Hemlock (2 page)

Kyle touched my arm and nodded toward the crowd. Jason had broken away and was headed in our direction.

“Hey guys.” His eyes were bloodshot and his blond hair—

normaly so perfect—looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in days.

The suit was designer, but he slouched like he was wearing rags.

I gave him an awkward hug and then stepped away quickly in case there were any reporters hiding among the mourners. “Are you okay?”

Jason shrugged, and I cursed myself for asking such an unbelievably stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay. None of us were.

I scanned the faces in the crowd as they passed and spotted Amy’s grandfather. I’d always thought Senator Walsh looked young for his age, but today, every minute of his sixty-odd years had been etched onto his face. He seemed smaler than I remembered—thinner and not as tal—almost as though Amy’s remembered—thinner and not as tal—almost as though Amy’s death had somehow compressed him. But there was nothing weak in his gaze as it swept the three of us; it was hot enough to scorch.

I knew what he was thinking.

It was our fault Amy was dead. Al of our faults.

The best friend who had bailed; the boyfriend who had been running late; the guy who hadn’t answered his phone.

Six days ago, a werewolf had kiled Amy and we were each to blame.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I IGNORED A TWINGE IN MY SHOULDER AS I WIPED DOWN another table. My back was paying the price for too many hours spent waitressing at Mama Rosa’s Fine Italian Eatery this week. Not that I was complaining. Though I had the coming weekend off, tonight was my last shift before I switched to working just Saturdays and Sundays. School had started two weeks ago, and it was already Sundays. School had started two weeks ago, and it was already getting hard to keep up. So much for Amy’s theory that seniors just coasted and classes would be the things that happened between parties.

She had been so ful of plans for our last year at Kennedy, but she had never considered a scenario in which I’d be going through it without her.

I straightened and bit my lip. It had been five months since Amy’s funeral, but I stil kept expecting her to burst into the restaurant like the whole thing had just been a gruesome joke.

There were days when I picked up the phone and got halfway through dialing her number before remembering it had been disconnected.

A familiar tightness closed around my chest. I walked past the checked tablecloths and cheesy votive candles in glass jars and and signaled to one of the other waitresses that I was stepping out for a minute.

Outside, I leaned against the corner of the restaurant’s brick facade, hoping the fresh air and last lingering rays of sunlight would clear my head. Things were slowly getting better, but there were stil times when I missed Amy so badly it was like a physical ache.

And it didn’t help that there seemed to be a reminder of her around every corner.

Take the shop across the street. It was empty now—its windows lined with yelowing newspaper and a For Lease sign hanging in the door—but it used to sel vintage clothing and accessories. It had been one of Amy’s favorite places.

accessories. It had been one of Amy’s favorite places.

The owner had closed the shop and left town after her fiancé was kiled by a werewolf. He had been the first victim. Amy was the third. For two months—March and April—the town had lived in a near constant state of terror as a werewolf went on a rampage, kiling four people and infecting eight others with lupine syndrome.

I tugged my hair out of its ponytail and twisted it back up again as I spared the street one last glance. The stores that had survived the drop in tourism—because nothing kept visitors away like a kiler werewolf—al had cheerful window displays and colorful awnings. Huge, round flower planters lined the street at regular intervals, stil overflowing with greenery and bright blooms, while Riverside Square was just visible on the next block.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Hemlock was the perfect smal town; I’d have thought nothing bad could happen here.

Sometimes I realy wished I didn’t know better. That I could just forget.

Pushing that thought away, I headed back inside.

I checked on my tables, refiled drinks, and brought a slice of chocolate cheesecake to a woman doing paperwork in a back booth. I was just bringing a large pepperoni pizza to a table of four when the restaurant door opened and my cousin—and legal guardian—Tess blew in like a hurricane. She was working later and dressed accordingly: sort of a mix between rocker chic and a bird of paradise. Tess waited tables at the Shady Cat, a microbrewery/restaurant that was just off the colege campus and known for its eccentric staff and a decorating scheme so zany that known for its eccentric staff and a decorating scheme so zany that it could have been yanked straight out of Tim Burton’s head.

Every couple of weeks, Tess would radicaly overhaul her look.

Judging by the purple and pink in her hair—which had been blond when I left for school in the a.m.—that time had come and gone while I’d been in class. I felt a smal twinge of envy: it looked great, but was something I’d never be able to pul off. I wouldn’t even be brave enough to try.

She flopped into a booth—one that hadn’t been cleared—and made a face at the half-eaten food in front of her.

I shook my head and tried to suppress a grin as I walked over.

She wasn’t in my section, but I hadn’t seen her al day. Besides, the other servers were used to Tess’s lack of respect for the table chart.

“There were six perfectly clean booths,” I pointed out, scooping up plates and paper place mats. I laughed at the absolutely revolted look on her face as she spied a lipstick stain on the rim of a glass. “Why’d you pick this one?”

Trying for a mobster accent, she said, “You know I like this booth. It’s my booth. The one I always sit in. It’s my office. Where I do business.” She’d clearly been bingeing on the
Sopranos
DVDs I’d borrowed from the library.

“Caesar salad, hold the croutons?” I guessed, ignoring the accent.

Tess leaned back and rubbed her nonexistent bely. “I was thinking pasta.”

“What happened to the blood oath you took to swear off carbs?” Tess’s diet was the only thing that changed faster than her carbs?” Tess’s diet was the only thing that changed faster than her hair. The bel in the kitchen rang. One of my orders was up. “I’l be right back,” I caled over my shoulder.

Eight minutes and three table checks later, I returned to Tess, salad in hand. I set the plate in front of her. “Here, eat this. The chicken gives it protein and I got them to hold the bacon bits.”

We’d watched
Charlotte’s Web
on cable last week, so I knew it’d be at least a month before she would eat pork again.

Tess grinned and shook out a napkin. “You’re so good to me.

So responsible.” A devilish smirk crossed her face. “You’re seeing Kyle tonight, right?”

I leaned against the booth and roled my eyes. “Don’t start.”

“What’s she up to now?” asked a deep voice from somewhere over my left shoulder.

I jumped as Tess’s boyfriend, Ben, slid past me and took the seat across from her. I hadn’t seen him come in.

Ben shrugged out of his battered leather jacket and smiled.

Colege girls hung out at the Cat for hours just to get a glimpse of that grin. Add in the blond hair, tanned skin, and Holywood looks and Ben was officialy walking eye candy. I sometimes wondered, a little guiltily, if those same love-struck girls would stil swoon if they got a good look at the web of scars that crisscrossed his torso, souvenirs from a car wreck that had kiled his mother and brother when he was fifteen.

He was staring at me, waiting for a reply.

It took me a second to remember what he had asked. “She’s lecturing me on my love life.”

lecturing me on my love life.”

He laughed. “Should have known. Tess, give the kid a break.”

“Kyle stopped dating that clingy train wreck.” Tess pouted for a moment. “Mac has to strike while the iron’s hot.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively and stuffed a forkful of croutons and lettuce into her mouth.

I glanced around the restaurant. It was stil quiet. No one would say anything if I loitered at table four. “It doesn’t matter if he’s dating Heather or not. Kyle and I aren’t like that.” It was a conversation I’d had with Tess so many times that I had my lines practicaly memorized.

Did I ever think about what was under Kyle’s indie rock Tshirts and jeans? Wel, yeah. He was good-looking and I had a pulse. But thoughts weren’t action. Besides, some things were too important to mess with. “Kyle is my best friend. Why would I risk screwing that up?”

“Mackenzie Catherine Dobson, have you learned
nothing
from romantic comedies? Do I need to make a trip to the video store?”

Tess set her fork down and sighed. “‘We’re just friends’ is the oldest plot device in the book. Al it realy means is that you’re just friends until one of you gets the bals to do something about al that unresolved tension.”

Ben stifled a laugh and I felt my face flush.

Oblivious, Tess slid out of the booth and dropped a couple of bils on the table, even though she’d barely touched her food. “I’l be home late. Don’t wait up.” She tugged on my ponytail. “We need to do something about your hair.” She was out the door before I could respond.

before I could respond.

Ben paused to put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’l find some way to embarrass Tess at work.” He winked and headed after her.

It was hard not to like Ben—though I’d worried when they started dating. Ben was twenty-two—four years younger than Tess

—and before getting a job with her at the Cat, he’d been part of a work crew renovating this huge farmhouse the Walsh family owned. I’d wanted Tess to be happy, but the idea of her dating someone who worked for Amy’s family had been one more reminder that my best frined and I weren’t realy equal.

I glanced down at the empty salad bowl and scooped up the crumpled bils. The Caesar had cost eight dolars and Tess had left me twenty. Talk about an epic tip.

Not that any tip was enough to get her off the hook for teasing me in front of Ben. I might have to delve into the very large vault of embarrassing Tess stories as payback.

I wondered if Ben knew about the time she’d jokingly handcuffed herself to a police officer boyfriend only to find out he’d left the key back at the station. Humming to myself, I cleared the table.

The phone rang just as I finished punching two orders of tortelini into the computer. “Rosa’s,” I said, pressing the receiver to my ear.

“I can’t pick you up tonight.” Kyle’s voice came through with a burst of static.

burst of static.

“No big.”

“Wil you get a cab?”

“Sure,” I lied. After five months without a single werewolf attack, life in Hemlock was starting to get back to normal. Kyle, however, seemed permanently locked in overprotective mode.

“Are you lying?” he asked.

Of course I am
, I thought. The last time I’d gotten a cab, the driver had spent the entire ride hitting on me. I wasn’t spending seven bucks to be trapped in a car with a lech. “Nope. I’m a safety girl. Wait a sec, why can’t you pick me up?”

“Heather is freaking out. I have to head over there and I don’t know how long I’l be.”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger and tried not to say the first few things that came to mind. This was the third time in the last month that Kyle had been subjected to one of Heather Yoshida’s meltdowns. It was total overkil—even if they had dated for almost a year. Why did the Heathers of the world always get great guys like Kyle?

“You know,” I said, trying to keep my tone conversational and light, “one of the perks of breaking up with someone is that you no longer have to deal with their drama.”

“And if anyone would know about breakups . . .”

“That’s such a cheap shot.” It wasn’t my fault that I’d had only one real boyfriend. Or that he had been a jerk who accused me of being an emotional iceberg when I wanted to take things slow.

I glanced up. The night manager looked pointedly from me to her watch; I wasn’t supposed to use the phone for personal cals.

her watch; I wasn’t supposed to use the phone for personal cals.

“I gotta go,” I told Kyle. “I’l talk to you tomorrow.”

“Cab.”

I sighed. “It’s gone, Kyle. No one in town thinks it’s coming back.” As much as I wanted them to find the thing that had kiled Amy, I was starting to accept that it had left Hemlock.

Kyle didn’t say anything for a minute, then, quietly, he said, “No one realy knows what happened, Mac. There’s no guarantee it won’t start again.”

“Fine, I’l take a cab,” I lied.

“At least be careful when you walk home.” He hung up before I could retort.

An hour later, I grabbed my jacket and backpack from the staff room, left a share of my tips for the guys in the kitchen, and pushed my way out through the heavy employees-only entrance at the back of the building.

The cool breeze coming off the river felt good against my face—

especialy after an evening spent wandering in and out of a hot kitchen with trays of heavy Italian food. Rosa’s, like most of downtown Hemlock, was only two blocks from the waterfront.

When I glanced to my right, I could see the lights from the other side of town reflected on the water like faling stars.

Movies and books always talked about the wrong side of the tracks. There hadn’t been a train through Hemlock for almost six decades, but we did have the river. People with money—people like Amy and Jason—lived on the north side. Even Kyle’s family lived over there, though in one of the more modest neighborhoods.

lived over there, though in one of the more modest neighborhoods.

The south side was home to the rest of us, and I actualy preferred it to the stuffy atmosphere across the bridge.

I passed a couple in their twenties who were laughing just a bit too loudly and holding hands a little awkwardly. Probably a second date. Despite the gorgeous September evening, they were the only other ones on the street.