As Night Falls (26 page)

N
ick skidded to a stop at the car, and his face cinched with sudden pain.

Good, Ivy thought savagely. She had never been so glad to see anyone suffer.

Nick leaned over, elbows on the hood as he tried to catch his breath. After a second he brought both fists down, hard enough that despite the padding of his gloves, the metal clanged in the night.

Harlan was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to Ivy that between her and her mom, they might be able to get past Nick. He didn't seem quite as strong or sure anymore.

Her mother dropped onto the front seat. “Move out of the way,” she called through the open door. “Or I'll run you down like a piece of roadkill.” Ivy could see her mom's face in the rearview mirror, wobbly, as if she didn't have control of the muscles. “Ivy, put on your seatbelt.”

Ivy did.

The sky spat snow as if it were disgusted with Nick, too.

Nick's gaze swerved around; it looked almost panicked. “You'll never—” He was still breathing hard. “—get through this snow.”

“Watch me.” Ivy's mom slammed the door shut. She moved a trembling hand in the direction of her pocket. Then she looked down and frowned.

Through the windshield, Nick's features became distorted by the snow. Only when his gaze honed in on a spot some distance away did a layer of calm slide over his face. He strolled forward, favoring one foot before speeding up.

Her mother was up and out of the car like an arrow shot from a bow. She dove, but Nick got there before she did, and thrust his hand into the area they'd cleared, where the ring of keys had fallen.

Her mom's hands slapped the ground and a powder puff of snow rose up.

“Get up,” Nick said, jamming the keys into his coat. “And get the princess out of the car. Now, while I'm in a forgiving mood.”

Nick led them back down to the Nelsons' cabin. Ivy took one last glance at the curved sickle that led out to Long Hill Road, cleared by Mr. Nelson earlier. Hopelessness assailed her, as blank and empty as the snow.

She stopped short when they got to the rear of the cabin, screening her eyes. Lamps from the house floodlit the field, but what Ivy was seeing had to be impossible. The portion of ground she and her mother stood before had become something out of a Disney movie. Ugly white snow all turned a pretty candy color by some fairy godmother's wand to take away the horror of the night.

Then Ivy realized what she was really seeing, and she let out a long, spiraling cry. “Oh noooo—”

The Nelsons' bodies were under there; their blood had tinged the snow. This must've been what got Harlan so upset.

Ivy's legs wouldn't hold her up, only she couldn't, wouldn't fall onto that terrible spread of pink. In her mind, it became much bigger than the streaks by the Nelsons' heads: endless acres of rosy snow. Ivy twisted around, hunting for someplace, anyplace safe to go.

“Now,” Nick said conversationally. He grabbed the handle of a snow shovel that had been stuck deep into a drift. By Harlan probably; Nick had to work to get it loose. “Which of you ladies will go first? Because we've clearly got a visibility problem here. Not to mention some time pressure.”

He looked skyward, and it came to Ivy why. She imagined the helicopter pulsing through the air, she pictured the pilot—no, the
cops
inside the bubble, knowing which direction to start searching in because they'd spotted this horrible stained snow on the ground.

Her mother rushed Nick, flinging herself at him in one fierce, fluid motion. She let out a scream, a dread, wonderful sound. “Let! Her! Go!”

Nick held her back with the tips of his gloved fingers.

But Ivy's mom surged forward. “Please! Harlan is obviously done for, too!”

Ivy hadn't seen him till then. Harlan sitting, rocking, by a heap of snow he'd dug up, his body like a huge, quivering pile of its own.

“Let Harlan go inside with Ivy!” Her mother screamed and the wind joined her. “I'll do it, you monster, I'll finish your dirty work!”

“You know what, Cass?” he said. “That's not a half-bad idea.” He jerked his head at Harlan, who got to his feet. “Take the princess inside. And don't let her go anywhere.”

Harlan led Ivy back across the blessedly white sea toward the Nelsons' cabin, their faces lowered against the wind and dwindling flakes of snow.

Harlan followed Nick's instructions, guiding and guarding Ivy, but unlike the time they'd spent together in her room, he seemed unwilling to talk or be drawn out. Ivy curled up on the frayed couch, while Harlan sat in a worn armchair that barely contained him. His fists rested on his thighs as he looked glumly off at a fireplace whose powdery cone of ashes had long since stopped providing any warmth.

After some unmarked span of time, Nick and her mother came back in. Her mom's body was wracked with shivers; it was as if she had a high fever. Ivy jumped up and snatched a knitted blanket from the back of the couch. She took off her mother's damp coat and gloves and wrapped her up like a geisha or Native American woman or something.

Her mom gave Ivy a nod to acknowledge the act, blinking down at her new garb, then went back to those electrified shakes. Ivy drifted over to the uncomfortable couch again.

Nick spoke up. “Harlan. Enough delay. That took twice as long without you.”

Harlan just sat there, his wet clothes sticking to him. He too was shivering hard; the armchair looked like it was convulsing.

Nick eyed him, crossing the distance to the chair. “We're going. Now.”

“You promised,” Harlan said. “Back in the car. You promised not to, but then you went ahead and did, and now everything's all shot to—”

Nick's voice changed then. Instead of issuing orders, he spoke in a low, level tone, almost like the one Ivy's mom sometimes used. He must've said something about promises, because Harlan shouted, “That's rules! That's rules are made to be broken. But you know what? You shouldn't break those either!”

Ivy crossed the room to check on her mom. Her mother's trembling had lessened, and she seemed to be staring off at something Ivy couldn't see.

Ivy said the first thing that came into her head. “Great. If those two start freaking out on each other, they'll never take us back to our house.”

“No,” her mom said. “They won't.”

Ivy had already started to go on, say any random thing just to keep her mother talking, but as her reply registered, Ivy stopped and asked, “They won't what?”

“Ivy.” Her mom shed the blanket, let it fall to the floor. “We can't leave this up to them.”

Ivy wrapped her arms around herself, bearing down to suppress panic. But it was the strangest thing. Scared as she was—scared as her mother obviously was, with everything unknown and uncertain before them—Ivy felt like the two of them had never been this close before in her life.

When she grabbed Ivy's hands, her mother's skin was the pale blue of skim milk, as if even the blood inside her ran cold. “I think I know,” her mom said, “who might be able to help.”

N
ick had killed Hark and Anita without seeming to think twice about it. Sandy wondered whether he had planned to do so all along, worried about leaving loose ends, or if he had pulled the trigger on a whim. As a child, hurting people didn't cost Nick anything because he'd never had to pay for his actions. Their mother had glossed over them, or looked the other way. Even when Nick went to prison, their mother maintained that a miscarriage of justice had transpired, and Nick was spared disapprobation from the only person whose condemnation might've mattered. It seemed clear to Sandy now that she had entered the profession she had in order to try and understand the warped workings of this dynamic, which had stolen so much from her.

She wasn't going to let it take anything more.

Nick, leaning over, was about level with Harlan, who had crammed his body into an armchair, shoulders hunched, his back like the hull of a ship. Nick continued to address him with uncharacteristic patience.

On the other side of the room, an object sat in clear sight. An old-fashioned, corded phone, the last to go out in a storm.

Sandy traced a slow, wandering path in its direction, keeping an eye on the men. Harlan's eyebrows had descended like storm clouds, but he was listening to Nick. Only the pull of the phone unhooked Sandy's gaze from the sight. Harlan brought out a quality in Nick that she wouldn't have believed could be there. Not just tolerance, but something approaching affection.

Sandy arrived at the phone stand, and picked up the receiver. There was a nervous burr in her stomach, and her hands fluttered like moths.

Getting the police back here would be pointless. The police had already come, and gone.

While Sandy had been outside, throwing fresh white shovelfuls of snow over the heaps stained with red, she'd thought about her conversation earlier that night with Madeline. Sandy's behavior during the call was comprehensible to her now; she had been sitting perched atop a volcano. Beneath the dome was her refusal to recognize her own brother when he'd arrived.

Still, Sandy would've regretted her unprofessional outburst except that it had reminded her of something. Or someone.

She pressed down on the checkerboard of keys, hard enough to stamp each one on her fingertip. The numbers were imprinted on her mind from a lifetime ago. She feared the squawks they made would be overheard, but when she looked up, Nick was still talking.

Dull, droning rings began to fill Sandy's ear.

Her messy self-disclosure. The conflict with which Madeline had been struggling in therapy. Death, and loss, and loss that didn't come from death.

In bits in her head, the cobbled-together pieces of a plan.

The voice that picked up was one she hadn't heard in over two decades.

“Nick is here,” Sandy said. Three small words, low enough that they were probably hard to make out, yet clashed like cymbals across the whole world.

Sandy couldn't bear to listen any longer; even just the sound of the breaths on the other end of the line was too dread, and too familiar.

She nestled the phone back in its cradle, realizing that she was rubbing the scar on her wrist. The wound had been deep, but still, Sandy had always counted herself lucky.

If Nick's knife had succeeded in striking that final time, its target had been her throat.

Sandy swiveled, one hand over her lurching heart. Ivy knelt backward on the sofa, watching her.

Harlan began to unfold his body, getting up out of the chair. He gave her brother a nod, eclipsing Nick's head with his own.

He had acquiesced, would be Nick's foot soldier once more.

Unless the grenade Sandy had thrown actually went off.

Because once Nick reached a certain point, there was only one person who'd ever succeeded in pulling him back.

B
arbara heard the high, lilting voice in the living room, and frowning, she went in to check. It wouldn't be Cassandra. Cassandra never got home this early these days, doing God-knows-what at school or elsewhere till dinnertime or later.

With high school graduation bearing down, Nicholas had found it hard to decide on a direction. He had so many talents and strengths. And he hadn't applied to college because he couldn't find one where the caliber of student matched his own. Barbara hadn't pushed because she was in no hurry to see Nicholas leave home. But one of these days, he was going to choose to do something, and Barbara would have to let him, of course. That was the greatest challenge of motherhood: letting your fledgling fly away.

Her son stood by the front door, a girl beside him.

This one was dressed in one of those formfitting tops—bodysuits, Cassandra called them—that seemed to provide the wearer little more than skin cover, and an excuse to go braless. It was only April, the snow still sitting in shady pockets along the roads, and yet this girl's skirt twitched up around her thighs.

Nicholas wore his hair even longer these days, in looping curls that Barbara loved. But he dressed nicely for a teenager: clean jeans and freshly washed tee shirts—well, Barbara did his laundry, to be strictly honest—that hung casually on his skinny frame.

Barbara felt her lips drawstring in. “Nicholas?”

Her son switched his gaze to her, and everything else vanished. It was as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud.

“Mama,” Nick said. “Meet Jennifer.”

“Jessica,” said the girl.

Clouds descended again, disturbing her basking. Barbara frowned at the girl.

“That's right,” Nicholas said. “Jessica. We're going upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” Barbara echoed. “To do what?”

“What do you think?” Nicholas called back.

He headed for the stairway, the girl trailing behind him, giggling, their hands linked.

“Homework,” Nicholas added.

“But you haven't got any books!”

The girl giggled again, but the sound was a little less bright.

Barbara flailed desperately for some form of delay. “Wouldn't you like a snack first?” she proposed. “Juice or soda and some sandwiches?”

“Nick,” the girl said, slowing her tread. “I am a little hungry.”

“I am too,” Nicholas replied, and he pulled the girl's hand hard enough that she tripped on the first stair.

Barbara slapped ham onto bread, and splashed soda into glasses, until the mess she was making caught her eye. Crumbs, and smudges of mustard, amidst puddles of melting ice. If she was going to distract Nicholas and his guest, she would have to do better than this. She forcibly slowed down, straightening the slices of bread and cutting her results into neat triangles, then adding a parcel of cookies. She set everything on a tray, which she lofted as she trooped upstairs.

She could hear noises by the time she reached the second floor hallway.

Moist and fleshy, paired with the susurrant slide of fabric.

Barbara set the tray soundlessly down on the floor outside Nicholas' room. The door had been left ajar, a generous slice exposing the portion of bed on which her beautiful son lay.

“You have, like, the most gorgeous hair,” said the girl.

She got quiet after that, suctiony sounds ensuing. The tacky bodysuit was tugged aside, exposing high scoops of breasts. The girl was braless, just as Barbara had suspected.

Nicholas lowered his hand, and Barbara bit back a breath.

“Nick, don't,” the girl said.

She placed one of her hands on Nicholas' bare waist, holding him away. His pearly skin, sullied by this girl's touch.

“Come on, Jen,” said Nicholas.

“Jess.”

“That's what I meant,” Nicholas said, a smile in his voice.

They both got quiet again, then the girl said, “Who's Jen?”

“Jesus!” Nicholas exclaimed. “She's nobody.”

More silence, or if there were sounds, they were muffled.

“Can we take it a little slower?” the girl said.

Her tone was sweet, cajoling, but it made Barbara feel tissuey and dry inside.

Nicholas rolled his body out of view. The stifled grunts coming from the room were louder now.

“Nick, no. Nick! Let's stop. Let's wait. I want to know who Jen is—”

“She's just a girl,” Nicholas said, his voice low although still audible. “Who didn't give me anywhere near as hard a time as you.”

Barbara's gaze flicked to the tray. It was as good a time as any for an interruption, and she raised her hand to knock.

A high-pitched yelp made her jump. Her foot kicked the tray, and a tumbler fell over, sending out a geyser of soda.

Barbara peered into the slit of open space.

The girl had scooted all the way back on the bed, and was trying to tug up the sleeves of that infernal suit. But the tight fabric was resisting her efforts, and Nicholas was sitting back on his heels, grinning as any boy would over such a ridiculous display.

“Barbara?”

She whirled to see Gordon. What time was it? How long had Nicholas and the girl spent tussling on his bed?

“What are you doing? What's going on in Nick's bedroom?”

“Nothing,” Barbara said quickly. “Nicholas just has a friend over—”

“A friend?” Gordon repeated. “I heard screams.”

He pushed past her, shoe coming down in a sodden patch on the runner of carpet. The soda, sinking in.

Her husband yanked Nicholas up by one arm, nearly hurling him across the room, and Barbara let out a little scream of her own. “Gordon! What are you doing to him?”

“To him?” Gordon roared. “What am I doing to him?”

He bent down and snatched up a fistful of fabric. The girl's skirt, small enough to fit in one hand; underwear; socks. Gordon tossed the clothes onto the bed, turning his head aside.

“Get dressed,” he said to the girl.

“Get your own girl, Dad,” Nicholas said from across the room. “This one's mine.”

“I am not!” the girl shrieked.

Her face was a red, mottled mess. How ugly she looked now, Barbara thought. The girl tried to tug on her clothes, but bent over before she could do up the clasp on her skirt, sobbing.

Gordon kept his head averted. At last he said, “Can I call someone for you?”

But the girl only shook her head, then—clutching her shoes, the flaps of her skirt flying open—ran as fast as she could from the room.

Gordon left the bedroom first, his head bent.

Nicholas walked after him, his slow, plodding steps like a bell tolling out the hours.

Barbara stayed behind, using the bathroom sponge to wipe up the soda on the rug. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two of them huddled at the top of the stairs.

“This has to stop, son,” Gordon said. “With the girls. One of these days, you're going to get yourself arrested.”

Nicholas' face turned match-quick in Barbara's direction, and she felt her lips curl in a reflexive smile.

“Oh, Gordon,” she said. “If the police start interfering with kids and their kissing games, we may as well move to Russia.”

Gordon frowned, while Nicholas turned slowly, arduously away. How tired her boy must be, defending himself from that girl's incessant questioning, and now having to deal with his father's brand of stubborn humorlessness.

“If Chief Weathers ever does get in touch with Nicholas,” Barbara went on in a light trill, “it will probably be to give him a medal, or the keys to the city.”

“For what?” Gordon said. “Flunking high school?”

Barbara ignored him.

“Mama?” Nicholas said. There was something dark and unsettling in his eyes.

“Yes, Nicky?” Barbara said, a baby name from long ago. Her own eyes began to fill.

“You don't think there's anything the police could do to me?”

Barbara gazed up at her son, and saw how scared he looked, raw and vulnerable in a way that he never had, even as a baby.

“Oh, Nicky,” she said. “Of course not.”

“Really?” he asked. “No matter what I did?”

Gordon, lingering by the stairway, turned his head.

“Of course not,” Barbara said again. “What do you mean? Whatever would you do?”

“I don't know,” Nicholas said. “Anything.”

“No, I don't,” Barbara said, firmly to counteract the tremble in her son's tone. “You don't have to worry, Nicky.”

There was a long silence. “Okay, then,” Nicholas said at last. “Okay.”

He turned and followed his father downstairs.

Barbara sat there, her attempts to reassure her son circling over and over in her head, along with the rasp of the now dry sponge on the carpet. And she wondered why the voice that filled her ears was her mother's, saying what had always been truest about Barbara. That, despite her best efforts and hardest work, she couldn't ever hope for anything except to fail.

Barbara stopped cleaning and placed both hands over her ears, but even that didn't fully block out the sound of the voices drifting upstairs like smoke.

“Where did you get that?” Gordon asked. “We haven't gone hunting since—”

Nicholas broke in. “I kept everything you gave me, Dad.”

Barbara let herself take just the slightest sip of relieved air. There was the Nicholas she knew. Loving. True. Then she heard the echo of the tense he had used.
Kept
. Not
keep
.

She looked down at the carpet. The stain was gone, the patch she had cleaned bright against the shoe-trodden area around it.

“I love this knife!” Nicholas said, his voice carrying much too far. That was a rebel yell, an Indian cry, not a declaration of feeling. “And I love you!”

The front door banged, and Barbara got up, trancelike, unblinking as she walked.

From the stairway, she heard Cassandra shriek. “Daddy! No! Nick! Stop it! Stop!”

Barbara descended the last step, and saw the reason for the screams.

Gordon and Nicholas stood close enough to embrace, both peering down at the bone-smooth handle of a knife, which protruded from Gordon's chest. Blood seethed from a slit in his shirt.

Gordon opened his mouth to speak, a wondering expression on his face, but only air came out, and a little spool of blood. Gordon's knees sagged, and he went down.

“Daddy!” Cassandra screamed again. She ran to her father, her arms extended. Nicholas pulled the knife free, and Cassandra got in the way of the blade. The tip flicked against her wrist. “Daddy, no!”

Cassandra shoved Nicholas hard enough that he let out a yell. The knife whipped about as he stumbled, right into his perfect, carved calf.

Barbara walked on stilt legs to the wall phone. She picked up the receiver.

“Chief Weathers,” she said into it. “This is Barbara Burgess up in Cold Kettle. Can you send an ambulance? My husband has had an accident.”

Nicholas and Cassandra were tangled together on the floor like a pair of puppies. Nicholas withdrew the knife from his leg, not even noticing the spout of blood that accompanied his action. Her son had always been strong, and good with pain. Once a terrible boy had bullied Nicholas, assaulted him, really, claiming that Nicky had done something to the boy's sister. When Nicholas had taken out a knife to try and defend himself, the boy had punched him right in the head. Nicholas had walked three miles all the way home, eyes goggled, a grapefruit-sized swelling on his scalp, and it turned out that he'd been given a concussion.

Her son had always been tough.

Now he raised the knife again. Barbara's vision was muddy; she couldn't tell exactly who or what that blade was poised to hit. But Gordon threw himself forward, falling over on his side as he tried frantically to reach for the knife.

“Nicky,” Barbara said weakly. “Don't.”

The blue of Gordon's eyes rolled back, and stayed that way, just as his son's hand finally stilled.