Hell to pay, p.27
Hell to Pay, page 27
You’ve got money, you’re got a child, you’ve got a house he would lose in a divorce, she thought. What else do you have that Jeremy would want?
But why go to the great length of making her doubt her own sanity? So she would kill herself, absolving him of any blame for her death? And why would the others be involved?
She understood then what real paranoia was, and what it felt like.
She looked up, leaving her thoughts just long enough to see a car pulling out at the corner. It was a dangerous curve, with difficult sight lines. Cars often didn’t see oncoming traffic.
Laurel slammed on her brakes, and leaned on her horn.
“Asshole!” she shouted, as the car continued pulling out in front of her as if she weren’t there. The man driving didn’t look at her as he drove away into the distance.
Isabel’s cry turned to a howl.
“Let’s get you home,” Laurel said, making a great effort to calm herself. None of this was the baby’s fault; she knew better than to let her own distress affect her daughter. Sometimes it was inevitable—and she wondered how Isabel had dealt with Mommy being away for an extended stay in the asylum, which it was and which she was not supposed to call it.
She made sure the road was clear, then drove on toward home, keeping her speed and her emotions in check.
TWENTY-TWO
LAUREL HAD NOT INTENDED TO fall asleep. She’d been so agitated by what had happened the past few days, and everything she had learned, that sleep seemed an impossibility. And yet, she was exhausted. Bone-tired and hungry, as well. Her rush to the bathroom at the market, with her loss of the little she’d eaten that day, had left her famished and drained. Within minutes after getting home she had put Isabel in her crib, made a sandwich she devoured without so much as sitting down, and then crawled into bed with the intention of resting her mind a few minutes. She woke up two hours later.
The nap did much to clear her mind. It had been free of dreams—no dogs, no screams, no Beth walking toward her on the road, pleading for her to stop the car—and her mind wasn’t nearly as chaotic as it had been.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, she thought, taking time to stay in bed with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. There must be logical explanations for all of this. This is not a paranoid delusion!
She wondered what else it could be. If no one was out to make her believe what was not true, that left only the conclusion that it had happened! She had miscarried. She had suffered a breakdown. She had been institutionalized—there really was no other word for it—and she had forgotten absolutely everything about it.
You’re not crazy, Laurel, she told herself, thinking much more clearly after sleeping. She considered taking Isabel, a suitcase with a few clothes and toiletries in it, and running away. When she was honest with herself, she had to admit it was not the first time she’d thought it. She and Jeremy had endured their share of rough spots. Any relationship that lasted as long as theirs had would inevitably hit a rocky patch or two. The last time their marriage had been strained, after moving to New Jersey when she was writing full-time and he was looking for work, she had wondered—oh so quietly, just at the edges of conscious thought—if their lives would be better apart. If her life would be better apart. But then he’d found his job in Philadelphia. Her book had become a surprise success, no matter how reassuring Dotty had been. And not long after that she’d gotten pregnant.
Twice, Laurel, if what he told you was true.
One child lost, one child waiting in the nursery.
As soon as Isabel was in the picture, thoughts of leaving Jeremy had vanished. No separation, no divorce, no running away. They were a family of three, each of them integral to the whole, and only now that she’d been given all this frightening information, this believe-it-or-not story about a breakdown someone else had, some other Laurel, was she thinking again of leaving.
Fleeing, is more like it, she thought.
But where would she go? Back to New York? She’d never considered it an appropriate place to raise a child, and since they’d left it had become more dangerous, less attractive. Every week someone was getting pushed in front of a subway or randomly stabbed on their lunch hour. Philadelphia was out—Jeremy worked there, and as much as she enjoyed visiting the city from time to time, it was still an urban landscape. She’d gotten used to being among trees, and watching out for deer when she drove down the road. Life in a place like Strickland was not ideal, but it meant being in and around nature. Laurel loved that. She loved writing at her desk in the morning, glancing out the window and seeing woods.
Thwack.
Woods thick with trees.
Thwack.
And among the trees … a woodsman.
It was another thought that seemed as if it had been planted in her mind. Another memory? She took a deep breath and got out of bed. Her resolve felt stiffened. If she needed to escape, if that was the right word for it, she would make sure she had the opportunity. It was a last resort, a final option. Until then, she was determined to find out the truth—about her own experience, about the people around her, and about the town of Strickland.
PART II
The Fine Print
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT TWO DAYS WERE jarringly normal. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Laurel began to question her own hold on reality. Jeremy went to work, Jeremy came home. Isabel slept, Isabel woke up. She had no writing to do, having sent the manuscript off to Dotty, so she began to make notes for a fourth book.
A fourth book, she thought. Is this beyond your wildest dreams?
She’d finished her writing for the morning, such as it was, and she was cleaning the kitchen. Isabel was in the dining room, just through the door. Laurel didn’t want the child exposed to the fumes from the environmentally-friendly cleaning supplies she used, so she always kept the baby away from even a whiff of chemicals.
Who says these chemicals are safe? The people who make them, of course! But are they lying? Everybody lies.
She chastised herself for thinking it. Was she becoming cynical? Would she ever really trust anyone again?
She was scrubbing the sink she when heard it.
Thwack.
That sound again, the one she’d heard only in her mind. She glanced up, staring out the window.
Thwack.
It was a familiar sound, yet unidentifiable.
Thwack.
She stared harder, trying to see into the trees. The new house wasn’t in the same kind of dense wooded area their first house had been, but there were still plenty of trees and brush beyond the yard. Laurel leaned up, cranked the window open as far as it could go, and listened.
And listened again.
She waited for a good half-minute, thinking that whatever it was, whoever it was, had stopped. And then …
Thwack.
She jumped back. She knew that sound. It was an axe hitting a tree. But like the bark of a dog where there were no dogs, she didn’t know how she recognized it.
There once was a woodsman named Joe …
She cocked her head, trying to remember.
Who came from some place you must go …
She felt herself getting dizzy.
It’s perfectly clear woodsman Joe has come here …
to collect on a debt that you owe.
She dropped the sponge she’d been using. It bounced off the counter and onto the floor. She grabbed a dishtowel and quickly wiped her hands.
“I’ll be right back, Baby,” she called out.
She tossed the towel on the kitchen table and hurried for the door. Opening it, she nearly screamed.
“Are you okay, Dear?” Eileen said.
The old woman was standing just outside, holding a baking dish covered in tin foil.
“You scared me!” Laurel said.
“Evidently,” replied Eileen. “I’m so sorry. I was about to knock when you came flying out! At least it seems that’s what you’re doing. Do you need to go somewhere?”
Laurel forced herself to stop, but she did not step aside to let Eileen into the house.
“I heard something,” she said.
“We’re in nature, there are lots of things to hear.”
“Someone chopping wood,” Laurel said. “Or cutting down a tree.”
Eileen smiled, and it sent a shiver through Laurel.
“It could be Joe.”
There once was a woodsman named Joe …
“Who is that?”
“I’m sorry, I assumed you’d met him.”
Who came from some place you must go …
“Well, I haven’t,” said Laurel. “And frankly I don’t want to.”
“He’s the best woodsman around. Everyone uses him.”
“We don’t,” Laurel said sharply. “Our trees are just fine. They fall down sometimes with the heavy storms, but that’s about it.”
“Joe can take care of that for you—the fallen trees, I mean. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s who Jeremy hires when he needs that kind of thing.”
Laurel cursed herself for not having paid attention to those details. They lost at least one tree every time there was a major storm, especially with the insect-caused ash disease that had killed entire groves. Jeremy had taken care of having the trees removed, but she had paid it no mind. Jeremy had discovered his not-so-inner tough guy, that bit of country swagger he’d developed after trading Manhattan for a rural existence, and he enjoyed doing all the things he considered manly. He wasn’t quite ready to wield an axe, but he hired someone to to it, and he probably stood there watching them while he took notes.
It’s perfectly clear woodsman Joe has come here …
to collect on a debt that you owe.
“I don’t owe him anything,” Laurel said, still standing in the doorway.
“Excuse me?” said Eileen. “You don’t owe who anything?”
“No one, I’m just thinking out loud. By the way, did you know my uncle Frank’s grandparents? His last name is Troy. He’s my Uncle Martin’s partner. His parents left Strickland when he was a child, but his grandparents stayed here.”
Eileen scrunched up her facing, thinking. “Troy … Troy … Were they the ones on Old Tavern Road?”
“I have no idea.”
“You say he grew up here?”
“No, that’s not what he told me. He was a child, the family lived here, and his parents moved to Brooklyn. I didn’t ask him what any of their names were.”
Remembering suddenly, Eileen said, “Oh, yes! Dana and Carol Troy. You don’t meet too many men named Dana. I remember them well. But they kept to themselves …”
Like everyone in this town except you, thought Laurel.
“I do remember them. They’ve been gone awhile.”
“Gone as in dead?”
“Yes, Dear. Long gone—dead. They’re buried in the cemetery. Would you like the see the headstones?”
“I didn’t know there was a cemetery in Strickland.”
“There isn’t,” replied Eileen. “It’s out of town a little ways, where the first settlers lived.”
“I thought Strickland … by the river. The boats and the travelers and all that.”
What little information Laurel had found out about the town included its origins as a highly trafficked crossing from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
“That came later,” said Eileen.
“Later than what?”
Eileen looked up at her a moment. “The first people—the first Stricklanders—were a small, tight-knit group. They’d been persecuted, so they wandered a bit and finally found a place to call home.”
“Here.”
“Yes, Dear, here.”
“What were they persecuted for?” asked Laurel.
Eileen shrugged. “Being different, that’s all. Nothing seems to have changed, does it? When you’re not like everyone else, some people don’t like you. Once they started dying, as everyone does, they built a small cemetery … away from prying eyes.”
“And where is that?”
“In the woods.”
Of course it is, thought Laurel. Everything seems to be in the woods.
“I’ll pass on the headstones,” Laurel said. “What did you need, Eileen?”
Eileen frowned. It was clear she would not be invited into the house. She held out the baking dish.
“I brought you some leftover meatloaf with mashed potatoes. It’s Pete’s favorite dinner, but I always make too much of it.”
“Why don’t you freeze it?” Laurel asked coolly, making no effort to take the dish.
“It ruins the taste. I don’t freeze anything that isn’t raw.”
Body parts? Laurel wondered.
“Lots of deer meat.”
You and woodsman Joe, chopping up the neighbors.
“I keep offering you some.”
“No thanks. I’ve almost hit about a hundred of them,” Laurel said, referring to the near-collisions that were common living in a place like Strickland. Deer had a habit of running across the road just as a car was barreling toward them.
She realized the only way she was going to get rid of Eileen was to accept the leftovers. She reached out and took the dish.
Eileen leaned over and glanced into the house. “No baby Isabel I can give a kiss to?”
“She’s sleeping,” Laurel said, hoping Isabel wouldn’t cry out and make a liar out of her.
“Maybe next time.”
“Maybe.”
Eileen stepped back from the door. She glanced out at the trees. “I haven’t heard anything this morning, and I always know when Joe’s around. You can’t mistake the chopping.”
“No, you can’t,” said Laurel.
“It’s better than a chainsaw.”
“For what?”
“For cutting the trees down,” Eileen replied, as if it had been a silly question. “Most people use chainsaws. It’s very jarring to hear that, it disturbs the peace. Don’t you think?”
“I’d be happy not to hear either, “Laurel said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of cleaning. Thanks so much for this, Jeremy will love it—and I don’t have to cook tonight!”
“I’m so happy about that. Let me know if you want the recipe.”
Eileen headed back down the driveway. She’d parked her car in the road, which explained why Laurel hadn’t heard her pull up.
She didn’t want you to hear her.
Laurel waved as Eileen got into the driver’s seat.
Let me know if you want the recipe.
Laurel closed the door. She took the baking dish, walked over to the trash can and dumped the food in. She would never again eat, or drink, or inhale anything Eileen gave her.
She set the dish into the dishwasher and had just closed it when the phone rang.
TWENTY-FOUR
LAUREL RECOGNIZED THE NUMBER ON caller ID. She was still wiping her hands on a dish towel when she answered, expecting to hear Dotty’s voice.
“Dotty?” she said.
“No, it’s Anthony,” came the reply. Anthony was Dotty’s assistant and had been with the agency for a decade, working his way up from receptionist to junior literary agent. He was fiercely loyal to Dotty, and had remained with the boutique agency as he grew from a young man in his twenties to a thirty-something father, married to his husband Colin with a second child set for adoption.
“Anthony, what a nice surprise,” Laurel said.
“I wish I could say the same,” he replied, and Laurel heard a crack in his voice. Had he been crying?
“What’s going on?” she asked, setting the towel down on a counter. They’d kept a landline because the wireless service in Strickland was spotty. They’d wanted to be sure they could be reached, and that any emergency could be responded to with a phone call. Having a child made being accessible that much more important.
“Dotty’s dead,” said Anthony, his voice giving way to full-on crying.
It was the sort of declaration so shocking it sounded as if he’d said something else, anything else. She could ask if she’d heard him correctly, but she knew she had.
“How is that possible?” Laurel asked. It was all she could think to say at that moment.
Anthony responded with more crying.
“Take your time.”
She heard him inhale deeply, calming himself.
“She was hit by a car,” he said.
“Where, Anthony? In front of the agency? Her home?”
“The Village, around eight o’clock.”
Talk to that psychic of yours in the Village.
“What was she doing down there?” Laurel asked.
“I don’t know.”
Ask her what she knows about Strickland.
“Was she having dinner? On a date?”
“I said I don’t know,” Anthony snapped.
“I’m sorry. I’m just in shock.”
“Everyone is,” said Anthony. “Chelsea Literary is very small, you know that. I’m forcing myself to contact all the authors.”
It suddenly occurred to Laurel that she was now a writer without an agent. It was a thought she couldn’t help having, one that made her flush with shame. Dotty was more than her representative—she was her friend, her mentor, her support.
“I appreciate you letting me know,” Laurel said. “Could you do me one favor while we’re on the phone?”
“Please don’t tell me you want the name of another agent,” Anthony said, and he laughed slightly. It had been a weak attempt to lessen the heaviness.
“Of course not,” replied Laurel. “I’d like to know if you have some contact information.”
“For whom?”
“For …” Laurel hesitated, wondering if she could really ask for this under the circumstances. But could she afford to wait? She decided she could not. “Her psychic, the woman she said was more important to her than a masseur.”
