Pernicious (58 page)

         
“Yes, I do,” noticing for the first time that the yard was devoid of flora of any sort, only blackened dirt.

         
“I paid a kid down the street to keep it up. He and his family moved. A couple of times I broke out the John Deere and played around. That got old fast. I doused the whole yard with seven gallons of diesel. What an excitement that caused around here.”

         
Tasha closed her eyes and shook her head.

         
Neal knelt down to Tasha’s eye level. “Uh…” He coughed. “Uh…Tasha, Perry has a daughter…had a daughter. Her name is Keshana. She called me several times and, uh, she asked if she could come stay a few weeks and look for a job.”

         
“What she say when you told her hell no?”

         
“I didn’t tell her that. She’ll be eighteen in a few months. She ain’t nothing like Perry. Her grandmother raised her and you wouldn’t believe the things the woman has done to her.”

         
Tasha covered her face with her hands. “No, Jesus, no!” She slid her hands down her face and turned to Neal. “My fault, Neal, all my fault! The Taser short-circuited the synapses that controlled common sense.”

         
“You’re being sarcastic again.”

         
“Think, Neal!” Tasha shouted. “Think! The same woman who raised Perry also raised Perry’s daughter. What the hell are you thinking? You think you and she are going to sit on the porch, drink lemonade and reminisce about her mother. For all you know, she blames you for her mother’s death.” She hit the steering wheel with both hands. “Jesus!”

         
“Hey, hey, hey! I didn’t say I would let her stay. I probably won’t. I was just thinking about it.”

         
Tasha gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “The day that girl comes here is the day Derrick stops coming here! I’m not sending my son through another ordeal. For you! Me! Nobody! Do you hear me?”

         
SNAP!

         
Neal stared at the ground.

         
“Do you hear me, Neal Montgomery?”

         
“You’re getting too loud. My neighbors!” As if on cue, the woman next door stepped out on her front porch. Neal waved at her. “How you doing, ma’am?”
 

         
“Fine, just fine,” the woman said, smiling, and went back inside.

         
Neal said, “I don’t know what to make of that woman. Waaay too friendly. I get the feeling she’s happy Perry’s gone.”

         
SNAP!

         
“Neal, tell Derrick to come on. I’m ready to go.”

         
“Tasha, I have a hard time alone, you know? I’m not the type of man who can live alone. I’m the type who needs a family.” He reached inside the car and tried to hug her. Tasha drew back. “May I at least have a hug?”

         
“Tell Derrick let’s go.”

         
Neal looked her straight in the eye, his expression solemn. “Let’s try it again, Tasha. This time I won’t let you down. Promise, cross my heart, hope to die.”

         
Tasha tapped the horn.

         
“I guess that means no,” Neal said.

         
SNAP! SNAP!

         
“What is that?” Tasha said.

         
“What was what?”

         
“The noise, Neal. What was it?”

         
“I didn’t hear anything.”
         
Derrick came out and hugged Neal before getting into the backseat.

         
Tasha started the engine.

         
Neal placed both hands on the car door. “Tasha, think about what I said. Okay?”

         
“Go in the house, Neal.”

         
“You can’t make me go in the house, I’m a grown man!”

         
“Start thinking like one!”

         
SNAP! SNAP!

         
“Neal Montgomery, you don’t hear that noise?”

         
Neal stepped back from the car. “Go home, Tasha.”

         
“That’s a switch,” Tasha said, and backed the Honda out of the driveway.

         
Neal waited till the car was halfway down the street before turning and looking up at the second-story window.

Brow furrowed, he stood there a good minute before crossing to the brass door and going inside.

                                     
* * * * *

         
A mahogany cheval mirror in the spare bedroom witnessed the flaw to an otherwise exquisite body. A body befitting a goddess. Creamy light-bronze skin that glistened naturally. Long, athletic legs. Firm, chiseled buttocks above taut thighs. Sandy gold hair down her nape, almost covering the flaw, a striation of welts criss-crossing her back, vertically and horizontally, most healed, made years ago; thirteen lines recent, fresh, the skin raised and purplish, inflicted a week ago.

         
Keshana turned away from the window; soul-piercing blue eyes staring at her nude reflection in the mirror. Smiling, she pointed the blood-stained hedge shears at a photograph of Tasha taped to the mirror.

         
SNAP! SNAP!