#
Alone in her house, Cara unpacked from her trip.
She envied the blonde on the sofa with Miles, wishing she could rewind herself to that age and start again—miss the pitfalls that put her where she was now. To recognize that line in time when mistakes suddenly caused long-term implications.
She certainly wouldn’t have married Sean, who in her mind was a kidnapper even though the law decreed that what he’d done wasn’t a crime, so the police couldn’t do anything. It was all up to her if she wanted Ian back.
Standing at her bedroom window in the dark, Cara held back the curtains just enough to see George and Miles’ house. She imagined Miles and the blonde having sex on the sofa. And wondered if they were being careful so the girl wouldn’t get pregnant or either of them would give the other an STD. Maybe they didn’t think about that. Maybe those concerns were smothered by that eager lust that made trying new things so easy.
Cara let the curtain fall closed and finished unpacking.
A short while later, Cara was about to get into bed when she heard a car door close. Peaking outside, she saw Miles backing his truck down the driveway toward the street. The blonde was seated alongside him, her face illuminated by the screen of her phone.
Forty minutes later, Miles was back—alone. Cara was still awake when she heard his truck. She pulled back the curtain to watch him walk into his house through the side kitchen door. Moments later, the light in his upstairs bedroom came on.
His window was open as it often was at night, the shade raised. Cara had often seen him reading—pages of a book or magazine lit by a narrow beam of light from one of those lamps with a flexible stem.
She felt as if invading his privacy whenever she saw him like that. But didn’t look away.
#
Cara awakened in the middle of the night, sweating and disoriented, pulse racing. She sat up, frightened. In her dream, she’d been back in Amsterdam. With Danique. But instead of the way it really had been, the dream had turned dark: Danique was being strangled.
Cara went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She stood in the dark for a few moments, taking deep breaths until her heartbeat slowed.
When she returned to her bedroom, she didn’t get back into bed but stood by the window, pulled aside the curtain and looked outside.
George and Miles’ house was lit softly by moonlight. Miles’ bedroom light was off, but his window remained open. She wondered if he was cold.
She opened her own window a third of the way and got into bed, cool refreshing air crossing her face. Within a minute, she felt chilly and pulled the covers around her.
A few minutes later, in the quiet dark, facing toward her opened window, she said, “Miles?” And waited to see if he’d heard her—as if he might be alongside her, not thirty feet away in his own bed. “Miles?” A bit louder.
The night remained still.
Cara got out of bed and knelt by her window, her chin just about resting on the sill. “Miles?”
She first saw his white t-shirt, then made out his face. He was sitting up in bed, looking toward her. “Are you alright?” he asked, the timbre of his voice soft.
She said, “I had a bad dream.”
“It’s okay. I have them all the time. They’re just dreams. You’re okay…”
Cara found his voice comforting.
“Really…” Miles repeated gently. “…you’re fine. Everything’s okay.”
“Okay…” she echoed, believing him, then whispered across the night: “Your friend’s very pretty. Is she from your school?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’ve met someone.”
“Me, too.”
“Okay…well…” Cara wasn’t sure what else to say. “…good night, then. I’m going to try to go back to sleep.”
“It’ll be okay.”
Cara lay back in bed but kept her curtains and window open. And felt less alone than she had in months.
19.
Saturday morning, Miles and Juan climbed into one of Juan’s father’s food trucks with the driver, who was also the cook, a congenial guy who wore a straw cowboy hat and tied a red bandana around his neck.
Their first stop was a busy corner near the National Mall, where the confined space quickly filled with aromatic smoke from ground beef sizzling on a flat top.
Juan took orders and handled the money. Miles did the prep work—shredding cheese and chopping tomatoes, tomatillos, onions, and chili peppers as fast as he could. They served over a hundred breakfast tortillas in three hours, then headed for a spot near the Smithsonian.
On the way, Miles discarded his latex gloves and rubbed his hands, which were sore from holding small vegetables steady against the rapid motion of a sharp blade. Juan laughed and called him a pussy. Miles grinned and responded in Spanish: “I’m not complaining.”
Down the block from the Smithsonian, a refrigerated truck delivered supplies that Miles and Juan unloaded, then did prep work until it was time to re-open for a long line of already waiting customers. Three hours later they were done.
Back at the warehouse, Juan’s father gave Miles a hundred dollars cash for his day’s work, said, “Buen trabajo.”
#
Saturday night, Jennifer Gaines told her parents she was going to the Germantown game. Everybody was going. It was an easy lie. Where she went instead was Miles’ house, where he fixed them dinner for the second night in a row.
Tonight, Jennifer wore a vintage maxi dress of faded denim turned soft with age and had big buttons down the front. Multiple strands of “hippie” beads hung around her neck. The cork heels of her clogs made her three inches taller.
Inside Jennifer’s oversized shoulder bag was a very hot piece of lingerie she’d bought at Soma with Autee. But after dinner, when Jennifer went upstairs to put it on, she changed her mind. It looked great on—lots of sheer fabric and lace—but something about it made her feel like she and Miles had been married for ten years and she was trying to spice things up on an anniversary.
So instead, she put on one of Miles’ long sleeved t-shirts with the marina logo—wearing just that and her bikini panties. Tonight was going to be “the night.”
Only for some reason—once back on the sofa with Miles, the TV off, kissing him for a while, his hands inside that t-shirt—she found herself asking: “How many girls have you done it with?”
Miles looked puzzled.
“I mean, I don’t care,” Jennifer claimed. “I mean if it’s a lot, maybe I would… Shit, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t tell me.” She kissed him again.
Miles’ hands slid from her breasts to her waist. He said, “Not many.”
Jennifer renewed her kisses, then stopped. “Is that less than ten?”
He smiled.
“Five?”
He said, “Three.”
“Three?” She was surprised. “Huh… That’s just one more than me… But you’ve done it a lot of times.”
“Kind of a lot of times,” he answered. “With one of the three.”
“Was she your girlfriend? I mean, she had to be your girlfriend.” When Miles didn’t answer right away, Jennifer shook her head. “Okay… Let’s not talk about this anymore.”
Miles smiled. “We don’t have to do this.” Referring to sex, not the conversation.
“I’m ruining it, aren’t I?” Jennifer realized. “I don’t know why I’m acting this way.”
“Maybe something’s telling you not to do it.”
“No—everything’s telling me to do it… But it’s like… What the hell is it like? I don’t know… Opening Christmas presents before Christmas? Did you ever do that?”
“No. It’s not a Christmas present if it’s not Christmas yet. It’s just something wrapped in a pretty box.”
“Yeah. I guess it is.” Jennifer sat back and pulled off the t-shirt. Topless, she straddled his lap—not sure how that move was supposed to work, but she’d seen it on TV an
d thought it looked cool. “I know I can trust you,” was the last thing she said before her tongue went into his mouth.
Ten minutes later, they were upstairs in his room. Jennifer’s bag remained alongside the living room sofa so she never heard the text hit her phone—that annoying bird chirp.
20.
Debra Vance often heard talk about how being a cop subjected her to people at their worst. She thought the same could be said of youth athletics—an opinion dating back to her days playing high school soccer. And that wasn’t just because of the guys who’d hooted at the way her breasts bounced when she ran on the field. She disliked parents who yelled at referees even though most had no idea about the rules, only caring that their kid was penalized—that blindness of parents to their own children’s faults that seemed epidemic.
Saturday night, the much-anticipated football game—Kensington versus Germantown— turned into an early rout.
Germantown’s team was younger than last year and proved no match for Rusty Bremmer and his boys, who knocked four players out of the game by halftime. Although whether those kids were really hurt or just didn’t want any compound fractures like their quarterback last year—who still hobbled around with pins in his leg after multiple surgeries—wasn’t clear.
Debra Vance was at the game, thinking Miles might be there—that the game might inspire him to make his first appearance at an event outside of school. But she hadn’t seen him so far.
When the teams returned to the field for the second half, whatever Germantown’s coach said to his players in the locker room inspired a remarkable opening drive. After Rusty Bremmer sent a second-string running back out of bounds on a vicious hit, the kid bounced up and jabbed a taunting finger at Bremmer while trotting back to the huddle. Three plays later, the same boy ran 19 yards for a touchdown, and the Germantown crowd finally had cause to cheer.
But any hopes for a comeback were quickly snuffed when Kensington ran back the ensuing kick-off for a touchdown. And on Germantown’s next possession, Bremmer blind-side blitzed the quarterback, hitting him so hard the slender kid’s neck snapped and he lost the ball, which Bremmer scooped up and rumbled into the end zone, doing his celebratory touchdown routine of kissing the ball and spiking it hard to the turf.
With the score growing even more lopsided, Kensington’s DJ cued up a sample from the old MC Hammer hit—da-da-da-da, da-da, da-da—and the Kensington crowd—kids and parents alike—answered by shouting, “You can’t stop this!” All while the Germantown quarterback was being helped to the sideline and angry retorts were shouted from the opposing stands.
It wasn’t until the scoreboard showed 51-6 and 5:14 left to play that Kensington took its defensive stars out of the game. Bremmer got the last and largest curtain call—having no clue, in that moment of testosterone glory, he’d never play football again.
#
Just after 11:00 p.m., Miles was awake when he heard a car pull in his driveway, heard its door open, followed by rapid footsteps on the concrete walk. Then banging on his front door. A woman’s voice angrily demanding: “Jennifer! Jennifer, get out here!”
Jennifer Gaines, lying alongside Miles in his bed, came out of a deep sleep. She was groggy at first, her head still on Miles’ bare chest, her brain needing another round of her mother’s voice before she shot up in a panic. “Oh shit, oh shit!” Frantically searching for her clothes.
Miles hurriedly tugged on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “How do you want to do this?”
As the doorbell rang over and over, Jennifer got into her denim dress and started dealing with its large buttons. “No way she can know I’m here. She can’t find me here. I can’t be here.”
Miles told her, “Stay here,” and headed down the stairs.
#
When Cara Blakely heard the car next door, she thought George might be home early from his trip. But when she looked outside, George’s car wasn’t there. It was an Audi sedan—its driver, a woman, storming toward George and Miles’ front door, banging on it and yelling.
Right away, Cara knew who it had to be: the mother of the girl she’d seen with Miles each of the past two nights.
#
Miles jerked opened the front door without turning on the lights, startling Jennifer’s mother. “What’s the problem?” he snapped as if just awakened.
Lissa Gaines remained aggressive and agitated, eyes sharp with anger. Yet looked to have taken time to put on make-up and coordinate a thick cable knit sweater with stylish slacks. She glared at Miles, demanding: “I want my daughter in that car…” Stabbing her finger toward the Audi. “…now!”
“Ma’am…” Miles shifted his attitude, speaking firmly but politely, as if realizing this was all some misunderstanding. “Who are you?”
“Don’t try that with me.”
“I don’t know who your daughter is, but she’s not here. No one’s here but me.”
“Bullshit.”
“Miles?” Cara Blakely stood just outside her front door, a ski coat pulled over a long robe. “What’s going on?”
“He’s got my daughter in there,” Lissa announced loudly.
Lights in nearby houses switched on and neighbors peeked cautiously outside—anxious about the boy from Florida, already arrested once since moving in.
Arms folded against the chill, Cara crossed the lawn in her slippers. “I think you may have the wrong address.”
“Really?” Lissa Gaines replied sharply. “And how would you know that?”
“Because I was with him until about half an hour ago.”
Miles did his best not to look surprised.
Lissa Gaines tensed her jaw, then peered beyond Cara toward the now dozen or so watching neighbors. She called out: “Have any of you seen my daughter here tonight?”
21.
“God, Miles, it was a riot.” Jennifer scrolled rapidly through texts and video posts. She was with Miles in his bedroom, the lights out, sitting cross-legged on the floor while Miles peered out the window.
Jennifer’s mother had gotten back in her car, but remained in the driveway, her face lit by the screen of her own phone.
Jennifer told Miles: “After the game, a bunch of kids from Germantown were keying cars outside the gym, then this massive fight broke out. Some guys with hoods over their heads beat the shit out of Rusty Bremmer. He might be dead. And my mother’s having massive ape shits because she thinks I was there. She texted me about twenty times. Are you okay? Are you alright?” Jennifer mocked her mom. “As if I’m going to jump in the middle of a scrum. And Autee can’t keep her mouth shut? Her father gets in her face and she says she doesn’t know where I am. Maybe I’m with you. Terrific, Autee,” Jennifer scoffed.
When the bird chirp sounded again on her phone, Jennifer swore: “Shit!” Then read her mother’s text out load: I’m giving you ten seconds to get in this car. Really? We’re counting to ten. What am I, five?”
Moments later, Lissa Gaines backed her Audi onto the street.
Miles said, “Looks like she’s leaving.” He turned towards Jennifer. “Got all your stuff?”
#
Lights from a dozen emergency vehicles—police, fire, and EMT’s—flashed red-and-blue across the brick walls of Kensington High’s gymnasium and cast out to the football field. First responders tried to organize hundreds of distressed students and adults, some of whom had witnessed or been part of what happened; others had arrived after the news broke. The police tried to get witness statements while paramedics and fire department personnel evaluated the injured. At least ten kids and one teacher were already on their way to the hospital.
Debra Vance stood in a far corner of the parking lot near a tangle of trees, briars, and vines the Kensington kids referred to as the “DW”—Detention Woods. A place where students made to stay after school for disciplinary reasons picked up trash.
The hooded figures who attacked Rusty Bremmer had emerged from this spot, directly behind where he’d parked his ten-year-old Hummer.
Bremmer had grabbed a kid who looked like he’d just dragged a key along his vehicle’s custom paint job, and was punching the boy in the face—breaking his nose and knocking out five teeth—when his assailants emerged swinging boards broken off shipping pallets.
With those slats of wood and their fists and feet, the hoodies had gone to work on Bremmer—not looking to defend the kid he’d been beating up, but as if they’d been waiting for him.
#
Miles was about to lead Jennifer out of his house when the kitchen phone rang. He retreated across the darkened room and checked Caller ID: it was Cara Blakely.
When he answered, Cara said: “She didn’t leave—the girl’s mother. You probably can’t see from your house, but her car is parked in front of the Burnses’—three houses down from me.”
Miles told Jennifer: “Your mom’s still out there.”
“Shit.”
Cara said, “She might be calling the police, Miles.”
“Yeah—we thought about that. We’re just leaving.”
“Even if you go the other way down the street,” Cara pointed out, “she might follow you. Let me help.”
#
Cara Blakely hurriedly pulled on the sweats she wore running in cold weather. Tying her shoes, her fingers trembled with an odd sense of adventure. For the moment, she wasn’t thinking about herself—and she was so tired of thinking about herself, about the dark pit she’d fallen into…how every time she thought she’d hit bottom, she was falling again…deeper and deeper.
Now she felt control over something. She liked Miles and was going to help him. She owed him this for the trouble she’d created, suspecting him of kidnapping her son.
The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door Page 11
