The Hidden: A Novel of Suspense

T W E L V E

ANOTHER GRAY, GLOOMY, WINDY day. The rear deck, the grassy slope, and the side patio were all wet with dew. Shelby stepped outside for a few seconds to see how cold it was. Damn cold—the wind slapped at her face like a frostbitten hand, the sharp smell of ozone pinched her nostrils. There’d be more rain pretty soon, probably another storm.

The cold and damp were in the cottage, too. Jay had turned on the baseboard heater when he got up and it had been going for half an hour now, but the moist chill was still in the air. How could that happen overnight in a place as well built as this one? One of the joys of oceanfront living in the dead of winter, she thought. Goose bumps and sniffles to go with the whitewater views and invigorating sea breezes.

The place was already beginning to give her cabin fever.

Jay made buttermilk pancakes for breakfast, his special recipe that included bananas and nutmeg and some other kind of spice. They were good but she only picked at the ones on her plate; she didn’t have much appetite. For the food or for the conversation he tried to make. Small talk as usual. Not a word about the nightmare, or about anything else that mattered to either of them.

Finally she said, “I don’t think I can just sit around here another day. Let’s go for a drive.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Fort Bragg’s not far, is it?”

“Twenty miles or so.”

“You sound hesitant.”

“No, it’s just that …”

“Just that what?”

“There’s another storm coming,” he said.

“Surprise.”

“No, I mean a big storm, worse than the one on the way up. High winds, heavy rain.”

“How do you know? The car radio?”

“The woman in the Seacrest grocery store.”

“And you didn’t tell me until now?”

“I guess I just forgot.”

You guess you just forgot. Bullshit, Jay.

She said, “When is this big storm supposed to get here?”

“Sometime this afternoon.”

“Then there’s still time for a drive to Fort Bragg.”

“If you really want to go.”

“I really want to go.”

“Okay, then.” He reached across to touch her hand; she resisted an impulse to pull it away. “We’ll leave right after I clean up.”

“Cleaning up can wait until we get back. I’ll do it. You don’t always have to be maid as well as cook.”

“Just trying to make things a little easier for you.”

Five minutes later they were in the car. She felt better being out of the cottage, moving again. The highway to the north was full of loops and twists, but she had to admit the scenery was impressive. Ocean views, wooded areas, a long sweep around the mouth of a river, hamlets and rustic inns and B&Bs. Wind gusts buffeted the car and the sky was a sullen chiaroscuro, but the windshield stayed dry.

Jay kept trying to make conversation, but it was all small talk and she was sick of small talk. They were passing by the picturesque bluff-top town of Mendocino when he said something about it looking so much like villages in Maine, the producers of the TV show Murder, She Wrote had passed it off as Cabot Cove for the duration of the series. More small talk, trivial and meaningless.

Enough, she thought.

“Jay,” she said, “talk to me.”

“I am talking to you. I said—”

“You didn’t say anything. You haven’t said anything I really wanted to hear in so long I can’t remember the last time.”

She saw the muscles along his jaw clench. “That’s not fair, Shel.”

“Fair? My God, fair?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“What you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.”

“You know how I feel about you. I love you.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Half the time you talk to me as if I’m a casual acquaintance instead of your wife. Never about anything that really matters to you. Stop hiding from me.”

“I’m not hiding from you,” he said, “I’m … I can’t always express what I’m thinking or feeling …”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“It’s hard, that’s all. I’m just not wired the way you are, I’m … I have this … oh Jesus, do we have to get into this now?”

“If not now, then when?”

“When we’re back home. There’re some things … I’ll tell you then.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“I just … I don’t want to spoil our last couple of days up here.”

“Spoil them by clearing the air?”

“When we get home—that’s a promise.”

“Another promise you won’t keep. You’ll go right on hiding in that private cocoon of yours.”

“No, I won’t. Not this time.”

Useless. Like beating her head against a stone wall.

The fantasy came over her again. He seemed to waver in her vision, turn shimmery, lose definition; for a second or two it was as if she could look right through him. The illusion was almost frightening this time.

She closed her eyes to shut it out, shifted over close against the door and laid her head against the seat back. The silence that rebuilt between them was like a weight. A frustrated anger simmered in her, but it didn’t last. In its place was a small, cold emptiness.

And she thought again: Enough.