The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (35 page)

R
HONDA WOKE UP
and wrapped a blanket around herself. She watched Warren as he slept, tempted to wake him and tell him her dream about the rabbit hole.

Instead, she stood, put on her robe, padded gently out of the bedroom, and made a pot of coffee. Then she sat on the couch with the first cup in her hand. She found the remote and pressed
PLAY
. There was Peter again, struggling with his shadow, about to wake Wendy from her innocent slumber, and ferry her off to the Neverland.

“Hey,” Warren said, as he leaned over the back of the couch and kissed the top of her head. “I smell coffee.”

“I thought you didn’t drink coffee.”

Warren laughed. “I drink it on special occasions.”

“Well, I’m honored, then. There’s a pot in the kitchen. Cream’s in the fridge. Help yourself.” She watched as he sauntered into the kitchen in his boxers, seeming perfectly at ease.

I could get used to this
, she thought, but then stopped herself. Who knew where this was going?

“What are you watching?”

“A video one of the parents shot of our last
Peter Pan
performance. Tinker Bell’s father, I think.”

“No way!” Warren said, settling in on the couch. “Rewind, I want to watch from the beginning.”

He snuggled up to her and she pointed out the key players, the best scenes, the details of each costume.

They studied the few minutes of footage that followed the play: the parade of cast and audience through the woods, up the narrow path to Rhonda’s yard, then shots of the party in the backyard lit with luau lights and tiki torches. The camera panned the yard—the feast laid out on the picnic table; the players and audience mingling, drinking, laughing. There was Rhonda in her white nightgown talking with Aggie—Rhonda looked both embarrassed and terrified by whatever Aggie was saying. And then the camera caught Peter and Lizzy having a quiet argument. Peter’s hand was wrapped around her arm and he was leaning in, whispering something in her ear. Lizzy shook her head, the only audible words Rhonda caught were Lizzy saying, “I can’t.” She watched as Peter tightened his grip on his sister’s arm, giving it a slight twist. “You will,” he told her. Then the camera zoomed in on Tinker Bell eating cake, frosting covering her tiny nose and chin.

WHEN THE VIDEO
was over, Rhonda told Warren about her dream. “I feel like, one way or another, I’ve been chasing that rabbit for years,” she said.

Warren nodded. “Maybe you’ll catch up to him one of these days. What were the slips of paper in your dream?”

Rhonda reached up and touched the scar on her forehead. “It’s silly, really. We had this…this pretend funeral in the woods that
summer. We buried this stuffed bogeyman. And Peter had us write down our fears on little scraps of paper, then dump them in on top of him. It was like we were having a funeral for fear.”

“Do you remember what you wrote on your paper?” Warren asked.

“No.”

“You’ve given Peter an awful lot of power, both in your life and in your dreams.”

Rhonda nodded. “I convinced myself he was innocent. I believed it so much that I refused to look at the evidence. But now I see that we can’t just go around creating whatever truth happens to suit us.”

Warren nodded grimly and fell silent.

“Say something,” Rhonda begged.

“I think…” He hesitated. “Rhonda?”

“What?” she asked, taking his hand.

He bit his lip. “I think you’re right. We can’t just invent truths that don’t exist. We have to face the reality of the situation, no matter how grim.”

Rhonda nodded. “That’s why I’m going to Peter with what I know.”

Warren shook his head. “No. I think you should wait.”

“Wait for what, Warren? I’ve spent my life waiting for shit that doesn’t happen. What if Peter knows something? What if he’s got Ernie locked up somewhere?”

“Then you should start with Crowley. Tell him what you know.”

“No. I need to talk to Peter first. I mean, what if I’m wrong?”

“And what if you’re not? He could be dangerous, Rhonda. At least let me come with you.”

“No,” said Rhonda. “I need to do this alone. The one thing I know for sure is that there are things he’s not telling me. If we both go, he’ll feel cornered and shut down. I might have a chance
of actually finding out something if I go alone. Can I meet you later?”

“Of course. I’m going to go back to Jim and Pat’s and get cleaned up, then I’ll be at the Mini Mart. Why don’t you head over when you’re through with Peter?”

“It’s a date,” Rhonda said.

“We can have microwave burritos and Twinkies for dinner. My treat,” Warren said.

“Ooh, so romantic.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he promised, taking her in his arms and kissing the top of her head.

In spite of everything, she was happy. But still, a little voice in the back of her head warned her not to get used to it, that the rabbit wasn’t finished with her yet.

G
O AHEAD, LOOK,”
Peter instructed, pointing to the dark space under Lizzy’s bed.

Lizzy and Rhonda had turned eleven the week before, and the remains of Lizzy’s balloons were tied to her bedpost, hovering sadly, half-deflated. The Rockette video, leg warmers, and the dancing doll she got were all sitting on her dresser, still in their packages. Rhonda had bought Lizzy a goldfish in a bowl with blue marbles and a little sunken pirate ship at the bottom. The fish died the third day, but the bowl still sat on the dresser, growing stagnant and giving off a foul odor.

Lizzy shifted from foot to foot, played nervously with her coat hanger hook.

“C’mon, you can do it,” Tock said. “Captain Hook’s not afraid of anything.”

“Who said I was scared?” Lizzy asked.

But that was the trouble. Lizzy
was
scared. And that’s why they were all there: to cure her.

For weeks she’d been afraid, and it was getting worse. She wasn’t sleeping at night, and the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a much more sinister Captain Hook. When she did go to bed, she left the lights in her room blazing. She claimed the bogeyman was out to get her. She stuffed coats and clothing under her bed so he couldn’t hide there. Then she started to be afraid in the daytime, too. It was like the bogeyman could be anywhere: in the old garage, the trunk of a car, the hole under the stage.

“Get down there and look!” Peter ordered.

“Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” Rhonda suggested.

“Go on, Lizzy, you’ll be fine,” promised Tock.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Rhonda said, placing her hand on Lizzy’s shoulder. But Lizzy shook it off and very gingerly got down on her hands and knees. When she peered under the bed, she let out a scream that made the hairs all over Rhonda’s body stand up, giving her skin a prickly feel.

“Pull him out,” Peter said.

“No!” Lizzy wailed.

“Help her,” Peter ordered the other two girls.

Rhonda and Tock got down on their hands and knees to help Lizzy drag the body from under the bed.

Rhonda nearly let out a scream herself when she saw the large black eyes looking back at her. She was afraid, at first, to reach out her hand to grab it. Lizzy was crying quietly beside her.

Peter had made a stuffed man out of his father’s old clothes filled with rags. His head was a nylon stocking filled with stuffing from an old pillow. Peter had glued huge felt eyes on the front of his face, like an owl. The bogeyman’s face was all eyes, big black felt ovals, no nose or mouth.

“He’s scary as hell,” Tock admitted once they’d got him out into the light.

Peter handed Lizzy a kitchen knife, and she looked at the knife, then at the bogeyman, then at Peter.

Peter said, “Kill him, Lizzy. Kill the bogeyman.”

At first, she hesitated, then she fell on him. She stabbed and stabbed, plunging the knife in, stuffing coming out of his head. The knife went through his body into the floor.

She stabbed until she was exhausted and out of tears. She collapsed on the floor. Tock went to her and stroked her knotted, greasy hair.

“You did it, Captain,” Tock whispered.

“The job’s not done yet,” Peter explained. “Now we have to bury him.”

They dragged the body out to the woods—they had to keep stopping to collect bits of him—and had a long funeral. Peter dug a deep hole next to the stage and they dumped the body in.

“Get rocks,” Peter said. And they all collected stones, large and small, and threw them into the hole, on top of the bogeyman.

“This is so he can’t rise again,” Peter explained.

They were all sweaty and smeared with dirt. Rhonda’s hands hurt from hauling rocks. Lizzy had taken off her hat, hook, and boots and looked a little more like her old self and less like a pirate.

Peter gave each of them a piece of paper and pencil.

“Write down the things you’re most afraid of,” he instructed. Rhonda’s mind went blank. Then she scribbled:
That Peter’s my brother. That he’ll stay with Tock. That Dad loves Aggie more than Mom. That Lizzy’s going truly crazy.

She looked over, trying to see what Lizzy had written on her paper, but Lizzy covered it up with her hand. And what, Rhonda wondered, had Peter written? And Tock? Surely, she wasn’t afraid of anything.

They each folded up their papers and dropped them into the hole, on top of the bogeyman.

“Good-bye, fears,” Peter said.

They all helped fill in the grave, then did a wild dance, waving their arms, doing Rockette kicks, laughing and howling, sure that Lizzy was cured, that they all were. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

I
T WAS NEARLY
three by the time Warren left. Rhonda took a shower, did the dishes, then lay down on the couch to rest. She fell asleep and had another fuzzy dream about chasing the rabbit and falling down the hole. This time, at the end of the dream, it was Lizzy she found down in the hole. Lizzy in her Captain Hook costume, only instead of the hook for a hand, she had a bloody hammer sticking out of her sleeve.

Rhonda snapped open her eyes and looked at the clock: it was almost seven.

“Shit!” she said, scrambling for the phone and punching in Peter’s number.

“Ronnie, I was just on my way out the door.”

“We need to talk, Peter.”

“Well, maybe we can meet tomorrow. I’m free in the afternoon.”

“No. This won’t wait.”

Peter let out an exasperated breath.

“I’ve got a realtor coming to look at my mom’s place in the morning and I’ve got a shitload of work to do. I’m on my way over there now. Whatever you have to tell me is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll call you then.”

“I could meet you there,” Rhonda said.

“No. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Even as he spoke these words, he was moving the phone away from his mouth to hang up, his voice fading out like a far-off AM radio station broadcasting from a place Rhonda may have heard of, but had never been.

RHONDA PULLED INTO
the driveway of Aggie’s house, parking behind Peter’s Toyota pickup, which was in front of the one-car detached garage Daniel had used as a workshop. She noticed the door to the garage was padlocked closed, the windows boarded over. She glanced up at the roof, shingles loose and moss-covered now, and remembered the day Peter had nearly jumped off to prove his father’s wings would work. She thought of the rows of coffins and wondered if they were still inside—she didn’t remember Aggie getting rid of them. What on earth might the real estate agent make of those?

Rhonda turned from the memory, made her way up the front steps onto the porch of the old house. The floorboards sagged beneath her weight. Paint was peeling. The corners were full of spiderwebs. To the right of the door, an enormous orb weaver was making its way to the center of the web, where a fly had become entangled.

Rhonda knocked. There was no answer. She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

How many times had she come through this door, running, laughing, chasing after Peter and Lizzy, shouldering a knapsack
full of Barbie dolls and pajamas, costumes from whatever play they were working on?

She stood in the front hallway, facing the closet. On a whim, she opened it. A few moth-eaten coats of Aggie’s. Daniel’s red-and-black checked hunting jacket. After all these years, his jacket hung waiting for him. Beside it, the matching hat that Peter had worn on that egg hunt long ago.

Where’s Lizzy?
Aggie had asked.

Still in the woods with the rabbit.

Rhonda shut the closet door.

“Peter?” she called. She heard a bang upstairs. Footsteps. A dragging sound.

Something didn’t feel right here. She suddenly regretted not bringing Warren along. But it was, she told herself, simply being in the old house that put her on edge. “Peter?” she called again, her voice a little weaker this time. She made her way into the living room. Same plaid couch and matching recliner. A TV covered in dust. On the wall above the fireplace, the velvet Elvis painting Daniel was so proud of. She and Lizzy had played a game called “Elvis Is Watching You,” in which they tried to find hiding places where the all-seeing eyes of Elvis couldn’t find them, and would end up chasing each other around the room laughing hysterically. In the end, Elvis always knew just where they were.

Where is she now?
Rhonda longed to ask the dusty garage sale relic. And what about little Ernie? Could Elvis’s all-seeing eyes spot her as well? Could he see all the way to Rabbit Island?

More dragging upstairs, this time just above her head. Lizzy’s old room.

She took the stairs slowly, quietly. Her body remembered where each squeaky spot was, and carefully avoided them. She got to the top and made her way down the carpeted hallway, past the collages of framed studio portraits and school photos of Lizzy and Peter. She passed Daniel and Aggie’s room. The door
was open and she glanced in to see a mountain of clothing piled on the bed. Empty cardboard boxes scattered around the floor.

The next room was Lizzy’s. The door was open. Rhonda put her back against the wall and slid sideways, like a cop on television, thinking she could spin around once she got to the doorway, draw her gun, and yell
Freeze!
But this was no cop show. And she had no gun. And it was only Peter she was going to face, not some boxy-jawed criminal. She turned slowly and peeked into the room. Peter’s back was to her. He was doing something at the foot of the bed.

Rope.

He was coiling a long piece of coarse rope.

She inhaled sharply. He heard her and turned.

“Rhonda? What the fuck? You just about gave me a heart attack! Why’d you sneak up on me like that?”

“I called your name. You didn’t answer. I heard funny noises. I guess I was kind of freaked.”

“Well that makes two of us, now. Shit! What are you doing here?” He held the coiled rope in clenched hands.

“I thought I’d drop by. See if I could give you a hand.”

Peter tossed the rope down on the bed. “Maybe you can help me get this thing out of here.” He nodded at the immense dresser that had once belonged to Lizzy. “It’s oak. It’s been in my mom’s family forever. Tock thinks we should keep it. Pass it on to Suzy.”

Rhonda nodded, stepped into the room. She went toward the closet. The metal rod Lizzy used to hang from was gone and the frame had been repainted. But there, through the hastily applied coat of paint, Rhonda could still see the ghosts of Lizzy’s pencil marks. Rhonda bent down to study them and saw the last date: August 10, 1993. The day they did their last performance of
Peter Pan
. It was as if Lizzy had stopped getting taller, refusing to grow up along with Peter and the lost boys.

“It’s a bitch though,” Peter said, slapping the top of the dresser with his open palm. “Weighs ten tons. Come on, grab a side.”

Rhonda went around and grabbed the left side of the dresser. It was nearly five feet high and four feet wide. She lifted with a grunt, and got it about an inch up, then set it down. “We’ve got to get the drawers out,” she said.

They pulled out empty drawers. Found a mothball. A couple of pennies. A single brown button. Rhonda picked up the button and held it, thinking it was the saddest, most lonely object she could imagine. A lost button from a lost girl. Rhonda slid it into her pocket when Peter wasn’t looking, then went back to her side and lifted again, nodding at Peter.

“So what did you want to talk to me about so bad?” Peter asked, lifting his own side. Together, they did a slow shuffle walk with the dresser, Rhonda going backward, aiming for the doorway. With the dresser raised, they could barely make eye contact over the top.

Rhonda took in a breath, unsure of where to begin. She’d rehearsed in the car on the way over and she decided to stick to her script. Begin with the motel, with Lizzy. Then show him the keys. But when she opened her mouth, that’s not what she started with.

“The night we did
Peter Pan
, you and Lizzy had a fight. You asked her to do something she didn’t want to do. She was scared. What was it?” Rhonda set her end of the dresser down. A few more steps and she’d be to the doorway.

Peter narrowed his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

He was lying.

Rhonda picked up her end and lifted again. Peter followed her lead and they resumed their shuffle walk.

“I went to the Inn and Out Motel,” she told him, her eyes meeting his over the flat surface of the dresser. It was time to stop playing games. Throw something at him that he couldn’t lie his way out of.

They were at the doorway now and Rhonda backed herself through. It was tight fit, and when they got to the middle, the dresser jammed. They wiggled it, but it wouldn’t squeeze through. Rhonda caught the back of her hand on a jagged edge of the metal strike plate on the doorjamb, ripping the thin skin there.

“Jesus Christ!” she said, dropping her end and pulling her hand up to inspect the cut. Peter, still in Lizzy’s room, set his end down as well.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “If it came in through the door, it’s gotta come out.” He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Rhonda, who had brought the hurt hand to her mouth, was determined to stay on track.

“Peter,” she began, the taste of blood fresh on her tongue, “I know you were at the Inn and Out Motel the day Ernie was kidnapped. And I think you were there with Lizzy.”

He looked disconcerted. “I was hiking in the state forest.”

“No,” she told him. “You were there. The license plate of your truck is listed on the registration for the room. You were there with Lizzy—or some other young, dark-haired woman from out of state who happened to register as
C. Hook
, for God’s sake—and a little girl. A little girl who I think may have been Ernestine Florucci.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Just tell me the truth, Peter. It’s time.”

“But
I am
telling the truth,” he insisted. “I had nothing to do with what happened to Ernie. The first I even heard of it was when you called me that day.”

“But you were at the motel,” Rhonda said.

“Shit, Ronnie. Let’s not do this. Just let it go, okay?”

Rhonda turned and walked down the hall toward the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To wash out my cut.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” he asked, peering at her over the jammed dresser. “I’m kind of stuck here.”

“I don’t know, Peter—figure out how we’re going to get the dresser out. And while you’re at it, you can think about telling me the truth when I get back. This is
me
, Peter. The one you used to tell everything to, remember?”

The cut itself wasn’t too bad, but the metal strike plate had been covered in some kind of black grease that Rhonda assumed probably didn’t belong in an open wound. She turned on the hot water and found a cracked sliver of soap. The water stung, and she watched it turn pink in the bowl of the sink as it mixed with her blood. Then she looked down and gasped.

There, resting on the floor, tucked against the cabinet the sink was mounted on, was a pair of tiny red sneakers. Rhonda turned off the water, dried her hands, leaned down, and picked up one of the sneakers. It was dirty, the boxy white rubber toe scuffed to gray, the untied shoelaces broken and tied back together haphazardly. Ernie’s sneaker. Rhonda’s hands began to tremble.

“You okay in there?” Peter called from the bedroom. “You’re not bleeding to death or anything, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Rhonda said. “The soap stings, that’s all.”

Think, Rhonda, think.

If her shoes were here, then that meant Ernie was. Or had been at some point.

“Oh my God,” she mumbled as the reality of the situation finally hit her.

She patted Peter’s keys in her pocket—the keys she’d found in the cemetery, which was only a ten-minute walk from here. And Aggie’s house was abandoned. He could easily keep a little girl in a place like this. The closest neighbors were Clem and Justine, and a quarter mile of thick woods separated them.

“Are you gonna help me move this thing, or what?” Peter called.

“Coming,” Rhonda shouted.

What next? She had to get help. Her cell phone was in the car. She’d get to it quickly, make the call, then come back in and stall for time. Ernie could be here, right here, somewhere in the house.

She went down the hall and opened the door to Peter’s old room. Checked the closet. Under the bed. Only dust bunnies. Had she seriously expected to find Ernie that easily?

“What are you doing?” Peter called.

“Looking for a Band-Aid! I think there’s one in my car.” She moved to Daniel and Aggie’s old room, throwing open the closet door. Nothing. Cardboard boxes and abandoned clothing.

“Rhonda, what’s going on?” Peter called from behind the dresser in the doorway down the hall.

“I’m just gonna run to my car,” she told him. She heard the scrape of a chair. Then a shuffle and slide.

Shit. Peter was scrambling over the top of the dresser.

She ran to the stairs and bounded down them, two at a time.

“Rhonda, slow down. Talk to me. Are you hurt?” He was after her now.

She got to the bottom of the stairs, tripped on the toy bear there. Hadn’t the rabbit given Ernie a white stuffed animal? A bear, right? No. It was a bunny. Of course it was a bunny. Rhonda picked up the plush animal. Tiny rounded ears. Big brown nose. Definitely a bear.

Peter was nearly at the bottom of the stairs, coming slowly, steadily.

“Why’s the garage padlocked, Peter?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know, Rhonda—tools, coffins—the same shit that’s always been in there.”

She backed her way to the front door and put her hand on the knob and turned. She raced outside, Peter right behind. She got to the garage, pounded on the locked door. “Hello?” she called. “Can you hear me?”

“What do you think you’re doing, Ronnie?” Peter asked.

“Unlock the door, Peter!”

“I can’t. I don’t have the key.”

She reached into the front pocket of her jeans, pulled the key ring with the rabbit’s foot out, and tossed the keys in his direction. They landed on the front porch with a dull clank. He doubled back and picked them up.

“Where did you get these?” he asked. He looked horrified, as if she’d thrown a severed hand at him.

“Open the door to the garage,” she demanded, trying to keep her voice calm and level.

“I told you, Ronnie, I don’t have a key. Never had one. My mother must have put that lock on years ago.” He was talking slowly and calmly, as if to an unhinged person. He jogged down the porch steps and came toward her. She saw the old shovel leaning against the garage and picked it up, as Aggie had done to Daniel years before.