Charming (27 page)

Chris glanced at Richard, and he nodded.

“Why not?” Christine lit a cigarette, must have run out of pot—or her allotment for the day. “You guys realize this is how every horror film starts off, right?”

Good thing the horror started for Haley ages ago.

ichard steered the truck down the rock-lined driveway. Stones popped and dinged the wheel wells, crushing any hope of making a stealthy approach. He parked near a nineties model faded-blue minivan, and dust rushed up and swarmed around them.

“You guys sure you want to do this?” Christine bounced her knees. “What if we happen to knock on Walter’s door? Then what? Do you say hello, my name is Haley Tremaine; you ruined my life; prepare to die?”

Chris laughed. “Stop saying that!”

Christine beamed a huge smile at him. “I’m liking you more and more every day, Loverboy. But, seriously, what’s the plan?”

Chris glanced out the back window. “Harvey’s got a tire iron in the bed of this beast. He’ll stay hidden here while the three of us go to the door.”

“Christine should stay.” Haley couldn’t add Christine to a list of losses. Not for this. “She can help Richard.”

“All right. Let’s go.” Chris led Haley to the front porch of the old blue house, then put one foot on a stair to test its ability to hold weight. There were holes in the wooden planks, revealing a hoarder’s paradise beneath: old bicycles, wagons, plastic toys, bags and bags of trash. The smell of rot hung heavily in the air.

This place was definitely a fixer-upper.

Squirrels scampered in the uncut grass growing up through beater cars and trucks scattered around the property, collecting food for the winter and then climbing back up to their nests high up in the tallest branches. Even the animals couldn’t stay on the ground long.

An occasional car passed by on the main road, providing the only sounds of civilization. Few and far between and definitely not enough.

Haley shuddered.

“Stay here. I’ll go up.” Chris walked across the creaking porch and then knocked on the door, looking to the left and then the right. Nothing around them but crows and squirrels.

And no one was home, either.

“It is a Tuesday. Maybe the owners are at work?” Haley joined him and pounded her fist against the screen door, rattling the wooden frame. “Or out to dinner?”

“Coming. Coming. Hold your horses,” a woman called from inside the house. “Better be important.”

Chris and Haley drew in a deep breath of the rotted air as they waited.

“What do you want?” The woman stood at the door with a cigarette in hand, bathrobe open over tattered cotton pajama bottoms and a crumpled black t-shirt. Her hair was a nasty nest of ratty tangles, and wrinkles covered every inch of exposed skin.

Haley did her best to smile, seem confident, normal, and stuttered out the first thing that came to mind, “I’m sorry to bother you, but my friend and I are doing a school report on the effect of the economy on small towns.”

Chris choked, then doubled over and coughed repeatedly.

Shut up
.

“Okay.” The woman watched Chris with mild interest, then looked back at Haley, lips pursed. “What do you want?”

“We just have a few questions we’re asking you and your neighbors so we can write a report.”

“What school ya go to?”

Chris straightened, his face covered in red blotches. “Deerfield Academy.”

The woman slammed the door in their faces.

“She was quite pleasant. We should do this more often.” Chris stepped off the porch, but Haley remained in place and knocked again.

“I don’t have time,” the woman shouted through the door.

Niles and Joce didn’t have time.

“I go to Frontier Regional. Our schools are collaborating on this project, researching differences between classes and what students from different income levels can learn. Please, you’re our first stop.” Haley’s heart raced so fast she thought it would burst through the bandages wrapped around her ribs.

“Fine. Pests.” The woman joined them on the porch, resting her back against the door. “I guess I can spare a few minutes.”

“Great.” Haley turned to Chris. “Can I use your cell? Mine died.”

He handed his over, then she scrolled straight to the voice recorder app, keeping up with the quick string of lies she threw out. “Did you or anyone in your house lose your job due to the most recent recession?”

The woman lit another cigarette and nodded. “My husband.”

“What industry did he work in?”

“He worked at a local bank.”

“How did that affect your living situation? Did you need to move? Dip into your retirement accounts? What type of hardships did you face?”

Chris leaned his head to the side, no doubt wondering what the hell Haley was up to, but she had a plan. Or something like a plan. Maybe.

“Our cars were repo’d, and every bit of food we ate, we had to pay for with credit cards. Our retirement accounts were already spent; the lull in the market ate up most of the funds. My husband took it the hardest. He started staying out late, concocting schemes for startup businesses with his buddies. That’s where the rest of our money went.”

“Thank you for being so honest with me.”

The woman took a drag of her cigarette. “Ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”

“During these hard times you’ve faced, did you notice other societal changes, such as people buying and selling real estate? Did you gain new neighbors or lose?”

The woman puffed out a wall of white smoke. “Little of both, really. We weren’t the only ones who lost jobs. But other people who still had jobs swooped in here and bought up all my neighbors’ houses for dirt cheap.”

“Were these people from nearby towns or different states or…?”

“Depends. The house next to me has been vacant three or four years now, but my girlfriend Mary Sue down the street has a few new people ‘round her. They bought up houses in need of repair, but one of ‘em doesn’t do anything. He just wastes his money.”

Could this possibly work? Could this woman lead Haley to Joce and Niles this easily? “Would you mind giving us her address so we can talk to her as well?”

The woman pushed her cigarette into an overfilled ashtray on a moldy plastic table on the porch. “One twenty-two. But maybe you could stop by the man’s house and ask him a few questions?”

Walter. This had to be Walter. “What would you like me to ask him?”

“Ask him if he ever plans to fix up that house. It’s an eyesore!”

And this wasn’t?

“Okay. Maybe we can work that into our research papers somehow. What’s his address?”

“One twenty.”

One twenty. Walter kept Joce and Niles at one twenty. Haley knew. She knew, and she could barely stop herself from running away from this sad woman to get there.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Chris said, extending his hand, but the woman didn’t take it. She stared as though he carried the plague, eyes narrowed and accusing. Maybe she thought all that coughing meant Chris was sick. Maybe she didn’t have insurance. Or maybe she didn’t want to touch him because he went to Deerfield Academy.

He shoved his hand in his pocket, and Haley patted the woman’s shoulder.

“I appreciate the time you took to speak with us,” she said, “We won’t take up any more.”

The woman smiled, revealing teeth stained dark yellow, and watched as Chris and Haley returned to the truck.

“I’m assuming our next stop is one twenty?” Chris helped Haley into the truck, face slightly pale, eyes still on the woman standing on her porch.

“Have a better idea?” Haley whispered.

“Not at the moment.”

Richard started the engine and moved the shifter to Reverse. “Where to?”

“Few houses to the west.” Chris took Haley’s hand and rubbed this thumb over hers, back and forth, fast, so fast. He was nervous. Why wasn’t Haley?

She had nothing to lose.

At a bend in the road, an eyesore worse than the one they’d just left sat tucked behind a cluster of pine: wood paneling battered from years of termite infestation; screened-in front porch with torn screens, its door hanging on its hinges; a banged up pick-up sitting in the rock-lined driveway carved with deep grooves from heavy rains. Haley glanced at the mailbox: one twenty.

“That’s it,” she shouted. “Why are you driving past it?”

Richard laughed, gripping the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles white. “You don’t want me to pull into a psycho’s driveway, do you?”

Maybe.

Christine pointed at a for sale sign one house down. “Let’s park there. We can get out and watch from far away, far, far away.”

They left the car in the driveway of the next house, then peeked in the windows to make sure no one was home. Not a single piece of furniture sat inside. The owners abandoned their property.

The four of them walked the land, pretending to be interested in it all while keeping an eye on the dilapidated shack through the trees.

Not much of anything happened. No construction crews showed up. No hammering of nails echoed from inside. Silence, except for the pounding of Haley’s heart, the birds in the trees, and the occasional twerp of Chris’s phone—that he kept glancing and sighing at.

Two hours passed, three. Haley’s fingers turned blue with the setting of the sun.

Chris draped an arm around her shoulders. “Haley—”

“I’m not leaving.” She pulled her knees to her chest, hating how they ached from the cold. “Not until I see someone walk out of that house—or into it.” Haley couldn’t stand the slight frown on Chris’s face. She couldn’t stand the thought of him not having hope, or pitying her, or wanting to answer whoever kept texting him. “But if you guys want to leave, I understand. I’ll call you when I need a ride home.”

Chris jerked back as if Haley had slapped him.

“I may have sworn never to use physical force in your presence, Haley, but don’t tempt me.” Christine stood in front of Haley, hands on her hips. “We’re not leaving you here.”

“Harvey, keep watch.” Chris dragged Haley to her feet and off to a quiet corner along the side of the white house. “Do you really believe that I wanted to leave, or leave you here? By
yourself
?”

She couldn’t face Chris when his eyes were narrow. She couldn’t face him because he looked so hurt, so sad. Haley wanted to abuse herself for causing that. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”

“God, Haley. You let your dad hit you for years, blindly protecting your sister. You took shit from her to honor your mom. I get it. I do. But are you fucking crazy? I’m not them. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to walk away from you. I actually
care
for you, Haley. The only thing I was going to say was that my dad’s texts are getting more and more urgent.”

They stared at each other, eyes shouting words their mouths were too afraid to say. She wanted to ask a million questions, questions she desperately needed the answers to, like how Chris saw Haley that way, as someone to cherish, when she barely cherished herself; how he could want to be here when he had everything.

And his gaze, it stole her breath away, the way his chest heaved with the weight of his confession—he cared, he
cared
—

The sound of wood banging against wood cut through Haley, and she froze. Chris did too. The slam drew the heat of the moment away. Chris broke eye contact first, then crouched low.