by Gregg Olsen
“I love your son,” she said, her eyes staring hard. “What did you think I said?”
* * *
The next night, Violet made her “world famous” lasagna that really wasn’t famous at all. It was a standard recipe that she’d followed since her grandmother made it for her. Her secret was never in the ingredients, but in the way that she made it, layer by layer. It was so tall that when cut into portions it resembled a large cube.
Vanessa made a face. “It looks good,” she said, “but I don’t do pasta.”
“I’m sorry,” Violet said, shooting a look at Sherman.
Her son pushed his plate away. “Sorry, Mom, but I don’t think I should eat any either.” Vanessa wore a satisfied expression on her face.
“Honey,” Violet said. “You love my lasagna. I made it for your birthday dinner almost every year.”
“I know,” he said. “It just isn’t healthy. Vanessa says we all should be gluten free if we want to live a full life.”
“But you saw that I was making lasagna,” Violet said, visibly upset. “I could have made something else.” She faced Vanessa, hoping for some kind words. “I worked really hard on this. I’m sorry.”
Vanessa didn’t say a word.
Violet struggled to get up from the table. Sherman helped her by steadying her walker.
“Mom,” he said, “what are you doing?”
“I’m not feeling well,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
“Mom!” he said, as she left the kitchen. “Don’t be so damned dramatic!”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m just not feeling well.”
Violet shut her bedroom door and made her way to the edge of the bed. She was angry. Sick and tired. Sick and tired of Vanessa. She’d wished to God that she’d told Sherman not to bring home another girl. That he’d made nothing but bad choices. Susan had been all right. But she’d betrayed him. She’d given him a child and that had been all that had been good from that relationship.
A few minutes later, Sherman knocked on his mother’s door.
“Look, Mom,” he said, “I need to talk to you.”
“I just need some time alone,” she said. “Sorry for everything.”
“No one is angry with you,” he said.
“I’m mad,” she answered.
“You are?”
“Yes, if you even care.”
“Of course, I care,” Sherman said. “What are you mad about?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I just need some rest. Everything will be better in the morning,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Mom, I’m sorry about the lasagna.”
If it was only that simple, she thought.
Vanessa appeared in the doorway.
“Mom,” she said, “are we upset about something?”
“Get her away from me,” Violet said. “I don’t want her in my bedroom.”
Sherman stood up like he’d been jerked by a rope. He looked over at Vanessa, then at this mother. “What’s the matter with you, Mom? Vanessa was only trying to help!”
This was too much for Violet. She’d reached her boiling point.
“Help, my ass!” she said. “She saw me get out the ingredients for the lasagna this morning, and I even told her what I was making. She never said one word about it being something she couldn’t, or rather, wouldn’t eat.”
“Jeesh, Mom, can we stop it with the lasagna?” Sherman asked, trying to calm his mother, but only fanning the flames. “So what? It’s no big deal.”
Over Sherman’s shoulder Vanessa mouthed the words “tough luck.”
“You are not nice, Vanessa,” Violet said.
“Mom, you’re hurting my feelings,” Vanessa said.
Violet didn’t care what Vanessa said. “You don’t have any feelings,” she shot back.
Sherman’s face was red.
“Mom, I’ve had it with you. I’m beginning to question your sanity. You act erratic like this, and you’ll need to go to assisted living. I swear, on Dad’s grave, that I’ll do it. I’ll take you there.”
His words were a knife to her heart.
“Please, no,” she said. “I don’t want to go there.”
Sherman stormed out of the room, passing Vanessa, who hovered in the doorway like a fly over a picnic table. She turned away from her lover and looked over at Violet. On her face was the biggest smile Violet Wilder had ever seen in a situation that was decidedly not a happy one.
“I’ve had it with you,” Violet said, somehow summoning the strength to get up and shut the door, leaving Vanessa sputtering.
Violet collapsed on her bed. She’d never been so upset in her entire life. It was like her house had been taken over by her son’s awful girlfriend. Her skin crawled whenever Vanessa called her “Mom.” Her odd, cold demeanor perverted the word.
Violet did not want to go to assisted living. Her friend had withered and died there after a few weeks of lamenting the dull crafts she’d been asked to do, the church services with a blowhard young pastor, and the food that was, apparently, the kitchen’s idea of fifty shades of gray. Assisted suicide, yes. Assisted living, absolutely not.
Violet couldn’t drive anymore. She couldn’t walk very far. No phone. No cell service. No TV. It was like she was trapped beneath one of the bell jars that she used to start seeds for the garden.
Later that night, Violet lay listening to the headboard bang against the wall. The sound of her son’s lovemaking with that awful woman made her wince. She put her head under the pillow, but she could still feel the pound, pound, pound on the wall above her.
Good God, she thought, don’t those two ever just go to bed to sleep?
Violet didn’t think she could take one more night of it. She had to do something. She needed to find out what was going on in the barn. What in the world were those two up to? They were so secretive. She wondered if her son was involved in drugs. Marijuana was legal in Washington, so it could be that. Maybe meth? Manufacturing or something like that? Until Vanessa showed up, he was a straight arrow, but now not so much.
He’s thinking with the wrong head, she mused.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The South Kitsap cheer squad sat outside Port Angeles High while they waited for Patty Sparks, the van driver, to pull up. Patty had dropped them off only twenty minutes earlier, but they soon realized their drive all the way up to Port Angeles had been a big fat zero. Patty had made a quick run to a nearby McDonald’s when Amber called her cell.
“Either we got the date wrong or they did,” Amber Turner said.
“What do you mean?” Patty asked.
“There’s no event. There’s nothing. Just us and a science teacher who didn’t know a thing about why we were even there.”
Patty looked down at the invitation on the passenger seat.
It was today.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Maybe they canceled.”
“I guess so,” Amber said.
“They should have called us,” Patty said. “What a colossal waste of school district money! All that gas!”
“Talk about a big fiasco,” Amber said. “We’re all out front of the school. Blake’s totally pissed off.”
* * *
The four girls shifted their pom-poms and adjusted their team sweaters while they waited in front of Port Angeles High School. Normally, they were a huddle of red and black with an air of invincibility. This time they were a row of anger.
The van pulled in front of the school and the four girls, toting their pom-poms, made their way over to it. Blake Scott was the queen bee, the one who all the other girls deferred to on every subject from hair and makeup to what music they’d play while they warmed up. She was pretty, but completely untrustworthy in Patty’s estimation.
“She talks nice to my face,” she said to her husband one time, “but I see her mocking me in the rearview mirror. She’s not a nice girl.”
Amber Turner would have been the queen bee if smarts co
unted for anything. She was bright, self-aware, and thoughtful. The previous week, she’d brought snacks for the team and knew Patty was beyond hungry—because, well, Patty always was. Amber gave her an extra granola bar when no one else was looking.
Kelly Sullivan spent most of her time sucking up to Blake and throwing up in the bathroom. At least that’s what Patty thought. One time another teacher confronted Kelly about the frequent trips to the bathroom, suggesting she might have an eating disorder. Kelly sniffed at the suggestion.
“I think I might be pregnant,” she had said without the least bit of irony in her voice. “Again!”
Chloe MacDonald was the smallest. When they had enough girls to make a pyramid, it was Chloe who climbed to the top. She was Asian by heritage, but had been adopted by a family in South Colby when she was one. She tended to keep to herself, but wasn’t afraid to push back a little when Blake pushed her buttons.
“You might be the leader of this team,” Patty overheard Chloe say to Blake one time, “but you are not the boss of me. So don’t try to act like it. If you want to know how tough I am, just push a little harder.”
Amber Turner blended in to the pack of girls in a way that made each feel as though she were an ally. Over the past few weeks Amber had been preoccupied with things at home and, the other girls suspected, her new boyfriend.
Blake, in particular, wanted to know if Amber and Elan Waterman had had sex yet, but Amber refused to answer.
“Just because you’ve put out with half the football team, Blake, doesn’t mean all of us are doing the same thing,” Amber said
She was only half-joking, of course.
“At least my boyfriends are starters on the team,” Blake said. “I’m not wasting my time with some nobody.”
Amber held her tongue. Elan was new and interesting. She liked him. Besides, it was never worth it to argue with Blake Scott. Blake was too narcissistic to ever see that her choices were stupid—or that none of the boys she’d slept with stayed with her for a full season.
“We should sue the high school for wasting our time,” Blake said.
“Yeah,” Kelly said, though she thought it was not a winnable suit.
Patty waited for everyone to get buckled in. As usual, none of the girls sat in the front seat, though it was always available. She was only the driver. Nothing more. The person who was hired to get them from Point A to B so that they could bask in the adulation of the crowds as they jumped, shook, and rattled their pom-poms.
It was about an hour and a half drive from Port Angeles to Port Orchard, putting the girls back in the hands of their families after 10 P.M. As they drove out of town toward Highway 101, Patty noticed a massive cargo ship edging out into the inky water of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. It was a surreal image with twinkly lights that almost made the vessel appear as though it were studded in diamonds. She thought of pointing it out to the girls, but they were all focused on their phones and complaining about the lousy cell service, so she let it go.
These kids have better things to do than look at the world around them, she thought as her soul sucked in the glory of the view.
“I’m thirsty,” Blake announced. “Get me a pop!”
Chloe, closest to the cooler, opened the hinged lid and handed Blake a Mountain Dew.
“Gross, Chloe,” Blake said, “I can’t stand that crap. I want a Diet Dr Pepper.”
“Anyone want the Mountain Dew?” she asked, her voice dripping with disdain.
“I thought one of you might like it,” Patty said. “Sorry. I couldn’t find any Red Bull.”
The girls laughed like that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“Red Bull does not equate to Mountain Dew, Patty,” Blake said.
“Yeah, Patty,” Kelly echoed.
“Sorry,” she said, feeling stupid. “I’ll take it.”
Chloe handed the bottle to Patty and gave Blake a Diet Dr Pepper. The others drank water, taking off the caps to sip, then screwing them back on. Over and over. And at the same time, checking their phones as though the missing service bars would materialize by the formidable force of their will.
Patty drank the Mountain Dew, thinking that the citrus-flavored drink was worth the 170 calories and that a cookie would be good about then too. Her stomach was upset. She pressed her palm just below her rib cage to quell the discomfort she was feeling. A wave of nausea struck her. It was that kind of sharp, excruciating pain that she knew would return.
Whoa, she thought, I’m going to be sick. Real sick.
The van veered over the centerline and a passing car honked; its driver offered a single-finger salute out a rolled-down window.
“Patty!” Kelly called out, “what the hell are you doing?”
“Sorry,” she said, her vision spinning. “Just feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“Crap,” Blake said, putting down her phone. “You trying to kill us?”
“No,” Patty said, trying to steady herself. “I feel funny. Sick like.”
The van rolled over the centerline and Kelly screamed.
“Pull over,” Amber said, her voice rising from suggestion to command. “Up ahead. Just get off the road.”
“Yeah!” Chloe said. “If you’re going to hurl, no one wants to be in the van when you do.” She looked over at Kelly. “Empathy puking is the worst.”
The girls gave each other the kind of knowing glance that they’d perfected among the group. The look. It was what they used to acknowledge the weak links in their opponents. The look indicated a sense of superiority shared by the South Kitsap girls to the exclusion of everyone else. Inclusion was a concept for losers who didn’t belong. Diversity?
Chloe was diversity.
Patty put on her turn indicator, eased off the gas, and applied the brake. The van pulled over into a wide space of gravel along the highway. Patty sat hunched over the steering wheel. Her face was white. Her eyes were red, as though she was bleeding from her tear ducts.
“Jesus,” Blake said, “like what’s the matter with her?”
“Dunno,” Amber answered, as she slid over the others and climbed into the front passenger seat. “Patty?” she said, grabbing her shoulders and trying to get her to look in her direction. “Patty? Do you hear me?”
“Oh God,” Chloe said, her voice registering some emotion. “What’s the matter with her?”
“We are going to get home so late, Blake,” Kelly said. “Not cool.”
“Not cool that she’s practically unconscious,” Amber shot back. “Is anyone’s phone working? We need to call 911.”
The other girls held up their phones.
“No,” Chloe said. “Verizon sucks.”
“They all suck,” Amber said, to the complete agreement of the other girls.
Kelly leaned closer to look at Patty.
“Crap,” she said. “She’s passed out.”
“Tell me about it,” Chloe said.
“If we like want to get home on time,” Blake said, “we need to get some help. I’m an AAA member.”
“You don’t have phone service,” Kelly said, in a way that she hoped was only a reminder and not a “tone” that would cause Blake some offense. Blake didn’t like it when anyone chipped away at her perfection. Even the tiniest infraction would be paid back with a major diss. “She needs medical attention more than we need the AAA.”
“I know,” Blake conceded, her eyes hard.
Amber got out of the passenger seat and opened the driver’s door.
“Patty?” she asked, looking at the woman in the couch-print shirt.
Patty’s eyes fluttered.
“I think I ate something that didn’t agree with me,” she said, her words barely above a whisper. “I need air.”
“Kelly! Help me move her!” Amber said.
As they shifted Patty’s heavy frame from behind the wheel, the beam of a car’s headlights flooded the interior of the van.
“Everything all right here?”
I
t was a man’s voice.
Blake answered first. Like she always did.
“Does it look like it?” she asked. “Our driver is sick, and we’re supposed to be like home in an hour.”
The man reached in his pocket.
“No cell service,” Kelly said.
“We need a doctor,” Chloe said. “Something’s wrong with Patty.”
Amber spoke up. “She said she ate something that didn’t agree with her,” she said.
Blake shrugged. “She’s always eating something,” she said.
The man pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at Patty and fired. Just like that. There was no warning. No nothing. He aimed it at her head and the loud pop shook the van. The girls screamed.
“Who’s next?” he said.
“What just happened?” Kelly said, spinning around, then freezing. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Why did you do that?”
The man ignored her.
“Give me your phones,” he said.
The girls stood, unable to move.
“I said give me your phones! Now, all of you! This damn minute. I won’t ask again.”
The barrel of his pistol glinted.
One by one, they handed over their phones. It was like giving away a part of them. An arm. A leg. Their soul.
With the dome light the only illumination, it was hard to see what the man looked like. How old he was. How anyone would be able to identify him later. His eyes looked black, but that might have only been because his pupils were so dilated that they crowded the color of his irises to their very edge. He had a mustache or stubble of beard. It was hard to say because in the chaos of the moment, all of the girls were thinking of themselves and what the man was going to do next.
The why no longer mattered. The what was clear. Kelly touched her face and looked at her hand. Blood. She wondered if she’d been shot too. She didn’t think so, but that instant was so strange, so frightening. She ran her fingers over her cheeks, her neck, just to be sure.
“I will kill anyone who doesn’t do what I say,” he said.
“Please don’t,” Amber said.
He turned to her. “I’ll start with you,” he said. His tone was ice. No rage. Just cool and calm. “I’ll start with any of you. It makes no difference to me.”
