Page 104 of The Night the Lights Went Out
MERILEE
Even though it was only around five o’clock in the afternoon, the storm howling outside and the time of year gave the skies outside a smudge of charcoal, the light barely hanging on to the day. She was beyond exhausted after the night in jail, her arraignment, and the whole ordeal of having to plead not guilty one more time for a crime she hadn’t committed.
Cynthia had had the foresight to bring Merilee’s minivan from Heather’s driveway to the police station, so at least she didn’t have to ask for another favor from Michael, who’d paid her bail without question, reminding her of why she’d married him in the first place.
As she made the slow drive home through the rain, she kept reaching for her phone to call Sugar, remembering each time that the police had kept it, having obtained a warrant to search it.
She knew calling Wade would have been pointless whether or not she had access to her phone. Wade, unable to reach Sugar, had called Cynthia to let her know that there’d been a construction accident on one of his sites and that his cell phone was buried in about ten feet of mud. He would come to Merilee’s house as quickly as he could, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon.
The Lincoln was parked outside Sugar’s house, and the front porch lights as well as the lamps in the front parlor were on. She considered stopping and letting Sugar know she was home but decided she’d call her once she’d had a chance to change her clothes and eat something. She was just so danged tired. Cynthia had told her she had everything under control and to trust her to do her job. All she wanted Merilee to do was to get a good night’s sleep and call her in the morning so they could discuss their game plan. Even with all that was going on in her head, Merilee knew a sleepless night spent in jail and the mental exhaustion of the last weeks would knock her out better than any sleeping pill.
The rain was still coming down in sheets, pooling in thick puddles on the drive, making it nearly impassable by car or foot and causing Merilee to consider it a near miracle that she didn’t get stuck. As she climbed the porch steps to her house in the quickly diminishing light, she noticed Lily’s rain boots tucked into the far corner of the porch. She almost brought them inside but left them there to show Lily that when looking for missing items, she should actually open her eyes.
Merilee let herself into the house, using the key under the mat and then bringing the key inside. Tonight was the beginning of not being so stupid and naïve ever again. If Wade was already on his way and didn’t have his phone, he wouldn’t be able to call her—she wasn’t even sure he had the landline number—he’d just have to bang loudly on the door if she’d already gone to bed.
The house sat in nearly complete darkness, so she quickly walked through it, turning on all the lights, leaving the binoculars—thankfully given back to her with her purse at the police station—on the kitchen table where Colin could find them when he returned home. She’d always found a dark house sad, reminding her too much of the days after David had died, when her mother hadn’t risen from her bed and the house had remained dark long after the sun had set.
Merilee spotted the yearbook neatly closed on the counter next to the phone and thought that Sugar must have put it there while cleaning the kitchen. She took a step toward it, wanting to put it away, but stopped. She’d take care of it tomorrow, when she wasn’t so danged tired.
She flipped on the TV, putting on the Weather Channel more for background noise than for anything else, but paused as she read the crawl at the bottom of the screen. Fulton County was listed in the red zone, alerting residents that a tornado had been spotted. She muted the television for a moment, listening for sirens, but all she could hear was the steady thrum of the rain against the roof and windows.
Next she checked the answering machine, where there were zero messages—no surprise there. Nobody called her landline anymore—except for Sugar—because everybody knew her cell number. She reached for her cell phone for about the tenth time since she’d been told the police were hanging on to it, then headed toward the bathroom to draw a bath.
She wasn’t usually a bath person, preferring the ease and speed of a shower in the morning before work. But she felt as if she needed soothing tonight and thought she might use the lavender bubble bath the children had bought for her for Mother’s Day. She’d not linger too long, knowing that bathing during a storm wasn’t the best idea. But after the twenty-four hours from hell she’d just had, Merilee desperately needed to relax.
After putting a stopper into the porcelain claw-foot tub, she turned on the faucets, then dumped a generous amount of bubble powder into the weak stream of water. So much for bubbles. At least the old plumbing still worked. While waiting for the tub to fill, she stripped off her clothes, tossing everything into the laundry basket. She wanted no smells to remind her of the jail or of her time spent there. After grabbing one of Lily’s large barrettes off the sink, she wound her long hair up into a messy bun and clipped the barrette in place.
A violent fork of lightning lit the sky, brightening the small space with its tiny black-and-white hexagonal tiles and chipped white porcelain pedestal sink, giving everything a gothic glow. A crack of thunder shook the house just a moment later, the lights flickering in tandem with another flash of lightning.
She turned off the taps, and even though she heard no sirens, she wasn’t going to get in the tub now. With every muscle in her body protesting, she pulled out the stopper, watching sadly as the two inches of water drained. At least the power was still on. She would turn on the television and find a nice relaxing movie to watch.
She glanced up at the small toiletries shelf above the tub, staring at an empty space, taking a moment until she realized what was missing. It was the small marble carriage clock she’d placed there to keep the children on track in the mornings. It wasn’t there. Nor was it on the floor, behind the toilet, or under the sink. It was heavy, which was why when she’d found it in the back of her bedroom closet, she knew it would stay put if she placed it there on the shelf. Except it hadn’t.
A cool chill pricked at her skin. She grabbed the plush blue chenille robe behind the bathroom door, knotting the tie around her waist. It had been Michael’s last birthday gift to her, and many times she’d thought about giving it away, but she couldn’t because she loved it too much. It was her favorite shade of blue, and so incredibly soft that on cold nights she even slept in it.
She placed a strip of toothpaste on her toothbrush, using Lily’s tube of paste. Her daughter was methodical about squeezing from the bottom to keep an even flow of paste until the last drop. Colin’s tube looked like a tangled, warped mess from a midair explosion. It had been such an exercise in manipulation to get the toothpaste out that Merilee had finally given in and bought separate tubes of the same brand just to save her sanity.
Merilee studied her face in the mirror as she brushed, looking for any new lines that the stress of the last twenty-four hours might have caused, listening to the sounds from the television set and the slap of rain against the window. She started to feel relaxed. Or, if not relaxed, then more calm.
A movement from the open doorway, reflected in the mirror behind her, caught her attention. She stopped, listening, her eyes focused on the mirror’s reflection. Had she forgotten to lock the door? “Wade?” she called out through a mouthful of toothpaste. She waited for a moment before spitting into the sink. She rinsed her mouth quickly, then called out again. “Wade?”
She paused in the doorway, hearing the television and the relentless force of the rain against the house. Maybe the lights had flickered again, casting a quick shadow as they dimmed and then regained their brightness.
Pulling together the lapels of her robe, Merilee peered into the empty front room, then padded down the hall toward her bedroom. She was almost halfway into the room before she realized something was wrong. She stopped, trying to figure out what it was. Turning slowly to face the bed, she saw it.
On the corner of the white quilted bedspread lay her high school yearbook, opened to display a layout of senior photos. Her gaze drifted to the right-hand side; she knew which page she was looking at before she saw the photo in the bottom corner.
The yearbook hadn’t been there when she’d taken off her clothes. She knew it hadn’t. Because it had been on the kitchen counter. Closed. She remembered seeing it there, even though she should have put it away. But she hadn’t picked it up, had she?
The splash of water hitting the porcelain of the tub in the bathroom startled her, sucking the air out of her lungs.
Trying to avoid the creaks in the wood floors, she stepped carefully to the doorway and peered out into the hall. The sound of water filling the tub was louder here, the scent of lavender overwhelming, as if someone had just poured the entire box of bubble powder under the spout. Her blood thickened in her veins, rolling in viscous waves as it pumped its slow way through the chambers of her heart.
“Wade?” she called again, her voice barely above a whisper.
A figure stepped out of the bathroom, and Merilee screamed.
Thirty-five
