Chapter Three #2
“Sure, sure,” he says, but it’s not a commitment. It’s stalling. “So, tell me what this crazy dream you had was. What made you go up on the roof?”
I snort. “A cat stole my tongue and I wanted to get it back.”
He laughs. “Your brain is a dark place. Next time, just let the tongue go, kid.”
I hate being called a kid, but I don’t want to argue.
We say good-bye and I plug my phone into its charger and plug that into the wall. I email my completed assignments.
I’ve started opening random folders on Philip’s computer when Maura comes to the door.
There are lots of pictures of naked girls lying on their backs, pulling off long velvet gloves.
Girls touching bare breasts with shockingly bare hands.
I close the obviously misfiled etching of a guy in crazy-looking pantaloons wearing a giant diamond pendant.
As scandalous stuff goes, it’s all pretty tame.
“Here.” She holds out a cup of what smells like mint tea. Her eyes don’t quite focus on mine, and two pills rest in her palm. “Philip said to give you these.”
“What are they?”
“They’ll help you rest.”
I take the pills and swig the tea.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asks. “He’s so odd when you’re here.”
“Nothing,” I say, because I like Maura. I don’t want to tell her that Philip probably doesn’t want me alone in the house with her or his son because of Lila. Philip saw my face, saw the blood, got rid of the body. If I was him, I wouldn’t want me here either.
* * *
I wake in the middle of the night with a raging need to piss. My head feels fuzzy, and at first I barely notice the voices downstairs as I stagger down the carpeted hall. I pee, then reach to flush. I stop with my hand on the lever.
“What are you doing here?” Philip is asking.
“Came up as soon as I heard.” Grandad’s voice is unmistakable.
He lives in a little town called Carney, in the Pine Barrens, and he’s picked up the trace of an accent there—or he’s let some vestige of an old accent creep back in.
Carney is like a graveyard where everyone already owns their plots and has built houses on top of them.
Practically no one in town isn’t a worker, and very few of the workers there are younger than sixty; it’s where they go to die.
“We’re taking good care of him.” For a moment I’m thrown, trying to figure out if I’m hearing right.
Barron’s downstairs. I can’t figure why he didn’t tell me he was coming.
Mom used to say that he and Philip hid things because I was the youngest, but I knew it was because they were workers and I wasn’t.
Even Grandad wasn’t coming upstairs to add me to their little conference.
I might be a member of the family, but I am always going to be an outsider.
Murdering someone didn’t help, although, from a certain perspective, you’d think it might have. At least it proved I was capable of being a criminal.
“Kid needs someone to keep an eye on him,” Grandad says. “Something to keep his hands busy.”
“He needs a rest,” Barron says. “Besides, we don’t even know what happened. What if someone was after him? What if Zacharov found out what happened to Lila? He’s still looking for his daughter.”
The thought makes my blood turn to ice.
Someone snorts. I figure it is Philip, but then Grandad says, “And he’s supposed to be safe with you two clowns?”
“Yeah,” Philip says. “We’ve kept him safe this long.”
I draw near to the stairs, squatting down on the balcony over the living room. They must be in the kitchen, since I can hear them very clearly. I’m ready to go down there and tell them just how clearly I can hear them. I’m going to force them to involve me.
“Maybe you don’t have time to worry about your brother, considering how much you should be worrying about that wife of yours. Think I can’t tell? And you shouldn’t be working her.”
That stops me, foot on the first carpeted step. Working her?
“Leave Maura out of this,” Philip says. “You never liked her.”
“Fine,” Grandad says. “None of my concern how you run your house. You’ll see soon enough. I just think you’ve got your hands full.”
“He doesn’t want to go with you,” Philip says. I’m surprised—either Philip really hates Grandad telling him what to do or Barron convinced him to let me stay after all.
“What if Cassel was up on that roof ’cause he wanted to jump? Think of what he’s been through,” Grandad says.
“He’s not like that,” says Barron. “He’s kept his nose clean at that school. Kid needs a rest, is all.”
The door of the master bedroom opens and Maura steps out into the hall. Her flannel nightgown rides up on one hip. I can see the corner of her underwear.
She blinks but doesn’t seem surprised to see me on the balcony. “I thought I heard voices. Is someone here?”
I shrug, my heart beating hard. It takes me a moment to realize I haven’t been caught doing much of anything. “I heard voices too.”
She looks too thin. Her collarbones seem like knives threatening to slice through her skin. “The music’s so loud tonight. I’m afraid I won’t be able to hear the baby.”
“Don’t worry,” I say softly. “He must be sleeping like—well, like a baby.” I smile, even though I know the joke’s lame. She makes me nervous. She looks like a stranger in the dark.