Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

Corrie cleared her throat. “Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“We can talk about it right now. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Corrie wondered where to start. No matter how she put it, it was going to sound strange.

“I’m working for the FBI agent who’s investigating the killings.”

“So I heard.”

“So you already know about it.”

There was a snort. “How much is he paying you?”

“That’s not your business, Mom.”

“Really? Not my business? You think you can just live here for free, eat here for free, come and go as you please? Is that what you think?”

“Most kids live with their parents for free.”

“Not when they have a good paying job. They contribute. ”

Corrie sighed. “I’ll leave some money on the kitchen table.” How much did it cost to buy Cap’n Crunch? She couldn’t even remember the last time her mother had gone shopping or cooked dinner, except to bring home snacks from the bowling alley where she was a cocktail waitress during the week. Snacks and those miniature bottles of vodka. That’s where the money went, all those vodka minis.

“I’m still waiting for an answer to my question, young lady. What’s he paying you? It can’t be much.”

“I said, it’s none of your business.”

“You don’t have any skills, what can you possibly be worth? You can’t type, you don’t know how to write a business letter—I can’t imagine why he’d hire you, frankly.”

Corrie replied hotly, “ He thinks I’m worth it. And for your information he’s paying me seven fifty a week.” Even as she said it, she knew she was making a big mistake.

There was a short silence.

“Did you say seven hundred and fifty dollars a week? ”

“That’s right.”

“And just what are you doing to earn that money?”

“Nothing.” God, why did she let her mother goad her into the admission?

“Nothing? Nothing? ”

“I’m his assistant. I take notes. I drive him around.”

“What do you know about being an assistant? Who is this man? How old is he? You drive him around? In your car? For seven hundred and fifty dollars a week? ”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a contract? ”

“Well, no.”

“No contract? Don’t you know anything? Corrie, why do you think he’s paying you seven fifty? Or do you already know why—is that what it’s come to? No wonder you’ve been lying to me, hiding from me this little job of yours. I can just imagine what kind of job you do for him, young lady.”

Corrie held her hands over her ears. If only she could get out, get into her car, get away. Anywhere. She could sleep in the car down by the creek. But she was scared. It was night. The killer was out there, somewhere, in the corn. “Mom, it’s not like that, okay?”

“Not okay. Not okay. You’re just a high school kid, you aren’t worth anything, let alone seven fifty. Corrie, I’ve been around the block a few times. I know what’s what. I know about men, I know what they want, how they think. I know what jerks they can be. Look at your father, look how he ran out on me, on us. Never paying a dime in child support. He was worthless, worse than worthless. And I can tell you right now that this man of yours is no FBI agent. What FBI agent would hire a delinquent with a record? Don’t you lie to me, Corrie. ”

“I’m not lying to you.” If only she could get away, just this night. But tonight the whole town was as quiet as a tomb. Fallout from the riot at the church. Just driving home had really spooked her. Every house had been locked up and shuttered tight. And it was barely nine o’clock.

“If this is on the up and up, bring him here to me, then. I want to meet him.”

“I’d die before I ever let him see this dump!” Corrie shouted, suddenly white-hot with rage. “Or you! ”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, young lady!”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Don’t you walk away while I’m talking to you—”

Corrie went into her room and slammed the door. She quickly put on some earphones and shoved a CD into her player, hoping that Kryptopsy would drown out the angry voice she could still hear yelling through the wall. The chances were good her mother wouldn’t get out of bed. Standing up brought on a headache. She’d eventually get tired of yelling and, if Corrie were lucky, wouldn’t even remember the conversation in the morning. But then again, maybe she would. She’d seemed alarmingly sober.

By the time the mangled thrashing of the last song had ended, all seemed to be quiet. She eased off the earphones and went to the window to breathe the night air. Crickets trilled in the darkness. The smell of night, of the corn just beyond the trailer park, of sticky heat, all flowed into the room. It was very dark outside; the streetlights on their lane had burned out long ago and had never been replaced. She stared out into the darkness for a while, wiping silent tears out of her eyes, and then lay down on her bed, in her clothes, and started the CD again from the beginning. Look at your father, her mom had said. He was worthless. As always, Corrie tried not to think about him. Thinking about her father only hurt more, because despite everything her mother said she only had good memories of him. Why had he left the way he did? Why had he never written her, not once, to explain? Maybe she really was worthless, useless, undeserving of love, as her mother had taken pains to point out many times.

She turned up the volume, trying to drive the train of thought from her mind. One more year. Just one more year. Lying on her bed in a dying town in the middle of nowhere, another year seemed like an eternity. But surely anyone could get through a year. Even her . . .

She woke up in blackness. The crickets had stopped trilling and it was now completely silent. She sat up, plucking off the dead headphones. Something had woken her. What was it? A dream? But she could remember no dream. She waited, listening.

Nothing.

She got up and went to the window. A sliver of a moon drifted from behind some clouds, then disappeared again. Heat lightning danced along the horizon, little flickers of dull yellow. Her heart was racing, her nerves strung tight. Why? Maybe it was the creepy music she’d fallen asleep to.

She moved closer to the open window. The night air, laden with the fragrance of the fields, came drifting in, humid and sticky. It was unrelievedly dark. Beyond the black outline of the trailer next door she could see the distant darkness of the cornfields, a single glowing star.

She heard a sound. A snuffle.

Was it her mother? But it seemed to have come from outside: out there, in the darkness.

Another snuffle, like someone with a bad cold.

She peered hard into the darkness, into the deep pools of shadow that lay alongside the trailer. The street beyond was like a dark river. She strained to see, every sense alert. There, by the hedge that lined the street: was there something moving? A shape? Was it just her imagination?

She placed her hand on the window and tried to draw it shut, but as usual it was stuck fast. She jiggled it, trying to free the mechanism with a feeling of rising panic.

She heard more snuffling, like the heavy panting of a large animal. It seemed very close now. But the act of listening caused her to pause for just an instant; then in a sudden panic she redoubled her struggle to get the window shut, rattling it in desperation, trying to free the cheap aluminum latch. Something was moving out there. She could feel it, she could sense it—and now, yes now, she was sure she could see it: a lumpen, malformed shadow, a mass, black against black, moving ever so stealthily toward her.