“Rach,” I said. I stopped walking.
She paused and looked back to where I stood.
“What happened to us?”
“We’ve talked about this before.”
“Have we?”
“You know we have,” she said. “I thought I could handle you, and what you did, but perhaps I was wrong. Something in me responded to it, the part of me that was angry and hurt, but in you it’s so great that it frightens me. And-”
I waited.
“When I returned to the house, that time in May when we-I don’t want to say ‘when we got back together,’ because it didn’t last long enough for that-lived together again, I realized how much I hated being there. I didn’t notice it until I went away and came back, but there’s something wrong with that place. I find it hard to explain. I don’t think I’ve ever tried, not aloud, but I know there are things that you haven’t told me. I’ve heard you sometimes, crying out names in your dreams. I’ve seen you walking through the house half-asleep, carrying on conversations with people that I can’t see, but I know who they are. I’ve watched you, when you think you’re alone, responding to something in the shadows.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Hell, I even saw the dog do it. You have him freaked out too. I don’t believe in ghosts. Maybe that’s why I don’t see them. I think they come from within, not beyond. People create them. All that stuff about spirits with unfinished business, individuals taken before their time haunting places, I don’t believe any of it. It’s the living who have unfinished business, who can’t let the past go. Your house-and it is your house-is haunted. Its ghosts are your ghosts. You brought them into being, and you can get rid of them too. Until you do, nobody else can be part of your life, because the demons in your head and the spirits in your heart will force them away. Do you understand? I know what you’ve been going through all of these years. I waited for you to tell me, but you couldn’t. Sometimes, I think it’s because you were afraid that by telling me you’d have to let them go, and you don’t want to let them go. They fuel that rage within you. That’s why you look at this man Merrick and feel pity for him, and more than that: you feel empathy.”
Her face changed, the tone of her voice transforming with it, and her cheeks flushed red with anger.
“Well, be sure that you look closely at him, because that’s what you’ll become if all of this doesn’t stop: an empty vessel motivated by hatred and revenge and frustrated love. In the end, we’re not apart just because I’m afraid for Sam and myself, or scared for you and for what might happen to all of us as a consequence of your work. I’m frightened of you, of the fact that part of you is drawn to evil and pain and wretchedness, that the anger and hurt that you feel will always need to be fed. It will never end. You talk of Merrick as a man unable to forgive. Well, you can’t forgive either. You can’t forgive yourself for not being there to protect your wife and child, and you can’t forgive them for dying on you. And maybe I thought that that might change, that having us in your life would enable you to heal a little, to find some peace with us, but there will be no peace. You want it, but you can’t bring yourself to embrace it. You just-”
She was starting to cry now. I moved to her, but she stepped away.
“No,” she said softly. “Please don’t.”
She walked away, and I let her go.
Chapter XVII
Eldritch arrived in Maine early on Monday morning, accompanied by a younger man who had the distracted yet slightly desperate air of an alcoholic who has forgotten where the bottle is hidden. Eldritch allowed his companion to make all of the running in petitioning the judge, contributing only a few words on behalf of his client at the end of the submission, his soft, reasonable tones conveying the impression that his client was a peace-loving man whose actions, born out of a concern for the well-being of his lost child, had been cruelly misinterpreted by an uncaring world. Nevertheless, he gave a promise on Merrick’s behalf, for Merrick did not speak, to adhere to all conditions of the court order about to be served, and requested, with all due deference, that his client be released forthwith.
The judge, whose name was Nola Hight, was no fool. In her fifteen years at the bench she had heard just about every excuse known to man, and she wasn’t about to take Eldritch at face value.
“Your client spent ten years in jail for attempted murder, Mr. Eldritch,” she said.
“Aggravated assault, Your Honor,” Eldritch’s young assistant corrected. Judge Hight glared at him so hard his hair started to singe.
“With respect, Your Honor, I’m not sure that is relevant to the matter before the court,” said Eldritch, attempting to smooth the judge’s ruffled feathers through tone alone. “My client served his time for that offense. He is a changed man, chastened by his experiences.”
Judge Hight gave Eldritch a look that would have reduced a lesser man to charred flesh. Eldritch merely wavered where he stood, as though his brittle form had been briefly buffeted by a gentle breeze.
“He will be chastened for the maximum term allowable under law if he comes before this court again in connection with the matter in hand,” she said. “Am I making myself clear, counsel?”
“Indisputably,” said Eldritch. “Your Honor is as reasonable as she is wise.”
Judge Hight debated finding him in contempt of court for sarcasm, then gave up.
“Get the hell out of my courtroom,” she said.
It was still early, barely after ten. Merrick was due for release at eleven, once his paperwork had been processed. When they let him out of the Cumberland County lockup, I was waiting, and I served him with the court order forbidding further contact with Rebecca Clay on pain of imprisonment and/or a fine. He took it, read it carefully, then slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. He looked crumpled and tired, the way most people did after a couple of nights in a cell.
“That was low, what you did,” he said.
“You mean setting the cops on you? You were terrorizing a young woman. That also seems kind of low. You need to reconsider your standards. They’re all screwed up.”
He might have heard me, but he wasn’t really listening. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at a spot somewhere over my right shoulder, letting me know that I wasn’t even worthy of eye contact.
“Men ought to deal with each other like men,” he continued, red rising into his face as though he were being boiled from below. “You set the hounds on me when all I wanted to do was talk. You and missy both, you got no honor.”
“Let me buy you breakfast,” I said. “Maybe we can work something out.”
Merrick waved a hand in dismissal.
“Keep your breakfast and your talk. The time for talking with you is done.”
“You may not believe this, but I have some sympathy for you,” I said. “You want to find out what happened to your daughter. I know what that feels like. If I can help you, then I will, but scaring Rebecca Clay isn’t the way to go about it. If you approach her again, you’ll be picked up and put back behind bars: the Cumberland County lockup if you’re lucky, but Warren if you’re not. That could be another year out of your life, another year spent not getting any closer to finding out the truth about your daughter’s disappearance.”
Merrick looked at me for the first time since we’d begun talking.
“I’m done with the Clay woman,” he said. “But I ain’t done with you. I’ll give you some advice, though, in return for what you just gave me. Stay out of this, and maybe I’ll be merciful the next time our paths cross.”
With that he pushed past me and began walking toward the bus station. He looked smaller than before, his shoulders slightly hunched, his jeans stained from his time behind bars. Once again, I felt pity for him. Despite all that I knew about him, and all that he was suspected of doing, he was still a father seeking his lost child. Perhaps it was all he had left, but I knew the damage that could be caused by that kind of single-minded intensity. I knew because I had once wrought it myself. Rebecca Clay might be safe from him, at least for the present, but Merrick was not going to stop. He would keep looking until he found out the truth, or until someone forced him to desist. Either way, it could only end with a death.