Page 24 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
Emily
* * *
The grief hour has followed me to this little cottage. At precisely 4:51 AM, I jolt awake, my heart pounding. As I reach over to switch on the lamp, my head throbs. I let out a soft moan as I flop against the pillow to assess my condition. In addition to the headache, I’m dizzy, and thirsty. My tongue is furry and my eyes burn. I had too much wine and too little food last night.
The hangover is no surprise, but I mentally kick myself anyway. I know better. The physical symptoms will dog me most of the day, but the worst will be the dreaded hangxiety. I know all about the post-drinking chemical changes—the decrease in GABA and corresponding uptick in glutamate in the brain and the spike in cortisol levels—that can make anyone feel anxious the morning after over-imbibing. But I’m not anyone. I have generalized anxiety and a panic disorder. And I’m taking SSRI medication. I shouldn’t really be drinking at all, and I definitely shouldn’t be polishing off a bottle of wine solo.
“Should’ve thought of that last night,” I croak aloud. My voice is hoarse and thick.
Although, to be fair, accessing rational thought would have been a challenge last night, given that I was teetering on the edge of a full-blown panic attack. Beating myself up about it now isn’t going to help. A cup of coffee and a painkiller might, though. So I throw off the heavy quilt and swing my legs over the edge until my feet connect with the bare floor. The cold seeps through my socks as I sway to standing. The room spins, and I grab the headboard to steady myself. Coffee and some dry toast or crackers to settle my stomach, I amend. And two painkillers.
I reach for my heavy cardigan and gingerly ease my arms into it without moving my neck or head. Then I take some slow breaths to stave off the nausea the motion causes and shuffle toward the door. As I pass the window, I pause to glance outside, but there’s nothing to see. Only a wall of black. It’s the deep darkness of night in the country with no illumination from streetlights, neighbors, or passing cars. I suppose the stars might provide some light, but I can’t see them—or the moon. I can’t even make out the faint outline of Alex’s farmhouse or the shadows of the dense trees I know are out there.
I pull my sweater tighter around my torso and am about to walk on when I catch a flash of light out of the corner of my eye. I whip my head back toward the window and instantly regret the sudden movement. But my queasiness takes a back to seat to the fear surging through me as I press my forehead against the cold pane of glass. The bright ray of light is unmistakable. It can only be a flashlight’s beam. As if to prove the point, the beam sweeps in a wide arc, lighting up the copse of trees to the left. Someone’s out there, and, judging by their position, they’re looking at the cabin, watching me. I stare through the window until my eyes burn, straining and failing to make out some detail—anything at all—about the watcher.
It’s probably Alex, I tell myself with no conviction whatsoever. Why would she be awake and prowling around her farm in the dark at this hour?
The flashlight clicks off, and the clearing plunges back into darkness. My pulse pounds against my throat. I close my eyes and do a breathing exercise, the one that most reliably calms me down—breathe in for a four count, pause, then out for a seven count, pause, then repeat. After six or seven cycles, my heart rate is close to normal. As a bonus, all the oxygen helps my throbbing headache. My skull still feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise, but the intensity has subsided some.
I’m steady enough to make my way into the tiny bathroom, where I shake two ibuprofen from the travel-size tube and dry swallow them along with my Lexapro. Then I grip the railing and head down the steep narrow stairs taking careful, mincing steps.
I grab my mason jar of cold brew from the small refrigerator and find a package of saltine crackers that Tristan sent along to go with his homemade carrot-ginger soup. I stand at the butcher block island while I nibble the crackers and sip the coffee slowly, not wanting to overtax my stomach. I can’t allow the light I saw outside derail me. I already wasted last night by obsessing and worrying. I need to write.
I block out all thoughts of dangers lurking in the dark, memories of death and fear, and my anxiety about meeting my deadline. All I can control is whether I put my butt in a chair and my fingers on the keyboard. So I do.
I skip my morning writing rituals. No meditation, no candle, no free writing in my journal about the work. I just fire up my laptop, open the manuscript file, and write.
After a hundred halting words, I start to find my rhythm. The words flow as I lose myself in my story. My sour stomach, steady headache, and fatigue from a crappy night’s sleep fall away. Time passes without my noticing as my fingers fly over the keys. The scene between Maleen and Ruth unfolds in my mind like a movie I’m watching and I type as quickly as I can, as if I’m taking dictation from my imagination. I suppose I am.
Sixteen
Tristan
* * *
I try my damnedest to focus on the cold case file I smuggled out of the office. But my mind keeps going back to the Giselle Ward case. I still can’t quite believe I’ve been suspended. In fact, I didn’t believe it.
When I woke up, I started automatically getting ready to go into the office. Even though it’s a Sunday, I’d planned to go in to work on the Ward case. I was halfway through brushing my teeth before I remembered I don’t have a job to go to, at least not right now. I can’t accept that I contaminated evidence. I’m always so careful. And of all the times to screw up, this is the worst. I need to work this case so I can make the connection between Giselle’s murder and Dana Rowland’s in Arizona.
My thoughts turn to Emily. I glance at the clock. It’s still a bit early to call, and since I can’t reach her directly, I’ll have to go through Alex. I worry about Em being up on that mountain when the storm hits. The Weather Channel map has the Blue Ridge Mountains as the dead center of the storm. It could get wild up there. Then I remind myself that Alex is there. She’s clearly self-sufficient. She’ll be able to take care of Emily.
I’d like to get my hands on the police files from the attempt on Alex’s life to see what evidence the authorities gathered back then. If I hadn’t just been suspended, I could request them through my office, no problem. But I have been, so I can’t. The other option would be to rely on personal connections with someone up in Windy Rock to get access to the records in an unofficial capacity. But we left Windy Rock when I was nine, and I haven’t set foot in the town since, so that’s not going to work either.
I chew on the inside of my cheek while I muse, then I open a browser window and search “Alexandra Lincoln stabbing Windy Rock.” The hits come back quickly. I’m surprised at how many results there are given the age of the case. I scan the media reports.
I didn’t know much about the stabbing when it happened. I was just a kid and our parents and teachers limited our access to information about what happened, which was surprisingly easy to do in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone days. I heard things here and there, snippets of conversation between adults who didn’t realize we were listening, but not enough to piece together details. Lexi had been attacked. She was in the hospital in Bangor, and she couldn’t remember who’d done it. This was the sum total of my knowledge.
Then my dad threw himself off the cliff into the ocean, my world tilted, and I forgot all about Lexi Lincoln. My throat tightens as I think of my father and the immediate aftermath of his death. My mom hurried us out of town so fast that the closeness in time between his suicide and the attempt on Lexi’s life never clicked for me until years later.
Back then, when it happened and mom told me we were moving, I was devastated Tate wasn’t coming with us. I’d expected her to fight him on staying behind to finish out his senior year, but she didn’t. She was so focused on getting out of town that she just let him stay. I wonder now if that’s all it was or if she knew more than she let on. We’ve never talked about it. We’ve talked around it, but we’ve never talked about it.
I close the browser, stand up and stretch, and go out to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Is it finally time to have the conversation that my mother and I have been putting off for two decades? The thought alone makes my gut seize and my throat clench, so I decide the answer is no, this is not the time. I need to focus on the investigation. But it’s no surprise that this case, the Rowland case, and, especially, crossing paths with Lexi/Alex is dredging up old emotions and fragments of memories, bringing all that detritus to the surface.
I shake my head to dislodge the thoughts, and promise myself I’ll talk to Dr. Wilde about it during our next call in September. After that, maybe I’ll be ready for a long-overdue heart-to-heart with my mom.
I drain the coffee in three long gulps and return to work. I have the files from Arizona spread out on my desk and the pictures I took of the Ward file up on my phone. I look at Dana Rowland’s photo, then Giselle Ward’s photo, Dana, then Giselle, back and forth. They were both willowy redheads and both extremely fit—an equestrian and a ballet dancer, stronger than they looked. Alex is a redhead, too. Shorter than the others but she’s more substantial-looking, muscular and sturdy. The image of her hefting the armload of firewood one-handed pops into my mind.
Cassie doesn’t fit the type at all. She was a curvy blonde. But then, there’s no reason why Cassie would fit the type. She wasn’t the intended victim the night she was killed.
