Through the Sheriff's Eyes. Janice Johnson Kay
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SIGHT OF HER SISTER in a bikini shocked Charlotte. Faith had lost weight. Too much weight.
Since their late teens, Charlotte had been the skinny one. She’d always had more nervous energy and not much appetite. Later, she’d deliberately lost weight—part of her strategy along with dying her blond hair dark—to ensure that she and Faith couldn’t be mistaken for each other. She had hated being an identical twin, having another person who looked so much like her. Some of her earliest memories were of throwing gigantic temper tantrums when their mother tried to dress them the same. Too much of her life had been consumed by her near-frantic need to separate herself from her sister.
When she’d come home almost two months ago, Charlotte had realized that next to her sister she looked bony. Urban angular, she’d convinced herself. But, darn it, the food was better here at home. Corn fresh from the field, real butter from a local dairy, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of a hasty bowl of cereal. She’d been gaining weight ever since, while Faith, stressed almost past bearing, had been losing it.
Charlotte just hadn’t realized how much, until now.
She had the sense not to say anything. Faith had reason to be scared. Reason, irrational though it would seem to most anyone else, to be driving herself so hard to try to save the family farm. With the fabric of her life so torn after Mom’s death four years ago, the failure of her marriage and now Rory’s cruel and terrifying attacks, Faith had to hold on to the one solid piece of her life that she could: home. The heritage they’d both grown up taking for granted.
Daddy, Charlotte believed, was ready to let the farm go. Neither of his daughters could imagine what he’d do if it was sold and carved up into a housing development, but Charlotte could tell he was uneasy with the theme-park kind of farm Faith had created and with the retail business that brought in most of the income. No matter what, Don Russell would never be a real farmer again. He was tired. Once he’d have bounced back quickly from the kind of injuries he’d suffered when the tractor had rolled on him. Fifty-nine years old now, he was struggling with the pain and the limited mobility and the indignity of having his daughters have to care for him like a baby in the first weeks.
Because she understood her sister, Charlotte was doing her best to help. She had accepted a job with an Eastside software company in part because she could do a fair amount of the work from home. She was putting in several hours every evening so that she could fill in a few mornings a week at the farm. Gray didn’t mind, overwhelmed as he was with his part-time mayor, part-time architect gigs, which he said felt more like full-time mayor, full-time architect. He often worked evenings, too.
Charlotte knew that she could help her sister and father only so much, but she should have noticed how Faith’s weight was plummeting. Instead of just helping out at the farm, maybe she should have suggested more fun outings. Did Faith ever have fun anymore?
As always, they had made their way upriver, over a tumble of boulders and under the railroad bridge, to a favorite spot that was private and offered a pool deep enough to allow them to cannonball off a rock into the water. The river was running even lower than it had been the last time they’d been here, she noticed as they waded in. Winter had been unusually dry this year, so there wasn’t much snowmelt to run off.
The water was cold enough to discourage any sane person from wanting to plunge in. Inch by inch, was her plan—one Faith ruined by splashing her. Of course she splashed back, and pretty soon they were both immersed to the neck and squealing as they waited for their bodies to grow numb.
“See? Isn’t it better this way?” Faith finally claimed.
“Yeah, right.”
Faith rolled onto her back to float. After a minute, sounding a little guilty, she said, “You still don’t have a dress.”
Charlotte steadfastly refused to go shopping for a wedding dress without her sister, but Faith never seemed to have a minute to spare.
“Not this weekend.” Faith was still floating, her fat, wet braid drifting beside her like kelp. “But maybe next weekend.”
“Okay,” Charlotte said softly, knowing Faith probably couldn’t hear her with her ears beneath the water.
The wedding she and Gray were planning would be simple. She had no intention of spending thousands of dollars on a dress, and she wasn’t the type for flounces or pearl-encrusted fabric, anyway. How hard could it be to find something simple and ready-made? Not that she would dare say that aloud. Faith was more interested in the details of the occasion than Charlotte was. She had always enjoyed planning all the details of parties. Faith cared about things like flowers and a cake. Thank goodness she hadn’t offered her own wedding dress, assuming she’d kept it. Charlotte found herself hoping Faith had trashed it, hateful symbol that it must seem to her.
Eventually they got out of the water and lay in the sun, talking idly. Faith told her sister about this year’s crop of kindergarteners, which included the requisite couple of hellions, a few kids who, in her opinion, shouldn’t have started for another year and two girls who were already reading at a first-grade level or beyond. Charlotte was still feeling her way around in her new job; she’d been working on computer-security projects before, but was now helping enhance already successful management software with on-demand customization capabilities. Mostly she told Faith about the personalities in the office.
Faith asked lazily, “Do you and Gray want to come to dinner this weekend? Sunday, maybe? Dad likes Gray, you know.”
Charlotte laughed. “I know. But then, everyone likes Gray. How else do you think he got elected to office?”
Faith laughed, too. “You’re right. I like Gray.”
Actually, she and Gray had gone out a couple of times, some months before Charlotte had come home. They’d liked each other; there just wasn’t anything else there. And yet, according to Gray, the minute he set eyes on Charlotte, he wanted her. Had maybe even fallen in love with her, although he hadn’t called it love for a few weeks. He hadn’t even realized Faith and Charlotte were identical twins, maybe because he’d seen through Charlotte’s facade from the beginning to who she was beneath. She hadn’t yet quit marveling at the knowledge that he loved her—she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to. It was a miracle that he did, and that she’d been able to let herself love him in return.
“Have you seen Ben lately?” Charlotte asked.
As if by chance, Faith turned her head away, pillowing it on her arms. “Um. He came by a couple days ago. No news. He seemed annoyed that I don’t carry my gun in a holster at all times.”
“Oh, sure.” Charlotte eyed the back of her sister’s head. “You don’t have it with you now, do you?”
There was a moment of silence. “In my beach bag.”
“You’re kidding.”
Faith rolled over then sat up, her gaze level. “Nope. I carry it everywhere. Except school, of course. Then I lock it in the car, in the glove compartment.”
Charlotte looked at the lemon-yellow-and-white bag, repelled at the idea of a handgun nestled inside it alongside the suntan lotion. “Wow. I didn’t realize.”
“We’re all alone here,” Faith said, her voice cool and expressionless. “What if Rory showed up right now? Even if we screamed, nobody could get to us in time to help.”
Charlotte shifted uneasily and stole a look over her shoulder.
“I’m ready,” her sister said with remarkable calm. “I told you that.”
Charlotte looked back at her sister’s face in awe and disquiet. Had Faith really changed so much? Or was the armor she wore no more than a thin crust disguising the vulnerability and fear beneath?
Anger surged through Charlotte. Why couldn’t the police find Rory? Was it too much to ask that Faith be able to feel safe?
“Maybe I’ll stay at the house tonight,” she decided.
Faith