The Shadow of Your Smile Read online

  The cashier was on the floor behind the counter, crying. She had a welt across her cheek, open and bleeding. The boy stood over her, scraggly blond hair peeking out from his ski mask. He looked at Noelle, and she chilled at the pale blue-gray of his eyes.

  The larger man now grabbed her by the neck, pushed her face into the floor. “Open the safe or we’ll kill her,” he growled to the employee.

  The girl whimpered as she crawled to an office in the back.

  Please, God, I don’t want to die on the floor of a coffee shop.

  Or a convenience store. The thought nearly choked her. Her family couldn’t go through that again.

  “We got it,” the boy said.

  “Good. Now shoot her.” He held out his Glock to the boy.

  The boy stared at it. Shook his head. “I can’t.”

  The bigger man stifled a curse word. Then he disappeared into the back.

  Oh, oh, please, no—

  Noelle jerked as a shot rang out.

  The boy met her eyes, his own wide.

  She felt it inside then. Instinct, maybe. A voice.

  Run.

  Run!

  She sprang up, leaping for the door. Shouting chased her, but she fled down the sidewalk for the road.

  There—headlights! A semi plowing through the blizzard.

  “Help! Help!” She scrambled into the road, waving her hands above her head. “Stop!”

  That’s when her boots betrayed her. They slipped on the black ice, her foot flinging out in front of her. The jolt jerked her other foot free. Her body launched into the air.

  Her scream joined the screech of the semi.

  Noelle slammed into the pavement, pain exploding through her.

  Then, darkness.

  Eli Hueston would like to live alone forever in his ice house. He could, couldn’t he? At least for four months out of the year. The house, dragged out into the middle of McFarland Lake right before Thanksgiving, now accessible only by snowmobile, had all the trappings of home sweet home.

  Without the icy, impenetrable chill.

  About as big as his bedroom in their Cape Cod, the ice house contained oak cupboards, a stove, a microwave oven, a refrigerator, and a new HD flat screen, not to mention his submersible camera capable of monitoring the bottom of the lake, the bait, and fish.

  If he wanted to, he could spend the night on one of the four bunk beds, the house turning so toasty warm from the propane heat that he’d on occasion had to open one of the vents near the ceiling for air.

  Of course it had facilities. Oh, and six holes for catching fish.

  Which, sometimes, he did. Like today. Four perch—one a keeper—and a northern who couldn’t escape the lure of a flathead chub jigging in front of its wide, hungry mouth.

  The pike Eli had cleaned and fried up in a batter of shore lunch. He downed it with a Coke. He wasn’t the type to haul a six-pack to the woods anymore. He’d been the alcohol route, found it empty when he woke to a worse fate every morning. Besides, he’d seen too many anglers toes up from hypothermia to tempt fate by bringing alcohol out to this lonely planet.

  Indeed, the smooth white of the lake, marred only by the tracks of his Polaris, seemed its own constellation, the surface crystalline and shiny under the blue sky now mottled by the twilight settling over the horizon. It spilled magenta over the ice like syrup.

  He could stay here all winter. And in the summer, pull the custom-made trailer off the lake, park it on the Huestons’ little undeveloped plot of land, and fish from the shore, camping out, surviving on fresh walleye, northern pike, and bass over a crackling campfire.

  If only life were as easy as fishing.

  Out here, a man loaded his hook with the appropriate bait—waxies, moth larvae, chubs—then plopped his line in the water and waited for the fish to bite. He didn’t have to ask the fish how it might be feeling, guess at what he’d done wrong to elicit its cold shoulder, didn’t have to worry if the fish might be crying itself to sleep in the middle of the night.

  He hated standing outside their door, listening to Noelle’s sobs. He’d moved to the den so he could escape the hollowing out of his soul, night by night. He had no idea how to comfort a wife who’d lost so much of herself, her future.

  If he could, he’d take back that dark midnight or replace it with a different loss. Yes, Eli would like to live forever on this forgotten lake, tucked inside the lush, snowy forest, thirty miles from civilization, and allow, in time, the voices inside his head to quiet to a murmur. To let him think.

  Feel.

  Forgive himself.

  Perhaps he might even figure out how to repair their lives. Or decide if he even wanted to. It had occurred to him, more than once, that they should just admit defeat.

  Lee had even voiced it—that they could all start over after the boys graduated. Eli had been chopping wood for her heater—a job Derek could have managed, but with his basketball schedule, he had little time for household chores.

  Besides, a man had responsibilities to the widow of one of his deputies.

  She’d been dressed in Clay’s red-and-black padded flannel shirt, her auburn hair peeking out of a gray wool cap, stacking the cordwood as it fell from his ax. “How do you want to spend your retirement, Eli? Alone? Or with someone who cares about you?” She’d pushed her hair back from her face with her wrist, then smiled at him, and there seemed to be an invitation in her expression.

  He didn’t answer her, but the question lingered. Followed him to McFarland Lake. Dogged him as he’d watched his bobber, the fish scurrying about on the screen.

  Alone?

  He wasn’t alone, was he?

  Eli finished washing his cast-iron pan, dried it, and set it in the cupboard. The ice house still smelled of the bacon grease he’d fried the fish in, so he opened the door to air it out as he locked up his tackle, his equipment. The house, so heavy it had hydraulic wheels to haul it onto the ice, could turn into an impenetrable fortress once he locked it.

  He loaded the cooler with the rest of the fish onto the seat of the snowmobile, drained the sink and the facilities in the back, then turned off the heater and locked the house. To the west, the sky appeared darker now, as if a storm might be rolling in. A gust of wind skimmed snow from the surface of the lake, splattered it on his parka. He shivered at the change of temperature as he started the snowmobile.

  Hopefully Kirby had made it home okay in his clunker old Neon. Near the lake, the storm could roll in faster, turn fluffy snow to sleet. He picked up his cell phone, but he was still out of range.

  Thankfully, Noelle would pick the boy up if he needed help. She practically hovered over their youngest son. But really, who could blame her?

  Eli opened the throttle over the ice, drinking in the power of the speed. His truck came into view, a black hulk on the shoreline. He pulled up to it, dragged out the ramp, drove the snowmobile onto the bed, then strapped it down.

  He let the truck warm for a moment, setting the cooler on the seat beside him, holding his hands in front of the heater.

  Alone? Or with someone who cares about you?

  Lee’s voice rumbled around in his head. That, and her laughter, the way she looked at him that made him feel twenty years younger, without tragedy in her gaze. She had her own tragedy, of course, but in her eyes he saw himself reflected as a savior.

  Instead of a tormentor.

  But she had been Clay’s wife.

  No. Eli’s heart thumped.

  No.

  And oh, boy, he was married. He hated himself for thinking of that second. But what was a marriage, anyway? Certainly not what he and Noelle had. Coexistence? Tolerance?

  Sometimes, not even that.

  He could probably drop right through the ice and she wouldn’t miss him. Let the ice freeze over, erase him from her life without a blink.

  He eased the truck onto the dirt road. As he drove south, the weather turned sour quickly, thick flakes landing on his windshield, melting as they slid
off. He turned on his wipers. No doubt near Lake Superior, he’d find the highway icy and traffic in the ditch.

  He was being too hard on her, and he knew it. The responsibility for keeping a marriage strong rested on the man’s shoulders—he’d heard that sermon enough to believe it. But what if she didn’t respond to him? What if his attempts actually caused her pain?

  God, I don’t know how to love my wife anymore. How to fix this. How to be the husband she needs. I think we’re beyond hope—

  His cell phone vibrated in his parka.

  He scooped the phone from his pocket, his cold hands fumbling with it, and held it up. He didn’t recognize the number.

  Touching the brakes, he angled for the side of the road, deserted as it was, and opened the phone.

  “Eli Hueston.” Oh, he still had his sheriff’s tone. But twenty-five years spent taking bad news didn’t dissipate from his system overnight. Or even in three months. He could feel his stomach tensing out of habit even as he pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Sheriff, it’s Anne Standing Bear.”

  He hadn’t heard the EMT’s voice in nearly five years, since she and her husband, Noah, had moved back to Duluth for her to add an MD to her nursing degree. He always liked her, the way she knew how to take care of a trauma. But she’d needed more than what Deep Haven could give her, and after the birth of their son, Clancy, she and Noah had moved away to pursue her dreams.

  Much like Noelle had done for him once upon a time.

  “Hey, Anne,” he said. “I’m not sure if you heard, but I’m not the sheriff anymore.”

  She didn’t comment, and something in the way her voice emerged, tight and cool, the way they must have taught her at St. Luke’s, made him catch his breath. “I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident.”

  Oh, please, not Kyle. Hadn’t he told the kid that law enforcement wasn’t for him? That he didn’t wish that life on any of his children, even his oldest? But after Kelsey, Kyle wouldn’t hear his objections. It seemed almost as if he had to prove something to himself.

  Or work off his own grief.

  Eli steeled himself. “How is he? What happened?”

  She paused. “It’s . . . it’s your wife, sir. She fell outside the Mocha Moose.”

  The Mocha Moose . . . “In Harbor City?” What was Noelle doing there? “I thought she was at home. Did she hurt herself?” He realized as soon as the words left how stupid that sounded. Of course she hurt herself—otherwise, why would she have Anne call for her?

  And how did Anne find her, anyway?

  “No, I’m afraid she did.” Anne’s voice softened. “She hit her head, hard. You need to come to St. Luke’s in Duluth. . . . Eli, she’s got eight staples in her skull.”

  “Oh, my.” He pulled onto the road, trying to picture Noelle sprawled on the snowy, dirty parking lot outside the coffee shop, bleeding. She always had to stop there, regardless of the time of day. He shook the image away. “Are you calling from the hospital? Can I talk to her?”

  “I’m calling from ICU, Sheriff. But I . . . I don’t want to talk to you about this over the phone—”

  “Anne, just tell me.”

  “She’s . . . had a major head trauma. In fact, Sheriff, I’m so sorry—your wife is in a coma.”

  This was not the life Emma Nelson had planned on living.

  No, the dream she’d conjured with Kelsey Hueston as they jammed together, creating their band, the Blue Monkeys, in the upstairs attic of her north shore garage, certainly never included neon beer lights, hairy bikers dressed in black leather, and a woman doing shots out of her deeply vee-d red T-shirt three tables from the stage.

  Emma averted her eyes as she stood behind the lead guitarist of Retrospect, her bass guitar over her shoulder, playing a twelve-bar blues riff as they covered hits from Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, the Stones, and even Stevie Ray Vaughn. The rank odor of cigarette smoke embedded the black Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt she’d inherited from her best friend, and a line of sweat dribbled down her spine despite the icy air outside.

  If she had to play “Stairway to Heaven” one more time, she just might pack up her Fender fretted four-string and flee. Maybe all the way back home, back to Deep Haven.

  No, no, she was simply tired. And smelly.

  And broke, or she wouldn’t be stuck filling in for the various rock and blues bands around the city in need of a bass guitarist. A female bass guitarist, which, according to Ritchie Huff Management, could land her enough gigs to keep her in rent money this month.

  What she wanted was her own gig. Alone under the spotlight, playing her own music on her first love—her electric guitar. Sadly there wasn’t quite enough demand for a bluesy folk singer from northern Minnesota with a hot talent for improv to keep her in solo gigs. Or any demand, really.

  She watched the lead for a rhythm change, ended the song at the nod of his head.

  “Ten-minute break,” he said to her over his shoulder. Bobby? Billy? She couldn’t remember his name but she nodded, glad to set her bass on its mount, climb off the stage of the packed 400 Bar, and head out through the back to the alley, where the crisp winter air might clear her head.

  Why, exactly, hadn’t she taken her guidance counselor’s advice and gone into teaching? Or stayed in school, pursuing a music degree at the university?

  She might have been propelled by the memory of her father, standing just outside the door to her studio, ready to hop in on the drums, treat her to a drum jam that kept the attic studio rockin’ all night. Or sometimes he’d just plop himself on the ratty green sofa and lean his chin on his hands, listening.

  She hoped he was still listening, even to the iffy music of Retrospect. For her dad, she’d played her heart out, even if it was only for old covers.

  The drummer stepped out behind her, propping open the door with a can. “You’re pretty young to be so good,” he said. Tommy? Ted?

  “Tim,” he said, to her obvious frown. “We have another gig next Thursday. I’m sure Brian would love to have you join us.”

  That was it—Brian. She leaned against the metal railing outside the door, lifting her face. Overhead, smoky clouds mottled the sky; only a few stars broke through. Even then, with the city lights, she could barely make them out.

  Once upon a time in Deep Haven, it seemed she could see all the way across the universe.

  She shivered. “Ritchie mentioned you needed a bassist. I’ll have to check my schedule.” She knew already what her schedule read for next Thursday night—a big, fat nothing. But what if something came up—a chance to play at one of the local hotel lounges, or even at the Fine Line Music Cafe, with real listeners, not the kind that just wanted a beat as they guzzled down whiskey Cokes?

  “I’ll bet you’re pretty booked with those wicked riffs.”

  “Thanks. My dad taught me those.”

  “A blues player. I’ll bet he’s proud.” Tim looked old enough to be her uncle, if not her father, and the smile he gave her wasn’t in the least creepy. She liked him with his balding comb-back, his bulky waistline. He lit a cigarette but blew it away from her.

  “He would have been.” She smiled at him. “He passed away three years ago.”

  He wore the look most did when she told them the news. At least she spared him the gruesome truth. Murdered. She hated that word.

  “I’m sorry,” Tim said.

  “Thanks. He wanted me to pursue music, even left some cash for me to live on while I figured it out.”

  Except that was almost gone. Or at least her portion. Her mother still had her share, and Derek had banked his for college, although he just might land himself a basketball scholarship if he kept racking up points for the Huskies.

  “Where are you from?”

  She rubbed her hands on her arms, the sweat now freezing down her spine. “Deep Haven.”

  He studied her with kind brown eyes. “Seriously? I love it up there. They have a blues festival every summer.”

  “I know. I played a
couple years ago.”

  “I probably saw you. I go up every year, park in the municipal campground, me and the missus, our two kids.”

  “I always play in the tents—and on the main stage for local talent night. I used to play with a friend. We called ourselves the Blue Monkeys. Dumb, I know.”

  He drew on his cigarette. “I think I remember you. You had a crooner—”

  “Kelsey. Yes. She could really rock the house.” She could say it now without as much pain. Moving five hours south helped.

  “Are you still together?” He threw the cigarette on the ground and flattened it with his shoe.

  “Nope.” She left it at that. But the answer could elicit a moan inside if she let it.

  “Too bad.” He opened the door for her, ushered her inside. The heat of the bar, the swill of alcohol, the brine of sweat could sweep her breath from her chest.

  Someday she’d hit it big and her days playing blues joints would end. She hoisted the guitar over her shoulder. Smiled into the audience.

  No one smiled back.

  “‘Pinball Wizard,’” Brian said and Tim picked up the beat.

  The Blue Monkeys had cranked out a few Who covers, but she’d never been a rocker at heart. She’d preferred the older stuff—Gladys Knight, Mavis Staples, Aretha Franklin. But she hadn’t ignored Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell either.

  And she could get lost forever in her arrangements of the kings of the seventies: Joe Cocker, B. J. Thomas, even Simon and Garfunkel. They probably couldn’t be improved on, but she liked to try.

  She liked the sound she’d developed, and so had her manager, Ritchie, it seemed, when she met him while playing at an open mic night at the Mad Fox. Then why, a year later, was she still gigging for AWOL bassists around the city?

  Probably because she still couldn’t conjure up her own words. Sure she could nail the riff, jam up and down the frets, keep up with any Chicago blues piano, but finding the words to croon along?

  That had been Kelsey’s job.

  On the dance floor in front of the stage, a couple of fans had begun to move to the beat, one of them pretending to play the air guitar, the other now zeroing in on Emma. He danced toward her, wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and a drunken come-hither smile. He winked and she hid the roll of her eyes.