Moira unpacked a pharmacy container of sleeping pills her doctor had prescribed. It seemed like all her friends were on some kind of medication or another—for their weight, ADHD, or depression. Moira’s problem was that she’d go to bed and think about school and her grades and college, and then she’d stare at the ceiling all night. The pills helped, but she was trying not to get too dependent on them.
Moira stashed the prescription bottle in the bureau drawer along with her socks. She didn’t want Jordan seeing it and figuring out just how neurotic she was.
She suddenly realized no one except Leo and Jordan knew where she was right now. What if something were to happen to them—or her?
Her parents had gone to Scottsdale to visit her sister. Moira’s older brother and sister had already moved away and gotten married by the time she started high school. One advantage to being the youngest was that her parents had mellowed with age and allowed her a lot of independence. So leaving her alone in the house for a week was no huge deal.
On her own, Moira had engaged in the usual
Risky Business
behavior—dancing around the house in her underwear, doing her homework while sipping Chivas Regal from her dad’s liquor cabinet, and masturbating a lot. Still, she’d been nervous about sleeping alone in the house, and, twice, she’d gotten Leo to stay overnight in the guest room.
He’d come up with plans for this sojourn two weeks ago. Moira had told her parents she’d spend this weekend at a girlfriend’s house. She’d said they could get ahold of her on her cell. She hadn’t known then that cell phones didn’t work around here. She’d call them from the pay phone at that grocery store tomorrow. She didn’t want them to worry.
Moira was just putting away the last of her things when she heard another noise outside. She went to the bedroom window again, cupped her hands against the pane, and peered out. She didn’t see anyone. It was pitch black after that first cluster of trees on the edge of the woods.
She was a city girl. She wasn’t used to all this darkness and quiet. She’d never felt so alone in all her life.
Downstairs, the screen door slammed in the kitchen.
It gave her a start. “Leo? Jordan?” she called, stepping out to the narrow hallway. “Is that you, guys?”
No answer.
Maybe she wasn’t so alone after all.
It was too soon for them to be back from the hot spring already. They’d left only a half hour ago.
She crept to the top of the stairs and glanced down. She could see only part of the living room and a bit of the kitchen. Moira wasn’t sure, but she thought she noticed a shadow sweep across that
Spice Rack
–patterned wall in the kitchen. A chill raced through her.
“Guys?” she called again, her voice quivering. She listened for a moment, but heard nothing. “Dave? Dave, I think I hear someone downstairs….” She felt a bit stupid, but if someone had broken in, she didn’t want them thinking she was alone. “Dave, maybe you should check it out….”
Moira paused, but still didn’t hear any movement down there.
Retreating to the bedroom, she grabbed her cell phone off the bureau, but then she realized it was useless. Who would she have called anyway? The police? She wasn’t
positive
she had an intruder, not yet.
Glancing around the bedroom, Moira spotted a fireplace set attached to the potbellied stove. She grabbed the poker and tiptoed back to the top of the stairs again. She saw the shadow flutter across the kitchen wall once more. It wasn’t just her imagination.
Slowly, Moira crept down the stairs, the poker clutched in her fist. She winced every time a step creaked. If this was Leo and Jordan playing some kind of joke on her, she’d kill them. This wasn’t funny, not one bit.
Her heart racing, she hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. At last, she peeked around the corner into the kitchen. She noticed a couple of moths fluttering near the ceiling light. Moira turned and studied their shadows on the
Spice Rack
wall. She let out a tiny laugh.
But she couldn’t quite relax, not just yet. She glanced over her shoulder at the empty living room. With the poker still ready, she ventured back into the kitchen and gazed out the screen door. She didn’t see anyone. But a candy wrapper drifted across the back stoop. Moira squinted at it: a Three Musketeers wrapper.
Stepping back, she closed the kitchen door and locked it. That was when she noticed the dirt footprints on the kitchen floor. Were they there before? Or had someone just made them a few minutes ago—when he’d come in from those woods?
She tried to determine where the footprints were headed, but the dirt marks faded in the middle of the kitchen—about halfway to the basement door, which was open.
That door had been closed earlier; Moira was almost certain of it.
“Shit,” she whispered. Paralyzed, she stared at the darkness beyond the open doorway and those first few steps down. The poker shook in her sweaty, trembling hand.
Moira’s breathing grew heavier as she started toward the cellar stairs. She didn’t see a light switch near the basement door, so she reached past the doorway and felt around for a switch on the wall. She found it and turned on the light. “Who’s down there?” she demanded.
Slowly she descended the stairs, but only a few steps. The place was unfinished and dirty—with cobwebs between exposed pipes running along the ceiling. There was a dust- and lint-covered washer and dryer, and a laundry sink. Garden equipment, collapsed folding patio chairs, a big, blue plastic kiddy pool, and two bicycles that looked broken leaned against one wall. There was a workbench, cluttered with tools, and a couple of old paint cans. In the corner, where a ceiling light was out, stood the furnace and a hot-water tank. She couldn’t tell if anyone was hiding back there or not. She noticed another door, which was closed. It looked like it might be a closet or a storage room. She didn’t want to go down any farther and check.
Suddenly, she heard a noise above her. The floorboards were creaking. Moira glanced up and saw a shadow move across the cellar doorway. She told herself it was probably those damn moths again—but she couldn’t be sure. If it was an intruder, he could switch off the light down here. Any moment now, she could be helpless, swallowed up in darkness.
Upstairs, a door shut, and Moira jumped. It was too far away to be the kitchen door. “Who’s up there?” she yelled.
No response. But there was more noise. It sounded like they were closer.
Biting her lip, she remained frozen on the stairs. “Goddamn it, who’s up there?”
Someone started pounding on the back door. Moira recoiled at the sound. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, tightly clutching the fireplace poker.
She heard the doorknob rattling, and then a muted voice:
“Moira! Moira, are you in there?”
It sounded like Jordan. Catching her breath, she raced back up the stairs and saw him on the other side of the window in the kitchen door. He and Leo were wet and shirtless. Leo slouched against his friend as if he were half dead. Jordan pounded on the door again. “Moira, c’mon, let us in!”
She hurried to the door, unlocked it, and swung it open. “My God, what happened?”
“He needs some juice,” Jordan said. Helping Leo into the kitchen, he left their shirts and the bath towels in a heap on the back stoop. “C’mon, buddy.” He sat Leo down at the kitchen table.
Leo appeared dazed. He struggled to talk, but no words came out.
Moira set the poker on the counter and then ran to the refrigerator. Pulling out a carton of orange juice, she opened it and took it to Leo. But he was in too much of a stupor to reach for it. Jordan grabbed the carton instead. “Thanks,” he said. Sitting down next to his friend, he put the open end of the juice container to Leo’s mouth. “C’mon, drink this….”
Moira hovered over them, uncertain what to do. She knew about Leo’s diabetes, but had never been with him when he’d had an episode. She watched the orange juice spill past Leo’s lips and run down his neck to his bare chest. He was shaking.
“Swallow it, buddy, c’mon.” Jordan tipped his friend’s head back and tried to pour the juice down his throat. “Damn, we should have eaten first,” he grumbled. “I wasn’t thinking about his sugar levels. We just got into the spring, and he started to feel woozy….”
Leo started choking and coughing. Jordan got sprayed in the face with some orange juice. He pulled back the carton for a moment. “Okay, ready to take some?” he asked. As soon as Leo stopped coughing, Jordan put the orange juice carton to his lips again.
Leo drank, and his hands eventually came up over Jordan’s. “Atta boy,” Jordan whispered.
Moira fetched a dish towel and wetted one end. She held it to Leo’s forehead for a moment, then dabbed at the spilt orange juice on his chin, neck, chest, and torso. He stopped drinking for a moment. “Thanks,” he gasped. He tried to smile. “Jesus, this is embarrassing.”
“Hey, compared to your attempt at the Macarena at the homecoming dance, this is nothing,” Moira replied, trying to smile.
Leo started to laugh.
“Keep drinking,” Jordan told him. He patted Leo’s shoulder and then stood up.
Moira turned to him. “You got some orange juice on you, too,” she said, dabbing at his face with the dish towel.
“Thanks,” Jordan said, smiling at her. “I got it.” He took the dish towel from her and kissed her hand. Then he wiped off his face.
Unconsciously, Moira touched her hand where he’d kissed it. She noticed Jordan’s lean, muscular physique—and realized his pants were still unfastened in front. He must have put them on in a hurry. She could see a trail of black hair moving down from his navel. He still had a tan line.
Leo cleared his throat.
Moira turned to find him glaring up at her. It was obvious he knew what she was feeling for his friend. He’d stopped drinking and took several long, labored breaths. All the while, he kept staring at her—wounded and disappointed.
Jordan was oblivious. He mussed Leo’s hair. “Well, you know the diabetic drill, stay put for a while and have a little more juice. I’m going to get cleaned up.”
Moira didn’t dare look at him as he started to walk away. She couldn’t look at Leo either. She glanced down at the floor—and the different patterns of dirty footprints on the kitchen tiles. The ones she’d noticed earlier were lost amid the others now.
On his way out of the kitchen, Jordan hesitated and turned to Moira. “What were you doing with the poker?”
Moira shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “It was nothing.”
As he raced through the woods in front of the Prewitts’ cabin, he couldn’t help chuckling. He’d come so close. He’d had her trapped in the basement when he’d heard Jordan’s voice in the backyard:
“C’mon, Leo, hang in there….”
Five minutes later, and those boys would have come home to an empty house.
Maybe he should have been angry that his plans were thwarted. But it was kind of exciting almost getting caught. He’d made his escape—out the front door—with mere seconds to spare.
He slowed down and got his breath back. No one was chasing him. No one had seen him.
The girl must have not said anything to her friends. Perhaps right now, she was chalking up her terrible fright to being a stranger in a strange house. Maybe she was telling herself that the sounds she’d heard were the cabin settling or a raccoon outside one of the windows. People thought up all kinds of explanations to avoid thinking the unthinkable.
Tonight had whetted his appetite for Moira. He had to have her now. She’d be alone again soon enough, and he’d get another chance at her.
Deep in the forest now, he listened to his own breathing—and twigs snapping under his feet. The car was parked on a nearby trail.
He hadn’t forgotten about Susan Blanchette. In fact, he was already thinking of a clever way to incorporate this girl into his grand plan for the weekend. He chuckled again when he considered it.
Killing two birds.
She didn’t realize where she was at first. Susan rolled over on her right side, expecting to see the alarm clock with the glow-in-the-dark numbers on her nightstand. But there was nothing, just unfamiliar shapes in the murky blackness. And she was alone.
It took a few moments, but then she knew. They were in that house by the bay in Cullen, their weekend getaway. Allen must have gotten up to read. He did that sometimes. He had problems sleeping.
She had problems, too. Tonight, for example, when they’d made love, she had to fake it again. She’d become quite the actress lately. It wasn’t Allen’s fault. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. She just had a hard time letting herself go with him. Susan chalked it up to the fact that she was too cautious, afraid of loving someone again—and possibly losing them, too.
After Walt’s death, she’d gone to this grief counselor for a while, a skinny, fifty-something East Indian woman who dressed like a conservative lawyer and wore her hair in a tight bun. Six months after the accident, Dr. Kumar had told her that she needed to move on. She suggested Susan start by taking down some of Walt’s and Michael’s pictures at home. The woman acted as if Susan had a regular shrine to her dead husband and son in the duplex. Yes, she had a few pictures out. She wanted Mattie to feel a connection to those images. And okay, maybe she still needed that connection, too. It was tough enough giving all of Walt’s clothes to Goodwill. So Susan didn’t get rid of the photos. She got rid of the counselor.
That first year without Walt was like sleepwalking. She felt numb. It was all about taking care of Mattie and finding work, going through the motions to survive each day without her husband and firstborn. Thank God her lawyer brother-in-law, Bill, jumped in and got a local attorney to represent her in the class-action lawsuit. Everyone who had been injured or lost a loved one when that deck had collapsed was suing the construction company—which, in turn, was trying to blame the city inspectors and the architectural firm. It was a mess, and the blame game promised to drag on for at least another year. Susan’s lawyer was asking for 1.5 million dollars.
She couldn’t get excited over the money, though, God knows, they needed it. Walt’s insurance had only covered seventy percent of the hospital bills. A year after the accident, Susan was still in debt.
She still missed Walt horribly, but started noticing other men. In fact, some days—and most nights—she just wanted to be
near
a man, any man. Dr. Chang had a few attractive, athletic male patients—men who spent too much time in the sun with their shirts off. Susan would sit in the small examining room with them, the clipboard in her lap, taking notes and doing her best not to get caught looking as Dr. Chang examined those tanned, toned bodies for moles and melanomas. At some point in the session, the gown often got tossed aside, and the patient would be naked or in his underpants. Susan managed to keep a clinical, business-as-usual expression on her face, and then she’d go home that night alone and frustrated.
Her friends tried to set her up, but not too many men were looking to date a woman in her mid-thirties—with a three-year-old, no less. So one of her girlfriends bought her a month’s subscription with an Internet dating service: MatchMate.com. Susan met several interesting men through the service, but most of those interesting men were just interested in getting laid.
When she agreed to a coffee date with Jack—
38, 6 feet, 175 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes, ad executive, nonsmoker, occasional drinker, spiritual, no tattoos, Taurus
—Susan was skeptical. They got together one February afternoon at the Top Pot on Capitol Hill. Jack was actually better-looking than his photo. Coffee turned into a romantic dinner at That’s Amore restaurant, and then a long kissing session by Susan’s car. By the time they said their final good night, her head was swimming, and she felt almost giddy.
They made a date for dinner at Daniel’s Broiler at Leschi on Lake Washington that Friday. The same afternoon, she had to appear at a deposition—four grueling hours in a conference room. One of the defense attorneys made wild claims about people jumping up and down on the deck—and filling it beyond capacity. Susan was furious. The SOB made Jim and Connie’s Fourth of July gathering sound like a frat toga party. She didn’t even get to testify. At the end of it, her lawyer gave her a pile of documents to review and said they might have to wait another six months before they saw any money.
Susan got home late that afternoon to a voice mail from her babysitter, canceling on her.
“It’s okay,” Jack said, when she phoned to tell him what had happened. “We can still have dinner at Daniel’s. Bring Matt along with you. I’d love to meet him. Maybe afterward, I could follow you home, and we can put Matt to bed. I’m pretty good at reading bedtime stories. We can stay in and have a nightcap or something. How does that sound?”
It sounded wonderful. And
nightcap
sounded like code for something else.
She didn’t know Jack very well and wondered if he’d really show up to this date with her—
and her child
. Maybe he’d just been jerking her around. When she pulled into the parking lot by Daniel’s Broiler, Susan kept looking for Jack’s car. She remembered he drove a white Mazda Miata.
The restaurant was in a little marina-type complex off Lake Washington, across the street from several secluded lakefront homes. The gravel parking area could have used a few more lights. Carrying Mattie toward the restaurant, she spotted Jack’s white Miata under the shadow of a tall oak tree.
So he’d come, a man of his word. Nice.
And he was great with Mattie. Sitting at the lake-view table, Susan had her beautiful, blessedly quiet son in a booster seat on one side, and her gorgeous, charming potential boyfriend on the other side. Mattie got a special kiddy meal while she and Jack each enjoyed a glass of merlot. Then their salads arrived.
And then Mattie kicked the table.
Jack went to grab his wineglass and knocked it over. Merlot spilled into his pear and butter lettuce salad, across the white tablecloth, and onto Jack’s lap. “Shit!” he hissed.
“Oh, my God,” Susan murmured, steadying the table—and then, Mattie’s leg. “I’m so sorry—”
“Shit, my good khakis,” he muttered, dabbing his trousers with the cloth napkin. “Goddamn it….” He stood up.
Susan started to stand, too. “Maybe some club soda from the bar will get out the stain—”
“Just—just—never mind, okay?” he growled, throwing his napkin down on the wine-soaked tabletop. “Be right back.”
Biting her lip, Susan sat back down and watched him hurry toward the restaurant’s bar. People were staring at her. Mattie started to whine, and she patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she murmured.
Susan managed to flag down a busboy. “Could you please take that away?” she whispered, nodding at Jack’s salad—swimming in merlot. “And could you have our waiter bring my friend another salad and another glass of the merlot?”
But the waiter didn’t do that. Instead, he brought their dinners. By then, Mattie was crying—quite loudly. Susan politely asked the waiter to check on her dinner companion in the men’s room. She knew what had happened before the waiter even returned to the table. Her charming, handsome potential boyfriend wasn’t in the restroom—or the bar, or anywhere else in the restaurant. He was gone.
Five minutes and $135 later, Susan made the walk of shame toward the restaurant door, clutching a carryout bag in one hand, and her cranky, screaming toddler in the other. “Good God, about time,” she heard one man at a nearby table mutter to his date. “That stupid woman’s finally taking her brat out of here….”
She hadn’t quite made it to the door when Mattie spun around and knocked the carryout bag from her grasp. The bag ripped, and two cartons—Lobster Newburg and the garlic prawns and pasta—spilled over the tiled floor. Some of it got on Susan’s legs.
The hostess called a busboy over. Susan kept apologizing. “It’s all right,” the hostess said edgily. Frowning, she opened the door for her. “You can go. We’ll clean it up. Really, just go….”
After slinking out the door with Mattie, she noticed the empty spot where Jack’s car had been parked. What had made her think she’d ever find another nice guy like Walt?
Susan couldn’t help it. She started crying before she even got her car keys out. She strapped Mattie in his child seat. Before climbing in the driver’s side, she tried to wipe off her hands with a Kleenex, but they still felt sticky. As she scooted behind the wheel, Susan noticed all the lawyer’s documents on the front passenger side, where she’d left them. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and then turned the key in the ignition.
Click, click, click
. That was all, then nothing.
“Oh, no, please, God, enough already,” she murmured. She turned the key again and stepped on the gas.
Click, click, click
.
She tried two more times, but nothing.
“Damn it,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes again. She rested her forehead on the top of the steering wheel for a moment.
A knock on the passenger window startled her.
Susan gaped at the handsome man with the wavy salt-and-pepper hair. He gave her a shy, friendly little wave on the other side of the glass. “Need some help?” he called.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Susan stared at him.
He walked around to her side of the car and then twirled his finger to indicate she should roll down her window. Susan lowered it about two or three inches. She realized her door was still unlocked.
“I don’t know much about cars,” the man said. The cute scar on his cheek looked like a dimple. “But I have a cell phone and Triple A. Do you want me to call them for you?”
“It won’t do any good. I don’t have Triple A,” Susan said through the window gap.
“But I do,” he replied. He pulled out his wallet, then checked a card he had in there. “If I tell them I’m a passenger in your car, you’re covered.” He took out his cell phone and made a call. He stepped back from the window. “Hi, my name is Allen Meeker, and I’m with a friend who’s having car problems….” Susan couldn’t hear any more because he wandered away from the car for a few moments. She wasn’t sure about this guy. He seemed too good to be true. And his timing was almost too perfect, showing up exactly when he did.
In the backseat, Mattie yawned.
“What’s wrong with the car, they want to know,” he asked through the gap in the window.
“It just won’t start,” Susan answered. “When I turn the key in the ignition, it makes this weird, clicking noise—and nothing.”
He turned away and talked into the phone again. She watched him finally slip the phone back in his pocket, and then he lumbered back to her window. “It’s going to take them forty-five minutes to an hour to come out here.”
She smiled politely. “Well, I couldn’t ask you to wait here all that time. I’ll call a tow….”
He nodded at the mini-marina complex. “I was about to have dinner. Ruby Asian Dining is where I always go for Thai. Hi there, sport!” He smiled at Mattie in the backseat. Then he pointed to the stack of papers on her passenger seat. “Better move those so when Triple A gets here it’ll look like I was riding shotgun. What is that, legal stuff? Are you a lawyer?”
“No, my lawyer gave me these documents today,” Susan explained. She rolled down the window a bit farther. “I’m involved in a lawsuit right now.”
“Is somebody suing you?” he asked with concern.
“No, just the opposite,” she admitted. Susan didn’t know why she was telling him this, and she didn’t know why she was starting to tear up again. She’d told others about what had happened to Walt and Michael without getting all weepy about it. Maybe she was just feeling terribly vulnerable tonight. “My—my husband and older son were killed when they were on this balcony that collapsed…and…and two others died, and several people were injured. Anyway, there’s this lawsuit, and I don’t give a shit about the money. I just miss my husband and little boy….” She was sobbing now. Turning away, she opened her purse and tried to find another Kleenex.
“Mommy’s crying,” Mattie announced.
“That’s right, sweetie,” she said. She turned toward the man again. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I—why I’m unloading all this on you, a perfect stranger….”
He offered her a handkerchief through the car window opening. “My name’s Allen Meeker,” he said. “So I hope I’m no longer a stranger. I was just about to have some Thai food by myself. You and your son have probably already eaten. But as long as we’re all waiting for your car to get fixed, I’d really enjoy your company. Maybe you could have some coffee or dessert.”
Susan wiped away her tears with his handkerchief. She managed to smile up at him. “As a matter of fact, I—I haven’t had my dinner yet.”
In the Thai restaurant, Allen paid for dinner and Mattie’s ice cream. He also tipped the man from Triple A, who had to tow Susan’s car. Allen gave them a ride home.
Ever since that night, he had been there for her. Even when he went out of town for his job—selling hospital equipment—Allen still called her practically every day. He was good with Mattie, too. So what if Susan didn’t see skyrockets every time they made love? That was okay. She cared for Allen and was beholden to him. Since meeting him, every few weeks she’d put away another photo of Walt. It wasn’t premeditated. It just seemed the right thing to do as Allen became more and more a part of her life.
He hadn’t come with much baggage. His mother died in a car accident when he was eleven and his father passed away a decade later. He had a stepmother and a younger stepbrother he wasn’t close to at all. There was also an ex-wife from six years before, whom Susan had no interest in ever meeting.
They’d been seeing each other for seven months when Allen paid for their trip and accompanied her and Mattie to Vero Beach, Florida, to visit her parents—a gesture that, in Susan’s opinion, made him a candidate for canonization. He kept Mattie entertained during the duration of the seven-hour flight, and then won over her parents, who were getting crazier and crazier in their old age. Without complaint, he even slept on the lumpy sofa in her dad’s small study—in their stuffy, sultry, mothball-scented retirement village condo. Susan and Mattie shared the guest room. During that trip Allen asked her parents if he could marry their daughter.