“Now then, on to business.” He spoke calmly, not seeming the least bit in a rush to get anything done. Considering what he was paying, that was perfectly fair. He had paid for the night, which meant that until she left the house in the morning, she was his to do with as he pleased, barring anything that she disagreed to.
He rose from his seat and walked behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. Maggie held her breath, wanting to hear exactly what the man had to say. “I have a few unusual requests to make of you, Maggie . . .”
She listened. Half an hour later she left his home puzzled, but glad to accommodate the man who was paying her so well.
II
It only took Kelli Entwhistle a few moments to realize she’d been duped. The silence in the house was enough to make her know that Teddy was up to something. And who would get the blame if he did something stupid? Why, that would be her, of course. They almost always blamed the babysitter when a kid managed to get himself into grief.
She put down the dishrag and walked out of the kitchen, looking around quickly with practiced eyes. Teddy Lister was a master at Hide and Seek. The problem seemed to be he never wanted to tell her when he was in the mood to play. At ten years of age, the little shit was practically an accomplished escape artist. She would have been pissed about it, too, but he was a damned cute little munchkin.
Bedrooms were empty. So were the rest of the rooms. One quick look at the attic door—where she had planted a very small piece of tape on the carpet to let her know if anyone went up the flight of wooden stairs—told her that Teddy had not gone that way either. That only left one other option worth considering.
Kelly grabbed her coat from off the chair where she’d draped it when she got to the Lister house, and slipped it on even as she reached for the back door’s crystal knob.
Before actually leaving the building, she listened and, sure enough, she heard Teddy’s voice and that of his best friend and number one accomplice in all things annoying, the equally cute and infuriating Avery Tripp.
She opened the door very, very carefully, letting the light spill out onto the back patio. It was well after sunset and the two boys were not supposed to be outside. One of the two was not even supposed to be at the house at all, but she had grown accustomed to that part of the equation. Avery Tripp was like a cabbage soup dinner: he kept coming back and stinking the place up when you least expected it. Mostly she meant the comparison in a good way.
The two of them were halfway down the stairs and, whatever they were doing, it had them far too engrossed to notice their babysitter sneaking closer. She made it all the way to the top step before a creaking board gave her away.
“Just what are you doing out here?” Kelli put as much venom as she could into the words, just to see how far they would jump. Avery flinched. Teddy let out a yelp and tried desperately to hide the magazine in his hands. Both boys had wide eyes and terrified expressions.
Rather than waiting for an explanation, Kelli walked down the four steps to where they were and grabbed the magazine from the trembling hands of her charge.
They managed to blush, even in the near darkness. Avery dropped a flashlight from his hand and all three of them watched it bounce and roll into the yard.
“Ohgodshe’sgonnafreak.” It was one word, and came from Avery’s lips in a high-speed whisper.
Teddy said what he always said when he got busted. “Avery made me do it.”
Kelli looked at the cover of the
Penthouse Magazine
the boys had been looking through and smiled. She knew they had to be up to something, especially when it was too quiet in the house.
“
Penthouse
? Where did you guys get a dirty magazine?” Kelli looked at Avery as she spoke, knowing full well he’d brought it with him.
Avery shrugged and looked at the ground for several seconds before he finally looked back at her. “I brought it.”
“How much trouble are you going to be in if I tell your mom about this, Avery?”
She couldn’t have gotten a better reaction if she’d pumped a million volts into his rear end. “Oh, jeez, Kelli . . . please don’t tell on me.” He was sweating now, worried, and that meant she had him exactly where she wanted him.
“You get your little butt home right now, Avery, and maybe I won’t have to.”
Teddy was the one who started to protest, but one look from her while she waved the magazine was enough to make him shut up. After a few moments of hemming and hawing, she gathered the two boys together and walked Avery back to his house three blocks over.
Three blocks doesn’t sound like a long walk, but when it came to handling Avery and Teddy, it was closer to three miles. They were boys, and they were energetic boys at that.
Avery looked pale and worried the entire time, and for the first time in the months she had known the kid, he was quiet. When they reached the walkway leading to his front door, Kelli put a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay, Avery?”
He swallowed hard and nodded his response.
“Are you sure?” He looked like he was going to faint dead away and that made her a little worried. He looked at her with brown eyes that threatened tears and nodded again, his throat bobbing up and down.
Finally, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the
Penthouse,
wrapped in a bag from the comic store she knew the two boys frequented. “Well, you go put this back where it belongs, Avery, okay?” She hadn’t been sure about whether or not to let him have the magazine back until just that moment.
“Y-you’re not gonna tell?” She shook her head. He looked like an angel in that moment; relieved, happy, and much more relaxed.
“But you know what?”
Avery shook his head.
“You don’t pull that sort of stuff; you can’t get in trouble for it.”
He rolled his eyes and nodded. The kid’s whole body got into the
aww, shucks, ma’am
expression whenever he made it.
“Get inside before you get yourself in serious trouble, Avery, and stay home for the rest of the night, okay?”
“Thanks, Kelli. You’re the best.” He probably would have yelled it to the world like he normally did, but it was dark out and he was supposed to be inside. Sometimes Kelli wanted to swat him, but mostly he was okay.
“Just be good, Avery. Good night.” She and Teddy stood there and waited until the boy had gone inside, carefully opening the front door and closing it silently. Then they turned around and headed back to Teddy’s house.
“So you’re not telling?” Teddy’s voice held a mild note of terror blended with hope.
“Nope.”
“Why not?” He let himself smile. Teddy was a cute kid, especially when he smiled. “I mean, thanks, but, why not?”
“Well, I could tell if you really want me to . . .”
“No! No, that’s okay.”
Kelli ran her fingers through her hair and readjusted her glasses. The night was getting cold fast and she wanted them back at the house before Teddy’s parents came home.
“I was your age once, Teddy.” A shiver ran down her neck and between her shoulder blades. Kelli looked around to see if she could figure out why. It wasn’t the cold night, there was something else. The road was well lit and she could see all of the houses along the Cliffside Drive with ease. There were no menacing figures lurking in the shadows that she could see, and even the dog that normally went into fits whenever they walked this part of the neighborhood was silent. But there was something, damn it, and it wouldn’t let her relax. She kept looking around, hoping her instincts were just confused.
“So, no punishment? I’m just making sure I have this right.”
She smiled and patted the top of his blond-haired head. “No punishment, this time.”
“This time?”
“Yeah. Next time I might take it out twice as hard on you, so you learn to behave and we can be friends.”
“We are friends, Kelli.” He frowned and looked up at her. “Aren’t we?”
“Of course we are, silly.” She stopped moving and looked up at a faint hint of movement.
And saw them looking back down. The telephone wires above them crossed the street at an angle, and as she looked up, Kelli saw dozens of black shapes resting on the thick cables.
Crows. They covered every inch of the telephone line, all of them silent and watching from above. Now and then one of them would shuffle a foot in one direction or the other, but aside from that motion, there was nothing.
“Whoa.” Kelli liked crows. She thought they were beautiful birds, but at the moment they were messing with her mind. Crows were noisy birds, always noisy as far as she could tell. There had seldom been a time when she saw them gathered together that they weren’t cawing away at each other or filling the air with that mocking laughter of theirs, but right now they were silent.
Kelli took two more steps, her eyes locked on the black shapes above her, and watched in turn as they tracked her, their heads lowered between their shoulders.
“Let’s get home, Teddy. I have to finish the dishes.”
Teddy looked up and saw where she was staring. “Yeah, Kelli. Okay.” He sounded almost as nervous as she felt.
The birds never moved from their perches. But she felt them staring at her the entire way back to the house. She could tell they were there, because even though the first group never moved, she saw the rest of them on her way home. Hundreds of them nestled on nearly every available branch and rooftop.
III
Brian Freemont watched the little red Tercel rip past his hiding spot and checked the speed. Half a second later he was pulling out onto the main road and hitting the flashers. Nailing the occasional college student in the act was what made his life good.
The car pulled over after only a few yards, and he pulled to the side of the road almost immediately behind it. The dashboard computer was active and he typed in the license plate numbers while he kept the driver waiting. Danielle Hopkins, twenty-two years of age and a college student.
He climbed out of his patrol car and walked over to the driver’s side door, one hand resting on the butt of his revolver. The girl in the driver’s seat looked his way, her pretty face a study in ruined nerves.
“Going a bit fast, weren’t you?” He kept his voice casual.
“I’m sorry. I was in a hurry. I have finals tomorrow.” She was chewing on her bottom lip. She had every reason to be worried. He had given her record a quick once-over and she was very, very close to losing her license. Like, one or two tickets away from having to take a cab instead of driving.
“Finals? Those are a few weeks off yet, aren’t they?” She looked around nervously. “Tell you what, why don’t you give me your license, registration, and proof of insurance?”
Her hands were shaking as she reached into her purse and then into her glove compartment. They were shaking more than he would have expected from someone who was just getting another speeding ticket. He kept his eyes on the contents of her purse, looking for telltale signs that there was more going on than just a case of the jitters.
He saw the edge of a bag filled with white powder and allowed himself a very small smile. “You wouldn’t be carrying any illegal substances, would you, Ms. Hopkins?”
“What?” She was positively twitchy. “No, I don’t do drugs, officer.”
“Why don’t you step out of the car for me?” He was enjoying this already. The girl was sweating, and it was in the low fifties temperature-wise. Just to add to her discomfort, he reached into the car and cut off the engine, removing the keys.
She was on the verge of tears by the time she climbed out of her vehicle. He held out his hand for the purse, and she actually started crying by the time he pulled out the baggie with the cocaine inside it. Not enough to make a felony, but definitely enough to cause her a world of grief.
She didn’t cry quietly. She let out soft, high-pitched whines from her throat. Freemont looked down at her and shook his head like a teacher who’d found someone passing notes.
“You do know this is an illegal substance, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I forgot it was in there.”
“Oh, no reason to apologize to me,” he smiled as he spoke. “You should be saving all of that for your parents. I bet they’re going to be very disappointed in their little girl.” He found a second bag; this one with a decent amount of what he guessed was marijuana inside it. He dug in again, pulling out a pocket knife that was just past the legal length.
Brian held the bag up and watched the girl break down even more, savoring every noise she made. He gave her a few minutes to soak in the full impact of how fucked up her life had become with the simple act of speeding, and then he gave her back her purse.
“Are you taking me to jail?” Oh, her voice was so tiny, smaller than the squeak of a mouse. He looked her over for the first time, taking in the details of her tear-streaked face and her body. She was short, moderately heavyset with long blond hair and the sort of face that looked good when she cried.
“Well, now, it is my job. I’m supposed to arrest the bad people who break all the laws . . .” He made his voice stern, just for her, but couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face.
She broke down again and this time he put a hand on her shoulder, patting lightly.
“My dad’s gonna kill me. My dad’s gonna skin me alive.” Her voice broke and the words were slurred by tears.
“Well, you knew the risks when you started carrying illegal drugs and walking around with concealed weapons.” A little sterner now, more edge to the tones he spoke with because, of course, she had to understand the full gravity of the situation. “Long as you don’t have a record, they’ll probably let you off with a warning, but I do have to carry out my duties.” Her arm trembled beneath his hand.
“You do have a clean record, don’t you?” Oh, that one did it. She was crying into her hands, her whole body shaking. He made his face as neutral as he could.