Andrew Pyper - The Guardians

"It sounded a lot like Ben to me."

"Wel, if you happen to see it . . ."

"So you can keep up your observations," she says with an unreadable smile.

"I wasn't making observations."

"No? That's what Ben told me he was doing."

Mrs. McAuliffe starts back into the kitchen, but I stop her by speaking a name.

"Roy DeLisle."

"Is that a question?"

"I suppose he is a question."

"The boy who ran away. Is that who you mean? Years and years ago. The way he disappeared after that terrible business with the orphan girl."

"Elizabeth Worth."

"My goodness. You know al the names."

"Ben passed along a little local history to me."

Betty rubs her hands together, as though lathering soap. "He went to the library sometimes. 'Research' is al he'd say when I asked what he was reading up on. I shouldn't be surprised it was that awful story."

"I guess that's why everyone cals the house across the street haunted."

"They do?" she asks, and though at first I take her disbelief as a joke, a lie so unbelievable it was never meant to be swalowed, her face tels me nothing either way.

"I grew up here," I go on eventualy. "We al did. But I never heard anything about it."

"Why would you have? Those were things that happened half a lifetime before you were born."

"Stil, you'd think someone would mention it. I mean, she was raped. She was murdered."

"That could only have come from your parents. And you were our children. It's our job to prevent you from hearing things like that for as long we're able."

"Until it just goes away."

"If you're lucky," she says, and shrugs. "Smal towns are good at forgetting. They have to be."

I consider walking over to Sarah's place and asking if I can stay. Not just for the night or two she has already offered, but for as long as she'l let me. I'l do the cooking and cleaning. And as much of the nighttime fooling around as she and the Big P alow.

But having Sarah say no to such a proposal might push me over the edge into ful-blown Benhood, and this worries me more than the idea of Roy DeLisle taking my hand as I walk.

"Trev! Over here!"

It's Randy, waving at me from the Queen's dining-room table he shares with Carl. Because they are who I've walked to, not Sarah. By the time I sink into the chair next to Carl, the waitress arrives to take their order.

"You hungry?" Carl asks me.

"I'l have what you're having."

"Steak and eggs?"

"Perfect."

"Hey, man, it's your credit card."

After my coffee cup is filed, I tel them about my discovery in Ben's room. The whole Roy DeLisle file. And how old Paul Schantz was the man looking after him when the bad things happened. I don't include any of my own thoughts about the commonalities between Elizabeth Worth and Heather Langham, Roy and the coach, how they al have been rooted to the Thurman house. They are thoughts I can read passing over their faces as I speak.

"He's got a name," Randy says when our food arrives. "Roy. I wish I didn't know that."

"It's like a lousy song that gets stuck in your head," I say.

"Worse," Carl says. "There's no music in it."

You've nailed it, Carl , the silence that folows seems to say . Whatever he is, the hoy is the opposite of music .

"There was this too," I say, puling out my walet and letting Heather's locket spil onto the table.

Carl and Randy stare at it. Less shocked than stiled by the anticipation of some further action to folow, as if the chain might rise up and snake around one of our throats, squeezing out our next breath.

"That's Heather's," Randy says.

"Ben had it."

"How'd he get it?" Carl asks.

"No idea."

"Wait. Just wait a second," Carl says. "When we piled the dirt on her she was wearing that thing."

"I know it."

"So somebody had to have gone down there to get it before the cops found her. Gone down there to dig her up."

"I don't see any other way."

"Who would fucking do that?"

"I can answer that," Randy says. "One of us. We were the only ones who knew where she was."

"And the coach," I say.

"But he was tied up," Randy says. "And he didn't know where we put her."

"Unless One of us told him," I say. "Unless he talked one of us into letting him go long enough to do it."

"You mean unless the boy talked one of us into it," Randy says.

Carl lurches back in his chair and straightens his back, the gesture of a man fighting a sudden attack of heartburn. "What are we saying here?"

"More went on in that celar than we thought," Randy says. "Which is saying something."

"Here's my question," I say. "Why didn't Ben ask which one of us did it?"

"Maybe he knew and kept it secret," Randy says. "Or maybe he didn't want to know."

"Or maybe he was the one who did the digging," Carl says.

Another silence. After a moment, I pick the locket up and return it to my walet. We sip our coffee. Do a lousy job of pretending the last two minutes hadn't just happened.

Once the waitress has come and gone, filing our cups, I tel them about seeing Gary Pulinger standing outside the house this morning.

"Sounds like they have their man," Randy says.

"He's under arrest?"

"Not yet. But they've had him in and out of the cop shop, putting the screws to him."

"If he's stil walking around, it shows they don't have enough," Carl says, draining his coffee.

"What would they need?"

"A body."

Once more, our thoughts steal our voices away.

"I caled the police," I say after a while. "Left a message with Barry Tate. He's on the force here now."

"Hairy Barry?" Carl says.

"The very same."

"You sure that was a good idea?"

"It didn't feel like I had a choice."

"There's always a choice."

"I just want to pass along what I know."

"And what's that?"

"That Tracey's boyfriend stopped to look at the house where I thought I saw suspicious activity."

"Suspicious activity? C'mon, Trev," Randy says. "They already looked in there."

"Okay. So what should I do?"

"You should do what we're going to do," Carl says. "Get the fuck out of Dodge."

"There's a train at a quarter after five," Randy says. "You ought to come with us."

Carl places his hand on my arm. I can't tel if it's meant as reassurance or to stop it from shaking. "There's nothing here, Trev. There never realy was."

"You think I like it here? Everything is teling me to go, just the same as it's teling you. But there's something else that knows we're meant to stay."

"Why? Why are we 'meant to stay'?" Randy asks.

"Ben was the guardian of this town, whether the town knew it or not. We owe it to him."

"Oh Christ."

"Think about it. He kept an eye on that house for twenty years. And then, after he can't handle it anymore, Todd's daughter goes missing."

"You need to see someone. Seriously."

"If we walk away, we're putting some other Tracey or Heather or Elizabeth at risk sometime down the line. We've already got a lot we're trying to live with. You want more?"

Randy rubs the freckles at his temples as though at the onset of sudden headache. "Okay, you crazy, shaky arsehole," he says. "I'l stay until tomorrow."

"You believe this?" Carl asks.

"I don't have to believe it. I'm staying because Trev asked us to."

I'm prevented from walking around the table and putting my arms around Randy by my cel phone, which comes alive in my jacket pocket, screaming its Beastie Boys ringtone. By the time my hand reaches in and grabs it, it's already switched over to my voice mail. I check the caler ID.

"It was Barry Tate."

"What are you going to do?" Carl asks.

"Cal him back."