Winter's End Read online

  The window. The one she’d noticed on an early visit to the farm. Small, high and dirty.

  The square casement was unreachable. The way the light bounced off the glass revealed its grimy state.

  Another shiver climbed. The hairs on her neck stood out in protest.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.” As the sense of urgency rose, Kayla plied the door handle repeatedly.

  Nothing.

  She eyed the room. The noises on the far side of the door grew bolder with her absence, as if the rats could tell she posed no real threat.

  “Mama.”

  Kayla sank to her knees, remembering.

  A little girl, ordered to silence, locked away in a narrow attic room with only one small, out-of-reach window. “Mama, let me out. Please.”

  No answer.

  Kayla felt the chill of the floor against her knocking knees. “Please, Mama. I’m hungry.”

  She’d watched the sun come up in the little window. Long hours later it went down. Then up, again. Then down.

  Still her mama didn’t come for her, didn’t unlock the door and send her off to school.

  “Mama.”

  Kayla fought the rising panic. No use. Trapped in the little room, lit with a lone, dusty bulb, she studied the window.

  There was no reaching the smudged pane. She’d known it then, when she was just a girl. She knew it now.

  She shrank to the floor, hugging herself, trying to block the invading thoughts, but the effort proved impossible. She could control the impulses most of the time, pushing the memories away, but not when so many buttons were pushed at once.

  How hard she’d tried to get to that childhood window. She saw herself, a girl of eleven, trying to find a way out of that dark, dusty attic, scrabbling for anything to put her in reach of that glass. The door was immovable, and the silence below lay frightening in its completeness.

  Another skitter in the present made Kayla hug herself more tightly.

  There’d been rats in the attic, too. Nasty ones. She didn’t dare sleep, not on purpose anyway, and especially not at night.

  “Mama, there’s rats up there.”

  “Not as big as the ones down here,” her mother scolded. “You don’t make a sound up there, no matter what you hear, Kayla.” Her mother gripped her shoulders. “You understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Now, go. I’m expecting company. Get up there, do your homework and don’t make a sound.”

  God, help me.

  Kayla put her head to the floor of the barn room and prayed. I can’t do this, can’t handle it. I need to get out of here. Help me, God. Please.

  The skittering pattered across the outer floor, then paused at the door.

  There couldn’t be a way in, could there? Kayla’s senses went to full alert. “Get away from here! Shoo!” Panicked, she hurled a clog at the door. The shoe hit square and clattered to the floor.

  For a short moment, she thought she’d scared them. Then the skitters grew louder, racing back and forth across the outer floor.

  Help me. Please, help me.

  She wasn’t sure if she thought the phrase or said it, then realized her voice was the only useful tool she had. Her cell phone lay in her purse on the DeHollanders’ back porch.

  If Jess was in the barn, she’d hear Kayla’s cries. She rose and pounded on the door. “Help! Help me! I’m trapped up here! Marc! Jess! Please!”

  She pressed her ear to the wood and listened.

  Nothing.

  She tried again. “Marc, help me! I’m locked in! Marc! Jess! Someone help me!”

  The little girl Kayla wasn’t allowed to scream for help. That might have brought the interest of men up those stairs, to the adolescent girl above. How hard the little Kayla worked to block out the sounds from below, the words, the noises that meant Mama would have money come morning.

  She didn’t ask what went on at night. She didn’t want to know. When she was older and figured it out, she didn’t care to remember, so she didn’t.

  But there was no help for it now, locked in the small room with the sound of tiny feet sniffing the perimeter, hunting for a way in.

  The rats in the apartment had been sizable. She remembered the policeman’s surprise as he wrapped her in a blanket and carried her down three long flights of stairs. “Mind the rats,” he told a uniformed woman they passed. He’d nodded to the third floor. “Big ones. I’m getting this little one out to the ambulance.”

  He’d kept the quilt up, over her eyes. She’d burrowed into his shoulder, feeling safe for the first time in days.

  The feeling lasted short seconds. As the burly policeman rounded the first corner, the quilt shifted.

  A sea of uniformed figures obscured her vision, but she saw enough to understand why Mama hadn’t unlocked the door.

  “Mama!”

  The policeman redrew the blanket around her. “Hush, now. Let’s get you some help.”

  There’d be no help for Mama. Not anymore. Kayla understood that.

  “Marc! Please!” Kayla pounded fists against the door, praying it would open, set her free.

  She couldn’t keep the memories at bay up here. They flooded her brain, overtaking her. The sounds she’d been trained to ignore, the cries for help, her mother’s final screams—

  It came flooding back, torturing her.

  And there was nothing she could do. Again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Thank God.” Marc crossed Nan’s riding ring and embraced his little sister. “Thank God I found you.”

  “You don’t believe in God,” Jess retorted. She tried to pull away. Marc wouldn’t let her. “Or anything else.”

  “Jess.” Marc pulled her closer, his arm firm around her shoulders. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me? How much I love being your brother?”

  Jess’s face crumpled. Her lower lip stuck out, petulant.

  “Jess.” Marc turned her face to his. “I love you, kid. Having you around was what made everything bearable when Mom left.”

  “Right.”

  “It was,” Marc insisted. He tweaked her nose. “You were so cute, so funny. And Dad and I were absolutely inept. We had no clue what to do with you.”

  “Still don’t.”

  “No argument there. But I’m learning. I don’t have lots of experience raising teenage girls.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Jess.” Marc held her gaze. “About what you heard—”

  “That someone else is my father? That you and Kayla knew, but no one bothered to tell me? What did you want to explain, Marc?”

  His father’s words came back. Be gentle. He took a breath and calmed his heart, choosing words with care. “You never knew Mom.”

  Jess snorted.

  “She was beautiful, like you,” Marc continued. “Same hair, same eyes, same skin. I think that’s why Dad and I went overboard with denim and flannel, because you were so pretty and feminine.”

  Jess leaned back. “Really?”

  “Yup.” Her look of surprise told him she didn’t see herself as either pretty or feminine. He sighed. “Jess, Mom had her problems. I’m only now beginning to figure them out, so I’m not much help there, but Dad loved her.”

  “She slept with someone else and had his child. That would be me.”

  Marc tugged her closer. “I guess she did, but is that the end of the world?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” Marc pressed a kiss to her hair, still damp from the rain. “I don’t know what I would have done all these years without you. Dad and I, both. We loved you. We doted on you. It was like you were the hope for the future. If Mom hadn’t had you—”

  “Then she probably wouldn’t have run away,” Jess interrupted.

  Vehement, Marc shook his head. “It would have happened anyway, Jess. It had nothing to do with you. She wasn’t happy inside. She didn’t laugh, she didn’t pray.” Marc shrugged. “She stopped caring. She’d pretend to take her meds t
o fool Dad, but he knew.”

  “How could he love her, Marc?” Jess looked up, confused. “How could he care, knowing what she did?”

  “Love’s a funny thing, Jess.”

  Jess sat silent, eyes down. Grimacing, she turned. “He loved me, didn’t he?”

  Marc gathered her into his arms. He felt her body shudder and knew she was finally crying the tears she’d held back. “With all his heart. He showed that every day, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.” The reply was muffled against his shirt. He held tight, letting her cry, hoping tears might begin the healing.

  His phone jabbed his side. Holding Jess, he reached around her to pull the phone out. “Gotta call Kayla and tell her you’re all right. She was worried.”

  Jess nodded as he pushed buttons.

  No answer.

  Marc frowned, stared at the number, then shrugged.

  “She didn’t pick up?”

  “No.” Marc studied the phone once more, wondering.

  “Maybe she got an emergency call.”

  Without telling him? Or leaving a message? Marc stood and hauled Jess up with him. “Let’s say good-night to Rooster and head home, kid. I’m wet and tired.”

  “Me, too.”

  “We’ll get you warmed up in no time.”

  “How’d you know to look here?”

  “Because I always head to the barn when I need time,” Marc acknowledged. “When you weren’t in ours, I figured Nan’s was the next best thing.”

  “Pretty smart for a boy.”

  “That was after I spent an hour making mud tracks with the Jeep.”

  “Okay. Not so smart.”

  “But trainable.”

  Jess leaned her head against Marc’s chest. “Will we be okay?”

  “Yes.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll be fine.”

  On the way out the door he tried their home number again, just in case. “She might have been in the bathroom or something,” he explained to Jess.

  Still no answer. Marc hid his disappointment. Tonight he needed to concentrate on Jess, make sure she understood her place in the family.

  Tomorrow he’d track down Kayla and finish the conversation he wished he’d never begun.

  The ringing phone jarred Marc out of his sleep over two hours later. He stumbled in the hall, nearly knocked over a table and got to the phone just before the answering machine picked up. “Hello.”

  “Marc, it’s Beth Pickering. Bill just nicked a car parked on the roadside a bit south of your place. The road was icing and he slid into the back of it.”

  “A car?” Marc thought hard. “Why would there be a car parked on the road? Anyone in it?”

  Jess came out of her room, her pajamas rumpled, eyes squinting.

  “No.” Beth’s voice sounded as confused as he felt. “Bill said it’s a red car, one of those snazzy ones.”

  Marc’s chest tightened. “A Grand Am?”

  Jess touched his arm. “Kayla parked down the road,” she whispered. “She wanted to leave parking spaces near the house for guests.”

  Then that meant…“Beth, I think it’s a friend’s car. I’ll check it out.”

  “Tell them Bill’s really sorry. It wasn’t a bad bang-up, but still. Nothing he could do under the circumstances.”

  “Of course.”

  Marc disconnected and hurried to his bedroom. He threw on pants and a shirt in quick order.

  “Where is she, Marc?”

  He shook his head. Jess moved closer. “Did she go out looking for me?”

  Marc grabbed her shoulders. “I don’t know, Jess, but maybe.”

  “If her car’s here…” Her look of fear mirrored what he didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “I’ll find her.”

  He had to. There were no other options. Jess ran back to her bedroom. “I’m coming, too.”

  “No.”

  She turned.

  Marc jerked his head. “Stoke up the fire. Make some coffee. Get things comfortable.”

  She thought, then nodded, agreeing. “Okay.”

  Downstairs, he reached to the pegs for his other lined flannel. It wasn’t there. With a frown he stepped out to the back porch and flicked the switch.

  Kayla’s coat and purse lay tucked neatly on the back counter. Jess rounded the corner and stopped dead. “She’s not wearing her coat?”

  The thought of hypothermia chilled Marc’s blood. “I think she’s got my flannel. It’s not on the peg.”

  Jess pretended comfort. “It’s lined and has a hood. She’ll be fine.”

  Dear God, please let her be fine. For the second time tonight, he put someone he loved in God’s hands. He could only pray it was trust well spent.

  The flashlight beam helped Marc pick his way across the iced drive. The falling temperatures had turned the rain to sheeted ice. The coated drive made for treacherous walking.

  He entered the barn through the side door and noticed the back lights were on. Why hadn’t he realized that before?

  Because the front light’s always on. Sure, if he’d looked carefully, he’d have noticed the brighter glow, but he was tired and wet when he came home. All he’d wanted was a bed and a pillow, both dry and warm.

  “Kayla?” He set the flashlight on a shelf. “Kayla? Where are you?”

  The lights meant she’d been there. Marc hunted the lower level, calling her name. He tried not to envision the things that could happen to a tenderfoot in a barn filled with huge animals and heavy equipment. Did she stumble into a stall and get trampled? Fall and impale herself on a piece of equipment?

  In the far reaches he reprimanded himself for not replacing the bulbs in an overhead light. It was dim in that corner, and he picked his way with care.

  Nothing.

  He swallowed the curse he wanted to say and moved to the barn’s center.

  The loft ladder was directly to his right. Would Kayla have ventured up there in those ridiculous shoes?

  No.

  Reality smacked him.

  Sure she would, if she thought Jess was there. He climbed the roughed-in ladder and swung into the loft.

  Tiny kittens raced across the floor, disappearing into a pile of oat straw, a sure sign of spring.

  “Kayla?” Marc crossed the floor, hunting the shadows. “Kayla? Where are you?”

  She had to be here. The thought of her alone in the elements scared him. She wouldn’t have ventured into the fields, with no light and only a flannel shirt, would she?

  “No.” He comforted himself out loud. “She’s here, I know she is.” He moved to the front of the barn, calling her name. “Kayla! Where are you? Are you asleep? Wake up, honey.”

  “Mama?”

  Marc stopped dead. Iced fingers raced down his spine. “Kayla? Keep talking, honey, I’ll find you.”

  “Mama?”

  Marc turned toward the sound. The harness room. He stared at the closed door and the knob lying on the floor. He crossed the short distance in a heartbeat and snatched up the handle. “Kayla? You in there?”

  A childlike sob answered him. Muttering, he thrust the knob into the notch and turned.

  The door opened.

  He wasn’t sure how to approach the terrified woman burrowed in the corner, head down, arms folded around shaking legs. Marc took two quiet steps and crouched. “Kayla?”

  Kayla swayed back and forth, gaze down. “Mama. Come get me. Mama. Come get me. Mama…”

  He crept forward. “It’s Marc, Kayla. It’s okay. Everything’s all right. You got locked in, but the door’s open now. See?” Every male instinct pushed him to speed, but her posture slowed him. He got close enough to touch her. “Kayla?”

  She shrank away.

  “Come here, honey.” Setting his arms around her, Marc gathered her in. “I’ve got you, now. I’ve got you.”

  “I didn’t make a sound.”

  The childlike whisper raised goose bumps on Marc’s arms. He felt the chill of her hands, her cheeks, and k
new he had to get her to the house, but there was no moving her like this.

  “You did good, Kayla.”

  “I tried my best.”

  His heart broke to hear the little girl tones. “I know you did, honey.”

  A skittering noise yanked her attention. The crown of her head caught his chin. He arched back, holding her with one hand and his throbbing chin with the other. “What the—”

  A smoke-gray kitten careened to the now-open door. It danced sideways, a caricature cat, before disappearing into the straw.

  “Don’t let them get me.”

  “Kayla.” Marc gave one last rub to his chin and tipped her head back. “It’s a kitten, Kayla. A tiny, gray kitten. Just a baby.”

  He saw the moment his words registered. She straightened. Her eyes darted, then calmed. She made a move to rise, as if that one moment of lucidity erased the terror. “A kitten? How silly of me.”

  Marc held tight. “Where are you going?”

  He saw a flash of insecure girl, followed by a glimpse of self-assured woman. “Home.”

  “Right.” He tugged her head back to his shoulder. “Where are you, Kayla?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “With you.”

  “No.” Marc pressed his lips to her cold forehead. “I mean, where are you? When I walked in, you weren’t here, in this barn.”

  “Barns smell.”

  “Sometimes. Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m taking you back to the house to warm up. You can bunk with Jess tonight and go home in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  No argument. A rare blessing. He stretched his legs, already cramped on the cold, hard floor. “Can you stand?”

  “Of course.”

  Her legs buckled the moment she tried.

  Marc scooped her up. “Thought as much. What in the world were you doing in here?” He grabbed up her loose shoe and pushed through the doorway as he headed toward the ladder. Two kittens pranced after him, then stutter-stepped away. “Looking for Jess?”

  She nodded. “I thought I heard her crying.”