Tell Me You're Sorry (29 page)

“Well, Dad was only there for a couple of summers. He was a valet, parking cars.”

“I saw to it the grass was cut and minded my own business. I never got chummy with the summer help.”

“Well, my dad knew your daughter,” Ryan explained. “He didn't say as much, but I think he might have even gone out with her a couple of times.”

“Selena didn't go out on dates,” Mr. Jayne said. He bent down and carefully wrapped the old lilies in the towel. “She was busy working and looking after her little sister. She didn't have time for that nonsense. My daughter didn't go chasing after boys.”

“But I understand she was very pretty. I'll bet the boys were chasing after her—I mean, even though Selena wasn't interested.”

Mr. Jayne carried the bunch of old flowers in the towel as if he were holding a swaddled infant. Brushing past Ryan, he scowled at him. He had cold, dark brown eyes under white, bushy brows. “That's a filthy thing to say,” he muttered. “Selena was a good girl.”

“I'm sure she was,” Ryan said, trailing after him toward the side door. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply—”

“I don't see the point in dredging up this old sad business,” Mr. Jayne said. “What do you want anyway?”

Ryan dashed in front of Selena's father and opened the door for him.

Mr. Jayne stepped outside and walked around the front of the church. Ryan caught up with him. “Sir, ever since my father told me about Selena and how she disappeared, I've been really interested in the case. I was wondering if they ever found out what happened.”

“Nope,” he said, looking straight ahead. He kept walking—toward the little cemetery.

As they passed through the open gates to the graveyard, Ryan could tell he wouldn't get anything from Selena's father. “Does—uh, does your other daughter live around here?”

He wove around the headstones. “Nope, Nicole's in Las Vegas. She works in a real estate office there.”

“Would it be okay if I talked to her?”

“That's up to Nicole,” he answered, coming to a stop at the last row of headstones near the graveyard's edge.

“Well, could I ask you for her phone number or e-mail address?”

“I'm not giving you my daughter's phone number,” he grumbled. “You got a pencil and paper on you?”

Ryan shrugged and shook his head.

Mr. Jayne clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Here,” he said, handing him the lilies wrapped in the towel. “Careful with these . . .” He pulled a pencil out of his shirt pocket. It was a short pencil, the kind golfers use to keep score. Ryan wondered if Mr. Jayne had helped himself to a supply from the country club. Jayne fished an old receipt out of his pants pocket. “What's your number? I'll give it to my daughter next time she calls. If she wants to get in touch with you, she will. Or maybe she won't. Like I said, it's up to her.”

Awkwardly holding the smelly old flowers, Ryan dictated his cell phone number—slowly, so the old man could write it down on the little receipt in the palm of his bony, callused hand. Mr. Jayne was still scribbling when Ryan noticed it was starting to get dark out. He also noticed the dead gladiolas in a vase on the grave in front of him. Then he saw what was written on the tombstone:

“My God,” he murmured. He nodded at the grave site. “So they—they found her body?”

Tucking the receipt back into his pocket, Mr. Jayne frowned at him. “The grave's empty,” he said. “But I wanted her to have a piece of land—with a marker. They let me put this one here ten years ago.” He took the flowers from Ryan. Then he knelt down, and pulled the dead gladiolas from the vase. Tossing them aside, he put the slightly wilted lilies in their place. Then he fussed with the flowers. He was probably trying to make them look like new.

Instead, they just looked sad.

“Can you make sure Nicole gets my phone number?” Ryan asked. “I'd really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mr. Jayne grunted, still rearranging the lilies.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Jayne,” he said, backing away.

Ryan turned and headed toward the cemetery gates. He took one last look over his shoulder at Mr. Jayne.

The mean old man looked so pathetic, setting wilted flowers on his daughter's empty grave.

 

 

Danny was feeling better. Sitting on the sofa, he ate his dinner off a TV table and watched his DVD of
Captain America
for the third time. Mark had made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and tomato soup.

Danny's older sister had been thrilled to get out of the house for a couple of hours. Mark told himself that she would be okay with her friends. One of them, with her mother driving, had swung by and picked up Alison about thirty minutes ago.

Mark had managed to squeeze in some Internet time in his study, enough to confirm what Stephanie Coburn had told him about the deaths of his three former friends. He'd known about Brent Farrell's death, but learning about the other two was a shock. Everything Stephanie Coburn had told him seemed to be true.

He hadn't had time to dig too deeply into how all their first wives had died. But he was inclined to believe what Stephanie Coburn had said: a stroke and two suicides. Dina made it three suicides. Or were they really suicides? Was someone making them all widowers? Dick's wife had apparently died of natural causes. And his family was the first to die. Was it just a coincidence that Dick Ingalls was the one Selena had really liked? Was that the start of a pattern in which all of the others had to be widowers, too?

“I'm trying to help you,” Stephanie Coburn had said. “I think you and your family are in danger.”

Mark was now kicking himself for letting Alison go out. But her ride had arrived just as he'd sat down in front of his computer. He hadn't realized then just how credible the threat was.

For now, he stuck close to Danny. He didn't make himself any dinner. He couldn't eat a thing. He contemplated calling the station and reporting in sick. He didn't want to leave the kids alone tonight.

Getting up from the sofa, he walked up to the big picture window. He gazed out over the tops of trees at the Sound. The waning sunset reflected off the water's rippling surface. The beach was down there, but he couldn't see it from here.

Mark thought of that private beach in Glencoe, the one Dick Ingalls had known about. He remembered the drive there. He remembered taking a few gulps of Jack Daniel's in the backseat of Brent's mother's station wagon. In the front, Brent and Scott had Peter Gabriel's “Sledgehammer” blasting on the radio. They followed Dick and Selena in the convertible.

The private beach was on a secluded, tree-lined, dead-end street. Along the block, big, beautiful old homes were spaced far apart and set back from the road.

Dick parked halfway down the block. “I don't want to tip off any cops patrolling the area that we're using the beach,” he explained when Brent pulled up alongside him. “Park in front of me, okay?”

Brent pulled the station wagon in front of them and switched off the engine. Mark got out of the car, and after a couple of tentative steps, he realized he was a bit drunk.

On foot, Dick and Selena led the way toward the end of the road. She was weaving slightly, too, and clinging to her half-empty bottle of Annie Green Springs. Meanwhile, Dick clung to her, copping a feel of her breasts as they headed toward a long driveway.

Trailing after them, Mark glimpsed a mansion beyond the bushes and trees. He wished he were a little drunker, because he could still hear Selena giggling. He also heard Brent telling Scott, “I don't care if I have to settle for Dick's sloppy seconds, I'm getting some of that tonight.”

Mark wasn't sure if he gave a damn anymore what they did. Maybe Dick would get her to take off her clothes, and at least then he'd see her naked. At this point, he figured he wasn't much better than the other guys.

A few steps into the driveway, Dick and Selena turned and cut through some hedges. “This is scary!” Selena declared over the sounds of twigs snapping and bushes rustling.

Mark followed them through the hedge to a crude path that wove downhill around trees and shrubs. It was so dark Mark could barely see where they were going. But he could smell the lake and hear the waves gently lapping on the shore.

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” Selena sang out.

Dick shushed her.

Blindly making his way down the slope, Mark kept thinking that at any minute, he could trip and fall into a ditch. His stomach was in knots. If this turned into a night of skinny-dipping, he didn't care about the guys. They'd had several bare-ass moonlight swims this summer. But he was nervous about getting naked in front of Selena. What if he got hard in front of her—and no one else did? How uncool would that be? And then there was cold-water shrinkage, which never seemed to affect Dick, damn him.

He forged on through the woods. Gradually, the trees thinned out, and he could see Dick and Selena ahead, arm in arm. He could see the lake. The ground beneath his feet had gone from rocky dirt to sand.

Selena let out a gleeful squeal. Mark emerged from the trees in time to see her kick off her sandals and run toward the water. Her blue dress and blond hair were blowing in the light breeze. The small waves washed over her feet, and she took another swig of Annie Green Springs.

Dick came up behind her, and grabbed the bottle. “Hey, that's enough,” he said. “Save those lips for me . . .” Then he kissed her—a long, open-mouth, wet kiss.

Mark stared at them, and thought,
Hey, Dick, just curious. When exactly were you planning to take off and leave her alone with me?
Apparently, his friend had forgotten his magnanimous plans to set them up. And where did he get that awful line? “Save those lips for me.” Whatever, the cornball come-on sure worked like a charm on Selena. She was all over him.

At this section of the beach, there was just a narrow strip of dry sand between the wooded hill and the lake. But farther down, the shoreline grew wider, and an old, slightly lopsided concrete pier jutted into the water. Mark didn't see anyone else around.

He glared at Dick and Selena, still making out. He paid no attention to Brent and Scott, behind him. They were muttering to each other and cackling. He heard rustling sounds. Suddenly, both Brent and Scott ran past him naked.

Selena saw them and let out another shriek. Wide-eyed, she covered her mouth.

They both scurried into the water and dove in under the surface.

Mark plopped down in the sand and sat there.

Selena was giggling. Dick kissed her again, then broke away, and set the wine bottle in the sand. “C'mon!” he called to her. He shucked off his shirt, shorts, and briefs. He had one of those perfect bodies, with perfect tan lines.

Selena let out another little shriek as Dick strutted past her. In the water, he turned around and splashed her. She laughed, covered her eyes, and backed away. “You're a scandal!” she cried.

“Come on in,” Dick urged her. “The water's fantastic! If you're shy, we'll close our eyes . . .”

“Well, you're certainly not shy!” she said.

The other two chimed in, trying to coax her into the lake. Dick turned to grin at him. “C'mon, Metcalf, get your ass in the water!”

“Mark's the only one here with any sense!” Selena said. “We're all going to get arrested!”

Frowning, Mark got to his feet, and stripped down to his boxer shorts. He didn't want to be with them, so he walked down the shoreline a ways, closer to the pier. At the last minute, he took off his boxers, and then ran into the water.

It didn't warrant a scream from Selena.

She was too busy taking off her dress, and making a big production out of it. “No peeking!” she called.

Mark swam out to deeper water. Cool and refreshing, it sobered him up a bit. His ears were clogged, so he couldn't quite hear what Selena was saying. But she was down to her white bra and blue panties. She seemed all nervous and fluttery while the guys encouraged her to take everything off.

Mark treaded water and watched as she turned her back to them and shed her bra. She tossed it aside. Covering her breasts, she turned around again—to wolf whistles and applause from the guys. She reached down for the Annie Green Springs, and took a gulp of courage. Mark got a glimpse of her breasts when she did this. Keeping his head above water and his eyes on Selena, he swam in a little closer to them.

He felt a little short of breath as he watched her wiggle out of her pale blue panties. She looked so beautiful in the moonlight. She let go with another scream, and then scampered into the lake. She started splashing Dick and the others. Brent dove underwater and did something to make her squeal again and recoil. But she was laughing.

After a while, Dick took her in his arms and kissed her again. He felt her up, and she seemed to like it. The other two stood by and watched.

Dick handed her off to Scott, who kissed her. Then Brent got behind her and started rubbing against her. Suddenly, it got quiet, and they took turns kissing and fondling her. Selena seemed to enjoy all the attention.

After a few minutes, Dick turned toward him. “Well, get in here! What are you waiting for?” he called. “Isn't this what you wanted?”

It wasn't what he'd wanted. Yet Mark was turned on. He watched her hungrily kiss Dick Ingalls. Her breasts rubbed against his chest.