Page 18 of Between Here and the Horizon
Seven thirty in the evening. The flight I booked from Knox County was late enough that I’d have enough time to see the children settled, get my ass across to the mainland, and travel back into the city. I might even have enough time to grab a glass of wine or two in the airport bar—I’d never needed a drink more in my life than I did now. Not even when I found Will in bed with my best friend.
I’d like to say that I fell asleep right away, reassured that I was going to be back on a plane in less than twenty-four hours, winging my way home to my relatively normal life in California, far from the windswept coastline of Causeway Island and the crazy, terrible thing that had happened here. I didn’t, though. I lay in bed with the covers pulled up tight underneath my chin, and I stared at the ceiling, chewing on my lip, scared and feeling like a pretty shitty human being.
CHAPTER NINE
Unacceptable Circumstances
“Feelya. Feelya, wake up. There’s a man outside.” A tiny hand poked and prodded at my face, patting over my cheeks and forehead. I woke slowly, sluggishly, trying to comprehend my surroundings. It took a second for everything to rush at me—the memory of yesterday and everything that occurred. Amie was standing by my bed, hair snarled into a dark, tangled bird’s nest. She had lines on her cheek from her pillow, but other than that she looked like she might have been awake for hours. Her pale blue eyes were bright and alert, crinkled at the corners, and her mouth was drawn into an impish smile. “You were snoring. Really loud,” she informed me in a whisper.
“Did you say there was a man outside?” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to shake the fog from my brain.
Amie nodded. “He’s very skinny. He looks like he’s very hungry, probably.”
A very skinny man outside? Could only be Linneman. I supposed he did have a kind of hungry look about him. “Did you let him inside?” I asked.
“No. Daddy said not to.”
“Daddy?”
Amie nodded again. “Yes. He always says not to answer the door to anybody.”
“Ah, okay. Yes, that’s very smart. He’s right. You shouldn’t.” I threw back the covers, now able to hear the polite but insistent rapping on the front door downstairs. The clock on the bedside table read eight forty-five. Jesus, how had I slept so long? Kids get up so early; I should have been out of bed and making them breakfast two hours ago. Typical that I couldn’t sleep all night and then I fall face first into unconsciousness around dawn, just in time to make myself late for everything.
Downstairs, Linneman was standing at the front door, small wisps of his gray hair blowing across his face as the wind howled across the huge front lawn. He gave me a tight-lipped smile through the glass as I hurried to the door, unlocked and opened it.
“Morning, Miss Lang. I was beginning to worry that you’d already left. May I?” He gestured past me into the hallway. “It’s rather cold out here, and I’ve been standing here for some time.”
“Oh, god, of course. Of course. I’m sorry, I—” I gave up trying to formulate an excuse for the length of time it took me to come to the door. My pajamas and my bedhead were explanation enough. Linneman stalked into the hallway, swinging the same battered leather briefcase at his side that he’d had with him yesterday. His clothing was as official and proper as it had been yesterday, too—dark gray suit this time, that looked like it was in actual fact some kind of tweed, shot through with a fine blue thread, and a severely pressed white button-down, finished off with a blue tie that had been tied so high and tight that it looked like it was strangling him.
“Should we go through to the kitchen?” he asked, casting a cool, businesslike glance over his shoulder.
“Yes. Please. I’ll make some coffee.”
“Oh, tea, if you have it,” he said in answer.
Amie on my heels, holding onto the back of my shirt, was closer than my own shadow. “Amie, sweetheart, where’s Connor?” I hissed, hoping Linneman wouldn’t hear.
“He’s playing Gand feft Auto. He said I wasn’t allowed to have a turn.” She said this morosely, as if it were the saddest thing in the world, and she had only just remembered to be upset about it now. Her bottom lip jutted out like she was considering crying but wasn’t sure if it was worth it yet.
Connor was too young to be playing Grand Theft Auto. Too young by a decade. Ronan must have bought it for him, though, and I was going to be leaving really soon, so there didn’t seem any point in racing up there to confiscate the game.
“It’s all right, kiddo. How about you sit in front of the fire in the living room and watch Peppa Pig instead, and I’ll make you some breakfast? How does that sound?”
Amie perked up immediately at the sound of breakfast. The kid was a bottomless pit. I turned to Linneman, who was setting himself up at the breakfast counter again, laying out paperwork, pens, a check book and a pair of wire framed spectacles neatly in a row. “That’s okay, Miss Lang. I shall wait right here for you to return.”
And so he did. I positioned Amie in front of the television, turned the gas fire on low to edge the chill out of the air, and made sure the little girl knew not to get too close. There was a glass door on the fire, as well as a huge, sturdy metal grate in between her and the flames, which she wouldn’t have been able to move even if she wanted to, but still…I made her promise not to budge an inch.
Back in the kitchen, Linneman was staring at the coffee pot with a very confused look on his face. I got the feeling he’d never operated one before.
“I wanted to come over and discuss Ronan’s paperwork with you once more before CPS came for the children,” Linneman said, stabbing at a button on the machine. “Now that you’ve had a little time to consider your options, I was hoping you might have changed your mind?”
He was bound to ask this. He didn’t sound like he would be affected either way by my decision, though. He didn’t seem like the sort of man to form an emotional attachment of any kind; it was almost surprising that he had a wife. For all I knew (and strongly suspected), he had probably gotten married because it was the pragmatic thing to do. I briefly tried to imagine him swept away in some sordid love affair and couldn’t bend my mind around the idea at all.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Linneman. I haven’t changed my mind. I booked a flight out of Knox County this evening at seven thirty.” I felt awful admitting that the night hadn’t brought about some miraculous change in me, but it was the truth. It hadn’t. It had scared the living shit out of me, and I couldn’t wait to get as far away from this massive, empty house as soon as possible.
“So be it. Then I have the release forms here for you to sign. That means you can go, that you haven’t accepted legal guardianship of the children. I’ll prepare them for you now.” Linneman sat at the kitchen counter while I boiled water for his tea. A rising tide of guilt swelled inside me one minute, receding the next to be replaced with self-righteous indignation.
Ronan really screwed this one up. Yes, it was sad that his wife died, but he shouldn’t have done something so terrible and left a near stranger in his place to pick up the pieces. That was just downright shitty of him.
