Salem Falls (13 page)

“I didn’t have anything to do tonight,” Selena said, grinning at Thomas. “I always promised him I’d go to the prom, but then I heard about this Chelsea girl and realized desperate measures need to be taken. We’re gonna show them, aren’t we, Thomas? Can’t be too many freshmen who’ll show up with seventy-two inches of mouth-watering dark chocolate on their arm!”

“Can we back up? Can someone tell me how after months of no communication whatsoever, you managed to waltz back into our lives?”

“First things first,” Selena said. “You left me behind. Second, my whereabouts were never a secret. You know damn well I’ve never had a publicly listed residential phone number. It seems to me that if you looked half as hard as you do to find evidence for acquittal, you could have found me in less than ten minutes.”

“That’s about what it took,” Thomas agreed, shrugging. “Over the Internet.”

Sinking down on the couch, Jordan covered his face with his hands. “You’re twenty-three years older than Thomas.”

“God, Dad, this isn’t a date date. Is that why you’re losing it? You’re jealous?”

“No, I am not jealous. I just can’t imagine that bringing Selena to your school dance is any less jarring than, for example, wearing that tie we were talking about.”

Selena elbowed Thomas. “Hermès silk can’t move as smooth as I can on a dance floor-isn’t that right?”

Thomas laughed. “Just as long as you don’t curse me if I dump you for Chelsea.”

“Honey, are you kidding? That’s the whole point.”

Jordan stood. “Okay. Okay! If you two want to act like . . . like children, be my guest. But I don’t have to stand here and listen to the woman who ruined my life cavort with my son as if nothing ever happened in the first place!” He stormed out of the living room, and a moment later the door to his bedroom slammed shut.

“Who’s acting like the child?” said Thomas.

Selena smirked. “I didn’t think we were cavorting, per se. Did you?”

“Not in the least.”

She lifted Thomas’s arm and crooked it so that she could slip her hand through. “You didn’t tell him I’d be sleeping on the couch tonight, did you?”

Grinning, Thomas shook his head. “Nope.”

“Do you think you ought to mention it? So he has time to work through his fit before we come home?”

Thomas nodded, and then on second thought, shook his head. “A little mystery never hurts,” he said.

Wes knew that some of the officers who pulled shifts at the high school dances liked to pull low their hats and stare at the nubile girls from beneath the brims-the fluid curves and candy-glitter makeup a guilty pleasure. In his opinion, though, the ones that bore watching were the young boys. They’d push and shove at each other with their thick, sloped shoulders, take slight over whose foot fell first on a block of brick, raise their voices just to be heard-these were children’s minds, trapped in the bodies of men.

“Ten bucks says that kid in the Abercrombie & Fitch hat throws a punch before the hour’s out,” Wes said, leaning toward Charlie Saxton. It was strange to see him decked out like an officer; usually, as the squad’s detective, he wore plain clothes beneath his shield.

“Last time I checked, Wes, betting was against the law in New Hampshire.”

“It’s an expression.”

Charlie glanced dismissively at him. “Thank you, Mr. Pop Culture.”

“Hey, it’s the patrol officers who know what’s really going on in this town.” He was bursting with his knowledge, desperate to tell. “You ever hear of a Jack St. Bride?”

Charlie sighed. “Aw, goddammit. Yeah, I have. He came in to register.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. And I fucked up. I was going to send out a memo to everyone and somehow lost track of it.”

The wind had gone out of Wes’s sails. “So you knew about him.”

“Yeah.”

“Sexual assault.”

Charlie nodded. “It was plea-bargained down from rape.”

“And you know that he’s living in Salem Falls now.”

“Ex-cons have to live somewhere. You can’t round ’em up and stick ’em on a reservation.”

“We don’t have to roll out a welcome mat, either,” Wes said.

Charlie turned, shielding the conversation from public view. “I didn’t just hear you say that, you understand?”

Chagrined, Wes nodded. Charlie outranked him. “I still think people have the right to know someone’s a jerk before they get involved with him.”

Charlie stifled a smile. “Gotta admit, that policy could come in handy.”

“I’m glad you think this is so funny. Let’s see how hard you’re laughing the first time one of these girls is sitting across from you with her clothes torn, crying because she happened to have the bad luck to cross paths with St. Bride.”

Charlie opened his mouth to respond, but the boy in the Abercrombie & Fitch hat punched one of the other kids. “Ten bucks,” he murmured, and followed Wes through a sea of slack-jawed teens to do his job.

Thomas could feel the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes on his shoulders as he rocked back and forth on the dance floor with Selena. She stood a full head taller than he, which made it awkward, since his face was pressed up against her breasts, and he was a guy after all, so of course he couldn’t get that fact out of his mind, even if it was just Selena.

But nobody else knew that. A senior-one who’d stuffed him in a locker for the hell of it last month-had come over to ask if that was really Tyra Banks. Another wanted to know the going rate for an escort service these days. But that wasn’t nearly as rewarding as knowing that Chelsea was watching. He’d seen her standing off to the side of the gym with two of the three girls she usually hung with, the look on her face almost comical.

Thomas lifted his face to Selena’s. “If you kiss me, I’ll give you all the money in my college fund.”

Selena laughed out loud. “Thomas, honey, Bill Gates couldn’t pay me enough to kiss you here in the middle of a dance floor. On the one hand, see all those cops? I’m not about to be locked up for statutory rape. On the other hand, it’s just plain creepy. You’re like a nephew or something.”

The music ended, a faint sappy warbling. Selena patted Thomas’s cheek. “How about you stay here and make up stories about how you met me, while I get us some punch?”

She walked off, her perfect ass twitching beneath the silk tube of her dress. And that wasn’t even the most attractive part of Selena-there was her sense of humor, her sharp mind, and the way she’d yell at schoolyard bullies who killed slugs for the hell of it or kicked sand up into the faces of toddlers. Shit, Thomas thought. If he’d been his father, he would have chained her to the bed.

“Thomas.”

He wheeled around to find Chelsea standing there, and the floor dropped out from beneath him. “Hi,” he said.

Before he could follow that up with a coherent comment, Selena returned with two dripping cups. “Disgusting stuff,” she muttered. “Enough sugar in it to kill a horse.” She handed one cup to Thomas, then smiled brightly at the girl beside him.

“I’m Chelsea Abrams,” she said, sticking out her hand.

“Selena Damascus. Charmed.”

“Apparently,” Chelsea whispered beneath her breath.

The DJ resumed his post at the head of the gym, and music pulsed around them again. “So,” Thomas said, “would you like to dance?”

“Love to,” Selena said, at the same moment that Chelsea answered, “Sure.”

Chelsea reddened and stepped back. “I’m sorry . . . I thought . . .”

“I did,” Thomas assured her. “I was.”

“You two go on ahead,” Selena demurred. “I want to finish this drink first.” Grimacing, she took a large gulp and smiled over the edge of the cup.

But Chelsea shook her head. “My friends . . . they’re waiting for me,” she said, and darted away.

Thomas’s chest ached as he watched her navigate the crowd. He would have given anything to touch her hand and lead her onto the dance floor, to see her smile at something he’d said, to feel his pulse speed up at the possibility of what might happen next. And yet here he was once again, the victim of another missed opportunity. He tried to pretend that he was perfectly fine, schooling his face into nonchalance before turning to Selena.

But it was there in his eyes, this wish that things had turned out differently. Selena did a double take, as if she could not quite believe what she was seeing.

“What?” Thomas asked.

“Nothing.” Selena sipped her drink. “For a moment there, you just looked so much like your father.”

When the door of the diner opened after hours, Jack glanced up in surprise. He’d assumed Addie had locked it, and he felt a quick flash of anger-who dared to interrupt the time he had alone with this woman?

The man who entered was a regular trying very hard not to appear as drunk as he actually was. “Ms. Peabody,” he said, “can you help me mainline some caffeine?”

Jack stepped forward. “I’m sorry, but we’re-”

Suddenly Addie’s small hand was on his arm, and he lost the power of speech. “I think we can manage that, Mr. McAfee.” She gestured imperceptibly toward the man, so that Jack would understand. The guy was certainly having a rough night; that much was clear from the way his hair stood on end and his eyes sank into red-rimmed sockets, from the scent of despair that buzzed around him like a cloud of midges. “It’ll just be a minute.”

Characters in this literary work include the characters Christian, Faithful, and Evangelist.

Jordan glanced up at the sound of Alec Trebek’s voice. “The Biography of Jerry Falwell.”

Addie grinned. “Is he right, Jack?”

“No. It’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

When the answer was announced, Jordan laughed. “Impressive.” He picked up the steaming mug of coffee Addie had given him. “Tell me then, what great oeuvre includes the characters Spurned, Screwed, and Royally Fucked?”

Jack looked at Addie and blinked.

“That,” Jordan said, belching, “would be the story of my life.” He took a healthy swig from his mug. “No offense, Ms. Peabody, but women . . . God, they’re like broken glass lying in the middle of the road. Cut a man to shreds before he realizes what’s happened.”

“Only if you’re intent on running us over,” Addie said dryly.

Jordan gestured toward Jack. “You ever have trouble with women?”

“Some.”

“You see?”

Addie refilled Jordan’s coffee cup. “Where’s your son tonight, Mr. McAfee?”

“School dance. And he took that goddamn piece of glass with him.”

“Piece of . . . glass?”

“The woman!” Jordan moaned. “The one who ruined my life!”

“I’m going to call you a cab now, Mr. M,” Addie said.

Jack leaned his elbows on the counter. It turned out people truly did cry into their coffee cups. Worse, Jordan McAfee seemed to have no idea that he was doing it. “What did she do to you?”

Jordan shrugged. “She said no.”

At the words, a shudder ripped through Jack.

Suddenly, the door opened as Wes blustered in, his stint as a chaperone now finished. “Addie, you got some coffee for a guy who’s been forced to listen to rap for the past four-”

“We’re closed,” Jack said.

Wes’s eyes passed over Jordan and landed on Jack. “Thank God you’re not alone with him,” he said to Addie.

She smiled. “Mr. McAfee may be a little tipsy, but he’s not dangerous . . .”

“I’m not talking about McAfee.” He protectively closed his hands around her upper arms. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, wrenching away.

“Oh, I get it. You’ll let scum like St. Bride touch you, but not me.”

“Watch what you say, Wes,” Addie warned.

The policeman whirled toward Jack. “You gonna let her fight your battles? Maybe you want to tell your boss what you didn’t tell her the day she hired your sorry ass.”

For a moment, the only sound was Alec Trebek’s voice: With 8,891 points, Dan O’Brien holds the world record in this track and field event. Jack felt the floor shift beneath his feet and thought, not for the first time, that life is in the details.

He could not bear to meet Addie’s eyes-Addie, who had trusted him. “I was in jail,” Jack admitted. “For eight months.”

It was all coming together for her now-why Jack had surfaced from nowhere, why a man moving to a town would have only a box of possessions and the clothes on his back, why he did not talk about his past. Jack waited for her to speak, his own mouth dry as a desert.

“Tell her why,” Wes prodded.

But that, Jack wouldn’t do.

“I’m sure if this is true, Jack can explain,” Addie said shakily.