Creekers (20 page)

The humid, bug-buzzing woods. The little Creeker girl. The long dirt road leading up the hill he’d never seen before, and…

The House,
he remembered.

And that was all he
dare
remember—the House. Not the things he’d seen or at least the things he thought he’d seen. Thank God he’d awakened before the dream had replayed all of that, too…

He groaned, swung out of bed, and frowned fiercely upon opening the curtains. Working at night, of course, meant sleeping during the day, something he was accustomed to by now, except for that first rude jolt of sunlight. It seemed weird getting up at three or four in the afternoon when the rest of the world rose in the morning.
But at least,
he reminded himself,
I never have to put up with rush hour.

The bedroom and cubbyhole den he rented from Old Lady Crane was no Trump Towers penthouse, but the price was right; it was all he needed, at least for now. The only killer was the place had no air-conditioning, and that fact drove home right this minute; he turned on the behemoth window fan, then grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. He paused at the bathroom mirror, though, long enough to mock,
Looking good, Phil. Nice tan, too.
He supposed he was in decent enough shape for thirty-five, but ten years of police work—not to mention his security stint on the graveyard shift—left him white as a trout belly. His image in the mirror made him laugh: palely naked, stubble on his face, his dark-blond hair in ludicrous disarray from six hours of sweat-drenched sleep.
You better forget about that
GQ
cover,
he thought. Even his normally clear hazel eyes had dark circles under them. The dream had worn him out, along with the gruelling memories…

The cold shower felt lukewarm in the ninety-degree heat. By the time he dried off, he was sweating again. He still had several hours before he needed to get ready for work, but he had no idea what he was going to do.
What? Hang out at the fire station? Go for a leisurely spin through beautiful downtown Crick City? Christ…
He knew he needed to divert himself, or else he’d start thinking about the dream again, or he’d starting thinking about the business with Vicki Steele. He needed to get his mind off all of that, but how could he, now that he was back in the same town, with all the old familiar sights and people?
Start by shaving.
He lathered up with Edge Gel, then nearly dropped his razor when someone knocked on the door.

Who the—my rent’s not due, is it? I’ve only been living here three days. Maybe it’s
Reader’s Digest
bringing me my fifteen mil.
Shave cream jiggled on his chin as he wrapped a towel around his waist and answered the door.

“I gave at the office,” he said when he saw who it was.

The pretty face offered a snide smile.
The blond icebitch,
he recognized all too fast.
Susan, our amiable, upbeat dispatcher.

“Nice towel,” she said.

“If I’d known you would be knocking on my door, I’d have dressed black tie. Okay, so how much are the Girl Scout cookies?”

“You really are horribly sarcastic,” Susan Ryder said.

Phil could imagine how silly he looked: green Edge Gel fizzing on his face, and a towel as the only thing keeping him from being stark naked. “All right, let me rephrase. What the hell do you want?”

“Well, I think I’m already regretting this, but I thought I’d offer to buy you dinner.”

Dinner,
Phil thought nebulously.
This woman hates me. She thinks I kill ghetto kids. Now she wants to buy me dinner.

“Or I should say,” she corrected, “whatever it is we night-shifters call the first meal of the day. I guess it’s our breakfast.” She seemed shaky suddenly, or even nervous. “Sort of a, you know, peace offering.”

“Peace offering,” Phil stated dumbly.

“Is your head made of bricks?” she suddenly snapped. “I’m trying to apologize! Jesus!”

“Apologize,” Phil stated dumbly. The shave cream continued to fizz. “Uh…apologize for what?”

Exasperation, or rage, thinned her pretty blue eyes. “For treating you shitty this morning. But if you’re going to be an asshole about it, then forget it.”

“Oh. Uh,” Phil brilliantly replied. This whole scene caught him off guard. “Well, in that case, your apology, and your invitation, are accepted. Can I finish changing, or do you want me to go like this?”

“You can go like that if you want,” she said, smiling. “But if that towel falls off, you’ll have to arrest yourself for indecent exposure.”

“Or unlawful display of shaving cream in public,” he said. “Come on in, I’ll just be a minute. It’s the maid’s day off, so you’ll have to forgive the current disarray of my estate.”

Susan Ryder walked in, and immediately went to peruse the bookshelf in his broom-closet-sized den, mostly law enforcement, judicial, and criminology texts from his Master’s courses. “All my Aquinas and Jung are still packed up,” he said, “but I do have every Jack Ketchum novel ever printed.” He quickly grabbed some clothes and slipped into the bathroom. He shaved haphazardly, realizing his own nervousness when he nearly sprayed Glade Air Freshener under his arms.
What do I have to be nervous about?
he joked.
I have beautiful blondes in my room all the time.
She was certainly attractive; perhaps he hadn’t fully noticed that when they’d met, considering the circumstances. He left the bathroom door cracked an inch, and in the mirror he could see her stooped over his put-it-together-yourself fiberboard bookshelf: simply dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a faded lime blouse.
Yeah, she’s pretty, all right,
he acknowledged as he began to brush his teeth with one hand and haul on his jeans with the other. Unfancified white-blond hair shimmered at her shoulders.
Nice behind, too, you sexist pig,
he noted of the way her pose accentuated her rear end. He knew what it was, though—not her good looks but the whole apology business. Apologies didn’t seem like her style at all, but—

He didn’t really know her, did he? So how could he make a judgment like that, when only this morning he’d ranted on her for prejudging
him
about the Metro fiasco.
Who’s prejudging who?
he admitted with a mouthful of Crest.

“Oh,” she commented from the den. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

Phil instantly spat toothpaste into the sink.
“What?

“You talk in your sleep,” she repeated, still leaning over his books. “You’re a bigtime ratchetjaw.”

Phil stared into the mirror, toothpaste smeared on his lips like a drunken clown’s whiteface. Of course he knew he talked in his sleep on occasion—the women in his past had always pointed that out—but how on earth could
Susan
know that?

“Either you’re psychic, or you’ve got a microphone hidden in my room.”

“Neither,” she said. Now, in the mirror, she was flipping through his stack of
LEAA
journals in a box on the couch. “I rent the room right above yours.”

Phil almost spat his toothpaste out again. “You live
here?”

“Yeah. Isn’t Mrs. Crane great? Anyway, eventually you’ll discover that the heating ducts make for a very effective in-house intercom. So you better gag yourself whenever you go to bed, unless you want me to know all your secrets.”

That’s just great,
Phil thought, pulling on a Highpoint College T-shirt. He tried to think of a funny comeback.

“The heating ducts, huh? So
that
explains the loud vibrating sound I hear everyday from upstairs,” which he immediately regretted. He didn’t know her well at all, and certainly not well enough to be making jokes like that.

“If you must know,” she came back just as fast, “I use imported ben-wa balls, not vibrators.”

Jesus.
He guessed she was joking, or hoped she was. He came back out then, was about to speak as she turned in the den, but hesitated. Though his pause lasted only a second, it seemed like full minutes to him.
God, she really is beautiful.
No makeup, just a simple, pretty farm-girlish face, a slender yet curvy body, and high B-cup breasts that looked firm as apples. For a moment her face seemed brightly alight in the frame of pure-blond hair. Her eyes, a beautiful sea-blue, sparkled like chips of gems.

“You can take me out to dinner now, or breakfast, or whatever it is that us night-shifters call the first meal of the day,” he said. “I’ll put on my best sports jacket if you’re taking me someplace expensive.”

“Is Chuck’s Diner expensive enough for you?”

Phil held the door open for her, then followed her out. “Chuck’s Diner? I guess I should put on my tux.”

««—»»

They went in her car, a nice Mazda two-door, for which Phil was very grateful. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed by his dented, rusted, clay-red ‘76 Malibu, it was…well, something probably worse than embarrassment. Immaturity notwithstanding, no real man wanted to drive an attractive woman anywhere in such a vehicle. Susan’s car was clean and unadorned, like her, attractive in its lack of frills. He watched her bright-blond hair spin in the breeze from the open window. “No valet parking?” he joked when she pulled into Chuck’s.