Flashback Page 13

  When the music returned to soft rock, Rachel shook her head. “You left me owing you, dammit. Why?”

  She forced herself to continue, opening the cabinets over the counter and studying the few contents. Mallory’s dishes were inexpensive and haphazardly stacked, then something odd about how the cabinet looked caught Rachel. Her finger traced the outside of the cabinet, nearest the window, and she looked inside…. “They don’t match. The outside is larger than the inside shelving….”

  She held her breath as she measured the three-inch discrepancy with her fingers. Rachel slowly removed a stack of dinner plates and paused, holding them as a thin block of wood fell from the side of the cabinet onto the shelf.

  A miniature cloth doll, sewn and stuffed, tumbled onto the countertop. The pins sticking from it gleamed eerily in the sunlight, like tiny swords.

  Rachel slowly placed the plates on the table and lifted the doll. Something shivered coldly within her, a sense that a door was opening, an insight that Mallory had withheld…. “Mallory?”

  The doll was obviously male, and the clothing was hand stitched. The crude shirt was pinstriped, tacked by a single button, and a short length of hair was fastened to the cloth head.

  Rachel stood very still, studying the doll, sensing the true, bitter darkness that was Mallory’s. The pins were those used by florists’ corsages and boutonnieres. One slid through the doll’s heart, and the other between its legs. “That message is pretty clear, Mallory…whoever this is, you didn’t like him.”

  She held the doll, turning it, trying to imagine what her sister had felt. The eyes, stitched black Xs, stared back at her. The blue pinstripes of the shirt showed other perforation marks, and the doll seemed soft and worn. “You handled this a lot, didn’t you, Mallory? Why? Why did you place one portion of your life in the closet—that good warm safe part, and this away from it?”

  A chill shot through Rachel, despite the apartment’s comfortable warmth. The dusty collection of small beach shells seemed to catch the slight breeze from the open window, rattling slightly before one tumbled into the sink….

  Instinct told Rachel that Mallory had dissected her life, keeping the mundane and good away from the darkness that had eventually killed her. The kitchen had been basically unused, and probably the safest place from searching eyes. Rachel carefully replaced the doll, this tiny insight into a Mallory she hadn’t known, and looked at the next shelf above this one; it bore the same three-inch discrepancy. “Okay, Mallory. Give up whatever you hid when you were alive. I’d really like to meet this guy.”

  She eased the heavy casserole dish from the side of the next shelf and lifted away that block of wood. A cassette tape clattered onto the shelf.

  As Rachel reached for it, her fingers trembled; she feared that it could reveal more darkness in Mallory’s life. “You were so careful about your other things, to hide what you were, the precious moments in your life. Did you forget these?”

  Rachel carefully inserted one tape into the radio’s player and an eery moaning floated through the kitchen. She clicked it off immediately, and hurried to close the windows so that no one might hear.

  When played, the tape was that of a woman moaning, and a man’s voice was in the background, too low and indistinct to understand the words. He was angry and demanding, his rage filling the room….

  Rachel recognized Mallory’s voice, the pain in it, the cries, and the anger. “You even come close to my family, and I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you! You better not have raped Rachel, you bastard—”

  After the sharp crack that sounded like an openhanded slap, there was silence punctuated by whimpering…

  “Oh, Mallory—” Unable to listen to more, Rachel turned off the tape, and silence again filled the apartment—the waiting heaviness of something that had passed and something that would happen…. She crumpled into a chair, wrapping her arms around herself, and shivering. “You were afraid for us. Raped me? Did you think that whoever this—this man is—would rape me?”

  Mallory had used past tense—“raped.” “When? In New York? You knew whoever attacked me? That’s why you were so furious? Mallory? Who is he? Oh, my God…. You never went anywhere since that time nine years ago, that five months vacation, before you opened Nine Balls. The attack on me was three years ago. This is a new type of tape…. Is it someone here? Is he herein Neptune’s Landing? Who is he?”

  Rachel rubbed her face and her shaking hands came away damp with tears. “Who is he? What did he do to you? Oh, I’ll get him, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  She replaced the doll and the tape, but the horrible sounds of Mallory being hurt echoed in the apartment and couldn’t be erased from her mind. What had she gone through? To protect Rachel? Why?

  “I know what everyone thinks, that you were too far gone at the end to be reliable. I don’t believe that. I’m going to find out who hurt you and I’m getting his voice matched with that tape. I’m going to handle this very personally, Mallory.”

  Rachel held still, breathing quietly. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? For me to find these things? That’s why I’m the new owner, right? Okay, then you’re going to have to give me something to work on, Mallory….”

  But the apartment was silent and haunting—

  That evening, Jada stopped by the apartment after completing her initial ice cream route. After swearing her sister to secrecy, Rachel showed her the doll. There was no reason now for her mother or Jada to know what Mallory went through during the making of that tape.

  As they sat on Rachel’s cream-colored designer love seat, the only furniture she’d shipped from New York, Jada propped up her feet on an unpacked box and studied the doll. “You’re after this guy, aren’t you? Think this scary doll worked?”

  “I think it gave Mallory some sense that she was not entirely helpless. It’s only guesswork and not something to take to the police. They’d only put it down as a druggie’s weird life-style.”

  “So all we have to do is to look for someone with heart problems and penile dysfunction, right?”

  When Rachel nodded, Jada carefully removed one pin and placed it in his head. “Whoever he is should be getting a headache about now.”

  “I think whoever that doll is supposed to resemble was the man who threatened to harm us, if Mallory didn’t do what he wanted. I think he blackmailed her into doing what he wanted,” Rachel stated softly and watched her sister’s stunned reaction. Jada didn’t know about the attack three years before, but Rachel had linked that timing to Mallory’s sharp decline. You get the point, don’t you? he’d said to Rachel back then.

  Rachel closed her eyes and settled back on the love seat, her arms around her cold body as she relived that nightmare….

  Her attacker couldn’t perform, his erection soft against her, and then he’d gotten really mad, slapping her. But when she’d cried out, begging him to stop, he’d hardened again but had pushed away when the other two men had begun laughing…. You get the point…. What point?

  Jada stared disbelievingly at Rachel. “You really think that Mallory was doing whatever she had to do to protect us? How did you get that idea?”

  “We were the only people who mattered to her. I think she allowed what happened to her, because she was protecting us—and what she had built. I think someone was involved with her.”

  “Not my sperm donor. Not Kyle,” Jada stated firmly. “In the end, she pushed him away like she did us. But Kyle still came here, checking on her, and filling in with lessons when she—when she wasn’t feeling good. At that stage, Mom couldn’t bear it anymore. He kept an eye on Mallory—or as much as she’d let him. This doll represents someone else, and she sure hated him. She always said she loved Kyle—as a brother and sometimes as a father, but always as a friend. He brings that out in most women—not you, of course.”

  “Is that why Kyle came to Nine Balls so often, to take Mallory’s place, help her with her business?”

  Kyle had cared for Mallory, that mu
ch was obvious by his stark anger and frustration last night on the beach….

  “He sure wasn’t doing anything else with her, not since they were so hot years ago. All that died a long time ago. If she was seeing anyone in particular, she was hiding it from him—he would have gone after the guy. Kyle is very protective.”

  “Whoever it is, I am going to find him, search every detail of his life and make him miserable.”

  Jada stared at Rachel. “I’ve seen you like this before, a hell-be-damned attitude. You mean it, don’t you? You’re going to catch him and make him pay.”

  “I will. I swear I will.”

  “That could be dangerous. Count me in.”

  After Jada had gone, Rachel carefully replaced the doll and settled onto her bed. She studied the scrapbook and mementoes, looking for any clue to indicate the man hurting her…. There were so many pictures, ribbons, flattened corsages, each preserved with intricate, loving care.

  All legs and thin arms, young Mallory, Jada, and Rachel grinned impishly at the camera. There was Trina, holding her cue in one hand and her arm wrapped around Mallory who was holding a trophy.

  In another picture was the usual collection of high school friends at a car wash, Mallory and Rachel soaked after spraying each other—Rachel’s finger traced that photo and then moved to the next, Mallory sitting in Kyle’s small red sports car, waving at the camera….

  The telephone rang and when Rachel answered, there was silence. “Probably a wrong number,” she told herself and tried to believe it.

  The next ring jarred her. If it was someone trying to scare her, it was working. That fear flipped into anger, because the same thing might have happened to Mallory—she grabbed the telephone and stated quietly, fiercely, “I know who you are now. And I’m coming after you.”

  “Anytime…I’d like that,” Kyle drawled softly.

  After a few heartbeats in which she recovered, Rachel said, “Maybe I just will, Scanlon.”

  She smoothed the picture of young Mallory in Kyle’s red sports car. Rachel thought of the doll, of the hair that matched the color of Kyle’s, but not his crisp texture and waves. “You wouldn’t happen to know any of the men who visited Mallory after hours, do you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Like?”

  “Men,” he answered briefly, seriously. “Just men. But most of them liked her. She was a good listener and a good heart beneath all the crust. She also had pretty good survival instincts from scrambling around before your mother adopted her. Then something happened to her, and she didn’t care anymore.”

  You get the point, don’t you? the man had asked during the attack on Rachel. Whoever it was wanted to frighten Rachel badly enough that she would summon her family to her side—not her mother, or her younger sister, but someone who could understand a man’s dark side—Mallory….

  “The money, Kyle. Why was she paying you each month?”

  “That was between us.”

  “How’s my cat?”

  After a moment, the loud purring told her that Harry was quite happy. “Shall I bring him over to visit?” Kyle drawled.

  “I’d rather just come pick him up.”

  “Like I said. Anytime he wants to come with you, it’s fine with me. He eats a lot of food, Rachel. I had to get a litter box to keep him from digging up the girls’ flowers.”

  Rachel smiled, and found herself enjoying Kyle’s dilemma. “Oh, really?”

  “He only eats sardines. They get expensive after a while. I’ll have to charge you a boarding fee.”

  Harry would eat dry cat food if he were really hungry. But he knew how to wait and play his keeper into giving him more expensive fare. “Then bring him home.”

  “He likes it here.”

  “He’s my cat.”

  The purring increased and Kyle said, “That’s questionable now, honey.”

  “Kyle? Did you call just a minute ago and then hang up?”

  After a brief pause, Kyle answered curtly, “No. Is someone calling you?”

  “Probably a wrong number…don’t say anything to Mom or Jada.”

  “That says you don’t think it was a wrong number. Do you want me to come over?”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Oh, I have them all right. Be careful, Rachel. And don’t go to the beach alone. Call me.”

  She traced the photograph that had just slipped from the front cover of the scrapbook. It was of Kyle standing next to a girl about eight or so, who was proudly holding a small bike. The picture had been hidden between the cover and the backing, carefully taped inside, and that said it was precious and private. Rachel had to know the girl’s identity and how she fitted into Mallory’s life—and Kyle would know.

  Rachel tapped the picture in her palm. She was very good at research and it was only a matter of time before she tracked down the girl. And Kyle was a definite link to the girl…. He definitely knew more about Mallory’s life than anyone. And Rachel had learned more about her sister’s adult life in a few moments with Kyle than she could have ever guessed had occurred….

  She might be packing that picnic basket after all. “Okay. Thanks. Good night, Kyle.”

  Three days passed in the first week of May, and each time Rachel looked at a man, she wondered if he’d known Mallory, if he’d hurt her. She noted those men with fine brown hair that might match the cloth doll’s. In her trips to the print shop for Nine Balls’ advertising flyers, in the grocery store, at the drugstore, Rachel talked about her excitement about reopening Nine Balls. If a man looked wary, she dropped in Mallory’s name and watched his reaction.

  There were too many reactions, including Leon’s stunned expression when she asked him about Mallory’s car, why she had sold it to him. “Uh—it needed a lot of work and she said she wasn’t going anywhere…needed the money to pay bills. And I ran errands for her.”

  “Just before she died, did you take a letter from her to a post office away from here?” Rachel had asked, still puzzled about the last letter Mallory wrote to her, received on the day of the funeral.

  “Yeah. She was in bad shape, but still sweet, you know. She always was a sweet person. I liked her,” Leon had answered with a genuinely sad tone and Rachel noted that his thinning hair was red and coarse with curls, not fine and brown as that of the doll’s.

  Bob had looked sheepish when Rachel had asked him if he’d helped Mallory. “Some,” he finally admitted. “She wasn’t handling the business end of things very well at the last. She said some creditors were leaning on her. I told her not to get mixed up with loan sharks, and I didn’t tell your mother, but that’s my guess.”

  After going through Mallory’s payments again, Rachel had called Kyle. “Know anything about loan-sharking, Scanlon?”

  He had sounded distracted and the metallic click of tools sounded in the background. “Sure. How much do you want?”

  “Not me. Did you ever loan money to Mallory? Tack a nice hefty interest on it, did you?”

  He had chuckled at that. “You miss me. That’s sweet, Rachel. Got that picnic basket ready for the beach? Just you and me?”

  “I’m not sweet, Scanlon, and the basket is empty.”

  He chuckled again. “You really should try to be a little nicer. Then maybe you could keep a boyfriend and get a ring on your finger. If you do, let him wear the pants sometimes. You’re pushy, Everly. Men don’t usually like a woman who shoves them around.”

  “This from someone who’s been married two times. You’re giving me advice?”

  Rachel had disconnected the line, but not before she’d heard Kyle’s chuckle. “Glad you’re enjoying yourself, bud. You may not later.”

  Four days of promotion and preparing later, and Rachel opened for a one-day test. She hoped to regain Nine Balls’s customer base with an advertised special of free pool, and gain experience in handling business.

  The busy, hectic day gave her more experiences than she’d planned—including a motorcycle gang who brought their ow
n beer, despite ad work that designated no alcohol. An eight-year-old boy, accompanied by his parents, decided to throw the cue ball, instead of hitting it with a cue. A bag of chips spilled onto the floor and was tracked onto the playing area. One couple wanted their favorite playing table, which was also another couple’s favorite table, and someone drew back their cue, hitting someone else in the eye with the butt. But Rachel did gain experience in sorting the serious players from those who were just taking advantage of a freebie, and those who were curious about the new owner—like the men who flirted with her.

  Rachel closed early at five o’clock to recover with her mother and sister, who had helped throughout the day. Jada grinned at Rachel. “Harry has been at Kyle’s for over a week now. So whose cat is he?”

  Rachel frowned at Jada. She’d been too busy moving into the apartment, and preparing Nine Balls for the test day of free billiards, to deal with Kyle and retrieve her tomcat. Kyle’s ex-wives had reportedly arrived, probably spoiling the tomcat until he might never come back.

  When she had answered the telephone and loud purring was the only sound, Rachel had no doubt that Kyle was really enjoying himself.

  “Bring him home,” she’d yelled at an oddly quiet moment, when everyone in the billiards parlor had suddenly stopped talking. She’d heard a distinct, recognizable chuckle before hanging up the telephone.

  “I enjoyed my little fifteen minutes of fame, and the money I won from taking bets was good,” Trina murmured as she lined up for a trick shot. “And I’m out of practice…it’s been a while since I’ve concentrated on anything but paperwork, sales, and car titles. This is called ‘around the world.’”

  Rachel leaned against an opposite table and sipped a bottle of water as she replayed everything that had seemed so compressed into that one test day….

  Some of Mallory’s regulars had been put off by her suicide and responded coolly to Rachel’s invitations to reserve table times. “Bad karma,” one had said.

  Then there were the novelty seekers, wanting the “dirt” on why Mallory had finally decided to “off” herself. With the help of Trina and Jada, Rachel had quickly gotten rid of anyone inclined to rummage through Mallory’s darkness.