by Nora Roberts
Alice leaned closer. “Inheritance,” she whispered. “His real daddy's mother left the works to him. Pissed off his stepfather real good.”
“I'll bet it did.” Though Clare understood that gossip was served up in Martha's as regularly as the burgers, she preferred to have hers in a more private setting. “Listen, Alice, what time do you get off?”
“I have the eight to four-thirty shift today.”
“Got a hot date?”
“I haven't had a hot date since 1989.”
With a chuckle, Clare dug some bills out of her pocket and laid them on the counter. “Why don't you come by the house later, for pizza and catch-up?”
Alice grinned, noting without embarrassment that Clare had left her a generous tip. “That's the best offer I've had in six months.”
In a corner booth two men sat, drinking coffee, smoking, and watching. One of them cut his eyes over toward Clare and nodded.
“People are talking a lot about Jack Kimball now that his girl's back in town.”
“People're always talking about the dead.” But he looked as well, shifting so he could stare without being noticed. “Don't figure there's anything to worry about. She was just a kid. She doesn't remember anything.”
“Then why's she back?” Gesturing with his smoldering Marlboro, the man leaned forward. He kept his voice low so that k.d. lang crooned over his words. “How come some rich, fancy artist type comes back to a place like this? She's already talked to Rafferty. Twice, I hear.”
He didn't want to think about problems. Didn't want to believe there could be any. Maybe some members of the coven were pulling away from the purity of the rites, getting a little careless, more than a little bloodthirsty. But it was just a phase. A new high priest was what was needed, and though he wasn't a brave man, he had attended two secret meetings on that particular problem. What was not needed was a flare of panic because Jack Kimball's daughter was back in town.
“She can't tell the sheriff what she doesn't know,” he insisted. He wished to hell he'd never mentioned the fact that Jack had gotten stewed one night and babbled about Clare watching a ritual. In the back of his mind, he was afraid Jack had died as much for that as for the shopping center deal.
“We might just have to find out what she does know.” As he crushed out his cigarette, he studied her. Not a bad looker, he decided. Even if her ass was on the bony side. “We'll keep an eye on little Clare,” he said and grinned. “We'll keep an eye right on her.”
Ernie Butts spent most of his time thinking about death. He read about it, dreamed about it, and fantasized about it. He'd come to the conclusion that when a person was finished with life, they were just plain finished. There was no heaven or hell in Ernie Butts's scheme of things. That made death the ultimate rip-off, and life, with its average seventy-odd years, the only game in town.
He didn't believe in rules or in doing good deeds. He'd come to admire men like Charles Manson and David Berkowitz. Men who took what they wanted, lived as they chose, and flipped society the finger. Sure, that same society locked them up, but before the bars shut, these men had wielded incredible power. And, as Ernie Butts believed, they continued to wield it.
He was as fascinated by power as he was by death.
He'd read every word written by Anton LaVey, by Love-craft, and Crowley. He'd pored over books of folklore and witchcraft and Satan worship, taking out of them all that he understood or agreed with and mixing them together into his own messy stew.
It made a lot more sense to him than sitting through life being pious, self-sacrificing, and humble. Or, like his parents, working eighteen frigging hours a day, sweating and scraping to make loan payments.
If all you were going to end up with was six feet of dirt, then it was logical to take whatever you could get, however you could get it, while you were still breathing.
He listened to the music of Motley Crüe, Slayer, and Metallica, twisting the lyrics to suit his needs. The walls of his once airy attic room were lined with posters of his heroes, frozen into tortured screams or smiling evil.
He knew it drove his parents crazy, but at seventeen, Ernie didn't concern himself overmuch with the people who had created him. He felt little more than contempt for the man and woman who owned and operated Rocco's Pizza and were forever smelling of garlic and sweat. The fact that he refused to work with them had fostered many family arguments. But he had taken a job at the Amoco, pumping gas. Reaching for independence was what his mother had called it, soothing his baffled and disappointed father. So they let him be.
Sometimes he fantasized about killing them, feeling their blood on his hands, experiencing the punch of their life force shooting from them at the moment of death and into him. And when he dreamed of murder, it frightened and fascinated him.
He was a stringy boy with dark hair and a surly face that excited a number of the high school girls. He dabbled in sex in the cab of his secondhand Toyota pickup but found most of his female contemporaries too stupid, too timid, or too boring. In the five years he'd lived in Emmitsboro, he'd made no close friends, male or female. There wasn't one with whom he could discuss the psychology of the sociopath, the meaning of the Necronomicon, or the symbolism of ancient rites.
Ernie thought of himself as an outsider, not a bad thing in his estimation. He kept his grades up because it was easy for him, and he took a great deal of pride in his mind. But he rejected outside activities like sports and dances that might have forged some bonds between him and the other kids in town.
He contented himself toying with the black candles and pentagrams and goat's blood he kept locked in his desk drawer. While his parents slept in their cozy bed, he worshipped deities they would never understand.
And he watched the town from his aerielike perch atop the house, focusing his high-powered telescope. He saw a great deal.
His house stood diagonally across from the Kimball place. He'd seen Clare arrive and watched her regularly ever since. He knew the stories. Since she had come back to town they had all been dug up and opened-like an old casket, they breathed out sorrow and death. He'd waited to see when she would go up, when the light in the Kimball attic would go on. But she had yet to explore that room.
He wasn't very disappointed. For now, he could home his lens in on her bedroom window. He'd already watched her dress, pulling a shirt down her long, lean torso, hitching jeans over her narrow hips. Her body was very slender and very white, the triangle between her legs as red and glossy as the hair on her head. He imagined himself creeping through her back door, quietly climbing her steps. He would clamp a hand over her mouth before she screamed. Then he would tie her down, and while she writhed and bucked helplessly, he would do things to her-things that would make her sweat and strain and groan.
When he was done, she would beg him to come back.
It would be great, he thought, really great, to rape a woman in a house where someone had died violently.
Ernie heard the truck clatter down the street. He recognized Bob Meese's Ford from Yesterday's Treasures in town. The truck lumbered up the Kimball drive, belching carbon monoxide. He saw Clare jump out, and though he couldn't hear, he could see she was laughing and talking excitedly as the portly Meese heaved himself down from the cab.
“I appreciate this, Bob, really.”
“No problemo.” He figured it was the least he could do for old times′ sake-even though he'd only dated Clare once. On the night her father died. In any case, when a customer plunked down fifteen hundred without haggling, he was more than willing to deliver the merchandise. “I'll give you a hand with the stuff.” He hitched up his sagging belt, then hauled a drop leaf table out of the truck bed. “This is a nice piece. With some refinishing, you'll have a gem.”
“I like it the way it is.” It was scarred and stained and had plenty of character. Clare muscled out a ladder-back chair with a frayed rush seat. There was a matching one still on the truck, along with an iron standing lamp with a fringed shade, a rug
in a faded floral pattern, and a sofa.
They carried the light loads inside, then wrestled the rug between them, chatting as they worked about old friends, new events. Bob was already panting when they walked back to the truck to study the curvy red brocade sofa.
“This is great. I'm crazy about the swans carved in the armrests.”
“Weighs a ton,” Bob said. He started to hoist himself up on the bed when he spotted Ernie loitering on the curb across the street. “Hey, Ernie Butts, what you doing?”
Ernie's sulky mouth turned down. His hands dove into his pockets. “Nothing.”
“Well, get your ass over here and do something. Kid's creepy,” Bob muttered to Clare, “but he's got a young back.”
“Hi.” Clare offered Ernie a sympathetic smile when he sauntered over. “I'm Clare.”
“Yeah.” He could smell her hair, fresh, clean with sexy undertones.
“Get on up there and help me haul this thing.” Bob jerked his head toward the sofa.
“I'll help.” Agile, Clare jumped up in the back beside Ernie.
“Don't need to.” Before she could get a grip, Ernie had lifted the end of the sofa. She saw the muscles in his thin arms bunch. She immediately pictured them sculpted in dark oak. As they swung the sofa down, Bob grunting and swearing, she scrambled out of the way. Ernie walked backward, up the drive, over the walkway, through the door, his eyes on his own feet.
“Just plunk it down in the middle of the floor.” She smiled as it thunked into place. It was a good sound-settling in. “That's great, thanks. Can I get you guys a cold drink?”
“I'll take one to go,” Bob said. “I gotta get back.” He offered Clare a friendly wink. “Wouldn't want Bonny Sue to get jealous.”
Clare grinned back. Bobby Meese and Bonny Sue Wilson, she thought. It was still hard to imagine them seven years married and the parents of three.
“Ernie?”
He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Guess so.”
She hustled to the kitchen and brought back three cold bottles of Pepsi. “I'll let you know about that chifforobe, Bob.”
“You do that.” He took a swig before he started toward the door. “We're open tomorrow twelve to five.”
She let him out, then turned back to Ernie. “Sorry you got roped into that.”
“ 'S okay.” He took a drink, then glanced around the room. “Is this all you've got?”
“For now. I'm having fun picking up a little here, a little there. Why don't we try it out?” She sat on one end of the sofa. “The cushions are sunk,” she said with a sigh. “Just the way I like them. So, have you lived in town long?”
He didn't sit, but edged around the room-like a cat, she thought, taking stock of his territory. “Since I was a kid.” “You go to Emmitsboro High?” “I'm a senior.”
Her fingers itched for her sketch pad. There was tension in every inch of him-young, defiant, and restless tension. “Going to college?”
He only shrugged his shoulders. It was another bone of contention between him and his parents. Education is your best chance. Screw that. He was his best chance. “I'm going to California-Los Angeles-as soon as I save up enough.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Make lots of money.”
She laughed, but it was a friendly sound, not derisive. He nearly smiled back. “An honest ambition. Are you interested in modeling?”
Suspicion flickered in his eyes. They were very dark eyes, Clare noted. Like his hair. And not as young as they should have been.
“What for?”
“For me. I'd like to do your arms. They're thin and sinewy. You could come by after school sometime. I'd pay you scale.”
He drank more Pepsi, wondering what she wore under her snug-fitting jeans. “Maybe.”
When he left, he fingered the inverted pentagram he wore under his Black Sabbath T-shirt. Tonight, he would perform a private ritual. For sex.
Cam dropped by Clyde's after supper. He often did on Saturday nights. He could enjoy the single beer he allowed himself, some company, a game of pool. And he could keep an eye on anyone tossing back too many before pulling out car keys to head home.
He was greeted by shouts and waves as he walked out of the twilight and into the dim, smoky bar. Clyde, who grew wider and more grizzled year after year, poured him a Beck's draft. Cam nursed it at the ancient mahogany bar, one foot resting comfortably on the brass rail.
From the back room came music and the clatter of pool balls, an occasional ripe oath, and a snarl of laughter. Men and a scattering of women sat at the square uncovered tables with beer glasses, overflowing ashtrays, and mounds of peanut shells. Sarah Hewitt, Bud's sister, did what waitressing was required in a tight T-shirt and tighter jeans. She scooped up tips and propositions with equal relish.
Cam knew it was a ritual, coming here, nursing one dark beer and smoking too much. Listening to the same songs, hearing the same voices, smelling the same smells. And there was a comfort in it, knowing Clyde would always stand behind the bar, snarling at his customers. The Budweiser clock on the wall would always be ten minutes slow, and the potato chips would always be stale.
Sarah jiggled over, her eyes sooty, her skin drenched in come-hither perfume. She set her tray on the bar and rubbed her thigh lightly against his. Cam noticed, without much interest, that she'd done something different with her hair. It was a Jean Harlow blond since her latest trip to Betty's, and it drooped seductively over one eye.
“I wondered if you were coming in tonight.”
He glanced over, remembering there had been a time he'd have chewed glass to get his hands on her. “How's it going, Sarah?”
“It's been worse.” She shifted so that her breast brushed his arm. “Bud says you've been busy.”
“Busy enough.” Cam picked up his beer again and broke the inviting contact.
“Maybe you'd like to relax later. Like old times.”
“We never relaxed.”
She gave a low, throaty laugh. “Well, I'm glad to see you remember.” Annoyed, she glanced over her shoulder when someone hailed her. She'd been aiming to get her hands into Cam's pants-and his wallet-since he'd come back to town. “I get off at two. Why don't I come by your place?”
“I appreciate the offer, Sarah, but I'd rather remember than repeat.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged as she picked up her tray again, but her voice had toughened with the rejection. “But I'm better than I used to be.”
So everyone said, Cam thought and lighted a cigarette. She'd been a stunner once, stacked and sexy and seventeen. They'd fucked each other blind. And then, Cam remembered, she had slinked off to dispense the favor on as many other males as she could find.
“Sarah Hewitt'll do it” had become the battle cry of Emmitsboro High.
The pity of it was, he'd loved her-with all of his loins and at least half his heart. Now he only felt sorry for her. Which, he knew, was worse than hate.
The voices from the back grew in volume, and the curses became more colorful. Cam cocked a brow at
Clyde.
“Leave ′em be.” Clyde's voice was a froggy rasp, as if he'd had his vocal cords wrapped in tinfoil. As he popped open two bottles of Bud, his face moved into a scowl that had his five chins swaying like Jell-O. “This ain't no nursery school.”
“It's your place,” Cam said casually, but he'd noticed that Clyde had glanced toward the back room a half-dozen times since Cam had ordered the beer.
“That's right, and having a badge in here makes my customers nervous. You going to drink that or play with it?”
Cam lifted his glass and drank. He picked up his cigarette, took a drag, then crushed it out. “Who's in the back, Clyde?”
Clyde's fleshy face pokered up. “Usual bums.” When Cam continued to stare at him, Clyde picked up a sour-smelling rag and began to polish the dull surface of the bar. “Biff's back there, and I don't want no trouble.”
Cam went very still at his stepfather's n
ame, and the amusement faded from his eyes. Biff Stokey rarely did his drinking in town, and when he did, it wasn't friendly.
“How long's he been here?”
Clyde moved his shoulders and set off an avalanche ripple of flab beneath his stained apron. “I ain't got no stopwatch.”
There was a quick, shrill feminine scream and the sound of crashing wood.
“Sounds like he's been here too long,” Cam said and started back, shoving onlookers aside. “Back off.” He elbowed his way through, toward the shouting. “I said back off, goddamn it.”
In the rear room where customers gathered to play pool or dump quarters into the ancient pinball machine, he saw a woman cowering in the corner and Less Gladhill swaying beside the pool table with