The Still of Night Read online

  “Intimately compatible?”

  “Exactly.”

  She stared into his blunt face and wondered if he had any idea that he had just capped her day.

  Jill left the restaurant, thankful she had driven herself. She needed some miles behind the wheel. As she drove, she studied the opaque sun, caught like a melon-colored Frisbee in the net of trees along the horizon. Who had tossed it there, and would they come thundering across the sky to snatch it up and send it reeling once again? What careless feet would trip through the branches green with leaf and quickened sap? What eager hand would reach for it?

  The Midwestern humidity dimmed it to a lunar impotence, so much tamer than the Phoenix sun. That fiery orb ruled the desert sky like a god, dominating the scaly plants and beasts, breaking their wills, grinding them down to the base elements of survival … or so Dan had said when he returned from his sister’s wedding this past weekend.

  Phoenix had been too hot, even for a man who liked to get out and sweat. He wanted his own exertion to cause it, not the blazing sun. That was Dan, one hundred and ten percent, whether he was running down a punk peddling drugs or pumping iron or racing his bike. The one area he didn’t excel in was listening.

  How else to explain his proposal? The man she respected, enjoyed, maybe even loved, had completely ignored everything she’d told him since their relationship had become serious. What exactly are you proposing, Dan? He’d made it sound so homey, so convenient. So non-committal. Attending a wedding had no doubt sparked his consideration of the next step. But not influenced it deeply enough.

  She switched hands on the steering wheel of her almost new Civic. Almost, meaning less than two years old, but purchased used from her friend Shelly, who won—actually won—a Miata in a raffle. She could still feel the grip of Shelly’s hands on her upper arms as they had jumped up and down, laughing in disbelief.

  Jill reached over and turned down the air-conditioning that was raising the hairs on her arms. Her plan was to leave Beauview behind and put miles of cornfields and highway between her and home. Dan had probably gone straight home and hit his weight bench. He would work it out through his pores; she’d rather run away.

  But not entirely. She had school tomorrow; students depending on her, kids whose lives would be traumatized if she left them to a substitute, even another team member. Consistency was crucial. And in this last week of the school year their stress levels rose, as evidenced by today’s stellar performances. Summer vacation was no celebration for many of them. It meant change, and they had spent nine months grasping one set of expectations only to now face a new set.

  Some of them she would tutor twice a week through the summer so they wouldn’t lose all they’d accomplished during the school year. Three months was interminable for their retention. Without tutoring, she’d be starting from scratch when she rolled up to the next grade level with them.

  Even though the highway stretched out before her, she recognized the end of her tether. So at the next exit, she left the highway and started back. Hands had snatched the sun and taken it home. The sky dissolved into dusky hues of peach and lavender, and the farms on either side of the road had that complacent, settled look. Instead of reentering the highway, she followed the country road that would wind back to rejoin it eventually. It would be dark when she got home. No one would notice she went in alone, nor what condition her mascara was in, though tears had yet to come.

  With a sniff, Jill fanned her fingers through her hair from the forehead to the crown, then examined the ends hanging midway down her chest, fine and straight and blond. Ash, actually, though she’d never liked that description. It had been silvery blond when she was small; fairy hair, her mother said. It was still thick and soft but lacked the luster it once had. Maybe she should highlight it, frost it, streak it—something with an attitude. But she had no one to impress now, and she was clean out of attitude.

  A Mendelssohn concerto, soothing and vibrant, filled the car from her stereo as she merged back onto the highway, but gathering brake lights ahead caught her attention. The lanes were moving, but at a crawl. And the cars veered and wound erratically. What on earth?

  Something on the road. No, lots of things. Moving … slowly. Turtles! Eightinch turtles, marching onto the highway from the cornfields, and many not fortunate enough to have made it across. She looked away from the carnage of one she viewed in greater detail than she would have cared to.

  Poor creatures. Did they realize they were plodding to their deaths?

  Could they see beyond the few feet before them, conceive of something large and fast enough to crush them in less time than it took to take their next step? Their instinct told them to plod forward, relentlessly pursuing whatever. Then splat. Nothing. The great abyss.

  At least people were trying to avoid them. She swung her own wheel to the left as one turtle headed for her tires. What was this? Some great turtle exodus? A migration of reptilian pioneers. Whenever a car whizzed past, the turtles would stop, draw in their heads and legs as though the shell could save them from a couple tons of steel. She swerved to the right but heard the crunch anyway. Oh …

  A white Fiat pulled over and two men climbed out, running back along the shoulder waving their arms. Jill watched in her rearview mirror as they worked their way onto the road still waving wildly. Stopping traffic for the turtles? She had to cheer their sentiment. They were young and gangly and idealistic. While one darted out waving people to a stop, the other scooped up a turtle and rushed it to the side.

  She smiled. Good for them. The men ignored the honking cars and scooped up one after another. She hoped they got every one of the creatures across to safety. But she was through it now. The cars ahead picked up speed, and she followed suit. How absurd. Who ever heard of a turtle crossing? She pictured the appropriate black-on-yellow highway sign and almost managed a laugh. Why not? They now had crossing guards.

  At least she would have a story to tell her kids tomorrow. She wouldn’t mention the crushed shells and certainly not the crunch of her own tire. That was too emotional, too risky for her kids. But the parade—that they’d enjoy, and the man scooping them up and carrying them across, protection they couldn’t conceive. Even Joey would appreciate this tale.

  She only hoped today had not set him back too badly. He’d had more than one regression in the course of the year, and they weren’t pretty. That was why Pam and their paraprofessional, Jack, left Joey to her, and in fact she did have better success with him than anyone else had to date. She didn’t tell anyone it was prayer that calmed him. That wouldn’t go over well in a public school, not with her team. But it was true. Prayer helped. Prayer worked. And she couldn’t do what she did without it. These kids, whom everyone would rather forget, push aside, marginalize … they broke her heart and gave her purpose. She felt a stab and tried to ignore it, then rose up in defense. Why shouldn’t her purpose be other people’s kids? Who said happiness could only be found in having her own family?

  She parked in the single garage of her townhouse, then went to retrieve the mail from her compartment in the communal box. She had just grasped the envelopes in the box when Mr. Deerborne sidled up.

  “Your trash blew over.”

  Jill glanced to where the rubber can now stood empty beside her garage door, though the gusting wind had stopped by noon.

  “Spilled cat litter all over the sidewalk. Safety hazard, that. Someone might have slipped and taken a fall.” He waved his cane in the large knuckled hand. “I swept it up for you.”

  She turned to her neighbor. “Thank you. That was very considerate.”

  “Saving you a lawsuit is all.”

  She smiled, though the only one likely to sue her would be Mr. Deerborne himself. “Thanks so much.”

  When he stalked back across the lot between their buildings, she went inside, dropped the mail on the counter, and looked around. “Kitty, kitty …”

  The long-haired gray half-Persian-half-who-knew-what jumped onto th
e counter. Jill scratched his head while he purred his welcome, one of those ratchety purrs that ebbed and flowed. “Hello, Rascal.”

  He licked her chin, and she tore open a pouch of food to fill his bowl. The phone rang. Shelly. She must have surveillance equipment inside the townhouse. Or maybe Brett had it bugged. More likely she’d seen the light. “Hello?” She slid the mail from under the cat’s paws.

  “Well?” Shelly’s voice always sounded huskier over the phone.

  “Well, hi.” Jill scooted past the sofa, dropped the stack of envelopes to the ornate corner table she’d purchased at an estate sale, then dropped to the chair upholstered with beige, brown, and black giraffes. An eclectic combination, she admitted.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense. Was it wonderful? Did he ask you?”

  She must also have inside knowledge. “Ask me what, Shelly?”

  “Jill Runyan, I’m going to have a coronary, and it’ll be your fault.” Shelly added a deep exaggerated breath. “I know Dan had something planned, so out with it.”

  Jill said, “He proposed something, but it wasn’t marriage.”

  “Okay … so we’re working into it.”

  Jill pulled a loose thread from the seam of her chair and rolled it between her fingers. “He wants to live together and see if we’re compatible.”

  “Understandable. His breakup really hurt, you know. His ex was brutal.”

  All of which Jill had heard before. “Well, I hope I wasn’t brutal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jill forked her fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. She hated when Shelly’s interrogation happened before she had time to plan her explanation. She was nothing if not methodical.

  “Jill, don’t tell me you broke up with him.”

  If only she had a wise or even witty comeback. In truth, Dan was genuinely nice, handsome, responsible …

  “You are certifiably insane.”

  Jill sank into the chair’s thickness. “You’ll never guess what I saw on the highway.”

  “Don’t change the subject, Jill. How could you dump him?”

  “Turtles.”

  “What?”

  “A turtle migration or something. There they were crossing the highway, stopping traffic both ways. Ever tried to outmaneuver a turtle with a purpose?”

  “Are you falling apart?”

  “Of course not.” At the moment she hadn’t the energy. “And these two guys stopped traffic and started carrying them across, one by one.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, Shelly, I’m fine.” Jill toed the heel of her left shoe loose and slipped her foot out. “I’m getting into the bath.” She took off her other shoe and set them side by side against the chair.

  Shelly moaned. “How did he take it?”

  “No yelling, no tears, and no personal commitment.” Unless one considered a joint mortgage personal.

  “It hasn’t even been a year. Cops are slow in the personal commitment department. It’s a job hazard.”

  “Your cop isn’t.”

  “Well …”

  “Shelly.” Jill rubbed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We’re coming from two different worlds. What’s important to me is … incomprehensible to him.”

  “You mean God?”

  “My faith matters to me, Shelly. It’s who I am.” Not that Dan or Shelly had a clue what she meant by that.

  “You can work out that religious stuff together.”

  Jill bent a crick from her neck. “We agreed that he had his beliefs, or lack thereof, I had mine, and never the twain shall meet.”

  “If you’re talking poetry, I’m calling the police.”

  Jill smiled grimly. “Try Dan. He’d love a sympathetic ear.”

  “Can’t you just compromise?”

  Compromise. “I don’t see how.”

  “You can’t act like the ice queen and expect him to marry you.”

  Ice queen. Shelly had never been long on tact, but ice queen? Did refusing to sleep with Dan mean she was made of ice? She tried to reconcile that image with the hugs and kisses she poured out on the children, at personal risk. She wanted to love them, to teach and encourage them, to help them succeed. Ice queen. Is that how she seemed to Dan? To Shelly?

  “Jill, this is breaking my heart.”

  “I’m sorry. Just now mine’s a little shaky, too. Talk to you tomorrow.” Jill hung up the phone. It didn’t help that her best friend was married to Dan’s partner on the force. Get-togethers were bound to be jolly. At least for a while.

  She fought the sudden tears. Why should she cry? So Dan had been personable and caring … toa point. The point that ended where her limits began. Ice queen. Quite a long way from prom queen, Lord. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  Jill tipped her head back against the top of the chair and resisted the tears. Falling apart did no good. She should not have dated him in the first place, should have stayed friends and avoided this … heartache. But it was hard to withstand Shelly and Brett and Dan’s persuasion. Not to mention the loneliness that seeped in sometimes, causing brain lapse in areas where she knew better.

  It was nothing against Dan. He just wanted all the elements of a relationship without the legal and moral fetters of a covenant. Or the risk. She knew about risk.

  She sniffed and glanced down at the mail. Listlessly she lifted the top card, a reminder of the fifteen-year fund-raiser class reunion. If the girls could see me now …. She shook her head. How had things changed so much? She’d been on top of the world then, at the top of her class. Until Morgan …

  Jill dropped her face to her hands. Why did her thoughts go that direction every time she was vulnerable? It was fifteen years ago. For all she knew, Morgan Spencer was married with six kids. And he was hardly to blame for her problems.

  But she rolled to her side and curled her knees to her chest in the chair’s embrace as tears began to flow. No, no, no. Don’t think about it. Don’t add misery to misery. But the thoughts came anyway. What was she like? Was her hair blond, or dark like Morgan’s? It had been dark, but that was newborn hair. Were her eyes still blue, the deep Spencer blue, or gray like her own?

  Jill buried her face in the back of the chair and sobbed. She had to get control of this. It had been one awful mistake, and she’d done the best she could with it. She had made the right choice against all the opposition, all the pressure, all the pain. Her daughter was in the best place she could be, with parents who loved her. What more could she do? And Morgan …

  Jill drew a deep, racking breath. It had been right. It was the best I could do. She repeated the mantra until she could stop the tears; then she sat up and took the mail in her lap, forcing her mind elsewhere. She flipped through the envelopes. Junk, junk, utilities, junk. She dropped the stack without finishing and headed for the bathroom.

  Some of her best time was spent there, soaking in the oversized Jacuzzi tub, one amenity that had sold her on the townhouse. She started the water. Okay, so things weren’t always as she wanted them. That was her own fault. God had planned things better, but she had blown His plan. She couldn’t change that.

  She hung her sage green blouse and skirt on the hanger at the back of the door and climbed into the tub. Some things she could soak off. Others clung forever. She would spend the night trying to sleep, then go to work in the morning. At least her kids gave her purpose. And the challenges they faced beat anything she could complain about on a bad day.

  For a moment her thoughts went to Dan. What was he doing? Probably thinking of all the reasons he was glad to be rid of her. The ice queen.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Morgan maneuvered the white retro Thunderbird up the pass with enough torque and panache to satisfy his mood. The lofty sides of the mountain canyon supported a clear sapphire sky as he scaled the road between them, heading toward the ranch nestled brazenly at the base of one stony crag. Rick’s ranch. Rick and Noelle’s.

  It had been his swift ki
ck that had reunited his brother with the one woman who might have made things different in his own life. Noelle St. Claire … no, Spencer. Rick’s wife. Thanks to him. Well, partly.

  He expelled a sharp breath. He was happy for them. He could say that with honesty, except in those low moments when he’d rather not. Noelle was something special, and he’d imagined … Well, better not go there. He’d thought for a time she might be his salvation. But she had proved too fragile. Her own tragedy had almost destroyed her; what did she want with his?

  He turned up the CD playing the voice of Mephistopheles deceiving Beethoven in the contemporary rock opera by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The imaginary story of Beethoven’s last night on earth resonated. The devil coming to claim Beethoven’s soul struck a chord in Morgan—especially when Twist and Fate intervened, and Beethoven pleaded his case. Morgan might be damned, but he would have his say and hey—he might even talk his way past old Pete when his time came.

  He increased his speed around the bend. His new Thunderbird handled like a dream. Ah, the good life. And it was getting better. In the meantime, his little hiatus ought to hone him to go back in sharp. Mr. Problem-solver. Even at thirty-three he had a knack—Mom called it a gift—for seeing problems and finding solutions. On one of his first consultations he’d accepted stock as payment, and when the small floundering company soared to hitech fame and was purchased by IBM, Morgan’s name was made. Not to mention capital gains that nicely multiplied on their own.

  He slowed as he entered Juniper Falls, the sleepy mountain after-thought Rick called home, though the ranch was another two miles up the gravel road to the right. Morgan considered stopping at the Roaring Boar for a beer before heading up, but he shrugged and made his turn with enough scattered gravel to catch the eye of the man on the porch of the general store.

  He gave Rudy a wave, which was returned heartily. One thing about Juniper Falls, the people were friendly … and they knew him. Everyone knew everyone. You couldn’t lose yourself here like you could in the city. That’s why Morgan came. Once in a while, he liked to be real.