Cabin by the Lake (19 page)

“I’m excited about shopping today,” she said, jumping on the first subject that came to mind. “I can’t wait for you to see this place. I came here with Uncle Todd a few times as a kid. There’s a fenced-in yard full of junk and ornamental iron, things like that, a showroom floor with interesting stuff salvaged from old buildings, and an attached antique store that’s chock-full of unusual pieces. I could spend all day in that section alone.”

This was right up Mike’s alley, and it didn’t take much for him to catch her enthusiasm. When she turned the corner a few minutes later, he could see why she was so excited. She hadn’t exaggerated about the size of the place; it was enormous, covering the entire block. They parked on the street and went in.

As they walked through, she forgot about her troubles and soon she was bubbling with happiness at the seemingly endless possibilities. She felt his eyes on her at times, but she kept up the pace, pulling him from the kitchen and bathroom sections to the antique store and back again.

“This tile is beautiful,” she said, examining one of the many samples. “There’s no backsplash in the kitchen right now, but I was thinking it would be so pretty if we added one. These are fairly cheap.”

“We could,” he agreed. “These are a good buy. If we installed them ourselves, the cost would be minimal.”

“What about the bathroom? What would it take to make it, well, not ugly?”

He laughed. “More than Vivian has to spend on this renovation.”

“I have some money put back,” she said. “I’d really like to make it nice. We wouldn’t have to tell her how much it cost.”

“I don’t know if she’d approve.”

“Please. We won’t tell her. And I can help you; it can’t be that hard. Let’s really do this.”

By early afternoon they had chosen a farmhouse sink for the kitchen and a classic oval for the bathroom, along with faucets, a new toilet and tile for both rooms. Mike called Dugger who helped them load their finds in the back of his truck, and he and Lydia followed him back to Vivian’s. They were relaxed and on a bit of a high with their plans for the cabin, the ugliness of the scene at the restaurant forgotten—or at least put on the back burner.

They turned into the driveway, laughing at the smudges of dirt they had both accumulated while pawing through rusty items, until Lydia spotted the last thing she expected to see. “Oh no, my mother’s here!”

“Your mother is here?” Mike looked at Lydia’s face. “Is that bad?”

“It can’t be good.” The last thing she wanted was for him to meet her mother. “You and Dugger go ahead and unload the stuff. I’ll see you later.”

“I’d like to meet her.” He followed her, uninvited, into the house, with Dugger trailing along behind.

Katie and Vivian were sitting at the kitchen table, Katie crying into a paper towel.

“Oh Lydia,” she said when she spotted her daughter. “I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?” She felt dread creep into her chest.

“It’s Brittany,” Katie cried.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Oh, it’s too horrible! She’s on drugs, Lydia. Robert has left her and taken the children. She’s moved home with me, and I don’t know what to do.”

“What?” She was shocked. Her perfect sister was on drugs? “How can I help, Mom?”

“She’s hooked on that Oxy stuff,” said Katie. “You have to talk to her. You know all about drugs like that.”

Her mouth fell open. “I don’t know anything about drugs,” she said, feeling all eyes upon her in this nightmare-come-true.

Katie jumped up from her chair and whirled to face her daughter, her finger punctuating the words as she lashed out. “You went to prison for drugs. You probably got her started on this path. Brittany never would have gotten mixed up with anything like this on her own!”

“Stop it, Katie!” Vivian commanded, but her sister was oblivious to anyone else in the room.

Dugger didn’t know Katie well, but he knew enough to know she had always been high strung. He moved around behind Vivian’s chair and placed his hands protectively on her shoulders.

This was not what Mike expected when meeting Lydia’s mother, and he leaned back against the sink, arms crossed, and tried to make sense of it. Lydia glanced at him, wishing he would disappear, and tried to take charge of the situation.

“Mother,” she said calmly, “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’ve never done drugs in my life, and you’ve chosen not to believe me. I know nothing about it, and I can’t help Brittany.”

“Oh, you’ve never done drugs, huh? But you were a drug pusher,” Katie spat out, “selling drugs to decent people like Brittany. You didn’t go to prison because you were innocent! Do you think I’m stupid?”

Lydia fought to stay calm. “No, I think you’re wrong,” she said.

Her words seemed to drive Katie over the brink into insanity, and she raised her hand to slap her daughter. Mike’s hand snaked out and caught Katie’s wrist, bringing sudden silence to the kitchen as she noticed him for the first time.

She stared at him for a long moment before wrenching her arm free. She took a step back and looked him up and down, taking in his worn jeans and the streak of dirt across his cheek. “Yeah,” she sneered, “you look like someone Lydia would hook up with. Are you on drugs, too?”

“That’s enough,” said Vivian sharply, banging the table with open palms. “Katie, I think you should go.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” she wailed, collapsing into the chair in hysterical sobs. “I know Bull Barnes is going to ask me to marry him at my birthday party, and now Brittany’s there and she’s refusing to go to rehab—which I can’t afford, anyway—and Robert wants to divorce her. And now Lydia’s refusing to help, and I know she could if she wanted to; she’s just being spiteful, as usual.”

Lydia had heard enough. She snatched her keys from the counter and headed toward the front door with the intention of driving away. She thought she was hallucinating when she saw Kendall Riley. She blinked hard and was astounded to see that, indeed, Kendall was standing in the doorway, taking in the whole scene with disdain written all over her pretty face.

Lydia pulled up short and backed away as if confronted by a cobra.

It was Mike’s turn to be unpleasantly surprised. “Kendall!”

Kendall looked cool and collected as she surveyed the room, finally choosing to ignore everyone except Mike. “Hello, Mike. You need to come with me.”

“What are you talking about?” He was bewildered by her appearance.

“I may have told the Board that I knew where to find you,” she said, inspecting her nails for flaws. “There’s an emergency meeting scheduled. You’re not taking their calls, and they sent me to bring you back.”

“Excuse us,” he said, taking Kendall’s arm and steering her out the door. He suddenly felt the need for a short drive up the road and a few minutes of private conversation.

Lydia changed directions and walked through the house and out the back, heading to the end of the pier, simply because she didn’t know where else to go. It was all too much. This was the craziest day of her life and, emotionally, it actually beat the day she stepped into her prison cell and heard the door clang shut behind her. Nothing worse could possibly happen.

Mike had just witnessed all her dirty laundry hung out for public display. She wondered how much Kendall had seen. It didn’t matter now anyway. He knew everything—except the whole truth. Would he even care enough to find out the truth?

So much for a fresh start,
she thought as she took off her shoes and dangled her feet in the water. She realized her reputation was shot. Ace’s words—
you little jailbird
—were probably all over town now, and she was sure she was going to be the subject of much speculation. Small towns could be judgmental, and she wondered about this one. She was new here, and she’d so much wanted to be a part of it. She knew she still had a job at the law firm, but she hated the thought of everyone judging her, as her mother had.

She really couldn’t understand Katie’s reluctance to think of her as anything but a loser. But it had always been that way between them. Knowing that didn’t alleviate the hurt that she felt now. She thought she saw actual hatred in her mother’s eyes when she tried to strike her. She knew in that moment she would never have any children; she wouldn’t risk damaging the self-esteem of her child as she had been damaged. Not that there were many prospects for any kind of family in her future.

She heard a car start and drive away. Kendall and Mike? Was Mike leaving without even packing his things and saying goodbye? She vaguely noted when her mother’s car roared to life, the heavy Continental throwing gravel behind it as she pulled away. No endearing goodbyes from Katie? She kept her eyes on the far side of the lake when she heard Dugger back his truck up to the garage and begin unloading the supplies they bought. All of them were busy getting on with their lives, while she sat numbly swishing her feet back and forth in the cool water.

Soon, as expected, she heard Vivian approaching. She sat down beside her without a word, slipped an arm around her waist, and Lydia rested her head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“It’s okay, Aunt Vi; I’m used to it.”

“I have never been able to understand Katie, the way she always treated you and Brittany so differently. I want you to know that I always knew you were innocent.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me,” she said, sitting up straight. She sighed. “Mike knows all about it now.”

“Yes, I suppose he knows most of it.”

“Is he still here?”

“No, he left with that woman.” Vivian stifled a laugh. “I know all this is not funny, but she reminds me of Jessica Rabbit.”

Lydia laughed, in spite of herself. “There’s no accounting for taste, that’s for sure.”

Vivian patted her on the knee. “Dugger and I are going into town for that festival thing. Why don’t you come with us?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s sweet of you to ask, but I think I’ll hang around here. I don’t really feel like going out.”

“Okay, then maybe we’ll just stay here, too. We’ll pop some corn and watch a movie or something. Dugger won’t care.”

“No, really, I think I need some time alone. You go, have a good time. I’ll see you guys later.”

Vivian looked doubtful, but she finally acquiesced, and Lydia heard them leave in Dugger’s truck a few minutes later. The sun was lowering over the lake and she felt a surreal sense of peace. Everything was out of her hands now. There was nothing she could do to change anything that had happened. In a way, she felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders, now that she was no longer hiding anything.

She ambled back to the house, suddenly feeling at a loss for what to do after such an eventful day. She couldn’t seem to sit still. “Come on, Dog,” she coaxed. “Come on, lazy bones; let’s go see what the new tile looks like with the paint color.”

Dog got up with an effort and wagged his tail in agreement. She went to the garage and loaded the wheelbarrow with two boxes of the kitchen and bath tiles, and headed along the trail to the cabin. Once there, she carried in the boxes and placed them on the floor, while Dog took his place just inside the door and promptly dozed off.

Using an old steak knife from the kitchen drawer, she slit open the first box and pulled out a sheet of tiles. She held them up to the wall beneath the cabinets, and was pleased with her choice of color. The ceramic rectangles of beiges and browns, with flecks of red mixed in, were perfectly aligned with her vision of the finished cabin.

She bent to open the other box and froze as a tiny noise from the stairs behind her sent a shot of adrenalin coursing through her veins. Dog lifted his head, a low growl emanating from deep in his throat.

She whirled around, her heart slamming against her chest.

“Rocco!”

“Hello, Lydia,” he said, stepping into the room. “Surprised to see me?”

The shock of seeing Rocco again, his eyes gleaming with madness, was all she needed to get moving. She bent and grabbed a scrap two-by-four at her feet and held it out in front of her. “Stay away from me,” she threatened, taking a step backward.

He laughed at the fear he saw in her eyes. “I see you got my note.”

“I thought you were in prison, Rocco. What do you want?”

He spread his hands out in front of him, a wounded expression on his face. “I thought you’d be glad to see me, Pocahontas. We had some good times together.” His expression turned dark and cold and he took a step forward. “But you betrayed me. I gave you everything, and you stabbed me in the back, you ungrateful little—”

“Don’t come any closer!” She hefted the board like a baseball bat.

He continued to advance, savoring the fear emanating from her that he’d dreamed of for so long, and Lydia swung. The blow was unexpected and perfectly timed, connecting with his head, just above his ear, knocking him to the floor. The look of surprise on his face turned to anger as he felt of his head and examined the blood that came away on his hand. He cursed loudly as he pulled himself to his feet, shaking his head and throwing droplets of blood onto the wall.

She moved backward toward the open door, adrenalin pumping through her body. She clutched the board in both hands, holding it out in front of her as she watched Rocco bend over, trying to clear his head. He was not expecting resistance from her, but she surprised him, which was to her advantage.

Think!
Her cell phone was in her hip pocket, thank goodness. She could call 9-1-1 and get back to the house before he recovered if she moved quickly. Suddenly, Rocco emitted an animal-like grunt and lunged, catching her around the waist as she swung again with a glancing blow across his shoulder. His momentum carried her to the floor and she was pinned beneath him, his hands around her throat.

The steak knife was within arm’s reach, and she felt for it, her vision becoming blurred from the unbelievable pressure on her windpipe. Her fingers brushed the knife handle and she grabbed it just as Dog leaped into the fray, a snarling ball of fury, knocking Rocco backward.

She gasped for air. She rolled over on her stomach and began to pull herself toward the door, Dog sounding as if he was winning the fight with Rocco. Within seconds a shot rang out, followed by a yelp of pain, and then silence.

“No!” she screamed. She turned her head and saw Dog lying still, blood pooling beneath him. Rocco began to crawl toward her, the gun in his hand and a maniacal look of triumph on his face.

“You thought I would just forget about you,” he rasped, wiping blood from his eye. “I warned you, I never forgive or forget!”

Lydia held the knife in one hand, scrabbling to push herself backwards with the other. Rocco grabbed her foot and pulled. She kicked wildly with her free foot, but he was stronger. He jerked hard, let go of the gun, and snagged her other leg. She sliced the air in front of his face with the knife, drawing a line of blood across the bridge of his nose, and was coming back in the other direction when he caught her wrist and squeezed, forcing her arm above her head, crushing her with the weight of his body.

His fist struck her cheekbone, sending a white ball of pain through her head. He closed his hand around her throat, pushing her jaw back until she thought her neck would break. She felt herself losing consciousness and knew the end was now inevitable. She prayed that the nightmare wouldn’t last much longer.

Through the grayness descending over her, she heard a shout. It seemed to be coming from a long distance, as if the sound were traveling through a tunnel. The choking pressure and suffocating weight on her body was jerked away and she wheezed precious air into her lungs just before she lost consciousness.