“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”
Chapter 15
The three-word text from Remy had made Cassie’s heart sink: Stosh is back.
It all started two hours ago when Cassie was sitting in the kitchen, trying to block out the noise from the thrumming music in Keisha and Maya’s room so that she could squeeze in some study time before Andrew came over, when she got the first text. The news brought the cheese raviolis she’d had for dinner right up to the top of her stomach. Acid churned there, threatening to rise up her esophagus.
At a time like this Cassie felt guilty about being away at college, unable to help Remy and Trevor and Maisy. Yeah, it was a relief to be outside the scope of Mom’s craziness, but she’d had to leave prisoners behind: her siblings.
Her immediate reaction had been to jump in the car and speed north on the Interstate until she got home. Someone had to protect the kids, and if Mom was going to be part of the problem, that left only Cassie to enforce some sort of solution. But it was late, after ten, and if she made the ninety-minute drive now, she would never get back to campus for her morning classes.
The words of Cassie’s psych textbook blurred as she texted a response to Remy.
Cassie: Wtf! Are they fighting again?
Remy: Stosh got violent.
Cassie: Call the police! Is he there? Is everyone okay?
Remy: We’re okay. Stosh came in while Mom was gone and smashed her vase. Left this mess.
The photo from Remy showed a puddle of glass over the top of the baby grand. A second photo showed a mess of rose petals and leaves on the floor. Yeah, he’d trashed Mom’s flowers, all right. Jerk.
Cassie texted: Is Mom freaking out?
Remy: She’s not here. She’s meeting with Mr. Schulteis.
“At this time of night?” Cassie said aloud. “I know what’s on their agenda.”
“Are you okay?” Keisha asked as she swung open the fridge. “You’re looking a little freaked out.”
“Trouble at home.” Cassie scraped her long, thick hair into a ponytail, then let it fall on her back. “My mom’s evil boyfriend is back.”
“Aw. Is he a bad dude?”
“They were really bad together.”
“Yeah.” Keisha twisted open a bottle of kombucha and took a sip. “That sucks. I feel bad for you.” She gave a little pouty face, her lower lip protruding.
Cassie shrugged it off. She talked with her roommates, but she never let on to the depth of her emotions or fears. Nobody really got it. “I need to call my sister.”
“I hope everything’s okay,” Keisha called over her shoulder as she went back to her room.
Remy didn’t answer her phone, but texted that she would call back in a bit. Great. Nothing like being stalled when you’re in an agony of worry.
It was at least fifteen minutes until Remy called back.
“What’s going on?” Cassie asked. “Are you okay? Are Trevor and Maisy home?”
“I’m fine. We’re fine. I don’t think they know anything happened.”
“Why couldn’t you take my call?”
“I had to take a shower. I’d just gotten home from rehearsal when I texted you.”
“What did Stosh say to you? Was he really creepy?”
“I didn’t see him. I just found his little gift to Mom when I came in.”
“That’s so awful.” Cassie felt bad for her sister; sweet Remy, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. “You must have been so scared. I know I was. I was about to jump in the car and head up there.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. There’s really nothing anyone can do tonight.”
“There would be if Mom was around. It’s her job to protect you guys. You should text her to come home. Aren’t you scared that he’s going to come back?”
“I was a little creeped out, so I called a friend. He’s going to stay with me, and I know Stosh won’t give him any trouble.”
“That’s good.” Cassie couldn’t resist asking, “Who is it?”
“He’s here now, so I’m going to go,” Remy said evasively. “But don’t worry, Mama Bear.”
Cassie had come to dislike that nickname, but tonight it endeared Remy to her.
“I just wanted you to know what was up,” Remy continued, “but we’re okay here. I’ll talk to Mom about it tomorrow. Maybe you can call her, too. Your word has more sway with her.”
“Of course I’ll talk to her, but lately everything I do seems to piss her off.”
“She’s mad at the world right now.”
“She needs to grow up.” Cassie didn’t check the venom in her voice. She’d had it with her mother.
“I gotta go,” Remy said. The girl who was obsessed with selfies thought it was rude to ignore a friend to be on the phone. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” As Cassie ended the call, worry gave way to annoyance and relief. Now that the crisis was averted, she felt tears welling in her eyes. She couldn’t stop thinking of Maisy and Trevor asleep in their beds while Stosh, all red in the face and bulging eyes, was downstairs smashing things up. Slouching over the table, she rested her head on her arms as a small whimper slipped out.
“Hey, there.” Andrew’s voice, tentative and low, came from behind her. “Olivia let me in. I guess you didn’t hear the bell.”
“Sorry.” She lifted her head and swiped at her eyes. “I’m so stressed.”
“The psych exam? I can help you with that.”
“No. Problems at home.”
“Oh. I can’t help you with that.” He took a seat beside her and leaned close. “What’s going on?”
“I got a scary text from my sister,” she began, then spilled the whole story, filling him in on the problems between Stosh and Ariel, as well as her mother’s tendency toward “hands-off” parenting.
“Wow, you’ve really been through hell night,” he said, running his thumb over a groove in the kitchen table. He told her that he wasn’t surprised to hear that she was the responsible one in the family, though it was hard to imagine having a parent who didn’t enforce discipline. “I would have loved that freedom in high school.”
“No, you wouldn’t. There’s no safety net with my mom, no one to catch you when you fall.”
“Yeah, but at the other end of the spectrum are the parents who act like jailers. I’m not saying my parents were that bad, but I was always sneaking around, trying to duck my mother’s radar. She runs the house like a training camp. Both of my parents were in the navy. I don’t think they’ll ever get that lifestyle out of their system.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little discipline,” Cassie said.
“Yeah. I guess we want what we didn’t have.” He reached over and squeezed her knee, and the gesture made her realize how far they had come. They had become comfortable with each other’s company and familiar with each other’s body. “You’re so grounded. Hard to believe you were raised in the wilds.”
She snickered. “It wasn’t always so crazy. When my stepfather was alive, he kept things on an even keel. Oliver was a rock. He was always there for us, always in a good mood. He worked out of an office at home, and each afternoon he’d pick up Remy and me from school, and then take a break to have a snack with us. He made dinner almost every night, and we’d eat together. We were a family.”
“How long has he been gone?”
She shrugged, trying to keep it casual despite the tight knot growing in her throat. “Four years.” And she missed him. She missed the family they used to have. It wasn’t something she had ever talked about with friends or family. But Andrew was different. He cared. He wanted to listen. And she trusted him. For the first time in her life, Cassie trusted someone enough to really open up. She knew that the truth sometimes drove people away, but so far Andrew didn’t seem daunted by her admissions of her weird family life.
“My stepfather was a great parent,” she said. “It’s my mom who lacks emotional stability.” With that, she began the story of Ariel Alexand
er, opening the Pandora’s box of family secrets. With any luck, none of the escaped demons would bite her in the ass.
“Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, please!” Ariel gasped as the intruder ensnared her in his arms, pulling her back against him. Her body went stiff as the cold blade of his knife pushed into the flesh of her neck. Her pulse pounded, hammering in her ears, and her mind buzzed with the shrill whirr of adrenaline. She braced for the brutal slice of the sharp edge, but there was only pressure. That meant he was pressing the blunt side to her skin; maybe he didn’t mean to kill her. Or maybe he just wanted to scare the hell out of her first.
“Please, let me go.” She could feel his erection pressing into her bare bottom. “I’ll . . . I’ll do anything to . . .”
“You already did, you whore.” That voice, that low growl. It was someone she knew.
The realization allowed her to draw a breath of relief. She could reason with someone she knew. One of his hands moved across her belly and hooked over her hip bone in a hold that was possessive. Familiar. The detail shook loose some of the scales of fear, allowing the truth to surface.
“It’s you,” she hissed, reaching up for the hand that held the knife. “You bastard.” Careful to avoid the blade, she clamped her fist over his and pushed, moving the knife away from her. “Oh, my God, look at that blade! You could have sliced me from here to heaven. Are you crazy?”
“I’m pissed. If you didn’t guess that already.”
“Give me that knife!” Ariel nearly spat the words out as fury sputtered forth. How dare he? She squeezed his hand until he released, letting the blade drop to the thick pile carpet with barely a sound. “I can’t believe you pulled a knife on me. I can’t believe it!” She picked up the knife and marched to the window. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That you’re fucking around behind my back, you bitch.”
“What?” She tugged the window open and flung the knife out to the backyard. “And don’t think I won’t throw you out, too. Pulling a knife on me! What kind of person are you?” She wheeled around and shoved him in the chest. “What are you, a tough guy? Think you’re going to abuse me? Slice me up? Or just manipulate me.” She pushed at his chest again, and though his face remained stoic, he stepped back. He was wearing jeans—only jeans—and the sight of his bare chest, the feel of muscular ridges beneath baby-smooth skin, was definitely getting to her.
“I saw you go off with him. You left with Mr. Schulteis.”
“To discuss the damn show.”
“You went to his house, didn’t you? Did you fuck him, too?”
The jealous tension in his face, the clench of his jaw, the strain in his body—all combined together to arouse her. Granted, the knife scenario was way over the top, but adrenaline still thrummed in her veins, amplifying the anger and desire. This time, instead of shoving him, she grabbed him by the waistband of his jeans and pulled him closer.
“What if I did?” she murmured, unclasping the rivet and freeing his erection. “What if I did fuck him?”
“I’ll kill him.” Fury had dilated his pupils, making the circles so wide and dark you could get lost in them.
Oh, he talked a big game, she thought as she dipped into his pants and stroked him over his boxers. “I think you’re all talk.” Though his talk was eliciting a warmth that throbbed through the core of her body.
He reciprocated, sliding his fingers over the slick folds between her legs. That light buzz of contact made her knees go weak.
“Did he do this to you?” he asked as his fingers teased her, stoking the flames.
“I saved myself for you,” she murmured, leaning into him. “Nothing happened with him. I told you, I’m a monogamous creature: One man at a time.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better stay that way. Loyal to me.”
“You’re so possessive,” she teased. “But you need to get that temper in check. I can’t believe you broke my vase. You idiot. That was a gift from a good friend of mine.”
“How good?” He sank his teeth into the side of her neck, working the sensitive tendons, melting her tension to wanton longing. “Who gave it to you? I want to find him and kick his ass.”
“You’re just full of piss and vinegar tonight.” She pushed him onto the mattress, climbing on top.
As she ran her mouth down his chest, sucking the salt from his skin, she wondered how she was going to give him up. Oh, the end was coming, dark clouds gathering with impending thunder and pounding rain.
It was inevitable, but not imminent. For now, she would mount him and screw him like a tigress. Tomorrow be damned. Tonight, she would close her eyes and enjoy the ride.
Chapter 16
The dream kept tugging Rachel back to the roiling, dark waters of the lake. Panic trilled in her chest as she kneeled on the dock at the swim park, reaching into the water, grabbing at the small bodies that kept surfacing. Whenever she had a chance, she would pluck a child from the water, grabbing a pickled hand or a stretched-out T-shirt or the waistband of a pair of pants.
Where were they all coming from, these drowning children? They kept emerging from the inky blue depths, bloated and immobile, and yet when she pulled them onto the deck they sprang to life and walked away as if she’d merely helped them down from a ladder at the playground. She was grateful that they were surviving, but when would this end? When would the churning waters stop coughing up the bodies of Timbergrove’s children?
Again she reached down toward the silvery sheen of a white belly and found a little girl’s arm. She recognized the gold band of the temporary tattoo on her arm. “Oh my God, it’s Remy!” she shouted to Ariel, who knelt beside her, rescuing children with methodical precision.
“No, it’s not.” Cool as a cucumber, Ariel seized the girl’s arm, popped her out of the water, and plunked her little body onto the dock, landing her like a fish. The girl’s long curls, barely wet, swept aside to reveal Maisy.
“Told you,” Ariel said with a scowl, then leaned back over the side of the dock.
“Maisy, honey, are you okay?” Rachel’s hand shook as she reached to the limp girl.
Maisy’s head swiveled toward her like a doll’s, her eyes falling open to reveal a flat, icy stare. “I’m fine.” Her body bucked once, and then she bounced up onto her feet. Her skin was pink and healthy now, her clothes dry. Without another word she ran off the dock, disappearing behind a shrub in the park.
Rachel wanted to follow to check on the girl, but she couldn’t turn away from the lake, where the black waters were even now spitting up another young body. . . .
She awoke moaning, trying to say no but unable to form any words as the vise around her chest seemed to crush all breath and circulation from her body.
Only a dream, of course, but a brutally dismal one.
Rolling onto her side, Rachel checked the clock on the nightstand and groaned. Four twenty-two. Way too early to get out of bed, but too scary to return to that morbid dream world.
She flipped her pillow and tried to burrow into the cool, pristine surface. Tried to wipe her mind clean of the dream and the rotten incident that had inspired it. That crappy rehearsal. Her backstage job had been under control, most of the kids ready for the finale, when Rachel had slipped out to the wings to watch the second-to-last sketch, “Heart.” She’d seen it all:
Cooper’s callous expression, a flicker of evil shadowing his handsome face as he’d stood back and let Remy drop to the stage. She’d caught the look of shock on Remy’s face and the horrible sound of her bones banging against the wood.
And she couldn’t get it out of her head, as evidenced by that awful dream. Rachel was concerned about Remy and a little pissed with lackadaisical Ariel, who’d breezed off for a hookup with Craig instead of doing the right thing.
Rachel threw back the covers and sat up with a scowl. “You sound so judgmental.” She wasn’t that way. Blame it on sleep deprivation, not firing on all pistons. It would be wise to go back to sleep, but she couldn
’t risk falling back into that dark lake dream.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and checked the string of texts to see if Ariel had answered her.
Rachel: I’d love to smack Cooper Dumbass back to last Tuesday. What’s Craig doing about it?
Ariel: Keeping cool. Don’t want to make things worse.
Rachel: This is not going away. Kids say he’s plotting against her.
Ariel: I got this. Don’t worry, Mother Hubbard.
Rachel: You know me. Talk soon. Coffee in the AM?
No answer. Well, sure. Only a crazy person would send a text at four in the morning. Only a crazy person was up at this time of night.
With a sigh of resignation she grabbed her robe from the hook and scrambled into socks to keep her feet warm on the cold kitchen floor. What had happened to her? She usually slept like a rock. It felt a little creepy, switching off lights to fend off the night. The overhead kitchen lights were stark white, so she switched them off and measured coffee and water in the dim glow of the bulb over the stove. A few minutes later the coffeemaker was steaming away.
She scrolled through the television guide—another wasteland at this time of night—and settled on a mundane but reassuring rerun of a family sitcom. Trying to be quiet on the stairs, she went back up to grab the novel she’d been reading. Halfway down the hall, she paused as she noticed the dim bar of light under Jared’s door. Was he up, or had he fallen asleep with the light on?
“Jared?” Her voice was soft as she gave two gentle knocks and turned the knob. The lamp on his desk illuminated his stack of schoolbooks, an empty plate and glass, his laptop and neatly made bed.
What the hell?
Moving into the room, she sensed from the eerie stillness that he had not spent the night here. Still . . . she had to check. She slid open the desk drawer, the one he’d used to store his stash of plastic bags and rubber bands. Now it contained two old binders and a Nerf football. Relief sighed from her lips.
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