Heartsick

CHAPTER 46

The manager of the River Haven marina did not live on a boat; she lived in a manufactured home up the hill from the boats. The temperature had dropped ten degrees and night had officially fallen. Archie could taste the river, like tinfoil in his mouth, as he waited on the stoop of the flat tan house with the word OFFICE burned onto a piece of polished driftwood that had been nailed onto the siding. His nose itched. Answer the fucking door, he thought.

Henry and Claire stood beside him. Behind them were three unmarked police cars. He had ordered the patrol cars and SWAT vehicles to park up on the old highway, out of sight. He craned his head to look down at the marina, where several dozen boats bobbed in gloomy silence.

A dog barked and the door opened. An older woman emerged, and Archie caught a flash of bouncing fur before she managed to push the dog behind her and close the door. She now stood, on the stoop, between the closed interior door and an aluminum screen door that she kept protectively between herself and the detectives. Archie lifted his badge up and showed it to her.

“I know who you are,” she said, eyes level. “I’ve seen you on TV.” She took off her glasses. Her hair was dyed chestnut and tied in a loose knot at the base of her neck and she was wearing a turtleneck tucked into blue jeans. She was holding a paperback thriller, the place where she’d been reading marked with one thumb. The glasses left a sore-looking red impression on the bridge of her nose. “You’re that cop who was kidnapped by Gretchen Lowell.”

Gretchen’s name sent a stab of electrical current down Archie’s arms. His fist tightened around the pillbox in his pocket. “I need to know which boats Dan McCallum has moored here.”

She looked away and rattled the handle of the screen door a little. “Dan’s boat burned down.”

“Is there another one?”

She hesitated.

“It’s important,” Archie said.

“I let him keep it here, even though it’s not registered. He’s a good tenant.”

“It’s okay,” Archie assured her. “You’re not in trouble. Where is it?”

She studied Archie for a moment, and then she came out from behind the screen door and pointed down to the docks below. “Slip twenty-eight. Down there. Second boat from the end, on the left.”

“You can do what you want to me,” Susan said. “But you have to let Addy go.”

Reston ’s face was all shadow and light. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I can’t.”

It took everything Susan had to keep her face composed. “You’re going to kill her?”

“I have to.”

Susan felt the small room close in on her. Even if she were unbound, she wouldn’t be able to get around him, get to the door, get out of the boat. And then what? Swim? The porthole above where Addy lay was the size of a dinner plate. There was no way out. “And me?”

“Look at her.” Reston reached out tentatively and touched the girl’s hip, letting his finger trace the deep curve down to her slender waist and over the bones of her ribs. Outside, water lapped at the hull. The boat rocked, uneven skittish bumps and rolls. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Reston asked.

Susan couldn’t understand how he had done it. “They said they were watching you. They said you didn’t leave your house.”

“I didn’t kidnap her, Suzy,” he said softly. “She came to me.” He closed his eyes. “I told her we could be together. I told her to break her bedroom window from the outside. I told her what bus to take to get out here. I told her to wait on the boat until I got done with school.” His eyes fluttered open and he gazed at Susan with a hatred she had never seen before. The boat rocked and the door to the room rattled in its hinges. “She did exactly what I told her to do.”

“You’re crazy,” Susan said.

He smiled to himself as he ogled the semiconscious girl. “Rohypnol. I got it on the Internet.”

Susan was disgusted that she’d ever let him touch her. She saw every encounter, every fumble; the images ticked through her brain, a sad slide show of her sad adolescence. She had wanted so badly to be in control. She had convinced everyone she was. The truth was more pathetic.

His breathing became more rapid and his face flushed with his arousal. He was touching Addy’s breast now. He circled her small pink nipple with his thumb. She stirred. “I only want them so badly because they remind me of you.”

Susan told herself to be strong, to get out of this. “That’s self-justifying bullshit. You’ve always had a hard-on for teenage girls.”

“No,” he said, his voice cracking. “No. You made me into this. I never lusted after students. Not until you. You did this to me.” He slid his hand from Addy’s breast back down over her ribs, her waist and her hip, and then down along the waistband of her underpants.

“Don’t do that,” Susan said, turning her head, unable to look. “Please.”

“Did I mean anything to you?”

Susan squeezed her eyes shut. “Of course.”

“I think about that day after school all the time. How you were standing, what you were wearing, what we said. You made me that tape, remember?” He touched her face, and she jerked away and felt the belt tighten, gagging her again, forcing her to remain still, afraid to move. Don’t cry, she told herself. Just don’t fucking cry.

“Your favorite songs,” he said, and she felt his lips brush against her cheek and it made her want to vomit. “I still have it. There was a Violent Femmes song, ‘Add It Up,’ with the line ‘Why can’t I get just one kiss?’ You handed it to me and you said, ‘This is who I am.’ You gave yourself to me.” He kissed her again, dragging his bottom lip up the side of her face, leaving a path of wet saliva. “You had handwritten all of the titles of the songs. They were so carefully lettered. It must have taken you hours.”

She squeezed her eyes tighter, until they felt like fists. “It was for rehearsal, Paul. I volunteered to make a tape for rehearsal. For the warm-up.”

“It was that day in my classroom. After school. When we first kissed.”

She could smell his sweat, sweet and acrid in the small space. “No.”

“I listened to the tape on my way home and I couldn’t believe it-how much alike we were.” She felt his wet lips on her mouth and fought to turn her head but couldn’t. The black canvas of her eyelids was filled with stars. “I listened to the words of the songs, and I knew what you were trying to tell me,” he said, his lips dancing on hers. “I knew that it was wrong for us to be together.”

He pulled away and she could feel the belt loosen, but she was still afraid to open her eyes, afraid of what she might see. “I was married. I was your teacher. But you were so mature for your age, so wise beyond your years. I wrote you a letter. I should never have done it, should never have put my feelings into words. But I took a chance. I gave it to you in class the next day and told you to read it after school, and you did.” He made a halting sighing sound that turned into something like a sob.

“And you came to me after the cast party. And we made love.” He grabbed her head in his hands then and she felt his lips on her mouth, his tongue pushing against her sealed lips. The belt tightened. “Open your mouth.”

Susan flung open her eyes and stared up at him, enraged. “That’s not how it happened, Paul,” she said. Finally saying it. Finally telling the truth. “I got drunk,” she spat at him. “I got drunk for the first time at the cast party after a stupid school play and you offered me a ride home and you fucked me in your car.” She leaned her head sadly against the bunk. “I was a kid. My dad had just died. I let it go on. I didn’t know any better. And you were my favorite teacher.”