The Body Finder

CHAPTER 15

THEY COULD HEAR THE PARTY LONG BEFORE they ever reached Olivia Hildebrand’s house. Music similar to what had been playing inside Chelsea’s car was booming…only much, much louder. The four of them climbed out of the tiny Mazda and trudged up the long driveway that was overflowing with cars. Violet scanned the vehicles, silently hoping against hope that she would see Jay’s mom’s car parked among the rest. But it wasn’t there, and she decided to set that impossible wish aside.

Still, Violet found herself smiling when they reached the front door, her arms filled with cheap alcohol that she probably wouldn’t even drink. The music was loud and her friends were louder. She could hear kids from inside the party calling out to them as they walked up to the front doors. Their enthusiasm was contagious.

Violet loved going to parties, mostly just so she could see what everyone was like outside of school. They became different people when they were away from campus. These were the same kids she’d gone to school with ever since she was a little girl. But here, at night and away from that familiar institution they attended five days a week, away from the cliques that governed where they sat and who they hung out with on a daily basis, they were free to be whoever they wanted to be. Of course, the booze helped to loosen those sharply defined social lines a little.

“Violet! Vi-o-let!” she heard a boy’s voice screaming to her from the other side of the kitchen as she set her load down on the counter. Swarming teens began to reach in and take what they wanted even before she’d taken her hands off the alcohol she’d carried in.

“Oh, good,” Chelsea yelled above the noise without even looking to see who was screaming Violet’s name. She set her bags on the counter with the rest. “Your fan club’s here.”

Violet looked in that general direction to see who it was, and when she saw him her stomach dropped.

Grady was there, weaving his way through the crowd of noisy teens and heading right toward her.

“Oh God,” Violet breathed, leaning in close to Chelsea so that only she could hear what she was about to say. “It’s new-Jay.”

Chelsea couldn’t contain her laughter, as Violet finally came over to the dark side, and it came out in kind of a half snort, which made her laugh even harder. “Here,” she said, grabbing Violet by the arm and practically dragging her in the opposite direction…away from Grady. “We’ll pretend we didn’t see him.”

They ducked quickly through a hallway that wrapped past the bedrooms and back around to the family room behind the kitchen. They were near the spot where Grady had been when he’d started yelling for her, and now he was nowhere in sight. The two girls were giggling as if they’d pulled off some great stunt by dodging him.

“Think we lost him?” Violet asked as they tried to blend into the crowd.

Chelsea grabbed two clear bottles of the tastes-more-like-juice, fruit-flavored drinks from the counter and handed one to Violet. She twisted off the little metal cap and then clinked the top of hers against Violet’s. “Here’s hoping,” she said and guzzled her drink.

Violet took a swallow of the Kool-Aid-like wine cooler. She couldn’t imagine why she’d thought she wanted to stay home by herself tonight. Chelsea had been right; the party had been exactly what she’d needed.

As the night went on, Violet immersed herself in the music and the laughter, letting the noise become a riotous screen that made it impossible for her to think of anything beyond the present. She couldn’t find the time to feel sorry for herself in this raucous, self-indulgent environment of kids with too much alcohol and no parental supervision.

She watched beer games in the kitchen, a fight in the front yard-which wasn’t really a fight at all, more like an overblown shoving match-and she saw two people puking before the night was over. One was Todd Stinnett, a boy from her second-period class, who had chugged one too many beers at the Quarters table. The other was a freshman girl, Mackenzie Sherwin, who wandered outside to throw up in the bushes. Unfortunately for Mackenzie, she didn’t get her hair out of the way in time and ended up walking around for the rest of the night with the matted strands dangling around her face.

A group of stoners thought the poor girl was hilarious and made puking noises at her every time she stumbled past them.

By the time Grady finally caught up with Violet, it was nearly midnight, and when he got close to her she wasn’t even sure how he was still standing upright. He was completely wasted.

“Where’ve ya been? I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you.” His words were a slurred mess, and he wrapped an arm heavily around her shoulders. Violet wondered if it wasn’t so much a gesture of affection as it was a means of maintaining his precarious balance.

But she was worried about him, even though she played innocent, pretending that she hadn’t been avoiding him all night. “I’ve been around,” she answered with a straight face. “Besides, it looks like you had plenty of fun without me.” She tried to move out from beneath the weight of his arm. He was leaning on her so hard that it felt like he was trying to push her down to the ground.

Her sudden shift made him lose his shaky balance, and he ended up hanging on even tighter, putting most of his unstable weight on her. “Don’t go,” he pleaded, his hot breath thick with the pungent smell of stale beer and tequila.

The combination was foul.

On the other side of the room she saw Chelsea talking with a group of girls. She flashed Violet a questioning look with her eyes. Violet just rolled her own in response and then looked back at Grady. She wanted to get away from him and go back to her friends, but she didn’t want to leave him alone in his condition. He was a mess. And he was her friend.

“I think we should get you home,” she finally offered. She hadn’t had anything to drink since that sip of wine cooler earlier in the night, so she knew she was fine to drive him. “Give me your keys.”

He closed one eye as if it were easier to focus that way as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He stared at her as he jiggled them in front of her face. “I can drive…” His mouth made his words sound like mush.

Violet reached out and snatched them from his hand. His reflexes were way too slow to stop her, and when he finally tried, he was about five seconds too late. The sudden movement nearly made him fall over, almost taking Violet with him.

Violet struggled to keep them both upright. “Come on, Grady. I owe you one anyway.”

He gave her his one-eyed squint again. “What d’ya mean?”

She didn’t bother explaining that he’d bailed her out the other day by taking her to the cemetery when she’d needed to go to Brooke Johnson’s grave. In fact, she didn’t say anything to Grady, and he didn’t ask again or argue about driving himself. He seemed to give up as he leaned on Violet and she led him out of the house. She lifted the keys up as they passed Chelsea, silently letting her know where she was going.

The air had cooled as the night had gone on and the brisk snap to it seemed to have a mildly sobering effect on Grady…which at this point was a vast improvement. His car was farther down the road than Chelsea’s was, thanks to Chelsea’s small car and her creative definition of “parked,” which to her consisted of lodging it, cockeyed and nose first, into a gap between two other parked cars.

The tall cedar and fir trees towering overhead all but blocked most of the light cast by the nearly full moon, creating ghostly shadows that fell across them as they walked, or in Grady’s case, stumbled, toward his car. But by the time they reached it, he was walking mostly on his own accord again…he was no longer swaggering from side to side.

Violet helped him around to the passenger-side door and held it open for him.

But Grady wasn’t ready to go just yet.

“Thanks a lot, Violet. I really appreciate this.” Even his words sounded a little less sloppy now.

“It’s no problem. I was getting a little bored anyway.” And then when he gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her, she added, “Seriously. I’m kind of tired too.” She made an effort to sound convincing.

He straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the doorjamb and took a step closer to her. He was standing over her now, and she suddenly felt somewhat trapped between him and the open car door…stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“We could hang out here for a while.” He slid his arm around her waist.

She wasn’t sure how she should react; even though she knew what he was trying to do, she had no doubt that she did not want him doing it. But she was frozen to the spot where she stood.

He leaned in, moving toward her, his other arm snaking around to pull her up against him. His grip was tight…too tight… and Violet didn’t like the feeling creeping over her, the sensation that he wasn’t asking her if he could do this. The feeling that this was all out of her control.

The goose bumps that broke out on her arms had little to do with the nighttime chill.

He dipped his head down, and all at once Violet found her voice again. “No, Grady!” she insisted, turning her head away before his lips were on top of hers. “Don’t!”

She tried to duck beneath his arms but his grip tightened, squeezing her even harder against his chest. Her heart felt like it was tripping over itself now, and she was suddenly afraid of where this was going.

He put his mouth against her ear and whispered hoarsely while his lips clumsily caressed her earlobe. “It’s okay, Violet. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.” He made it sound like an invitation, but the forcefulness of his actions was making it feel more and more like a command. His tongue flicked out and stroked the side of her neck in what Violet feared was his version of seduction.

Violet was vaguely aware of the sound of tires approaching, and she could see headlights getting closer. She thought about calling out for help, but she was also afraid that she might be overreacting.

She was sure she could handle this herself.

Grady tried once again to kiss her, searching out her mouth, and this time she pushed him with both hands pressed against his chest, shoving him back as she tried to crane her head out of his way. “Stop it, Grady. I mean it!” She was surprised that she sounded so strong. At least her voice wasn’t as shaky as she felt.

But he was bigger and stronger than she was, and his hands reached up behind her to the back of her head, ignoring her denials and pinning her in place. When his mouth finally landed on hers, the combination of his alcohol-soaked breath and his brutish unrestrained actions made her quiver sickly beneath him. His lips were moist and soft, but not in the way that Violet would have hoped for in a kiss, and as his tongue tried to find its way into her mouth it reminded her of a warm, slippery slug.

She felt like she was going to puke.

She struggled against it…against him… and her fists pounded uselessly against his chest. She was no longer so sure that she could handle this. She writhed her head away long enough to dislodge his mouth from hers, and she took the opportunity to shove her hands upward, covering her face in an effort to block him.

“Please! Stop!” she cried, hoping that something would get through to him and he would stop trying to force himself on her. She hoped that he would snap to his senses and realize, once and for all, what an ass he was being.

What she really wished was that he would just let her go.

And then he did. But not in the way she’d imagined.

He jerked away from her, and she heard a strangled sound escape from him as his body slammed against the side of his own car. She was pushing so hard against him, trying to keep away from him, that when his arms actually released her, she banged her head on the doorjamb. She heard a loud, dull thud, and then a whimper that could have been any wounded animal.

Violet tried to keep up with what was going on, but her brain still felt fuzzy-muddled-from Grady’s unexpected groping. At first she thought that he must have slipped and fallen, or that maybe she’d shoved him harder than she thought, even though she doubted she could have knocked him down on her own.

When she realized what was really happening, she almost couldn’t believe her own eyes.

Jay was there, and he was standing over Grady, who was now lying in a crumpled heap at his feet. The look on Jay’s face was as murderous as Violet had ever seen on anyone before, and he was clenching and unclenching his fist as he glared violently at Grady.

She looked down and saw that Grady was holding one hand over his mouth, and there was blood seeping from between his fingers. He held his other hand up in surrender. “Stop! Stop!”

Jay seemed to have a difficult time deciding. And then he leaned over, his fist balling up again, ready to strike, as he reached in and jerked Grady forward by the collar of his shirt. “Isn’t that what Violet said to you, you jerk? Didn’t she tell you to stop?”

Grady recoiled, curling up as tightly as he could and pulling his arm around his face. “Please! Don’t-” But he didn’t finish his sentence as his voice cracked vulnerably.

Violet was stunned. Silent and dazed, she could only stand there and watch, a million unanswered questions spinning in her head.

Where had Jay come from? How long had he been there?

And the one question she was afraid to ask: where was Lissie tonight?

She hated the conflicting feelings that plagued her at that moment. She was grateful that someone had saved her from Grady’s unwanted advances, and even more grateful that that someone turned out to be Jay. At the same time she was appalled that he’d punched Grady, and she felt sort of sorry for Grady despite his overzealous hands and mouth. She was also shocked by the undisguised fury she saw on Jay’s face, but she had to admit that she kind of liked that she could stir such a reaction in him. It meant that he cared.

Even if it wasn’t in the way she’d hoped for, he still cared.

She watched as Jay let Grady fall back to the ground. Well, not fall exactly, it was more of a shove, releasing him and making him smack his head against the car as he collapsed backward.

But he wasn’t quite finished with his warning to Grady, and he snarled at him from between gritted teeth, “If you ever…ever… touch her again, I swear to God, Grady, I’ll fucking kill you. Do you hear me?”

Violet was stunned by the rage in Jay’s voice as well as in his words.

Grady just nodded, wiping his bloody hand on his jeans. He looked like he wanted to say something more but couldn’t quite find the words.

Jay didn’t wait for him. “There’s no way you’re driving tonight, Grady. Give me your keys,” he demanded then, holding out his hand impatiently.

Grady started to dig in his pockets and then had second thoughts. “How’m I supposed to get-?” he started to ask, but Jay cut him off.

“I don’t give a shit; you’ll find a ride. Now give them to me.”

Jay’s voice left little room for argument, and Grady decided not to test his luck. “Violet has them,” he finally admitted before stumbling away from them, back toward the party.

Violet jumped when she heard her name. She felt like she’d been eavesdropping on the two of them. “Oh…yeah…” she seemed to be saying to herself as she held up the keys and then dropped them into Jay’s outstretched hand.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what to say to him. Finally she opted for the obvious. “Thank you.” It kind of said it all.

Jay pocketed Grady’s keys and walked over to his mom’s car. It was the car she must have heard pulling up while Grady was trying to attack her with his disgusting tongue. He opened the passenger-side door, and without so much as a glance in her direction, he turned that same commanding voice on her. “Get in the car, Violet.”

And that was it…the end of her brief thrill at seeing Jay tonight.

His demanding tone, which she had appreciated when it was directed at Grady, felt like sandpaper rubbing against her already frayed nerves when he used it with her. All of the gratitude that she’d felt just moments before fragmented like shards of irreparable glass, and Violet narrowed her eyes at him. The entire week without him, missing him and craving his company, seemed to melt away…and now she was the one who was furious.

“Are you kidding me? You don’t give me the time of day for the past week and then you want to come around and start giving me orders?” She put her hands on her hips, daring him to argue with her. Her cheeks seared as her temper burned fiercely. “I don’t think so, Jay. That’s not how it works.”

Suddenly she wanted to go back to the party…to go back to her real friends, the ones that hadn’t given her the silent treatment all week or disregarded her very existence. She turned on her heel and started back toward the house, following the trail of loud music that reached all the way down the street.

Jay didn’t follow her. He didn’t try to talk her into staying. It hurt her feelings that he didn’t pursue her, begging her forgiveness for behaving like such a jerk.

But on the other hand, she decided, she’d made herself pretty clear, and Jay had certainly proven that he was capable of stubbornly standing his ground. And despite her wounded ego, no matter how relieved she’d been that he’d shown up when he had, there was no way in hell that she was going to let him start telling her what to do now.

She didn’t look back to see if he was watching her leave.

She was too afraid of what she might see if she did…

That Jay wasn’t coming after her.

CHANCE

WHEN HE FIRST SAW THE GIRL WALKING ALONE down the narrow, darkened street, he nearly overlooked her.

It was too soon, he told himself. He had just buried one, and not enough time had passed to create the frenzied desire he usually craved.

But there was something about her…she looked lost…in need.

He slowed his car, way… way down, watching her progress as she made her way through the night, tripping as if she were incapable of watching her own steps. She never looked back. It was as if she was oblivious to his very presence, despite the unnatural beam of his headlights filtering away the darkness from her path.

And then he realized it, like the dawning of the first morning’s light, clearing the way for the day. She needed him.

Almost as much as he needed her.

He moved his car closer, easing up behind her, careful to keep her in his sights should she become alarmed…frightened by his proximity.

The silhouette she created in his headlamps was the very essence of youth. Her movements, clumsy with inattention, were graceless and inelegant in a way that was lost in womanhood. Her body was still supple; her skin would be soft.

He cast sideways glances at the parked cars around him, watching for anyone who might be watching his approach.

There was no one.

He reached her, still without notice on her part, and he pulled his car silently alongside her.

She looked up then; her innocent, tear-filled eyes stared at him hauntingly, stirring his desire into a scorching frenzy. Recognition cleared them as she stopped walking then, and the tears were replaced by supplication.

He exited the car, moving fluidly now as the dance began again.

Few words were exchanged, mostly from him, and within the span of a heartbeat, he had slipped a comforting arm around her shoulder and led her to the passenger’s side…

All while she gazed up at him with unguarded gratitude.