Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Bonnie dropped her phone in shock but Rosa caught it before it could land in the wet grass. “Who is he and how did he get my number?” Bonnie whispered.
“If he knew your name he could find your number,” Rosa said.
“And if he had an image of your face from that camera, he could find your name with an image search,” Diane added.
Christine rolled her eyes. “The wonders of the internet.”
Rosa read the last text aloud. “‘Leave it in T’s mailbox. Don’t fuck with me, because…’” Rosa stopped reading and started cussing in Spanish.
Bonnie snatched her phone back and read the rest. “‘Because I know where you live.’ Ohmygod!”
Rosa took the phone again and texted so rapidly her thumbs were a blur. Fortunately she narrated in accented robot staccato. “If. Jou. Come. Near. My. Motherfucking. House. It. Will. Be. Jour. Last. Trip. Motherfucker.”
“God, Rosa!” Diane swept the phone out of Rosa’s hand and narrated her own message, her style more natural with long pauses here and there to let her fingers catch up. “I’ll leave it…somewhere…else. Will text…location…later. Send.” Whoosh.
The phone lit up fast, and Diane read the screen. “‘Don’t take too long.’” Then she looked up blinking. “Okay. Great. We’ll pick a trash can in a park or something public like that and leave it there. All good.”
“It’s not all good!” Bonnie said. “Because I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t take anything from Mr. Terrence’s. Who the heck is this person?”
“I was afraid of this,” Christine said. And they all looked at her, Bonnie holding her breath.
“Look, that camera didn’t shut itself off.
Somebody, another pervert, had to be watching from somewhere else.
A live-stream. This guy was watching while they waited for a little teenager to show up. This has to be him.”
“God, he saw everything,” Bonnie whispered. “He has the same footage we deleted from the computer.”
“He might’ve recorded it, too,” Christine added, and Diane elbowed her for making matters worse. Christine kept going, though. She was on a roll. “He thinks he saw you take something, Bonnie. Think. What might it be?”
Bonnie closed her eyes and soon grimaced as every moment of the memory played through her mind. The way Mr. Terrence’s head had given when she’d hit it, and the force with which he’d slammed the un-caved-in side against his four-inch-thick stone mantel. She hugged herself and shuddered.
“Here, give me the phone, I’ll reply to Sam, babe.” Rosa took her phone, tapped out a note. “You can’t wait to see them, you’re out with the girls, and you’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Bonnie nodded, but she was still seeing Mr. Terrence, falling to the floor, lying so still, some of the steak and mushroom pieces in his hair.
“I knelt down to check his pulse,” she said as the memories flashed into her mind, still-shots of her darkest moments.
There had been a butt-ugly area rug on Mr. Terrence’s floor, black with white splotches on it that were supposed to look like spilled paint or something. And her phone lying on it, like—
“Wait! My phone. It flew out of my bag when I hit him. It was on the floor, and I picked it up. Maybe he thought I was taking something, but I was just picking up my phone.”
Diane sighed heavily. “Well, that complicates things.”
“Listen, we have to go back there,” Rosa said.
“We’ve gotta go through the computer and find out who his co-perv is, so we know what we’re up against. This guy could send Bonnie to prison.
We can’t wait around for him to make the next move.
If he has a recording, we need to get it from him.
If he only watched and didn’t record, we still have to find a way to placate him—to keep him quiet. ”
Bonnie trusted Rosa’s opinion, but she still glanced at the other two for confirmation, because she didn’t want to go back there.
“Rosa’s right,” Diane agreed. “We have to go back. Maybe we can find something to give this guy that’ll shut him up. A black book or a thumb drive or something.”
Bonnie looked at Christine, her eyes saying please, please, please disagree.
“Sorry, babe. I think they’re right.”
“What if he’s already been reported missing?” Bonnie asked. “And what about your pen, Diane? We have to get your pen. And Sam and Marina and the twins are coming to my house, for God’s sake.”
“All the more reason to do everything right,” Diane said. “But the groundskeeper left with the pen and we don’t know his name yet.”
“Jimbo,” Christine said. They all looked at her in puzzled amazement. “What? It was on his name tag.”
“Why were you looking at his name tag, Christine?” Rosa asked.
“Because he was hot, in a grizzled kind of way, and I’m horny, Rosa.”
“Christine!” Bonnie said, looking around as if to ensure no distant bystander had heard the crude remark and simultaneously realizing how dumb that was, given the reason they were there. She smiled and shook her head at her raunchy friend.
“I was just looking. I wasn’t planning to do anything about it. A girl can look.”
They started walking together back toward the parking lot.
Bonnie shook herself and tried to focus. “What if Mr. Terrence has already been reported missing and the police are watching the place?”
Rosa said, “If the police are watching the place, then when we drive by, we’ll see the police watching the place. Don’t you think?”
“I…guess so,” Bonnie said. They all got into Diane’s new ride, and she started it up and pulled slowly into motion.
“Listen, let’s go home then, and reconvene after dark,” Diane said.
“We can’t go back there in the daytime anyway.
Besides, we all need to do some intensive self-care today.
But before we leave, though, let’s agree that we’ll never tell anyone about this.
Not even the person closest to us. I for sure won’t tell Harry.
I don’t want to make him an accomplice, if we’re caught. ”
“I certainly won’t be sharing this with Jeff,” Christine said, “although I kind of like the idea of making him an accomplice if we’re caught.” She winked when she said it.
Bonnie knew Jeff could get wrapped up in his work, but Christine adored him. She just didn’t like to admit it.
Rosa nodded in solidarity. “I won’t tell my Jenna. Though I hate to think what she’s gonna feel someday when she finds out all the shit I kept from her.”
The others looked at her, their eyes probing, and Rosa averted hers. Bonnie took pity and interrupted their speculation. “My son’s law enforcement,” Bonnie said, “so I’m definitely not telling him.”
“Bonnie, I’m worried about you going home,” Christine said. “He says he knows where you live.”
“I agree,” Diane said.
Christine waved like she was granting a wish. “You can all come back to the lake house.”
“I need to relieve Jenna at the bookstore,” Rosa said. “I’m already later than I promised.”
“I should go home too. I’ve been neglecting Harry even more than he’s been neglecting me, lately,” Diane said.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” Rosa demanded. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Not trouble…exactly.” Diane’s cheeks turned pink. “I feel like he’s avoiding me in…the, uh…bedroom.”
“Harry?” Christine asked. “Well, I wonder what the hell that’s about?” She tapped her chin, her fingernails falling one after the other like synchronized swimmers diving into a pool.
“Do you think he’s…having an affair?” Diane asked.
“Pssh, that’s not it.” Christine replied so quickly there wasn’t room for a breath in between the question and the answer. “But what on earth could it be?”
“Wait,” Diane said. “What makes you so sure of that? Jeff did it to you once.”
“Yes, he did,” Christine admitted. “And I wanted to kill him and might have if not for my BFFs.” She gave a rare, sincere smile, then went narrow-eyed on Diane.
“Jon, the first and best husband, never cheated, rest his soul and curse his cholesterol. But Jeff’s not Jon, and Harry’s… well, he’s Harry.”
“She’s right,” Bonnie said. “Harry would never.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Rosa agreed. Then she tilted her head to one side, and moved her eyes all the way left, then all the way right, as if searching inwardly. Then, bringing it upright again, snapped her finger. “Maybe he’s having a…problem?”
Christine went, “Ohhhhh.”
“What kind of problem?” Diane asked, looking from one to the next.
Bonnie shrugged, looking lost. Then Christine held up a forefinger, bent it forward and made the word droop into a sound effect.
Diane widened her eyes. “Ohmygosh…that might be it. Oh, I’m so relieved.”
Christine dug around in her purse and pulled out three individually-wrapped blue tablets. She handed them to Diane. “Info’s on the packets. You might want to check with his doctor first.”
“You just carry Viagra in your handbag?” Diane asked.
“Well, you never know when you might need it.” She said it so innocently, they all burst out laughing.
Diane pushed her hands upwards through her ear-length gray and blond bob. “What would I do without you girls?”
“Spend less time in graveyards?” Christine asked. Then she slung an arm around Bonnie. “Come on kid, you’re mine for the rest of the day.”
Bonnie was beginning to feel like the needy one—every group had one, right? Christine drove her away from the cemetery toward 13. Only a mile later, they passed the Interstate Diner, a truck stop pretending not to be, and she spotted a familiar vehicle. “Isn’t that the groundskeeper’s truck?”
“You know it looks like it might be,” Christine said. “Let’s find out. It’ll save me a trip back to that cemetery to stalk him.” She flipped on the signal and pulled into the parking lot on the far side, following the signs for “CARS” as opposed to those for “RIGS.”
“I don’t know if we should,” Bonnie began.
“Should what? I happen to be in the mood for a cup of coffee. Aren’t you?”