Catherine Coulter - The Cove

Suddenly there was a scream, long and drawn out, starting low and ending on a crescendo. It was coming from outside the house.

She ran toward her aunt's bedroom, not feeling the cold wooden floor beneath her bare feet, no, just running until she forced herself to draw up and tap lightly on the door.

Amabel opened the door as if she'd been standing right there, waiting for her to knock. But that wasn't possible, surely.

She grabbed her aunt's arms and shook her. "Did you hear the scream, Amabel? Please, you heard it, didn't you?"

"Oh, baby, that was the wind. I heard it and knew you'd be frightened. I was coming to you. Did you have another nightmare?''

"It wasn't the wind, Amabel. It was a woman."

"No, no, come along now and let me help you back to bed. Look at your bare feet. You'll catch your death of something. Come on now, baby, back to bed with you."

There was another scream, this one short and high-pitched, then suddenly muffled. It was a woman's scream, like the first one.

Amabel dropped her arm.

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"Now do you believe me, Amabel?"

"I suppose I'll just have to call one of the men to come and check it out. The problem is, they're all so old that if they go out in this weather, they'll probably catch pneumonia. Maybe it was the wind. What woman would be screaming outside? Yes, it's this bloody wind. It's impossible, Sally. Let's just forget it."

"No, I can't. It's a woman, Amabel, and someone is hurting her. I can't just go back to bed and forget it."

"Why not?"

Sally just stared at her.

"You mean when your papa hit your mama you tried to protect her?"

"Yes."

Amabel sighed. "I'm sorry, baby. You did hear the wind this time, not your mama being punched by your papa."

"Can I borrow your raincoat, Amabel?"

Amabel sighed, hugged Sally close, and said, "All right. I'll call Reverend Vorhees. He's not as rickety as the others, and he's strong. He'll check it out."

When Reverend Hal Vorhees arrived at Amabel's house, he had three other men with him. "This is Gus Eisner, Susan, a fellow who can fix anything with wheels and a motor."

"Mr. Eisner," Sally said. "I heard a woman scream, twice. It was an awful scream. Someone was hurting her."

Gus Eisner looked as if he would have spat if there'd been a cuspidor in the corner. "The wind, ma'am,"

he said, nodding, "it was just the wind. I've heard it all my life, all seventy-four years, and it makes noises that sometimes have made my teeth ache. Just the wind."

"But we'll look around anyway," Hal Vorhees said. "This here is Purn Davies, who owns the general store, and Hunker Dawson, who's a World War II vet and our flower expert." Sally nodded, and the reverend patted her shoulder, nodded to Amabel, and followed the other men out the front door. "You ladies stay safe inside now. Don't let anyone in unless it's us."

"The little females," Sally said. "I feel like I should be barefoot and pregnant, making coffee in the kitchen."

"They're old, baby, they're just old. That generation gave their wives an allowance. Gus's wife, Velma, wouldn't know a bank statement if it bit her ankle. But things balance out, you now. Old Gus is night-blind.

Without Velma, he'd be helpless after dark. Don't mind their words. They care, and that's a good feeling, isn't it?"

Just as she opened her mouth to reply, there was a third scream, this one fast and loud, and then it Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ended, cut off abruptly. It was distant, hidden, and now it was over.

Sally knew deep down that there wouldn't be another scream. Ever again. She also knew it wasn't the damned wind.

She looked at her aunt, who was straightening a modern painting over the sofa, a small picture painted in pattern-less swirls of ocher, orange, and purple. It was an unsettling painting, dark and violent.

"The wind," Sally said slowly. "Yes, no more than the wind." She wanted to ask Amabel if Gus were night-blind, what good would he be out searching for a victim in the dark?

The next morning dawned cool and clear, the sky as blue in March as it would be in August. Sally walked to Thel-ma's Bed and Breakfast. Mr. Quinlan, Martha told her, was having his breakfast.

He was seated in isolated splendor amid the heavy Victorian furnishings in Miss Thelma's front room. On the linen-covered table was a breakfast more suited to three kings than just one man.

She walked straight to him, waited until he looked up from his newspaper, and said, "Who are you?"

5

IT HAD NEVER occurred to him that she would confront him, not after he'd seen her huddled on the floor when he burst into her aunt's living room. But she had tried to knee him and she'd also punched him just below the ribs. She had fought back. And here she was today, looking ready to spit on him. For some obscure reason, that pleased him. Perhaps it was because he didn't want his prey to be stupid or cowardly. He wanted a chase that would challenge him.

How could she have found out so quickly? It didn't make sense.

"I'm James Quinlan," he said. "Most people call me Quinlan. You can call me whatever you want to.

Won't you sit down, Sally? I assure you there's enough food, though when I finish one plate Martha just brings in another one. Does she do the cooking?"

"I don't know. Who are you?"

"Sit down and we'll talk. Or would you like a section of the newspaper? It's the Oregonian, a very good paper. There's a long article in here about your father."

She sat down.

"Who are you, Mr. Quinlan?"

"That didn't last long. It was James yesterday."

"I have a feeling that nothing lasts very long with you."

She was right about that, he thought, as he had a fleeting image of Teresa laughing when he'd whispered to her as he'd come inside her that if she ever had another man she would find out what it meant to be half empty.

"What other feelings do you have, Sally?"

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"That you love problems, that you get a problem in your hands and shape and mold and twist and do whatever you have to do to solve that problem. Then you lose interest. You look for another problem."

He stared at her and said aloud, though he didn't realize he was doing so, "How the hell do you know that?"

"Mr. Quinlan, how did you know my husband is a lawyer? That wasn't on TV. There was no reason for it to be. Or if he had been shown, they certainly would have had no reason to discuss his profession or anything else about him."

"Ah, you remembered that, did you?"

"Delaying tactics don't become you. What if I told you I have a Colt. 45 revolver in my purse and I'll shoot you if you don't tell me the truth right now?"

"I'd probably believe you. Keep your gun in your purse. It was on TV-your good old husband escorting your mother to your dad's funeral. You just didn't see it." Thank God he'd heard Thelma and Martha discussing it yesterday. Thank God they hadn't really been interested. Washington, D.C., was light-years from their world. "If you think there's anything private about you now, forget it. You're an open book."

She had seen it, she'd forgotten, just plain forgotten. She'd made a mistake, and she couldn't afford to make any more. She remembered eating that wonderful ham sandwich the first day she'd arrived, sitting with Amabel, watching her black-and-white set, listening and watching and knowing that Scott was with her mother. She hadn't watched TV before or since. She prayed she wasn't an open book. She prayed no one in The Cove would ever realize who she was.

"I forgot," she said and picked up a slice of unbuttered toast. She bit into it, chewed slowly, then swallowed. "I shouldn't have, but I did."