There were several tall old trees in the yard, each had to be eight feet around minimum, and they were encircled by large dormant flowerbeds. Without a doubt, this yard would rival any for its beauty in the spring and summer months. His red Lexus was parked in the driveway near a well-worn basketball standard.
I couldn’t imagine Seth living in a more perfect house.
“So, you and Zack got back together?” His voice was cool. I pulled my eyes away from his house and back to his hard stare. My mind instantly wandered back to the kiss in the park and the almost kiss in the closet. I had to leave and rein in my over-active hormones.
“I can’t talk right now, gotta go. See ya.”
“Wait, I’ll give you a ride.” He was being polite. I could see by his face that he didn’t want to take me home.
“Track try outs, remember?” He didn’t say another word despite the fact he watched me until I disappeared around the corner.
I should have apologized and debated whether to go back before thinking better of it. I’d look ridiculous after almost tackling him, or maybe I was making an excuse because I was a sniveling coward? Probably the latter.
My mother’s government check came yesterday, and I stopped to buy some groceries. I found a small ripped up bag of dog food in the scratch and dent section for a dollar in case Fluffy came back.
With my arms loaded down with almost more than I could carry, I continued home. When I arrived, I found the trailer in a complete shambles. Sick and throwing up, my mom had vomited everywhere except for in the toilet, causing the house to reek of the vomit-alcohol mixture. I made up some chicken broth and took it in to her as she lay semi-conscious across her bed. “Mom, here, drink this.”
“Go away, you stupid girl. Do I look like I can eat right now?” she said, flinging her arms around. I dropped back to keep her from spilling the broth.
“Mom, when was the last time you ate? You’re probably hungry.”
“I can take care of myself, you arrogant brat! Get out of here!” I set the broth down on the nightstand and left. Something hit the door as it closed; most likely it was the broth.
After cleaning up the house, I sat at the kitchen table for several hours doing homework, finishing at midnight. Dressing for bed, I mulled over the options pressing me. First and foremost, I had to forget about my feelings for Seth. Falling in love with him was not an option. He also deserved to know about Hillary and Zack. I recalled my berating insults to him in the parking lot remembering what he had said about people using him because he was popular and rich. Zack and Hillary were doing exactly that. So consumed with myself, I never once considered someone else might have problems too.
“Tomorrow, I’ll try and redeem myself and see just how unselfish I can be,” I muttered, buttoning up my too small pajama top. “I’ll also find out if this is nothing more than a guilty conscience, or if I truly want to change.”
8
Bill and Alan
Bill bounced the basketball against the wall of their small dilapidated living room, laughing when it ricocheted wildly and collided with his brother’s head.
“Knock it off, jerk, or I’ll cut up your face!” Alan shoved his brother into a steel column that supported the ceiling of the basement apartment. Bill reverberated, landing in a heap on the filthy green carpet.
“Hey, what’s buggin’ ya?” Bill jumped up, rubbing his newly bruised shoulder before smoothing his silky black shirt back into place.
“I’m bored, that’s what’s buggin’ me, and I’m hungry.” The police were out in force since Alan murdered the co-ed. He didn’t dare wander around in public, worried that someone from the park might ID him. “I wish I could disguise myself like the old man does. He’s pure genius at it,” Alan said with envy.
Bill knew the boredom was getting to his brother. He watched Alan pull out his knife and lovingly caress the blade before picking at his teeth with the tip. “Why don’t we order some pizza?” he suggested, setting the basketball in the closet and grabbing the newspaper. He was anxious to see if there was any new information on Alan’s latest screw up.
“I’m tired of pizza,” Alan groaned. “I’m the son of a big shot drug smuggler. Harry Dreser’s boy shouldn’t have to eat take out. I should be swimming in money, eating fine food, and pawing beautiful young girls, not stuck in this rat-infested dump!” Alan kicked an empty Gatorade bottle out of his way as he slumped onto the couch.
Sadly, their father’s smuggling business had run into hard times. First, and in Alan’s mind, most importantly, their accountant had embezzled a large part of the family’s fortune leaving them nearly broke. They had to sell three of the four family homes to pay off their business associates or be killed.
His father’s thriving business went from 123 employees down to 7, 3 of which were family. To try to recoup their losses, Harry had sent their brother Jeffery to Upstate New York, specifically Syracuse, to work up some new clientele. Their hometown in Arizona was saturated with drug smugglers, and with the degrading embezzlement on everyone’s mind, the dealers were going elsewhere to buy their stuff, fearing the Dresers would abscond with their money.
Jeffery turned out to be a big mistake, spending most of his time targeting elementary school kids, claiming they’d be an easy mark. Oh, he built the business alright, but it also sparked an outcry from the community like no one had ever seen before. Someone ratted him out, probably a disgruntled junkie, and, subsequently, Jeffery was murdered by a couple of scum MET agents. His death threw the old man’s health into a tailspin from which he still hadn’t recovered.
In the past, Bill and Alan had been the muscle for the business, making sure debts were paid, and mouths were kept shut. Harry didn’t think they had the brains to do much else. Now with Jeffery gone, he had no choice but to send Bill to Rochester in hopes of getting the family finances back on track. Alan joined him in December after serving time in the local jail for an accidental stabbing involving a fifteen year-old girl.
Alan loped over to the grimy basement window and peered out. “Do you think Hoffman’s going to be able to run things when we’re not here babysitting him?” Bill had been in charge of training someone to take over the daily grind once things were up and running, then they could move on to a new area in New York.
Only he hadn’t done it, in fact, he’d hardly done anything before Alan showed up. The old man was furious and cut off most of their allowance until the job he’d sent them to do was complete. If it weren’t for Alan, they never would have found Hoffman. The guy was perfect for the job: eager, stupid, and easily intimidated. He had an impressive list of clients too. Mostly weed, but that was easily remedied. Getting a weed user to try something new was rarely a challenge.
“I don’t know. Hoffman’s dumber than a stick.”
Up until Alan had arrived, Bill’s idea of drumming up business meant slinking around in back alleyways and bars. Back alleyways and bars were not places to find new customers. Schools were. Dance clubs were. Any place young people hung out. Alan should know, since December he’d been focusing on the bedroom community of Port Fare and he'd increased things three fold. He ran the list of new customers over in his mind and smiled proudly. Apparently, the old man was wrong about Alan. Who’s the freakin’ screw-up now, Pops?
Alan was the one who did all the work, and it wasn’t easy, either. Upstate New York was cold, very cold, moreover, there were cops everywhere, probably because of the three overdoses last summer. That too was Bill’s fault. How many times had Alan told him to mix more filler in the dope? Dad’s stuff was strong and had a good reputation, but Bill never could get the mixing ratios correct. He was the freakin’ screw-up, not Alan.
That being said, Alan was a man of compulsions. Case in point, the other night at the park. He’d become obsessed with the skinny young girl he saw wandering around alone the moment he laid eyes on her. No surprise, he always had a soft spot for young and pretty. He knew instinctively she’d put up a fight; he love
d it when they did. When he closed his eyes, he could almost hear her pleading. It made his neck hairs bristle in excitement.
If her stupid boyfriend hadn’t shown up, he would have had her. As it was, he had to settle for a college girl. He hated college girls, way too old, Alan thought, skimming his fingers along the knife’s blade. It needed to be sharpened again. The little adventure with the co-ed had dulled it somewhat.
“Hey, check it out,” Bill said, holding up the newspaper. “Saturday the town is having some kind of festival. There’ll be lots of people around, and we’ll be able to go out and mingle easier. Crowds are great for getting lost in,” he said, hoping to distract his brother.
Bill was relieved to find there was nothing new about the murder. He was tired of cleaning up Alan’s messes. All his life he had to clean up after him. His brother was rash, never thinking things through. Seldom did a plan work if Alan had conceived it.
As children, Bill had to come up with all kinds of schemes to get Alan out of trouble. He was the one who forged Alan’s report cards so the old man didn’t know he’d failed English and PE in eleventh grade. He was the one who came up with the idea to plant the $50,000 in their sister’s room so she’d be blamed for stealing it when in fact it was Alan. She got beat pretty good for that one, the little brat.
When they grew older, Alan’s troubles only grew in severity. Things like grand theft auto, assault and battery, and armed robbery, to name a few. Bill was always there to save the day.
But what Bill couldn’t control was his brother’s fixation with knives, which was why Alan ended up spending time in jail for hurting a fifteen year old girl with one. Bill got a beating that day. Remembering the pain, his stomach tightened.
Alan used to chop up small animals as a teenager, making their father so angry he sent Alan to work in a slaughterhouse when only 14-years-old. Harry had hoped Alan would work out his obsession with the blade. Instead, it exacerbated the problem. Alan left there having refined his skills instead of relinquishing them. It was a useful skill when they had to teach a shifty dealer a lesson, Bill reasoned, but when he used it to torture, and sometimes kill young girls, it was just plain disgusting. Alan never raped them though, he’d just butcher them up.
Like he did Tammy Byrne.
Bill had begged him not to go out. He’d seen the restless look in his eyes, and he also knew Alan had dipped into their private stash of grass. Whenever Alan was high, trouble wasn’t far behind.
Alan’s clothes were covered in blood when he returned, and he refused to change out of them. He wanted to relax and relive the event. Sicko! Bill had to get him good and drunk to get the clothes off him so he could burn them in the sink, and he had to bleach the knife, again.
Saving Alan was getting old.
“I’ll go insane by Saturday.” Alan stomped over to the refrigerator and yanked the door open. Empty. He slammed it shut. “You know what I really want.”
Bill shook his head. “We can’t take any more chances. The old man will have our hides if we blow this.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” He sneered over at his brother. “I need to get out and see something besides your ugly face. Maybe a soft female face. One with huge—”
“Alan,” Bill said, interrupting his brother’s concupiscent thoughts. “If we wait until the festival, we’ll be able to score big. The place will be crawling with potential clients.” He hoped. “Maybe you can find a sweet young thing there that’ll need your help using for the first time. You love it when it’s their first time.”
“I want the girl from the park!” Alan flung his knife across the apartment, embedding it three inches into the wall.
Bill slammed the newspaper down in frustration and broke a small glass end table that sat next to the couch. He was tired of this, it had to end. Enough was enough. He was done taking Alan’s lumps, and he was done cleaning up after him. He dug out his cell phone, their father was the only one that could control Alan.
“I’ll make you a deal.” Alan had to think fast. He realized he’d pushed his brother too far, and the last thing he needed was for Bill to get the old man involved.
“We go back by the park and watch for the girl to show up. You’ll only have to drive around, I swear, I won’t even get out of the car unless I see her. If she’s not there, I won’t bring it up again, and I’ll go to the festival with you on Saturday.” Alan wasn’t too keen on the whole festival idea. Too risky. Nevertheless, he hoped it would pacify his stupid brother.
It did. He smiled as Bill sighed and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his slacks.
“Deal.” Bill knew it was a waste of time arguing. Once his brother’s mind was made up, there was no changing it. He also doubted the girl would be stupid enough to go to the park alone again. At the very least, it would settle his brother down. Come Saturday, they’d do some serious business.
9
Seth
“Hi, honey. I’m home.”
“Hey, Booker, I’m in the kitchen.” Cooking, it was my way of unwinding, or in this case, forgetting the last couple days, for a few hours, anyway. I could still see Maggie standing in the parking lot accusing me of using her, mistrust written all over her face. The face with the amazing blue eyes.
So much for forgetting.
“Hello, is anyone in there?”
“Huh?” I snapped out of my mini daydream to find Booker standing next to me waving a hand in front of my face. He was dressed in a pair of worn 501’s, and a long-sleeved, deep purple Henley with a gold tee shirt underneath.
“I asked what are you making for dinner, three times!” He shook his head at me, an exaggerated look of pity on his face. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your new assignment, would it?”
“Maggie?” I asked casually, stirring the cream sauce before it burnt.
“Please tell me this is what I think it is.” Booker took a spoon and dipped it into the sauce. Raising it to his nose, he inhaled before slipping the spoon into his mouth and moaning. “It is. Beef Burgundy. I love your Beef Burgundy!” His dark brown eyes immediately began scanning the counter. I knew what he was looking for.
“Forget it, Book. I already added it, and put it away.” He was forever hounding me to reveal the secret ingredient. Nutmeg. I was surprised he hadn’t figured it out yet, he usually did. “Of course, you know what you have to do to get it.”
He was a connoisseur of hot chocolate, taking great pleasure in creating new formulas. His number seven was my personal favorite, but he wouldn’t share the recipe. Old family secret, he'd say, but we both knew that wasn’t the case.
“Deal?”
He debated for a moment before shaking his head. “No deal, kid. You’re a better cook than me. I have to have one recipe I can out do you with.” I shrugged my shoulders casually and added the steak to the sauce. Frustration pinched his brow as the steam rose from the pan, trailing up to his nostrils.
“Oh, man, I’m starving. How much longer before Cole gets here?” He took another spoonful of the sauce, moaning once more as it bathed his taste buds and meandered down his throat.
“20 minutes. Add some salt to the wild rice, will ya?”
“So, how is your new assignment coming along?” Booker walked over to the bar and planted himself on one of the stools that he’d built. He was a master carpenter. When I bought my home two years ago it was a disaster, and we’d spent the next year and a half remodeling it. Actually, Booker did the lion’s share of the work, I was more or less his apprentice and gopher, but I learned a lot.
He scooped up my latest copy of Bon Appétit from the huge pile of mail I’d not had time to go through and began perusing the pages.
“It’s not going very well. I’m alienating her more than anything. I think she hates me.” Truthfully, I was still upset with her. How could she lump me in with a moron like Zack? It also seemed odd to me that they had gotten back together. I’d watched the way he treated her the last time they were dating,
and listened to the crude things he’d said about her in gym class. Why would a girl with major trust issues, and clearly, trust wasn’t something Maggie did easily, date a lying weasel like Zack?
I stirred in the mushrooms and onions, covering the pan to let everything simmer a bit. “Maybe you should reassign her to Garrett Woolley.” He was the floater agent at the high school. “He’s a likeable guy.”
“Possibly in a few weeks, I’m not ready to give up on you yet, you’re my best agent, Seth. I have complete confidence in ….” He began laughing, set the magazine down and picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the pile of mail.
“You think my bills are funny? By all means, laugh away. You can pay them while you’re at it.” I walked over to see what had caught his attention.
“Like you need me to pay your bills,” he said. I didn’t, thanks in large part to him. After my parents died, he helped me invest the insurance money into some very profitable investments. The guy had the Midas touch, no doubt about it. If I never worked again, I could still live very comfortably.
He began reading aloud. “The Hottest Guys at Port Fare High. Looks like you’re number one, my friend.” I tried snatching the paper out of his hand, but he held it out of my reach.
“Look. There’s a rating system of one to ten. Someone wrote down 12, crossed it off, and changed it to 23. Not bad, kid.”
I lunged forward, this time getting a hold of it. I read the list as Booker studied it over my shoulder.