James Andrus: The Perfect Scream

“And the prettiest smile to go with those beautiful eyes.”

This guy was smooth. Sometimes when they looked as good as him they didn’t worry about their flirting A-game. He was the exception.

He gazed at her for a few seconds too long. It started to feel awkward when he said, “You look awfully familiar. What’s your name?”

“Lynn.”

He straightened up so she could see exactly how tall he was and had his shoulders back so she would notice his broad, muscular chest. He understood the instinctual cues women looked at in men. Like the Discovery Channel shows that talked about the basics of finding a mate and how both men and women subconsciously evaluate each other about traits they would like to pass on to their children. DNA had a much stronger role in our lives than anyone realized. Lynn figured it was DNA that was pushing her to do what she had been doing.

She looked up into the young man’s eyes and said, “What’s your name?”

He smiled and said, “Connor Tate.”

John Stallings sat in the living room of his former house, in his traditional spot on their long, leather couch. He’d already spent more than an hour kicking the soccer ball back and forth with his seven-year-old son, Charlie. He spent an additional thirty to fifty seconds conversing with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Lauren. Now both the kids were upstairs. He wondered why Lauren wasn’t going out on Friday night. On the other hand, neither was he.

He sat in awkward silence with his wife, Maria. More and more of his friends at work referred to her as his “ex-wife,” but, in fact, they were merely separated. He still held out hope they could patch up their nineteen-year marriage. He had done much of what she asked about putting family first and not working long hours at the sheriff’s office. The only problem was he had not been working as many hours because there had not been nearly as many cases. It was just a slow time, like all police units experience. It seemed like it was either feast or famine. He didn’t mind the lack of missing persons or the apparent absence of homicidal morons, but he had not found the satisfaction he’d been hoping for in his marriage either.

Now he sat, agonizing about showing Maria the photograph he had found of Jeanie with Zach Halston. On one hand he’d like to get her to verify this was a photograph of their missing daughter. On the other hand, with no information to support his discovery, the photograph would do nothing but rip open old wounds. So he just stared across the couch at her beautiful face. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, raised in Miami, she still had the exotic and fresh face of a twenty-year-old.

Maria said, “I’m glad you had so much fun with Charlie this evening.”

“What else am I gonna do on a Friday night?”

“You could come with me to one of Brother Ellis’s services.”

Stallings had been to one of the long Baptist services. It was a small price to pay to be around Maria for a couple of hours. But he considered himself a Catholic and thought she did too until she had fallen under the spell of the dynamic evangelical preacher. So far, the kids had not warmed up to their mother’s newfound fervor for religion sparked by the revivalist named Frank Ellis.

Maria said, “Brother Ellis is the one that says we must all forgive. It’s a message worth hearing. I talk to him a lot about my problems.”

“I’m just not one for the Holy Rollers.”

“Don’t try to denigrate what he does. He had fifty thousand people watch at the football stadium and he fills the giant church out near Blanding Boulevard every Sunday. Tonight is just a fellowship.”

Stallings raised his hands in surrender, having no interest in starting a fight. But her dark look told him this was not the time to show her the photograph of Jeanie.

“Sure, I’ll go.”

Connor Tate played it cool as he drove slowly so the chick he’d met at the Wildside bar could keep up with him in his slick new Chevy Camaro. The throwback car was shit on mileage and slightly uncomfortable, but it looked really, really good. He was glad this girl had her own car so he wouldn’t have to worry about giving her a ride home or calling a cab later. She’d claimed they didn’t know each other and had never met, but this girl, Lynn, seemed awfully familiar to him. Even though he was trying to concentrate on the road with a blood alcohol content that had to be at least twice the legal limit, Connor was still pulling up bits and pieces about this girl from his memory. He just couldn’t place exactly where he knew her from or who she was.

He was hoping none of the brothers were hanging around outside the clubhouse so he and Lynn could slip quietly into his apartment. The nice thing about not having Zach around was the privacy. This spunky chick was a prize and he wasn’t interested in sharing just yet.

The fraternity had a game all of the brothers participated called Score a Skank, or SAS for short. It was an elaborate point system for scoring with women. The most points were awarded for simply bringing a chick home and banging her. There were a number of ways to verify this, but the most common was a cell phone camera photo. More points were awarded in special categories like older women and really good-looking women. The extra points were on a sliding scale from one to ten, and if you got the right photo of a girl, she might be worth as much as eight extra points. There had only been one instance of a brother winning an extra ten points-when one of the guys in the house banged a drunken cheerleader from the University of Florida. In uniform. He deserved the points. And the herpes he got from her too.

Connor parked directly in front of his apartment building and was relieved to see the walkway to his apartment was clear. He paused while she pulled her spiffy Toyota into the slot next to his. She seemed even happier than he was that no one was around. In fact, she was so nervous he wondered if she wasn’t stepping out on her husband or boyfriend. That was a question better left unasked. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze as they wobbled to his apartment. They’d been drinking a lot and he felt himself swerving on the sidewalk, but for a petite chick she seemed pretty sober and helped steady him until they got inside.

The world really started to spin once he was through the front door. All he could focus on was his soft couch, where he had spent most nights stoned and watching Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. But he wanted to show this girl he wasn’t too drunk and took a second, staring into her eyes, then leaned down and gave her a deep kiss. He loved those innocent eyes and the expression on her face. It might have been fear because he was so much taller than her and she probably figured he was anatomically correct. In fact, most women were disappointed in his size once they were alone and naked. The last woman he’d banged here in the apartment had even asked him when he was gonna get completely hard. He’d had to admit it was as long as it got. He intended to make this girl happy that it was long as it was. He was going to go all out.

She didn’t respond to the kiss quite the way he thought she would, but she did help him to the couch, then let him plop down and stretch out.

The girl-her name was getting hazy, but he thought it was Lynn-said, “Where do you keep your alcohol, big boy?”

He couldn’t believe she was ready for more. Connor mumbled, “Cabinet next to the fridge.” He was wasted and needed to clear his head if he wanted to score any legitimate points for the contest. That’s why sometimes Zach was good to have around because he could surreptitiously film an encounter that might earn him extra points.