Good Girls (9 page)

Immediately, Rebecca resumed folding socks, as though justifying her presence. “What do you mean, I—”

“Don't you have your nanny thing this afternoon? Aren't you supposed to be at Jess's?”

“Yeah. But not until five.”

“And you're on here at noon. Right? And you worked at the Center last night?”

Oh, I worked all right,
she thought, lifting a hand halfway to her face before she realized she was still holding a sock.
Want to hear what I accomplished while I was there, Amanda? You'll be so proud …

“What'd you say? Rebecca?”

“Amanda, I have to tell you something. Please. Last night, I—”

“How many jobs are you working right now?”

At least the question choked off the murmuring in Rebecca's head. Automatically—as though she still lived here, and had no choice but to answer—Rebecca upped her folding speed. She finished the socks, started on the dish towels. “Just the three. Here, the food service, nannying for Jess.”

“Plus the Crisis Center. Four.”

“That's volunteer.”

“You need a hobby. Or a guy.”

That actually did it. Rebecca burst out laughing. “Look who's talking. You never even—”

“I have a guy,” said Amanda, dead-flat, and Rebecca blushed.

Right on cue, Joel strolled in. When he saw Rebecca, he stopped, cocked an eyebrow at her, and glanced at his wife. He held up his Bluetooth speaker just as the song it was playing ended. There was a pause before the girl-woman voice erupted again, all cut up and stuttering this time, as though in the midst of being strangled.

“
Buh—… cat-dah … TONGUE!
” Then a gunfire-burst of guitars obliterated her.

“Joel, my God, what the hell are you listening to?”

He just grinned through his bristle of dark morning beard. His skin seemed even blacker than usual under its sheen of sweat or dew. His kinked, curly hair glistened, too. Abruptly, he stuck out one long arm and folded Rebecca briefly against him. He kissed the top of her head and drew back to set the pail of fresh eggs on the counter next to his wife.

“It's ‘Tongue-Tied Jill.'”

“That's the DJ's name? It's accurate, I guess.”

“That's the song. Charlie Feathers. Classic.”

“But what's the show?”

“You mean the finest radio program in the history of the world, ever? Seriously. I'll send you a link.”

“It's creepy.”

“It's from outer space. From some whole other planet. And it plays
the
best shit.”

And with that, off he headed for the foot of the stairs to yell or sing whatever ridiculous thing he'd come up with today to wake his current girls to their morning routine. Back when she'd lived here, Rebecca had kept a list of Joel's wake-up hollers. She still had it somewhere, tucked into one of those paperbacks in the boxes at the foot of her futon.

“Rebecca, aren't you way early?” he called over his shoulder. “You look good, by the way.”

That comment didn't surprise Rebecca. Joel said something like it almost every time he saw her, or any of his former wards, whether it was true or not. What surprised her was Amanda's murmured, “He's right, actually.”

Rebecca was even more surprised to find Amanda eying her, even while flipping pancakes with her spatula.

“That's ridiculous, Amanda. You have no idea how ridiculous—”

“It's true. It's like you've settled in behind your face or something. Now, if you could only learn to get some sleep, you'd—”

“I lost one last night,” Rebecca blurted. The words came out clipped, chopped up, like the scary radio-lady's.

Amanda didn't put her spatula down or anything. But for one moment, she stopped using it, just stood there. “What do you mean?”

“A guy. A caller. A jumper. I could hear it in his voice the second he started talking. I knew he was serious. Or … that he was different. That this was something weird and real. He was so freaky. I mean freaked-out. Oh my God, Amanda, he was saying the craziest things. It was like he was already comfortable with his decision. Like the decision was made. And I couldn't … I botched it so badly. I couldn't find the words to say. I said everything wrong. I panicked. I—”

“You're sure he jumped?”

Looking straight at Amanda was like getting a faceful of ice water. That gaze stayed so still. It wasn't exactly calming. But it was cooling.

“No. I'm not. I'm pretty positive I didn't help, though.”

“So. Worry about that.”

“What about him?”

“How many times have I told you, Rebecca? Since the first day you came here, when you were what, thirteen? Worry about you. Worry about what you can control.”

“Yeah, thanks, Amanda. But today I think I'll worry about the guy who died.”

For a little longer, Amanda stayed motionless at the stove, like a bird on a branch. Then she set her spatula on the counter and moved the pancake pan off the heat. “You're a good girl,” she said, went to the yellow cord-phone mounted on the wall, and dialed it. “Hi, Dawn, it's Amanda,” she said into the receiver, and Rebecca realized whom she'd called: Dawn Ripinsky, daytime desk officer at the East Dunham police precinct and former Halfmoon House resident, who'd left—“graduated,” as Amanda insisted they call it—the year Rebecca came.

“You at work yet, Dawn?”

No
How's your fiancé?
or
Haven't seen you in ages.
Unlike her husband, Amanda didn't seek lasting relationships with the children she had cared for. She did not play Smackdown with them in the middle of the night. What she wanted, as she'd stated to Rebecca just the once, on the day Rebecca had somehow found the nerve to challenge her about it, was much more valuable, as she saw it, and much harder: she wanted her charges so competent, so ready to confront whatever came for them (not to mention what had already come), that they never once felt the need to come back. That's how Amanda would know she had done her job.

“Good,” she was saying into the phone now. “Let me ask you. You have a suicide last night?”

Rebecca held her breath and waited. When Amanda just stood there, she whispered, “Well?”

But Amanda only waved a dismissive hand. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Yeah. Rebecca, you remember her? One of ours. That is, she used to be. She's the one who called it in, from the Crisis Center on campus.”

Rebecca's hands twisted in the towels on the table.

“Okay. Thanks.” Hanging up, Amanda returned to the stove. It was all Rebecca could do to keep from grabbing her and spinning her around.

Amanda, on the other hand, had already resumed sliding pancakes onto plates, while footsteps and laughter reverberated upstairs. Whatever Joel had hollered this morning, Rebecca had missed it while concentrating on Amanda's phone call. Pipes clanked in the walls, then gushed as the upstairs sinks and showers started.

“There was no jumper, Rebecca.”

Rebecca let go of the towels. “They're sure? How do they know? They found the guy?”

“Nope. But no splatter.”

Rebecca winced.

Amanda never so much as turned around. “What they did find, apparently, is the phone he called you from. He laid that right back where he stole it.”

“He stole the phone?”

“Off old Mrs. Tangee's dresser. The librarian at the downtown branch, the public one, you know her? Apparently, this guy slipped in a patio door of her condo sometime after ten p.m., when Mrs. Tangee had turned off
Law and Order
and gone to sleep, took the phone, walked around East Dunham or up on some campus building roof or wherever until at least a little after one—”

“How do they know that?”

And there it was, the only thing that could stop Amanda from moving about her business: stupidity, from someone she had at least partially raised. She turned and stared at Rebecca until Rebecca figured it out and said, “Oh.”

“Right. So. Sometime between whenever you were done with him—”

Nice,
Rebecca thought, and very nearly said.
Considerately put, very gentle. Thanks, Amanda.

“—and five-twelve a.m., when the police finally got the callback number and called it and woke Mrs. Tangee up, this guy waltzed back into her condo, returned the phone, and vanished the way he'd come.”

“What?”

“That's the best they can figure it. That's all Dawn has got.”

“That's…” Rebecca started, but realized she had no idea what to say. Amanda finished the sentence for her.

“… not the behavior of a guy about to kill himself?”

“No,” Rebecca said. “It isn't.” The information should have been comforting. Instead, an all-new shudder spread from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers, from the base of her neck all the way into her feet. “It's more like a stalker.”

I can see you …

“Rebecca, go home. Get some sleep. Really, kiddo, you need to sleep.”

Only then did Rebecca realize she'd already resumed folding. The habit was simply ingrained; it was the price of Amanda's company.

“You should be relieved,” Amanda snapped. “Why aren't you relieved?”

Blowing out a shaky breath, Rebecca turned her head to either side, slowly, as though wetting her hair under a spigot. She could feel the sting in Amanda's rebuke. It felt wonderful. Amanda
did
care, in spite of herself. She always had. This was how she showed it.

“You're right,” Rebecca said, folded one last towel, set it square atop the pile she'd made, and stood.

“Does that mean you're relieved?”

“It means I'm sleepy. I'm going to go sleep.”

“Rebecca, let this go. Listen to me. You can't do the kind of work we do if you're going to—”

“I will if he will,” Rebecca murmured. Out the window, the trees reddened in the early morning sunlight. Her next shiver came quietly.

I can see you.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Amanda barked. “Do I know what you're talking about?”

“Nope,” said Rebecca. “And I don't, either.” She stood to go and stopped, abruptly, with her hands on the table.

What had Amanda just said? “… the kind of work we do…”

We
do. Her and me.

For quite possibly the first time since she'd picked up the Crisis Center phone maybe six hours ago, Rebecca felt herself relax, felt warmth spreading through. “Thank you, Amanda,” she said quietly. Carefully. “Tell Joel…” But there was nothing she wanted Amanda to tell Joel. She just liked being around Joel, part of his games, in earshot of his holler. “Don't forget, I can only work until five today. Then I go to Jess's house.” She moved toward the back door.

“Is Jess really renting
that
house?” Amanda asked, stopping Rebecca with her hand on the knob. “She's really living in the burned-out house?”

Surprised, Rebecca turned. The question itself was reasonable enough, a question any sane person might ask about such an apparently sane and sound person as Jess. What made it remarkable was that Amanda had asked it, was displaying active curiosity about a tenant or employee. Or rather, that she was displaying curiosity so openly that another employee could see it.

“Have you ever been to that house, Amanda? It is one disturbing place. It's—”

“I wasn't thinking about disturbing, Rebecca, I was thinking about filth. And lingering smoke stink. And faulty wiring, and flaking walls and lead paint and unstable floors.”

“It's not really like that. I mean, they've cleaned it up, mostly. There's nothing actually flaking or unstable. It's just…” Rebecca's voice trailed away as understanding dawned. “Oh,” she said then. “Ha.” Naturally, Amanda was neither nervous for nor curious about Jess; she was being judgmental. And not gently so.

“She has a baby, doesn't she?”

“Well, yeah, Amanda. Hence my nannying there.”

To Rebecca's amazement, Amanda blushed. Maybe. Certainly, her flour-pale cheeks reddened.

“What happened there, anyway?” Rebecca asked, at least in part to save Amanda embarrassment. Amanda-embarrassment wasn't anything Rebecca knew how to deal with. “Do you know the story?”

The question both erased the color in Amanda's skin and earned Rebecca her second are-you-really-that-dense? look of the past twenty minutes. “A fire,” she said.

And for the second time, and more easily, now, Rebecca laughed. “Yes. Thanks. I mean, what else? Was anyone hurt or anything? It was right before I came, right? So, at least six or seven years ago. And no one's lived there since?”

“No one was hurt,” Amanda said. “Not that I know of. Why?”

“Because I am the girl you”—she very nearly said
raised,
but reconsidered just in time—“mentored. And I bought almost everything I learned here, and I think you know it. So this is me, talking, and not the freaked-out, earlier-this-morning me, either.”

“Okay. Good. And?”

“And I'm telling you, Amanda. That place is haunted.”

 

8

(THREE WEEKS EARLIER)

The entire next day, they drove. At some point during that scalding midmorning, an hour or so after the air-conditioning in her Sunfire finally gave up its decade-long death rattle and died, Jess thought she should probably get food, or at least coffee. But she didn't need either; Eddie's screaming in the back kept her plenty awake, and Benny just slept. She did stop briefly at a pharmacy for gauze and bandages to wrap her ribs and a thousand-count bottle of ibuprofen gel caps, which she gulped eight of—knowing better, knowing the body couldn't even process that much drug at once—before she'd even reached the counter.