Читать книгу Ultraviolet - Nancy Bush - Страница 9

I spent the next several days making phone calls, going down the list Sean had given me, trying to connect, or reconnect as the case might be, with various wedding guests. Big Jim answered his phone straightaway and this time, when I told him Sean and Gigi had okayed talking to me, he became garrulous to the point of mind-screaming. And he had nothing to contribute. I finally laid my head down on my kitchen table, the phone to my ear, mumbling an occasional “Oh,” “huh,” and “I see.” I was practically in a coma by the time he finally wound down. The other bridesmaids, groomsmen and assorted guests I reached couldn’t offer any further information or insight, either, so I was left knowing little more than I had before. I never reached Deenie but I left her a message, and I put in another call to Dr. Wu’s, where I was told rather curtly that Dr. Wu was out of the country, Ms. Kelly, and he would contact me when he returned.

I also phoned Melinda Hatchmere, Roland’s widow, and Renee Hatchmere, Roland’s first wife, asking each of them in turn to call me back. To date, neither of them had responded. At another impasse, I wrote up my billable hours for Violet and temporarily dusted my hands of the case.

Friday evening I joined Chuck and Officer Josh Newell for a ride-along expecting the evening to be an uneventful waste of time. I was right about the uneventful part; wrong about the waste of time. While I rode around in the police car I watched the reactions of the people who noticed our vehicle. It broke down pretty evenly: twenty-five percent looked stricken, as if they’d been caught in some nefarious act; twenty-five percent pretended they didn’t see us—like, oh, sure, that’s gonna help; twenty-five percent reacted as if the police were their good buddy-buddy, waving frantically and smiling and generally being the kind of brownnosing suck-ups that drive me crazy; and twenty-five percent acted cool and hard-eyed and tough, mostly teenagers whose smoldering demeanors were for their friends’ benefits and caused Officer Newell to chuckle low in his throat.

For my part, I’m sure I would fall in the looking stricken category. I always feel guilty when dealing with the authorities. I kept quiet in the backseat while Chuck prattled on about how he’d always thought he was going to be a police officer but could never quite break away from his daddy’s business, which, from the hints he broadly threw out, appeared to be quite lucrative and given Daddy’s nearness to the brink of death, could be Chuck’s business soon.

Listening to him, I congratulated myself in forcing a change of plans: I’d boged out of dinner. Yes, he’d offered free food at Foster’s on the Lake, my most favorite restaurant around, but…again…it would be dinner with Chuck. I hadn’t been able to picture myself enjoying a meal with him, with or without Julie and Jenny, as every impression I’d garnered of the man was that he was overbearing, loud and deaf to anything but his own plan. Sometimes a free meal isn’t…well…free. I hadn’t figured out how to squirm out of the ride-along, however, so I met him at the police station parking lot instead of Foster’s. Chuck hadn’t liked the idea but I’d been firm. Either skip dinner, or I was out altogether. Grudgingly, he’d agreed to the plan, so I’d parked my Volvo in the station lot next to various black-and-whites, feeling vaguely uneasy, as if I were in the middle of a criminal act. What does it say about me that merely being around police cars—even when they’re parked in their own lot—makes me uncomfortable?

Anyway, I’d begged off dinner, saying I had to be somewhere later and though Chuck had pressed me, I’d managed to get things the way I wanted them. I was still planning to meet Jenny and Julie at Foster’s, but much later. Chuck just didn’t have to know.

“Hey, Jane,” Chuck hollered now over his shoulder. “So, I was reading on AOL that sausages can be good for you. Ease stress.” He leered through the grate that divided my seat from his and Josh’s. “I can think how they ease stress. How about you?” His laughter came from behind his nose, a dirty, snorting toot.

Chuck is enough of an Oregon Duck fan to only wear green and yellow—a virulent combination that should be outlawed if it isn’t game day. I realized, belatedly, that I only tolerate Chuck because he frequents the Coffee Nook. This is definitely not enough to form a friendship on. I thought about several responses, chief among them being “Shut up, asshole,” and decided to smile tightly and keep my own counsel. If you can’t think of something clever to say, don’t say anything at all.

I’d read that article, too, as it happens, and it was about the sound of sizzling sausages being something comforting as we headed into winter with all its bleakness and cold. But I kept that information to myself, deciding I could play passive/aggressive with the big boys.

“You still meeting Jenny and Julie at Foster’s?” Chuck tossed into the silence.

You would have to torture me for hours to make me give up that information to Chuck. I reminded him, “I’ve got business to take care of later. Can’t meet them.” Before he could press the issue, I said to Josh, “Somebody told me that their sister smashed her car into a tree, and the tree savior people arrived before the ambulance.”

“Was your friend all right?” Josh asked.

“Concussion, I think. Tree had extensive damage. Might have had to be put down.”

Josh said mildly, “I take it you don’t agree with the city’s tree ordinance.”

“I just struggle with people who use the tree ordinance to further their own political agenda.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Chuck asked.

“Like that neighborhood association that tried to stop the guy building that huge house on the lake? They tried everything to stop him. Used the tree ordinance as one means to delay. Had nothing to do with the trees themselves.”

Chuck said, “Who cares? Let’s go hang around the bars, see if we can give somebody a DUI.”

“It’s a little early,” I pointed out.

“Hey, my friend Sonny got picked up at nine-thirty. Jesus, he blew like a .16. Shit hit the fan, I’ll tell ya. Wife kicked him out and now he’s got all these crappy classes where he has to say he’s got a problem. My day, the cops caught you, they just drove you home.”

I gazed at the back of Chuck’s head. “You wanna bust somebody for DUI, but you’re grousing about your friend’s luck?”

“Sonny’s a good guy.”

Josh said to me, “Have you thought about joining your own neighborhood association? Then you’d have some say in the decisions. You could make a difference.” He looked at me through the rearview mirror and I hoped my horror didn’t show on my face.

“I may be moving,” I said. Like, oh, sure. Me in the neighborhood association. I had a mental image of do-gooders of all ages, earnestness oozing from their pores. “And I’m a renter.”

Chuck singsonged, “Bor—ing.”

I decided that Chuck was right and changed the subject. But Josh regarded me thoughtfully in his rearview for the rest of our trip. I found this unnerving. It was lucky Chuck was so all about himself that he neglected to bring up that I was a private investigator. Somehow I didn’t think that would go over well with Josh. Unless his sister Cheryl had already spilled the beans, which was highly probable the more I thought about it.

I said good-bye to them both at the Lake Chinook Police Station. Josh headed inside the building and I gazed after him. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to know someone on the force, but he struck me as one of those by-the-book, ultra-sincere types that never seem to get me.

Chuck ambled over to his car, an even older Volvo than my wagon, a sedan in pretty decent condition. I’d just about written Chuck off, but now I thought I might have to reevaluate. Volvo drivers feel absurdly like kin to me. I might have to give him a second chance, but it wasn’t going to be tonight.

After Chuck drove away, I ignored my own car and walked from the police station, which is on A Street to Foster’s, which is on State, the street that runs parallel to the Willamette River. There’s terminally difficult parking near Foster’s, so I figured I wouldn’t bother. It’s not a long walk, but it was windy and chilly and I was shivering like a plague victim by the time I blew into the front bar. The back patio’s closed this time of year, for obvious reasons, so I entered the low-ceilinged front room with its bloodred Naugahyde booths, cozy tables with flickering, votive candles and sunken bar at the west end. Patrons sit at room height around the bar, while the bartender and servers are working several steps below. This is because the bar is street height and the restaurant slopes down a half-level toward the rear dining room and patio, which are lake height. In February 1996 the greater Portland area flooded from a massive amount of rain. The Willamette River crested at the top of its banks, and Lake Chinook, which is fed by the Tualatin River, ran more than a few feet beyond its highest point, spilling water through the businesses that lined State Street and running across the road to damn near meet up with the river. Sandbags around the buildings saved them from devastating ruin, but from all accounts, it was one massive mess. Fortunately, Foster’s was saved.

Julie and Jenny were in a booth near the pane windows that look onto State Street. Those windows have exterior white lights surrounding them all year and illuminate passersby, so Julie and Jenny had seen me coming. They waved at me and I realized Jeff Foster, owner of Foster’s, was flirting outrageously with them. I pulled up a chair and asked for a Screaming Orgasm. Foster smiled at me and left.

“What’s in a Screaming Orgasm?” Julie asked.

“Vodka, Bailey’s and Kahlua. You need high-quality vodka or the Bailey’s may curdle. We’ll see what Foster brings.” My days as a bartender serve me well from time to time.

Jenny said, “Oh my God, bring me two.”

Jeff Foster served me up a Screaming Orgasm himself. No curdling. Unfortunately, he expected me to pay for the drink, which I grudgingly did. I let Jenny have a taste and she upped her order to three. I looked around for Manny, my favorite bartender, the one who sometimes comps me drinks when Foster isn’t looking, but the bar was being tended by a young woman deep into eyeliner and red lipstick and a metro sexual guy whose shirt and hair were military perfect. A gas fire, faced with that layered narrow rock that is so popular it’s everywhere, was heating the place up like an oven. It was cheery, though, and I felt myself relax in that bone-melting, apres-ski way that seems to only come from a combination of warmth and alcohol.

They wanted to know about my evening with Chuck and I gave them the pertinent details. Jenny finds Chuck funny in that I-can-enjoy-an-ass way, but I think he just gives Julie a headache though she’s too polite to say so about a paying customer.

A group of men and women suddenly exited together. I overheard something about the civil war game between the two Lake Chinook high schools and I remembered my promise to Dwayne. “I’m going to have to go,” I said regretfully, swigging down the end of my drink and standing.

“What? You just got here.” Jenny pointed at my vacated chair. “Sit down.”

“I’ve got a job to do.”

“Oh, sure.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I really do.”

“Then you have to give us the details Monday.”

“I’ll make a report with pie charts.”

Jenny picked up one of her drinks. “How about I make a bar chart?”

“Jenny,” Julie said with a laugh.

“I’m counting on it.” I sketched them both a good-bye and took off. If Dwayne wanted me to infiltrate the high school group at Do Not Enter, I was going to have to figure out who they were. All Dwayne had been able to give me was a description of one car—a tomato-red Taurus—which he thought one of the Wilson girls drove. The guys all showed in black macho SUVs or BMWs or something of that ilk. Dwayne had been able to catch part of one of the SUVs’ vanity license plates through the mask of bushes and trees that hid the drive access to the construction. DOIN had been visible.

Tonight’s game was at Lake Chinook High’s football field and I saw the stadium lights long before I encountered the tons of cars parked for a good half mile all around. There’s a small war going on between the nearby residents and the school about those lights. The residents scream light pollution and general blinding annoyance; the school is relatively mum but I’ve heard grumblings from athletically minded kids’ parents, the gist of which is: what part of living next to a football field didn’t you get when you moved in?

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a high school football game. Had I ever, since high school? Even then I’d steered clear of the jocks as a rule. Their obsessive dedication to sports worried me, like there was nothing else on the planet that mattered. Not that I’d been any kind of role model. I’d spent most of my time wondering how my twin brother, Booth, could ace tests when I worked harder than he did and only managed to cough up a B. I learned much later that he had phenomenal retention, which only goes to show you how unfair nature is. I mean, why should Booth get that attribute? He also got the great hair.

But I got the snarky attitude, sense of irony and excruciating self-awareness, so we’re probably even.

I cruised around the cars in the stadium lot and found four possibles on the tomato-colored cars, but only one of them was a Taurus. I memorized the license plate. My retention might not be as stellar as Booth’s, but I’m not a complete slouch, either. There were simply too many black cars to check them out one by one, so I left that for later.

I headed into the game, which was nearly over, and so therefore no one was at the gate, asking for my ticket. Lake Chinook was ahead of Lakeshore High and there was much discussion about some highly disputed call that had the Lakeshore fans growling and booing. I ordered a hot dog and was pleased that it was cheap and hot. I really could have used a beer, but it wasn’t on the menu and there were a whole lot of Don’t Drink and Drive ads plastered about. There were also some warnings about the evils of underage drinking.

In the end Lake Chinook High beat Lakeshore by a field goal with seconds left. The Lake Chinook fans ran out onto the field and the Lakeshore fans left quietly or with suppressed rage. The referees were escorted off the field by a burly-looking group of men in black rain gear. Some kid named Keegan had played “flawlessly, just flawlessly!” and there was speculation about a girl on the dance team who seemed to have either (a) an anorexia problem; (b) an obsessive/compulsive disorder; or (c) was top student in the Talented and Gifted program—TAG. She might have been all three. I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

I moved back toward the tomato-red Taurus and pretended to be talking on my cell phone as I watched the crowd surge into the parking lot. My own car was a couple of rows over, close to the road, so I stood on the balls of my feet, ready to sprint to it as soon as I got a visual on whoever claimed the car.

It was a high school girl who’d done up her long hair in pigtails on either side of her head, one tied with a blue ribbon, one tied with a white ribbon, Lake Chinook High’s colors. She was with two friends, a boy and a girl. The girlfriend was hanging on the boy and giggling. I suspected alcohol might be the culprit, regardless of the warning signage. The boy was grinning like a goofball, one hand around girlfriend’s waist, though it was sitting a little low on her hip. They all wore blue jeans and hooded light blue sweatshirts monogrammed with a big white L. The driver of the Taurus wasn’t near as giddy as her two friends. In fact, her eyes looked big and solemn and though she tried to smile in response to the friends’ antics, there was no joy anywhere. Her mouth wanted to be an upside down U. I figured she was one of the Wilson sisters, but I wasn’t sure which one. I was going to have to learn their names.

I was sprinting for my car when I nearly ran down a group from Lakeshore who were hauling a large box of sweatshirts and caps to a waiting black Hummer. “Hey,” I said, slowing to a stop. “Can I buy one of those?”

“I guess so,” one of the guys slamming the box into the back of the car said. He looked unsure.

“How much?” I pressed.

“Umm…I dunno. The sweatshirts are fifteen, I think.”

“Thirty,” a prim, female voice corrected him, shooting him a glare. “Jesus, Carl, why don’t you give ’em away for free?”

“Thirty?” I rued the fact that I’d had to purchase my drink at Foster’s on the Lake. Damn. I didn’t think I had the cash. “Any chance on a discount?”

The girl made a face. “They’d be worth more if we’d won. They’re going on sale next week anyway. I guess I could sell one to you for twenty,” she said reluctantly.

I quickly pulled out the cash and forked it over. As soon as I had my prize I dragged it over my head, running the rest of the way to my car. This sweatshirt was navy blue with a red and white sailboat over the left breast, Lakeshore’s colors.

I was barely behind the wheel when the Taurus whizzed by, traveling fast toward Lake Chinook proper. I had to jockey the wagon as I’d been boxed in pretty tightly, but my turning radius is about the best thing on my car and I was after the Taurus in less than a minute. I had to push the speed limit, which is dangerous in the heavily patrolled area around Lake Chinook. I swear to God they’ve got more traffic cops per square mile than’s legal.

I caught up with the Taurus in the center of town. At this particular intersection two lanes are forced to turn south, so I pulled up right next to the car, both of us ready to make the turn, and slid a sideways look at them. They were on my left side and the girlfriend was in the passenger seat. Her boyfriend was in the back, leaning forward, his head between the bucket seats. The driver’s eyes were on the road. She was disengaged from the goings-on, but her friends either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

To my good, and bad, luck, they drove all the way around Lakewood Bay and took the turn off on Beachlake Drive. I was pretty sure this was the road across the bay from Dwayne’s cabana. I didn’t follow them onto Beachlake as the road’s kind of a boxed canyon, and I didn’t want to have to turn around where they could see me. Also, I wanted some time to pass to allow the members of the football team to join the party. I kept on going up McVey, then parked in a deserted parking lot. Nearly an hour later, I drove down Beachlake and past the houses in Dwayne’s sights, trying to figure out which was which from this view. It’s surprisingly hard to tell. The lakeside view is vastly different than the street-facing facades. However, Do Not Enter was easy, the entry staked out by a temporary electrical pole and a Honey-pot Porta Potti. From there I could count back and match the lakeside view to the street frontage. I should’ve paid more attention to the house colors, but I got it figured out in the end.

I saw taillights winking red down the lane to Do Not Enter’s construction site and could just make out the house’s plywood and black Visqueen covered roof. A black Jimmy with the license plate DOINOU sat cheek to jowl with the red Taurus. It took me a moment; then I got it. The license plate was an abbreviated acronym for Do I know You?

Hmmm.

I didn’t think I could crash the party. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. I parked the Volvo down Beachlake a ways, hoping I wouldn’t get rear-ended or sideswiped as there wasn’t much of a shoulder, then walked back. I had this nebulous plan about acting like I was a senior at Lakeshore. Would the fact that I was their rival eject me from the group? I knew better than to try to pretend I attended Lake Chinook High. And what if they asked me why I looked so old?

With that in mind, I pulled my hair into two pigtails like the Wilson girl, one on either side of my head. I didn’t dare look in a mirror because I was afraid I’d scare myself. I didn’t have any cute bows to add to the “look,” but I didn’t think it would matter. I put my cell phone on vibrate, slung my purse strap over my shoulder, then walked from my car to the party. Another car pulled into the drive as I approached, and a young guy glanced out his window at me. I smiled shyly and waved and he slowed to a stop and rolled down the window.

“You guys played good tonight,” he said, checking out my sweatshirt. “Just not good enough.” He grinned.

“Well, you know, Keegan was just so great.”

“Yeah, he is. Surprised you guys don’t hate his guts.”

So Keegan was on the Lake Chinook High team. I hadn’t been sure. “Well, you know,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

“You here with anybody?”

“Nah…I…” I looked down the road. “My best friend and her boyfriend are fighting, and I kinda wanted out of the car. I’ve been walking around.” I shrugged a bit woefully. “Maybe they forgot me.”

“Where do you live?”

“Actually, I don’t go to Lakeshore. I’m just staying with my dad,” I improvised, waving toward the north. “Just got the sweatshirt for fun.” This was a better idea all the way around. Sometimes I awe myself with my inspired lying.

“Hey, well…” He looked down the drive. “We got a party going. What school you go to?”

“Sunset,” I said, pulling out the name of a Beaverton high school.

He was already past that and onto other things. “Well, get in. I’m not a psycho. Or you can walk down the driveway but it’s wet.”

“I’ll get in,” I said, heading around the front of his car and climbing into the passenger seat. I don’t carry a gun and I’m kind of a wimp, but I’d picked up a rock on the way and my fist closed around it inside the pocket of my sweatshirt. My first instinct is always to flee, but if someone attacks me I’m going to come out swinging. This kid looked like he weighed about a hundred pounds. I thought I had a good chance.

But he simply drove me down a long, curving gravel driveway that opened up in front of the construction zone. Several cars were angled around. We parked next to the red Taurus. I climbed out as another car pulled up behind us. I could see that pretty soon there would be no backing out unless the cars behind moved first. It was interesting, however, as I saw no one parked behind DOINOU. “Who’s got the Jimmy?” I asked my friend.

“Keegan. Of course.” He smiled. “Don’t want to piss him off.”

“Guess not,” I said.

“I’m Brett.”

“Ronnie. Short for Veronica.”

We shook hands. I have this alias I trot out whenever I can, Veronica Kellogg. I know it’s best to use an alias similar to your own name so you respond to it correctly, and I did all right with the Kellogg part—not too far from Kelly. But Veronica is nothing like Jane and I don’t care. So sue me. I like Veronica.

I could tell Brett was warming to me. I wondered what his social status was, and why he seemed so eager to include me. Maybe it’s that I’m older and have a strong sense of self-preservation, something missing during the teen years, but I never include people into my life so quickly. Maybe I would’ve in high school, but looking back, I don’t think so. I’m just naturally suspicious.

Or maybe he was one of the guys Dwayne wanted to nail. Maybe his affability was all an act.

The car behind us unloaded five kids and they tromped up to us, loudly reliving the game, loving the fact they’d beaten Lakeshore. Spying my sweatshirt, they all had something to say to me, mostly about how Lakeshore sucked and Lake Chinook was the best, all the while eyeing me as if, as the enemy, I might suddenly whistle to a hidden army and take them out in a giant, bloody melee.

Brett explained how I was visiting my dad and that I’d just picked up a Lakeshore sweatshirt for fun. One of the guys, Glen, long-haired and kinda dopey looking, instantly stripped off his Lake Chinook sweatshirt and handed it to me. It was about two sizes too big, but he insisted I wear it. I traded my Lakeshore one for it and was horrified to watch the group of them drag it through the mud puddles surrounding Do Not Enter until it was crusted with brown goop; then Glen balled it up and hurled it skyward where it unfurled to catch in a thin overhead limb of a bare-leafed maple. The group of them all saluted it with their middle fingers, stumbling around. I figured they’d been imbibing awhile. I was burning inwardly. I’d paid good money for that shirt and now I had Glen’s castoff, the arms of which hung to my knees. I scrunched them up and pretended to think it was a great joke. If Glen thought he was getting his shirt back, he could damn well think again.

It turned out most of the kids normally wouldn’t be caught dead in school rah-rah gear, but on game day anything went. The rule wasn’t that much different from when I was in school. Half of them wore the light blue and white colors of their school; half were in black and denim, the tacit colors of general teen acceptance. They also were about the only two colors that were safe for outdoor use in rainy Oregon weather. Forest green and navy can work, too, but tonight the kids were all about black jackets and jeans.

I picked Keegan out without any trouble. He sat on a tree stump someone had hauled inside the house, situated at the end of the room. This would be either Do Not Enter’s living room or great room. A string of red lights wrapped around the two-by-fours that made up the wall behind him. I could see the heavy-duty extension cord they’d jerry-rigged to the temporary power pole located at the far end of the drive. Must have been sixty feet long. A half rack of beer was being watched like a hawk by a thin boy with lank, dark hair that fell in his face. He looked out of the locks with a grim, dark-eyed stare. I had to fight the urge to tuck the strands behind his ears. It made me keep wiping imaginary strands of hair from my own face.

Keegan wore a black jacket over a black shirt, thick denim trousers and work boots. The other kids wore work boots, too. This appeared to be a fashion statement as I doubted any of them had jobs in the great outdoors or anywhere else. Keegan was coolly smoking, dragging smoke into his lungs, then dropping his arm to lazily flick ash onto Do Not Enter’s plywood floor. Bad form all around, especially for QB One. I wondered what transpired on Monday mornings when the construction workers came on the job and found the evidence.

That question was answered when a subservient female minion made it her job to clean up after Keegan and the others whenever they were involved in other pursuits. She kept darting in to clean up or disguise the evidence, rubbing mud over the ash, picking up cigarette butts and empty bottles or cans. Very interesting caste system they had going. The men—at least some of them—were the rulers. Like Dwayne, I found the guys in charge disturbing. A better-than-thou attitude percolated from Keegan on down, and it felt like there was some big secret, some inner joke, that escaped the rest of us but fueled the amusement of the elite guys at the top of the pyramid.

I didn’t like it one bit.

The talk centered on the game. The Keegan worshipers kept bringing up his best plays. I learned his last name was Lendenhal and that he’d broken a few school football records already and was expected to break them all.

“You want a beer?” Brett asked me. He’d settled us to one corner, cross-legged on the cold plywood, then gone in search of refreshments. Now he handed me a can of Bud, which I opened and sipped at, wondering how many laws I was breaking by drinking with a slew of minors. I hadn’t bought them the stuff, but I thought that might be a technicality if we were raided. I got a shiver all over as I pictured Officer Newell’s frowning face, and could practically hear him saying, “I’m disappointed in you, Jane Kelly,” right before he cuffed me and hauled my ass off to the Clackamas County Jail.

I suspected claiming I was working undercover wouldn’t cut it.

The answer, then, was to not get caught. To that end I searched the faces of the knots of kids, hoping to find the driver of the Taurus. She didn’t seem to be in the “house.” I thought she might be on the grounds, maybe down by the lakeshore. There was a stairway leading to the basement, which was an OSHA nightmare—no rails, rickety boards slammed up by a carpenter to gain basic access, no lighting—but my bigger problem was how to extract myself from Brett. Because he’d introduced me to the group I was apparently now officially his.

To underscore this, Brett slipped an arm over my left shoulder, his hand and arm hanging over loosely. Golly, gee whiz, it looked like we were on the verge of being a couple, at least for the evening.

“So, you go to Lake Chinook High,” I said, feeling the need for conversation. “What grade are you in?”

“I’m a junior,” he said, belching loudly. He really threw himself into it, in fact, and as soon as it was heard, it started a volley of belching from all the strutting roosters.

“Shut the fuck up,” Keegan said without heat, and the immediate silence was deafening.

“So, you’re seventeen?” I asked. Great. Just great. He wasn’t even an adult.

“Just about. Next February. How about you?”

Sixteen. My heart sank. “A senior,” I murmured.

“You eighteen?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“I thought you looked older.”

“Yeah?”

“Just something about you,” he said. He tilted his head and gazed at me thoughtfully. “You seem…wise.”

“Huh.” I inclined my head toward the stairs. “Wanna go down to the lake?”

“Brrrr. No. Much better here.”

“I’m kind of ready to take a walk,” I said, easing from beneath his arm. The damn thing was like a lead weight.

“Oh, come on,” he said grouchily, trying to struggle to his feet.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised, easing away.

He let me go but he didn’t look happy. It didn’t seem like many of the girls argued with these guys. I couldn’t get it. What did they see in them? Most of them were the kind of guy I’ve avoided my entire life: self-important, narcissistic, nefarious and self-serving. I sensed it in that age-old way men and women have possessed since the beginning of time. I wasn’t safe here. Brett might not be one of the true baddies, but if mob mentality prevailed, he would side with Keegan. I had no doubt.

I felt my way down the stairs and through the hazards of the lower level of construction. Chunks of wood had been tossed around. Lots of nail heads showed on the subfloor, dark spots visible in the uncertain red light that glowed through cracks from the upper floor. The only other illumination was from a three-quarter moon fighting off fast-moving clouds.

As I stepped onto the back grounds I listened to the low moaning of wind through nearby trees, the soft lap of water against the shore and the metallic clang of a flagpole’s tethering chain. I glanced over to the Pilarmos’ yard. They not only possessed a wolf dog and a menagerie of plastic lawn ornaments, they proudly displayed the Italian flag, now fluttering madly in the stiff night breeze. Either the flag was a new addition, or, more likely, I hadn’t paid near enough attention while looking through Dwayne’s binoculars. It occurred to me I’d focused way too much attention on Tab A and Slot B, but then, there was a lot to see there.

Three figures stood at the water’s edge. The three friends from the Taurus, I determined, as I walked toward them. I kept about thirty feet between us; didn’t want them to think I was horning in. But the girlfriend and guy were still all over each other. She of the giggles, he of the roving hands. Both hands were beneath her sweatshirt as he gave her a series of kisses on her mouth, cheeks and neck. She just kept right on giggling.

The other girl kept moving away from them. She was about as far as she could go, nearly pressed up against Social Security’s chain-link fence. I gave a glance over to their house. A yellow outdoor light was the only sign of human habitation. The place could have been abandoned for all the life it showed.

I was still trying to figure out how to start a conversation when the kissing couple bumped into their friend, nearly knocking her off her feet. She caught herself before she slipped, said, “God, you guys. Stop it,” then huffed around to my side.

Giggler singsonged, “Sorreee…”

The boy was too busy rubbing himself against her as best he could to bother with a response. He was going to get as much body contact as he could before she shut him down, though she didn’t seem even close to that yet.

Now the Taurus driver was only about five feet from me. I looked from her to the struggling couple. “They could fall right into the lake,” I observed.

“I wish to God they would,” she said with feeling. “Judd is such a horndog.”

“She doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Glory? Oh, she’s just being stupid. She never goes all the way, though. I mean, she’s not in love or anything,” she added quickly.

“I’m Ronnie,” I introduced.

“Hi.” She’d been studying Glory and Judd, but now she shot me a quick look. “I’m Dawn.”

“You go to Lake Chinook?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.” She gazed at my Lake Chinook sweatshirt. “You don’t, though, do you?”

“Sunset,” I said. “A senior.”

“Oh. I’m a sophomore.” She shivered and pressed her chin into her neck, hunching her shoulders. “Where’d you get the sweatshirt?”

“A guy named Glen.” I told her about my Lakeshore one in the trees and how it had gotten there.

“Glen’s a big dummy, but he’s okay.” She sniffed. “God, it’s cold.”

“I know. I gotta go home and get warm.”

“Me, too, but I’ll never get my car out.”

“You need a ride?”

“No, I live just down the street. I shoulda parked at the house, but my parents get all weird when I come home just to leave again. So I’m stuck. Unless I get a chance to talk to Keegan.” She glanced over her shoulder to the partially finished structure. I couldn’t read whether talking to Keegan might be a good thing or a bad.

“What’ll Keegan do?”

“Get ’em to move their cars. But it’s kinda early. I don’t know. I gotta be home by midnight, though.”

“It’s after eleven,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well…”

Glory and Judd stumbled and fell, not into the water, into the mud. Glory started shrieking for all she was worth and Judd shushed her loudly. “You’ll wake the fucking neighbors!” he yelled.

Dawn ran over to them and motioned them both to be quiet. Glory was good and steamed about ruining her coat. Judd wanted to pick up where they’d left off, but Glory was over it. She came whining and swearing to Dawn, who immediately went into girl-protection mode.

My chance to really talk to Dawn was over. It had been unlikely she would confide her problems to me on first meeting anyway. I’d made contact and that was as far as it was going to go.

They headed for the stairs and I trooped up behind them. As I reentered the main room I saw that Brett had lopped his arm over another girl’s shoulder. She’d leaned her head into his chest. Some of the other kids were coupled up as well. There was a tight group of young women near one wall. To a girl they’d either taken off their sweatshirts or unbuttoned their black coats. Their backs were arched, their breasts projecting like arrows. All they needed was a “Touch me here” sign. Their collective attention rested on Keegan Lendenhal, who tortured them with the way he alternately sent them knowing looks, or ignored them completely. I felt his intense gaze skim over my body as if he were an MRI machine. I was mapped out and catalogued so fast it almost gave me a rush. Wow. This guy knew how to ratchet up the heat.

His teen magnetism was both scary and off-putting, but by God I felt it. I wondered who his parents were. If I were a religious person I might pray for them. This kid was serious trouble in a way I had yet to define, even to myself.

Judd, spurned, walked toward Keegan and said something in an aside. Keegan shot a look at Glory, who was still fighting tears over the ruination of her clothes. He reached inside his pocket and handed something to Judd. A packet? Drugs?

“Hey, you,” Keegan said suddenly.

He was looking right at me. My heart squeezed. Did he know I’d been watching?

I pretended not to know he was addressing me. Instead I smiled at Brett, waved and said, “Gotta go. Thanks.”

Brett gazed from me to Keegan, clearly unsure how to react. The girl he was with was now sprawled across his lap but his attention wasn’t on her.

I headed down the plank that led from the front door to the ground, glanced up at the sweatshirt in the tree, then hurried away. I didn’t look back until I was down the lane, nearly to the power pole. When I did, I saw that Keegan Lendenhal was standing in the open doorway, staring in my direction. Could he see me through the dark, from this distance? Impossible.

But I had the uncomfortable feeling he saw a whole lot more than I wanted to portray.