Boiling Over

by Thea McAlistair

  “Sorry, there is no coffee,” he said. “The pot broke.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay.” I extended a hand. “Do you want me to have a look at it?”

  “No, I have it. Mangia.”

  He waved at the table where he’d dumped the typewriter box. A plate with a piece of bread and a single egg rested on top of it. This was what I had rushed down to eat? Still, he had tried. He’d worked nights back in Westwick, same as me. By all rights, he ought to have been groggy and stumbling around, not cooking breakfast. And aside from the coffee, he hadn’t made too much of a mess. Boiling eggs wasn’t all that difficult.

  I slid into a chair. Damn, wobbly one again. “I should be the one making breakfast. You’ve got a big day in front of you.”

  He shrugged and ran a hand over his slicked-back curly hair. “I figured I might as well. I was already up. I was too hot to sleep.”

  “Same. But just think, India would have been worse.”

  He gave me a perplexed look, but then he laughed. “I imagine we could ask the locals how they stand it. I’m sure they know lots of things we don’t.”

  “If I’d known you were awake, I would have come down.” Thoughts of cuddling next to him floated by, but in this weather, that would have been akin to lighting ourselves on fire. “Could have talked then, at least.”

  “Perhaps tonight,” he answered with a smirk. “Though I think you need sleep more than you need my company. You have such dark circles.” I shrugged. Yes, I definitely needed some sleep, but I’d stay up a hundred nights if I could talk with him through them all. Then again, he probably didn’t want me sacrificing something necessary for him. To stop my already twisting thoughts, I changed the subject.

  “What’s Bella having you do, anyway?” I asked.

  “Ah.” He smiled sheepishly. “The business is growing and they’re thinking of making some new investments—”

  “She wants you to cover up smuggling, doesn’t she?”

  “Don’t say it like that, caro. It’s not like anyone is getting hurt.”

  I didn’t want to get into an argument about the accuracy of that statement, so I let it go. “Did you do Pearl’s hair?”

  “She asked if I could tie bows, so I did. Should I not have?”

  “You’re fine. She trusts you, at least.”

  I glanced at the hall to make sure she wasn’t on her way in and lowered my voice. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this. I don’t know the first thing about raising kids, let alone girls.”

  “Well it was us or Bella or the state, and I think even at our worst, we will do better than either of those. And we will not be the worst. You may not have grown up with other children, but in my family, they were inescapable.” He finished cleaning up and turned around. “And believe me when I tell you, she is as good as they come. We will not have a hard time.”

  “Yeah, I guess. What ab—”

  A banging, rattling sound made me jump in my seat. My head filled with the nightmares I’d just escaped—memories of gunshots, of Donnie and Martin bleeding out in my arms—and my chest ached as I struggled to breathe. Then, as quickly as the panic came up, it dissipated, leaving me gasping, staring wildly at nothing. Sev watched me with confusion and concern, hand reached out like he meant to stop whatever was happening.

  The banging continued, but now I knew it for what it was—someone knocking on the back door. I turned, heart still pounding, to see Fran’s face at the window. She waved and smiled. I groaned.

  Sev patted me on the shoulder as he slid past me to get the door. He tried to block her path, and she darted under his arm. She had swapped out the dungarees for a flower-patterned dress, and her hair was now in one long braid down her back. I got the impression this was her Sunday best. Or courting clothes, in her mind.

  “Hello, Mr. Carrow,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Hello. Are you going to say hello to Mr. Arrighi, or is he chopped liver?”

  She froze and embarrassment passed across her face. She twisted to give him a quick smile and awkward wave before turning back to me. Behind her, Sev rolled his eyes as he closed the door.

  “They’re gathering a search party to look for Mr. Trask,” she said.

  He was still missing? Not good. I looked at Sev. “Well, I guess you’re not starting work today.”

  “No, no one’s at the factory,” said Fran. “They’re all out looking.”

  Was she trying to talk us into joining them? “I mean, we’d love to help, but we don’t know what he looks like. So, go on without us and—”

  “Oh, I’m not going either. That’s why I came here. I figured you and Mr. Arrighi wouldn’t even know him if you saw him, so it would be silly for you to go. Can I sit?”

  She slipped into the chair next to me as quickly as an eel. I had to admire she had the guts to go straight for what she wanted. Sev, practically shaking with suppressed laughter, started rooting through the cabinets.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Miss Gaines? Tea? A glass of milk?” he asked.

  I shot him a warning look. He smirked.

  “No, thank you,” Fran replied, still not taking her eyes off me. “I can’t stay too long. I told Mrs. Davidson I’d watch her twins while they were out looking for Mr. Trask. I’d rather sit with a bunch of babies than go out looking for that old le—” Her eyes widened as she caught herself. “For Miss Howe’s beaux.”

  My brain had a hard time piecing together all the things she’d said so rapidly. Trask was old, or at least old enough a sixteen-year-old might think so. Forties, maybe fifties? Not shocking, considering he owned and operated a whole factory. But Judith Howe wasn’t much older than me. I’d heard of sugar daddies, but going out with a maple syrup magnate would be taking it somewhat literally. And what else had Fran been about to say? Lech?

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I’m sure Mrs. Davidson wouldn’t mind if you stopped by while I was there. They are babies, after all. They just sit there in the crib.” She smiled again. I imagined she thought she looked cute or maybe seductive. Mostly she was making me uncomfortable.

  I caught Sev’s eye over her shoulder and willed him to understand that we needed Fran out of our kitchen. Now. In a testament to our love, he managed to stop snickering behind his hands and approached the table.

  “Miss Gaines.” He said her name so sweetly that if I had been her, I’d have swapped my affections in an instant. “I’m sorry to interrupt. You have found us in the middle of breakfast,” he gestured at the plate still perched on the typewriter case, “and since you promised Mrs. Davidson you would babysit, I think you should go over there. What if they are stalling the search party for them? Mr. Trask might be hurt somewhere, and you wouldn’t want to delay his help, would you?”

  Her cheeks went scarlet, and her brow furrowed. “You’re right, how silly of me.” She stood. “Excuse me.” With three steps, she was back across the kitchen. The door banged again as she shut it hard.

  Free of her at last, Sev burst out laughing.

  “It’s not funny, you know,” I snapped.

  “Well it wouldn’t be, except you made such horrified faces.”

  I did have to admit it was probably amusing to watch me flounder my way through someone else’s farce but still. Fran was going to be trouble, and we didn’t need more. “Do you think we should tell her parents what she’s up to?”

  “Now, now.” Sev draped his arms over my shoulders and pressed his face into my hair. “She’s infatuated with you is all. Not her fault. It’s hard not to be.”

  “She’s what, sixteen? Seventeen? That’s a seven-year difference.”

  Sev cleared his throat. “Caro, I hope you remember we have a seven-year difference.”

  “You know what I mean. She can’t even be done with school yet.”

  “Well then, we should be pleased she’s in love with you and not someone who would take advantage of her. Because you know some other people would.”

&nb
sp; “Yeah.” Another thought slid into place. “Do you think it’s weird she doesn’t like Walter Trask?”

  “Well, she can’t like everyone. Perhaps she is angry he shooed her out to defend his own boyfriend as well?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, maybe.”

  My body still thrummed with anxiety from the banging door. I sat there for a moment, searching for comfort in Sev’s arms, but instead of comfort, his touch made me feel like I was going to shatter. I needed to smoke. Bad. I wiggled out of his grip. “Can I steal a cigarette from you? I left mine upstairs.”

  He sighed and produced both his silver cigarette case and lighter out of a pocket. “I should start charging you for these.”

  I shrugged as I lit it. There weren’t too many things we weren’t sharing already. Anyway, bumming cigarettes was better than sniping at him. I just needed a minute to breathe.

  Pearl wandered into the room, Daisy not more than five feet behind her. The cat padded her way across the room to sit and stare at nothing. Pearl crept up to the table, eyeing my toast. When she got next to me, she stopped cold and squinted.

  “I don’t like that,” she said.

  Were kids always this cryptic? “What don’t you like?”

  “The smoke.” She wrinkled her nose. “It makes my eyes and throat hurt, and I cough.”

  That was about par, considering how the rest of my morning had gone. How had I not known she was allergic before? When I thought about it, I had never seen her father smoke, and Martin hadn’t gone in for it either. And I hadn’t been around Pearl for more than an hour at a time until yesterday. I sighed. Well, smoking outside wouldn’t kill me.

  I slid out of my seat and went to the back porch. I leaned on the rail running about waist-high and stared into the trees. I had to admit the view was pretty. I just didn’t know what to do with it. No people, no cars, no other buildings in view. The only things I could hear were birds and Sev and Pearl’s voices drifting through the screen door, and they weren’t enough to drive away the silence choking me here. It itched across my back and burrowed into all the hollow places inside me, where it grew into something vicious. My grief multiplied in the quiet calmness, and even the smoke couldn’t drive it out.

  Something rustled by my leg, and I glanced down in time to see Daisy streak past me and down the stairs into the open yard. Her calico form continued at a dead sprint toward the forest on the edge of the property and disappeared into the brush. My breath caught and the smoke went down the wrong way. As I choked, Pearl screamed and pushed out the screen door I apparently hadn’t properly closed.

  “Daisy come back!” she cried. I managed to catch a fistful of her dress as she rushed by.

  “You can’t go running off,” I wheezed. “Especially not into the woods.” Woods where a grown man was lost, at that.

  Her green eyes filled with tears, and she began to wail.

  I had no problem letting the cat go. Those things came back, right? They knew who fed them. Daisy, in particular, was very good about knowing where she had the best chance of getting food. But that had been back in Westwick. In the country… Would a city cat even understand where it was?

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Me and Sev’ll get her. You stay here, okay? Sev!”

  “Already coming.” He appeared in the doorway behind me with the cage and without his jacket or tie. Smart man. I knew I liked him for more than his smile.

  I crushed my barely smoked cigarette under my heel. “Lock the doors and don’t open them for anyone but us, got it?”

  Pearl sniffled and nodded. I snatched the cage out of Sev’s hands and tramped down the stairs, determined Pearl not see how guilty I looked.

  If I had been hot before, it was nothing compared to how I felt after several hours traipsing through the woods. Sweat dripped into my eyes, making them sting. At some point, something snagged the cuff of my pants and ripped a jagged hole. Again, the mosquitos attacked, and I had to wave my arms to keep the other bugs away. Cicadas rattled, the remains of their carapaces littering the ground. I was fairly sure we weren’t lost, but only because I refused to consider the possibility.

  “When I get my hands on that fucking cat, I’m going to strangle it,” I muttered as I crunched through the underbrush.

  “Hush. What if Pearl heard you say such things?” Sev panted. His curls were fraying in the humidity, and he’d undone the top buttons of his shirt. He paused to wipe his face with his handkerchief, and I took the opportunity to stop too. I dropped the cage and massaged my scarred arm.

  “Well she’s not here to hear me. And anyway, I don’t care. Should’ve left the stupid thing in Connecticut.”

  “You know Pearl wouldn’t have come if she couldn’t have Daisy,” he answered. “Besides, Bella put a lot of work into capturing that cat again. She wouldn’t want the effort to go to waste.”

  “It’s about to. What if it, I don’t know, fell in a river or got eaten by a wolf?”

  “I do not think there are wolves anymore.”

  “Good, because if I found one, I would feed the cat to it.”

  He rolled his eyes and flapped a hand near his face. “If you’re going to be angry about it, you should go back. I’ll stay and look.”

  “No,” I groaned. “I let the thing out, the least I can do is bring it back.”

  I scanned the area. A cat might be anywhere. Trees rose up on all sides, maples mostly. Others I couldn’t identify, having lived my entire life in a mess of concrete and steel. Hundreds of shrubs and little plants sprouted underneath the trees, which made walking difficult and even a hazard. They hid quite a few popping roots, fallen logs, and all kinds of little burrows. The one indicator we were anywhere near civilization was the single-file dirt track meandering alongside a creek.

  Something rustled in the undergrowth somewhere to the right. A flash of orange. A fox or our quarry?

  Sev saw it, too, and a smile spread across his face. “Aha, now we have you.” He crept forward, and I quietly propped the cage, so its door faced the sky.

  The plants shook again, and the flash of orange sped to the right near the dirt path. I cursed our bad luck. Now it was going to be at least another half hour of chasing. I was exhausted, parched, and starving, not to mention craving the cigarette I hadn’t gotten to finish.

  Sev sighed. “Well, she can’t go too far,” he said. “Stay here. I am going to follow the road.” He indicated the track. “I will come back with Daisy or in five minutes. Whichever is first. Then we go home, cat or no, I promise.”

  I threw up my hands in resignation. I was too tired and hot to argue. He followed the path as it curved out of sight, and I leaned against the tree and stared at my watch. Five minutes? I’d go after him in four.

  At three minutes and twenty-two seconds, I heard him cry out. All my nervous energy came crackling back, and I ran up the path yelling for him, leaving the cage behind. Thankfully he hadn’t been too far, and he appeared, stumbling back along the road. He was doubled over, handkerchief across his face. He saw me and stopped, only to turn and vomit into the underbrush a moment later.

  I skidded to a stop in front of him and grabbed his shoulders, scanning him for any sign of injury or illness. My heart beat a hundred times a second. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  He nodded but continued to gag into his handkerchief. He raised his head and gulped for air. His face had gone ashen. “I think I found Walter Trask.”

  Chapter Four

  The body was barely recognizable. Not that I would have been able to tell it had belonged to Walter Trask, but the other people who had come running when they heard Sev yelp assured me that it was. Something about a birthmark covering the entire back of his hand. They couldn’t have been able to tell from his face. Besides the fact that a chunk of his head had been smashed in, some predator—hell, potentially even Daisy—had gnawed on his nose and gotten at his eyeballs. The remaining skin had turned a bizarre mixture of maroon and yellow. Not surprising Sev had th
rown up. I was on the verge myself.

  Somehow in the search for the cat, we had stumbled onto Trask’s property, more specifically, the grove his factory tapped into for maple sap. The search party out looking for him had been only a hundred or so yards away. I glanced over them while we waited for the cops to show: a good fifty people had turned out, including Arthur Parrish and Judith Howe. Crista was absent.

  Aside from the body, the scene of Trask’s death wasn’t much to look at. This patch of forest looked like the rest as far as I was concerned, except for the wider path and the little plug holes in the nearest trunks. Oh, and the bloody branch as thick as my upper arm laying in the dirt beside him.

  Deputy Sheriff Robert Kelly let the sheet drop back over Trask’s head, and the stretcher-bearers hauled the body back toward the main road. He turned to Sev and me. “So, did you know him?”

  Sev shook his head. He was still pale and kept his now vomit-stained handkerchief close to his nose. I suspected it smelled like bile, but maybe it was easier than smelling the rot. Trask may only have been dead for about a day, but the heat had done his corpse no favors.

  The sheriff looked at me. “How about you?”

  “No? Look, we just got into town yesterday and—”

  “According to some of the other people I talked to, he went missing before you arrived.”

  “And?”

  Kelly looked me up and down. “And maybe you took a detour before showing up.”

  Another corrupt cop in my life? And this one was Sev’s age, maybe even younger. “We don’t even know who he is, why would we kill him? And anyway, it might have been an accident.” I pointed at the bloody branch. “Could have fell on him, couldn’t it? Going to start questioning the tree?”

  “Alex, don’t,” Sev hissed.

  Judith Howe, with her doll-like face, appeared at my side. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she held herself proudly. “Bobby Kelly, you leave them alone. Just because they’re strangers doesn’t mean they’re murderers,” she said. “You should know better, not having been born here yourself.”