Hush (31 page)

pile of wood lay behind the boy and to the right. The headless angel hovered

above him.
She concentrated on Davy's drawing of his stepfather first. He had made him look

like a monster, and she noted how much this contrasted with her first impression

of Mr. Boyce as a handsome man with distinct features. But Davy had exaggerated

his stepfather's size and made him appear as big as Frankenstein. His nose

loomed as two huge nostrils, which she recognized as the perspective Davy would

have looking up at him. She picked up the pen and wrote in the boy's file that

the large appearance of the nostrils strongly suggested that Davy feared the

emotion Mr. Boyce expressed around him. This was Celia's analytical side. Her

emotions provided a simple and more direct verdict: Boyce was a beast.
The boy hadn't ignored his stepfather's dark eyes either. Even on paper they

looked monstrous; and he'd drawn him with massive feet, legs, and arms; boxy

shoulders; a thick neck; and, most grotesque of all, a hand shaped like an axe.
A big belt buckle drew attention to Mr. Boyce's crotch in the picture much as he

intended to— consciously or not— in real life. She remembered the way its oval

shape pressed against his narrow waist, the bronzed relief of a horse bucking

right over his belly button.
Just below the buckle Davy had colored in his stepfather's lower abdomen. The

shading extended down to the tops of his legs. Celia realized that the boy had

put a great deal of effort into covering up Mr. Boyce's genital area, and she

knew she didn't need a degree in art therapy to reach an obvious and sickening

conclusion.
But she hesitated before picking up her pen because the longer she studied the

picture the more aware she became of other damning elements. The hand shaped

like an axe, for instance, was aimed at the wedge, which the stick-figure boy

held over the log. The wedge, Celia saw with a shock, resembled a penis. No

question about it. Not even a stretch. And the stick figure with his twisted

mouth and missing features looked as scared as he had in the earlier picture.
But she still couldn't take her eyes off of Davy's drawing long enough to write

up her notes because one alarming image led to another. She mulled over the pile

of logs on the right side of the drawing for a couple of minutes before

understanding that this might well be Davy's way of saying the abuse would go

on. Abuse? A queasy feeling muddied her stomach, and she thought, abuse? Abuse?

Call a spade a spade, it's rape!
And then as she sat there studying the drawing, her anger building, she suddenly

understood the chilling reason why Davy had used so much red: it was the devil's

color. Of course, that's it! Davy saw himself in hell with his stepfather, his

mother rising above them, free only in death. Celia looked for the angel's feet

but found that Davy hadn't included them. That made sense too. In the earlier

drawings of women he'd included big feet, which had indicated to her that he'd

felt weighted down. But this angel was on the move, rising from the hell below.

But what had been so horrible for his mother, so harrowing that she remained

headless in the boy's otherwise vivid imagination? What could possibly ...
The answer that came to Celia stilled all her other thoughts and made her search

the shadows in the room. Murder. Maybe Boyce had killed her, committed an act so

terrifying that Davy could not render it. Or maybe he could not even remember

what had happened and had blocked out all but her absence. If that was the case,

then the boy's memory might return slowly, painfully, perhaps even faintly at

first, like an angel barely visible, faceless but not forgotten. Celia studied

the empty space above the wings, and nodded to herself. The boy who had spoken

without words might have drawn an important clue without lines.
Now she did pick up her pen and try to write, but succeeded with only the

basics: "Graphic indicators of sexual abuse. Check with state and local

authorities to see if stepfather has criminal record. Check death certificate

for mother— Becker, Idaho. Alert Services to Children and Families."
There, she'd finished, but the hand that held the pen still shook and she could

barely read what she'd written. That's okay, she didn't have to read her notes.

She'd read Davy's drawings, and they all spelled out a simple plea for help. She

would make sure he got it too. She'd nail that bastard Boyce, send him to prison

and set the boy free. At best Boyce was an abuser, and he might also be

something far worse.
She closed the file and placed it on the table, then checked the clock. Late.

Too late to call Tony tonight, for all good it would do; but tomorrow morning

he'd hear from her, Sunday or not. And he'd get on the line to the state or

she'd do it herself, protocol be damned.
She stood up, yawned deeply, and felt her exhaustion. A shiver of fear too. She

double-checked the locks on the doors, dragged herself into the bathroom to

brush her teeth, and never once looked at the shade, the window, or the world

outside.
47
They'd hiked, hit the hot tub, polished off a bottle of wine, and made love. And

now, as Helen prepared herself in the bathroom for yet another round of sex,

Jack lay in the log bed next to the log wall staring at the log door, and felt

pathetically incapable— despite his sylvan surroundings— of producing even the

flimsiest of woodies.
Helen had dismissed his concerns with a flick of the wrist and the promise of

"greater delights to come." He could have done without the pun. Actually, he

could have done without Helen but he knew this was a situation entirely of his

own doing.
He heard the rustling in the bathroom and wondered what she had in mind now.
When she opened the door a few minutes later she wore a gauzy white gown that

flared fetchingly from her waist to mid-thigh. Jack had to admit that the

backlighting from the bathroom did turn her formidable figure into an enchanting

silhouette.
"I'll be with you in just a sec, sweetheart."
A moment ago he would have taken that as a threat, but he found himself

mesmerized by the sight of Helen carefully and seductively putting on lipstick.
He stirred, and a sting issued from where she'd rubbed him raw just a couple of

hours ago. But the discomfort faded as his excitement grew.
He looked down and witnessed the yeasty effect of her appearance in the tent

pole poking up the covers. Amazing. At that moment he decided she was indeed a

miracle worker, an Annie Sullivan of sex.
He touched himself, as if to confirm the Lazarus between his legs, and watched

Helen place the lipstick on a bureau and move to the end of the bed. She lifted

the covers with a flourish and disappeared. The mattress creaked as she began to

kiss the inside of his knees. Her hands soon swirled up over his thighs, and as

her lips closed around him Jack felt all of his reservations dissolving like

mints in his mouth.
When he grew fully erect she lifted her gown and straddled him. He entered her

gratefully.
His pulse quickened as he offered his thrusts, and though spent, though clearly

pushing beyond the broad limits of simple desire, he made love to her.
He rolled her over, found a rhythm and gloried in it. He perspired and dripped

his salty excess onto her face and chest. His entire body turned slick from

exertion, and Helen's did too. They squirmed and slipped and slapped against

each other, a wet heaving bundle of tremulous flesh. His ample stomach spilled

over hers as he tried to come, to feel his great pleasure at last. Ten minutes,

fifteen. Twenty. His muscles burned— arms, shoulders, back— as he pressed

repeatedly into her. His buttocks shook and his belly rolled, but still the

shiny carrot of climax eluded him. He reached for it, chased it, and always it

remained just out of reach, a teasing spectacle of doubt. And then the first

hints, the first brutal hints of impotence.
Oh Jesus, not that! He moved even more vigorously, but for naught, and grew

mortified at the prospect of flopping out of her a defeated man. He tried to

conjure up every erotic moment he'd ever known with Helen, but no memory moved

him. And then he thought of Celia, a summer afternoon a few years ago out on the

deck. She'd been wearing shorts and a halter top when she suddenly stood up and

took them off.
"What are you doing?" he'd asked.
"I'm going to sunbathe."
She'd lain on her stomach on a towel in the bright sun, and he'd sat beside her

and slowly caressed her pale cheeks. His hand had moved to her upper thighs, and

without a word from either one of them she'd parted her legs. His fingers slid

easily over her opening.
Within minutes her back arched and those pale cheeks rose as she pressed against

his hand. Her breath sounded quick and hard in the stillness, and when she came

she cried out his name. He'd quickly mounted her from behind, as hard as he'd

ever been.
He stiffened again and pounded at Helen with renewed confidence. The fickleness

of his passion stunned him even as he felt the cunning strength of every muscle

freeze in the first flash of climax. And then he knew their staggering release,

the way they poured the blue balance of all eternity into a single spasm of

time.
He lay on top of Helen spent and panting, happy and dumb and wildly

accomplished. Three times in twenty-four hours. A regular world-beater. But now

that he'd come, he thought only of leaving.
48
Celia snuggled beneath the covers, but could not stop thinking about how

unsettling her evening had been. It had started at dusk with those weird noises

on the hike back to the house, and ended after midnight with Davy's most

disturbing picture. She'd handled some tough cases but Davy's looked like the

grimmest yet. Abuse, maybe even murder. Come morning she'd report Boyce, which

might mean going head-to-head with Tony. She sure didn't welcome that prospect.

So much for her weekend. She wished she could put aside all of her anxiety and

let her tiredness take over. She even tried to tell herself that everything

would work out okay. You'll see. Just relax.
And so she did. She fell into a sleep so deep that it spared her all the

troubles that had bedeviled her day. She was at rest with the timeless dreamless

passage of night and never heard the footsteps stealing across the deck, or the

stealthy hands moving up the wall until they reached the window right above her

bed.
*
Chet bit down on the razor. He loved the taste of the metal, the familiar flavor

that whipped up his sweetest memories. A blade was a thing of true beauty, like

taking a thousand pins— just the very tip of each one, the part that sinks into

skin like it's born to be there— and sealing them all together into a single

straight line. That was a blade. And the most beautiful thing about a blade was

the way it sliced the whole world into two— winners and losers. None of this

in-between shit. And she was a loser. She sure as hell was. He'd known that when

he first laid eyes on her. Standing there all snugged up in her tight little

jeans with her little-boy's haircut.
Who's she think she is?
And now she's lying on the bed, inches away. It wouldn't be long now. He smiled

and his lower lip peeled open. The razor nested right above it, a steady steely

presence making its way into the night. Maybe he would kiss her first, bless her

with the blood of her very own lips, joined in the beginning as they would be in

the end.
He studied the layers he'd have to get through. First, the screen. Then the

window itself. And finally, the curtain. It hung lifelessly, a light color,

maybe even white, but that could have been the moon's doing. It was a full son

of a bitch tonight, and he paused long enough to thank the moon for thinking of

him.
He took the razor out of his mouth and ran it swiftly down the left side of the

screen. He was a man who knew his tools, his product, his trade. It made a

zinging noise, but soft. That was the thing about razors, and Chet knew this to

be true: they made everything they touched seem soft, especially skin. You

thought you knew a lot about skin, you thought it was soft, but you had no idea

how soft skin was till you put a razor against it and pressed down just the

slightest little bit. Soft, soft, soft, that's what it was.
He thought he heard her stir, and listened closely. He had to. It was do-or-die

time. If she moved quickly, it meant she'd found him out, and he'd have to tear

through that window before she tried to get away. That's when it got messy,

searching the house, dragging their sorry ass out of a closet or bathroom, or

finding them on the goddamn phone dialing and dialing and having to take it away

'cause it might be one of those cell phones, but otherwise he'd laugh 'cause

he'd already ripped the hell out of the phone box. It was always the first thing

he did. A good warm-up, popping it open and cutting all those wires. But there

they'd be dialing away until they finally got the message, and he'd tell them

"Put it down," and sure enough they'd do just like he said, like they'd never

planned to use it in the first place. He'd never had one that didn't. It's like

they knew it was all over, and you know what? They were right. It was all over.
The stirring sound faded. He didn't think she was awake. Not so much as a peep