Paradise County (42 page)

“Josh!” He called to his second son in response to another hail. “I’m here!”

“Dad!”

“Hang on, I’m headed your way.”

Josh was waiting at the mouth of the path. He glanced at Neely and Eli as they emerged first, but then his focus was all on Joe.

“What is it?” Joe’s voice was sharp. It was obvious from Josh’s face that something was badly wrong.

“It’s Grandpa—Dad, he’s dead drunk and he’s trying to drive and the sheriff’s trying to stop him and …”

“God damn it,” Joe interrupted bitterly. “Where is he?”

“Out by where the cars are parked.”

“Come on. Eli, you stay with me.”

“You too,” Alex said to Neely.

With Josh running ahead, they crossed the field to where the line of cars was parked beside the food tables. Joe was moving so fast that Alex almost had to run to keep up. Eli and Neely, the former white as a sheet, the latter pouty-faced, kept pace at their side. Joe seemed oblivious of the fact that he was still holding her hand. Under the circumstances, nobody else seemed to notice.

There was a small crowd—perhaps three dozen people—gathered around a black pickup truck that Alex recognized as belonging to Cary.

Dropping her hand, Joe shouldered through the crowd, which, when they looked around and saw who it was, parted to let him through. The rest of the group stayed close behind him. Emerging from the semicircle of bystanders, Alex took in the scene at a glance.

Dressed in khakis and a black leather jacket, Cary lay on his stomach on the rough grass kicking and bucking and bellowing curse words for all he was worth. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and the stocky sheriff was straddling him to keep him down.

Joe’s whole body seemed to vibrate with tension as he approached them.

“What the hell is this?” Joe demanded. Cary bucked and yelled harder. The sheriff seemed to be having a hard time holding him down. “Damn it, Tommy, get off him!”

“He friggin’ punched me in the face, Joe!” From his position astride the struggling Cary, the sheriff looked up at Joe, an aggrieved expression on his face. There was a big red mark on one cheek along with a small cut that oozed blood at the corner of his mouth. “He’s drunk as a polecat, and he was gonna get in his truck and drive home. I took his friggin’ keys.” The sheriff held up a set of keys. Joe took them from him, and stuck them in the front pocket of his jeans—the same pocket, Alex recalled, that held the Baggie.

“Damn it to hell and back! Get off him, Tommy. I’ll take care of him.”

“I oughta arrest him.”

“Yeah, I know. Here, get off. He’ll be sorry in the morning.”

“You tell him that if he punches me again, I will arrest him, your father or not.” The sheriff climbed off his unwilling bronco. Cary immediately rocked onto his side, and from there to his knees.

“You can’t tell me I can’t drive my own truck! Little snot-nosed punk! I’ve known you since you was in diapers, and …”

Joe reached down, grabbed the back of his father’s motorcycle-style jacket, and hauled him to his feet. Seeing Joe glaring at him, Cary faltered for an instant, but then he recovered himself and went on to describe the sheriff in terms so profane that they made Alex blink.

“Damn it, Joe …” the sheriff began.

“Shut up, Pop,” Joe said grimly, giving his father a shake. “Just shut up. Tommy, take the cuffs off him.”

“But, Joe …”

“Do it, would you please? Then I’ll take him home.”

“Damn all, I oughta put him in jail.” But the sheriff unlocked the handcuffs all the same, then sprang back out of the way. Which was a good thing. Cary came up swinging. Joe grabbed his father, whirled him around, locked his arms around his chest from behind and wrestled him toward the truck.

“God damn it, you’re no damned son of mine! Let me go, you …”

“Joe, you can’t drive with him like that. I’ll drive, and you hold on to the belligerent so-and-so so’s he don’t do me no harm.” Sounding disgusted, the sheriff followed Joe and his father toward the truck. Eli, Josh, Alex, and Neely trailed them too. Eli, looking white and miserable, kept his eyes on Joe. Alex, who was still clutching Joe’s coat, glared at Neely, who looked sullen.

Cary was still ranting: “You get in the truck with me, you slimy little sheriff bastard, and I’ll knock your damned teeth out! I’ll …”

“Dad, I’ll drive,” Eli said to Joe over his grandfather’s bellowed invective, his voice low and shaken. Still grappling with his father, Joe looked around at his tall son, whose expression was both anguished and embarrassed, and shook his head.

“I don’t want you to drive, Eli. I want you to get yourself in your truck and get yourself home.”

“Dad, I can’t. I …”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Joe’s voice was low and furious. “If you know what’s good for you, you’d best be home when I walk through the door.”

“My truck’s at school, and you know the wagons won’t head back until about three
A.M.
Dad, if I miss the lock-in, Coach will want to know why, and—and he’ll kick me off the team if he finds out.”

Anguish was in Eli’s voice.

“God damn it, Joey, you let me go!” This was Cary, kicking at the side of the truck as he tried to break free of Joe’s arms.

“Eli, damn it …” Joe said to his son, trying to hold on to his father at the same time. “All right. We’ll deal with this tomorrow. You stay for the lock-in, and do what you’re supposed to do, and get yourself home early. And if I were you, I wouldn’t make any plans for quite a while.”

“Dad, I’m so sorry.” Eli looked it, too. Josh stood close to his brother, frowning as he tried to understand what was happening.

“We’ll talk about it at home tomorrow.”

“Let me drive, Joe,” Alex offered quietly, as Joe opened the pickup door with one hand and manhandled his struggling father into the passenger seat. It was obvious that he was going to need help getting Cary home, and the sheriff, who was watching the proceedings from a little distance now, was not a good candidate.

Joe met her gaze. “Fine. Thanks.” He fished the keys from his pocket and handed them to her. Then his glance swung to Eli. “You heard what I said. Tomorrow early.”

Eli nodded miserably. On her way around the truck, Alex stopped beside Neely.

“You and I will deal with this tomorrow, too,” Alex said under her breath, and for once meant every word. “And if you cause any more trouble tonight, or if we can’t come to some kind of understanding about future behavior tomorrow, you’ll be heading off to boarding school by dark. I swear to God you will.”

Thirty-eight

T
he predator was whistling as he worked. He was having a really good day. He’d had an epiphany last night. Instead of spending maybe ten minutes at a time in Alexandra’s bedroom, he had thought of a way to have her nearly full-time without taking any of the risks associated with her actually going missing.

He was at Whistledown, in her bedroom, installing tiny video cameras in the ceiling over her bed, and in the ceiling in her bathroom. When he was finished, he would have his own private television station: all Alexandra, all the time.

She and her sister were at the pep rally, which would go on until the wee hours of the morning. He knew, because he had been there himself and seen them there. The whole town was there, just as it always was, including Whistledown’s next-door neighbor Joe and his family.

So being in the house at such an early hour—ten
P.M.
—really wasn’t a risk at all.

Nobody was around except the damned cat.

It had been watching him. For a moment, earlier, as he had worked, he had felt like something was behind him. The sensation had been so
strong, and so eerie, that he had whirled around, moving faster than he had moved in some time.

To find that the big orange tabby cat that seemed to haunt this place was staring up at him from the doorway, its eyes wide and unblinking as it took in his every move.

He hated the cat. He’d seen it here at Whistledown before. It always seemed to appear out of nowhere, to follow him around, and no matter how he tried he—could—never—catch—it.

He tried again, and came up short again, panting, as the animal darted under Alexandra’s bed.

One day, he promised himself, one day he would make a crispy critter out of that cat.

In the meantime, he would enjoy himself watching Alexandra, he promised himself.
Every move you make, every breath you take… .
He discovered that that was the tune he was whistling as he installed the last tiny component in the last tiny hole he had drilled, and broke off, grinning broadly.

He was nothing if not a witty and amusing man.

When he was finished, he stood for a moment, admiring his handiwork with satisfaction: a hole no bigger than a pinprick over the bed. Another the same size in the bathroom.

Alexandra would never see them, never suspect that he was watching as she changed clothes, watching as she showered, watching as she slept… .

The idea excited him so much that he decided to drop in and visit Cassandra before he left.

Although she was not, really not, what he had a taste for tonight. Her dry, unresponsive body was about as toothsome as overcooked steak compared to Alexandra’s silken curves… .

Oh, well, he told himself philosophically. And grinned again as he found himself humming
love the one you’re with.

Thirty-nine

I
’m really sorry, Eli,” Neely said humbly. They were in Eli’s pickup truck barreling down dark, near-deserted U.S. 60 toward Whistledown. It was about fifteen minutes after Eli’s dad and his grandpa and Alex had taken off to take the old drunk home. If she and Eli hurried, she thought, she just might be able to make it up to her room and get the stash of dope out of there before anybody found it. Because of course they’d search—she’d been through this before at boarding school. Every time they caught you doping, or drinking, they always searched your room to try to find your stash. In her room at Whistledown she had pot and lots of other stuff—speed, mostly, to help her keep her weight down, and poppers and some reds to chill with—and if Alex found it she would shit bricks. She would also probably send her to some, like, military boarding school for the rest of her life. If anybody else found it—for instance, say, Eli’s studmuffin of a dad—they’d probably call the cops. So she had, like, this brief window of opportunity to remove it and save her ass.

All she had to do was nip into the house, run up to her room, grab the stuff, and she was out of there. Five minutes, max, she’d promised Eli, pleading with him to take her, explaining to him what was at risk.

The only problem was, as he pointed out, his truck was at the school,
and neither of them had a way to get from the pep rally to the school. That had been easily solved when, in the middle of their argument, Neely had spied a girl, Cinda Hawkins from English class, whom she knew getting into a car with an older boy who’d dropped by specifically to pick her up. No problem, Cinda had said when Neely had run over and begged a ride for her and Eli just as far as the school. Cinda had obviously assumed that Neely and Eli were, like her, planning to duck out of the lock-in.

Eli had been really quiet all the way to school, and Neely guessed he was worried about his dad being mad. She felt a little guilty about that. Eli wouldn’t have been smoking that joint—not at the pep rally, anyway—if she hadn’t brought the stuff with her. He smoked a little ordinarily, but not much, and he didn’t drink. She could understand why, now that she’d seen his grandpa totally smashed.

Alcoholism was kind of like a family weakness. It ran in her family, too, even though everybody kept it real quiet. Years ago, her dad had been a drunk just like Eli’s grandpa. She didn’t remember much about it—she’d never been around him much—but she’d heard tales, from the servants and others.

Maybe that was why she liked beer so much, she mused. Maybe she was, like, going to develop into an alcoholic, too. When her dad was alive, she’d used to kind of hope that she would. At least then he would have to deal with her, would have to do something about his unwanted daughter with the disease he’d passed down to her.