Dead End (33 page)

“I miss you, Chauncey,” Precious said.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her, stretching. “It’s six in the mornin’. Use very small words and keep your voice down.”

One or two of the feelings she’d had for him lived on. “Don’t get up yet.” Give the boy a little more time and he’d kill those, too.

“What for?”

“Maybe I’m cold.”

“It’s already fuckin’ eighty.”

The words were the usual tough-guy stuff, but he hadn’t moved from the bed. “It’s cool in here,” she told him. “Nice. Could be nice if you’re under the covers with someone…you love.”

He turned to look at her. “Did Amy get away?”

“
No.
”

“You crashed that damn yellow moneymobile you had to have.”

Just as she started to get angry, stupid tears filled her eyes. Why would he be sucked in by sweet talk from her? And why did she actually want him? She couldn’t, not after all he’d done. She did want him.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Chauncey said. “The Jag.”

Precious looked away from him. They were so messed up. Not one thing about their lives was going good.

The mattress shifted. Chauncey lifted the covers and got in. He gathered her up in his arms the way he used to, and it was like something broke apart inside her.

“It don’t matter,” he said. “What’s one more car to fix up? You don’t never have to be afraid of me. What you want, you got. Hey, no cryin’, okay?”

“There’s nothin’ wrong with my car,” she told him. “I meant what I said about missing you. You’re here with me, only you’re not.”

“You pushed me away. I never wanted it.” He kissed her. “Only I earned it. I may be a dumb fuck when it comes to the feelings stuff, but not
that
dumb. I love you, too, baby.”

She wasn’t handling this the way she’d planned. Must be some sort of woman thing—hormones out of whack or something. She ran her fingertips down his spine. Memories, especially bad memories, couldn’t be wished away, if that was what she wanted.

What she wanted was to wrap things up with Amy Girard. The thought of killing people didn’t excite her. She shut her eyes to hold back the tears. The idea made her sick. That woman was ruined, scary ruined, and the unbelievable part was that Precious couldn’t really hate her anymore, not knowing what her life had been—and that it might as well be over.

“It’s been two months,” Chauncey said. “That don’t matter as long as you’ll give us another chance. We need each other more than we ever did.”

She should tell him it had never been her he’d wanted, but the money she’d get one day. “I know I need you,” she said and rubbed an instep up and down one of his calves. “Hold me.”

He did it; he held her without instantly making the move on her.

Too late. Anyway, he was scared, and that’s why he was being nice to her. He’d taken a fall and dragged her with him. No way would she get clean away after what she’d done.

Chauncey nuzzled her neck. The old feelings stirred, but not strongly enough to distract her from her purpose.

“I shouldn’t have used sex to get back at you,” she said, and maneuvered herself beneath him. “I guess it was the obvious thing to do.”

Twenty-four hours of beard growth darkened his cheeks and jaw. The pomade had mostly rubbed away in the night, and his hair fell forward, wavy, with curls at his neck. The lines of his face and body might be blurred, his muscles not so hard, but her breathing shortened the way it had the first time they made love—on their honeymoon. Chauncey Depew had got himself a Catholic virgin, and he hadn’t pushed for sex until after the ceremony. She’d believed he was mad about her.

His hands covered her breasts. “Don’t worry your pretty head about all that old stuff.”

She wriggled out of her shorty silk nightie. “Leave the black boxers on, they feel good between my legs.”

He said, “Oh, baby,” and sealed their mouths together.

There were questions to ask, and any way she did it he was going to think this was one more time she’d used sex to manipulate him. There was nothing soft about what she pulled free of the boxers.
“
Oh baby
to you,” she said, playing with him and listening to him moan.

“You ready?” he said, feeling her down there. Sweat beaded on his brow and upper lip, and wherever their skin touched was hot and slippery. “Yep, ready as you need to be.” He chuckled against her ear.

Some of the excitement began to fade.

“You been to see our friend lately?” he said.

Precious felt sick. She could hit him and shout about him coming on to her because he wanted to soften her up, but she’d been the first one to do that. Could she blame him if he saw an opportunity for himself? “Mmm,” she said. She didn’t have to give him any information he could use, but she could lead him on and find out what she had to know in the process.

“She’s a liability,” Chauncey said. “Oh, baby, never mind her now.”

“You’re right. She’s a liability, but we’ve got to be careful where we go from here.” The setup was perfect. “It must have been horrible having to open that tomb.”

“Yeah.”

“With just the two of you, I don’t know how you did it. I wish you’d warned me it was happenin’, we could have coordinated everything beautifully.”

“We could have.” He rubbed her, and she wanted him the way she had a few minutes before. Chauncey speeded up, and Precious panted. She had to struggle to keep a hold on him.

“Let yourself go,” he said, while his ass practiced for the main event.

Obliging him came naturally. “Oh, Chauncey,” she murmured.

“You call and I come runnin’,” he said, entering her slowly. He’d always had finesse, which was probably what kept him in willing women whenever he felt like some variety.

“We have to figure out what to do with—you know—after I’ve finished. It could still work to pull off the switch. Put Amy in Bonnie’s casket and figure out a clever way to make sure she’s found—when we’re ready.”

He held her shoulders and worked hard, too hard.

“Where did you put her?” Precious pushed her hands inside his shorts and over his buns. “You feel so good.”

“So do you. Oh, so do you.”

“Give me the word and I’ll do what I’ve got to do. I need a few days to do a good job on her.”

“Then Bonnie would be missing and they’d be lookin’ for her,” he said. “Keep quiet, baby. Let’s enjoy this.”

“I can’t keep Amy locked up forever. She doesn’t look so good. She might die on me.”

“Would that be a problem?”

She was stupid, Precious thought, stupid, stupid to give him an opening like that. “If it happens before certain other stuff, yes. Everything’s got to be just right. Chauncey, you don’t want her death traced back to me.”

“I don’t want it traced back to either of us.”

“Maybe we should let her go.” Precious held her breath. “She’d be so grateful she’d never bother us again.”

He laughed and increased his tempo. “She’d be more vindictive than when she got here. She’d ruin everything. No, sugar, just tell me where she is and I’ll take over from here.”

Precious needed what he was providing right now. She shut her mouth and gave it her all. Then, when it was over, Chauncey fell on top of her and lay there like a slick dead weight.

Her damp skin started to cool off.

Chauncey snored softly and clicked his tongue loudly against the roof of his mouth.

He’d betrayed her from the beginning. He didn’t love her, never had, but he didn’t want a woman’s warm body around if he couldn’t use it.

She shook him, and he rolled onto his back, blinking at her. “Hey, sleeping beauty,” she said, smiling at him. “I swear you get better and better.”

Chauncey grinned and scratched his skin through the hair on his chest. “That’s something I like about you. You recognize quality.”

“Seriously.” She tapped his nose. “Should I go ahead?”

He frowned at her.

“You take Bonnie into the swamps. They’ll never find anything afterwards.”

“We think with one mind,” he said. “Only I had Amy in mind. A whole lot simpler.”

“Sooner or later, Bonnie and her casket will show up. You weren’t to know exactly when they’d do the exhumation, but you shouldn’t have moved ahead until Amy was ready to go. Our only hope now is to put Amy wherever Bonnie is.”

“Shut your mouth,” Chauncey said. “You’re confusin’ me.”

“What’s confusing to you? You messed up. I’m going to help you out of a tight spot—because I love you.”
Because you
’
re a selfish prick and it
’
s my turn.
I
’
m going to set you up.

“You can help me out by leaving this alone. I’ve got everything under control. Where’s Amy? Don’t mess me around anymore. Today’s as good as any day.”

Now she felt cold and sweaty “No. It’s going to be my way this time. I’ll do it, and then I’ll help you and Dante make sure everything’s perfect for when Spike gets an anonymous tip.” The tip he’d get so he could be there when Chauncey and Dante started digging. “Where did you bury her?”

“What makes you think we buried her?” He got out of bed and walked around to rip open the drapes.

“You put her in a crypt? How did you manage that? Did you just borrow a space, or what?”

“No.”

“Oh my god, you got rid of the body? Completely got rid of it—the casket, too?” If he had, everything would change. “How?”

“I didn’t.”

“Damn you, Chauncey.” She got to her knees on the mattress. “Play games with me and I can really fuck you.”

“You just did.”

She sighed. “So now you develop a clever mouth. I can arrange it so I come out smelling like roses and you end up in a penitentiary forever.”

“I don’t think so,” Chauncey said. “You’re my accomplice.”

Getting mad was too much of a luxury when she was fighting for life as she knew it. “Finally you admit it. Good. Let’s get the job done—together.”

“It’s not going to work the way you’ve got it figured. I don’t know where Bonnie’s body is, or her casket.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s surely not funny. Why would I move ahead with what we talked about and not tell you? I didn’t. I was still thinking about it. The whole idea seemed crazy to me. I had Dante help me take the slab off the tomb just to see if we could do it. That was late the night before the exhumation. The casket was already gone.”

May Lynn Charpentier’s parents ran a trailer park. A double-wide at the entrance to the park housed her beauty parlor.

“How long?” Marc asked Reb, keeping the Range Rover idling out front. “I’ll be back for you. Or I’ll wait here, if you like.”

“I’ll be too long for that.” She unbuckled her seat belt.

Marc caught her left hand and held it on top of his thigh. “Thank you for letting me into your life.”

“I like being with you.” A lump in her throat didn’t help her attempt at sounding a little distant—in the interest of making sure he didn’t end up feeling trapped, and that she came through with a chance for recovery if things didn’t work out. That morning he’d driven her home to do her clinic, and on to make her rounds. Afterward they’d returned to Clouds End to check on Gaston. And they’d gone back to bed.

They looked directly ahead at the perfect oblong of emerald green artificial turf in front of May Lynn’s. Marc’s sudden shift in his seat startled Reb. He stared at her until she had to turn to him.

“Do you remember some of the things I said to you last night?” he asked. “And today?”

She looked into his somber eyes, and at the mouth she’d come to know so well. His hair was still wet from the shower they’d just taken, and there were spots of moisture on his denim shirt. He smelled clean, like the plain soap they’d used.

“Hey.” He leaned closer. “What’s up? Was it something I did—or didn’t do?”

“No. We’re moving—have moved real fast. Too fast.”

His expression hardened, then he breathed through his mouth and said, “We’ve been working our way toward this for years.”

She laughed uncomfortably. “In a way, I suppose—A to Z with most of the other letters missing in between. I’d better get in there and see if I can shake anything loose.”

Marc kissed her. With his hands in her hair, he held her still and used his thumbs to frame her face. His eyes slid shut, and he kissed her until she pulled her mouth away. “It’ll be a while,” she said, smiling faintly at him. “I’ll call you on your cell.”

“Yeah.”

He put the kind of hurt and disappointment in that “yeah” that was supposed to pull out whatever he wanted to hear from her. Or it could be he was in the mood again and wanted to take her back to Clouds End.

She opened the door. “Thank you for being kind to me. I’ve got to do something about getting a vehicle when I’m through here—and decide what to do about living arrangements.”

“Call me,” was all he said.

Reb slid from the car and slammed the door—just in time to catch three pairs of eyes watching her from a window. Which meant they’d seen Marc kissing her.

Without looking back, she walked along a red brick path that divided the phony grass, passed by precisely placed white tubs filled with plastic flowers, and took a step up to a covered porch where the trailer door stood open. A turquoise neon sign on the outside of the glass spelled “NEPO” from her perspective. A blues reggae number, and scents of perfumed hair products, wafted through a screen door.

She went in, and May Lynn, in floral nylon smock and black tights, rushed to dispense a hug. “You are
so
beautiful when you’re happy, Doctor Reb. You are positively glowin’.” She winked a blue eye. “Why, I might almost think you were in love.”

“I think that’s because you’re in love and you imagine everyone you see is in love, too. Shall I go to the shampoo basin?”

May Lynn, naturally blond, too pale and too thin, said, “Uh huh,” and felt Reb’s hair. “Damp. Did you just get out of the shower?” She glanced at a cat clock with tail clicking back and forth on the wall, and Reb could almost hear her putting the kiss in the car, the time of day, and the wet hair together.