Vicious

CHAPTER NINE

“I wasn’t even in the house when you took a shower this morning,” Leo said. He swatted at a bush along the path through the woods.

Moira studied Leo’s face as she walked beside him. She could usually tell if he was lying, because he always blinked a lot and tilted his head to one side. She got the head tilt, but no blinking, so she couldn’t be sure if he’d given her an honest answer or not.

Leo had obviously made an effort to clean up nicely today. His unruly brown hair was combed, and he wore a sage-color V-neck sweater she’d once mentioned looked good on him. Moira figured he was hoping for something to happen during this woodland hike—maybe a surprise birthday make-out session or something.

She’d planned to keep him on this outing until at least one o’clock, so Jordan could pick up the cake and get the house decorated. But the way Leo was acting, it might as well have been his idea that Jordan get lost so he and she could sneak off by themselves. An hour before, when they’d first ventured down the forest path, he’d tried to put his arm around her. She’d carefully wiggled away. She didn’t want to encourage him or give him the wrong idea. Yet several times along the way, he’d taken hold of her hand. And she always found some excuse to pull away after a moment. She’d smooth back her hair or point to something in the woods and make a comment.

Moira was pretty certain he’d peeked at her while she was showering this morning. He and Jordan had gotten up earlier, had their Cap’n Crunch and coffee, and then gone out for a walk. While still in bed, Moira had heard them leave. She’d figured she ought to pull herself together before they returned. Her fantasies about sleeping with Jordan Prewitt did not include him seeing her after she’d just woken up.

So Moira crawled out of bed, brushed her teeth, and jumped in the shower. There was no lock on the bathroom door, which made her a little uneasy. Ever since seeing Psycho, she was wary about showering in an otherwise empty house and always locked the door. After last night’s scare, she was even more skittish. The plastic shower curtain was transparent—with blue and green cartoon fish on it. So Moira kept an eye on the bathroom door while she showered. But after getting soap in her eyes twice, she decided she was being silly. She finally started to relax and enjoy her shower. Her back was to the curtain when she saw a strange shadow on the tile wall in front of her. Automatically covering herself, she swiveled around. “Who’s there?” she asked in a panic. Through the transparent shower curtain, she caught a glimpse of the bathroom door just as it was closing.

Unnerved, Moira shut off the water and quickly wrapped a towel around her. She was wet—with conditioner still in her hair. But she stepped out of the tub and went to the bathroom door, leaving a trail of water footprints. She opened the door a crack. “Who’s there?” she demanded. Tightly clutching the towel, she stepped out to the corridor. “You guys? Jordan? Leo? Are you home?”

She waited a few moments. No answer. She heard floorboards creaking—then footsteps on the stairs. There was someone else in the house—again. She realized that last night was no fluke. It was real. Gooseflesh covered her bare, wet skin.

“Jordan? Leo?” she called, backing toward the bathroom.

“Did you just yell for us?” she heard Jordan ask.

“Oh, God,” Moira gasped, slumping against the wall.

Jordan stepped around the corner at the end of the hallway. An iPod was clipped to his belt, and he had the earphones on. “Oops, sorry….” He shielded his eyes.

“Were you or Leo just in here?” she asked.

“You mean in the bathroom?” he asked, lowering his hand away from his eyes. “I was in the one downstairs, but not up here. I think Leo’s still outside. We just got back—like a minute ago. What’s going on?”

Moira let out a long sigh. “Nothing, I—I thought someone came into the bathroom while I was in the shower.”

Jordan shook his head. “Not me, not without an invitation.”

She managed a smile and then ducked back into the bathroom. She went to lock the door behind her and realized once again that it had no lock.

Moira hadn’t said anything to either one of them about her little scare last night. She figured either they were playing an extended prank on her—or she was just nervous about being in a strange house in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t completely giving up on the first explanation. Teenage boys were always punking each other. They could have decided to frighten her for a good laugh.

Or maybe Leo had thought scaring her was one way to make her more clingy and submissive this weekend. Was that his tactic? Oh, Leo, I’m so scared, I can’t sleep in that big bed alone tonight. Will you come to bed with me?

Walking alongside him in the woods, she was still trying to read his expression. “Are you sure you didn’t just happen to open the bathroom door and stick your head in for a free peek?” she asked.

“Jeez, I told you, no,” Leo said. “You think I’m so hard up that I’m sneaking peeks at you in the shower and then lying when you ask me about it? God, get over yourself, Moira.”

“Well, somebody opened the door while I was in there. I didn’t imagine it.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was Jordan.”

Shoving his hands in his pocket, Leo grunted. “Huh, you wish.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, indignant.

“It means you’ve got the hots for my best friend, and you’re probably hoping the feeling is mutual. And I think that really sucks.”

She squinted at him. “I don’t have the hots for Jordan. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, now who’s the liar?” he grumbled. “I saw the way you were looking at him last night, the way you were acting around him. How do you think that makes me feel? I’ve been—campaigning to win you over for a year now, hoping you’ll eventually come around. You treat me like your stupid little puppy dog or something. You’ve got me following you around. You call me up when you’re lonely or can’t get some guy you really like to take you out—”

“That’s not fair,” she argued.

Leo started to walk faster, and Moira grabbed his arm to stop him. “I’ve been honest with you from the start, Leo,” she said, her eyes wrestling with his. “I like you. I like you a lot. I don’t want to ruin a good friendship. My feelings for you are strictly—”

“Strictly platonic,” he finished for her. He yanked his arm away from her. “Yeah, I know. You’ve told me that before, and it’s emasculating.”

Moira said nothing. She didn’t even know he used words like emasculating.

Leo gave the ground a kick. “Just once, I wish you knew how it felt. In fact, huh, you want to hear something?”

“I’m not sure I do,” she admitted.

“Jordan’s not interested in you—not at all, not even platonically, Moira.”

She stared at him, wondering if it was true. After all, Jordan had kissed her hand last night. If that wasn’t flirting with her, then what was?

“I asked him this morning,” Leo said. “I told him to be honest, because he knows how I feel about you. And get this—he knows you’re hot for him—”

“Did you tell him that?” she asked, raising her voice.

“No, he figured it out. It’s obvious, Moira. I could see it last night—when I was getting over my diabetic episode, and hell, I was half out of it! You couldn’t stop looking at him. Jordan said you made him uncomfortable. He said it was embarrassing. He told me, ‘She’s not my type.’”

Moira frowned at him. “Okay, now you’re just being hurtful.”

He shook his head at her. “You want to talk about hurting? How do you think I feel, Moira? Shit, it’s my birthday, and you won’t even let me hold your goddamn hand.”

She started to walk away, but then stopped and turned toward him. “Well, if I’m such an emasculating bitch and your friend thinks I’m an embarrassment, why the hell did you invite me here for the weekend? Why are you even walking with me right now?”

“I’m wondering the same damn thing,” Leo shot back.

“Fine, then just leave me alone,” Moira retorted, tears in her eyes. She turned and stomped away, deeper into the forest.

“Okay, listen, listen,” she heard him groan. “I’m sorry, Moira. I didn’t mean to make you cry—”

“I mean it, leave me the fuck alone!” she screamed. Her voice seemed to echo through the trees. She started running up the forest trail, swatting at stray branches in her path. She almost stumbled over the roots of a tall cedar and grabbed on to the trunk to keep from falling.

Moira caught her breath and wiped the tears away. Gazing back at the trail snaking through the thick forest, she saw no sign of Leo. She heard leaves rustling in the distance, but the sound seemed to be fading.

Then, closer, some twigs snapped.

“Leo?” she called. “I’m serious. I need you to leave me alone!”

Glancing at all the trees and bushes looming around her, Moira tried to spot where her friend might be hiding.

“Leo?” she called out once more.

No response.

She stood by the towering cedar for another few moments. Part of her wanted to find Leo and smooth things over. But how could she explain it to him? I didn’t want to hold your hand, because that would have been leading you on, and then you’d think I was a tease. I can’t help it if I’m not attracted to you that way. And yes, I like your best friend. I can’t help that either….

What did it matter? Leo was furious at her, and Jordan found her interest in him embarrassing.

She had a weird thought about how sorry they’d be if she got lost in these woods and was missing for hours and hours. It was such a juvenile notion—like when she was a kid running away from home, mostly to worry her parents.

Yet a part of her truly wanted to disappear for a while—to shut out everything and everyone else.

Moira gazed at the path she’d been taking—the one that led back to the cabin.

Then she started walking in the opposite direction.

“All right, Ms. Blanchette,” the sheriff said on the other end of the line. “You stay put there at Rosie’s, and I’ll be by in about five minutes. Over and out.”

Susan heard a click. “Okay, thanks,” she said to no one. Then she hung up the receiver and slid the desk phone closer to the clerk’s side of the counter at Rosie’s Roadside Sundries.

One elbow resting on top of the lottery ticket machine, Rosie was watching Mattie in the small play area near the back door. She glanced over her shoulder at Susan. “The sheriff on his way?” she asked.

Susan nodded. “Thanks for letting me use the phone—and watching Mattie. I owe you big-time.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure looking after this one,” she replied, with a nod toward Mattie. “Y’know, I bet you had a wayward hunter poking around your backyard earlier, that’s all. Some of these guys are absolutely nuts. They start chasing after a deer, and totally forget where the heck they are. You want anything?”

Susan shook her head. “No, thanks.” She moved down to the end of the counter, closer to Rosie. She could see Mattie on the multicolored plastic jungle gym in the little play area. “Sheriff Fischer said he’d be here in five minutes.”

“If Stuart Fischer tells you five minutes, you can expect him in ten,” Rosie said out of one side of her mouth. “Unless it’s a major emergency, which I haven’t seen in my seven years working here—with one notable exception—the sheriff always takes his sweet time. So…get comfortable, honey.”

Susan nervously drummed her fingers on the counter. “The one notable exception,” she said. “Was that the missing person case last year?”

“Oh, then you heard about that,” Rosie said soberly. She nodded. “They never did find her, the poor thing. I was the last one to see her before she disappeared, a very sweet girl, too. She stopped into the store on a Friday afternoon, and the sheriff came across her abandoned car that same night. You wouldn’t believe how many detectives and policemen and special investigators were through here asking me questions. And all I could tell them was the same thing, over and over again. She drove up, came in alone, bought some stuff, left alone, and then she drove away.” She gave Susan a sidelong glance. “You sure I can’t get you anything, honey?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, you might be able to help me,” Susan replied, lowering her voice so Mattie couldn’t hear. “Did a good-looking man with silver-black hair come in here a little over an hour ago?”

Rosie squinted at her. “Nice dresser, about thirty-five?”

Susan nodded. “Yes, that’s him, that’s Allen. He’s my fiancé.”

“Well, well, congratulations, honey. He’s a looker.”

“So—he was here?”

Rosie nodded again. “Yes, ma’am, he stopped in at around—eleven forty-five. He bought some sunblock lotion….”

“And that’s it?” Susan asked. “Did he ask for anything else? I mean, something you might not have had, something he’d need to go into town for?”

“Nope,” Rosie replied, shaking her head.

Susan sighed. “I’m sorry to be asking all these dumb questions, but the thing of it is, he never came home.”

“Oh, dear,” Rosie murmured. “And then this business with the hunter. No wonder you’re on edge, you poor thing.”

“Did he say anything to you about where he was headed—anything at all?”

Rosie fingered the glasses on a chain around her neck. “Hmm, just that he needed the sunblock because he was going sailing this afternoon.”

“Was there anyone else in the store who might have talked to him?”

“Yes, there was another customer, Jordy Prewitt, a nice young man from Seattle. His folks have a cabin on Cedar Crest Way, not too far from where you are—”

“Was he in the store yesterday—with some friends?” Susan asked. “I spoke with a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy….”

“Yes, that’s Jordy. He was here again today, when your fiancé dropped by. But I don’t think they talked at all. Jordy was feeling sick, and he left rather quickly.”

“So there was no one else in the store when Allen left? No one who might have talked to him or seen which way he was headed?”

Rosie shrugged. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could be more help. He just drove up, came in alone, bought some sunblock—”

“He left alone, and then he drove away,” Susan finished for her. She winced at the thought of him vanishing like that.

Rosie reached over the counter and patted her hand. “Oh, honey, I’m sure he’s fine.” She glanced back at Mattie, oblivious, playing with one of the toys. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your fiancé looked like a man who can take care of himself. He probably decided to go into town for something at the last minute and got sidetracked….”

Susan tried to smile at her. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe that’s what happened.”

She wished she could believe it. She wished right now that Allen’s black BMW would pull in front of the store. And she’d see him step out of the car.

But right now, she didn’t see any other cars in the lot but her own. And all she heard was the distant wail of a police siren.

As he hit the first rough patch on the dirt road, Jordan heard more knocking and kicking from inside the cramped trunk of his car. No doubt, the son of a bitch was getting quite a pounding back there over the rear tires.

Meeker had been out cold during their last trek on this bumpy trail. In a way, Jordan had done the guy a favor knocking him unconscious earlier, because he hadn’t been awake to feel every jolt of the bouncy, nausea-inducing ride.

Jordan watched the road ahead, resisting the temptation to torture his indisposed passenger and steer toward the rough patches.

Jordan remembered: “A rough patch” was how his mother had described the divorce. Jordan had been eight years old at the time.

“This is going to be a rough patch for you,” she’d told him when she was getting ready to move away from their house in Bellingham to her own apartment ninety minutes away in Bellevue. “I really wish you could stay with me, but the people who decide these things think you’re better off with your dad—for now, at least. But don’t you sweat it, kiddo, because we’ll get to spend weekends and holidays together. It’ll be a lot of fun, you’ll see….”

A beautiful, curvaceous blonde, his mother looked like a movie star. All of his friends thought he had the coolest mom. She came to every one of his Little League games and threw parties for the team afterward—the worse the defeat, the grander the party. After one particularly humiliating trouncing, she even rented two ponies to give the kids rides in the backyard. As one of the most affluent families in one of the most affluent sections of Bellingham, they had a huge house, which had become headquarters for Jordan and all his pals—much to his mother’s delight. She was always cooking up something for them to do—putting on skits, water-coloring, shaping clay, and a ton of sports activities. One bitter-cold winter afternoon, she suggested they flood the driveway so he and his friends could play hockey. She didn’t tell his dad about it, and that night, the old man pulled his Mercedes-Benz into the driveway and slid right into a tree. That impromptu hockey game cost $5,300. At least, that was the repair bill for his dad’s precious Mercedes.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Jordan overheard him yelling at her. “Jesus Christ, Stella, this house is a sty half the time because of you and your projects. And I’m still finding pony crap in our backyard. Haven’t we talked about this? Did you go off your medication again?”

When their parents had first separated, Jordan had been kind of glad, really. It would mean an end to all the fighting. He’d imagined he would stay with his mom and that his dad would move out. But it was his mom who left, and “the people who decide these things” forced him to stay with his dad—and a series of nannies and housekeepers.

His first weekend with his mother after the divorce was at the family’s bayside house in Cullen. It had been three weeks since he’d last seen her, his longest time between visits. He remembered seeing the name Syms on the mailbox at the end of the long driveway on Birch Way and realizing she’d changed her name back. She wasn’t Mrs. Prewitt anymore. The summer home in Cullen had originally belonged to her parents, so her maiden name was on the mailbox now.

Jordan remembered how she came running out the front door as his dad pulled down the driveway. Jordan got so caught up in seeing her again that he almost jumped out of the car while it was still moving. His dad had to hold him back for a moment. Once the car stopped, he bolted out and raced into his mother’s arms. She hugged him so fiercely, Jordan could barely breathe.

One of the first activities she’d lined up for them was a hike through the hilly woods beside the house. She’d donned a big backpack for their excursion, and after a while trudging uphill on the forest trail, Jordan could tell she was having a hard time lugging it. Her breathing became more and more labored, and sweat glistened on her forehead. He kept asking if he could carry the backpack for her, but she said she was fine. They found a bald spot in the woods she’d been talking about for most of the hike. There was a break in the trees that offered a gorgeous, sweeping view of Skagit Bay. Jordan gathered sticks to build a fire. They roasted hot dogs his mother had packed in a cooler. She’d also brought Cokes and potato salad. For dessert, they made s’mores with marshmallows, Hershey bars, and graham crackers.

It was during this feast that she asked him if he’d noticed anyone following them. She insisted a man was always a few feet behind them, hiding behind the trees and shrubs just off the trail.

“I didn’t really see him, Jordy, but I know he’s there,” his mother said. She moved her marshmallow-roasting stick away from the fire so she could wave it in the general direction of the woods. “He’s hiding out there somewhere. I’ll bet your father hired someone to spy on us. He doesn’t trust me with you. I’m sure that’s why he bought that dumpy little place over on Cedar Crest Way last month, just to keep an eye on us when we’re here together. He says it’s because he loves it here on the bay, but no…no…” Shaking her head, she moved her marshmallow away from the flame and started making another s’more.

After they put out the fire, his mother left behind the backpack and the cooler. “Some lucky hiker will be happy to find this stuff,” she reasoned out loud.

For the whole rest of the hike back, Jordan was scared. He kept looking around for the man his mother said was following them. At one point, he thought he saw someone duck behind a berry bush. “Who’s there?” he shouted.

His mother shushed him. “We mustn’t let him know that we’re on to him,” she whispered. “We have to pretend he’s not there.”

But later, as darkness fell over the house on the bay, his mother could no longer pretend the elusive man wasn’t there. She claimed she saw him in the backyard, creeping up to their windows. Jordan didn’t even want to pass by a window—for fear of seeing some kind of apparition hovering outside. He was terrified and clung to a baseball bat while watching a video with his mom in the sunroom after dinner that night.

The movie was The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Just when he’d forget to be scared and laugh at something in the movie, his mother would jump up from the sofa, saying she heard a noise or saw something move outside the window. She’d pause the movie each time she went to investigate a potential threat. For at least ten minutes, Jordan sat alone in the sunroom and watched Alan Arkin frozen in mid-sentence on the TV. All the while, his mother was on the kitchen phone with the Cullen police, reporting a prowler.

When Sheriff Stuart Fischer’s patrol car pulled into the driveway, he had the red swirling strobe going, but the siren was off. Jordan watched from the living room window. He was relieved to see the police lights out there, where it once had been so dark and foreboding. He quickly put the bat away because he didn’t want the police to think he was scared. Seconds after he returned to the window, a bright searchlight on the side of the police vehicle went on. Aimed at the house, it blinded Jordan for a moment. He stepped back from the window and rubbed his eyes. When Jordan peered outside again, Fischer had turned the cop car around and was shining that intense light toward the forest at the edge of the driveway. As the bright beam moved across the trees, it created a ripple of shadows. Jordan kept waiting to see a man hiding amid those trees, but there was nothing.

Sheriff Fischer got out of the car, then lumbered around the house with a flashlight. He even went down to the dock and checked around where they’d moored the junior kayak his mother had recently bought.

“Well, if someone was truly out there, Ms. Syms, I’m pretty sure I’ve scared him away,” Fischer said. He stood in the dining room with a can of Sprite in his hand. Jordan’s mother had offered him something to drink—and she’d told Jordan to go watch the movie. But he was distracted by the other drama unfolding in the dining room next door.

Fischer was a tall, wiry but potbellied man with a mustache and dark, receding hair. When he called Jordan’s mom Ms. Syms, he seemed to make a point of extending the Ms. so it sounded like Mizzzz. And while he talked to her, his eyes kept wandering over to the TV in the sunroom.

“You don’t have a description of the guy?” he asked—for the second time.

“No, like I told you, I only caught glimpses of him,” Jordan’s mother explained, shaking her head. “I never really saw his face—not this afternoon in the daylight. And tonight, it was just shadows and—and movement. But I could see someone was out there.” She shuddered, then tugged together the front of her white cable-knit cardigan. She was always cold at night; even during the summer she usually put on a sweater after dinner.

“Well, you probably just ran into some hikers or hunters in the woods earlier,” the sheriff surmised. He glanced toward the TV in the sunroom. “Who’s that blonde? She looks familiar.”

“Eva Marie Saint,” Jordan’s mom answered, rubbing her forehead. “Listen, Sheriff, hikers or hunters wouldn’t be lurking around this house at eight-thirty at night.”

“Well, I’m guessing you had some teenagers checking the place out, Ms. Syms,” Sheriff Fischer said. He sipped his Sprite. “They go around looking for empty rental houses they can mess around in. On top of that, you have a dock, and it’s a pretty night. That’s an invitation to all sorts of shenanigans.” His eyes strayed toward the sunroom again. “Isn’t Jonathan Winters in this movie?”

The sheriff didn’t stay long. He assured them that he’d make another drive-around search on his way out, and he’d have his deputy conduct an extra patrol of the vicinity tonight. “You folks will be all right—right as rain,” he told them.

Jordan’s mom was still scared and asked Jordan to sleep in bed with her. Several times that night, she threw back the sheets and got up to look out the bedroom window. Jordan would watch his mother as she stood by the window, a sweater over her nightgown. Then she’d climb back into bed.

“Didn’t the sheriff promise we’d be okay?” he asked her—after she’d gotten up and come back to bed for the fourth time.

“I suppose,” she muttered, patting him on the hip. “I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. I’m just kind of wound up. Pay no attention to me. You try to get some shut-eye, kiddo….”

“The police will protect us, Mom,” Jordan remembered saying—just as he’d started to drift off that night.

But of course, he’d been wrong….

There hadn’t been any noise from the trunk since he’d pulled off the bumpy dirt trail and turned onto Carroll Creek Road. Either Meeker had passed out, or he’d just gotten tired of pounding, kicking, and whining.

It was out of his way, but Jordan drove to Birch—as far as the end of the driveway, where there had once stood a mailbox with Syms stenciled on it. He stared at the police car parked in front of the house.

He wondered if Sheriff Fischer was now explaining to that nice woman about the hunters and hikers who sometimes strayed too close to private property, and the teenagers who liked to party in deserted rental cabins.

Jordan turned the car around and glanced at the house in his rearview mirror.

He could almost hear the good sheriff telling the frightened woman that she and her little boy would be all right—right as rain.