Dream Lake (Friday Harbor 3)

As Alex got into the BMW, the shadow slipped inside with him, and settled across the passenger seat like an empty pillowcase. And together they went home.

Three

This was the irony: after years of longing to escape the house at Rainshadow Road, a few weeks spent in Alex Nolan’s company had been enough to make the ghost want to go back. But there was only so far that the ghost could drift before he encountered the parameters of yet another invisible prison. He was stuck with Alex. He could occupy another room, or glide several yards away, but that was it. When Alex left his ultramodern house at Roche Harbor, the ghost found himself being towed along like a balloon on a string … or more aptly, a helpless fish caught on the end of a line.

Women often approached him, drawn by the dark glamour of his good looks. But Alex was a distant and unsentimental man. His sexual needs were occasionally satisfied by Darcy, who was now living in Seattle but sometimes came to visit even though they had agreed to a legal separation as a prelude to divorce. They had conversations in which words nicked like razor blades, followed by sex, the one form of connection they had ever managed. Darcy had told Alex that all the things that made him a terrible husband were also the things that made him great in bed. Whenever they started going at it, the ghost prudently removed himself to the farthest room in the house and tried to ignore Darcy’s ecstatic screams.

Darcy was greyhound-lean and beautiful, her hair black and straight. She radiated a diamond-hard confidence that would have made it impossible to pity her, except that the ghost had noticed signs of vulnerability … feathery sleepless lines around her mouth and eyes, brittle fractures in her laughter, all caused from the knowledge that her marriage had become less than the sum of its parts.

The ghost accompanied Alex around his on-spec residential development in Roche Harbor—something the ghost had heard him refer to as a pocket neighborhood. A grouping of well-tended houses, arranged around a green lawn commons and a cluster of mailboxes. People didn’t necessarily like Alex, but they respected his work. He was known for running a tight operation and finishing a project on schedule, even in a place where subcontractors tended to work on island time.

It was obvious to everyone on the island, however, that Alex drank too much and slept too little, and eventually it was all going to catch up with him. Before long his health would deteriorate just like his marriage. The ghost fervently hoped that he wasn’t going to have to watch the erosion of this man’s life.

Trapped in Alex’s sphere, the ghost was impatient to visit Rainshadow Road, where big changes were happening to the rest of the Nolan family.

A few days after the ghost had left Rainshadow Road, the phone had rung at an unusually late hour. The ghost, who never slept, had gone into Alex’s room as the bedside lamp was turned on.

Rubbing his eyes, Alex had said in a sleep-thickened tone, “Sam. What is it?”

As Alex listened, his expression hadn’t changed, but his face went skull-white. He had to swallow twice before asking, “Are they sure?”

As the conversation had continued, the ghost gathered that the Nolans’ sister, Victoria, had been involved in a car wreck. She had died on the scene. Since Victoria had never married, nor had she ever revealed the father of her child, her six-year-old daughter, Holly, had just been orphaned.

Alex had hung up the phone and stared blindly at the bare wall, his eyes dry.

The ghost had felt a mixture of shock and sorrow, even though he had never met Victoria. She had died young—the cruelty of that, the unfairness of such loss, struck a chord of compassion. The ghost had wished for the luxury of tears, the relief of them. But as a soul without a body, he didn’t have the ability to cry.

Apparently neither did Alex Nolan.

Out of the tragedy of Victoria Nolan’s death, something remarkable had happened: Mark was granted custody of her daughter, Holly, and the two of them moved in with Sam. The three of them were now living together at the house on Rainshadow Road.

Prior to Holly’s arrival, the atmosphere in the house had resembled nothing so much as a football locker room. Laundry was done only when all other clothing options had been exhausted. Mealtimes were scattershot and hasty, and there was rarely anything in the fridge beyond half-empty bottles of condiments, a six-pack of beer, and the occasional leftover pizza in a grease-spotted box. Doctor’s visits were something that happened only if you needed stitches or a defibrillator.

But somehow Mark and Sam had managed to make room in their lives for a six-year-old girl, and that act of compassion had changed everything. The junk-food-loving bachelors had started to read nutrition labels as if it were a matter of life or death. If they couldn’t pronounce an ingredient, it was banned. They learned new words like “rickets” and “rotavirus,” and the names of at least a half-dozen Disney princesses, and how to use peanut butter to remove a wad of gum from long hair.

Before long, the brothers discovered that when you opened your heart to a child, it also left you open to other people. In the year after Holly had first come to live with them, Mark fell in love with a red-haired young widow named Maggie, and all his long-held prejudices against the idea of marriage collapsed like wet toast. After the August wedding, Mark, Maggie, and Holly would live in their own house on the island, and Sam would have Rainshadow Road back to himself again.

It seemed only a matter of time before Sam, too, would decide to take a chance on love. His fears were understandable—the Nolan parents, Jessica and Alan, had demonstrated to their four children that the seeds of failure and destruction were sown at the beginning of every relationship. If you loved someone, sooner or later you would reap a bitter harvest.

After a nasty legal battle, Alex and Darcy had agreed on terms that would allow their legal separation to be converted to a divorce. She cleaned him out financially, winning most of their assets, including the house. At the same time, the economy took a downturn and the real estate market plummeted. The bank had foreclosed on Alex’s Roche Harbor development, and put his plans for developing property at Dream Lake on indefinite hold.

Alex drank until he had acquired the young-old look of someone burning out too early. He wanted numbness. Oblivion. The ghost could only surmise that as the youngest child of alcoholic parents, Alex’s survival had depended on detachment. If you never felt anything or trusted anyone, if you denied every need or weakness, you couldn’t be hurt.

Every day eroded Alex a little more. How much longer, the ghost wondered, before there was nothing left of him?

With his Roche Harbor project gone and his other development at a standstill, Alex spent most of his time working on the vineyard house at Rainshadow Road. Some of the rooms had been so damaged by water leaks that he’d had to gut and rebuild them, starting with new subflooring. Recently he’d installed silk-screened reproduction wallpaper in the living room, after hand-cutting the panels and border from a master roll. Although Sam had tried to pay Alex for the work, Alex had refused. He knew his brothers didn’t understand why he’d taken such an interest in the place. Mostly it was to assuage his conscience—or what was left of it—over not having volunteered in the past to help raise Holly. There was no way in hell Alex was going to have anything to do with taking care of a child. However, making the house safe and comfortable while she lived there was something he could do, something he was good at.

It was midsummer, and the crew at Rainshadow vineyard was busy tending the vines and pruning leaves to expose more of the ripening grapes to the sun. Alex arrived in the morning to do some work in the attic. Before heading upstairs, he went to the kitchen with Sam for some coffee.

Scents of the previous evening’s meal—chicken soup flavored with sage—lingered in the air, subtle but comforting. An antique glass bell jar covered a pale wedge of cheese on the counter.

“Al, why don’t you let me fry you a couple of eggs before you start working?” Sam asked.

Alex shook his head. “Not hungry. Just want coffee.”

“Okay. By the way … I’d appreciate it if you’d keep the noise level down today. I’ve got a friend staying here, and she needs rest.”

Alex scowled. “Tell her to take her hangover somewhere else. I have some trim work to do.”

“Do it later,” Sam said. “And it’s not a hangover. She was in an accident yesterday.”

Before Alex could reply, the doorbell rang. It was one of those old-fashioned rotary mechanical bells that worked with a turnkey.

“That’s probably one of her friends,” Sam muttered. “Try not to be a dick, Alex.”

In a couple of minutes, Sam brought a woman into the kitchen.

Alex understood in a flash that he was in trouble, a kind he’d never experienced before. One look into a pair of round blue eyes, and it was a knockout punch, an instant defeat. Alarm and desire froze him where he stood. “Zoë Hoffman, this is my brother Alex,” he heard Sam say.

He couldn’t look away, could only respond with a surly nod when she said hello. He made no move to shake hands—it would have been a mistake to touch her.

She was like something out of a vintage magazine ad, a blond pinup girl with hair bouncing in every-which-way curls. Nature had been spendthrift with her, bestowing more beauty than one person was meant to have. But she stood with the vaguely apologetic posture of a woman who’d always received the wrong kind of attention from men.

Zoë turned to Sam. “Do you happen to have a cake plate I could set these muffins on?” Her voice was soft and breathy, as if she’d woken up late after a long night of sex.

“It’s in one of those cabinets near the Sub-Zero. Alex, would you help her out while I go upstairs to get Lucy?” Sam glanced at Zoë. “I’ll find out if she wants to sit in the living room down here, or visit with you upstairs.”

“Of course,” Zoë said, and went to the cabinets.

The prospect of being alone with Zoë Hoffman for any length of time, even a minute, gave Alex the alarmed impetus to move. He reached the doorway just as Sam did. He lowered his voice just a shade. “I’ve got stuff to do. I don’t have time to spend chitchatting with Betty Boop.”

Zoë’s shoulders stiffened.

“Al,” Sam muttered, “just help her find the damn plate.”

After Sam left, Alex approached Zoë, who was straining to reach a glass-domed plate on a cabinet shelf. Standing behind her, he caught the fragrance of female skin dusted with talcum. A wave of longing came over him, raw and visceral. Wordlessly he got the plate for her and set it on the granite countertop, his movements dreamlike in their discipline. If he relinquished his control for even one second, he was afraid of what he might do or say.

Zoë began to transfer the muffins from the pan. Alex stayed beside her, his hand braced on the counter.

“You can go now,” Zoë murmured, her chin angled down. “You don’t have to stay and chitchat.”

Hearing the reproachful echo of his earlier words, Alex knew that he should apologize. The thought evaporated as he watched the way her fingers shaped around each muffin, gently lifting them from the pan.

Saliva spiked in his mouth.

“What did you put in those?” he managed to ask.

“Blueberries,” Zoë said. “Help yourself, if you’d like one.”

Alex shook his head and reached blindly for his coffee. His hand wasn’t quite steady.

Without looking at him, Zoë took a muffin and set it on Alex’s empty saucer.

Alex was still and silent, while Zoë continued to arrange the plate. Before he could stop himself, he reached for the offering, his fingers denting the soft shape in its unbleached parchment liner, and he left the kitchen.

Alone on the front porch, Alex looked down at the muffin. It wasn’t the kind of food that usually appealed to him. Baked goods usually reminded him of drywall.

The first bite was light and tender, a crisp dissolve of streusel on pillowy cake. His tongue encountered the tang of orange zest and the dark liquid zing of blueberries. Each bite brought a new shock of sweetness. He forced himself to eat with restraint, to keep from wolfing it down. How long had it been since he’d really tasted anything?

After he’d finished, he sat quietly, letting the sensation of warmth take hold. He let himself think about the woman in the kitchen. The blue eyes, the light curls, the face as feminine and rosy as an old-fashioned valentine. He resented his reaction to her, the contact high that lingered unforgivably.

She wasn’t the kind of woman he had ever wanted before. No one took a woman like that seriously.

Zoë.

You couldn’t say her name without making the shape of a kiss.

His thoughts collected into a fantasy, one in which he went back to Zoë, apologized for his rudeness, charmed her into going out with him. They would go on a picnic on his property near Dream Lake … he would spread a blanket beneath the cover of wild apple trees, and the sun would filter through the leaves and dapple her skin with brightness.

He imagined himself undressing her slowly, revealing extravagant pale curves. He would nuzzle into the arc of her neck and tease shivers from her body … taste her blushes with his tongue …

Alex cleared the thoughts with a rough shake of his head. He took a deep breath, and another.

He didn’t go back to the kitchen. He slunk upstairs to work in the attic, taking care to avoid another encounter with Zoë Hoffman. Every step was an act of will. He wouldn’t allow himself weakness of any kind.

Although he hadn’t been able to read Alex’s thoughts as he had sat on the front porch, the ghost had felt them. Finally, here was something Alex wanted, so much that his desire had thickened the air like boiling sugar. It was the most human reaction the ghost had ever seen from him.

But at the moment Alex decided to walk away from Zoë precisely because he wanted her, the ghost had had enough. He’d been patient for an eternity, and it wasn’t doing anyone any good. Not himself, not Alex. They were getting nowhere. For all that the ghost didn’t know about his predicament—about how and why he’d become the constant companion of an alcoholic engaged in slow suicide—it was pretty obvious that he’d been stuck with Alex for a reason.

If he were ever going to be free of the bastard, he would have to do something.

The attic was a large space with slanted ceilings and dormer windows. At some point knee walls had been installed in an attempt to make the space livable, but they were poorly built and drafty. Alex was in the process of fitting rigid foam insulation over the floor joists and caulking it.

Sitting on his heels, he began to replace the silicone cartridge of the caulking gun. He went still as he saw something on the wall … the dark hieroglyph of a shadow rising from a heap of debris and broken furniture.