A January Chill. Rachel Lee
Joni said as excitement and happiness burst through the layer of shock. “Double wahoo! That’s wonderful, Uncle Witt! Enough to buy a new truck, huh?”
But Witt didn’t answer her. Instead, he simply looked at her and then at Hannah. Another silence fell, and Joni felt her heart begin to beat with loud thuds. Finally she whispered, “More than enough to buy a truck?”
Hannah’s dark eyes flew to her daughter, then leaped back to Witt. She reached out a hand and touched his forearm. “Witt? How much did you win?”
Witt cleared his throat. “It’s…well…kinda hard to believe.”
“Ohmigod,” Joni said in a rush, feeling hot and cold by turns. “Uncle Witt…” She turned to look at her mother, as if she could find some link back to reality there. But Hannah’s face was registering the same blank disbelief. Things like this didn’t happen to people they knew.
“It’s…” Witt sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I won the jackpot.”
“Oh my God.” This time it was Hannah who spoke, her tone prayerful. “Oh, Witt, that’s a lot of money. How much?”
“Eleven million.” His voice sounded almost choked. “Of course, it won’t be that much. The payout is over twenty-five years, and there’s taxes and stuff but, um…”
Joni, always great at math, calculated quickly. “You’ll still be bringing home almost two hundred thousand a year,” she said. “My God. That’s incredible.” Then, as a sudden, wonderful exuberance hit her, she let out a whoop. “Oh, man, Uncle Witt, you’re on easy street now. So you get the new truck and a lot else besides.” She grinned at him, feeling a wonderful sense of happiness for the man who had been like a father to her since the death of her dad. “It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. So, are you going to Tahiti?”
He laughed, sounding embarrassed. “Nah. Not unless Hannah wants to go.”
Hannah’s eyes widened; then her cheeks pinkened. “Tahiti? Me?” She waved away the idea. “What on earth would I do there? Besides, the winnings are yours, Witt.”
His face took on a strange tension, one Joni couldn’t identify. “So what then?” she pressed him.
“I haven’t had a whole lot of time to think about it, Joni. Jeez, I just found out last week.”
“Last week? You’ve been sitting on this for a week?” She couldn’t believe it. She would have been shrieking from the rooftops.
“Well, I didn’t exactly believe it. I wanted to verify it first. Then…well…” He hesitated. “I don’t want the whole world to know about it, not just yet.”
“That’s understandable,” Hannah said promptly. “But you must have been thinking about what you want to do with the money.”
But Joni’s thoughts had turned suddenly to a darker vein, one that left her feeling chilled. She’d heard about lottery winners and how their lives could be turned into absolute hell by other folks.
“Just put it all in a bank, Uncle Witt,” she said. “Put it away and use it any way you see fit. And just remember, you don’t owe anything to anyone.”
His blue eyes settled on her, blue eyes that she sometimes thought were the wisest eyes she’d ever looked into.
“I do owe something, Joni,” he said slowly. “Everyone owes something. I’m thinking about building a lodge on the property. You know how long this town has wanted something like that. It’d make jobs for folks around here, jobs that don’t depend on a mine. And if we had the facility, I’m sure the tourists would follow. God knows we’ve got plenty of snow and hills.”
But the chill around her heart deepened. Because the simple fact was, when there was a lot of money involved, nothing was ever that simple.
“Well,” said Hannah briskly, “this calls for a celebration. Let me get you a glass of Drambuie, Witt. What about you, Joni?”
“No thanks, Mom.” She hated to drink. Besides, something about this didn’t feel right. Witt was looking strange, and Hannah was looking disturbed, and there was suddenly an undercurrent so strong in the room that Joni could feel her own nerves stretching.
But she’d had that feeling before with her mother and her uncle. It had been there ever since she could remember, the feeling that things were being left unspoken. It was so familiar she hardly wondered about it.
But all of a sudden it seemed significant. And just as suddenly, Witt’s news didn’t feel like anything to celebrate.
The chill settled over her again, this time a strong foreboding. In her heart of hearts, she knew nothing was ever going to be the same again.
2
Hardy Wingate sat at his mother’s bedside and tried not to give in to the anxiety that was creeping along his nerve endings. Barbara was better, they told him. She’d passed the crisis. But he couldn’t see it. She was still on oxygen, she still had tubes running into her everywhere, and the only improvement he could see was that she wasn’t on a respirator anymore. Her breathing was still labored, though, and he knew things could change in an instant, no matter what they told him.
He touched her hand gently, hoping she could tell he was there. Since last night, when he’d brought her in, she hadn’t seemed to be aware of much. Which was probably a good thing. He hoped she wasn’t suffering.
But he was going crazy, sitting there with nothing to occupy him but worry and guilt. And memories. God-awful memories of sitting beside Karen Matlock’s bedside twelve years ago, just before she died. Just before Witt Matlock threw him out.
He didn’t blame Witt for that, but it had hurt anyway. And sometimes it still hurt. Like right now, when he was reliving the whole damn nightmare because he had nothing to occupy his thoughts.
He’d picked up a paperback novel at the gift shop earlier, some highly touted thriller, but it hadn’t been able to hold his attention. Either J. W. Killeen was losing his touch or Hardy Wingate just didn’t have the brainpower left to focus on it.
So he sat there holding his mother’s hand, trying not to think about how frail it felt, trying not to think about Karen Wingate and that hellish night twelve years ago. But trying not to think about things only seemed to make him think about them more.
Or maybe it was talking to Joni Matlock earlier in the cafeteria that was making him think so much about Karen. Back in high school, when he’d been dating Karen, he’d gotten to know Joni because the girls were close. But since Karen’s death…well, he hadn’t had a whole lot to do with the Matlocks since then.
And even in a small town like this, it was possible to avoid people if you really wanted to. Right after the accident, he’d gone away to college. By the time he got back, Joni had gone away to school, and since her return three years ago, the most he’d seen of her was across the width of the supermarket or Main Street. Which suited him fine.
But then today, out of the clear blue, she’d come up to him while he was having coffee in the cafeteria and had joined him. What had possessed the woman? She knew what her uncle thought of him. And she must have noticed that he’d been working on avoiding her. Hell, the reason the width of the street was always between them was that he was perfectly willing to cross the damn thing to get away when he saw her coming.
Then, like nothing in the world had ever happened, she plopped down with him at the cafeteria table. Weird. And he’d been within two seconds of jumping up and walking away when she’d asked about his mother.
Now, he couldn’t ignore that. He couldn’t be rude in the face of that kind of politeness. His mother had raised him better than that. So he’d been stuck, and he’d had to talk to her.
And all the time he’d been itching to get away. He supposed it was stupid, after all this time, but he didn’t want any more trouble with