Compulsion (40 page)

She broke the surface gasping, drinking in a mix of air and water. Choking. Coughing. Her eyes watered. Her ears filled with ringing echoes and muffled sounds as if she had cotton stuffed in her ears. Across the river, pieces of Wyatt’s boat still burned, and the Colesworth dock had caught fire too, pluming smoke and spitting bursts of ash into the air. But the flames that burned on the waist-deep water around Barrie, the flames that touched her, held no heat. They licked her skin with barely a tickle.

She was back on the Watson side.

And Wyatt? Ernesto? Where were they?

She had to get out of the water. She stumbled toward the bank and pulled up short.

In the rushes before her, the Fire Carrier stood close enough that the war paint on his face and chest shone slick with grease. Veins stood out on his arms, and every lean muscle of his chest and stomach seemed defined and ready to spring into action. But apart from the feathers of his cloak and headdress stirring in the night air, he was motionless. He watched her.

Barrie had thought him older when she’d seen him from a distance. He wasn’t much older than she was, though. Not much older than Eight.

“Thank you.” Holding her injured arm to her side, she drew herself up to face him.

He watched her. His eyes reflected the fire and darkness. They looked sad somehow, and tired. Barrie thought of Luke’s spirit reaching for Twila, hoping to touch her all those years. How long had the Fire Carrier performed his midnight ritual night after night?

He wanted something. She felt that with even more certainty now, but before she could find a way to frame a question, he inclined his head and turned toward the Watson woods. Fingertips skimming the surface, he waded through the water while flames sped toward him from across the river, running up his arms until he glowed as brightly as the moon.
It was only when he reached the bank that she realized she could almost see through him.

She wondered what would happen if she ran after him and begged him to tell her what he wanted from her, asked him to explain the binding and whatever bargain she had made. She splashed after him, but her body was shutting down, shock making her slow and lethargic.

Her hearing was coming back. Where before there had been only the ringing and the roaring silence, she now heard splashing behind her. She turned to look, and in the flickering light from the burning dock, she saw someone swimming.

Wyatt? Or Ernesto?

She struggled toward the shore, weighted down by mud, water, and panic. Exhausted and fighting to keep from sobbing, she pushed on, ignoring the shouts behind her. She wasn’t going to get this far, only to have them catch her again. The Fire Carrier had disappeared into the woods, but shadows raced along the shoreline, and she threw herself toward them.

The splashing was closer, right behind her. Barrie pushed herself faster.

“Bear, wait. Wait! Hold up. It’s me.”

Almost to the shore, she stopped. It
was
Eight. He caught her and lifted her up, holding her as if he were never going to let her go.

Barrie barely felt the tug of the needle stitching through her shoulder as the doctor worked. She concentrated on answering another round of questions from the police as best she could. With the collar of Pru’s heavy bathrobe pulled down to expose the top of her shoulder, she couldn’t seem to get warm enough. The light in the kitchen shone too bright, and the room swarmed with people. At the same time, even with Pru beside her, she felt oddly alone. Eight stood leaning against the counter, answering questions from still more police. County sheriff, state police, military police, the DEA, the FBI. They were all here, crawling around the tunnels and the river, not to mention the Colesworth bank.

“There, that’s finished,” Dr. Ainsley said, securing a bandage over the wound.

He smiled at Barrie tiredly, and she wondered if he’d had any sleep before Seven had insisted the doctor come over. She felt guilty for that, but the idea of going to an emergency room, leaving Watson’s Landing again after all she’d already been through, had been too much.

Dr. Ainsley fiddled in his bag and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle of clear liquid. “Now this is a dose of antibiotic,” he said, drawing some out of the vial and filling the syringe. “Just as a precaution. I want you to keep those stitches dry for forty-eight hours, so take sponge baths and have Pru help you wash your hair in the sink. I’ll give you a sling to wear until I see you in the office. Keep your arm as still as possible. And stay off that ankle for a few days too. A little rest wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Barrie nodded, but she wanted nothing more than to immerse herself in the tub to get rid of the stench of the river and the night’s events. She winced as Dr. Ainsley administered the shot.

A radio crackled in the hand of the nearest sheriff’s deputy. He walked off a few feet, spoke into it, then came back, and his eyes met Pru’s over Barrie’s head. “They’re bringing the bodies up from the tunnel now,” he said.

Dr. Ainsley visibly went pale, his hand trembling as he put the used syringe into his bag. He was probably in his sixties. Barrie wondered if he had known Luke. But then, everyone
seemed to have been shaken tonight. She shivered again; the shock waves kept hitting her.

Heroin and murder. So many murders. But Emmett was long dead, and Wyatt had died in the explosion. Neither of them were any loss. Barrie couldn’t help thinking of Cassie, though, who was still missing like Ernesto. With a father like Wyatt, had Cassie ever had a chance to turn out well? Maybe that, more than anything else, was the Colesworth curse, passed down from generation to generation. The bitterness, rage, and willingness to take the easy way out. Maybe with Wyatt dead, Cassie and Sydney would both be better off.

Barrie pulled up the collar of Pru’s thick bathrobe and burrowed deeper into the fabric. Eight nodded at something one of the FBI agents said, and peeled himself away from the counter to rejoin her. She met him as Pru went to talk to Seven.

Eight’s clothes were still damp, but Barrie didn’t care as he drew her toward him. She was just grateful to hug him. He could have died in the river. He could have burned, or Wyatt could have shot him.

She smacked him in the chest with the flat of her hand.

“Hey, what’s that for?” He rubbed the spot as if it hurt.

“For being reckless and risking your life.”

“We’ll argue that one another time. I’m giving you a free pass for the rest of the night.”

“There is no ‘rest of the night,’ ” Barrie said. “It’s light out already.”

Pru came back, leaving Seven still talking to the group of police. “They’re all done with you for now,” she said. “Thank goodness.” She peered closer at Eight and crossed her arms. “Lord, Eight Beaufort, your clothes are still wet. What is your father thinking, letting you stay here talking all this time?”

“I’m all right,” Eight said, his jaw jutting stubbornly.

“You’re not going to do Barrie a bit of good if you catch your death. At least go home and get into something dry. That won’t take you long. Barrie can wash off meanwhile, and we can all have some breakfast together.”

Food was about the last thing on Barrie’s mind. “I want to call the hospital and check on Mark before I do anything else.” She glanced back at Eight. “My phone is shot. Come down to the library with me.”

Pru and Eight both went stiff, and Pru’s eyes welled. “I’m sorry,” Pru said. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to wait to tell you. Eight agreed that you’ve been through so much tonight and—”

“No,” Barrie said, although she knew. Part of her had known in the river. Mark’s voice had been so clear, so
Mark
.

He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t.

Eight’s arms tightened around her. He rested his chin on her head, cradling her against him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sugar.” Pru’s hands fell in a helpless little gesture.

Barrie buried her face into Eight’s chest and felt his lips brush her hair. “At least he won’t go through any more pain. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Bear? It’s what he wanted. The pneumonia was mercifully quick—his body just couldn’t take it.”

How could she take it? How could she be losing everyone?

“You aren’t losing me. Or Pru.”

“We’re right here with you, sugar.”

Barrie wasn’t sure who she was crying for. Mark. Lula. Luke and Twila. Even her father. She had lost them all in the past few hours, lost them and found them and lost them again. Or maybe it was herself she had lost and found.

As if by some silent agreement between them, she found herself passed from Eight’s arms into Pru’s. “I’m going to let Pru fix you up,” Eight whispered into her ear, “but I’ll be back. You know that, right? I’ll always come back.”

She gave him a numb, silent nod and walked to her room with Pru holding her close. But as they approached the door, it occurred to her how much Pru, too, had lost. The hallway blurred around her, and the air turned to stars and prisms. There were too many shadows, too many ghosts of lives that could have been. She wanted to say she understood how Pru felt, but the words stuck in her throat.

“We should have a funeral for all of them,” she said instead. “Mark and Luke and Twila.”

Pru stopped in the doorway, and the sunlight from the balcony carved hollows into her face. “A service. For Lula, too. That’s a wonderful idea, sugar.” Her voice broke, and around her the house, the shadows, the whole universe seemed to give a final sigh. “Lord, all these wasted years. Because of what my father did.”

She didn’t call Emmett “Daddy” anymore.

Barrie wished she could take some of Pru’s pain away. How hard did it have to be to know that your father, your own father, had murdered not one person but two people he was supposed to have loved? Murdered them and left them to rot like garbage. And he had stolen years or dreams from so many others: Pru, Lula, Wade, even Cassie. It made what Barrie had lost seem small by comparison.

“You lost Mark today,” Pru said, “and I know you’re afraid of Eight going away. But you can’t lose someone you truly love. Love doesn’t come with an on-off switch. It’s made of too many threads of memory and hope and heartache that weave themselves into the very core of who you are. You carry all those shared experiences with you.”

Wordlessly Barrie nodded. But love was so much more than shared experiences. Love was more alchemy than memory. Love was the kind of magic that made Mark beautiful to
her and made her feel filled up inside when Eight was happy.

“So are you and Seven going to get back together now?” she asked, glancing at Pru with a telltale blush.

“Maybe it’s inevitable.” Pru looked toward the balcony and across the river. “I can’t remember when I didn’t love him. Your mama and I used to climb out on the balcony at night and talk until the river caught fire and lit the sky. Then Seven would come out and watch from the balcony on his side, and he and I would stay out there after Lula went in. I used to imagine the Fire Carrier was burning a path between us, from my heart to Seven’s. I didn’t expect that fire would ever go out. And it hasn’t. Not for me. It just got banked down for a while. I think Seven feels it too. We’ve lost a lot of years, but you can’t lose love. Not real love. It stays locked inside you, ready for whenever you are strong enough to find it again.”

Pru rubbed her palm, staring down at it as if the lines there surprised her somehow. “I went into Charleston yesterday,” she said quietly. “To see an antiques appraiser about the things in the attic. If I can do that by myself, I can do anything. Even go with you to a funeral, if you think you want to go to California.”

Tears made rivers down Barrie’s cheeks. More water. She thought of what Mark had said about rivers and oceans mixing. Her whole life, he had been her safe harbor when events, people, words, had broken her into flotsam and jetsam. Now
he had set her adrift, launched her into the current again.

Pru got up and rubbed Barrie’s cold hands between her own. “Breathe, sugar. I’m right here for you. You know that. And Eight is still here. Do you want me to send him up?”

Barrie shook her head. “You sent him home.”

“He didn’t go,” Pru said. “He’s still standing on the dock.”

Barrie looked out the window. Eight stood staring at the
Away
with his hands in his pockets. She stepped out to the balcony and leaned across the railing.

“What are you doing?” she shouted, as if he could possibly hear her across the distance.

But he turned and waved.

His outline went soft at the edges, as if someone stood at either shoulder. Mark, in his favorite pink Chanel suit, pointing at Eight with a shimmy of delight and then turning to give Barrie a big thumbs-up. And Lula, dressed to the teeth, with no veil, and her hair a loose tumble blowing around her unscarred face, standing on the other side.

When Barrie closed her eyes, she could almost see Mark turning and walking down the long, gray dock with Lula beside him. There was no mistaking the swing of his hips, his elbow pushed out. Working it, as if the dock were a stage and he were off to take a bow after a great performance. Lula’s stride was unfamiliar, fierce and free of pain. Was that how Lula had used to look?