Sticks and Stones

by Angèle Gougeon

  “You’re talking about Davis, aren’t you?” Jack asked, eyes narrowed and jaw grit. “So we, what, just let him go?”

  Sandra stared back. “You call the cops.”

  Jack sneered, “And let him ruin some girl’s life before they get there?”

  Sandra was tired and confused and all she wanted to do was flee this town. “Just shut up and listen, Jack. For once, please,” she pleaded. “Say you kill him. What happens to the next person I dream of? Or the one after that? What will you do? Kill them all?”

  Jack shook his head, but Danny just sat there, and Sandra had to breathe in hard to unblock the lump in her throat.

  “In my dream, I watched you kill an innocent person.”

  “No,” Jack said again, but this time he sounded defeated. “Sandra…”

  “He wasn’t even a bad man. He was just annoying, leaning on the horn. And then you walked right up to his car and shoved your knife into his throat.”

  Jack closed his mouth, swallowed and lowered his head. His fingers were back in his lap. The mug rested on the floor, a good thing since Sandra suspected it would otherwise be broken. She kind of wanted to shift over there and put her arms around him. Around the both of them.

  “I couldn’t save Lem, but I have to believe that he didn’t have to die. That maybe if he hadn’t been so far down that path…”

  “You saved Dad once, remember?” he asked, voice low. “You changed what happened.”

  “In the end I couldn’t.” Her vision had become so clouded she could only see the blurred color of their clothing, the room bright with sunlight. She could hear traffic on the road, the surge of early morning school buses and working vehicles. “Trying only made things worse. We can’t change it,” she said, choking it out.

  “How can it be worse than us being dead?” There was something dry in Jack’s voice and Sandra’s whole face crumpled. Maybe he regretted asking, maybe not, but Jack’s hands still came up, gently folding her into him.

  “It’ll be okay,” Daniel said from beside them and Sandra just shook her head.

  “It will be okay.” He sounded so certain that it burned behind her eyes, straight through to her chest, hitting hard.

  It won’t, she wanted to say. It damn well won’t. “Seen that, have you?”

  “Seen you,” he said, and Sandra felt herself breaking all over again.

  ~

  They didn’t take her gun away.

  She wished they had.

  Jack continued to follow Harvey. Sandra waited, and hoped she wasn’t dooming the world.

  The first day of the month, Harvey Davis pulled Marietta Rafferty into the back of his car. He didn’t know he was being watched. He didn’t know he was being followed. When an anonymous payphone call was made to the police, they were given Harvey’s license plate and home address. Marietta was still alive when they arrested him.

  On the ten o’clock news, the pretty woman in blue told them that fifteen other bodies had been recovered, all buried beneath the floorboards of Harvey’s urban home. Two were fresh.

  Sandra knew they’d find six more before the case was done.

  For the very first time, she actually believed Danny when he said they could change this.

  Maybe they could.

  She waited for the other shoe to drop.

  It felt like time was winding down, a stopwatch clicking forward every time they failed. Harvey Davis was over and done with, but there were so many to go, a thousand voices screaming in her ear, waiting to drag them down.

  Her eyes ached like there was smoke in the air.

  She passed people on the street and wondered if they’d one day become part of the body count. It’s fine, Danny said, while Jack didn’t say anything, trying hard not to believe.

  When she got home, Jack was gone. Again.

  Danny had only returned himself, made obvious by his grease-stained shirt. But he wasn’t back from work; Alan never made his employees stay so late. Sandra couldn’t help but look at them, wonder if they were up to something else, wonder if they were falling.

  Danny held a beer, mouth hitched up and not the least bit startled by her sudden appearance.

  “Hi,” she whispered, stepping close and resting at his side, wondering where he’d been, where Jack was, when they were getting out of this town. His skin was warm and the room was cold. The air unit sputtered and ghosted cool air across their shins.

  The truth of it was, Sandra had always hated how they’d lived after Lem. Whispering through towns and cities, abandoned houses and motels, running place to place as they tried to leave the nightmares behind. And yet, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t give to be on the road again. They could go too many miles in too few days, stare at the white and yellow lines until their eyes were sore, and still she’d want to go farther.

  “Quit thinking.” Danny’s hand was on her arm. The can pressed cold through the right sleeve of her shirt, spreading a slow damp spot. Sandra shook her head and the cold metal dug into her shoulder blade when he kissed her, short and messy. “Quit thinking,” he said again.

  “Okay.”

  His lips curved up. She was pretty sure he’d gotten grease on her shirt and his skin still smelled like the shop – dusty and gritty and warm. His callused fingers ran across her neck, feather light. A chill spread outward from them, electric fire and frost and Danny’s breath warm on one cheek. “What’re you doing?” Sandra turned her head sideways, caught his lips again.

  “Don’t know.” He shoved the can to the side, strong arms snagging her up and resting her on the back of the sunken couch. He kissed her, ferociously, teeth clashing and she had to wrap her legs and her arms around him to keep from sliding off the other side. His fingers got tangled in her shirt and hers in his hair.

  Her skin felt raw, over-sensitized. Sandra got her mouth on his neck, leaning over and biting down greedily on the muscle that corded there. She’d forgotten, a little, what it was like with Daniel. She’d never thought of herself as a bad girl, but he didn’t make her feel like a particularly good one. She felt untamed and wild.

  He leaned back, just a hair, enough to look at her and see her answering nod. Then he picked her up again, swung her around onto her feet and led her to his room.

  Jack’s bed was still a mess, but soon Danny’s was too. They crashed down. The blankets tangled around them. Calloused fingers caressed Sandra’s neck, moved down to the swell of her breasts and then past the waist of her jeans. Her skin and muscles fluttered there. She shuddered as he lifted her shirt, used his lips and mouth on her breasts. Her jeans were off and then so were his. Sandra ran her hands over his skin, down his back and to his thighs. She felt him quiver as she wrapped one hand around the length of him. He moved in her palm, then Danny’s mouth was back on hers. He was hot and perfect and right there and Sandra – she couldn’t see a thing. No premonitions. Only him and her. Her soul felt like it was floating.

  They slid against one another and Sandra moaned and bucked up as Danny slid so far within her that it almost hurt.

  She flew.

  When Sandra woke two hours later, Danny was gone from the bed. It was quiet, a gentle murmur from outside the room and the blue flickering light of the old television set. Sandra grabbed her shirt and pants and tumbled across the floor, went across the hall to pick something clean from her box-dresser. She could only see the top of Danny’s head from the back of the couch, sitting slumped with one arm hanging over the side and his hand dangling down. He was still in nothing but his boxer shorts and the inside air was cooler, pricking gooseflesh across Sandra’s skin.

  The clock in the kitchen read ten thirty.

  Jack wasn’t home.

  She shouldn’t worry, she knew. They were grown men. They knew how to take care of themselves. But they also knew how to kill someone. They knew how to hurt a person. How
to mess things up and fuck girls and thieve everyone because they’d been raised that way and most of the time they just didn’t care—

  Shuddering, in a cold sweat, Sandra gripped the fridge and pulled it open, pretending the chill in her bones came from the opened door where the leftover soup from two days ago resembled blood.

  She couldn’t get her brain to shut off.

  She had a bad feeling.

  There had been a girl in her dream – she’d told Jack. Warned him.

  She had seen them in the girl’s apartment suite, warm morning dawn spilling past the sheer curtains of her window. Jack was spread on the bed, sheets pulled to his waist and teeth marks on his pale neck and chest. The woman was thin, bones poking through her ribs and a needle resting on her naked thighs. She had a lighter and a spoon. Her hands shook.

  The lamp beside the bed was broken and the sash at the window was ripped. Paint curled on the wood, the windows looking out high over the city.

  Jack woke up when she tried to stick the needle in his arm.

  “C’mon,” she said, voice smoky, crying out when he gripped her arm, purple-blue bruises forming around the tracks in her skin

  His eyes had trouble focusing.

  “Aren’t you having fun, baby?”

  Before he left, Jack wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed because, no, he wasn’t having fun at all.

  She let the fridge door close, leaving her blinking in the darkness, listening to the television and Danny’s slow, steady breaths. She had her shoes on before she could think.

  She could see it in her mind’s eye. Jack meeting the girl – at a bar – because he wasn’t about to take a one-night stand out to dinner. Jack liked the beer and there was a pool table and he’d meet her, be taken in by her pale skin and thin wrists and fiery red hair. She looked tiny and frail and not quite healthy, but the bar light hid that. It hid the tracks on her arms and the flat color of her eyes and the smile that didn’t quite reach them.

  Sandra thought she heard Danny call her name before the front door closed.

  She could feel it in her bones, the urgency. She turned right. Ran. One block, two, another right turn past the shop sign, left at the brick building, another block, past the grocery, and then there was the bar, dark façade with a flickering neon sign. The outside looked kind of nice. But the inside was gritty, worse than normal. The clientele also looked grungier, like stepping into a back alley and a house of sin and a run-down prison all at once. There were bulbs missing along the left wall. There were deep, dark corners, but Sandra didn’t get a good look. Because Jack was running into her.

  He looked just as surprised as her.

  “Sandra?” he asked, like he was making sure, and then he was looking back in distaste and grabbing her arm, leading her out. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t be in here.”

  “I was looking for you.”

  “Why?” He gripped her arm and started off down the sidewalk. He walked fast and she had to jog every two steps, keeping up with those long legs.

  “What happened?” she gasped and tugged at her arm until he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Jack?” she asked. “Was it… Did she—”

  “I – Jesus,” he sounded angry, hands tangling up in his hair. There wasn’t much to grip, just muss it around a bit. He looked frustrated and plain old sick and tired. “I saw the marks. She came up to me – and my first reaction was cute. Legs up to here. Long neck. Nice lips. But you just—” Jack swept one hand out. The gesture was short and angry, eyes full of something when he looked at her. “You make me doubt everyone. Everything. So, of course, I looked. And I saw the fucking tracks on her arms. This is all – I can’t…” His throat closed off, voice strained as he glanced away, like he didn’t know whether to keep yelling or just give up in defeat. “Damnit, Sandra. I can’t look at a person without wondering if they’re someone you saw me kill.”

  She reached for him, going for his shoulder, but Jack was moving again. “Hey,” she called after him, jogging to catch up. “Wait for me. You know that’s not what I wanted. I want you guys safe, you know, not…” She glanced sideways at him.

  “I know. I do. It’s just… It’s all I see now. I go in for a drink and end up wondering if something horrible’s going to happen. Like maybe that guy’s gonna get my knife in him one day. Or the bartender’s going to get gunned down. Or the girl…” He laughed, harsh and bitter. “And this time I was right… She was the one. It’s so stupid.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I hate it here.” His voice was strong, tired and heavy, and Sandra wanted to tell him that so did she.

  All she said was, “Yeah,” just as low and weary.

  “I want to leave this craphole.”

  “Okay.” Sandra closed her eyes and tried to find her balance, tried not to feel so relieved. “I’ll let Danny know.”

  He kicked an old beer can, crushed and lettering faded. It scraped loud across the cement. “When d’you think we can leave?”

  “Soon,” she whispered. Please, soon.

  “Good,” Jack said and Sandra closed her eyes, let Jack’s booted steps lead her along.

  “Yeah,” she whispered again.

  “Hey,” Jack echoed her quiet tone, fingers to her arm. “It’ll be okay, right? I didn’t go home with her. So far … so far, we’ve done good, right?”

  “So far.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jack grinned and shrugged. “Maybe I’m starting to believe Danny, too.”

  Her laugh hurt. He moved in and she saw Jack’s kiss coming from a mile away. He sure looked surprised when her hand stopped him. “Why not—?” he began to say, but she was already looking back to home, back to Danny. Jack sighed an explosive breath.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Sandra tried her best not to meet his eye, quickening her pace.

  He kept up fine. “Always knew he’d steal my girl.” He didn’t sound all that upset. Sandra didn’t bother to point out that she hadn’t been his girl for a really long time. It didn’t seem all that important in the grand scheme of things.

  Jack shook his head and this time his laugh didn’t seem to hurt nearly half as much. They were both smiling by the time they reached home. Danny met them at the door. Sandra packed the bags as the boys packed the car. Somewhere out there, a baby boy was going to go missing. Elizabeth would rename him Robert. She’d take him home. And he’d cry. Eventually, he’d end up exactly like the six other boys Elizabeth Rightly had taken away.

  Sandra snapped the front door shut behind her and joined the boys by the car.

  Danny slammed the trunk shut and they got in and drove away.

  They’d find her and that baby boy. And Sandra wouldn’t let her own boys fall.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They were in a small town seven miles outside the northern border when Jack disappeared.

  He went out for lunch and never returned. It took five hours for Sandra and Danny to return to the motel, no leads and no clues. Danny sat on the edge of the messy bed, head in his hands and staring at the vomit green carpet. The wallpaper sported tiny cartoon palm trees and the chair Sandra sat in creaked. She stared at the ugly brown painting on the wall and tried to think very, very hard.

  She hadn’t dreamed this.

  Jack had gone for lunch. He’d left the restaurant and then…

  And then nothing.

  Her head felt raw, like she’d scrubbed it with vinegar. She wanted to crack herself open, peer into all the little nooks, as if that would magically let her see what was going on. “I didn’t see this,” she said out loud.

  Danny swallowed and rubbed his hands across his face, cheeks and chin full-on dark with fast-growing stubble. “We’ll find him.”

  Except Jack wasn’t dumb, as irrational as he sometimes was. He was a fighter. He wouldn’t ju
st go down. He would’ve made a scene.

  Sandra fell back against her chair, wood creaking loudly. They’d questioned the waitstaff, found out when Jack had been in – found out who he’d ordered from and who he’d flirted with. It hadn’t helped. He was simply gone.

  “We’ve missed something.”

  “What? There’s here and there’s there and there isn’t much else in between.”

  Sandra’s hands jittered across her knees. “Okay,” she said. She got up, grabbed her coat and snagged Danny by the shirt sleeve. He could’ve stopped her, but he followed when she tugged, closing up the room and remembering the car keys – didn’t even ask why.

  They drove to the restaurant in silence. They parked in silence and got out in silence and Danny followed her out into the middle of the lot. Sandra couldn’t feel a thing. It made her chest clench, her fingers, too; tight fists that nearly hurt.

  I can do this, she thought. She had to. This was like Danny getting hurt, way back when, something she should’ve seen, something she should have stopped. She wouldn’t let this be too late. Like it had been for Lem.

  Sandra let her eyes wander over cracked pavement, a sea of gray and pebbled stones. Danny hovered at her back, far away as though he worried he’d interfere if he moved too close. Unwilling to take that chance. He hadn’t taken his jacket and stood with his arms crossed, wind buffeting his shirt and pulling the fabric tight. He looked properly hopeful and completely ass-tired and Sandra forced her eyes back to the ground. No one from the diner came out to talk to them or make them go away and she counted that as a small blessing.

  It took ten minutes to find something. Sandra’s stomach dropped as she turned. Precariously balanced and crouching, her shoulder blades itched as Danny moved up behind her. The blood trailed a short distance – disappeared at one of the empty parking spaces. Danny’s silence felt like a horrible thing.