Kiss River

  “I thought you loved me,” I said.

  He laughed at me. “You’re just a kid,” he said.

  “But you said…”

  “Something you should know about men,” he told me. “They’ll say anything to get what they want from you.”

  He let go of me all of a sudden, and I jumped to my feet and ran back toward the woods. I cut myself running through the brush in the dark, and I didn’t care. Behind him, he called out to me, “Not a word to anyone!”

  So now I am home, up in my room, still shaking from what happened on the beach. I’ve been crying so hard, my throat hurts. I keep thinking crazy things, like maybe that man who just warned me and called me a kid wasn’t really Sandy? It sure didn’t sound like Sandy. I have never heard him sound so mean and angry and nasty. I didn’t think he had that side to him. But I know it was Sandy. And now I have to figure out what to do. I keep picturing my parents sleeping down the hall from me, peaceful and not having any notion of the danger I’ve put them in. If anything happened to them, I would never forgive myself. I keep hearing that song playing over and over in my head. “Perfidia.” I finally understand what it means. The last line is “Perfidious one, goodbye.” I hated that song before I even knew what it meant. Now I hate it even more.

  Oh, dear God! I fell asleep after I wrote that last line. Don’t ask me how I managed to do that, but I did. And I had a terrible, terrible dream. Sandy came to my house. He came inside and I met him in the living room. He said he was sorry, that he loved me and never meant to hurt me. He asked me for a cup of tea, which I didn’t even think about being a strange request. When I came back with the tea, I could hear screams from upstairs. I ran up the stairs and found Sandy beating my parents with a big club. There was blood everywhere and they were dead. I woke myself up screaming. I know what I have to do now. I am not going to think about another thing today. Just what I have to do.

  CHAPTER 41

  Gina left work and drove straight home in her rattle-free, air-conditioned car. She’d thought of stopping off at Henry’s, where she knew Clay was doing some repair work on the house that had seen both fire and flood, but she was anxious to check the online support group to see if there was any more news about moving the children to the state institution.

  She was surprised to see Lacey’s car in the parking lot of the keeper’s house; Lacey usually tutored kids on Saturday afternoons. There was also a truck in the lot, and at first Gina thought it was Kenny’s. It was dark red, just like Kenny’s, but this truck was dented and muddy, while Kenny took great care of his. Another of Lacey’s boyfriends, Gina thought as she got out of her car.

  There was no sign of Lacey or her guest when Gina walked into the house. Sasha greeted her merrily and accompanied her into the office, but before Gina was able to log onto the Internet, a short, piercing scream rang out from upstairs. Gina’s hands froze on the keyboard, and Sasha lifted his head and looked toward the living room, waiting, as she was, for the sound to come again. Were Lacey and her friend just fooling around? But the scream was quickly followed by shouting, and Sasha got to his feet, a growl rising from deep in his chest.

  Gina stood up, too, her hand on the dog’s head, and walked through the living room to the foot of the stairs.

  “Lacey?” she called up to the second story.

  She heard a thud, the sound of something—or someone—falling on the floor above her head. A door opened, then slammed shut, and Gina stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, unsure whether she should go up to Lacey’s room or call the police. Sasha put his front paws on the bottom step and Gina instinctively curled her fingers around his collar.

  Suddenly, Brock Jensen appeared in the upstairs hallway. Sasha barked as Brock bolted down the stairs, running past Gina without even seeming to notice her or the barking retriever she was keeping in check. He practically flew out the front door.

  It was Brock’s truck, of course. She remembered seeing it in the parking lot at Shorty’s. Letting go of Sasha’s collar, she rushed up the stairs to Lacey’s room, afraid of what she might find. In the hallway, she knocked quickly on the door, then pushed it open without waiting for a response.

  “I’m all right,” Lacey said quickly. She was on the floor, leaning against her dresser, her eyes open but narrowed in pain. A dark bruise was already forming on her cheek and she was rubbing her jaw. She had on her denim shorts, but nothing else, and her long red hair rested on her breasts. Sasha nearly jumped into her lap, and she hugged the dog close to her.

  Gina dropped quickly to Lacey’s side. “What happened?” she asked, smoothing the hair back from Lacey’s face so she could get a good look at the bruise. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “What a pig.” Lacey choked out the words. She tried to get to her feet, leaning on both Gina and the dog, but flopped down on the floor again. “Could you hand me my bra, please?” she asked.

  Gina retrieved the bra from the footboard of the bed and helped her into it, fastening it for her against her back.

  Lacey tried to get up again, and this time she managed to get over to the bed, where she sat down on the edge of the mattress. She looked up at Gina.

  “Is my face a mess?” she asked. Her right cheek was already starting to swell.

  “We should put some ice on it,” Gina said. “But first we need to call the police.”

  Lacey shook her head. “Don’t bother. I invited him up here. They’re not going to do anything.”

  “What happened?” Gina asked again, sitting down next to her on the bed.

  Lacey shrugged. “He wanted to have sex again, and I didn’t. What I really wanted was to talk about what happened to your raffle money.”

  “Oh, no, Lacey.” Gina felt an irrational twinge of responsibility for what had occurred in this room. “Is that why you’ve been hanging out with him?”

  Lacey shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “He got testy when I asked him about the money. He was already pissed because I wouldn’t sleep with him again. I asked him to leave, and he smacked me.” She pressed her fingertips gingerly to her jaw. “Is it black and blue?” she asked.

  “It’s getting there,” Gina said. Lacey’s fair skin was rapidly growing purple on the entire right side of her face, and the bruise hurt just to look at.

  Lacey turned her head to the right, then the left, as if trying to work a kink out of her neck. “I have to make up some excuse for why I’m bruised or Clay will give me a hard time,” she said. “That’s the only bad thing about living with him. He still sees me as his little sister.”

  “He loves you,” Gina said. “He just wants to protect you.”

  “I know.”

  “Lacey…” Gina hesitated, not sure if her opinion would be welcome right now. Sometimes it was easy for her to forget she was only a guest in this house. She’d come to care deeply for Lacey, but damned if she understood her. “I worry that you’re playing with fire with some of the guys you go out with,” she said carefully. “You barely know Brock, and everyone thinks he’s a little strange. Who knows what he could have done to you. He could have killed you.”

  “I know him.” Lacey looked defensive as she reached for her T-shirt where it lay on her pillow. “He goes to the same Al-Anon meeting I do. I wanted to try to get close to him. You know, to figure out if he took your money or not.”

  “The money’s not that important,” Gina said, but she knew this was not the time to argue with Lacey about her behavior with men. “I’ll get some ice.” She stood up and headed for the hallway.

  On the stairs, Gina discovered that her knees were shaking. Too much adrenaline. She could still hear that scream, the way it cut through the still air of the house. In the kitchen, she filled a plastic bag with ice, and she was tying a twist tie around the top of the bag when Clay opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and she dropped the bag on the counter to return his hug.

  “Are you trembling???
? he asked.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “But Lacey fell and hit the side of her face. I’m getting her some ice.” She let go of him to turn back to the counter, hating that she was lying to him again.

  “Lacey fell?” he asked. “What happened? Where is she?”

  “She’s in her bedroom. She tripped on the rug in there and hit her cheek on the dresser.”

  “Ouch.” He winced, seeming to buy the story. He reached into the drawer where they kept the dish towels. “Here. Wrap this around the bag.”

  He put his arm around her as they walked up the stairs together. “Is there any new information on Rani today?” he asked.

  “I haven’t checked my e-mail yet,” she said, touched that he cared enough to ask.

  Lacey was still sitting on the edge of her bed. She’d put on her T-shirt, and the bruise was already a few shades darker than it had been when Gina had left her to go downstairs.

  “Looks painful,” Clay said, sitting down next to his sister as Gina handed Lacey the bag of ice and the dish towel.

  “I’m so clumsy sometimes,” Lacey said. “I walked right into the edge of my door.”

  Gina cringed.

  “Oh, yeah?” Clay looked at Gina, then back at his sister. “Was that before or after you tripped on the rug and crashed into your dresser?”

  Lacey looked confused. “What?”

  “I told him how you tripped,” Gina said.

  “Oh.” Lacey seemed to deflate, sinking lower into the bed. She knew the jig was up.

  Clay folded his arms across his chest. “All right, girls,” he said, suddenly all business. “How about the truth. One of your asshole boyfriends smacked you, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t worry,” Lacey said. “I won’t be seeing him again.”

  “No, but you’ll see some other asshole,” Clay said, his voice rising. “And maybe that one will finish the job.”

  “Will you two please get out of here and leave me alone?” Lacey said.

  Clay ignored her plea. He leaned over and touched her cheek, pressing lightly against the bruise, then running his fingertip down to her jaw. “Are you sure nothing’s broken?” he asked. “This looks pretty bad.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Good-bye.”

  Clay stood up and held his hand out to Gina. “Come on,” he said. “We’re not wanted here.”

  As soon as they had closed Lacey’s door and stood together in the hallway, Gina turned to him. “I’m sorry I lied,” she said. “She didn’t want you to know, and I didn’t know what—”

  “It’s all right,” he said, running his hand over her arm. “You were caught in the middle. She really got slugged, though. That was no little slap across the face.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know who the guy was?”

  “Brock. You know the guy—”

  “Brock Jensen?” There was fire in Clay’s eyes now that he could attach a face to his sister’s abuser.

  “Yes. I think she wanted to find out if he took my—”

  “I’ll see you later.” He turned toward the stairs, then shot down them every bit as fast as Brock had earlier.

  “Clay!” she called after him. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

  But he was already out the front door. She sat down on the top step, wondering what she should do. Should she follow him to Shorty’s, which was undoubtedly where he was going? Should she call the police and tell them they’d better get over there? Or was she simply making too much of the whole situation? Brock probably wouldn’t be at Shorty’s anyway, and Clay would be fine once he’d gunned his Jeep all the way to the restaurant and gotten some of his steam blown off.

  Instead of taking either course, she walked downstairs and into the office, to see if she could learn anything new about her daughter’s fate.

  CHAPTER 42

  Clay spotted the banged-up red truck in Shorty’s parking lot. He pulled into the empty space next to the truck and got out of his Jeep, then headed for the front door. He was wired, his hands already balled into fists. He had never felt quite like this before. He’d sat in the courtroom during the trial of his mother’s killer, watching the murderer sit stone-faced next to his attorney. He’d been on search and rescue teams hunting for the bodies of brutalized children. But he’d honestly never felt this keen-edged rage before.

  “Hey, Clay!” Kenny was at the bar, but Clay walked right past him without a word on his way to the back room.

  “Afternoon, Clay,” Walter Liscott called out from the chess table, and Clay ignored him as well. He looked toward the pool table. Brock was turned away from him, leaning over to make a shot, the tattoos on his back nearly visible beneath his thin white T-shirt. Clay walked over and touched his shoulder.

  “Hey, I’m setting up a shot here,” Brock said without turning around.

  “Turn around, you son of a bitch,” Clay said.

  Brock straightened up slowly, then turned to face him.

  Clay pulled back his arm, then let it fly, his fist connecting dead center with Brock’s face. He heard the crack. It was a great sound.

  Brock put a hand over his bloodied nose. “What the hell are you doing, dude?” he asked.

  “How do you like it?” Clay said, punching him again. He had never hit anyone in his life, and it felt good. Too good. He hit him one more time. “Now you know how my sister felt,” he said.

  “Your sister’s a whore,” Brock was stupid enough to say.

  “And you’re a freak.” Clay pushed him until Brock was half lying on the pool table, and then he pummeled him hard, his fists smashing into his face and body over and over again. He was vaguely aware of people around him, some shouting, others cheering. Someone told him to cool it, and he could feel Kenny’s ineffectual attempts to drag him from the table. Even old Brian Cass was trying to pull him away from his target, but he could not be stopped. Blood was flowing, flying. His hands were covered with it, and he didn’t know or care whether it was Brock’s blood or his own. One thing he did know, though. One thing crept into his awareness and made him fight with even greater fury: He was not only beating up Brock. He was beating up the building that had collapsed on his wife and unborn child, and the sloppy construction workers who’d put that building up in the first place, and on his overinflated ego that had led him to send Terri in his place. He was beating up on God.

  CHAPTER 43

  The call from the emergency room came at six o’clock in the evening. Alec was swimming with Jack and Maggie in the sound behind their house when he heard his cell phone ringing on the deck. He waded through the water as quickly as he could, but by the time he’d run up the beach to the deck, he was too late. Olivia had left a message, though.

  “If you can find someone to watch the kids,” she’d said, “please come to the E.R. Nothing too serious, so don’t panic.”

  Nothing too serious? He tried to call her back, but was told she was with a patient. He called the kids out of the water and told them to get dressed quickly. Then he phoned the mother of one of Jack’s friends to see if she could watch Jack and Maggie for a while. She agreed, and within minutes he had dropped them off at her house and was on his way to the E.R.

  He did not like being called to the emergency room for any reason. Even though it had been over ten years ago, being in the E.R. always brought back the memory of the night Annie had died there. And right now, he didn’t know how worried he should be. “Don’t panic,” Olivia had said. She didn’t say, “Don’t worry.”

  He arrived at the emergency room to find that the waiting area had been transformed into Shorty’s back room. Kenny Gallo was there, along with Walter Liscott in his wheelchair and Brian Cass and a few others. There were a couple of cops, guys he knew well. One of them, Pete Myron, had obviously been keeping an eye out for Alec and approached him quickly when he walked into the room.

  “What’s going on?” Alec asked him.

  Pete took him out of the waiting room and into the back hallway, ne
ar the treatment area.

  “Do you know Brock Jensen?” Pete asked.

  It took him a moment to realize who Pete was talking about. “The guy with the tattoos?” he asked.

  “That’s him. Apparently, he beat up your daughter,” he said.

  Alec thought of Maggie, safe at their neighbor’s house, and then realized that Pete was talking about Lacey.

  “Where is she?” He peered behind Pete’s head, trying to see into the main treatment area. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s at home,” Pete said. “We sent someone over to check on her. She’s fine, except for a few bruises. But Jensen is a mess. He’s being stitched up right now. Clay broke a finger.”

  “Clay?” He was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Clay found Jensen at Shorty’s and beat him to a pulp.”

  “Clay?” Alec found this hard to believe. Clay was no wimp, but he was definitely a pacifist. He hated violence. More importantly, he held the concept of revenge in disdain. Even at Zachary Pointer’s trial, while listening to witnesses describe how the man had shot Annie, Clay kept saying, “I won’t support the death penalty for him. I just won’t.”

  “Lacey’s not pressing charges,” Pete said. “And Brock’s wisely not pressing charges, either. So there’s not much for us to do.”

  “Where is Clay?” Alec asked. He had many more questions, but figured it was time he started asking them of his son.

  “In there.” Pete pointed behind him at the treatment room. “He’s with your wife.”

  Olivia was sitting at Clay’s side, wrapping a bandage around his finger, when Alec found them in the third curtained compartment of the treatment area. Clay had a nasty-looking cut high on his cheekbone and a swollen lip, but otherwise he seemed to be all right. He looked up when Alec opened the curtain.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said simply, as if this sort of thing occurred every day.

  “What the hell happened?” Alec asked.