by Dan Padavona
Tori reached over Blake and shook Carina’s hand. “Tori Daniels. And this is Blake Connely.”
Carina arched an eyebrow at the Camaro. “That’s a heckuva car. How far did you drive to reach us?”
“Upstate New York.”
“Wow. You must be exhausted. Well, you’re home now. You have your pick of most any house in the neighborhood, if you are interested in joining us. Everything is solar-powered, including hot water.”
Tori glanced at Blake. “What do you think?” Blake nodded.
“Great. Pull your car over to the curb, and follow me into the community center.”
Carina gave them the keys to house number 32, situated where the road bent past the park. It seemed to Tori the events of the last week drastically altered social mores. Nobody raised an eyebrow toward a teenage boy and girl living together. If anything, the only mild surprise had been on Mitch Bloom’s face when Tori told him she and Blake weren’t sharing the same bed. Mitch and a mousy-looking young man named Don Plintzke carried two beds up the stairs, where Blake constructed them in separate bedrooms.
Everyone smiled and greeted Tori and Blake, welcoming them as if they were long-lost family. But one man—a blind black man—stared sightlessly in Tori’s direction while she carried food up the steps. She couldn’t have considered the act rude, for the man couldn’t see. But his stare unsettled her; he seemed spellbound by her presence, as though a strange aroma wafted off of her.
By six o’clock, the initial work was completed. Being surrounded by a community did wonders for Tori’s disposition, and her hunger returned. She started sorting through the box of food Don Plintzke brought them, hoping there was a box of pasta and a jar of sauce buried inside, when she noticed the unidentified photograph from the Camaro’s backseat placed upon the kitchen counter. Someone—maybe Mitch or Don—must have noticed the picture in the Camaro and brought it inside, thinking it belonged to them. She stared at the photograph for some time, wondering who the girls were and why the men—
The men I murdered.
—had driven around with the picture. Had they known the girl?
Digging through the cardboard box, she found boxes of shells and spaghetti and a jar of marinara sauce. Her stomach grumbled. After putting a pot of water on the stove, she discovered the electric burner would not turn on.
“Great.”
Her stomach growled louder. As she sorted through the box for food that did not require cooking, someone knocked on the front door. Turning back toward the entrance, Tori saw Carina waving at her through the screen.
“Hey, Tori. How is everything going?”
“Everything is great, but for some reason the stove won’t turn on.”
“Uh-oh. I was afraid of that. It seems most of the houses have one problem or another. So much for the reliability of new construction. Can you show me?”
“Sure. Come on in.”
Blake appeared from the living room, lowering his eyes as Carina passed him. While he unpacked the food box and placed items in the cupboards, Carina tested the four stove burners. None fired to life.
“Well, that sucks. I’ll grab Hank. He’s our resident fix-it expert; you’ll love him. In the meantime, if you’ll come over to our place, we have leftovers from dinner. Take as much as you want.”
Tori glanced at Blake for his opinion, but the boy kept his back to them, sheepishly stocking the cupboards. Don’t be so shy, Blake. We’re among friends now. Tori sighed.
“Maybe we’ll eat some apples while we wait. If it doesn’t look like the stove can be fixed, I’ll take you up on your offer.”
“Okay. Our door is always open if you need us.” Carina smiled toward Blake, but the boy continued to hide in plain sight. She shared a look with Tori, and Tori shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll go find Hank for you.”
When Hank Jenner knocked on the door twenty minutes later, wearing his flannel shirt, work boots, and sagging blue jeans, which Tori thought must have been uncomfortably hot in the Florida sunshine, he wore a bashful smile. After cordial introductions, Hank shuffled through the entryway with a toolbox which didn’t show the typical markings of age and use. Hank mentioned he had picked it up this morning at a hardware store two miles away, along with enough tools to rebuild the neighborhood from the ground up.
Blake carried a box of old world necessities upstairs to the bathroom—deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes, aspirin, toilet paper and tissues, a first aid kit—while Hank probed the oven interior with a flashlight. A few minutes later, he wrestled the oven several inches away from the wall and removed the back panel.
“Yup. There’s your problem.” Hank held a fuse between his thumb and forefinger.
“Can you fix it?”
“Just gotta pop in a new fuse and you should be all set.” He rummaged through the bottom of his toolbox and found a matching fuse. After he replaced the fuse and tightened the back panel, he turned on the burners. All four glowed sunny orange.
“You did it.” Tori clapped her hands.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hank’s cheeks burned like summer strawberries.
“That’s kinda weird, though. The oven has never been used before. Why did the fuse blow?”
“Could be the original fuse was bad. Maybe a lightning strike. Who knows? Let me know if you experience electrical issues inside the house.”
“Okay. I will.” Tori raised onto tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, and Hank’s blush flared.
“You know,” he said, with a look of remembering. “You remind me an awful lot of my daughter. I bet the two of you would get along really well, if—”
A choked whisper stuck in his mouth. He stared at the counter top as though he saw ghosts looking back at him. As Tori followed his gaze, she noticed his eyes were locked on the mysterious photograph from the Camaro’s backseat.
His lips moved silently, and then his voice returned. “What are you doing with that photograph?”
Tori looked between the picture and Hank, watching the vein in his neck pulse and throb, worrying he might have a stroke or a heart attack. “Nothing. I mean, we don’t know anything about the photo—”
“The frame was in her bedroom on her nightstand. This is impossible. How could you have it?”
“Blake and I found it in the backseat of the car—”
He grasped her arms. His eyes were panicked, and he shook her as he spoke. “Did you see her? Did you see my Amy?”
“Mr. Jenner, please. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You have her picture. You must have seen Amy. You must know where she is.”
When Blake turned the corner, Hank broke free of his trance and released her arms. He looked down at his shaking hands, apologized, and stepped backward. He picked up the photo and glared at it, unbelieving.
“All we know is the photograph was in the backseat of the car. I wish we could tell you more, but we don’t know how it got there. I’m sorry, Mr. Jenner.”
“Did you find the car in Georgia? Near Atlanta, maybe?”
“No. South Carolina.”
“In Chardray? Was my daughter trying to find me in Chardray?”
Tori glanced sideways at Blake. “No, sir. We took the car from a group of men along I-95.”
“A group of men?” The color drained from Hank’s face. “Did these men kidnap my daughter?”
“There wasn’t anyone in the car with them.”
“Who were these men? Can you describe them to me?”
The blood filtered out of Tori’s face. Looking at Blake, she shook her head, but he had already started talking.
“There were two men and a younger guy. They wanted to hurt us…to hurt Tori.”
“A younger guy, you say?” Tori could almost see wheels spinning behind Hank’s eyes. “Did he say anything about a girl named Amy or a town called Chardray?”
“No. But the Camaro was his, I think, and the photograph was in the backseat the entire time.”
“Was his name, b
y any chance, Ricky?” Hank closed his eyes, seeming to pray that the answer would be no.
Tori and Blake shared a look of incredulity.
“Yes.”
Hank sat down hard on a kitchen chair, and Blake raced to his side in case the man fainted.
“The bastard. He broke into my house after we left him in the diner. And you’re sure he never mentioned a girl named Amy?”
Tori knelt next to Hank and took his hand in hers. “I’m sure.”
“You said you left Ricky in a diner near your house,” said Blake. “What was he doing there?”
“Ricky picked up a friend of mine on the highway. Their truck broke down outside of Chardray, and I met Ricky when they walked into town. The kid was a walking nightmare. My friend hit him so hard he knocked Ricky unconscious. But my daughter…he was so fixated on her photograph that he tried to steal it.” Fear pouring from his eyes, Hank turned toward Blake. “You don’t think he found Amy and tried to hurt her, do you?”
Blake’s eyes met Tori’s. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Damn. I knew that kid was trouble. Do you know where Ricky is?”
“No. He ran off, and that was when we took his car.”
Hank buried his face in his hands.
“I need to find Amy before Ricky does.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Searching
“Has anyone seen Melody?”
Beth’s voice.
Melody knelt behind a blooming rose bush in the backyard. Soon Beth would cease her hunt, but right now the nosy bitch was on Melody’s front porch with her finger pressed to the doorbell, ringing and ringing and ringing. Someone else said, “I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” and that voice sounded like a kid’s voice—maybe Joline, Sue Everett’s snot-nosed daughter.
Go away. Why can’t you understand that I don’t want to be around any of you?
Not for the first time, Melody contemplated finding a new house in a different neighborhood. Anywhere but Florida Bliss, with its glistening white facades and intrusive neighbors.
But Florida Bliss had electricity, and as much as she hated to admit it, Melody couldn’t survive without hot showers and air conditioning.
Melody had chosen for her home a sprawling Victorian at the end of the lane, not because she had any particular affinity for the house, rather because it stood furthest from the community center, where everyone else massed like lemmings. The neighborhood had filled noticeably in the last twenty-four hours. Ten more people had pulled into Florida Bliss today, arriving in hatchbacks, pickups, and on motorcycles. The neighborhood, nearly empty a few days ago, reached over forty strong. Soon Melody would have neighbors, their snooping eyes watching her through the window. Right now all she wanted was quiet, and a fix.
Ding-dong.
“Melody? Are you in there? I’ve been looking for you all day.”
Melody clenched her hands until her nails dug crevices into her palms.
Just go away. You’re not my mother, and you sure as hell aren’t my friend.
She thought how sweet it would feel to rush around the side of the house and surprise Beth.
Maybe after I throw the bitch down to the grass, bloody her nose, and yank out two fistfuls of hair, Beth will get the picture and leave me alone. But then she’ll run off and find Mitch, and Mitch already has it out for me.
At the sound of Beth’s sneakers thumping down the front porch and diminishing down the sidewalk, Melody crept out from behind the rose bush. A thorn snagged her arm, the hook slipping through her skin like a safety pin. She winced and pulled the thorn free, and the stem of pink roses snapped back, bobbing up and down as though laughing at her.
Despite the wall-to-wall, antiseptic appearance of her home, it had its advantages. As long as her closest neighbors remained half-a-block away, Melody would have privacy, and she rather liked her privacy. Last night, while the fledgling community’s neighbors met for coffee in the recreation center, she sniffed cocaine while seated at the open window of her bedroom, watching the tropical sky turn to soothing blues, like balm dripping from the heavens. But the coke was the last of her drug supply—Mitch suspected she carried drugs, and he accused her of it in Tennessee, but he was too much of a boring gentleman to search her—and now she craved something more potent. She wished for heroin.
My God. Think how much dope is lying around in the city, waiting for someone to come along and take it. But where should I look? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.
Sweat beaded over her brow, but it wasn’t a hot sweat. A tremble meandered down her arms, a withdrawal symptom. She needed a fix.
Everyone in Florida Bliss old enough to drive owned a vehicle, except for her.
Obviously nobody in this neighborhood gives a shit about my personal space or my need to travel for supplies like everyone else.
If she wanted her freedom, she needed to find a car.
The Sunday evening sun plummeted into the horizon. Light quickly evaporated, but in its final hour, it bathed the lush flora with all of the world’s gold. A mile south of Florida Bliss, Melody backed a Jeep Wrangler out of a Colonial driveway and drove. She didn’t know much about Florida, but she knew where drugs were trafficked. It wasn’t long before she spotted signs of urban decay—bridges painted with gangland graffiti, consignment shops, adult video stores—butted up against pristine suburbia like a spreading disease. This was where pushers pedaled narcotics before the world disappeared: at the juncture of suburbia and slum. Product got manufactured within the slums, but suburban money supplied much of the demand.
She was in a race against time. The horizon had already swallowed half of the sun, and even though Melody knew the houses and shops were vacant, the thought of entering those buildings after dark made her uneasy.
Light reflected off of metal in the Wrangler’s rear-view mirror. She glanced up and saw what little remained of the setting sun—still too bright to look at—and something else. Movement.
That looked like a truck’s bumper disappearing around the corner.
Melody pressed the brake pedal. She glared at the rear-view mirror, and as she held her breath, her heart pounded against her chest. The rundown neighborhood looked creepy enough without the fear of a stranger prowling the streets. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes lined the street and jutted out of driveways, but none moved. Behind the Wrangler, the earth consumed the sun, and darkness slithered out from the east.
Set to her right, a pet store erroneously spelled PUPPY’S FOR SALE in the front window. Melody wondered if dogs and cats lay starving inside, but there was no way she would enter a store which housed hungry snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas. On the left side of the street, the lifeless eyes of two female mannequins, nude from the waist up, watched her through the front glass of the consignment shop. Melody longed for the safety of Florida Bliss.
But I really, really need to get high tonight.
She took in a deep breath and exhaled. Slowly, she inched the Wrangler eastward. Watching shops and apartment houses slip past, she waited for her sixth sense to awaken and lead her to her bounty. Several moments later, she slammed the brakes in front of a pizza shop, above which rose four stories of paint-flecked apartments.
She considered leaving the engine running, but then she remembered the truck’s bumper—
It was only my imagination. Nobody is following me.
—slipping around the corner. She pulled the Jeep in front of the pizza shop and slipped the keys into her pocket.
To the left of the storefront, a weathered green door led to a flight of stairs. Twisting the knob, she found the door locked.
“That figures.”
Back at the Jeep, she opened the trunk and retrieved a crowbar. Melody broke the door’s window, reached in, and unlocked the door from the inside.
As she removed her hand from the lock, something scurried over her skin. She squealed and pulled her hand back. A big, brown cockroach—or a palmetto bug, as Floridians called th
em—skittered along the broken pane. Melody carefully reached for the door knob as though it were poison, and when she pulled the door open, several bloated cockroaches fell out of the ceiling. One landed on her shoulder, and as she tried to brush it away, it wriggled down the front of her shirt. She felt its six legs and antennae writhing down her skin, past her breasts, slipping toward her navel. Screaming, she pulled her shirt up and slapped the insect onto the sidewalk. She clutched her bare belly, rubbing her hands across her skin as though she could wash away the memory of those legs crawling on her. As she watched the distended insect slip through a crack in the building’s crumbling foundation, an awful thought occurred to her—the cockroach is pregnant. She imagined the bug laying microscopic eggs into her bellybutton. What would happen when those eggs hatched?
Melody bent over and gagged, chills running along her spine. No matter how hard she rubbed her belly, she still felt the ghosts of the cockroach’s legs crawling on her.
Black eyes for windows fronted the apartments. Was the apartment complex infested with bugs? She envisioned prying open a door and finding an entire room of the obscenities swarming along walls, crawling over couches, skittering up and down window drapes.
Fuck this. I’m getting the hell out of here.
I can’t. Goddammit, I need a fix.
Melody pulled gulps of humid air into her chest and leaned against the door frame to balance her swimming head. She stepped gingerly toward the open door and craned her neck under the jamb. One lone cockroach crawled over the casing, the ambient light of coming twilight scarcely illuminating the stairwell’s burgeoning darkness. Putting one hand on a fragile-looking rail and one foot in front of the other, she climbed the stairs into the unknown. Every whisper of sound—the way the breeze played through the open door, the echo of her footfalls, her hand sliding along the wooden rail—made her look up, expecting to see cockroaches pouring out from the wall cracks. Her instinct cried for her to turn around and drive back to Florida Bliss before the sky went black. But her cravings pushed her up the stairwell, one hollow step at a time.