The Bone House (41 page)
Authors: Brian Freeman
Even with
her extra income, it would never have been enough for Tresa's college tuition.
State school or not, she couldn't afford it. Thank God for Peter Hoffman. He'd
paid for everything, tuition, room and board, books, spending money. He'd told
her he would do the same for Glory when it was her turn, but Delia had never
believed that Glory was college material. Tresa was the serious one, the
introvert, with the brains to make something of herself. Glory had no patience
for school. Delia had grown up the same way. A party girl. Maybe that was why
she had always favored Glory, not only because of how the girl had suffered,
but because Glory reminded Delia of herself in a way that Tresa never did.
Tresa
reminded her of other things. Bad things.
When
she saw Tresa, she still thought of Harris Bone, and she wondered. Agonized.
Doubted. She'd never pursued the truth, because she didn't want to know one way
or another. Some things were better off as questions without answers. She could
remember, though, the times when she'd watched Tresa and Jen Bone together as
teenagers. The two girls were best friends, inseparable, almost like sisters.
She'd tried to see the likeness in their faces.
She'd
tried to decipher whether Harris was father to both of them.
The
affair with Harris had been an on-again, off-again thing over the years, but
when she'd become pregnant with Tresa, it was during a period when they were
sleeping together regularly. Delia had never thought of sex with Harris as
cheating. After her own rape, she had disconnected sex from her emotions. She'd
never really loved her husband in a romantic way; he'd been convenient, a
provider, sweet and reliable. When they had sex, it was to fill his needs, not
hers. Harris was different. She'd understood him as a man, or she'd thought she
had, until the fire. He'd spent his whole life under a woman's thumb, first
with his mother, Katherine, and then with a wife who was just as controlling.
The only person to whom he ever confided his frustrations was Delia. She'd
enjoyed being his confidante, not realizing that there were emotional strings
attached to his secrets. Their relationship had spilled over from soul-sharing
to bed-sharing in no time at all, and for years, they had used each other in
bad times for physical and spiritual release.
People
wondered how she'd been able to forgive Harris for the accident in which her
husband died. The truth was that his death had been an economic loss more than
an emotional loss. She'd felt sorrow but not devastation. In the aftermath,
she'd relied on Harris even more for all of her needs. So had the girls. Glory
and Tresa loved him, and he loved them back. Delia knew the sacrifices Harris
made every day, going on the road for a job he hated, coming home to a wife and
sons who despised him. He did it without complaint, and that was what made the
end so shocking. In all the time they'd spent together, sharing secrets and
having sex, he'd never given her a hint of what he was planning. She hadn't
seen how close he was to the breaking point.
She
hated Harris now, not just for what he had done, but for leaving her alone in
the process. And Tresa and Glory, too. He'd abandoned them, just as he'd
abandoned his own daughter. All Delia wanted to do was forget him. She'd never
breathed a word about the affair to anyone. She'd never given Tresa any reason
to wonder who her father really was or to fear that she had bad blood in her.
No one needed to know, especially not Peter Hoffman. If he had known the truth,
he never would have been so generous with her and the girls. He would have
blamed and resented Delia, rather than using her to massage his guilt and
grief.
Now
even that source of security had been taken away. Peter was dead. He'd written
his last check to her. She wondered how she would break the news to Tresa that
she no longer had money to send her back to school. It was one more body blow
in a lifetime of disappointments and betrayals.
Delia
removed the magnifier from her eyes as she saw an old Grand Am turn from the
road into the bumps of their driveway. Troy Geier got out like a plump clown
and jogged for the house. The wooden steps, which needed repairs, groaned under
his weight. He was breathing hard, gulping down air. She could tell, looking at
Troy, that the boy was scared.
'What
do you want?' Delia asked impatiently. She wasn't in the mood to deal with his
naive gallantry today.
Troy
peered through the screen door into the house, is Tresa here?'
'No,
she went to the grocery store. Why?'
Delia's
eyes narrowed. 'What's going on?'
The
boy gestured to the house. 'Let's go inside, OK?'
Delia
sighed and handed her jewelry tray to Troy as she pushed herself out of the
rocker. Smokey scampered between her legs and disappeared through the cat door
into the house. 'Take off your shoes,' she snapped. 'I don't want you tracking
dirt on the carpet.'
Troy
kicked off his shoes on the mat. He followed Delia inside, and she led him back
to the kitchen. She needed to get dinner started. She opened the refrigerator
and pulled out an egg and a package of ground beef and dumped it into a metal
bowl, where she separated the meat with her fingers. She cracked the egg into
the bowl and poured in breadcrumbs.
'So
what do you want?' she asked Troy again.
Troy
sat at the kitchen table and fidgeted. 'You heard about Peter Hoffman?'
'Of
course.'
'The
word is Bradley did it.'
'I
heard about the fight. So?'
'We
have to do something,' Troy said.
Delia
shot him a look of disdain. She didn't need false hope now. 'Troy, do you
really think you're some kind of hero? You? Let it go. Leave this for the men.'
'I
can do this,' Troy insisted. 'Bradley has to be stopped.'
'And
you're the one to stop him?'
'Yes.'
'Oh,
quit kidding yourself and go home,' Delia said.
Troy
shook his head. 'I'm going to do this, and it has to be tonight.'
Delia
stopped kneading the beef. 'What are you saying?'
'My
friend Keith called. He saw Bradley's wife leaving the island on the four
o'clock ferry. He's going to be alone.'
Delia
realized that something was different about Troy. He was older. Determined.
She'd assumed all along that the boy was puffing out his chest with his
threats, but now he'd gone from talk to action.
'Troy,
you don't know what you're saying,' Delia said, hesitating. 'This isn't a game.
It's serious business.'
Troy
reached inside his coat and laid his gun on the table. It was the same gun he'd
shown her at the lake, a silver revolver with a fat black grip that must have
been thirty years old. 'I am serious.'
'All
you're going to do is get yourself killed. That gun looks like it would blow up
in your face if you pull the trigger.'
'It's
old, but it works fine. Look, I know where I can steal a boat from a summer
house, and I can get to the island myself. I'll stay overnight at Keith's and
go back in the morning.'
'Why
are you telling me this? Do you want me to talk you out of it?'
'No,
I want you to get rid of Tresa tonight. Send her to a friend's house for a few
hours. Whatever it takes. That way, you can say I was here with you. We were talking
about Glory, looking at pictures. If anyone tries to point a finger at me, you
can back me up.'
Delia's
fingers were thick with raw meat. She pulled them out of the bowl and ran them
under hot water in the sink. When they were clean and damp, she wiped them with
a towel. She studied Troy, who was watching her intently, his face hungry and
mean. He was still just a boy, but he was also big and strong enough to go up
against a man. She'd known him since he was a baby, and she knew his father had
never stopped treating him like a kid in diapers. He'd always been desperate
for approval. Desperate to prove himself. He was going to do this whether she
said yes or no.
She
spotted Smokey in his cat bed on the floor. The cat was curled into a ball, but
its eyes were open, watching the two of them like a co-conspirator. It was as
if he knew. It was as if he understood. This was about justice for Glory. That
was what they all wanted.
'OK,
Troy,' Delia told him in a quiet voice, if you think you can do this, then you
go do it. Go get that son of a bitch.'
Tresa
backed down the hallway in silent horror. Her blue eyes grew huge. She was
careful not to make a sound so her mother and Troy didn't realize she was
there. She let herself out through the screen door and closed it quietly behind
her. She pulled up the hood on her sweatshirt and hurried down the steps. Her
mother's car was next to Troy's Grand Am, where she'd parked it moments
earlier. She got inside, threw the plastic grocery bags on the passenger seat,
and veered backward on to the road.
Her
heart was clear; she had to get to Mark right now. She had to warn him.
Lake,
and then she swung on to Highway 57, heading northwest toward the top of the
county. The last ferry for the island departed in less than half an hour. She
didn't know if she had time to make it through the upper towns of the NorDoor.
Her
fingers clawed the steering wheel. She thought the tires would fly.
'Stupid,
stupid, stupid,' she murmured to herself. She couldn't believe what Troy and
her mother were trying to do.
They want to kill him.
She wouldn't let
them get away with it. She'd be there to stop them.
Desolate
farmlands whipped past her in the late afternoon gloom. There was almost no
traffic, but she studied the dashboard clock with nervous impatience as the
minutes ticked closer to five o'clock. In Sister Bay, she passed the wavy
harbor on her left, where a handful of early sailboats bobbed in the slips, and
then she accelerated on to the empty road heading north. The sky felt low over
her head. She passed ruined barns in overgrown fields, where flocks of birds
screeched into flight at the noise of her car. On her left, she saw the
soldier-like rows of trees guarding the bluffs over the bay.
She
still had fifteen minutes ahead of her and only ten minutes before the ferry
left the dock.
Tresa
continued deeper into the countryside on the huge zigzag that marked the last
miles leading to the port. Headlights beamed ahead of her. She hugged the right
shoulder as a car passed her heading south. Almost immediately, another car
followed, and then another, and then another. She knew what it meant to see so
many vehicles in quick succession. The ferry had landed, belching out cars on
to the mainland. They'd be loading up for the last journey of the day. She was
running out of time.
She
saw the last car in the parade. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the driver behind
the headlights, and she realized it was Hilary. She braked and leaned on her
horn to attract her attention, but when she looked in her rear-view mirror, the
car had disappeared into the shadows. Hilary was gone. She slowed, debating
whether to turn around, but if she took the time to chase her, she lost her
chance of getting to the island. Mark would be alone.
A
mile later, Tresa reached the band of S-curves leading to the ferry pier. Her
tires squealed as she spun the wheel back and forth, but finally she saw the
open water and the boat dock dead ahead. The ferry was still in port, but she
saw the gate closing on the boat behind the last vehicle. She hit the horn,
blaring it over and over, and flicking the high beams on her headlights on and
off. Her car skidded to a stop twenty feet from the ferry deck, and the rear of
the car swung wide on the concrete. She shoved the car into gear and climbed
out, waving her hands.
Tresa
saw Bobby Larch near the boat. She'd gone to school with his daughter Karen.
The large man jogged over to her car, his face pink with anger. He wasn't happy
with her.
'Tresa,
what the hell do you think you're doing?' Bobby shouted. 'Are you crazy? You
could kill somebody driving like that.'
'Mr
Larch, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, I really need to be on that ferry.' She
fumbled in her purse for cash and held out several crumpled bills. 'I've got
the fare right here, but this can't wait, it's an emergency.'
