Indigo (31 page)

“Not yet,” my mom teases. She gets up and brings her plate to the sink. “Now let’s clean this up and then see what the men are up to.”

KENNEDY

“Straight off the boat,” Jack says, handing me a cigar. “I don’t smoke anything but Cubans. Nasty habit, but one I have no plans on giving up.”

I light up the cigar, and stare out into Indigo’s yard. It’s a seemingly quiet suburban neighborhood with low fences and manicured lawns and the faint smell of barbeque mingles with laughter somewhere in the distance. It’s hard to imagine such a tragedy occurring in an area like this, and I look back towards the house and wonder which window is Indigo’s before answering Jack. “Well, we all have our vices.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack says, taking a deep puff of his cigar. “What would yours be?”

I think for a moment. “Drawing I guess. It helps me escape for a while.”

“Sounds like that’s where your heart is young man,” Jack responds. “Never could decide on a career myself. I’ve done it all throughout the years. Mailman, mechanic, even dabbled with farm work back in the day, my ex-wife had a ranch out in Colorado. Animals, crops, the works. Finally decided to get into helping others when I lost my sister a few years back. Went to school, and now I’m driving ambulances.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, feeling bad, and not a little awkward when a shadow passes over his face. It’s the same I’ve seen on Indigo’s on occasion, a mark of loss and devastation. He doesn’t seem to want to talk more about it, so I decide not to pry. “I’ve always thought being an EMT would be fulfilling work. First on the scene, holding someone else’s life in your hands and all that.”

Jack nods his head and then laughs. “True enough, but 90% of our calls are false alarms. I nearly broke my leg once climbing 12 stories in a high rise--the elevator was broken--to save a woman who couldn’t get her toilet flushed.”

We both laugh, and I try not to inhale the smoke as I do so. I’m cracking up over another story he’s told me about a man and a lost lobster when Indigo and her mother step back out on to the porch.

“It’s nice to see you two getting along,” Janet smiles, rubbing her hands on her arms to ward off the chill. She steps over to Jack and puts her hand on his back. “Is he telling you the face in the soup story?”

“What’s the face in the soup story?” Indigo asks. She walks over to my side and scrunches her nose at my cigar. I grin, and turn around so the smoke won’t blow in her face.

Jack laughs. “That’s your mom’s favorite. Settle in darling, you’re in for a treat.”

We listen to Jack tells us stories until it’s too cold and windy to stay outside. It was a fun night but I’m dying to get some alone time with Indigo. Not only do I want to talk to her about where we stand, but I’ve wanted to kiss her since that first taste of her lips back in the bedroom. Hopefully she’ll let me again.

Jack grabs his coat and we stand around the kitchen as he says his goodbyes. Indigo gives him a genuine smile, and I can tell she’s warmed up to him. Well, that’s good enough for me. I walk over to Indigo once we’re alone and rub my hands over her arms to warm her up. I take it as a good sign when she closes her eyes and leans into my touch.

“That was fun,” I tell her. “Both Jack and your mom are great.”

She stifles a yawn, and then nods in agreement. “I think it’s good for her. To have someone other than me to be with. I’m happy for her.”

And you have me to be with. I don’t say it out loud, but when she meets my eyes I know she’s thinking the same thing. Janet walks back in and smiles at the two of us.

“I’m going to call in at the restaurant tonight, they could go a night without me.”

“No, mom, don’t do that,” Indigo says, turning to face her. “Kennedy and I will be fine here. I don’t want you to miss work because I decided on a whim to come home.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s for my piece of mind. I’ll be here to cook you two a good breakfast tomorrow before I head off to work. Chocolate chip pancakes?”

“Okay mom,” Indigo sighs. She looks up at me a little forlorn and I wonder if she too was hoping for another night like last night.

“I’ll get all the shutters,” Janet says, and then leaves the room.

“I’ll get the alarm.” Indigo looks up at me, her face embarrassed. “Yeah, I’m crazy here too.”

“Stop,” I tell her gently. “How can I help?”

“I’ve got it. My mom and I have something of a routine. If you want to take a shower, the bathroom’s right upstairs next to your room. There’s clean towels in the hall closet.”

“That would actually be perfect.” I tell her.

When I’m on my way into the bathroom a photo on the wall gets my attention. It’s the one of Indigo before the kidnapping, when she’s on stage, her face serene. The one I’m in the middle of drawing. She looks so beautiful, I take a moment and admire it, something about it striking a cord deep within me.

“She told me how you built her something to put over her window. Thank you for that.” I turn around to see Janet standing behind me, looking up at the picture.

“I wanted to help her in any way I can,” I tell her honestly. “It was no problem for me. Building things is one of my hobbies, I have a shop at home in my garage.”

She nods and then gestures to the photo. “This is my favorite shot of her. It was taken a week before it happened.”

“I like it, too.”

We stare in a silence for a few moments, and then I feel Janet turn to face me. “Kennedy, I wanted to thank you, also, for spending time with my daughter. She seems different when she’s with you. Like how she used to be. If she brought you here, that means she trusts you. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how big of a deal that is.”

“I understand,” I tell her. “I enjoy Indigo’s company and I don’t take her trust lightly. I’m serious about your daughter Ms. Olsen.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. Indigo has suffered through so much, and she still is suffering. She doesn’t deserve any more heartache. She deserves to be happy, and she deserves to feel beautiful.”

A lone tear slips down her cheek and she quickly wipes it away. “She does,” I answer. “I always want to make her feel that way. As much as she’ll let me anyway.”

Indigo’s footsteps sound on the stairs behind us, and Janet blinks to clear her tears before tapping me on the shoulder. “Then I’m glad you’re here.”

INDIGO

At home, the darkness is much easier to deal with. Which is sort of insane, because this is the place where it all started, the place where I was taken. Maybe it’s because every window on the house is fortified with shutters, or because we update our alarm system every year. It could be because my mom is here, or simply because the odds of me being taken twice from the same house are slim to none.

I still can’t sleep, though. That doesn’t change no matter where I am. I can’t stop thinking about the confrontation with the Detective, and the inevitable pressure I’m going to feel from all sides. I don’t let myself think of the trial, or any of its implications. For some reason, it’s easier to push that out of my mind, as if even my innermost thoughts don’t want to deal with it.

I turn over on to my side, and shove my hand under my pillow, careful to avoid my knife. My thoughts drift to Kennedy, and I wonder if he’s sleeping. We didn’t get much alone time last night, and whatever we did have was fleeting. Images of last night with him run through my head like a slide show, and it brings a reluctant smile to my face and sets my heart racing. That was me. I had my first kiss, a very thorough kiss, and I didn’t even freak out. The memory will be perfect, more than I’d ever hoped for.

Thinking about doing anything else with him, though, fills my stomach with a not so charming set of butterflies. Thinking about being his “girlfriend” makes them worse. I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing now. As if on cue, I hear the couch groan and squeak downstairs, and I can tell he got up.

Intrigued, and without really thinking about it, I get up and wrap a blanket around my shoulders. I tell myself I’m just curious to see what he’s up to, but another more insistent voice keeps telling me:
you miss him, you want him.
I smile as I cross into the hallway, thinking about how sweet it was that he insisted on sleeping downstairs instead of my bedroom. But when I make it to the first floor, I find him in my old bedroom…
the
bedroom.

His arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s slowly making his way around the room, taking it all in. I lean against the door jamb marveling over how handsome he looks in his t-shirt and athletic shorts. “I chose this room because of that reading nook in the window.” He whirls around and I almost laugh at the guilty expression on his face. “When we first moved here, my mom wanted me upstairs with her, where I am now, but I wanted the room with the nook.” I sigh and stare at it wistfully. “I still love it.”

I walk inside the room, and peruse it just as Kennedy had.

“Are you okay to be in here?” His eyes are concerned as they follow my every move.

I give him a sad smile. “I’ve been in here plenty of times since it happened. I don’t sleep in here, but my mom and I both agreed to not treat this room as a crime scene. Even though it is…was.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he explains, watching me with dark eyes. “I felt compelled to come in here for some reason, like it would give me answers I guess.”

He words are earnest, questioning. I sit down on the nook and pull the blanket tighter over my shoulders. The wind outside rattles the shutters, and a faint howling can be heard when I finally meet his eyes. “What answers do you want, Kennedy?”

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t answer right away. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he leans over and looks at me with the most intense expression I’ve ever seen on his face. “I want to know what happened that night. Here.”

My heart starts pounding, but I draw strength from his eyes. I want him to come sit with me, but another part of my needs the distance and I think he understands that. I’ve made the decision to tell him before I even start talking, taking note of how his fists clenching, his elbows on his knees.

“I was asleep,” I begin, and gesture towards the bed. “There was only a few weeks left of school, and my days were always packed with one activity or another. Lacrosse games, sleepovers, dance classes. I used to fall asleep right as my head hit the pillow, every night.” I look down and laugh softly to myself. “When I think back on those days, it feels like someone else’s life. It was.”

I take a deep breath, and toy with an errant string on the blanket, trying to keep myself together. “Something woke me up that night. Even looking back now, I don’t know what it was. But when I opened my eyes, I remember the clock read 3:07. I stared at it for a few seconds, getting my bearings, wondering what had caused me to wake up. I just knew I had heard something. I turned towards the window, and that’s when I saw him.”

I touch the glass, transported back to the worst moment in my life. “The window was slowly opening, as if I was seeing it in a dream. I kept squinting at it, trying to see if it was just my imagination. But then…his hand…I remember his hand wrapped around the edge of it, and his big boot stepping on this nook.”

I shake my head, looking down at my lap. “I froze. I just stared at him, literally paralyzed with terror. Sometimes I wonder if I could have made it to the door before he had a chance to catch me. But I made it easy for him.”

Kennedy’s leg is bouncing up and down, as if the story is affecting him physically. His eyes have hardened over, a look I’d never seen before.

I swallowed deeply, pushing my voice out on a whisper. “All the movies in the world can’t prepare you for a moment like that. The horror of seeing a stranger come into your bedroom. A dark shadow in the night. Sometimes I think that was the worst part of the whole thing, those quick moments when he was walking to my bed.”

Kennedy looks down at the floor, now. I keep silent but then gather myself to continue. I haven’t spoken about this out loud since I was recused, and never in this much detail. It’s not as hard this time, but I’m still talking through a closed throat. “There was something of a standoff when he got closer to the bed. He stared at me, I at him, and then as if he couldn’t wait a second longer, his hand came down over my face. I woke up then, mentally I mean, and started kicking and trying to scream, but it made no difference. God, I tried to get away. You won’t believe the strength that runs through your body when you think you’re going to die. But it was too late. He had one of those rags with rubbing alcohol on it. I passed out within seconds.”