Bone Dust White (21 page)

“Of course, it’s a V8,” he’d slur drunkenly. “It’s a Ford F-250 extended cab. Custom built, for God’s sake.” He’d stagger around, bottle in one hand and pointing out the truck’s features with the other. “Mint condition.”

One particular summer evening, her uncle Arnold went even further.

“Mint condition,” he said, lopsided grin stuck to his face. “Just like my Gracie here. She’s mint.” He narrowed his eyes at his friends and jabbed a finger toward his niece. “And she’s gonna stay that way.”

Grace gets to the front of the truck and plugs in the block heater. It’s going to take at least two hours before the engine is warm enough to try starting it up. She glances at the side door that leads into the kitchen and thinks of how one small decision can change everything. If she’d stayed at the house instead of going off to sulk, Walter Nielson would have left her alone and Dustin wouldn’t have come to her rescue. After that evening things between her and Dustin changed. It started with a secret. After he calmed her down and dried her eyes, he made her promise never to tell anyone about what happened.
I’ll deal with Walter,
he said.
I’ll make sure he never touches you again.

Grace pulls open the door to her uncle’s truck and climbs up into the cab. The cold plastic seats buckle and snap. It’s spotless inside and out. That was one of Arnold’s rules. Whenever they got back from a trip they’d clean his truck until it looked like new. There wouldn’t be a smear, a smudge, or a speck of dirt to be found anywhere. He scrubbed the wheel wells and tire treads. She even saw him vacuuming out the filters. They spent hours in the garage together. He showed her how to adjust the spark plugs, change the oil, and check all the fluids. The truck had over two hundred thousand miles on it but it still looked brand-new. There wasn’t a single scratch in the dark green paint. Using the remote control attached to the visor, Grace shuts the garage door and sits in darkness.

Dustin started showing up at the back gate a couple of weeks after her transplant operation, only calling out to her when he was sure her aunt was gone from the house, running errands. She listened to him say she was pretty. She listened to him call her baby. He said he wanted to kiss her, that she could be his girl. Throughout that long last night she replayed his words in her head as she lay in bed, weaving a story around him, a fairy tale around them. On the morning her mother died, he threw pebbles at her bedroom window. He carried long-stemmed red roses, which he held to his heart. Grace dressed quickly in her nightgown and kimono before running downstairs to let him in the gate. The air outside had been sharper than expected.

“Aren’t you a pretty thing?” he said, his eyes wolf-like, his mouth leering.

Grace stopped, her feet freezing on cold pavement. She didn’t like his tone. There was a familiar ring to it that didn’t sit well with her. But then he smiled kindly and the threat was gone.

His voice was soft. “You just take your time. I’ll wait all day if that’s what it takes.”

An expanse of overgrown grass stretched out in front of her. She took a tentative step forward, her eyes going wide from the shock of the cold dampness. Her second step was more cautious than the first. She was slowing down instead of speeding up. Expecting his anger, she received only encouragement.

“Come here,” he said. “You promised me a kiss. I’ve been waiting four years to kiss you again.”

But Grace grew more ill at ease with each footfall. She was getting closer and closer to that mouth of his. Realizing she could go no further, she stopped a few feet from the gate.

He held a hand palm upward, stretching it toward her through the iron bars. “Grace, this is our chance to make things right.”

“No,” she said, backing away. She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him that nothing could ever make things right between them, but the words got tangled up inside her head. She could only repeat the word “no.” She was surprised when she heard herself shouting it over and over again.

He snatched at the air between them with his hands. “Where are you going?”

Grace, already stumbling backward, tripped over her mother’s kimono and fell to the ground. Once on the porch she backed into the house, not once taking her eyes off him. She now saw just how close she’d let him get. She’d led him on. This time it was her fault.

“Grace, come back. I just want the chance to start over.” He shook the bars. “Please, Grace, I love you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Given how much she’d promised him in the past week, it seemed such a weak answer.
I loved you yesterday but not today
.

The side door leading from the garage to the kitchen opens, and Macy flicks on the light switch. Overhead the lamps blink into brightness in a quick march across the ceiling. Grace rolls down the window and asks Macy if they’d started packing up the things in her room.

Macy comes to the passenger side and gets in. “Don’t worry. We followed your instructions to the letter. I’m sure you’ll have everything you need now.”

“Is my aunt still angry with me?”

“She’s not angry, she’s just upset that you argued.”

Grace runs her hands over the steering wheel. “It’s the first time I’ve ever talked back to her.”

“Hopefully, it won’t be the last.”

“She knows my uncle promised that I could have the truck when I turned eighteen. It’s not my problem that he didn’t really mean it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I was never expected to live this long.”

“You can’t think like that.”

She wipes tears from her eyes. “I’m tired of being told how to think.”

“Welcome to my world.” Macy runs her eyes over the interior of the truck. “Why were you so desperate to have the truck now? It will be a while before you’ll be able to drive it.”

“Yeah, I know. I just felt like getting my way for once.”

“I get that.”

Grace looks at Macy. “I never want to go inside this house again.”

“I can’t say I blame you. I was kind of surprised you were willing to come up here at all.” Macy pauses. “Have you given any more thought to the message we found written on the wall?”

Grace puts her hands on the steering wheel. “No, ma’am.”

“In the last couple of months have you received any odd telephone calls? Did you notice anyone in particular hanging around the hospital?”

“Are you talking about when I had my operation?”

“Yes, around that time your name was in the newspapers. There was a writer who did a couple of feature articles on the heart transplant. Someone may have gotten a crush on you.”

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but my aunt was trying to raise money for my medical care. The insurance didn’t cover everything.”

“How much did you manage to raise?”

“A lot more than we expected. A couple of people were very generous.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“They gave anonymously.”

“So no phone calls and no strange visitors?”

“Nothing that I can recall, but I was pretty out of it in the first week after the operation so I have no idea who came to see me.”

Macy places her hands on her swollen belly. “What about the reporter? What was he like?”

“He seemed nice, but I didn’t like his photographer.”

“Why’s that?”

“He called me a spoiled brat because I didn’t want to have my picture taken.”

“No wonder you look so upset in all the photos. Did he do or say anything else that you found strange?”

“Well, it may have been nothing, but he seemed to know a lot about my mom. I didn’t like that.”

“How old was he?”

“At least fifty.”

“So they could have known each other.”

“I suppose so.”

Macy glances over at the door. “I need to go back inside. Are you okay out here on your own?”

“There are three patrol cars parked outside in the driveway. I think I’ll be fine.”

“All right then.”

Grace waits for a few minutes and Macy doesn’t reappear. She turns and climbs over the seat into the rear of the cab. There’s a lever on the side of the wide bench seat. She pulls it and the seat pops upward. Underneath, a black metal box is bolted to the floor. She removes a ring of keys from her coat and finds the one she’s looking for. The lid comes off easily. Inside, there’s a 9mm semiautomatic, several clips of ammunition, and a few tightly bound rolls of fifty-dollar bills secured with a rubber band. She picks up the gun and holds it in her hands. She’d been with her uncle when he bought it. A man she’d never seen before drove up in an old Buick and after popping the trunk, he sifted through a heavy pile, listing the name of every firearm until he found what her uncle wanted, a 9mm semiautomatic. Her uncle often took it on fishing trips, sometimes lining up beer cans for target practice.

“Nothing wrong with learning how to protect yourself,” he’d say, forcing her to take hold of the weapon. “There are some strange men out there.”

Grace was fourteen at the time and already knew plenty about strange men. It was the same summer Dustin left town without saying good-bye. Grace couldn’t understand why she felt so lost without him. She was old enough to know she should hate him and was upset to find that she missed him instead.

She puts the gun back in the box and picks up a bundle of money. She turns back the corners on the first few bills, checking to make sure they’re all fifties before slipping the roll into her coat pocket.

Grace thinks about her mother’s last words.
You’ll have to be careful,
she said, her eyes drifting shut.
They’re still looking for the money.

Grace stretches out on the backseat. She doesn’t know how much money they’re looking for but she imagines it must be a great deal if it’s worth killing someone over. Her mother seemed obsessed with money. Every night she’d spread out her tips on the kitchen table and count it all out. Occasionally, she found a foreign coin, usually Canadian. Leanne would frown and put it to one side.
What kind of cheapskate gives the waitress money she can’t spend?
Leanne stored everything in a metal coffee tin that she hid in her bedroom. One evening she caught Grace pulling it from its hiding place.

She’d screamed at Grace.
Don’t you ever touch it again. I swear I’ll know if you do.

It seemed like a lot of money. None of it was Canadian.

16

Ray’s call wakes Macy from a deep sleep. She fumbles around the sheets looking for her phone. “We need to meet,” he says, telling her that he has new information on the case but would rather not come all the way to Collier.

Macy suggests the diner in Walleye Junction and they agree to have breakfast there in an hour. She yawns into her palm and focuses in on the time. It’s only six in the morning. She mutters a few expletives and staggers out of bed. She’s been living out of a suitcase all week and is unsure if she has anything clean to wear.

For several miles she follows at a safe distance behind a gritting truck, content to take it slow so she has time to collect her thoughts. Her appearance bothers her. She feels so uncoordinated. She’s always been able to enter a room believing she was taking ownership of it. Now she feels the need to skirt around the edges as if apologizing for her bulk. She sits up a little taller and reminds herself once more that she’s pregnant, not diseased.

It’s early Saturday morning and the parking lot is nearly empty. She chooses a spot close to the door and steps out into the freezing cold. Other than the diner all the businesses along the main thoroughfare appear to be closed. Macy concentrates on her balance. It’s icy and the last thing she wants to do is fall. Given her size, she’s afraid she’ll never be able to get up.

She’s reaching for the door handle when she hears footsteps approach from behind. She looks up and there’s Ray smiling down at her and the next thing she knows she’s smiling too. She hadn’t meant to. She’d meant to sit across from him and scowl over their plates of food but now she’s nearly in tears. She swallows hard and keeps her expression in check. Instead of touching they say an awkward good morning, shying away from any eye contact whatsoever. By the time she’s breathing properly again, he’s already moving toward the tables. He opts for a booth in a far corner, well out of range of the front windows.

The waitress who’d served Macy earlier in the week is nowhere to be seen. A young woman named Fern takes their orders and disappears after she serves them coffee. Macy stays busy emptying her bag of the notes she’d thought to bring along. She takes a sip of coffee and stares at the growing pile of paper. Bringing them was pointless. Ray will know that she’s memorized everything pertinent to the case.

The waitress comes back with their orange juice and Macy watches Ray as he makes polite conversation. He’s gained weight and the gray around his temples seems more pronounced. He turns toward her and their eyes meet for a second. She’s so struck by how tired he looks that she can’t help herself.

“You look miserable,” she says.

“That’s because I am.”

Macy’s mind goes into overdrive. She tells herself that it’s an admission that means nothing. He could be talking about work. He could be talking about his health. He could be talking about his marriage. She tries to lighten the mood. “Being in close proximity to Collier seems to have that effect on people.”

“In that case, it’s a good thing I only came this far.” His hand moves forward a fraction and stops. His expression remains inscrutable. “How are you holding up? All things considered, you look amazingly well.”

Macy feels her cheeks redden. “I seem to thrive in Collier.”

“That’s good because things are about to get crazy in Collier.” He pushes a file toward Macy and leans back in his chair. “I’m afraid the circus is coming to town.”

“Circus?”

“Do you remember that little girl who was murdered in Helena last year?”

“What’s going on?”

“Molly Parks was only eleven years old. Within the past two years there have been two other cases of girls who were molested but not murdered. One was twelve and the other was nine. All the same perpetrator but at different locations: Helena, Shelby, Dayton, and now he’s here in Collier.”