Last Light (17 page)

Rage launched Doug across the grass. His son didn’t see him coming until he was right in front of him.

“Dad!”

“Excuse me, dear”—Doug took the girl’s hand and pulled her up—“but Jeff has to come home.” He fixed his son with a glare. “Now, Jeff.”

“But, Dad!”

“Just tell me one thing,” Doug said through his teeth. “Did you bring your shotgun with you or not?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s—” Jeff looked around, eyes suddenly wide, as if he’d forgotten where he’d put it.

Doug smelled the alcohol on his son’s breath.

“Oh, there it is.” Jeff’s attempt to walk straight was overdone.

He wondered how many beers the boy’d had. And
where
were Zach’s parents?

Jeff retrieved his gun from where he’d left it on the patio, then hung it over his shoulder like a soldier marching off to war. Doug jerked the weapon out of his hand and opened the action to see if it was loaded. It was. Just what he needed. A drunk son with a loaded gun.

“We’re going home,” Doug said.

Jeff looked back at the girl and shrugged. A few of his so-called friends muttered disappointed good-byes.

Thankfully, Jeff kept his mouth shut as he followed Doug out the gate and into the street.

“Dad, look, I’m sorry. I jus’ wanted—”

“Your best bet is to not insult me with your explanations,” Doug said through his teeth. “I counted on you to take over for me tonight, but I should have known you weren’t mature enough to take that responsibility.”

“Dad, you
can
count on me.”

“How?”
he shouted. “How can I count on you when you’re drunk?”

“I’m not drunk. I jus’ hadda few beers.” The assertion would have been far more convincing were it not slurred. “No big deal. I jus’ wanted something fun to do. It’s been a real drag around that house.”

“It’s a drag everywhere. You think
I’m
having fun?” Doug asked. “You think your mother’s having fun? Do you think
any
body out here is having fun?”

“Does it have to be that way? What’s wrong with having a few hours of fun?” Jeff asked. “It’s not like we were drinking and driving. It was no big deal. Just a bunch of guys horsing around.”

Doug swung around, putting his face inches from his son’s. The smell of alcohol almost knocked him back. “There is a
killer
in this neighborhood, Jeff. Two people were murdered last night. Don’t you understand how serious this is? I had to leave our family vulnerable and come looking for you tonight. Your mother is keeping guard. Is that all right with you? Because it’s sure not all right with me.”

Jeff’s face paled. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Oh, you’ll be sorry, all right.”

Jeff was quiet as they finished the trek home.

Kay was waiting, and she took one whiff of Jeff and ground her teeth. “How
dare
you?”

“Mom, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. You’re one of the men of this house. You’re supposed to help your father. He needs you. He can’t do this by himself.”

“I’m here now! I’ll keep watch for the rest of the night.”

“No, you won’t.” Kay started to cry as she pointed toward the stairs. “You go to your room and go to bed. Sleep it off. We’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Jeff just stood there. “Mom, please don’t cry. I didn’t do anything that bad.”

“You’ve been drinking,” she said. “You’re sixteen years old and you’ve been drinking. You know that’s forbidden in even the best of times. Why in the world would you do it now, when things are so scary? Why would you do that to your father? Why would you do it to yourself?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t
mean
to?” Kay grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Did someone force you to drink?”

“No.”

Doug heard footsteps on the stairs, and he turned to see Deni come into the doorway. “Mom, what’s going on? What happened?”

“Your brother snuck out,” she said, keeping her eyes on Jeff. “That’s what.”

Deni looked disgusted. “What is wrong with you?”

“Shut up, Miss Perfect,” he said. “I didn’t do anything you haven’t done a million times before.” He stormed past her and marched up the stairs.

“That’s not true!” Deni turned back to her parents. “Mom and Dad, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Kay sounded as weary as Doug felt. “Just go back to bed.”

Deni opened her mouth to argue, but Doug pointed at her.

“Deni, do it!”

She huffed out a breath, but slowly headed for the stairs. He leaned against the wall rubbing his eyes. Doug was exhausted, but he couldn’t even consider going to sleep.

Kay eased one of the guns out of his hand. “Honey, you go to bed. I’ll stay up and keep watch.”

Doug straightened. “No, that’s my job.”

“Don’t be macho, Doug. You’re not doing anybody any good by depriving yourself of sleep. The fact that I’m a woman does not make me helpless.”

“Yeah, Dad.”

He turned and saw that Deni stood in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. “I told you to go to bed!”

“But I can help, Dad! I can stay up with her.”

He didn’t know how much more he could take. He turned back to Kay. “I didn’t say you were helpless, Kay. I just feel that it’s my responsibility.”

“It’s all our responsibility. I’m going to be fine. I’m wide awake now, anyway. Now go to bed.”

Deni stepped back into the light. “I’ll keep her company, Dad. It’ll be fine.”

“No,” Kay said. “I don’t want to talk to anybody right now, and you need your sleep, too, Deni. Just go to bed. I’m going to need you more than ever tomorrow. We have to get up early and get in line at Wal-Mart. Everyone needs to be at their best.”

“But, Mom—”

“Deni, enough!”

Deni blew out a heavy breath, then muttered as she headed up the stairs.

Kay looked at Doug. “So, are you going to go to bed?”

He slumped down on the couch and slowly lay down. “I’m just gonna lie here for a minute and close my eyes. You can keep watch while I do that, but I’ll be close by if you need me.”

She sighed. “All right, if you’ll sleep.” She left the room, then came back a few minutes later with a pillow. She slipped it under his head. Doug put his arm over his eyes and tried to do as she had said, but he couldn’t escape that feeling of failure. He wondered what he had done wrong to make his son rebel this way. And was it true that Deni had a history of sneaking out when she lived at home? Why would Jeff have said that?

Despite his whirling questions, fatigue swept over him, fogging his thoughts until he finally surrendered and fell into a shallow sleep.

Jeff went to his room, changed into some dry shorts, then climbed into his rumpled bed. His head was beginning to hurt, and nausea lurked at a distance, threatening to take him down.

He’d disappointed his father and made his mother cry. But what was the big deal? It wasn’t like he’d gone out and looted someone’s house. All he’d done was drink a few lousy beers.

And if he got right down to it, his father had disappointed him, too. He squeezed his eyes shut, mortified that his dad had pulled Mandy off of his lap and dismissed her, like she was some kind of tramp.

He hated to think what she was thinking about him now. Would she even give him the time of day tomorrow? Somebody else was probably walking her home as he lay here in his bed, punished like a four-year-old.

He thought of his mom downstairs, sitting with the gun in her lap, guarding the house that he should be protecting. Yeah, well . . . it was her own fault. He could have taken over. Just because he’d had a few stupid drinks didn’t mean he wasn’t able to guard their house.

Fatigue pulled over him, and he turned on his side, giving in. Sleep. He needed sleep.

He’d deal with his parents’ wrath tomorrow.

twenty-two

Kay kept herself awake by making a list of things they could get at Wal-Mart when it opened in the morning. As she did, thoughts of Jeff’s defiance raced through her mind. Where had they gone wrong? What could have sent him into such rebellion?

She thought back on exact moments in her son’s history, when key choices had been made about punishments and consequences. That time he was in fifth grade and got caught smoking in the bathroom at school . . . She should have handled it differently. She should have come down harder on him, taking away his television and video games. But no, she’d just confined him to his room, where he had all his entertainment at his disposal.

Last year he’d flunked a midterm. She should have grounded him through the Christmas holidays, instead of putting it off and giving him a chance to pull up his grade.

Incident after incident ran through her mind, opportunities she’d had to discipline her son. Opportunities she’d let pass out of . . . what? Fatigue? Apathy?

If she’d handled things better, maybe he would have thought twice before sneaking out tonight.

The sound of a distant scream startled her, and she jumped up with the shotgun, and ran to the back door. She peered out the window, but couldn’t see where the sound was coming from.

Another scream cut through the night. Trembling, she backed away from the door.

A popping sound followed, like a gunshot or a firecracker, followed by more screams.
“Doug!”
she shouted.

He sat upright on the couch. “What?”

“I think I heard a gunshot, and a woman screaming!”

He launched off the couch and took the gun from her hands, and opened the door to listen. The screams were escalating, and there was another shot.

“Get the other gun and wait here,” he said. “I’m going to see what happened.”

“Doug, be careful. Please!”

Her trembling hands closed and locked the door behind him, and she watched out the window until he was out of sight. Then she ran for the other gun, and keeping it aimed at the door, she sat like a sentinel, waiting for her husband to come back.

Doug followed the screams to a house on the neighboring street. People were coming out of their homes, racing toward the sound. He got to the yard and ran to the open front door. The soft glow of a lantern inside allowed him to see the other neighbors who had rushed over to help. A woman he’d never met sat inside, crying hysterically.

He stepped inside. “What happened?”

Brad, Doug’s neighbor, turned back to him. “She had an intruder.”

“I heard gunshots,” Doug said.

The woman was trembling as she tried to control her sobs. “I shot at him! But I couldn’t see him well in the dark, and I must have missed. He got away.”

Doug stooped down in front of her. “Did you get a look at him at all?”

“No. I just heard him breaking in. We’ve been out of town and only managed to get home today. He probably thought the house was still empty. When I heard someone down here, I came down and called out, thinking it might be someone in my family. But I frightened him, and he knocked over that sculpture over there.”

Doug saw the toppled bust lying on the carpet.

“When I fired my gun, he took off. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

Doug left the others to calm her and stepped back outside, looking up and down the street. Whoever it was had to be long gone by now.

Brad came out of the house and joined him on the street. “So it goes on.” Brad’s voice was deep, sullen. Doug looked at his neighbor. Brad was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of black shorts. With his black skin, he blended into the darkness.

“Maybe he left fingerprints, footprints,” Doug said. “Somebody needs to go get the sheriff.”

“Can’t be me,” Brad said. “I’ve got to guard my family. No way I’m leaving them alone after this.”

“Yeah, me either.” He looked back over his shoulder, into the house. “At least no one was hurt this time.”

“Who knows what might have happened if she hadn’t had a gun?”