Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Kate trudged up the path to her trailer, automatically noting the crazy angle of the front steps and the gouged siding on the mudroom she'd tacked on when she bought the place. Both injuries were the calling card of a drunken pass by Lew's snowplow. That had been three winters ago, and she still hadn't found the time to set it straight. The cobbler's children went barefoot, and the contractor's house was the last one fixed.

  The mudroom door stuck, heaved out of square by ten years of frosts and thaws, and she whacked it open with her hip and shoulder. Anyone who didn't know her, know that door, would have thought it was locked and bolted. Security system, Downeast style.

  She stepped through another door into the trailer itself, into the combined kitchen/dining/living room with its worn, thirty-year-old vinyl flooring, cheap cabinets with the printed wood-grain wearing off, and yard-sale furniture. "Jackie?" Silence answered her, not even a chirp from the answering machine. Damn. She'd left a message for Alice two days ago, made Kate wince to think about it — full of adolescent gush and babble, the sort of thing you'd like to pull back and edit or totally erase five seconds after you hung up. No wonder Alice hadn't answered.

  But Kate needed to talk to Alice, about that message and other things. And she needed to do that talking at a safe distance. The cop job said so.

  "Jackie?"

  The only noise was the creaking of the under-sized floor joists as she walked around. The silly brat would have to come up for air sometime. Lew hadn't heard from her, either, though the way he'd been drinking lately, their daughter could have vanished into one of his blackout periods.

  Kate checked the answering machine, anyway. After all, the beeper could be broken. Nothing. She punched up Alice's number on the phone and listened to the ringing and the ringing and the ringing. Her answering machine never came on the line. That meant the message tape was full. No email on the computer, either, a four-year-old machine that Alice had given Kate with the free choice of keeping it or hauling it to the dump.

  Shower first, supper later: she had to keep her priorities straight or the leftover pizza would taste of sheetrock dust. Construction work was filthy work, the main reason she kept her hair cut short. Kate unlaced her steel-toed workboots and then peeled off her work shirt and jeans and dumped them next to the washer, on her way to the bathroom. Not that it was a long trip — a twelve by forty two-bedroom trailer was small enough that you couldn't cuss a cat without getting fur on your tongue.

  A white rectangle hung on the corkboard in the hall, folded paper with a blank outside. Jackie? Alice? Kate wiped her hands on her panties and pulled it down. Jackie's writing stared back at her from the inside, a short note.

  "I'm staying with some friends, and I'm not coming back. Just stopped by to pick up my clothes and things. Don't bother trying to find me. I know the law, and I'm old enough to live on my own.

  "If you want to be a real bitch about it, I took some money. So you can have me arrested. Think about it real hard before you try, because I took your gun, too."

  No signature, but Jackie didn't need one. She never had learned to write well, and her printed scrawl still looked like she was in fifth grade. Kate's eyes blurred for a moment. She leaned her forehead against the wall, wadded the paper into a crumpled mass, and dropped it.

  Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!

  Then she knelt down, the vinyl floor cold and gritty under her bare knees, and carefully unfolded the note. She smoothed it out again, delicately, like she was smoothing Jackie's hair under her hands. She read it through again. Money. Kate had kept a few hundred in cash, tucked behind the 'fridge in the compressor coils. That was the "absolute desperation" fund, and she guessed Jackie was absolutely desperate. She shook her head. The kid wouldn't be going to the Youth Center for that. It was only money.

  Gun. When Jackie was a kid, Kate had kept all the guns locked up. Now she was a teenager, rapist bait alone in the trailer most days, and knew how to shoot. Kate had trusted her to know when, as well.

  Kate stood up again, opened the hall closet, and fumbled back in the shadows. Her fingers closed around a cold steel cylinder, the barrel of the Mossberg riot gun. Somehow, she hadn't thought Jackie would steal that one. Too hard to hide in a backpack.

  A few strides took her into her bedroom at the end of the hall, and she pulled the top drawer of her dresser open. The Colt still lay there, .44 magnum Anaconda with an 8" barrel that she'd bought used from Bernie after twice having to put down injured moose when they'd argued with local cars. The old Browning just hadn't been up to the job; the second time took three shots with that puny 9 mm cartridge to kill the critter.

  So what had Jackie meant? Hoping against hope, Kate swung the other bedroom door open. Chaos: clothes hangers scattered on the floor, closet open and drawers open and nothing left but the stuff Jackie had outgrown or scorned, posters gone from the wall, boom box and CDs gone. She must have brought her "friends" along, to carry all that junk.

  Numbed shock carried Kate back into the kitchen, and she slipped her hand behind the refrigerator to find dust and bare metal where the money should have been. But what was that bit about her gun? Then she noticed the box of empty cartridge brass on the counter.

  Qualifying. She'd been out to the county range yesterday, annual firearms re-certification. Then she'd brought the Browning in, cleaned it, and left it sitting on the counter with the two spare magazines and a fresh box of shells. Forgot to put it back in the truck this morning.

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And Jackie had practiced with that ancient chunk of Nazi steel. Kate had taught her. A woman should be able to defend herself. Jackie and Alice used to compete against each other, out on the range — they'd both been about the same size, then.

  Kate leaned her forehead against the cold metal of the refrigerator, trying to soak the numbness through into her brain. Her pulse pounded against it, and she swiped wet grit from her cheeks.

  Jackie. Her baby. Gone.

  She picked up the phone again and speed-dialed Lew's number. It rang and rang, then broke off with the clunk and rattle of a headset knocked off the hook. She heard music in the background, sounded like Hank Williams, and the too-loud chatter that was alcohol talking.

  "Wha?"

  "Lew?"

  "Yeah."

  "It's Kate. You seen Jackie?"

  "Oh, hi, darlin'. Nope. Haven't seen her for a month. She late getting home?"

  Month, hell. Jackie had spent two days over at Lew's place just last week, throwing a hissy-fit. Kate had chewed her out and grounded her for driving a motorcycle without a license. Typical teenage hormone spiral.

  "Lew, she's been gone for three days now. I've called you every day. Be sure to let me know if you see her anywhere."

  "Sure, honey. Hey, come on over. We're having a bit of a party. Old friends."

  "No thanks. Been busting my butt all day, just want a shower and some food." She hung up before he could turn on the charm.

  She tried Alice again, listening to the phone ring and ring and ring. No ice storms in June, so the lines wouldn't be down. Then she called two other friends, places Jackie sometimes went, parents of kids Jackie hung out with. No news. She stared at the phone, thinking about the one place she hadn't tried.

  One of the Pratt boys owned that motorcycle, frigging Japanese crotch-rocket that could do over a hundred-twenty and reach that speed in about five seconds. "But Mom, I've got a driver's license!" A car license, yes. Not the special motorcycle license Maine required, for good reason.

  Thing was, if Kate called the Pratts and Jackie was there, life could get damned sticky. The kid was right. State law, she was old enough to leave home. Smart enough, mature enough — those weren't legal concepts. The law talked about concrete things, like age. Jackie was over sixteen. That was old enough.

  Tie that in with Bernie's little tidbit about the Pratts and drugs, you had a can of worms. Jackie hadn't been using drugs — God knows, Kate had learned the symptoms. But the twit h
ad been too protective of that backpack. Was she carrying for someone else? Selling?

  Kate pulled the refrigerator door open, operating on automatic pilot. The pizza had vanished. Probably the toll charge for Jackie's moving crew. She grabbed some three-day-old bean salad and wolfed it down. Questions popped up in Kate's mind, and she whacked each one on the head with a six-pound hammer before it had a chance to get awkward. Then she wrinkled her nose. The power of a mother to rationalize . . .

  "Users are losers." Jackie didn't just parrot that catchy little phrase; she loaded it with enough contempt to drench a brushfire. Kate grabbed that assurance with both hands. Whatever ways Jackie had found to screw up her life, doing drugs wasn't one of them.

  A quick shower and clean clothes, and Kate was out the door. She left the truck, walking slowly back to the center of Stonefort and the small cluster of shops that passed for a business district, half on foot patrol and half looking for her daughter. She looked in at the video rental, checked the arcade with its flashing game machines and random electronic explosions, walked through the pizza shop and checked each booth for a large blonde girl trying to make herself invisible.

  There was still enough light for her to see into the cars cruising back and forth from the town landing out to the town garage, identify the kids and twenty-somethings looking for some fun in the least-likely town in Maine. No sign of Jackie.

  Twilight settled over the green commons in the center of the village, and the thumping car stereos faded away as their owners headed home or out to the abandoned quarries for a little beer and sex. Lights switched on, both the few streetlights the town was willing to support and the spotlights bathing the front and sides of the white clapboard Congregational Church. Such a quaint New England scene, it looked like a tourist postcard.

  She wandered over to the church. She hadn't been inside in years, uncomfortable with the face of stern piety and self-righteousness, comparing the pronouncements of her neighbors against the reality of their actions. Cop work showed you the darker parts of people's lives. The pastor abused his children. The choir director had a ten-year affair with his lead soprano. Three deacons had been linked to arson at the local boatyard, but nothing could be proved. A fourth's stern-man had gone missing at sea, two weeks after a fight in the local bar. A woman was involved, married to still another pillar of the church. Peyton Place lived on.

  The smells of wax and dust and old wood woke up memories: hymns, drowsy sermons, the congregation rising and sitting and bowing in prayer, communion, marriages, baptisms, funerals. She stood in the back of the dim sanctuary, staring the length of the center aisle at the pulpit and the dull brass of the organ pipes, lights glowing through the stained glass windows to either side, four windows each. Two panels dedicated to ancient Morgans glowed on the right; two facing windows weighed in for the Pratts on the left. Three of the four other families identified by discreet bronze plaques had vanished into the churchyard.

  But where was God? She walked slowly down the aisle, listening for the white-bearded patriarch that ruled this house. He declined comment. She sat in the first pew on the left, staring up at the austere white pulpit and choir rail, thinking of the cold shoulder they offered — no cross or crucifix or statue of a comforting Mother Mary, no bright Byzantine icons and incense, not even a candle.

  This faith was abstract and sere, a winter religion for a winter land, and it refused to coddle the believer. Predestination loomed on the horizon. God had known the verdict of damnation or salvation for each soul, before the firmament was brought forth and the sea divided from the dry land.

  Why was Jackie predestined to be a loser? Kate had tried. She'd tried to stay with Lew, because the kid needed a father. She'd stayed friendly with the damned sot even after the divorce, and never said word one against him in Jackie's hearing. Only criticized the booze, not the man who drank it. She'd given Jackie every minute and dollar she could spare from the struggle to make ends meet.

  The pulpit remained empty. It spoke a sermon, older than the timbers holding the roof overhead: Nothing you do can stand against the Will of God. He set the course of your life at the same time that He set the course of the stars in the heavens, and nothing that you do can change either by an inch.

  Kate turned her back on the pulpit, twisting around in the pew to look up into the shadows of the balcony. Her blurred eyes tried to force a straw-yellow head into those shadows, a child whispering with her friends under cover of the hymns. The dark pews remained empty. She stood up and walked back up the aisle, past the wine-red wood of the seats spaced out by the white tombstones of the pew dividers. Her footsteps echoed against the hard cold walls of the sanctuary.

  The evening fog was sneaking in off the bay, clammy, rank from the low-tide seaweed and mudflats. Halos formed around the streetlights and stabbed out from the rare passing cars. Kate shivered. It was a bad night to be alone. Maybe she'd go over to Lew's, after all. If she wasn't up for a party, she could turn it into a wake.

  She felt coldness over her shoulder, and looked back. A big car rolled by, scrupulous about the twenty-five limit, and she recognized that dark Suburban from a couple of weeks ago. New Jersey plates, 998 CEG, Red Bank Delivery — the car Bernie had warned her away from. So it was still in town, still wandering around like the Grim Reaper drumming up business. To hell with it — that was Bernie's problem. He owned it free and clear.

  Larry's Bar blinked its Michelob sign at her, a neon glow through the thickening fog. The bar was the other linchpin of Stonefort social life, the one she hadn't bothered to check because Larry knew damned well how old Jackie was and he always carded. But maybe one of the good ol' boys would have heard something from a friend-of-a-friend.

  Wednesday night, the bar was damn near empty. Larry stood behind his beer taps, polishing glasses, and Clyde Abells was setting up nine-ball breaks on the old pool table. Andy and Jenny Beals had the entire row of booths to themselves, taking a well-earned vacation from five kids. So much for collecting gossip.

  Clyde refused to meet her glance, but she'd be willing to bet he hadn't hit Ginny since their little "discussion" a month or so back. For a moment, Kate considered picking up a cue and whipping the peckerhead's ass at a couple of games of straight pool. He'd probably turn nasty and give her an excuse to punch him out. Maybe that would make her feel better. It wouldn't help her find Jackie, though.

  She pulled a twenty out of her back pocket and tossed it to Larry. "Jim Beam. Double. When that's empty, give me another."

  "Problems?"

  "Nothing that getting blind drunk will solve, but I'm going to try it anyway."

  He chewed on that for a moment, studying her face. Then he held out his palm.

  She shook her head. "You don't need the keys. I walked. Sleeping it off under a bush on the commons won't kill me."

  "Your choice." He shrugged, turned, and poured bourbon over ice. It looked more like a triple to Kate, but she wasn't going to complain. It would take several of those to have any effect with her body mass. She collected her glass and picked a stool at the back corner of the bar, one where she could keep one eye on Clyde and the other on the front door. Then she started studying ice cubes.

  She was working on the variable melting-rate of her third set of cubes and considering a visit to the unisex sanitary facilities when the door opened. A stranger entered, male, slim and medium height, and slid into a stool near the front with easy familiarity. Larry nodded as if the guy was a regular, and started pouring a drink without waiting for an order.

  The stranger looked vaguely familiar, darkish skin under the bar lights and an apparent age in the twenties. Then Kate nodded to herself — racial resemblance. He looked a bit like Alice, with the rounded flat features and glossy black hair. Indian. Or Native American, or First People, or whatever the "Politically Correct" title was, this week.

  He accepted his glass with a nod, handing over a few bills. He moved gracefully, a little like a cat, and was far from the worst mal
e specimen she'd seen in the last month or so. The resemblance to Alice sure didn't hurt.

  Then he met her gaze. He turned to the barkeep. "Who is this goddess with the golden hair?"

  Larry blinked, probably having to reset his worldview to fit the concept of Kate as a goddess. Before he could answer, the stranger picked up his drink and moved down the bar to sit one stool away from Kate.

  "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Antonio Estevan Francisco Juan Carlos da Silva y Gomes, at your service." He winked. "But you can call me Tony."

  The room temperature seemed to shoot up about ten degrees, all of a sudden.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dixie refused to go outside. She backed away from the open door, arched her back at the night, and hissed. From a cat that hated the litter box, that was a Portent. Alice shook her head. She closed the door without showing herself against the light, and replaced the heavy bar.

  Sparks crackled in the kitchen, and she grabbed her shotgun. Smoke curled out of the toaster oven. An instant later, fire spat from the back of her microwave. Alice strode over to the electrical panel, opened it, and flipped the main breaker off. The refrigerator died, and silence replaced the Japanese Koto from her CD player. The warm yellow glow of oil lamps remained.

  She tucked the shotgun back into a corner, picked up her fire extinguisher, and squirted yellow powder here and there. She inspected the scorched outlets and the wires leading from them. Both smoked quietly and stank of burned insulation.

  She glanced over at Ellen and Peggy, where they sat in the new parlor. They stared back at her with wide eyes, silent, staying out of the way and waiting for her to tell them what to do. "It's okay, girls. Just a problem with the old wiring. I've shut off the power, so there isn't any danger." None from the power, anyway. From what caused the overload? That was another matter.

  She dug a screwdriver out of a drawer. Removing the outlet plates showed her cracked plastic and melted metal. She squirted the extinguisher into each box, then pulled the ruined outlets to check the wiring. At least that looked okay. Everything was cooling down, probably safe. Have to get Kate over, though, make sure everything checked out before she installed new outlets, maybe even pulled new wires through the conduit.