Billy's Bones (18 page)

“I liked him,” Tom said. It was a gross understatement. By now, Tom was head over heels for Kevin. But Sue was unsympathetic, to say the least.

“He had issues, Tom. Serious issues. I feel for him, and I hope he gets the help he needs.” Kevin had missed his therapy appointment, and both Sue and Tom suspected he wouldn’t be back. “But as your friend, I have to say, you don’t want to be in a relationship with someone you feel you have to take care of all the time.”

Trying to take care of Kevin had been Tom’s big mistake. He’d fucked up. He, better than anyone, should have known someone like Kevin would hate being looked after like a child. Tom’s behavior had been well meaning but insulting.

“The hot tub smells funny,” Tom said.

“The hot tub?” Sue clearly had no idea what the connection was.

“Kevin always took care of balancing the chemicals in the hot tub. I have no idea how to do it. Now it smells kind of swampy, and I’m not sure it’s safe to get in it.”

Sue gave him a disgusted look. “So pick up a manual or find a website that tells you how to take care of the hot tub. You’re a big boy. I’m sure you can manage.”

“And Shadow won’t eat,” Tom went on. “He just ignores his food.”

She was a bit more sympathetic about that, owning a dog herself. “I’m sure he’s missing Kevin too. Animals are very sensitive to people coming and going in their environment. He’ll probably eat when he’s hungry, but it might not hurt to take him to the vet, just to be on the safe side.”

Tom nodded. He looked at the plate of fried squash and root vegetables in front of him and decided maybe he could use a trip to the vet too.

O
N
HIS
way home that evening, he passed by Kevin’s trailer. He didn’t really have much choice, unless he wanted to go several miles out of his way. As always, he couldn’t avoid searching for Kevin, hoping he’d be out in the yard or sitting out on his porch. He wasn’t. Tom hadn’t so much as glimpsed him all week.

Sometimes Kevin’s truck was in the driveway, but today it wasn’t. The garage door was closed and clearly nobody was home. But this time Tom saw something that alarmed him: a “For Sale” sign on the lawn.

He slowed down and pulled over on the side of the road. It wasn’t any of his business. Kevin was making it very clear that any relationship they’d had was over. But Tom also knew he had to take a closer look, to make sure he’d really seen what he thought he had.

Feeling like a stalker, he slowly backed his car up along the breakdown lane and into the end of Kevin’s driveway. Then he put his car in park, got out, and walked across the front lawn to get a closer look at the sign.

It was a “For Sale” sign all right. And even more disconcerting, Kevin’s business sign had been taken down. Tom didn’t feel right trespassing any further than he already was, but he could see from the driveway that Kevin had been doing some work around the place. The unruly backyard had been mowed, at least as far as the birch saplings would allow. Kevin had refrained from cutting those down. The porch had been cleaned up, from what Tom could see. He could only assume the inside of the trailer and garage were being straightened up, or had been already.

Is he even still living here?
The thought that Kevin might have already left chilled Tom to the core. If he was already gone, there would be no chance of ever reconciling. And Tom was still desperately clinging to that possibility.

He heard something behind him and turned to see Kevin’s truck pulling into the driveway. For a second, Tom’s heart danced.
He’s still here!

But as soon as he glimpsed the irritated look on Kevin’s face as he was forced to drive his truck over the grass to get around Tom’s car, Tom realized Kevin was a long way from being happy to see
him
. Kevin stopped the truck and got out, slamming the door behind him.

“Why are you here?” he asked curtly as he strode across the grass, his expression anything but friendly.

“I… saw the sign….” Tom was having difficulty forming a coherent sentence. Even angry, Kevin was strikingly handsome, and the desire to reach out to him was overwhelming.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“You’re moving?”

“I’m moving.”

When he didn’t volunteer anything further, Tom asked, “Where are you going?”

Kevin sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. Away from this shithole.”

“That’s awfully sudden, isn’t it?”

“Yeah? Well, I do shit like that. I’m psychologically unstable.” He started walking past Tom toward the door, his expression making it clear the conversation was over as far as he was concerned.

“I don’t think you’re—”

Kevin silenced him by groaning loudly in frustration. “Maybe I haven’t made it clear that I don’t like you being here. I know you mean well, and… really, I don’t hate you or anything. But I can’t deal with you in my life anymore. Okay?”

Tom stared at him, a piteous look on his face, struggling to think of anything he could say that would get Kevin to sit down and talk things out. He was a psychologist, damn it! He was supposed to know how to deal with people’s anger and pain.

As if he knew what was going through Tom’s head, Kevin said, “You fucked it all up for me. I mean, yeah, I had some issues. But I was doing all right. Now, I’ve got this constant—” He fluttered the fingers of one hand near the side of his head. “—
noise
in my head! It’s like you fucking opened Pandora’s box in there, and now I can’t stop remembering things. I can’t even jerk off without feeling my dad’s hands on me, smelling his breath….”

He had to stop a moment, disgust written on his face as he shook his head. “Everything in this fucking town reminds me of stuff I don’t want to think about. You really did a job on me, counselor. And I’d really like it if you’d just let me be.”

He turned away, and this time Tom let him go. There was nothing he could say that would fix things. He knew that now.

Tom walked back to his car and left Kevin’s trailer behind him.

S
HADOW
didn’t eat again that night, turning away from his bowl and going to plop down on his dog pillow with a depressed sigh. When he did the same thing in the morning, Tom panicked and called the veterinary hospital in Lancaster—the closest one he could find.

“We’re open,” the woman on the other end of the line said dubiously, “but we close at noon, and we’re booked solid until then.”

“Can’t somebody just look at him?” Tom pleaded. “He’s barely eaten a thing in a week!”

“Did he get into something that you’re aware of?”

Tom explained the situation, and the woman said sympathetically, “Your puppy’s probably still grieving. It can take a couple weeks or more for a dog or cat to regain their appetite when someone they love leaves. They’re very sensitive to changes in their environment. I’m sure he’ll be okay, but we do have a slot open on Monday morning, if you’d like to bring him in.”

Tom made the appointment. He had to reschedule one of his own Monday morning appointments, but fortunately his client was a dog lover and when he called her, she was more than willing to come in later in the week if it would help his ailing pup.

After making the phone calls, Tom went online and tried to find instructions for balancing the chemicals in his hot tub. He found plenty. But it seemed too complicated for his weary brain to sort out right now, so he just bookmarked a couple of pages and decided to deal with it later.

He took Shadow for a walk in the woods behind the house instead. The puppy perked up a bit for the first time since Kevin had walked out, and Tom was relieved to see it. Shadow was still likely to run off if he wasn’t on a leash, so Tom held his lead and followed along after the dog, letting him sniff around to his heart’s content.

Tom’s property extended a good distance into the forest, though he hadn’t yet taken the time to find the property markers. The real estate agent had said they were small stone posts sticking up out of the ground and showed him the property lines on a map. As he wandered through the forest, he toyed with the idea of searching the markers out, but he began to grow nervous about being this far out in the woods. He was no outdoorsman. He could barely tell east from west on a sunny day. And according to the map he’d seen, there were miles of forest to get lost in before he might stumble across a highway in the middle of nowhere.

“Let’s go back to the house, Pup,” he said.

Shadow had no idea what he meant, of course, but he’d learned by now that “Pup” was one of his names. He came trotting back to Tom and didn’t strain too much against his harness when Tom started to lead him back to the house.

Tom had to rely on his memory of landmarks, like streams and fallen trees, to find his way back, and more than once he got turned around. But eventually he spotted the back of the house through the trees.

Thank God.

Before they’d actually come out of the forest, Shadow started pulling hard at his lead, dragging Tom off to his right. Since they were within sight of the house, he allowed the dog to investigate whatever had caught his interest.

It turned out to be a cylindrical pipe made out of cement, jutting up out of the forest floor. It was about three feet wide and a couple of feet high, and it was capped by a five-inch-thick cement disk with metal handles on it.

“That’s bizarre,” Tom said to no one in particular—maybe to the dog. “Is that the artesian well?” He knew the house had one, but he’d never looked at it. He’d just arranged for people to come test the water during the house sale.

Shadow didn’t answer. He sniffed around the base of it for a minute, before losing interest and wandering off again, this time in the general direction of the house. Tom forgot about the well, or whatever it was, and followed after him.

B
Y
MIDAFTERNOON
,
Tom was fairly certain Shadow wasn’t dying, though the dog still turned his nose up at the food in his dish. He decided he could use a little time away from the house, and maybe Shadow would be interested in steak tips if Tom brought some home from the diner in a doggy bag. So he put the dog in his crate, along with a bowl of fresh water and the dish of kibble, and drove into Groveton.

Part of him had hoped to see Kevin’s truck in the parking lot, but it wasn’t there.

God, I’m starting to stalk him!

Tom parked his car and went inside. Fortunately, the diner wasn’t too busy for a Saturday. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a noisy crowd of people. Tom found a table and waited for a waitress to notice him.

The cheerful young woman who’d waited on him the last time he was there—Kelly, if he remembered correctly—saw him and flashed him a welcoming smile. He smiled back as she headed over to him, hoping his disappointment didn’t show on his face. He’d really wanted to talk to Tracy. Though perhaps it was better that he not.

But apparently Tracy wanted to talk to him as well. She intercepted Kelly and said something in her ear. Kelly nodded and then flashed Tom another quick smile as she waved to him and wandered off in a different direction. Tracy hurried over and immediately slipped into the seat across from him.

“Tom! I’ve been hoping you’d stop by. It’s been days.”

“I’ve been busy,” he said lamely. The real reason, of course, had been that he felt this was
Kevin’s
diner—the waitresses were all friends with him anyway—and Tom might not be welcome here anymore.

Tracy gave him a shrewd look. “Something’s wrong between you and Kevin, isn’t there? That’s why I wanted to talk to you. He’s been acting really weird… talking about leaving town. Did you two have a fight?”

“I guess you could say that.” It hadn’t really been much of a fight, Tom thought. But that was beside the point. “He said he can’t be around me anymore because I keep fucking with his head.”

And then without really meaning to, he found himself spilling the whole mess. Not about Kevin’s past sexual abuse—Tom still felt bound by client confidentiality, even though Kevin hadn’t been his client, and he knew Kevin wouldn’t want that information being gossiped about. But he told Tracy he was a psychologist, and he’d been trying to help Kevin cope with his panic attacks, that he’d pushed too hard and too fast, and now Kevin wouldn’t talk to him and his life was shit….

She let him blather on until he was finished and then gave him a sympathetic smile. She put her hand over his. “You tried, hon. Bless you for that.”

“I tried too hard,” Tom said miserably.

“Maybe. But I’ll tell you something: he was happier in that short time he had with you than I
ever
saw him in the time we were married. And the few times he was in here this week, he was looking like he just lost his best friend. I don’t care what he says—he still needs you, hon.”

She glanced up as another customer entered the diner. “I should get back to work. You want your usual?”

“Sure.”

Tracy gave him another smile and a quick pat on the hand before jumping up and running off. Tom wasn’t sure he believed her about Kevin still needing him, but it had been nice to hear. And he couldn’t help but smile at the thought that he now had a favorite diner he could go to, and the waitress would know what he meant if he ordered the “usual.”

Seventeen