The Girl Who Stopped Swimming (21 page)

Trish was muttering to herself. She got her Lycra pants off the floor and then felt under the bed, pulling out ankle socks and tennis shoes. She jerked on the pants with an angry economy of movement. Laurel could see a lime-green bra strap poking out from the top. Trish had jogged down here, fancy underthings hidden beneath her running suit, and slipped inside, no one the wiser.

Trish pulled her socks on one by one. She said, “If you dare tell anyone any single bit—”

“Blah blah blah,” Thalia interrupted. “Shut it, Trish. We’ve got bigger problems than deciding who to call first on the Victorianna gossip phone tree.”

“You believe him?” David said to Laurel.

She nodded. Stan’s runs made sense now. He wasn’t jogging in the dead heat of the day. He was making rounds, tapping on back doors while husbands were at work, his incriminating car never parked in front of anybody’s house. Laurel’s stomach did a slow roll inside of her. She put her head down the way Trish had and took in a deep breath. She said to Thalia, “Do you believe him?”

“He wouldn’t have been messing with Molly,” Thalia said. “A teenager couldn’t afford him.” To Stan, she said, “Sorry about the window,” but she didn’t sound a bit sorry. She sounded interested. “How long will it take you to earn enough to fix it? In your line of work, I mean.”

Stan picked up his shirt and stuffed his arms through the holes. “Not long,” he said. His spine was stiff with anger as he jerked at his shirt, straightening it, but his voice had the edge of a smug, professional pride.

“How many clients have you got here?” Thalia said.

“In Victorianna? Three, but it’s not the only neighborhood I run in.” He glanced at Trish. “Maybe two now.”

“I feel ill,” Trish said. She was trying to tie her shoelaces, but her hands were shaking.

Laurel stood up and took David’s arm, pulling him toward the doorway. “We need to go home,” she said. “Start an AMBER Alert.”

“One sec,” Thalia said. She turned back to Stan. “I have to know. How come you never hit up on my sister?”

Stan was buttoning his shirt, but he paused long enough to dismiss Laurel and David with a glance. “That’s unbreakable. I can smell the ones who still like each other a mile off.”

“No, really?” said Thalia.

Laurel said, “We need to go meet the police.”

Trish said, “Oh, God! Who called the police? I told you no!”

The bedside table was cluttered with a clock radio, a teeny pink lamp, tissues, candles, and a grouping of blown-glass angels playing instruments. Trish rifled through the clutter, knocking over the flutist, muttering, “Where are my damn keys?”

“Relax,” Thalia said. “The cops are coming to Laurel’s, not here. We’ve misplaced Shelby.”

Trish stopped and looked up, puzzled. “Why the hell are you looking for her here? She was just at the duck pond.”

Stan kept stuffing his shirttail into his open pants, but everyone else in the room froze and stared at Trish.

“When,” David said.

“Not even an hour ago,” Trish said. “I passed her on my way over here.”

She was still hunting her keys. David took two strides toward her and grabbed her arm. “Where?”

“Ow! Watch it!” Trish said. She jerked her arm away. “By the duck pond, like I said, with that . . . relative you have staying with you. I need to go home.”

“Bet Clemmens,” Thalia said. “You didn’t think it was weird to see two thirteen-year-old girls at the duck pond with suitcases?”

Trish shrugged. “Shelby had a suitcase, but that other one didn’t. It looked like she had a bag of trash, except she put it in the car.”

“That is her suit— Wait,” said Laurel. “What car?”

“An ugly car,” Trish said. “A car I wouldn’t let my kids lean on, much less ride in, but Shelby threw her case in the trunk and jumped into the backseat. The woman driving and your little cousin thing seemed like a matched set, so I didn’t think twice about it.”

“You have to be kidding me,” said Thalia.

“What did the car look like?” Laurel said.

“It was this boxy sedan, mostly red,” Trish said. “But the bottom was rusted out, and the driver’s-side door was a completely different color.”

“Blue,” Laurel said, and she didn’t need Trish’s curt nod to confirm it.

“What does it mean?” David asked Laurel.

“That’s Sissi Clemmens’s car,” said Thalia. “Everybody’s favorite meth head came and picked up Bet and Shelby.”

“DeLop,” Laurel said. Her every bone felt brittle and cold, as if they’d been flash-frozen. Even so, her body was already moving, grabbing Thalia, pulling her back across the room, and herding David out the door ahead of them, hurrying them toward the stairs, the front door, the car, the highway, her daughter. “Shelby’s headed for DeLop.”

CHAPTER 17

T
he phone at Sissi Clemmens’s place rang for the fifteenth time, and Laurel snapped her cell phone shut. She wished she were driving. Every red light, every pedestrian, every poky Honda Civic waffling its slow way into a turn lane was a personal affront. Behind her, David was back on the phone with the police dispatcher, answering questions in a low, deliberate voice.

All the pieces were falling into place, making a pattern that Laurel didn’t want to see. The night Molly Dufresne died was unspooling in her head, over and over in an endless loop.

She stretched her eyes wide open and told Thalia, “You drive faster than this going to Albertsons to get milk.”

Thalia said, “Once I get to the interstate, I’ll open it up. There’s about fifteen speed traps between Pensacola and the state line.”

She sounded so calm, so reasonable, that Laurel had a sudden vision of reaching across her sister, opening the door, and pushing her out into the street. She’d scoot into Thalia’s place and floor it. If only her hands would stop shaking. She doubted they would close around the wheel. “Just drive,” she said.

David lowered his phone and said, “They want us to meet an officer at our house. One of us has to sign the report.”

“No,” Laurel said.

“They say it will take fifteen minutes, tops.”

“We’re not going back.” Laurel’s voice was fierce and loud. “We’ll lose time driving back home, and then who knows how long they’ll keep us there. Tell them we’re on the way to DeLop already and to meet us there. They can take the report over the phone.”

David subsided, and Thalia settled herself deeper into the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel. They were coming to an intersection, and the light ahead turned yellow. Thalia slowed and stopped.

“Oh, dear God,” Laurel said, not sure if she was praying or only cursing her sister.

Shelby, somewhere on the highway with Sissi and Bet Clemmens, already had at least an hour’s head start. Laurel dialed Sissi’s number again, listening to the phone ring over and over. It was still ringing when the light turned green.

Thalia said, “They haven’t had time to get there.”

Laurel closed her eyes and let it ring anyway. She understood now, and the parts she couldn’t know filled themselves in seamlessly, like a movie projected onto the back of her lids. She saw Molly Dufresne alive, thirteen, immortal, safe in her own bed. Molly waited for the quiet part of night to come, secreted under her covers with a book and a flashlight, still wearing her sundress and tennis shoes.

She’d put her brothers to bed, reading to them until they’d settled into that deep sleep known only to little children, mouths open, hands flung up over their heads. Molly had put herself to bed after. Now she heard fierce, low voices downstairs, battling back and forth. Chuck sounded clipped and hard. Bunny, soused, slurred and hissed her words, so from this distance, they sounded like the ranting of an angry snake. Molly waited it out. This was what normal sounded like in her house right now, and when Shelby had asked if she wanted to slip out, meet up in Shel’s backyard, the usually timid Molly had said yes, yes, hell yes, a thousand times yes.

At last Chuck made his angry way to a guest room. Molly heard him rattling around in the attached bathroom, and then he got quiet. Bunny had already passed out in the master bedroom, the click and stumble of her bedtime routine covered by his.

Molly Dufresne clock-watched. The house had been silent for a good hour before it was time to throw back the covers and go creeping down the staircase. She knew the third stair creaked, and she bypassed it. She knew the alarm code, and she punched it in. She paused by the back door, her heart beating fast and light. She wasn’t afraid of getting caught. The bottle of wine Barb had opened to have with dinner rested empty in the bottom of the trash. Molly could have stomped across Barb’s body singing the Gloria and then dived out her bedroom window without waking her mother. Though Chuck was a heavy sleeper, Molly half wished he would wake up and catch her. Maybe he would stop sniping about lawyers and look at his daughter for a change.

Then Molly was outside, closing the back door gently behind her. She waited on the lawn for a light to go on, for her father’s voice to call her back, but her house stayed dark and silent. She’d done it, this bold thing that was more like something Shelby would do. It had been Shelby’s idea, sure, but Molly was the one who was out alone in the good, dark night, and she found herself picking up speed as she left her yard.

She wasn’t afraid. She was behind Victorianna’s wrought-iron gates, as comfortable inside them as she was in her own skin. She spread her thin arms like airplane wings and ran, in silent, joyful rebellion, through the dark yards, liking the feel of the slick grass under her feet. The streets were lined with old-fashioned lampposts, and now that she was out, she didn’t want to be seen or stopped.

She ran toward Shelby’s, ready for all manner of nonsense. Shelby always made the best plans. Maybe, when they were finished, Shelby’s mom would catch them. She could imagine Laurel calling her house, the shrill of the telephone waking her parents up. Laurel would say, “Barb, do you have any idea where your kid is?”

Her mother would be shamed, and serve her right. Molly could be anywhere. She was practically flying, up to no good, and thrilled about it. Served them all right.

David touched Laurel’s shoulder, and she jumped. He said, “They need a street address for Sissi Clemmens. Either of you know it?”

Thalia said, “I’m not sure she has one.”

“Her trailer is at the dead end of Harold Street,” Laurel said. “It’s the right-hand lot, a double-wide with a blue awning and about seven big pinwheels and some wind socks lined up in front of it.”

David sat back, repeating that dubious address to the dispatcher.

Thalia merged onto U.S. 29, a double-lane freeway that would take them to the state line.

“I can’t figure out what Molly and Shel were doing,” Laurel said. “Everything else makes sense. I can see Shelby sneaking out and going to get Molly, but this is backward. Why did Molly come to our yard?”

“Oh,” Thalia said. “Maybe I know.”

“Did Shelby say something?” Laurel said, rounding on her as best she could with the seat belt holding her.

“No. That boy next door, Missy’s kid? Apparently, he likes a late-night swim. He prefers to swim . . . freely, if you follow me,” Thalia said. “I saw him from the window the other night, while you were still out in the gazebo. He was very much worth seeing, in a
The David
kind of way.”

“God, Thalia, Jeffrey Coe is a kid,” Laurel said.

“I’m not saying I want to paper-train that puppy. But he’s what? Seventeen? And beautiful? And naked? If I were Molly, I’d pay good cash money to peek at that, all sneaky-like. Hell, I did exactly the same thing at that age.”

Laurel was nodding. “That makes sense. I’d told Shelby no sleepovers while Bet was in town.”

It explained why Shelby had lied, too. At first she hadn’t wanted Laurel to know only that she and Molly had plans to peek over the fence at Jeffrey Coe. Later, when Laurel came to Shelby while she and Bet were watching the movie, she must have been tearing herself to guilty bits inside. Moreno’s endless needling would have made her connect dots and ask herself, over and over, why she had fallen asleep when, if she hadn’t, she would have been there to pull Molly out. So she had lied, first insisting to Moreno that there was no boy, because the latest crush was naked Jeffrey Coe. Then she’d said she never planned to meet Molly and that she’d been watching TV with Bet in the rec room. Bet, with much more to hide, had backed her up.

Thalia took her eyes off the road long enough to look Laurel up and down, assessing her. “You’re about to stroke out, Bug,” she said. “Chill. We know where she’s going.”

David closed his phone. “They’ve sent out a dispatch. Cops along the highway will be looking for Sissi’s car. Also, they’re sending a Teletype ahead to the police in DeLop—”

Thalia snorted. “There are no police in DeLop.”

“To whoever has jurisdiction there,” David said, impatience coloring his voice.

“Are they calling in the feds?” Thalia said, perking up. “Federal agents are very often hot.”

“No,” David said. “She called this ‘interference with custody,’ not kidnapping. A sheriff, I would guess. He’ll keep driving past Sissi’s place until they show.”

Thalia was moving at a good clip, weaving around the big trucks that used 29 as an access road to 65. The highway was lined on both sides with strip malls and gas stations. Every four or five miles, Laurel knew, there would be another Waffle House.

“Surely someone will see the car and stop them,” Laurel said.

“It’s a P.O.S. red lemon with one blue door,” said Thalia. “It’s not like it blends.”

“They’ll call my cell when they have her,” David said, and he sounded as calm as Thalia.

Laurel could have clubbed them both. They were acting like they were going to pick Shelby up at the movies. Laurel dialed Sissi’s home again. She listened to the phone ring and ring.

“You’ll run your battery down and not have it when you need it,” said Thalia.

Laurel snapped the phone shut. Sissi had both girls in the car with her right now. Assuming Sissi wasn’t stoned to the gills and didn’t plow them into an embankment, Shelby would be fine until they got to Sissi’s house. It was the hour that followed that was making the pit of Laurel’s stomach feel like a clenched fist. Even if they made good time, there would be half an hour, forty-five minutes, maybe more, between the time Sissi got home and Laurel’s car pulled up.

Shelby would be loose in DeLop with Bet Clemmens, close to alone. Laurel didn’t count Sissi as any sort of supervision. She imagined the blue-tinged flesh of Sissi’s pale legs resticking itself to the vinyl of the sofa as her body sank into the custom groove she’d worn in its cushion. Laurel imagined Sissi’s bleary eyes drifting shut. Shelby would be on her own. With Bet. It could not happen.

Laurel said, “What if Sissi doesn’t get stopped?”

“If she scoots through, would it truly be the end of the universe?” Thalia asked. “You’re being overly dramatic. Coming from me, that’s quite a damnation.”

“Leave her alone,” David said. He spoke with almost no inflection, but it came out ice-cold. “Why did you come?”

“To drive, David. So you two could make your calls. You’re welcome.”

“I have a Bluetooth,” David said. “And
it’s
not being a jerk to my wife.”

“Stop it,” Laurel said.

Thalia said, “I haven’t started. All I said was half an hour in DeLop might do Shel some good. She needs to see that not everyone in the world lives in a place where they genetically engineer the pansies to match the mailbox trim.”

“I said leave her alone,” David said. “This isn’t the time to . . . be you.”

“Go to hell,” Thalia said without rancor.

“You’re both missing the point,” Laurel said. She couldn’t blame them. She’d missed it, too, for days, her eyes focused only on Stan Webelow. But who had kept her focus there? Every time her gaze had strayed from him, Bet Clemmens had been there, saying she saw Molly going into Stan’s house, saying Shelby had seen Molly with Stan, too.

David and Thalia were sniping back and forth at each other, Thalia’s voice winding around his, while his curt responses were like punctuation, periods and exclamation points that ended her sentences before Thalia simply started on a new one.

Laurel stopped listening, closed her eyes as they passed yet another Krispy Kreme. She was seeing Molly Dufresne again, waiting in the Hawthornes’ backyard.

Shelby was late.

A couple of hours ago, Shelby and Bet had gone to their separate bedrooms, supposedly to sleep. Shel had waited in her room for the appointed hour, but her eyelids had gotten heavy. Her alarm clock might wake Bet, asleep across the hall. Bet was not privy to the plan.

Not surprising, really. It was probably not pure teen-girl meanness. Shelby simply hadn’t thought to include her. After all, Laurel had never gone out of her way to truly weave Bet into their lives. She’d made sure that Bet was behaving and that Shelby’s friends were being kind to her, but she’d kept Bet separate, buttoned away in her own little pocket. She’d never made Bet integral and equal, so it didn’t occur to Shelby and Molly to do so, either.

Shelby had tiptoed all the way down to the end of the hall to the rec room, which was farther from Bet’s door and at the opposite end of the house from David and Laurel’s room. She’d closed the door and put the TV’s volume on so low that it was barely more than a murmur. She’d sprawled out in her beanbag, pinching her arm every minute or so to make sure she was still awake. Her eyelids had drooped lower, and the television conversation had blended into a lullaby of empty conversation. Shelby had fallen asleep.

Down in the yard, Molly got bored. She could smell rain coming. Clouds hid the moon, and the night was dark and hot. With the storm getting this close, Jeffrey Coe would not be coming out. Her elation faded. She wished Shelby would come so this would feel like fun again. It was dark near the gazebo, but she went back there anyway, dropping to her knees to feel around the base where she knew she could find round stones and pebbles. She gathered a small handful.

She picked her way across the blackness of the yard to Shelby’s dark window. Molly tossed rocks at it, one after another, pinging them off the glass.

Nothing happened. Molly decided to give Shelby five more minutes, then she would go home. The only light in the backyard came from the underwater pool lights. Molly was drawn to that blue glow. She walked around the pool’s edges, her toes pointing ballerina-style with each careful step, like a gymnast on a balance beam. At the far end, she shuffled lightly down the length of the diving board, sliding her feet along because it was so springy. She reached the end and sat down, dangling her tennis shoes over the glowing water.

Inside, the rocks hitting Shelby’s window had woken up Bet Clemmens, who got up and went across the hall to Shelby’s empty room. Shelby’s window overlooked the backyard, so Bet had a clear view of Molly in her light-colored dress, noodling around on the end of the board.