Then he rounded a corner, and saw a dark shape creeping around the rear of the house. Creeping toward Molly’s bedroom window, in fact.
Will was suddenly, furiously angry.
Low to the ground, gun drawn, Will raced toward the figure.
The interloper glanced around, saw him, and ran.
“Freeze!”
Will aimed his pistol at the fleeing figure, which kept right on fleeing. Cursing, Will stuck the pistol in his waistband at the small of his back, and gave chase. This was the creep Susan had seen in the window that night he had danced with Molly, Will had little doubt. It might even be the sicko who had hurt the horse. Whoever he was, he had no business outside Molly’s bedroom window.
His days as a track-and-field star had left Will nearly matchless in any ordinary footrace between creep and cop. He was on the guy’s heels in a matter of minutes, then brought him down with a flying tackle not far from the road.
It was not until Will had his knee on the culprit’s spine and one of his arms jerked up tight behind his back that he realized he’d captured a kid.
Mike, to be precise. The dark ponytail and glinting earring made him unmistakable.
“You stupid little shit,” Will said, easing his grip slightly but not releasing the kid, thankful that he never had been one to shoot first and ask questions later. “Don’t you know enough to freeze when somebody tells you to? I could have shot you.”
“Get the hell off me, asshole,” Mike panted over his shoulder.
“What are you doing outside at this time of night? It’s after midnight.”
“It’s none of your business what I’m doing out here. Just because you’re fucking my sister doesn’t give you any rights over me.”
“Hey,” Will said, tightening his grip again.
“Let go!”
“You don’t talk that way about your sister.”
“She’s my sister and I’ll talk about her any way I want to. Now, get off.”
“Or what, tough guy?” Will shifted position and gave Mike a quick, one-handed pat-down. The kid’s pockets were full.
“You can’t do that! I’ll kill you! I swear to God I will!” Mike struggled futilely as Will began to pull an assortment of items from his pockets. The last treasure revealed was a Baggie with a small amount of what looked like cigarette tobacco in the bottom. Will grimaced, and dangled the Baggie in front of Mike’s face.
“What’s this, hero?”
Mike gave a particularly ferocious heave, and when that didn’t work to dislodge Will he let loose with a string of curse words that would have shocked Madonna. Will was unmoved.
“None of your business, is what it is,” Mike finally ground out.
“Okay.” Will kept his knee on the kid’s back. His grip secure on the arm he held, he was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “The way I see it is, you have three options: I can call the police right now, and pass this interesting substance on to them; we can go wake up Molly, tell her the whole story, and let her decide what to do; or you can come with me and try to persuade me why I shouldn’t do either of the above.”
Mike seemed to think that over. At any rate, he quit struggling. “Come with you where?” he asked suspiciously. Will almost smiled. Like Molly, the kid wasn’t big on trust.
“To my car. It’s parked by the road.”
“What are you, some kind of pervert? If you think I’m going to give you a blow job or something in return for keeping quiet, you can just think again.”
Will tightened his grip on Mike’s arm, and Mike yelped.
“Another remark like that and you no longer have a choice to make,” Will said grimly.
“All right, I’ll go to your car!” Mike gasped.
“I don’t hear an apology.”
“Sorry!”
“That’s better.”
Will released his prisoner and got to his feet. Mike scrambled upright as well, scooping his belongings back into his pockets. Will kept the Baggie, tucking it into his own pocket.
“Asshole,” Mike muttered.
33
“Run, and I call the cops,” Will said, knowing the kid was thinking of doing exactly that. Mike’s sulky expression confirmed it.
“Come on.” Will headed for his car. A quick glance around told him that Mike was following. Will slid behind the wheel, restoring the pistol to the glove compartment just as Mike got in the passenger side.
“Were you headed out, or in?” Will asked when Mike shut the door. It was dark inside the car, but despite the shadows Will could see Mike’s expression. The kid shot him a glance of intense dislike.
“In.”
“Where you been?”
“Is that any of your business?”
Will gave him a level look. “Yeah, it is.”
Mike’s expression turned sullen. “I was meeting friends.”
“Over at the barn at Sweet Meadow Stud?”
“We’re not stupid.”
“Found a new meeting place, hmm?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s with the pot?” Will asked.
“I smoke it sometimes. So what?”
“So it’s illegal, and if you get caught with it you could end up in a juvenile facility. To say nothing of how much it’ll hurt your family, and how much it’ll cost to get you out of trouble, if it can even be done.”
Mike shrugged.
“It’s also really stupid, because the cops have their eye on you already. They know you were one of the kids in that barn, but they can’t prove it. That kind of thing makes cops mad. They catch you with pot on you, and you’re gone. They’d also like to hang something else on you—like the horse mutilations. So you get in trouble, and you’re just helping them out.”
“That’s such shit. I never touched that horse.”
“That’s what Molly said, and I take her word for it. But the cops don’t know that. They think you and maybe some of your friends did it, and if they catch you with pot it’s just going to help them make their case.”
“Even if they do catch me, what are they gonna do to me? I’m fourteen.”
“If the crime’s serious enough, they can charge you as an adult anyway. That means a juvenile facility until you’re eighteen, and then adult prison after that. You ever been in a juvenile facility, Mike?”
“No,” Mike said. Then, “Molly has. She says it wasn’t so bad.”
Will paused, processing the information. “Molly likes to pretend she’s tough. A juvenile facility is bad, Mike. I wouldn’t want to see you end up there.”
“What do you care? You don’t even like me.”
“I like your sister. If it comes to that, I like your whole family. How far off the gene pool can you be?”
Something that was almost a smile emerged from Mike.
A thought occurred to Will. “How’d you get out of the house without waking everybody up, anyway? Isn’t the alarm system on?”
“The one you bought?” The hostility was back in Mike’s voice. “It was. I turned it off.”
“There wasn’t a key in your pocket. How are you going to get back in? Tell me you didn’t come out and leave the door unlocked with the alarm system off.” With everything that had been going on, the idea of anybody being able to walk into a house where Molly lay sleeping made the hair rise on the back of Will’s neck.
“You had no business going through my pockets—and anyway I went out the window. The one you fixed. The lock works great, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Will’s voice was dry. “You know, somebody could go in that window as well as come out it. You ever think of that?”
“Who’s going to go in the window?” Mike asked scornfully.
“Whoever Susan saw peeping in, maybe.”
“That was just Susan’s imagination. She always has been a ’fraidycat.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The point is, you’re putting your sisters and brother at risk every time you sneak out that window and leave it unlocked.” Wil
l decided to quit there. From his dealings with his own son, he had learned that belaboring a subject to death was a good way to get a teenager to tune you out. Any points that were scored were usually scored with subtlety, not haranguing.
“You’re a sophomore in high school, right?”
“A freshman.” Mike sounded wary, as if he didn’t much trust this change of subject.
“You like school?”
“It’s okay.”
“You play sports?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Sports are for boneheads.”
“You don’t like basketball?” Will sounded shocked.
Mike shrugged.
“You ever played basketball?”
“Sure I’ve played basketball. In gym.” Mike’s voice was defensive.
“Your school got a team?”
“Of course it’s got a team. What high school doesn’t have a team?”
“You’re not on it.”
“No.”
“Did you try out?”
“Why would I try out? I’ve got about as much chance of making the team as I do of getting run over by a herd of buffaloes in the front yard.”
“Is that so? I’m surprised. You’re tall. You’re fast on your feet. You seem plenty coordinated. What’s the problem?”
Mike shrugged.
“When I was in school, the girls went for the jocks. Basketball, football, wrestling, track and field—man, we had the girls lined up.”
“You were on a team? Which one?” There was a note of unwilling interest in Mike’s voice.
“Track and field. And basketball. I liked girls.”
“Yeah.” Mike sounded so gloomy that Will realized he’d hit a nerve.
“Things have probably changed, though. Girls nowadays are too smart to like a guy just because he’s a jock.”
“Not really.”
“Oh, yeah?” Will cast him a sideways glance. “I know where there’s a basketball court. You interested in shooting some hoops, sometime?”
“I can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
“We could work on that. It’s all in the technique, you know. I taught my kid how to play, and he’s a pretty fair shot. In fact, he’s going to college on a basketball scholarship.”
“You got a kid?”
“A son. Kevin. He’s eighteen. He’s a freshman at Western Illinois this year.”
“Really?” A thought apparently occurred to Mike, and he frowned. “You telling me you got a wife too? And you’re going out with Molly?”
Will laughed, glad the kid had enough feeling for his sister to object. “No, I don’t have a wife. She died a long time ago.”
“Jeez,” Mike said. “You’re old, aren’t you?”
Will laughed again, but with less amusement. “I’m not that old. I can run circles around you, kid, and stuff a basketball in your eye anytime I feel like it too.”
“Trash talk,” Mike said, but he grinned.
“You think so?” Will looked at Mike. “I’ll make a deal with you. You promise to stay in the house at night and lay off the pot, and I’ll teach you how to play basketball. How about it?”
“Really?” Mike’s response was wary. Will was once again reminded of Molly.
“Really. We can start tomorrow. I’ll be over—oh, probably around six.”
“You usually take Molly out.”
Will shrugged. “Molly’s mad at me, for the moment. Anyway, I’d enjoy teaching you the finer points of basketball. I’ve got a feeling you could be good.”
“Really?” This time Mike sounded both wary and pleased.
“Really.” Will said firmly. Then, “Uh—Mike.”
“Yeah?”
“You could do me a favor.”
“What?” The wariness was back in spades. Will wondered what the kid was expecting, remembered the pervert accusation, and grinned.
“Nothing horrible,” he said. “Just tell me something about what Molly was like, growing up. About how things were for all of you, your family.”
“Ah,” Mike said, slanting him a sideways glance. “You want to know about things like our mom’s suicide?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “I’d like to know what makes your sister tick, but Molly doesn’t like to talk about stuff. Your parents, for example.”
“Molly always says that looking back is a mistake. All we can do is look forward.” Again that sideways glance. “Actually, she just doesn’t like to remember. Molly hasn’t had what you’d call a really great life.”
“I gathered that much. You told me your mom killed herself. What happened to your dad?”
“My dad’s in prison. For armed robbery.” Mike sounded almost proud. “Molly doesn’t know where her dad is. He took off when she was a baby, and she hasn’t heard from him since.”
“You had different dads?”
“We all did. Except for the twins, of course.”
“So your mom was married a bunch of times.”
Mike shook his head. “She was married to Molly’s dad, and I think to Ashley’s. After that I don’t think she bothered with getting married to the others.”
“Was she a good mom?” Will tried hard to keep his voice neutral.
“Sometimes. Sometimes she was just the best mother in the world.” Mike’s voice faltered, and he took a deep breath. Will realized that, like Molly, Mike still suffered from their mother’s death. After a second Mike continued softly, “And sometimes she wasn’t. Sometimes she’d just take up with a man and go off and leave us. Or she’d try to kill herself, and they’d come and take her to a hospital. Social workers were always coming to get us and putting us in foster homes. I was in about seven.”
“What about Molly?”
“She was, too, only she kept running away. Finally they put her in a home for girls. She liked that better, she said, but then she got caught shoplifting and that’s when they put her in reform school.”
“How long was she there?” Will’s voice was quiet. Here in this pitiful little tale was the answer to the mystery of Molly, he realized. Her pride, her outward toughness, her inability to let anyone get too close. Her defenses had been forged in a hard school, one that he wasn’t sure he could have survived himself.
“About two years, I think. They let her out when she turned eighteen. Then she went to live with our mother. See, they taught her how to be a groom in reform school, and when she got out she had this job with Wyland Farm. So Mom was glad to have her.” This cynical view was expressed without bitterness.
“Were you living with your mom then? Any of you?”
Mike shook his head. “When Molly found out she could rent our house as part of her pay, Mom came and got us all out of the foster homes we were in. Mom and Molly took care of us, and Molly worked, and even when Mom went off or had a spell it was okay, because Molly was here. We were all pretty happy, I thought, and then Mom went and killed herself. Molly said she was just sick, sick like somebody with cancer, only in her head. She didn’t really mean to do it, she just couldn’t help it.” This last was said softly.
Will had to battle the impulse to put a sympathetic hand on the boy’s shoulder. He had a feeling that Mike wouldn’t receive the gesture kindly. The kid was too much like Molly.
“So you didn’t have to go back to foster homes when your mom died?” Will asked after a moment.
Mike shook his head. “I don’t think Molly ever notified any of the authorities that Mom died. She just kept on taking care of us, and Ashley was big enough to help by then, and we just all kind of stayed together.”
Will was silent for a moment, mulling this over. Then, deliberately reaching for a lighter tone, he asked, “Has Molly always had a lot of boyfriends?”
Mike gave him a look. “You’re pretty gone on her, aren’t you?”
Will shrugged and smiled. “Yeah, I guess I am. But don’t tell her, okay?”
“Okay.” Mike was pleased by that bit of masculine bonding, Will co
uld tell.
“So?” Will asked.
“Oh, the boyfriends.” Mike thought a minute. “Yeah, she’s always had guys after her ever since I can remember. She’s really pretty, you know.”
“I know,” Will said dryly.
“Will,” Mike said, shifting in his seat so that he was facing him. Will realized that it was the first time Mike had ever called him by name. He realized, too, from the kid’s earnest tone that Mike was getting ready to say something that he considered important.
“Yeah?” Will prompted, according Mike his full attention.
“Molly’s a really good person. A lot of guys hang around her, but she’s not—she’s not …”
Will knew what Mike was trying to say. “Easy? I know.”
“I just wanted you to know.”
“I appreciate that. I appreciate your telling me all this too.” Will glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “You know, it’s after one o’clock. Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” said Mike, with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
“Then you’d better get to bed. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the house. You climb back through the window and lock it and stay in there, you hear me?”
“I hear,” Mike said.
34
October 17, 1995
The next night Will showed up at suppertime just as if nothing had happened between them. It had been another beautiful Indian summer day, all sunshine and gentle breezes, and it was still warm even at dusk. The oak in the front yard had disgorged almost all its leaves. They rustled whenever anybody or anything moved. Busy fixing the evening meal, Molly glanced out the open door as Pork Chop started to bark. Through the screen she could see Will’s car parked in the driveway, and Will himself walking through the carpet of crimson and gold leaves toward the house. He was dressed in his gray sweats and carrying a large, gaily wrapped package under one arm.
Molly’s reaction was a jumble of contradictions: The mere sight of him made her heart ache like a sore tooth; reflecting on the gall it took to continue to visit just as if he thought he were welcome made her angry; and despite her determination to have nothing further to do with him on a personal basis, she felt a spurt of very human satisfaction at the sight of the gift. She had every intention of cutting the man firmly out of her heart and life, but it was nice to see that he intended to grovel while she did it.
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