Blood lure

When she'd gotten everything of value she was going to get out of Mr. Richmond, it took another five minutes to get off the phone with him. Ear and brain were overheated from so much talk; talk without faces, or body language, no setting, merely voices piercing a tangled web of impersonal wires. A

Harried. Worried. Scared of missing Carolyn's calls, of getting home late. Rory attached to stepmother, yet not forgiving Les the marriage. Rory's contempt for his father. Humble. Self-effacing. Sick leave. Hospitalization. This fit with what A

The information operator provided her with the phone number of the hospital where Lester had been treated. Unsurprisingly, A

Even without verification, A

Folding her notes, she left the resource management building and walked the quarter of a mile past pine-shrouded employee housing to where Rory shared a dorm with three city boys in the park to learn appreciation for the flora and fauna.

An African-American youth in sweatpants and a New York Rangers T-shirt answered A

Rather than invite A

A

Chapter 12

A

Moments after this phenomenon began, rage roared up inside him, so strong it spun Rory around and brought his unprotected fists hard against the wood of the house, a fire out of control.

The porch was wide enough; A

The pounding stopped. His knuckles weren't raw or bleeding. Even in extremity he'd chosen not to harm himself. A good sign. The constricted sobs subsided, leaving his face red and dry with unspent tears. At length he turned from the side of the house and looked at her, eyes empty after the storm.

"So," A

Rory collapsed. Back against the wood he slid down till his butt was on the porch and his knees poked up as high as his shoulders. The rough siding rucked his T-shirt up under his armpits but he seemed not to notice.

A

"Why don't you tell me about it?" A

Rory shot her a look as if her kindness was out of character. A

"What's there to tell?" He looked past A

His question was one A

Rory sighed again then began to give up the shame he'd been carrying in secret for his father for so many years. "I don't know why it started. Mom-my real mom-died when I was little and it was just me and Dad for a while. That was okay, I guess. I don't remember much, really. Just a lot of quiet and a lot of TV. A lotof TV. I remember I thought it was pretty cool that I could stay up late watching television with Dad when my friends had to go to bed at eight."

Dad. He'd used the word twice. Now that Carolyn was dead, Les had been given back his title. A

"Carolyn came along maybe two years later. Dad met her at a party at Boeing. Or maybe it was somewhere else. I really don't know. I don't care. God." Rory stopped a minute, breathing out whatever memories had derailed his narrative.

A

"Mostly I remember how much fun she was. It was like we'd been living in black and white and all of a sudden our world got colorized. I guess Dad and I hadn't got out much since Mom died. I sort of remember I used to do things after school-you know, kid things like Little League or whatever. But sometime after Mom, I'd sort of stopped, I think. Dad worked late a lot. I guess there was nobody to take me places and pick me up or something.

"Then Carolyn shows up and we're doing things again. Lots of stuff: water parks and fairs and circuses and hockey games. She was always laughing, teasing Dad. She did everything for us. She'd cook and she cleaned the house. I remember that, though I couldn't have been much more than seven or eight. I came home from school one day and the house was bigger, lighter. The curtains were open. Dad's piles of newspapers and magazines were gone. My clothes were hung up and my bed was made. Like when Mom was alive.

"She was at our house all the time. Dad didn't work late much anymore.

"They got married pretty soon after that. They hadn't known each other six months. I know that for sure. Later Carolyn was always saying things like, 'I must've been out of my head marrying you when I'd only known you five months. Five fucking months. God. By month six I knew I'd made one hell of a mistake, that's for sure.' "

Rory probably related the words verbatim. As he said them his face curled into a sneering mask and his voice was charged with such contempt A

"That was later though. I guess I remember her teasing got mean and she got really jealous-had to know where Dad was all the time and went into a fit if he was like two minutes late home from work. She'd driven it and timed herself so she knew exactly how long it took. She got real picky about the house. It had to be just so. And di