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  “But what?”

  Logan swallowed hard. He hadn’t really faced what it was that scared him so much about telling Milo how he felt until this very moment. Somehow Kathy had made him see it. And when he spoke the words out loud, he knew they were absolutely true.

  “I’m afraid I’ll scare him off.”

  “Baby,” Kathy cooed, “let me ask you something. When you make love, does he cling to you afterward? Do you hold each other and talk about really stupid stuff for hours on end? And when he kisses you out of the blue, do you automatically close your eyes and lose yourself in the way he tastes?”

  Logan grunted in exasperation. “What the hell are you talking about? That’s the dumbest th—”

  “Tell me. Do you?”

  For some reason, Logan felt like he had a balled-up pair of socks stuck in his throat. He was sitting in his desk chair now, and he wasn’t exactly sure how or when he’d arrived there. Nor was he sure when he had opened the desk drawer and taken out his old wedding ring and slipped it on. The ring whose mate was still resting on Jerry’s poor cold finger, two thousand miles away.

  He stared at the ring now. As always, he loved the way the unblemished silver glinted in the light. He loved the perfect symmetry of it and the familiar weight of it on his finger. On his hand. The way it caused memories to come flooding in. Happy memories. Memories of him and Jerry.

  Kathy was waiting. He could feel her frustration radiating through the receiver like heat rolling off a potbellied stove. He could hear her softly breathing in little gasps, impatient as usual. He thought he could feel her smiling too, as if she already knew what he was going to say. And she was right. She probably did.

  Logan gave an exasperated sigh, knowing he couldn’t deny any of those things even if he wanted to. God, Kathy was a pain in the ass. “Yes,” he admitted. “To all those questions, yes.”

  “And when I called you just now, you were hoping it was him, weren’t you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then tell him, Logan. Tell him the next time you see him. Make it the very first thing that comes out of your mouth. Can you do that?”

  “I—I think so.”

  “I’m happy for you, you know. I was happy for you and Jerry when you got together, and I’ll be happy for you this time too. That’s because I love you.”

  “I know,” Logan said, his voice catching, his eyes misting up. “I love you too, Kath. I guess there was a reason Jerry thought you were the smartest woman on the planet.”

  She giggled at that. Finally. A lessening of tensions. Detente. “I’m glad he recognized my many talents.”

  Silence settled over the phone for a minute. It lasted until Logan asked in a breathless, desperate hush, “Do you think Jerry will understand?”

  Logan heard a tiny intake of breath. Followed immediately by “Yes, baby. I think he’ll understand. I know he’ll understand. He wanted you to be happy when he was here, and now that he’s gone, he still wants you to be happy. I know he does.”

  “You truly believe that, don’t you?”

  “I truly do.”

  Another short silence, this one less tortured, settled between them. Logan drew in a trembling breath. “Thank you, Kath. I think I finally believe it too.”

  With a smile in her voice, she said, “Good. And you’re welcome. I’m happy for you, Logan. You’re a good person. You deserve to be loved.”

  “Milo’s a good person too.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “I’ll be a blubbering mess if he says no.”

  “He won’t say no.”

  “I love him to death.”

  “No,” Kathy said. “Not to death. Not this time. Just love him now. Love him today and tomorrow. Love him during every minute that ticks by with the two of you in it.”

  Logan smiled. “You’re a poet.”

  “Oh be quiet.” And softly, oh so softly, she made a kissy sound and disconnected the call.

  Five minutes later, scared to death, Logan was out the door and heading for his car.

  He drove the city streets, barely watching where he was going, his mind a maelstrom. When he spotted the exit for Milo’s street up ahead, he didn’t turn. He didn’t even slow down. He realized suddenly he had another destination in mind. He’d had it in mind all along; he just hadn’t been smart enough to know it. When he admitted to himself what it really was, his worried face broke into a grin for the first time since Kathy’s call.

  “First things first,” he muttered to the empty car and to all the disinterested people whizzing past him on either side, absorbed in their own little stupid pursuits. With a smile broad enough to squeeze his eyes into such squinty little lines he could barely see where he was going, he whispered under his breath, “Backup. Gotta have backup.”

  Goosing the accelerator, he shot past Milo’s street and headed for the freeway.

  Chapter Ten

  SINCE IT was the tail end of winter, the mercury in the thermometer hovered between seventy-five and eighty. El Centro natives call that a cold snap. In summer months the temperature perpetually tops a hundred. Sometimes a hundred and ten. Every blessed day. The natives call that normal.

  Miserable, dry, bleached out, and baked to within an inch of its life—thanks to 350 days of scorching sunshine a year—El Centro, California, sits forty feet below sea level at the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert like a chunk of bacon sizzling in a skillet. Located just above the Mexican border abutting Mexicali, El Centro is the winter home of the Blue Angels, the US Navy’s elite precision flying team.

  More importantly, as far as tonight’s festivities were concerned, El Centro was also home to Evelyn Tomes, aka BookBlogger.com.

  It took a mere thirty minutes of research, padding quietly across the internet like a cat burglar, to learn BookBlogger lived in a mobile home situated all by itself in the uglyass desert wasteland outside El Centro’s city limits. There the ancient single-wide Fleetwood trailer sat propped up on crumbling concrete blocks, roasting and rotting among the dunes and sagebrush.

  The whole place shimmered with neglect. Rust stains trailed down the corrugated walls, which on any given day of the year were too hot to touch with bare hands. Out front, a patio covered with lopsided, sun-warped latticework offered the only shade. Under the latticed rooftop, standing dead in their pots in the sweltering air, stood a few desiccated rosebushes that hadn’t bloomed in years. Tucked in among the rosebushes stood a single thriving cactus, the only touch of green on the place. The cactus hadn’t been watered in months, but that didn’t seem to bother it one little bit. After all, with or without attention, cacti were the only things that could thrive in this miserably hot climate. Well… cacti, rattlesnakes, and sweat.

  Looking as it did, it was a safe bet the Tomes homestead would not be featured in the Celebrity Style section of Architectural Digest anytime soon. Firstly, because the place was a fucking dump, and secondly, because Evelyn Tomes was no celebrity.

  The fact that she was known anywhere at all outside her desert-baked hovel of a home was surprising enough. The fact that she was known to the fairly sophisticated world of writers and reviewers and those who cherished the written word was nothing short of amazing. However, to be known is not always to be loved. In fact, in literary circles, Evelyn Tomes, no matter how apropos her name might be to her occupation, was internationally recognized as a nasty, ill-tempered bitch. Especially after one read a few of the vicious book reviews that chased each other across her blog like rabid dogs, snapping and snarling at any unsuspecting author they could sink their malevolent teeth into. The traveler stood in the shadows, all but invisible, not more than fifty yards from Evelyn’s crappy trailer. Overhead, the broad, star-specked desert sky spread its canopy endlessly and gloriously from one horizon to the other. At the moment, from those very same shadows, the sound of chuckling could be heard, and that chuckling resembled the sound of brittle leaves tumbling and dancing along an empty street, pushed by an arid wind. There w
as no humor in the sound. It was more a death rattle than a laugh. Bloodless and dry, yet oddly high-pitched. An omen of things to come, perhaps. And at that thought, the chuckle deepened.

  The reasons for laughter were threefold. First, the traveler had been anticipating this night for a very long time. Second, it was amusing that Evelyn should live in such a fleapit when the home she displayed on her blog was a Tudor mansion parked majestically among a stand of towering ponderosa pines. With leaded windows and ivy-covered walls, the blog mansion sat regally upon a perfectly groomed lawn. The lawn sloped down to a lake and was spotted with topiaries, impeccably molded into the shape of whimsical forest creatures. The truth was far less whimsical. In fact, the only forest creature that might visit this dump was perhaps a scraggly, mange-riddled coyote, slouching in from the desert looking for a place to shit.

  Lastly, the laughter derided the fact that in the photos on her review site, Evelyn portrayed herself as a beautiful young woman, prone to wearing caftans and saris draped across her luscious, lithe frame. She also sported caramel skin, almond eyes, and a long mane of lustrous black hair that hung fetchingly across her shoulders in deep billowing waves. Eyeing the crappy trailer and the dusty lot it sat on might lead one to entertain a sneaky suspicion that the woman’s looks, like her residence, would be another broken promise. Not that our merry trespasser truly cared. It would be fun to kill the bitch no matter how she looked.

  Tucked in among a stand of chaparral and tumbleweeds, the traveler stood watching the trailer for a while. A rental car was parked over a rise and well off the highway, hidden in a copse of teddy bear cholla—a cutesy-named indigenous tree with spines so deadly they would gleefully rip the meat from your bones if you were dumb enough to get tangled up in them. An endlessly beautiful sunset had provided a truly lovely viewing experience as the horizon turned from pink, to red, to puce, before the darkness finally claimed victory, erasing the colors from the sky completely. At one point, the schkking of a rattlesnake sounded in the bushes not far away, but the traveler remained motionless until the beastie finally slithered off. Two fellow predators nodding respectfully in passing, doffing their hats, then moving along to wreak their own individual havoc.

  From this vantage point, the traveler could see an old station wagon, caked in dust, parked at the side of Evelyn’s trailer. When darkness deepened, lights came on inside, illuminating the trailer’s grimy windows. A shadow moved inside what was probably the kitchen, seen through a god-awful ugly calico curtain with sunflowers on it, rotted limp by the sun. Evelyn preparing dinner, perhaps, or puttering around at the sink. The shadow was huge and moved with the rolling gait of a sea lion.

  The mysterious figure hiding in the bushes snickered mirthlessly. That settled it. BookBlogger had lied with her profile pic too.

  On the desert air, overpowering the stench of sage and dust, wafted the heavy scent of lard frying, and shortly after, the unmistakable greasy reek of tortillas crisping.

  There had been no sign of dogs or anyone other than the single occupant inside the trailer. No telephone rang. No canned laughter from TV shows blathered its forced camaraderie into the evening quiet. Even the highway was far enough away that the sound of passing automobiles barreling through the desert night could barely be heard.

  Evelyn and her visitor were all alone, separated by only a rusted aluminum shell and a sun-bedraggled calico curtain.

  This time the traveler wore a cheap pair of Walmart coveralls over street clothes and a new pair of Playtex gloves. Canary yellow. The sort a housewife might wear to clean her kitchen sink. From the coverall pockets the traveler fished out a pair of blue paper medical booties, then pulled them over dusty shoes. A taupe length of sheer nylon, cut from a pair of panty hose, and pulled snugly over head and face, formed a mask to cover the hair and mold what the traveler considered rather pleasant features into a melted horror.

  Lastly, the shadowy figure in the chaparral extracted a plastic shopping bag from a back pocket. It was, in fact, the very bag the coveralls came in, and it crinkled in the darkness very prettily, the traveler thought. Very crisp. Very innocent. Very lethal.

  Funny what you could transform into a murder weapon if you really set your mind to it.

  With face well hidden, as always, and tools in place, the figure in the bushes was left with only pinpricks of starlight overhead and a square of dirty light spilling through BookBlogger’s filthy kitchen window from which to take bearings. Stepping out of the bushes on long legs and quickly crossing the crusty ground, the shadowy figure ducked beneath the latticed patio that sheltered the trailer’s front door.

  The front steps tucked against the base of the trailer consisted of fat concrete blocks, stacked haphazardly atop each other. Uncemented and wobbly, they made a crunchy, grinding noise underfoot.

  Not giving a shit about the noise, the visitor rapped merrily on the Fleetwood’s ratty front door with a canary-yellow hand. A moment later the whole structure swayed as the gigantic shadow inside approached the sound.

  “Coming!” a sweet, melodious voice called out. The voice spoke in an Australian accent, which was surprising but quickly forgotten. The traveler didn’t care if BookBlogger enunciated like the Queen of England, sang like Julie Andrews, and scatted jazz like Ella Fitzgerald. It was the words she put in her blog that had decided her fate, not the manner in which she uttered them in real life.

  Evelyn Tomes pulled open her squeaking front door and peered outside. Squinting into the darkness, she flicked a switch, and a naked 100-watt bulb hanging at the side of the door illuminated her visitor the same as it illuminated her. As expected, Evelyn looked absolutely nothing like the photo on her blog. She was huge. Her hair hung greasily around a circular, pallid face bedecked with far too much makeup, poorly applied. Nary a square inch of caramel skin or a single almond eye was in sight. A pudgy hand with a cheap ring on every finger rose to clutch at a string of dirty beads dangling down over a massive bosom. Obviously braless, that bosom swayed, unhindered, like great pendulous weights beneath the bodice of a gaudy floral muumuu. Evelyn’s eyes rolled over her visitor in amazement. She took in the coveralls, the Playtex gloves, the blue paper booties. When her startled gaze settled on the nightmarish face sheathed in nylon, they widened in fear.

  “No!” she exclaimed. But even as she cried out her nonsensical response to an unasked question, her eyes suddenly filled with a terrible understanding. A horrible, dawning terror bloomed in her gaze. Her mouth fell slack, and her gaze flitted to the side. Without warning, she reached out a heavy trembling hand to slam the door in her caller’s face.

  But her caller was quicker.

  A foot shot out, and the flimsy metal door sprang back into the woman’s face with a most satisfying crunch. She bellowed in pain and stumbled backward, rivulets of blood already sluicing down across her mouth, spattering red droplets across her bodice. Pinwheeling her arms, she tried unsuccessfully to regain her balance. Clutching at her injured face as a fresh wave of terror widened her eyes, she crashed against the opposite wall, then cowered there, trying to shrink as far away from her intruder as she could.

  Which wasn’t nearly far enough.

  The traveler crossed the room in two long strides. As Evelyn raised her arms to ward off her attacker, a hand swept out to backhand her across the face. Flung sideways by the blow, she struck her head on the corner of an end table, sending a lamp crashing to the floor and opening a cut on her forehead that smeared another stream of blood across her face.

  With the last injury, she released a pitiful mewling scream.

  As her attacker approached yet again with a hand drawn back to strike once more, she wept with horror, “Please don’t rape me!”

  At that, her visitor froze. Even through the nightmarish stocking that warped the features beneath it, an expression of disgusted wonderment could be seen. The traveler stared down at the woman and burst into laughter. And while the laughter fairly bubbled out, a gloved hand reached down to where
Evelyn Tomes lay sprawled across the floor like a beached whale and gently—and quite respectfully, it seemed—tugged down the hem of her muumuu to cover the fat, pale leg that had been exposed in her fall.

  “Trust me,” the traveler said, still quaking with high-pitched laughter. “Your virtue is safe with me.”

  Evelyn’s eyes were skittering all over the place now. The lean visitor could see her trying to decide what to do. What she could use for a weapon. How she could get away. But it was all fantasy. In truth, there was nothing she could do at all. For all intents and purposes, she was as good as dead already.

  Somehow the fact that she probably knew it pleased her attacker greatly.

  Composed now, although a smile was still threatening to rear up any second through the nylon mask, the attacker regarded the bleeding face with cool, unpitying eyes.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” the traveler asked.

  Evelyn Tomes smeared a rivulet of blood away from her mouth with the back of her hand while a sprig of rebellion flashed in her eyes. “Yes. You’re the one I’ve read about. You must be. It’s—it’s because you don’t like my reviews.”

  The lean figure crossed arms over a narrow chest and stared down at the woman, stunned by the understatement of what she’d said and spoke gleefully even while the laughter threatened to bubble back up. “Oh, my dear, you have no idea how much I don’t like your reviews. You have no idea how much I don’t like any of your reviews.” The attacker leaned down, speaking louder with every sentence, eyes flashing with fury, foam forming in the corners of the snarling mouth wet the stocking that covered it. Spittle flew. “I see you all over the web. Gladreads, Amazon, a dozen other review sites. Trashing books left and right. Laughing at the authors. Treating them like fools. Sometimes you trash and mock as many as five or six books a day.” Leaning even closer, the voice broke into an infuriated scream. “So what are you, a fucking speed-reader?”

  Evelyn’s fat hands with all the rings on them clutched the beads at her throat. Even in the midst of fighting back a sob of panic, her eyes turned mean. “You can’t do this. You can’t just come into my home and….”