by Erin Healy
“No prank, Sexy Lexi.”
Lexi felt blood rush out of her head. She took a shallow breath and lowered her voice.
“Okay. What does it mean, Ward?”
“War-den. Warden. Get it right.”
There was no sarcasm in her voice now. “Warden. What does it mean?”
“That’s my girl. It means—if you love your daughter like I think you do—that you are going to show up at Matthew’s hearing next Friday and testify on his behalf.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you love your daughter.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t love her?”
“No! I can’t . . . Norman Von Ruden? He’s insane.”
“Not clinically.”
“Don’t do that. They diagnosed him with something.”
“Nothing a fine shrink and a few bottles of pills couldn’t handle.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I hate him.”
“You loved him once. I’ll wager there’s still whore in you.”
Lexi lashed out, clawing the letter out of his hands and scratching the skin of his knuckles. His keys fell onto the blacktop.
“How dare you!”
Ward seized both her wrists easily and shoved her back down onto the seat of the car.
“He killed my sister! He wrecked my family! My parents—”
“Will be mourning the loss of little miss Molly as well if you don’t come to the party. So be wise about it, or I’ll tell your secrets to everyone you love—and plenty of people you don’t.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you should have chosen me, Lexi. All those years ago, you chose Von Ruden. But you should have chosen me.” He crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it across Lexi onto the passenger seat.
The light over the car died again. In the blackness, Lexi reached out and slammed the car door, then punched down the manual lock, then contorted her body to hit the three remaining knobs in sequence.
“Save the date,” he said through the glass.
She willed the wind to carry his words away, but the air was as still as her dead sister, bleeding on the sticky tiles of the mall floor.
{ chapter 2 }
Beyond the windshield of Lexi’s car, the dark mountain range was a jagged saw blade that would tear the sky in two if the wind started blowing again. Crag’s Nest slept, the few streetlights blinked yellow, and no other cars blocked the narrow stone bridge that separated her simple neighborhood from the flashy historic district and tourist traps. It took her only five minutes rather than the usual eight to race home. Ward’s remarks about seeing Molly at school burned the back of Lexi’s throat.
She spent every second of the drive regretting the choices she’d made that had led, however indirectly, to Ward’s visit. On some level, his demand should not have come as a surprise to her. She’d known that he was a truly low man. After dragging her husband down into the sludgy gutters of meth addiction, Ward had vanished at the same time Lexi’s world spun off its axis: it was the year that Norm killed Tara, that Grant drove away, that her father lost his mind.
Ward’s departure from her life had been a weight lifted, though she couldn’t take any credit for it. She had always believed that once Norm fell and Grant fled, Ward had no use for her. Which made his accusation about her rejection all the more confusing.
Ward’s intentions regarding Norm’s parole were a mystery. Her testimony couldn’t guarantee the man’s release and might even be called into question if the parole board learned the truth of her relationship with Norm. For a fleeting second she wondered if doing this thing Ward had asked of her might be the best way to keep her secret hidden.
How would Lexi explain a testimony to her mother?
The more pressing question was how to get through this with no damage to Molly. If her daughter was about to face the consequences of the most foolish decision Lexi had ever made, Lexi didn’t know what she would do. There was no more precious child on the face of the earth than that little girl. All the love that Lexi had ever wanted to pour into another human being— love spilled out and lost over Grant’s closed fists—had been welcomed by Molly’s open hands.
Lexi pulled the lopsided Volvo into a gap that was not a parking space at the sidewalk leading to her apartment. The car creaked when she jumped out. She slammed the door and came around the front fender in a tight corner. Her foot connected with a metal object that tipped and then clattered.
“Oh no.”
Painters who’d been touching up the flower boxes before spring planting had left a can behind. A small pool of black latex formed on the asphalt at the mouth of the can. Lexi stepped out of its reach and gingerly picked up the can by its handle, then carried it up the path toward her front door. She’d leave it outside, then take it to the manager in the morning.
The living room lamp shone through the window to her right. Lexi’s roommate had likely fallen asleep in the old La-Z-Boy. Gina had her own bed, and her own desk for studying in her very own room, but the eternal student zonked out most nights with some massive university text on her lap.
Lexi made a mental note: window: closed. Sturdy dowel still in place in the track. She hoped Gina was sleeping, or reading, and not something unimaginable.
Oh, stop it.
She blamed Tara’s murder for her tendency to jump on runaway mental trains. If Ward meant what he said, he wouldn’t do anything to her or Molly before Matthew’s hearing.
On the left side of the stoop, another window looked into the miniscule kitchen. A checkered café curtain covered the bottom half of the glass. The latches were in their upright, locked position. Gina knew better than to prop any window or door open. Lexi gave her an earful the first summer Gina lived with them until she caught on. Under the window, a planter box still contained the plants that had died months ago in October’s first freeze.
The screen slapped against Lexi’s backside while she shoved her key in the lock. It stuck, but she finally wiggled the deadbolt free of the jamb. The door glided open. The bottom of the screen clipped the heel of her shoe as she entered and passed through the short front hall.
Gina’s recliner was empty. Her textbook lay open on the floor under an uncapped highlighter and legal pad. Her thick Bible balanced on the arm of the recliner.
Lexi closed the door, turned the lock, and headed straight for the room she and Molly shared.
The floorboards outside the door squeaked. She didn’t try to avoid them this time, grasping the knob and pushing the door open, half hoping to wake Molly from a peaceful sleep so she could enjoy the good moment of tucking her back in again. The little girl’s lava lamp nightlight cast a pink glow over the shoebox room.
Molly was as she always was: snoring on her stomach, one arm hanging off the queen mattress. Her open mouth was all that was exposed by the thin sheet and threadbare blanket that otherwise covered her entire body. She slept kitty-corner across the bed and claimed this was because she wanted to keep Lexi’s side warm for her.
Lexi’s shoulders relaxed at this beautiful sight. She bent and kissed Molly on the back of the head, then stroked the girl’s hair off her cheek. Circuiting the foot of the bed, Lexi lifted the curtain and checked the sliding glass door that led out into the back common area: latch secure, dowel in place. Two of the three lamps in the courtyard were out. The rest cast a weak beam across weed-pocked grass. No one was roaming at this hour. She dropped the window covering.
Nothing in the room was out of place.
Molly stirred and said something about noodles, then breathed heavily again.
Lexi returned to the hall to look for Gina. The women had known each other since they were sixteen, so when Gina needed a place to stay and Lexi needed someone to help look after Molly, they struck a deal: Lexi let her live in the second bedroom rent-free in exchange for babysitting Molly at night. Gina was six years into her late-started bachelor’s degree and figured she could
graduate next fall from the little Bible college down in Riverbend if she stayed focused. Her parents’ decision to quit paying her way offered considerable incentive.
The desk lamp in Gina’s room painted a stripe of yellow at the bottom of her door. Lexi knocked gently. When her friend didn’t answer, Lexi took care to open it undetected.
Gina was bowed over her laptop on the desk, slumped forward in one of the chairs from the kitchen table. Her forehead rested on the touchpad, and her straw-blonde hair blanketed her shoulders. The glare of the monitor turned her white sweatshirt blue.
“Gina?”
Her hands, which seemed to have slid off the keyboard in the middle of typing, rested on the back of their wrists against the lip of her desk at each side of her bent head. Her relaxed fingers, turned upward, cupped invisible balls.
Lexi’s heart interfered with her rational self, refusing to examine this scene rationally.
“Gina . . .”
She didn’t want to, but Lexi reached out to lift her hair away from Gina’s face.
“Gina, are you okay?”
Lexi’s unsteady hand brushed her friend’s shoulder.
They both screamed at the same time. Gina shot out of the chair, knocking it backward into her bed as she scrambled to get away from Lexi. The chair bounced off the mattress and came back at her, catching her bare foot midair and tripping her. Her wide eyes registered shock as she flailed, snagging the desk lamp with her fingers. The lamp teetered.
Lexi reached for her, missed. Groped for the lamp, caught it. Gina’s fingers, tangled in the cord, nearly wrenched it away, but Lexi held on. The tilting shade cast angular shadows around the room. Gina’s head smacked the closet’s accordion doors, rattling them hard, and she landed heavily on her tailbone.
“Ooff!”
Lexi held her breath. Gina burst into giggles.
All her fear escaped Lexi in an explosive laugh of her own.
“Doggone you, Lexi. I’m having a heart attack!”
“Shh! We’re gonna wake up Molly.”
“That girl could sleep through the second coming.”
Lexi set the lamp on Gina’s desk and leaned over to help her stand, bringing her full weight to bear. Gina was a good six inches taller than she was, and half again as wide.
Her heart, too, was twice as warm and three times as generous, Lexi believed.
There were tears of laughter in her roommate’s eyes and a red depression from the computer touchpad across her forehead.
“You’ve got to get more interesting classes,” Lexi said.
“Shoot, Lexi, it’s three in the morning. Nothing’s that interesting.” She wiped her eyes and tried to smother another outburst. Her effort sounded like a sneeze. “If you ever do that again I swear I’m moving out.”
“You can’t afford to move out.”
“I won’t be able to afford the therapy I’ll need if I stay.”
Lexi dropped onto the unmade bed. “I’m really sorry.”
“I’ll recover.” Gina reached for her upended chair, and Lexi realized how grateful she was that Gina was here, with Molly. That they both were okay.
“How was Molly tonight?”
“Angel as always. Cooked us up some spaghetti for dinner.”
“She’s good at spaghetti. Any leftovers?”
“You bet. She said you’d want some for breakfast.”
“You know it.”
Gina straddled the chair and rested her elbows on the back. “She’s learning blonde jokes.”
Lexi shook her head, embarrassed. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Oh pooh. I’m teaching them to her.”
“Gina!”
“Blonde walks into a library and tells the librarian, ‘I’d like a cheeseburger with fries and a diet coke.’”
“Stop it! You’re supposed to be tutoring her in division!”
“Librarian says, ‘Lady, I don’t know what you’re thinking. This is a library.’”
Lexi shook her head.
“The blonde is mortified. She apologizes profusely, drops her voice to a whisper, and says, ‘I’d like a cheeseburger with fries and a diet coke.’”
Lexi chuckled. “You’re corrupting my daughter.”
“She was in stitches for ten minutes. Honest-to-goodness, pure-kiddo funny bone.”
“I pay you way too much.”
“And I was going to broach the subject of a raise!”
Lexi drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
“So everything was okay here tonight? No weird goings on?”
“No more than usual.” Gina’s eyes shot away for half a second. If Lexi hadn’t been looking right at her, she wouldn’t have noticed. But when Gina caught her eyes again, Lexi found herself trying to remember whether looking away to the right or to the left indicated a lie.
After a lengthy pause Gina said, “Mrs. Johnson’s cat got stuck up on 10C’s balcony.”
“Juliet must get stuck up there twice a week.”
“And shall continue to do so until a tree surgeon trims that maple back.”
“The manager won’t spend the money. Especially not for a cat.”
“’Course he won’t. So the guys in 10A put on an impromptu performance of Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene. Molly suggested we take our spaghetti out on the back patio to watch.”
“Dinner theater.”
“Exactly.”
“Did it work—romancing the cat, I mean?”
“I don’t recall that the original Juliet hurled herself from the balcony, but that’s how the cat came down.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
Gina grinned. “Am I? Mort climbs up the tree, confesses his love and takes sweet Juliet in his arms . . . then the feline fatale claws him and gets dropped. I wasn’t sad to see the cat go down.”
“You’re hopelessly in love with those guys.”
Gina waggled her brows. “Just Mort. I told Molly she should save herself for Travis.”
Lexi stretched, then rose. “Maybe I shouldn’t leave you two alone so often. I’m not sure who’s corrupting who.”
“Not at all. We keep each other on the straight and narrow.” Gina yawned.
“You want some tea?” Lexi rested her hand on the doorknob.
“I’ll pass.”
“Thanks for all you do for Molly and me.”
“Oh gosh, don’t mention it. She’s a gem. And if it wasn’t for what you don’t pay me, you’d be gold yourself.”
“And yet you live in palatial splendor!”
Gina guffawed. She never complained about the shabby apartment, though Lexi hated it. She hated it enough for all three of them and figured Gina knew this.
Lexi pondered telling her about Norman Von Ruden’s parole, about Ward’s freaky visit and more frightening demands. Gina had been compassionate toward Lexi and Molly when Grant fell into his drug-addicted ways, but she didn’t know a thing about Norm except what the papers had reported of the murder. Lexi never spoke of him.
Gina stretched out on her bed, fully clothed, and yawned. The weight of the long night pressed down on Lexi’s body. She’d have tea and ponder Norman Van Ruden privately, then go cuddle up with Molly.
“Good night,” she said.
“’Night.”
She pulled Gina’s door closed. The living room light still shone into the hallway, crossing the strip of carpet and glancing off the cheap linoleum of the dark kitchen. Lexi went to turn it off and accidentally stepped on Gina’s textbook, which she’d left on the floor exactly halfway between the chair and the coffee table. Lexi picked it up and shut it, using the highlighter as a bookmark. Exposition of the Prophetic Texts. She retrieved the legal pad as well and carried the bundle to the kitchen, which also served as an eat-in dining area. She flipped on the light and set everything on the table next to the crumpled letter Ward had delivered to her less than an hour ago.
Her eyes locked on the wadded ball of paper. She hadn�
�t brought the letter in, had she?
Maybe she had, preoccupied as she’d been.
Lexi picked it up and lobbed it into the trashcan at the end of the counter. It would be impossible for her to forget the date, only a week away. No need for the threatening, red-inked reminder.
She rubbed her eyes and circled the table, grabbed an old stainless kettle off the stove, then turned on the ball of her foot and filled it with water from the tap. The kitchen was so small that she and Molly often joked they could set the table, cook dinner, eat, and wash dishes without moving their feet.
The water made a drumming sound as it filled the empty pot. Lexi massaged the back of her neck with her free hand. She turned her head to the left, toward the window that looked out over the front walkway.
She saw black paint and heard the kettle fall into the sink. The water kept running.
Black paint dripped from a three-circle target that had been brushed on the kitchen window. The kitchen window she had passed on her way into the apartment not ten minutes ago. There had been no paint on the window then.
An involuntary shudder shook Lexi’s body when she noticed that the paint had splattered her checked curtains. It was on the inside of the apartment.
Droplets of black speckled the countertop and the kitchen floor, leaving a broken trail that was smudged in front of the table. She must have stepped in it when she entered the kitchen. Her own shoe print led around the table and to the sink.
If Ward had followed her home and found a way in . . .
Lexi grabbed a knife out of her nearly empty knife block. It was short and dull but it was all she had. She held it out in front of her and followed the trail of black drops back to the hall. The carpets were worn from their original tan to a dingy gray, but as far as she could see, they were paintfree.
To her left: the bedrooms. Molly still snored. To her right: the front door. Closed. Both deadbolt and knob lock were vertical, secure. At eye level, though, a smudged row of four black stripes, rounded at the tips like fingers, gripped the door jamb.
Lexi’s whole body was shaking. Dear God, don’t let Ward be in the house. Dear God, protect us.
She tiptoed down the hall to the bedrooms, turning on the lights. Molly was okay, fully at ease in the rays of the lava-lamp. Thank you, God. Gina faced her wall, breathing evenly. Thank you, God. Lexi checked the closets, the bathroom, the shower. She opened the linen cupboard. The bottom shelf was one of Molly’s favorite hiding places.