Hiding Place (9781101606759) (8 page)

Ashleigh put her hair up as she trudged along in the heat. The sun beat against the back of her neck, but she minded that less than the stickiness of the sweat that plastered her hair to her skin. She passed quiet homes that looked cool and comfortable. She thought about the air-conditioned comfort inside them—and she also thought about the normal lives their inhabitants led. No one behind those doors and windows was caught up in pursuing crazy leads in a twenty-five-year-old murder. Were they?

But Ashleigh knew the truth. No, they might not be doing
that exactly, but every home contained some craziness. She knew that from the kids at school. Alcoholism, abuse, infidelity. Her friends saw it all. Despite all her complaints about her mother and grandfather, they didn’t subject her to anything awful. But, still, a murder in the family past stood out as pretty crazy…

She hadn’t even called or texted Kevin. She would eventually, but she didn’t want to call him at work, especially if he’d already been made late by their trip to Steven Kollman’s apartment.

And then there was the other part of it.

She felt a little weird—sometimes—talking to Kevin about Dante Rogers because of one simple fact: Dove Point contained a fair share of racist assholes. No, nobody burned crosses on anybody’s lawn. And plenty of black people—including Kevin’s dad, who handled all the IT for a bank—held prominent positions in town and did very well, but Ashleigh knew the truth. Most people didn’t feel comfortable seeing a black guy and a white girl hanging around together. She could tell the way some of them—friends of hers from school and even once a science teacher—asked a question:

Are you and Kevin dating?

She and Kevin were
not
dating—they were just friends. But Ashleigh thought about dating Kevin all the time. She liked to look at his face when he didn’t know she was watching, and she enjoyed the electrical charge that coursed through her body if they inadvertently brushed their arms against each other. But they weren’t dating. They hadn’t even come close. Ashleigh’s mom and grandpa acted a little weird whenever Kevin’s name came up, but Ashleigh knew that wasn’t really about race. She understood that the adults in her family were more worried about her going out and getting knocked up like her mom did in high school.

But sometimes she worried about what Kevin thought. He always acted like he didn’t mind. He made jokes all the time about his race, going so far as to refer to the two of them as the “salt and pepper twins” when they went places together, but she absolutely didn’t want him to ever think the views of certain narrow-minded and stupid people in the town had somehow become her own. She didn’t want to suffer guilt by association, so sometimes she avoided the topic of Dante.

The house came into view, and every time it did, Ashleigh’s heart dropped a little. It wasn’t a bad house. The rooms were big enough, and her mom and grandpa did a decent job of keeping it in shape. But it wasn’t
her
house. For the past three years, she and her mom had rented a cute little bungalow near downtown on Park Street. The morning sun lit Ashleigh’s bedroom there, and they lived side by side with young couples and college kids. At least once a month, Ashleigh asked her mother why they couldn’t just move out and get their old place back, just the two of them. Her mom always explained that this was a financial decision, that when Grandpa lost his job he needed help in order to keep the family home.
And besides, Grandpa needs us,
her mom would say.
We’re all he’s got.

Ashleigh never said it out loud, but she thought it: He doesn’t have me. Only a few more years, and I’m off to college. Ohio State. Miami. Cincinnati. Bowling Green. As long as it’s college and as long as it’s away.

Ashleigh entered the dark, quiet house. No surprise. Her grandfather liked to keep the place closed up and sealed. Like a bank vault. Or a morgue. Both Ashleigh and her mom went around behind the old man, opening blinds he closed or pulling open curtains he’d yanked shut. Ashleigh liked windows and air and light. The house on Park Street had had all of those things.

She stopped in the kitchen for a quick glass of water, then planned on slipping up to her room. She hoped her mother wasn’t home, that she wouldn’t have to face the usual interrogation. Her mother’s questions were the bane of her existence.
Where were you? Who were you with? Why did you go there?
She knew her mom was still a little freaked by her uncle’s death, but come on.
I’m fifteen. Fifteen.

Ashleigh could just imagine her mom’s response to where she’d just been.
First I tried to find the creepy guy from the porch. And then I saw the guy who killed your brother—at the crime scene.

“Ash?”

Ashleigh froze, the glass of water halfway to her mouth. Her mother must have been upstairs, maybe even napping. Ashleigh wanted to slip away, but knew she couldn’t.

“I’m here,” Ashleigh said, giving in. As much as her mom annoyed her, Ashleigh found it hard to be outright mean to her. Or ignore her. If they were all her grandpa had, Ashleigh knew she was all her mom had.

Her mom came into the kitchen. She was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and looked tired. Maybe she had been asleep. Her hair looked flat, her face without makeup.

“Where were you all day?” her mom asked.

“I was with Kevin.”

“Where?”

Ashleigh sighed. She took a long drink of water, then filled the glass again.

“Don’t sigh,” her mom said. “Where were you?”

“We went to see a friend, but he wasn’t home. So then Kevin had to go to work, and I came home.”

“You’ve been gone since before I went to work.”

“Mom, please? It’s summer. You said as long as I kept my grades up—”

“Do you know why I’m mad at you?”

“Mad at me?”

Her mom’s brow was furrowed, the lines at the corners of her mouth deepened and exaggerated. She looked ugly when she was like this. She looked like life was chiseling its marks onto her face.

“You were supposed to be here today,” her mom said. “That reporter came by.”

Shit. The reporter.

“I forgot.”

The words sounded hollow even to her own ears. Her voice came from far away, its sound tiny, like a little kid’s.
Shit,
she thought.
I really forgot.

“I don’t think you appreciate what this means to me,” her mother said. “To have this reporter come here and to have to talk about those things. Your grandpa doesn’t want to talk about them, so I count on you.”

“I said I was sorry, Mom.”

Ashleigh saw the tears forming in her mother’s eyes, little pools of water that threatened to spill. Her mother rarely cried. And whenever she cried, Ashleigh felt the same way. She’d do anything on earth to stop it from happening.

But the tears didn’t spill. Instead, her mom seemed angry, ready to lash out.

“I swear, Ashleigh, I’m the only one here who really cares about this family. The only one who cares about what happened in the past and who cares to do anything about it now. Do you know how frustrating that is for me?”

The only one who cares about what happened in the past? The only one who cares to do anything about it now?

Ashleigh felt her own anger rise. She slammed the glass on the counter, creating a mini geyser of water. It drenched her hand and the counter.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve saying that to me,” Ashleigh said.

“Don’t act that way.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“You can’t talk to me that way.”

“You’re the one stuck in Dove Point, living in the same house you grew up in,” Ashleigh said.

Ashleigh regretted the words as she said them, but she couldn’t stop. And when they came out, her mother lifted her hand to her own mouth, reacting as though she’d been slapped.

“Ashleigh,” she said. All she managed, her voice just above a whisper.

“Mom, I’m sorry—”

Then the tears really did come. Her mother turned away, went up the stairs and back to her room, leaving Ashleigh behind.

And as soon as she was gone, Ashleigh knew what she wanted to say to her mom. What she should have said:

If you really knew what I was doing today…And if only you knew I was doing it all for you. Only for you.

The call came just after nine in the evening. Janet was in her bed, the TV playing low. They were all in their rooms in the house, each of them isolated and locked in their own worlds. Janet let the phone ring. She figured it was a call for Ashleigh. No one ever called Janet or her dad.

But the phone kept ringing. Either Ashleigh was wearing her headphones in her room and couldn’t hear it, or else she was letting it ring as a protest in response to the fight.

Janet answered.

“Hey,” the still familiar voice said. “It’s me.”

“Michael?”

Her heart started to thump. She felt almost breathless.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching TV.” She regretted the admission. So mundane. “I mean, there’s a movie.”

“I was hoping we could talk more,” he said.

“Sure.” Janet reached over and muted the sound. She sat up. “Do you want to come over? We could sit on the porch.”

Michael laughed a little. “I’m guessing your dad is home, right?”

“He is.”

Janet understood. Her dad wasn’t a fan of Michael. He still thought of Michael as the shaggy-haired, partying wild man
from high school. And Ashleigh’s father, Tony Bachus—now married and living in Florida—hung out with Michael all the time back then. Her dad associated the two boys so closely that neither one was allowed on the Manning property after Janet became pregnant.

“I was thinking of neutral territory,” Michael said. “Do you know the coffee shop downtown? It’s open until eleven in the summer.” His voice carried mystery, like he knew things others didn’t know. Even something as trivial as the coffee shop hours. “Can you meet me there?”

Janet didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

But when she stepped outside, into the hot, still night, something felt different. Too calm. Too quiet. Janet stopped in the driveway, halfway between the house and the car, the keys dangling from her hand. She listened.

At first, she heard nothing but typical night sounds. The chirps of the crickets, the soft hum of a neighbor’s air conditioner. She waited and started to tell herself that she was being paranoid, that her stressed-out and emotionally tired mind was playing tricks on her, but then she heard it. Two quick sounds close together, the muffled thump of leather hitting the ground.

Footsteps? Someone running away?

Janet turned her head toward the back of her dad’s property where the sound seemed to originate, but it was dark and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the night. She strained her eyes, squinting.

Had she heard anything at all? Had it just been a dog, a jogger, a falling branch?

Janet turned back to the house. She went to the back door
and gave it two solid tugs. It was locked. Dead-bolted. She looked up at Ashleigh’s window, where the light still burned. Janet considered going back inside and staying home, where she belonged, but she cut the thought off before it took root. Who said she belonged at home? Janet had never wanted to be that person—that woman—and she turned away from the house and back to the car, knowing her father was home with Ashleigh.

Janet hadn’t told anyone she was leaving. She left a note on the kitchen counter.
Back in a bit,
it said. She felt guilty being so abrupt, but a part of Janet was still angry with her daughter. Typical teenage boundary pushing, she knew, but how dared the little snot mouth off like that?

Ashleigh wasn’t the only one who could act immature, and immature was the right word for it. Janet felt like a teenager again, sneaking out of the house to see Michael. Jumping when he called, her body filled with a buzzing intensity at the sound of his voice. She felt it again that night as she drove away from the house—the same feeling she’d had in the parking lot. A pleasant tingling, the hint of possibility.

A traffic circle formed the center of Dove Point’s downtown. Like spokes on a wheel, four main streets radiated out, and businesses, all of them locally owned, ringed the circle. At night, parking was easy, and Janet found a spot two doors down from the coffee shop. She paused in the car, checking her face in the lighted vanity mirror behind the sun visor. Before leaving the house, she’d brushed her hair, trying desperately to bring it to life, and dusted some makeup across her face. She thought she looked tired, her eyes still a little puffy from crying, but a part of her didn’t care. This was Michael. He knew what she looked like. He knew who she was.

Still, she reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick. It
belonged to Ashleigh. Janet wasn’t sure how it ended up among her things. Maybe Ashleigh had left it in the bathroom once, or maybe Janet had found it sitting on the kitchen counter and tried it on herself. It didn’t matter. Janet almost never wore lipstick, but she opened the tube and ran some across her lips, then blotted with a Kleenex. She studied herself again. A nice touch, even a little sexy. She was trying.

But before she slipped out of the car, Janet pulled out her phone. She sent a text to Ashleigh:
How are you?

Janet waited twenty seconds for a response:
Um, fine. Why?

Janet wrote back:
Just checking.
And got out of the car.

Two teenagers, a giggling young couple, came out of the shop as she went in. They looked to be close to Ashleigh’s age, and probably attended Dove Point High with her. The kids looked so healthy, so happy, so all-American in their earnest devotion to each other. So normal. Would Ashleigh ever know that worry-free life? Would the weight of all that had happened to their family always burden the girl?

Michael waved when she came through the door. He was seated at a table halfway back in the little shop, a steaming mug in front of him. He gave a quick tilt of his head, the smile she always remembered spreading across his face. Janet went over. She settled into the seat across from him and ordered hot tea from the waitress.