Slice (15 page)

T
WENTY-SEVEN

J
essi e waited with a group of other mothers at the Independent Day School for the morning kindergarten class to come running through the doors. By now, she'd gotten used to the ladies of Sayer's Brook keeping their distance from her. They stood aside, in little groups, offering barely a nod of acknowledgment in Jessie's direction. Some of these women she'd known all her life. There was Terry Carmichael, who'd been her best friend in first and second grades, and Georgina Paxton, with whom Jessie had shared pancake and rouge in their high school musicals. There was Yvette Osborn, who came from the town's very first black family, and whom Jessie had befriended right away in tenth grade even as the other girls viewed her as a kind of exotic oddity. But now all of them, driving up in their Mercedes and BMWs and wearing their Manolo Blahnik shoes, kept their distance from Jessie. Two weeks ago, they might have been willing to forgive and forget Emil Deetz. But Inga's death had made them suspicious of Jessie all over again.

Jessie leaned against a pole, looking at her watch. She didn't care that they cold-shouldered her. But it was unforgivable that they'd told their kids to steer clear of Abby.

From inside the building came the muffled sound of a bell ringing. Suddenly the school seemed to shudder with activity, and within moments the doors flew open. A couple of teachers' assistants guided the flock of kindergartners out to their parents. Jessie searched the throng for Abby.

“Mommy!”

Her little girl came running to her, her backpack flopping. Abby was clutching a large piece of construction paper.

“Look, Mommy!” Abby exclaimed.

Jessie examined the paper. It was another drawing, two stick figures, one drawn in red crayon, with yellow hair, and the other drawn in black crayon, with no hair at all.

“Oh, this is beautiful, Abs!”

Abby beamed and hurried ahead of her mother to the car.

Jessie buckled her into the passenger seat of the Volvo. “So you had a good day at school?” she asked.

“It was the best day ever!”

Jessie smiled. “Why is that, sweetie?”

“Because my friend and I colored together.”

Jessie's heart soared. “You and a friend? Oh, that's wonderful, Abs.”

She gently closed the passenger-side door and hurried around to slide in behind the wheel. Other mothers were behind her. Yvette Osborn had tooted from her Mercedes SL 550 to get Jessie moving.

Jessie started up the ignition and steered the Volvo out of the lot. Abby was still gazing at the picture she'd drawn.

“This is me and my friend,” she told Jessie. “I mean, my friend and I.”

“How come she doesn't have any hair?” her mother wanted to know.

Abby looked at her. “Because it's not a girl, Mommy. It's a boy. Can't you see?” She held the drawing up so Jessie could see it again.

“Oh, sorry, honey.”

“Today was his first day in school,” Abby said.

“Really? Why did he start late?”

Abby was silent for a moment, as if considering the question. “I don't know,” she said finally.

They had stopped at a red light. “So,” Jessie asked, “what's your friend's name?”

“Aaron,” Abby said.

A kind of red flash seemed to obscure Jessie's vision for a moment.

Red.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.

Her hands were covered in it. Blood was running down her legs.

Jessie couldn't speak. She just kept staring at Abby.

“What—?” she finally managed to say.

“Aaron,” Abby said again.

Jessie took a deep breath.

There are lots of little boys named Aaron,
she told herself.

Of course there were.

But it was also a fact that when Jessie had first learned she was pregnant with twins, she'd decided the girl Abigail—and the boy Aaron.

She couldn't stop staring at Abby.

From behind her, Yvette Osborn tooted again. The light had turned green.

Jessie refocused her eyes on the road and drove on.

T
WENTY-EIGHT

“
W
ell, this isn't working.”

Bryan Pierce got out of bed. Behind him Heather and Clare Dzialo were still in a halfhearted lip lock, naked. Bryan lit up a cigarette. He hardly ever smoked, but he needed some kind of stimulating satisfaction now that his erection had withered to a little stub.

“What's wrong, Bry-Bry?” Clare asked.

“Heather's not into it,” Bryan said with a sulk.

His wife sighed and got out of bed herself. “I'm sorry, Bryan, but I'm not a lesbian. I don't get into kissing other girls.”

“I wasn't asking you to eat her out,” Bryan spit.

“I'm a bisexual,” the teenaged Clare said. “I like both guys and girls the same.”

Bryan patted her head. “You're a good girl, Clare.”

Heather snorted, pulling on her robe. “Fuck you, Bryan.”

He snarled at her, “If you can't do such a simple thing as kiss this pretty little girl for me, then I guess I can't ask you to do anything.” Bryan stalked over to the window, where he puffed on his cigarette as he looked out into the night. It had started to rain.

“Why don't you two just finish up on your own?” Heather suggested, seemingly utterly disgusted by the whole scene. “I'll be downstairs.”

“Okay,” Clare said cheerfully, casting adoring eyes over at Bryan.

“You know what your problem is, Heather?” Bryan asked. “You have no imagination. None at all.”

“Fuck you again, Bryan. I have plenty of imagination.” She looked away. “I just don't waste it on you.”

He laughed. “Oh, really, now? I'll bet you'd be more than happy to make out with a girl if John Manning asked you to.” He laughed again, louder. “Maybe he has!”

Heather's lips tightened.

“Why don't you just fucking admit that you're sleeping with him?” Bryan shouted. “Why this big goddamn secret?”

Heather glared at him, then stormed out of the room.

“Come on, baby,” Clare said, holding out her thin little arms toward him.

“Get dressed, Clare, and run along home,” Bryan grumbled. “I'm not in the mood anymore.”

“Oh . . .”

The girl was clearly disappointed. Bryan knew she'd developed a crush on him. She harbored dreams of splitting him and Heather apart, and taking Heather's place as Mrs. Bryan Pierce. Bryan couldn't blame the kid for such wishful thinking. After all, he knew how handsome he was, what a great body he had. He was a very successful man. A nineteen-year-old kid would definitely see him as quite the catch.

He watched as Clare reached around and snapped her bra back into place. She stood and slid her panties back up her legs, and then buttoned her blouse, and wriggled into her jeans. Bryan was getting aroused again.

But not by Clare.

When he was finally alone, Bryan opened his closet and found his metal lockbox, hidden under a pile of sweaters. Only he knew the combination. Heather had once asked him what he kept in there. He'd told her stocks and bonds and certificates. In fact, the box's contents were even more valuable than that.

Bryan turned the combination and the lid popped open.

Inside were photographs. Hundreds of them.

Of nearly every woman he'd ever slept with.

He'd take pictures of them when they were sleeping, or drunk. He'd spread their legs open, or stick his cock into their mouths, and set his camera to go off. Some of the photos were taken with the women's consent: nasty girls who didn't mind posing with cucumbers up their butts or pinching their nipples. But those photos didn't excite Bryan nearly as much as the ones where he'd managed to sneak a lewd shot without the woman ever knowing it. It was seeing so-called “nice girls” looking like whores that turned him on. It was the very secrecy of it—the unknowing violation—that got Bryan off. He had some of Heather like that in here, but photos of Heather no longer excited him. Bryan dug down to the bottom of the box.

A toothy grin stretched across his face.

Here were the photos he was looking for.

The first ones he'd ever taken, in fact.

Three Polaroids of Jessie Clarkson.

His sweet little Jessaloo.

Bryan had taken them one night during their sophomore year at SUNY Purchase. They'd been up late studying for midterms in Bryan's dorm room. His roommate was gone for the weekend. When three o'clock rolled around, Jessie's head began nodding over her book. Bryan told her that it was so late no one would know that she slept over. He assured her that she could sleep in his bed and he'd sleep in his roommate's bed. Jessie had been too tired to resist. She had zonked out within moments. Bryan had fantasies of fucking her while she slept, but he knew it would wake her up. So he came up with another idea. His cock raging hard and driving his thoughts, he began to fondle Jessie's breasts through her T-shirt. She was kind of a hippie chick, and didn't always wear a bra. He was terribly afraid she'd wake up, but when she started to lightly snore, he became more daring. He lifted her T-shirt to expose her breasts. He wanted so badly to touch them, but was too frightened she'd awaken. So he'd gotten out his Polaroid and snapped two pictures, one from farther away, so he could see her face, and then a closeup, so he could see the nipples clearly later when he jacked off.

But by then he couldn't stop. He had to get one more photo. But what?

Setting his Polaroid up on the desk, he'd aimed it at the bed. Pulling his pants down he got up on the bed, and crouched over Jessie. If she woke up now, he was dead meat. But he was driven. His heart was thudding madly. He couldn't stop.

He pulled his underwear down, and dropped his cock and balls into his little Jessaloo's face. The Polaroid snapped the picture.

Jessie had never woken up.

She had no idea such photographs existed. But they were Bryan's most treasured possessions.

He took them out of the lockbox and placed them carefully on the floor. After so many years, the edges were brown with smudgy fingerprints. Bryan jacked off looking at them, remembering how sweet Jessie's hair smelled. Even as he shot big ropes of semen across the room, he knew that, with Jessie so close by, he wasn't going to be satisfied with photographs anymore.

Bryan had to have her. Sooner or later, he would fuck Jessie Clarkson.

Whether she agreed or not.

T
WENTY-NINE

“
I
t's not that uncommon a name,” Aunt Paulette was telling her.

“I know,” Jessie said.

She was sitting in Mom's chair, holding a cup of tea in her palms, as the rain tapped against the windowpanes. Her aunt sat opposite her on the couch. Abby was upstairs asleep.

“It was just . . . unnerving, you know, to hear the name Aaron, especially with the whole imaginary playmate thing,” Jessie said. “And Abby's insistence she'd been playing with her brother.”

“Let's just be happy she's made a friend,” Aunt Paulette told her. “A real friend. Not an imaginary one.”

Jessie nodded. “Her mood was so improved when I picked her up today. She was positively glowing. You know Abs. She never complains. But in the past, she'd be kind of flat when I asked her about school. Today she was exuberant.”

Aunt Paulette looked as if she might cry. “I am so happy to hear that.”

“Let's hope things get better from here on,” Jessie said.

The older woman nodded. “Oh, I'm certain they will. I did a tarot reading today. And what came up was the Justice card. I am certain that means Inga's killer will soon be caught, and we can all sleep better at night.”

Jessie shuddered. “I wonder if that means the police found something from their search of John Manning's house.”

“That I can't say. I've tried focusing in on Mr. Manning, but I can't get anything.”

Jessie smiled. “Your powers are failing you, Auntie.”

She shrugged. “Either that or Mr. Manning is an incredibly defensive, defended, guarded, private man. People can throw up all sorts of psychic walls around themselves that become very difficult to penetrate.”

“I'd say that describes John Manning.”

Aunt Paulette nodded.

From upstairs, there came a bang. They both glanced up at the ceiling.

Then came the sound of footsteps.

“Abby?” Jessie called.

Now there was laughter.

Abby's laughter.

But not just hers.

There was someone else up there, laughing with her.

And the footsteps . . .

Jessie stood bolt upright from her chair, dropping her cup and spilling tea all over the wooden floor.

There was more than one child running around upstairs!

“Abby!” Jessie shrieked.

Aunt Paulette followed her as Jessie took the stairs two at a time. She skidded down the hallway, stumbling a little as a throw rug got tangled around her bare feet. She grabbed ahold of Abby's doorknob and threw the door open.

Abby's room was dark. But Jessie could make out her daughter sitting on the bed.

Behind her, Aunt Paulette switched on the light.

Abby was sitting up in bed, smiling at them.

“What was going on up here?” Jessie demanded.

“I was just playing,” Abby said.

“Who was up here with you?”

“Nobody,” Abby said. “I was just playing by myself.”

Jessie noticed the window was open. The cool night air blew in. She hurried over to slam it shut.

“Why is this window open?” she demanded to know. “I never open that window because there's no screen. Why did you open it?”

“I don't know, Mommy,” Abby said. Her little blue eyes looked up at her as if Jessie was making much more out of this than she should.

“I heard two sets of feet up here!” Jessie said. “And it wasn't just your laughter I heard, Abby!”

“It was just me,” the little girl repeated.

Jessie spun around at Aunt Paulette. “You heard it, too, didn't you? You heard two sets of footsteps? Two kids laughing?”

“Oh, dear,” Aunt Paulette said, her hand to her face. “I'm not sure, Jessie. It could have just been Abby.”

“It was just me, Mommy. I couldn't sleep so I got up and started to play. I'm sorry, Mommy.”

Jessie didn't know what to say. Suddenly she felt ridiculous. Could she have been wrong? Could her anxiety over Abby's new friend's name have made her hear things that weren't there?

“Try to go to sleep now, baby,” Aunt Paulette was telling Abby, pulling the sheet up around her.

“Yeah, Abs, go to sleep,” Jessie said in a small voice, looking away from her daughter.

“I'm sorry, Mommy.”

“It's okay,” Jessie said. She looked over at the window, and walked decisively over to lock it. “Don't open this anymore, understand? You'll let mosquitoes and moths in. Okay, Abs? Promise?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Come on, honey,” Aunt Paulette said, gently guiding Jessie out of the room, switching off the light behind her and shutting the door.