Tenderness (14 page)

Here’s what happened:

Last night, after I left Harmony House, I walked all the way to Webster Avenue in the rain to say goodbye to Eric Poole. He wouldn’t know I was saying goodbye, of course. I figured I would visit one last time.

The rain streamed down, penetrating my clothing and plastering my hair to my head, and I didn’t care as I stood looking at his house, a night-light glowing at the window, all cozy and warm inside. Shivering, I vowed to track down Eric Poole some other time and plant that kiss on his face and end my fixation.

Damn it.

I didn’t want to leave Eric Poole while the fixation had me in its grip.

A dog barked at me, a black German shepherd a few feet away. His owner wasn’t in sight. I was all alone on a rainy street menaced by a strange dog, his front legs stiff, body arched, wet hair matted against his body as if he were ready to pounce.

I started across the street, the dog following me, still barking. I was determined to ring the doorbell. Eric Poole would open the door, recognize me, and take me in his arms. Standing at the bottorn
of the steps, I knew how ridiculous those thoughts were. Dripping wet, shivering, I turned to the dog. “Get the hell out of here.”

The dog yelped forlornly, then hung its head.

Desperate, I spotted a minivan in the driveway. Never noticed it before. Maybe it had been parked somewhere in the backyard.

My backpack bouncing heavily behind me, I ran across the lawn, my sneakers squishing on the grass. Arriving at the van, I looked around for the dog. It had not followed me, had wandered off looking for its own shelter, probably.

The van door was locked.

Using the method Rory Adams had taught me, I opened the van door after a few tries, the rain making it harder to do. Slipping inside, I curled up on the backseat, grateful that the driveway was dark. I became part of the darkness, shivered, hugged myself to keep warm, my backpack on the floor, clothes stuck to my body as if the wetness were a kind of glue.

Weary and disgusted, lost and helpless, I listened to the sad sound of the rain on the metal roof and fell asleep.

The sun blazing through the window woke me up. Heat filled the air, stifling in its heaviness. My throat was parched, arms and legs stiff and aching, mouth so dry I could barely swallow. My clothes, still limp, clinging to my skin.

Looking up, starting to yawn, I was horrified to see Eric Poole walking toward the car, swinging a small traveling bag in his hand. He wore a blue shirt open at the throat and jeans. I tumbled to the floor on top of my backpack, hoping he’d walk past the van.

The door opened, letting in a burst of fresh air. I held myself rigid as he slid behind the wheel, the back of the front seat bulging a bit as his body settled in. Would he smell my sweat?

The engine roared into life before settling down to a quiet murmur.

And the van began to back out of the driveway with Eric Poole and me in it.

“You.”

Stunned by her presence in the van, he knew immediately the danger she presented. Everything about her spelled danger, taking away the initial surprise at finding her here.

She could be stalking him, intending to confront him about what happened that day at the railroad tracks. The old cop could have set her on his trail.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was raining last night, and I got in the van and fell asleep.”

But the van had been locked.

“Get out,” he said. But even as he spoke the
words, he knew he could not dismiss her like that, could not abandon her until he found out who she really was and what she knew.

As she scrambled to gather herself, rearranging her clothes and picking up the backpack, he said, “Wait.”

She paused, one hand on the door handle, the other on her backpack, regarding him with sudden expectation in her eyes. She was in disarray, her damp blond hair tangled and all askew, face moist with perspiration, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, wrinkled white blouse. He was also aware of her body under the clothes, her breasts filling the blouse, the outline of a nipple, dark and distinct in the damp cloth.

“Who are you?”

“I ran away from home. It’s a long story.…” Made a helpless gesture, lifting her hands, her shoulders, as if too weary to talk about it.

“Why were you hiding in my van?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” she said, pushing a damp lock of hair from her cheek. “I had no place to go. A dog was chasing me.” Sweat glistened on her face. “Can you open a window, please? It’s hot in here.…”

That simple request made her appear to be exactly what she claimed: a homeless girl looking for shelter in the rain. But he could not afford to trust her yet.

“Who sent you?”

Surprise made her flinch, as if he had slapped her face.

“Nobody sent me. I’m on my own.” Puzzled. “Who would send me, anyway? I told you: I had no place else to go.”

She picked up her backpack. “I’ll get out,” she said. “I’ll go.…”

Don’t do anything foolish. You can’t let her go. She saw you that day
.

“Relax.”

As he turned away, trying to figure out his next move, he caught a movement in his peripheral vision. A dark blue police cruiser was moving slowly in his direction,
HANCOCK POLICE
was inscribed on the door in white block letters. Coincidence? Maybe he was being followed, after all. Maybe the Wickburg authorities had been tracking him down, had radioed ahead to towns along Route 2—
Be on the lookout for Eric Poole, traveling with a girl in a beige minivan
.

Tense and stilled, he watched the cruiser advancing, moving so slowly that he expected the engine to buck and stall. A lone cop, with a long, thin face, visor shading his eyes, looked at the van, a long, lingering scrutiny.

This was the moment for the girl to make her move, to leap from the van and claim that Eric had kidnapped her, was holding her against her
will, which would send him away, not to the facility this time but to prison. Remembering the malice in Lieutenant Proctor’s eyes, he knew that the old cop would not hesitate to frame him, to use this girl as bait in the trap.

He heard the girl drop her backpack to the floor, heard the swish of her thighs as she moved her legs, smelled her sweat, a hint of stale perfume in the smell.

The cop studied the van for another long moment, then directed his eyes toward his windshield. The cruiser rolled on, picking up speed, moving past the service station. The girl had not called for help.

Eric sagged with relief against the steering wheel, then immediately straightened up, did not want the girl to realize how worried he’d been.

“Okay,” the girl said. “I’ll get out now.” She struggled to hoist the backpack over her shoulders. “I’ll hitch a ride to the next town.”

“Then what?” he asked, almost absently, his mind racing to decide what he should do about her. It was too soon, too risky to do what he might have done without a second thought a few years ago.

Shrugging, she said, “Look, I ran away from home, but now I want to go back. I’ll call my mother. She’ll come and get me.”

She reached for the door handle, but he grabbed her arm, arresting her movement.

Eric knew that he could not let her go. Not now, if ever. She still represented a threat. Sleeping in his van on the night before his departure had to be more than a coincidence. Who had taught her to break into a locked car? Remembering his chance meeting with her that day by the railroad tracks, he wondered why she had appeared in his life at this particular time. All of it added up to one thing—he could not let her go. But had to win her confidence, put her at ease so that she would not be tempted to escape. And maybe he could find out the answers that way.

“Let me help you,” he said, making his voice tender, slipping on the old wistful smile.

“Why?” she asked, settling back on the seat.

“Why not?” he said. “Maybe I like your company. Maybe I’ve been alone too much.”

A wan smile appeared on her face, and she looked suddenly like a lost child, grateful for a bit of kindness.

The Charm was still working.

I melt when he looks at me that way.

I feel my legs go all watery, and my stomach almost caves in and my breath comes fast and I
can almost feel my top swelling up. I want to kiss him.

Does he know who I am?

You
, he said, when he first saw me here in the van.

I wonder if that means he remembers me from that day near the railroad tracks or my picture on the front page of the newspaper.

At first, he was suspicious and a kind of anger smoldered in his eyes. But now I guess he has changed his mind about me and he is suddenly gentle and, yes, almost tender.

“Get in the front seat,” he says, but not as if giving an order but inviting me to sit beside him.

I figure that this is the moment to tell him about my fixation and go ahead and kiss him, place my lips on his lips and get it over with.

Before I can decide to do it, he starts the engine and we back up and then pull out into the street, his eyes straight ahead, concentrating hard on his driving. He is careful, cautious, seemed unsure of himself when he shifted gears.

We travel a few miles without speaking.

“Have you had your license long?” I ask. Not that it really matters but only to make conversation. To fill the silence in the van. More than silence, an emptiness, as if he is sitting here beside me and yet is far away.

“What?” he asks.

Like he did not hear me. Or did not understand what I asked, and I was speaking a foreign language.

“Your license. Did you just get it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Am I a bad driver?” Glancing at me as if my answer is important.

“You’re a very good driver.” What else would I tell him?

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, as if he’s thinking over my answer. Then: “Thank you …”

I am starved. My stomach is so empty that it begins to rumble, and I am embarrassed by the sound. I check the dashboard. The van does not have a radio. No air-conditioning, either. Windows only for the front-seat passengers. The air coming through the windows is still and old, with a dash of chemical. We are probably driving past a plant of some kind that belches foul stuff from its chimney.

I wonder where we are going, where he is taking me. But I hesitate to ask. I am afraid to ask.

I remember what that reporter told me about the rumors that he had killed two girls.

I remember how tense he became when that cruiser pulled up and the cop looked at us for a few minutes.

Glancing sideways at him, hoping he doesn’t catch me doing it, I study his profile, delicate, just
a tiny bump on his nose. He is good-looking, all right, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have killed those girls.

Relax
, I tell myself. If he was a killer, he wouldn’t have been set free, he wouldn’t be running around loose like this.

I see the sign up ahead that says:

GREENHILL PARK
ALL WELCOME

And we turn off the highway into deep, dense woods.

A park was perfect for his purposes. Away from the highway, from cruisers with cops who could stop him at any moment.

He steered the car over a dirt road, concentrating on the twists and turns, trying to keep his mind off the girl but aware of her beside him, and the way she moved on the seat.

He had not been alone with a girl for so long that he did not know what to say or how to act. In fact, he had never actually been alone with a girl for any length of time except for Laura and the others, but those had not been exactly social situations.

His years at the facility had been the teenage
years, when he’d have been developing social skills—that’s what the instructor had called them during one of the classes. That’s why he felt dumb and inadequate questioning the girl. What he needed was time. Time to become more acquainted with her, to find out exactly who she was, what she’d been up to on the street of his aunt’s house every day and sleeping last night in his van—to find out if she was really as innocent as she seemed.

He pulled to the side of the rutted road and stopped, the van purring beneath his feet. Waited to see if a car had followed him into the park. The heat gathered quickly in the van. The girl stirred beside him but said nothing.

He made himself wait five minutes, glancing at his watch occasionally. Then started the car, satisfied.

Sweeping around a curve, they arrived at a sudden clearing in the woods. The girl exclaimed: “Wow! This is really nice.”

He was struck by the difference between her body, full and ripe as a woman’s, and the way she sometimes talked like a little girl, awestruck and full of wonder. Like now, at this moment: “What a neat place.”

He nodded in agreement, checking for the presence of a cop or a police cruiser and finding none. After all those years at the facility and then a virtual
prisoner in his aunt’s house, he had forgotten that places like this existed. A small pond lay before him, its blue surface stirred by a gentle breeze, the ripples like wrinkles on a blue bedspread. Tall pines guarded the pond. A bandstand on the far side, where, he imagined, concerts were held on Sunday afternoons as families gathered. A pavilion with a wide wraparound porch to his right. Dances were probably held there on Saturday nights. He wondered why he felt lonesome suddenly.

“Look,” she said, pointing to an area occupied by swings and slides and a small merry-go-round on which two little girls laughed with delight as a woman spun them around. A small boy zoomed headfirst down a slide, and his father caught him at the bottom, then swung him high in the air.

As they drove into the park, he saw a teenage couple at the water’s edge, tossing small pieces of bread on the water. White swans, with necks like the porcelain handles of his mother’s best china, pecked at the bread and still managed to look graceful.

He drove to a spot where picnic tables had been set up in a pine grove. Parking the van, he waited a moment, hands on the steering wheel, considering his next move. He had to decide what to do about the girl before he contacted the Señorita. The image of Maria Valdez formed in his mind,
the long hair, the way she had looked at him across the cafeteria. What pleasures she presented, all within his grasp very soon. But first, the girl.