Equilibrium (23 page)

Too tight.
She wriggled out of Nick’s embrace. “That’s when he hit you?” she asked, like one of those TV lawyers, redirecting a difficult witness.

“No! That’s when he started going nuts! Talking about what he was going to do to all of us. How easy it’d be to kill me, my mother, and my grandmother.”

Darcy leaned against the table, and Nick paced back and forth, waving his arms. “Said he’d whack the three of us, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. It was all my mom’s fault. He’d never wanted the divorce. Poor him. All he wanted was his family back. Was that too much to ask?” Nick stopped, center stage in the kitchen. “So I told him the truth. I said, ‘You don’t deserve my mother. You never did.’ ” Finally, his voice lowered. “That’s when he came at me, swinging.”

“Nick.” He couldn’t cry tears, so Darcy was doing it for him.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I got him good, too.”

She shook her head, wanting to make Nick’s story go away. “So are you going to the police?”

“Are you fucked?” he said, and her mouth fell open.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” He came to her and held up his shaky hands. “Garrett’s making me crazy. See, I forget there’s stuff you can’t possibly know. Like how a restraining order’s a useless piece of paper. And, if a guy wants to hurt your family, the police can’t do a thing until
after
the fact.”

Nick’s story painted a black-and-white front-page image of three corpses beneath white sheets, taking the shape of Nick, his mother, and his grandmother. Beneath her sandals, the floor shifted, slick as black mud, and Darcy slipped into the chrome-edged booth.

“So I got some bad news.” Nick slid into the booth next to her and draped an arm around her shoulder. “I was saving this place as a surprise for you. Our
honeymoon suite
for after the prom,” he said, using a term she’d never heard him utter.

Darcy followed Nick’s gaze through the doorway into the cottage’s bedroom. On the floor, a single mattress took up most of the room. A sales tag dangled from the top of a white comforter.

“Maybe we can still come here,” Nick said. “But just in case, I wanted to bring you here now.”

Darcy stared into Nick’s mismatched eyes, and he wiped the tears off her face.

“No prom?” She was embarrassed to admit it, but she was really looking forward to every ridiculous cliché detail, even balloons and crepe paper. Especially balloons and crepe paper.

“Oh, yeah, we’re going. We have to go. It’s our alibi. There’s just the matter of a little something I need to take care of in the middle of the prom. Say, after we’ve been there for half an hour or so and made sure more than one group of kids has seen us. One group would seem like they were in on it.”

“Sweet princess,” Nick said, responding to a bewildered expression he claimed she wore whenever he’d shoot off some street term. “Pass me the cooler. Would ya?”

Darcy lifted the cooler onto the red-and-silver doodle-swirl table, wondering how Nick would link today’s snack with Saturday’s prom.

Nick inhaled through his nose and huffed out through his mouth as he lifted two bulky dish towel–wrapped packages from the cooler and set to unwrapping the larger of the two with great care, seeming like he was making too big of a deal out of the presentation—

Unless he was presenting a gun.

Even in the dusty light, the long black barrel gleamed, aching her eyes. The trigger dangled, a lone silver claw hooked in a come-to-me dare. The grip appeared rubbery and fake, like a child’s toy. Her brain flashed with two domino thoughts, the second toppling the first.
I’ll never let my kids play with toy guns.
Then,
I won’t live that long.

“Beauty, isn’t she?” he said, misunderstanding the way she was staring at the revolver. “Smith & Wesson, holds six rounds, .38 Special.”

The gun Daddy had stolen from Mr. Mathers was a .38 Special, but some other brand.

Nick opened the smaller package, unfolding the stained dishcloth as if it were expensive wrapping paper, and revealed a rectangular box claiming to hold fifty .38 Special silvertip revolver cartridges. A whole goddamn arsenal. Enough to start a small war . . .

Or kill your father.

A spiked head of nausea hammered at her throat.

The bubbly stained-glass window above the dinette caught her eye, offering visions of ribbon candies stacked in a smooth white candy dish. She narrowed her eyes so she could taste them. Pucker-tart lemon for the burst of yellow light, maraschino cherry for the pink-toned red, and raspberry for the cobalt blue kept her from puking. But she wanted to break the glass, hear the satisfying crackle and crunch, see the rainbow shards twinkle, bust out into the sunlight, and never stop running.

With the prom as his alibi, their alibi, Nick was planning a murder and asking for her
moral
support. How ironic.

Nick stroked her hair, and she turned back around for the touch she couldn’t get enough of. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you,” she said. The words were her mother’s, but her voice didn’t come close to mimicking Mom’s talk-sense-into-Daddy tone.
No, Jack, I won’t let you go off your meds. Run away to Positano. Jump off the roof and fly to the moon.
How could Mom stand it, over and over again, without losing
her
mind? Had Daddy said those things because he knew Mom would stop him?

“What you gonna do? Have a little talk with Garrett? Ask him to play nice? Behave like a man?” Nick said, and Darcy thought of Aidan’s Nick lecture. Pride, respect, and following house rules had nothing to do with murder.

Nick shook his head, and his jaw clenched. “Garrett’s not a man, Darce. He’s a psycho. You know, like Hitler gassing babies in ovens. Like Osama bin Laden wanting all Americans dead. What would you do if you had a chance to go back in time and kill a monster like that before he killed innocent people?”

Now she knew the gist of the English assignment he’d passed in without her editing, his answer to the philosophical question.

“What would you do?” he repeated. “You tell me.”

“No, Nick.” The idea of time travel overwhelmed her when she wanted time to stop.

“I’m really glad I spent the weekend with Garrett. It was like I saw the future, so I could decide what to do about it.” Nick picked up the gun, aimed it across the room, and put on an expression she’d never seen him wear: heartless. “
Bang!
You’re dead!”

Darcy’s nails bit through the cotton of her pants leg, then her thigh.

Nick turned back to her, the gun aimed at the table. “Want to hold it?”

She swallowed, imagining the butt of a different gun.
The Colt
, she finally remembered. “Please, put it away.”

Nick repacked his supplies, and his fingers worked the towels into hospital corners. “It’s not like this is all of a sudden. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to go through with it.”

Of course not. These thing never were. Just turn on the news after a school shooting. The police always found evidence of a well thought out plan, a motive, and a boy—it was usually a boy—hell-bent on revenge. And family violence followed the same rules.

Nick clicked the cooler shut. “Yeah, I got most of it figured out, but something doesn’t sit right. I was thinking after our visit to Nashua, we disappear for the rest of the night. Come back here or get a room somewhere, act like nothing happened.”

She shook her head and accidentally blurted out the obvious answer. “We go back to the prom.”

“Why do we go back to the prom?” he asked. “By going beforehand, we already got an alibi.”

Telling him didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t agreeing. Besides, he’d figure it out without her. “You’re right,” she said. “Kids would remember the beginning because of pictures, deciding where you’re going to sit, that sort of thing. The middle doesn’t matter so much. Everyone’s on the dance floor during dinner. But the end’s when they do all the superlatives. King and queen and their court. That’s when the teachers walk around, right? Kids are checking out the other couples, too, thinking they look the best. So they’d remember who was there and who wasn’t. They’d
notice
if a couple went missing.”

“God, you’re perfect.” He leaned in for a kiss, and she left her eyes open partway. Nick felt the same, but what his father had done to his face had vastly transformed him.

She grasped for something to unravel the plan, a thread left dangling. “What about fingerprints?”

“Another bonus from my visit to Nashua this weekend. Explains my fingerprints all over the apartment. It’s a done deal.”

No!
Her father was a done deal. He’d decided to steal the gun from Mr. Mathers, get Mom out of the house, load the revolver, shove the barrel in his mouth, and pull the trigger. Every step of the way had offered him a chance to turn back. “Does anyone else know about this plan?”

“Dude I bought the gun from. He’ll make sure Garrett’s in the apartment alone at the right time.”

The loose thread. She smiled without letting the expression reach her face. “Ever watch the news?” she asked him. “Not just the six o’clock, but one of those prime-time hour-long programs, when they talk to the criminal from jail? How do you think they catch the criminal, Nick? The criminal always tells one guy too many, either before or after the perfect crime.”
Oops.
She didn’t mean to sound so happy about it, so pleased with herself for discovering what she was absolutely sure would undo this sick idea stuck in Nick’s head.

Nick touched her face, and the sensation moistened her eyes, reconfirming how much she loved him. “I’m not going to jail, princess.” He widened his eyes, trying to make a point, but she didn’t get it, couldn’t fathom why the hair was sticking up at the back of her neck.

“How? What is it?” she asked, a shade short of hysterical.

I’m sorry
, he mouthed. Nick leaned his head to hers so his words tingled her lips. “Worst case scenario, I got a bullet with my name on it.”

For the second time in her life, her heart exploded in her chest.

Chapter 27

E
ven though they’d decided upon the White Dot Trail, the most direct ascent up Mount Monadnock, Laura had still turned into a straggler. Staying up late every night for the past month with Aidan, and sneaking back to her own bed at five a.m. had exhausted her. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out a thrush’s flutelike phrasing. Her breath burned the back of her throat. She yanked off her day pack, tied her sweatshirt around her waist, and guzzled Gatorade. Only half of the blue liquid ended up in her mouth. The other half dribbled down the front of her wicking shirt.

“Drinking problem,” she mumbled, even though Troy and Aidan couldn’t possibly hear the joke.

Light filtered through the branches of striped maple, beech, and yellow birch, cascading down the rock path like water down a falls, and the sun’s direct rays spotlighted her beautiful guys as they trotted effortlessly up the boulders en route to the summit. She wiped her mouth with her hand. Damn infuriating slip.

She’d meant her beautiful son and her dear
friend
, whom she was planning to break it off with as soon as she could find the right words.

Their relationship was not going as planned. She’d managed to keep the extent of their friendship a secret from her children and friends. She’d even convinced Aidan that with her all-too-public history, going out for a real date within a twenty-mile radius of Greenboro would invite unkind gossip. But feeling a tug she couldn’t answer and Aidan’s constant push for her to accompany him to his friend Finn’s house for dinner was getting the point across. She’d better end it before both of them got hurt.

The trouble was, whenever she’d try telling herself tonight was the night, she’d find herself in Aidan’s bed, ablaze with equal parts lust and happiness.

She took another sip, getting the Gatorade entirely in her mouth this time, and slipped her arms back through the day pack straps. Where did those easy on the eyes guys go?

She made a microadjustment to the waist strap for comfort, took a generous inhalation of mountain air, and continued forward as the path opened up into a view of a knob she knew from experience would prove a false summit. Looking left and right, she couldn’t see any blazes on the hardwoods indicating a route Aidan and Troy might’ve taken in error. Well, fine. She’d continue without them and catch up with them at the top.

With Troy at his side, Aidan burst from the woods and onto the trail. “And we’re back!”

God help her, but the sight of her favorite man with her favorite boy sent her heart to her throat, like a girl with a wrenching crush. Or a grown woman with an irresponsible affair. “Where’d you go?”

“Bushwhacking.” Troy grinned clean across his face, and Laura made the translation to
bathroom break
.

“Really now?” She looked from Troy to Aidan and judged the two males equally pleased with themselves. “Am I missing out?”

“Yes,” they answered her together.

Aidan hastened to her side. “You okay? Are we going too fast for you,
old lady
?”

“Fine and dandy,” she said, using a too-old-for-her expression to highlight their age difference.

Walking ahead of them, Troy laughed, surely thinking Aidan’s teasing nonspecific, instead of an allusion that, out in the open, heated Laura’s cheeks. Just last night, in response to her claims of getting old—an assertion she’d meant as the opening line for her Dear John speech—Aidan had embarked on a detailed exploration of her anatomy for the sole purpose of declaring her body both beautiful and youthful. According to his medical training.

Aidan curled an arm around her shoulder and leaned his head to hers. “Let’s tell Troy we’re going steady.”

“Aidan.” She ducked out from under his arm and picked up her pace. They’d settled on the phrase “going steady” to describe their relationship, the anachronism ringing a sweet old-fashioned sound reminiscent of poodle skirts, sock hops, and innocence, and not at all indicative of their covert operation.

He caught up in half a step. “C’mon. I’m crazy about him. Poor kid has the same sense of humor as I do.” True enough. They both found soaking her
accidentally
while washing her station wagon highly amusing slapstick comedy.

“Let’s tell everyone,
Laura
.” Aidan tapped her bottom in time with the slow pronunciation of her name, and she immediately regretted having admitted the effects of his dulcet voice speaking her name with such deliberate kindness.

“Don’t,” she said, taking on a clipped tone. Letting Troy catch Aidan groping her would cause more damage than a public announcement.

Aidan stopped at a stretch of bare rock face. She’d seen him without a stitch of clothing, but never more vulnerable than now, paused with his palms open to her. “I’m beginning to think you don’t trust me,” he said.

“Aidan—”

“Who cares what other people think? This is about
us
.”

He was asking her to see their present-day relationship as separate from her past, separate from her children’s future, when the whole continuum of her life strung like glass beads along frayed yarn.

She tried to dislodge the whirligig sensation in her stomach making her want to embrace Aidan and never let go, despite the consequences. Clearly, Troy had taken a shine to Aidan. As for Darcy, the fact her daughter refused to come hiking with them today said it all. The friction between Darcy and Aidan was palpable. Laura needed to keep a close eye on Darcy and her too-serious-for-a-fifteen-year-old relationship with Nick, and not give her daughter an excuse to push away from her.

“This is about my children,” she said. Even though she realized her initial attraction had as much to do with his sensitivity as physique, she’d truly hoped that deep down he was stereotypically male, exuberantly grateful for a no-strings arrangement.

“I like your children,” he said, wavering in neither his stance nor his expression.

“Really? You like Darcy?”

“Despite my better judgment, yeah. I find her highly amusing.”

Laura could imagine how highly amusing Darcy would become if she discovered her mother was sleeping with Aidan, despite all of her lectures on premarital sex. The word
hypocrite
resounded in her head, spoken in her daughter’s best accusatory voice.

“Highly amusing wears on a person.” Laura walked past Aidan-of-the-earnest-stare and up the stretch of boulders.

One step at a time, she angled for a secure toehold, when there was none. Lug-sole traction against smooth rock, arms out for balance, she climbed sideways, making use of the valley between boulders in lieu of an actual support. Above the tree line, inviting-looking tarns peeked out from behind layers of sap-green springtime hills. She gazed out as far as possible, willing her eyes to see the faintest ghost-shadow curve.

With Troy only slightly ahead of her, she glanced down the path she’d ascended, amazed at the steepness and how far she’d already come. Amazed Aidan had retained the precise distance from her she’d initiated, while keeping her and Troy within his line of sight.

She waited for Aidan, and together they caught up with Troy at a monstrous rock cairn. They climbed into a hair-whipping wind, and Laura spotted the geological survey benchmark imbedded in granite.

They’d hit the summit.

“You’re supposed to kiss the marker,” she told Aidan.

“Love to.” He shrugged off his pack, dropped down into a push-up position, forced his lips into an exaggerated smooch, and lowered to the patina-green disc five times, clapping in between.

Troy followed Aidan’s example, performing ten clapping push-ups to best Aidan’s show. “Your turn, Mom.”

She dropped her pack onto the rocks along with theirs and blew the marker a kiss.

“Do it!” Troy said.

She supposed she deserved this. She forced one push-up with pursed lips, and then flipped over, arms and legs splayed like a starfish. The playacting quickly turned into real exhaustion when she realized budging was entirely out of the question.

Aidan stared down at her. “What should we do with her?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” Troy pushed on her lightly with the toe of his boot, and she gazed past him.

Aidan knelt beside her, pressed two fingers to her wrist. “She’ll live.” He stood up and puffed out his chest. “We strong men are going exploring,” he said, letting her know he was teasing. He’d told her countless times how much she impressed him with her physical abilities, a strength she’d gained through necessity.

Laura raised her head. “Aren’t you thirsty?” she asked Troy.

“Real men don’t need water!” Troy said, and bounded off after Aidan.

Only her thirst pried her off the hard bed of rock. She scrambled to her pack and unzipped it carefully, making sure the plastic trash bags didn’t go sailing across six states. She took out her half-full Nalgene and downed the rest of the Gatorade, grateful there were no witnesses to her unladylike gulping. She found a smooth spot on a boulder and arranged her pack behind her head.

Thumb Mountain appeared like an unimpressive hillock, near enough to touch. She could see Mount Kearsarge and Mount Osceola, their peaks easily discernible without binoculars. But believing in the fourth mountain, over one hundred miles away, required a profound faith she thought she’d lost until she heard her voice. “Mount Washington.”

Gazing up into the cloudless sky, her eyes lost focus, and her eyelids fluttered shut. Three more times she tried keeping them open, and then the effort turned futile. Her lightweight jacket crackled in the breeze.

Wind-garbled, Aidan’s voice touched her ears.

Troy’s footfall thumped beside her. “There’s this wicked cute girl,” Troy said. “If I ever get up the nerve to talk to her—”

“What’s her name?” Aidan asked. No way would Troy give a name. The last time Laura had heard directly from Troy, her son still thought girls had cooties.

“Charlotte.”

“So you haven’t talked to Charlotte yet?” Aidan said. “What’s the deal? If you like this girl, then don’t let the chance blow by or you’ll seriously regret it. There was this girl I liked in junior high, and I never got up the guts to talk to her. Found out years later she had this huge crush on me. I just never knew it.”

Was that true? Laura couldn’t imagine Aidan lying, but any girl catching a glimpse of him would find her tongue twisting in her mouth like a salted pretzel.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Troy said.

“Does she take off whenever she sees you, kind of avoiding you?”

“Yeah! And she’s really friendly. She talks to all the other guys during track.”

“Man, Troy, that’s classic,” Aidan said. “She’s not shy. So why wouldn’t she talk to you, unless she’s all freaked about talking to you for the same reason you’re worried about talking to her?”

Troy’s voice squeaked. “Ya think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Thanks, dude!” Troy said, and Laura couldn’t help but grin like an idiot. Or a mom realizing her baby boy was growing into a fine young man.

“Look who’s awake,” Aidan said.

She scrambled to sitting.

“Guess we can’t leave her here, Troy. Good idea though.”

“I’m not at all concerned,” Laura said. Aidan had left the outside pocket of his pack unzipped. She snapped up the spilling contents and jumped to standing. “I’ve got your keys!” she said, and dangled them in front of Aidan’s face.

Tactical error. Aidan closed his hand over hers and smiled into her face. When their eyes met, she fought the urge to raise a hand to his face and kiss him full on the mouth. The resistance dusted her fingers with perspiration.

In her peripheral vision, Troy studied their playfulness, as if he were collecting data. Her son could certainly benefit from a man like Aidan. Unless she did something stupid like dating Aidan openly and their relationship crashed, making Troy the unintended victim.

All the more reason to break it off tonight.

 

Eight forty-five p.m., and Laura’s favorite means of distraction wasn’t working.

After having phone-visited with Elle for thirty minutes and having spoken with Maggie for about ten, Laura promised herself she’d make it to the next book club meeting. For the first time in weeks, she’d be able to spend time with friends without worrying about Aidan-related fibs of omission. No more fear Maggie would read her madly in love aura or that Elle would take one look at her face and declare her lit with afterglow.

Laura sat on her bed with her back against two well-plumped pillows, her knees bent, and the hardcover book club selection beside her. Each time she’d tried beginning the novel, her eyes would leave the page, and her thoughts would follow. Tonight, she was planning on stating her case to Aidan, and then bolting. What at first stung mightily would result in a smaller net pain.

She hoped.

She kept glancing at the window, willing the obnoxious rumble of Nick’s vehicle to roar through the screen, so she could begin the second half of her evening, the part she was dreading. Nick’s old wreck had become synonymous with the before-curfew return of her daughter, and Laura had grown fond of the rusty Monte Carlo and its driver. Almost.

For now, she was keeping an open mind and an open door.

Nick’s car rumbled into the driveway, and Laura peeked out her window. Leaving the engine running, Nick came around to the passenger side, and Darcy emerged from the car, only to disappear behind Nick’s body.

Laura stepped away from the window. A few nights ago, Laura had once again asked Darcy whether they were having intercourse, and the way Darcy had held her gaze led Laura to actually believe her daughter’s denial. Given their intensity of courting, however, Laura wondered how much longer that statement would hold true.

Laura recognized the tell-tale signs of a girl falling in love: the way Darcy had all of a sudden stopped making plans with her best friends, the way she hummed unconsciously under her breath, and the way she stared off in the middle of dinner, a piece of half-chewed food forgotten between her teeth until Troy gave her a prod. Even if Laura hadn’t discovered the unique method Darcy and Nick had devised to keep their literal connection open by staying on the phone through the night, she would’ve known by the unusual luminescence in her daughter’s face, a sheen she’d recently noticed in her own reflection.