Saving Ben (24 page)

My first fist missed her nose by inches, but the second one connected with the side of her head just above her ear. Her face registered surprise for a split second and then she latched onto me, pulling me backward to the bed. We clawed and slapped at each other but she eventually gained control by wrapping her legs around my waist and grasping a huge chunk of my hair. While I was fighting to get loose, Emma screamed over and over for help.

We heard the pounding of feet, like a galloping herd of horses, coming up the first set of stairs and then the second. Emma yanked my head toward her and snarled, “Watch this, bitch. Your beloved brother is so dumb he falls for it every time.” She relaxed her legs from around my waist and let go of my hair. “Get her off of me.” She made a great show of pushing me out of the way just as Maddie, Archer, and Ben entered the room.

I stumbled backward, landing on my butt in the rocking chair on the other side of the room. I jumped up and went after her again, grabbing a handful of her hair and hauling her from the bed. Tightening my grip, I brought Emma’s face close to mine. “You’re gonna pay for everything you’ve done to my family.”

I jerked her head one last time before shoving her out of my way. I raced down both flights of stairs and went straight to the bar where I poured two fingers of Jack Daniels in a crystal tumbler. I kicked it back and felt the liquid burn my throat, the only sensation in my otherwise numb body. I was going for the decanter again when Ben stopped me.

“That’s not the answer, Kitty. Come with me.” He took my hand and led me out onto the porch.

The frigid air slapped me in the face and slowed my racing heart. Inhaling huge gulps of salty air, I made my way over to the railing. Lights beamed in the black night from the homes up and down the Irvington side of the creek, but without even a sliver of moon for illumination, our less-populated side was pitch dark. Which meant we couldn’t go next door to borrow a cup of sugar or to ask for help if a deranged psycho-bitch suddenly attacked us with an ax.

“What happened up there?” Ben asked, coming to stand beside me at the railing. “I told you not to provoke her, but the two of you were going at each other like roosters in a cockfight.”

“It was so freaky, Ben. For the first time in my life, I lost total control of myself.” I told him about the negligee and how Emma had staged the fight to look like I was doing the beating. “I may have started it, but . . .”

“I understand,” Ben said, shaking his head in disgust. “She really got you here.” He pointed at my cheek.

“What do you mean?” I ran my fingers along my cheek, feeling the puckered skin and the stickiness of blood. “Is it bad?”

“Bad enough it needs to be cleaned.”

“You mean sterilized. I may have to go through a series of rabies shots.” I elbowed Ben in the ribs. “So are you ready to call Mom and Dad now?”

“They’re all the way up in the mountains, remember? Probably well into their fourth or fifth martini by now.”

“Believe me, Ben, she does not have your best interest at heart. You need to stay way the hell away from her. She is dangerous.”

Ben’s face beamed dark red in anger. “After tonight I’m gonna run that little bitch out of town if I have to drive her to Norfolk myself and load her up on an aircraft carrier headed for the Persian Gulf.”

“That’s a pie-in-the-sky dream if ever I heard one. You can avoid her, Ben, but I have to live with her.”

“No way I’m gonna let you live with that whack job.”

“And just what the hell do you think we can do about it in the middle of the school year?” I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice.

“Students are always flunking out after the first semester, Kitty. And others transfer to different schools. They’ll have an opening somewhere, maybe not a single and it might not be your first choice . . .”

Something that resembled hope stirred in my belly. “Maybe.”

Thompson stuck his head out of the door. “Brr, it’s cold out here,” he said, stepping onto the porch. “Is everything okay with you two? Archer said I should come and check on Kitty, that she and Emma got in a fight.” When he saw my face, he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him. “What the hell happened to you? We need to get that cleaned up.”

Thompson whisked me off to my room for some first aid and much-needed psychotherapy. Forty-five minutes later, we came back downstairs feeling slightly rejuvenated and hungry for dinner.

Maddie and Archer had found place cards amongst my mother’s party supplies, and arranged them so Emma and I were across from each other but at opposite ends of the table. Illuminated by the dozen votive candles that separated us, I could see the scratches on her forearm when she raised her fork to her mouth for a bite of salad. Unlike my battle wounds, the skin did not appear to have been broken, just a series of red lines crisscrossing her arm. Cat scratches.

As usual, Emma monopolized the conversation during dinner. A discussion about our generation’s lack of ethics led to a debate over whether it was equally acceptable for a woman to satisfy her sexual needs with random pickups in the same way some men do. Whether to get a rise out of Ben or whether she simply enjoyed watching the rest of us squirm, she cited instance after instance of her more spontaneous encounters. Every time an attempt was made to change the subject, Emma maneuvered the conversation back to sex. We all sprang from our chairs with relief when Archer announced we were only thirty minutes away from midnight.

With all the leftovers stored in the refrigerator and the dishes placed in the dishwasher, we gathered in the living room to watch the ball drop on television.

“I could only find two flutes,” Emma said, offering the tray of champagne to Ben and me before anyone else. “And since you’re the host and hostess, the privilege belongs to you.”

Ben and I sipped the champagne with the same sense of obligation we had to wear the silly hats and blow the noisemakers Reed and Maddie brought. The strain of having Emma in the house had placed a damper on our evening. While the others participated in the traditional round of kisses and best wishes for the New Year, Ben and I stood together at the edge of the crowd.

“Get your coat, man,” Thompson said, slapping Ben on the back. “Time for fireworks. We need your great pyrotechnics expertise.”

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Ben said to Thompson. “But Spotty and Reed are both Eagle Scouts. You’re in good hands with them.”

While the guys separated their fireworks into piles on the dormant winter grass, the rest of us gathered along the porch railing. With the exception of our voices, and those echoing from a party across the creek, the night was quiet, so much so I almost hated to disturb it with the blasts from our rockets.

“It’s snowing,” Archer said, sticking her hand out to catch a flake. “Maybe we’ll get snowed in and have to spend another night.”

I cringed at the thought of being trapped with a psychopath. I watched Emma rub her body all over Ben’s, cozying up to him against the cold. Sensing she had an audience, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down, making certain I could see her stick her tongue in his mouth. Irritated, he pushed her away, and whispering loud enough for everyone to hear, reminded her they were no longer in a relationship.

Things got a little fuzzy for me after those first few explosions of color. The only thing I remember—other than at the end when Spotty lit a whole package of firecrackers and I mistook them for gangsters shooting at us with machine guns—was Ben slamming Emma up against a porch column. I’d never blacked out before. It was as if my mind had fallen off a cliff into an abyss. A bottomless pit of nothingness.

“That’s not like you, Kitty,” Archer said. “You’ve never been one to drink too much.”

“And I didn’t last night. I had a few beers, spaced out during the evening, and a glass of wine with dinner.” I locked eyes with Ben. “Oh, and that shot of bourbon to calm my nerves after the fight with Emma.”

“Are you sure you only had one shot?” Maddie asked, her lip curled up in distaste. Maddie had gone to bed as one of my favorite friends and woken up a prima donna bitch.

“Okay, that’s enough. Everybody stop arguing.” Reed wrapped his fingers through the handles of six coffee mugs and carried them over to the table. “Let’s all sit down and try to figure this thing out together.”

Spotty poured everyone coffee while Thompson passed out the glazed doughnuts.

“The reality is that none of us should have been drunk after all we had to eat,” Ben said, hanging his head. “Myself included.”

Maddie tore off a tiny piece of doughnut and pointed it at my brother. “Exactly, Ben. None of us
were
drunk except you and your sister.”

Thompson folded the top back on the box of doughnuts and placed them on the kitchen counter. “Maddie, your blame and sarcasm are counterproductive. If you can’t offer anything constructive, maybe you should leave the room.” He turned his back on her. “Katherine, you were only a little buzzed before dinner, and you had plenty to eat, including two helpings of white chocolate mousse. I had no idea you were in such bad shape until I came up to the porch after setting off the fireworks. Did you have only the one glass of champagne?”

“Wait a minute,” Archer said, sliding her chair back from the table. “Ben didn’t seem wasted to me either until after the champagne.” She picked up one of the flutes from the tray of empty glasses on the counter and sniffed it.

“Don’t waste your time,” Maddie said to Archer, nodding toward the glasses. “We washed those last night.”

Archer set the glass back down on the tray and ran her hand on the counter and behind the sink. “What’re you looking for?” I asked her when she dropped to her knees and began crawling around on the floor.

“My ring, the sapphire my parents gave me for graduation. I took it off when I was doing the dishes, but I must’ve put it back on. It’s probably upstairs.” She stood and wiped her hair out of her face. “Anyway, remember how Emma insisted that Ben and Kitty drink from the only two flutes? I’ll bet she drugged them.”

Reed nodded. “Which would definitely explain why they both got so hammered so quickly. It was probably Liquid X, easy enough to find if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Maddie shook her head in disbelief. “Give me a break. Nobody drugged anybody. Why can’t you just admit it, Ben? You had too much to drink, lost your temper, and now a girl has gone missing.”

I set my coffee mug down and stared across the table at her. “Why are you being such a bitch? Despite all of your insinuations, nobody in this room did anything to hurt Emma. There’s a single set of footprints leading down to the dock. Single means one, Maddie. If those footprints belong to Emma, she probably got in a boat with somebody and went somewhere.”

No one dared speculate on the other possible scenarios. Emma was way too narcissistic to commit suicide, but I would not have ruled out the likelihood of an accident.

“And if we’re planning to call the police,” Ben added, “we better do it soon, before the sun comes out and melts the snow.”

“What should we tell them?” Spotty asked.

Ben set his eyes on Maddie. “The truth. We need to tell the police everything about what happened last night so they can help us find Emma. I’m convinced this is just another one of her stunts, and I can’t wait to see her in person so I can kick her ass out of our lives for good. But if something did happen to her, I want the police to see those footprints.”

Two patrol officers arrived in less than thirty minutes. With bloodshot eyes and breath that reeked of whiskey, they dragged their dumpy bodies up our front steps. With one quick glance at the footprints, interested only in wrapping up the case in time for an early lunch, Officers Collins and Hathaway jumped to the conclusion of suicide. It took a fair amount of psychological profiling from Thompson to convince them that, while she might be a troubled young woman, Emma was way too self-centered to be suicidal.

“With all due respect, young man,” Collins said to Thompson, “if you know this woman so well, why don’t you tell us where she is?”

Ben stepped in front of Thompson. “Listen, Officer, until about a month ago, Emma was my girlfriend. So I know her well enough to be fairly certain she went off somewhere to party and is crashed on someone’s sofa, or in their bed, as we speak.”

The other officer, Hathaway, placed his hands on his hips. “Well, if that’s the case, son, why the hell did you call us?”

“Because of the footprints,” I said, speaking up for the first time. “
If,
for some reason, Emma does not show up, and it turns out that something did in fact happen to her, the footprints are evidence—evidence that will be gone by noon.”

“Besides, we don’t even know for sure that they’re Emma’s footprints,” Archer added.

I nodded. “The one thing that doesn’t make any sense to me in all of this is that Emma’s things are gone. She either put them in her car or she took them with her. But why would she do that if she was just going to have a drink with a friend?”

“What friend?” Collins asked. “She’s not from around here, is she?”