Blackwater Lights (11 page)

“Only part of the time. But I like it.”

He grinned. “The energy.”

“Precisely.” She poured the rest of the wine into their glasses. “There are very few places like Blackwater. And I work closely with Crawford. Mostly helping him manage his collections.”

Ray blinked. The mention of the name jarred his happy mood. He’d been having such a good time talking and laughing with Lily that he’d completely forgotten about Crawford.

Lily seemed to notice his unease. “I know he comes across a little cold sometimes. But he’s a really fascinating person. And he took a liking to you.”

“Really.”

“He did—he felt the same way as I did. That you were special. That you belonged here.” She finished her wine. “Let’s talk about something more interesting, like maybe the strange, attractive man from Baltimore I met in the bookstore. That’s a much more fascinating subject.”

After dessert she insisted he drive them back. He was sober enough to avoid running off the
road, and more sober than she was, at any rate. But he still realized he shouldn’t have been driving, especially on the West Virginia mountain roads he hated, in an unfamiliar vehicle. He turned to see if she was okay. She’d been quiet. She bent over to dig something out of her purse and the slit on her skirt opened again. The scoop neck of her dress hung open, too. She was practically naked, and despite his ambivalence he felt his body respond. But if he didn’t pay attention to the road, he’d probably drive them both into a tree.

She pushed a CD into the player and rested her hand on his leg. More deep, mellow techno. She put her head on his shoulder and her hair kept blowing into his mouth. It tasted of her perfume. The naked skin of her leg brushed against him with every bump. Everywhere she touched him felt magnified, as if his blood corpuscles were rushing to those spots, seeking her out.

They pulled into a driveway. Her house—a large, well-maintained wooden farmhouse—sat down a graveled driveway a few hundred feet from the road. Motion detector lights popped on as he stopped the car. She touched his chest with a finger. “Will you walk me inside?”

“Of course.” He fumbled with the keys and dropped them on the car floor.
I don’t know which one of us is drunker
. Lily laughed. He shut the door. When he got to the front door of the house, he stopped.

“Wait a minute. You picked me up tonight. I can’t drive anywhere. God, I must have had more to drink than I realized.”

She laughed again. “I think the drugs really did fry your brain.
Our
brains. Oh my God.” She snorted. “This is ridiculous.”

He laughed, too. She put her hand on his shoulder.

“I guess I’m stuck.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to spend the night.” She took his face in her hands and gazed into his eyes. Lord, she was pretty. Like all the beautiful women he’d ever known rolled into one. Her mouth, which would open up, wet and tasting of wine, and her hair, which he could pull against his face as his lips moved along the nape of her neck, down to her shoulder blades. He could smell her then, the warm, musky scent from between her legs, intoxicating, maddening, working its way into his brain and down his back to where his own energies lay coiled at the root of his spine. And her eyes, so deep and full of mystery—like falling into deep, dark water.

Something was happening all of a sudden, something that felt familiar. Her features
hardened, and all expression left her face. It was like looking at a doll’s face. Or a mask. Her eyes were expanding, and she wasn’t looking
into
his eyes at all, but
between
them, maybe even inside his head. His body vibrated, his muscles locked tight, and suddenly—

He’s going again. She’s pulling him back in time, all the way back, back to when he was just a boy, a scared little kid, after Dr. Green and the rest of them had taught him the tricks and the songs in a language he didn’t understand and after he’d learned the secret to going to his special place inside. The place he could go and no one else would follow. It wasn’t hard, not at all. In fact, it was pleasant, especially when they took him out in the woods with the others, the few others who had been chosen because they could go the deepest into themselves, and they made them all lie on the ground on their backs and no, wait, no, no way, can’t do that can’t go there can’t go
there—

His head snapped back, as if an elastic band pulling it had popped. He pulled her hands away from his face. It hurt.

“Look at me, Ray. Come in for a drink. Ray?”

He stepped back, nearly stumbling into a bush, turning away from her.

“Ray, what’s wrong? Look at me. Please.”

Her eyes bored into the back of his skull. He needed to break the connection. “No. I can’t.”

“Oh, come on. I won’t touch you. I promise.”

That sounded familiar.

“Why aren’t you looking at me? What’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me?”

He walked toward the road. It was like pushing through onrushing water or a river of molasses.

“What’s wrong with you? Look at me, Ray. Come back here.”

He kept walking.
Don’t stop
.

“Come back. Come back, Ray.
Now
.”

His mind went to Ellen. Sweet, harried, tired, overworked, plain, but so much more truly
beautiful. She was real. She was sane. Kind and simple and nothing like this wicked bitch.

“Fuck you,” he said, and felt the bond between them break. He’d freed himself.

“Goodbye, Ray.” Her voice had dropped an octave. “You’re fucking yourself. You’ll see. You are
really
fucking yourself.”

The door slammed behind him. He’d done it. In spite of the fact that he had no idea where he was, and that the road in front of him banked upward steeply with weed-filled trenches lining both sides, he knew he had done the right thing. With each step away from the house, he felt her power over him dissipating.

He started up the hill.

It was dark and late, and Ray was alone, on foot, drunk, and lost. Trucks roared up behind him, barreling along the winding roads and leaving hot clouds of diesel fumes. His legs and feet ached, and he was rapidly dehydrating. A pickup truck driver threw a half-f beer bottle that whizzed by his head and shattered on the asphalt.

On his walk, he started to remember things from the party. Or half remembered, rather; the images faded in and out, but they grew clearer the more he walked. Something Lily had done to him, back at her house, had pried open the hidden memories from the night at Crawford’s. She had done that thing with her eyes, too, the night of the party, some kind of bizarre hypnosis that let her crawl into his head.

Damn, his mouth was dry.

The other memories were incomplete, still locked away, and just thinking about it made him want to fall to his knees and vomit.

She had said Blackwater was a magical place. If so, the magic was far down on the darker end of the spectrum.

Headlights. A car appeared over the hill behind him, moving in his direction. He kept walking. The car approached slowly. Ray’s fists clenched. As it neared him, it slowed to a stop, its headlights blinding. Great. Now he’d get beaten to a pulp by a redneck out looking for some fun. The driver’s window lowered.

“Ray? Is that you? Hey, Ray!”

It took him a second to place the voice. “Denny?”

Denny laughed. “What are you doing? Your car break down or something?”

Ray exhaled, then laughed. “Jesus, Denny, I can’t even begin to explain.… Damn, I am glad to see you. And I can’t tell you how badly I need to get home.”

“Climb in,” Denny said.

Ray closed his eyes as Denny talked. His head hurt. The horrifying barrage of images and memories unreeling in his head was almost too much to bear, and he was having a hard time concentrating on Denny’s rapid monologue.

“I mean, how synchronistic is this? That I’m driving this road, right now? It’s weird, don’t you think?”

Ray nodded. Weird had taken over his life.

Denny smiled and shook his head. “So as I was saying, I went to the county records building. And had some dinner with a friend who works there—that’s why I’m just getting back. And I found out some really interesting stuff.” He glanced at Ray and his face slacked. “You okay? You look like … well, you really don’t look so good.”

“I’m okay. It’s been a rough night.”
And that’s an understatement
. “What did you find out?”

Denny’s grin returned. “Well, that preacher at the African American church, his name is Micah David. He used to run a large Baptist church in northwest D.C. with over three hundred people in his congregation. He was a well-to-do guy, big with the movers and shakers—black politicians, businesspeople, and the like. He just gave it all up to move to Blackwater and take control of a falling-down wreck of a church that could seat maybe fifty people if they packed themselves tightly.”

Ray rubbed his temples. His head felt tightly compressed. “Why?”

“Good question. No one really knows. There’s no evidence of a scandal, at least not in the Washington papers. He came here and basically fell off the radar.”

A truck passed them, and Denny’s car shuddered in its wake.

“And Crawford—I have more on him, too. After you left, I remembered that he had given a big donation to the county schools a few years ago. His father was a rich German from Argentina. Made a killing in the shipping industry, anglicized his name, and started a foundation
back in the fifties. But Crawford keeps to himself. The only stuff I could find online were a few chemistry papers and a pharmacology paper in
Nature
. His major at Yale was chemistry. And he has a hell of an art collection, apparently.”

“But he lives out here. In the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah. On an enormous piece of property. But I think it’s just his second, or third, or maybe fourth home. He has another residence.” Denny chuckled. “Guess where.”

Ray breathed deeply. “D.C.”

“Yes.” Denny was clearly enjoying the role of hired detective. “The Crawford Trust is headquartered there, too, in Georgetown. And that caught my attention. Think about it—two rich, well-connected out-of-towners from the nation’s capital decide to move
here
? Two rich and
secretive
out-of-towners? I don’t know if there’s any connection between the two … but I can try to find out.” He paused. “If you want me to, I mean. Does any of this help you?”

“I don’t know. But thank you. It might.” It would make sense that Crawford and the preacher were in league. But with what aim? “How about the camp? Did you find out anything?”

Denny shrugged. “Not really. I looked pretty hard, but … nothing.” He sighed. “I did call a friend with the state park system. He might get back to me with something.”

Damn, his head ached. Whatever Lily had done had physically
hurt
.

Denny seemed to be thinking intently as they drove in silence. Ray closed his eyes—it helped to keep them shut.

“Ray, I hope this doesn’t sound stupid. Or silly.” He was struggling. “But since you’ve been here … Since you came here, and we became friends …” He laughed. “I’m sorry. I should just shut up before I make a huge ass out of myself.”

“No. Go ahead.”

He turned and looked at Ray. His eyes were glassy. He looked back at the road ahead. “It’s like everything I’ve ever been interested in, all the weird stuff that I’ve had to keep to myself … You can’t imagine how lonely it is, not being able to talk about your passion with anyone outside of message boards. It’s all coming together now. It might sound crazy to you, but when you came here you made something happen, and all the things
I
was interested in suddenly meant something to someone
else
.”

Ray closed his eyes.

“You’re like a … what’s the word? A catalyst. You showed up here and everything
changed.”

Ray shook his head. “I can’t take credit for anything, Denny.”

“But it’s true. It’s—”

“No.” He squeezed his palms against his temples. “Whatever I stirred up, it’s bad. Really bad. And I don’t think you want any part of it.” He gritted his teeth. “I won’t let you be part of it anymore.”