It’s your only choice.

Racer, the Knight of Sparrows

GABRIEL

Spring came early, bringing buds to the trees and flowers sprouting from the softened soil. I was thankful the quarry was open for the season again, and most days I worked myself so hard, I hardly had the energy to think. Then I’d go to my workshop and lose myself in whatever piece I was currently carving.

I missed Ellie so damn badly it was a constant hollow ache inside me. The holidays came and went, and I wondered if she was lonely, if she’d celebrated at all, and I felt so sad I didn’t think I could bear it.

Was she hiding herself away from the world in a self-protecting bubble, allowing no one in? Or even worse, was she allowing people in who might hurt her? Did she have a job? Was she eating? I wanted so desperately to check on her in some way, in any way. I even considered driving by her apartment just to see the lights in her window, but I didn’t. I knew if I went there, I wouldn’t be able to drive away, knew I’d find myself at her door, and she didn’t want that. So I stopped myself.

But, ah hell, I wanted to. I wanted to so much it gnawed at my insides as if I were being slowly eaten away. Those were the days I went moment to moment, finding something to be grateful for, some beauty to make me believe the pain wouldn’t always be so bad.

I went into town more often, and though the whispers were worse after what had happened in the fall, and because of the newspaper articles that continued to mention my name, I found I cared less, and that made it easier to endure the gossip.

On a mild day in late March, I pulled into the parking lot of the hardware store. The air held the scent of damp earth and the tang of ozone. It was going to rain, although the thunderclouds looked to be a ways in the distance.

The bell over the door jingled and I entered the store, the familiar smell of dust and oil hitting my nose. It was Saturday and the place was busy, customers ready to get started on all their spring home and garden projects.

I was just picking up an order, so I stood in the line of people waiting for Sal at the cash register. As I waited, my mind wandered to the projects I needed to do around my house. I planned to exert myself cleaning up my yard and getting it ready for the trimming and mulching that would need to be done as the weather warmed.

A man at the register laughed at something Sal said, and I froze, my whole body going rigid. As if I were moving through a black tunnel, I was suddenly back there in the damp basement, listening to the sound of footsteps above me and that same distinct laugh full of wet-sounding congestion.

I blinked, pulling myself from the memory as if I were swimming to the top of a pool of water I’d just been plunged into.

I knew that laugh.

I leaned around the customer in front of me and took in the man being helped at the register. He was in his sixties and was tall, wearing a cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots with spurs on the backs. My brow furrowed underneath the baseball cap I was wearing. Who wore cowboy boots in Vermont?

You’re gonna ding up my baseboards with those. Quit walkin’ near my walls.

The memory of the words slammed into me as if I’d been hit on the head with a two-by-four, and I jerked backward. It had been such a strange thing to say, and I’d thought about it later, wondered what it meant. Could it be …

The man waiting in line directly in front of me glanced back and frowned and then looked forward again. Ah, Jesus. It couldn’t be … could it? My captor, Gary Lee Dewey, had had a visitor—just once—and I remembered that phlegmy cough, remembered the strange click-clack of his shoes, what Gary had said to him. The kitchen had been right over my head, and I’d listened as water ran and bits and pieces of conversation drifted to me through the heating ducts. I’d been stunned to hear voices, and it’d taken me a moment to decide what to do before I started yelling, “Help! Help!” A door had slammed and the voices were gone. I’d assumed whoever had been there hadn’t heard me. But maybe he had heard me. Maybe he’d known I was there and didn’t care because he was the same as Gary Lee Dewey. Or wanted to be.

God, but it was just the shadow of a memory. Nothing really. Only …

The man in the boots thanked Sal and turned from the register, heading for the door. As he passed by me, I smelled the overpowering scent of cigarette smoke—most likely the cause of that awful, loose cough.

Without letting myself consider it too much, I turned and followed him out, lagging behind so he didn’t notice. He got in a nondescript black pickup, and I followed as he turned out of the parking lot.

I stayed a few cars back, and continued driving as he pulled into the driveway of a home about ten blocks from the house where I’d spent six miserable years of my life.

Pulling to the curb a few streets over, I considered what to do. Should I call the police? Were a laugh and the sound of some shoes, a few remembered words, enough to get the authorities to check it out? I thought back to the way the two detectives had questioned me, and felt even more uncertain. If this turned out to be nothing, as it likely would, I’d appear even crazier.

But I’d dismissed my instinct before in favor of my own pride, and because of it, Ellie had ended up bloody and beaten behind a Dumpster. I let out a loud whoosh of breath, turning my truck around and heading back toward the house where the man presumably lived. This time, there was no truck in the driveway. I thought maybe he’d pulled it into the garage, but I’d seen him exiting his truck as I’d driven by. Had he returned home momentarily and left, or was it not his house? “Jesus,” I muttered. “Help me out here if you have some spare time.”