Laura McHugh - The Weight of Blood

“Yeah,” I said. “Bess and I didn’t even place.”

“I know you didn’t,” Birdie said. “You and Bess should’ve taken lessons from Holly. I always did feel sorry for her, though, having Becky for a mother.”

“Bess said Holly’s gone to live with her grandparents. So maybe things’ll work out better for her there.”

Birdie fixed her gaze on me. “That girl don’t have any grandparents. Becky never knew who the dad was, and her own folks passed a long while back. Your dad buried ’em.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s some other relatives, then.”

“I thought her other family lived in town.”

“No clue,” I said.

Birdie clicked her tongue, ruminating. “Well, I guess she couldn’t do worse than Becky.”

I wondered if it was a relief to Becky, doing whatever she wanted now that Holly was gone… somewhere. It was easy for girls like Cheri or Holly to slip away, to vanish, without anyone asking questions. No one was looking out for them. No one would guess that they might be locked away in a trailer. Or a basement. The noise I heard at Crete’s—could it have been Holly pounding on the door with those spindly arms that I still pictured clutching a rabbit cage?

It sounded crazy, and I was probably wrong, but I knew in my heart that it was possible. I couldn’t keep on doing nothing if there was even the slightest chance that Crete had someone in his basement. If Holly or some other girl were in there, I had to help her. It couldn’t wait. She could end up like Cheri if I waited. I needed to call Ray and have him contact the state police. They were more likely to listen to such a bizarre claim coming from him.

“If a big storm’s coming,” I said, “I should get over to the house and make sure all the windows are closed.” I didn’t want to explain everything to Ray on the phone with Birdie listening in. It had been hard enough the first time, with Daniel.

“Good idea,” Birdie said. “I’ll drive you.”

“The sun’s still shining, worrywart. I’ll run home and check on things, and as long as the weather stays clear, I’d like to get some work done in the garden. I bet it’s already full of weeds. If you want, I’ll bring back some zucchini and tomatoes, and we can do some canning later. “

Birdie glanced at the horizon. “Keep your eye on the weather. I expect you back before a drop hits the ground.”

I set off at a jog, taking nothing with me. The humidity sapped my strength, mimicked dreams where I ran in slow motion, the landscape barely moving no matter how hard I pushed myself. What I was about to do could tear my family apart. I wasn’t prepared for that. But I knew it had to be done.

Finally, I reached the house. It looked more abandoned than usual, as though the moment we left, paint had sloughed off, dry rot spread, shingles peeled and dropped. Queen Anne’s lace had reclaimed the yard, the frilly heads bobbing in the breeze. I walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone to dial Ray. His secretary answered, and I discovered why he hadn’t called me back. He’d blown out his knee playing golf in Branson and was staying at his lake house there while he recovered from surgery. “ I’ll give you the number ,” she said after I swore it was an emergency. “ But I guarantee he’s out on the boat.” She was right, apparently, because no one answered.

I hunched over the phone, trying to decide whether to call Bess or my dad or Deputy Swicegood, who played poker with Crete once a month. Lucy. A voice wavered in the stillness of the empty house. I didn’t know whether I’d heard it or if it was only in my head. I turned around, and a shape materialized in the shadows. It was Jamie Petree. Fear tingled across my chest and down my spine as my body prepared to fight or flee. I hadn’t seen Jamie since the day at the river when he’d kissed me, but I recalled the crush of his body against mine, the vise of his arms, with clarity.

“I don’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I been waiting to get you alone.”

Not the best choice of words if he didn’t want to scare me.

“I almost had you yesterday, at Birdie’s. In the woods.”

“You’ve been watching me?” I judged the distance between us, weighed it against the number of steps to the gun rack in the hall. Jamie eased closer, and I saw a flash of brushed metal peeking out from the waistband of his jeans. A handgun, the kind I’d seen only on TV.

“We need to go now,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” My voice sounded wispy, unconvincing.

Jamie held up his arms like he was surrendering. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun, and he realized that I had noticed it. Slowly, he lowered one hand and slid the weapon from his waistband, repositioning it at his back, out of sight, as if that would ease my fears.

“Just listen, okay?” I couldn’t do much else; my feet were not convinced that I should run. “I have a business meeting I thought you’d be interested in. You remember the guy I told you about? Well, he decided he wants some of my inventory. And he don’t want to pay for it. So he offered up a trade, a pretty little girl with long white hair, all mine for one evening only. Because she’s such a prized pussy, she’ll soon be moving to larger markets. His words.” He watched for my reaction. Holly had to be that white-haired girl: at fourteen, barely more than a child. “The meeting,” Jamie continued, “is at your uncle’s house.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “What do you care about helping that girl?”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping and rising in slow motion. “It’s not her,” he mumbled. “It’s you .”

“You want to help me ?”

He looked away uncomfortably. “You ever have the same dream over and over? Like it won’t leave you be? Like it’s trying to tell you something?”

I watched him expectantly, waiting for more.

“Forget it,” he said. “Just returning a favor, I guess.”

Jamie didn’t owe me anything. Our exchange on the riverbank, when we kissed, had been an even one. There was a possibility that he was lying to me, luring me into any number of undesirable situations, but when he met my gaze, I saw something there and knew he was telling the truth.

“Let’s go,” he said, and I followed him out the door.

Jamie had left his souped-up Charger just out of sight, around a bend in the road. Save the vinyl upholstery on the seats, the interior of the car was stripped to a bare metal skeleton. The engine roared so lustily that my internal organs buzzed with its vibration, and together Jamie and I sped toward Crete’s house beneath rapidly darkening clouds.

I hollered to be heard over the engine. “What do we do when we get there?”

“You don’t do anything but stay out of sight. If he leaves me alone with the girl, we throw her in the car and haul ass.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

He glanced at me, his hair swirling in his face. “You’re smart,” he said. “I figured you’d think of something.”

Honeysuckle bushes crowded the narrow road as we neared the turnoff to Crete’s. He would be heading home from Dane’s soon, if he were on his normal schedule. My nerves jangled, but Jamie maintained the drowsy expression he always wore, like he wasn’t the least bit scared by what we were about to do.

“You should get down,” he said. “Stay hid unless I need you.”

I crouched on the floorboards, wondering how I’d know if he needed me and what I would do if he did. I had nothing prepared, no magic spells, no plans. Jamie parked the car and unloaded something from the trunk. Emory greeted him—I recognized the voice from the time he’d yelled at me and Daniel by Mrs. Stoddard’s trailer—and Jamie, not much for social graces, moved right into negotiations.