The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (34 page)

H
AD LIZZY REALLY
come back? Was it possible? Why would Peter keep something like that a secret? And the dark-haired little girl at the motel…it couldn’t be Ernie, could it?

Every question Rhonda asked led to new questions, and she felt she was spinning her wheels in sand.

Maybe, Rhonda thought, she’d been focusing on the disappearance of the wrong girl. Somehow or other, Lizzy was tied into it, and in order to understand what happened to Ernie, maybe Rhonda needed to start with Lizzy.

Safely ensconced in her apartment, Sadie on her lap and an open bottle of beer on the coffee table, Rhonda picked up the remote for the VCR and pressed
PLAY
.

The camera scanned the crowd before the opening act. There were Clem and Justine. Laura Lee in her silver gown. Daniel next to her, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, no bags packed be
side him, no bus ticket sticking out of his pocket. And there was Aggie, tumbler of gin in one hand, cigarette in the other. Everyone looked young and healthy and like they’d be around forever.

Then Rhonda and the O’Shea boys were on the stage, tucked into their tiny beds, when outside the window, the audience heard a crow. There he was—Peter Pan lighting down on the window, crawling through like a cat burglar, a thief of children, a fairy king. He moved like water. He was that graceful. His body all elastic energy. Peter at fourteen. Rhonda leaned forward for a better look, wanting so badly to crawl into that scene, to be back on the stage, to remember what it was like.

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning,” she found herself mumbling. How many times had she caught herself mouthing these words as if it were some magic incantation?

The pounding on the door made her jump. She pushed
PAUSE
, held Sadie in her arms, and went to see who it was.

“I told you to stay away from my mother,” Tock stormed into the apartment, her gray eyes nearly black. “Who the fuck do you think you are? What the hell do you get out of harassing some sick old lady? What is it you think she’s going to tell you?”

“Nothing…I…”

“Do you seriously think she could have
anything
to do with what happened to Ernie?”

Rhonda took a step back.

“Do you?”

“No, but she might know something…”

“Know what? What might she know, Ronnie? The perfect sangria recipe?”

“Sometimes,” Rhonda said, “people have clues that they don’t even know are clues.”

“Oh, that’s very fucking profound. Here’s a clue that it’s time you picked up on: if you don’t stay the fuck away from my mother, I’ll have the cops arrest you for harassment. Everyone
wants to give poor little Rhonda a pass because she’s so fragile, so innocent. I’m over it, Rhonda. You need to grow the fuck up and move the fuck on and take some fucking
responsibility
.”

Rhonda squinted at Tock. What she saw in the other woman’s eyes wasn’t simply rage: it was fear. “You think she might know something, too, don’t you?”

“Jesus, Rhonda!”

“Maybe part of you wonders if Peter is involved. I mean, it’s clear he wasn’t hiking in the park that day, right? And if he lied to you about that…”

“Peter doesn’t lie to me.”

Rhonda thought of telling Tock about the girl in the motel, about finding Peter’s keys in the cemetery. But then Tock looked past Rhonda into the living room and saw the frozen image in the TV screen: Peter bending over Rhonda in her cot.

“You are
pathetic
,” Tock said. “Stay away from my family.” She turned and left, slamming the door. Sadie jumped in Rhonda’s arms.

“It’s okay, girl,” Rhonda cooed to the little white pig, her own voice shaking. “Everything’s just fine.”

But that was a lie. In the past eleven days, Rhonda’s entire life had been turned upside down. She’d let a girl be kidnapped and come to question everything she thought she knew about Peter. Now Tock hated her, which probably meant she’d never see Peter again. She stared at the image of fourteen-year-old Peter on the screen.

Second star to the right
, she thought.

But she couldn’t go back. She could only move forward.

Rhonda sat back down on the couch, but didn’t press
PLAY
. She picked up the phone instead and dialed the number for the Find Ernie hotline. Warren picked up on the first ring.

“It’s Rhonda,” she said. “I was hoping you could get out of there and meet me for a beer. I’m going a little crazy here.”

“Sure,” Warren said. “Name the place.”

Rhonda laughed. There was only one bar in town. “The Silver Dollar. It’s out on Route 6. Past the state forest.”

“I know where it is.”

“Good. Bring your cowboy hat and your singing voice—it’s karaoke night. Two-dollar drafts and an order of wings on the house if you buy a pitcher.”

“Hot damn! I’m there!” he said.

NOT LONG INTO
their second pitcher, Rhonda told Warren about how she’d spent her entire life pining away after Peter.

It was a relief to be honest about her feelings for once. To have someone to tell the whole story to. She thought that maybe, if she talked about it, if she got it all out, she’d be purged. And ready to move forward at last.

Warren nodded, chewed his lip. “So you’re in love with him?” He looked away from her and down into his beer. Beer he wasn’t technically even old enough to be drinking, but like any resourceful college student, he carried a fake ID. Behind him, a string of Western lights with little plastic lassos, hats, and horses glowed against the rough wood paneled wall. They were shouting to hear each other over the noise of the other patrons and the guy on stage murdering an old Hank Williams song.

Rhonda laughed, shook her head. “I’ve decided it’s not even really Peter I’m in love with. It’s the
idea
of Peter. But I’m not even sure what that means anymore. I think he might be involved, Warren.”

“Involved?”

“In taking Ernie. He was working on Laura Lee’s bug in the shop when Katy said the rabbit picked Ernie up from school. And I found his keys in the cemetery.”

“What? When?”

“That day you and I went. I hid them. I just couldn’t tell you then. I couldn’t believe Peter might have had anything to do with what happened to Ernie. It wasn’t the truth I was working so hard to find, but my own twisted little version of it. Just like it’s not the real Peter I’ve been in love with, but an eleven-year-old girl’s idea of a boy who’s half real boy, half Peter Pan.”

“Have you shown anyone the keys? Peter? Crowley?”

“No one. You’re the first person I’ve told. But there’s more. Carl, who works at Pat’s, saw Peter on the day of the kidnapping at a motel in town. I think he was with Lizzy…and that they may have had Ernie.”

“His
sister
Lizzy? I thought you said she’d run away or been kidnapped or something when you were still kids?”

Rhonda nodded. “I think she came back.”

“But why would they take Ernie?”

Rhonda blew out a frustrated breath.

“I don’t know. None of it makes any sense. But there’s one way to find out. I’m ready for the
real
truth, this time. I’ll just tell him that if he doesn’t level with me, I’m going straight to Crowley with what I have.” She stood up, swaying, and reached to steady herself on the table, sending their glasses tottering.

“Whoa there, cowgirl,” Warren stood up, placed a steadying arm around her. “I don’t think you’re in the shape to go confronting anyone. It’ll wait till morning. I’ll go with you. We’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise. In the meantime, I’m gonna take you home.”

RHONDA WAS NOT
a drinker, and the beer had made her feel brave and floaty and like she could do or say anything.

“I should go,” Warren said. He was hovering in her doorway.

“Why’s that?” Rhonda said.

“Because you’re a little drunk.”

“Actually, I’m a lot drunk. But I know what I’m doing. I want you to come in.” She held out her hand. He took it, and she pulled him into the hall and kissed him. She staggered backward, taking him with her, the kiss uninterrupted. She hit the wall, her head landing beside her drawing of the eviscerated rabbit. Warren pulled away.

“I need to go,” he said, his voice a husky whisper, his eyes moving from her face to the dissected bunny beside her.

“Stay, Warren. I really want you to stay.” She kissed him again.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said, pulling back. “You have no idea how much I want to. It’s just that…”

“You’ve got a girlfriend, right?” It was Rhonda who pulled away now. “Waiting for you back in Pennsylvania?”

“No,” Warren said. “That’s not it. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Is it because of everything I told you about Peter? Because if that’s it…”

“That’s not it.”

“Let me guess,” Rhonda said, smiling, drawing him to her, her fingers hooked in the belt loops of his jeans. “You’re a monk and you’ve taken a vow of celibacy?”

He shook his head, smiling as she pulled him down the hall toward her bedroom.

“Is it our age difference? Am I like an old lady to you?”

“Definitely not,” he said.

“Remember what you told me…how everything happens for a reason? Maybe this is it. Maybe this is part of why I was there in that parking lot when Ernie was taken. So I would meet you.”

“Rhonda, it was—” She put a finger on his lips.

“Shhh.”

Warren looked slightly worried.

“What do you feel right now?” she asked him.

“Too much,” he said.

“Good,” she told him. “That’s just perfect.”

She started to unbutton his shirt. Then she switched over to her own. Only when they were naked on the bed, kissing, did she tell him the truth.

“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered.

Warren pulled away. She guided him back on top of her.

“I want you to be the first,” she said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She was sure.

WHILE WARREN SLEPT
naked beside her, Rhonda dreamed of the rabbit. In the dream, she was a child again, chasing the giant white Easter Bunny through the seemingly endless woods behind her house. Brambles scraped at her face. She twisted her ankles on roots and loose stones. The rabbit ran ahead of her, stopped and waited until she’d nearly caught up with him, then bolted off through the trees. Soon, she was lost—unsure of the landscape around her. Then she looked up just in time to see the rabbit jump down into a hole, and eagerly, without fear, she followed.

The rabbit hole was a moist, earthy tunnel that smelled of worms and grubs, deep underground smells.
Here,
she thought,
here is where I will find what I’m looking for,
but in the dream she couldn’t recall just what that might be.

Peter!
Rhonda cried in her dream, there in the dark of the cave, in the heart of his burrow, where she hoped the hidden rabbit would hear her and take pity.
Peter.

And then, he appeared. Not the rabbit, but
her
Peter, only he was young again—thirteen or fourteen maybe—and he was dressed in his costume from their play, covered in his green suit of leaves, a ring of them woven like a crown around the top of his curly head. When he appeared in the cave, it filled with light, as if he was imbued with the power to dispel darkness, to banish
fear. She studied each detail of him, her beautiful Peter, running her fingers over the scar on his forehead just above his right eye. Even though he shouldn’t have had the scar yet, the cut came later, in the dream she didn’t question it. And there at the bottom of the rabbit hole, she threw her arms around him, thinking him a miracle. She let herself kiss him, her mouth fumbling against his in the half light, so happy to be rescued, so happy that she had realized that this was just what the rabbit was supposed to lead her to, this was where she was meant to be, now and forever. But then she pulled back and saw that he had blood on his hands and face. His cut was open again, and he was bleeding from the forehead. In his hands, he held tiny pieces of crumpled paper.

Our fears
, he whispered.
Do you remember?

A
FTER PETER AND
Rhonda left the coffin workshop, they walked across the driveway to his house. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. Aggie was doing the dishes in the kitchen, scrubbing at the cake pan, the big plastic bowls that held the salads. Peter called, “Night, Wendy,” and walked off to his room. Rhonda found Lizzy in her own room, stretched out on top of the covers in her Captain Hook outfit, pretending to be asleep. Rhonda could tell she was faking, but didn’t feel like talking anyway. Lizzy had laid out a nightgown for Rhonda on top of the extra bed. They’d planned all week for Rhonda to spend the night, and although Rhonda wanted more than anything to go home, she didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions from Justine—
Did you have a fight? Are you okay?
Lately Justine always asked a million questions anyway whenever Rhonda got back from a night at Lizzy’s:
What did you do? How late were you up? Was Aggie there? Peter? Daniel?

Rhonda slipped on her nightgown, lay down in the twin bed next to Lizzy’s. The room glowed from a rocking horse night-light plugged into the outlet next to the closet. Rhonda could see the pencil lines and dates Lizzy had scribbled on the frame of the closet doorway to measure her growth. She could see the last measurement was from July 1. So Lizzy hadn’t given up on being a Rockette. This gave Rhonda hope. She lay there listening to Lizzy’s fake snore, wondering if, once the play was over, she’d get the good Lizzy back. The door to the bedroom creaked open, then closed. Rhonda turned. No one was there. She shut her eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of a Lizzy so tall that she bumped her head on the ceilings.

She woke up later to find that Lizzy had crawled into bed next to her and had placed the hook on her pillow, next to Rhonda’s head, so that it was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. The next thing she noticed was the foul smell coming from Lizzy: a mixture of body odor, stale urine, and breath as bad as any dog’s she’d ever smelled.

“I have a secret,” Lizzy whispered, her fetid breath hot on Rhonda’s face. “Do you want to hear?”

Rhonda closed her eyes and turned so that she was facedown, being comfortably smothered by the pillow. She waited, playing possum, wondering if Lizzy would tell her secret anyway, but she didn’t. Rhonda’s cheek was pressed against Lizzy’s hook, and when she awoke the next morning, she had a red mark there, like a scar.