Darkling I Listen (6 page)

Carlyle carefully folded the letter, his face so red it looked almost purple. His jaw worked. His hands shook. Alyson took a step back, expecting him to explode, feeling a little sick to see him struggling so hard to combat the urge to rip Dillman's face off.

Yet, Carlyle did just that. He tucked the letter into his hip pocket, and without looking at any of them, left the building.

Cornwall
's breath rushed from him like air out of a balloon. He sank into his chair and stared at the scattering of reports on his desk.

Dillman grunted
,
mustache cocked to one side as he looked at Alyson. "Guess that means you can go."

She reached for her camera, collected her purse. Turning to Dillman, she said, "I've met some real assholes in my day, but Bubba, you got them all beat to Sunday."

«
^
»

T
he weather felt too hot and sticky to be nearly Halloween.
Breathing in the humid
East Texas
air was like inhaling through a wet bath towel. Once upon a time, the thick humidity hadn't bothered
Brandon
. He'd basked in it like a sauna. It sweated the anger and booze out of his system. By the close of an Indian summer afternoon, every pore in his body felt purged. But now it gave him a headache and poked at his temper, thanks to Dickhead Dillman and some woman with a sultry mouth and eyes that could jar a man right out of his Nikes, were he so inclined … which he wasn't.

Ticky Creek town square hummed to the tune of hammers, shouts, and laughter. The locals busily decorated the street-lamps with giant cutouts of jack-o'-lanterns and witches on broomsticks—all in preparation for the thirty-first of October, when every little hobgoblin in the area congregated on the square to reap sackfuls of candy from the businesses. It was also the culmination of the Yamboree. Farmers trucked in yams by the bushel. They would be weighed, measured, and rated; fried, stewed, mashed, and molded into pies, cakes, loaves, and burgers.

The carnies, having taken a break from erecting their rides and game booths, sat on the street corner, smoking cigarettes and making obscene comments to the cheerleaders who were busy hanging banners and doing handstands in the middle of the street.

Brandon
watched it all from behind his Ray-Bans, his anger at Dillman still like a wad of cotton in his throat. He needed a drink. Desperately. Just one. To replace the fire of temper in his gut with the fire of alcohol. Get his mind off his immense desire to drive his hand into Jack Dillman's mouth, wipe the grin off his face once and for all. Hell, the pleasure he'd experience feeling Dillman's teeth shatter would almost be worth spending the next three years back in Corcoran.

He shifted his focus from the short-skirted pom-pom queens to the red Ford Escort hitched to the wrecker just pulling into the impound lot behind the hardware store. His mouth curled at the thought that the pretty lady snoop with a camera would pay a hefty fee to Juaquin Gonzales to get her car back, especially when he discovered she was an out-of-towner.

Freelance writer, my ass,
he thought. The female smelled of reporter. She reeked of it. They had a way of carrying themselves, like they were soldiers in God's army, ready to strike a blow against any man or woman who saw fit to fight his or her way out of mediocrity.

That's all he needed, some young, hungry reporter blowing the whistle on his whereabouts. Every freaking rag in five countries would be swarming through Ticky Creek within a week. Barbara Walters and Oprah would engage in hand-to-hand combat to be the first to pin his back to the wall with questions like "So what would drive a man who looks like you and who is as successful as you—desired by women the world over—to subject himself to the perversions of a woman like Emerald Marcella?"

Then Sam Donaldson, looking like a Vulcan from
Star Trek,
would elbow his way between the women and demand: "How could you do it, Carlyle? You had it all. Fame. Fortune. You blew it, and the world deserves to know why!"

He fished a cigarette out of his pocket, held it between his teeth as he flipped open his lighter, and cupped his hands around the flame, drawing in the smoke as he glanced back at the caries. Sliding the lighter into his pocket, he wove his way between several parked cars, paused at the intersection long enough for a powder blue Impala with tinted windows to crawl around the corner, muffler scraping the brick street and exhaust spewing out the back in
a
acrid black stream. The car stopped in front of him, rumbled like a tank, muffler tap-tap-tapping on the pavement. He moved around it, flicked his cigarette ashes onto the street as he ran toward Juaquin Gonzales, who looked up from locking the impound gate, his expression registering surprise.

"Hey, man." Juaquin grinned.
"
Como
esta?"

"Not too bad, Juaquin."
Brandon
pointed his cigarette toward the Ford Escort. "I wanna have a look at that car."

Juaquin looked back at the Ford. His heavy black brows drew together. "I can't do that, man. Dillman will have my ass."

"So don't tell him."

Brandon
shoved the gate aside and slid past the nervous man. The car was still attached to the wrecker, front end in the air. He opened the door, climbed onto the front seat that was littered with Twinkie wrappers and an empty Diet Dr Pepper bottle. Nothing on the floor. He opened the glove compartment. A map fell out, along with a partially melted Hershey bar and a small bag of Fritos. Damn, for such a junk food freak, the woman had a hell of a body. Not that he was in the least interested in her body…

He grabbed the keys from the ignition as Juaquin shook his head and splayed his arms. "Shit, man, you're gonna get me fired! Don't be fuckin' with dem keys! Are you loco?"

"As a loon, Juaquin. Haven't you heard?" He flashed the man a smile. "Dillman gives you any
grief,
you tell him I said he can kiss my butt."

"I don't see what kinda good that's gonna do me." Juaquin walked to the closed gate and looked toward the courthouse, mumbling to himself and shaking his head. He glanced back at
Brandon
as he shoved the key in the trunk lock and turned
it.
The lid popped loose with a thunk, exposing a black canvas bag and a pair of muddy Ropers. He opened the bag, turned it upside down, and shook it, spilling an array of socks, panties, and bras onto the trunk bottom.

Jesus, the woman was a walking advertisement for
Victoria
's Secret. He hooked a pair of red satin thong panties on one finger and held them up, stared at them through the stream of smoke curling up from his cigarette. The earlier image of her in jeans dissolved into one of her wearing nothing but a sliver of red satin and a smile, her thick, dark hair the color of cherry coke seductively shading her big eyes.

He shook off the thought. The idea of slowly peeling her out of satin thong panties had as much appeal as curling up in a nest of scorpions.

"Hurry!" Joaquin shouted.

Brandon
took one last drag on his cigarette,
then
tossed it to the ground. He riffled through the underwear again to make certain he hadn't missed anything: a gun, a knife, a small explosive device—even worse, press credentials. He wondered which was worse. One way he died by wounds; the other, by words. At least a bullet in the brain got it over quickly.

He turned the canvas bag inside out and ran his hand into the side pockets, finding a single tampon and a couple of lambskin condoms. Trojans. Ribbed for Her Pleasure.

His face turned warmer, and something down low began to stir.

Don't even think it,
a voice in his head whispered.
The woman is trouble with a capital T. She represents everything you hate. Everything that dragged you down into the filthiest gutter. Her presence in Ticky Creek threatens your peace and harmony. And safety. Hell, she could be Anticipating, making plans to creep into your bedroom tonight and blow your brains out with an Uzi.

Brandon
imagined his poor uncle Henry stumbling into his nephew's bedroom in the morning and finding
Brandon
's brains spattered over the striped and flowered wallpaper. He suspected it would take more than a nitroglycerin tablet under Henry's tongue to prevent another heart attack like the one that nearly killed his uncle shortly after
Brandon
's arrival in Ticky Creek.

Behind him, Juaquin let loose a string of expletives.
Brandon
gathered up the underwear and shoved it back into the bag—all but the red satin thong, and one of the condoms. He tucked those deep into his jeans pocket.

*

There was something about small town drugstores that had
always fascinated Alyson. There was a certain smell that she could never quite put her finger on. Perhaps it was simply so many items crammed so close together: over-the-counter medications, greeting cards, toiletries, makeup, and knockoff perfumes. She always felt like tiptoeing up and down the aisles, as one does in a hospital.

Today she tiptoed down the candy aisle and grabbed up a bag of Kandy Korn and one of miniature Snickers, then, to balance her diet, she selected a can of Pringles. Alyson made her way to the rack of disposable cameras and film. She had tons of film back at the motel, but they weren't going to do her any good at that particular moment. No respectable photographer would ever be caught without film in her camera—Brandon Carlyle or no Brandon Carlyle. She wondered what he had done with the canister he had confiscated from her earlier that day. Thinking of the shots she had gotten and would never see, she felt queasy.

At the checkout she collected copies of the
Gazette
, the
Enquirer,
the
Sun,
and the
Globe.
The woman behind the cash register regarded Alyson over the tops of her thick glasses. Alyson smiled and shrugged. "I buy them for the crosswords."

A chubby blond in a bright red smock with a name tag emblazoned

HELLO I'M IRIS.

Ask about our one hour developing

moved
behind the counter at that moment, her arms full of envelopes of recently developed photographs. Pulling out a drawer, she proceeded to file them in alphabetical order.

"Oh,
my gosh
!" Alyson slapped her forehead, causing Iris and the tabloid-disapproving woman to stare at her. "I totally forgot what I came in for in the first place. What a doofus. I'm supposed to pick up some photos for Carlyle if they're ready."

Iris narrowed her eyes.

Alyson smiled pleasantly. "Or maybe he hasn't gotten by to drop them off yet. In that case—"

"They're ready," Iris offered, slowly withdrawing the package from the drawer, suspicion forming deep lines across her brow. "Mr. Carlyle didn't say
nothing
about somebody else picking these up. Said he'd be back in a while to get them himself."

"Ah … I bumped into him earlier. At the sheriff's office. We're supposed to meet at the café in a little while. He's at Doc Simpson's office. With his uncle. Henry. Got to get his blood pressure checked, you know. Henry, that is. Actually, they're shots of
Brandon
I took this morning. With this." She held up her camera and smiled again. "If you don't believe me, have a look for yourself."

Iris and the checkout woman looked at one another. Finally, Iris shrugged and hesitantly slid the package across the counter to Alyson and went back to the sorting and alphabetizing of the remaining envelopes.

Alyson waited, holding her breath as the cashier totaled the items and with the speed of a snail, dug under the counter for a sack in which to put them. The front glass doors slid open … her heart shuddered—a man she recognized as one of the carnies walked in and moved behind her, his gaze scanning the collection of cigarettes on the wall beyond the counter. His body odor washed over her so thickly she couldn't breathe,
then
he glanced down at her and smiled, revealing two missing front teeth.

"Something I can do for you?" The cashier looked up from her search for a sack, pinning the man with another of her disapproving glowers.

Come on. Come on.
Alyson tapped her foot, glanced again at the door, expecting Carlyle to come breezing in at any minute and nail her for stealing his photos—only they weren't his photos, they were hers. But she suspected he and Mack the Truck Dillman wouldn't see it that way.

"I need me a carton of Pall Malls," the man said. "Soft packs." He jutted one greasy finger toward the packs near the bottom of the shelf.

The cartons were locked behind a glass case.

Apparently losing track of her priorities, the cashier began shuffling through a drawer for a key to unlock the case.

"Ah … I'm really in a hurry," Alyson pointed out, smiling apologetically as the cashier glared at her again over her glasses. Finally, she stooped to snatch a brown plastic sack from a box and stuffed the purchases into it. Alyson grabbed it and made her way out of the store as quickly as possible.

Once outside, Alyson looked around and focused on the Dime
A
Cup Café:

SPECIAL OF THE DAY

Meat Loaf Turnip Greens

Mashed Potatoes Sweet Potato Pie

$4.99 ALL YOU CAN EAT

She moved to the plate-glass window and, cupping her hands around her eyes, peered into the café, which was mostly empty except for a pair of stoop-shouldered farmers wearing John Deere caps and conversing over cups of coffee and plates of pie.

Stepping back, she refocused on the reflection in the glass: not her own, but Brandon Carlyle's, staring at her with a murderous expression.

Spinning on her heels, she looked up into his eyes and backed against the wall, her heart sinking and jumping at the same time. She clutched the Discount Drugs sack to her chest and released a sharp breath. "Don't tell me there's a law against peeking into café windows. I'm not sure I can stomach another half-hour in Dillman's company—as pleasant as it was, of course."