The Summer of Winters (12 page)

Paige answered without looking up from the puzzle. “You got any chocolate milk?”

“I’m afraid not. There’s regular milk, though.”

I shook my head and whispered to Paige, “It’s powdered milk.”

She made a
Yuck
face. “That’s okay. Thanks anyway.”

Julie came back to the table and rummaged through her purse, coming up with a few crumpled dollars. “Tell you what, my treat if you guys want to run up to Buford Street and get a couple of Yoo-Hoo drinks.”

This got my attention. I loved Yoo-Hoos, but it was a rare treat in our household. No way I was going to pass up on Julie’s generosity. I immediately reached for the money. “Thanks, Julie. You’re the awesomest.”

“I like to think so. Get one for your brother, too.”

“Sure thing. Come on, Paige.”

Paige looked up slowly, as if reluctant to tear her eyes from the puzzles pieces laid out in front of her. “Uh, is it okay if I stay here and work on the puzzle?”

I thought it over for a moment. It wasn’t like she was going home; she’d be here with Julie, safe as houses as my mother sometimes said. “If you want. I won’t be gone but a few minutes.”

Stuffing the money in the pocket of my shorts—just some old jeans my mother had cut the legs off of—and stepping into a pair of slightly oversized flip-flops that had once belonged to my father, I hurried out the door. I started up Jefferies street and was nearly to the intersection when I heard my name being called behind me. I turned to see Ray sprinting in my direction.

“What do you want, gay-beau? Does Julie know you’re out of the yard?”

“Where ya going?”

“To the store to get us some Yoo-Hoos.”

“Oh boy! Can I come?”

“No, now get back to the house.”

“I can come with you if I want to. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Well, you know who is the boss of you? Mom, and wait ’til she hears you said the ‘s’ word and gave me the finger. What do you think she’ll have to say about that?”

Ray crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his lower lip out like a shelf. “Why you always gotta be such a meanie-butt?”

“Just go home pipsqueak.”

“No wonder nobody at school likes you.”

The words hit me like a cartoon anvil dropped on my head and I forgot to breathe for a minute. This was the first time my brother had ever acknowledged my social standing. I supposed I had hoped he was unaware of how the other kids taunted me. I now knew I was wrong, and I thought I detected contempt in Ray’s eyes that I’d never seen before. I started to say something, offer to let him tag along after all, but then he turned and stalked off back toward the house. I could have called out to him…but I didn’t.

Instead, I continued on to the store, turning right at the intersection. I was halfway down the block when I heard a high-pitched scream that sounded as if it came from somewhere back toward my house. I didn’t think much of it, to be honest. There were plenty of little kids in the surrounding neighborhoods, and since the parents of Gaffney had started letting their children out to play again, hearing a bunch of hooting and hollering wasn’t all that unusual.

I walked into the store and went straight to the coolers that contained the drinks. I grabbed up three bottles of Yoo-Hoo, clutched them to my chest, then made my way back to the checkout counter. There was an old man wearing overalls in line in front of me, buying a bunch of cans of dog food. He and the middle-aged woman behind the counter were chatting as she rang him up.

“Damn shame,” the man was saying, shaking his head. “Just when things were starting to get back to some semblance of normal, and now this goes and happens.”

“Just wait ’til it hits the six o’clock news. Everybody’s going to be back in full panic mode.”

“I hear the sheriff is considering instituting a curfew for everybody under eighteen.”

“Can’t say I blame him. I just hope we’re wrong and this one just wandered off and got lost or something. Maybe she’ll be found and everything will be okay.”

“Maybe, but I got a sinking feeling this is gonna end just like it did with that Winters girl.”

I had only been half-listening to the conversation—my Mom always said no one liked an eavesdropper—but suddenly they had my full attention. I almost dropped one of the bottles but managed to keep my hold, just barely. “What’s going on?” I said, my voice high-pitched and strident.

The man and woman glanced over at me as if just noticing my presence. I felt as if I were shrinking under the scrutiny. Finally the man said in his gruff voice, “You should get home, boy. No time for a young-un to be out on his own.”

“How come? What are ya’ll talking about?”

At first I thought they weren’t going to tell me, but then the woman behind the counter said, “Another girl’s gone missing.”

Another anvil-to-the-head feeling, only this time an avalanche of anvils crushing me into a sticky paste. I felt feverish and sick to my stomach. “How do you know?”

The old man answered. “Was chatting with a cop down at the Floyd Bakery earlier. Apparently she was in her bed last night, but this morning her mama found the bed empty. At first thought the girl had just got up early and went out to play, but when she got to looking wasn’t no sign of her. Reported her missing around noon. Little girl named Tracy Bright.”

I actually moaned out loud. I knew Tracy Bright, she was in my grade. Pretty with blonde hair, the only girl at Central Elementary with braces. In fact, there was at least a superficial resemblance to Paige.

“I gotta go,” I said and started for the door.

The woman called after me, “You gotta pay for those drinks.”

I had forgotten about the Yoo-Hoos, and I went and deposited them on the counter then hurried out of the store. Chocolaty drinks were the last thing on my mind at the moment. All I could think was
Brody did it again
. I’d been so intent on trying to protect Paige, I’d left Brody free to hurt some other little girl. Who would find this body, all torn up and used?

As I ran from the store and sprinted home, ignoring the stitch in my side and trying to keep the flip-flops from flying off my feet, I knew deep in my soul that I was responsible for this. Not for Sarah, but for Tracy. I’d chosen to keep silent and this was the result. Oh sure, I’d had my reasons, and they’d seemed like good reasons at the time, but now I could see just how flimsy they had truly been. Bottom line was I had been afraid, and my fear may have gotten a girl killed.

It was time to break the silence. I was going to go straight home and tell Julie what I knew and what I suspected. Maybe she wouldn’t believe me, but I wouldn’t stop until she took me seriously. And if she wouldn’t, I’d tell Mom. And if she didn’t believe me, I’d call the sheriff myself.

I had to stop Brody before he claimed anymore victims.

***

I burst through the front door yelling Julie’s name…

And stopped abruptly, my voice lost underneath the shrill ringing of my little brother’s hysterical cries.

Ray was sitting on the couch, his face red as a Valentine’s heart, tears streaming from his eyes. His left hand was wrapped in a red towel, which I thought strange since we didn’t have any red towels. Then I realized that it was one of the white hand towels my mother kept in the kitchen, but it was now soaked in blood. Not just soaked, but
saturated
, blood actually dripping from the towel to form a rather substantial puddle on the floor.

Julie was running around the living room, tossing cushions and knocking knickknacks onto the floor. Her hair was disheveled and she had a mad look in her eyes. She didn’t even seem to realize I’d come back into the house at first, and when she did notice me she barked, “Have you seen my fucking keys?”

Part of me was shocked to hear Julie drop the F-bomb, but mostly I was just hypnotized by all that blood. It was so bright, and there was so much of it. So very much of it. “What happened?” I heard someone say, and dully realized it was me.

“Your brother came in the house and slammed the door right on his thumb. It was actually jammed in there, so much that it took me more than five minutes just to yank the damn thing open. He’s hurt bad, I think I could see the bone. I have to get him to the hospital, if I could just find my fucking keys!”

I glanced over at the small table by the door, where Julie almost always left her keys, and like usual there they were. How could she have missed them? At that age I hadn’t yet discovered how panic can mess with your brain, but it was a lesson that wouldn’t go unlearned for long. Plucking the keys from the table, I jangled them and held them out to Julie.

“Thank God, now come on, we have to go.”

She went to Ray and tried to coax him from the couch, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally she lifted him into her arms, blood staining the front of her peach-colored blouse. She hurried out the door toward her car and I followed, something needling at me, something I felt like I was forgetting…and then it hit me.

“Where’s Paige?”

“I sent her back home.”

I felt like my head had suddenly been dunked in ice water. “What? But her parents aren’t there?”

“Her brother is. Now get in the car.”

She put Ray in the passenger’s seat of her car, not bothering with the seatbelt. As she hurried around to the driver’s side, she glanced back at where I was standing rooted in the front yard. “What’s wrong with you, Mike? Get in the damn car.”

“I’m not going,” I said even before I knew I’d made the decision.

“Of course you’re going. Now I don’t have time for your games, just get in—”

“Mom will be home from work soon. Someone should be here to tell her what happened. If she gets here and finds everyone gone and all that blood in the living room…”

“Fine, but stay in the house until your mother gets here. Then tell her what happened, and you two hustle over to the hospital pronto.”

Then Julie was in the car and peeling away. I stood there and watched the car until it was out of sight, then I turned slowly and gazed at the Moore house next door. The Chevrolet was parked at the curb; Mr. and Mrs. Moore were working the same hours today so they’d carpooled in the Pinto so Brody could have the Chevy if he needed it. Paige was over there right now, all alone with her big brother.

And what was I going to do about it?

***

I went back inside, noticing for the first time the blood smeared on the door jamb, and hovered by the phone, wondering if I should call the police. At one point I picked up the receiver, my finger hovering above the zero, then I hung up again. I was going to tell, that wasn’t in dispute, but I wanted to tell Mom first.

In the meantime, Paige was alone with a killer.

I remembered that Mrs. Moore had given my mother her number, and I rummaged in the kitchen drawer that my mother called the “junk drawer.” Everything in creation ended up in that drawer—burned potholders, receipts yellowed and faded, old Polaroids, action figures missing arms or legs or in one case a head, rubber bands all knotted up in one big ball, broken knickknacks…

And my mother’s address book.

I quickly looked up the Moore’s number and dialed it, gripping the receiver so tight that it caused my fingers to cramp. I would invite Paige to come over and wait with me, and when my mother came home maybe I could finagle it so that Paige could come to the hospital with us. I was scared for my brother, of course, but I was even more scared for Paige.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. I let it ring at least twenty times before hanging up and redialing. Again, there was no answer. Fear lashed at me like a belt, and I slammed the phone down. I went back outside and stared next door. Why were they not answering the phone? I knew Brody and Paige were over there.

I started across to the Moore’s. I should have just called the police, but I was having my first lesson in how panic affects a person’s decision-making ability.

Chapter
Thirteen

I pounded on
the front door for at least five minutes, but no one answered. I stood there, shifting indecisively from one foot to the other, like I had to go to the bathroom. I rapped on the door some more, until I thought my knuckles were going to bleed. Desperate, I gripped the knob and tried to turn it. The door was locked.

Glancing around the neighborhood, which seemed unusually quiet and deserted, I wondered what to do. I was seized with stomach cramps, a terrible dread settling over me like a heavy wet blanket. I had to get to Paige; I just
knew it
.

I trotted around to the rear of the house, climbing onto the back porch and knocking on the door there. Still no answer. I stood on my tiptoes to try to see through the glass panels in the top of the door, but a thick curtain prevented me from doing so. Placing my ear again the wood I strained to hear any sound from inside, but there was nothing.

Only that wasn’t entirely true. There was something, a faint noise like someone crying, but it wasn’t coming from inside the house. It was coming from somewhere to my right, in the tangle of bushes that separated the Moore property from ours.

I didn’t hesitate. I leapt from the porch and ran to the bushes, practically diving into one of the tunnels, paying no heed to the scrapes and scratches I got from the branches slapping into my face. I didn’t even pause to consider where to search; I seemed to know where to go instinctually. I went straight for the tunnel that dead-ended in the collapse. I could see furrows in the dirt, indicating someone had recently squirmed underneath the deadfall into the open cavern beyond. I dropped to my stomach and followed suit.

I could definitely hear crying now, and I was sure it was Paige. I dug my fingers into the dirt and pulled myself further, slithering along like a snake. One of the thorns above me snagged my shirt and pulled it up around my neck, slicing a long gash down my back just above my spine. I didn’t slow down or cry out. I scurried out from under the deadfall and stood up…