Lost Girls of Kato, page 9
Heat spreads down my neck. All those years I spent in hiding from the spotlight were apparently for nothing. “Please don’t—”
“You don’t have to ask. Your secret’s safe with me,” she declares, waving me along to the next subject. “Now what is this other thing you wanted to ask?”
“Do you know someone named Theo Davies?”
Beth’s eyes squint. “Tall, crazy good looking guy with the personality of a troll?” With a hint of a smirk, she wiggles her eyebrows. “He comes around the bar every now and then, has a drink while he’s waiting for his order of wings. No matter what I say, he keeps to himself. Why?”
“I was hoping you’d known him for a while since you’ve been living here for so many years. I hired him to fix up my house and I’m dying to know his story.”
“I only know him from the bar, but K.C. brought him up a few times. I don’t know what she saw in him, but I get the feeling they had something going back in the day.”
Jealousy roils through my gut as I stab the ice cubs in my glass with the straw. “Deep down, he’s nothing like he’d like the world to perceive him to be.”
“You’re flushed,” she says, her eyes full of accusations. “Why are you flushing? Are you hooking up with the troll?” she practically shouts.
Embarrassed laughter bubbles from my lips. “Would you lower your voice? He’s not a troll. He’s just a complex person with complex emotions.”
“Mmhmm,” she replies with heavy sarcasm. “How in the hell did you manage to break a man as prickly as a cactus?”
It’s a fair question, one I’ve even asked myself a few times throughout the past week, but I chalk it up to my determination and care-giver ways.
The college-aged bartender with pretty green eyes approaches our end of the bar and motions to our drinks. “Another round, ladies?”
“Better make them both a double,” Beth tells her. “My friend is about to tell me all about her latest conquest.”
Still unsettled by Theo’s connection to this K.C. person, I’m unable to laugh. I can’t wait to return home so I can look up K.C.’s Touch in White Bear Lake.
11
JACKIE - 1986
The days following MEA break, Mr. Kabe treats me as if I’m not even there. I decide it’s better being a ghost than being constantly picked on, and halfway through the week I’m actually in a really good mood because of it until I leave school on Wednesday and find J.R. and Diane waiting together on the lawn. He must say something funny because she throws her head back and laughs, grabbing his good arm.
My heart sinks. I sensed them getting closer after his birthday, especially when she offered him a lick of her ice cream cone. I glance at the other students in a hurry to leave the school grounds and wonder if I can sneak out behind them without being seen.
“Jackie!” J.R. calls out, waving his free arm high above his head. “Over here!”
I stomp over them, trying my best not to frown when J.R. takes my Trapper Keeper and tucks it under his cast. He’s always carrying my things lately, and I thought it’s because we were on our way to becoming boyfriend/girlfriend.
“Diane said the arcade just got Ms. Pac-Man,” he tells me. “Wanna go check it out with us?”
Vomit burns up my throat. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. J.R. and I are the ones who always make plans together, and sometimes invite Diane along.
“I guess,” I mumble, kicking at a rock on the sidewalk.
J.R. slings his good arm around my neck. “Let’s go get a pizza at Pagliai's first. I’m starving. It’ll be my treat.”
When we walk away, I feel a little better now that J.R. has attached himself to me and not Diane. Still, I want to trip her for tagging along.
Halfway to the pizza parlor, we pass the strange man who’d been watching us at Skating World. All three of us turn to watch as he continues down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, wearing dress clothes that look at least one size too small. His bright red tie with wide stripes stops in the middle of his round belly, and his tan dress pants swish around his ankles.
Diane grabs J.R.’s elbow. “There’s that weirdo again!”
“He probably just finished a shift at the mall,” J.R. decides with a shrug.
The man turns off the sidewalk and starts down a side street.
“Let’s follow him,” Diane tells us. “I wanna see where he’s going.”
I pull on the sleeves of my coat and scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. “I don’t know, Diane. What if he sees us?”
She shrugs. “We’re not doing anything wrong. It’s a free country. Besides, for all he knows, we’re walking home.” She pulls on J.R.’s good elbow. “Come on!”
J.R. glances back at me with one of his dimpled grins and shrugs. “Let’s just go. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
A boulder of dread settles in my gut as I shuffle behind them. I want to remind my dumb sister that three girls from Kato have gone missing, but I suppose no one would try to kidnap one of us when we’re in a group. At least that’s what I tell myself when my heart thuds hard enough to make my entire body shake. What if the man turns around and sees us following him?
The man continues for a couple of blocks before heading toward a tiny little white house on a corner. He removes a set of keys from his pocket and sticks one into the front door. We hide behind the neighbor’s bushes, watching as he steps inside and the door closes behind him.
“That was totally lame,” I grumble, turning back to the street. “Let’s go, J.R. I’m hungry too.”
“Wait!” Diane demands. “Now he’s going into his backyard! Let’s see what he’s doing!”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I huff. “What’s your obsession with this weirdo, Diane? Are you in love with him or something?”
“DeeDee and the weirdo sitting in a tree,” J.R. sings with a wide grin. “K-i-s-s-i-n—”
Diane slaps her hand over his mouth. “Stop calling me that!” she whispers. “And be quiet! He’ll hear you!”
Quietly laughing beneath her fingers, he pulls her arm down. “Jackie’s right. Why are you obsessed with this guy?”
“I don’t know. He gives me the heebie jeebies. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took Becky and the others.”
Fear trickles down my spine. What if she’s right?
J.R. shakes his head. “He’s just weird, that’s all. I don’t think he’s all there. He had some kind of speech impediment.”
“Having a dad who’s a police detective doesn’t make you an expert on murderers,” Diane scolds him. She turns back to the man’s backyard. “He just went inside that creepy little shed. I’m going to get a closer look.”
J.R. and I exchange an unsure look as she sneaks away, sticking close to the bushes separating the man’s yard from his neighbor’s. I glance behind us to the neighbor’s house, waiting for someone to appear in one of the windows.
“We could get into big trouble for this,” I warn J.R. “What if one of the neighbors calls the police and your dad finds out you’ve been spying on people?”
J.R.’s hickory-colored eyes dance around the neighborhood as he wets his lips. I can sense a fresh wave of fear vibrating off of him with the idea. “We’ll wait here for her to come back…just in case.”
I look down and kick a dead plant near my sneaker, happy he’s at least on my side.
“What has your teacher been like this week?” he asks. “Has he said anything about last weekend?”
“He’s been ignoring me,” I say, meeting his gaze with a smile. “It’s awesome.”
“That guy is such a jerk. He’s lucky I didn’t knock his teeth in for threatening you like that.”
Just when I’m floating above the clouds, knowing he wanted to defend me, he adds, “I didn’t like the way he was looking at Diane, either.”
“Do you like my sister?” I blurt.
His good shoulder lifts. “Yeah, she’s cool.”
“I mean…do you like her, like her.”
His eyes dart away from mine. “She’s a sophomore, Jackie. Why would she want to date an eighth grader?”
I turn away with hot tears burning behind my eyes. Life is so unfair. I’m going to lose the first boy I ever loved to my dumb sister, and I don’t know how to stop it from happening. A dark thought slips into my mind.
I wish someone would take her next so I’d never have to see her again.
Diane comes running back to us a moment later, eyes wide. She stops to rest her hands on her knees, panting. “You…guys…we have to…go!”
“Why?” J.R. asks, setting his hand on her hunched back. “What happened?”
Her eyes skate back to the shed, spooked. “I don’t know what he was doing in that shed, but there were these really weird noises. I heard pounding, then a chainsaw.”
“So what?” J.R. says, crossing his arms. “He’s probably making a project out of wood.”
“That’s not all I heard. There was a girl.” When Diane looks at him, her eyes are wet. “She was screaming.”
Once we arrive at Pagliai's, J.R. calls his dad from the payphone across the street to tell him everything Diane heard back at the man’s shed. Diane chews on her fingernails as we watch him through the pizza parlor’s window. I want to tell her she’s selfish for insisting J.R. call his dad over something she probably made up anyway, just to gain J.R.’s attention. J.R.’s dad will certainly be angry to hear we followed a stranger to his house. I’m positive his dad broke his arm. What will he do to J.R. next?
“You shouldn’t have gone into that man’s yard,” I scold her. “If Mom finds out, she’ll ground us both.”
Diane releases a mean laugh. “What good will that do? It’s not like she’s around to make sure we stay home.”
I would never think of going against our mom’s punishment, whether she was around to see it or not. But when I realize she’s right, our mom is hardly even around to take care of us, I’m all at once sad. “Do you think J.R. is right? Do you think Mom could be dating a married man, or pregnant with another baby?”
“Don’t be stupid!” She bares her teeth like a wild dog. “God, Jackie! You’re so stupid!”
“No I’m not!” I insist, feeling the burn of hot tears. “You have no idea where Mom is or who she’s with, so don’t act like you know everything! Why are you always so mean?”
The bell above the parlor’s front door rings behind me. When I hear J.R.’s heavy sigh over my shoulder, I flutter my eyelashes to keep the tears from falling.
“My old man says they can’t just go after the guy without some kind of probable cause. He said it’s almost Halloween and you could’ve heard a horror movie playing on a neighbor’s television.” He slides into the booth next to me and glances my way from the corner of his eye. “He told me we’re lucky they can’t do anything because the guy would probably press charges against us for trespassing on private property.”
Tension fills my entire body. He isn’t able to look me in the eye because we both know he’s going to get into serious trouble for making the call.
“That’s bullshit,” Diane grumbles, flicking a crumb on the table. “I know what I heard.”
After the waiter comes to take our order, Diane heads to the bathroom.
“You shouldn’t have called your dad,” I tell J.R., turning to him in the booth.
He shakes his head several times. “But what if Diane’s right? What if she really did hear a girl scream in that shed?”
I click my tongue and frown. “You don’t know my sister like I do. She’s always doing stuff to get attention. She probably only said that because she knew you’d worry about her.” Softening my expression, I rest my hand on his sling. “I think you should ask your dad if you can stay at a friend’s house tonight. You can stay in my room—my mom never comes in to check on me after she gets home. She’d never know you were there. We’ll make you a bed out of blankets on the floor.”
For a second, I think he’s going to agree by the way his eyes light up. Then he glances out the window. “On a school night?” he scoffs, sounding more hopeless than anything. “He’d never agree to that.”
The heat of tears return when I imagine his dad waiting in the doorway for him to come home. How was someone so mean able to get an important job working for the police?
“Say you have a big project to work on for school or something,” I prod, refusing to give up the idea. “Whatever it takes.” Panic clogs my throat. “Please, J.R., you have to somehow convince him to let you stay somewhere else. Maybe the night away would give him time to cool down before you had to see him again. Maybe he wouldn’t be as mad.”
With his dimpled grin in place, he reaches over his cast to wrap his hand around mine. “Jackie, you’re a good friend to worry about me. But I’ll be okay. I can handle whatever punishment the bastard dishes out.”
Diane returns just then. Her eyes dart to J.R.’s hand around mine. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” J.R. says, dropping my hand and sliding away. “Jackie was just telling me about some of the jerks at her school.”
“Maybe you should start by being less of an easy target,” Diane tells me with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “They can probably smell your fear a mile away.”
I wait for J.R. to laugh along with her, but his posture straightens in the booth. “Maybe you should be a good big sister and let those jerks know she’s not fair game anymore.”
Diane flinches then sips on her soda while watching a group of kids gathered outside.
In that moment, I actually believe everything is going to be okay, and we’ll go back to being the best of friends without Diane. J.R. stood up to her, choosing to defend me instead of laughing the way she’d hoped. Maybe I don’t have to worry about him falling in love with her after all.
12
STERLING - 2018
Saturday morning, I’m torn from a dream involving disturbing noises coming from a dilapidated little shed. I settle myself by scrolling through tattoos K.C. has posted on her Instagram account until my doorbell rings. I untangle myself from the new set of satiny sheets I’d found on sale at T.J. Maxx and squint out my window to discover the sun hasn’t fully risen. Theo and I had planned to spend the day together, but we didn’t specify an exact start time. I certainly hadn’t expected him quite this early. Truthfully, I’d hoped he’d show up on my doorstep the night before and had sleep nude in anticipation of his arrival.
I throw my kimono over my naked body and shuffle to the front door. When I swing it open, I release a genuine scream with the sight of the beautiful brunette dressed from head to toe in white with a designer handbag slung over one narrow shoulder. “Mom!”
Giggling, my mother launches herself into my arms. The mystical scent of her Chanel perfume and clink of her signature gold bangles take me back to my childhood. She’s become so slender that I worry I’m crushing her bones when I hold her tight. Between that and our remarkable height difference, it’s like hugging a little child. But I know better than to say anything as her weight is an absurd requirement of her job.
“Surprise, baby girl! The director gave us the day off to work with the stunt crew, and of course there was only one place I wanted to spend my free time!”
“How long to you get to stay?”
“Only until this evening. My jet flies out of this town’s little airport at six. I have to be back on set tomorrow at five a.m. sharp.”
After she plants a kiss on my cheek, we release each other. I motion for her to enter my home. “Then you better come inside! We have a lot of catching up to do!”
As she steps in past me, I spot the same navy blue sedan that had taken off after I’d waved. It’s parked far enough down the road that I’m unable to decide if anyone’s behind the wheel. Unease rattles my bones as I close the door.
My mom pushes her oversized sunglasses on top of her head and seemingly scrutinizes every square inch of my house. “It sure is…old-world.”
“It’s a work in progress. I hired a carpenter.”
My mom’s steely gaze lands on me. “Is this carpenter any good?”
My cheeks grow hot as I recall just how good Theo truly is—at his job and other things. “He already fixed my floors. He plans to work on the kitchen, starting right away next week.”
Not one to ever miss a single thing, my mother crosses her arms over her stomach. “Sterling Marie, why is your face suddenly so flushed?” Then she gasps, splaying the fingers of one hand over her chest. “You’re sleeping with the help?”
“Don’t call him that,” I scold, removing her hand from her chest. “And stop being so dramatic. We’re not sleeping together.” A little smile tug at my lips. “At least not yet.” Part of me wants to tell her how hard I’m falling for him, but it’s still too new between us. I don’t want to deal with any drama from her if things don’t work out. Especially if my theory is right, and Theo’s only interested in having a little fun until he’s finished fixing my home.
My mom squeals like a teenage girl. “Oh my god, Sterling! I want to hear all about this carpenter!” She starts for my kitchen, tossing her handbag onto the counter top, and begins opening cupboard doors. “Every last juicy detail!”
She doesn’t make her own coffee at home, so I don’t offer my help when I’m convinced that’s what she’s after. “Coffee grounds are in the container on your left,” I say with a giggle.
“Screw coffee. Details of an affair with a sexy carpenter call for mimosas! Where are your champagne flutes?”
“I don’t have any. I don’t have any orange juice either. Or champagne.”
Her jaw literally drops. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“No jokes,” I promise. “We can run to the market in a little bit.” I check my digital watch for the time, realizing I’d failed to take it off for a charge in the night when it doesn’t light up. “Shit. I need to go find my phone. Theo could be here—”
