You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,60
understood, she was a basket case, one step out of the loony bin, but the information had been wrong. After hauling her out of the bay on the first night, he’d discovered that she was far more intelligent and intuitive than he’d been led to believe. In fact, he decided as he kept to the shadows as he made his way back from the main house to his apartment, she was a force to be reckoned with.
“The best laid plans . . . ,” he muttered under his breath as he quickly climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and stepped into his temporary home.
Rover was anxiously waiting for him and giving him the evil eye as only a dog can do for being left to his own devices. “You can’t always come along, y’know.” Dern scratched the shepherd behind his ear and was, it seemed, immediately forgiven. The old dog grunted in pleasure as Dern scratched his back.
“Our secret, okay?”
As if he understood, Rover let out a soft woof, then, when Dern straightened, padded over to his spot by the fire and settled in. “Good boy,” Dern muttered as he fired up his laptop and stuck his connection device and jump drive into the appropriate USB ports.
Within seconds he was connected to the Internet and double-checking all the files he had on Ava Church Garrison as well as Church Island, Neptune’s Gate, and the people who had lived and worked on this miserable scrap of an island. The history of the island was in one file, ties to Anchorville in another, and there was another dedicated entirely to Sea Cliff. His jaw tightened as he thought about the crumbling asylum. He’d scaled a fence and walked through the old hallways where staff members and patients had once worked and lived. Aside from a thick layer of dust, stagnant air, and a general feeling of neglect, the building was intact. On the outside, however, where the wind and rain buffeted the walls, the feeling of abandonment was more pronounced. Picnic tables were rotting, their paint peeling, the dappling of seagull droppings ever-present.
With his collar turned toward the elements, he’d walked around the outdoor area inside the fence. The old familiar paths in the grass had become overgrown, barely visible with the new growth of weeds and the concrete walkways had cracked.
Disuse and despair, that’s what remained.
Sea Cliff hadn’t been built as a prison, and yet that’s what it had come to symbolize.
At least for Dern.
He just had to keep up the charade.
For as long as it took.
He started to second-guess his reasons for being here but quickly dismissed any lingering doubts. Ava Garrison wasn’t going to ruin his plans. If she became more of a problem, he’d just deal with her.
It wasn’t as if she were the first woman to get in his way.
She wouldn’t be the last.
That thought stopped him short because he had a tiny, niggling suspicion that dismissing Ava Church might not be so easy to do.
The dock was empty.
Even through the shifting fog, Ava saw that her boy wasn’t standing near the water.
“Mommy!” His voice called to her, and she threw off the covers. Naked, the breath of winter’s air caressing her skin, she reached for her robe, but it was caught on the hook of the door and wouldn’t budge.
“Mommy . . . ?”
Oh, God, he sounded frightened. “Noah! I’m coming.” She flung open her bedroom door and found herself in the boathouse where the smell of diesel and brackish water filled her nostrils. Why was Noah here? Her eyes searched the murky waters, but all she saw was her own naked reflection and that of a man standing behind her, just over her left shoulder. Austin Dern, his eyes full of secrets, met her gaze in the undulating surface. He, too, was naked, and when he reached for her, placing a hand around her torso, strong fingers pressing into the flesh over her ribs, she gasped.
“Mommy?”
Noah’s voice again. She turned and Dern disappeared, like a puff of smoke as she reached for the door of the boathouse and stepped outside. Dawn was streaking the morning sky as she raced barefoot up the path to the porch and inside. Taking the back stairs, she ran to the second floor and heard Noah’s tiny voice calling her.
“I’m coming, baby!” she yelled, flying along the hallway, her feet slapping the wooden floors, the spindles of the railing near the front stairs rushing by in a blur.