Breaking Glass (37 page)

I slip it open and know I’ve hit pay dirt. The keys are stuck with a Post-it—
Trudy Durban, 38 Melrose Park Drive
.

Do I dare?

For a flash, I feel sorry for Dad and the trouble I may cause him. Despite everything I’ve put him through, he still doesn’t get just how devious, and cunning, and downright sneaky I can be when I’ve set my mind on things. I stick the keys in my pocket, not precisely sure if I’ll ever get the nerve to use them or why I’d need to. But something tells me I should.

I drive to Awesome Cow to meet Marisa. We walk the first mile through town and up Greenbrook Road in comfortable silence, our breath hanging in vaporous puffs on the crisp air. I’ve gotten used to the alternating pressure—foot, thigh, foot, thigh.

It’s become second nature to me. But between the steady beats, I wonder if I’m making the same mistake all over again. If I’m letting personal bias color the truth. I viewed Susannah through the lens of my obsession, never really seeing her for the way she was. Maybe now I’m doing the same with Ryan because I feel sorry for him. And because I’m guilt-ridden. What if I’m wrong about him, too?

And if I’m not, then who killed Susannah?

Patrick? Trudy? Spake? The possibilities swirl in my head.

Marisa and I have walked fast and I’m a bit winded. I stop to catch my breath. Between the bare trees, the reservoir glitters in silver patches.

Marisa looks up at me, and smiles. “I can barely keep up with you. You and Veronica are Team Awesome.”

“We make a strange love triangle—me, you, and my bionic leg.”

“I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous. She’s the one who always gets to be close to you.”

I crack a one-sided smile. “Yeah, but she’ll never really warm up to me.”

Marisa giggles. I cup her face in my hands and sigh. I don’t mention the true third side of our triangle. Leaning in closer, my breath quickens.

“I want you so much,” she says, her lips parting. “I can’t stand this anymore.”

“Me neither.” I close my eyes and let my mouth find hers.
What’s the harm of one quick kiss?

But I pull back, shaking a little. I can’t risk Marisa getting hurt.

“This sucks,” Marisa says.

We trudge along some more. I look up, surprised to see we’ve gone much further than the two miles we’d planned to walk. My thigh throbs. I’ve overdone it.

“Tired?” Marisa asks. “I can go back and get the car.”

“No. I’m fine. In fact, why don’t you head back? I have a quick errand to do.”

Her voice drops, and her lip curls. “Jeremy, my bullshit detector is bleeping code red. You may think you can put one over on everyone else, but I’m onto you. What are you really up to?”

I finger the keys in my pocket and think about the dream in the cemetery. My mother pulling up boards from the floor of her grave. If Susannah can return from the dead to haunt me, why can’t my mother return to warn me?

I stare into the middle distance, lost in thought.
Dreams don’t lie
, Mom said in the dream.

“Earth to Jeremy?”

I turn to her and smile. “I, uh…” and realize quickly that I can’t lie to Marisa because she sees clear through me. Transparent Jeremy Glass. “I have the keys to Trudy Durban’s house.”

“What? Why? You’re not thinking of—Jeremy, don’t tell me you want to go in there.”

I glance up at the street sign. We’re at the intersection of Melrose and Monroe. It must have been in the back of my mind all along. “Look, Marisa. You don’t have to come. In fact, I insist that you don’t. It might be dangerous.”

“You really are insane. You could slip and fall, and who would be there to help you?”

“You worry too much. Look. They’re getting ready to file charges against Ryan. Not only will that mean an innocent, totally fucked-up guy who can barely see, walk, or even speak for himself could be blamed for a crime he didn’t commit, but it still won’t get Susannah off our backs because I don’t think he did it, and, quite frankly, I don’t know if she wants us to know who really did.”

“Are you saying Susannah wanted to
frame
Ryan? Why?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I had this dream. About floorboards and stuff. I think there’s something in the Durbans’ house that will unravel the whole thing.”

“Isn’t that breaking and entering?”

“Not if I have the key.”

Marisa bites her lower lip, looking so adorable I want to scream.

“Why on earth did I have to get mixed up with the biggest lunatic on the planet?” she moans, mock dramatically, hand to her chest.

“I take that as a yes?”

“Yes. To make sure you don’t get hurt, Mr. My Ass is Glass.”

The Durban house has a forlorn and deserted look. Snow has drifted onto the porch in thick piles and the dirty white of the front lawn is pitted with tossed newspapers left where they’d landed. I realize it’s a good thing Marisa has decided to come with me, because Veronica and I are going to have a rough go crossing the filthy, melting mess.

The sun has disappeared behind a thick cloud cover. The sky has the close dark look of imminent rain, unusual for early January. A drop falls, and then another.

We get to the porch just before the deluge. I’m gasping for breath and embarrassed to be so winded from a simple dash across a yard.

“It’ll get easier, eventually,” Marisa says, reading my mind.

Again, I’m overcome with the urge to kiss her and the anger rushes to my cheeks. It’s not acceptable, I think.

Not acceptable at all, that I can’t.

I place my cold hands on either side of her face and look into her eyes. Electricity passes between us, drawing me closer and I can’t pull away. I want this too much.

So I kiss her anyway, soft and sweet and urgent, right there on the porch, knee-deep in snow. Practical, no-nonsense, quicksilver Marisa. Her lips are cool, her mouth warm. Joy rolls through my nerve endings. Cold as I am, I could stand like this forever, kissing her.

But my memory roams to the time I almost died of hypothermia on Susannah’s porch. It’s only then that I remember where I am.

There’s a sudden gust of wind and the screen door flies open, slamming hard into my back.

“Ouch. Shit!”

“Weird,” Marisa says, looking warily around.

“It was just the wind. That’s all.”

But Marisa’s eyes are wide and I’m not sure she believes me.

Inside, the air is stale, but as always the Durbans’ house is meticulously neat. If anything, though, there are more crosses cluttering every spare inch. Trudy Durban has even hung them on the slats of the staircase banister.

Rain patters the roof and streams into the gutters in small waterfalls. Wind pounds at the windows. I don’t dare turn on the lights, in case a neighbor or passing car might notice intruders. The whole town knows that no one is home at the Durbans’.

Lightning flashes strobe the dark room into intervals of intense brightness. Marisa looks around and shivers. “It’s really spooky being back here. Now, remind me. Why exactly
are
we here?”

“Because I had a dream.”

Marisa laughs nervously. “So, now you’re Martin Luther King.”

I poke her with my elbow. “Funny, funny. I had a dream about something hidden under some floorboards. And I think whatever it is is hidden somewhere here, in this house. But I have no idea what
it
is, or where Trudy would hide something.”

Marisa’s face creases in a frown. “Well, she never did let me clean under her bed.”

There’s a bright flash and an earsplitting crack of thunder. We flinch, and then, without saying a word, we’re racing up the steps to the master bedroom as fast as I can manage, Marisa right behind me.

When we get to the top, a squall of wet wind blasts the hall window open. We hit the floor and creep on our stomachs, commando style, to Trudy’s bedroom. Above us, the blackness gathers and billows in an iridescent cloud.

Once inside the master bedroom, the door slams behind us. With violent pops, all the glass in the room shatters. Shards bombard us in a glittering blizzard, the deadliest snowfall ever. Thunder rattles the floor. Rain slams the roof and pelts the window.

A lamp smashes into the wall behind us, followed by a picture in a glass frame. Small objects, paper, coins, and dust whip into a vortex that whirls around us as we drag ourselves toward the king-sized bed like soldiers to a foxhole. Marisa screams as a sliver of glass grazes her cheek, narrowly missing her eye.

I help her squirm under the bed beside me. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

Marisa presses her scarf to her bleeding cheek. “It’s just a scratch. Let’s make this worth the trouble.”

As we huddle under the bed, the room shrieking and groaning around us, a hurricane of flying objects batters the walls as we grope around for loose floorboards which may or may not be here.

And I wonder if I really am crazy
and
haunted. If I’ve led Marisa on an irresponsible and dangerous wild-goose chase.

My knuckles knock against hollow floor. Digging my fingers between the planks, I pry a single board free, revealing the shallow space beneath.

I poke around, my hand scuffing against something soft, and extract what looks like a large wedding album.

As soon as I open the album, the howling wind stops. The glass shards clatter to the floor.

There are pages and pages of loose-leaf paper slipped under the plastic sheeting of the photo album. Some pages are crowded with ballpoint pen, written in a backward-slanting loopy script. Some are covered, collage-style, with photographs, torn bits of menus, book covers, magazines, and matchbooks. Then come the pages and pages of defaced photos. Patrick Morgan with his eyes torn out. Scribbled on. Gouged. Even burned. Each subsequent page more violent and disturbed, as if the book is a timeline of Trudy’s devolving mental state. Her rabid hatred for Patrick rises from the images like toxic fumes.

A pendant on a chain slips from inside the book. It’s the other half of Mom’s heart locket, embossed with the words.

Teresa

ds forever
.

Marisa and I sit by the window in the waning light and leaf through the strange book that documents the anatomy of Trudy Durban’s rage. But it’s not Trudy’s insane scribblings that hold my interest. Instead, it’s the pristinely penned essay on loose-leaf paper that draws me in.

C H A P T E R
t h i r t y - s e v e n

Teresa Winston and Trudy Durban
My Version
,
December 24
^th
, 1978

Paul had the flu and Celia was out of town visiting relatives. I didn’t want to go out on the ice with Patrick, Trudy, and Doug that night. But Trudy insisted.

“Wear a hat,” she said.

“I hate hats. I get hat hair.”

“Give me a break, Teresa.”

It was just going to be Trudy, Doug, Patrick, and me. And I already knew the scenario. Trudy and Doug would be all over each other, X-rated style, and Patrick, without Paul there, would have his hands all over me. I never did have the nerve to tell Paul that, whenever he turned his back, Patrick swooped in.

It was weird, but I kind of liked it. Patrick was gorgeous. And if I thought for a minute he actually wanted me, I’d have ditched Paul in a second. But everyone knew he was crazy about Celia.

I always ended up doing whatever Trudy wanted. She was wild, willful, beautiful, and fun. And I was afraid she’d drop me for a more interesting and lively friend. Then I’d have no one.

So I went.

Since that day, I’ve spent every waking moment wishing I hadn’t.

It was a bitter and clear night, the full moon beaming down on the ice-bound reservoir. Patrick had stolen some of his dad’s good brandy and we chugged it straight from the bottle. By the time we staggered out on the ice, we were a pack of stumbling fools, laughing madly and howling at the moon.

I let Patrick kiss me. His lips tasted like brandy and oddly, mint, like he’d brushed his teeth extra hard that night. In the cold moonlight, his breath misting, Patrick Morgan looked like a Norse god.

I really liked the feel of the brandy sliding hot down my throat, but not as much as Patrick’s warm mouth on mine.

Out on the frozen reservoir, we skated and slid in our boots, hooting, yelling, and singing Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs. We made up our own zany words to the songs. I felt free. Happy. I wanted to stay out until the gray light of dawn crept over the ice.

We got so drunk that, at one point, Trudy and Doug lay down as if they were in bed together. Patrick thought it was hysterically funny and twirled me around until I plopped onto my bottom.

Then, laughing crazily, he pulled Doug’s knit Yankee hat right off his head.

Some hint that they’d had a falling out. That they were bitter rivals, now.

“Give it back, Morgan.”

But Doug was not laughing. He stood up, glaring at Patrick.

“Give it back, Morgan. You know that hat is special to me.”

Instead, Patrick tossed the hat to me; giggling, I caught it and threw it back to Patrick.