Dark Roads

by Chevy Stevens

  Vaughn usually went outside as soon as he got home, and then again after dinner. If he was having an affair, he had to be communicating with her somehow. I’d seen him come home with a laptop case, but he never left it around in the house. It had to be in the shed. At the very least he might have a filing cabinet and credit card bills that I could look over.

  I tugged on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and, with my hair still wet, hustled out to the backyard. When I got closer to the shed, I realized that there was a dark film on the inside of the windows. Was the tinting to block out the heat? Or for privacy? It seemed kind of extreme. I pressed my face up against the glass and shaded my eyes. Everything inside was murky.

  I gave the door handle a try. Definitely locked. I searched above the wood frame, the top of the windows, inside the hanging baskets, under a few rocks nearby. It was possible the key was inside the house somewhere, but I doubted it. My bet was that Vaughn kept it with him.

  I stepped back with my hands on my hips, looking up at the roof. There didn’t seem to be a skylight or any vents, and it was unlikely to have an attic. Only way in was through the front.

  A noise behind me—the back door opening.

  Just as I spun around, Lana stepped outside with a bag in her hand. I hadn’t heard the garage, or the car. I should have been paying better attention.

  “There you are.” Her voice was cheerful as it carried across the lawn and she smiled, but her gaze flicked from me to the shed door.

  “A wasp flew into the rafters.” I pointed to the shed roof. “I was checking for a nest.”

  “Wasp!” Cash ducked under her arm and sprinted to my side, peering up at the roof.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think there are more.”

  “Can you push me on the swing?”

  “Sure.” I ruffled his hair, which had been trimmed and styled neatly, making him look like a little accountant. He sprinted to his playground and I glanced back at Lana.

  She raised the bag. “I picked you up a few products. They’ll bring out your gorgeous copper highlights.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” My face was already hot, but now it was fully lit. She was always so generous and kind, and here I was, thinking of ways to blackmail her husband.

  “It’s nice having a girl to spoil.” She gave a little shrug. “I’ll put them in your bathroom.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you want something to eat?”

  “I’m okay. I was going to ride into town later and drop off some résumés.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, I thought you were going to nanny…” She glanced at Cash.

  “I was thinking maybe I could do both. You know, a few shifts at the diner would help me with tips and it gets me out of the house. Might be good for me.”

  She quirked her lips into a smile, but it looked strained and didn’t meet her eyes. I wondered what Vaughn had told her. “Sure. We just want you to be happy.”

  Another tense smile, then she spun around and disappeared into the house.

  I pushed Cash on his swing. He flew up in the air, screaming, Faster! at the top of his lungs. I glanced back at the house and caught a movement, through the bathroom window I’d forgotten to close, a swish of color. Lana, her cell phone to her ear. She was talking as she placed two plastic bottles on the counter, then she walked out of the room still talking into the cell.

  Vaughn. She could tell him whatever she wanted. There was nothing wrong with working at the diner, and it wasn’t like he could force me to babysit.

  Meanwhile, I’d come up with a plan to break into that shed.

  * * *

  The diner’s parking lot was nearly empty. A slow time, between lunch and dinner. Vaughn’s truck was nowhere in sight, but just in case, I parked my bike in the alley beside the dumpster.

  When I pushed open the door, a few people turned to look at me. Some with curious expressions, others sympathetic. One man gave me a chin nod and touched the brim of his cap. I knew it was out of respect for Dad. He’d grown up in Cold Creek and was a wilderness guide for years, legendary for his skills. He’d outsmarted cougars, bull moose, and grizzlies, and once nearly froze to death in a snowstorm, but survived it all, only to die on a hairpin curve.

  I ran my hands over my hair, wiping a few tendrils off my face, and hoped I wasn’t too flushed and sweaty from riding my bike in the sun. Most days I lived in T-shirts and jeans, but I’d made some effort and was wearing clean white shorts, a teal-blue shirt, my hair pulled back into a high ponytail. I’d even put on some lip gloss and mascara.

  Just as I sat at the counter, Amber came out of the kitchen with two plates and smiled when she saw me. I reflexively smiled back and was surprised at the flutter in my stomach.

  “Hi! I’ll come talk to you when I drop these plates off, okay?”

  “Okay.” She was talking like we were friends or like she’d been waiting for me. I watched after her. Mason came out from the kitchen.

  “Haywire. It’s nice to see you.”

  “I was hoping we could talk about that job.”

  He winced, the corners of his brown eyes squinting in a pained expression. “Sorry, kid. I can’t hire you. Vaughn doesn’t think it’s a good idea and I don’t need the hassle.” I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he was sorry for a lot more than a missed job, but it didn’t matter. Vaughn had won again. “Get you something to eat?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to burst into tears in the diner, but my throat was so thick I thought I might choke. Amber came up beside me, looked into my face, and casually leaned her hip against me as though holding me up. The warmth felt good, the solidness of her body. The ache in my throat eased enough that I could get a breath. I blinked hard at the tears.

  “Mind if I take a break?” Amber said to Mason.

  “Yeah, sure. It’s slow.”

  She smiled at me. “Want to get some fresh air?” When I nodded, she said, “Meet me in the alley. I have to get something.”

  Outside, I waited against the warm bricks, studying the rusted green dumpster in front of me, flies buzzing around. Amber pushed the side door open and leaned on the wall beside me.

  “Do you need a smoke?” She held out a rolled joint.

  “No, thanks. Makes me cough.”

  “God, some days it’s the only thing that gets me through.” She brushed her bangs off her forehead. “I keep a baggie in the ceiling of the storage room. One of the panels slides off.” She grinned. “I climbed up there one day and blew my smoke out the roof vent.” She laughed.

  “Seriously?”

  “I told Mason I had girl things to take care of.” She laughed again, and I liked that she was normal around me. I tried to laugh too, but it sounded strained, like something I had forgotten how to do. She reached out and let her hand drift down my arm. It made me shiver.

  “It must be hard living with Vaughn,” she said, and now I felt cold all over.

  “Yeah. I want to get my own place.”

  “That’s cool. Maybe we could be roommates.” She gave me a cheeky smile, a quirk of her lips. Flirty. I imagined being around her all the time. It was a stupid idea, impossible.

  “I should get back to work.” She paused. “Why don’t you hang out? I’m almost done with my shift. We can go to the lake.”

  Lana was expecting me home. Vaughn might look for me. It was risky.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  After we went inside, Amber cleared a booth in the corner, and brought me a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon meringue pie. “On the house.” I texted Lana that I’d met with some friends. Did she mind if I went shopping? She texted back, OK! And I sent her a smiley face.

  I scrolled through Craigslist on my phone. There weren’t many rooms for rent, and some sounded like they might be a closet with a hot plate. I’d still take that over living with Vaughn. Most of the jobs were in town or on the farms. Either way, I’d be biking a lot. I bookmarked anything that sounded promising. I’d send the
m my résumé, then figure out how to get there.

  * * *

  Amber and I sat on top of a picnic table at the end of the campground where the sand formed a narrow beach, out of sight from the dock. I could hear laughing, splashing as people jumped into the water, and I remembered the last time I was here with Jonny. The night Vaughn picked me up.

  “You okay?” Amber’s voice pulled me back. I turned to answer but was struck silent by the way the breeze whispered her hair across her cheeks, nose, and lips. We were wet from the lake, towels wrapped around our lower bodies, bikini tops showing. She’d lent me one in a flowery blue paisley pattern, strings on either side of the hip and around the neck. Hers was black with a bandeau top. I tried not to stare at the goose bumps scattered across her breasts.

  “Yeah.”

  She laughed. “You don’t say much, do you?”

  My skin turned warm. I studied the pink flowers at the edge of the lake. “I like listening.”

  “Those are wild roses,” she said, pointing to the bushes. I looked at her, and she smiled. “Guess you know that. You probably know every plant and tree.”

  “Probably not.” I got off the picnic table and plucked a few of the rose heads, their petals silky. I offered them to her, and she smiled wide, showing her crooked incisor, and pulled one flower free, then tucked it behind my ear. The touch of her finger across my cheek made me shiver, and this time it was she who glanced at my chest, then away, her cheeks flushed. I sat beside her.

  She buried her nose in her bouquet and lifted an eyebrow at me. I felt another tug in my belly. Was this how it was supposed to feel? Exciting and scary all at the same time? I wanted to be around her for hours. She made me dizzy. Her smell, the way she laughed, her confidence.

  “Let’s take a selfie.” She wiggled closer so that our thighs touched and held up her phone. I liked seeing our faces together, hair blending, eyes lit with sun. She took a few photos. We made funny faces. “I’ll text you copies,” she said, and I gave her my number. The photos whisked through and hit my phone with a ping. I smiled at them, scrolled through.

  “Most of my selfies are with Jonny. You’re a lot prettier.”

  She laughed, but her voice was serious when she said, “Did you and Jonny ever date?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not like that with us. I’ve dated guys, but I don’t know. I never connected with any of them. Guess I’ve been waiting for someone special.” Our eyes met. “What about you?”

  “I’ve liked boys and girls.” She shrugged. “I just feel things and I go for it.” This time it was a warning tug in my stomach. Maybe she could feel something for someone else tomorrow, or another day. Maybe this moment at the lake didn’t mean all that much to her.

  “That’s cool.”

  She held my hand. “I feel something good when I’m with you.” She rubbed a circle on my palm with her thumb. “It’s like, I’m sad for you because of your dad…” My hand stiffened. She smoothed the tight muscles and met my eyes. “But I’m happy, because I’m with you.”

  I curled my fingers and touched the delicate gold bracelet on her wrist, felt the soft flutter of her pulse. She only had a single charm on the link. A small green turtle. “It’s pretty.”

  “It’s from Hawaii. I went there with my family.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Vancouver. I only talk to my sister.” She was still holding my hand, but I could tell by the tone in her voice, something fragile and achy, that it hurt her to say it out loud. “I ran away.”

  “Serious?”

  “Sort of. They know I’m here, but they’re angry that I dropped out of school, and for partying, dating girls.” She met my eyes. “They found Jesus when I was a kid, started going to church twice a week, prayer group. I got so sick of it—the lying, how fake everyone was. I was going to the Yukon to meet friends and stopped here for gas. Mason had a sign in the window.…” She shrugged.

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen last month. Anyway, let’s not talk about serious stuff, okay?”

  I scuffed my sandal against the picnic table. Why did I have to go and wreck the mood? I could feel her body cooling beside me, the light in her eyes dimming. “Sorry.”

  She hooked her finger under my chin and drew my face toward her. “I just want to think about you.” Her finger was warm, her voice husky. She leaned forward, and I realized she was going to kiss me. There were voices in the campground. People could see us, but she didn’t care, and then I didn’t care—because this beautiful girl wanted me.

  Her lips were soft and tasted faintly of peach from the cider we’d shared. I lost myself in the velvet of her mouth. I felt a little high, a little drunk, a little bit of all the good things in life.

  Vibration, against my hip. My phone on the table. I ignored it. Tried to lose myself again. The phone kept going. She paused and pulled back. “Do you need to get that?”

  “No.” I shook my head, and the vibrating stopped. My phone chirped with a text message. Jonny was probably at the racetrack. What if he’d gotten hurt?

  “Just a second.” I picked up my phone, swiped my finger across the screen.

  We need you to come home and watch Cash. I stared at the sentence. Vaughn. I didn’t want to leave Amber. I set the phone back down, but it chirped again.

  Amber was watching my face. She frowned. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Vaughn. They want me to babysit.”

  “I guess you have to go.” She didn’t say it like a question. She must know what Vaughn was like, and for a moment I was tempted to tell her everything. Maybe she would understand. But then it might change how she acted around him at the diner. He would get suspicious.

  “Yeah, I should.”

  She slid off the table, brushed pine needles from the back of her towel. We’d left our shorts on the hood of her car to warm in the sun. “Okay.”

  We drove back in silence. Her car was a silver Mazda with a sun-faded dashboard and ripped seats, but it was tidy and smelled like her coconut suntan lotion. A small stuffed unicorn hung from the rearview mirror, white with a silver horn. I made it twirl with my finger. I wanted to tell Amber that she made me feel like magic, floating and spinning, but I kept quiet.

  When we passed the billboard, she made the sign of the cross. “I think about her,” she said. “That Shannon girl. I hope she didn’t suffer.”

  “Me too,” I mumbled, but after what Vaughn said, I knew Shannon had probably died in a lot of pain. She must have been so scared. That was the part that upset me the most. Wondering what she thought about in those last moments. Did she give up? Did she fight all the way to the end? I glanced over at Amber. “Don’t travel this road alone, okay? And don’t stop for anyone.”

  She gave me a nervous look. “You’re freaking me out.”

  I didn’t like that I’d said almost the same thing to Vaughn, but this was different.

  “It’s important. Promise me.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was soft, her eyes wide. “I promise.”

  * * *

  We were at the road near my aunt’s house. “Can you let me out here? Vaughn…”

  “Sure, totally.” She pulled over, put the car in park. “Text you later?”

  “Yeah.” I hoped she might kiss me again, but then another text message chirped. I pulled my phone out of my side pocket and turned it off.

  “Are you going to be in trouble if you don’t answer?”

  “No, he’s just telling me to get home.” I shrugged and gathered my backpack, acting like it happened all the time. “Talk to you later.”

  I walked around the corner and the house came into view. The driveway was empty. If neither of them was home, why had he texted? I looked back over my shoulder. Amber was already gone. Gravel crunched under my feet as I walked toward the house. Crickets chirped in the grass. Cash loved to catch them. I’d help him for hours, just to avoid being inside.

  I used my key and let myself into the house,
hung my backpack by the door. When I turned my cell back on, there were no new messages. I plugged my phone into the charger. Maybe Lana had parked in the garage. I called out, but she didn’t answer. The house was empty.

  There were a few plates and glasses on the counter, so I slid them into the dishwasher, popped in a detergent tablet, and turned it on. Even though Lana said I was family, it still felt like I needed to earn my keep. I hadn’t forgotten how Vaughn had called me a problem.

  I found a bag of chips in the pantry and was walking out of the kitchen when the front door opened, then closed with a slam. Vaughn, wearing jeans and a black windbreaker. I stopped abruptly. I hadn’t heard his truck over the sound of the dishwasher.

  He set his camera bag onto the table, his gaze going to my wet hair, then down my body. I was in Amber’s bathing suit, my T-shirt overtop, everything damp. I crossed my arms over my chest, the chips hanging loose from my hand.

  “You said you needed me to babysit.”

  “We’re going out.”

  “Lana’s not here.”

  “You didn’t ask if you could go to the lake.” He grabbed a beer out of the fridge, pulling the tab and taking a swallow. I stood near the counter.

  “It was a last-minute thing.”

  “The way you were kissing Amber it looked like you’ve spent a lot of time together.” He took another swallow of his beer. “Stopped to take some photos and saw it all.”

  My cheeks flamed. The best thing in my life, the truest thing, and he’d been watching. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t say a word. I looked at his camera case.

  My cell chirped on the counter. A text. I spun around, but not fast enough. He grabbed my phone. The screen was bright. It hadn’t locked yet.

  “That’s mine!” I tried to snatch it from his hand, but he stepped back.

  He was swiping his finger up my screen. Reading my text messages, and all I could do was watch and seethe. Thank God I’d erased my conversations with Jonny. Vaughn tapped at the screen, swiped some more, tapped again. My photos? Facebook? What was he looking at?

  After a moment he lifted his head, his ghost eyes narrowed. “I thought you were a smart girl, Hailey. You can’t rent a place without money, and I know every business owner in this town. You think they want to hire a messed-up kid? I’ll make sure they don’t.”