Текст книги "Water Walker"

Автор книги: Ted Dekker

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

20

I CAN’T rightly describe the darkness that swallowed me in the day and a half following Kathryn’s punishment.

A small voice somewhere in the back of my mind kept telling me to repent. Kathryn had endlessly drilled the idea into me over the years. I needed to change my behavior and be more pure.

Repent, Eden. Repent.

Change your behavior. Breathe and let it go. Just do what’s expected of you and all would be fine. After all, weren’t you reasonably content when you didn’t rock the boat?

Wasn’t life bearable before you decided to step out of the boat?

But the voices of offense screaming through my head made that tiny whisper nothing more than an absurdity. And hadn’t my dreams of Outlaw shown me that I was my own person who didn’t need to suffer my fears?

A shift had occurred in my psyche. I know what had happened—I’d run through it a hundred times as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling with a fixed jaw. I was finally seeing the light. The dam that had held back a lake of dark waters had finally collapsed and truth was pouring out, like a torrential waterfall. Why walk on the waters of that lake? Better to drain it. Why?

Because I was being abused, that’s why.

Because I was the victim of a monster, that’s why.

Because I was a prisoner in my own room, but Kathryn might as well have put me in a dungeon deep under the house, hidden away from the rest of the world. I was nothing more than her slave, her precious lamb, her sacrificial offering to be used for her gain.

Five years of being abused had secretly filled me with an ocean of bitterness and anger and it was all gushing out, fueled by the realization that I was right.

She’d walked in shortly after I’d stood up to her on Monday and she’d announced her rules as only Mother could, with complete sincerity and conviction, fully embracing her own delusion. Odd, how it was all so plain to me after so many years of living in deception. Someone had turned on the light and I could see everything clearly for the first time. I’d been blind, but now I could see.

Kathryn was insane, if not naturally, then in Zeke’s manipulative grasp. I knew it as she hacked off my hair. As she laid down her list of rules: No eating, no speaking, no washing, ho hair, no leaving my room. No boys, ever. A year, she’d said, and to me that was forever.

True to her word, Kathryn had delivered only water to my room, three times in a large pitcher since issuing my new sentence. I hadn’t seen Wyatt or Bobby, and I hadn’t bothered to face my mother when she’d come in with the water, which she left on the floor by the door next to a pot in which I relieved myself.

I was in prison forever. My room was my eternal hell and I hated it as much as I hated my mother. I hated her for hacking off my hair and making me ugly. I hated her for kidnapping me five years earlier. I hated her for being so weak. I hated her for burning my dolls.

You don’t hate her, Eden.

But I did. And that hatred only seemed to grow with each passing hour. I even gave up praying. Had God ever heard me before? I had said the sinner’s prayer and begged his forgiveness and sworn my allegiance over and over, thousands of times over the years. I had made myself pure and followed his servant’s every rule, and committed myself fully to being pure and where had it put me?

In hell. God, my Father in heaven, was either angry with me or didn’t care, or he was deaf. This after I’d done everything asked of me.

Everything!

If she thought I would cave in and play her insane game, she had another thing coming. Her punishment had backfired.

By Tuesday evening, my grievance toward her was so great, I thought I might die of anger, lying right there on my bed. She wanted to starve me, right? Well I would do one better. I would just die of rage. Her perfect, sacrificial lamb would pay the ultimate price to save them all from their miserable hells.

That’s when I decided I would run away. Yes, I know that I’d decided the same thing five years earlier and then rejected it for Bobby’s sake, but I decided it again, and this time I knew how I would do it.

By the time Kathryn came in with my pitcher of night water Tuesday night, it was all I could think about.

“Good night, sweetheart,” she said.

They were her first words to me in a day and a half, spoken with empathy, as if trying to seduce me into feeling guilty. She wasn’t going to succeed. But I wanted to give her some hope so she would sleep while I escaped.

“Good night,” I said, not bothering to turn to her.

A moment later I heard the door close.

I was an adult now and I was going to be free. And I was going to be free that very night. Nothing else mattered to me anymore. I was going, I was going, I was going, and that was that.

But I had to be smart or I was going nowhere. And I had to take Bobby with me.

The next six hours crawled by like a snail inching across my wall. Only after the house had been completely quiet for two hours did I slowly crawl out of bed and stand up.

Even then I waited for several long minutes, listening for any sound. The house remained silent.

Desperately hoping that I was the only one awake, I crept to the door, still dressed in my bed clothes. I didn’t want to risk any more movement than I needed, and proper dress wasn’t important. Only getting away was. Once I reached the police, I could worry about clothes.

I cracked the door open, listened for another second. If Kathryn woke up and caught me now, I would tell her that I was going to get her to beg her forgiveness—that’s what I’d worked out. Once outside that excuse wouldn’t work.

Heart thumping in my ears, I sneaked into the hall on my tiptoes, then crossed to Bobby’s room.

His door creaked when I opened it, but only one squeak, and no one called out. I eased the door shut and listened again.

Okay . . . Okay, you can do this, Eden. You have to do this.

Bobby snored softly in his bed, mouth ajar, neck stretched at an odd angle. I bent over and gently tapped his shoulder.

He snored on, lost in his dreams. So I shook him and this time his eyes snapped wide.

“Sh . . .” I held a finger to my mouth.

“Eden?”

He’d said it aloud, albeit in a soft voice. I clamped my hand over his mouth, twisting toward the closed door. No sign he’d been heard.

I spun back to Bobby. “Sh, sh, sh . . . Don’t say anything.”

His round eyes stared up at me, but he remained silent.

“Come with me outside,” I whispered. “But don’t make any sound, okay?”

“Outside?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going outside?”

“Yes. But we have to sneak out or the alligators will hear us coming.”

“We’re going to hunt alligators?” His eyes brightened.

“Sh . . . You have to whisper. It’s a special mission. Just come with me. Walk on your tiptoes, okay?”

He jerked up enthusiastically—this was Bobby’s way, throwing himself into any adventure with all of his heart.

“Sh . . . Slowly, Bobby. We can’t make a sound.”

He looked at the door, the floor, then up into my eyes. “I can walk like a ghost,” he said.

“Good. Like a ghost. Come on.”

I crossed to the door, eased it ever so slowly open, poked my head out into the hall, and, seeing no one, waved Bobby forward.

He crept past me, walking on his tiptoes, bent over and intent. Glanced back at me once out in the hall. I nodded and motioned him on. Then followed him out into the living room, to the front door, where I stopped him.

We were making it! There was no sound, no sign at all that Kathryn had woken up.

But it was there that the first hitch presented itself. Next to the door, the nail from which Wyatt’s truck keys typically hung was bare. My heart lurched.

I spun toward the kitchen counter. Nothing. The table, the coffee table—there was no sign of the keys that I could see by the dim moonlight. And I didn’t dare turn on any lights.

My pulse was racing and I couldn’t think straight. I’d been sure that Kathryn wouldn’t feel the need to hide the keys—I didn’t know how to drive. Maybe Wyatt had inadvertently left them somewhere else. Or maybe Kathryn had thought ahead of me.

“Do you need a gun?” Bobby whispered, leaning close.

“No. I need the keys to Wyatt’s truck.”

He looked around. “Wyatt’s going with—”

I put a finger on his lips and hushed him, hopes dashed. “We have to find the keys!”

The thought of remaining in that house even one more minute was too much for me to bear. I had to get out.

I pulled Bobby forward, carefully unlocked and opened the front door, and quietly stepped out onto the front porch. Bobby followed me, down the steps and out onto the driveway. We were out.

But we didn’t have the keys.

“Is Wyatt hunting alligators too?” Bobby said.

“Sh! No one can hear us.”

“Sorry, Eden.”

“No . . . No, Wyatt’s not coming. We have to go into town.”

“Into town?” His eyes were as round as the moon. “How are we going into town?”

“With the truck.”

“You know how to drive the truck?”

“No. But you do, Bobby.”

Bobby had bragged on numerous occasions that Wyatt was giving him lessons on how to drive. I knew that these lessons consisted of nothing more than talking as they drove around, but that was far more instruction than I had. Our trip to sign the papers at the lawyer’s office had been my first drive in any vehicle since coming.

“I do?” Bobby said.

“I’ve never watched Wyatt, but you have. You’re going to tell me how.”

“I am?”

“Yes. But we need the keys.”

“I don’t have the keys.”

My mind raced. Where could he have put the keys? In the bedroom? If so, I would be hard pressed to get to them. Maybe he had an extra one somewhere.

“Does he keep a key in the truck?”

Bobby looked in the direction of the old truck, fifty yards from us, near the shack. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“How about in the shed? Or in the still house?”

He shrugged, doing that flicking thing he did with his thumb and forefinger. “We can ask Wyatt,” he said.

“No. Wyatt can’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is a surprise.”

My mind was racing. Trying to drive the truck was going to be hard enough, but walking out would be nearly impossible. The dogs would give us away or attack us. If Kathryn discovered me now things would get even worse.

“We have to find the keys!” I snapped, now near a panic.

A plop at my feet startled and I spun, immediately thinking: frog or snake. But it wasn’t a reptile. It was Wyatt’s truck keys. Right there, on the ground a yard from me. How . . .

I spun back to the porch and saw how. Wyatt stood on the porch, watching us. A chill washed over me. We were caught! At any moment Kathryn would fill the open doorway behind him, wearing a scowl.

Only then did I realize that Wyatt didn’t appear to be upset. He stared at me, wearing a sad face, arms loose at his sides. For several long seconds, neither of us moved.

He wasn’t trying to stop me. And he’d just thrown us the keys.

With a single nod, he suddenly turned, stepped back into the house, and closed the door behind him.

I stared up at the porch, stunned by what I’d just seen. He was helping me. In his own way, he was telling me to leave. He didn’t have the courage to actually drive me away and he had to get back to bed before Kathryn woke up, but he was doing his best to help me, even if it meant that everything might go badly for him. At least this way, he could say I must have found the keys and gone on my own. That would be harder if he got caught helping us.

Either way he was helping me and that froze me up. How could I do this to Wyatt? If I went to the police, they might send him to prison—that’s what Mother had said.

Run, Eden. Run now!

I bent down, scooped up the keys, and ran. “Hurry!” I whispered.

Bobby tore after me, stumbling with an uneasy gait.

I reached the truck, threw the door open and jumped into the front seat, with Bobby panting by my left side, staring in through the open door. Now what?

“Get in, Bobby! The other side.”

I glanced back at the house as he hurried around the front of the truck. The porch was empty. But if Kathryn had woken, she would be out any moment.

Bobby slid into the front seat next to me.

I searched eagerly for the key hole in the darkness. “Where does it go?”

“There!” Bobby pointed a stubby finger at the column under the steering wheel.

Now . . . I wasn’t totally clueless as to how vehicles worked, naturally. I had six months of memory before being taken by Wyatt—but I was too young and too busy learning other things to have paid much attention to the precise mechanics of driving. And trucks weren’t the same as cars.

But I had some general ideas. Like inserting a key and twisting it to start the engine.

So that’s what I did.

The motor cranked and the truck lurched forward and I let out a little yelp.

“You have to push the clutch in,” Bobby said excitedly, pointing to the floor.

I stared at the three pedals at my feet, all within fairly easy reach.

“The clutch? Which one?”

“That one,” he fairly yelled.

“Not so loud, Bobby!” I whispered.

“Sorry. That one.”

I put my left foot on “that one” and pressed it to the floor.

“Now start it?”

“Yes.”

This time the engine cranked over a couple times and rumbled to life. Beside me, Bobby beamed, as if he himself had brought the truck to life. Ahead of me, the gravel driveway stretched into the night like a long gray snake.

“Now what?”

“Now you press the gas and go.”

“Which one?”

He hopped off the seat and reached down by my feet as if to do it by hand for himself. “This one!”

“Okay, get up, Bobby. You can’t help me down there!”

“That one!” he said, pointing and climbing up.

“Just press it? What about my left foot?”

“You have to let the clutch out. If you let it out too quick, it will stop.”

“That’s how you stop?”

“Yes. But you have to use the other brake to stop.”

I stared at him, deciphering his speech. Then at my feet. The third pedal was clearly the brake. I thought I had the general gist of it.

“Okay. Hold on.”

The truck did exactly what Bobby said it would on my first try. It jerked to a stop.

“You did it too quick,” Bobby said, smiling wide. To him, our night ride was only another grand adventure.

I tried again, and this time we started rolling forward and gained speed. Too much speed, I thought, and we were pointed at an angle that would take us into the swamp fifty yards ahead.

“What now! What now!”

“Now steer!” he said, pointing ahead. “You have to stay on the road. You have to steer.”

He grabbed the steering wheel to show me how.

“You have to—”

“Let go, Bobby!” He released his grip.

I turned the wheel back and forth and was rewarded with a redirecting of the truck. It came to me quickly and I managed to put it down the center of the road. But the engine was roaring loudly, far louder than I knew it should sound.

Only then did it occur to me that I had the gas pedal pushed all the way down, so I eased my foot off the pedal and we slowed.

“You have to turn on the lights,” Bobby said.

“Where?”

“Here.” He reached forward and pulled a switch. Light flooded the road in front of us.

For a few seconds, neither of spoke. We were driving. With the doors still wide open, and slowly, but down the road.

“We’re doing it,” I said.

“Eden’s driving!” he hooted.

“Is anyone behind us?”

Bobby turned and peered through the back window.

“No.”

We were getting away! There was still Zeke’s house up on the left and his dogs, but they couldn’t hurt us in the truck.

“Close your door, Bobby.”

We both did. And then we were driving down the middle of the road, away from Kathryn, toward civilization. Just like that. It had all seemed too easy. And yet . . . here we were. So maybe God had answered my prayers after all.

My plan was simple. I would drive out onto the main road, stop the first person we saw, and tell them to take me to the police. That’s all. And that was enough.

“You have to change gears to go faster,” Bobby said.

“I don’t want to go faster.”

“You’re in first gear.”

“First gear is fast enough.”

We drove like that, silent for a while, right up the road, right past Zeke’s house, right past the barking dogs who chased the truck for a little while before being left in our dust.

“You’re a good driver, Eden.”

“You’re a good teacher, Bobby.” I smiled.

“I don’t like the dogs,” he said.

“I don’t like them either. But they can’t hurt us now.”

We were going to make it. We were actually going to get away from the compound. A hundred thoughts crowded my mind. What about Wyatt? What would Kathryn do when she found out I’d escaped? How would I explain myself to the police? What if they didn’t believe my story? How much should I tell them? Where would Bobby and I live? How would I get the money? What would I do with the money?

Was what I was doing wrong?

I bit my fingernail and chased that last thought away as we rolled on, seemingly forever. Even if going was wrong, I would find a way to live with it, because I could no longer live as Mother’s precious lamb.

The road was long, as straight as an arrow, and, at this time of the night, empty except for us, which is exactly what I’d hoped.

And then suddenly it wasn’t straight; it came to an intersection directly ahead of us. And it wasn’t empty; there was another truck parked across the road, blocking that intersection. A dirty white truck with big, thick tires, covered in rust.

My heart jumped into my throat.

“That’s Claude’s truck,” Bobby said. He looked over at me. “Is he coming with us?”

“Who’s Claude?”

“He’s Zeke’s friend.”

I shifted my foot and slammed down the brake pedal. Our truck slid to a jerking stop and the engine died, less than twenty yards from Claude’s truck. Zeke’s friend, which meant he was here to stop us. I couldn’t breathe.

“You have to press the clutch,” Bobby said, pointing at the floorboard again.

I searched the road on either side of the truck, thinking through a full-fledged panic. There was room to get by on the right, maybe. I might scrape the other truck, but I might get by. I might still be able to find a way.

But before I could piece together the mechanics of restarting the truck and forcing it past Claude’s, a bright light filled the cab. It came through the back window and I knew before I twisted around that Zeke was behind us.

“Is Zeke going to help us?” Bobby asked, staring back.

No, I thought. No, Zeke’s going to hurt us.

21

I SAT frozen to stone in the truck next to Bobby, who stared wide-eyed at Zeke’s truck, then at the white truck in front of us. My veins were ice. My head throbbed. I couldn’t move.

But my mind was moving, filling me with images of Paul’s beaten face and Zeke’s dark glare. It didn’t stop to consider how they’d found out I was trying to escape, only that they had and now I was going to suffer the same fate as Paul, or worse. Surely worse.

And then my mind wasn’t so much thinking as commanding without thought, reacting out of pure survival instinct.

I grabbed at the key and twisted it hard. The truck jerked and I shoved down the clutch and twisted the key again. The engine tried to start and then fired and the moment that roar filled my ears, I slammed my foot down on the gas and released the clutch, twisting the wheel as far as I could to my right, because I had to get past that white truck, see?

I had to escape now or I was going die.

We surged forward, jerking, and I turned the wheel harder. The lights illuminated a deep ditch to the right of the white truck and it struck me that we might go straight into that ditch, so I yanked the wheel to the left a little, but by that time we had covered the distance to Claude’s truck—we were going to hit it!

Again without thinking through it, I pulled my foot off the gas and somehow managed to cram down the brake.

And then we smashed into the front of Claude’s truck and came to an abrupt halt.

The engine ticked and hissed.

“You hit Claude’s truck,” Bobby said.

The engine ground to a stop.

There were two men in Claude’s truck, both just looking back at me, uncaring it seemed, that I’d just hit them. I twisted back and looked at Zeke’s black truck, expecting to see his tall form stalking toward us. But no one got out—the truck just sat there like a demon panther, lights glaring.

For a few seconds nothing happened, but even that silence seemed to be screaming at me, telling me that I was nothing that could possibly threaten or escape from these men. I was only a slightly annoying gnat that could be easily crushed.

One of the men in the white truck lifted a cell phone to his ear, spoke for a few seconds, then put it away. He pushed open his door, climbed out and walked toward me.

Opened my door, grinning.

“It was a mistake, Claude,” Bobby said in a thin voice. “Are you going to hurt us?”

The man was skinny, with messy red hair and a long tangled beard. His fingernails were dirty as were his plaid shirt and his blue pants.

“No, Bobby. I’m not.” He looked at me and his grin flattened. “You hit my truck.”

“It was a mistake,” Bobby said.

“Shut up!” Eyes back on me, glaring now. “Scoot over. I’m taking you back to where you belong.”

I wanted to scoot. I should have scooted. But the thought of going back to Kathryn had turned my muscles to paste.

“Move!”

I moved. Quickly, then, panicked.

Claude climbed in, started the truck, shoved the gear shifter all the way back, and backed away from the white truck, which was turning around, driven by the other man, who slid over to take the wheel.

It was Zeke that I was more concerned with, but he was turning his black truck around, then heading back in the direction we’d come from. By the time Claude got our truck turned, I could only see the taillights of Zeke’s black truck. He’d left us in Claude’s care, as if totally unconcerned.

But that couldn’t be true. Of all the possible scenarios I’d imagined during my planning, being found out by Zeke himself was the worst. I sat in the seat next to Claude, hands folded in my lap, hardly daring to breathe. My palms were sweaty and my face was cold. I felt like what a corpse must feel like, ten feet under the ground.

The white truck was following us.

Beside me, Claude chuckled.

“My, my, my, you have gone and done it now, haven’t you?” He shook his head. “Not too smart.”

“My dad helped us,” Bobby said. “He gave Eden the keys.”

Claude cast a side-glance at us. “He did, now did he? Even dumber.”

I wanted to defend Wyatt, I really did. But my voice wasn’t working and I didn’t know what to say.

How much Claude knew was beyond me. I wasn’t even sure he was aware of who I was, other than Kathryn’s daughter. But I couldn’t help feeling like he was part of a bigger plan that I’d been kept in the dark about all these years. Like maybe getting my money.

“You really did piss him off. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, I can tell you that much.”

The same road that had taken us much longer to travel stuck in first gear, now flew by. The dogs barked as we sped past Zeke’s house. And before I could fully process what had just happened, we skidded to a stop in front of our house.

“Are you going to hit us?” Bobby asked, face drooping.

“Get out,” Claude snapped.

We both climbed out.

“Get in the house.”

Without waiting for us, he marched up to the porch, rapped his knuckles on the front door, and yanked it open. “Kathryn! Get your sorry butt out here!”

He’d told us to get in the house but he was blocking the front door and all I could think was, Kathryn’s going to see me standing outside. She’s going to catch me. I’m in terrible trouble.

I could see Kathryn stumbling out of the hallway in her night dress, eyes wide.

“What’s going on? What on earth are you doing here?”

“Zeke wants to see you,” Claude said. “That’s what’s happening.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. Why else would I be here in the middle of the night?”

Wyatt appeared behind Kathryn, buttoning up his pants. I didn’t think Kathryn had seen me or Bobby yet.

“Why?” she demanded.

“Why? Because your rat made a run for it, that’s why. Now get your butts down there, both of you. He’s waiting and he ain’t happy. Don’t bother dressing.”

With that, Claude stepped aside, brushed past me, and headed toward the white truck which had pulled in behind us.

Kathryn could see me now, that much I knew. But I couldn’t bring myself to look at her face. I couldn’t bear to see her accusing eyes boring though me.

It took a few seconds, but she finally spoke, and the low, biting tone of her voice did the job plenty well, anyway.

“What have you done to us?”

“I showed Eden how to drive the truck,” Bobby said, stepping up beside me.

Mother shoved her arm back into the house. “Get back in your room this instant, you little runt!”

Bobby scurried up the steps, ducked into the house, and vanished into the hall. I started to follow, eager to get away from her.

“Not you,” she snapped.

I finally found the courage to look her in the eyes and they were as fired as I could remember seeing. She glanced at Wyatt’s truck, then found me again.

“Where did you think you were going?”

What was I supposed to say?

“Answer me!” she screamed.

“Away from you,” I said.

She blinked. I could see her jaw flex. I knew that hitting her in the face would be kinder than the words I’d just spoken, but I was done with not telling the truth. So I said some more.

“I don’t want to be your slave anymore.”

My mother stepped forward, trembling. She lifted her arm and pointed a finger back into the house. “You get back in that closet this very instant and you get down on your knees and you start begging God for mercy and you don’t stop until you have accepted the full weight of your repentance. Go! Now, before God strikes you down where you stand, you hear me?”

I looked at Wyatt who was dressed—maybe he knew this was going to happen the moment he heard Claude’s voice. He certainly knew that I was in trouble and his eyes showed me great empathy.

But that look gave me the courage I needed to set my jaw, step up onto the porch and walk past Kathryn into the house.

I knew that I was done. That I was going to face a new kind of hell. But I also knew that I wasn’t going to get down on my knees and repent for trying to run away from a monster.

Not this time. Not ever again.

[[SECTION BREAK]]

THE NIGHT was hot and the air heavy, but something far more threatening suffocated Kathryn as Wyatt guided the truck down the gravel road.

Dread.

“How dare she?” Kathryn breathed through gritted teeth. “How dare she do this to me!”

Wyatt stared out the windshield, silent.

“Why? How dare she?”

Tears gathered in her eyes. Every stitch and seam that held her life together seemed to be unraveling.

Zeke was waiting. Dear God . . .

“There’ll be hell to pay for this,” she said. “Hell to pay for all of us.”

Kathryn’s mind spun. “How’d she get the truck? It doesn’t make sense. I told you to keep your keys in the nightstand. How could she have gotten her hands on those keys?”

Wyatt kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Answer me! Don’t just sit there like a wart. Say something.”

He glanced at her nervously.

“Don’t you dare tell me you knew about this.”

“No. No, of course not.”

“We’re all in a world of trouble here. How’d Bobby show her how to drive? He can’t drive.”

Wyatt shrugged. “I showed him a few things.”

“If you know anything, it’s gonna come out. Zeke will know. You realize that, don’t you?”

He began to speak, then stopped.

“What? Spit it out.”

“I can’t remember what I did with the keys. Maybe I left them on the kitchen counter by mistake.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m sorry, sugar. If I’d known . . .”

“Shut up, Wyatt! Just shut up!”

He offered no response.

“All that matters now is that I failed. Zeke told me there would be consequences if she ever got out of line.”

“We’ll talk to Zeke and he’ll understand—”

“You think Zeke called us to his house to have a conversation? Eden tried to leave us, for heaven’s sake! She meant to find that judge and tear up the power of attorney. She betrayed him!”

The turn into Zeke’s was just ahead. She stared at the moonless night beyond the window.

“There’s gonna be hell to pay, I swear.”

Wyatt pulled into Zeke’s compound and brought the truck to a stop. Claude leaned against a pillar on the porch, watching them as they climbed out of the truck and made their way to the front door.

Claude pushed the door open. “He’s waiting in the study.”

The study. Judgment was in the air and there was no running from it.

She cinched her night robe tight, entered the house, and angled toward Zeke’s office to the left of the living room. Through the door she could see him sitting at his desk.

They entered the study without a word, followed by Claude, who stopped at the doorway, arms crossed.

Zeke’s piercing stare was as dark as midnight and for several seconds he simply studied them. She felt naked, stripped to the bone, nothing more than a desperate failure. The bitter disappointment on his face said everything.

“Sit.” He nodded to the two leather chairs opposite him, watching them from his black, high-back chair, whisky glass cradled in his hand.

Kathryn eased into a chair and Wyatt began to take the seat beside her.

“Not you,” Zeke said.

Wyatt stood upright, confused for a moment. “Sure, Zeke.”

Zeke tilted his glass and took a drink. “Why’d you give her the keys, Wyatt?”

Wyatt stood stock-still, like an animal trapped in a cage.

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“No, Zeke. Of course not.”

“No. Of course not. Stupid, Wyatt. Very stupid.”

“I . . .”

“Like that boy of yours. But at least he’s honest. He must get his backbone from his mother.”

Kathryn’s pulse drummed in her ears.

“You gave Eden the truck keys and walked away. Unless Bobby’s lying, in which case I would have to punish him. You know how I hate liars.”

Wyatt’s hand began to quiver at his side. “Bobby’s an innocent boy.”

“You’re right, Bobby wouldn’t know duplicity if it smacked him in the mouth. Tell me Wyatt, are you duplicitous?”

Wyatt shifted on his feet.

“It means two-faced, double-dealing,” Zeke said. “Deceitful. Or is that not a clear concept in that thick skull of yours?”

“No,” Wyatt said quietly.

“No what?”

“No . . .” A tremor had taken to his voice. “I mean . . . Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Understand what, Wyatt?”

He hesitated. “That I was deceitful.”

His eyes, guilty as sin, flitted to Kathryn, then darted back to Zeke. She felt the room begin to close around her. Wyatt had betrayed her too. The whole world had turned against her.