“Hey!” Debra yelled as loud as she could, frantically running between cars. “Julie!” The wind blew the words back in her mouth. Debra yelled out again, practically screaming Julie’s name, desperately trying to get her attention, but Julie didn’t look up. It was more than strange, of all the cars in the parking lot, not one single person was there, not one single person to call for help.
Julie closed her trunk and scooted inside the driver’s seat. Debra stopped cold. The man closed the door panel and eased into his driver’s seat. Debra jaunted to her Chevy Cavalier and jumped inside. Snowflakes danced across her windshield, a gust of wind rocked her car. She watched Julie’s Pontiac Bonneville pull away. The white van was right behind Julie.
Debra backed out and slipped the gear in drive, but as she accelerated, an elderly driver pulled out right in front of her. A handicap tag hung from the old woman’s rearview mirror, a short woman who could barely see over the dash, who turned the steering wheel painfully slow. Debra watched the van follow Julie out of the parking lot and onto the road, with herself still blocked by the old woman. By the time Debra got to the end of the parking lot, the light turned red. She waited for a brief minute, and gunned the engine. Flying around the car in front, swerving into the oncoming traffic. She drew in a never-ending breath to the sound of burning rubber, screeching brakes, and blaring horns. From here she could see them at a red light by the Laundromat. With only Julie in mind she carelessly weaved around another car to get behind them. Another red light. They were all stopped. Only one car between her and the white van. Traffic started up again. The one car turned. The cars were lined up, Julie’s, the crazy man’s, and Debra’s, driving over Fulton Bridge. Julie’s car went through a green light, the van went through a yellow light, and Debra sped up to go through the red.
“What am I doing? What am I doing?” she repeated, cringing, barreling through the red light.
The traffic was stop and go until the speed limit hit fifty-five. Julie suddenly turned into a speed demon and flew through a pre-red traffic light. He flew through the red light, too. Debra floored it, screaming through it. She could hear the squeal of brakes. Her body stiffening, she braced for a car wreck. The oncoming car swerved into a mailbox instead of hitting her.
She could see up ahead, the railroad tracks, the crossing bars come down. She could see the train coming full on. Debra slowed down and thought Julie would, too. The train whistled. But Julie sped up, careening around the crossing bars just as the train barreled by. She must have known, Debra thought. The man slammed on his brakes—his tires locking, smoking, screeching. Debra was right behind him at a dead stop now. The train rumbled on and on. Debra’s shoulders seemed locked in place, her hands tight-fisted ten and twenty, clenching the steering wheel. She could see him as he mouthed profanities, his eyes darting off in the rear view mirror. As far as she knew he hadn’t regarded her as anything more than the car behind him. Not yet anyway. She franticly shook her purse upside down to find a pen, glancing at his license plate. The first letter was A. She popped opened the glove compartment. The second letter was Q. All she could find was handful of napkins. She saw him take off his baseball cap. He was suddenly staring at her from his rearview mirror—a thinking stare, she hoped, like his mind was somewhere else. She slumped down in the seat. There was nowhere to go. She couldn’t drive forward. She couldn’t drive backward. There was a gulley on one side and a line of cars on the other. He had to have seen her. Slumped into the seat, she locked the doors, waiting for him to trek over and smash her car window. She wrote down the first two letters AQ, and peeked over the dash, but something looked funny about the rest of the license. There were bits of masking tape covering little sections of the numbers. She couldn’t make out the rest.
The train went by and the crossing bars slowly lifted; cars rolled over the tracks again. Debra put her car in gear. Her car was behind his as she drove her way home for another seventeen minutes of speeding up and slowing down, of stopping at the occasional red light until she finally came upon the road that led to her house. Nudging her left blinker to turn, she thought she’d finally be rid of him.
His turn signal mimicked hers.
The light turned green, and they both turned down the gravel road, her gravel road—five miles from where she lived. She was suddenly itching, and in shallow breaths, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw red blotches on her face. So this is what it means to be tough, she thought, you break out in hives.
Distancing her car from his, she followed him down the gravel road. She would follow him right into Julie’s driveway, and then what? They drove past the first stop sign, past the second stop sign, closer and closer to her house, and to Julie’s house. They stopped for one more stop sign, but instead of driving straight ahead, the man turned into Brentwood Pines. This was where they jogged. Could he live there? Could he know she’s following him? Debra hesitated when the man turned, watching his van get smaller and smaller as he drove away. What if she kept following him? What if she got his address? She wanted to go home and be glad it was over. But she could lose him if she didn’t turn now. She turned the wheel, a surge in her stomach, a distance between them. It felt so terribly wrong. She watched him go around a bend and followed. She watched him turn down Jaycox Avenue. This had gone too far. The way he had looked at her was how her stepfather had when he’d thrown that first punch. She let her car inch closer.
And then it happened. He turned into a driveway. Debra watched the garage door open from a distance. He drove his van inside and the garage door closed. She crept closer and wrote the address on a napkin, the address for the only blue house on Jaycox.
Chapter 25
Jumbled coats hung haphazardly from hooks inside Julie’s small foyer. Shoes and boots were piled in a corner by the door. The mahogany dining room could be seen just past the refrigerator, just past Kyle who kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“Why didn’t you report him to the store security?” Kyle shouted at Julie just inside the entryway. Marie was there, too, in her coat and hat carrying a dozen eggs, smelling like she’d been in the goat-barn.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kyle smashed his fist in the wall.
Marie jumped, undoubtedly caught by surprise. “Kyle,” Marie started, “Haven’t you been listening? Can’t you see she’s already upset?”
“Marie, I’m sorry you had to see this, but this is none of your business. This has nothing to do with you.” Kyle stuck his hands in his pocket and rattled his change. Just then someone knocked, almost pounded, on the door. “See who it is,” he instructed. Julie opened the storm door an inch.
“Deb . . . it’s you. What’s up?” Julie said, holding the storm door open.
“What’s up? What do you mean; ‘What’s up?’ Didn’t you see that guy following you?”
“And he followed you home?” Kyle shouted from inside.
“Oh . . . Kyle’s home,” Debra said, glancing back at his truck like she hadn’t seen it the first time. She glanced back at Kyle, the veins bulging in his neck. “I’ll call you later.” Debra hopped off the step and started walking quickly toward her car, obviously trying to get the hell out of there.
“No, wait. I want to hear about this. Come here, Deb.” Kyle ordered.
Debra came back and reluctantly stepped inside the foyer. The storm door closed behind her. Stepping over shoes, she backed up to the coat-laden wall. Her face and neck were a mass of little red blotches that she was rubbing with the back of her hand.
“Hi, Kyle. Short work day?”
“What were you saying about some guy following Julie home?” Kyle asked.
“I was trailing both of them, and then Julie lost him at a railroad crossing,” she started to explain.
“You were behind him that whole time?” Julie asked with a ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look on her face.
“Yeah, the whole time. When I saw him follow you out of the parking lot, I almost killed myself trying
to catch up.” Debra looked about as stressed as anyone could look.
Kyle seemed to hang on every word, resting his elbow on the wall, cradling his ear with his hand. Marie, galoshes and all, seemed glued to the spot where she stood.
“Even after you lost him, I could have sworn that he was going to follow you home. But at the last minute, he turned off into Brentwood Pines down the road. I don’t think he saw me.”
“Where did he go after that?” Julie asked.
“He went home. I’ve got his address.”
Everyone’s mouth fell open to some degree. Everyone eyed the napkin that Debra was holding.
“He lives in the only blue house on Jaycox Avenue.”
Both Kyle and Julie reached for the paper. Debra shoved it into Julie’s hand before Kyle could grab it.
“I’ll kill the son of a bitch! Give me that!” He snatched the napkin from Julie, almost tearing the flimsy scrap of paper. “He’s going to be sorry he ever messed with me!”
Kyle brushed against Debra, who had flattened her back against the wall. He kicked the door until it was hanging by its hinges, until he’d broken a good section of glass. “I’ll kill that son of a bitch!” The veins in his neck visibly pulsed to his temples. He kicked it again. This time the door bounced back just as he reached for the handle and a fragment of jagged glass sliced his hand. But he didn’t groan in pain or even mutter a sound. He kicked the door fast and hard, violently shattering the rest of the glass, straining the hinge of the door. Then he stomped out, steadfast toward his truck.
Debra, Julie, and Marie stood motionless, listening to his truck peel out of the driveway.
“I think you should call the police.” Debra said.
Marie’s face lost all expression . . . she looked at Julie and then at Debra. “He threatens to kill someone all the time. Once it was Nate’s baseball coach after they got in an argument. I have to admit though; I’ve never seen him like this.”
Julie set down her grocery bag and blankly stared at it, playing back the surreal sequence of events in her head—each one as they unfolded, seeing the man in grocery aisles, again at the checkout—his clothes, his face, fondling her with his eyes. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. So this was Kyle’s way of defending her, she thought. Not for her protection as much as it was for his ego.
Debra picked up the phone. “I’m calling the police.”
“Good luck,” Marie said. “We don’t have police here. You’ll have to call the sheriff’s department. That might take half an hour if they’re close to the county borderline, a couple hours if they’re not.” Marie guided Julie to a chair. Debra faced the wall, looking up and dialing the number. Still facing the wall, she spoke in hushed tones. After a while she hung up the phone.
“They won’t do anything, not with just the color of a house. I was going to give them the address but I couldn’t remember it. I couldn’t give them the guy’s name, or even the guy’s license plate number. You’re not going to believe this, but they said the man on Jaycox needs to call them if he thinks he’s in danger. That’s their protocol.”
“Did you tell them that this guy was stalking Julie? What kind of person does that?”
“They said that since the man in the store didn’t physically or verbally threaten Julie, and because Julie had no previous incidents with this man, there were no grounds to report him either.”
“That’s ridiculous. Who did you talk to?” Marie asked.
“An officer, Jennings I think. He said it might be different if Kyle had left with a gun or a knife. But he didn’t.”
Julie could still see Kyle’s fist as it punched the wall. She could still see the force of his boot as it busted the door, the glass. She got up, and with the same blank stare, retrieved the trashcan and squatted as she started to pick up shards of glass with her fingers.
Debra picked up the broom and dustpan, and went over to where Julie was. “Julie, don’t. You’ll cut yourself. I can do that.” She touched Julie’s elbow and guided her stance. Julie stood back and watched in silence as Debra swept the broken glass.
“Julie, are you okay?” Marie asked.
Julie wiped the corners of her eyes. “I’ll be alright. Thanks for the eggs, Marie.” Julie shivered fast and short, and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll be alright.”
Chapter 26
Julie stared out the front window, arms folded, watching for Kyle to come home. She’d turned off all the lights but was too upset to go to bed. She glanced at the clock and out the window again, rotating her earring. She paced to the stairway and back to the living room where she straightened an afghan, her hands jittery, and went back to the window. It was ten after eleven when she saw his truck headlights bounce over the rut at the end of the driveway.
She retreated to her bedroom. He had said that he would kill ‘the son of a bitch’. Had he? The moonlight, penetrating through the bedroom blinds, cast inkblot shadows. Her eyes rested on their wedding picture that was framed in heavy crystal as she crawled under the blankets. She thought about when she’d first come to live here, how his mother had cowered at a pin-drop and had hid in her room because of her overbearing husband. She never wanted to be like that. But here she was hiding in her room, cowering just the same. Kyle’s father had been downright mean at times, critical and controlling. She was glad when they’d moved to Florida. She heard Kyle downstairs, first as a door closed, then as the sound of his shoes hit the wall, the way he always kicked them off. She waited. What was he doing? What was taking so long? She wanted to rise up out of bed. She wanted to ask him where he’d been, what he’d done. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Julie closed her eyes. Tomorrow she’d pack a bag. Tomorrow she’d leave for good. Why argue about it tonight? Tomorrow she would just do it. She heard him coming. She waited for the door to open across the hall where he had been sleeping, but instead her door opened—their door. She closed her eyes, vowing to keep them closed no matter what. Kyle walked softly to the bed and leaned over her. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her cheek. Then he left the room.
Maybe she wouldn’t leave, not just yet. Tomorrow she’d get even. Tomorrow she’d make his favorite dish with a whole lot of extra something-something grotesque, something she could camouflage. She didn’t want to poison him, nothing like that. She would think of something, something good. She punched her pillow. Then she’d bleach his underwear. Just enough to make him itch. He’d never smell it the way his sinuses were—at least he never had. Tomorrow she’d get even. Then she’d leave . . . she’d leave him for good.
* * *
The next morning Julie stayed in bed until she heard Kyle leave. Then she made coffee just like she always had, and sat down in the living room, still in her pajamas, to wake up slowly watching Good Morning America. Kyle was heavy on her mind. He wouldn’t kill anyone. What was she thinking? He probably went over there to yell at him. Maybe he punched the guy, too. Maybe the guy punched him back, just maybe. Kyle would have wailed on him then. What if the guy had a knife?
But Kyle came home.
She waited for someone to interrupt the morning show to announce the murder on Jaycox Avenue. And when they didn’t, she spent the rest of the day envisioning one scenario and then another.
Kyle killed him.
No he didn’t.
Kyle killed him.
That’s ridiculous.
She listened to the radio, too; hoping, praying that no one was dead in that damned blue house.
It was five o’clock now. She’d made stew, his favorite dish, just as she’d promised herself. One kiss would never make up for what he’d put her through. Eyeing a dead fly on the window sill, she wished she had the guts to crumble it in and disguise it with cracked pepper and dried basil. Knowing just where to find some, she wished she had the guts to add a cluster of maggots to the boiling caldron and disguise it with rice. But she thought better of herself. “Only a psychopath would go that far,” she said out loud. “If anything I’
m not a psychopath.”
By now it was six o’clock. She had toted a basket of lightly bleached laundry to the living room, Kyle’s white underwear, and had started to fold them, watching News Channel 5. But she really wasn’t paying attention to the news until she heard: “And now a breaking news story,” Wilma Smith, a Cleveland TV news anchor, announced. “LaGrange Township is reeling after a local man was found dead in the garage of his home. The dead man has been identified as Devin Hurley, 34, of Jaycox Avenue. Norman Hurley, his brother discovered Devin’s body late this afternoon. Police are investigating.” A blue house was in the video behind Wilma Smith.
Julie froze.
Kyle was going to be home any minute.
Her phone rang. “Julie, are you watching the news?” It was Marie.
“He did it. He really did it. I can’t believe this is happening. He’ll be home any minute. What do I do?” Julie stuttered. “I can’t . . . I can’t be here.”
“Get your things, get over here right now. Do you hear me? Leave now! I’m calling the police.”
Julie turned off the oven and hurriedly threw some toiletries and a clean change of clothes in a wadded plastic bag. She could still see Kyle ravage the door and break the glass. In that moment she knew—Kyle was a murderer. Who was next? Her? Debra? Marie? She could still see the look on Marie’s face; he shouldn’t have put her through that—not Marie, not with all she’d done for them. Marie had rescued Julie from an orphanage. Marie had always been there for her, ever since Julie was four.
She wrestled her coat off the hook and slipped on her shoes. But just as she turned the doorknob, she heard Kyle’s truck. She rushed to the back sliding door, slid it open and jerked it closed as she left. Then she ran to the other side of the house where he couldn’t see her. Breathing heavily, Julie flattened her back against the wood siding. She heard Kyle slam his truck door. Her body lurched.
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