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Haley smiled at the nickname he’d given Kim.
“So, how often do you get to see Beth?”
“We shoot for every other weekend and, of course, college breaks. It’s not a short drive by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Yeah, I know,” Haley said, wondering if she could have a long-distance relationship with Mac, and quickly decided she could. Even though they lived only ten miles from one another, it wasn’t like they saw each other every day anyway. He usually stopped by three times a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And when he did, it seemed he was much more interested in making sure that she and her family were okay then wanting to make out or do anything romantic.
But she had no complaints. The relationship, as it stood, was perfect for her. Since her father died, she had lost most of her interest in conversation and usually worried that she was a bore when she was with him anyway. She was no longer the witty girl she’d been when they first met. But Mac, not much of a conversationalist himself, didn’t seem to mind. They did things that didn’t require much conversation, like watching movies, television or reading on the couch. Sometimes he just fiddled around alone, repairing something in the house, cutting the lawn, painting the trim. He mostly kept to himself.
Haley rested her head against the passenger seat. She closed her eyes and inhaled. Austin's truck had some of the same comforting grease smells, minus the stale, smoky odor Mac’s had. And it was less dusty.
Austin stopped in front of her house and yanked the emergency brake. In the time it took for her to pick her purse up from the floorboard, he was already at the passenger door, opening it for her. He helped her out like Mac always did. But when his hand touched hers, a jolt of electricity shot through her body.
“You get some rest,” he said, walking her to her front door. “Chris said he’ll bring your car by this evening. If you need it beforehand, just call Luke’s and we’ll get it to you.”
“Thanks,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. “I guess I did need the ride,” she admitted, wiping at her eyes. All of a sudden, she realized that she felt a little better.
“See you at Luke’s when you’re ready to come back. Chris is concerned about you.”
Two pecans fell onto the porch. Haley bent to pick them up. “By the way, did Chris ask you to take me?”
He nodded.
“Oh,” she said, realizing she had wished it had been his idea. “Please thank him for me.”
“I’ll do that. Take care of yourself.” He walked back down the dirt driveway.
Haley stood on the porch and rolled the pecans around in her palm as she watched him walk the dirt driveway and climb back into his truck.
Sighing, she opened her front door.
Chapter 18
ERICA LOVED THE way Rachel wrote on the chalkboard. Her words straight, sharp. Always in capital letters, very legible. She double-underlined the important words, the ones she wanted to emphasize.
The chalk often made her sneeze. And when she did, “Bless you’s” bounced off the walls of the small auditorium. It was because everyone loved her. But not as much as Erica did.
Erica enjoyed Rachel’s fluid, confident movements as she walked back and forth, teaching the importance of dialogue. The way her eyebrows became perfect V’s when she asked her summer class a question. And the genuine smile that spread across her face when a student answered correctly.
More than once, Erica heard the boys discuss Rachel.
“What a knockout.”
“She’s hot for an older chick.”
“Hell, I’d do her.”
Erica bet her mother was just as beautiful these days, if not more, if that were possible. She longed to see her again. To know for certain what she looked like.
Erica could barely sit still. She’d had a breakthrough with her writing that morning. A brilliant new idea. An epiphany.
Rachel glanced at her watch. “Let’s recap before moving on,” she said, peering up at the class, her slender hands clasped together. “Dialogue is so much more than words. In fact, it is one of the most important tools you will use in moving your stories forward. You will also use dialogue to help develop your. . .”
Erica usually sat in the front of the class. But she was late that morning and now she sat in the back row. Earlier she’d gone to the little cemetery off Harper’s Road to brainstorm. It was another one of her mother’s writing traditions. Another of her muses. Sometimes she would sit there for long hours with just the dead and her thoughts, concocting macabre situations and worlds. So Erica tried it, too. Like the woods, Erica felt a unique calm just being in the cemetery. The people who lay below her weren’t threatening, unlike the ones she had to interact with on a daily basis.
But as she cut through the woods on her way back home that morning, she was met with the startling realization that someone else was with her. Someone unseen and very alive. Leaves had rustled, then she glimpsed someone about thirty feet away. She called out and the person began to run.
But why. . . Why would someone run?
A knock on the classroom door. Rachel excused herself, then after a few hushed whispers outside the classroom, she poked her head back in. “I’d like you to begin doing the exercises at the end of chapter ten,” she said. “At 10:50, you’re all free to go.”
“Think it’s the police?” a tall girl sitting in front of and slightly to the right of Erica asked a freckled girl.
“The police? Why would it be the police?”
“Because that girl was sleeping with her husband.”
Erica quit thumbing her way to chapter ten. Her fingers slipped out of the text. She disliked where the conversation in front of her was heading.
“What girl?” the freckled girl asked, scrunching up her forehead.
“Where have you been? The missing girl. Tiffany Something.”
Erica watched the girl’s jaw drop. “Oh. Mrs. Anderson’s husband was sleeping with her?”
“Sure was.”
The freckled girl looked skeptical. “How do you know that?”
“It’s only public knowledge. Mrs. Anderson found out about it and freaked. And some people think maybe she’s the reason she’s missing.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Erica bit into her lower lip, willing herself not to say anything. These girls were stupid. What did they know anyway. She kicked the back of the tall girl’s seat.
The tall girl turned.
“Accident,” Erica muttered, staring at her text, not bothering to look up.
She felt the girl gaze at her for a quick moment before turning back around.
The freckled girl whispered, “She doesn’t look like a killer.”
“Hel-lo? Did Dahmer? Bundy?”
“Dahmer did.”
The tall girl ignored her. “Well, Mrs. Anderson isn’t as perfect as she may look. She obviously had a motive. And get this, she kept visiting the diner in Grand Trespass where Tiffany worked. Like clockwork. Like some sort of stalker.”
Erica kicked the back of her chair again.
The tall girl turned.
“Oops,” Erica said, her voice hard. Her eyes boring into the girl’s.
The girl studied her for a few seconds, the expression on her face a mixture of anger and confusion. Then, understanding the unspoken message, she turned back around and said nothing for the rest of the period.
Chapter 19
WEDNESDAY EVENING, HALEY sat at her father’s grave. “We’re having such a hard time, Daddy.” she told him. “Everyone’s so miserable without you. I just want so badly for things to go back to the way they were.”
As each new day passed, her memory of those old days seemed to fade. There were times when she couldn’t even remember what her father had looked like. Sometimes she forgot how his laugh had sounded. Forgetting terrified her.