Shadow Creek (9 page)

“So, who do you think you are, dummy?” Kenny repeated with a laugh.

“Please don’t call me that,” she said, the word stinging even more than usual, coming from his lips. “I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re not. What are you?” he challenged.

“I’m whatever I want to be.”

“What else?”

“I’m
whoever
I want to be,” she said with growing conviction.

“And who is that?”

She gave the question a moment’s consideration. “I’ve always liked the name Catherine.”

“Then Catherine you shall be.”

And then, the following week, “Call me Veronica.”

“As in
Betty and …
”

“I’m definitely not a Betty.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

And then soon after that, “I love the name Nikki. With two
k’
s.”

“Then Nikki, with two k’s, it is.”

“Call me Nikki,” she’d said to that stupid Ellen Laufer. Opening her door to a total stranger in the middle of the night. In the middle of a storm. How ridiculous was that?

No more ridiculous than living out in the middle of nowhere, she thought, answering her own question. No more ridiculous than not having a TV.

It was like her grandfather had once said: some people were just too stupid to live.

“What was it like when you tried to kill your stepmother?” she’d asked Kenny one day. They were sitting on the double bed in the sparsely furnished room he was renting. “I mean, did you actually get to cut her?”

“Nah. I was too little. She was too fast for me. I just chased her around the kitchen with a steak knife. Freaked her right out.”

“I bet.”

“It was fun.”

“I bet,” she said again. Then, “I used to cut myself.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Those scars on your legs.” He touched her thighs, his fingers tracing a series of thin lines on top of her jeans. “Do you still do it?”

She shook her head. “I stopped.”

“Why?”

She shrugged.

“Would you start again—if I asked you to?”

“Yes,” she said without missing a beat. Didn’t he know that she would do anything for him?

“I want you to do it now,” he said. “I want you to show me how you cut yourself.”

She quickly wriggled out of her jeans and kicked them to the floor. “I need a razor.”

Kenny pushed himself off the bed and walked purposefully into the bathroom, returning with a razor and a towel.

“Watch,” she said.

His eyes followed her hand as she lowered the razor blade to her bare skin, drawing a line along the flesh of her inner thigh, as easily as if she were taking a pen to paper. It took a second for the wound to open and the blood to appear, another second for the pain to register, then disappear into pleasure. Her lips parted; her jaw slackened; her head rolled back. She felt the familiar rush, as if someone had just stuck a needle full of heroin into her veins.

And suddenly his head was between her legs, and he was licking the blood from her thighs, and moaning along with her. “I want you to cut me,” he whispered.

“No. I can’t hurt you.”

“You won’t. Here,” he said, prying the razor from her fingers and removing his jeans, flinging them to the floor beside hers. “Show me. Guide my hands.” He’d placed the palm of her hand over the back of his and waited. And when she pressed the blade into his skin, when she ran it along his flesh, he’d shuddered, then pulled her to him and kissed her, deeply, tenderly.

She’d never felt so much love.

A few days later, he suggested they find someone else to cut.

“Stepmother number one has an old aunt and uncle who live in the outskirts of Plainfield,” he said, his enthusiasm increasing as his idea expanded. “Arlene and Frank Wall. They always had a soft spot for me.”

“Their name is Wall?”

“As in ‘brick.’ ”

She laughed, trying to remember if she’d ever been so happy. She would do anything to hold on to this man, to this feeling. Anything and everything. Anything he wanted. Everything he asked.

“Anyway, they have this cottage in the woods, almost as old as they are, and they’ve gotta be almost eighty by now. No kids. No neighbors. Just the two of them. Nobody’d even miss them.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Yeah. Are you scared?”

“No. Are you?”

“Hell, no. I’m excited. A couple of old farts. They’ve been around long enough. We’d be doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.”

“We’re going to kill them?”

“Well, dummy, we can’t very well cut them up and just leave them there to tell everyone, can we?”

She felt her heart sink. Why had she asked him such a stupid question? She’d let him down. She’d disappointed him. If she wasn’t careful, he’d leave her, find someone smarter, someone who didn’t ask such dumb questions. And what would happen to her then? Who would she be without him? She’d be no one. Like she was before they met. “Please don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, and her heart swelled with gratitude. “I won’t do it again. Promise.”

And so she’d told her mother she was going to be spending the weekend with a girlfriend, and she and Kenny had driven up to Plainfield and the cottage of Arlene and Frank Wall.

“Yes?” Arlene asked, squinting through the screen door at the smiling young couple on her doorstep.

“Auntie Arlene?” Kenny said. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Matthew?” she asked. “My God, is that you? It’s been years. Look how big and tall you’ve grown. What are you doing here?” She opened the door. “Frank,” she called toward the living room, “you’ll never guess who’s here.” She looked from the young man she knew as Matthew to the girl standing beside him.

“This is my friend, Nikki.”

“Very nice to meet you, Nikki.”

It was the last thing she said before Kenny drove his large knife deep into her chest, Nikki quickly following his example with a knife of her own. Frank had proved harder to kill. It took three thrusts to bring him to his knees and a vicious stab to his neck to silence his moaning once and for all.

Afterward, they’d raided the refrigerator and made love in Frank and Arlene’s bed. “Smells like old people,” she’d said before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, they ate breakfast, the butchered bodies of Frank and Arlene Wall lying at their feet, their blood covering the knotted pine floor like a layer of fresh paint. Then they took whatever money they could find, disconnected the new wide-screen TV, and carried it out to Kenny’s old Chevrolet.

“Do you need a hand with that?” someone asked suddenly, scaring them both, so that they almost dropped the TV to the ground. “Sorry,” the young man apologized immediately. He was about Kenny’s age, wearing a black baseball cap, a white
T-shirt, black Spandex shorts, and white running shoes, all bearing the familiar Nike swoosh. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Name’s Brian.”

“Appreciate the help, Brian,” Kenny said, waiting to kill him until after the TV had been safely loaded into the backseat of his car. “Can’t leave any witnesses,” he said with a shrug.

They’d carried him back into the cottage and hacked off his arms and legs, then his head, because Kenny had seen someone do that on TV and thought it would be neat to try. “Off with his head!” she’d giggled, watching her lover with something approaching awe. It took hours, even with her help, and they were exhausted when they were done. So they showered and took a short nap before burying Brian’s torso in a shallow grave a few miles down the road, then scattering the rest of him in various locations along the route home. They also stopped at a flea market where Kenny purchased an old machete that had caught his eye. “You never know,” he’d said. “It could come in handy.”

It had indeed come in handy the following week in the Berkshires, where they’d made mincemeat out of William and Marie Carteris, although he’d used it sparingly. “Till I get the hang of it,” he’d said. Which he had by the time they paid a visit to the Adirondacks and the cottage of Ellen and Stuart Laufer.

Good times, she thought now, looking forward to their next adventure. To all their future adventures. Nothing mattered as long as they were together.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” he’d told her.

I’m ready, she thought now, opening her eyes.

W
ELL, YOU CERTAINLY HAD a good sleep,” Val was saying as Brianne sat up in her seat and looked around.

“Are we there yet?”

“We’re here.”

“This is it?” Brianne stared toward the unassuming wood and stone structure in the middle of a hub of giant pine trees. “I thought you said this place was supposed to be so luxurious.”

When luxury beckons
, Val thought, stealing a glance over her shoulder at Jennifer, and knowing by the expression on her face that the younger woman was thinking the same thing. “It’s quite lovely inside,” she assured her daughter as Brianne reached inside her purse for her BlackBerry. “Who on earth are you texting now?”

Brianne pushed open her car door and stepped onto the semicircular driveway in front of the lodge, ignoring her mother’s question as her fingers furiously worked the miniature keypad.

A young man approached. The name tag on his crisp white shirt identified him as Wesley. He was thin and somewhat gangly, his arms seemingly too long for the rest of him. “Welcome to the Lodge at Shadow Creek,” he said, his voice surprisingly robust, as the others began climbing from the car. Melissa and James exited together from either side of the SUV, Melissa’s short legs sliding toward the ground, the dark eyes behind her large black glasses casually absorbing her surroundings while James made an exaggerated show of stretching and then bending from the waist until his elbows touched his toes.

“I’m super flexible,” James told Wesley with a sly grin.

“Down, boy,” Val whispered, staring at her daughter, still texting away. “There are children present.”

“I’m not a child,” Brianne said without so much as a glance in their direction.

Jennifer was the last to leave the car, hanging back as if to underscore her trepidation, then pushing one bare leg out after the other, as if she were riding an invisible bicycle. This was followed by the firm breasts that impressively filled out her sunny yellow T-shirt and the formidable rush of thick blond hair that temporarily hid her face from view.

Wesley watched her exit, his mouth dropping open just enough to be noticeable, from the side of the car. “Check-in is right through those doors,” he managed, indicating the row of massive glass doors directly behind him. “Can I help you with your luggage?”

Val quickly directed him to the back of the SUV. “Just the top two,” she said, opening the trunk. “Oh, and that overnight
bag. That’s it,” she confirmed as Wesley began unloading the bags. “The rest stay where they are.”

“How long will you be staying with us?” Wesley inquired, his eyes drifting back to Jennifer.

“We’re not all staying,” Val told him. “It’s only my daughter and …”

“… the Slut,” James whispered out of the side of his mouth, his hand serving as a muffler, so that the words emerged as more of a sigh.

“… 
her
.” Val nodded toward Jennifer. “They’ll be staying for three nights. The rest of us will be leaving after we grab something to eat.”

“You’re staying for dinner?” Jennifer’s voice echoed the look of horror on her face.

“I’ve been driving for almost five hours,” Val reminded her.

“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply …”

“I could use a bit of a break.”

“No, I understand perfectly.”

“We’re happy to eat at another table, if you’d prefer.”

“Stop it, Mother,” Brianne said, tossing her BlackBerry back into her bag as she approached. “Martyrdom doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not trying to be a martyr. I’m just trying to make things easier for everybody.”

“By giving Jennifer a hard time?”

“How was I giving her a hard time?” It annoyed Val that her daughter was taking Jennifer’s side, and although she tried to hide it, the brittleness of her tone betrayed her.

“I think we’re all a little tired here,” Melissa interrupted as the familiar chimes of Brianne’s BlackBerry rang out, signaling the arrival of another text message.

“Is that your father?” Val asked. But Brianne was already moving away from her, her thumbs poised and ready for action.
“Lovely,” Val said, heading toward the front doors of the lodge, the others following dutifully behind. “Brianne!” she called out.

Brianne responded with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Don’t worry. She knows where to find us,” Melissa said as they entered the front lobby.

“I don’t know who she’s so busy texting.”

“You know how it is when you get a new boyfriend,” Jennifer said absently.

“What new boyfriend?” Val stopped so abruptly that Jennifer walked right into her.

“I’m so sorry,” Jennifer apologized immediately, although she wasn’t sure whether she was more sorry for stomping all over Val’s bare toes or for revealing that Brianne had a new boyfriend her mother clearly knew nothing about.

“Brianne has a new boyfriend?” Val asked accusingly. Both women understood that what she was really asking was
Why do you know about this and I don’t? Why would Brianne confide in you and not me? Isn’t it enough you stole my husband? Do you have to steal my daughter, too? Why are you here? Why do you even exist?

“I don’t know,” Jennifer qualified quickly. “I just assumed it must be a boy … But I don’t know for sure. It was just a guess,” she added, unconvincingly.

“Isn’t this place magnificent?” Melissa asked loudly, turning around in a slow circle, her arms extended at her sides, as if trying to draw the whole scene to her. “Just look at that ceiling. It must be fifty feet high.”

Melissa’s exaggerated enthusiasm forced everyone’s eyes toward the wide wooden planks of the ceiling. It was indeed magnificent, Val agreed silently, trying not to picture Jennifer’s shapely legs stretching toward it.

“And that fabulous stone fireplace,” Melissa continued. “And these carpets …”

“And that crystal chandelier,” Jennifer added, grateful for Melissa’s intervention.