Nowhere Safe (28 page)

They left her a few moments later as parents started picking up their kids.

“What do you think?” he asked September when they were on the road.

“I like the woman jogger angle. Chubb talked to all the people on the route and we’ve rechecked with them and haven’t turned anything up. The jogger’s a piece we didn’t have before, and it sounds like she was monitoring him.”

“Think we should have Mrs. Vasquez meet with our sketch artist?”

“Works for me,” September said.

 

 

Graham had watched the minutes crawl around the clock face of his wristwatch throughout the day. He’d been short with Mrs. Pearce at lunch, wanting to shout at her to do something about that dyed black hair. Even in sixth period, with Molly right there, her shining face looking at him across the room, he’d had trouble keeping his thoughts from straying to the evening ahead.

Daria had texted him that she was staying two nights in San Antonio and then possibly moving on to Louisville for a smaller venue if the promoters could ever get their collective heads out of their asses.
Go,
he’d thought.
Go!

But no matter what, he had tonight with Claudia Livesay and he was looking forward to the evening with a mixture of anticipation and dread. He wanted to have dinner with Molly and her mother. He even wanted to have some conversation with Claudia. She’d told him she wanted to discuss Molly, and he sure as hell was interested in every detail about her.

When class was over, he couldn’t stop himself from saying to Molly, “So, is your mom picking you up?”

“No, I’m going to my dad’s tonight. He’s going to help me with my report on climate change.”

Graham’s disappointment was so keen he could hardly keep his smile in place. “Mrs. Pearce’s class,” he said, the words sharp despite his control.

“Yeah . . .” She darted him a quick look, then scurried from the room.

So Claudia had planned for Molly not to be there. Of course. It made sense, but he was furious with her all the same. Sure, she was youthful looking and attractive enough—a helluva lot better than Daria the cow. But he’d pictured an intimate meal with the three of them and now that was not to be.

He could kill her for that.

It took serious effort on his part to drive home and get ready for the evening. He stepped under a cold shower to take some of the heat off his anger, then dressed in a pair of chinos and a white shirt topped by a tan pullover sweater. Dressy casual, Daria called it, but he hated her. HATED HER.

He took HER car when he was ready to go, stopping by a store and buying a medium-priced bottle of wine with some of HER money. He imagined dropping the Maori figurine atop HER head and it brought on a massive boner.

That was the first good thing that had happened all day, he determined. He would keep crushing Daria’s head in the forefront of his mind in case things got intimate between Claudia and him and he found she didn’t do it for him.

She was waiting for him eagerly when he showed up promptly at six. When he presented the bottle of wine to her in both hands, like a practiced waiter, she giggled like a schoolgirl and said, “Ooh la la.”

The sound was a turnoff in someone her age. And in her black sheath that showed off the bones at her throat there was something skinny and dried up and gristly about her. He could tell she worked out and was proud of her body, but there was the faintest hint of varicose veins running below the surface of her legs.

She took his coat and hung it on a wooden hall tree that sat beside the glass and wrought iron console table in the entryway. Upon the table’s clear surface sat a heavy metal bowl that currently held the car keys to a Porsche.

He was damn glad he’d driven the Lexus. Sure, she’d seen the wagon but he could fob it off as a work car.

Grabbing his hand, she led him inside to a small living room with expensive furniture, then she guided him to the couch and the coffee table, which held a chased silver tray full of gourmet cheeses, sliced salami, and dried fruit. Soft, instrumental music played from speakers atop a bookcase that lined one wall. As he sat down he tried to dredge up the image of him slamming the figurine into Daria’s head. It worked some, but it was sort of fading in and out of his thoughts.

She took the wine to the kitchen and opened the bottle there, talking so much in a loud voice that he didn’t have to utter a word, even when she returned with two healthy glasses of red wine. He’d known when he bought the bottle that he was going to have to pretend to drink the stuff, but he realized quickly that Claudia was going to swill her own glass down so fast that he wasn’t going to have to take more than a few swallows before she might not notice.

Finally, she finished in the kitchen and sat down beside him on the couch, but she kept up the magpie chattering so much that his throat constricted and it felt like he was choking.

“You wanted to talk about Molly,” he broke in to a particularly revolting discussion of her job as a geriatric nurse that reminded him of his father and the damned neighbors who wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Oh, well, yes . . .” She smiled, her dark eyes—just like Molly’s—regarding him impishly. “That might’ve been just an excuse to talk to you,” she admitted, giggling again and rolling her eyes. “I’ve been working up to this”—she moved her index finger back and forth to include him and her—“since school started. Unless, of course, there’s something you want to say about Molly,” she added, growing more serious.

His blood froze. “Like what?”

“Like, is she having trouble in your class? She told me that you had to take her cell phone away yesterday. I say, go ahead. One of the best things we can teach our kids are boundaries.”

Graham nodded and picked up a small piece of cheese. He had to look away from her or his distaste would show on his face. He’d so looked forward to tonight and then she’d sent Molly away. Bitch!

His gaze fell on the bookshelf and the picture of Molly—with her head tilted and a sweet smile on her face—that was tucked into its corner. Abruptly he got up and walked toward it, pretending interest in the paperbacks jumbled beside it.

“Let me put the finishing touches on dinner,” Claudia said, and he wanted to say,
Don’t bother.
He didn’t think he could work up an appetite.

Except maybe for her daughter. But no, no . . . he knew better.... He’d be damned, if he were caught. He had to leave things be. Keep his thoughts hidden and not act on his desires.

She’d made a chicken dish with herbs and more dried fruit over rice. He pretended to really enjoy it, and the constant gabbing, but it was damn near impossible. How come he hadn’t noticed her diarrhea mouth when she’d come to his room?

After dinner, she refilled her glass—was that for the third time?—linked her arm through his and they strolled back to the couch. Graham had managed to pour out two-thirds of his drink when she’d taken a trip to the bathroom and now he held it in one hand, like her, as if he were relaxing and letting the night go where it would go.

She was gazing at him with heavy-lidded eyes and he could practically smell her desire for sex. Well, he’d done this to himself, hadn’t he? Showing off yesterday. Getting her to look down at his dick.

When she leaned closer to him, he had to fight the desire to push her away. He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, and then he thought of Molly and as his arms tightened around Claudia and she leaned in for a kiss, his gaze flew to Molly’s picture and he thought of her instead.

Suddenly he was clawing at Claudia’s dress and she was going with it, telling him to hurry, and giggling, and wriggling out of the dress and damn near jumping on his crotch, legs splayed, while he was still unbuckling his belt. For a moment, reality intruded, but he concentrated on Molly’s picture, then the thought of crushing Daria’s skull, then the remembrance of the soft
crunch
of Jilly’s as she tumbled to the entryway floor and he was suddenly driving into Claudia Livesay and she was gasping and hanging on for all she was worth.

“Oh, baby. Oh, baby, come on,” she was shrieking.

Graham, with his eyes on Molly’s picture, was miles away from the woman beneath him as he spilled into her with a deep groan.

Suddenly she was squirming and swearing beneath him. “Good God. No condom? You’re crazy! I’m crazy. Oh, shit . . . oh, shit . . .” She was half laughing. “Oh, my God. I’ve never done anything like this. I can’t believe it! Oh, my
God
. . .”

He couldn’t take his eyes off Molly’s picture. Claudia’s words buzzed like gnats around his head. He just wanted to swat them away.

And then there was silence and it felt like a long time later before he finally tore his gaze away and looked down at her, seeing the deep lines etched between her brows. She was only half drunk, he realized, and her eyes were still on Molly’s picture where she’d obviously followed his line of sight.

Now her eyes met his. “What the fuck were you looking at?” she breathed in shock.
“Molly?”

“What? No.”

She tried to scramble out from under him. She tried to get away, and without thinking he immediately grabbed her hands, holding her down.

“Let me up!” she cried, afraid.

Graham came back to himself with an effort and released her, but she shot to her feet and ran for the bedroom, naked. Maybe he could have reasoned with her. Maybe. But all he could see was that she knew. She knew, and she would tell. Yanking up his pants, he went after her.

There was no lock on the door but she was holding it closed and crying. He slammed into it, throwing her off her feet.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, looking down at her as she huddled on the floor. “We have a good time and then you run away?”

She blinked back tears. “I don’t know.... I . . . thought . . .”

“What?” he demanded impatiently. She was really pissing him off and he was starting to worry that she was going to run down to the school and tell someone the first moment she could.

“I’m sorry,” she said, cowed.

Graham suddenly just wanted to escape. He stepped back into the living room, wondering what to do about her. She knew. She knew his thoughts. She’d seen him staring at Molly while he was having sex with
her
.

And then suddenly she ran past him, toward the door, buck-ass naked. She was going to run outside and scream for help. He could
feel
it!

With hardly a conscious thought he lunged forward, grabbed the metal bowl and swung it at her head as she scrabbled with the lock.
Plunk
. The sound of her skull cracking was music to his ears as she crumpled to the floor, just like Jilly had.

He leaned over her. She was alive but her eyes were staring blankly and there was blood where the skin had broken, dampening her hair.

Instantly he started to shake. Who knew that he was coming over here? Had she told anyone? Molly? Her ex-husband? Mrs. Pearce?
God!

Running to the hall, he threw open the door to what he suspected was the linen closet. His eyes fell on a thick comforter. Grabbing it up, he hurried back to Claudia. She was still staring but her breathing had slowed. With any luck at all she would die.

He snapped his fingers in front of her face but she didn’t react. Nobody home.

As quickly as he could he wrapped her in the blanket, covering her from head to toe. Cautiously, he opened the front door. There were other houses nearby but most of them had garages jutting out like pig snouts, blocking their windows from a view of Claudia’s house. Directly across the street was a park.

If he was lucky, and careful, and smart, he could move her out the back door through Claudia’s garage and then around to the Lexus, which was parked right in front.

What would he say if someone caught him?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Pulling out his keys, he unlocked the Lexus with his remote from inside the house. Then, slinging the heavy bundle inside the blanket over his shoulder, his nerves jumping at the rasping gasp of her breaths, he hauled her into the garage, feeling his way through the dark. He carried her all the way across to the man-door on the side and stepped into a cold but dry night, hugging the side of the garage rather than risking opening the garage door with its big, wide maw.

He grabbed the Lexus’s back door handle and wanted to scream when the overhead light burst on. Leaning in, he switched it off as soon as he’d laid her along the seat. Quickly, he shut the door and then relocked the car. Glancing around, he hurried back to the shadows, watching the neighborhood. He could hear rock music throbbing inside one house, but the windows that he could see were curtained. Vaguely, through the curtains of another house, he saw a television set’s flickering colors.

He hurried back through the garage the way he’d come in, then grabbed up the tray of crackers and cheese and dumped it down the disposal. The dishes and wineglasses he hand washed and put back in the cupboards with shaking fingers. The flatware he stuck in the dishwasher. The pan with the chicken he decided to just take with him.

The entryway tiles didn’t have much blood but he found the bleach and poured it on the tiles, recognizing dimly that this was becoming a habit with him. He’d set the metal bowl back on the console table and he realized with a start that there was a small circle of garnet-colored blood pooling beneath it. Grabbing up one of the dish towels hanging on a hook, he wiped that up, too, then threw the towel in the pan with the chicken.

She’d made a salad, and he threw the remains of it down the sink and rinsed out the bowl and put it in the dishwasher.

How long had it been since he put her in the car? The kitchen was clean. The entryway wiped up and spotless. The console table and bowl wiped down.