Cold Cold Heart (16 page)

“But it did,” Dana said. “It happened to Casey
and
to me. That's weird, isn't it?”

“It's a terrible coincidence.”

“Or not. If the same man took us.”

“I don't know why we're having this conversation,” her mother said, frustrated. She turned and left the closet, walking away from the issue. “He's dead. It's over. I don't see the point in wondering about it. It's time for everyone to move forward.”

“Has Casey's mom moved forward?” Dana asked, following her.

“I don't know. I haven't heard from Caroline in years. She moved to Hawaii.”

“But you used to be friends.”

“We were friends because our daughters were friends,” she said. She picked up an empty suitcase from the floor, put it on the foot of the bed, and zipped it shut, her movements quick and efficient. “After you went away to college . . . It was just too hard.”

Dana sat down beside the suitcase. “Too hard for who?”

“For both of us. The things we had in common were you girls and your activities. Then suddenly I had a daughter and Caroline didn't. It was just too hard for both of us.”

“Did you feel guilty?” Dana asked, more interested in having her questions answered than in her mother's discomfort with them.

“Of course I felt guilty. I had my perfect, smart, beautiful daughter, and Caroline . . . didn't. How could I not feel guilty about that?”

“But you abandoned her,” Dana said without thought.

Her mother looked like she'd been slapped. “I did not!”

“You didn't want to be around her because you felt guilty, so you stopped being her friend. You just said so.”

“She didn't want to be around me, either,” she pointed out, taking the suitcase to the closet and setting it inside. “Why would she? So she could be reminded of what she'd lost? I tried to be there for her those first few months, but I could never say the right thing. I never knew what to do to help. She was living through something I couldn't even imagine.”

“But now you know.”

“Yes. Now I know,” she said quietly as she came back to the bed and sat down beside Dana. “And I know there wasn't anything I could have done to make it better for Caroline, because there isn't anything that makes losing a child better. There's nothing anyone can say or do that makes that okay or less than what it is. Nothing.

“People try to give you some kind of comfort or some kind of
divine explanation for what's happening, and they can't,” she said. “There is no explanation for evil. Bad things happen. They don't happen for a reason. We have to deal with them as best we can. It doesn't help to have someone try to tell you there's some kind of greater plan,” she said. “Why would anybody tell a parent that?”

“I don't know,” Dana said. “Maybe it makes them feel like it can't happen to them if the plan was meant for someone else.”

“Maybe.”

“Didn't you think that when Casey went missing? Better her than me? Doesn't everybody think that when they see a tragedy?”

Her mother looked at her for a long moment as she processed the thought. She reached out a hand and stroked Dana's short-cropped hair like she was delivering a blessing.

“Everybody but a mother,” she said softly, tears misting her eyes. “Better me than you, little one. There's nothing in this world or any other I wouldn't protect you from if I could. If only we got to choose.”

“Only the bad guy gets to choose,” Dana said. “The rest of us are just pieces in his game.”

“Not anymore. No more,” her mother whispered, shaking her head. “Never again.”

But even as her mother pulled her close and held her tight, Dana knew she couldn't make that promise and keep it. The world was full of people with bad intentions. Her mother wanted to ignore that fact. She wanted to believe that once evil had touched their lives and they had somehow survived, they would now be immune, as if they had survived a disease and developed antibodies against reinfection.

Dana knew that wasn't true. She could still imagine the oily residue of evil on her skin. She could still smell it in her dreams. She could still sense it lurking just beyond the reach of the light as day faded beyond her window. She could still feel the pull of its energy, daring her to fight or to run.

She didn't want it to touch her. She didn't want to go near it. But at the same time, she kept seeing Casey's face from the terrible dream, confronting her, ridiculing her.

You should have seen him coming . . . I died for nothing . . . I'm as dead as you are . . .

She closed her eyes and saw the bloody infant that looked up at her with her own face. What did it mean? That she had become who she was at Casey's expense? That she had pursued her career and found success because of what had happened to her friend? Had her own suffering at the hands of Doc Holiday somehow been payback for that? Or was finding the truth about what had happened to Casey her chance at redemption?

That was a challenge she didn't feel strong enough to accept. But even as she hid in the refuge of her mother's arms, she had the terrible feeling it was a challenge she wouldn't be able to escape.

In Shelby Mills,
if a man wanted a job that paid cash with people who asked no questions, he went to the truck stop out by the interstate and hung around in the parking lot on the west side of Silva's Garage. George Silva, a man who had built his life up from the dirt, let day laborers gather there around the picnic tables his mechanics used on their break time. The only rule was that no one make any trouble.

First thing in the morning and at the end of the day, people would come looking to hire. The work offered was simple physical labor—digging ditches and heavy lifting, farmwork, and the like. The jobs might last a day or a week or as long as it took to pick all the apples in an orchard. They were generally the kinds of jobs that didn't require much more than a strong back. They were the kinds of jobs that didn't require customer relations skills, or speaking English, for that matter. There were no benefits and there was no withholding. Pay was flat cash money.

Most of the men who showed up at this spot were Hispanic with dubious documentation. Or they were local guys a little down on their luck, maybe just out of jail for petty stuff, or guys that drank too much from time to time who needed work between benders.

John joined them reluctantly late in the day. He had no faith that
Tony Tarantino would come through with another job for him. That would require an effort on Tony's part—something Paula would squash like a bug. And seeing how she carried Tony's balls around in a tiny little jar in her handbag, that would be the end of that.

John parked his truck under the trees at the edge of the parking lot and went around to sit on the tailgate, staying away from the picnic tables and the other men. He hadn't come for camaraderie or commiseration. He didn't want to draw any attention or invite any conversation. He pulled his ball cap low over his eyes and hunched his shoulders up around his ears, his hands jammed in the pockets of his jacket.

Anxiety stirred in his belly as he waited. From where he sat he could see his father's black Chevy Avalanche parked in the line of cars by the garage. The old man worked as a mechanic for Silva. He would get off work between four and five, then go to the bar across the street and drink boilermakers until he was feeling good and mean. At some point in the evening he would come back to the truck stop, go to the Grindstone for dinner or for a piece of pie.

John didn't want his father seeing him here. He didn't want to have to hear the old man crowing over the fact that he had gotten fired from Anthony's. He didn't need to hear the I-told-you-so bullshit. His father had been calling him a failure his whole life. It pissed John off no end that every once in a while the rotten bastard turned out to be right.

Right now he was a loser. He was a failure. His father called him a quitter, but he had never been that. People quit on him, not the other way around. That had always been the case. His mother had quit on him. Teachers had quit on him. Casey had quit on him. The army had quit on him. But here he was, coming back for more.

Half a dozen Hispanic guys were hanging around one of the picnic tables. One of them had brought along a portable radio that was
playing Mexican polka music as the men chatted and laughed. After a few initial glances, they paid no mind to John.

He checked his watch and hunkered down a little deeper into the upturned collar of his coat. Four forty-seven. Guys were starting to wander out of the mouth of Silva's Garage. He could hear his old man's voice from across the parking lot—not the words, but the tone of it—and then the laughter of several men.

John willed him not to look his way, as if that would do any good. He was in no mood to take shit from his father. Just the possibility got his blood up. His brain raced ahead, running the worst possible scenario: Mack spotting him, making a beeline across the parking lot, laughing out loud, telling everyone in earshot that he'd seen it coming, that his loser kid had lost his job. He would go on saying that John was such a loser, he even failed at being a pizza deliveryman. And now here he was, come begging for the shit jobs usually tossed to fucking wetbacks.

As he listened in his mind to his father's hate-filled racist diatribe, John could feel the pressure building inside his head until he couldn't hear at all, until his vision flushed red. He could see himself running at the old man. He could feel the tension in his upper arm as he drew his fist back and the release as he let it fly like a stone being hurled from a catapult. He could feel the sweet pain sing up his forearm all the way to his shoulder as his knuckles crushed the old man's nose.

He knew once he started, once the gate was thrown open on his hatred, he wouldn't be able to stop. He would keep punching and punching and punching until someone pulled him off. And he would sincerely hope that wouldn't happen until the son of a bitch was drowning in his own blood.

His heart was pumping now. His vision was narrowing, telescoping in on the man across the parking lot. His fists clenched hard in the pockets of his coat.

If he didn't break this train of thought now, it was going to be too late. That truth cut through the hot haze in his brain like a knife.

He wasn't sure he cared.

He wasn't sure it wouldn't be worth it.

And then a car door slammed and a small child's voice shattered the pounding of his pulse inside his head.

“Papi! Papi!”

A dark-haired little girl of five or six dashed away from an old Toyota toward the picnic tables, her face bright with joy as she ran toward her smiling father.

John slipped off the tailgate and walked around the front of his truck. This edge of the parking area was bordered by a wooded lot nobody ever bothered clearing out except for a trail that cut through, a shortcut to the nearest neighborhood. Three steps in and he would disappear.

Still watching the parking lot, he stepped in among the trees. He watched as his father got into his truck, backed up, and turned around. The Avalanche paused for a moment, Mack Villante looking in the direction of John's truck. John held his breath, then let it out as his father drove forward, headed across the road, more concerned with getting a drink than wondering about his own son.

John watched him go, thinking that he had to scrape something together. He had to get a job and save enough money that he could get the hell out of Shelby Mills, out of his father's house. He didn't feel as if he had a future, but he sure as hell didn't want to keep living in his past.

Something rustled in the brush behind him, and he spun around, crouching low, arms up, hands out in front of him, ready to defend or attack as need be. He scanned his surroundings left to right and back and saw no one. Then the brush moved again at ten o'clock, down low, and he dropped his gaze.

A dog lay in the brush maybe fifteen feet away, watching him
intently, some kind of German shepherd cross by the look of it, with a thick dark coat and bright eyes.

John squatted down, eyes on the dog, hand outstretched. The dog lowered its head and flattened its ears. Leaves rustled behind it, as if it must have been wagging its tail.

“I won't hurt you,” John said quietly.

The dog whined and cried but stayed where it was. John took a step toward it, and the dog came up in a crouch and stepped backward. It was young, or starved, or both. Lean and ribby, tucked up in the flanks. In need of care but not wanting to trust anyone who might give it.

I know how you feel,
John thought, but he made no move to reach out again. What the hell would he do with a dog? His old man would never have it at the house. John knew that from hard experience. He had tried a couple of times to have a pet when he was a kid. He wouldn't let himself remember what had happened to them. He could only recall the emotions attached to those memories: heartbreak, grief, hatred.

He turned his back on the dog and walked back out to the parking lot.

A truck from Mercer-Nolan Landscape Design had pulled into the area near the picnic tables. A thick-bodied man in his fifties got out wearing jeans and a uniform shirt and heavy work boots. The Hispanic guys gathered around him.

“I need some strong backs for heavy lifting,” he was saying as John hustled up to the group. The man holding the little girl on his hip translated into Spanish for the others.

The Mercer-Nolan guy eyed John. His name was embroidered over his shirt pocket: Bill Kenny. “Can you lift, soldier?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Six forty-five in the
A.M.
We pick up here or you can get yourself to Mercer-Nolan if you know where it is.”

“Yes, sir,” John said. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you for your service,” Bill Kenny said, extending a hand.

John hesitated a second, then pulled his hand out of his coat pocket and reached out.

Bill Kenny frowned at the sight of his swollen, bruised knuckles and battered flesh.

He gave John a hard look. “You been fighting, son?”

“No, sir.”

“The hell. I know a busted-up fist when I see one.”

John stuffed his hand back in his pocket and hunched his shoulders. “Just hitting a bag, sir.”

“You don't have sense enough to wear gloves?”

“Didn't have any.”

Kenny clearly didn't believe him. John said nothing more. The frustration was like a busted-up fist in the center of his chest, pounding and pounding. What the hell difference did it make to this jerk if he wanted to knock his knuckles on a bag or a brick wall?

“I won't have troublemakers,” Kenny warned.

“No, sir,” John said. “I'm not. I swear, sir.”

Kenny gave him a long look, then turned to the Hispanic guy who had translated and told him the same thing about pickup in the morning, saying he would take three of the six men. He pointed to the ones he wanted.

As he spoke, a Liddell County Sheriff's Office cruiser pulled into the parking area and rolled slowly toward them. The Hispanic guys exchanged nervous glances. John kept his head down, his gaze narrowed on the cop car as it came to a stop and the deputy climbed out. Tim Carver.

“Is there a problem, Deputy?” Bill Kenny asked with a bit of an edge in his voice, unappreciative of the interruption and the implied threat of authority. Crew bosses had been picking up day laborers, legal and not, in this parking lot for years. It was just the way things were done. Nobody messed with the system.

“Not at all,” Carver said, thumbs hooked in his belt as he walked up. “I just need to have a word with Mr. Villante here.”

“For what?” Kenny asked.

Carver smiled. “For none of your business, sir.”

Kenny scowled. “Is he wanted for something?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“No, sir,” John said emphatically.

“I just have a couple of questions for him,” Carver said. “John and I went to school together. This man here was the best tight end in three counties. Hands like butter and legs like a Kentucky Thoroughbred.”

Bill Kenny looked suspicious of the story. He jammed his hands on his waist. “Tell me now if he's going to jail. I just hired him for tomorrow. If you're gonna take him, I'll replace him right now.”

John's heart thumped in his chest. He didn't dare look at Tim Carver, or Bill Kenny, for that matter.

“No need for that,” Carver said. “I'm not going to interfere in you hiring a veteran, Mr. Kenny. Especially when your alternative is probably not in possession of the proper credentials, right? You hire John, here. Made in the U.S. of A. And as I recall, he'll work like a damn mule.”

He looked at John and tipped his head away from the group. “Let's just step over here for a minute, John. I need to ask you something.”

He put his hand on John's shoulder as they turned and walked toward the truck. John moved to the side, deftly stepping away from the contact.

Carver got a peevish expression. “What ever happened to the concept of the comfort of the human touch?” he asked.

John chose not to answer. He turned and faced Carver, hands jammed down in his pockets, his right shoulder pressed against the side of his truck, as if he needed it for an anchor.

“I spoke with Tony Tarantino,” Carver said. “He told me they had to let you go.”

John said nothing.

His old teammate shook his head. “I told you coming back here was a bad idea, John.”

“You tracked me out here to say I told you so?”

“No.”

“How did you know I'd be here?”

He shrugged. “This is where men come when they got nowhere else to go, job-wise. I give you credit for trying.”

John didn't want his pat on the back, literally or figuratively. His head was hurting now, a huge sense of pressure pushing outward, as if his skull had suddenly become too small for his brain. It pressed against the backs of his eyes and the base of his neck.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Do you know a girl named April Johnson?”

“No.”

“You're sure.”

He said it as if he already knew the answer was something other than what John had said. John tried to think. Was that the name of some girl they'd gone to school with? He didn't have a social life. It wasn't like he had a long list of girlfriends, or friends of any sort, for that matter.

“She's a waitress at the Grindstone.”

John shrugged. “Maybe. I don't know.”

“No,” Carver said. “I'm telling you. She's a waitress at the Grindstone. I'm told you go there fairly often.”

“Who told you that?”

“Do you?”

“I go there sometimes.” The coffee was strong and the pie was good, and it was a cheap place to eat when he was sick of the food he snuck at Anthony's.

“April,” Carver said. “She's about nineteen, dark hair, cute figure, pretty enough. You don't remember her?”

“Why?”

“Where'd you go last night after work?”