Savage River
Dr. Samantha Owens
Three days later
The file was closed on Donovan’s death. Karen Fisher’s claim that she was the killer had credence, but it was the detailed letter in her car, a suicide note, that allowed them to piece together the rest of the story. She’d gone to Culpepper and asked about the friendly fire, and Culpepper was smart enough to know he needed to keep her close to make sure the whole truth didn’t come out. He’d manipulated her, played her, gotten her turned around in circles until she started to think he was lying to her. The only thing she felt she could do was start asking the men questions. When she’d uncovered the information about Maggie’s little girl, Culpepper saw an opportunity to clean up his mess for good, and Karen, in her furious grief, had complied.
They were going to have to wait for Culpepper to wake up to confirm that truth to that theory. Karen’s shot had gone a little wide, putting Culpepper in a coma, though not killing him. Her last shot, though, did count. She died in the medevac helicopter before it landed at the bottom of the mountain.
Sam had stuck around long enough to look through the pages Donovan had torn from his journal, which detailed Karen Fisher coming to him in the extortion attempt. She’d sworn to tell Susan that Maggie’s daughter was his, and all about the friendly fire incident. Her plan was to destroy him completely if he didn’t pay her off. She knew the Donovans had money. She knew they could afford it. When Donovan said no, threatened to take a DNA test to prove Jen Lyons was not his child, she’d gone to Culpepper. And things unraveled from there. Sam realized Donovan tore out the pages for two reasons—first, for insurance, in case everything exploded, which of course it had. Second, he was ashamed. He was still operating under the illusion that he’d killed Perry Fisher, and he’d briefly considered capitulating to Karen Fisher’s wishes to keep the story quiet.
Sam made sure that part was kept from the Washington media, who, through multiple exposés that would certainly be Pulitzer contenders, detailed the whole story. USA TODAY even gave Taranto a posthumous byline, printing his notes, his theories, embellishing the story with the help of a colleague. Sam was glad to see him honored—he’d taken more of a risk sharing his story with her than anyone had realized.
And then there was nothing left for her to do, but return to Nashville, and get her own life back on track.
Susan and Eleanor hadn’t wanted her to leave. As much as she enjoyed their company, she needed to. They had a little farewell party for her, just the three of them and a bottle of scotch, toasting the man they all had loved.
The following morning, head aching, heart sore, Sam packed her things and headed to the airport.
Somewhere between Key Bridge and Reagan National, as she’d thought of the dark soulful eyes she’d come to enjoy looking at, her phone rang. A deep voice, not pleading, but filled with need, simply said, “Don’t go.”
She’d listened for a few moments, then hung up and told the cab to turn into the car rental instead of Departures.
She’d called Fletcher as she was driving up to the mountains. Told him what she was doing. He wished her well, though she could hear the note of sadness in his voice.
She called Taylor, and warned her she wouldn’t be back for a little while. Taylor was overjoyed at that news, for all the right reasons.
She called Forensic Medical and told them she was taking a sabbatical. They, too, were happy and understanding.
It was time for Sam to get her life back together. It seemed everyone had known that but her.
When she’d arrived in Savage River for the second time, driving up the rutted road that seemed to be even worse than she remembered, she’d had a moment of panic. What are you doing? She felt the urge to wash and, just as quickly, turned the thought off. She didn’t need that crutch anymore.
At the end of the long, unpaved driveway, Xander and Thor were waiting for her. Xander’s lighthouse smile filled her, and she returned his grin as he helped her from the car.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Neither did I. I’m honestly not quite sure what I’m doing here.”
“You’re healing,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.
Sam and Xander had spent the last few days just hanging out, watching Thor gambol around the clearing, getting to know each other. Today was no different. Feeling especially lazy, Sam lay in the hammock, a toe on the ground, idly pushing herself. She enjoyed the motion of the swing. She liked being here, in the mountains. The sun was bright and warm on her shoulders. She’d slept like the dead, eaten all manner of male-oriented food and dispensed with her sunscreen. Freckles paraded across her nose.
Xander was a surprise. Erudite, funny, amazingly kind, he kept her either laughing or in heated debate constantly. He’d seen something in her that she had forgotten was there. A happy person. Someone who wasn’t bound by guilt, by the horror of her past.
He understood loss. Simple as that.
Xander threw the stick for Thor again and leaned back on his elbows in the grass.
“We’re going to have to go back down the mountain,” he said.
“Why? I thought you didn’t want to be around people. Isn’t that why you’re up here in the woods, running away from the world?”
“I’m up here waiting for the zombie apocalypse. I thought you knew.”
“Ha, ha.”
He grinned at her, and she felt the strangest twisting in her stomach.
“Ha back. Now, let’s be accurate. I didn’t say I was leaving civilization behind entirely. Besides, the kind of people who come to this place aren’t the kind I like to avoid. They have respect for the land. Respect for our freedoms. There’s a certain mentality to the woods, Sam. Out here, it’s just you and your thoughts. Uninterrupted by phones and televisions and computers.”
“You know, it strikes me I’ve never asked what do you do for money?”
He laughed. “As if money is important. I have savings. I’m not a really expensive man. I’m a guide, too. Word of mouth, only. You saw my workbench. Fly-fishing around here is some of the best in the mid-Atlantic region. I have a P.O. Box down in Frostburg. Once a month, I go down there with my calendar, get the mail, drink some coffee at this great little diner and set things up. That’s what I was thinking. We could go eat some greasy food and I can check my mail.”
“But they can’t call you. What if they have to cancel?”
He gave her an amused smile. “Then I go fishing without them. I figure if it’s important enough to them, they’ll make the effort to be here. If not … it’s their loss, not mine. The world doesn’t end.”
“How do you get the news?”
“Forest rangers, and the people who come to fish. Though, thankfully, it’s not loaded down with the kind of superficial bubblegum crap you probably deal with on a daily basis. I just want to know if things blow up. That’s all.”
She swung a few more times. Xander was a good one for silence. She liked that she didn’t have to talk all the time.
“It sounds lonely.”
“No. Alone, yes. But I like to be alone. I like my privacy. I don’t want a bunch of people scurrying around, telling me what to do. I did my time. Literally. Peace, quiet and alone—that’s my idea of heaven. Toss in a book, my music, Thor and a beer or two, and I couldn’t be happier.”
“What about marriage? Children? Haven’t you ever wanted that?”
“Wow, aren’t we getting personal here.” But he smiled at her, a cocksure grin, and she felt that funny thing in her stomach again, what she’d been feeling for the past several days around him.
“Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”
“But you do, don’t you? You’ve wanted this, too. You’ve been alone for the past two years, right?”
She paused for a minute, then set her head back against the hammock and stared at the clouds.
“Alone, yes. But unlike you, I’ve been lonely. Very, very lonely.”
“You don’t have to be alone anymore, Sam. I can make room for you here. You belong. Even Thor loves you.”
The dog loved her. That fit. She wasn’t deserving of much else.
She swung in silence for a few more minutes. “It’s my fault they’re dead.”
Xander came over to her, pulled her upright. He sat down next to her and put his hand under her chin. It was as close as he’d gotten to her since that first night she’d arrived at his doorstep, and he’d hugged her softly, like she was a burn victim. He’d been respecting her boundaries without even having to be asked.
“Oh, Sam. Haven’t you realized by now that unless you take the life by your own hand, physically strip the body of its ability to live by your own hand, you aren’t responsible for the death?”
“Xander, that’s not true. It was my actions that put Simon in danger. My selfishness. My sense of self-importance. I should have been with them. I put the dead before the living. I’ve always done that. It’s what I do. You need to know that.”
“Tell me what happened. I’ll tell you if you’re responsible or not.”
“No.”
“Sam. Have you talked to anyone about this? Really? Do you think I’m going to think less of you? Think about the past few weeks. I’ve admitted that I was complicit in covering up the death of one of my team members. I lied to the government, I lied to my commanding officer, I lied to the JAG corp. I deserted every code I believed in. The very code that kept me safe, and I committed the ultimate sacrilege toward it. Don’t you see? I’m in my own personal self-exile, living alone, refusing myself the comfort I could have by letting go of my burden? Until now. Until you came parading into my camp and demanded the truth. And I gave it to you. Sam, won’t you do the same? Won’t you allow yourself that small comfort?”
“I thought you said that you were only responsible for a death if you committed it by your own hand?”
He just looked at her.
“You didn’t kill King. Culpepper did.”
“Maybe. If he doesn’t wake up, we might never know for sure. But I was right there. I should have known what was going down. I could have saved him. All of them. So yes, I feel like it was as much my finger on that trigger as his.”
“Xander, you can’t have it both ways.”
He looked her in the eyes, made her acknowledge him.
“Can’t I? I’m a man, Sam. I’ve forsworn all that I swore to uphold. You’re different. You didn’t drown Simon and the twins any more than I did. That isn’t enough for you, though, is it? You want to feel responsible. That way you can avoid moving on. All because you made a choice. The universe isn’t kind, Sam. It’s indifferent. You can’t punish yourself because of bad timing.”
She was crying. Again. She hadn’t cried for nearly two years, then the second she got to D.C., she’d turned into a fucking puddle.
Xander didn’t say a word. He sat back in the hammock and watched her, wary and hungry, like a wolf deciding its victim’s fate, then came to some sort of conclusion. Even with the raw grief tearing her body apart, she could sense the change in his body, in his posture, then felt his arms go around her. He put her head against his chest and didn’t say a word, just held her, let her cry.
She had no idea how long they stayed there. Eventually the tears stopped, and she started to talk. It got dark. Xander built up the fire. The flames warmed her feet, and Xander warmed the rest of her. He listened patiently, never interrupting, letting her tell the story. And finally, at the end, he cried with her.
Nashville, Tennessee
Dr. Samantha Owens Loughley
May 1, 2010
Sam was in the middle of a tricky dissection of an aortic rupture when the morgue phone began to ring. Her assistant, Stuart Charisse, answered for her.
“Dr. Loughley? It’s Kris, she says your husband’s on the phone.”
“Finally. Thanks, Stuart. Can you put it on speaker for me? I don’t want to lose my place here.”
“Like that could happen,” he said with a smile, then clicked the button. A small fog of static filled the room. Good luck for her she was at the station closest to the phone.
“Hi, Simon. What’s up?”
“Hey, are you guys keeping an eye on things?”
“The only thing I’ve got my eye on is a serious buildup of plaque. Why, what’s happening? Is it getting worse?”
The rain had started the day before, sheets of it, thrumming incessantly. Nashville had already gotten eight inches in twelve hours, and the panic was setting in. Simon had suggested she not go into Forensic Medical, but they were understaffed, and behind, so far behind. If things got as bad as the weather forecasters expected, she would be on duty for the next few days. They were saying this was a hundred-year flood. A flood of epic proportions. Memphis had gotten twelve inches the day before, and the rainfall totals for Nashville were expected to be even higher. For a city that had a large river running through its downtown, and tributaries spreading through the suburbs, that could spell disaster.
“It’s getting much worse.” She could hear a strange tone in Simon’s voice. Her husband was a scientist, a rational man. Nothing rattled him. Even the miscarriage she’d suffered several months earlier didn’t shake him. His ability to move on had actually caused major friction between them—she thought they might split up over it. He wanted her to move on and try for another baby. She couldn’t face it again so soon. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to face the idea of getting pregnant again.
Eventually they found a happy medium—not talking about it. It had saved their marriage, at least temporarily.
“Simon, hold on, just one second.”
She made the final slice and laid bare the culprit, a large piece of calcified plaque that had caused the aortic rupture. Now she could stop for a moment.
She slipped off her gloves and went to the phone.
“Sorry about that. I was right in the middle of something. How bad is it getting?”
“They’re doing water rescues in River Plantation.”
That caught her attention.
“Seriously? That close to us? The Harpeth is up that far?”
“Yeah, it is. We’re getting water in the basement already. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I think I should get out of here.”
“And leave the house?”
“Sam, there’s three inches of water in the basement. I don’t have sandbags or anything to keep it at bay. And if the river gets any higher—you should see this. It’s unreal. Wait, I’m going to send you a picture.”
She grabbed her cell from her back pocket. A few seconds later it vibrated.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. They lived on a tributary of the Harpeth, but up on a hill. There had never been any concern about flooding. But the water was in their front yard.
“That’s got to be, what, thirty feet above flood stage?”
“Thirty-four right now. But we just lost electricity. I can’t stay here with the twins like this. What if it gets higher? Sam, I’m getting Maddy and Matthew out of here, right now.”
“Where are you going to go? The base of the driveway is underwater.”
“Which is why I have to go now, while I can still get out. Jesus, the furniture, all the stuff.”
She heard real fear in his voice, and that in turn scared her.
“Don’t worry about any of that. Chances are it won’t be that bad. Just grab my laptop, but that’s it, Simon. Go on. Get out of there.”
“Okay. Listen, I’ll call you when I get to high ground. I’ll go to Taylor and Baldwin’s place. There’s no chance of the water getting that high, their neighborhood is up on that huge ridge. You stay there, you’re completely out of harm’s way. Love you, Sammy.”
“Love you, too, honey. Be careful, and call me the second you stop. You want me to call Taylor and let her know you’re coming?”
“I’m sure she’s mobilized, Metro called everyone in. Activated the emergency plan. I have the key, anyway. They won’t care if a few drowned rats show up on their doorstep. They’re only ten minutes from here. I’m gone, sweetie.”
“All right. Call me as soon as you get there.”
“Will do.”
Simon hung up. Sam turned to Stuart, who’d caught enough of the conversation to look incredibly alarmed. He’d gone white.
“My mother lives in River Plantation. I just tried calling her, I can’t reach her.”
“Go turn on the television in my office. It’s going to be okay.”
Sam felt the oddest sense of dislocation. Suddenly the aortic rupture on the table didn’t seem terribly important. But she couldn’t leave him open.
She regloved and started working swiftly. She had cause of death, the rest was perfunctory at this point.
Stuart came back. “Sam, it’s awful. They’ve got bodies. We’re going to be getting fatalities coming in.”
She adopted her calmest voice, though she was suddenly feeling panicked. “Okay, Stu. It’s all right. Get Taylor on the phone for me. We’ll have her check on your mom.”
It took Stuart five long minutes to get Taylor Jackson, just enough time for Sam to finish up with her guest and get things put back together. She’d have to notate the disruption in protocol, but the man was ninety-four, she hardly thought the family would be searching for more answers. She wasn’t one for cutting corners, but she felt something in the air, a strange sense that this needn’t be her priority at the moment.
“I’ve got her,” Stuart shouted, and Sam repeated the earlier movements, taking off her gloves and going to the morgue phone. She left it on speaker. Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson’s voice came strong through the air.
“Sam. What’s up? I’m slammed. The whole city is going to be underwater by evening. The businesses along the Cumberland are already taking on water and you should see it out here in Bellevue.”
“God. Sorry, but Simon called, and we’re getting water in our house, too. He’s taking the twins to your place. I’ve been here at the morgue all morning, but he just told me about the water rescues in Bellevue. How bad is it?”
“It’s bad, Sam. I’ve never seen anything like this. Call Simon back and tell him to stay put. The Harpeth’s rising too quick, he’ll never make it. He’s better off going to the second story of the house and waiting it out. I’ll make sure the rescue units know that the water’s already up to your area. They’ll send someone to the house.”
Sam felt a horrid sense of foreboding come over her. “Taylor. He left more than five minutes ago.”
“Oh, shit. Okay, call him. Call him right now.”
Sam already had her cell out and was dialing. Simon’s phone rang and rang, then went to voice mail. She tried again. Same result.
“He’s not answering, Taylor.” Her voice had gone up an octave. She could hear Taylor barking commands in the background.
“Okay, honey. Relax. Cell service is spotty at best. The power lines are down in Bellevue, and so are the phones. The cell towers might be affected, as well. We’ll send someone his way. He’s probably already at my house.”
“But you said …”
“I’m sure I was wrong.”
Taylor wasn’t wrong. Fire and Rescue found Simon’s waterlogged car two hours later, wedged up against the concrete abutment by the Publix. The windows were down.
The car was empty.
Nashville, Tennessee
Dr. Samantha Owens
Current day
Sam stood at the base of her driveway. The red-and-white For Sale sign had a new addition that read Under Contract. The rooms were empty; the moving company van had just pulled away. She watched the truck turn the corner, and looked back to the house.
So many memories. Good. Bad. Sublime. Surreal.
It was time to say goodbye.
This was easier than she expected. She’d lived in Nashville her entire life, except for the years in D.C. while attending medical school. She’d lived there, loved there, married there, given birth there.
Stood vigil over the ashes of her family, her life, there.
Leaving wasn’t something she ever thought of doing.
But with the loss of her family came a fracture from her city, one so deep that she didn’t know if she could ever recover. She would visit. She would come back on holidays. But she could never live here again.
Her BMW was packed full of precious items she hadn’t wanted to entrust to the movers. Most especially, the black marble urn that held the remains of her family.
Simon’s will had stipulated that he be cremated. Hers did, as well.
But the twins. She couldn’t bear to put them in the ground. For them to be alone.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
It had been the kind man at the crematorium who’d made the suggestion.
You can’t tell anyone we did this, but we can bury them all together, if that’s what you want. They’re small enough ….
Small enough, the two of them, to fit inside the thin cardboard coffin of their father. To be reduced to ash along with him, forever mingled, forever together.
It was illegal, but they’d done it, anyway. And deposited all three into the urn, sealed, like her heart, until she chose to open it and scatter their remains to the winds.
Simon wanted to be thrown into the air off the top of a mountain. Sam now had that place picked out.
A strong arm went around her waist. Bolstering her, just when she needed it. He knew. He always knew.
“Sam, are you sure? There’s no going back now.”
No going back. How true the statement was. You don’t get do-overs in this life. She knew that better than anyone.
She turned to face Xander, the sun in her life. He’d grown in his beard, let his hair go a bit. He looked wild, untamed. His dark eyes met hers, and her heart constricted.
She touched him on the cheek and smiled softly.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Let’s go home.”
They got into her car, Xander driving. He pulled away from the curb slowly, so she could watch the house fade away in the distance if she wanted to.
She didn’t. She shut her eyes, and thought of the clean, cool air that awaited her. The green trees. The clear blue streams. The arms of the man she loved.
She had finally found her peace.