Eye of the Beholder

by Shari Shattuck

  Joshua sighed and let his head thunk against the cold, hard glass. He was torn. Where the hell was she going in the total darkness at this hour? Should he wake up Luke and tell him that his daughter was probably hitchhiking to God knew where on a dark highway? Then he remembered Joy’s words, first about minding his own business and then about being a goody-goody. Was he? Lots of his friends sneaked out and did things in Hollywood. Hell, he’d even done it once, but he was a guy. That was different, right?

  One thing he knew for sure: If he ratted on her, she would never trust him. And he wanted her to trust him, to like him. He wanted it very much.

  Joshua crawled miserably back into his bed and lay there, his eyes open and his heart beating in a guilty tempo in his chest, praying that he wouldn’t regret this.

  Chapter 9

  Saturday

  Several customers were already milling around on the sidewalk when Leah rapped smartly on the glass of the bank door and Towler came to let her in. She was glad Saturdays were only half days for her; they were always so busy. She was balancing a stack of paperwork she had taken home, and her thermal travel mug was clasped in a precarious hold. As she fumbled to set the papers down on her desk, the cup tipped and the coffee sloshed out through the crescent-shaped hole, ran down across the top of a loan request, and saturated the front of her gray silk blouse.

  “Oh, f-f-fabulous.” Leah dropped the papers unceremoniously in a heap and headed quickly for the ladies’ room. One of the cleaning staff was mopping in the doorway, so she detoured and went to the janitor’s closet, where she knew there was a sink and paper towels.

  She slipped around the corner into a short hallway, which ended in a grilled doorway behind which lay the vault and safety-deposit boxes. Halfway down the hall, the door to the storeroom was standing partially open. The light flickered when she snapped it on and then shone dimly with all its feeble forty watts. Some genius had laid out the room so that the sink was right behind the door. She had to go all the way in and close the door to be able to use it. Working in a bank had made her wary of doors that locked behind her, so she left this one cracked slightly, just shy of latched. Pulling a roll of paper towels off a shelf, she wet one and had started dabbing at the stain when she heard someone pass down the hallway, and keys jingling as the grate was unlocked.

  At first she thought nothing of it, and then, glancing at her watch, she realized it was only seven forty. The vault wasn’t usually opened until eight thirty. Curious, she leaned forward and peered through the crack in the door. It was Vince; she could tell from his tall, wide back. Something about his manner, a glance over his shoulder as though checking to see if anyone was watching, made her suspicious. Leah reached over and switched off the light so that she could see him better through the crack in the doorway.

  Seeming satisfied that no one was there, Vince went through the grating and into the safety-deposit box area. From her vantage point, Leah could see almost the whole wall of units through the bars. Taking the master key from the work desk, he went quickly to one of the larger boxes, took out his key, and opened the six-by-eight-inch door. He slid out the long drawer and then busied himself with his back to Leah. She couldn’t see what was in the box, but when Vince slid it back in, secured it, and turned to leave, he was holding a padded, legal-sized manila envelope. He came quickly away, relocking the gate and pocketing the keys. On his face as he came near her, a thin veneer of sweat shone in the fluorescent light. With a thrill of discovery, Leah realized that he was afraid.

  As he came level to the supply room door, he stopped. Leah shrank back against the sink. She could see him through the crack, and she was glad she had had the intuition to switch off the bulb. And then the door started to swing open and the light from the hallway fanned slowly across floor of the tiny room. Leah held her breath and shrank into the ten-inch space between the sink and the wall. The door stopped a finger’s width from her face and she waited, every nerve in her body on alert. She knew the Rattler was looking in at the buckets and mops and gigantic packages of toilet paper; would he look behind the door? Then he grunted slightly and pulled the door closed behind him. Leah heard the tumbler click as the door was closed. She remained still in absolute darkness until she was sure he was long gone, and then tried the door.

  It was locked.

  She struggled to keep panic from rising. If she knocked and raised a ruckus, he would know she’d been in there. If she wasn’t back at her desk when the bank opened in fifteen minutes someone would go looking for her. And she couldn’t just stay in here! She was starting to breathe in short, shallow gasps, gulping for oxygen. She switched on the light again and tried to find a lock on the doorknob, but it was smooth and solid. She grabbed at it and pulled, but nothing happened. Her lungs felt as though she were breathing through a dripping sponge. She yanked hard on the doorknob, feeling a scream rushing up inside of her. Once, twice—then it opened.

  Standing in front of Leah, with her key still in her hand, was the woman who had been mopping the ladies’ room floor; she looked mildly surprised. Leah muttered something about her blouse and accidentally closing the door, but the woman, who seemed to have grown up from the floor a couple hundred years ago and would be perfectly content to stand there converting carbon dioxide into oxygen for another brace of centuries, only stared at her. Turning sideways, Leah slipped around the immobile woman and her mop.

  Leah hurried to the corner, glanced around it, and saw no sign of Vince. His office door was closed. With a deep breath she walked calmly back to her desk and started straightening the papers. She wondered if she should tell anyone what she’d seen. And what had she seen? So Vince had a safety-deposit box at his own bank. Big deal. But why did he look so nervous about going into it?

  Leah felt a thrill of pleasure that caused her chest to swell and her pulse to quicken. There was something about Vince’s manner that told her he was up to something he shouldn’t be. It was his look, his furtive manner. It was his fear.

  She smiled to herself, pulling out the payroll account paperwork for Eye of the Beholder and putting it into a clean envelope. She’d take it over to Greer herself when the bank closed at noon today.

  It felt good to get a nice, big new client.

  It would feel even better to get something on the Rattler.

  Chapter 10

  Joshua had walked his dirt bike around to the front of the house and brought out his toolbox as an excuse to sit where he could see both Joy’s window and the front of their house. When he had woken with a start early that morning and peered out from his bedroom, he had been met with only the impenetrable curtain of Joy’s open bedroom window. He had no idea if she had returned and, bound by his promise, he couldn’t very well go over and ask.

  So he tinkered unnecessarily with the mixture valve on his carburetor as he glanced repeatedly up at the window. The curtain was doing its bit as the impenetrable veil, occasionally trembling slightly in the soft breeze, increasing Joshua’s anticipation, only to settle again and hang, limp and still, having revealed nothing. After a short time he heard the crunch of wheels coming down the dirt road from the trailhead. A large silver pickup truck pulled up to the gate that kept hikers from driving past the parking area. Joshua watched with slight interest as a man got out and unchained the gate. He waved a hand at Joshua and then got back in the truck and drove over to where Joshua was working.

  Cutting the engine, he climbed down from the high door and strode toward Joshua with a smile and his hand extended. “Hi, there, I’m Mike. You must be the new neighbor.”

  Joshua rose and shook the man’s hand. He had a look about him that would have suited a fireman or an astronaut. He had a deep cleft in his chin and light brown eyes, the color of which reminded Joshua of fool’s gold. He was good-looking, but in a real workingman way. Incongruously for a mechanic, his jeans were pressed and his T-shirt was spanking white. Joshua wondered how he looked at the end of his day. “Hi, yeah, I’m Joshua. My mom’s Greer.
She already left for work.”

  “Oh, well, hell, I’m sorry I missed her.” He looked honestly disappointed. Then he turned and regarded Joshua’s bike. “Whatcha got here?”

  Joshua told him lamely that it was a Yamaha two-fifty—seemed pretty obvious to him—and Mike bent down to take a look at the engine of the motorcycle. “Start it up,” he said. Joshua did, and Mike picked up the flathead screwdriver that Joshua had left lying on the ground. In a couple of minutes the mixture was right and the motor was purring like a leopard cub.

  “Looks okay to me,” Mike said as he straightened up and wiped his hands on a clean rag from Joshua’s toolbox. “Listen, if you’d like, I could come by and we could trick this little boy out. I got a couple of spare parts sitting around the garage that would almost double the power on this engine. I might have some time next weekend.”

  Joshua’s interest in his motorcycle was mainly as a mode of transportation—it wasn’t exactly the dream machine—but he did enjoy working on the engine, taking it apart and getting to know it. “That would be great.” He smiled up at the taller man as he cut the engine and the quiet of the clearing resumed. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Oh, no problem.” The man waved a clean but calloused hand and flashed a surprisingly boyish smile at Joshua. “It’s my job, but it’s my hobby too, if you know what I mean.” He winked.

  “I guess so. Sounds like you love your work.”

  “It’s a little tough cleaning the grease out from under my nails, but”—he turned and regarded his gleaming four-by-four—“it pays well. Especially up here, people are really into their bikes.”

  “Yeah,” Joshua agreed with him. “I noticed that.”

  “Well, tell your mom I’m sorry I missed meeting her, and if you guys need anything give me a call.”

  “Thanks, I’ll tell her.” Joshua was wondering if his mom could overlook Mike’s loud motorcycle. She hadn’t dated anyone for a long time.

  “No, really, I mean it. Anything at all. I’m real handy.” He pulled a white card out of a black leather wallet and handed it to Joshua. It had a picture of a Harley-Davidson, and a phone number. “Mike,” he reminded Joshua, pointing to himself. “Bike,” he said, pointing to the card. “It’s easy to remember that way.”

  “Thanks, see ya,” Joshua said as Mike climbed onto the running board and then up into the supersize truck. He waved as the truck hit the dirt road, headed back to the highway, and left a thick track in the wet ground, the giant tires rolling over the deep ruts in the pitted road from the recent rains as though they were no more of an obstacle than garden hoses on smooth pavement.

  Joshua had just sat down on the ground and was trying to find something else to tinker with when the door of Luke and Whitney’s house opened and he saw Luke coming toward him. His heart rate quickened.

  “Morning,” he called out.

  “Good morning,” Luke said, sounding more serious. “Is your mom in?”

  “No, she left for the salon early. She had paperwork to do before her first customer.”

  “Well, Whitney is out running errands, and she was going to get her hair done at your mom’s salon. I need to get her a message, and the woman left her cell phone at home again.”

  Joshua’s mouth felt a little dry. He hoped that he didn’t look too nervous or eager as he asked, “Message? I’m gonna go by the salon in a little while; you want me to tell her something?”

  Luke sighed. “Just tell her that we won’t be going to the movies tonight. Joy’s grounded.”

  Joshua felt a small sense of relief, but it was incomplete. He still didn’t know if she was home safe.

  Trying to sound only vaguely interested, he asked, “What for?”

  “She snuck out last night and came home drunk.”

  Joshua hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he exhaled. “Oh, did she wake you up when she came in or something?”

  Luke laughed a little and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I sleep like a hibernating grizzly, and Whitney wears earplugs, plus Joy didn’t come in. In fact, she would have gotten away with it if I hadn’t found her passed out on one of the deck chairs out back this morning.”

  “How do you know she was drinking?” Joshua asked.

  Luke smiled, and an amused twinkle lit his eye. “You know us Cherokees: We don’t hold our firewater too well. She was so hungover she could barely raise her head.”

  Joshua nodded, smiling in spite of himself. “She sleeping it off now?”

  Luke’s mischievous smile extended until it was stretched across his rugged face. “Hell, no. I made her get up and vacuum the house.” He raised his brows at Joshua and then turned away.

  Through the open door before it closed behind Luke, Joshua could hear the high, penetrating, torturous whine of a Hoover.

  Chapter 11

  Leah had finished the paperwork on a home loan just before noon, and she needed Vince’s signature. Towler buzzed her in to the back, and, reminding herself to stay calm and businesslike no matter what a dick Vince was, she knocked on his office door.

  He didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t acknowledge her at all. She puffed out her cheeks and blew out slowly, trying to calm herself, but a spark of anger at his infuriating disregard for anyone else—especially her—combusted, and she recklessly opened the door without an invitation.

  “So sorry to interrupt your . . .” She stopped in her tracks; the room was empty.

  Turning around, she surveyed the bank floor, but she didn’t see him there either.

  “Josie?” she addressed a teller who was at the file cabinet. “Did you see where Vince went?”

  The older woman with the pinched face of a long-time smoker looked up from her paper search. “Uh, I think he went out to get something to eat. Anyway, he said he’d be back in fifteen.” Josie turned back to the cabinet, her huge hoop earrings swinging.

  “Oh. When did he go?”

  “Just now.”

  Leah sighed. Now she’d have to wait for him before she could leave, which would mean staying past closing. Typical. Maybe she’d just leave the papers and tell the clients that Vince had made them wait until Monday. It was a shallow thought of a threat; she was too professional to let it wait and she knew it. Sighing, she went in and laid the papers right on top of his other work so that he’d have to sign them first when he got back.

  She’d started to turn away when something caught her eye: The right-hand drawer of his desk was open about two inches, and in a small compartment she could see a single small key alone on a key chain with a heavy, dangling charm. His safety-deposit box key.

  A thrill went through Leah. This was a chance she might never get again. It would mean her job at least if she were caught, but she was sure he was up to something. Making a snap decision based more on her raging need for revenge than on any kind of cool deduction, she snatched up the key and her papers, folding them with the key concealed inside. She exited quickly, glancing at the front door, wondering if she could really get away with this.

  She waited for Towler to buzz her out and went straight to her desk to pick up her own keys. Leah kept a safety-deposit box at the bank as well. It would give her an excuse for being in the vault. Then she headed down the hallway.

  As she reached the iron-gated door, she smiled in what she hoped was a casual, friendly way at the young man who headed up that department.

  “Hi, Jerry!” she said, in what sounded like an overly bright voice to her.

  “Hi, Leah. What’s up?” Jerry had the translucent appearance of a man who was basically attractive but fluorescently pale from spending his entire working life in artificial light and, Leah guessed, his free time in front of a computer screen playing online games and ordering collectible action figures.

  “I need to get something out of my box.”

  “Okay.” His face was drawn back to the cold green glow of his screen, and he looked reluctant to have to break away. “I’ll be right with you,�
�� he said without looking up again.

  Perfect, thought Leah. “No, don’t worry about it; just give me your key and I’ll do it. It won’t take a minute. That way you can finish up and get out of here on time for a change.” She was careful to use a conspiratorial, commiserating tone. It worked. He glanced up to see if anyone would see him do it, but there was nothing behind Leah except an empty hallway. Then, with a grateful little smile, he handed over the master key and returned to the vortex of cyberland.

  Leah made sure she was past him before she looked back to check the hall. Nothing. She’d have to hurry. Her box was one of the smaller upper ones over to the far left. The one she had seen Vince go into had been one of the larger drawers lower down to the right.

  She looked again. Jerry was nothing but an eerie silhouette rimmed in blue, hunched forward as though pulled by some invisible sucking force. As long as she was quiet he would not be a problem, and if anyone else came in she would hear them speak to Jerry. The only person she needed to fear was the Rattler. Just like old times.

  Old times. It had started out so perfectly. They’d made such a beautiful couple, and both of them were devoted to their careers. But then the drinking had begun, and a man she didn’t know had emerged who was very different from the man she thought she’d married. He was supposed to be moving out; he was supposed to leave her alone. She had promised not to press charges and in return he had agreed to keep his distance. But the promise of a violent drinker was nothing more than a gust of wind with the stench of something dead in it.

  Unsure of the box number, she took three tries to find the right one. With a deep inhalation she tensed as first the master and then Vince’s key turned in the lock. Just before she slid it open she almost lost her nerve, convincing herself it was none of her business.