“Screw me,” he said. What was he going to do with Bud’s cash? He didn’t know for sure where Bud had gotten it, but had a reasonable guess. The guy must have had to dig his balls out of one of Lila Tucker’s thousand-dollar purses to get it done. Dwight didn’t want to blame Bud, but it sure would have helped things if his boss had found the money a little sooner. Dwight pushed his glasses up on his forehead and rubbed his eyes. He had to think. There were messages on his phone asking him questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Throwing money at some of those questions might help, but there was no guarantee. The former associates he had helped Bud borrow the money from were businessmen, and handing them less than half of what Bud owed them wasn’t going to cut it. Already they were looking for more than just the money. Bud just didn’t know it yet.
What Dwight really wanted to do was go home, throw some clothes into his suitcase, and leave this godforsaken place, with its crazy-ass hillbillies and too-dark nights and mountains that slumped on the horizon like worn-out beasts. He wanted to sit on a concrete stoop where he could watch the traffic and shoot the shit with the mailman or a bag lady, and then wander down the block to a bar where he could enjoy a cold, non-alcoholic beverage even on a Sunday afternoon.
Instead, he went to Bud’s desk and opened the case. He counted the money, shuffling it back into neat piles with brisk efficiency. Bud had probably counted it himself. Bud was nothing if not honest. Too G.D. honest, as far as Dwight was concerned.
He closed the briefcase and tried to think of where he might keep it until morning. He couldn’t leave the club because he was waiting on a beer delivery, and the safe was too small to hold the case. Later he asked himself why he didn’t just take the money out of the case and put it in the safe. But that was much later. By then, money had ceased to be the big issue.
He took the case down the hall to the supply closet. It fit nicely into a fold of a rust-stained tarp in the corner, and he arranged the tarp’s edges to make sure the case was hidden. Taking out his keys, he locked up the closet and went back down the hall into The Twilight Club’s high-ceilinged barroom.
For the first time in a lot of years, he considered going behind the bar and pouring himself a couple fingers of scotch. Things hadn’t been this bad in a hell of a long time. But just before he reached the shining black and chrome bar with its mirrored rows of attractively labeled bottles, the back door buzzer rang.
Dwight stopped and looked at the big neon clock above the bar. The beer guy was early.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Saved by the G.D. bell.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You’re going to have to put the phone down. Stand up as straight as you can,” Ivy said. “Please, be still.” She stretched a measuring tape across the freckled V of skin that began where the back zipper of the third bridesmaid’s dress had gotten stuck.
The girl—maybe sixteen years old—tried to look over her shoulder at what Ivy was doing, but Ivy pressed her fingers firmly on the girl’s back to get her to look forward. It was supposed to be a final fitting, but the girl had shown up with a belly that was three or four pounds heavier than it had been at the first fitting six weeks earlier.
“You won’t say anything?” the girl whispered.
“About what?” Ivy knew she was being too short with her, but she had far too much on her mind to worry about a stranger’s secret, a pregnancy that wouldn’t be a secret for much longer anyway. Far more important to her was that no one find out that Thora’s body lay rolled in a clear plastic tarp in the big freezer at the back of the house. Or that the periodic snores coming from the guest room down the hall belonged to a once-dead murderer.
So much to hide. Soon, people would be asking where Thora was. Ivy already had to cancel a doctor’s appointment that morning. How natural she had made her voice sound! She’d even joked with the receptionist as though her heart weren’t broken with grief. And Anthony. She had tried to get him to go back up to the trailer, which she’d stocked with all kinds of food he might like, but he had just sat down in Thora’s chair and turned away from her to stare out the window.
“I’ll fix it so you’ll get through Sunday’s wedding,” Ivy said. “Tell Missy there was a problem with the zipper. Come back and get it Saturday morning.” She almost added that it would have helped if she had been told about the pregnancy at the first fitting, but the girl was so young. How could she know whom she could trust? Ivy was only just realizing there was no one else in the world she could trust.
She should have trusted Thora more. Thora hadn’t told anyone about Anthony. But she would have. Eventually.
The girl sighed, letting her shoulders relax, and Ivy saw that the dress was going to need yet another extra half-inch. Out in the living room, the two bridesmaids who had already been fitted burst into a fit of noisy laughter. When it subsided, Ivy heard the jingle of the tiny bells she had hung on the door of the guest bedroom down the hall.
“Go on and change,” Ivy said, tossing the measuring tape on the table. “We’re done.” Propelled by fear, she rushed out to the hallway to stop Anthony from coming out of the room—or someone else from going inside. She slammed the workroom door behind her.
• • •
Ivy pressed her hand against Anthony’s chest and urged him back into the room as firmly as she dared. He was naked and looked like a very tall, sleepy child. Late morning sunlight framed his body in gold. How was it that she could touch him so intimately? Before Anthony, she had only seen men naked in films.
“You can’t, Anthony,” she whispered. “There are people in the living room.”
He looked down at her. She had learned to recognize when he understood her.
“They’ll be gone soon,” she said. “I promise.”
The air in the guest room was close and unpleasant. She had washed his bloody clothes and laid them on Thora’s hope chest at the foot of the bed, but she hadn’t been able to coax him to take a shower. One of his hands cupped his penis and his forehead wore a deep crease. He obviously had to use the bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll have to wait.”
He seemed to understand and moved back from the door. But when the girls started laughing again, he turned his head toward the sound.
“Anthony,” she said, trying to keep his attention. She knew she had been foolish to let the girls come today, but there had been no other time. Sunday was the wedding. Even in crisis, she felt compelled to finish her work, to make sure her clients would always come back to her, especially now that Thora’s disability benefit would stop. Though she would have to tell someone Thora was dead for that to happen, wouldn’t she? Otherwise, the checks would continue. For a while. Until the questions started.
“Get dressed.” She tried to sound as though she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Taking the clothes from the top of the chest, she pushed them into his arms.
While he seemed distracted by the clothes, she stepped out of the room and shut the door. She felt surreal, like she was taking part in some kind of dark, comic farce that was fated to end badly. It had already ended badly for Thora. The right thing to do—the only thing—was to send the girls away, call the police, and tell them Anthony was here and that he had murdered Thora and threatened Ivy. No one would blame her for being terrified of him. His eyes said everything. And nothing.
But Ivy’s heart was pounding and she felt more alive than she had in many, many years. She didn’t know what would happen next. The only thing she knew was that she had to shelter him, to protect him. There was no one else who would.
“Miss Ivy?” the pregnant girl, now dressed, stood in the workroom doorway.
“What?” Ivy said, louder than she intended. “You’re finished. What do you want?”
“Should we take the other dresses with us?”
Ivy wanted to scream at her to just leave, but the girl already looked worried. She managed a tight smile. “I’ll get them and bring them out.”
• • •
When she heard the car start in the driveway, Ivy hurried back to the guest room. How could she convince Anthony to stay up at the trailer? It was too much, worrying about him running into the clients she had coming in and out of the house. They were used to Thora, who had mostly ignored them. But Anthony? They could never see him.
She opened the guest room door, expecting to find him lying on the bed or sitting in the room’s single chair. Instead, he was standing in the corner near the window, still naked, his back to her. About two feet up the wall, the paint was darker and looked wet.
“Oh, Anthony. No,” she said. “Stop!” She was too late.
He didn’t turn around until his bladder was empty. When he did, he seemed much less agitated than when she had left the room.
“This isn’t right,” she said, pointing to the urine-soaked corner. “You need to do that in the bathroom. You used it yesterday, remember?” She had even heard him get up around one o’clock when she was still scrubbing Thora’s blood from the kitchen floor. Afterward he hadn’t flushed or washed his hands, but she was keeping her expectations low. Who knew what he had been like before? Thora had always insisted that men were pigs.
Was it her imagination, or did he look the slightest bit sheepish, or perhaps embarrassed?
“Come on,” she said. “Now you really do need a shower.”
She left the bedroom, hoping he would follow. He did.
As they started down the hallway, she felt something tug at the ponytail hanging down her back. Her pulse quickened. This time, the tug was more insistent, even playful. She looked back over her shoulder. Anthony wasn’t smiling, but his head was tilted slightly, like he was trying to concentrate. He reached for her ponytail again.
“I’m sorry. I-I forgot my phone.”
Ivy stopped. She leaned around Anthony’s bulk to see the pregnant bridesmaid standing at the opposite end of the hallway. Anthony turned at the girl’s voice as well, and the girl’s eyes widened, taking in Anthony’s naked form. She didn’t look away until Ivy pushed around Anthony to stand between them.
“You didn’t ring the doorbell!” Ivy cried. “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?”
“I didn’t mean…” The girl started backing away, but her eyes were drawn back to Anthony, who filled the hallway. She stared as though she had stumbled upon some rare animal in the forest. “It’s my phone,” the girl said. “I didn’t mean to come in. Everyone’s out in the car.”
Behind her, Ivy could hear Anthony breathing heavily. She almost looked back, but she was afraid to see the look on his face.
“Wait,” Ivy said. “Go wait on the porch.”
• • •
After the girl fled, Ivy realized she had been holding her breath and let out a long sigh.
The very worst that could happen had happened. She had no idea if the girl even knew anything about the murder at the Git ’n’ Go. If she did, it was all over. Ivy closed her eyes against the image of Thora lying on the floor, limp as a doll. What in God’s world am I doing?
Maybe the girl didn’t know. Or didn’t care. Teenagers were like that—ignorant. Ivy was an adult. Why shouldn’t she have a man in her house, even a naked man? It was her right, and nobody’s business but her own. Women she knew were always having affairs. They couldn’t keep their mouths shut about them, telling her about their younger, older, sex-crazed, or drunken lovers as she hemmed their designer blue jeans and or let out their dresses, confiding in her as though she were a hairdresser or bartender. Even Lila Tucker, one of the area’s most visibly married women—a woman Ivy had known almost her whole life—had dropped hints. But of course, no one would expect it of Ivy Luttrell. The virginal Ivy Luttrell. The motherless, harelipped Ivy Luttrell.
What people thought of her didn’t matter. It never had. She looked up at Anthony.
“It’s not right, Ivy,” Thora had said. “He’s all wrong. And I think he’s dangerous.”
The girl seemed to have had no effect on Anthony at all. Did that mean he didn’t want to kill just anyone? Maybe killing people was just a periodic need he had. Was it possible he chose his victims for a reason?
He turned away from her and continued down the hall to the bathroom. As he walked, he reached out one finger and trailed it along the wall until he came to the bathroom. Ivy was still amazed by the muscularity of his body, the physical power that seemed to ripple beneath his skin. He was beautiful.
He disappeared inside the bathroom and she heard the water come on in the shower.
• • •
The pregnant girl stood on the porch, staring up at the mountain. When she heard Ivy open the door, she came to meet her on the threshold. Bass thundered from the neon blue compact car idling in the driveway behind her, but the girls inside weren’t paying any attention to what was happening on the porch.
Instead of immediately taking her cell phone from Ivy, the girl reached for Ivy’s wrist. Her fingers were ice cold, and Ivy instinctively tried to pull away. But the girl held her fast, her dark brown eyes looking directly into Ivy’s. Her oval face was free of makeup and, Ivy thought, as plain as an old shoe. The only thing even vaguely exotic about her was the delicate silver ring at the pointed end of one over-plucked eyebrow.
“The Lord Jesus Christ Our Savior doesn’t call me to judge you.” The girl spoke with a confidence that astonished Ivy. “Judgment comes from Him. Not me. Okay?”
She let go of Ivy and took the phone. “We’re all sinners, but we’re forgiven by His grace.” A wide, sympathetic smile transformed her face into something lovely.
Ivy stared after her as the girl hurried down the porch steps and got into the waiting car. She waved at Ivy as they drove off, the pounding music fading as they turned onto the highway.
• • •
Ivy woke in darkness, the prayers she had been dreaming on her lips. She needed forgiveness. She needed luck. She needed patience. Most of all, she needed patience. Anthony was as thoughtless as a seven-year-old, and more dangerous than she could have ever imagined a man to be. She held tightly to the hope that he would change, that he would become something better. What was wrong with wanting someone she might love unconditionally, someone who might be kinder to her than Thora? And the way to teach Anthony kindness was to show him kindness.
When she heard the far-off jangle of the Christmas bells she’d hung on the front door, she knew she hadn’t awakened soon enough. She had propped open the bedroom door and worn comfortable clothes to bed so she would be ready if he tried to go out. But she had slept through his leaving the guest room, and he was already gone. Had he even bothered to get dressed?
She rushed to the front of the house to find the front door standing open and the porch dark. Outside, her breath fogged the air. The temperature was freezing, or dangerously close to it.
Grabbing a flashlight, she slipped on her rubber gardening clogs and ran into the yard. She looked toward the highway first, knowing he probably hadn’t gone that way.
Up on the hillside the trailer was dark, but that didn’t mean Anthony wasn’t inside. He never seemed to mind being in the dark.
She was only halfway up the hill when she heard the hysterical yipping of a dog or coyote off to the east. She stopped and changed direction. Never before in her life would she have followed such a sound, especially at night. But it worried her. Worried was her new second nature.
She battled with the voices in her head—a chorus of voices, Thora’s among them—about whether her worry made any sense. They told her that Anthony couldn’t be hurt, that he couldn’t feel anything because he was already dead. Dead, like Thora. But no! She had restored him, restored his life, hadn’t she? Her blood, her life. Anthony was a part of her in a way that no one else in the world could ever be. He had come from the mountain as a gift, and she had done her part.
Could she have helped Thora? Did she have that kind of power? Every time she thought about Thora lying in the big freezer, she flushed
with shame. It had happened too fast. There hadn’t even been time for an ambulance, let alone thoughts of something less...normal. No, there was nothing. Nothing she could have done.
Now, with the mountain rising above her, dark against a deeper darkness, she understood what she might have done. Could still do. Bury Thora on the mountain.
Ahead, she saw a terrible vision—the majestic outline of a man, an animal flailing at the end of his outstretched arms. The animal’s yipping had become a strangled, desperate whine. Ivy could feel its terror in her own gut, as though she were the one dying, she were the one whose panicked eyes were quickly draining of light and life.
She dropped the flashlight, screaming Anthony’s name.
Before she could reach them, Anthony gave the animal a final shake and let it fall to the ground. Silhouette hid the details of his face, but she knew he was smiling.
Without looking back, Anthony ran for the shelter of the mountain’s blackened forest.
By the time she reached where he had been standing, he was gone. The winter-starved coyote at her feet was still. She knelt, laying her hand on its ragged coat. Nothing.
“Anthony,” she said. The word hung in the air, but there was no one else to hear it.
Giving Anthony life had only brought more death into the world. Unintended consequences was a favorite phrase of the pastor at church. Damn dangerous things.
The coyote’s back legs gave a sudden kick and its body shuddered, releasing a foul odor. Ivy felt a sharp pang of guilt, but there was nothing she could do. The vultures or, God forbid, other coyotes would take care of the carcass.
She shushed her way through the grass to retrieve the glowing flashlight. Her stomach was upset and her hands shaking when she picked up the thing, so the beam bobbed as she walked. A hundred feet or so from the dead coyote, she heard a rustling in the brush above her. Cutting the beam up the hillside, she called Anthony’s name. More rustling. But the light only revealed a pair of flat gold discs—an animal’s eyes.
“Go!” she shouted. “Get!”
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