Bone Dust White (16 page)

As if he’s taking an oath, Toby holds up a hand. “Don’t worry, if I need to relieve myself I shall piss off your back porch like all the other rednecks in Collier.”

Inside the house Jared stands in his darkened entryway, waving his fingers in the air in front of the light switch. The smell is wrong. There is an artificial freshness to it. He flicks on the lights and stares.

Toby puts his chin over the top of Jared’s shoulder and looks out over the room. “What a delightful little place you have.”

Jared keeps glancing around, seeing how so many things have been cleaned, shifted, or completely removed. He’s only been away for fifteen hours.

“Someone has been here.” Jared remembers fragments of the conversation he had with Pamela. He tries to recall what exactly they agreed.

“Well, if you’ve been burgled they’ve done a neat job of it. Perhaps you could give them my number.” His laughter sounds bitter.

Turning down the hallway, Jared switches on lights as he moves through the house. Everything has been dusted, polished, and swept. Outside the bathroom, he hesitates before pushing the door open. Hayley isn’t on the floor anymore, but for a few seconds her pale face is all he sees. There is no blood. All trace of Hayley has vanished. All he can smell is bleach. He reaches for his cell phone. Pamela answers on the third ring.

Jared peeks down the hallway in time to see Toby pass into the living room. He’s carrying a beer.
So much for coffee,
Jared thinks uneasily.

“Jared,” she says in a low voice. “Everything okay?”

“Did you arrange to have my place cleaned?”

“No, why?”

“Cause someone’s cleaned the whole house.” Jared enters his bedroom. The bed is made. He pulls the quilt away. “They even changed my sheets.”

“That’s odd.” Pamela’s voice sounds like she’s speaking from the inside of a closet. Jared thinks he can hear people arguing in the background. “I really can’t talk right now.”

“Toby is here.”

“At your house?”

“Yes, in my house, on my sofa, drinking my beer.” Jared wanders into his kitchen.

“Look, just keep him company.”

“He’s drunk. And he’s acting weird. Hayley just tried to kill herself and he’s making jokes.”

He can hear Pamela sigh.

“That’s how he deals with any difficulty. You should have seen him at the hospital. The man is a wreck. If it were me in intensive care, he’d be celebrating, but this is his baby girl we’re talking about.”

“I don’t have time to deal with him right now.”

“Of course you have time,” she says mockingly. “Your house is spotless. What else do you have to do this evening?”

“That’s not helpful.”

“I’ve got to go, but we’ll talk later.”

Jared drops his phone on the counter and goes outside into the garage to see about his dogs. Their food bowls are half full. Jared raises his arms in frustration. His dogs cock their heads to the side and follow him into the house. He arrives in time to see Toby coming in from the back porch. Hayley’s father is zipping up his trousers and whistling.

“You keep a very clean house, young Jared.” Toby helps himself to another beer before heading back to the living room.

Jared sits down on the reclining chair and his dogs come over and put their chins on his lap. He watches the game but is far too distracted to follow what’s happening.

Toby points a lazy finger at the coffee table. “Someone left you a note.”

Jared picks it up and immediately recognizes Lexxie’s handwriting.

Surprise! Lexxie xx
is all it says.

Jared goes around opening his newly organized kitchen cupboards. He stares in disbelief at the row of alphabetized spices and wonders if she’s taking drugs. She can get her hands on Ritalin easily enough.

Toby grunts at the television. He’s not happy with how the game is going. “Are you going to watch the game? Your pacing is distracting me.”

Jared is too busy inspecting his refrigerator to answer. Rows of low-fat yogurts stare back at him. He grabs a handful of ice and wraps a dish towel around it. The side of his head still smarts from where Brian hit him. The whiskey bottle isn’t out in the open like it usually is. He roots around the cupboards again and finds it way in the back, stashed behind the cereal. He pours some in a glass and adds some ice from the dish towel.

Toby fills in the empty airspace. “Never did understand what Hayley saw in Brian.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I imagine you were too nice for her.”

“Yep, I’ve been told that more than once.”

“Given you’re employed, not addicted to meth, and have all your teeth, I imagine you’re Collier’s most eligible bachelor.”

“Hardly.”

Toby takes a long swallow of beer and concentrates on the TV screen, sitting slightly forward when one of his used car advertisements comes on. He sings along to the jingle, but he’s dead serious when he speaks again.

“I’ve always liked you, Jared.”

Jared sits back down. “Why are you here?”

“You mean aside from the usual reason of hiding from Pamela.”

According to Hayley, her father keeps a mistress in an apartment a couple of blocks off Main Street. Her name is Annie and she’s almost half Toby’s age.

Jared drops his head back onto the cushions and closes his eyes. “You’ve got other places you can hide.”

Toby agrees but makes no attempt to leave. Instead he starts talking about the night he almost left Pamela. Jared pretends to watch the game but he’s taking in every word.

“It would have been okay in the end. Pamela wouldn’t have missed me and the girls were old enough to cope.”

“So why didn’t you go?”

“I made the mistake of trying to do the honorable thing. I told Pamela my plans. She hid my car keys. You know where we live. We’re miles out of town. By the time I got to my girl, she was long gone.” He shakes his head sadly. “And now Leanne is dead. Pamela sent me the news via text. I swear the only thing missing from that message was a smiley face.”

“Are you talking about Leanne Adams?”

“I am indeed.”

“No offense, but from what I’ve heard she was a bit of a wreck.”

“Saint Jared, we can’t all live in glass houses.” He gestures to the game, which has now swung in favor of his team. “This isn’t a morality tale. This is life. If you really want something, you have to fight for it.”

Jared keeps his mouth shut. He’s not stupid. He knows Toby is talking about Hayley. He holds the ice against his head and sips his whiskey.

Toby leans in closer to Jared. “A little advice from a man who got it all wrong. Don’t marry Lexxie unless you love her. Don’t settle. It will only make you miserable in the long run.”

“I’m already miserable.”

“You’re still young. You have no idea what misery is.” Toby swings a long leg up and kicks Jared, upsetting a half-empty beer on the coffee table. It spills onto Lexxie’s note, blurring the ink. “So, young man, what do you intend to do about it? One way or another that fucker Brian has to be taken out of the equation.”

Jared turns off the television and faces Toby. “That’s your point? You want me to kill him?”

“Jesus no, nothing that extreme, but I know he’s still dealing in some pretty shady stuff. If you hear of anything we can use against him, I want you to let me know. The right type of information can send a man packing.”

Jared takes away the ice pack and touches the side of his head lightly with his fingertips. The swelling hasn’t gone down. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Brian isn’t one to negotiate.”

11

Grace gets out of bed and walks over to the window. The temperature drops the instant she opens the thick curtains. On a clear day the view from the hospital would stretch to the Canadian border, but tonight Grace has difficulty seeing past her own sallow reflection. It’s four in the morning and she’s hardly slept. When she closes her eyes all she sees is her bedroom wall. Every word opens an old wound. She doesn’t understand why he’d want to hurt her like that. She pulls the drapes shut and gazes out into the dimly lit corridor. A patrol officer named Gareth sits just outside. He has a thermos of coffee and a well-thumbed paperback to keep him company. He’s not been reading though. For the past few hours Grace has been eavesdropping on the endless phone conversations he’s been having with his girlfriend, but now he’s gone so quiet Grace wonders if he’s finally switched off his phone.

Grace pads toward the half-open door and peeks outside. The lights are low but every so often a bright fluorescent strip slips out from beneath a doorway. The glow sets a shine to the linoleum floor, metal carts, and gurneys. The cleaning crews are gone, but there’s a smell of disinfectant and bleach about the place. Gareth’s thermos and paperback sit on the floor next to his empty chair.

“Gareth,” she asks, hoping he’s nearby. “Is everything okay?”

A loud thumping noise rises up from the far end of the corridor. It takes Grace a few seconds to realize it’s nothing more than hot water forcing its way through narrow pipes, which rattle and rock inside the hospital’s walls. Above the racket, she can hear crashing sounds coming from the stairwell.

“Gareth?” she repeats, stepping out into the hallway to have a better look.

A shadow lurches past the small windows cut into the heavy double doors leading to the stairwell. Grace runs forward a few paces and ducks behind a laundry cart parked in a dark alcove. There’s a hard smack and seconds later the doors open. The footsteps are soft at first but grow in volume as they draw near. Grace pulls in tighter to the laundry cart and rests her cheek against the rough fabric of the bag. The man passes close enough for her to reach out and touch him. She watches his dark silhouette stop in front of her room before disappearing inside. Moving silently, Grace makes her way to the stairwell, only letting the door close behind her when she’s sure it will make no sound.

She nearly trips over Gareth. He’s sprawled out in the middle of the landing. Grace kneels down and whispers his name but he doesn’t move. She leans in and feels his warm breath on her cheek. She starts to look through his pockets for his phone but stops when she notices that his gun is no longer in its holster. She slides away from Gareth and looks through the crack between the double doors. There’s someone standing in the shadows just beyond the nurse’s station. He’s reading a board listing the patients’ names and room numbers. Grace puts a hand to her mouth. She needs to run but she doesn’t want to leave Gareth. She starts crying when she hears Sam’s cart out in the corridor. He’s coming from the direction of the elevators and passes within a few feet of her hiding place.

Sam’s voice is sharp. “It’s the middle of the night. You’ve got no business being up here.”

Grace edges over to the gap in the doors and peeks out into the hallway again. The cart is abandoned. Sam is standing right outside the door with his back to her. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Beyond him is the man who’d gone into her room. She strains her eyes. His face is covered so she can’t make out his features. His voice is not familiar.

“You just get out of my way, I don’t want no trouble from you.”

“Stay right where you are. I’m calling security.”

Next to Grace, Gareth begins to stir. He moans softly but his eyes remain closed. She tries to speak, to warn him to be silent, but she’s too afraid of making any noise. She stands with her back pressed up against the wall. The stairs are so close. She eases her way toward them. Outside in the hall, Sam is begging the man to put down his gun.

Grace’s shoulder scrapes against a fire alarm. Her gaze fixes on Gareth. He’s trying to sit up. Their eyes lock just as the first shot rings out. The sound is deafening. Window glass splinters into a thousand shards. She grabs the alarm and pulls hard on the black lever. Red emergency lights flash on and off throughout the stairwell. The sirens scream at her as she runs. She takes the steps two at a time. She doesn’t stop until there’s nowhere left to go but the basement.

Grace slides out into the corridor in her stocking feet. Unlike the rest of the hospital it is brightly lit. She needs to find a safe place to hide. With no warning a door on her right opens. There are no dark alcoves so Grace stands in the middle of the hallway, completely exposed. A young man hurries into the hall. Unaware that Grace stands a few feet away, he focuses all his attention on the elevator doors. Grace stares at his profile, memorizing the roundness of his cheeks and the gentle slope of his nose. She wants to speak, to call out for help, but by the time she’s found the courage the elevator doors open and he’s gone. She takes a few hesitant steps and reads the sign on the door from which he so suddenly appeared.

MEN’S LOCKER ROOM

Grace puts her ear to the door and hears no one moving about inside. Cautious, she goes in. Rows and rows of lockers stand tall like soldiers. Every last one is padlocked. She stops when she spies Jared’s name. She touches the tape’s raised lettering and runs her fingertips across it as if it were Braille. She tilts her forehead to the cool metal door and thinks of all the things she’d like to say.

“Where are you now?” is all she manages.

Grace eventually finds a narrow bed hidden back in a corner, out of sight from the rest of the room. She pulls a curtain shut and turns off the lights. She only wants to close her eyes for a few minutes. The basement walls are thick and keep everything at bay. She presses her back into the soft mattress and sinks into a groove, fitting perfectly but sleeping fitfully. The pipes lining the ceiling shudder and pop. Doors open and shut. Voices drift in and out. Grace wakes, groggy and unaware of the time. She’s been dreaming of the messages written on her bedroom wall. Her eyes fly open. Someone has come into the locker room and turned on all the lights. She pulls the blankets over her head and pretends to sleep.

“Grace,” the unfamiliar voice says softly, nudging at her shoulder, once, twice, three times. “Wake up. A lot of people are looking for you.”

Grace listens, taking in the sounds, none of which are quite right. Refusing to open her eyes, she waits patiently. She wants another voice.