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“You can trust me,” said Willard.
“We get to where we’re going, I’ll help you clean up that cut.”
“I been cut before,” said Willard. “It heals.”
They got in the car and Willard drove, unspeaking, for about ten miles, until they were close to High Falls Gorge. He turned left off 86, up a secluded driveway, then pulled up outside a two-story summer house.
“It’s in here,” he said.
He opened the door and moved toward the front of the house. Moloch stayed about five feet back from him.
“Anything happens, anything at all, and I’ll kill you,” said Moloch.
“I told you, you can trust me.”
Willard knelt down and took a key from the flowerpot by the door, then entered the house. He hit the hall lights so Moloch could see that they were alone. Despite his assurances, Moloch searched the house, using the boy as a shield as they entered each room. The house was empty.
“Who owns this place?”
Willard shrugged. “I don’t know their names.”
“Where are they?”
“They left on Sunday. They come up here for weekends, sometimes. You want to see what I have for you? It’s in the basement.”
They reached the basement door. Willard opened it and turned on the light. There was a flight of stairs leading down. Willard led, Moloch following.
Near the back wall was a chair, and in the chair was a girl. She was seventeen or eighteen. Her mouth was gagged and her arms and legs had been secured. Her hair was very dark and her face was very pale. She wore a black T-shirt and a short black skirt. Her fishnet stockings were torn. Even in the poor basement light, Moloch could see track marks on her arms.
“No one will miss her,” said Willard. “No one.”
The girl began to cry. Willard looked at her one last time, then said: “I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”
And seconds later, Moloch heard the basement door close.
Now, years later, Moloch thought back to that first night, and to the bound girl. Willard knew him, understood his appetites, his desires, for they existed in a similar, though deeper, form within himself. The girl was a courtship gift to him and he had accepted it gladly.
Moloch loved Willard, but Willard was no longer in control of his hunger, if he had ever truly been able to rein it in. The death of the woman Je
But then, as Moloch knew only too well, and as his wife was about to find out, each man kills the thing he loves.
Da
“Where are you going?” he asked again, in that whining voice he adopted when he felt that the world was being unfair to him.
“I told you already. I’m going out to di
“With Joe?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like Joe.”
“Don’t say that, Da
“It is true. I hate him. He killed a bird.”
“We went through this before, Da
She had given him the gull carved for him by Dupree. He had looked at it for a moment, then had cast it aside. Later, when she went to retrieve it from the floor, it was gone, but she had glimpsed it on the shelf in Da
The car jogged as it hit a dip in the road, the headlights skewing crazily across the trees for a moment. She wondered if she should bring up what had been troubling her since earlier in the evening, or if she should just let it rest until the morning.
She had gone outside to put some water in the car and her attention had been drawn to the little grave that Joe had created for the dead gull. The stone that marked the spot had been moved aside, and the earth was scattered around what was now a shallow hole. The bird was gone, but she had found blood and some feathers nearby. It could have been an animal that had dug up the bird, she supposed, except that Da
She decided to leave matters as they were. She hoped to enjoy the night and didn’t want to leave her son after an argument.
“Will Richie be at Bo
“I’m sure he will,” said Maria
She hung a left into Bo
Da
Bo
Bo