Down River Part 17

Grantham sat back down. "What do you do in New York, Mr. Chase?"

"That is none of your business," I said.

"If I contact the authorities in New York, what will they tell me about you?"

I looked away.

"What brings you back to Rowan County?"

"None of your business," I said. "The answer to every question you ask, except may we call you a cab, is 'none of your business.'"

"You're not helping yourself, Mr. Chase."

"You should be investigating the people that want my father to sell, the ones making threats. That's what Grace's a.s.sault is really about. Why, in the name of G.o.d, are you wasting your time with me?"

Grantham flicked a glance at Robin. His lips drew down. "I was not aware that you knew about that," he said.

Robin spoke quickly. "It was my call," she said. "They had a right to know."

Grantham pinned Robin with those washed-out eyes, and his anger was unmistakable. She'd stepped over a line, but refused to waver. Her head was up, eyes unblinking. He returned his attention to me, but I knew that the matter was not closed. "Can I a.s.sume that everyone has this information now?" he asked.

"You can a.s.sume whatever you want," I said.

We stared at each other until Robin broke the silence. She spoke softly. "If there is anything else that you want to tell us, Adam, this is the time."

I thought of my reasons for returning and of the things that Grace had said to me. Then I thought of Robin, and of the pa.s.sion we'd known such a short time ago; her face above me in the half-light, the lie in her voice when she told me that it meant nothing; and I saw her at the farm, when she'd asked me to please step to the car, the way that she'd pushed our past down deep and draped herself in cop.

"My father was right," I said. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

I stood up.

"Adam..." she said But I walked out, walked to the hospital. I slipped past the nurse's station and found Grace's room. I was not supposed to be there, but sometimes you just know what's right. So I pa.s.sed through the dark crack of her door and pulled a chair close to her bed. She opened her eyes when I took her hand, and she returned the pressure that I gave her. I kissed her forehead, told her that I would stay the night; and when sleep reclaimed her, it left a trace of comfort on her face.

CHAPTER 15.

I woke at five and saw light glinting in her eyes. When she smiled, I could tell that it hurt. "Don't," I said, and leaned closer. A tear welled out of one eye. "Don't be sad."

She shook her head, the smallest movement. Her voice broke. "I'm not sad. I thought I was alone."

"No."

"I was crying because I was scared." She went rigid under the sheets. "I've never been scared to be alone."

"Grace..."

"I'm scared, Adam."

I stood and put my arms around her. She smelled of antiseptic, hospital detergent, and fear. Muscles clenched in her back, long hard straps; and her arms had strength that surprised me. She was so small under the sheet.

"I'm okay," she finally said.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

I sat back down. "Can I get you anything?"

"Just talk to me."

"Do you remember what happened?"

She moved her head on the pillow. "Just the sense of somebody stepping out from behind a tree; and something swinging at my face-a board, a club, something wooden. I remember falling through some bushes then being on the ground. A shape standing over me. Some kind of mask. The wood coming down again." She lifted her arms as if protecting her face, and I saw matching contusions on her forearms. Defensive wounds.

"Do you remember anything else?"

"A little bit of being carried home, of Dolf's face in the porch light, his voice. Being cold. A few minutes at the hospital. Seeing you there."

Her voice trailed away, and I knew where her mind had gone. "Tell me something good, Adam."

"It's over," I said, and she shook her head.

"That's just the absence of bad."

What could I tell her? What good had I seen since my return?

"I'm here for you. Whatever you need."

"Tell me something else. Anything."

I hesitated. "I saw a deer yesterday morning."

"Is that a good thing?"

The deer had been in my head all day. White ones were rare, exceptionally so. What were the odds of seeing two? Or of seeing the same one twice?

"I don't know," I said.

"I used to see a huge one," Grace said. "It was after the trial. I'd see him at night, on the lawn outside of my window."

"Was it white?" I asked.

"White?"

"Never mind." I was suddenly at a loss, back in time. "Thanks for coming to the trial," I said. She'd been there every day, a sunburned child in faded clothes. At first, my father had refused her the right to be there. Not proper, he'd said. And so she'd walked. Thirteen miles. After that, he'd surrendered.

"How could I not be there?" More tears. "Tell me something else good," she said.

I searched for something to give her. "You're all grown up," I finally said. "You're beautiful."

"Not that it matters," she said blackly, and I knew that she was thinking of what had happened between us at the river, after she'd run from the dock. I could still hear her words: I'm not as young as you think I am.

"You took me by surprise," I said. "That's all."

"Boys are so stupid," she said.

"I'm a grown man, Grace."

"And I'm not a child." Her voice was sharp, as if she'd cut me with it if she could.

"I just didn't know."

She rolled onto her side, showed me her back. And I saw it again, saw how badly I'd handled it.

She was barely into the trees before I knew that I had to go after her. She owned a corner of my soul that I'd learned to shy from; a locked place. Why? Because I'd left her. Knowing how it would hurt, I'd gone to a distant place and sent letters.

Empty words.

But I was here now. She was hurting now.

So I ran after her. For a few hard seconds she continued to fly, and the soles of her feet winked brown and pink, then dark red as the trail dipped and she hit damp clay. When she stopped, it was sudden. The bank dropped away beside her, and for an instant it looked like she might take to the river, like she might step left and drop away. But she did not, and the hunted-animal look faded from her eyes in seconds.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"For you to not hate me."

"Fine. I don't hate you."

"I want you to mean it."

She laughed and it cut, so that when she turned to leave, my hand settled on her shoulder. It was hard and hot, and she stopped when I touched her. She froze, then spun back to me, pressed into me like she could own me. Her hands found the back of my head and she kissed me hard, rocked her body against mine. Her bathing suit was still wet, and the water trapped in it had warmed; I felt it soaking into me.

I took her shoulders, pushed her back. Her face was full of defiance and of something else.

"I'm not as young as you think I am," she said.

I was undone yet again. "It's not age," I told her.

"I knew that you'd come back. If I loved you enough, you'd come back."

"You don't love me, Grace. Not like that."

"I've loved you my whole life. All I needed was the courage to tell you. Well, I'm not scared anymore. I'm not scared of anything."

"Grace-"

Her hands settled on my belt.

"I can show you, Adam."

I grabbed her hands, grabbed hard and pulled them away. It was all wrong. The words she'd said, the look growing on her face as my rejection sank into her. She tried one more time and I stopped her. She stumbled back. I watched her features collapse. She flung up a hand, then turned and ran, her feet flashing red, as if she was running over broken gla.s.s.

Her voice was small. It barely made it over her shoulder. "Did you tell anybody?" she asked.

"Of course not."

"You think I'm a silly girl."

"Grace, I love you more than anyone else in the world. What does it matter what shape the love is?"

"I think I'm ready to be alone now," she said.

"Don't make it like this, Grace."

"I'm tired. Come see me later."

I stood, and thought of embracing her again; but she was locked up. So I patted her on the arm, on a place unmarred by contusions, bandages, or needles placed under her skin.

"Get some rest," I told her, and she closed her eyes. But when I looked back in from the hallway, I saw that she was staring at the ceiling, and that her hands were clenched on the washed-out sheets.

I walked into the diffuse light of another dawn. I had no car, but there was a breakfast joint not too far away. It opened at six, and a couple of cars pulled around back after I'd been waiting a few minutes for the place to open. A metal door slammed against the cinderblock wall, someone kicked a bottle that clattered over concrete. Lights came on and sausage fingers flipped the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

I took a booth by the window and waited for the smell of coffee. The waitress came over after a minute, and the ready smile slid off of her face.

She remembered me.

She took my order, and I kept my eyes on the plaid sleeve of her polyester shirt. It was easier for both of us that way. The old man with the fat fingers recognized me, too. They spoke in whispers by the cash register, and it was clear to me that accused was the same as convicted, even after five years.

The place filled up as I ate: blue-collar, white-collar, a little bit of everything. Most of them knew who I was. None of them spoke to me, and I wondered how much of that came from mixed feelings over my father's stubbornness and how much came from the belief that I was some kind of monster. I turned on my cell phone, and saw that I had missed three calls from Robin.

The waitress shuffled over and stopped as far away as she could without being obvious. "Anything else?" she asked. I told her no. "Your check," she said, and put it on the table's edge. She used her middle finger to push it toward me.

"Thanks," I said, pretending that I'd not just been flipped off.

"Anytime."

I sat longer, sipping the last of the coffee, and watched a police cruiser pull up to the curb. George Tallman climbed out of it. He dropped some change into a newspaper machine, then looked up and saw me through the gla.s.s. I gave him a wave. He nodded back, then made a call from his cell phone. When he came into the restaurant, he slipped into my booth and put his paper on the table. He held out his hand and I shook it.

"Who'd you call?" I asked.

"Your dad. He asked me to keep an eye out." He raised an arm to get the waitress's attention. He ordered a ma.s.sive breakfast and gestured at my empty coffee cup. "More?" he asked.

"Sure."