by Meg Jackson
“Hey, your girlfriend hugged me, dude,” he said, and while Kim worried for an instant that Kennick might actually have held some sort of animosity towards Jimmy, she was relieved when he scolded her instead.
“I know you love that whiskey ice cream,” he growled, “but you don't have to go hugging other men to get them to buy it for you. I happen to know the owner...”
“Oh, I just love a man with connections,” she teased, leaning back into his embrace and raising her head, accepting a slow, light kiss that nevertheless drove tingles down her spine, making her fingertips feel hungry to touch him.
“I take it back,” Jimmy said with a fake sneer as Kennick released Kim. “I'm not happy for you. I prefer you miserable and not making out with guys in public.”
Kim laughed and swatted at her friend.
“We should go out sometime,” she said without really thinking. “Bring Sally and we can all double date or something. Just like high school, but with beer that you can legally drink.”
Kennick and Jimmy shared a look that made Kim rethink what she'd said. A tense moment passed before, miraculously, Kennick smiled.
“Sounds like fun,” he said, only sounding a little bit like he'd rather nail his own feet to a treadmill and turn it on high. Jimmy nodded and smiled in response.
“Oh,” Kim said, realizing it was just past nine. “I'm late. Though Mayor's probably not in yet, I should go.”
“See you later?” Kennick asked, grabbing her waist and leaning in close. When she said yes, he could feel the kinetic energy of her lips moving. He closed the distance between them and kissed her harder than before, though for not as long. Still, she was breathless when she pulled away, her desire awakening like a cat, and she knew she would spend the rest of the day squirming each time she thought of him.
“We'll celebrate,” she promised. “Bring the whiskey ice cream.”
When Kim twirled away, Jimmy had already meandered on, browsing the shelves. Kennick didn't want to be buddies with a cop, but then again having a friend on the force was never a bad thing. Didn't mean he had to try and forge that friendship now, but a double date really wouldn't kill him. He shook his head as he wondered at the things he was willing to do for that girl. Saying goodbye to Ana, who was already speaking with another couple who'd found their way into the store, he trotted across the street to check on Damon at the cheese shop. It was a hot day and Kennick felt good. Very good.
So good that everything that would happen later would hurt a thousand times more.
29
Jessica knew someone had been following her. She didn't know who, and if you'd asked her how she knew it was happening at all, she would have bit her lip and shrugged. It was the car parked at the end of the block. The same car that followed hers when she went to work. It was a figure in the bushes, a shadow on her wall when the moon was high and throwing light through her first-floor window. Jessica thought maybe she was going a little bit crazy. Maybe she was getting anxious for no reason, panicky over nothing.
Or maybe someone was fucking following her.
She spent more time than she cared to admit trying to figure out who it was. It could be anyone she saw everyday at the diner. Work was no longer a fun place to catch up with her friends and the people she'd known her whole life. It was a place to see if anyone was paying her particular attention.
She took to biting her lip, to the point where she began waking up with dried blood on her teeth. She considered changing her locks. She spent an hour at the hardware store staring at new locks – but she didn't know how to install them. She'd never been very handy with tools. She wished her father was still alive to help her. Or her mother, to hold her. She would ask someone else but...
But you know how crazy you'll sound, she thought to herself. And bit her lip a little harder.
They don't have to know why I'm changing the locks, she reasoned, standing there in the hardware store and denying all the proffered help from employees.
What are you going to tell them? You just felt like a change and couldn't afford a haircut?
It was a small town. People talked. If it got out that Jessica was turning into Crazy Jessica, it would be bad. It would be worse if whoever was following her heard about her changing her locks.
Someone changing their locks doesn't constitute hot gossip, she told herself, furrowing her brow as she tried to gather the courage to make the purchase that could – could – save her life. And you can look up how to do it on Youtube.
She left without new locks. She thought a car might have followed her home. That night, she did what she'd been doing the past few nights: counting the cars that drove past, and watching to see if any of them parked.
In the end, changing her locks wouldn't have saved her.
Because she was right. He was following her. When all was said and done, he'd been following her for three weeks. Just a few days shy of the one month anniversary of the night Kim James had given Kennick Volanis a very good reason to stay in Kingdom, Delaware.
He didn't need to break into her house to get to her. He just needed to wait until she was closing up the diner, the last one out on Wednesdays, which were so slow that the cook usually had the kitchen cleaned and the fridge stocked for tomorrow before the last cups of coffee had been served out. And since Sid was pinching pennies, good old Jessica had been happy to offer her services as a dishwasher for an extra fifty cents an hour.
She hadn't been too happy about those late Wednesday nights those past few weeks, though. He could see in her eyes how truly scared she was; genuinely, deep down frightened. So that's why he decided it was time to finally do it. There, in the parking lot, with the street light that flickered from the spotty electrical grid that was Tudor Street's constant complaint. He would have tried to be poetic about it, and finish her in a likewise manner to Rhonda all those years ago. But he was too smart now, and blood would stain his car. So his gloved hands around her neck would have to do.
And they did.
He didn't have to follow her after that; after that, she'd be with him forever. He'd never be able to let her go. Taking someone's life, he'd learned, didn't end that life at all. It just transferred it to you, and you had the burden of carrying it on your back for the rest of time. That, he reasoned, was how God punished you. There would be punishment afterward, too, he knew; he just hoped that all the punishment he'd endured during his life would help reduce his sentence. And he'd done good, too. Lots of good. Plenty of good things in the service of God, and Kingdom.
He'd served Kingdom here on earth, and he hoped God knew he'd serve in his Kingdom, too. But matters like that were matters for God alone. He could only bear his burden for the rest of his days.
Sighing, he slid her body out of the backseat and dragged it into the woods near Cunningham Avenue. Not too far, but far enough. He gave the trash bag one more long look, a sigh in his throat that never quite made it out. It was done. And they would leave. And he would never have to worry about them again. Not their hell-bent nature, not their illegal activities, not their awful blood corrupting the young girls of his town. He'd already seen how easily they could get their hooks into someone.
He really ought to have gone for Kim James. But he was an old man now, and he didn’t have the energy in him to deal with her and the gypsy she’d shacked up with. He knew they spent damn near every waking moment together. The chances of getting her alone…well, actually, those chances were pretty good, but all the same, he was just…older. So Jessica would have to do.
The ends justify the means, he reminded himself as he lay in bed that night. He said the words over and over and willed the ceiling to stop spinning around and around and around...
30
“Banjo!” Cristov cried through the ever-thickening woods, crashing forward, pushing away bushes and cracking through rotten tree limbs. He grumbled as sweat pooled under his arms and on his neck, the day nearly unbearably hot and humid even under the thick canopy of trees. The damn dog had run off in
to the forest, leaving little Tommy Surry yelling after him. He'd hopped free of the cold water in the tub that had served as his bath, trailing soap suds and water all the way.
“Aw, let 'im go,” Cristov had said through a laugh, watching the spectacle while standing beside Mina. “Don't you know dogs are supposed to be dirty?”
“Ma's gonna have my hide,” Tommy had whined as he stood at the edge of the woods, hopping from one foot to the other. “Will you go find him, Cris?”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Cristov scoffed. “I'm not going in there after a dumb old hound like him. He'll come back, you know...”
“He'll come back even dirtier, and if he comes into the trailer looking like that, Ma will make him sleep outside for the rest of the year,” Tommy said, a pleading look in his child eyes. Mina nudged her elbow into Cristov's side and gave him a stern look.
“What? You're so eager to help, you go find him,” Cristov said, not seeing what the big deal was. It was just a dog.
“You remember what happened to Coot,” Mina said in a low voice, not wanting the boy to overhear. Cristov cringed. He did remember, all too well. Coot, Tommy's last dog, had run off and been hit by a car a year prior. The boy wouldn't admit it, but he spend his whole life afraid the same thing would happen to Banjo. Cristov knew that Tommy wasn't really worried about his Mom being mad. He was worried about Banjo being hit by a car, or mauled by a particularly nasty raccoon. With a sigh, he headed towards the woods in the direction the hound dog had run.
“I'll bring him back, Tom-o,” Cristov said, ruffling the boy's shaggy blonde hair before disappearing into the trees.
Banjo had left a pretty decent trail behind him, including a trail of suds that were slowly melting into puddles of slick soap on the forest floor. It wasn't long before Cristov saw a clearing in the distance, and heard a high, plaintive whining. Frowning, he sped up his pace, thinking that something might actually have gone wrong with the dog. That certainly wasn't the sound of a happy, baying hound running free and wild through the forest on a squirrel's trail.
He saw the dog first. Banjo turned to look at him, those baleful eyes looking extra sad. The whining increased in volume as Cristov approached and the dog paced slightly, looking down at the ground and then back up at Cristov.
When the smell hit Cristov's nose, he recoiled, gagging slightly. Stupid dog must have found a deer rotting in the leaves, because that smell was undeniable – the smell of decaying flesh. With the back of his hand over his mouth, he called Banjo's name again and tried to beckon him back. The dog didn't budge, just paced a little more. Rolling his eyes, Cristov strode forward, determined to drag the dog back by the scruff of his neck if need be.
Then he saw red. Literal red. Glossy, painted red. Fingernails. A woman's painted fingernails. And the fingernails were attached to fingers, attached to a hand, attached to an arm, attached to a body that was just beginning to cease being a body at all, more like a gruesome approximation of the human form. Cristov's gag reflex gave up the ghost; he heard, rather than felt, himself vomiting into the grass of the clearing. Stumbling backward, he hit a tree. He tore his eyes from the young, dead girl and met Banjo's chocolate brown gaze. The dog whimpered. Cristov turned and ran.
31
Kim heard the news from Ricky, who, by virtue of being on the newspaper, was privy to all Kingdom's dirty business. Kim had dropped the phone right on the floor, the screen shattering on impact. Who cared? The girl was dead. Another girl was dead.
And the gypsies were involved, again.
She paced, wondering whether or not to just drive to the trailer park. But she didn't want to complicate things for anyone, and she knew that her presence would likely make Kennick even edgier than he was sure to be. She knew they would be questioning him, his brothers, everyone in his clan. She massacred her fingernails as she walked back and forth, waiting for her phone to ring. Finally, it did, and through the cracked screen she saw his name.
“Kennick,” she said, breathless. “What's happening? Is everything alright?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as though he were contemplating how, exactly, to answer that question.
“Yes,” he finally said. “It's as alright as one could hope it to be. They're still here, going door to door, questioning everyone. Cristov is shaken up. They damn near interrogated him.”
Kim wondered which of the cops had been tasked with speaking with Cristov. She knew Jimmy would have been patient, would have been impartial, but she wasn't sure she could say the same for anyone else.
“Can I come over?” she asked, wanting to see him, needing to be with him, to give him whatever he needed to feel alright. The pause on the line felt loaded.
“Yes,” he finally said, and in his voice she heard the slightest crack, the smallest bit of weakness. “Yes, come over Kim.”
She didn't even say goodbye before rushing out the door, slipping her phone into the pocket of her dress and running down the steps to her car. The town passed by in a blur as she drove, disregarding the speed limit. Not like there'd be any cops on the road to ticket her; they'd all be at the trailer park.
She pulled straight up to Kennick's trailer, and he came out quickly when he heard her door slam. She rushed to him, flinging herself into his arms and burying her face in his neck.
“This is awful,” she murmured against his skin. “This is...this is a nightmare.”
He tightened his embrace.
“You knew her, didn't you,” he asked into her hair, nuzzling her. She felt tears wetting her cheeks. For the moment, she forgot the repercussions of the murder, the fact that this could be the thing that chased Kennick Volanis from her arms forever. She only felt sorrow filling her heart. She nodded against him.
“She was sweet. So sweet, Kennick. Just a kid, really. Had her whole life, and it would have been a good one...”
Still holding her, he led her inside.
“Damon took Cristov for a drive,” he said when Kim looked around the trailer for his brothers. “Needed to clear his head.”
“How did he....” Kim began to ask, not entirely sure she truly wanted an answer.
“Followed one of the Surry's dogs,” Kennick said, anticipating her question. “Damn hounds are always wandering off into the woods after critters. Usually you just wait a while and they come back, but Tommy Surry was whining about the dog needing a bath, so Cristov went in to get him back. The dog found the body, not Cristov.”
“How terrible,” Kim said softly, unable to keep her mind from drifting to the imagined scene. Jessica's cold eyes staring up at nothing, her body pale and rigid. Now, she imagined a dog's nose snuffling up and down the body, whining because it sensed this human was not doing the things that humans were supposed to do.
“What's going to happen now, Kennick?” Kim asked suddenly, dragging herself away from the image in her brain. She wrapped her arms around her, cold despite the oppressive summer heat. “What's going to happen to...you?”
“Us?” Kennick asked, raising an eyebrow. “This has nothing to do with us.”
His voice was low, a growl that forced his hand, showing the uncertainty – and the anger at being caught uncertain – that simmered underneath his calm eyes.
“It does,” Kim whispered, barely able to meet his eyes. “You know it does. I mean, I know it wasn't...it wasn't...you didn't do it. But it doesn't look good, does it?”
The silence that passed between them seemed heavy, pregnant with the weight of her words. Kim knew that what she was saying made them both uncomfortable. She supposed there might have been a time when she would have avoided saying any of it. But this was Kennick. This was her man. There could never be anything but the truth - the good, the beautiful, the ugly and the horrible. Whether it sickened her or freed her, she would never be able to bury her honesty in front of him.
He sighed, breaking the awful tension.
“No,” he said softly. “It doesn't. Doesn't look good at all.”
/> “Oh, baby,” Kim breathed, crossing the distance between them in a few steps, reaching up to stroke his stubbled cheek. He moved so quickly then that it was like he'd snapped, grabbing her forearms and holding them so tight it almost hurt. His eyes burned emerald fire into hers, capturing her in a swirling storm of everything that had ever existed within the bounds of the human heart. She trembled in his grip, simultaneously afraid and aflame of the heat in his gaze.
“You trust me, don't you?” he growled down. “You trust me when I say we'd never do this – not any of us, we'd never hurt someone for no reason, and no one had a single reason to hurt that girl.”
“I told you....” Kim started to protest as he held her, ensnared in his eyes.
“I know what you said,” he said. “You said you know I didn't do it. But you have to understand none of us did it. Do you? Do you believe that? Because it's a package deal, Kim. I think you know that.”
Kim thought of his brothers. She thought of Damon's mysterious bruises and cuts. She thought of Mina, and Ana. She thought of the laughter and music of their parties filling the summer night with joy. And then she thought of Jenner, that man who'd been so eager to hurl insults and threaten Kennick in his own trailer. But would he kill someone? No, she didn't think he would. Because if he did, he'd lose his family. And family was the only thing these people had.
“I do know, Kennick,” she breathed. “And if you say it was someone else, someone outside the kumpania, I believe it. I believe you. Always, Kennick.”
He stared at her for a long moment, studying her, letting her response sink in and salve his worried mind. He wanted her, then, more than he could ever remember wanting another woman. She had said everything he could ever hope to hear. And her eyes on him trusted him, implicitly, without question. And she wasn't afraid to say what needed to be said. She was strong, and barreled headfirst into love and everything that came with it.
