“You need to make sure he’s dead?” Parker gestured at the sticks. “And you need to use the cricket stick to make sure, right?”
Chewing on her bottom lip, Cel nodded. “Just in case…you know…for Tia Dillo.”
Parker grabbed the stick with the infinity symbol carved on it, and the one with the crosshairs. He handed Cel hers, took Frito out of her hands, dropped him on the ground, and rolled him onto his back using his foot. “Let’s do it together. On three.”
Cel clenched her jaw to fight back the happiness trying to coerce her lips into a smile. Together, she liked that word. When she’d imagined doing this the past few nights while lying in bed staring up at the water stain on her ceiling, she’d always imagined Parker there with her. They aimed the pointed ends of their sticks at Frito, Cel’s a few inches above where she assumed, hoped, the heart lied, and Parker’s, the center of the gut.
“Ready,” Parker said.
Cel nodded.
“One…two…three.”
Blood and a pasty, greenish yellow liquid gushed out of the gut as Parker drove his stick all the way through Frito and inches into the soil. Cel met resistance but pushed and twisted until her stick pierced the skin between ribs and punctured soft tissue. Frito responded to the stabs with the indifference of a ragdoll.
They carried Frito out to Hunter’s Haven and buried him in a shallow grave that Parker dug with Yesenia’s garden shovel. They covered the site with leaves and twigs and placed a giant stone on top for good measure.
SEPTEMBER 2013
Chapter 11 - Cel
Cel inspected each room in the house a second time with the knife still clutched in her hand, double checking all the windows and doors before brewing a cup of tea and heading to her bedroom. She sat the foot of her bed with the warm mug in her hand, eyes glazed over, muscles tense and rigid, her mind bouncing from question to question, assumption to assumption, present to past.
Where was Parker? Was he pissed enough to sleep at a hotel for the night? Why had she never seen that picture of Abby before? Had he taken it? How had those books fallen? Had he contacted Lauren tonight? His mom or sister? Was he injured? In an accident? Should she call the emergency room? The police? Was he planning on leaving her? Divorcing her?
Her texts and calls to Parker went unanswered as her tea grew cold and the hours crept by. Eventually, the calls went straight to voicemail. Shortly after midnight, she drove by his parents’ house again, then Lauren’s apartment, and then the bars he occasionally frequented, but she didn’t see his Camry at any of them. Her head felt like it was going to explode by the time she returned home. She needed to talk to someone. She needed to hear someone else’s voice besides her own to help slow the avalanche of possibilities barreling through her head. She sat down at the kitchen table and texted Natalie.
I KNOW IT’S LATE. ARE YOU AWAKE?
She waited five minutes, reheated her tea in the microwave, and was typing a second text when Natalie responded.
SORRY I DIDN’T CALL. CRAIG HAD MADE DINNER WHEN I GOT HOME. AND AFTER THAT, WELL…
Natalie’s boyfriend of ten months, Craig Jenkins, had moved in with her two weeks earlier. They both worked as realtors in Oak Mott, Natalie at Balke Realty, Craig at Triangle Realty.
NO PROBLEM.
SO WHAT’S UP? CAN’T SLEEP?
Mila sauntered into the kitchen and hopped into Cel’s lap. The previous weekend Cel had told Natalie her suspicions about Lauren and Parker’s relationship, about the abundant texts and calls, late work days and buddy-buddy lunches, the dreaded tell-tale apartment key.
I ASKED PARKER ABOUT LAUREN THIS MORNING. HE DIDN’T COME HOME TONIGHT.
OH NO. CALLING.
Cel started stroking Mila’s back, took a sip of tea, and answered on the first ring.
“You want me to come over?” Natalie posed as a greeting. “I can be there in ten minutes.”
“You don’t have to. It’s late. I know you have to work tomorrow.”
“I actually don’t have anything scheduled, and if anyone needs me, they’ll just call my cell.”
“What about Craig?”
“Are you kidding? He’s been snoring like a pig for the last hour. I probably won’t be able to get any good sleep anyway. I’ll just leave him a note.”
Cel nudged Mila off her lap and stood. “Thank you, Nat. I’ll have tea ready when you get here.” She retrieved another mug and two bags of chamomile tea, Natalie’s favorite, from the cupboard, filled the kettle with water, and turned up the heat.
Not long after the kettle whistled and Cel had filled the mugs and covered them to steep, Natalie knocked on the door. Cel greeted her with a hug and led her to the kitchen where they sat at the table next to one another.
Natalie wore white pajama bottoms decorated in red lips that clung to her thin legs, a pink tank top that revealed her toned arms. She looked pale but healthy. Shortly after graduating from McLennan County Junior College with an associate’s degree and earning her realtor license, she’d decided she was tired of being known as the pudgy girl with pretty eyes, the woman always in the friend zone, so she’d joined Weight Watchers and a gym, dropped forty pounds, and never looked back. She’d also recently chopped her hair down to a length reminiscent of the haircut her mom had given her fifteen years earlier after the gum incident with her brother, the one she’d despised and hidden under an Astros cap for the entire summer.
“Your hair looks great,” Cel said. “Very professional and business-chic.”
Natalie flashed a grateful smile, but her eyes conveyed her desire to skip the small talk. She placed her hand and on Cel’s knee. “Are you okay?”
Cel nodded though her eyes welled up. She took the cover off her mug and gently blew at the escaping steam for a moment before revealing the details of her day. For the next half hour, as Cel vocalized the fears and assumptions about Parker and Lauren that had been circling her head like a mad carousel all evening, Natalie sipped tea and listened, giving supportive nods and throwing out words like “bitch” and “asshole” when warranted. The only detail Cel withheld was finding the picture of Abby in Parker’s book. She knew bringing up Abby would steer the conversation down a dark path she and Natalie rarely ventured down—that she didn’t want to venture down. When she finished her verbal vomit, she felt a sense of relief, and fatigue. She inhaled deeply through her mouth and let it fall out her nose.
“Are you going to call the cops?” Natalie asked.
“I’m going to wait and see if he shows up for work in the morning. I don’t think the cops will do anything about a missing adult until he’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours, anyway.”
As Cel carried the two empty mugs to the sink, Natalie said, “I need to go pee.”
Cel washed and dried the mugs, and when Natalie hadn’t returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, she made her way to her bedroom. The lamp on Parker’s side of the bed was on, the bathroom door closed, a dim light knifing out from underneath. Cel turned her ear to the door and heard retching followed by a toilet flush. She lightly knocked before opening the door. “Nat?”
Natalie was kneeling over the toilet, a line of drool dangling from her bottom lip. Sweat slicked her face. The stench of bile encased her.
Cel squatted and caressed Natalie’s back. “You okay?”
Natalie nodded. “Just feeling a little nauseated.”
Cel jerked the hand towel off the rack beside the toilet and passed it to Natalie. “I thought you looked a little pale. Parker said there’s a stomach bug going around the schools. I wonder if you caught it somehow.”
Natalie blotted her face with the towel and then made her way to the sink. While she rinsed out her mouth and splashed cold water on her face, Cel flushed the toilet and lit the vanilla candle on the edge of the bathtub.
“You want a glass of ice water or tea or something?” Cel asked.
Natalie made eye contact with Cel in the mirror and nodded. “Water.” With the
bright light highlighting her now blotchy face, she appeared drained, hollowed, ten years older than when she’d arrived. As though a significant percentage of her essence had exited her body with the puke.
Cel gently ran her hand up and down Natalie’s back a few times. “I’ll be right back.”
When she returned, Natalie was lying on her back on the bed with her hands over her face. Cel sat next to her. “Here you go.”
Natalie sat up and took a tiny sip. She held eye contact with Cel for a few seconds before admitting, “I’m pregnant.”
Cel’s eyes bulged. “What? Really?” She hugged Natalie, careful not to squeeze or tug too hard. “That’s great. Congratulations. When did you find out?”
Trepidation danced across Natalie’s tired eyes. “A month ago.”
“Oh.” Cel paused, glanced at the floor, the gears in her mind churning, processing the answer, calculating how many times she’d spoken with Natalie in the past month.
“I didn’t tell you sooner because I know you have had trouble with…and I didn’t want to upset you…and I was scared the same thing would happen to me, too…but I swear the only people we’ve told are my mom and dad and Craig’s parents.”
“It’s okay,” Cel said, and loosened the damp hair clinging to Natalie’s forehead. “You don’t have to explain.” She tried her best to not only smile, but beam. “I’m so happy for you guys. You’re going to be a great mom.”
Natalie smiled a wan but true smile, then lay back down and closed her eyes, holding the glass of water upright on her stomach. Cel watched the glass rise and fall in step with Natalie’s breathing for a moment before her eyes slid to Natalie’s stomach and her thoughts drifted to the bean-sized human floating around inside, to the mathematical odds of it surviving the first three months. Odds she knew all too well. The frightened, not-mother in her wanted to lay a hand over Natalie’s womb and say a protection spell, a thriving spell, a strengthening spell, to tell Natalie everything Dr. Benson had told her, to take vitamins, exercise, eat right, but she pushed away the idea when she glanced at Natalie’s closed eyes, her calm face. She didn’t want spread her infectious worry to her friend. According to Dr. Benson, anxiety was one of the top catalysts of miscarriage.
Natalie didn’t open her eyes when Cel took the glass, set it on the nightstand, and turned off the lamp. Cel lay down beside Natalie, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, hand touching hand, just like how they’d slept in Natalie’s twin bed during sleepovers back in elementary school when they were terrified they’d summoned Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror. Within five minutes, both women were asleep.
Cel woke with a start when Natalie’s cell phone chimed four hours later. As Natalie rose and checked her phone, Cel opened the bay window blinds. A thick, sunrise-tinged fog veiled the neighborhood, but it wasn’t thick enough to hide the fact that Parker’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
“It’s Craig,” Natalie said. The color had come back to her cheeks, a restful solidity to her eyes. “Wanting to know if I want to meet him for breakfast.”
“You should go,” Cel said. “You need to get something in your belly for that baby.”
“Are you sure? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call the school a little after eight and see if Parker showed up for work.” Cel chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “If he did, fuck him, but at least he’s all right. If not, I’ll probably go to his mom’s and see if they’ve heard from him.”
“I’ll wait and go with you. I know Beverly and Jennifer can be total bitches.”
The corners of Cel’s mouth rose, but her lips didn’t part. “That’s okay. You’ve done enough for me. You should go home and take a shower and eat with Craig before he goes to work. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out something.”
Natalie sniffed her armpits, cupped her hand over her mouth, exhaled, sniffed, grimaced. “I do need to clean up, don’t I?” She put her hand on her stomach and glanced down as though it were talking to her. “And I am real fucking hungry.”
They laughed, and Cel led Natalie to the front door where they hugged and promised to call or text one another with updates soon. Cel watched Natalie’s Scion vanish into the fog before heading back inside. She was on her way to brew partridge tea and take her morning vitamins when she heard a series of light thumps coming from the kitchen. She froze and held her breath. Seconds later, another thump. Like a tiny, soft hand tapping on the tile or back door.
“Mila?” Cel called out. Mila usually slept on the foot of her bed, greeted her with meows and rubs first thing in the morning, eager for food. But she hadn’t seen Mila at all today. She slowly continued toward the kitchen, her eyes and ears alert, her lips fluttering the protection spell. She stopped in the doorway, reached inside, and flicked on the light. “Mila?”
Another thump. From behind the island in the center of the room.
Cel stepped around the island and found Mila crouched low and staring down at her paws with dilated hunting eyes. A fat, one-legged cricket wriggled beneath the paws, struggling to escape. The tip of its jettisoned leg poked out from between Mila’s lips like a freak whisker.
Cel’s mouth fell open as her eyes slid across the floor, up onto the counter, and into the deep barn sink. Ten or twenty other crickets were hopping around inside, bouncing off the faucet, colliding, searching for somewhere to hide from the assassin cat.
Chapter 12 - Parker
Parker woke on his back, laying on a damp mattress, breathing in musky air that tasted reused. A dim, uncovered light bulb in the center of the ceiling buzzed like a swarm of bees. When he sat up, he cringed and closed his eyes. His head felt as though it weighed twenty pounds and had ballooned to twice its size. He fingered the back of his skull where the throbbing was most severe and found a doorknob-sized knot. No blood, wet or dry, though. He sat there for a moment, until the dizziness and pain of righting himself subsided enough for him to scan the room.
Cement surrounded him on all sides: four bare walls, the floor under the mattress, and the ceiling. A three-inch-wide pipe pierced the ceiling in the corner, for air he assumed. A wooden staircase on the left wall led up to a flat, coffin-sized, level-with-the-ceiling, cellar door. There was one small window with no latch high up on the wall behind him, but it had been bricked over on the outside. A plastic gallon jug filled with water sat on the floor on the left side of the mattress. A blue paint bucket with a scrap of cardboard lid on the opposite side. A toilet.
Where the hell was he? The place felt oddly both familiar and foreign, like the mash-up of real and fictional locations in nightmares. Had he been here before?
He stood, allowed a second wave of disorientation to recede, and headed for the staircase. A few feet from the bottom step, his right leg met resistance. He looked down and saw he was barefoot, a taut chain attached to a cuff around his ankle. He followed the chain back to a curved piece of rebar cemented into the floor under the foot of the mattress. The cement there was fresher than the rest of the pocked floor. Poured just for me. An eruption of terror and anger rushed through him. He grabbed the chain with both hands and jerked on it as hard as he could.
“What the fuck is going on?!”
As his panic-stricken voice echoed off the walls, he tugged and pulled and pried until he ran out of breath and his ankle was bleeding. He fell back down on the foot of the mattress and cupped his hands over his face, sweating, his heart jackhammering, his blood pressure undoubtedly sky rocketing. He could feel his raging pulse in his fingers and feet, the heat of his blood in his chest and cheeks. He needed to calm down. He straightened his back to lengthen his torso, placed his hands on his thighs, and took a series of slow, deep breaths. In the mouth and out the nose just like Dr. Gordon—an anger management therapist he’d visited once a week for three months after he’d punched Cel shortly after her third miscarriage—had taught him.
“Reactions are rarely productive,” he whispered. Dr. Gordon’s words. “You can’t make g
ood choices if you don’t think them through first.”
He repeated the mantra three more times, then picked up the jug of water, took a few gulps, and drizzled a little over his head. As he unbuttoned his shirt to allow air to touch his skin, he thought back on the series of events that had led him here. Fight with Cel. Work. Lunch with Lauren. Hunter’s Haven. Reading. The gray F-150. Chasing Abby? Table Rock. The blow to the back of the—
The light above him cut off, swallowing the entire room in darkness. Absolute darkness. Parker gasped, and his chest tightened. His pulse escalated again, blood pressure soared. A surge of adrenaline energized his legs, and he jumped to his feet as rumbling and scratching sounds echoed down from the direction of the staircase and cellar door. Sounds reminiscent of heavy furniture sliding across a hard floor, of boxes being lifted and dropped.
He stayed perfectly still until the sound stopped and the cellar door eased open with a long painful screech, and he snapped his head toward the staircase. No light spilled through the opening, though the darkness up there was less encompassing, less black. He clenched his fists ready to throw blows when a slender silhouette appeared at the top of the wooden staircase. The indistinct figure held steady for a few seconds before slowly descending the stairs. It stopped on the third to last step, a black image on a black canvas, a specter within a shadow. Parker couldn’t tell the age or gender or race of the person much less make out any specific facial features. It appeared to have either long hair or a hood on, though.
“Who are you?” Parker asked. In step with his balled fists, his voice trembled.
The person didn’t respond.
“What do you want?”
Parker moved toward the stairs, until the chain stopped him about five feet from the person. The faint scent of cigarette smoke crept up his nose, the steady hiss of breathing into his ears. “Why did you do this?”
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