Better Off Dead (16 page)

Uh-oh, I thought. Too much like a date.
"Another time, maybe. I'm heading to the Gardens for some down
time." As much as I liked Luke, I had an hour and a half before I
was scheduled to interview the drug trial participants and see how
their weekends had gone. I planned to spend this free time in
splendid solitude. The frat house chumminess at Helen's over the
past few weeks was starting to chap my nerves. I'd seen Bobby
padding down the hall in bright yellow pajamas earlier that day and
the sight had unnerved me.

Unfortunately, Luke took my comment about
down time as an invitation.

"Was today's lecture disgusting or what?" he
asked, falling into step beside me. We walked along one of the many
pathways that led to Duke Gardens.

"I don't know about disgusting," I teased
him. "I sort of thought that part about shoe fetishes was
interesting. I mean, I love a good shoe. The curve of the arch. The
smell of leather. I can see how some people might get carried
away."

"Really?"

He sounded so luridly hopeful, I had to
laugh. I knew it was criminal to flirt with this child, but his
brown eyes were impossible to resist. They stood out against his
white skin and contrasting black hair with incredible clarity, big
and innocent and full of devotion. It was the innocent part I
needed to remember—my job was to make sure they stayed that
way.

"So, what's your fetish?" I asked him,
selecting a spot in the sun near a magnolia tree. Nothing like a
good academic discussion about sex to take all the fun out of it. I
sprawled on the grass and let the sun wash over my body. I'll say
one thing for black: it soaks up the heat. Within minutes, I felt
like a piece of bacon sizzling on the griddle. The Carolina fall
can do that to you sometimes.

"Me?" Luke plopped his knapsack down and sat
beside it. "I'm not old enough to have a fetish yet. I hardly know
about—" He stopped, flustered.

"Plain sex?" I asked. "There is no such
thing as plain sex," I lectured him. "All sex is exotic and unique,
because it's something created at a particular time and in a
particular pace. It's there, then it's gone, and you can never get
that moment back again." Maybe if I sounded deeply philosophical
about the topic of sex, he'd wander off and find someone his own
age to play with.

"Really?" He started to say something, then
stopped. "So far, all I've gotten is the plain kind," he finally
admitted. And only that because of my car."

"What is so appealing about your car that it
draws babes in like a magnet and causes them to drop their
drawers?"

"It's a BMW 323Ci," Luke explained. "A
convertible. My dad bought it for me when I graduated from high
school. He thinks it makes up for the fact that he wasn't there
when I did."

"Does it make up for the fact?"

"No." His voice was soft. "But the girls
that have put out in it have helped make up for it."

I laughed. I didn't realize he had that much
of a sense of humor. But then I got carried away. "I have a Porsche
myself," I said, instantly regretting the words. Another personal
detail made public.

"Really?" he asked with overly enthusiastic
interest. "I love Porsches." Clearly, he was in that stage of a
crush where you search for even the smallest things in common with
your beloved, as all hopeful lovers do. "What kind?"

"A bathtub Porsche."

He looked at me blankly and I explained.
"It's a 1961 356 B. Bright red. They're very cool. They look a
little like a very lot-looking bathtub on wheels."

"Can I see it?" he asked.

"Maybe one day." I yawned. The sun was
making me sleepy. "Right now, I have an uncontrollable urge to nap.
I have to interview some drug trial volunteers in about an hour. I
need to be rested and on my toes, you know, to avoid Brookhouse's
groping and advances."

I was only kidding, but Luke was instantly
angry. "Has he already tried to put the moves on you?"

"No, no," I assured him. "I was kidding.
He's been completely hands-off. I think he'll stay that way, too."
I took a sweater from my knapsack and rolled it into a ball. It
made the perfect pillow. Sleep was mere seconds away.

"I know why he stays away from you," Luke
said, leaning against his knapsack so that his face was almost
level to my shoulders. His newly dyed hair glowed in the sunlight
with an iridescent blue sheen. "It's because you're not a pushover
like the other girls. You probably scare him."

"Scare him?" I asked.

He nodded. "You seem really strong, like you
won't take crap from anybody. I bet that makes Brookhouse nervous.
I bet he's afraid of you."

I thought about it. The kid was partially
right. I wasn't enough of a victim for Brookhouse's tastes, I
realized. That was why he was so hands-off.

"Do I scare you?" I asked Luke. "Being an
older woman and all."

He smiled and lay down in the grass next to
me, his shoulder brushing against mine. "Sure, but I like it."

"Isn't that a form of sexual deviance?" I
asked, my eyelids drooping. I yawned again. "And kindly move at
least two more feet away. Thank you."

He rolled over guiltily and parked our
knapsacks between us.

"I guess we'll have to wait and see," I
remember him saying just before I drifted off to sleep. When he
woke me just under an hour later, my face was red from the sun.
What was that line from "Maggie May" about the morning sun really
showing your age... ?

"Were you asleep, too?" I asked him.

He grinned and shook his head. "Naw, I was
just lying here and guarding you while you slept."

"Guarding me?" I asked dubiously.

"Sure, from horny college guys. You
know?"

"As opposed to you?"

He grinned again. "You sure are interesting
to watch when you sleep. You must dream a lot. Your eyelids twitch
and stuff."

"You were watching me sleep?" I asked
slowly.

He nodded.

"You have got it bad," I chided him. "If you
think watching me sleep is interesting, you need to get out more
and play with someone your own age."

"Maybe that's my fetish," he decided. "Older
women."

I shook my head and stretched, ready to go
to work. "You'll have to find one older than me, then," I told him.
"Because my fetish is older men." There. That was one obstacle he
couldn't dance around.

He didn't say anything, just gave me a
little salute as I walked away. The buckles on his leather jacket
glittered in the sun. When I reached the street, I looked back and
he was still watching. I waved. He waved back.

I walked back to the labs, shaking my head.
I'd gotten a good look at his jeans before I'd doused his fire and,
from the looks of them, a lot more than hope was springing eternal.
But not even that promise would get him anywhere.

The weekly interview was a snap, as usual. A
parade of bored students marched into my small basement office,
answered a series of dumb questions in various degrees of monotone,
then stared at some ambiguous photos and offered lame explanations
about what the blobs represented. Finally, they sniffed at their
weekly pills—and then swallowed them without ever seeming to care
that they were acting as human guinea pigs for an unknown drug. I
was no psychologist, and god knows I'm no scientist, but no one
seemed to have been driven mad by the experimental drug yet. A
couple of people reported anxiety and many of the guys found sexual
content in a remarkable number of the test photographs—including
one that depicted an exotic orchid in a flowerpot that was shaded
by the shadow of a hand coming down over it—but if it isn't normal
for college guys to obsess about sex, our educational system is in
trouble. Some of the male volunteers were definitely tall enough to
have been Helen's rapist, but I could not suspect them of rape
based on height alone. Not unless they were in the NBA, of
course.

When I was done with the last
volunteer—there were approximately thirty in all—I carefully
bundled the scoring sheets, stored the empty coded medication
packets in a manila envelope and set out in search of Brookhouse so
I could hand over the summary results.

I could not find him anywhere, but the
papers in my hands gave me a great excuse to snoop high and low for
the study files. I finally located a file cabinet in the corner of
his office that I decided must house the drug trial information. It
was hidden behind his door, had a large plant arranged in front of
it and was conspicuously locked up not only drawer-to-drawer but
with two large metal bands that sealed it vertically. Sheesh. There
was no way I could break in without leaving very obvious traces of
my intrusion, so I left it for another day. I wasn't sure what I
was looking for anyway. I placed the results of that day's
interviews in a stack on his desk, covered the papers with a
magazine and pulled his door shut when I left.

The brunette coed he'd most recently dumped
from his life was standing in the hallway watching me as I
left.

"He's not here right now," I said, ignoring
her cold stare.

"I know," she spit back in a nasty tone of
voice, as if she was convinced I was screwing the almighty
Brookhouse. "I've been watching his office."

Yikes, I thought as I passed her and her
rather large pocketbook. It was big enough to hold a knife. Or a
gun. Or a matching negligee and peignoir. Stalkers were iffy. You
never knew what mood they might wake up in. And it sure looked like
Brookhouse had a stalker. Ah well, it couldn't happen to a nicer
guy.

"Have a nice day," I told her
cheerfully.

She curled her lip at me in disdain, then
pointedly turned her back and resumed her hallway vigil.

Now there was someone who could have
benefited from an experimental drug.

It was already dark by the time I turned
onto a back road that was a shortcut to Helen's house. My route led
me through a remote subdivision with five-acre lots thick with
hardwoods and Carolina pines. The night was still. Gray clouds
covered the rising moon, making it seem as if time had been
suspended just so the world could stop and breathe in the cool of
an October night. I caught a glimpse of movement beside the
shoulder of the road up ahead and slowed just in time to let a trio
of deer bounce across the asphalt.

I stopped the car and rolled down the
windows so I could listen to the evening's sounds. Crickets
chirped, owls quarreled in the woods nearby, traffic hummed along
the highway a quarter mile away. How could such a perfect world
conceal the kind of human monster that would try to destroy Helen
Pugh's life?

As I accelerated again, I heard the growl of
a car engine behind me. Someone else making their way home. Someone
intruding on my brief solitude.

The moment over, I sped toward Helen's,
taking the curves a little too fast just so I could enjoy the
rocking of my Porsche. Gradually I became aware that I was being
followed. It was only apparent on the straightaways, when another
set of headlights crested the hills behind me.

Paranoia is a natural state for me. I've
been shot at and run off the road too many times to ignore the
anxious voice that lives inside of me. So I pulled into a driveway
and cut my lights, then ducked down in the seat. The car behind me
sped past without even slowing down; it was some battered station
wagon packed with people.

So much for my instincts.

I eased back onto the road and arrived at
Helen's just in time to be pulled inside the house by a frantic
Fanny.

"She's called again," Fanny said, steering
me toward Burly's impromptu office. "Wait here. She's calling back
at nine. I'll bring you a plate of food."

I didn't have to ask who was calling back.
Fanny knew how desperately I wanted to talk to the woman who kept
calling our hotline number. I waved at the living room of people
and went straight to the back of the house. I sat on the edge of
the bed and stared at the phone, waiting for it to ring—something I
hadn't done since high school. It was still ten minutes to nine,
but if she called early, I wanted to be ready. Maybe she would ask
me to the prom.

Fanny bustled in with a plate heaped high
with rice and pork chops smothered in cream gravy. I was just
getting started on this cholesterol-laden feast when the phone
rang. She was early.

"Hello," I said. "I was hoping you'd call
back."

"The woman who answered earlier was so
understanding. She seemed to know what I was going through."

"She's a good person," I told the caller.
"She doesn't have a mean bone in her body."

"Unlike some people," the woman
answered.

"Unlike many people," I said. There was a
silence.

"I really need your help," I started to
say.

"I can't stop thinking about what you said,"
she said simultaneously.

"What did I say?" I asked.

"About it happening to someone else."

"Does that mean you're ready to talk?"

"I think so." She was silent. "There's
something else you should know."

I got a funny feeling in my stomach. "What?"
I asked cautiously.

"I think he's been watching me," she
said.

"He?"

"The man who raped me." She paused. "I
thought I saw his car tonight. On my block. It was parked a few
doors down from my house."

I got a bad feeling then. A real bad
feeling. "Hang up and call the police," I ordered her.

"No," she said. "I'd have to report the rape
if I did that. I can't do that."

"If he really is following you, you're in
real danger. If this is the same man who is stalking a friend of
mine, he grabs hold and doesn't let go. It's the watching he likes,
the terror he creates in others. You could be badly hurt
again."