In Her Eyes

by Sarah Alderson

  ‘Yeah,’ says Gene, smiling.

  I smile too. June woke up the next morning and declared she was going to shave all her hair off for charity. Gene and Robert both shaved their heads too, in solidarity with her. I would have done mine as well, but June made me promise I wouldn’t because she said I’d look ugly if I did.

  She didn’t flinch or cry when the clippers got to work and her hair started to drift in clumps to the ground, her lip didn’t even tremble – and she was only six years old. I had never felt so proud in my life as I did that day.

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ Gene whispers again.

  Chapter 11

  A nurse comes to get me a few minutes later to take me back to my room. The doctor wants to check my stitches and make sure I’m healing properly. I try to protest but there’s no arguing and Gene says he’ll stay with June, which makes me feel better because I can’t stand the thought of her being alone, not even for a minute.

  I catch Hannah in the hallway outside talking to the Sheriff on duty at the door to the ICU.

  Hannah sees me and breaks off her conversation, heading straight over. ‘Why are there police on the door?’ she demands, a flash of fear in her eyes.

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I reassure her. ‘It’s just a precaution.’

  ‘What for?’ she asks. ‘Is June in some kind of danger?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I say, though I can tell she’s not buying it. ‘Where are you staying tonight?’ I ask, changing the subject so she can’t dwell too much on it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hannah answers. ‘Not in the house though.’ She shudders at the thought, wrapping her arms around her body.

  ‘It’s still a crime scene,’ I tell her. ‘We can’t go home until the police say we can. Why don’t you and Gene stay with Laurie and Dave? They spoke to your father and said you could.’ You’ll be safe there, I think, but don’t say. Despite Nate’s reassurances I can’t help but worry that the men will return to the house. It’s stupid – I mean, why would they risk it? But still I can’t shake the fear. I don’t know how I’ll ever feel normal again, how I’ll ever get rid of the terror gnawing away on my insides.

  ‘What about Dad?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘He’s going to stay here so someone can be with June.’

  Hannah walks me back to my room and waits while the nurse records my blood pressure and the doctor shines a little light in my eyes and checks all my responses.

  ‘How’s the pain?’ he asks me. ‘Still have a headache?’

  ‘It’s getting better,’ I tell him. It’s now just a dull ache interrupted by the occasional savage spear of pain, usually if I move my head too fast.

  ‘The scar won’t show. It’ll be covered by your hair,’ he says and I snort. As if I care about what I look like.

  ‘How much longer do I need to be here?’ I say.

  ‘I’d like to keep you in for observation for one more day, just to make sure there are no complications.’ He makes a move for the door.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Hannah says as he leaves, pointing out the window. ‘Have you seen how many news crews there are outside?’

  I shuffle to the window and look down. Below us, outside the main entrance to the hospital, are dozens of news crews and vans.

  Hannah moves to the bedside table to pick up the television remote and before I can argue she’s flicked the TV on. CNN comes up and my jaw drops open as I see a picture of our house. It’s film footage shot from a helicopter. You can see Gene’s old green Highlander parked in our drive alongside a dozen police cars, yellow tape crisscrossing the front door and the entrance to the garage. People in white jumpsuits, like you see in the movies, are walking in and out of the house and Gene’s apartment over the garage. It’s on mute but the scrolling headline across the bottom blares: INTERNET ENTREPRENEUR’S DAUGHTER SHOT IN HOME INVASION . . . DAUGHTER IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

  ‘Turn it off,’ I whisper.

  Hannah clicks it off. ‘This is insane,’ she whispers back.

  There’s a pause while I wonder how we’ll ever go home after this. I can’t imagine stepping foot in the house again, let alone spending a night there.

  ‘Do you think they’ll catch them?’ Hannah asks, looking at me, terrified.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her, wanting to erase the look of fear on her face, but the truth is I don’t know.

  Chapter 12

  DAY 3

  Something wakes me in the early hours of the morning. I burst into consciousness with my heart pounding, sweat pasting my hair to the pillow. Disorientated, I glance around, relaxing a little when I see Robert slumped in a chair fast asleep and the reassuring shadow of the police officer standing on duty outside. But then I become aware of the pain in my head. What did I just dream about? Something niggles at me. There was something I needed to remember.

  ‘Are you OK? Do you need something?’ It’s Robert. He’s awake and on his feet, hovering over me.

  ‘No, I’m OK,’ I tell him. ‘Why aren’t you with June?’

  ‘They needed to run some more tests and I was in the way, so I came to check on you. I must have fallen asleep.’

  I reach over and take his hand. In the dim light I can see the bruises on his face are turning a mottled blue and purple color and he has pouchy bags beneath his eyes. ‘You look tired,’ I say.

  He shakes the comment off and reaches over to the light switch, turning it up so he can see to pour a glass of water. The gesture triggers a memory.

  ‘How did they get in?’ I ask.

  Robert doesn’t answer. He busies himself pouring the water.

  ‘Why was the house alarm off?’ I press.

  ‘I turned it off,’ Robert says quietly, handing me the glass.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I took the trash out and forgot to reset it.’

  I frown. The alarm came with the house and the first time I saw it I laughed. I mean, why was it needed? We live in a place where the crime rate is so low it often wins accolades for being the safest town in southern California. We have a police department of two.

  Robert’s head is bowed. He’s waiting for me to say something but I bite my tongue. I want to yell at him, scream at him. Why did he forget to reset the alarm? None of this would have happened but for one stupid mistake – a mistake that might cost us our daughter. I grind my teeth but I know if I let my anger out, there will be no reining it back in. How can I blame him? I’m looking for a scapegoat, that’s all – someone to hurl all my anger and grief at in the absence of a culprit. It was a mistake. He didn’t mean to do it. How many times have I left the alarm off or gone to bed and remembered as I climbed under the covers that I hadn’t set it but then rolled over and gone to sleep anyway because I was too lazy to go back downstairs?

  With a monumental effort I slide my hand over his. He looks up, his eyes filled with tears and relief that I’m not blaming him. We stay like that for a while until he pulls his hand out from under mine, ostensibly to wipe at his nose.

  ‘You and the Sheriff, then?’ he asks. He says it lightly but the words feel weighted. ‘You went to school together?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I say, my heart rate accelerating, wondering how much I should admit to, and why Robert’s chosen now to bring it up. Does he know something? I need to stay calm, monitor my reaction and choose my words carefully.

  ‘Didn’t you used to date him in high school?’ Robert asks.

  How does he know? My surprise must show in my face.

  ‘He told me,’ Robert says.

  I stare at him astonished. Nate told him? Why?

  ‘He did?’ I say. ‘It was only for a short time.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him since school then?’

  ‘God no,’ I say quickly, probably too quickly. I feign sleepiness, wanting to put a stop to the conversation. ‘Can you go and check on June?’ I add hastily. ‘I don’t like her being alone. What if something happens and neither of us is there?’

  They told me last ni
ght that she’s through the most critical stage but she still isn’t breathing on her own. The bullet collapsed her lung and nicked an artery. She lost so much blood before the ambulance arrived that she suffered two cardiac arrests before she made it to the hospital. The paramedic who brought her in came to see me earlier and told me it’s a miracle she’s even alive.

  Robert gets up slowly and makes his way over to the door and for the first time ever I see him as old; someone’s stooped-over grandfather, not the young, dashing man I fell in love with, not even the greying but distinguished man I kissed goodnight the other day. He’s aged a decade or more overnight and it makes something in my heart ache anew.

  ‘Robert,’ I call just as he’s leaving.

  He turns.

  ‘I love you,’ I say.

  Robert gives me a grim smile that fades as fast as it appears, and then shuffles out of the room. With an effort, I stretch and turn off the light and lie there in the semi-darkness, staring up at the ceiling, my mind racing. Every time I close my eyes the man in the skull mask appears in front of me, leering at me, his tongue lolling out between his tombstone teeth.

  Chapter 13

  18 MONTHS AGO

  Hannah kicks her feet up onto the dash and I glance over at her long, flawless legs, feeling a pang of loss for the child she once was and for the days I used to carry her everywhere on one hip. There’s a hint of envy too, of the smooth perfection of her skin, along with annoyance at how wasted youth is on the young. She has no idea how gorgeous she is, nor how quickly that bloom will fade, hopefully not as fast as mine did . . . but then, hopefully she won’t get pregnant as young as I did.

  As we crest the mountain and spot the ocean glittering with promise in the distance, my phone rings through the car’s audio system, interrupting the thumping godawful music Hannah insisted we listen to. She huffs as some rapper singing about hos being messy gets cut off. The number on the screen says unidentified.

  ‘It’s just spam,’ Hannah says. ‘Don’t answer.’

  I answer, if only to give my ears some respite from the caterwauling misogyny.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Ava?’ Gene’s voice comes booming through the speakers so loudly I have to spin the volume dial way down.

  ‘Gene, where are you?’ I ask. ‘Where are you calling from?’

  Hannah pulls her legs off the dash and sighs melodramatically, as is her wont when it comes to Gene.

  ‘Um . . . I’m kind of in jail.’

  ‘Jail? What for?’ I ask, realizing my foot has come off the gas and I’m veering across the lane, onto the hard shoulder. I right the car.

  ‘What did you do?’ Hannah asks, her tone a little too gleeful.

  ‘Could you come and pick me up?’ Gene pleads. ‘It’s the county jail in Ventura.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, already signaling to take the southbound entrance onto the freeway. What the hell has he done? Is it another DUI?

  ‘No,’ interrupts Hannah. ‘We can’t come and get you. We’re on our way to Santa Barbara to go shopping.’

  ‘No,’ I say over the top of her, ‘of course we’ll come and get you.’

  Hannah gives another loud sigh and crosses her arms over her chest.

  ‘Do I need to call a lawyer?’ I ask in a panic as I merge onto the freeway.

  ‘What did you do?’ Hannah asks again.

  ‘Were you driving under the influence?’ I ask, thinking that’s the most likely situation, but the call drops before I get an answer.

  ‘Damn,’ I hiss. If he’s been caught driving under the influence I am going to kill him.

  ‘I bet you it’s drugs,’ says Hannah smugly. ‘He was probably driving stoned. I mean he’s always stoned.’

  ‘He’s quit.’

  ‘Yeah, right. It could be sex with a minor.’

  ‘What?’ I shriek, glancing at her.

  She shrugs. ‘Some of those hos he brings back are like, sixteen.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I say, turning to face her. ‘And don’t call women hos. You’re listening to too much of that music. It’s rotting your brain. And what are you saying anyway? Gene doesn’t date sixteen-year-olds.’

  ‘You think he bothers to check their IDs before he bones them?’

  I open my mouth, then shut it. The truth is, though I try to sneak glimpses at the women who trail in and out of his apartment, it’s usually at night. Is Hannah right? Is he sleeping with underage girls?

  Shit. Maybe I should call the lawyer. Or at least Robert. I decide to wait until I know the charges, but Hannah’s incessant speculation about Gene’s crime makes me wonder if that’s wise.

  By the time I find parking I’m wound so taut with worry that I snap at Hannah to stay in the car. I don’t need her endless snarking commentary accompanying me inside. But, of course, she doesn’t listen and follows me in.

  The deputy behind the bulletproof window in reception tells us to wait and so we do, sitting down on a row of bolted-together plastic chairs, opposite a board papered with Most Wanted and Missing posters. How can so many children be missing? Where do they all go? I turn my attention away from all those sad little faces and glance at Hannah.

  She’s on her phone, texting. I’ve no idea who. She’s always on her phone, texting, posting, taking selfies. The narcissism of her generation never fails to shock me. June seems to have grown up with a more sensible and objective view of social media, refusing so far to dip her toe into a world she considers superficial and vain.

  Hannah is the opposite. She’s always been conscious of the way she looks. Even when she was seven years old she had to have the right sneakers, the right hair ties, and the right backpack for school. At fifteen she started her own YouTube channel, giving makeup tutorials, teaching people to apply the perfect cat eye and how to contour. When she went to college she shut it down, obviously realizing that a future as a Kardashian wasn’t on the cards. She still posts to Instagram, and I’m secretly quite glad because unlike June, who tells me everything, Hannah has always kept the lid on her private life. Her posts are the only window I have into her life in New York. Recently, though, her Instagram has become less fish pout-y and more Proust-y. She doesn’t post selfies so much as obscure quotes about life that veer from the clichéd to the confounding, as though she’s pulling them from poorly written fortune cookies. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she’s being ironic. It’s so hard to tell with Hannah. Her beauty hides a brilliant mind, but you’d never know because she disguises it so well.

  I pull out my own phone and contemplate calling Robert to tell him about Gene. But he’s at June’s basketball game and I don’t want to take him away. He and June rarely spend time together as it is.

  A shadow falls over me as I sit there figuring out what to do, and I look up at the sound of my name.

  ‘Ava?’

  There’s a man standing in front of me. ‘Nate?’ I stammer, astonished. I get to my feet unsteadily. Oh my God. Nate Carmichael. It is him. I stare at him in wonder and he stares right back at me, grinning.

  ‘It is you,’ he says, his gaze falling the length of me, taking me in. ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

  A rush of blood to my face feels like a menopausal hot flush. ‘Neither have you,’ I mumble, self-conscious and wishing to God I’d put on more makeup or looked in the mirror before I came in here.

  I’m not lying or being polite like he is. He’s taller and broader than I remember, that’s all, but he’s lost none of his rugged athlete’s build or good looks. The only other change I can see are the crows’ feet scored around his eyes, which suit him far more than they do me. I run a hand through my hair, wishing I’d washed it, and that I’d worn something less frumpy than these old leggings. I flush some more under his scrutiny, aware that I’m at least twenty pounds heavier than I was at eighteen. But Nate shakes his head and smiles at me. ‘You look great.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumble, feeling like I’m still that shy, bookish teenage girl being chatted
up by the best-looking boy I’d ever seen. I’d forgotten how his smiles and the piercing blue of his gaze used to launch butterflies in my stomach.

  Nate’s smile becomes a frown. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I say at the same time, taking in the uniform he’s wearing in a confused daze. Nate’s the last person I’d have imagined becoming a Sheriff.

  ‘I work here,’ he says, grinning, and revealing a dimple in his right cheek that I’d clean forgotten about. ‘I was in Long Beach for ten years, just moved back to Ventura six months ago.’

  I nod politely, my eyes automatically flicking to his left hand to check for a wedding ring, before scolding myself for being so damn obvious. There is no ring.

  ‘Of all the places in all the towns . . .’ Nate continues. The spark in his eyes triggers something inside me. I’m tongue-tied just looking at him.

  ‘This your daughter?’ Nate asks, glancing in Hannah’s direction.

  I nod, flustered. She’s staring up at us both, frowning. ‘This is my eldest, Hannah,’ I stammer.

  Hannah stands up slowly and shakes Nate’s hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Nate says. ‘You look just like your mother.’

  Hannah scowls, clearly not taking it as a compliment. Thanks, thanks so much.

  ‘Your mom and I knew each other when we were your age,’ Nate explains, his eyes settling back on me in a way that makes my pulse pound loudly in my ears.

  ‘Nate was high school football champion,’ I say, trying to pull myself together.

  ‘And your mom was the girl everyone wanted to date,’ Nate adds with a smirk.

  He’s lying about that, trying to pay me a compliment, but my cheeks heat anyway at the flattery.

  ‘And I was the lucky one she said yes to,’ Nate continues blithely on.

  Hannah’s jaw drops and she looks at me open-mouthed as a fish before turning her attention back to Nate. ‘You guys dated?’ she asks, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

  ‘Yep.’ Nate is still grinning at me, and I’m thrown back to that heady summer when Nate, a high school football god from neighboring Ventura, took an interest in me – a quiet, insecure girl whose goal in life was to not be noticed. He started talking to me at the library one day between the history and self-help stacks, asked me out for ice cream and became my first boyfriend.