Devil's Oven (30 page)

Does she really deserve that kind of punishment? Aren’t I the one who borrowed the money, who attracted an animal like Anthony in the first place?

Ivy’s eyes were empty and her face was a sickly beige, as though her life’s blood had been drained away. She sat stiffly on the stained living room couch, her body inclined slightly toward Jolene’s. God only knew what the creature had done to
her
.

“What if he didn’t take her?” Jolene said, looking up at him.

Ivy sat forward, waking to her words.

“Ivy said the trailer didn’t look like this when she left, that the bedroom door was open. What if Lila got away from him?”

“Wouldn’t she have gone down to the house for help?” Bud looked at Ivy, who looked away.
Bitch. What have you done?
“What is it? What the hell do you know?” he shouted.

Jolene put a hand out to keep him away.

“I won’t,” Ivy said, narrowing her eyes. She curled her feet beneath her and shrank back into a corner of the couch. “You’re not going to hurt him.”

Bud had plenty of experience with obstinate people, but he had always been kind and forgiving. Life was just too damn short to be an asshole, was what he had always told himself. He left it to greedy people like his old man to rule the world through meanness. But now he couldn’t hold himself back. He lunged for Ivy.

“Tell me, you bitch!” He shook her by the shoulders so that her head bobbed back and forth like a toy, her white, doll-like hair whipping her face.

“Stop it!” Jolene screamed. She tried to pry his hands away, but he paid no attention. Both she and Ivy were small. “She can’t tell you anything if you kill her!”

He let Ivy go, pushing her against the couch so hard that she bounced forward again. She would’ve hit the table if Jolene hadn’t caught her and held her still.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” He could barely get the words out, he was so angry. “Did he have her?” He bent down to her face. “Tell me!”

Ivy bit her lip.

“Ivy,” Jolene said. “Please.”

“She ran out to the road. Toward town,” she whispered.

“And your
Saint
Anthony?”

Ivy shook her head.

“I didn’t see him go after her,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”

•  •  •

Down at the house, Bud opened the coat closet where Ivy had told him he would find the keys to the Buick. He didn’t want to chance driving Charity’s car. The club had been closed for an hour, and she was certain to have realized it was missing. She might have even reported it to the police. He took the keys from their hook, but also grabbed a knitted black cap from the closet’s shelf. He wasn’t the kind of man who blended in easily, and having his head shaved bald didn’t make him any less noticeable.

Jolene had promised to call the hospital and check with the police—anonymously, if she could—to see if anyone had brought Lila in. She had tried to encourage him, but he could see she was doubtful. Maybe she knew Lila was dead. Maybe she just didn’t want to tell him the truth.

He wondered who the hell she really was, how she knew the things she did. She didn’t seem inclined to tell him anything, and at this point, he had to be satisfied with the fact she’d helped him at all. His first concern was to find Lila. Nothing else mattered.

•  •  •

The cell phone Ivy had come up with sat on the Buick’s passenger seat, silent. As hard as he was praying for it to ring, he was certain Jolene wouldn’t learn that Lila was at the hospital or the police station. They weren’t going to be that lucky.

There wasn’t much between the Luttrells’ place and the start of town near the Git ’n’ Go. A few county roads, including the one that ran above the town, and two private ones that didn’t reach very far. Besides an expanse of rocky land, they led to little: an abandoned school, a dairy operation, a junkyard that specialized in useless construction equipment. One circle of half-built houses whose contractor had run out of money a decade earlier. It took him only a few minutes to check out everything he could. In the hours before dawn, traffic was scarce and he was able to turn around in the middle of any road without a problem.

He was sure Lila would’ve continued east, toward town, or maybe flagged a passing car or truck. She was hurt.
How
hurt, he didn’t want to consider.

•  •  •

Did he dare take the highway right through Alta? It was bullshit that he couldn’t let himself be seen near the town in which he owned two businesses, and paid more than his fair share of taxes. But getting locked up again wouldn’t help anyone.

When he passed the Git ’n’ Go, its parking lot was filled with police cars, their lights flashing. Just like at the club. What the hell was going on? He couldn’t risk taking a long look, but when he saw the ambulance, his heart beat faster. He didn’t dare slow the Buick, but he was certain it had to be about Lila. Within a couple seconds, he was turning into the trailer park’s entrance so he could double back. It didn’t matter if they captured him. He had to know.

The phone beside him rang and he fumbled for it.

“I think they found her,” Bud said. He felt such a wave of joy that he wanted to laugh.

“No, no, no,” Jolene said. “No one found Lila. I talked to Charity and she said they know you’re out of jail. You should come back here. You should come back here now, Bud.”

“The police are at the Git ’n’ Go,” he said. “There’s an ambulance. They’ve got to have her.”

Jolene was silent.

“What?” he said.

“You should come back to Ivy’s,” she said. “It’s not right.”

“What? You know by magic or something?” he said. “She’s there. I know she’s there.”

“Did you see her? If I told you I
did
know, would you believe me?”

“Look, Jolene. I’ve gone along with this so far, and I know there’s a lot going on that I don’t understand,” he said. “But
this
I do understand: If they found her, she can tell them I didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

“I won’t be there to help you,” Jolene said. She sounded defeated.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “With any luck I’ll call you back in an hour.” He closed the phone, ending the call before she could respond.

Lila was so close! But Jolene’s voice was still in his head.
If I told you I did know, would you believe me?

Damn
. What if she was right?

Driving past the store as slowly as he dared, he saw that all the same vehicles were still there. The ambulance sat with its lights flashing, its back doors open.

A hundred yards on, he shut off the headlights and eased the Buick onto the highway’s shoulder.

So close.

•  •  •

It wasn’t Lila lying on the gurney about to be loaded into the ambulance. The man was conscious and seemed to be trying to get up, but the EMTs eased him back down. Bud recognized Detective Johnson. Detectives didn’t hang around random accidents or crime scenes. Lila had to be nearby or they had some idea that this guy was connected. Bud strained at the naked tangle of blackberry branches, desperate to hear what was going on down in the parking lot, but he couldn’t risk getting closer. When Johnson nodded to the EMTs, they fastened the straps around the gurney and started loading the finally calm—or at least sedated—man into the ambulance.

Johnson waved over the two uniformed troopers. When they finished talking, the troopers moved quickly to their cars, and Johnson headed for his. They were leaving in a hurry, which meant something was happening.

The blackberry branches tore at Bud’s coat and hands as he tried to get back to his own car. But their thorns held him fast. He cursed. Behind him, he heard one of the police cars start. Finally, with a groan of frustration, he pulled out of the coat and let the greedy branches embrace it.

He ran.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Ivy stood at the window, her fingertips arched, tense, on the sill. The thinning night had turned the sky the color of tarnished silver.

“I’ll make you some tea,” Jolene said. “Maybe something to eat?”

“He’s not coming back, is he?” Ivy said.

Jolene knew she could tell Ivy what she wanted to hear—that Anthony would probably return. She also knew if he didn’t return, they would have to go out and find him to end it all.

What’s going to happen to me when it’s over?

“What you did wasn’t wrong,” Jolene said. “It’s not a crime to want to be loved.”

Ivy turned away from the window. Seeing the confusion and depth of emotion in her face, and the fading violet-gray of her aura, Jolene wanted to wrap her arms around Ivy. To heal her.

Wisps of Ivy’s fine hair had escaped the old-fashioned blue bow clipping it back from her face. Somewhere behind Ivy’s eyes, Jolene could see the child she had loved. But that child was disappearing even as they stood facing one another. The Ivy she’d known was almost lost to them both.

“Who are you?” Ivy said. There was fear in her voice.

Jolene hated that she sounded so afraid.

“I won’t hurt you,” Jolene said.

“They’re going to punish me,” Ivy said. “And I don’t care.”

“Please, Ivy. Let me help you.”

“I-I can’t even…” Ivy stared at her for a moment, then pushed past her. When she found a safe distance, she turned back to Jolene. “You don’t know anything about me,” she said. “You come in here with Bud Tucker like you have a right to, and then tell me you’ll make me some tea?”

So much suspicion in her voice.

“You’re like him, aren’t you?” Ivy said. “You’re like Anthony.”

Like Anthony? She was nothing like Anthony. They had come from the same place, but she could never be like him. He was darkness.

“Did you know I can barely see your face?” Ivy said. “That first day you came here, I couldn’t see it. Thora didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand.”

“See what?” Jolene put her hands to her face.

“The light,” Ivy said. “You’re covered in light.”

Jolene had never been able to see her own aura. Her father had had a single, pitted shard for a shaving mirror. He sold the ornate hand mirror her mother had brought in her trousseau. Years and years later, when Ivy was small, Jolene had tried to catch her aura in different qualities of light, but she still could never see it. Ivy could. Her daughter…

The thought that Ivy was her flesh and blood—not of the lithe shell in which she had come down from the mountain this time, but the flesh of her spirit—humbled her. That she was in this place with her child again. A child who could see what she was.

“I don’t want to know what you are, or who you are,” Ivy said. “Please go away. When Anthony comes back, he won’t like you being here.”

“What do you see when you look at Anthony?” Jolene said, dreading the answer. Maybe what she believed about where she had come from was a lie she told herself.  Maybe she had come from the mountain’s darkness as well. Maybe there was only darkness. “Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ivy said. “Anthony doesn’t ask anything from me. He’s just mine.”

“If Anthony’s yours, why do you let him do these terrible things? People are dying.”

“It’s not his fault. He can’t help what he is.” Ivy seemed to take strength from the sudden declaration. Jolene hadn’t realized that Ivy was almost two inches taller than she was. The angry set to Ivy’s mouth made her look even more intimidating.

“He’s nothing,” Jolene said. “He’s not even real.”

Ivy laughed.

“I’ve touched him,” she said. “I
made
him. It’s not something you could understand.”

“You’re wrong,” Jolene said. “God, you’re so wrong.”

“Wrong?” Ivy raised her hands to the air, a convicted evangelist. “I
made
him. My hands may be weak, but they gave him life!”

Jolene took hold of Ivy by the forearms. Her daughter was now a woman whose mouth was drawn with suffering, who looked twenty years older than Jolene.

“What did he take from you, Ivy? What about Thora? What did he do to Thora?”

Ivy froze, her eyes shifting automatically to the kitchen.

“Did Thora do something to him?” Jolene said. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

Ivy pulled out of her grasp. They stood staring at each other for a moment, then Ivy looked away, her face burning with heat and shame.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Dear God, why won’t she wake up?

Tripp cradled Lila’s head in his lap. Her eyes were closed and she was still breathing, but her breath was shallow. He could barely feel it when he put his face close to hers. She couldn’t die. People didn’t die from hitting their heads on tables. That only happened on television or in books.
But if she does?
Then he would have to follow her. There wasn’t any kind of life for him without Lila. Even the room around them felt strange and foreign without her smiles or her laughter or even her anger.

“Lila,” he whispered. “Lila, baby.”

He had seen her fall from a cheerleading pyramid during a football game, and had needed to stop himself from running out of the bleachers to be the one to help her up. He remembered that second of holding his breath as he saw the girl beneath her begin to wobble, trying to push away the hair that had suddenly fallen in front of her eyes. Time seemed to stop for him as Lila fell, her mouth open, mid-cheer, her arms flailing. When she hit the ground, she seemed to bounce an inch or two on the rubberized track before lying still. The game continued on the field. The crowd around him caught on slowly to what had happened, but the announcers never took notice, the bastards. Her teammates crowded around her, and he
waited waited waited
. Finally, the girls surrounding her melted away like water repelled by a stone, and Lila stood, unsteady yet smiling, to a smatter of applause from the crowd.

How he wanted to see that smile again!

All of his emergency training told him not to move her, but when he shifted his hand from under her hair, he found it was streaked with blood.
What have I done to her?
He shouldn’t have tested her, not in the terrified, fragile state she was in.