The Edge of Normal (23 page)

Dad says we can move. Thank you, Reeve!

xo, Tilly

And just like that, Duke has captured Reeve LeClaire’s phone number.

FORTY-THREE

Duke makes himself comfortable in his control room, opens his laptop, and in a few clicks is scrolling down Otis Poe’s blog, a favorite place for readers to pontificate about local issues, about crime, and particularly, of late, about Randy Vanderholt and the kidnapped girls. Poe’s coverage of the case has generated a growing number of followers, who simply click his link to join the discussion. For the most part, these postings bemoan the fate of the victims, criticize law enforcement, and condemn pedophiles. Several recent posts have heaped praise on Vanderholt’s killer, an irony that Duke appreciates.

Now it’s his turn.

Using two newly created identities, Duke sends both sides of what appears as a conversational posting:

Duke sits back and smiles, watching the conversation take off.

In no time, there are indignant responses, followed by long-winded expositions on post-traumatic shock disorder, plus a few good wishes—posted with lots of exclamation points!!!—that are intended for Reggie LeClaire, Beth Goodwin, Tilly Cavanaugh, and every other victim of every other sex crime ever committed.

Duke leaves the room, fixes himself a snack, eats it in the kitchen, follows it with a cigarette, then comes back and posts:

Duke smiles, watching the responses. Some congratulate Reeve for moving on. Others rant indignantly that the poor girl’s anonymity has now been ruined by this insensitive writer. Some call him an asshole. Others, for various convoluted reasons, are glad that he has outed her.

He follows the online chatter for only a few minutes. There are other, more important tasks competing for his attention.

It takes just a quick search to locate the proper address, a few minutes more for the correct inmate number.

He pulls on latex gloves, loads paper into his printer, and prints out a few choice selections from Poe’s blog. Lastly, as a single line on a blank sheet, he prints out Reggie LeClaire’s current phone number, which he has collected thanks to Tilly’s recent text message.

He slips these sheets into a self-sealing priority mail envelope—leaving no saliva to trace, thank you very much—and addresses it to Daryl Wayne Flint, Inmate 44610906FP, c/o Olshaker Medical Hospital, Forensic Services Unit, South Turvey, Washington.

FORTY-FOUR

Saturday

The late Buster Ewing would have been dismayed to see the present state of the realty office he left to his only child. He had quit this world believing that Emily would inherit a thriving enterprise that would continue to grow, but the years have chewed away at Buster Ewing Realty. His contemporaries have grown frail and been eulogized, one by one, and the promising young employees whose careers Buster had cultivated and encouraged have all left for more lucrative endeavors.

Emily Ewing has been forced to downsize and then downsize again.

Just last month, her favorite real estate agent, a young guy named Skeeter, gave up and moved to Oregon. Now business is so slow that she has only one person working for her, a scrappy young woman named Nicole who opens the office on weekends.

But Emily Ewing’s strength is her dogged optimism, and she breezes into the office this rainy Saturday morning with a smile that defies the weather. “Good morning, Nicole! Wait until you hear what we’ve got going today,” she sings, as if this dreary day were brimming with opportunities.

Nicole welcomes Emily’s sunny attitude and appreciates her tutelage. She loves going to networking meetings, updating ads, and working with clients. She is so young that she expects life will only get better, though she’s beginning to sense how much she has to learn.

“Let me guess,” Nicole says. “You have an open house scheduled for today.”

“The Baker house!” Emily exclaims, hanging up her raincoat. “God, I love that house. The koi pond? The kitchen? And those beautiful floors!”

“Right. I did the open house there two weeks ago, remember? It was dead.”

“But this is always the slow season, with the holidays and all. Just wait, things will pick up after the Super Bowl, you’ll see.”

“So why even bother with another open house today?”

She sighs, gazing out at the gloomy weather. “I promised the Bakers.” Her smile hardens. “Besides, while I’m out of the office, you’ll have the place all to yourself. You never know when a hot client will walk in. And anyone shopping in this kind of weather has got to be a serious buyer.”

*   *   *

Two hours later, Emily Ewing is out in the rain, putting up her signs. Her heels are impractical, and the Lexus is not the ideal vehicle for carrying around so many cumbersome “For Sale” signs, but she has had a lot of practice lifting signs out of car trunks and placing them on strategic corners. Any kind of trunk, wearing any kind of shoes.

The signs are heavy, made of sturdy materials that withstand even strong winds, and each displays a flattering picture of her from an earlier, happier time. Despite the cold and rain, she’s overheated by the time she drives up the steep driveway and parks outside the three-car garage.

She uses the lockbox to let herself in. She cleans herself up, tidies the bathroom, sets out a vase of flowers, polishes the kitchen appliances, starts cookies baking in the oven, arranges stacks of her business cards, sets out newly printed four-color brochures, and waits. This is her sixth open house here, not counting Nicole’s. If nothing happens before the end of the year, she’ll have to ask the Bakers to consider another price cut, but that’s risky. The house is already worth much more than they’re asking, and she’s afraid they’ll replace her with another agent.

She’s fretting over this when she hears a car door slam, then two more. She uncovers the dish of freshly baked cookies and smiles at the family that comes in scowling.

*   *   *

Later, Emily Ewing checks the time and sighs. Is there anything she could have done differently today?

Yes, she should have downplayed the landscaping with the overweight family that complained about the small refrigerator, perhaps suggesting another fridge in the garage. And she should have come up with some kind of helpful response for the elderly couple that hated the koi pond, though it must have shown on her face that she was appalled by the idea of “filling it with concrete and putting a shed over it.”

She looks around at the house. It’s gorgeous. It deserves to be loved.

She throws the flowers away, knowing she may not be back here for days or weeks, and there’s nothing more depressing than a vase of dead flowers. She puts the six remaining cookies in a ziploc bag and carries them out to her car.

The rain has let up, but the ground is soggy and the looming evening darkens the sky. Wrapping her coat tight, she makes a mental note to limit showings to earlier hours until the days start to lengthen in the spring.

She heads down the steep driveway to retrieve the “OPEN HOUSE!” sign and is muscling it into her trunk when a vehicle turns up the driveway. She stops and squints. The sedan parks, its headlights die, the door opens, and she watches while a man’s cowboy boots find the ground. He unfolds from the car and nearly stands, but then leans back inside for a moment, and re-emerges, standing very tall while topping his head with a dove-gray felt cowboy hat.

He shuts the door and grins at her, saying, “Hey there, I’m not too late for the open house, am I?”

*   *   *

Duke can be charming when he wants to be. He smiles and flirts as he follows the woman into the house, telling her that he has just found this listing and the house might be perfect for him.

“What do you do?” Emily Ewing asks, turning on lights.

“I’m an engineer. From Colorado. Sold my business, and now I’m looking to kick back here in Jefferson. I want to live close to the mountains, but I’m done with having to shovel snow. Doesn’t snow here much, does it?”

He trails after her while she assures him that snow is rare. She shows him the home’s features, the Brazilian cherrywood floors, the imported tiles, the six-hundred-square-foot master suite.

In the kitchen, he admires the granite countertop without raising a hand to touch it. In fact, he keeps his gloves on and touches nothing.

“I like a lot of outdoor space,” he says, peering out the French doors. “How’s the back?”

“I can’t wait to show you,” she says, opening the doors. “This is a five-acre lot, and the landscaping around the house is one of its best features. They put in deer-resistant and native plants, and you’ll see that it’s just beautifully laid out.”

He follows her clicking heels out onto the back deck. “A hot tub? This is great. And there are no neighbors, are there?”

She smiles. “No one nearby. It’s very private.”

They go down the stairs onto a stone path, and she leads him over to the koi pond. “This is my favorite part!”

A few colorful fish appear in the clear water. They rise and swim close, opening and closing their whiskered mouths. More join them until several white, black, orange and yellow fish crowd the surface, making hungry kisses, hoping for food.

“Are you kidding me?” he exclaims. “Are these, whaddya call ’em, Japanese carp?”

She beams at him. “Yes, Japanese carp. Or koi, same thing.”

“Fancy that. And they come with the house?”

She confirms this, smiling while pointing out the finest specimens. “With those markings, some of these koi are really quite valuable.”

“Well now, will you look at that?” He squats down by the fishpond and places one hand on a softball-sized stone as if for balance, carefully working it loose. “And how many do you reckon we’ve got here? Ten? Fifteen?”

She squats down next to him, studying the fish. “Gosh, two dozen maybe? I can ask the—”

Duke smashes the stone against the side of her head with such force it knocks her into the pond with a splash that drenches his boots. He stands quickly, watching, breathing hard.

She floats facedown in the water, a faint, red blush trailing from her head. The fish have disappeared.

He glances at his watch and looks around. The hillside setting remains still and undisturbed. Peaceful.

He waits a full five minutes—watching for any sign of struggle, just to be sure—then carefully replaces the stone in its muddy spot, the bloody mark showing on top.

FORTY-FIVE

Sunday

Fourteen-year-old Abby Hill listens hard for clues to whatever is going on upstairs. She closes her eyes and curls up on her side, listening, locating. There’s a new sound, a repeating metallic noise that is somehow measured, but doesn’t seem to be mechanical. The noise is not directly overhead.

She opens her eyes and tries to imagine what’s above. Assuming the wall with the socket and night-light continues all the way up into the main house, the noise is coming from that room, on the other side of the wall.

Clunk, clunk
 … pause …
clunk, clunk
.…

The man grunts in relation to this sound she almost recognizes but cannot place. There’s some kind of rhythm.

She counts repetitions—seven, eight, nine, ten—then a hard noise that’s almost a crash reverberates through the floor.

Is he lifting weights?
The thought makes her cringe. She doesn’t want the man to get stronger. She wants him to weaken, and wither, and die, just like she is.

She runs her hands over her bare ribs and absently wonders why she ever wished to be skinny. She lies on her back, measuring the protrusions of her hip bones with her thumbs, and vows for the millionth time that if she ever again has the chance, she will eat as much as she can and will never, ever go on another diet. Visions of meals with her family appear, her mother serving up all her favorite foods: chocolate cake, rocky road ice cream, honey-baked ham with mashed potatoes.…

Her stomach growls and she stops. This is pointless. She’ll die here. Either she’ll starve to death, or the other man, the one she must call Master, will kill her.

She wonders idly if her body will ever be found, or whether she’ll decompose and turn to white bones in this pitch-black basement, the little night-light long burnt out. Will she turn into a skeleton, like in the movies, forgotten here for a hundred years until the house collapses, timbers and dust raining down, burying her remains in rubble?

The noise continues above:
Clunk, clunk
 … pause …
clunk, clunk
.…
Slam!
with a sharp curse.

She lies still, clasping her arms across her chest, careful of the burns, listening to the sudden stillness above, waiting for the repetitions to resume.

Nothing.

She waits, but hears only silence.