One Summer’s Knight Read online

  Friends. She thought about it. She’d been here almost a year, and who did she know? Well enough to ask for a favor of this magnitude? The answer was, with the possible exception of the Motts: nobody.

  The Motts. Summer’s mind filled with the image of Debbie Mott’s plump, self-satisfied face, and her stomach recoiled. Never, she thought, in a million years. “We’ll be okay,” she said softly. “I guess we’ll probably go to a motel.” Her mouth formed the words, but her brain didn’t comprehend their meaning. Not their real meaning. She was safely encased in that nice little plastic bubble of shock.

  The policeman nodded and took something out of his uniform pocket-a card. He handed it to her and said kindly, “Okay, then, I’ll let you get on back to your kids. Ma’am, this here’s the address and phone number of the local Red Cross. You go on down there and show them the police report-we’ ll see you have a copy-and they’ll fix you up with whatever you need, okay?”

  Summer nodded. The Red Cross. Reality tried to push its way into her bubble along with that name. It’s true. I’m a victim. She pushed the thought ruthlessly, angrily away.

  “Just one more thing.” The policeman ducked down so that his head and shoulders filled the car door’s opening. “You got any reason you can think of why somebody might want to do this?”

  “Do this?” Summer stared at him. In her cocooned state, understanding came slowly. “Do you mean…it wasn’t…the fire didn’t…just happen?” Trailers burned all the time-she heard about them often on the news.

  The policeman’s face was impassive. “We won’t know that for sure, ma’am, not until the investigators finish their job. But right now I have to say, it does look suspicious.”

  She desperately needed a breath, but something cold and heavy was occupying the space where her lungs should have been. She shook her head and choked out the word “No.”

  Apparently taking that as her answer to his original question, the officer straightened once more, at the same time reaching in his breast pocket again, this time for his notebook. “Well, okay, then. We’re just gonna need for you to leave us a number, someplace where we can get ahold of you. Work number’d be fine.”

  “Uh, sure. I work for Dr. Jerry Mott-you know, the mobile vet? I guess you can reach me there. If not, he’ll know how to get in touch with me.” She gave him the number and watched him jot it carefully down in his notebook before returning it to his pocket. She cleared her throat. “Can I go now?”

  “Sure.” He stepped back, offering her his hand. She ignored it, instead levering herself out of the patrol car under her own power. Except that she felt it wasn’t really her own power, but something outside herself, some unseen puppet master manipulating the nerves, tendons and muscles that operated her body, made it stand erect and begin walking down the sloping, grass-furred driveway. Told it to step carefully around the bare patches where the water from the fire hoses had turned the red clay to sticky, slippery muck. Surely it must have been some other guidance system-automatic pilot?-that told her to stop at the bottom of the driveway and open the mailbox and look inside, just as she did every day when she came home from work. Her own consciousness was still encased in its soft, safe place.

  She walked back up the road to where she’d parked the green Oldsmobile, her feet finding their way on the uneven verge while she shuffled through the day’s mail: mostly junk, maybe a couple of bills, a plain envelope with Mrs. Robey printed on it, several catalogs…her mind registered none of it. Just ahead on the opposite side of the road, her children’s faces hung in the car windows like two pale, not-quite-full moons. And there was another car parked behind the Olds now, a tan sedan that for some reason seemed vaguely familiar. A tan sedan…

  “You got any reason you can think of why somebody might want to do this?”

  Something clicked on in her brain, shattering her bubble and restoring full power and function. She looked down at the pile of mail in her hands, then shuffled rapidly through it until she came to the plain envelope with her name printed on it. Something about it felt wrong. It just felt wrong. She slid trembling fingers under the flap and lifted it, drew out the single sheet of paper, folded in thirds. She stared at it, her mind registering the sound of a car door slamming as the stack of mail slipped from her nerveless hands and hit the ground with a soft, slithery thud. Catalogs and envelopes fanned out unnoticed across her feet. She unfolded the paper and stared at the words printed there in block letters, hand-printed letters that matched her name on the envelope.

  SORRY WE MISSED YOU NEXT TIME WE’LL BE SURE AND STOP BY WHEN YOU AND THE KIDDIES ARE HOME.

  She felt cold. She wanted to throw up.

  “Mrs. Robey?”

  Her head came up slowly and she gazed into the melancholy brown eyes of the man from the FBI. She remembered his name: Special Agent Jake Redfield.

  “May I?” He reached toward her cautiously, as if he feared either she or the objects she held in her hands might explode if mishandled. She surrendered them, both the note and the envelope it had come in, and watched with silent revulsion as, touching them gingerly only on their edges, he first read them, then tucked them away in an inside pocket of his suit jacket. Taking her elbow in a firm grip, he said tersely, “Get your kids. I think it’s a good idea if all three of you come with us.”

  Summer made a small, sucking sound, her mouth and throat felt sticky, as if from long disuse. “My car-I can’t just-”

  “Agent Poole here’ll bring it.” Redfield made a gesture toward the car, in response to which a stocky, middle-aged man with what was left of his gray hair cut in a 1950s-style buzz emerged from the passenger side and slammed the door behind him He came toward them with a purposeful stride, at the same time sweeping his surroundings with narrow-eyed glances the way Summer had seen make-believe cops do on TV shows. Redfield, too, kept looking around him and making small, fidgety adjustments to his clothing, as if he was preparing for the possibility of some sort of action. And in the process, revealing the presence of a holster nestled in the small of his back. The sight of that gun cleared the fog from Summer’s mind like windshield wipers in a drizzle.

  “I don’t want my children frightened,” she said in a low, growling voice she hardly recognized as her own. “They’re going to be upset enough as it is.”

  “Gotcha.” Redfield shrugged, and his jacket settled once more into lean and innocent lines.

  He released her elbow and reached around her to pull open the Oldsmobile’s rear door. The two children shrank away from the opening like wild creatures retreating into their burrows. Before Summer could move to intervene, the FBI man was squatting down to peer into the car and saying in a voice he probably imagined to be cajoling, “Hey, kids, how’d you like to come for a ride with me?”

  “Oh, great,” Summer muttered as two pairs of blue eyes widened in alarm. She knew exactly what was going to happen next. Now, children, what do you say if a stranger asks you to go for a ride with him? You just…say…

  “No!” shrieked Helen, shaking her head wildly. “No, no, no, no!”

  Agent Redfield threw Summer a beseeching look over his shoulder. Arms folded, she glared back at him. His brows drew together, and he turned back to the children with what he probably imagined was a reassuring smile. It made Summer think of Snidely Whiplash. “Look, kids, it’s okay-your mom’s coming, too.”

  “Mom?” David said on a rising note of alarm, his eyes zooming in on Summer’s. Her little champion.

  “You sure do have a way with children,” she said under her breath as she elbowed the FBI man aside and gathered her daughter into her arms just in time to head off a full-blown case of hysterics. Behind her she could hear Agent Poole snickering, and Agent Redfield’s muttered response, “Hey, just because you’ve got kids…”

  “Honey,” Summer crooned, “it’s okay. Helen, David, this is Mr. Redfield. He’s uh…” The FBI? Why did that sound so sinister, so unexplainable? She couldn’t say it. “He’s a policeman. He nee
ds us to go with him so he can ask me some questions, okay?”

  “What kinda questions?” Helen demanded to know, still sullen and suspicious.

  “Well, honey, it’s about our…house I’m afraid…”

  “Is our house burned up?” David asked, scrambling after her as she backed out of the stuffy car with Helen’s arms in a stranglehold around her neck.

  “Yes,” said Summer on a long exhalation. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Is everything burned? Everything?” Her son’s eyes searched hers, liquid with hopelessness.

  “Yes, honey. I’m sorry.” She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him against her side. Her throat felt parched… charred. Honey, I’m so sorry…Mr. Bunny, after nine years only tattered blue remnants, but I know how much that blanket meant to you. And all your books, your games… Gone.

  “It’s a good thing Beatle and Cleo and Peggy Sue are at Jason’s house, huh, Mom?” said Helen. “Or they’d be burned up, too.”

  Summer gulped a breath as if it were a drink of water. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s a very good thing.” She was conscious of the two men, one on either side of her, hemming her in. Protecting her, she realized. But she felt crowded, suffocated. Suddenly she wanted, more than anything in the world, to be alone. Just to be alone. So she could think about this. So she could realize this. So she could go ahead and be frightened. So she could cry, if she wanted to.

  “Mom? Where will we sleep?”

  Summer gave David’s shoulders a squeeze. “You let me worry about that, okay?”

  “Mrs. Robey,…” Agent Redfield was watching her with his dark, sorrowful eyes, the set of his shoulders telegraphing urgency. He jerked his head toward the tan sedan.

  “Yes.” Summer set Helen’s feet on the ground and gave both children a gentle push. “Go on, now-go get into Mr. Redfield’s car.”

  “How come we aren’t going in our car?” David asked.

  Our car? Funny how the old car didn’t seem so ugly and decrepit now that it was the only thing they had left in the world. She turned to look at it, and even smiled a little at the expression on Agent Poole’s perspiring face as he squeezed himself in behind the wheel.

  “Why aren’t we going in our car? Well, because…” Inspiration struck. “Because, Mr. Redfield’s car has air-conditioning!” She gave the FBI man a look of triumph

  He acknowledged it with a shrug but no smile-she wondered if he was even capable of it-and went walking back to the sedan, leaving Summer to collect her purse and the children’s backpacks from the Olds and follow.

  As she was settling into the passenger seat of the tan sedan, the last remaining fire truck pulled away and went roaring off down the street, leaving them with an unobstructed view of what had once been their home. Silence filled the car. Even Helen was speechless. It was as if a curtain had risen, Summer thought, on a stage set for a play called Devastation. Who could have done such a pointless, heartless thing? And why?

  Agent Redfield started the car and made a U-turn in the middle of the street. “Mrs. Robey…”

  But Summer had twisted around in her seat to stare back at the blackened ruin, the singed trees and sodden grass, the sagging yellow tape. What does this have to do with Hal? What do they want from me? Her stomach constricted with a hopeless, helpless rage.

  “Mrs. Robey,” Jake Redfield repeated, speaking in an undertone as he glanced sideways at her, “I’m sorry about this, I truly am. But I hope you understand now what I meant when I said these people mean business.”

  No, Summer thought suddenly, not helpless. Not anymore.

  “Maybe you might want to rethink-”

  “Re…think…” she murmured, absently frowning. Because a name had just come into her mind, lighting it up like neon. Riley Grogan.

  “-how you feel about cooperating with us…”

  She turned to him, her breath catching, stopping him there. “Excuse me, Special Agent Redfield,” she continued in a cold, quiet voice, a confident voice, without a trace of a tremor in it. “May I use your cellular phone, please? I would like to call my lawyer.”

  The page had come at an opportune time for Riley. He’d been attending a black-tie reception at one of Charleston’s best and ntziest art galleries, the occasion the opening of a show by an artist who had recently begun making a name for himself with his abstract representations of social injustice rendered on bits and pieces gleaned from old sharecropper’s cabins. As Charlestonians had a way of turning such minor commercial enterprises into major events in both the world of art and in Low Country society, the show had attracted media attention from as far away as Boston and New York City.

  Normally, Riley preferred to skip openings, unless he happened to actually like the artist, but in this case the gallery owner was a client of his, and it would have been awkward to refuse. So, since Riley made it a practice never to put himself in awkward situations, he’d resigned himself to the evening and had taken the necessary steps to increase the probability that he might even enjoy it.

  But the truth was, he’d found the artist’s work disturbing in ways he didn’t care to examine too closely. And the strident and overblown praise for the artist issuing in a constant stream from his date, who happened to be the art critic for Southern Styles Magazine as well as a former Miss Louisiana, irritated him. He thought it vaguely inappropriate, just off the mark, somehow. In fact, as the evening wore on he’d been finding it more and more difficult to appreciate Miss Louisiana’s auburn hair, sparkling green eyes and brilliant smile, which, he’d once thought, along with certain other physical attributes, gave her a startling resemblance to the young Maureen O’Hara. As a consequence, the vibrations from the beeper he wore inside the waistband of his trousers-so as not to spoil the lines of his dinner jacket-had not been an entirely unwelcome interruption.

  Summertime had come early to the Low Country, and although darkness had fallen by the time Riley left the gallery in Charleston, the temperature had not. The night smelled of flowers and dust, car exhaust and imminent rain, with a fitful breeze that now and then coughed up, like reminders of a bad meal, odors of the sea and the marshes-the tang of sawgrass and saltwater, with touches of mud and decaying shellfish. It was the kind of evening that even under normal circumstances could stir in Riley a vague and restless disquiet; tonight, coupled with the evocative mood of the show he’d just left, it seemed to have awakened memories that winked on and off in his consciousness like fireflies in the dusk. He drove to Augusta through air as thick and soft as cream, watching lightning flicker across the mountains far to the northwest and listening to Bach on his stereo to keep the memories at bay.

  He did allow his mind to dwell some on Summer Robey, though not on what it was about her and her problems that had him making what promised to be at least a four-hour round-trip drive on a muggy Monday evening when he could have been enjoying a candlelit postreception supper-at the very least-with the voluptuous former Miss Louisiana Generally, he did not believe in wasting mental energy on fruitless speculation, and his client had given him very little information. She had told him only that she was once again in the custody of the FBI and therefore, in keeping with his instructions, was contacting him immediately and saying nothing to anyone.

  “Protective custody, Mrs. Robey,” he’d heard an exasperated-sounding male voice say in the background. “This is for your own safety…”

  When Riley had inquired as to what had happened that she was in need of the FBI’s protection, her voice had gone quiet, hard as glass and just as fragile. “They burned my house, Mr. Grogan. My house.” Needless to say, he had understood that she didn’t mean the FBI

  “Stay where you are, I’m on my way,” Riley had told her, and rung off with the soft burr of her barely audible “Thank you” in his ears. It was that sound he thought about. Along with the image of her mouth forming the words, it kept returning to his mind in spite of all his efforts to quell it, like a phrase of music, a tiresome bit of song.

&nbs
p; The government building that housed the FBI’s small Augusta field office was closed up tight at that hour. At the front entrance Riley identified himself and stated his business through an intercom, and after a short wait he was buzzed into a cubicle where he confronted a directory mounted on one side wall. Momentarily derailed, he was about to select someone at random when the elevator doors to his right suddenly slid open. He muttered a sardonic “Thank you” as he stepped on.

  The doors whisked shut and, after a brief ride to an indeterminable floor, opened again on a large, well-lit room crowded with desks, windowed cubicles and computer terminals. It appeared to be empty of people, except for a tall man with dark hair, a shadowed jaw and the patient, sorrowful look of martyrs and bloodhounds. He gave Riley’s tux a silent and cynical once-over, shook his hand and said, “Mr. Grogan? Special Agent Redfield. Come with me, please?”

  He led Riley through the maze of desks and down a short hallway, tiptoeing, for some reason, past a couple of rest rooms, and paused before a door at the far end, one hand on the doorknob and a finger to his lips. Riley quelled a flare of impatience and nodded. The FBI agent turned the knob and pushed the door partway open. Riley stepped silently past him and into the room.

  It was a typical off-duty room, perhaps a bit more generously outfitted than some, crowded with refrigerator and microwave, sink and coffeemaker, a table cluttered with newspapers and crossword puzzle pads, several chairs. There was a large sofa along one wall, and a TV set perched on a bookcase with shelves occupied by a VCR and an assortment of reading material that ranged from a Bible to National Geographic.

  On one end of the sofa, Summer Robey sat slumped awkwardly sideways with her head pillowed on one arm. The other arm was draped protectively over the body of a small child-a girl, Riley guessed-who lay with her head in her mother’s lap. Both were asleep, jaws slack, mouths slightly open, snoring softly. At the other end of the sofa, a boy lay in a tight fetal curl, his cheek uncomfortably pillowed on a backpack. His mouth was open, too, and there was a small, round wet spot on the fabric of the backpack beneath its corner. Even asleep, Riley noticed, the child’s forehead was creased in a worried frown.