by Karen Hall
She put the picture back. She was dying to go through the entire drawer, but she thought she’d better check the window first and make sure it was safe. She stood up and turned, then froze in place.
He was standing in the kitchen doorway, glaring at her with a mixture of anger and confusion. His hair had darkened with age to a sandy blond and all the mischief was gone from his face. He was wearing dirty jeans and an equally dirty blue work shirt. He was wet from the rain. He folded his arms across his impressive chest and continued to stare at her, waiting silently for an explanation. Randa forced herself to meet his eyes. They were the same shape as Cam’s, except they were a strange pale olive color. And they were keenly alert—not the zombie eyes that often accompanied such a physique.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.” It was the best thing she could come up with under the circumstances.
“I don’t generally knock on my own door.” His voice was a deeper version of Cam’s and flat with restraint. The fact that he wasn’t yelling at her was giving Randa the creeps.
“My name is Randa Phillips.” She figured the best defense was to pretend there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. Any other option was too embarrassing to even consider. “I’m a friend of Cam’s.”
“If you’re here to deliver the sad news, the coroner beat you to it, so I guess you wasted a trip.” There wasn’t a trace of emotion in his voice.
“Well, I can at least offer you my condolences; I can see you’re devastated.”
He nodded toward the drawer. “Were you looking for anything specific?”
“No.” She didn’t bother to defend herself. “Look, I happened to be in Atlanta visiting my family”—not that I wouldn’t have flown two thousand miles for the pleasure of your charming company—“and I drove down here to bring you some things I thought you might want.”
“I don’t want anything of his.”
“Fine. But I’m sure I’m not the person who should end up with your family albums. I left them on your sofa. Have a nice life.” She made a beeline for the door. Faced with the prospect of spending another minute with him, she suddenly felt that the storm seemed a lot less threatening.
For some strange reason, her main thought as she brushed past him was that she hoped he caught a whiff of her perfume.
If she’d caused a disturbance when she’d stopped at Tillie’s to ask questions, Randa was about to shut the place down by having dinner there alone. It was packed now, and there was hardly a person in the room who hadn’t stared blatantly at her at least twice. Some kept staring, as if thinking if they looked long enough, she’d get up and tell them who she was.
She was still shaken from her encounter with Jack. She didn’t know what she had expected. Certainly not open arms, but at least some sort of connection, however brief. She didn’t know why she’d expected that, but she had. At least he could have acknowledged the fact that this trip had required some degree of effort, not to mention money. But then, she’d told that lie about being in Atlanta. She wondered how he would have reacted if she’d told him she’d come all this way just to meet him.
She looked up to signal the waitress for her check.
Uh-oh.
There he was. Dressed in clean but paint-spattered jeans and a denim jacket she didn’t remember seeing in his closet. He was looking at her. He turned away the minute she met his eyes, and stepped over to the end of the counter, where a sign said TAKE OUT.
Now what? She couldn’t bolt. Well, she could, but she’d have to walk within three feet of him to get out the door, which would be extremely uncomfortable. She ordered a cup of coffee and decided to wait. She fished a pen out of her purse and started on a napkin, as if she was making a shopping list. Instead, she made a list of ten albums she’d take to a desert island, and ten singles she’d die before admitting she liked. All the while, she prayed he hadn’t ordered anything hot.
You have a right to be here.
Right. She knew damned well she shouldn’t be here. It was his territory, and he’d made it clear that she wasn’t welcome.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him leave with nothing but a cup of coffee. She doubted he’d walked all this way for that. Well, she’d soon be gone and out of his hair for good. She would pack the Landrys in the back of her mind with all the other embarrassing memories—all those things that present themselves like flash cards during spasms of low self-esteem. This entire episode would be just another card in the deck. Outside, the storm had left the air chilly, reminding her that in places other than LA, it was the middle of winter. She tried to remember what clothes she had packed. She had decided to stay for a few days. She might even call her mother and admit to being in town.
Yeah. Just what you need, Mom on your heels with: “Cam? Cam . . . isn’t he the one whose brother killed all those people?”
She wasn’t sure whether she was truly nostalgic and homesick, or just trying to justify the airfare. Not that it mattered. She’d paid for it out of the Hostility Fund—the money her father had left her. Her rule of thumb was that she spent it only on things she knew he’d disapprove of. This trip would certainly qualify. Irrational, impetuous, and definitely on the wrong side of the political fence.
She turned the corner on the side street where she’d left her car. Jack was leaning against the wall of the Western Auto, sipping his coffee, waiting for her. She walked closer, then stopped. They stared at each other for a moment before he spoke.
“How did he die?” His tone was different. Quiet. Not as icy as before.
“Well . . . they say he killed himself.”
“They say?”
“He did kill himself, it’s just . . .” She sighed. “There was a lot of weird stuff going on and I’m not sure how much of it was true.”
“Such as?”
“Well . . .” How was she supposed to tell him like this? “Do you want to go someplace where we can talk?”
“Aren’t we talking?”
“I meant for a while. It’s all very complicated.”
“Just give me the bare bones.” The lack of emotion in his voice made her wonder why he even cared.
“Okay. I hadn’t seen him for some time. We had kind of a bitter parting, and—”
“This doesn’t sound like bare bones.”
Randa glared at him for a moment, then rattled it off. “People who’d seen him right before he died think he was having some sort of nervous breakdown. And the cops think he robbed a liquor store and killed a guy.”
For the first time, Jack looked nonplussed. “What?”
“That’s as bare as I can make it. If you want the rest, we’re at least getting inside the car, because I’m cold.”
He thought about it, as if it were a monumental decision. “Okay. Let’s go sit down somewhere.”
“Is there a bar around here?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Is there a reason you can’t have a Coke and watch me drink?”
He stared off down the street. He looked like he might just start walking that way. Instead, he looked back.
“All right.” It sounded like some sort of surrender. “There’s a bar a couple of miles down the road.”
The “bar” was more like a truck stop with a liquor license. It was a brick building with no windows and a neon sign above the door that read COUNTYLINE TAVERN. It looked like the kind of place where if you didn’t have a gun going in, they’d give you one at the door.
They found a booth in the back. Other than wanting to be away from the commotion, Jack had shown no signs of having an opinion about the place one way or the other. He was completely focused on wanting to hear the story. By the time Randa had finished with the basics, he was on his third Coke and Randa was on her second bourbon, and wishing she didn’t have to drive to Atlanta so she could order about five more. She wondered why he had made such a point of telling her that he didn’t drink. It was the only bit of personal information he had offered. He certainly did
n’t impress her as a proselytizing former alcoholic.
When she’d finished the story in as much detail as he would allow, he repeated it to her, like someone unsure of a set of directions. She answered by rote, and took the opportunity to study his face. It looked softer in the glow of the cheap red patio candle on the table. He had a high forehead, like Cam, and a square jaw. Perfect teeth, which she knew had to have come through the grace of God and not as the result of years of expensive orthodontia. She sensed he had the kind of smile that would change the entire nature of his face, and wondered when was the last time anyone had seen it.
She nodded as he finished recounting the story. He shook his head. “There’s no way in hell Cam robbed a liquor store.” It was the first sign of any emotion other than anger she’d seen from him. Maybe it was all the sugar and caffeine.
Randa nodded. “I have a hard time with it myself. But if he was . . . crazy . . .”
“I don’t care how crazy he was.” He polished off the Coke. He didn’t volunteer anything else.
Randa stared at her cocktail napkin. She was sick of carrying the conversation, but the silence was cloying.
“So which county is dry?”
“What?”
“I grew up in Georgia. If this is the ‘Countyline’ Tavern, it’s because the next county is dry.”
He came very close to smiling. “Henry County. Next door. You think my father would own a house in a dry county?”
Randa was startled. It had never occurred to her that Will Landry had ever bought a house. Cam had certainly never mentioned it.
“So . . . what happened to the house?”
He suddenly looked pained, realizing he had disclosed something. He shifted his weight. “It’s still there.”
“Does it belong to you?”
“Technically.”
“But you don’t live there?”
“Obviously not.”
“How come?” She knew he was hating this, but she couldn’t resist.
“Look, are we done?”
“Well, no.” She paused and sipped her drink, giving him time to recover from having accidentally stumbled into normal human interaction. “There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“Well, when the cops couldn’t find you, I guess they called—” She stopped, remembering. “You know, you’re living right here where Cam last saw you, but he told me you had vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Did he?” His tone was snide.
“He said he sent you a letter and the post office sent it back, ‘moved, no forwarding address.’ ”
Jack looked vaguely amused by that. He shook his head. “It came back ‘return to sender, addressee wants to be left the hell alone.’ ”
“Why did Cam lie to me?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Don’t expect anything about my family to make any sense.” She could see a flash of anger in his eyes, but it seemed to vanish as quickly as it had appeared. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and he was perfectly composed.
“So . . . what’s the rest of it?”
She got the feeling he had been in the company of another person for as long as he could tolerate it.
“When I went to get the scrapbooks, I met your uncle Ryland. He was at Cam’s. I guess he came to go through Cam’s things and . . . you know, make all the arrangements. But he was weird. I mean, Cam had told me he was a little bit fruity—”
“What paper do you write for?” he asked, cutting her off. His voice was angry and Randa could see the tension in his jaw. She looked at him, puzzled. She hadn’t mentioned her career to him once.
“How did you know I was a writer?”
“What paper?”
“The LA Chronicle. It’s a—”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull. Obviously Cam told you just enough that you can smell a story.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, cut the act.” He was standing now, pulling money out of his wallet. He threw it on the table. “I don’t know how you people sleep at night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He didn’t show any sign of hearing her. He headed for the door. She ran to catch up to him.
“Would you please tell me what is going on?”
He ignored her and kept walking. Annoyed, Randa reached out and grabbed his arm. He stopped and turned, jerking his arm away. He stared down at her with an anger that was almost palpable.
“You shouldn’t have relied on Cam for your information. He never knew or cared about anything that went on in the family. That’s why I didn’t even bother to tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That Ryland died. He had a heart attack; he’s been dead for three years. Nice try, though.”
He was out the door before Randa even realized what he had said.
SIX
All he wanted out of life was for nothing else to happen to him. Good, bad, indifferent, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t deal with one more thing. He lived his life as invisibly as possible. He did nothing to draw attention to himself. No driver’s license, no credit cards, no checkbook. He’d even had his phone and utilities listed in the landlord’s name and paid his bills in cash. No doctors, no prescription drugs. He didn’t want his name in any computer. He just wanted to be left alone. He’d felt that way most of his life. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask.
“It doesn’t work that way, Jack,” Cathy said as he finished giving her that speech for the zillionth time. “Life’s not juvie court. It doesn’t cut you a deal everyone can live with and then lose your address if you never screw up again. Life is a serial killer. It just keeps comin’ back for more.”
“I don’t have any more to give. You can’t get blood out of an onion.”
“Turnip,” she corrected him.
“Whatever stupid vegetable. You know what I mean.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. Cathy was at the sink, washing a large pot that had been the focus of her attention ever since he’d arrived.
“Let me know when you need me to leave,” he said.
“It’s okay. How many times do I have to tell you?”
He continued to stare at the yellow Formica on top of her kitchen table and traced a crack with his index finger. No matter how much she denied it, he was sure his presence was making her nervous. Otherwise she would not have declined his offer to help with the dishes.
“Is what’s-his-name coming over after work?” It probably sounded pissy, but he was too tired to care.
“His name is Ben and he’s at a friend’s deer camp in Locust Grove till next week sometime. He’ll never know you were here.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“That you’re here?”
He nodded.
She dried her hands with a dish towel and looked at him. “Jack, I wasn’t tellin’ you not to come to my house anymore. Is that what you thought?”
“We didn’t discuss the new rules.”
“Do we need to?”
“No, I get it. I’m still welcome in the kitchen.”
“So your short reign of bein’ a prince about this is over?”
“I’m still a prince. I’m just . . . a tired prince.”
“When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?”
“I think I was in junior high school.” He mustered a feeble smile, which she ignored. He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the blackness out the window. “I want a drink like I can’t tell you.”
“Well, if you don’t have the sense to keep your butt out of a bar . . .”
“Where should I have gone? Her hotel room?”
“So is that why you came over here? So I’ll make sure you don’t drink?”
“I haven’t needed a babysitter in a long time, thank you.” It was as icy as he’d meant it to be, although he had only himself
to blame for bringing up a sore subject. He should never have even told her about the bar, but he’d been in too much of a huff when he got there to be careful.
“I just think you’ve got enough to worry about without lettin’ somebody drag you into a bar.”
“She didn’t drag me. And I hate to break it to you, but I’d want a drink right now if I’d spent the last two hours in a church.”
She turned away from him, back to the sink. He didn’t know why he was sniping at her, except that the AA crap annoyed the hell out of him. Still, the last thing he needed was to alienate the one person he could talk to.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sighing.
“Okay.” She didn’t look at him. She was about to scrub the enamel off the sides of the pot, which had never been very dirty to begin with.
“I know what you’re doin’. You’re takin’ it out on me because you’re upset about Cam.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Jack, it’s okay if you’re upset. I hated my father’s guts and I was still a wreck when he died.”
“I am not upset about Cam.” He drew the line at Good Housekeeping psychology. Especially when she was right.
“Do you have any aspirin?” The best defense being a change of subject.
“Yeah.” She didn’t make any move to get it, just stared at him to let him know she saw through the ploy.
“I would get it, but I’m too grief-stricken to move.”
“Jack, you’re right on that line.” She tossed it over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom.
He smiled. It was a bit left over from high school. In earlier days it was preceded by “You know that line where you stop charmin’ people and start pissin’ them off ?”
He wondered what she’d think if she knew what was really eating at him. Randa. Randa’s face. The fact that he couldn’t get it out of his head.
As angry as he had been to find her sitting at his desk, rummaging through his drawer, the moment she had turned around, something had stirred beneath the anger—feelings so long buried he’d forgotten they existed. He had no idea what had happened. She was certainly not the first pretty woman he’d seen in ten years, and it wasn’t like she was cover-of-Vogue gorgeous. But there was something in her face—a beauty that was straightforward and unpretentious. And those eyes. Such a deep shade of sable it was impossible to tell where the pupils began. And that mop of blond hair. Back when he had cared about such things, he’d always been a sucker for brown-eyed blondes.
