Black Creek Crossing (9 page)

Then he spotted his father standing on the terrace about thirty yards away. Though he was talking to Mel Dunne, Seth knew that his father was also keeping an eye on him.

If he didn’t at least try to mix into the crowd around Zack and Heather, he didn’t even want to think about what his father might do to him when they got home.

Feeling his father watching every move he made—and feeling the sting on his backside—Seth edged closer to the group of teenagers. There were almost a dozen of them, all of whom he’d known all his life. But even when he was only a few feet away, not one of them spoke to him.

Not one of them even looked at him.

And they certainly didn’t make room for him in the circle around Zack and Heather. In fact, he thought Chad Jackson and Josh Harmon moved closer together so there would be no room for him, and once more he was seized by the urge to disappear into the pool house, where he could just sit by himself until it was time to go home. He stole a glance at the clubhouse, and his father was still there, still watching him. Then, as he saw his father finally turning away, he heard Heather Dunne say something that stopped him from slipping away to the sanctuary of the pool house.

“Get
out!
Your mom actually
sold
that awful house? To who?”

“My aunt and uncle,” Zack replied.

“And they’re actually going to live in it?” Heather asked, shaking her head when Zack nodded. “Oh, God—I could never do that! It creeps me out just thinking about it. I mean, isn’t there blood all over the place?”

“Jeez, Heather,” someone groaned. “They didn’t just leave it there.”

Heather Dunne shot the groaner a dirty look. “Well, even if they didn’t, it’s still too gross!” Then, abruptly, she changed the subject. “So what’s your cousin like?” she asked.

Zack rolled his eyes. “You won’t believe. She’s—” He hesitated a moment, and as he searched for the right words to describe Angel Sullivan, his eyes fell on Seth Baker and his lips twisted into a smirk. “She’s the kind of girl who’d go out with Seth,” he said.

Seth felt his face burning as the rest of the kids burst into laughter, and then, with his father mercifully gone from the terrace, he turned and fled into the pool house.

He was still there an hour later when his father came to find him.

“What the hell kind of kid are you?” Blake Baker demanded. “You think you’re going to get anywhere in this world by hiding?” Seth bit his lip, knowing better than to say anything. “You think I didn’t see what was going on earlier? You think I didn’t know what you were doing, pussy-footing around the rest of the kids? It was just a show, Seth. I knew it, and they knew it. You know why they didn’t let you into their little group? Because you didn’t make them, that’s why! And guess what? Your little show didn’t impress me any more than it did them. So here’s what’s going to happen: You and I are going to enter the father-son golf tournament, and we’re going to win.”

“I don’t even know how—” Seth began, but his father cut him off with a look so icy it made Seth’s blood run cold.

“You’re going to learn,” he said. “You’re going to play golf, or I’m going to know the reason why. Understand?”

Seth nodded, afraid to utter even a single syllable.

“Good,” Blake Baker said. “Now let’s go home.”

Seth could tell by both the tone of his father’s voice and the look in his eyes that when they got home he was going to be hurt even more by his father than Zack Fletcher’s words and Zack’s friends’ laughter had hurt.

Chapter 10

S IT REALLY OURS, MOM?” ANGEL SULLIVAN ASKED AS
her mother pulled the Chevelle to a stop well behind the big yellow truck Marty had rented the day before. All three of them had been up until past midnight, packing everything into the truck except the blankets in which they caught a few hours of rest before getting up with the sun to make the drive to Roundtree.

“Why don’t we go right now?” Angel had suggested when the last box had been stuffed into the truck. “I’m not going to be able to sleep, anyway.”

“And do what when we get there?” her mother replied. “Haul everything inside in the middle of the night? What would people think?”

When her father had been no more enthusiastic than her mother, Angel wrapped herself up in a blanket and tried to go to sleep. But between the hardness of the floor and the excitement of moving in the morning, she hadn’t slept at all.

Or at least not for more than a few minutes.

But now the night was over, and the drive was finished, and the house at Black Creek Crossing was standing before her, looking even more wonderful than she remembered.

“It’s really ours,” Myra Sullivan replied, shutting off the engine. She got out of the car as Marty emerged from the cab of the truck.
At least for now,
she added silently to herself. She hadn’t slept much last night either, but it wasn’t out of excitement as much as worry. Until she got the closing papers, she hadn’t realized just how much the mortgage payments would be—almost twice what the rent on the duplex behind the rectory in Eastbury had been—and there were so many times over the last few years when she’d wondered how they were going to make the rent that the idea of a mortgage terrified her. Falling behind in the rent was one thing; falling behind on the mortgage could cost them the house.

“Will you for Christ’s sake stop worrying?” Marty had told her over and over again. “You think Ed Fletcher’s ever going to fire me? He’s family, for Christ’s sake!”

Myra had known better than to remind him that his sister-in-law’s husband was among the thirteenth generation of Fletchers in Massachusetts, while Marty’s family had arrived in Boston as servants—perhaps to cousins of Ed Fletcher—only four generations back. There wasn’t much likelihood that Edward Arlington Fletcher was going to claim close kinship to Martin O’Boyle Sullivan, the fact that they had married sisters notwithstanding. And if the chips were ever down, Myra was fairly certain that Joni Fletcher would stand with her husband rather than Marty.

Still, Marty hadn’t been drinking as much the last few weeks, which was a good sign, and maybe after getting fired by Jerry O’Donnell—who was a lot closer to being “family” to Marty than Ed Fletcher would ever be—he’d learned his lesson.

And maybe actually owning the house would give him the motivation that having nothing never had.

Marty pulled open the back doors of the truck, climbed in, and began handing boxes down to Myra, who passed them on to Angel. “Shall I start taking them in?” Angel asked as the pile on the lawn began to grow.

“Maybe we’d better all take them in,” Myra replied, glancing at the sky, which was rapidly clouding over.

“It’s not gonna rain,” Marty declared. “Let’s just keep going.”

The three of them unloaded the truck as fast as they could, and moved the furniture into the house so it wouldn’t get ruined if it rained. In less than an hour they’d hauled in the beds, and in another hour Marty had gotten them set up. The table was in the kitchen, and most of the rest of the furniture was in the living room.

They were only half done when there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. A moment later the first drops of rain splattered onto the pile of packing boxes Marty had left on the lawn. “Goddammit, how come it always happens to me?” he complained, climbing out of the truck. He slammed the doors shut and picked up one of the boxes. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he called back as he headed for the front door. “You want everything to get wrecked before we get it inside?”

Another bolt of lightning slashed across the sky and the rain increased as both Angel and Myra snatched up boxes and ran for the house, ducking through the front door just as the thunderclap crashed over the house, rattling its windows. Setting her box down, Myra quickly crossed herself and uttered a silent prayer to St. Peter and St. Swithin that the violent storm that had blown up out of nowhere was nothing more than a freak weather system.

Angel’s clothes were soaked through and she was shivering with cold.

“Go up and put on something dry,” Myra told her.

“I don’t have anything,” Angel replied through chattering teeth.

“That box,” her mother told her, pointing to a stack in the corner of the living room. “The one next to the top that’s marked ‘A.R. Clothes.’ ‘A.R.’ stands for Angel’s room.”

A minute later Angel pushed her way into the little bedroom at the front of the house that had fascinated her from the first moment she set foot in it, using her hip to close the door behind her and lowering the box to the floor. She was just starting to pull its flaps open when she heard a noise.

A soft noise, barely audible. A moment later it came again, but this time she was listening for it, and she recognized it instantly.

A cat!

It mewed a third time, its voice muffled but insistent, as if it had been locked outside and now wanted to come back in.

Angel went to the window and looked out. The storm was still raging, the glass so streaked with rain that she could barely see. Despite the rain, she lifted the window, and peered outside.

Nothing.

In fact, the ledge was so narrow, she couldn’t see how even a cat could cling to it, and the only other place it could be was on the little roof that sheltered the front stoop. But even if there had been a cat on it, how could she have heard it through the window and the storm? She slid the window down again, and just as the sash dropped onto the sill, the sound came again. But this time it came from behind her.

Turning, she scanned the room, but saw nothing. Then, when the cat mewed yet again, this time accompanying its mewl with a scratching sound, she knew. She crossed the room and slowly pulled the closet door open. The gap was no more than three inches wide when the cat’s nose appeared, followed by its head and body. The moment it was out of the closet, it wound back and forth between Angel’s legs, rubbing first one side against her, then the other. Angel gazed down at it. “Where did you come from?”

The cat—pure black, except for a tiny white blaze in the exact center of its chest—looked up at her, then bounded up onto the bare mattress that Angel and her father had set up only an hour ago.

As it began licking itself, Angel pulled the closet door all the way open. Except for a single shelf and a bar for hanging clothes, it was empty. She searched the baseboard, looking for a hole the cat could have crept through, then searched the ceiling as well.

Nothing. Not even a hatch to get to the attic.

“How did you get in?” Angel asked, sitting on the bed next to the cat. The cat stopped grooming itself to creep onto her lap, its sinuous body shivering as Angel began to pet it. Rolling over to get its stomach scratched, it began licking Angel’s hand. Then it rolled over again, curled up, and began purring.

Though it wore no collar, it didn’t look like a stray to Angel. She could feel its muscles rippling beneath its skin, and the cat neither looked nor felt underfed. In fact, its coat was thick and clean, as if someone had been looking after it all its life. But how long had it been in the closet? If it had been more than a day or two, why didn’t it seem either hungry or thirsty?

Maybe she should change her clothes, she thought, and go down and see if she could find something for it to eat, and a bowl for it to drink out of. Easing the cat off her lap, Angel went back to the box she’d just opened when she first heard the cat, and burrowed through it. She found clean underwear, a pair of sweatpants, and a thick sweater, and stripped off her wet clothes. As she used a second pair of sweatpants to dry her skin, she heard the cat hissing. Turning, she saw that it was standing straight up, its back arched, staring at the bedroom door. As the cat hissed again, Angel heard the door open behind her. Whirling around and clutching the sweatpants over her naked torso, she saw her father standing in the doorway.

“Daddy!” she cried. “What are you doing in here? I’m not even dressed!” For a moment her father’s eyes remained fixed on her, and then he backed out and pulled the door closed.

“Sorry,” he called out. “I—I thought you were in the other room.”

Still clutching the sweatpants against her body, Angel went to the door and locked it. But even knowing it was locked, she couldn’t get the image of her father out of her mind, of him looking at her before he left the room. There had been something strange in his expression, something she’d never seen before as he gazed at her.

Gazed at her nakedness, with a look in his eyes—

But that was crazy! He was her father! He’d never looked at her like that before. He
wouldn’t!

She was wrong. She had to be!

Suddenly, the room was filled with a blinding light, and Angel whirled around as an explosion of thunder shook the house. Angel shrank back against the closed door as the storm howled outside. Another bolt of lightning flashed, and the house trembled again as the second thunderclap struck. As it died away, Angel remembered the cat.

It was no longer there.

“Kitty?” she called, as she pulled on her dry clothes and scanned the corners of the room.

Nothing.