The Familiar Dark

by Amy Engel

  I drove past the guard station, wincing a little as I remembered the few times I’d let Jimmy Ray talk me into bringing Junie out here. My worst moments as a mother rising up along with the shadows creeping out from the stands of trees lining the road. Back then, Matt lived in a trailer on the western edge of Jimmy Ray’s property, and I was guessing that was still the case. Once Jimmy Ray’s henchmen staked out a piece of land, they were reluctant to move. And if memory served, Matt’s trailer might have been a broken-down tin can like my mama’s, but he was close to the creek and had a view of the rolling hills out of his back windows.

  The road curved, and I eased my car onto the shoulder, following a set of tracks I knew from memory, not from sight. Branches slapped against my windows, and I thanked God for the lack of recent rain. Last thing I needed was to get bogged down, stuck out here with no way to escape. Just when I thought maybe I’d turned too early, I saw the half-rotted cabin Jimmy Ray had shown me once. It was the original homestead of the family who had owned this land years ago. Overgrown and hidden. We’d had sex there, me pressed up against the moss-covered walls and Junie asleep out in the car. I knew there was a wide-open patch of ground to turn my car around on, leave it facing out for a fast getaway.

  There was no subtle way to approach Jimmy Ray’s compound in a car. He’d built it at the base of a hill. Even with your lights off, you crested that rise and it was all over. The only chance you had to approach undetected was on foot, and the farther you stayed from Jimmy Ray, the better your chances. If things went right, I could cut through the woods, talk to Matt, and be back out again before Jimmy Ray even knew I’d been here. It was in Matt’s best interest to make sure that’s how it went down, too. Jimmy Ray only liked the drama he created. He didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s bullshit. The faster Matt got me out of here, the better for both of us.

  I grabbed a flashlight out of my glove compartment and set off through the brush. Kudzu grabbed at my ankles, and overhead I could hear bats wheeling in the darkening sky. Off to my left, something slinked through the underbrush, and I made my footfalls louder in response. But I wasn’t afraid. I’d grown up in these woods, knew them as well as I knew my own heartbeat. Nothing out here would hurt me without a fair fight.

  I slowed as the trees thinned out, lights glowing in the near distance. I could see an ever-present ring of trucks outside of Jimmy Ray’s house, but it was too far away for me to see any movement, especially in the growing dark. Ahead and to my left was the path leading to Matt’s trailer. There was no way to avoid leaving the cover of the trees and being exposed, at least for a few moments. I’d worn jeans and a black shirt, and hoped that anyone who might spot me would be far enough away to simply assume I was one of their own. Almost all Jimmy Ray’s men had girlfriends or wives, sometimes both, living on the compound, so my presence might not seem out of place.

  I hesitated, listening, but heard nothing but the wind through the tops of the trees, the distant hoot of a barn owl. The time to go was now, but still I waited. Not sure if it was fear stopping my feet or some remnant of my lizard brain warning me not to move yet. I counted slowly to one hundred and then did it again. Nothing. I took a deep breath and pushed out of the trees, walking quickly, eyes straight ahead, toward the path to Matt’s trailer. The sense of exposure, of being easy pickings, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I resisted the urge to run. I was halfway there when I heard the sound of a car engine from the direction of Jimmy Ray’s house. My heart burst forward in my chest, like it was trying to beat my body to the safety of the path, and I glanced to my right, saw headlights cresting the hill and sweeping across the long grass in front of me.

  There was nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t make it back to the woods before the lights reached me, so I surged forward, tripping a little as I broke into a run, scrambling forward to where the path disappeared over a rise. I threw myself into the long grass and rolled, my shoulder snagging on something sharp as I slid to a stop.

  I waited, breathing in harsh pants, listening for the sound of voices or car doors opening. Jimmy Ray would have a field day with me. He’d make my broken wrist seem like amateur hour. But the car didn’t stop, kept moving down the road and away from me. I lay there for a moment longer, pressing against the wound in my shoulder and watching my fingers come away red.

  “Shit,” I muttered, pushing myself up. A weird kind of embarrassment flooded me. What was I doing here, pretending to be some kind of badass avenger? What would Junie say if she could see me right now? Somehow I thought her reaction might be more eye roll than encouragement. But I’d come this far, could see the light glowing from the windows of Matt’s trailer in the distance.

  I trudged down the hill, feet sliding a little on the matted grass. Nobody out here locked their doors. I could barge in, catch him unawares. But everybody out here kept a loaded gun at the ready, too. And total surprise might end with a bullet in my belly. I decided knocking was probably the smartest way to go. Somehow I didn’t think he’d refuse me entry. If nothing else, curiosity would probably get the best of him, like it did with most people.

  I was still fifty yards away when I heard the twang of a country song from his windows. A few steps closer and I smelled the remnants of his dinner on the wind. Grilled meat and barbecue sauce. Another five yards and a strange whooshing noise stopped me in my tracks. Not the wind. I tried to place it, stomach plummeting as my brain clicked—the sucking noise a stove makes when you fire up the pilot light. And then the whole world exploded.

  EIGHTEEN

  I came to on the ground, stars above me, fire roaring in front of me, the sound of shouting in the distance. Everything was muffled, though, as if my head was encased in thick cotton. I rolled onto my side, and the world spun off its axis, bile rising in my throat. I lowered my head slowly until my forehead touched the grass, breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth until my stomach eased back down to its rightful position.

  It took me a minute to remember where I was, what had happened. I pushed myself up onto my knees, one hand starfished on the ground for balance, and looked at the spot where Matt’s trailer had been. All that was left of it were a few burning hunks of metal, pieces scattered across the ground, fire burning along the tree line on the other side of the clearing.

  “What the fuck?” I said, my voice a hoarse croak.

  I knew I needed to get back to my car, get out of here, but I couldn’t seem to make my body follow the commands of my brain. From behind me, I heard the sound of running, and even as I stumbled to my feet, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to outpace whoever it was. A man scrambled down the path toward me, slipping a little on the grass, and I steeled myself for what would come next. It was bad enough to trespass on Jimmy Ray’s land. It was another thing entirely to be there when one of his men got blown to shit.

  I squinted against the smoke blowing into my eyes, relief flooding me when I realized it was Cal coming toward me, not Jimmy Ray. Cal grabbed me as I stumbled forward, holding me up when my legs wanted to buckle.

  “Eve,” he practically shouted. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on? What happened?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I came to talk to him and . . .” I threw my arm out. “And it exploded. I never even saw him.”

  Cal looked over his shoulder. “You need to go,” he said. “Before Jimmy Ray gets here.” He gave me shove. “Go!”

  “But—”

  He shoved me again, harder this time. “For once in your life, Eve, don’t argue with me! Go! Now!”

  I stumbled away from him, legs jerking along about a half second behind my brain’s instructions. Behind me I could hear Cal on his police radio calling in the explosion, asking for backup and an ambulance, although it was too late for Matt, or what was left of him. I’d cleared the edge of the woods when a pickup truck crested the rise. I stopped, hidden behind the trunk of a tree, and watch
ed a half dozen of Jimmy Ray’s men tumble out, shouting and racing toward Cal.

  Part of me wanted to stay and make sure he would be okay, that Jimmy Ray and his men wouldn’t take their anger out on him. But I had to assume Cal’s badge would protect him, at least until backup arrived. And he was right: I needed to get out of here. The longer I lingered, the greater the chance someone was going to find me.

  I didn’t really remember the rest of the walk back to the car, tripping over tree roots and stumbling in the dark. My hands were shaking so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the ignition, jaw clacking as I drove too fast out of the compound in a race to beat the cops I knew were on their way. When I got back onto the main road, I passed two of them, lights and sirens screaming as they headed toward Jimmy Ray’s. I watched their taillights in my rearview mirror until they were out of sight, half expecting to see them turn around and come after me instead. My hands didn’t unclench and my jaw didn’t loosen until I’d pulled into a spot in my apartment complex. When I finally unwound myself from the driver’s seat, my whole body felt like it had taken one of Jimmy Ray’s beatings, and I walked hunched over and limping to my front door.

  I locked myself in the bathroom and peeled out of my clothes, wincing as my shirt stuck to the gash on my shoulder. My face was streaked with soot, and I had a bruise starting on my left cheekbone, probably from where I hit the ground after the explosion. I held the edges of the porcelain sink to stop my hands from shaking, tried to wrap my brain around the last hour. Matt’s trailer blowing up just as I was coming to talk to him made no sense to me. If Matt had been the one to kill Izzy and Junie, then why would he blow himself up? Remorse didn’t seem like it would be a big concern to someone like Matt. Unlike Jimmy Ray himself, Matt, I suspected, didn’t live by any kind of code. Killing two preteen girls probably wouldn’t cost him a single second of sleep. And if he hadn’t killed them, then why would the killer care if I talked to Matt? If anything, that would give the police someone else to focus on. Matt alive and having to explain his relationship with Izzy could only be a good thing for the killer. All eyes focused in the wrong direction.

  Something was nagging at me, some tidbit of information that floated out of my reach whenever my brain tried to clamp down on it. But my entire body hurt, my brain most of all, and I knew the harder I pushed, the more elusive it would be. I stood in the shower for a long time, until the water washing over my shoulder turned from red to pink to crystal clear. So long the hot water gave out to a lukewarm spray. And still the thought wouldn’t crystalize. Maybe a decent night’s sleep would send whatever it was to the surface. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

  I wrapped myself in a towel, double-checked the gash in my shoulder to make sure the bleeding had slowed before I covered it with a patch of gauze and a couple of Band-Aids, and then stepped out into the hallway. A floorboard creaked to my left, and as I turned my head, something heavy hit me from the side, slammed me back into the wall, my head smacking against the doorjamb. A hand around my throat, fingers calloused and rough.

  “What did you do?” Jimmy Ray said, breath hot in my face. “You stupid bitch.”

  He expected me to cower, to plead, to placate. Because that was how this worked between us. Him winding tighter and tighter while I frantically tried to keep him calm, keep him contained, not wanting Junie to witness something that would scar her forever. But the world was a different place now, without my daughter in it. And I was a different woman.

  I brought my knee up fast and hard, caught him right in the nuts because he wasn’t expecting it, hadn’t even thought to protect himself. Not from me. He let go of my neck, bent in half like someone had cut his strings, and fell to his knees. I shoved away from him, turned to run, and got two steps before his hand closed over my ankle and yanked. I hit the floor hard, landing on my hip, scrabbling for something to grab. My free leg shot out, foot slamming into his nose with an audible crunch, and he released my ankle, flopped onto his back, and cupped both hands over his face.

  “Jesus Christ,” he moaned. “What’d you do that for?” Said with the plaintive whine of bullies the world over, those who can dish it out but have never learned how to take it.

  I used the wall for balance and pushed myself to standing. I yanked my towel off the floor and wrapped it around myself again. “Because you deserved it,” I told him.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t argue with me. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him with that one kick, his nose sitting sideways on his face. I wondered if that was all it would have taken, years ago, to end things between us. No long drawn-out fights where it was my face bloodied and bruised, no blow job in Land’s car to make Jimmy Ray finally disappear. It might have worked. Or I might have ended up dead and dumped in the woods somewhere, Junie left to be raised by Cal or, God forbid, my mama. Second-guessing the past wasn’t going to do me any good. All I knew for sure was tonight, this moment.

  I watched, warily, as Jimmy Ray shoved himself up to sitting, leaned his back against the wall. “Can I get a towel?” he asked.

  I went into the kitchen, gathered some ice in a dish towel, and brought it back to him. He wiped the blood off his face and then tipped his head back, pressed the ice pack to his nose with a groan. “Damn, girl,” he said. “You got me good.”

  I slid down the wall and sat beside him, legs out in front of me and crossed at the ankle in deference to the towel I was still wearing. “I didn’t blow up Matt’s trailer.”

  Jimmy Ray glanced at me. “Yeah, I figured that was a long shot.”

  “But you thought you’d break into my apartment and strangle me anyway?”

  “I was pissed,” Jimmy Ray said with a shrug. “Got cops crawling all over my place. Besides, if I really wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Your mama be damned.”

  I turned to look at him. “What’s my mama got to do with it?”

  “Back when we was together, your mama used to give me what for. Told me if I ever went too far, she’d use my dick as fish bait.”

  I stared at him, momentarily speechless. Sure, when I was a kid, Mama had lit into anyone who’d wronged me. But as an adult, I thought she’d stopped caring even that much. Once, when she’d seen one of the black eyes Jimmy Ray had given me, she’d told me I’d gotten myself into that mess and I had to get strong enough to find my way back out. It had never occurred to me that she’d given Jimmy Ray any kind of warning.

  “What?” Jimmy Ray said, amused. “Why’d you think that broken wrist is the worst you ever got? Hell, I was a little worried about that one, to be honest. Thought maybe my pecker was a goner.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing for you that strangling me didn’t work out.”

  Jimmy Ray reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezed it just this side of pain. “I’m not fucking around, Eve,” he said. “I got some affection for ya. God knows why because you’ve been a thorn in my side more often than not. But that affection goes only so far.” He dropped my hand, gestured to his face. “You pull something like this again? Or something like what happened out at my place tonight? Your brother’ll be fishing bits of you out of the river. Tiny bits. And your mama can go fuck herself.” He held my gaze. “You understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, because I did. I’d used up all my chips with Jimmy Ray. And he wasn’t the kind of guy to give you a loan. “I honestly don’t know what happened out there tonight. I wanted to talk to Matt, that’s all. He was messing around with Junie’s friend Izzy.”

  “So you figured you’d sneak onto my land?” Jimmy Ray shook his head. “For someone who didn’t want to be strangled, you got some kind of death wish, Eve.”

  I shrugged. “Sounds about right.” I straightened the towel across my lap. “You got any theories about Matt?”

  “I got no fucking idea,” Jimmy Ray said. But the slight pause before he answered, the hiccups between his words, made me think he probably had at l
east a sneaking suspicion. “He sometimes cooked up meth in there, I know. We’ve moved on to heroin. Bigger market these days.” He spoke about his drug trade like he talked about the weather or what he’d had for dinner. Something ordinary, a given. “But Matt liked meth, for himself. Maybe he got sloppy. Blew himself to bits. He always was kind of a dumb fucker.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe somebody helped him along.”

  Jimmy Ray looked at me again. I could feel his dark eyes burning into the side of my face. “Why? What’s the benefit in Matt being dead?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he knew something about what happened to Junie and Izzy. Maybe someone didn’t want him talking.”

  Jimmy Ray flicked my leg with one hand. “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but Matt wasn’t never gonna talk to you. And I seriously doubt he had any information about the murders anyway. That guy barely knew his ass from a hole in the ground.”

  My head thunked back against the wall. “I have no idea then. About anything.” I paused, closed my eyes. “I keep trying to make sense of it. Why they died. What happened. What the point of it was.”

  “Waste of your time, Eve. Like pissing into the wind. Trying to answer that question, the why of a thing like that’ll drive you round the bend. The why don’t matter.”

  “Then what does?”

  “The who. The person who held the knife. That’s the only thing that really matters.”

  It didn’t escape me, how weird this conversation was. Jimmy Ray and I sitting here nursing our wounds and shooting the shit like we were old friends. Hell, maybe that’s what he thought we were. It reminded me, in the worst kind of way, of me and my mama. No matter how often I thought I was finally rid of her, somehow we always seemed to end up sitting across from each other again. Both she and Jimmy Ray had some kind of staying power, I’d give them that. “I still feel like you know more than you’re telling me,” I said, gathering my wet hair into a knot on top of my head.