The End of Never (12 page)

“No, I'm not,” she whispered.

Then where did the bloodstains come from?
Benjamin wondered.

“Water, please,” she insisted. Her skin blazed, the inside of her body heated with the intensity of a bonfire. She felt Kraven watching her from the other side of the street.

Kraven wished he could comfort her, but he could only send her one thought:
Rest
.

With their backs to the park across the street, Benjamin and Alexandra hid their confused and flushed faces from Kraven as they stumbled through the glass doors of Park View Tower. Their reflection was captured in the mirrored glass as they rested with Jack inside the lobby of the apartment building. When Benjamin had guided her through the doors, Kraven felt jealousy tugging at his heart.

Alexandra's labored panting echoed off the oak-paneled walls and plush, red carpet. They waited impatiently in the empty lobby for the elevator. At her feet, Jack whined, his pink tongue hanging long and loose from his mouth. Kneeling to stroke his back, Alexandra felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

“I smell smoke,” she said, rising to her feet in her worn rubber flip-flops, the tread crumbling under her toes from her desperate sprint through the park.

“What?” Benjamin asked her. He pounded the up arrow again and again, until the steel doors slid open to the lobby. They entered the elevator, dog in tow. “I don't smell anything, Alex.”

Slipping her ragged fingernails over the tenth-floor button, Alexandra closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She slunk into the right back corner of the elevator. She gripped the handrail on the wall behind her with both of her hands. She still smelled smoke, and she even patted her clothes to see if they were burning on her body.

In the opposite corner, Benjamin studied the bloodstains on her lovely arms. Inching closer, his fingertips grazed the skin of her forearms. “Where did this blood come from on your hands?” He asked the question calmly, hoping she would confide in him.

“Where is Taylor?” asked Alexandra abruptly. She stared into his blue eyes and wearily said, “We were fine before we met you.”

She had been unfair, and even she was not sure why, other than that she was stressed to the breaking point. Benjamin winced, her words cutting into his heart. He knelt and patted Jack on the back of his head. Benjamin made certain to hide his frowning face from Alexandra, who was standing above him.

The elevator rumbled to a stop on the tenth floor. Slowly the dull steel doors opened and revealed a corridor of Park View Tower. Jack jumped over the threshold with Alexandra close on his heels. Meandering silently behind them, Benjamin noticed that the blue carpet needed vacuuming and that spots of dried mud caked the path to Alexandra's apartment door. Smudges, probably fingerprints, smeared the white walls. It was an old building and he thought that it probably held a lot of secrets. As they passed the doors of the other residences, telephones and televisions blared through the walls.

The smell of smoke grew stronger in Alexandra's nose the nearer she ran to her apartment. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned around abruptly and tossed her long hair into Benjamin's face as he stopped at her shoulder.

“Where is Taylor?” she asked, her lips quivering.

“She is in jail,” Benjamin replied, bowing his head.

Absorbing this news, Alexandra drew back her fingers from the doorknob and pounded a fist against his chest. “How could you let this happen?” she screamed.

“Calm down,” Benjamin said patiently, blocking her blows with his palms. “Her stepmother,” he tried to explain while Alexandra weakly hit his hands. “She started it. She called the cops on Taylor.” He shook his head. “You girls have some tempers on you,” he said, trying to distract her.

At their feet, Jack furiously sniffed the air wafting into the hallway from under the apartment door. Clawing at the wood, his paws scratched and tore at the door.

“Smoke!” cried Alexandra, the smell rising to her nostrils. Her hand patted her cut-off jean shorts for the door key. Finding it, she jiggled it frantically in the lock until the door collapsed inward under the weight of her shoulder. “Smoke,” Alexandra mumbled, her feet stumbling toward the fireplace, where a low, orange flame smoldered.

“Smoke?” Benjamin asked, confused as he followed her into the apartment.

Alexandra stared into the fireplace, her skin tingling.

“Yuck,” he moaned, “that stinks.” Benjamin coughed. “It smells as if something horrible was being cooked in there. It's disgusting.” He wrinkled his nose.

She stood motionless, staring into the fireplace. To remove the smell, Benjamin threw open the patio doors. “That's better,” he said, a warm breeze wafting into the apartment. His lean, athletic body draped against the balcony door frame as he let the fresh air wash over him.

“Jasmine,” she muttered as she stomped from the living room toward the bathroom door within her bedroom. The door of the bathroom stood closed, just as she had left it. She opened it and went over to the toilet. Lifting the lid from the back of the toilet, Alexandra reached inside the water and took out a floating, clear-plastic freezer bag. Prying open the seal, she ran her fingertips across the cover of Uncle Joseph's journal.

“Dry as a bone,” she whispered and cradled the old book against her chest.

“What's that?” Benjamin asked, approaching the room from behind her. He could see Alexandra's reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She knew that to her, the book represented the truth. How could she explain that to Benjamin? She looked into the mirror. Streaks of Kraven's blood marred her face and pale arms. Leaning closer to the mirror, she gazed deeply into her own eyes and shuddered at the sight of fire embers sparkling in her pupils.

Laying the journal down on the granite vanity, she turned on the cold water at the sink faucet and wet a rag. “Should I call the police?” Benjamin asked. He picked up a Harvard application from her disheveled bedroom floor.

Scrubbing at her arms with the white rag, Alexandra felt her body slowly cooling as Kraven's blood transferred to the cloth in her hands. “No,” she answered flatly. “They can't help me.”

Jack lapped his tongue at the water dripping to the cool tile floor. “Little man,” Alexandra said, kneeling to look him in the face. “Let's get something to drink.”

Following them to the kitchen, Benjamin poured a glass of chilled water from the refrigerator for Alexandra and put a clean bowl of tap water down for Jack. Alexandra rested on a bar stool and listened quietly while Jack slurped his water.

“Drink,” Benjamin encouraged Alexandra. He nudged the glass of water across the countertop.

Alexandra gulped the water, her gut churning from the cold. Steam rolled up her throat.

The journal lay on the countertop beside her. “Jasmine,” she said as she watched him rifle through the pages.

“Jasmine?” he asked. “Who's that? Is this her book?”

“She's a witch,” Alexandra sighed. “And it is not her book.” She quickly snatched the journal from his grasp.

“A witch?” Benjamin asked, incredulous. “You're not making sense.”

“You don't understand, Ben.” She shook her head.

“Then tell me,” he said, throwing his arms gently around her trembling shoulders. “I want to help,” he whispered.

“Well then, here it is,” she replied. “Uncle Joseph—my dead uncle—kept this journal when he was in the army in Europe.

He was hunting Nazis.”

“Okay,” Benjamin said. “I'm listening. Go on.”

“He saw something,” Alexandra said, clutching the leather-bound diary to her chest. “What he saw, he could not really explain to anyone. He told my Granny June that he thought he had met the devil.”

“Whoa,” Benjamin said, wisps of pale blond hair sticking up on the back of his tanned neck.

“The witch wants this book back,” explained Alexandra. “She thinks she can use it to conjure a demon, a devil, or at least something evil.”

“Right,” Benjamin said, his brows raised.

“You don't believe me,” she pouted.

“Yes, I do,” Benjamin insisted. “Like I said, I'm going to help you.”

She smiled shyly. “Let's go get Taylor.” She slipped down from the high leather bar stool. “We'll take the book with us.”

“Shouldn't you call your mom?” Benjamin suggested.

“No,” Alexandra said, grabbing his hand. “We'll call Callahan.”

The handsome young man gulped:
Here we go again.

11
Passed Out

The last drops of orange juice and vodka hit Krystal's thirsty tongue as she lounged on the reclining patio chair. She looked skyward through the clear bottom of her glass tumbler and saw that not a cloud punctured the brilliant blue sky. Not a trace remained of the raging thunderstorm that had swept through her backyard the previous night, except for clusters of fallen leaves floating in the pool.

The day would have been perfect, she thought, if that brat hadn't come back home this morning.
She tried to count the leaves that the storm had flung into the backyard pool. Green oak leaves and pine needles swirled aimlessly in the water. Fuzzy static rang in her ears while the vodka soaked into her bloodstream.

She tried unsuccessfully to push herself up on her bone-thin, spindly arms. Her head ached as she tried to move again, this time with some luck. She balanced her bare feet on the cement patio. Tiptoeing to the edge of the pool, she gazed into the glassy water and admired her trim, bikini-clad reflection.

“Don't fall in, Krystal.”

Her head snapped around, her eyes searching for the source of the voice, but there was no one. An empty glass and a rattan lounge chair waited silently behind her.

Numbness crept into her carefully manicured toes as she dipped them into the warm pool water. The anesthetizing warmth spread to her calves. When the water reached her knees, she was numb up to her thighs. She sat on the steps leading down into the pool. The lids of her doe eyes drooped down to her chiseled, pink cheeks.

Suddenly a huge boom shook her awake. The sound blasted over the wooden privacy fence and echoed through the backyard. Krystal's eyes cracked wide open. In the cul-de-sac in front of her house, a repair van backfired when the driver punched into reverse out of a neighbor's driveway, causing another mini-explosion. She let the sound replay in her brain while her tanned legs kicked playfully in the pool.

She mulled over the problem of Taylor, reassuring herself that accidents did happen. As she formulated a plan, the numbness in her limbs retreated. She pulled her legs from the pool, saying, “She doesn't know who she's messing with.”

She could not remember the last time she ate. Perhaps she'd had some chips, but she wasn't sure. She hated eating alone, but her husband never came home early. Lately he wasn't coming home in time to see her before she passed out.

She opened the patio doors. When she slid her bare feet onto the cool kitchen tiles, her toes recoiled. The air conditioner had been raging inside the monstrous house and goose bumps popped out across her bare skin. She crossed her fingers that there was a bottle of wine left.

In the stainless steel refrigerator, she discovered a chilled, half-empty bottle of Pinot Grigio waiting behind a gallon of spoiled milk. With little delicacy, she pulled it out and slammed the door shut. Tearing the ragged cork from the mouth of the bottle, she swigged the nectar as it slid smoothly down her parched throat.

After she had taken another swallow, the bottle had only a few ounces left. The room was spinning. She steadied herself by propping her arms against the granite-topped kitchen island. To her surprise, something pink on the countertop buzzed and flopped toward her. She realized slowly that it was her cell phone, which she had been charging. She hesitated, not recognizing the phone number on the screen.

“Hello?” she stuttered, unable to resist answering. Her head swayed up and down as she stumbled back to perch precariously on an upholstered leather barstool. “Yep,” she said and laid her racing head down on the smooth, cold countertop while she listened to the voice of a police detective. “Dis is Krystal,” she slurred.

She closed her eyes while the detective explained that her stepdaughter would be booked and held if she pressed charges. A hint of vomit rose in her throat and her gut churned at the words about to come out of her mouth. A lie hovered on her tongue.

The last few drops from the bottle of Pinot Grigio eased her sickness. Then she aimed the bottle, empty and useless, at the open trash bin across the kitchen.

“No,” Krystal whined aloud when the bottle shattered against the ceramic tile floor, her toss falling short and creating a treacherous mess.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Woodward,” a woman's deep voice said over the phone line. “Can you repeat that?”

At the station with Taylor, Detective Monroe held the corded receiver more tightly to her ear, her brow knit in frustration.

Taylor stared at the woman, trying to judge the expression on her face. She wished she knew what lies Krystal was spouting to the detective. Wild fury was boiling under Taylor's skin. Taylor's polished pink fingernails twirled the ends of the blonde curls cascading around her shoulders. Nevertheless, Taylor sat upright and motionless in the metal folding chair directly in front of the desk of Detective Monroe.

Taylor knew that Krystal wanted to hurt her.
She could never stay sober long enough to hurt me, Taylor mused, but she might stay drunk long enough for something to happen to her.
Taylor imagined Krystal's face on a billboard on the interstate, the word “Missing” plastered bold and black above her picture. But Taylor shook that picture from her mind.
She's not good enough to deserve that. She's going to wish she had drowned in that pool when she's not so pretty anymore.