It was the first time in her life her father had appeared vulnerable to Alexa.
But then, a more foreboding thought followed. An alternative viewpoint that worked to squeeze the shard of hope back down to its original size and maybe cause it to disappear altogether. He’s taking me away so I can’t tell anybody. He’ll never let me tell anybody.
They drove on. Another McDonald’s drive-thru for breakfast, a Burger King for lunch, and then midafternoon, her dad had made a sudden exit from the interstate and then they’d been traveling down a rural road that became so desolate it seemed as though it were a mistake to be there in the first place.
“Getting tired,” he’d mumbled from the driver’s seat. A bit of ketchup had dried on the corner of his mouth. “I think we’ve gone far enough for now.”
Alexa stared out the window at the trees and fields and the setting sun dipping along the horizon and thought, Unless you brought a tent or want to sleep in the car, we better go a little bit farther.
They rounded a bend in the road and there it was. A motel, spawned from nothing, waiting for them on the side of the road. Six rooms. No other cars.
“Perfect!” her dad had said, a spark of energy causing him to sit up straight and widen his eyes. “Just what we need.”
And Alexa found herself agreeing with him. She didn’t know why, but something about the sight of the motel made her suddenly feel … happy? Yes, that was part of it, but not everything. There was another feeling being brought forth the closer they got to the building as her father pulled into the parking area and nosed the car up in front of the door to the motel’s office. It made her feel…
“Safe,” she whispered under her breath. It was the first word she’d said in their entire trip, the first word she’d said period since that day in his office, and the sound of her voice caused her father’s head to swivel around hard in her direction, his eyes ablaze with excitement. Like maybe his plan was working, maybe she was coming around to forgetting the whole thing had ever happened.
“What’s that, baby girl?”
Alexa said nothing. Crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.
He told her to stay in the car while he got them a room.
They were given room five, and once they’d gone inside, Alexa had changed into a sweatshirt and pajama pants, desperately wanting to shed the clothes she’d been sitting in for the last twenty-four hours. Outside, the summer air was warm, and the motel room was stuffy. Alexa didn’t care about the heat. She kept the sweatshirt on and the sleeves pulled down and her hood up.
She didn’t want any part of her exposed for her dad to see.
They’d settled in, he with his paperback novel and she staring blankly at the television screen, trying to let her mind focus on what she was watching, but failing. She badly wanted to float away with a mindless television show, let the laugh track and onscreen antics cause her to forget, if just for a moment, the turn her life had taken.
She couldn’t do it. Not entirely. Couldn’t seem to shake the fear that was clinging to her, that notion that at any moment, her father would come to her, do it again. With every move he made, Alexa found herself flinching, sliding further away from him.
Finally, he fell asleep.
Alexa switched off the bedside lamp but left the television on with the volume turned down. She didn’t want to be in complete darkness. She wanted to be able to see him if he came to her, wanted the shadows to sway with his movement, an early warning signal.
She cinched the hood of her sweatshirt and buried herself beneath the covers, then turned to face the wall, putting her back to him, not even wanting him to see her face should he wake.
She told herself she wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t give him the benefit of being able to sneak up on her. But within minutes, she was dreaming.
In the dream, she was at Maggie’s house. The two of them lying on Maggie’s bed and giggling as the radio played and they flipped through magazines and pretended like they were sixteen instead of twelve. Old enough to drive. Old enough to go on dates and stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home from school when the weather was warm and get a Blizzard. All the freedoms a person could want.
Just be still, beautiful. You stay in that dream.
A woman’s voice, breaking through the ethereal barrier between the dream version of Maggie’s room and the real world.
Don’t worry. Don’t turn around. You’ll be safe now. The woman spoke again, and Alexa wanted to ask, “Who are you?” but found when she did, it was Maggie who answered. “I’m Maggie, silly. You know, duh, your best friend?”
And Alexa’s head swiveled from the dream version of her friend and up to the ceiling, as if she could see through the confines of her dream and discover who’d been speaking.
The radio played. Maggie turned more pages of the magazine.
And then, another voice broke through, one Alexa knew by heart. It played from the radio speakers in Maggie’s room, staticky and not quite crisp. Her father’s voice.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Dad?” Alexa called out.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Alexa jumped off the bed and over to the radio sitting on Maggie’s dresser. She leaned in close, putting her ear close to the speaker.
“Okay, okay, okay! No more!”
Something was happening to him. Was he dreaming, too?
“Wake up!” Alexa told herself. “Wake up!”
She had to see what was going on.
Sleep, beautiful. The woman’s voice again, coming from above. Not much longer now.
And then, from the radio speakers, she heard her father begin to choke, then gag.
“He’s getting sick!” Alexa’s eyes bored into the radio. She reached for the volume knob and cranked it up, trying to hear more clearly what was happening out in the real word, outside her dream.
“Alexa, come look at this guy. I think I want to marry him. He’s gorgeous!” Maggie called to her from the bed.
“Wake up!” Alexa shouted to herself.
More gagging from the radio speaker. Desperate gasps of air.
And just as the sympathy Alexa began to feel worked its way up from her heart—the sympathy any child will inherently feel for a parent in distress, a parent who might be struggling to stay alive—an image flashed in her head. An image that squashed the sympathy back down, mashed it to nothing.
Her father walking across the office and yanking her from the computer chair. Pulling her into a close hug, stroking her hair and telling her everything was okay. Gripping her tighter as she tried to pull away. Telling her she was beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
More gagging from the radio, the sound of somebody choking on soup, and then what sounded like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.
Her father’s hands sliding down her shoulders. Down her torso. Reaching under her shirt. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. To her chest. Lingering there. Feeling. Exploring. Sighing. Moving lower. Finding the waistband of her pants. Slipping beneath it. Down, down, down. Finding what he was looking for.
And Alexa didn’t want to wake up anymore.
She liked it in Maggie’s room. She walked back to the bed and joined her friend and looked at the gorgeous guy who Maggie was going to marry.
On the radio, the music had started playing again.
* * *
When Alexa woke that morning, she knew her father was dead before she saw him. She’d opened her eyes and had seen the sun warming the motel room’s wall, her own shadow enlarged, making her feel bigger than life.
She remembered everything—the woman’s voice, the dream of Maggie’s room, the choking, the gagging, and then the feeling of everything being over. Better. Renewed.
Safe.
She sat up in the bed and turned over. Saw her father’s body with the empty pill bottle next to it. Saw his dried sick on his face and thought it to be such a wonderfully symbolic image. They’d learned about symbolism in
English, and she was proud of herself for finding an application for it in real life.
She walked over to her father’s body, looking down at him without sadness. She picked up the pill bottle and replaced the lid and then stuffed it into her pocket. A token that would remind her you might never truly know a person. Not even your own father.
“I guess the monsters won,” Alexa said as she headed for the door, off to find somebody to tell. Off to start the rest of her life.
Or maybe you were the monster this whole time.
21
Lance walked out motel room five’s door and was suddenly pinned down with headlights of an approaching vehicle.
The sun was gone, day sneakily shifting into night once again with the blink of Lance’s eyes. He stopped immediately, taking his time and getting his bearings after the transition. Looked to his right, just on instinct, to see if he might still be able to make out the fading memory of the young girl Alexa making her way to the office. But he saw nothing but a few stray cigarette butts and pine needles blowing across the walkway in the gentle breeze sweeping across the lot.
Lance looked ahead, toward the headlights. The Ford Explorer that had been parked in front of room five was gone, so Lance was either witnessing a different day, or …
(“Don’t call the police. Don’t report this. We’ve got to get rid of him and never speak about it again.”)
Or Quinten and Murry had done what had been needed.
The cones of light plastered Lance against the motel’s wall like a deer on the highway, freezing him in place. But any sense of panic Lance might have felt as the truck—it was a truck, he could see that now—approached him never surfaced. He’d begun to understand at least one of the rules of this experience he was living, and that was that he was completely unseen. More unobtrusive than even the proverbial fly on the wall.
Except … the boy did see me, didn’t he? Felt me, my presence, at the very least.
Lance found himself wishing he could somehow rewind this episode he was living, go back to that moment inside room five when Quinten had reached out for him. What would have happened if Lance had let him succeed? Would he have found himself coming into existence in this time and space? Filling in with color the way the fuzzy-television people had when Quinten had embraced them in Lance’s dream. Would Murry have been able to see him? The girl?
Would Quinten and he be able to talk?
The last possibility alone was what had Lance kicking himself for chickening out and shying away from the boy’s touch.
The truck was a battered black thing that looked every bit the role of what somebody like Murry might drive. Something that was meant to be taken off-road. Down to the stream or the lake for fishing. Up into the mountains for hunting. Hauling what needed to be hauled. Banged on and scratched up and used for its purpose without any care of vanity. A truck with history. A part of its owner. It began heading for the end of the motel, toward the office.
When it parked, the engine was cut off and Quinten opened the passenger door and stepped down. Even from where Lance was standing, he could see the contemplation in the boy’s expression, and it was mixed with something else. Worry?
Lance began walking toward the truck, his footsteps quick. Quinten stepped up onto the walkway and stood, waiting. Murry emerged from the driver’s side. He looked tired, defeated. All at once unhealthy. Quinten’s eyes bored holes into his uncle, locked and loaded and ready to fire.
Murry’s face, haggard and pleading, as if to say, please, let’s not do this, looked to his nephew and waited.
“That was too easy,” Quinten said, the words echoing off the motel’s walls before getting swallowed by the surrounding trees.
Murry said nothing.
Quinten stepped forward, crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again. “Why?”
Murry shrugged, a pathetic sight that reminded Lance of a child when being scolded and asked to explain itself. “You said we had to get rid of him. What did you think we were going to do?”
“No,” Quinten shook his head. “That’s not what I’m asking. Why was it so easy?”
“I don’t understand,” Murry said. But Lance could tell he knew exactly what the boy was asking him.
“Murry, you knew exactly what you were doing tonight. The car, the body. You knew exactly where to go and exactly what do to. The best way to drive, the best time, everything was meticulous. Everything was so planned. How?”
Murry spoke louder now, more defensive. “You told me to come up with something good. I did as instructed. You told me to trust you. Well, how much more trust do you want from me than going along with your notion that we need to dump a body like some goddamn psycho criminal? And he was a cop! We could both go to jail, you know that, right? Both our lives could be over right this second. Think about your aunt. Think about your mother. How would she survive without you?”
Something about this last statement made Lance step closer to the two, positioning himself so his shins were nearly touching the truck’s front bumper. He looked back and forth, from Quinten, to Murry, and then back to Quinten. Waiting. The line about Quinten’s mother had sliced through the air, severing the conversation for a moment.
Quinten was quiet. Still. His eyes never leaving his uncle’s. And then, he took a breath and his face morphed into something that might have been sympathy before he closed his eyes completely.
“Quinten?” Murry asked, taking a small step forward before stopping. “Are you alright?”
Lance looked at the boy. He looked like he was meditating. Focusing. Drifting away in his mind.
“Quinten!” Murry was rounding the truck now and Lance stepped back to avoid the contact. Murry reached out with both hands, making a move to grab the boy by the shoulders, but the boy moved first. His eyes shooting open and him taking a quick step back.
And they saw it. Both Murry and Lance saw the new knowledge carried in the boy’s eyes.
“You’ve done this before,” Quinten said.
Murry held up a hand. “Quinten, listen. I—”
“You’ve done this all before. That’s how you were able to put it all together so quickly. You did the same thing with…” Quinten’s voice cracked, suddenly overcome with emotion. He took a breath and swallowed. “You did it with the Backstroms.”
Murry became angry. “Dammit, boy! Did you get in my head? Did you? We’ve talked about that! You can’t just go poking around inside other peoples’—”
“Those kind, innocent people. You … you murdered them.”
Murry took a step toward his nephew. “Quinten, you don’t understand. Just listen to me! It wasn’t like that. They—”
“They what, Murry? What could they have possibly done to make you shoot them?”
The boy was speaking softly, but Lance could feel the anger, the disappointment radiating from Quinten’s body.
Murry’s eyes softened. He sighed and his head dropped down, and when he spoke he was barely audible. “They didn’t do anything. It wasn’t about what they did. It was about what they might do.”
Quinten shook his head. “That only makes it worse.”
“We were only trying to protect you.”
At this, Quinten looked to the motel office door. He threw his head back and groaned. “Of course. She didn’t listen to a word I said. Didn’t trust me.” He looked back to his uncle. “I suppose it’s not entirely your fault. I’m to blame, too. I should have never told you two what I am. What I can do. I should have never asked you to shoulder that burden with me.”
“You’re our nephew, Quinten. Hell, you’re like our son. You know that.”
“I do.” Quinten nodded. “Which is why this is going to be so hard.”
And then the boy turned and started to walk across the parking lot, headed for the road.
“Quinten, where are you going?” Murry took a few steps after his nephew. “Quinten?”
The boy said nothing. Kept walking.
&nbs
p; “Quinten, are you going to the police? You don’t have to. I’ll turn myself in! Keep yourself and your aunt out of it!” Murry’s voice faded into the night.
Quinten walked into the road and made a right, continuing on, disappearing behind the tree line. Leaving them. He never looked back. Lance watched him go, watched Murry stand in the parking lot shaking his head and pleading under his breath, and when the man turned around, Lance saw the tears in his eyes.
“Shit.” Murry headed for the office. His head hung low, the feeling of some monumental change permeating the air. A page turning. One story ending, another beginning.
Murry slipped into the office and Lance moved to follow. He sucked in a breath and prepared himself and walked through the office door and—
And he was back outside. Standing on the concrete walkway just before reaching room six.
There was snow on the ground, a fierce cold in the air. A bitter chill that sank deep into your bones. The snow was still falling, hard and fast, just as it’d been when Lance had arrived at the motel.
But another coldness sank even deeper inside Lance. An icy grip on his heart, a surge of fear in his veins that made his head light and his vision wobble.
Parked just in front of room six was an orange-and-white Volkswagen bus, partially covered in snow.
22
(1993)
Quinten pulled his beanie down over his ears and then pulled on his gloves. The weather had gotten bad, temperatures plummeting overnight and the fear of a massive snowstorm being instilled in the town’s residents by enthusiastic meteorologists. It was supposed to roll in later this evening, once the sun had set. He’d probably have to walk home in it, so he wore his boots instead of sneakers, heavy rubber things Murry had gotten him one year for his birthday.
“Can’t beat a good pair of boots,” his uncle had said as Quinten had unwrapped them. “Protect your feet, protect the body.”
Quinten had been grateful for the gift. He’d been grateful for everything his aunt and uncle had given him over the years.
The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4 Page 34