Jex Malone (27 page)

I have to get out of here—faster than fast. Before he even unlocked that back door, I stayed low and raced down the hallway, but changed my mind at the last minute. It was late and I didn't see him as a snacker.

That's why I crept back to the kitchen to hide in walk-in pantry before he could get his bearings. Closing the door of the closet behind me, I don't wait for it to click. In agonizing slow motion, I watch the door betray me and creek back open about two inches. In just this little sliver of space, I can see wiry but strong legs and his sockless feet moving around the warped kitchen floor.

Kneeling down inside the narrow food closet, I gaze across the kitchen as another bolt of lightning streaks across the sky. It's enough to illuminate the weathered, thin face of Mr. Foster, who has gone back outside, and I pray that he's going far from home. But he only takes a few steps onto his back porch to fix a flickering light bulb. Before he enters again, I take two fingers and gently close the pantry door all the way until it clicks.

I hear his slippers plod across the old-fashioned blue and white linoleum floor again. The porch light outside must be burning brightly.

He is in the house.

For the night.

Click! It's the metal dead-bolting of the back door and I see him lock it with a key, which means I'm officially trapped, a prisoner of my own warped curiosity.

Gazing past his boxes of instant oatmeal, Lipton soups, and a lifetime supply of prunes, I dart a glance through a crack in the door. I see his bony frame standing at the sink and hear him turn on the water, which spurts out with an initial protesting chug. He rinses what sounds like a coffee mug and a plate.

Old Man Foster then grabs a white towel and dries his hands for what seems like several long minutes before he turns directly towards the pantry and stops in his tracks to stare at the door, which is slightly ajar again. That damn lock won't catch. Inner alarms must be going off in his cobwebbed mind. Something isn't A-plus perfect in his house.

It's the same stare he used on me in the movie theater parking lot. He's like a wolf putting his prey on lock.

Holding my breath, I start to say every prayer I ever learned at Sunday school as Mr. Foster takes a step closer and then closer. His hand is on the pantry doorknob, and he pulls hard until the door crashes into the wall. Suddenly, the closet is filled with bright light.

Somehow, Mr. Foster doesn't look down at where I'm hiding in the corner by his crock-pot and extra coffeemaker. He looks way up, takes two steps inside, and grabs a Lipton tea bag and the half-eaten bag of oatmeal cookies.

The world goes black when he shuts the closet door with a resounding thud. The click of the door is like someone cocking a gun.

From the outside, I hear that spurting water again followed by a metal pot slammed onto the stove burners. Nothing happens for a few moments until I hear a loud lady's scream, and I stifle my own by putting half my arm across my mouth.

It's just the old teapot announcing it's ready. Mr. Foster putters around the kitchen for a few more minutes making his late-night snack.

Then there is nothing. Silence.

Praying as I crack the door open a tiny bit, I glance at the floor, but don't see his white slippers. Instead, I hear them plod along the hallway and then I jump as the blaring sound of the old man's TV assaults my ears.

Is the guy deaf? If he doesn't kill me, I'll be deaf. That much is certain.

I hear the loud opening music from a
Barney Miller
rerun. It figures that he watches only the worst of vintage TV. But I can't dwell on his viewing habits.

It's option time.

If I'm lucky I can reach the back door and slide outside. The only problem is Mr. Foster has used a key to lock the deadbolt.

Why did I ever leave New Jersey to vacation here? Why didn't I just defy the court order and go to juvie for the summer? It would have been a lot easier on my nervous system! At this rate, I'm going to turn into Cissy!

Scanning the kitchen counter, I don't see a key, which means I'm locked in Fosterland. My only choice is to make it past him, past the living room, and into the foyer where the front door might still be open … just the way we found it when we broke in. I'm guessing he doesn't lock that one until he's ready to go to sleep.

The only problem—and it's a big one—is that I have to walk or crawl right past the man who probably killed the girl next door.

There. Is. No. Choice.

Crouching, I slide along the hallway wall and stop when I see the back of Mr. Foster's head. He's sitting in his brown La-Z-Boy chair and I can see the leather is so old it's peeling down the sides. Slowly, I move a few inches … then a few more. At one point, the laugh track on
Barney Miller
stops. The house goes silent and I hold my breath.
One, one hundred, two, one hundred
, I count silently.

Comic genius Abe Vigoda cracks another joke and even Old Man Foster laughs loudly, which gives me the time to take three giant slides toward the door. Again, I have to stop. The TV goes silent before a blaring commercial for a local car dealer nearly blows out my now permanently damaged eardrums.

Mr. Foster stands up with his teacup. His eyes never leave a late-night commercial for puppy food. Maybe he raises them in the basement and eats them for snacks.

If he turns around now, he will see me crouching down by his dining room table. There is absolutely no way he won't notice!

He stands there for one beat, two beats, three beats … and then he pivots towards me only to stop, reconsider, and go back to where he started. He folds back down and even leans back far enough for the footrest to pop up.
Barney Miller
is back on.

“I love you, Abe Vigoda,” I whisper to myself.

Sliding on my hands and knees, I make it across the tile foyer floor until I reach the front door. Still crouching low, my fingers are on the doorknob. It turns in silence and the door opens a quarter of an inch. No deadbolt!

Slithering like a snake, I give myself just enough room to belly flop onto the outside front step. When I hear the laugh track roar again, I stand halfway up, close the door, and then I run for my life.

By the time I stop running my fastest Olympian sprint, I'm way down the street and finally notice the lightning constantly racing across the onyx night sky. Loud thunder booms overhead. The first house within running distance is Nat's, and I see the three of them sprinting towards her front yard. In just a few moments, all of us duck into her garage.

“There is just tons and tons to tell you,” I say in a breathless voice.

“Did that old creep try to go after you?” Deva says in an equally winded tone. “Did he catch you? Do you think he will call the cops? I'm really, really scared now!”

“No, no, we got out clean. He never even saw me, but listen to me,” I start to explain. “Ricki was never the mom. Not the mom to Patty. She was the stepmom. Cooper is her half-brother. None of this makes any sense.”

For the next five minutes, I explain what Sandy told me about Patty's family tree.

“Oh, you want something else that makes no sense?” Cissy says, grabbing the envelope that Nat produces from under her second sweatshirt.

“We grabbed these from inside that creepy shed and it makes no sense. It's real weird though. They're not drawings of stuff here in Nevada. They're from somewhere else. They're also not that old.”

“So what do you think … ” Deva asks.

Before I can even think or look inside the envelope, I see a broad-shouldered figure pacing up and down the street at a fast clip. It's even worse than I think. Mr. Foster obviously called the cops, who are now canvassing the neighborhood. And I am using words like canvassing because of all the time I've been spending with Nat.

Then it dawns on me. The canvasser looks familiar. Too familiar.

“Uh-oh,” I remember. “I don't think I was supposed to leave the house. I forgot and they must have come home from sushi.”

“Listen, you guys stay here at Nat's house. I'm gonna run down the street and go home. Maybe I could take the envelopes with me,” I suggest in a breathless tone.

“We found something else,” Nat says in a dead serious voice. “The last five pages.”

I experience my first chill in Nevada and in 96°F night air, it races up and down my spine.

Nat hands the entire thing over and I shove the envelopes down the front of my jeans and pull my shirt over them. At that exact moment, Nat's mother pokes her head into the garage.

“Jex, honey,” she says. “Your father is at the front door. He's very upset.”

“I don't think this is gonna blow over. Everytime I see you, there's a new reason not to trust you.”

—Calleigh Duquesne,
CSI: Miami

I have never seen that look of quiet fury in my father's eyes. It's blazing anger and it's all I have to go on because he isn't speaking at all.

Grunting a few words, he takes my arm and leads me out of the garage and back to our house about half a block down.

I don't say a word on the quick walk home illuminated by Mother Nature's crack-boom-bombs. The rain is still waiting to come and by now the dust is kicking up and swirling through the air. It hurts when it slaps my dusty skin fresh from my latest breaking and entering job.

When we blast through the kitchen door like a one-two punch, I look around and casually say, “So, where is Sandy? Zumba class?”

“Jessica, we need to talk,” Dad says in a rough voice. It's clear he isn't in the mood to talk about his girlfriend—and he called me Jessica.

Strictly speaking: Not good.

“I'd advise you to let me talk first and don't say a word,” Dad says.

Gulping hard, I figure that whatever he's about to say isn't going to be even a bit good. My mom gets upset every once in a while, but it's usually a quiet sort of mad followed by the “I'm seriously disappointed in you for not finishing your science project” type of speech. Forgiveness usually involves bringing her tea and Entenmann's crumb cake.

This is something much bigger.

“Didn't I tell you that these storms were dangerous? Didn't I tell you not to leave the house?” Dad shouts. “You know what? You're not on vacation here. You're not at camp. I'm not running a freaking hotel where you come and go as you please.

“I'm your father!” he booms.

He has got to be kidding!

Glaring back at him, I want to shout that this whole father-daughter summer, let alone this “you're in trouble” talk, is seriously deranged.

He's my father—what a freaking joke!

He's my father—in name only.

As if daring me to say one word, Det. Malone, as he will be known as from now on for all eternity, explodes and says, “
I am
your father. If I tell you to do something, you do it! It's just that simple! It's not open to debate. You do it!”

“Right … ” I begin, but somehow I can't keep the sarcasm out of my voice as we each prowl around the kitchen like two trapped jungle cats.

He gives me the deadly silencing look again. “If I tell you not to run around the neighborhood in a major storm then you
don't
!” he rants like a lunatic. “You
don't
! Bad things can happen. Even in this neighborhood.

“Girls … disappear,” he yells.

“Do you want me to have to call your mother and say something bad happened to you during your summer here?” He pushes the emotion away and screams at me as he stalks past the open closet door. With one meaty hand, he slams the thing so hard that it's a miracle the hinges are still on it and the wood hasn't turned to sawdust.

“And by the way, you're supposed to spend a little bit of time with me during this summer since I haven't basically seen you in the last ten or eleven years,” he raves. “I'm glad you have friends. I'm glad you seem to like it here. I'm glad that we can spend this time together even if you don't exactly treat me like your father. You don't even call me Dad. Even that's fine.

“But you
will
listen to me when I tell you something is dangerous!” he yells. “If nothing else, I
will
keep you safe! I
will
return you to your hide-from-life-under-the-bed mother in one piece!”

I've clearly had enough. A lifetime of this guy has been more than enough.
How dare my absentee dad act like he's suddenly Father of the Year! And did he just take a shot at Mom?

And … what did he just say?
But I know the worst thing of all that just came out of his flapping lips.

“I … what … You want me to call you Dad?” I scream back, stunning myself with the loudness of my voice.

“Why? Why should I do it? You're not a dad! Not to me! You've never found real time to deal with me! Why! To you, it's such a burden having a daughter!” I scream back at him, opening the fridge door mid-pace and then shoving it closed so hard that I think I pulled a muscle. Rage masks the pain.