The Body Finder (5 page)

The wounds were big, and round, and raw. She thought she looked like a little kid with the giant scrapes on her knees, and she imagined that they were going to scab over and possibly even scar. She felt like such an idiot for falling over her own two clumsy feet.

But Jay was gentle, and he took his time, being careful not to hurt her. She admired his patience and took perverse pleasure in his touch. He didn't look up to see how she was doing; he just kept working until he was satisfied that her scrapes were cleaned out. And then he picked up the antibacterial wash and some cotton balls.

Violet sucked in her breath when he brushed the soaked cotton ball against the angry red abrasions. Jay looked up at her but didn't stop dabbing at them. Instead he blew on her knees as he labored over them, just like her mother used to do when Violet was a little girl. She thought it was sweet, and she swore that she was even more attracted to him than ever in that tender moment.

When he finished with the wash, he gingerly patted an antibiotic ointment on her knees before covering them with bandages.

“There,” he said, admiring his own handiwork. “Good as new.”

Violet glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looked at him doubtfully. “You really think so? ‘Good as new'?”

He smiled. “I think I did pretty good. It's not my fault you can't walk.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to tell him that it
was
his fault, that she would never have tripped if he'd just stayed the same old Jay he'd always been, gangly and childlike. But she knew that she was being irrational. He was bound to grow up eventually; she'd just never imagined that he'd grow up so well. Instead she accused him: “Well, maybe if you
hadn't
pushed
me I wouldn't have fallen.” She made the outlandish accusation with a completely straight face.

He shook his head. “You'll never be able to prove it. There were no witnesses—it's just your word against mine.”

She giggled and hopped down. “Yeah, well, who's gonna believe you over me? Weren't you the one who shoplifted a candy bar from the Safeway?” She limped over to the sink while she taunted him with her words, and she washed the dirt from the minor scrapes on her palms.

“Whatever! I was seven. And I believe
you
were the one who handed it to me and told me to hide it in my sleeve. Technically that makes you the
mastermind
of that little operation, doesn't it?” He came up behind her, and reaching around her, he poured some of the antibacterial wash onto her hands.

She was taken completely off guard by the intimate gesture. She froze as she felt his chest pressing against her back until that was all she could think about for the moment and she temporarily forgot how to speak. She watched as the red scrapes fizzed with white bubbles from the disinfectant. He leaned over her shoulder, setting the bottle down and pulling her hands up toward him. He blew on them too. Violet didn't even notice the sting this time.

And then it was over. He released her hands, and as she stood there, dazed, he handed her a clean towel to dry them on.

When she turned around to face him, she realized that she had been the only one affected by the moment, that his touch had been completely innocent.

He was looking at her like he was waiting for her to say
something, and she was suddenly aware that her mouth was still open. She finally gathered her wits enough to speak again. “Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn't done it right in front of the cashier, we might have gotten away with it. Instead, you got both of us grounded for stealing.”

He didn't miss a beat, and he seemed unaware of her temporary lapse. “And some might say that our grounding saved us from a life of crime.”

She hung the towel over the oven's door handle. “Maybe it saved
me
, but the jury's still out on you. I always thought you were kind of a bad seed.”

He gave her a questioning look. “Seriously, a ‘bad seed,' Vi? When did you turn ninety and start saying things like ‘bad seed'?”

She pushed him as she walked by, even though he really wasn't in her way. He gave her a playful shove from behind and teased her, “Don't make me trip you again.”

Now more than ever, Violet hoped that this crush of hers passed soon, so she could get back to the business of being
just friends
. Otherwise, this was going to be a long—and painful—year.

THE LAKE HOUSE WAS CROWDED WITH TEENAGERS
, and they seemed to be coming
and
going in waves. The lawn leading down to the water was littered with towels and blankets, water bottles and pop cans, bags of chips, and kids of all shapes and sizes basking in the warmth of the summer heat as they soaked up the last of the season's sun.

The house belonged to the grandmother of Gabrielle Myers, a friend of theirs from school. Violet didn't even recognize all of the kids who were there that day, and she doubted that they all knew Gabrielle or her grandmother, but instead were tagging along with friends, or friends of friends, who had invited them to come.

Violet had carefully chosen some long-hanging, loose-fitting basketball shorts to wear over her swimsuit, in hopes of keeping her injuries at least partially hidden. But it didn't take long before one…and then two…and then at least twenty of her friends had noticed her bandages peeking out from beneath the swishing fabric, and she was forced to recount her morning accident.

Jay loved hearing her tell the story, and every time he heard her talking about it, he would come over so that he could interject, and of course embellish, his role in the events. In his version, he was her champion, practically carrying her from the woods and performing near-miraculous medical feats to save her legs from complete amputation. Violet, and annoyingly every other girl within earshot, couldn't help but giggle while he jokingly sang his own praises.

Violet happened to walk up just in time to hear Jay recounting his version once more to a group of eager admirers.

“Hero? I wouldn't say
hero…
” he quipped.

Violet rolled her eyes, turning to Grady Spencer, a friend of theirs from school. “Can you believe him?”

Grady gave her a concerned look. “Seriously, are you okay, Violet? It sounds like it was pretty bad.”

Violet was embarrassed that Jay's exaggerations were actually dredging up real sympathy from others. “It's fine,” she assured him, and when Grady didn't look convinced, she added, “Really, I just tripped.”

She reached out and shoved Jay. “Will you knock it off,
hero
? You're making an ass out of yourself.”

Jay laughed and followed her to a spot away from the crowd
on the lawn. But even as they began to settle in, several of the girls who had already spread out their towels and blankets in other places casually began to migrate in their direction. She found that even
she
was getting more attention than usual from his crowd of admirers, and she felt conspicuously like she was being used in their attempts to get closer to him.

But Jay's fans were easy enough to ignore, especially since several of her
real
friends were already there. Violet left Jay among his groupies and headed toward where Chelsea and some of her other friends from school were sunning themselves.

Chelsea scooted over when she saw Violet coming, making room for her on the big, colorful beach towel. “What's up? I heard you practically broke your legs this morning.”

Violet sat down next to her friend, who looked like perfection personified in her deep purple bikini, her body well toned from sports. “Ha-ha,” Violet mumbled, curling her lip in a mock sneer. “It was nothing.” She flashed the tops of her gauze-covered knees from beneath the hem of her shorts. “See? Just a couple of scrapes.”

“Well, to hear Lissie and Valerie tell it, Jay practically saved your life.” The way Chelsea said the other girls' names reminded Violet that Chelsea didn't care much for the cheerleader crowd. In fact, she didn't try very hard at all to hide the fact that she thought they were vapid and useless.

Violet knew she liked Chelsea for a reason other than her friend's obvious athletic talents.

“Nah, it was just me being clumsy as usual,” Violet admitted, smiling.

“Yeah, well, good thing Jay was there to catch you.” Chelsea
leaned back on her elbows and looked out at the lake. “You gonna take a turn on the Wave Runners today?”

Violet followed Chelsea's gaze and saw one of the brightly painted watercrafts pulling up to the dock. There were actually two Wave Runners, both belonging to Gabrielle's parents, who left them at the house for most of the summer, where they stayed available and were used frequently. Violet loved riding them out into the water and trying to catch the cresting waves that were spit out in the wake of a boat speeding by, while the wind whipped at her hair and face. It was exhilarating.

“Probably later, but I think I'll just kick back for a while. Do you mind if I stay here with you guys?”

“Sure. But it looks like your boyfriend's about to take a spin,” Chelsea said in her usual unimpressed voice.

Violet saw what her friend was talking about. Jay was buckling up one of the life jackets and getting ready to take out the Wave Runner that had just returned. She saw a group of girls from another local high school follow him like lost puppies down to the dock. She'd seen them before, at parties she'd been to, and she wasn't surprised that they were at the lake today.
Everyone
seemed to be there.

One of the girls must have gotten up the nerve to ask Jay for a ride, because she too was picking up a life jacket and slipping it over her barely-there bikini. She bounced up and down excitedly as she waited for him to straddle the seat, and then she climbed on behind him, grinning widely and grabbing him tightly around the waist. Violet vaguely recognized the girl, whose name she thought was Savannah. She looked like she'd just won a beauty pageant as she waved at
her friends who were still standing on the dock.

Violet tried to ignore the sudden stab of jealousy she felt as she watched the girl wrapping her arms around Jay. She turned away so she didn't have to see the two of them together. “Whatever…he's not my boyfriend.”

Chelsea just ignored Violet's comment as she eased herself back down and slipped her sunglasses over her eyes. “If you say so.”

Violet tried to follow Chelsea's lead, as she stretched out on the towel that was more than big enough for the both of them. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her until she could no longer fight the exhaustion that was clinging to her after a long night of chasing sleep. Soon she began to drift away, and the sounds around her shaped her dreams. She dreamed of music and friends, and of sun and smoke. She dreamed of her best friend's smile, and of waves and beaches.

 

She was dragged from the haze of sleep by something tickling her arm. She thought that an ant must have crawled onto her, and she tried to shake it off without opening her eyes to look. But when she laid her arm back down across her stomach, she felt it slowly moving from her wrist to her elbow and back again.

She squinted, with one eye still closed, and lifted her head halfheartedly to see what it was. Someone was dragging a piece of grass back and forth along the sensitive hairs of her forearm. She followed the trail from the grass to the hand to the face and saw Jay grinning down at her.

“Hey there,” he said, tossing away the grass. “I thought you'd never wake up.”

Violet sat up all the way. “How long was I sleeping?”

Jay shook his head. “Not long, less than an hour probably. I wanted to see if you want to go out on one of the Wave Runners with me.”

“What about your girlfriends?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Violet was embarrassed for sounding so petty. She tried to make it seem like she was only kidding as she added, “I thought maybe Savannah's friends were all waiting for their turn down on the dock.”

He just laughed. “No, Savannah was the only one. She wanted me to show her how to drive one.” Violet was glad that he hadn't seemed to notice the irritation in her voice before.

“So, did you?”

He shrugged. “I tried to, but I don't think she was really paying attention. I think she just wanted someone to give her a ride.”

Not someone,
Violet thought to herself.
You
.
She wanted
you
to give her a ride.
Sometimes she wondered if he was really that dense, or if he just wasn't interested in returning the girls' attention. But when she saw the clueless look on his face, she realized that it had to be the former. He was such a
guy
.

She looked around her then and realized that she'd been abandoned by her friends while she'd been sleeping. “Where'd Chelsea go?” she asked.

“I saw her taking off on one of the Wave Runners with Jules. So, you wanna go with me?”

Violet was reluctant to take off her shorts in front of everyone and expose her knees like a clumsy little girl, but she
did
want to go out on the Wave Runner with him. She weighed the option of staying where she was, covered up from her hips to her knees in the baggy gym shorts, or cutting a vicious path through the water sitting atop the powerful watercraft in search of a wave to jump.

Her daredevil side won out. “I'll go, but
I
get to drive,” she insisted with a grin.

Jay didn't argue. He never did; he was too easygoing to care whether he was the driver or the passenger.

On the dock, Violet self-consciously dropped the shorts, baring her knees and the swimsuit beneath. She looked around to see if anyone was staring, but no one seemed to notice. She plucked up a life vest and buckled herself into it before straddling the Wave Runner's seat. Jay followed right behind and casually gripped her hips as she started the engine and attached the coiled key fob to her life jacket, a safety measure that would cut the engine if the driver was thrown from the vehicle.

She leaned forward and began easing the watercraft through the cove, watching cautiously for other vehicles or for people who might have wandered too far from the water's edge. But once she reached the end of the cove and passed the buoys that signaled the end of the five-mile-an-hour speed limit, she grabbed the handle that controlled the gas and she pulled it, gunning the Wave Runner into high speed. She leaned farther forward and let the wind cool her face. For the first time in weeks, since well before school had started, she was
no longer aware of Jay's proximity to her. He became any other passenger on the back of the vehicle as she got lost in the punching accelerations over the short, choppy waves.

They bounced across the top of the water, sometimes jumping high, reveling in those moments when they caught a larger wave and felt the Wave Runner surge beneath them as it hopped above the water, catching air.

Violet felt so free. She could hear Jay laughing from behind her as he held on tight. She spun the craft first sharply to the right and then quickly to the left. He knew she was trying to buck him free, testing him to see how long he could hold on to her before being tossed into the frigid water of the lake as she maneuvered the miniature speedboat back and forth. But he was stronger now than ever before, and his reflexes were sharper. He seemed to know which way she was going to go even before she did.

After a while, Violet slowed down near a floating dock in the lake and parked the Wave Runner.

“Do you want to jump in?” she asked as she pulled the key from the ignition without waiting for an answer, making it more of a statement than a question.

Jay stood up and hopped from the Wave Runner onto the dock. Violet joined him and instead of diving into the water, she sat down and dangled her feet in.

“It's quiet here,” he commented absently. He sat down beside her.

“Mm-hmm,” she sighed, kicking her feet and splashing up water.

“How are your knees?” He reached out and brushed his
fingers across the damp bandages.

Violet shrugged. “They're fine…” and then she added with mock adoration, “…thanks to you, of course.” And to show her gratitude, she kicked water in his direction.

He nudged her with his shoulder but didn't say anything. They stayed like that for a while, enjoying the silence of being alone and enjoying each other's presence. It was easy…and comfortable.

Violet sighed when it started to feel like too much time had passed. “We should get back. I'm sure someone else is waiting for a turn.”

Jay stood up, silently agreeing with her, and Violet reluctantly followed. Without asking if he wanted to trade places, Violet again got on in front.

They took their time getting back, meandering lazily along the shoreline and staying out of the way of faster vehicles. It took Violet longer than it should have to realize that the path she was taking wasn't random at all, that she was being pulled…drawn.

Something was calling to her.

Something dead
.

She didn't say anything to Jay, mostly because there wasn't anything to say yet. Instead she concentrated on where it might be coming from. It was strong, whatever it was, stronger than she would have expected from something out here in the water, and she wondered if that meant it had died recently. Today, even.

She followed the pulling sensation, the tugging that had propelled her almost without her awareness, as she scanned the waters for some sign, some sensory input to guide her.
She didn't taste or smell anything out of place. There were no unexplained sounds coming from any direction…at least not that she could hear over the engine of the Wave Runner.

She thought she saw something in the water ahead of her. It looked like a large oil slick licking across the top of the lake's surface. It was near a thick stand of grasses and reeds that sprang up from the waters near the shore. It wasn't completely out of place there, a boat could have leaked the substance into the water, but she eased forward anyway, wanting to get a better look.

Jay didn't ask her what she was doing; he was just happy to be along for the ride, as usual.

But the closer Violet got to it, the less it looked like oil. It had the same greasy sheen as oil, casting a rainbow of hues across the plane of the water as it was rippled gently by the waves. But there was something different about it, something she couldn't quite put her finger on.