River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1)

by Karen Katchur

  “I wish you wouldn’t worry about money. I have plenty for the both of us.” Matt kissed the back of her head. He paid for the condo they lived in, prime real estate in the most sought-after address in the gated community at the top of the hill. They had spectacular views of the river and woods, man-made trails for biking and running, a community gym and pool, all contained inside the four walls of the complex. Condo living was convenient. The grounds were well kept. The place was beautiful in a manicured way.

  She should be grateful to Matt. She could never have afforded such luxuries on her budget. But sometimes the walls of the condo, the whole place, closed in on her. How could she tell him without sounding ungrateful that she preferred the open air, running the unkempt trails, the slopes and turns covered with dirt and rocks, the brush and trees surrounding her, the sound of rushing river rapids or the slow trickle where the water came to rest? How could she tell him she preferred the solitude the woods and river provided, where she didn’t have to maneuver around walkers or baby strollers or offer friendly hellos to neighbors? The woods were the one place where Romy could run free without a leash.

  Of course, Matt loved condo living and the security of its walls, a safe place to park his ninety-thousand-dollar car. And the condo was close to Route 80, about an hour’s drive to his New York City office, a two-mile drive to the private airstrip he utilized whenever he had to jet to Washington, DC.

  But she didn’t want to think about any of that right now. She didn’t want to think at all. The day’s burdens settled on her shoulders, making her weary and tired. Making love had taken the last scrap of emotions she had left. She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t think about her father or why he’d uttered John’s name.

  Sometime later, unaware of time passing, Becca opened her eyes. A blanket covered her. Romy lay a few inches from her face. The fire had long gone out, and the condo was dark. She guessed it was well past midnight. Matt was no longer curled up behind her. She lifted her head; her neck was stiff. She rubbed her left shoulder where it ached from lying on the floor.

  She was about to call for Matt, wondering why he hadn’t woken her to go to bed. The floor was no place to spend an entire night, not when there was a king-size bed in the next room. But before she had the chance to call his name, she heard his voice, a murmuring coming from his office.

  She peeled herself off the floor, wrapped the blanket around her. The night was chilly, and the heat had kicked on. The door to his office was ajar. She peeked inside. His back was to her. He wasn’t wearing any clothes, and his backside was lit by the moonlight that bled through the cracks of the blinds.

  “Of course I want to see you again. As soon as I can get away. It’s just not safe for me to talk right now.” His voice was smooth, seductive.

  Becca shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but she couldn’t turn away. She stayed tucked outside the door in the shadows, straining to hear every word, invading his privacy the way she had with her father a long time ago. She picked up on something in Matt’s tone, the way he softened his demeanor whenever he was talking on the phone with a woman.

  Becca had noticed a subtle deepening in her own father’s voice, the purring in his throat, by the time she was a teenager. She’d been standing in the kitchen doorway, and like Matt’s, her father’s back had been turned. His voice had been slick and velvety. Even though she hadn’t been able to make out everything he’d said, she’d heard enough. She’d run from the kitchen and locked herself in the bathroom, refusing to come out. Hours later when her mother had come home, she’d found Becca standing in front of the mirror, scissors in hand, the sink full of Becca’s long hair.

  “What have you done?” her mother had asked. “If you wanted short hair, I could’ve made an appointment for you.”

  Matt whispered something. She craned her neck but couldn’t make out what he’d said. Romy pushed past her, knocking the door wide open. Matt spun around, caught Becca standing in the doorway.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up. Romy nudged his hand with her nose.

  Becca pulled the blanket up around her neck.

  He looked angry. Or was he scared? There were too many shadows across his face; it was hard to tell.

  “Who was on the phone?” Her breathing was short and quick. She recognized the feeling, the hurt and confusion, the shame, familiar and yet alien at the same time.

  “No one. It’s not important.”

  “Who was on the phone?” Her voice pitched higher. The blood rushed to her head.

  “It was work,” he said and looked around. He was still naked, and maybe he was feeling vulnerable, because he cupped his private parts as though he was worried she was going to kick him. The thought crossed her mind.

  “You’re lying.” This wasn’t part of their routine, the way they’d sidestepped around the truth. This was something different. This was blatant. In her face. She hadn’t felt such a sense of betrayal so severely, cutting through her insides like the blade of a knife, since she was a child. Or was she projecting her suspicions and anger onto Matt, when what she was really feeling was leftover childhood anger at her father?

  “Babe, it’s not what you think.” He shook his head. “You’ve been dealt a blow today, and you’re not thinking clearly.” He took a step toward her, keeping one hand safely between his legs.

  She backed up. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was confused.

  “I promise you—it was nothing. Really.” He stepped toward her again, and this time she didn’t back away. He wrapped his arms around her. The heat from his body enveloped her. The lingering scent of sweat clung to his skin. She pinched her eyes closed.

  As much as she wanted to trust what he was telling her, and as much as she wanted to believe she was overreacting, she couldn’t ignore her body’s reaction, the one screaming for her to flee. She froze in his arms. Her mouth went dry, the voice inside her head saying over and over again, He was lying; he was lying; he was lying.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ten-year-old Becca was standing in the hallway outside of her parents’ bedroom. Tears streamed down her cheeks, although she was careful not to make a sound. She was as quiet as a field mouse, watching her mother lift the sheets to her nose.

  Her mother pulled the down comforter in one fell swoop. She tugged and lifted the puffy spread until it was a heaping ball in her arms. Then she flung it across the room, and it knocked the lamp off the nightstand, sending it crashing to the floor. She grabbed the sheets from the mattress, yanked hard enough to rip the corner of the fitted sheet right off. She continued pulling at the sheets, ripping and waving them in a frenzy.

  She stripped the pillows of their pillowcases, dropped them on top of the shredded sheets. Her chest rose and lowered with each breath. Her nostrils flared. But instead of continuing trashing the room, she dropped onto the bare mattress and covered her face.

  Becca stepped around the pile of torn sheets and sat on the edge of the mattress next to her. She put her hand on her mother’s thigh. Her jeans were soft and worn.

  She covered Becca’s hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt, her shame pouring from her grip, sharing her pain. Becca accepted it, welcomed it even, knowing it could be days until she’d feel her mother’s touch against her skin. Becca was young, but she understood that her father was tearing her mother apart from the inside out.

  “How can I show my face around town?” Her mother got up, cried, locked herself in the bathroom, refused to come out.

  Becca sat quietly, patiently, listening to her mother weep. Minutes turned to hours. Her neck was stiff, her back sore from hunching over. Her stomach growled. But still, she wouldn’t move. She’d wait for her mother’s tears to dry no matter how long it took.

  Eventually, her mother emerged, took a deep breath, and picked up the torn sheets from the floor. Her eyes were red, sunken, defeated.

  Becca helped her clean up the mess she’d made. When they’d finished, her mother picked up the phone, called a
friend, turned her back on Becca when she started crying again. Becca carried the ceramic shards from the broken lamp out of the room, put them in the trash can in the kitchen. Her mother would spend the rest of the day on the phone and part of the night too. The pattern would repeat for days, the calls to friends, the crying, turning her back on Becca whenever she entered the room.

  Becca tossed the suitcase into the back of the Jeep. Romy jumped around Becca’s legs, excited about a car ride in the middle of the night. Or maybe the dog was just reacting to Becca’s charged emotions. Romy barked.

  “Where are you going?” Matt asked. He had slipped on a pair of shorts and a shirt and followed her outside.

  “To my dad’s,” Becca said. She needed to get away from Matt and think. She’d learned from working with animals to listen to her instincts. And she’d been ignoring her instincts where Matt was concerned for far too long.

  “Please don’t leave like this,” he said. “It’s not what you think.”

  “And what am I thinking, Matt?” She opened the driver’s-side door. Romy jumped in and climbed over to the passenger’s seat.

  “I really don’t know.” He tried to look innocent, his hands turned up in a placating gesture.

  “Oh, I think you do,” she said and slipped behind the wheel. Her hands were shaking. She looked over her shoulder and backed out of the driveway. She pulled onto the road and drove away.

  For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, Becca drove across the bridge to the Pennsylvania side. She wound her way up River Road toward home. Her stomach skipped and lurched. Her thoughts scattered. The knot inside her chest felt like something close to dread.

  She cut the lights on the Jeep as she pulled into the driveway, not wanting to disturb her father or Jackie at such a late hour. She remembered how the headlights on her father’s patrol car used to cut across her bedroom walls when he had returned home after one of his late-night shifts. The lights would wake her up, or maybe she’d been awake all along, waiting for him. He’d sit on the edge of her bed, smooth her hair from her face before planting a big raspberry on her forehead. She’d giggle and pull the book out that she’d been hiding under the covers, waiting for him to come home and read to her. Old Yeller and The Call of the Wild had been two of her favorites, and she’d never gotten tired of listening to his voice as he read.

  She clung to this happy memory as she climbed out of the Jeep. So many of her thoughts about her childhood and then later her teenage years had become twisted and distorted, she had to force herself to remember it wasn’t all bad. There had been a time when she’d believed her family had been a happy one.

  Romy relieved herself in the yard while Becca pulled the suitcase from the back of the Jeep. Loud, thundering engines cut across the night air. She turned to the sound. Motorcycles. The Scions. Eight or nine of them rumbling down the road. When they reached Becca’s father’s house, they rode single file, then made a circle like you’d see in a parade. Round and round they went, marking their turf with noise, having swapped engine-muting exhaust systems for straight pipes.

  Becca tried to see their faces, whether John was among them. They were yelling as though they were celebrating, perhaps rubbing something in Becca’s father’s face. It wouldn’t be like John to do something like that, or at least not the John she used to know.

  When they were gone, she patted Romy on the head. “It’s okay,” she said. “You get used to it.”

  She walked around to the side of the garage, used her old key, and entered through the back door. She put her suitcase down, stepped into the dark kitchen. Romy sniffed around a chair. She turned on the small light over the stove, jumped at the sight of Jackie sitting at the table. “You scared me,” she said.

  “Sorry.” Jackie raised a glass to her lips. A bottle of scotch sat on the table in front of her.

  “Is everything okay?” Becca asked, worried about why Jackie would be sitting alone in the dark, drinking.

  “We had a rough couple of hours. He’s resting now.” She motioned to the bottle. “I needed to take the edge off.”

  “Did you hear the bikes out front?” Becca asked and grabbed a glass from the cabinet and sat across from her.

  “When don’t we hear them?” Jackie said.

  Becca poured herself an inch of scotch. “You don’t seem surprised I’m here,” she said.

  “You strike me as though you’re the kind of person who always does the right thing.” Jackie downed her drink. She set the glass on the table, filled it up again.

  Becca was taken aback. It was strange to hear what someone thought of her, even if it was good. To hear it from her father’s lady friend was even stranger, especially since she barely knew the woman in front of her. She hadn’t given much thought to Jackie or to the kind of person Jackie might be. She’d seen her as another woman on her father’s long list of women.

  Besides, Becca was loyal to her mother, and it had never occurred to her to be friends with Jackie. She couldn’t bring herself to care about her, even if she was taking care of Becca’s father. Becca’s mother felt differently, though. Her mother had been in contact with Jackie on a regular basis in the last two years. Her mother was a better person than Becca.

  “I try to do the right thing.” Becca couldn’t say what was really on her mind. She hadn’t planned on being here. She was here because she had nowhere else to go.

  “It means a lot to him.” Jackie tossed back another shot. “But don’t expect him to tell you that.”

  “I won’t,” she said and threw back her own shot of scotch, the whiskey burning her throat and esophagus as it went down, the heat settling in her stomach like acid.

  Jackie tilted the bottle in Becca’s direction.

  Becca held up her hand. “I’m good.”

  Jackie twisted the cap back on and stood. “I’m really glad you’re here. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to get a little sleep while I can.” She tightened the terry cloth robe around her waist and walked away on unsteady legs.

  Becca put the bottle on the countertop and the glasses in the sink. She picked up her suitcase. “Let’s go to bed,” she said to Romy, who eagerly followed her upstairs.

  Her childhood bedroom was the same as she remembered—green walls, plaid comforter, white lace curtains her mother had hung when Becca was fourteen. The room smelled clean. She wiped her finger across the top of the dresser. No dust. Jackie must’ve anticipated her coming and cleaned the room ahead of time. She was irritated by Jackie’s assumptions about her, mostly because they were true.

  Romy curled up at the bottom of the bed. Becca pulled the covers to her chin and stared at the dark ceiling. It was strange lying in the bed she’d slept in as a child, comforting and upsetting at the same time. The only reason for a grown woman to return home was if she had failed in some aspect in her life. Or if her father was dying. Or both.

  She rolled to her side. She could just make out the poster of Green Day on the wall. Her cell phone went off. She reached for it on the nightstand. Matt had sent her three texts. He was worried. Please text me. Let me know you made it to your dad’s safely. Please tell me you’re okay. She shouldn’t reply. Let him worry the way she’d worried, staying up the night before, pacing their condo, wearing the carpet with fret.

  She rolled onto her back, cell phone in hand, and typed, I’m fine. She was the better person. She was the sort of person who did the right thing.

  But not always.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  John felt a warm body next to him in bed. He rolled to his side, scooped Beth into his arms. Beth. He buried his nose in her hair, searching for her scent, but instead he smelled cigarette smoke and what he thought might be some kind of cheap perfume or bad hair spray. His brain was slow waking up, and the night before was fuzzy, but he knew something wasn’t right. For one, Beth’s smell was all wrong. Beth’s hair smelled sweet like some kind of fruit, strawberries or kiwi, something natural rather than something cheap from a bot
tle. And the body tucked against his didn’t feel right. This body had bony hips and protruding ribs where Beth was a full-figured woman with soft padding on all her curves.

  He flipped onto his back, covered his eyes with his arm, the memory of last night seeping slowly into place one painful minute at a time. He’d gone to Sweeney’s with Hap for a drink, and then the guys had surprised John with a stripper. He must’ve had more to drink than he’d realized and brought the damn girl home with him. He glanced at the back of her head, her bleached-blonde hair. Something downstairs fell onto the floor. Someone moaned. It was coming back to him, the guys riding their bikes here with the girls, how he’d driven straight home but the guys had stopped briefly, riding circles in front of Clint’s house, a stupid stunt.

  More rustling came from the rooms below.

  “Wake up,” he said to the blonde and nudged her shoulder, wanting her out of his bed, his marital bed that he’d shared with Beth until now.

  “Come on.” He nudged her again. She swatted his hand away.

  He sat up. His head pounded, and the room was out of focus. It took his eyes a second to adjust. When he thought he could stand without falling over, he swung his legs to the floor, pulled on the pair of jeans that was lying by his feet. He looked back at the girl in the bed. There were bruises on her arms and one the size of a fist on her thigh. Jesus, had he done that? He didn’t think he had, but hell if he could remember.

  He tapped her arm. “You have to go.” She was young, maybe early twenties. Too young. “Now,” he said, sliding his hands under her arms and sitting her upright.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” she growled. Her eyes were blackened with smeared makeup. Glitter glistened on her neck and shoulders. Hell, the glitter was all over the bed. He looked down. His chest hair sparkled.

  He didn’t allow his eyes to roam her body or the bed after that. Instead, he searched for her clothes on the floor, a little skirt and some kind of tiny shirt. “Here, get dressed.” He wanted her out of his bed, out of his room, and out of his house. It had been a mistake. He hadn’t meant to bring her here or do what he’d done. An image of her scrawny body wrapped around his cut across his mind. He pushed it away.