The Seeker: A Mystery at Walden Pond Read online

  I never told him of my condition. He nor his family will ever know. I will leave Walden Pond without a trace I ever existed. No search will lead them to me, for I will not be found. There is nothing here for me now.

  My memory of Bonnie’s journal was accurate down to the word. I didn’t carry it around with me. The value was too great, but I knew passages by heart.

  After Thoreau’s family reclaimed him, Bonnie disappeared. I suspected suicide, but I had no proof. Thoreau and the solitude of Walden Pond had stabilized her. With Thoreau, she’d been a woman with unique talents, and they’d explored her abilities together. Thoreau’s abandonment could have pushed her to end her life. I understood how it could happen. As I knew from personal experience, a human heart could take only so much suffering. The quiet of the grave could be appealing.

  The only thing of Bonnie’s that made its way home was the journal. It had arrived at Brandeis the semester I earned my master’s degree. My goal had always been a doctorate in literature, but the journal, wrapped in plain brown paper and addressed to me, offered a stunning opportunity. Few doctoral students broke new ground. If I could validate the journal, I would be the exception. With this strange gift, which bore no return address, the horizon suddenly opened. My life had been a series of challenges brought on by my bloodline. If the journal paid off, it would be a blood connection that launched my success. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

  At first I’d thought the sender had been Granny, but she denied it. She asked to skim through it, but I resisted putting it in the mail. The journal was too precious to risk again in the post or a delivery service. From the moment I touched the beautiful leather cover, I knew it was mine. It came to me by right.

  For some reason, the idea of the journal sent Granny into a panic, even after I explained what a valuable tool it would be for my dissertation. Granny’s mind had started to slip by then. She urged me to destroy it. I promised her I would, because she was so agitated. Instead, I began preparations to enter the Ph.D. program. The journal was a compelling cautionary tale of the wounding power of love and loss. It was also a personal glimpse into the life of an iconic American writer, and I would share it with the world.

  Lost in my research and thoughts, I jumped when the librarian tapped my shoulder, indicating it was time to close the library. Snow covered the ground, and darkness crowded the sun from the sky. I packed my notebooks and left, walking home in a wintry wind that smelled of pungent fir and the thick curtain of flakes.

  The snow depressed me. Rolling my aching shoulders, I continued to the inn, the snow obliterating any trace of my passage.

  15

  Snowflakes dusted my shoulders and teased my lips and eyelashes as I walked back to the inn. The large white flakes had been falling for a while. A six-inch-deep accumulation covered open areas. Deeper drifts piled against buildings and curbs. The world had changed radically while I was inside the library, and I hadn’t noticed. The encroaching night and layer of snow made everything different, purer. The air smelled cleaner. Most of the shops had closed, and the street was empty except for an occasional car.

  My stomach’s loud complaints reminded me I’d worked through lunch, immersed in the lives of two dead people. Only writers and readers could understand the way a story captured me and pulled me into another reality. Some would say I escaped into the lives of others. They would be right. This ability to give up reality and allow the story to absorb me had saved me many times in Harlan County. For the space of a book or story, I could flee Kentucky and live in another place, another life.

  I left the town behind and the forest was swallowed in white as I trudged along the empty road. In snowfall, there is a unique silence. The cold precipitation muffled the man-made sounds of cars, leaving a magical stillness. I turned down the winding road to the inn. Almost there, I stopped to admire the lighted windows that radiated a sense of safety and welcome.

  The distant noises of people gathered to eat and socialize reminded me that others found happiness in community rather than solitude. Instead of stopping by the dining room, I continued on my path. The scent of freshly baked bread tormented me as I passed the inn to leave my computer and books in the cabin.

  Navigating the narrow path, I stopped, startled. With its brown unpainted exterior, the cabin was a square box against the last light in the sky. It should have been a dark building. Someone must have gone inside and lit a fire, because smoke curled out of the chimney and my desk lamp shown bright in the gathering dusk. Dorothea must have sent Patrick.

  There were no footsteps in the snow that dusted the steps and front porch. How long ago had Patrick been there? I hoped the fire was fresh. At night I banked the glowing embers, but right now I needed dancing flames, the snap of a hot, fresh fire to cheer me up.

  My hand reached to put the key in the lock when I stopped. I slipped to the window with the cut screen and peeped inside.

  The fire burned bright, hot tongues of flame licking around the freshly laid logs. In the glow of the lamp I could see the entire cabin. A rise in the covers of my bed told me someone was there.

  Joe! The jolt of happiness came and went in a split second. Where was his truck if he was inside, in my bed? I knew instinctively it wasn’t Joe.

  Caution stayed my hand at the door. The intruder could have come before the snow drifted down, but the fire was freshly made. Disquiet prickled my skin, and I spun around to make sure I was leaving footprints. My panic warned me to abandon the cabin. I could go to the inn and ask Dorothea to come back with me to check out who snuggled in my bed. Or I could call the police.

  That wasn’t really an option. What if it was Joe, waiting beneath the quilts? He might have left his truck parked somewhere and hoofed it to the cabin. For privacy, to avoid others poking their nose into our business. If I brought Dorothea or the police, all manner of unwarranted attention would follow, and I wanted no more interaction with the law.

  I turned the key and stepped in. The lump in the bed remained completely still, like a dead thing. My heart thudded so hard I placed a steadying hand against the doorframe. I slammed the door sharply.

  The figure in the bed sat up, throwing back covers. Blond tousled hair poked up on the head of Patrick Leahy. Not Joe, but Patrick. His grin was slow and lazy. I didn’t move or say a word as he pushed back the covers and stood, completely naked.

  His body was a work of art. Lean cut muscles defined his chest and stomach, and the indentation beneath his hip bones made me inhale sharply. At nineteen, he was physical perfection, and he knew it.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said in soft invitation. “You know I’ve wanted you since you moved into the cabin. My god, Aine, you’re so beautiful and you don’t even know it.”

  My common sense urged me to run, to open the door and flee. To safety. To a place where I couldn’t make another bad choice. But another, wilder voice argued differently. Patrick was here, and Joe wasn’t. Joe hadn’t called or in any way hinted that the night we’d spent together held special significance. For all I knew, I might never hear from him again. Patrick adored me and wasn’t shy about confessing it. Granny had urged me to choose the real, the solid, and Patrick was very, very solid. Still, I hesitated.

  Patrick reached out for me. “When you come down the lane beside the inn, I stop work just to watch you, Aine. You’re incredible. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as you.”

  It would be wrong to sleep with Patrick, but my feet didn’t budge. My gaze moved over him, lingering on those hip bones and the ripples of his torso, leaving no doubt that he affected me.

  He stepped closer, allowing the firelight to play over the contours of his body. “We’ve wasted a lot of time. I want to make you feel as beautiful as you are. I want to make love to you.”

  It crossed my mind to order him out, but I didn’t. Instead, I walked toward him and the bed. I kissed him hard, and he tilted me into sheets still warm and smelling of his aftershave. Clean with a hint of the ocean.


  16

  The fire burned low, a bed of red embers. Patrick slept beside me, his leg thrown over my thighs, his hand tangled in my hair. He slept without anxiety or trouble. I, on the other hand, lay wide awake with the reality I’d let impulse and wounded pride rule the last two hours of my life. Regret kept me motionless beneath his weight.

  A log burned through, snapped, and a shower of sparks jumped up the chimney. The sound woke him and he gave me a sleepy grin. “Man, you are something else,” he whispered against my temple. “You’re beautiful, Aine.” His hand circled my breast.

  I eased to the other side of the bed. When he glanced out the window, he sat up abruptly. “Holy shit, what time is it?”

  “Just after eight.” My stomach growled. Another hour and I would miss dinner at the inn. I could order pizza, but I would have to walk to the main road to fetch it, and my meals at the inn came with the cost of renting the cabin.

  “Dorothea is going to kill me!” He jumped out of bed and into his jeans. He pulled on his socks and boots as he walked to the door. Remembering his shirt, he stooped low and swept it off the floor. His arms slid into the sleeves in a fluid movement. Patrick wasn’t innocent. I was willing to bet he’d had plenty of practice dressing rapidly.

  I wasn’t as quick as he was, but I wasn’t far behind. We left the cabin and walked through the snow to the inn, side by side, but not touching. The ground was pristine, a crisp white wonderland.

  “We shouldn’t tell Dorothea about this,” he said. “She’d be upset with me. She wants you for Joe.”

  “It’s in my best interest to keep this to myself.” I was strangely detached from the situation, but in the dead of night, anxiety and remorse would likely choke me. The cost of a few hours of pleasure would be many days of regret. Patrick was a teenager. I was twenty-eight. No matter that he’d made every advance and lain in wait in my very bed.

  “That was, like, the most important thing that’s ever happened to me,” Patrick said. “I’m a different person.”

  “No. It was just sex. Nothing more. Don’t get all romantic and mushy, because it won’t happen again.” A little late in setting ground rules.

  “Didn’t you like it?” He grabbed my coat sleeve and tugged me to a halt. His eyes glittered in the moonlight. “Was I bad? I mean, I’ll get better. You know, with practice.”

  “There won’t be practice.” My harsh words caused him to inhale sharply. “I don’t mean to be cruel, but this shouldn’t have happened and it can never happen again, Patrick. I’m too old. You’re too young.” The familiar tang of bad choices filled my nostrils. Remorse had its own peculiar odor.

  “Joe’s more experienced. He’s a better lover, isn’t he?” He loosed my coat sleeve and stalked away.

  I ran to catch up with him. “No. You’re a terrific lover, Patrick. But I’m nearly a decade older than you. I feel like I’ve taken advantage. It makes me dislike myself. It’s like I’m some kind of sad old predator sniffing around a young man.” I shuddered at the thought.

  “That’s not it. Not at all. The truth is, Joe wouldn’t like it, would he?” Patrick chuckled softly. “Maybe I should be worried.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Joe couldn’t care less.”

  “Then there’s no reason we have to stop. You were wild, Aine. You enjoyed it.”

  This had to be settled for once and for all. “I intend to be a teacher, Patrick. If word gets out that I sleep with young men, it could ruin my chances at a good job. Can’t you see that?”

  He resumed his pace toward the inn. “That’s hogwash. It’s Joe. You don’t want him to know. He’ll be angry. Doesn’t matter that he’s ignored you for days. He thinks he has a claim on you.”

  Patrick was like a lot of men I’d known—figuring that every other dog wanted the bone he chewed. Male delusion. “Joe doesn’t pretend he’s staking out a claim. He isn’t interested. What makes you think he is?”

  “He’s had a tough time getting a date since Mischa disappeared. Never made any sense to me why he came back here.”

  I put a hand on his arm and stopped him in the cold, still night. “Who is Mischa?” Karla had hurled the name at me as if it were a disease. I’d asked Joe, but in freeing me from the police station, he’d never answered my question.

  Concern drew his eyebrows together. “Shit. I thought you knew.” He shifted from foot to foot. “He didn’t tell you?”

  I tightened my grip on his arm because I knew he was about to bolt. “Who is Mischa?” I repeated, squeezing a little on his wrist.

  “Ask Dorothea.” He tugged free of me.

  “Patrick, please.” My words held him. “Please. Just tell me.” I’d known something wasn’t right.

  The snow had almost ceased, but a few flakes dusted Patrick’s blond hair. We stood outside the inn, haloed in light coming from the dining room windows.

  “Joe was an elementary teacher, before he became a ranger. About ten years ago one of his students disappeared, a young girl about nine or ten. Mischa Lobrano. She was a really pretty kid, and she lived in the same neighborhood as Joe. She often ended up at Joe’s house after school, and he played kickball and stuff with the neighborhood brats. One day, Mischa was gone. She made it home after school and then went out to do a science project. Her footsteps led into the woods at Walden Pond and then just stopped. She was never seen again. Like the goblins got her.”

  My gut twisted in a hard knot. I knew exactly where this story would lead. Accusations of a sexual predator. Ruination of a teaching career. A reputation that makes a man a neighborhood pariah.

  “Was anyone ever arrested?”

  He shook his head. “They searched for weeks. With tracking dogs and helicopters and volunteer groups. It was October, and the weather was good. Folks held out hope for over a month that she might be alive.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “No one knows.” He spoke on a sigh. “Trouble is, folks suspected Joe. A lot of folks, actually. Said he was too close with the children. Mischa talked about him all the time at home and with her friends. She had a crush on him the way young girls can get with a teacher.”

  I finished the story for him. “They suspected Joe molested her and then killed her to keep her quiet.”

  Patrick didn’t deny it. “Dorothea never believed it. She said Joe liked children and wasn’t it a crying shame that a man who loved his job could be tainted with foolish rumors. There was no proof. None at all. Joe was never charged with anything.”

  “Yet he gave up teaching.”

  “He wasn’t fired. He quit. He got hired on as a ranger and left here. Only came back last spring when his mother was dying.”

  I felt exhausted, barely able to stand upright. “Thanks, Patrick.” I started toward the inn at a slow shuffle. I needed time to think, to process this new picture of Joe. Pedophile and child murderer didn’t fit the Joe I knew, but he should have told me. I would have slept with him anyway, but he should have given me the option of saying no. Taint was like a virus. It passed from one to the next.

  Then again, I hadn’t bothered to tell him about my family, about the oxy selling, the guns and shootings, the brutality for the pleasure of hurting others.

  Patrick’s hand pressed into the small of my back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to start anything.”

  “I’m glad you told me. I have a right to know who I slept with.”

  “I gotta run, Aine. I’m going to slip in the back door to the kitchen and get busy. Maybe Dorothea won’t notice I’m hours late.”

  “Don’t count on it.” My remark followed his disappearing back as he darkness swallowed him.

  Standing alone in the snowy dark, I tried to feel something about Joe and the little girl who’d disappeared. Mischa. Numbness deadened all reaction. I’d slept with a man many believed to be a child abuser, a child killer. And I felt nothing at all.

  That wouldn’t last long. Fury would arrive quickly enough. Dorothea could have warned me
. Joe should have told me. Once again, I’d been played for a patsy.

  Inside the inn, Dorothea served coffee to the Wescotts at a window table. They laughed and cut up, unaware that I watched from the darkness. Patrick hustled to bus several empty tables. I almost turned back to the cabin, but I knew I couldn’t last the night without food. I had to go in.

  Dorothea saw me before I could slip into an empty seat. She grabbed a glass of water and came my way. “Aine, are you okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.

  She frowned at my cool tone. “Has something happened?”

  “You should have warned me about Joe. About the child.”

  The smile slid down her face. “I see. I maybe should have told you, but Joe deserves to be judged on his own merits, not by gossip. He was never charged with anything. He didn’t harm the child. He wouldn’t.”

  Several tables of diners had stopped eating and were looking our way. I hated being the center of a scene. I’d already had a fight on a public street and been taken to the police station because of Joe. Now I was making a spectacle. “Drop it.”

  Dorothea lowered her tone. “I did what I thought was right, Aine. I’m sorry if you feel hurt by it. Folks around here are quick to judge and slow to forgive, even if they’re wrong. Joe has suffered at the hands of gossips. He likes you and it was a chance for him to date a woman without the wall oflies.”

  “You should have told me and let me make up my mind. He should have told me.”

  “Perhaps. But how hard would it be to tell a romantic interest you were once accused of a horrible act, one you didn’t do?”