Problem Child, page 17
But all he could see was what he didn’t have. What was in front of his face and couldn’t be touched—that was the thing he yearned for. A young girl with firm breasts and wide eyes and soft skin. I was the thing denied him, and he wanted it so much.
The tears came after, of course. After he said yes. After he pulled off my panties. After he pushed up my top and kneaded my breasts like rising bread. After he shoved himself gleefully inside me again and again, lasting longer than I expected. He got through all that without guilt or hesitation. He managed to waltz enthusiastically through all those very delicious steps before he bothered to break down.
Yet I’m considered the one with the fractured brain. I’m the one who’s dangerous and broken. At least I’m consistent. How could anyone ever predict what a human being like Mr. Hollingsway might do when backed into a corner? Or even when he’s just plain horny?
So-called normal humans have spent millennia trying to explain themselves into innocence with stupid tales of magic and Satan and bad things that burst out of them during the full moon. Curses and possession and spring madness. All of it to explain away their true desires and pass them off as mere temptation by the devil. Or maybe just temptation by little ol’ me.
Lies. It’s all inside them, just beneath the surface, hidden in their tight throats, straining to get out. I hate them all for thinking they’re any better than I am.
Rolling my eyes at Mr. Hollingsway’s snuffling, I get up to leave. “See you around, Mr. H.” He has nothing to say to me.
When I slip out, I pass a scruffy boy heading into the classroom and imagine what Mr. Hollingsway’s explanation will be for his wet face and red eyes. Maybe the kid will be too self-absorbed to even notice.
The narrow halls are starting to fill now, so I slow my pace and let the crowd surround me. I like lots of humanity. The greasy energy of emotion rubs off on me, leaving a film I can wear as my own for a moment.
Look at that redheaded girl laughing hysterically at a text. She shows her friend, and now they’re both laughing, touching each other, experiencing affection. They look so happy and feel so bright.
And check out that young Hispanic boy carrying a bouquet of carnations. They’re tacky as hell, stored in colored water to turn them blue, but he looks beyond thrilled, a wide smile cutting across his pimpled face. He’s in love with some girl or boy. He feels a connection. He feels hope and anxiety and thrilling lust.
Farther away, a group of girls is huddled around a locker, their shoulders bent toward one central figure, all of them concerned with whatever fraught story she is explaining with twisted mouth and big gestures. The tallest girl glances down the hallway with a vengeful frown, a ride-or-die sister out to make things right for her injured friend. They’re so close. So bound together.
So many feelings, and I spread my arms as I walk, trying to absorb all of them.
The kids aren’t sympathetic. They brush past my slow stroll and send me irritated glares. I smile in return.
One boy says, “Move it, fat-ass bitch,” identifying my size-ten-to-twelve ass as a point of deep insecurity. Cute, but I’m better at the insecurity game than he’ll ever be.
“Oh my God, it’s you!” I say loudly. The boy, wide shouldered and red-necked, lurches to a stop as his friends look from him to me. “Long time no see, little guy. I sure hope you didn’t inherit your daddy’s tiny dick! I haven’t seen him in a while. How’s he doing?”
His friends burst into immediate uncontrollable hoots of awe and laughter.
“Fuck you, you slut!” he counters, clearly already clawing the rocky bottom of his repertoire. And now he’s lost this game. There’s no glory in calling some random older woman a slut, and his friends are hysterical now, slapping his back, lurching with laughter.
Hot blood creeps all the way up his face and into his buzz cut. “You fucking bitch. Who the fuck are you?”
God, maybe I should come back to high school. It would be so much more entertaining if it were my choice to be here. But even I’m not arrogant enough to think I could pass for eighteen. Gravity does have its way with you even when you’re as saucy as I am.
A woman steps out of an office a dozen feet away. “What’s going on out here?” she snaps.
The boy’s friends tug at his stiff, flared shoulders until he reluctantly turns to leave. I smile and approach the woman. Her brown skin and broad face point to Native American heritage, and if she’s working in this school, then that counts as progress around here. When I went here, racism was a feature and not a bug. In fact, I spy a Confederate flag T-shirt passing me by as we speak. If she sees it, she’s gotten very good at pretending she doesn’t.
“Hi,” I say sweetly as I hold out my hand. “I’m Kayla Stringer’s aunt.”
“Hello. I’m Vice Principal Sky. What can I do for you?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard that Kayla is missing?”
“I’m so sorry. I know she hasn’t been in school, but our phone calls haven’t been returned. I did send notification to the sheriff’s office about her truancy, but . . . Well. Please come into my office.”
“Thank you.” I follow her through a small reception area to a tiny rectangle of a room. “So the police never came by to speak to you?”
“No. I certainly would’ve remembered being told if one of our girls was missing.”
“They consider her a runaway, but with such a young teen, I’m not sure why they’d find that a less-than-alarming explanation. Anything could’ve happened to her by now. I’ve come down to help look.” I slide one of my business cards across her neat desk. “Is there anything you can tell me about Kayla?”
“Not really. This was only her second year here. She was a little . . . Well. I can’t violate privacy laws, of course . . .”
“Of course.”
She leans into her desk and meets my eyes. “I don’t believe things have been very stable for her.”
“My parents took her in a few months ago, and they are no one’s first choice. I can tell you that from my own experience.”
She presses her lips together sympathetically.
“I would imagine she’s quite troubled,” I say. “But of course those are the girls who are so often made victims.”
“That is the unfortunate truth. Predators identify the troubled girls right off the bat. And she certainly acted out. She got in a fight her first week of school here. She came off as very aggressive, but she was likely just looking to protect herself.”
“Certainly. Anything in particular stand out?”
“Not really. She was pretty quiet. A few in-school suspensions. Quite a bit of truancy and lateness.”
Before I make my way out of the school, I thank her and ask her to get in touch if she hears anything. I don’t really need more information about Kayla. I’ll meet her myself in a few hours. But at least I explained my presence in the hallway and nobody called the cops. I consider that a good day at school.
I wish I could find that jock’s car and slash the tires, but I’d better go while the getting’s good. I always enjoy pushing things further than I should, but I don’t have the free time today.
After heading back to my hotel, I spend half an hour looking into Roy Morris and the lieutenant governor, assessing my danger, but the only interesting thing I find is that Roy Morris has filed for bankruptcy twice in his life. Other than that, there was a DUI at age twenty-five and one more at thirty-one. A fairly average businessman’s life if one accepts that most of them have mediocre financial skills at best. They consider bankruptcies the cost of doing business, even though anyone else who doesn’t pay their bills is a freeloader.
I check my work email to see if there are any responses to the information I helpfully sent Rob on the North Unlimited case. Distracted, I open my first email just to skim the details before I hit the road, but when I see what it is, I growl low in my throat.
“That motherfucker.” Someone from North Unlimited has forwarded something to me with a response, only I never saw the original email. The original email is an apology from Rob and he’s apologizing for me. “Oh no,” I breathe. “Oh no, sir, you lying little shit.”
He screwed something up and didn’t get them a number they’d requested, and then he blamed it on me. Sorry, my colleague Jane is out of town with some personal issues and didn’t get to this. Here’s the document you requested.
This is his whole shtick. He hasn’t learned his lesson at all. He rides on the backs of others and then takes credit for being tall.
That’s it. No more. I gave him his chance and agreed to help him out and he failed spectacularly at redeeming himself. Good old Rob has fucked with the wrong woman for the very last time.
I log into his email account with a smile.
CHAPTER 17
After that surprise from Rob, I get out of town later than I expected, and then I stop for a leisurely lunch along the way at an adorable cowboy-themed café I spy from the road, so I don’t hit the outskirts of Tulsa until six. Not that I’m worried about making Little Dog wait. I’m in a better position if he’s anxious for me to show up.
The address I finally pull up to is quite a surprise. It’s a suburban two-story brick house with an old-fashioned portico that is far too fancy for the size of the place. It’s the kind of ostentatious eighties house that oil industry people loved in the era of the TV show Dallas.
Now that I think about it, this house fits in perfectly with Little Dog’s estate out in rural Oklahoma. Perhaps it’s another gift from his dead grandparents. Hot damn, this kid is living the mauve maven lifestyle! What a gangster he is.
There’s no other car to be seen when I park in the covered driveway, but there could be one in the windowless garage. Or he re-kidnapped Kayla, and the pair are even now racing toward Mexico so he can sell her into the sex slave trade before I get my hands on her. Ugh.
I’m ready to get back to Minneapolis and see my cat before I settle in to enjoy the new pecking order at the office. Still, I’m so close to parlaying this into a moral triumph. If I can find my missing niece and return her to safety, this whole trip will pay off in spades at work even if the girl herself is a disappointment.
I knock on the oversize black-painted door and wait. Crickets chirrup desperately for mates around me, and that’s the only sound I hear. I’m not the least bit surprised that no one answers the door.
Damn it. Now I’m gonna have to make Little Dog pay.
Sighing, I knock again, just in case, then ring the doorbell. Amazingly, I hear a ding-dong version of “The Saints Go Marching In” echo around somewhere inside. This family is a true wonder of throwback kitsch. Maybe I actually am on the set of a 1980s evening melodrama.
I’m bored with this stupid chase, so I get out my phone and start to text Little Dog’s number, but then I hear the soft pat-pat of feet approaching. I tip my head to the side and catch movement through the frosted sidelight. Well, hello. There’s someone home after all.
“Who is it?” a tiny voice squeaks gently through the door, sounding for all the world like a timid cartoon mouse.
“It’s Jane,” I say. “Open up.”
There’s a long moment of quiet, and then a lock slides. The brass doorknob turns and the door opens one inch. One muddy-green eye stares out.
Finally! It’s the lost little lamb from the picture! I did it!
“Who?” she asks through the gap. Does she think opening the door only an inch protects her in some way? Does she think I can’t kick the wood straight into her head and knock her out? This girl has no common sense at all. She’s already a letdown. I sigh and shake my head. “Are you Kayla?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m your aunt Jane. Your daddy’s sister.”
“I ain’t never met you,” she says in a slow Oklahoma drawl, chewing on the word you like it’s taffy.
“Be that as it may, your family got in touch with me and here I am. You ready to get out of here or what?”
“I can’t. Little Dog said to wait here.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He’s gone?”
“He left this morning. I don’t know where.”
“Great. Can I come in, or are you going to stay rude and keep me out on this street all day?”
I see one bony shoulder shrug, and then she swings the door wide and waves me in with a lazy hand. She looks even younger in person. Delicate, her wrists thin, her elbows big lumps of bone in her arms. She’s got no meat on her thighs at all under the sweatpants hanging off her narrow hips, and her pointy chin gives her a pixieish quality.
She’s not pretty, though. She just looks like a frail dullard. No light to her at all.
My hard little heart sinks. This girl isn’t anything like me. She’s a limp washrag passively waiting for someone to tell her what to do. That’s it. Gross. My psychotic boredom has struck again. I chased after something that has nothing to do with me, just to distract myself from the slog of everyday life.
To be fair to my ego, though, my restlessness often pays off with spectacular fun. I don’t want to be too hard on myself. And I did find her, so I’m still a hero.
I turn in a slow circle under a brass chandelier. Every light is ablaze in it, and the interior of the house is a bit more updated than Little Dog’s rural estate. I may as well appease my curiosity now that I’m here, because this house might be more interesting than this girl. “What is this place?”
Another bony shrug. “Little Dog said his aunt and uncle are down in Arizona, so we should stay here.”
“Just a quick vacation for young lovers?”
“Whatever.”
“Everyone’s looking for you, you know. Did you run away?”
“I guess. He said we should get out of town for a while; that was all.”
“Why?”
“Cops or something. I’m not sure.”
Good Lord, this girl is dull as sandstone. I can hear her brain scuffing over the rough spots in her intellect. All this time wasted on a kid destined for the scrap heap of life.
My mother was right about Kayla, and just imagine how triumphant she’d be if she knew I was thinking that. Of course, I’d eat shit before I’d ever admit it to her.
“So Little Dog dropped you off here; then he joined you a week later. And now you’re just sitting here, waiting for what?”
Yet another shrug.
“Where did he say he was going this morning?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Enid.”
Enid? Was he meeting Nate again for something? More cash or clothes? A gun? “You got a Coke?”
Kayla moves slowly to the fridge, the ironic claim of JUICY across her backside barely moving with the motion. I follow her into the main living area and glance around for any clues. There are no piles of powdery drugs or cash. No weapons in sight, not that I’ll take that for granted. All I see are fast-food wrappers in the trash and a dirty ashtray on the kitchen counter. The TV is flashing the bright colors of a commercial, but the sound is down.
She hands me a cold can of Coke.
“So this is it for you?” I finally ask. “You just want to stay here with your loser pimp? Wait to see what he tells you to do?”
That’s when I see a flash. Just the briefest twitch of the muscles in Kayla’s face. “No.” Then a few tense seconds later, she grinds out, “He doesn’t tell me what to do. He’s not my pimp.”
“Really? Because you are working, right? Picking up tricks at the truck stop? Sleeping with dirty old men? And he’s ordering you around like you’re property. Go here, go there. He’s your pimp, baby girl. Or did you believe it when he said he was your boyfriend?”
“I don’t fuck Brodie,” she spits out, and the dullness vanishes like dissipating mist in that sudden gust of anger. So does my boredom.
I perk up and study her closely. Her sleepy eyes are bright and sharp now, her bony shoulders tight. “Well, that’s an unusual arrangement,” I say with a smirk aimed dead into her pointy, angry face. “How does he know if you’re a good enough piece of ass to turn out if you don’t give him a taste of the goods?”
“He works for me,” she says, and the words are compact as rocks, no more working the vowels through her lazy mouth. She glares at me through narrowed eyes, and she’s thrust her head forward as if she’s about to barrel straight into a brawl, tiny size be damned.
“Well,” I drawl. “Aren’t you an uppity little slut?”
She snarls, her thin lip easing up over teeth to show off canines just like a vicious dog. “Grammy always said you were nothing but a worthless cunt.”
A hard bark of laughter escapes my throat. “A cunt? My, my, what happened to the helpless little girl who opened that door? Where’d she go? Off to church for the evening?”
“Screw you.”
I step back to take her in, the fisted hands and tense shoulders. She looks more wiry than frail now, tendons standing out in her neck, eyes like dirty green ice against her white skin. She’s not helpless at all. It was an act.
The nape of my neck prickles and my pulse rate picks up to a pleasant trot.
“Well, Kayla, maybe we have something to talk about after all. What exactly does Brodie do for you, if you’re actually his boss?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Oh, it’s got something to do with fucking business. Come on.”
She seems to get a little bored with her own outrage and rolls her eyes before she pads barefoot back into the pinewood-and-granite kitchen.
“This place is nice,” I say as she slides a pack of cigarettes from a drawer. She lights one with a bright pink lighter and takes a deep drag before blowing it out in my direction. I watch her like she’s a movie about to reveal a secret.
“Good place to hide out,” I press. “So who exactly are you running from?”
“What are you, a cop?”
“No, I’m not a cop. But I am smart and well-connected, so if you need help, now is the time to ask.”
“I don’t need your help. I’m doing just fine.” To emphasize that, she saunters over to a wide recliner in the living room and drops into it, hooking one skinny leg over the padded arm. The window behind it looks out onto a treed side yard, and it’s a good setting for her argument. Everything certainly looks peaceful and affluent out there.
