Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“You don’t have to worry about being like your brother.”

“Eve-”

“One doesn’t have to be very astute to know what’s so heavy on your mind. It would happen to any of us. It does happen. It’s why people like Dahmer’s father write books. They feel a need to understand where that kind of evil comes from.”

Evil. It was a word I hadn’t used in connection with Collie yet. He was a mass-murdering prick, but I hadn’t thought beyond the act itself to imagine him as truly evil.

“This is some kind of fucked-up pillow talk,” I said.

“I was just trying to put you at ease.”

“I think falling asleep in each other’s arms would be more helpful.”

Eve held me tightly and said, “Say no more.”

She dropped off to sleep first. I thought about Chub unwinding himself from Kimmy and sneaking back to his garage to pore over his getaway maps. Checking up on the roadwork conditions, which lanes would be shut down tomorrow, where the detours were. I had to talk to him. I felt myself drifting, Eve’s breath glancing off my chin. I started to dream before I was fully asleep.

My sister had been right. I had a head as full of snakes as when I’d left. Now I clung to memories that weren’t mine. I couldn’t be sure if I was awake or out cold. My stomach burned. The smell of whiskey seemed overwhelming and made me gag. Eve’s soft snores pounded at me. I saw hands pulling a sash around a young woman’s throat. In her dead eyes I saw my face.

I snapped fully awake with the sense of someone watching me.

I knew the feeling well, probably because my mother liked to watch me sleep. I opened my eyes into slits. It was still dark. I checked Eve and she was sleeping soundly. The door remained shut.

I waited.

Moonlight splayed against the walls, the silver hue blurred by the intermittent rain. I considered that Torchy’s was undoubtedly mobbed up. Danny might’ve gotten word that Grey and I had been out on the town. It could’ve miffed him. He might want to brace Mal again. He might want to push me for showing up with attitude at the Fifth. I couldn’t imagine Danny sending Wes around in the middle of the night, but Wes had admitted there were nastier goings-on that he wasn’t a part of. Danny had a lot of worse boys around still trying to make their bones. I hung my hand over the edge of the mattress and felt for my pants. A shadow broke against the moonlight.

Someone was standing at the window, peering in.

I slipped out of bed on a roll and slid my trousers on in a fluid move. The forward momentum carried me across the bedroom. I rushed to the window. There was a patch of glass that the water diverted around, like someone had wiped it down to see inside better and the oil from his fingertips had caused the rain to deflect.

I turned the latch and hefted the window up. The screen stopped me. If I was outside trying to get in, I could pop it loose in half a second. But right now I was so keyed up that I couldn’t get it to unlock from the track.

Eve woke and said, “What is it? What are you doing?”

The sound of someone running across the wet lawn made my heart hammer, and I finally juse Mрt put my shoulder to the jamb and bulled my way through the screen. The metal track squealed and the molding cracked like a gun going off. I took a header into the bushes and lurched across a lawn gnome that practically impaled me. I tasted dirt. I came up in a crouch and wasn’t sure which way to go. I didn’t have my bearings yet.

Eve hadn’t put on the outside light, and the streetlamp didn’t provide much illumination. I spit out blades of grass.

An engine started up the block. Trying not to slip in the mud, I loped in that direction, but it was already too late. A car pulled away from the curb a couple of houses away. No headlights, no shouting, and no mad screeching as he turned the corner. I couldn’t tell the make or model. Whoever it was accelerated smoothly and popped on the lights just as he faded from my sight.

I ran to my car but it was a lost cause. Eve’s porch light came on.

She stepped out onto the veranda, dressed in a robe, and hugged herself as I walked back to her. She gave me a perplexed grin. “I’ve had guys try to skip out before breakfast, but you even left your shoes-” Then she caught my expression. “What is it? What was it?”

“Someone was staring through the bedroom window at us.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t get a good look.”

She was nervous but tried to play it off. “Well, we were certainly worth watching, especially during the second go-around, but-”

I put my arms around her. “It’s okay, Eve.”

“No, it’s not. I’m actually spooked. Come inside.”

We walked back into the bedroom. I reached over the windowsill and pulled the busted screen back up. I’d wrecked it good. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, who cares about that. Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

She stared over my shoulder at the dark front yard. “What did you see?”

“Just a shadow.”

At the door was a knock. “Mom?”

“It’s all right, Rox.”

“What’s all the noise?”

“Nothing, dear.”

Roxie huffed in agitation. “You’re sure?”

“Go talk to her,” I told Eve.

She left the bedroom and spoke with Roxie for a few minutes, then returned. I asked, “You have any jealous boyfriends that might be hanging about?”

“None.”

“Your daughter have any dirty-minded beaux? I heard her arguing on the phone.”

“She’s twenty and it’s her first serious boyfriend. They’re discovering all the joys and pains. Perhaps it was one of your fellow unsavory types?”

Leg-breaking I could understand. But not window-peeking.

Someone had simply been watching Eve and me sleeping.

“I don’t know,” I said, my pulse driving harder through my throat, my scars burning as I thought about my father creeping houses again, standing at the bottom of Kimmy’s bed, watching her, movi/p›рng silently to Scooter’s room, looking down at the baby sleeping in her crib.

I got dressed. Eve offered me an early breakfast but I declined. I held her for a while and we kissed deeply, but I think we both knew this was a one-night venture. We didn’t promise any further rendezvous.

“Take care of yourself,” she told me.

“I’m not the one cracking beers with Manson,” I said. She laughed and I pressed my lips to her forehead and cut out.

I caught a few hours’ sleep at home. I woke up late, almost nine A.M. I showered and came downstairs feeling refreshed but a little out of sorts. A lot had happened yesterday and I hadn’t had any time to sort through it.

My mother was cleaning dishes. All she seemed to do was cook and clean dishes and stuff Old Shep with cereal. She was making a big breakfast for the family but no one was around. She said, “Sit. In ten minutes I’ll have pancakes and scrambled eggs. But no bacon, we’re out of bacon.”

“Don’t bother with it, Ma.”

“It’s no bother.”

“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.

“Of course I have. All I do is eat.”

My mother, beautiful as she was, looked tired and too thin to me. The morning light caught in her auburn hair, the red highlights blazing. She gave a soft smile. She was worried about me. She had always worried about me, but now I was back under her roof, within reach. She would share my burden willingly.

“Ma, coffee is good. Leave the-”

“You talk like I need to get to the office, Terrier. As if I have to check my daily organizer first to see if I can fit in making a meal for my son. Sit, drink some milk, eat.” She enjoyed waiting on her children. I knew that every time she turned around and looked at the kitchen table, she’d see Collie in his usual place opposite me.