Down the Darkest Road

36

The McAster student, Renee Paquin, was not a good choice, but as he had developed her photographs that afternoon he had become slightly addicted to her.

She lived in a house with too many other girls. There was too much risk involved in pursuing his fantasy of her. Although that was part of what intrigued him—the danger of going into a house where he might be caught.

He had always had the discipline to refrain from taking foolish chances. His fantasies were usually one-on-one. But the idea of involving several girls at once was intoxicating. And the idea of risk was becoming seductive.

He had been so careful, so restrained in the last few years, he had grown a little bored. His mind games with the police amused him little more than completing the crossword puzzle in the Times. He wanted something more. He wanted a challenge. He had come to Oak Knoll for a challenge.

Among other things, he had begun thinking about going into the sorority house. He imagined going from room to room, bed to bed. He imagined himself walking through the house naked. In each girl’s room he would rub himself against her pillow, then imagine her putting her head on that pillow to sleep. He would put on a pair of her panties and wear them, then imagine the girl putting those same panties on the next day.

He imagined opening a bedroom door and finding Renee Paquin half undressed, the top of her tennis outfit tossed carelessly on the bed, her small breasts bare. She would be startled. She would try to cover herself. She would scream at him to get out. She would try to strike him as he reached for her. He would catch her by the wrist.

He was fascinated by her wrists, the delicacy of them, the strength in them. In his first series of photographs of her, he had isolated different parts of her body as she played tennis. Some of his favorites had been of her wrists as she held the racquet. Her hands were elegant, her wrists delicate, and yet there was a tensile strength in the way her fingers curled around the handle of the tennis racquet, and power in the tension of her forearm.

This juxtaposition of delicacy and strength was what drew him as an artist to athletic girls. The thrust of a thigh muscle as she jumped into her tennis serve paired with the elegantly pointed toe of a dancer. The bulge of a calf muscle and the curve of the back. These were the lines that made athletic girls visually exciting to him.

He had shot a lot of photographs of Renee Paquin and her friends playing doubles. He had chatted them up, given them his business cards, promised to bring them proofs tonight.

He arrived at the tennis courts in the late afternoon with a need to relax and clear his mind. He parked his van in the lot, slung his messenger bag and camera bag over his shoulder, and walked past the tennis courts, heading for the center of the park.

The tennis courts were only one part of Oak Knoll’s municipal sports park complex. Indoor and outdoor swimming pools, racquetball courts, sand volleyball courts, tennis courts, and a children’s playground filled the acreage. Jogging paths ran through and around it. At the center a pavilion with concessions and a pro shop connected all the sports.

The place was beautifully landscaped and dotted with the city’s namesake spreading oak trees, creating a parklike atmosphere. He went to the concession stand and bought a lemonade, flirting with the girl behind the counter. She was young, with wide blue eyes that had never seen the world before this lifetime. Her name was Heather. He sat on a park bench under a tree and jotted her information in his notebook.

The complex was busy with people of all ages, from mothers with small children to students to young professionals working off the day’s tensions with a game, a match, a run, a swim. Oak Knoll had a large population of retired academics and professional people, also well represented. The atmosphere was social, almost festive.

He liked a busy place like this. Much like Santa Barbara, much like the area around Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, people were active and engaged and busy—too busy to notice someone observing too closely. He could be as anonymous as he liked, he could watch who he wanted to; busy people paid no attention.

Renee Paquin and her friends were not due to arrive for another hour or so. He made his way to the tennis courts at an easy pace, snapping the occasional shot as he went.

He took pictures of children on the playground, chatted up their mothers, handed out his business cards. No one seemed bothered or suspicious of him because he appeared to be friendly and open. He smiled a lot. He wore a baseball cap backward on his head because it gave the message that he was open—as opposed to wearing the bill low over his eyes, which gave the impression of wanting to hide the face.

He made his way back to the tennis courts by way of several other sports. The courts were busy with players in serious combat, casual matches, having lessons. He walked the perimeter, stopping to snap a shot here and there. He would choose an individual, take a face shot first, then zoom in, continuing his study of segments of the athletes’ bodies. He shot both men and women, young and old.

Eventually his lens found a pair of girls having a lesson with a male pro. A tanned girl in a white skirt and a hot-pink top that lifted to show a strip of tanned belly every time she raised her racquet over her head. She had small breasts and an impossibly thick mane of variegated blond hair. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen.

The other girl was taller, dressed in a pair of black shorts that showed off coltish legs, and a black polo shirt worn untucked. She might have been slightly older than the blonde girl. His focus remained on her body for a while. The lines were elegant, lithe, slender, strong. A dancer’s body. And somehow vaguely familiar, he thought.

He lifted his lens a few inches and zoomed in on the girl’s face, and something like a bolt of lightning went through him.

Leslie Lawton.

No. Not Leslie Lawton. The younger sister.

Leah.