“You need another, sugar?” She purred.
He shook his head and she wandered reluctantly off. She was pretty enough and made her interest clear but he had no interest in return. He was too old for her anyway. Probably the badge that turned her on and that had always seemed a little weird to him. The comfort of female company wouldn’t be worth the moment of waking up and realizing that it wasn’t Marcie beside him. He had brought home one woman after Marcie left, mostly to prove to himself that he was okay without her and all it had been was uncomfortable and awkward. The bar was empty except for them and one old guy at the other end of the bar. There were about ten tables around the room, big and solid wood like the bar itself.
The same juke box sat in the corner that had been here when he used to come here. At least it looked the same, one of those classic old pieces that people paid fortunes for on those antique shows you saw on TV all the time now. Bob Seger played softly in the back ground, requesting to ‘roll, roll me away.’ He knew the place would be full and loud in a few hours but it was peaceful at the moment. The old guy was already a few drinks in and starting to lean on his stool. He wavered slowly back and forth in no rhythm with the music. He’d probably be passed out by the time the bar filled up. Jamison stood up and threw a twenty on the bar.
“Make sure he’s not drivin,” he said to the bartender with a nod at the drunk.
“I never let him drive,” she said with enough emphasis that he believed her.
He left glad that he had left a good tip. Kindness was becoming uncommon enough to deserve a reward, although it always really had deserved one. He didn’t want to go out to Tina’s at night when she was alone without her husband there, just wouldn’t look right. God knew he didn’t need any suspicion of misconduct with the FBI coming. And Tina is an awful pretty woman, not that he would be tempted. He didn’t look at other men’s wives that way, he hadn’t been raised like that. Actually he had, if he followed his dad’s example but he didn’t. Morning would be time enough and it had already been a long day. The long days seemed longer and longer the older he got. The days of working a twelve hour shift and them partying for another six were a thing of the past and seemed like a waste of time anyway. Too many bar fights and domestic violence calls resulted from those nights anyway. He headed for home, the quiet house that he had almost come to dread going home to. A hot shower and some TV would be all right though and he needed some place to go. He remembered too clearly the days of going home to a good meal and Marcie listening to him tell her about his day, laughing at the funny stories and helping him deal with the sad ones. Sometimes when he was headed home he would still forget for just a moment that she wasn’t there and still have the feeling of going home to her. Then the memory would slap him in the face and he would remember the empty house waiting. And he always remembered that it was his fault that he was going home to an empty house. He left the bar and got into his squad car and drove home slowly, always on the lookout for drunk drivers and waiting for a call to go break up a fight at someone’s house and throw some gal’s husband in the drunk tank for the night. He was actually a little happy when the calls came in because it meant a distraction, a distraction from the empty house waiting for him and now it was a distraction from the nightmare of Hailey’s disappearance. The traitorous radio remained silent as did his cell phone and he went home through the quiet streets that he knew so well.
Chapter Five
Day 13
Tina sat on the couch on James’ lap. He had wrapped a blanket around her and held her while she cried. He was still soaked and now so was the couch. The blanket had partially dried her, at least she had stopped shivering. She had cried for a long time, far more than he had ever seen her cry. He held her with a feeling of relief. He had felt like he was losing her over the last awful days, had had to watch her withdraw further and further from him and the world. She no longer was shutting him out and for that he was grateful. With her tears spent she lay against him with her face in his neck, his hand slowly smoothing her damp hair over and over.
“You wanna tell me what you were doing?” He asked gently.
He waited patiently for her to work up the courage and the composure to talk and he just held her quietly while she talked. She told him everything and he said nothing, just nodded a few times. She left nothing out, if he didn’t believe her then he didn’t believe her. She was far too shaken by what had happened to try to lie. And he was the last person she could lie to, he knew her too well anyway. When she finished talking, she looked up at him to see his reaction. He looked a little shell shocked, not unlike the way he had looked years ago when she had told him she was pregnant. At least he didn’t look like he was scared of her or fixing to run away.
“You don’t think it could have been a dream?”
She shook her head.
“I know it wasn’t a dream,” she said flatly and he nodded.
“Uhh, you’re talking about a ghost, right?”
“I guess,” she said quietly, thinking that it sounded even crazier that she thought it would. He nodded again and sat quietly thinking. She wondered what was going through his head. She knew him so well but they were way out of the scope of either of their experience. She got up and he let go of her reluctantly. She went into the kitchen and got the shattered bottle and brought it to him. He took it gingerly, as though it might be hot. He turned it in his hands studying the maze of cracks. Wordlessly he traced a crack with his finger and then set it gently on the shelf by the couch. She watched him silently and wondered if he was feeling the same sense of wonder and of things changing forever that she had felt. And indeed he was. She sat on the couch between his legs and he wrapped his arms around her again.
“I wonder why I didn’t see her,” he said.
She turned to look at his face and smiled at the slightly injured tone. Feeling left out because he didn’t see the ghost. She felt a little rush of relief that he believed her. He cocked an eyebrow at her and she giggled. It really was funny when you thought about it, sitting here talking about it like it was the laundry or something. He was looking at her with real concern now and that made her laugh even harder. Probably thought she was completely hysterical. She caught her breath and told him why it was so funny and he actually chuckled. They sat together on the couch looking out the window, his arms wrapped about her in the same way they had done so many nights. Watching movies after Hailey was asleep or just sitting there talking. Tonight they sat looking into the dark outside thinking of their daughter and a dead little girl that had something to tell them. Both of them were hoping with everything in them that their daughter was all right, that she wasn’t hurt or alone or scared or hungry. And above all that she was still alive.
He cooked toasted cheese sandwiches. He ate one standing in the kitchen and put one on a plate. He carefully wiped up every crumb that had fallen. He put sour cream and onion chips on the plate with the sandwich. He washed the frying pan and carefully put it away. He wiped the spotless counter and stove. He took the plate and a glass of water and descended the long staircase at the back of the house with them. He walked carefully so as not to spill the water. At the bottom of the stairs he set the glass on the chair sitting there just for that purpose. He took a key ring out of his pocket and unlocked the door with one of the keys. The door was big, almost a foot taller than him and about six inches thick. It was soundproof, for the occasions that things didn’t go according to plan. Not that things went awry often, he was a careful man. It was how he had survived for so long. He grabbed the water and pushed the door closed with his foot on his way in. His heart rate speeded up and his hands grew a little clammy. He despised nervousness and forced himself to calm down. He wouldn’t want her to smell him sweating. The room was big for a storm cellar and a little dim with only two bulbs but he liked to think the soft light was calming. It had no windows. The little girl sat on the bed. The chain ran around her ankle and ended up around the pipe in the corner, fastened with a padlo
ck.
“You’re awake,” he said happily and she looked at him warily. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair was a mess, which told him that she had been thrashing around again trying to figure a way out of the chain. It didn’t bother him because he knew it wasn’t possible. He handed her the plate and she ate hungrily. He picked up a hair brush off the table, the only furniture besides the bed, and began to brush her hair. She stiffened but sat quietly and ate as he brushed. She had learned this routine well. He brushed her hair until it gleamed and he sang softly to her as she ate. Hailey held herself still and quiet, determined not to show the paralyzing fear that gripped her when he was around. He had not hurt her but she was constantly afraid that he would, she knew that he could. She knew that just as she knew that he was not the man that she had thought she knew, not her friend at all. The affectionate way he treated somehow scared her more than anger would have. She knew down into her soul that she was in a lot of trouble and that her life was in danger. Her hands shook and she laced her fingers together, determined to be calm and to get out of this somehow. Whenever the panic seized her and dug in its claws she would think about her mom and dad and the thought would comfort her and help her to stay calm. The first day she had jerked and fought the chain hard enough to make herself bleed and to realize that she could not free herself. She had spent long, quiet hours when he was gone going over every inch of the chain and the stupid pipe she was chained, too, and she hadn’t found a single weak spot. The coldness on his face when he saw the signs of her struggle and the blood on her had scared her enough that she hadn’t tried to get loose again until today. He had just stood there looking at her with eyes that were somehow horribly empty and the mask of geniality and kindness that he usually wore had been gone, sliding off like some awful horror movie and the real him showing through. That was when she had realized that he was a monster. Not a corny horror movie monster but a real one, one that disguised itself as a friend so it could slither among you and you wouldn’t even know it was there. A monster that was capable of all those awful things you heard about on the news and on TV and it was so much worse in real life than you ever imagined it would be. That was when she had realized how careful she was going to have to be. All the advice from her childhood had flooded her mind in a rush.
“Don’t talk to strangers.”
“Scream if someone grabs you.”
“Never walk alone.”
“Don’t take candy from strangers.”
And the biggest one, the one everyone told you “Don’t take rides with strangers.”
The really awful part that she couldn’t get her mind around was that she did know him, would have trusted him if it had come up. She had trusted him actually. When she had seen his car parked by the road she had walked right up to him to see what he wanted, even had been happy to see him. No one ever said to be careful of people your parents trusted. What good had all that advice done her anyway? None, that’s what! When he had showed her the gun and told her to get in the car she had just stood frozen, not really believing or understanding what was going on.
“If you scream your mother will come out,” he said in a gentle and friendly tone. “And then I will have to shoot her, you don’t want that do you?”
She had wordlessly shaken her head and gotten in the car. She knew now that it had been a mistake, her mom would not have wanted her to. But what if he had killed her mom? Sitting quietly with him as he brushed her hair she pictured what could have happened and her stomach knotted up around the food she had eaten and it threatened to come back up. She squashed the feeling knowing he would be angry if she threw up and then she would be hungry later. She wondered how long she had been here. There was no sense of time in this dark little box but it seemed like forever. A day? Two days? She somehow felt like tracking time would make it all a little more bearable, a little less crazy and out of control somehow. Her mom and dad must be going crazy with worry. The thought of what they must be going through made her hurt for them. She knew what it would do to them if the worst happened and she was determined to not let it. She sat quietly with the man she had come to hate and fear in equal measures and tried to think of a way to get out of there.
Chapter Six
The house was quiet as usual. Too quiet but Jamison was used to it though. He poked through the fridge disinterestedly. He wasn’t really that hungry anyway. Dirty dishes still sat in the sink. The coffee pot was still on and filled with thick sludge. He shut it off thinking that it was a wonder he had never burned down the house. He settled on a pot pie from the freezer and popped it in the microwave. He plopped in front of the TV with the remote, the pie and a soda. He didn’t ever keep beer in the house. The beer at the bar had been his first in months. He had binged hard when Marcie left and almost lost his job over it. He didn’t use that crutch any more. He watched Friends for a while, enjoying the simple inanity of it and not having to think of anything ugly. He didn’t watch movies much anymore because he figured there was enough ugliness in real life without looking for imaginary ugliness. Movies weren’t the same without someone to watch them with anyway. After a while he got up, not bothering to put away the garbage.
“Night,” he said, touching the picture on the bookshelf on his way past. The pretty woman smiling in the frame had no response. Not that she ever did. He slipped off his shoes and crawled into bed in his clothes.
Tina awoke early. She lay on her side in the bedroom with James’ arm wrapped around her, him pressed against her back. They had sat up late, she had only slept a few hours, probably because of the nap yesterday. She lay still staring out the little slit of bedroom window that the curtains weren’t covering. She saw woods speckled with slanting sunshine. She was reluctant to move away from the comfort of his arms. Turning her head carefully so as not to wake him up, she studied her husband. His face was younger in sleep with the lines relaxed and the horror of the last few days erased for the moment in the innocence of his slumber. She thought he was even more handsome now than the day they had met. They had both gone to school in Edgewood, where she had lived with her parents until she married, almost two years before her parents had died. In high school James was a year ahead of her when they started seeing each other. Of course they saw each other in the halls and around the school but they didn’t really notice each other until his junior year when she was a sophomore. Her photography teacher assigned her to take pictures of each of the school’s teams, football, wrestling, and volleyball. He wanted to challenge her with catching good motion shots he said. Not really a challenge for her but she didn’t bother saying that to him. Anything that got her out of class was all right with her. She loved photography class but Oren Wilson had taken a major shine to her and it was wearing on her trying to put him off without getting drastic. If she had to hear about his Star Wars collection one more time she was going to lose her mind. Even his oversized glasses annoyed her. The wrestling shots were not fun, a bunch of guys in way too tight shorts rolling around on the gym floor grunting. The pictures were not the least bit dignified but she figured that her teacher wouldn’t be expecting them to be anyway. Taking the football shots was better, she got to go outside in the beautiful fall air. She put on her new plaid coat and was glad she had on her good jeans. She sat on the bleachers two rows up to snap shots of the boys running practice plays. A game probably would have been better but these were due by Friday and the next game was Saturday night. He was quarterback and she took a couple of pictures of him slinging the ball and then forgot the camera while watching him. She noticed he laughed a lot, and that he was even more handsome when he laughed. Caught up in watching him she wasn’t watching where the ball went. His pass went high, just beyond the hands of the running back and smacked the metal bleachers not a foot from where she sat. It sounded like a gunshot and she screamed and dropped the camera. Her heart thumping she scrambled down to the bottom bleacher and grabbed it. She inspected it but it looked okay. He trotted up to her.
“Sorry
about that,” he said with a grin that made him look not too sorry.
Beautiful blue eyes, she thought. Probably used to girls giggling and fawning all over him. Be careful she told herself sternly, don’t be too available.
“You register that thing?”
“Sorry?” He said, looking confused.
“You register that thing as a weapon,” she said, nodding at his arm.
His brow cleared and he chuckled.
“That’s a good one, I’m James.”
He looked at her with a quiet, direct interest, not ogling like so many of the guys did or trying too hard to look cool.
She offered him her hand and shook hands firmly.
“Shake hands like you mean what you say and people will take you seriously,” her dad had always said.
Down in the Lake Page 4