Approaching Menace (25 page)

But now, after she had to stay thirty minutes past quitting time to finish a fitting, she found the traffic much heavier than normal. Those few extra minutes set her into the rush hour. From a side street a car pulled out ahead of her, and Josie slammed her brakes, missing its rear bumper by inches.

She arrived home in a cross mood. As soon as she parked, Colin came running across the lawn. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi. How was your day? And do you have homework to finish?”

“My day was good. Nope, I don’t have any homework today,” he said, his tone chipper. “I’m gonna stay outside awhile.”

“That’s fine,” Josie said, pleased to see him content. She changed into shorts, then fixed braised chicken breasts and steamed cauliflower and carrots.

When everything was ready, she went back outside. On their side lawn, Colin was tugging on a helmet. He took his place in formation with sweaty boys and faced the boy called Mom and two others.

Before Josie had crossed her driveway, the groups pulled away from each other. Bleak faces turned toward her.

“Hi guys,” she said, slowing her pace. Why did she always have to feel like such an intruder? “How are you all doing today?”

One said, “Okay,” two others shrugged, and the rest turned away from her.

Colin glared. His gaze was stone cold, his arms stiff at his sides.

Josie stopped walking.

“We gotta go,” Mom said, and all the rest of the other boys started a jog toward the street.

“You can stay awhile.” Josie had a hard time saying it, for Colin hadn’t looked well. But he needed their friendship. She needed to not feel like a Scrooge.

“That’s okay. See you later, Colin, okay?” the smallest boy said.

Colin watched them run off. He turned to Josie and her breath stopped. His face was brilliant pink. He was huffing. He ran to the house, tugging off his helmet.

She followed up the stairs with her insides screaming: I don’t want us to have to be like this. Let me just go about my business and you run back out there and just be a normal child!

She felt so full of those words it seemed her chest would explode.

The house was quiet.

Colin ran out the hall bathroom and catapulted into the den. Sneering at Josie, he then faced his machine. “I hate you,” he told the tubes and metal. His shoulders rose. His face tightened with fury. “I hate you, you stupid machine.” He clenched his hands and raised his fists. He held them above his head.

“Go ahead,” Josie whispered. “Do what you have to do.”

“I hate your guts, you dumb machine. You’re not really my friend.”

His bantam fists punched the machine. He kept hitting. “I hate you! I hate you, I hate you!”

Fury spent, he stood perfectly still.

Josie felt the room charged with anger. She watched her brother, waiting until his breaths returned to normal. Then she wrapped her arms around his unmoving body. Pressing her face into his sweaty hair, she said, “I love you, Colin. And I am so sorry.” She clutched him until a hitch came to his breath and his arms came up and circled her waist. His shoulders shook. His chest rose in heaves.

She cried into his hair.

Minutes later they pulled apart, both sniffling. “You have a red nose,” she said.

“You, too.”

Josie rubbed his nose and he pressed hers, both exchanging smirks. They headed to the kitchen. “I’ll reheat the food,” she said. “It’ll only take a minute.” She turned knobs on the stove.

A crashing noise came from behind.

Colin stood with hands on his hips, glowering at the chair their mother reserved for their father. The chair lay overturned on the floor.

Josie stared at Colin. She smiled. He smiled, too. Josie laughed and gave him a high five.

Colin kept a red-eyed grin while they ate and neither mentioned what had happened. Sylvie came in before their dinner ended. She stared at Jack’s upended chair. Josie and Colin kept up a conversation, pretending not to see it.

Sylvie stood the chair up. She stared at her children. “I’m going to soak in a bubble bath.”

“Okay,” they both said as though nothing had happened.

Colin fell asleep quickly. Josie looked in on him and saw he was in a deep troubled sleep. He looked frailer lately, growing exhausted with little exertion.

She would have to do something. She’d solicit more campaign funds. Create more advertisements, make more people aware of others’ needs. She would phone Colin’s doctor and press him to locate a kidney for her brother. Get him raised to the top of that dreaded list.

And no matter what, she would be here for her brother.

Andrew stopped by. He gave a hearty laugh when Josie told him Colin tried to beat up his machine and threw down their father’s chair. Josie felt content having him with her.

In the morning her brother still looked weary. She worried about him. How could one string of names on a list determine who would live and who wouldn’t? she considered while removing bust darts from a gown at the store. She created lower darts on the high-tech sewing machine, then carefully ripped the gown’s shoulder seams, trying to work on autopilot, not thinking, only doing her job, and in no time, finished the job.

A bell’s jingle and voices near the door drew her out of her stupor. She entered the showroom and spied Randall Allen’s retreating figure outside the glass door. Mrs. Banto had gone home, and Eve Walker stood behind the counter at the rear wall. She placed a finger over her lips to tell Josie to be silent. Josie still saw no one else in the shop, but Eve pointed to the front door. Through its glass, Josie saw Randall Allen had stopped to speak to a woman on the sidewalk.

Eve had lowered the volume, but now Josie saw that the mumbled voices she’d heard came from the tiny portable television she’d noticed back there on a shelf. She had never seen it on.

“The storm,” Eve said, indicating the screen.

A bald meteorologist stood beside a map showing their section of the country. A line squiggled from the Atlantic to down beneath the tip of Florida’s peninsula and then up to the Gulf of Mexico. “Tropical Storm Daniel has meandered,” he said.

Josie glanced at Eve. “I didn’t know there was a new tropical storm.”

“It could develop into a hurricane within the next twenty-four hours,” the man on TV said, making Josie stiffen.

“But if Daniel does,” he continued, “it is believed he would remain minimal, since conditions are not favorable for much strengthening.” He smiled at the viewing audience. “Of course all of us down here know that hurricanes have minds of their own. But at present we believe Daniel would go in somewhere along the Alabama or Florida coastline sometime in the next forty-eight hours.”

Josie’s scalp tingled.

Eve snapped off the set. She showed Josie that Mr. Allen, still on the sidewalk, was glancing in through the glass door. Without looking directly at them, he turned and walked off.

“I need to go and pick up that fabric,” Eve said.

Josie’s vision blurred. “I don’t think I could take a hurricane.”

“Of course you could.” Eve gathered her things. “What else would you do?”

“Leave?”

Eve grinned. “Not for a small one.” She started away but stopped. “Oh, Mr. Babineaux asked if I knew anything about pamphlets. He said somebody put some things on his desk.” Eve gave a knowing grin and left the store.

Josie followed to the door and peered outside. Eve unlocked her car. Cars passed one another, but Josie couldn’t see anyone walking the sidewalk. Had the sky gotten cloudy?

Refusing to consider what Daniel might do, she turned from the door.

A rope dangled from raised hands. The rope came up toward Josie.

She stepped back. “Mr. Babineaux. I didn’t know you were here.”

He moved nearer, his hands working the slender white rope like a plaything.

Josie’s feet backtracked toward the door.

Behind her, the bell jingled. “Dammit, I’m going to be late,” Mr. Allen said as he came inside. He strode past Josie, heading for his office. He swept back out again with his briefcase. His head turned as he finally seemed to notice the pair inside.

Otis Babineaux held his rope out. “I’m going to reinforce that rod on the sales rack,” he told his partner, nodding to indicate where he meant. “It keeps coming down.”

Randall Allen stared at the offending rod on a wall beyond Josie. “I don’t think a little rope will do any good, and rope wouldn’t look very good in here.”

He faced Josie. “Would you mind ordering another rod?”

She stared at Babineaux and then peered at Mr. Allen.

Tell him?

What?

“Of course,” she said, clearing her throat to regain its moisture.

The door’s vacuum sucked her boss outside. While the door was still open, Josie glimpsed Hal Ripley’s oyster truck slowly passing. She eyed Otis Babineaux.

He was fingering the rope, and as Josie strode past, he gazed at her face. She yanked up the telephone, flipped through the phone book, and returned Babineaux’s stare.

His eyes finally lowered. With a deep exhale, he returned to his office. He left the door open.

Josie grabbed her purse and drew out the mace Andrew had bought her. She watched Babineaux get to work with papers and jutted her chin out as she placed an order for a new rod.

Her boss remained in his office, only glancing out at Josie from time to time. When he did, she turned away, pretending not to notice. She didn’t return to her cubbyhole. There she would feel too vulnerable.

Counting down the time till she could leave, she straightened showroom dresses. When the door opened again, she held back the urge to go out. It was Mr. Antonelli.

“Hello,” Josie said, pleased to see someone yet still uneasy. “How nice to see you. Where is Mrs. Antonelli? She’s not with you?”

“I left her home.” His charcoal hair seemed even darker than before, and his eyes deeper. He moved near and grabbed Josie’s hand. “We’ve missed you, Josie.”

“I’ve missed seeing you, too.” His hand felt clammy. She let it go. “Is your wife doing all right?”

“The same as always.”

Josie continued to feel disquieted. “Did you need something today, Mr. Antonelli? A tuxedo? Do you have a wedding or party to attend?” Her arm swept toward the variety of tuxes, but he didn’t look at them.

“I was in the area and decided to come in and see you.” His gaze swiveled across the showroom. “A very nice store.” He faced Babineaux, staring out from his office. “But you should be working. I’ll go now.”

Josie walked him to the door. “It was sweet of you to stop by,” she said, glancing back and noticing the man back there still watching. She held the door open, loudly calling, “I’ll see you soon.”

Letting the door shut, she looked at Babineaux staring from his desk across the showroom. “That was my friend, Mr. Antonelli. He’s probably going to get his wife and they’ll be coming right back.”

Babineaux’s hand went to his bow tie. He twisted it, staring at her above the top of his eyeglasses. When she didn’t turn away, he did, his interest seeming to refocus on his desk.

Josie found things to do that kept her between him and the door to exit. Rearranging clothing, she envisioned that rope dangling. All the young women had been strangled.

Tension made her head throb. How had Mr. Antonelli known where she was working? And she’d never seen Mr. Ripley’s oyster truck downtown before. He had slowed near the bridal shop.

A hurricane might hit Florida.

“Andrew,” Josie said, getting to the phone and calling him. His voice made her headache lighter. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Did I ever tell you I love you?”

“Tell me again.” She smiled into the receiver. Glancing at Babineaux’s office to assure herself that he remained back there, she started to relax and count down her final minutes in the store.

* * *

Night fell, but he could still see inside the open garage. Only her car sat inside.

Josie’s mother would be gone for a while. This was an evening when she’d work late.

The man glancing at the garage moved along the driveway. He slipped close to the house and sidled up beside a window. With the wind blowing, he had determined that Josie would have raised the window. She seemed to enjoy fresh air. The den was lit dimly, he saw through the curtains. Only a square twitching light from the television broke the darkness inside.

His gloved hands clasped the windowsill. His vision adjusted.

The boy was asleep in his recliner.

He hadn’t wanted the boy, but the child was here. Things worked out as they may. He hadn’t killed a child before, but he was about to.

Somebody moved into the room.

The man slid down against the outer wall.

He waited, counting down long minutes.

Again his head rose. She’d entered the room wearing shorts and a skinny top.

Excitement pumped through his veins.

Josie leaned near her brother. Then she looked at the TV. She turned around and went back toward the kitchen.

The man stepped aside, just in case. She might press her face against the glass and peer out. He wanted surprise, but not with her in there and him out here with a screen still in place at the open window.

Waiting longer minutes, he again stepped into place. His hands tested the screen.

One corner protruded.

He could grab hold of the frame. With one yank, the screen would come out. Then with Josie away from the den, he could hike himself up and climb inside.

The boy would never see him. He’d die with one twist of his skinny neck.

The man pressed his hands against the bricks beneath the wooden window to calm himself.

Only a few seconds longer.

Then she will finally be mine.

Shivering from anticipation, he slipped his hand inside his pocket. From it he pulled what he would use.

To withhold excitement, he glanced across the room. A sewing machine sat on her table against that far wall. Near the machine lay the pad she sometimes sketched on. Her pencils stood in a bright container.

She reentered the room. The scent of popcorn gave away what she carried in the bowl, so large for such a small person. She should return to the kitchen for something to drink with it, and then he would slip inside.