Out Of The Deep I Cry

her face tipped high so she could breathe. Hand by hand, he carried them across the current. Her head bumped against something solid.

“Wall,” she said.

He turned, plunging his hands in the water, feeling for the top of the bulkhead’s outer wall. “Got it,” he said. His voice was thin. Tired. “I’m holding on to it. Climb over my back up onto the bank. It’s only about a foot underwater there. Keep to the building.”

Clare had to flex her hands to get them to unlock. Her muscles were cramped and unwieldy. She could barely control her arms and legs as she splashed and floundered over Russ. For a second, reaching down past his head and feeling only more water, she panicked, until she struck the rubble that made up the narrow strip of land between the riverbed and the chandlery. She crawled onto it, turned to face Russ, and collapsed. The water came to her chest. “Give me your hands,” she said. “I’ll pull you over.”

His flesh had all the warmth of a dead fish. She tightened her grip on his hands, braced her unfeeling feet against the edge of the bulkhead’s stone wall, and, pushing and pulling, hauled him out of the pool that was the entrance to the cellar.

He flailed his way onto the submerged embankment and sagged against her, panting. “We gotta get out of here,” he said when he had caught his breath.

Leaning on each other, they lurched to their feet. Standing, the water was up to her shins. Russ steered her toward the side of the building, and pressed to the wet bricks for balance, they staggered over the uneven, moss- slick stones of the embankment. Her clothes were so sodden, and her legs so deadened, that she didn’t realize they were walking out of the river’s overflow until she noticed that the slosh-slap of her steps had changed to a squish- squelch of boots on rock. She moved away from the wall. “Let me help you,” she said, shouldering beneath his arm to act as his crutch. They stumbled over garbage and up the eroded slope to the road, and she could see Margy Van Alstyne’s car, and it was the most welcome sight in the world.

They crossed the road like zombies. Russ popped open the driver’s door, and Clare staggered around to the other side. They fell in at the same time, clunking the doors shut behind them. It took Russ three tries to get the keys out of his pants pocket, and when he finally started the engine and they were hit with the first blast of hot air from the vents, Clare went boneless. They sat in silence.

After a minute, she noticed his cell phone, dangling from the car charger. She tugged on the curly cord, fishing the phone off the floor. “Look,” she said. “You’re still connected to my phone.” Which was lying somewhere at the bottom of the submarine cellar.

Russ didn’t open his eyes. “Hear anything?”

She pressed the phone to her ear. “Glug, glug,” she said. He rolled his head to look at her. She started to laugh. He blinked, then started to laugh as well. They laughed and laughed until their bodies shook and the Camry rocked and tears rolled down their cheeks.

Eventually, they wound down to gasps and sighs. She pressed the off button, hanging up on the river, and handed him the phone. He stared at it as if he was having a problem remembering what it was for. He looked at her. “If you were Allan Rouse, where would you be right now?”

“Home with my wife.”

“That’s my guess, too.” He punched in a number.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to send two cars over there. I’m going to have one of ’em stop at the station for some dry clothes. And I’m going to drive to Rouse’s house and nail that son of a bitch to the wall.”

Chapter 38

NOW

They pulled up behind a black-and-white already parked outside the Rouses’ home. Butted up against Russ, supporting him as he limped to the door, Clare felt like a half-drowned cat returning home to the man who had stuffed her in a sack and tossed her in the river. The cold rain was a misery on her just-thawing skin. She thought the evening had inured her to further shock, but she blinked in surprise when the door was opened by Mrs. Marshall.

“Good God.” Mrs. Marshall stepped aside, wrinkling her nose at the smell. They limped into the entrance hall. “What on earth happened to you?”

Clare could hear a drone of voices from the living room. “It’s a long story,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Through the archway, she could see Renee Rouse, hovering over Officer Mark Durkee, who was reading the Miranda warning from a laminated card to a crumpled, raggedy figure curled up in the recliner. “Do you understand these rights as I have told them to you?” Durkee said.

“I…” Allan Rouse looked past him to Russ and Clare. He gaped. “I…”

“You tell him what the charges are yet?” Russ asked.

“We’re starting with breaking and entering, resisting arrest, false imprisonment and attempted homicide.” Durkee said.

“No!” Mrs. Rouse said.

Russ looked at her. “The good doctor here locked me and Reverend Fergusson into a flooding cellar. If we hadn’t managed to break out, officer Durkee would be fishing for our corpses tomorrow.”

“But-I didn’t-” Rouse’s face crumpled in on itself. “I never meant to hurt anybody!” He burst into sloppy sobs, burying his face in his hands.

Russ squelched into the barrel chair that Clare had so delicately perched on about a million years ago. He looked around the tastefully decorated room, stopping when his eyes fell on Mrs. Marshall. “Ma’am, what are you doing here? Did you know about Dr. Rouse’s reappearance?”

Mrs. Marshall stood as far away from the rest of them as she could while still being in the room. “I did not. I arrived here a few minutes ago and was as surprised as you to see Allan back home.”

“What brought you here in such lousy weather?”

“Renee called. She sounded distraught. She asked me to please come over.” She looked at Clare, dripping onto the Aubusson carpet, at Dr. Rouse in his homeless-man disguise, and at Officer Durkee, snapping cuffs on the doctor. Her spine stiffened. “So far, this whole day has been an extraordinary and unpleasant novelty.”

Clare caught Russ’s glance and once again had the sensation of knowing exactly what he was thinking. Not all of it. Her cheeks flushed. He turned toward the Rouses. “And you two.” His voice whipped across the room. “In addition to the criminal charges you’re facing, you can expect bills from the volunteer fire department, the mountain rescue squad, and the state police diving team for services rendered during your faked disappearance. And I will personally urge Debba Clow and her mother to lodge civil complaints against the both of you.” His mouth worked, as if he had bitten into something disgusting. He glared up at Mrs. Rouse, who was standing behind her husband’s chair, her arms around his shoulders. “Was that all an act?” he asked her. “Waving the gun around? To cover up his footsteps? Throw us off?”

The expression on Renee Rouse’s face was enough to convince Clare that her behavior hadn’t been part of a plan. Mrs. Rouse opened her mouth, but her husband cut her off before she had the chance to speak.

“She didn’t know anything. It was entirely my fault. Everything’s been my fault.”

Russ didn’t take his eyes off Rouse. “Mark, take notes. I think Dr. Rouse wants to tell us what the hell’s been going on.”

Mark Durkee flipped a pad open and clicked his pen.

“If you have information that will exonerate your wife, now’s the time to spill it. The DA’s going to have some sympathy for a woman who’s been driven to distraction because her husband’s disappeared. She’s going to be less kind to a co-conspirator.”

Allan Rouse looked up at his wife. His face sagged in new folds. He seemed immeasurably older than he had when Clare had first seen him, only a month ago. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know it doesn’t help, but I did it for you. To protect you.” He twisted to face Russ. “I ran away. Because.”