Life Support (6 page)

In addition, there might be a complaint filed by Simpson's lawyer with the state bar association. Alexia grimaced. The notification letter would be circulated among the lawyers at Leggitt & Freeman, and the other attorneys would self-righteously shake their heads at her indiscretion while ignoring worse violations that lurked in their own filing cabinets. A volunteer member of the local bar committee would conduct a cursory investigation, and Alexia would have to write a letter of explanation. In the end, a bureaucrat in Columbia would send out a generic warning admonishing her to be more careful in the future. The experience would be unpleasant from start to finish.

Misha pattered up the steps and waited at the door for Alexia to let her in. The cat had an uncomplicated, carefully ordered life. She ate when hungry, slept on her own schedule, and enjoyed a regular back scratch. Panting loudly, Boris joined her. He was wired for adventure, and if he could talk would have told Alexia what he saw at the edge of the water in run-on sentences. Her pets always had a way of soothing Alexia's nerves and giving her perspective. She patted Boris's head.

“Let's go inside for a drink of cool water.”

5

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.

ROMEO AND JULIET,
ACT 1, SCENE 4

T
he repeated rushes of adrenaline that had coursed through Rena's veins over the past hour were gone, and the climb up the trail from the waterfall proved more strenuous than she had anticipated. Breathing heavily, she stopped at the top of the ridge and wiped away the perspiration that had beaded on her forehead. Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through the upper left side of her chest, and her hand went to the area over her heart. A heart attack was not part of her plan. She leaned against the smooth trunk of a young tree and waited for the pain to diminish, but it increased. Her left arm began to tingle.

Rena closed her eyes, and her mind returned to the shadow world where her connection with reality teetered as unsteadily as Baxter at the edge of the cliff. She saw herself, pale and unmoving, lying in the newly fallen leaves. Rescue workers came on the scene and rushed over to her. One man knelt down and put his fingers on the side of her neck for several seconds and then looked up at his companions and shook his head. She could hear their voices.

“She's gone. No pulse.”

The man in charge of the rescue squad spoke. “It looks like she came up the path from Double-Barrel Falls. Her husband may be down there somewhere. Three of you take out her body, and the rest of us will search for him.”

Rena saw herself gently lifted in the arms of the three pallbearers who laid her gently on a stretcher that would serve as her woodland bier. She would be viewed as a heroine. A woman who died trying to climb out and find help for her husband.

Behind her closed eyelids, Rena could hear her heart beating in veto of a heart attack. She made herself breathe slowly, hoping the chest pain would pass. Still leaning against the tree, she waited. Minutes ticked by. Finally the pain retreated, and Rena took a deep breath. She was not going to die. The discomfort she'd felt was probably just a complaining muscle. The images of her death faded. She was in good physical condition, and her body recovered quickly from strenuous exercise. Her heart rate returned to normal, and she resumed her march to the parking lot at the trailhead.

After the steep ascent, the trail was generally flat as it ran along the ridge line. Over and over as she walked along, Rena rehearsed the words she intended to use when asked about the day's events. She had to be appropriately distraught to match expectations of a grieving bride, yet sufficiently circumspect to avoid statements that might implicate her in her husband's death. Natural sympathy would be her ally, factual guilt her foe. She knew everything depended on maintaining a simple theme: It was all a tragic accident. There was nothing she could have done to prevent it.

Distracted by her thoughts, Rena tripped over a root and stumbled forward. When she looked up and blinked her eyes, she saw Baxter standing ten feet away in the middle of the path. He was smiling, and his eyes showed the kindness reserved for their most intimate moments. He was wearing the same khaki shorts and cream-colored shirt he'd put on when they'd left the hotel in Greenville early that morning. Rena quickly glanced down at his right leg. There was no sign of a break or the cut on his neck. How he had beaten her back to the trailhead was incomprehensible. Baxter extended his left hand toward her and opened his mouth to speak.

Rena screamed.

At the sound of her voice the apparition disappeared. Shaking, Rena frantically inspected the shadows cast by the surrounding trees. Her mouth was dry, and she licked her lips. She didn't believe in ghosts. Baxter was a man of the earth and had no power to return except as a memory without influence beyond the world of her mind. She took several deep breaths, determined to reinforce the wall between fact and fiction. The thought that her husband might visit her again in a form less friendly than the kind face in the path sent a second cold shiver down her spine.

“No!” she called out.

Again, she inspected the shadows. Seeing nothing, she moved forward, running past the spot where Baxter had blocked her way without glancing behind her shoulder. She didn't slow down until she reached the last small rise in the trail. Panting heavily, she climbed the hill and descended through a grove of oak and poplar trees. Coming around a large oak tree she saw the parking lot and the black SUV. Relieved, she leaned over and rested her hands on her knees.

The sight of the vehicle had a calming effect upon her. The forest was a place where the line between the seen and unseen worlds grew blurry. The SUV was solid proof of civilized reality. Rena took the hard-earned keys from her pocket and pressed the remote button to unlock the car. The vehicle chirped once, flashed its lights, and acknowledged its new master. She opened the door and got inside. The feel of the cool leather was soothing to her aching legs. She turned on Baxter's cell phone. It was still reading out of service. Starting the engine, she pulled out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust. Baxter had used the GPS system as a navigational aid to find the trailhead. Rena didn't need it and flipped it off.

Four miles down the gravel road, she glanced at the phone and saw that she could make a call. Pulling over to the side, she shut off the engine. It was a big moment—her first contact with the outside world. Once more, she practiced her lines and then punched 911. She knew the call would be recorded. An older woman's voice answered after one ring.

“Mitchell County 911.”

“This is Rena Richardson,” she said rapidly. “My husband and I were hiking at Double-Barrel Falls. He slipped and fell into the gorge. I'm afraid he's dead.”

Her voice was much more shaky than when she practiced. Rena wasn't sure if it made her sound sincere or unequivocally established her guilt.

“Slow down, dear. Where are you now?”

“I'm on the forest road 49. I ran back to the car and drove until I could get a signal to make a call.”

There were a few seconds of silence. Rena twirled a strand of her hair.

“I've located the road in the state recreational area,” the woman said. “Where is your husband now?”

“His body is on the rocks at the base of the waterfall. I tried to revive him, but I'm—” Rena hesitated. Then in a voice that cracked with a sudden rush of emotion she said, “afraid that he's dead.”

“Are you injured?”

“Nothing except for cuts and bruises.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Rena could hear the woman talking on a radio, dispatching police and emergency crews to the area.

“I've called for help. Do you need medical care?”

Before she could say no, Rena felt nauseated and slightly dizzy.

“I'm sick to my stomach.”

“You may be in shock. Don't try to drive any farther. Wait for the medical personnel to come to you. You think you're four miles from the parking area for the trail?”

“Yes.”

“Let me read back the phone number that is appearing on my screen.”

Rena listened with her hand over her mouth.

“Yeah, that's it.”

“We'll call you if we have trouble locating you. Do you need to stay on the line with me?” the woman asked.

Rena was getting sicker by the minute. She didn't want to hear another human voice. She wanted to be left alone.

“Uh, no.”

Rena clicked off the phone and leaned her head against the seat. She cracked open the window. By sitting completely still and taking deep breaths, she could take the edge off the nausea. She closed her eyes and saw an ambulance scream around the curve and stop. Two workers jumped out the back and rushed over to her.

“Are you okay?” one asked anxiously.

Rena raised her head feebly. “Don't stay here. Go find my husband.”

“Where is he?”

It took all her strength to sit up enough to gesture with her hand. “He slipped and fell at Double-Barrel Falls. I'm afraid he's dead.”

“But what about you?”

Rena's head fell back against the seat.

“Never mind me. Help him.”

Rena was impressed by her unselfishness. It would be a good idea to send the first ambulance that arrived on up to the trailhead—a sacrificial gesture that would look good in the report filed by the EMT personnel. Something hit the roof of her vehicle with a loud thud and jarred her. She opened her eyes and saw a green walnut the size of a tennis ball rolling down the front windshield. She was still alone in the woods. It would be at least fifteen to twenty minutes before anyone arrived. She closed her eyes and returned to her selfless fantasy.

After giving her pets fresh water, Alexia looked at the clock and decided she had time for a swim before supper. She changed into a competition-style, one-piece, red swimsuit and put her other gear in a beachbag. When Boris saw that Alexia was wearing the swimsuit, he ran immediately to the front door and started barking.

“Is this your favorite outfit?” she asked him as she slipped on a windbreaker that was hanging on a hook by her front door.

Boris scratched the door. When she opened it, he ran down the steps so fast that he was at the bottom waiting before she turned the key in the door.

The temperature of the ocean had already begun to drop as fall advanced toward winter. A few hearty Canadians still splashed in the surf fifty miles north at Myrtle Beach, but almost no local residents ventured into the ocean farther than necessary to make a good cast into the surf.

Alexia's boat, a lightweight aluminum craft on a small trailer, was underneath her house. She kept it locked with a thick, rusty chain wrapped around one of the stucco pillars, but it would be a desperate thief who considered the ancient watercraft a worthy object. It was only 150 feet from her house to a place where she could easily slide the boat into the marsh, and it was easier to pull the trailer by hand than hitch it to her car for a ten-second drive.

Alexia was wearing an old pair of dock shoes that had been seasoned by the salt water and marsh mud. Digging her heels in the sandy soil, she was able to get the trailer moving. Once it was rolling all she had to do was maintain a constant speed to the edge of the water. Her biggest challenge was keeping Boris away from her feet. When the boat reached the first strands of marsh grass, she expertly turned it so that the engine was pointed toward a small canal. She pushed the boat forward and then released the latch that held it on the trailer. Lifting up the tongue of the trailer, she held on to a rope tied to the bow of the boat as the stern slid into the water.

Boris didn't need coaxing. He bounded into the boat as soon as Alexia pulled away the trailer. His feet made loud scratching sounds as he ran back and forth from the engine to the bow. Alexia pushed the boat into the water and hopped in it at the last second. Stepping over a single seat, she sat on the gunwale beside the motor. The engine could be started with a key, and in a few moments, she was guiding the boat along watery paths as familiar to her as a sidewalk in town.

It was a zigzag route through the marsh to the barrier island. Boris took up his position as figurehead, madly barking at the mullet that jumped from the water on both sides of the boat. The silver sides of the fish flashed against the dark water. Alexia smiled at the dog's antics and wondered what he would do if one of the slender fish jumped out of the water and landed in the boat.

The barrier island was owned by the state of South Carolina. Only two hundred yards across at its widest point, the one-mile strip of sandy beach was too narrow for commercial development. It existed at the whim of the ocean and feared nothing except the sea. A major hurricane could cut it in two in a night, or a shift in offshore currents could erase it in one hundred years. Alexia was simply glad it existed for her. Plans were made to build a causeway from the mainland to the southern end of the island so people without boats could walk on the pristine sand. Alexia hoped the funding for the causeway went into repaving a road somewhere else.

She steered the boat toward a spot at the northern end of the island. The last twenty yards of her journey were through open water where the ocean met the marsh. The front of the boat bumped into the muddy sand on the landward side. Boris leapt through the air onto the shore and disappeared over the top of the sand dunes. Alexia tossed out her beach-bag and pulled the boat halfway onto the dry ground. She carried a rope tied to the boat's bow across the sand to a clump of scruffy bushes and wrapped it around the largest bush.

Alexia trudged up a rise fringed with dune grass and stopped at the top. This was always one of her favorite moments. The human eye and mind are incapable of grasping the vastness of an ocean, but Alexia liked to try. A breeze blew from the northwest, and the water beyond the surf was decorated with narrow white caps. This was not going to be like paddling across a suburban swimming pool. Alexia walked to the edge of the water and emptied the contents of her beachbag. Rarely did she see anyone else on the island and never in the evenings. She was as alone as Robinson Crusoe. Boris splashed into the surf and then ran back to her.