Shadow of the Past (16 page)

“Oh really?”

Steve’s facade faltered a second when
he glanced down to see their intertwined hands, but he looked up,
cocked his fingers like a pistol and gave Mark and wink and
grin.

“You know it, buddy.”

Chapter Fifteen

“You’ll be okay, right?” Christine said
in the stairwell before they parted ways after lunch.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. Nothing is
going to happen.”

She knew that gym with Jack and his
friends was next because Steve couldn’t shut up about it. It was as
if he was trying to give Mark something else to worry about because
the half dozen other things weren’t enough. Gym was the only class
that he had with Jack and his friends, so this was the first
opportunity they’d have for payback.

“Just be careful,” she said, kissing
him before heading up the steps.

“It’ll be fine,” Steve said, meeting up
with Mark at the bottom of the stairs.

“Sure.”

Neither Jack nor his friends were there
when they got into the locker room, and Mark thought the inevitable
was going to be postponed a day until Kyle and Victor walked in.
They didn’t even look at him, just headed to their lockers and got
ready. Other than the scrape on Vic’s forehead, everything was
completely normal.

Until they pull a pair of
shotguns from their lockers and blow you away.

Steve didn’t even notice. Steve, of
course, was too engrossed in his own changing. Apparently it was
just Mark who was the weepy melodramatic homeless guy.

When they got to the gym floor, Mark
saw why Jack hadn’t been in the locker room. He was seated on the
bleachers, still in his street clothes. He was reading a book when
Mark first saw him, and when he looked up Mark finally got a look
at his handiwork. Jack’s face was still bruised, one of his eyes
still blackened and he had a small line of stitches on his chin.
His face was blank and if he saw Mark he made no sign of it before
turning back to reading.

Mark sat on his spot on the gym floor,
and for a moment all the worry was washed away by a sudden swell of
pride. I did that, he thought. I did that to him, and he has to
look like that for how much longer? A week? Two weeks? There’s no
hiding it.

It felt good. He hated it, but aside
from Christine it was the only thing that had managed to make him
feel good all day.

The games went fine, better than they
had all year. Mark couldn’t tell if he was playing better because
of his sudden surge of manly confidence or because no one was
gunning to make his life miserable. At the end of the period
changing happened without incident. When he got upstairs and waited
for the bell, he let out a breath he’d been holding for forty
minutes. Leaning against the wall he looked up and found himself
staring across the gym directly into Jack’s gaze.

His expression was still as blank as it
had been before, but a smile began to spread across Jack’s face and
he gave a lazy wave. Mark turned, too quickly and obviously,
squeezing his eyes shut.

Yeah, things are going to be
just fine. You think he doesn’t know he has to walk around with
your beating all over his face? Of course he knows, and he’s not
going to take revenge in a gym class. But you go ahead and keep
thinking about how you did better at volleyball today,
champ.

“Hey you,” Christine said, sitting on
the V with a smile. “Still giving rides?”

“For you, always” he said, stopping in
front of her and letting his helmet and backpack fall to the
ground. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.

“Wow,” she said when she finally pulled
away. “What brought that on?”

“You. And the fact that this piece of
shit day is over.”

“Well, let’s get out of here so you can
get some more of me.”

“I don’t have the spare with me, but
you can wear it,” he said, handing her the helmet.

“Is that the same one from . . . the
other day?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, wiping nothing in
particular off the top of it. “It’s takes a licking and all
that.”

“I’ll go without if that’s okay,” she
said.

They rode to the park by Christine’s
house, and the whole way there the feel of her arms around him and
her body pressing up against him was almost more than he could
bear. When they pulled up near their tree he turned and kissed her
again, and they barely let go of each other on the way to lie
down.

“I missed this,” he said, pulling her
close to him.

“I can tell,” she said, stroking his
cheek. “I missed it too. One of these days we’re going to have to
go out someplace and just tear ass on that thing, see how fast we
can get it up to.”

“And just get away,” Mark murmured,
eyes closed and leaning back. “Just drive off and never, ever have
to look back.”

“Rough day?”

“The roughest.”

“I could tell when you got to lunch.
And don’t worry about what Steve was saying. He was just trying to
help. In a weird way, but still. He cares about you.”

“I’m sure he does.” He opened his eyes
and saw her propped up on one elbow, staring down at
him.

“So nothing else happened
today?”

“Well . . .”

“Tell me about it. I want to
help.”

How the hell is she going to
help? Flutter her pretty eyelashes and make Jack and Ms. Kennedy
fly away to magical fairy land?

“It’s complicated.”

“I know it is. I mean, this has got to
be a really shitty time right now, but if I can do anything,
anything at all to help you, I want to do it.”

“I know you do,” he said, leaning up
and kissing her. “And you do, you really, really do. There’s just
some stuff that’s just hard to talk about.”

“Well, what did Ms. Kennedy say? What
was that all about?”

He let out a deep sigh. “That’s part of
the problem right there. When she found about what happened to
Clara she acted like it was this huge deal and she was going to try
to help and then got all weird.”

“Well, Mark, it is a big deal. I mean
what happened was awful, and I’m not surprised she was worried
about it.”

“It’s not just that. I . . . well I
don’t really want to bother you with it.”

“Mark,” she said, taking his hand.
“Tell me, please.”

“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath.
With all of the sudden build up he’d given it, he’d rather drop his
pants and do a couple laps around the park but it was clear that
she wasn’t going to let it go.

“I’ve been having these dreams. Weird,
messed up dreams, about what happened to Clara and this other
stuff, and when she found out about Clara I kind of lost my shit. I
think she thought I was talking about knowing about her murder
instead of just the fact that I’m dreaming about it and thinking
about it all the time.”

“Mark, she can’t possibly think that. I
mean, what would you know?”

Not what her head looks like
three feet from her body. No ma’am, not me.

“Exactly. Nuts, right?”

“Yeah. But what about these dreams?
That sounds really messed up.”

He shifted, trying to turn away from
her so she couldn’t read the lies on his face as easily as Mrs.
Kennedy did. “It’s nothing. Just messed up stuff.”

“About Clara?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay. I mean, I can’t imagine
something like this happening and what it would do to me, but you
can talk to me about anything, you know that right?”

“I know,” he said, but his voice felt
empty and hollow.

She leaned down and kissed him again.
“Mark, we’re going to be okay. I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

She kissed him again. “Very
sure.”

“I’m still not convinced. You’re going
to have to try harder than that.”

They stayed under the tree for at least
an hour, until Christine finally had to pull herself away from him
and remind him that she still had tons of homework to do, and her
parents were bound to start getting worried if she stayed out too
late.

“I don’t want to do anything to
jeopardize us being able to do this every day.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, letting her go.
“I’m doing this just because you’re promising more
later.”

“Count on it.”

When he dropped her off in front of her
house, she leaned in and quickly kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll
call you tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, heading out of the
driveway with a look back over his shoulder.

He didn’t want to go right home, having
had enough of that blue collar dungeon to last several lifetimes.
Just before his grounding he’d gotten himself a full tank of gas
and now was the perfect time to use it.

He rode aimlessly for a while, doing a
circuit of the town and trying not to think about anything but the
road in front of him. He was just about to head home when he caught
sight of the street sign he was about to pass. He weaved over to
the side of the road, trying not to squeeze the brake so hard that
he’d lose control.

When he came to a full stop he craned
his head around, pulling off his helmet to be sure.

Munson Drive.

He turned around and headed down it,
knowing that all he was going to do was confirm his suspicions and
probably give himself a heart attack.

At least that would solve a
lot of your problems. Solve some other people’s problems
too.

He’d gone down a couple of blocks on
Munson, just enough to make him begin to doubt himself, but there
it was.

Briarcliff Avenue. He didn’t even have
to look too hard to see its star attraction.

He turned slowly, taking his time
getting down there, and as he did he could feel his dream coming to
life all around him. He could see the little kids running around,
playing baseball and trying to ignore the big shadowy pimple on
this perfect neighborhood’s face.

He stopped across the street from the
house, which had gotten worse over the years since he’d seen it in
his dream. Of course no one had moved in there. Of course it hadn’t
burned down in some freak lightning strike or flash fire. Of course
it was a real thing right in the town he lived in.

This place, withered and sunken and
shrouded by crooked trees was too nasty to have just gone
away.

The neighborhood was quiet except for
the stuttering cough of his engine. He wanted someone to walk by
just so he could make sure he wasn’t just making the place
up.

If it was still here, still empty and
ugly, then what did that mean? Did people know about what happened
in there? Was everyone getting a sweet break on their property take
being “homicide adjacent?” Did any of what he’d been dreaming
happen at all?

If it was real then there had to be a
connection between it and Clara’s death, something more than just
his crazy visions. If there was then it was probably in that house.
His hand hovered over the scooters key. It’d be a simple matter to
see, right? Just turn the V off, head through the hedge and find
out, once and for all.

His hand closed on the key and then
there was a shriek of a horn behind him.

“Hey, out of the road!”

Behind him was a lovely new car with an
exasperated housewife behind the wheel. Mark waved a weak apology
and pulled the scooter up and over to the side of the road. She
drove past him, glaring at him with a lecture on the tip of her
tongue. She looked past him and saw the house behind him and drove
off without a word.

Yeah, Mystery Machine, you
go in there and solve the case. Maybe you won’t fall through the
floor and break your legs, or just get caught and hauled off the
jail for trespassing. Joe would love that, wouldn’t he?

His hand was over the key again. Just
turn it. Turn it and go look.

He revved the engine and sped away, the
little engine whining a high-pitched laugh at his
cowardice.

Chapter Sixteen

Mark woke staring down at concrete.
He’d been trying to catch up on all the work he’d missed over the
course of his suspension but he ended up sleeping face down in a
pile of it after just sorting it. He braced himself for whatever
horrors his dreams of the basement on Briarcliff Avenue held for
him, but realized that this wasn’t the cell under the stairs, it
was a parking lot.

Not just any parking lot, he realized,
but the one tucked away behind the administration wing at his
school. It was empty and sparsely lit, and the only car in the lot
was a compact with various politically active bumper stickers on
it. There was a metallic whine that echoed through the empty lot,
followed by a slam. He tried calling out but realized he was
formless, just as he was when he’d seen Clara murdered.

“No, that was just the door. I know,
right? They keep saying they’re going to fix it but they never
will.”