Drawn Into Darkness(64)

Sure thing, Mr. Stoat, sir, whatever you say. I handed him the keys, noticing that he was taking the duct tape with us; he had lodged it, an oversized silver bracelet, on his arm. Like a pair of mediocre contortionists linked by duct tape and a dangerous stick, we got out of the van and, hampered by trees, sticker vines, and armadillo holes, bumbled toward the house.

The sight of my own white aluminum back door, once we finally got there, seemed like the strangest, most bizarre and grotesque thing in the world to me, utterly alien. Hazy with anxiety about eggs and bread, I could not remember whether I had left the door locked. And the stench coming from inside the house didn’t help. I knew what smelled but I did not want to see it or think about it. Poor Schweitzer. So much had happened since I’d left him yapping his cute little dachsie-moron bark, and almost none of it good.

Stoat prodded me with the shotgun from behind. I reached out to open the door and it gave way like an ulcerating wound beneath my touch. I walked into my own home a stranger and a hostage. I saw the items lined up, Stoat-fashion, on my kitchen table. I knew what else Stoat had done in my house. I tried not to look for Schweitzer, but my eyes refused to obey me. They forced my mind to focus on the place where Schweitzer must have met Stoat at the front door—

My dead pet wasn’t there. Instead, I saw a rectangle of carpet cut away.

I felt my jaw drop and I must have made some sort of involuntary yawp. Stoat demanded, “What?”

I pointed.

“What the fuck?” Stoat complained, dumping the van keys and his duct tape on top of my microwave. “Some asshole got rid of your dead dog. Big hairy deal.”

But it was a big deal. It was huge. Somebody had been here, blessedly turned on the air-conditioning, and taken care of Schweitzer. Somebody was aware and maybe even cared that I was in some kind of trouble. Who could it be?

Justin! Had Justin gone to the police?

Eerily, as if he had heard me thinking, Stoat gave a laugh like a gunshot, explosive and brief. “No, it ain’t Justin,” he said curtly. “He’s in the swamp. Feeding the gators. I took care of him.”

• • •

Sitting in the living room with Chad and his father while they all sipped iced tea and talked, Amy very much saw Chad in the slim, quiet older man. Watching him, she imagined Chad as he might become when age had beaten him into a more refined, stronger if less shining kind of steel. She intuited that Ned—“Please call me Ned,” he had told her with a shy smile—Chad’s father could be counted on. Maybe that hadn’t been the case in the past, but Amy believed people could change. Otherwise, what hope was there for the world?

“It’s all right, Oliver.” Amy patted the dog, who was sitting on her feet after trying to make friends with Meatloaf, who did not return the sentiment. “You just let him alone and he’ll let you alone.” Although smaller than Oliver, Meatloaf didn’t seem to know it.

“That’s right, Oliver.” Chad spoke solemnly from across the room. “You listen to Amy.”

She glanced at her husband, unsure whether he was being snide or serious, but the moment she looked at him, he looked away. Okay, so he was going through some kind of crisis that had driven him to his father for help, but she wished she knew what it was. Coming home, he hadn’t hugged her or kissed her, which was no surprise. But she felt as if he wasn’t as angry at her as before, and oddly, that concerned her. Chad seemed to be following his father’s lead, unsure of himself. Where had his confidence gone?

He bit his lower lip, swallowed, and turned suddenly to look at her. For the past hour and a half, he had let his dad do most of the talking as Ned and Amy got to know each other and caught up on missing years. They had even talked about a heartache named Justin.

But now Ned seemed almost out of questions, and Amy felt sure Chad had something to say to her, yet felt hesitant. It was not like Chad to need help.

Would he welcome hers?

Amy took a chance. “Chad, what is it? What’s got you spinning your tires?”

He swallowed hard, then said, “Us.” He sat on the edge of his chair to lean toward her, his elbows on his knees and his big hands clutching each other. “It’s just that, um . . .” He took a deep breath, then spoke rapidly, as if he needed momentum to get through this. “Amy, why don’t we go away for a week or ten days, you and me, to try to get us back the way we used to be? We can go camping or something. Dad will take care of things here.”

Amy felt a rush of joy, delight, tenderness—oh, Chad, you’re so sweet!—and at the same time a surge of wrath, frustration, rage. Men! He thinks this is all he has to do to fix everything? Other contradictory emotions—a suspicion of sudden bright ideas, an attraction to restaurants, worries about the kids and cat and house, an expectation of change, a fear of change—all jostled Amy at the same time, rendering her incapable of an immediate response. Her mouth opened but no words came out.