Текст книги "Never smile at strangers"

Автор книги: Jennifer Jaynes

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter 31

AN HOUR LATER, as he sat on the narrow seat of a swing set studying the Anderson house, a boy walked up. The kid tiptoed through the yard until he reached the daughter’s bedroom window. Then, seconds later, the girl poked her head out and the boy helped her down. The two laughed quietly, then dashed across the yard and into the night.

After they’d disappeared, he studied the girl’s bedroom window. He breathed in the cool rain-cleansed air and tried to decide if it was too risky, if he’d be taking it too far to do the thing he wanted to do.

He thought for a few minutes, the polished stone tumbling violently in his palm, then decided it was worth the risk. He’d witnessed the girl sneaking out before, and she had always disappeared for hours. The rest of the house was dark, so the family was sound asleep.

Yes, he’d be safe going inside.

He lifted the window a little wider and pulled himself into the house. Once inside, his heart pounded as he stepped slowly around the room, taking in the dim surroundings. There was a bureau with a ceramic ballerina and a jewelry box sitting on its surface. A dresser, untidy with small brushes, makeup, and a large can of hairspray. He picked up the brush, his hand grazing the strands of hair caught in the bristles. He pulled several out and rubbed them between his fingertips.

The strands were coarse. Probably dyed, not the natural, untainted hair her mother had. But the closest he’d ever gotten to his angel, so he pocketed them and placed the brush back on the bureau.

He walked over to the unmade bed. In the murky light, he tried to guess the color of the comforter. A big pillow lay at the foot of the bed. Embroidered within the shape of a heart was the word Kelsey.

“Kelsey,” he mouthed, and felt the word roll off his tongue. A word his angel probably said several times a day.

He said it again, and bent to smell her sheets. They smelled girlish, like Allie’s. Perfumed.

He lay on the bed and gripped the pillow. This is where her daughter slept. These are the things she sees just before falling asleep, the things she hears.

He glared in the darkness and his shoulders stiffened. Blood surged through his veins, and suddenly he wanted to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake her. Shake her until all that could be seen were the dingy whites of her eyes.

Didn't she know her mother would worry if she caught her sneaking out? This girl was no good, just like Allie. Just like the young girls he saw every day. The girls who looked at him, whispered, and sometimes went as far as to wink, their eyes evil slits, their lips the shade of blood.

These girls were dirty, dangerous. And he was sure they were no different outside of Grand Trespass. He’d seen the same girls on the television. They were everywhere, a fucking pandemic.

He ran his fingers over the comforter. It was soft. Softer than Allie’s, the sheer opposite of the government-issue wool blanket he’d slept with since he was a child. He wondered how soft the mother’s comforter would be. Suddenly he knew he’d have to find out. He’d have to know or else the thought would muddle his already crowded mind. He closed his eyes and reveled in the thought. Then, he let himself silently enjoy a delicious memory.

Tiffany had been angry when he stopped to pick her up from the side of the road. Hopping in the truck, she asked him to take her away. Anywhere, but here, she’d said. So he threw the truck into gear and they moved up Main Street toward his mother’s house.

Soon, her hand was on his shoulder, then her fingers in his hair. Long, red fingernails, the tips perfect crescents.

“We’re through,” she announced.

“Through?”

“Yeah, we’re done for good this time. He thinks he owns me, and I hate it.”

“Does he?”

She watched him in the darkness, fingering her necklace. Then she seemed to decide he was kidding. “He-ell no,” she said, and a grin spread across her small face. Her fingers again found his hair.

He jammed his boot against the pedal.

At the house, she draped her slim, tanned legs over the side of the recliner as he filled two shot glasses with vodka and twisted the tops off their beers. She complained about her boyfriend, Charles, as she downed the first two shots. He kept nodding, not really hearing her, but thinking of what he might do. Once he’d daydreamt of killing her, but that had only been a daydream. Or had it?

After a while, her eyes began to droop, but she was still babbling. She slipped off the recliner, and wavering, walked to where he sat, her warm breath tickling his ear. He tried to stay calm.

The closer she got, the more torment he felt. His breath quickened and he clenched his fists. He hoped Allie wouldn’t come home. He imagined her walking through the door, seeing the girl in the house—then saying something smart, or stupid. But he knew he couldn’t stop himself. Not now.

She pressed her lips to his, and his body filled with rage. He wanted to grab her by the throat and shake her, but instead he leaned back, out of her reach.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, alcohol wafting from her warm mouth.

He stood and took her hand, letting her long fingernails scratch his palm. She giggled and let him lead her.

“Teeny room,” she commented, as they entered the only bedroom he’d ever known. At that moment, he thought of how well off her family was. And he hated her more. “But cozy,” she added.

No, it wasn’t cozy. In her small way, she was being polite. He pushed her onto the bed, and as he’d suspected, she liked it.

She looked up at him, her eyes weary from too much alcohol. “This is so wrong,” she said, then she giggled.

He nodded.

“But we won’t tell anyone. It’ll just be our secret, right?”

He nodded. It would. It would definitely be a secret.

She giggled again. Still staring up at him, she brought her fingers to her shirt and unbuttoned it, then pushed it away from her narrow shoulders, letting it fall into a heap behind her. She was wearing a black, lacy bra and he could make out her nipples through the sheer material.

His body grew warm all over. She had full breasts, not as big as the models’ in his magazines, but they were large for her small body. She laughed as she pulled one of the straps from her shoulder. “You know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” she asked, her eyes seeming even droopier than a moment ago.

“No.”

She laughed again. “A looooooong time.” She pulled the other strap down, then reached back and unclasped the bra. Full, pale breasts with taut, pink nipples popped out. The heat grew more fierce. He was getting hard.

She lay back on the bed. “You like what you see?” she slurred.

He stood at the edge of the bed and studied her.

“Touch me.”

Reluctantly, he lowered himself onto the bed.

She reached out and kissed his neck, then guided his mouth to her breasts.

The heat consumed him, flip flopping its way between his legs. He pressed his lips against a nipple, then opened his mouth and pulled it in. His erection pulsing, he shifted his knees forward and reached for her other soft breast and ran his tongue over the nipple.

She arched her back, her long hair cascading behind her. She giggled for the millionth time. “You’re kinda clumsy,” she whispered, barely moving her lips.

The light went on inside his head and he jerked away, instantly softening down below. All the heat in his body gathered and climbed into his head. She was teasing him.

She sat up, not bothering to cover her sinful breasts. “What’s wrong?” “Did I say something wrong?”

Blood crashed inside his head and the room seemed to shift.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean nothing, honestly. It’s just. . . it’s just that you. . .”

He backed away, disgusted at the wetness in his underwear.

She lay back. “Oh God, I’m getting soooo dizzy. . .” she said, the ugly smile returning to her lips. She giggled, then waggled her index finger at him. “Come back here.”

When he didn’t, she leaned forward and pulled him by the belt loops. She unclasped the button on his pants, then unzipped him.

He was shaking.

She reached in and gently took him out. As she brought him to her mouth, the room began to shift faster. He seized her wrists and held onto them tightly.

“Ooooh,” she purred.

She liked it.

His head ached, not from the alcohol but from what she’d said. What they were doing. He squeezed harder.

Her eyes widened. “Hey, that’s starting to really hurt,” she said.

But he didn’t loosen his grip.

Her eyes darted between his and where her wrists were pinned.

“You don’t like pain?” he asked, looking at her hard. Confusion flooded her eyes.

“Then why would you cheat on your boyfriend?” he asked. “Didn’t you think that it would be painful for him?”

“What?”

“Why would you cheat—”

She glared at him. “Yeah, you’re one to talk! Let me go! Dammit, let go of my fucking wrists!”

He gripped them tighter.

“I don’t go to bed with whores,” he barked. “You should have known that.”

When she spoke next, her voice was softer. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears welling up beneath her eyelids. “I’m sorry. I. . . I thought you liked me. I mean, you acted like it. Look, let me go and I’ll just leave. We shouldn’t be doing this anyway.”

He released her wrists, and she leaned forward, covering her breasts. Fat, pathetic tears streaked her mascara.

He picked up a pillow.

Her eyes followed his movements as she struggled to button her shirt, having forgotten her bra that now lay on the floor.

Ian scratched at the window.

He turned to look at him, and felt the bed shift. One of her legs was on the floor, the other quickly dropping.

He lunged forward and brought the pillow to her face. She kicked and shrieked into the pillow, but he pinned her legs with his. She hit him in the chest, and clawed at his skin. She tried to turn her head, but his hold was firm. He felt no pain, just heat.

He felt fantastic, better than he had in a decade. His rage flowed out of him as though a vent had finally opened. A powerful titillation filled him, a feeling much more erotic than the one he’d felt earlier when he was tasting her sinful flesh. Every part of him was now alive.

“It’s all right to be afraid,” he whispered.

She clawed at his neck and chest, but he didn’t feel a thing. Eventually, her protests grew weaker and he shifted the pillow so he could see her eyes. They were wide at first, big green crystals of pain. But then they wilted, and she grew still.

Ian, at the window, hollered.

He turned and glared at the cat. It regarded him, its features unclear from where he knelt, but he was certain it looked angry. He’d get rid of it, too. He took air deep into his lungs, let it out, finally able to breathe freely.

He stared at the girl’s lifeless body that was now twisted and still. He’d robbed her of her dignity, her power. The realization was liberating.

The screen door at the front of the house snapped shut. Allie was home.

His eyes had been closed for only a few moments when there was a loud crash. He shot up in the bed, and for a long beat had no idea where he was. The room smelled foreign, the window wasn’t where it usually was.

Just as he became oriented, an orange light illuminated the hallway and streamed through the inch of space between the door and carpet.

Then he remembered he wasn’t in his house at all. No, he was at Rachel’s, lying in her daughter’s bed.

The footsteps grew closer. He slipped out of the bed and, as he fumbled to get under it, the door flew open.

Chapter 32

THE SECOND WEEK of July was blistering. The grass was burnt, the plants wilted, and the people were unusually quiet. When they did talk, they were irritable. Truck drivers lumbered into Luke’s simply in their undershirts, yellow stains pooled at their arm pits. Blue-collared workers hurried in, ordered tall glasses of sweet tea, then asked for refills. The sheriff and the few men he had busied themselves with reports of domestic abuse, leaving Detective Guitreaux primarily in charge of finding out what happened to Tiffany Perron.

In the afternoons, high school kids from all over the area piled in, girls in short skirts or shorts, barely-there tank tops, their hair pulled off their necks. The boys wore muscle shirts and khaki shorts, their feet squeezed into black rubber sandals or mud-splattered sneakers.

During the winter months, the kids who went to the Catholic schools in the surrounding towns tended to hang out only with one another, while the kids who went to the public schools did the same. But during the brutally hot summer months, the teenagers abandoned their cliques and congregated wherever it was coolest, leading a little over a dozen to meet regularly at Luke’s.

Haley liked to listen in on the kids’ conversations about their lives, their love interests, and what they wanted to do with their futures. They were still so full of hope, something she’d grown terribly short on.

It had been nine days since Tiffany had disappeared and not a single clue had turned up, at least none that the detective or sheriff shared with the public.

Tiffany’s black Ford Mustang had been returned to her family, and was now secured in the garage. Everyone who had known her had been questioned at least twice; some, like Charles and Haley, several times, the detective asking mostly the same questions again and again.

She had no faith in the detective or his abilities. And she had lost all hope of ever seeing her friend again. The tears had been shed until there were none left, and the possibilities seemed so limited, so dark, that she refused to think about them.

She had visited Mrs. Perron twice since Tiffany disappeared. The woman hadn’t worn any makeup since the first Sunday after Tiffany’s disappearance. And like her mother, Mrs. Perron seemed to have aged overnight. During the visits, they’d sit sipping tea in silence. Haley would sit quietly while Mrs. Perron, in her bathrobe, talked about how good of a girl Tiffany is.

Haley would just nod. No, Tiffany isn’t. . . hadn’t been. . . a good girl, not really. But it didn’t mean she didn’t miss her, because she did.

The AC unit in Becky’s room had also died. It started with a peculiar noise, metal on metal, every few minutes, like a small animal shrieking, its flesh caught in the fan. Haley had been lying in bed in a Nyquil daze, staring at the walls, when a blood-curdling noise rang through the house, and the fan stopped spinning for good.

Becky and Seacrest had taken to sprawling out in the living room, keeping cool with the big GE wall fan humming behind them, old copies of Teen Cosmo, People and Glamour magazines stacked on top of the coffee table. MTV blaring on the television.

***

WHEN HALEY’S SHIFT ended on Monday, she walked out the front door of Luke’s to find Mac leaning against her family’s station wagon.

Her heart sped up. It was the first they’d seen each other in two days. She had decided not to call him. And he hadn’t bothered to call her.

He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun and smiled uncomfortably. But she couldn’t bring herself to smile back.

He grabbed something from the car’s hood. Roses encased in a transparent wrapping. “These are for you,” he said, when they were face to face. He handed her the roses, looking more ill at ease than she ever remembered seeing him look. He usually looked so confident, but now he looked extremely uncomfortable in his own skin.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and accepted them.

He took a cigarette out of its pack and eyed it. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s not right for me to lie to you. I don’t usually. . . I don’t usually look at those types of magazines, but sometimes I want to, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

Mac swallowed, and studied the unlit cigarette. “I’m a guy, Hale. Do I like my women wholesome? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Do I look at pornography from time to time? Well, yeah, I guess I do. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or maybe neither, but I do know I shouldn’t have lied about it.”

“I guess I said what I said because that’s what I thought you’d want to hear. I know girls don’t like it much.” He pushed some dirt around with his boot, then his eyes met hers, the sun glinting off of them. They were still and seemed sincere. “But I want to be straight with you about everythin’ from here on out and tell you that it’s somethin’ I like to look at from time to time.”

He reached out and touched her cheek with one of his strong hands. “Look, I don’t want to lose you, Hale. There aren’t many women like you out there. I’m a very lucky man and I know it. I won’t let you down again by lyin’. Cross my heart.”

***

HALEY HAD THE nightmare again. The same dream that had haunted her over the last several months. She thought it had gone away, but it hadn’t.

Many times, she had wanted to ask her mother how much of it was true. The dream that played out like a film, created by her subconscious amidst snippets of details she’d overheard about her father’s death. If not accurate, it was surprisingly detailed, from the expressions on their faces, even down to the clothes her mother and father wore that night.

Her mother and father were in the car driving down Coontz Road, a windy road on the edge of Grand Trespass. The night was dark, oily.

There was a jarring thump. They’d just hit something with the car.

Her mother brought a hand to her mouth. “Omigod, was that a deer?”

Her father calmly reached across the front seat, checking to see if her mother was alright. “You okay, Mary?”

“Yes. Are you?”

He nodded, and opened the car door.

“Was that a deer?” she repeated.

“No. . . I think it was a big dog.”

Her hand covered her mouth again. “Oh no.”

He stepped out of the car and let the door close. She watched him walk behind the car and toward the lump that lay still in the road. Then she saw it shift.

“It’s still alive,” she whispered to herself.

He knelt next to the animal, then stood and took off his coat. He knelt again.

She noticed a light from behind the trees as he picked up the animal. Stepping out of the car, she called out to him. “Someone’s coming!”

He nodded and moved to the side of the road. His shoulders pitched forward, cradling the wounded animal in his arms.

She shielded her eyes and watched.

The headlights curved quickly around the bend.

“Mary!” he called. “See if there’s a towel or something in the—”

The truck was hugging the shoulder.

Her mouth opened wide.

“Move Daddy! Move!!!” Haley shouted in her dream. “Get out of the way!” But of course, he couldn’t hear her. It was just a nightmare.

The truck bounded around the corner, then there was the sickening squeal of brakes. But it was too late. The truck smashed into her father, then into a tree behind him.

Her mother screamed, standing only a couple of yards away. She ran toward her husband. But he was pinned against a sycamore, dead.

Tyler, A blond-headed local whom the Landry family had known since birth, and who Haley had once had a crush on, opened his door and stumbled from the truck. He took a few shaky steps toward the tree, bent, and wretched.

“You okay, Hale?” someone whispered. Mac.

She slowly opened her eyes. A layer of sweat had formed on her skin and pooled into the crevice between her breasts. It was nighttime and she was in her bed with Mac. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispered, even though she wasn’t. “Go back to sleep.”

She scooted closer to him and pressed her body against his until her heart calmed down. His skin had always been warm and soft, stable and secure. And he smelled strongly of both soap and beer. She’d always found the combination sexy and comforting.

Although she told him she forgave him for his lie, tonight she didn’t feel particularly comforted. Or safe, for that matter. It was as though the lie had been more significant for her than it should have been. As though it had changed the dynamics of their relationship somehow.

She gazed at his bare back until he began to snore.

A couple of minutes later, she rose. She was going to wake her mother. The two needed to talk.

***

BUT SHE DIDN’T need to wake her mother. Because she wasn’t sleeping. And she wasn’t just laying around in her old nightgown like she had been since the accident.

When Haley walked in, her mother’s eyes were shining, and she was very awake. And of all things, she was smoking a cigarette.

She had on a pair of jeans, a wrinkled t-shirt, and sat Indian-style on the bed with an ashtray and photos scattered all around her. Beneath the odor of cigarette smoke, was the scent of perfume. She was even wearing eye makeup and lipstick.

Haley blinked, wondering if she could be dreaming. “Mama?” she said, in disbelief.

Her mother turned away from the photos and regarded Haley. “Hi baby.” The muscles in her face twitched. Then she patted the bed. “Come sit here with me. Your mama has something she needs to tell you.”