The Pet Part 12

Something moved in the rain.

It pa.s.sed across streets without making a sound; it pa.s.sed under streetlamps without leaving a shadow; it walked through 117.

a puddle and the water remained still; it brushed by a hedge and the branches didn't move.

A dog on the porch next to Adam Hedley's home began yapping, pulling at the leash that held it to the door, howling once, snarling, thencowering with a whimper against the welcome mat when it moved up the walk and fixed the terrier with a stare, turned around, and moved away; and the dog began trembling, snapping at its legs, growling at its tail, urinating on the mat and foaming slightly at the mouth.

Something moved in the rain, without making a sound.

The room was large and perfect. The furniture was new enough to keep its shine and already old enough to be comfortable when used: the bed was canopied just the way Chris liked it, the desk and chair were straight from Regent Street in London, the soft rainbow rug from India, the loveseat under the window from a little shop in SoHo she had discovered two years ago. The walls were papered in white and flocked gold, the ceiling freshly plastered, the alabaster lamps with just the right touch of frills but not so feminine that it looked like a room belonging to a girl who wanted only a husband and two kids to complete her life. In the far corner was an upright piano, sheet music piled on the bench and ready to fall.

Next to the desk was an open door leading into her private bathroom. It had been one of the requirements for her agreeing to leave Manhattan-that she have as much a private environment as possible to keep the rest of the house out of her affairs, if not out of her life; had she thought it possible she would have lobbied for a private entrance as well, but that would have been pushing it. Her father, indulgent to the point of easy manipulation, would have balked, no question about it, and might possibly have sent her to that d.a.m.ned fancy school in Vermont where all she'd have to look at were other girls, some trees, and herds of stupid cows.

118.

Her mother didn't care one way or the other; she spent most of her time writing ten-page letters to her two older children in Yale and Va.s.sar, and flying down to Florida to visit her own mother.

It was, then, as perfect as she could have it, and whatever complaints she had she kept to herself.

She brushed her hair at the bathroom mirror, turning side to side, scowling at the thought of having to wash it again. She hated it-the washing, the drying, the constant brushing to keep it gleaming. She wished she could cut it off and dye her scalp blue like the Picts did for the Romans. But if she cut it off, she would look like a freak, and looking like a freak was not part of the plan.

The bath towel began slipping off her chest and she grabbed for it with an oath, held it while she flicked off the lights and walked into the dark bedroom. A reach for the wall switch was pulled back. Not yet, she thought. She wanted to stay in the dark a while longer, listening to the rain run down her window, listening to the blessed silence that meant she was alone. A sigh, contented, and she padded across the warm rug to the cushioned window seat, sat, and pulled her legs up so she could hug them and look out. There wasn't all that much to see, not while it was raining, not after sunset, but the lights in the houses beyond the yard were still visible, and growing brighter as the leaves were pounded from their branches.

The towel slipped a bit more; she didn't touch it.She put a palm against a pane and shivered at the cold, pressed her head beside it, and tried to see the Boyds' backyard. It was too far away and blocked by too many trees, but she saw it, and she saw Don, and she saw his father.

She wondered if either of them would understand what she was doing, if Don would be very hurt if he knew he was included. Norman, she thought, wouldn't be any trouble. Certainly not from the way he looked at her yesterday when 119.

she was walking away from his son, or the way he smiled at her whenever she could think of an excuse to talk to him in his office.

He wasn't stupid. She d.a.m.ned well knew he knew the plan. He understood why she was going to stay in this d.a.m.ned dirty town until she graduated from its mediocre high school with the highest grades she could get, no matter how she got them; he sure as h.e.l.l understood that a flower in a drab garden was brighter than a flower among her sisters, especially when the flower had the pick of the men who tended that garden-in a place like this, she was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned champion orchid.

Her mother had chosen to be a shadow, and she had paid; her friends were too busy turning every job and love offer into political statements.

Chris, on the other hand, knew she was in a war, and only a.s.sholes and b.i.t.c.hes didn't use their best weapons.

Norman understood, she could see it in his eyes; Don would, eventually, but not before. Not before she was ready.

A shadow down in the yard.

She peered, wiped the pane, and peered again.

And sighed.

It wasn't Don, and Norman wasn't that stupid.

It was a cat, and she grinned at it while she stretched and purred and thought about how the next phase should open.

Something moved in the rain, and Sergeant Quintero in his patrol car heard it in an alley. He was waiting for Verona to get out of the John in the bar, declining to go in himself and wait because he knew he would see women there. On Sunday. Even on Sunday there would be a woman on a stool, having a drink, talking with the barkeep, waiting for her date to show up and take her home. It made him sick, and he refused to go in when Tom had decided he'd had enough of 120.

the car's useless shocks. Jarred his kidneys, he said as he slid out and walked away; Quintero only grunted, and rolled down the window to breathe the fresh air.

And heard it in the alley.

He stared for a moment, figuring it was a rummy looking for a place tosleep, looked at the rain, and decided to leave the b.u.m alone.

Then he heard it again, moving away, slowly.

It sounded like someone thumping soft dirt with a shovel.

He glanced at the bar's closed door, then shrugged and pulled his jacket collar up over his neck. He climbed out and touched a hand to his left side to be sure the gun was there, then scowled at the drizzle and moved to the mouth of the alley.

It was dark.

At the back, he knew from rousting Sat.u.r.day night drunks, was a broken-down wooden fence that led to a backyard. A kid could squeeze through; a grown man would have to swear and climb over.

Wood splintered then, echoing like gunshots, and reflex had him running, revolver in hand, eyes squinting through the mist. But despite the faint light from the street behind and the homes ahead, he could see nothing, not even when he reached the fence and saw the gaping hole.

A tank, he thought; someone's driven a tank through it.

He searched for a culprit, in the alley and the adjoining backyard, and decided it was a drunk in a stumbling hurry to get home.

Another five minutes before he holstered his weapon and headed back toward the car.

And behind him, softly, something moved in the rain.

"It's like going to the same funeral twice a month," Tracey said to Jeff as they walked down the stadium steps to have lunch. "She lives in this really creepy apartment, a 121.

fourth-floor walkup in the middle of a block that looks like it's been bombed. My father's been trying to get her to move out since Grandfather died two years ago, but she says all her friends are still there and she just won't budge."

Jeff pushed a forefinger against his gla.s.ses to shove them back along his nose, and grinned as they sat, opening their lunch bags and taking out the food. They had bought cartons of milk in the cafeteria, and oranges for dessert, and when they didn't see Don there, they thought he might be outside. Sunday's rain was gone though the clouds had stayed behind, and the temperature had risen as if the sun were shining.

He sighed as he scanned the seats, still dark with moisture. "Don't see him."

"Well, he was in math."

"Did he say anything?"

She shook her head, and a wide fall of hair slipped from behind her ear to cover her eye. "He looked like h.e.l.l though. He looked like he hadn't slept all weekend."They ate in silence, not close enough to touch, but close enough to sense they were alone out here.

"Trace?"

She looked at him absently, and wondered why he didn't have a girlfriend. He wasn't bad-looking in spite of the thick gla.s.ses, he kept his outdated long hair gleaming like a girl's, and when he wanted to be, he was pretty funny in a sarcastic sort of way. She supposed it was because he was third string on the football team, which didn't make him anywhere near a hero, and something less than the fans who crowded the stands at home games. A bad spot, she imagined, and a little silly too.

"Hey," he said, rapping knuckles on her forehead. "Hey, are you in there?"

She laughed. "Yeah."

"Thinking about Don?"

She shrugged; not a lie, not the truth.

122.

"You going to the concert Wednesday if it doesn't rain?"

"I think so."

"He ask you yet?"

That's what her mother had asked her that morning, and yesterday night, and yesterday afternoon. But she wouldn't let Tracey call him. It was not the way, she was told sternly; the proper way is for the boy to call first. Only, Maria Quintero didn't know Donald Boyd. Tracey knew he had enjoyed their date as much as she had, and she knew, too, she should have said something to him when he had walked her home. But then there had been the kiss, and the running away.

And as soon as she had realized her mistake, up there in her room, she'd started out again, to stop him from leaving, and her father had walked in from the kitchen. He had been dressed in street clothes, explaining quickly he was working double shifts from now on with Detective Verona, hoping to keep the Howler from striking again in this town.

He hadn't permitted her to leave.

She'd protested tearfully and was promptly ordered straight to her room; it was late, the boy was already gone, and there was the visit to abuela Quintero the following day.

What could she do? The last time she had defied him openly he had taken the strap to her and confined her upstairs for an entire weekend. Her mother, bless her, had snuck food up, and comfort, but could do nothing to gain her release. Luis Quintero had made up his mind.

"He hasn't said boo to me all day," she told Jeff sadly. "I don't know if he's mad or what."

Jeff grinned. "I think he's scared.""Scared? Of what?"

He pointed at her.

"You're crazy."

Jeff debated only a minute before telling her about Don's asking practically the whole school about her relationship 123.

with Brian Pratt. When she protested that there was none, never had been, and as long as there was a breath in her body never would be, Jeff a.s.sured her that that's what everyone had told him.

"He was a total loon, you should have seen him." He chuckled, and drained the rest of his milk in a gulp. "Put that on top of the detention he had and he was a s.p.a.ce Cadet the whole day." His head shook in amazement. "I never saw him like that before. Never."

"Really?" She didn't bother to feign indifference. Jeff knew her too well. "Then I don't get it."

"What's to get? I told you-he's scared s.h.i.tless."

"Oh great."

"Hey, don't sweat it, Trace. By the end of the day, if you wink at him or something, he'll carry your books home in one arm and you in the other.''

She laughed, and felt a blush working on her cheeks. A swallow to get rid of it, a touch to her hair to hide it, and she jumped when the late bell sounded over the seats. Two minutes later she was in the hallway, on her way to Hedley's lab, when she saw Don slumped against the wall outside his history cla.s.s. She slowed, hoping he'd turn and see her, slowed even more, and finally walked right up to him and jabbed him in the arm. Startled, he pushed away and backed off a pace, his eyes wide, almost panicked, until he recognized her face.

"Hi!" she said brightly.

"Hi," he replied, not meeting her gaze.

"You're, uh, late for cla.s.s."

"Yeah. You too."

"You going home right after school?"

He lifted a hand. "I ... I think I'm going to run a little."

A man's voice called her name, and Don turned away, heading for the staircase.

124.

"I'll see you," she called softly, and kicked herself when she saw the faces of the cla.s.s as she rushed to her seat. They knew. She must have it written all over her, from her forehead to her knees. They whispered, someone giggled, and she felt the blush rise again; she cursed then fora full three minutes before the pressure left her chest and her cheeks felt cool again.

The cla.s.s was endless. And her last cla.s.s made her feel as if it were Friday and not Monday, and she was almost to the exit with her books cradled against her sweater when she stopped, turned, and collided with Chris Snowden.

Chris smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy," she said quietly, her head inclined for privacy. "I saw him heading down for the gym."

Tracey could only mutter her thanks and rush off, tears of embarra.s.sment filling her eyes. My G.o.d, it was that obvious. And if Chris, who didn't know if she were alive or dead, if Chris could see it, then the whole school knew it. And if the whole school knew it, then her freshman sister would too. Oh, G.o.d. Dinner tonight was going to be h.e.l.l.

At the ground floor she was tempted to forget it and go home. This was ridiculous. She had never in her life chased a boy before; it was humiliating, and she had seen the blank look in his eyes when she caught him outside cla.s.s-there was neither delight nor fear nor even a polite smile. There was nothing. She might as well have been a tree, or one of the wall tiles.

She stepped out of the stairwell and into the corridor. It was deserted, the lights already dim and made dimmer by the lack of windows, the drab paint, and the absence of doors. The gym and the stadium exits were on the other side. He said he was going to run, Chris's comment confirmed it, so she walked slowly toward the doors that seemed a hundred miles away. Somewhere, a group of boys laughed raucously, probably the football team getting ready for practice. A 125.

higher voice trilled, choked, blew into laughter; the girl's basketball team heading for the small gym opposite the main one.

And her footsteps on the hard floor, as if there were taps on her heels.

She hurried, feeling nervous, her shoulders lifting a little, her chin bringing her face down.

And behind her, when she slowed again to be sure this was really what she wanted, something followed.

Uneven steps, sounding hollow, sounding loud.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw nothing, looked back and moved on.

A boy, maybe one of the coaches, Gabby D'Amato dragging one of his brooms.

The idea that the grizzly custodian might be following her gave her the shivers and she moved faster. She didn't like the old man; none of the girls did. They suspected he spent more time in their locker room than that of the boys, and they knew d.a.m.ned well he spent hours every day standing in the girls' gym doorway, watching them in their shorts and T-shirts, intently.

Behind her. The footsteps.She was thirty feet from the exit, and there was no other sound on the floor but her shoes, and her breathing, and the slow trailing footsteps that were hollow, and loud, and moving closer all the time.

Don't look, she told herself; just get to the door and get outside, and get hold of Don and shake an invitation out of him even if you have to chop him in the throat.

Steadily, moving closer-the deep hollow sound of slapping against wood.

Don't look, idiot; and she turned around at the corner.

The corridor was empty.

But she could still hear the footsteps.