by Sharon Sala
Reece woke Louis up yelling at the top of his voice, “Get up! Get up, damn it! You have somewhere to be this morning.”
Louis glared. “It’s Saturday. I don’t have to be anywhere.”
But Reece kept yelling. “I said, get the fuck up, damn it! The teachers are going to clean up Melissa Sherman’s house, and you’re going to help because you know how to replace glass and there’s a broken window in her back door. Wanna know how I know that? Because I fucking broke it,” he crowed. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“I don’t feel good,” Louis said.
“Neither do I, but Mama is in the living room driving me crazy, and you have to take her to the bank to cash her check.”
Now that he remembered Mama was in the house, Louis began getting dressed. He couldn’t go walking around half-naked in front of her.
“You gave Mama money?” he asked.
“Why, yes, I did because my big-mouth brother told her I had a lot of it. He also told her I was stalking a woman and might have killed a man. So now you’d better get up and get out of my sight, or I might have to permanently shut your mouth.”
Louis winced as he fingered the staples in his forehead and then felt the gauze pads still stuck up his nose.
“Did you hear me, Louis? I’m talking to you,” Reece demanded.
Louis turned around and then began looking for his shoes, muttering as he went. “Yes, I heard you. Do you really think I’m scared? Of you? Really, Reece? Do you?”
Reece was silent, momentarily shocked by Louis’s abrupt dismissal of his threats, and then he threw his head back and laughed.
“You are so right, Louie! We’re blood. Blood doesn’t hurt blood, right, brother? But still...after you take Mama to the bank, you should go help them put Melissa’s house back together. Only seems fair, since I’m the one who tore it up.”
Now Louis was silent. It aggravated him that Reece’s request actually made sense. In a way, it would be an apology from the family.
“Yes, I’ll help,” Louis said. Then he stumbled off to the bathroom, leaving Reece to consider his sins.
* * *
Pinky had dressed and packed before daylight. Now she was waiting at the kitchen table for someone to wake up when she heard the yelling. Her first instinct was to go settle the fuss, as she’d done so many times before, but then she stopped. What went on in that bedroom was best left alone. She just needed a check cashed and a way out of town.
When Louis finally made his way to the kitchen she was horrified by the sight of his poor face. He was a mass of bruising, healing scabs and runny scrapes, even worse than he’d looked yesterday, when the injuries were fresh. The staples just topped it off.
“Oh, Louis! Your poor face,” she said. “Can I make you some breakfast? Maybe some oatmeal? That would be easy to eat...not much chewing.”
“No, Mama. I’m fine,” Louis said, as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot she’d made earlier. He needed it to down a couple of painkillers.
Pinky eyed the long gray ponytail hanging down his back and wanted to suggest that he cut it, but she didn’t. Obviously he liked it or it wouldn’t be there.
“I heard you yelling,” she said.
Louis nodded. “Reece woke me up. I didn’t want to get up, but then I did.”
“Why?”
He looked at her then, wondering why she always asked the obvious question when she already knew the answer. He wanted to do it, at least in part because no matter how much he talked back, Reece was always in charge. But there was more, too.
“Well, the woman Reece is stalking works at my job, so the employees are going to help clean up the mess he made at her house when he tried to get to her and stabbed the man instead. Reece wants me to go fix the window he broke, so I am.”
Pinky’s mouth opened but the words wouldn’t come. This was so outrageous that she couldn’t find a sensible response.
“Can you take me by the bank first?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure, Mama. So Reece came through for you, huh?”
She smiled, revealing the gap in her upper teeth.
“Yes, and there’s enough to get my teeth fixed, too.”
“That’s good. I need to get a few tools to take with me, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
“Okay,” she said, and went back into the living room to wait.
Louis came through a few minutes later carrying a small toolbox and wearing a work jacket. He unlocked the front door and then held it open so she could carry her things out.
“Thanks for the help,” she said, sarcasm dripping as she staggered through the doorway with both bags.
“I’m hurt, Mama. It’s going to hurt me even more today when I should be in bed. Reece causes trouble and I have to fix it. That’s always the way it goes and yet you like him best. If you want help with your bags, ask Reece.”
Pinky wouldn’t look at him. She just kept moving, dragging one bag and carrying the other. She slung them in the back of the pickup bed again and then got into the cab as Louis eased in behind the wheel with a groan.
At that point she felt sorry for him again. He did look miserable, but this was all too much for her to handle, and the sooner she made her escape the better.
When they got to the bank drive-through, the teller wouldn’t cash a check that large from a person who didn’t have an account there, which meant Louis had to take her inside and vouch for her.
After a few minutes of explanation about her recent troubles and the fact that her son Reece, who did bank there, was giving her money to start over, Pinky left with a couple thousand dollars in cash in her purse and a cashier’s check for the rest.
When Louis started to take her back to the house, she stopped him.
“No, no, son. Take me to the bus stop.”
“Bus doesn’t come through here again until Monday,” Louis said.
Pinky moaned. She didn’t want to go back to the house. She was afraid of what Reece might do.
“Then, take me to a motel. I’ll stay there until Monday, okay?”
Louis didn’t care what she did, and shrugged. “Okay.”
They rode together for a few minutes in silence, and then, just before Pinky got out, she put a hand on Louis’s arm.
“Will you please not tell Reece I’m still in town?”
Louis looked at her then and saw the fear in her eyes. “Okay, Mama. I won’t tell.”
“Do you swear?”
“Yes, Mama, I swear. Are you scared of him?”
She hesitated a moment and then nodded.
“Don’t feel bad,” Louis said. “So am I.”
Pinky felt like there was more she should say, but Louis would see through it if she lied. “Thank you for the ride,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Mama. It was nice to see you again.”
Pinky sighed. “Thank you, Louis. I’m so sorry you’re hurt. I hope you get well soon.”
Then she got out of the truck, took her bags from the bed and walked into the motel without looking back.
Louis put the pickup in gear and drove off, her presence already forgotten because that was how it had always been between them.
* * *
Lissa pulled up into the driveway of Paul Jackson’s house and killed the engine. She hadn’t been here since she and Mack were in high school, and for a moment she had that long-ago feeling of anxiety. Could they make love and be back at school by fourth period without anyone knowing what they’d done?
And then she heard Mack groan as he undid the seat belt.
“Oh! Wait a minute,” she said, as she jumped out and circled the SUV to help steady his steps as he got out of the car.
“There’s nothing wrong with my feet,” he said, as she slid an arm around his waist.
“Humor me,” she said as they headed toward the house, then up the steps, where she walked him inside.
“Want to lie down in your bed or on the sofa in the living room?”
&nb
sp; “Bed, for sure, but I’ve got this,” he said. He kissed her forehead before moving down the hall.
“I’ll get our stuff,” she said, as she ran back to get her bag and all his paperwork from the hospital.
When she got to the bedroom he was sitting on the edge of the mattress, still in his clothes.
“Okay, it was harder than I thought it would be,” Mack said.
She combed her fingers through the thick, spiky length of his hair.
“How about you get into bed and I dig around in the kitchen to make something to eat?”
“I won’t argue,” he said, as he kicked off his shoes and stood up to take off his pants and shirt.
“I can help,” she said.
There was a muscle jerking at the side of Mack’s mouth as he eyed the curve of her breasts beneath her sweater and the way the fabric clung to her body, and then he groaned quietly.
“Melissa, if you come any closer we’re both gonna be in trouble. I can’t make love to you like I want, but I will damn sure give it a try if you start taking off my clothes.”
Lissa’s gaze went straight to his crotch and then back up again. “Oh, good grief! You aren’t sixteen any longer. Surely you have some control,” she muttered, stomping out of the room.
He glared. He would have argued, but she was right. Truth was, he didn’t want to be naked in front of her for the first time in years and too helpless to do anything about it.
He got the pants off okay, but getting out of the shirt was harder. He got it unbuttoned, but it was stuck on something on his shoulder and he couldn’t figure out why. Frustrated, he just gave it a yank.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelped, as pain shot straight up the back of his neck and out the top of his head.
Lissa was in the kitchen when she heard him yell. She dropped what she was doing and stomped back up the hall, her eyes narrowed and her fingers curled into fists. She entered his room with her head up and her eyes flashing.
“Obviously, hotshot, you do need my help, and don’t give me that hot-and-bothered excuse because whatever you did to yourself turned you white as a sheet.”
“My shirt... I can’t get it off,” he said.
“Sit back down on the side of the bed and let me see,” she said. He sat. “Oh, here’s what’s wrong. The tape came loose at one end of the bandage and stuck on your shirt. When you pulled, you were pulling the bandage off with it.”
“Well, damn,” Mack said.
A few moments later she had the shirt off and everything taped back down, then she paused and cupped his face in her hands.
“So this is awkward, but it’s still us. Don’t think you have to prove anything to me. You have already proved numerous times that you can rock my world, remember?”
He grinned, and then turned his head and kissed the palm of one hand.
“Yes, I remember, and I hear you. Pain is just as good as a cold shower.”
She kissed him, softly and then longingly.
“Now rest. Let me do my womanly thing and bang pots in the kitchen.”
He sighed. “And she’s practical. When did that happen?”
“Twenty-second birthday. I had options. I could pull a double shift at the bakery where I was working or party with some friends, and I chose work. I needed the money.”
He let himself look his fill of her face as she talked, thinking how beautiful she had become.
“You know, you still look like the girl I used to know, my Cindy Crawford look-alike, only prettier,” he said.
She rolled her eyes as she helped ease him into bed and then pulled up the covers.
“I know love is blind, but I do not now, nor have I ever, looked like Cindy Crawford, except for this little mole by my mouth. She’s five-nine and has long dark hair.”
“Well, you look like her if she was five-three with curly blond hair.”
Lissa laughed. “I’m going to the kitchen now and you’re going to rest, confident that I know what I’m doing.”
Mack slid a hand behind her neck.
She leaned down, and the magic happened.
The moment their lips connected, she moaned. It would have been so easy to strip naked and crawl into bed beside him.
Mack wanted her. “Lissa?”
She put a finger across his lips. “We have the rest of our lives. Now go to sleep.”
The pain meds they’d given him before they left the hospital were pulling him under.
“Is that your teacher voice?” he asked.
“Your eyes are still open.”
He closed them.
As she left, Lissa glanced across the hall into his dad’s bedroom and felt a moment of such sadness that it was hard to breathe. If she hadn’t been so insistent on getting her car back quickly, then he wouldn’t have been working late. He would have come home, and he wouldn’t be dead. But if he hadn’t died, Mack wouldn’t have come home and they wouldn’t have been thrown together, and the opportunity to fix what her parents had done to them might never have happened. Life was such a mess—such a damned bittersweet mess.
She swallowed past the knot in her throat and went to explore the contents of the refrigerator. When she found a list on the center island of people who’d already brought food to the house, she remembered all the food people had brought to the house when her mama died. People in Mystic took care of their own.
* * *
Louis had already been to Melissa Sherman’s house to measure the window in the back door so he could replace the broken glass and was back now with the goods to fix what his brother had ruined. Yes, it felt awkward moving around her kitchen, setting the window glass, adding the grout and calmly trimming it out, all the while knowing Reece had stormed through the room like the madman he could be.
He heard the women talking about the condition of her bedroom, and that she wasn’t coming back to school until the stalker was apprehended and would be living with her boyfriend, who just happened to be the man Reece had stabbed.
The news that the man was still alive was the best news Louis had heard all day. But he still felt bad for Melissa Sherman because she’d had to take a leave from her job and had been forced to move out of her house temporarily, too afraid to stay alone in her own home.
He’d seen for himself the amount of blood that had been splashed all over the walls and floor. The level of shame he was feeling was so strong he had yet to look up. Even worse, the women kept bragging about him because he’d shown up to help even though he’d been injured. He didn’t want them to talk about him. He didn’t want anything but to get the job done and leave, and then Margaret Lewis saw him cleaning up the bits of glass and grout, and put her hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“We’ll do that, Louis. You replaced the broken glass, and that’s the one thing none of us could do. You go home and get some rest, and thank you so much for coming to help. Melissa will be so appreciative.”
He could still feel the imprint of Margaret’s hand beneath his jacket and struggled with the need to brush it away. He didn’t like to be touched.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He finished gathering up the tools he’d brought with him, and exited the house as fast as his aching muscles would take him, but he didn’t want to go home. Reece would start pumping him for information, and he didn’t want to talk to him. He’d known about Reece’s prior behavior and disapproved, but he’d never personally known one of his brother’s victims before, and the personal connection creeped him out. It made Reece seem like a criminal—a real bad-guy criminal who should be behind bars—and not his twin.
This was a terrible day in so many ways, and once again he was thinking about packing up and leaving, but he wasn’t sure he could get away. He’d tried it once before and had been on his own for almost three weeks before Reece had just shown up one morning and settled in without an explanation as to how he’d found him. Still, things had changed. Even Mama was scared of Reece now. Reece had changed, and Louis wasn’t strong enough to handle th
e violent stranger his brother had become.
So what to do?
In a rare moment of defiance, Louis drove straight to Charlie’s Burgers and went in to eat lunch, choosing the company of strangers instead of home.
He had no more than sat down, accepted a cup of coffee and picked up a menu before he heard someone call out his name. He looked up and saw the principal, Mr. Wilson, waving. He nodded shyly and then looked back down at the menu, but he couldn’t see the words for the fear that Wilson would come over and speak. If Louis wasn’t taking orders from the man, they had nothing to say to each other. To his relief, the principal left him alone, and when the waitress came back he ordered their homemade vegetable soup and corn bread. It would taste good on this cold day and be easier to eat than something that took a lot of chewing. Now that he’d made the decision, he sat happily in the warmth, listening to the rumble of voices and the occasional outburst of laughter from another table. He couldn’t remember laughing, but he remembered when Mama used to laugh. It was a sound without weight, like a feather. Crying was a heavy sound that pressed down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He liked the sound of laughter better. When the waitress brought his food, she topped off his coffee and then informed him that his food had already been paid for by Mr. Wilson. He felt a little strange that he’d been given a treat and looked up, but Mr. Wilson was gone. Now he would have to remember to thank him when he went back to work on Monday.
* * *
Trey searched the back rooms at the precinct for more than two hours before he finally found the old accident report on his mother’s wreck, and then he was disappointed by the lack of evidence and the minimal notes from the investigating officer.
He remembered the officer from when he was a kid, but the man had been dead for years, so there was no way to go back and question him.
When he called the hospital where they had been taken, he hit another dead end. The doctor who’d been on duty in the ER that night was in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s and had lost his ability to communicate years ago.
Other than the killer, Betsy was the only survivor that he knew of, and she couldn’t remember enough to help. In frustration, he pulled her journal out of evidence and began to read, making notes as he went.
