“Maybe someplace he wouldn’t have taken his bike?” she pressed.
“Oh.” Dwight’s eyebrows arched. “He might have gone to Hogarth’s.”
“The drugstore?”
“Yeah. There was a vampire mask in the window he wanted to buy.” His eyes darted furtively toward his father then back at Brandy. “He had enough money yesterday and he said he wanted to buy it before someone else did.”
But why wouldn’t he take his bike?
she wondered.
“Okay,” she said, already taking a step back from the door. Behind Dwight, the shapeless dog paced tirelessly back and forth, back and forth. “If you see him, tell him to come on home.”
Dwight nodded and shot another look at his father, who had lit a cigarette and now stared vacuously out at the road. Then he shut the door, leaving Brandy alone with Mr. Dandridge.
“Good-bye,” she said quickly, moving toward the stairs.
“Brandy, right?”
She froze. “Yes, sir.”
“Your daddy ever come back?”
It was like being slapped across the face by a stranger. “No.”
Mr. Dandridge grimaced, as if the cigarette suddenly tasted bad. A clot of bluish smoke wafted about his balding head. Eyes the color of oil continued to scrutinize her.
“Your mom at home?”
“She’s working,” she said curtly.
“She seeing anyone?”
Her first instinct was to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about, even though she knew damn well what he was talking about. Then she thought she might lie and say yes, her mother had been seeing someone lately. Either way, she did not want to have this conversation with Dwight’s father. She did not want to stand there and look into his hungry eyes a moment longer.
Either he sensed her discomfort or he simply grew tired of her silence. “Forget it,” he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. “Just get on home.”
She hurried down the steps and moved quickly down the flagstone path toward the road. She felt his eyes on her until she crossed the hill and disappeared from his sight.
4
No matter the season, nighttime always came early to Stillwater. The mountains were to blame, prematurely blotting out the sun and casting a dark pall over the sleepy little town. Livestock were ushered back into their pens after a day of grazing. Out along some of the more remote roadways where power had yet to be restored, generators kicked back on, one after another, until a sustained deep-bellied growl gently shook the earth. The old grain silo in the field off Gracie Street, which served as a fairly reliable if overlarge sundial throughout the afternoon, was now shrouded in the deep, black shadow of Haystack Mountain.
Come five thirty, Brandy had already contemplated calling her mother at the diner, twice. Both times, however, she fought off the urge, knowing damn well that the second she had her mother on the phone, Matthew would come bounding through the back door, his knees skinned, his hands grimy, his hair damp with sweat. But at five thirty she could no longer pace around the house deliberating about phoning her mom; she had to get over to the Olson place by six.
She changed into jeans and a long-sleeved, loose-fitting blouse then left a note for Matthew on the kitchen counter, telling him there were leftovers in the fridge and to stay home until their mom got back from work. Then she locked up the house and walked up the road until she reached the grid of manicured streets where the Olsons lived. By the time she got there, the sky was a cool lavender color and a chilly October wind shuttled down from the mountains and bullied the trees.
“We won’t be late, hon,” Mrs. Olson promised as she ushered her husband out the front door.
Their daughter, Tabby Olson, was five. She was a timid little thing with pigtails and she never gave Brandy a hard time, so Brandy didn’t mind babysitting the girl. They watched a Pixar cartoon on DVD and Brandy made popcorn. By the end of the movie, Tabby had fallen asleep on the sofa, her head cocked at an awkward angle, one leg dangling over the sofa cushion. Gently, Brandy slipped her arms around the girl and carried her down the hall to the girl’s bedroom. The walls were the color of Pepto-Bismol and pink stuffed animals kept watch over the room from every available perch.
Brandy rolled the girl into bed. Tabby stirred and her eyes blinked open.
“Go to sleep,” Brandy told her soothingly.
“Can you leave the door open a crack?”
“Yes.”
She shut the light and closed the door only halfway before returning to the living room. Popping the Pixar DVD from the player, she replaced it in its case then surveyed the collection of DVDs on the higher shelves. Most of the movies looked boring—by her own observations, she figured the Olsons to be a relatively boring couple—but she finally selected a film that had a blood-drenched bride on the cover. It looked old and was probably less titillating than the box art promised, but she figured
what the hell
and dropped the disc into the DVD player.
Before the opening credits had ended, Tabby Olson appeared in the living room doorway clutching a tattered panda bear to her chest.
Brandy paused the DVD. “What is it, honey?”
“There’s a boy outside my window.”
“Come show me.”
She followed the little girl back down the hall and into her bedroom. The stuffed animals were rearranged and the curtains at the window had been pulled aside. She told Tabby to get into bed then went straight to the window and peered out. Tabby’s bedroom window looked out onto the Olsons’ side yard, which was as black as the interior of a cave. The sky was moonless. Beneath the window, holly bushes scraped along the siding of the house.
“There’s no one out there,” Brandy told the girl, who had crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up nearly to her neck. The tattered panda bear was propped on one pillow.
“He’s out there,” Tabby said.
“It’s the bushes making noise in the wind.”
“Brandy, I
saw
him.”
Brandy sucked her lower lip. She looked back at the window, that rectangle of infinite blackness. “Okay. Come here and show me.”
Tabby flung the blankets off and hopped down from the bed. The little girl padded across the room and stopped at the window, both her tiny pink hands perched on the sill. A look of intense concentration came across her face as she surveyed the darkened yard.
“Well?” said Brandy.
“He’s not there anymore.”
“Okay. Good. Now you can go to sleep.”
Tabby didn’t immediately let go of the windowsill.
“Come on,” Brandy said, playfully tugging on one of the girl’s pigtails. “Back into bed with you.”
Looking disappointed, Tabby left the window and climbed back into bed. Brandy tucked the blankets in all around her. “Good night, squirt.”
“Don’t forget the door,” Tabby warned.
“I won’t,” she said, leaving the door partway open again when she left.
In the kitchen, she filled up a glass with ice cubes and Coke then reclaimed her seat on the sofa. She restarted the DVD and watched about twenty minutes of the movie—as she’d suspected, it was a bit slow and boring—before she thought she saw someone or something pass by one of the living room windows. The sight caused her to jump and her skin quickly prickled with sweat. Again she paused the movie then got up and went to the window and looked out. She could see no more from here than she could from Tabby’s bedroom.
An indistinct rattling sound came from the kitchen. Brandy froze. The rattling stopped. Her mouth suddenly dry, she licked her lips before saying, “Tabby? Honey, is that you?”
The girl did not answer.
Peeling herself away from the window, Brandy crossed the living room into the kitchen. The only light came from the single bulb over the sink. She glanced around the kitchen, finding it empty, and realized that Tabby would have had to cross through the living room to get into the kitchen. Brandy would have seen her.
When she looked toward the door that led from the kitchen out to the side of the house, Brandy suddenly realized what that rattling sound had been—the doorknob. She suddenly felt vulnerable, standing there in the middle of the kitchen in the dark.
There’s a boy outside my window,
Brandy thought, her eyes locked on the oval of pebbled glass in the center of the door. Beyond, black shapes were distorted and bled into one another. Brandy held her breath and waited for a figure to materialize beyond the glass. Waited…
And then it happened—the silhouette of a person appeared on the other side of the door, a darker cutout against a less dark background. She felt her heart seize in her chest. As she stood there watching, the figure moved. Something like an arm extended, distorted behind the textured glass. A second later, the doorknob rattled again; she could see it jiggling from halfway across the kitchen.
“Go away,” she called to the intruder, her voice no stronger than a slight wind. She slid across the floor and snatched the telephone off the wall. “I’m calling the police.”
The figure placed a palm on the glass. Brandy felt as though her entire body were about to crumble to powder.
“Brandy,” the stranger said on the other side of the door. The intruder was male, his voice muted. “Open up. It’s me.”
She blinked, suddenly recognizing the voice. She hung the phone up, went to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open.
Grinning, Jim Talbot stood there with his hands in the pockets of his varsity jacket.
“Oh my God, you scared the hell out of me,” Brandy said in one nervous, shaky breath. “Jim, what are you doing here?”
“I heard you were babysitting, thought I might drop by.”
“You scared the kid, too. She saw you outside her window.”
“Can I come in?”
“Come on, Jim…”
“What do you say, Brandy?” He was glancing over her shoulder into the darkened kitchen. “Is the kid in bed?”
“She is, but you know you can’t come in.”
“Aw, man, you hurt my feelings,” he said playfully. “You look good.”
Her face went hot. “Thanks. So do you.”
“What time do you get off? A bunch of us are heading into Garrett to catch a midnight movie.”
“I can’t. I gotta be home.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” He looked down at his feet, giving her enough time to admire the perfect part in his dark hair. When he looked back up at her, his trademark lopsided grin was back. “You excited about the dance?”
“Yes!” She cringed inwardly at the force of her response.
Jim laughed. “You got something to wear yet?”
“Not yet, but I know what I’m gonna get.”
“I’ve got this pretty badass tie that lights up. You’ll die when you see it.”
“Sounds awesome.”
Again, Jim peered over her shoulder. She thought she saw the vaguest frown in his features, but it was gone so quickly she couldn’t be sure. “I really can’t come in?” he asked again.
“You really can’t, Jim. The Olsons would flip.”
“I’ll sneak out when they pull up in the driveway.”
“Too risky. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
He scuffed one of his Converse sneakers on the step. “Yeah, okay. Cool. Talk to you later.”
She watched him hop down the stairs and vanish into the darkness. For some time she could hear his sneakers crunching over dead leaves and breaking sticks, but those sounds vanished soon enough, too.
5
It was ten thirty when the Olsons got home and Bob Olson offered to drive Brandy home. She accepted the offer, and the drive was blessedly quick, as Bob was not the best conversationalist. As they pulled up outside the Crawly household, Brandy undid the seat belt and thanked him for the ride. Bob Olson was looking past Brandy, out the passenger window at the house.
“Looks like you got something going on tonight, hon,” he said. There was an uncharacteristic tinge of compassion in his voice.
Brandy looked and saw a police car parked in the driveway.
Chapter Four
1
Ben turned and saw Wendy Crawly’s daughter come through the kitchen door. She had obviously seen the cruiser out front and had a look of terror on her face. Both Ben and Wendy had been seated at the kitchen table; now, Wendy stood and went quickly over to her daughter.
“Mom?” the daughter said, her voice shaking, her face about to break apart. She hugged her mother.
“He hasn’t come home yet,” Wendy said. Her voice was equally as fragile. “Nothing has happened, he just hasn’t come home.”
Ben stood rigidly from the table. This was the second night in a row that saw him working late hours and he was exhausted. Despite his protestations, Wendy Crawly had poured him a cup of coffee when he’d arrived ten minutes ago and until now he hadn’t touched it. Sighing, he picked it up and took a sip. It was very hot and very strong.
“Hi,” Ben said to the daughter, setting the coffee cup back down. “You’re Brandy?”
Brandy nodded, her eyes drinking him in. She seemed as though she could be knocked down by blowing on her.