"Nathan, you're early!" Audrey complained playfully, throwing open her door. Her eyes widened in surprise, because it wasn't Nathan who stood there.
Just before the wire of a stun-gun hit her in the chest, Audrey had time to realize that...
IX.
...she hadn't thought about the other woman in months.
It was dark when she came to, and at first she thought it must be night. This worried her at first because nothing she'd ever read about tasers suggested that they could steal half a day from you, but eventually she worked out that she was in a dark place, and not outside. This had been difficult to discern at first because she felt the roughness of tree bark beneath her bound hands, and her nose told her that there was something earthy in the air, competing with a fainter trace of the sea. When her eyes finally adjusted to the dim light she came to realize that she was in a crude, windowless, log cabin.
And her attacker was standing several yards away, staring impassively at her. Audrey instinctively scooted back, until her back hit a rough hewed wall that was damp to the touch. This seemed to amuse the other woman, but she made no move to come at her with a taser again.
When Audrey caught the woman's eye, she just had one word to say to her. "Why?"
"I heard about yesterday," she said, as if that was an explanation.
"A lot happened yesterday. You'll have to be more specific," Audrey replied, thinking furiously. Why this cabin? Was this where she went now that the lighthouse was gone? Why hadn't she wondered that before? As long as no one died, she'd been content to let herself believe that the other woman was reformed, so to speak.
"That haunted boy...his saved baby," the woman said, sounding detached.
With a start Audrey found herself thinking about the woman's own babies. Had Benny spoken his first words yet? Or Jean? Or the other little girl whose name she hadn't bothered to ask? Looking up at the harbor master, Audrey spoke slowly, hoping to draw the other woman's attention back from wherever it had gone. "This is about the boy who ran into Duke's knife?" she asked. Not that she thought of the troubled man who had died with Duke's unwitting help as a boy - he'd been her age, maybe a year older.
Beattie nodded. "His child is free. It will never know the pain of hurting others unintentionally. He made a beautiful sacrifice."
It was as Beattie said the last word did things begin to slide into a horrible place. All of the sudden she thought she knew what the other woman's plan was. But she needed to ask to be sure. "What does any of that have to do with me?"
Staring at her, Beattie cocked her head, seemingly puzzled by Audrey's question. "You seemed like the best way to make them angry."
"Who?" Audrey asked, mouth dry. She was pretty sure that she knew who Beattie meant.
"Duke and Nathan," Beattie explained, and it didn't come as a surprise. There weren't that many people in Haven who would both be angry if Audrey went missing and capable of doing something in retaliation. "Well, Nathan's anger isn't that important though it'll help him conclude that we're here given the cabin is deeded in my name, but I'm sure that he and Duke would both be furious if something happened to you. And I want Duke furious with me."
This chilled Audrey, and she looked up at Beattie with eyes wide. "Something like me being kidnapped?"
Beattie smiled. "At least."
"You wouldn't-"
The other woman shook her head in a slow, sad way. "I know about you, Audrey Parker. People in this town, they talk. Poor orphaned girl, never growing up with a parent's love. That's terribly sad, you know. Of course you don't know how far a good mother would go to make sure her children have a better life than she does. You didn't grow up with someone who loved you more than themselves like you ought to have. I can't make excuses for your parents, whoever they might have been, but I love my children."
Desperately casting about for an idea that would keep the woman from hurting her, or herself, Audrey tried to turn Beattie's words around. "You're right. How I grew up was pretty sad. I wished with all my heart that my mother would come back for me," Audrey told her, hoping that one of the things the harbormaster knew about her wasn't that her only childhood memories had belonged to another person. "So I can't believe that you're willing to put your children through that too. I mean, that's what we're talking about, isn't it, Beattie? You getting Duke so pissed off that he kills you."
Beattie gave her a long look but didn't deny the accusation.
Audrey went on, hoping to appeal to her better nature. "If you die, they'll have the same sort of childhood I did, one without their mother's love."
The other woman narrowed her eyes. "Jean has found a good home already, where she's loved. Benny and Alice are still small enough to be lovable to other families as well. They won't remember me. They won't need to know that if I'd lived they'd grow up to be the sort of monster I turned into when the troubles came back."
"But-" Audrey protested, but she was silenced with a sharp look.
"No. What the girls are likely to become is bad enough. But what if my son inherits my trouble? How many women could he end up killing with his children? He wouldn't even need to go through an accelerated pregnancy before breeding again. I can't be responsible for more deaths, Audrey."
"The troubles could go away," she said weakly. Or maybe Jean would have her father's trouble, not her mother's she thought, but didn't dare suggest. She knew if she brought that up Beattie would retort that she'd then be placed in the position of maybe needing to kill her own sister and brother to stop them some day.
"For a while," Beattie corrected her. "They come back, you know they do."
The problem was that Audrey did know that they came back. Rather than try to think of something else to convince Beattie that her death wasn't the right way to solve anything, Audrey began to explore the rope looped around her wrists, counting on the dimness inside the cabin keeping her actions from being obvious.
"No more clever arguments?" Beattie asked sardonically. "And here I thought I'd have to bring Duke up."
Audrey's head shot up. "What about him?"
"If he ends my trouble, he could have a relationship with our daughter," Beattie explained. "You didn't think of that, did you?"
In response she just made a noncommittal noise. Whatever angst Duke suffered over knowing that he couldn't be around his child was something he kept to himself. There was some, she was sure, but like her and Nathan he'd been too consumed by what was going on in Haven over the past few months to soliloquize more remote worries. When she realized that Beattie was staring at her, she said, "I hadn't."
"Maybe he'll go and get her back," Beattie mused, making Audrey even more sure that the woman had lost her mind. The adoption had been completely above board, and he'd signed the papers in her presence, so how did Beattie think he'd contest the arrangement? "To honor my dying request."
"If you hurt me, I don't think he'll be in a wish granting mood," Audrey muttered.
She didn't realize that she'd spoken loud enough to be heard until Beattie said grimly "We'll see."
The End
