Nightshade

CHAPTER 17

GERRY CONROE SLOWED his car as he approached the gates to Bill Hapgood’s house.

Not Bill’s, he silently corrected himself. Not anymore. Now it’s Joan’s. Joan’s and Matt’s.

But no matter how many times he reminded himself, it still didn’t seem possible. Bill Hapgood had been his best friend for as long as he could remember — they’d done everything together, from the time they were little boys right up until the night before Bill had died. They’d been as close as brothers — closer, in fact, since the only thing they’d ever disagreed on had been Bill’s decision to marry Joan Moore. His knuckles turned white as his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Wrong! The whole thing was wrong! He’d told Bill he shouldn’t marry Joan. “It’s not really Joan,” he’d said when Bill told him of his plans. “It’s that boy of hers — we don’t know who he is — who his father was. What kind of stock he comes from.”

Bill’s expression had hardened. “We’re talking about a little boy, not a colt,” he said.

“But he’ll never be your son,” Gerry insisted. “If you ask me — ”

“I didn’t ask you,” Bill cut in, his voice taking on an edge that warned Gerry not to push the issue any further. “I asked you if you’d be my best man. And that’s all I asked you. So will you do it, or do I have to find someone else?”

That was the end of the argument, and for the last ten years Gerry had kept his misgivings to himself.

Now, ten years later, Bill Hapgood was dead.

Worse, it was starting to look like the boy would get away with it. Dan Pullman showed no signs of even arresting the boy, and the way things were going, the whole thing might be chalked up to a hunting accident.

Accident!

As far as Gerry was concerned, a direct shot to the center of Bill Hapgood’s forehead couldn’t have been an accident. And everyone knew how good a shot Matt was — Bill had taught the boy himself.

For just a second Gerry was tempted to turn in at the gates, drive up to Bill’s house, and confront Matt right now. Confront him, and get the truth out of him. But then he imagined what his wife would say: “It’s not up to you, Gerry. What you think doesn’t matter — it’s what Dan and the prosecutors think that counts, and they say they don’t have a case against Matt.” He could feel Nancy’s eyes boring into him as clearly as if she were sitting beside him. “Why are you so sure Matt killed him on purpose? What if you’re wrong?”

I’m not wrong, Gerry told himself. What happened to Bill was no accident. But still he didn’t turn in at the gates. He continued to drive on to his own house, where he left the car in the driveway in front of the garage and went into the house through the back door. Nancy was in the kitchen, standing in front of the open oven door and poking gently at a roast whose aroma made Gerry’s mouth water. “I think another half-hour, and it’ll be done,” she said, glancing at the clock. “Dinner at seven okay?”

“Perfect. You want me to tell Kelly when I go upstairs?”

Nancy’s brow furrowed. “She’s not here. I assumed she stopped at the paper and hitched a ride with you.”

Gerry shook his head. “I thought she must have decided to come right home after whatever it is she does every afternoon.”

Nancy’s frown deepened and she looked at the clock again. It was still six-fifteen, just as it had been a few seconds ago. “Maybe she went over to someone’s house,” she suggested, though she didn’t believe it. Ever since she was a little girl, Kelly had been utterly reliable. If she was going to be late coming home, she always called.

Even if she was only going to be ten minutes late, she always called.

Always.

She could see that Gerry’s thoughts were the same as hers, and when she spoke again, she didn’t know if she was trying to reassure her husband or herself. “I’m sure everything’s fine. She probably just stopped off somewhere for a minute and just lost track of time.”

“Kelly doesn’t lose track of time,” Gerry said. “You know that. She’s never lost track of time in her whole life.” His jaw had tightened, his complexion gone pale. “I’m going to call Dan Pullman.”

“I’m going to call some of her friends first,” Nancy insisted. “Let’s not start worrying until we know there’s something to worry about.” As if to preclude Gerry from calling the police chief, she picked up the portable phone and began dialing.

As Nancy began talking, Gerry poured himself a scotch, eyed the glass critically, then poured again. Adding some water, he gulped half the drink down in a single swallow, and waited for the heat of the alcohol to thaw the cold knot of anxiety that had formed in his belly.

It didn’t work.

Matt Moore, Gerry thought after he drained the rest of his drink and poured a second. Matt’s done something to her. I know it. I can feel it.

As he sipped the second drink, he listened with half an ear as Nancy made call after call. By the fifth one her face was as pale as his, and the worry he’d heard in her voice when she insisted that nothing was wrong had congealed into fear.

“What is it?” he asked when she hung up the phone and looked up at him. “What’s going on?”

“Sarah Balfour said Kelly was ‘weird’ at song-leading practice this afternoon.” Nancy told him, her voice low. “That was her word — ‘weird.’ She said it didn’t seem like Kelly was thinking about what she was doing. Couldn’t do the steps or follow the routines. And when Sarah asked her if she wanted to get a Coke afterward, Kelly didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe Kelly didn’t hear her,” Gerry suggested, but his wife shook her head.

“Sarah said she heard her, but just turned around and walked away.” Nancy paused, taking a deep breath, then went on. “It seems the kids have been making things pretty rough for Matt Moore at school.”

“Which doesn’t have a damned thing to do with Kelly,” Gerry said.

Nancy’s eyes flashed impatiently. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gerry. Until last weekend he was her boyfriend. I know you didn’t like it, but your not liking it doesn’t mean it wasn’t so. And even before they started dating, they were friends.” She shrugged helplessly. “You know how loyal Kelly is, and apparently today the kids were all acting as if Matt didn’t exist.”

“Why wouldn’t they, after what he did?” Gerry’s voice grated angrily, which Nancy chose to ignore.

“Sarah thinks Kelly might have gone to see Matt — ”

“I’m calling Dan Pullman,” Gerry snapped, snatching up the phone. But as he started dialing, Nancy’s fingers closed over his and she took the phone away from him.

“Not yet. We don’t even know if that’s where Kelly went. And even if she did, we don’t know if anything’s wrong.” She could see that her words were having no effect on her husband, so she changed her tack. “Gerry, I know what you think, but I also know that Joan has been a good friend for ten years. And Matt’s been a good friend to Kelly. So I’m not going to call Dan Pullman, and neither are you. First I’m going to call Joan and Matt and see what I can find out.”

Gerry’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t find out anything,” he predicted. “But if that kid’s done something to my daughter…”

His words faded away, the sentence hanging in the air, his hands clenched into fists.

* * *

EVEN THOUGH THE electronic buzz of the telephone had none of the harshness of the jangling bell Joan remembered from her childhood, its sound startled her, and she almost dropped the plates she was about to put on the table. The sound had made Matt jump too. When the phone buzzed a second time, Joan realized that it had come as a surprise because no one had called recently. Until a few days ago, the phone had rung constantly. It had sometimes seemed that everyone in town called someone in the house at least once a day, what with Bill’s steady stream of clients calling about one deal or another, her own friends calling just to check in, and Matt’s myriad friends calling to talk about whatever it was that kids talked about these days. But since the day after the funeral, it had fallen nearly silent. Today, in fact, it had been completely silent.

Joan knew why: if no one knew what to say to you, they didn’t call. Now, instead of talking to the Hapgoods, everyone was talking about them. In the space of a few short days, the cradling comfort of living in a town where you know everyone and everyone knows you had devolved into the misery of knowing that wherever you went, people were watching you.

Watching you, and whispering about you.

Worse, whispering about your son.

As the phone buzzed a fourth time, a voice spoke inside Joan’s head. A voice so clear that for a moment it paralyzed her.

It was her sister’s voice.

Cynthia’s voice.

“Answer the phone, Joanie-baby. You know what it’s about, don’t you? It’s about Matt, Joanie-baby. It’s about Matt… ”

When the phone buzzed a fifth time, Joan was determined to ignore it, to let it ring until the answering machine on Bill’s desk picked it up. But in her head Cynthia’s voice was still speaking to her, whispering to her. “Answer it, Joanie-baby. You have to answer it. You know you have to… ”

Setting the plates down, Joan finally picked up the phone, and when she spoke, she could hear the nervousness in her own voice. Then, hearing Nancy Conroe, she felt a flash of hope — Nancy, at least, hadn’t abandoned her. But then, listening to Nancy, the flicker of hope she’d felt quickly died, and her gaze moved to her son.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Nancy Conroe was saying, her tense voice belying her words. “But Kelly hasn’t come home, and she hasn’t called, and I was just wondering if maybe she’d stopped over there.”

An image of the blood on Matt’s clothes — the clothes that were in the washer now — leaped up in Joan’s mind. Deer blood! she told herself. It was only deer blood! But when she replied to Nancy Conroe, she betrayed nothing of her terrible thought. “She’s not here, Nancy,” she said. “I haven’t seen her at all.”

There was a second or two of silence, then: “What about Matt? Is he there? Could I talk to him, Joan?”

Joan hesitated, but even that felt like a betrayal. What was she thinking? Matt hadn’t done anything! He couldn’t have done anything! “Of course,” she finally said. Covering the receiver with her palm, she handed the phone to Matt. “It’s Nancy Conroe. She wants to talk to you.”

Matt listened in silence as Kelly’s mother repeated what she’d just said to his mother, and when he replied, his voice was tight. “She isn’t here.” He hesitated and then, recalling that Kelly had barely spoken to him the last two days — hardly even looked at him — his voice broke. “I haven’t seen her,” he said. “And why would she have come over here anyway?” He struggled not to let his voice reveal the pain his words were causing him. “She’s not even speaking to me anymore.”

“Not speaking to you?” Nancy echoed. “But you and Kelly are friends. You’ve always been friends — ”

Suddenly Matt’s control over his emotions broke. “I don’t have any friends anymore,” he blurted. “Didn’t she tell you? No one’s speaking to me. No one’s even looking at me anymore! It’s like — ” His voice broke, and the last words he spoke before he cut off the connection were strangled by a sob. “You don’t care what it’s like. Kelly doesn’t care. No one cares.”

Matt set the phone on the table, then looked up at his mother to see something in her eyes that he’d never seen before.

Doubt.

Silence fell over the kitchen, a silence that seemed to stretch into eternity. Slowly, Matt began to understand.

She thought he was lying.

She thought he had lied to Kelly’s mother.

He rose from the table. “You don’t believe me either,” he said. “Nobody believes me!” His voice rose. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” He started for the back door.

Joan took a step toward him, instinctively reaching out. “Matt, where are you going?”

He spun around to look at her, his face pale, his eyes anguished. “To find her! Don’t you understand? If I don’t find her — if something’s happened to her — ” His voice broke. “If you don’t even believe me, who’s going to?” A moment later he was gone, stumbling out into the darkness.

Then Joan too was out the back door. “Matt?” she called. “Matt, come back!” She listened for a moment, but heard nothing. “Please come back,” she cried, her own voice breaking now. But it was as if the night had swallowed him up.

* * *

SHE THINKS I did something! My own mother thinks I did something to Kelly!

His chest heaving as he paused to catch his breath, Matt leaned against the wall of the carriage house. He could see his mother framed in the light of the open back door, and hear her voice as she called out to him. But even though he could hear her and see her — even though he stood no more than fifty yards from her — he felt as if he’d been transported into a parallel universe where everything he had always known had suddenly changed.

It looked exactly the same; everything smelled and sounded the same. Everything was familiar.

But everything was different, for the world he had always known, and loved, had been filled with people. His family, his friends, his teachers. All of them had been part of his life.

And he’d thought they’d always be part of his life.

Now they were gone. Now he was alone in the world. What had happened?

Had the world changed?

Or was it he, himself, who was different?

I’m not! he cried silently to himself. I’m who I always was!

But as his mother called out to him once more — her voice echoing through the darkness as if through a long tunnel — he wondered.

Fragmented memories flitted through his mind.

Mr. Rudman, looking at him as if he didn’t quite know who he was. But Mr. Rudman had known him all his life!

The way his mother had looked at him when she’d handed the phone to him a little while ago.

Another memory rose in his mind.

The words that had been whispered to him as he crouched over the carcass of the deer: “That’s right, Matt… do what you want to do… do what you have to do… ”

The musky aroma that had filled his nostrils…

And the blood on his clothes — had it really all come from the deer? Or —

No! It wasn’t possible! He couldn’t have done anything to Kelly!

What if he was going crazy?

A strangled, half-muted cry rose from his throat, and he started running again, sprinting through the darkness as if he were being chased by an unseen enemy. But even as he ran, he knew that the enemy lay not in the darkness of the night, but somewhere deep within the darkest reaches of his own mind.

He paused when he came to the gates. Where could he go?

But there was nowhere to go, no one to turn to. He couldn’t go find Eric Holmes or Pete Arneson, couldn’t just go into town and see who might be hanging out.

Not anymore.

Maybe not ever again.

But he hadn’t done anything!

Without thinking about it — without even understanding quite why he was doing it — he turned away from the town and began walking in the other direction. In the direction of the Conroes’ house. He walked quickly, with no thought at all, his head down, his feet carrying him along the familiar route. He paused only once as the glow of headlights appeared around a bend far ahead. As the glow brightened and he heard the rumble of a diesel engine, a new thought leaped into his mind.

What if he stepped out in front of the truck?

It would be over. There would be no more terrible dreams that stole his rest at night, nor the even worse nightmares that had become the reality of his days.

The headlights grew brighter, and as the truck came around the bend, the twin beams of light swept across him, blinding him. But instead of turning away, or even shielding his eyes from the glare, he stood perfectly still, staring into the light as if gazing at a beacon in the night.

A beacon signaling refuge, beckoning him toward safety.

As it approached, Matt almost unconsciously took a step off the shoulder onto the pavement.

The roar of the engine grew; the headlights held him in rapture. A hundred yards, then fifty. The twin halogen beams held him transfixed.

He stepped farther into the road, so he was standing directly in front of the truck as it hurtled toward him.

Only a few more seconds and it would all be over.

Thirty yards. Twenty. Ten —

The blare of the horn rent the night, shattering the trance into which Matt had slipped, and he leaped away, hurling himself into the ditch that ran alongside the road. He felt the slipstream as the truck raced past, and in another moment it was over; the roar of the diesel faded away, the glow of the headlights dimmed.

He was still alive, still living in the strange new world in which he was cut off from everyone he had ever known.

He recalled then the last words he’d spoken to his mother. “I have to find her. If I don’t find her — if something’s happened to her — ” He hadn’t finished the sentence, hadn’t been able even to finish the thought. But now, alone in the darkness, he did.

If he didn’t find Kelly Conroe — if something had happened to her — it would never end. The nightmare his life had become would go on, unchanged, until the day he died.

He might as well have thrown himself under the truck.

Picking himself up from the ditch, ignoring the scratches and bruises on his hands and face, Matt headed back the way he’d come.