Joe fought to get to his feet, ignoring the ice-pick agony of his rib cage. Kathleen and the man struggled, the man grabbing her hair and making her cry out. “Let go!” she wailed. The sound of her voice keening in pain made him forget about his own. He rushed at the man and slammed his fist into his shoulder, getting an elbow to the chest in return.
In a slow-motion moment, he saw Kathleen and the intruder grapple for the gun and heard the man yell, “But I love you, Kathleen!”
Kathleen cried out, “I don’t love you. I never will!” He had her by one arm, and as she struggled, the gun was between them. There was a spark of light and a loud crack, the sound reverberating off the lake.
The man crumpled to the ground, and Kathleen screamed. In the pale light, Joe saw the blood splattered across the front of her dress and the lifeless form of the man on the ground. He went to Kathleen, and she nearly collapsed in his arms, tears beginning to flow.
“Are you okay?” Joe asked. “Are you hurt?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wet, and shook her head. Just a few feet from where they stood lay the body of the man, arms sprawled and blood pouring from a gaping wound in his chest.
Joe wrapped his arms around her, feeling her body tremble as she clung to him, and said, “It’s okay. You’re safe. Everything’s going to be fine.”
When she could finally manage to talk, she blurted out, “It’s Ricky.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
1983
Grimacing through the pain, Joe leaned over and pulled the ski mask off Ricky. He was dead—that would have been clear enough even without the lack of a pulse. Kathleen found the gun nearby. Joe emptied it, and they carried it with them.
Taking the motorboat back was an easy decision. Along the way, Kathleen managed to fill him in on what had happened after she’d fled. She’d circled the island in the rowboat, looking for a way to sneak back to him, when she’d encountered the motorboat tied to a tree. She left the rowboat there as well and took an oar to come to his rescue. She realized it was Ricky when she recognized his voice taunting Joe. “It all made sense then. It was him that day when I thought I saw him standing across the street. He was the one who broke into my house, and he followed us across the lake.”
“You took a big risk coming back. You could have gotten hurt or killed,” Joe said, holding his injured arm to his side. He winced as the boat crested and dropped.
“I couldn’t leave you,” she said. “I had no choice.”
Once they reached the other side of the lake, she told Joe to stay put while she scrambled out of the boat to get help at the Barn Dance. A rush of assistance arrived in the form of several young men who helped Joe onto the pier. A local doctor was in attendance, as was a police officer and a sheriff’s deputy. Kathleen hovered over Joe while filling them all in on what had happened on the island.
The doctor drove them to the closest hospital, where Joe was immediately seen in the emergency room. Joe’s severest injuries were cracked ribs and a broken arm, a displaced fracture that required surgery. As they wheeled him down the hall to the operating room, he felt awful that he was leaving Kathleen to be interviewed by a police officer, but he didn’t have a choice.
Coming out of the anesthesia after the surgery, he found himself mentally drifting along a river of memories—not his own, but those of John Lawrence Robinson. The fragmented dreams he’d had for months were gone, replaced by more complete memories: John carrying Daisy on his shoulders while Alice hung the wash; the feeling of dancing with Alice in his arms; the joy in discovering a new love letter and then keeping it safe so he could read it over and over again. All these and so many more.
And finally, the memory of John’s marriage proposal to Alice and the joy of hearing her say yes. At that moment, John’s entire life made sense. Knowing she would become his wife gave meaning to all his struggles.
The swirl of memories ended with the confrontation with Pearl and Frank at the island. Now Joe saw more than just a glimpse of what had happened. He felt as if he had lived the experience, with details to accompany the emotions. As John, he registered a pang of guilt; he should have taken Frank more seriously. He’d made the mistake of pegging Frank as a simple farm boy, hotheaded but unlikely to pull the trigger. He’d misjudged him, and Alice had paid the price when she stepped between them.
When John realized all was lost and that she was slipping away, he held her tightly and begged her not to go. He’d had only a few minutes to grieve her death before he realized the bullet that had killed Alice had pierced him as well.
Joe felt John’s anguish because it was his own. And then, a new memory, which felt like a dream within a dream. John’s own injury was not nearly as bad as Alice’s, but without medical attention, the blood loss was devastating. John felt himself get light-headed and weak. Pearl and Frank were useless, not knowing what to do. He didn’t fault them. It was too late to get help. It was dark, and they’d had no medical training. He remembered thinking he was dying, and he felt the sorrow of knowing he was leaving his mother behind.
And then, a sense of utter tranquility. John closed his eyes in the earthly world and opened them in a different, better world. There was pure white light and beautiful music, and best of all, Alice aglow, standing there to meet him, her hand extended.
Joe was jolted awake, confused to find himself in a hospital bed. The room smelled like disinfectant, and although his room was quiet, he heard beeping and talking and the rattle of carts in the hallway being pushed to their destinations. His chest was securely bandaged, and his left arm was in a cast. His head felt like it had been compressed by a trash compactor. He was fully conscious now but still foggy.
When he turned his head to one side, he spotted Kathleen, reading. He watched her for what seemed like a long time before she noticed he was awake. She closed the magazine. “Hey there, Joe. Ready to join the world?” She gave him a soft smile.
He blinked. “You’re still here.”
“Of course I’m still here. Where would I go?”
“I don’t know.” He looked around the room, letting it all come into focus. “You’re a good friend, Kathleen.”
“Well, I certainly hope I’m more than that,” she said, allowing herself a small grin.
Before he could address that statement, she went on to explain that the police officer wanted to question Joe, but based on Kathleen’s statement and Joe’s injuries, it seemed certain that Ricky’s death would be categorized as accidental self-defense, and no charges would be filed against her. “It was a good thing I filed a police report for abuse when we were married. At the time, it didn’t seem to do much, but having it on record established a pattern of violence that’s now in my favor. Not that any of this is in my favor,” she added ruefully.
“I’m sorry,” Joe said.
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, I should be apologizing to you for what you’ve gone through. I look at you and want to cry.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Temporarily.”
A long pause. “What time is it? What day is it?”
“It’s about eight thirty on Sunday morning. The Barn Dance was last night.”