Chapter 30 Pawns and Kings
Pawns and Kings
Bits and pieces of consciousness slipped in and out of my grasp. I felt Gibby’s fur winding in my hands, saw Nick’s face above mine. I heard sirens and saw the nausea-inducing flash of lights. I had to close my eyes to that brightness.
At some point, Nick and I were separated. I floated in a white room where I was urged to stay awake. It took a long time for my head to clear, and I asked for Nick.
He came to my bedside, looking very hungover. He held my hand. “They said you’ve got a bad concussion. But they’ll release you to me.”
“Is Gibby okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“How are you?” I asked, pushing hair from his eyes.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just bumps and bruises.”
“What about Monica?” I asked quietly. I held my breath.
“They flew her to the university hospital for vascular surgery. She survived surgery. She’s going to live.”
I didn’t ask for details. Not now. For now, it was enough for me to know that Monica was going to live.
A worry mark creased his brow. “What happened there, at the Hag Stone, after we left?”
“I went for a swim,” I said. My body was covered with a plethora of scratches and bruises.
I had a concussion—debris must have struck me in the head at some point.
My head ached in time with my pulse. I wanted to believe that the feeling of being one with the Rusalka had been just that—a head injury.
But I wasn’t sure.
Nick exhaled. He didn’t ask further questions. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
No cops came after me at the hospital, and they weren’t waiting for us in the parking lot.
Nick, Gibby, and I went home after spending the night in the hospital’s blinding fluorescent light.
Nick turned on the news, which was showing footage from the worst flood in the county in a hundred years.
Copperhead Valley Solvents had flooded, and the Copperhead River was burning in lurid red flames.
The National Guard had been called out. Dozens of houses had been destroyed, and more than twenty people were missing.
Curiously, the Greenwood Kingdom Church caught fire before being plunged into floodwater.
The newscasters speculated about whether the fire was caused by lightning or purposefully set.
I fell into bed and slept immediately.
I dreamed of the riverside, of bodies bobbing in the water. And I saw Jasper wading into deep water toward Dana. She opened her arms to him, and they disappeared beneath the black water.
An iridescent blue glaze of pollution gathered on the water’s surface, but I knew it couldn’t touch them in the blackness below the waves.
—
I awoke in my own bed, feeling unusually at peace. Gibby lay across my stomach. He was awake, his doggie eyebrows twitching with worry.
“You’re such a good boy,” I told him, patting his side. “Thank you.”
I got dressed slowly. I stared at my calf.
It didn’t hurt like it did before—there was a different kind of pain.
This felt like a surface, clean pain, not a bone-deep throbbing hurt.
I peeled the bandage back and looked at the wound.
It was red, not green. Maybe the antibiotics had finally kicked in. Or maybe the Rusalka was satisfied.
Maybe.
I didn’t know if Viv and the girls had summoned a spirit that took Dana’s face, or if Viv had practiced some kind of necromancy that brought Dana herself back for revenge.
With Viv gone, I would probably never know if Rusalka had always been there, expressing her power through various women.
And what about Viv? Would she take on the role of Rusalka now?
I had felt Rusalka. I felt her, and I felt me, and I felt the intersection of us.
We were both killers. I had to admit, at last, that I was one.
When I looked at the awards on my mantel, it was like looking at an alternate reality.
While Rusalka hadn’t stayed, she’d awakened something in me that I hadn’t felt for a long time, not since I was a little girl running through the woods.
Freedom.
I went out to the front porch. The fox was there, in the midst of the ruined garden. I offered her a piece of bacon. She smiled at me, took it gently, gulped it down, and slipped off into the woods.
Nick had made breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, and waffles. We ate in silence, until I broke it.
“I want to see Monica,” I said, though I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to drive.
“I’ll take you,” Nick assured me. “My friend at the hospital in the city says she’s awake, off and on.”
I nodded, crumbling my bacon in my fingers. “There’s a distinct possibility that I’m going to get criminally charged with some serious shit.” I promised him long ago that I wouldn’t lie to him. I meant it.
Nick drank his orange juice. “I figured. If you go to prison, I’ll wait for you.”
“Seriously?”
“Or, I dunno. We could just run away.” He shrugged. “You have experience in creating new identities.”
“I don’t want you to fuck up your life for me.”
“My life’s already plenty fucked up, thank you very much. But I’d prefer that it were fucked up with you.”
“Even if we have to go long-distance, with me in a prison cell?” I was only half kidding.
“Even if.” He leaned forward and kissed my temple. “You’re stuck with me, babe.”
“Will you take care of the dog?”
“Of course. Don’t be ridiculous. He’s our child. And I’ll get the best lawyers money can buy. I swear.”
It was a lighthearted conversation, but we both knew what was at stake. His profession was still on the line. Mine was toast. If we could avoid criminal charges and getting sued, maybe we could still have something.
“Seriously, I don’t want to go to prison,” I told him slowly.
He reached across the table to hold my hand. “I know.”
I saw complete devotion in his face. And not just because I’d saved his life.
Maybe, though, saving his life was an evening of the scales.
My father had taken his mother’s life away from him, and I restored something for him.
I wanted to set him free, so he could have something of a life of his own.
But I wanted him. And I would rather run. I took a deep breath. “What if—”
A knock sounded at the door, and my heart lurched into my throat.
“Do you want me to answer that?” he asked.
I paused. My eyes darted to the front door, then to the back door. I could run into the forest, run and not be found. My bare toes flexed on the linoleum.
If I ran like the fox, though…I wasn’t sure Nick would be able to follow. His hand still held mine fast on the table. But I could shrug it off and run…
I looked into his eyes. “Okay.”
Nick opened the door, and I saw Chief standing on the porch.
Nick looked to me.
“Come in,” I said. “How’s Monica?”
“Hanging in there. I just came back from the hospital.”
The three of us sat down at the kitchen table.
Chief cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“Hear me out.” He put his hands on the scarred table. “There have been some changes in the sheriff’s office.”
“Oh?”
“Sheriff Wilson was found to be in contact with Jeff Sumner and his buddies, to aid and abet felony crimes. I charged him with conspiracy to commit murder. Judge Chamberlain signed his arrest warrant.”
I sat back in my chair. “Whoa.”
“Evidence shows the sheriff had ongoing communication with Jeff Sumner and his cronies about privileged information regarding your investigation. Our shiny new radio system records everything, and Sheriff got used to using private Bluetooth to talk to his friends. Those records show he knew about Viv Carson’s abduction, and I’m betting he knew more than that.
I suspect he was fully aware of the extent of the chemical leaks in the river, and was exerting pressure to prevent Sumner’s prosecution. ”
“But why?” I asked. “Why would Sheriff Wilson help the Kings of Warsaw Creek?”
“Campaign donations, I’m guessing. An audit has suggested these guys and their businesses and the church gave huge amounts of money to his campaign, in excess of campaign finance laws.
And the trail of that money seems to end in meth manufacture and distribution.
But that’s going to be a matter for the state AG to unravel. ”
“How long have you been…investigating him?” This was not the sort of case that erupted overnight.
“A while. He just chose to trip himself up a lot faster than I expected. I figured I had at least until the election in November, but…” He spread his hands.
Damn. I had new respect for my boss. I couldn’t imagine the sheriff taking this coup lying down. “Aren’t you worried he’ll amass a network and get even?”
Chief hesitated. “Well, the sheriff was found dead this morning.”
“What?”
“He was at a Fourth of July party, hanging out on his boat in the river. The boat ran aground in the storm and capsized. He was found drowned not far from the boat. Everyone else seems okay.”
“Oh my God.” I rubbed my forehead. Rusalka. She cleaned house before she came to the showdown at the Hag Stone. Fuck.
“What this means for you is that I, as acting sheriff, want you to return to work on Monday. There’s a lot of paperwork to be filed.”
“I…but I figured…”
He winked. “I’m sheriff. Don’t defy my authority.”
He left, and I sat, stunned, at the kitchen table for nearly an hour. So much that I was unaware of had happened behind the scenes.
I wondered what would happen when they learned what had happened to Sumner and Lister, when they found their bodies. Because they would. And someone might come looking for me.
Nick quietly cleared the dishes, kissed me on the forehead, and left me to brood.
Fuck. There were so many machinations going on around me. Maybe I should’ve felt used, but…I didn’t. Somehow, it seemed like the good guys won this time.
Somehow, but not really.
—
I waited in Monica’s hospital room for her to wake up that afternoon. She was in and out of consciousness, occasionally mumbling verses from “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”