Eye Candy (15 page)

32

I heard someone scream—but the scream cut off as I hit the water. Facedown. A belly flop that sent pain shooting over my body. I shut my eyes as the freezing water surged over my head.

Cold panic swept over me.

I can't move my arms. My legs. I can't move.

The water—it's pulling me down.

I could feel myself sinking deeper. The current beneath the pier pulled me hard to the left, then pushed me to the right, helpless, like a clump of seaweed.

My chest ached. The shock of the cold seemed to paralyze me.

Move, Lindy—move.

With a great effort, I kicked my legs. Arched my back. My shoes suddenly heavy as rocks. But I forced myself to move. I
willed
myself up.

You're drowning. You're going to drown now.

You've always known you were going to die in the water.

No.

Ohmigod no.

I had to fight my own thoughts.

I opened my eyes. At first, I saw only darkness. Thick and black. But then I stared into a green glow, so close I felt I could reach out and touch it. Glowing, green fish—lighting my way?

Lighting my way to the other side?

Didn't people always see a glowing light just before they died?

I crashed over the surface of the water and gulped in deep breaths of air. My hands thrashed the cold water. I kicked hard.

Calm. Calm. Take steady strokes, Lindy.

You're breathing now. Someone will pull you out.

Brad, where are you? Are you going to jump in and save me?

Or did you push me?

My whole body shivered. The current was carrying me away from shore.

Is anyone looking for me?

Is anyone coming? Brad? Where are you?

I lowered my head and swam hard. I can do this. I'm not going to drown under this dock. No way.

With a shuddering gasp, I reached out both hands and grabbed on to a wooden piling. My hands slid right off. The thick log was slimy, slippery with green, mossy weeds slick as gelatin. The current pulled me away. Frantically thrashing the water, I pulled myself forward again.

I sucked in a long breath, my lungs aching, and made another grab. This time, I held on—and wrapped my arms around the slimy log.

Pressing my body against it, I raised my eyes to the dock. Bright white light blinded me. I gasped and lowered my gaze. I heard shouts up above. Someone called my name. Brad?

Brad? Did you push me?

It had to be you. Did you try to kill me?

No. It didn't make sense.

I didn't say no to you, Brad. I thought we were having a nice time. Are you just a sick, twisted fuck? Did you bring me out on this pier to kill me, you bastard?

My fear quickly turned to anger. The anger helped me fight the river current, helped me hold on to the moss-slick piling although my arms were numb from the cold.

“They're coming!” someone shouted from the dock. The bright light washed over me. “Hold on! They're coming!”

I heard the low roar of a boat motor behind me.

You're safe, Lindy, I told myself.

For now.

“Here. Put this on.” Brad held up a Seaport sweatshirt he'd run to buy at a shop near the pier. He helped slide it over my head. “This will help you stop shivering.”

When they raised me onto the dock, he rushed forward and hugged me. His face was all concern. He pulled weeds from my hair and ran to buy a tall cup of coffee.

Nice acting job, I thought.

Two police officers, both looking about fourteen, with close-shaved blond hair and narrowed blue eyes, waited patiently for Brad to pull the sweatshirt over me. One of them, lanky and thin as a rail, kept sniffing, studying me suspiciously. Did I smell bad? The other cop already had a beer belly, his uniform shirt pulled tight over his stomach.

These weren't Tommy's guys. Where was my police protection tonight?

The coffee burned my throat. It started to warm me. Brad wanted to hold me against him, but I backed away.

We were standing in the entrance of a small bookstore across from the dock. The store was closed but the windows were brightly lit. I read the title of a Stephen King novel in the window.

Just what the world needs. More horror.

“What happened, Miss Sampson?” the tall, lanky officer asked, eyes studying me.

“I don't know. I didn't see. Someone pushed me.”

I turned to Brad. I couldn't read his expression. His mouth hung open slightly. He was breathing hard.

“Were you depressed? Did you jump?”

“No way!” I shouted. “Are you crazy?” My voice trembled.

“We have to ask,” the other cop said softly.

Brad finally spoke up. “Someone shoved her. I didn't get a good look at him. I was so . . . stunned.”

The two cops turned to Brad. “Are you and Miss Sampson . . . ?”

“We . . . we were out together,” Brad fumbled for words. “You know. A date.”

“Did you have a fight?”

Shivering, I tightened my arms around myself. The sweatshirt was soaked through now and wasn't keeping me very warm. Water dripped from my hair, down my forehead. I just wanted to get home and into some dry clothes and . . . away from Brad.

“No. No fight,” Brad said, almost in a whisper. He pulled a pack of Camel Reds from his pocket. He offered the pack to me. I shook my head. He knows I don't smoke. “A man ran up behind Lindy. I didn't see his face. He wore a hood. I think it was black. It was . . . you know . . . a hoodie. He had it pulled over his face.”

A man in a hood? The same man who followed me outside the restaurant downtown last week? Brad must be telling the truth. He didn't know about the hooded man last week.

Unless
Brad
was the hooded man?

I decided not to say anything. These cops weren't going to be helpful. I needed to talk to Tommy.

I searched the area around the dock. Stores were closed. People were leaving the bars and restaurants, heading home.

“You didn't see his face?” the lanky cop asked.

Brad shook his head. He lit his cigarette with a red plastic lighter. “I already told you.”

“Describe him.”

Brad took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Kinda average. Not too tall. Maybe a little shorter than me. I'm not sure. It happened so fast. Not fat or anything. I think he wore black pants, kinda baggy.”

Like the guy last Saturday night . . .

The chubby cop turned to me. “Did he steal your bag? Was it a robbery?”

I blinked. My bag? I had brought a large, soft canvas bag.

“Here it is.” Brad picked it up from the pavement. “It flew off her hand when she went over the side. It landed on the edge of the dock. I picked it up.” Brad handed it to me. He had a strange smile on his face, as if he had just scored a point or something.

I shivered harder. “Listen, I really have to get home,” I told them. “Can you guys give me a lift?”

I didn't want to go home with Brad. Maybe he was telling the truth about the hooded guy. But I had to get away from him. I had to get warm and dry. I had to think.

Someone had tried to kill me.

How could I keep it together now? What are you supposed to do after someone tries to kill you?

“We're almost finished,” the lanky officer said, staring at his notepad. “We'll take you home. Unless . . .” He turned to Brad.

“I don't have a car. We came on the subway,” Brad said. “I could get us a taxi.”

“Please take me home,” I told the officer.

Brad took another drag on his cigarette and didn't react to that.

“So it wasn't a robbery attempt,” the chubby cop said, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “Maybe it was just a psycho. He saw you at the gap in the railing and made his big move.”

“I . . . I'm really cold,” I said, my voice quivering along with my body. I touched my hair. Sopping wet. I tried to dry it a little with a sweatshirt sleeve.

“We'll take your info in the car and get back in touch. We have a regular patrol at the Seaport. Maybe we'll spot the guy wearing the black hood.” He motioned for me to follow them.

Hugging myself, I started toward the squad car in the parking lot. Brad hurried after me. He wrapped his arms around me. “Jesus, I don't know what to say. I'm really sorry, Lindy. I promise we'll have a . . . dry time next time.”

Next time?

“We won't even drink anything,” Brad said, still holding me.

Someone tried to kill me, and he's making jokes.

“I . . . I'm sorry, too,” I murmured. Why did I say that? Maybe I was in shock a little bit?

He pressed his face against mine but didn't try to kiss me.

You didn't push me, did you, Brad? It really was a guy in a black hoodie, right?

I swung out of his grip and hurried after the two officers.

“Anyone home?” I slammed the door behind me and bolted it. “Ann-Marie? Luisa? Are you here?”

Silence.

I glanced at the neon Budweiser clock over the mantel (a gift from Lou). Eleven o'clock on a Saturday night. Of course no one was home.

“I need to talk to somebody!” I shouted to an empty apartment.

I grabbed my cell out of my bag. I'll call Ann-Marie, I thought. She must be out with Lou somewhere. She'll come home when I tell her what happened.

No. Wait. What am I thinking? I have to get changed first. I have to warm up. I'm not thinking clearly. My brain is all crazed.

Lindy, hello. Take it one step at a time.

I took a long, hot shower. I let the steam swirl around me, so soft and comforting. Then I pulled on my softest sweatpants and sweatshirt and thick, woolly ski socks.

Yes!

I felt a little better. Now what?

I didn't have time to decide. The phone rang. I hurried across the room and lifted it to my ear. Was it Ann-Marie? I really needed to talk to her. Was it Tommy Foster?

“Hello?”

“Lindy. I just took a chance. I thought maybe you might be hanging out at home tonight.”

“Shelly? Well, hi. What are you doing?”

I was happy to hear his voice. Shelly could cheer me up. Could I confide in him? Tell him what happened to me tonight?

Yes, I decided. Yes, I could confide in Shelly.

“I'm watching paint dry,” Shelly said. “It's totally exciting.”

I dropped onto the edge of my bed. “You're joking. What's going on?”

“I'm not joking. They painted my apartment today. I'm watching paint dry.”

I laughed. “Well . . . are you high on paint fumes?”

“I'm high on life. Are you . . . uh . . . alone there? You just hanging out? I mean . . . you want to meet or something?”

“Come over, Shelly. I have some wine in the fridge. Maybe we'll get trashed or something.”

“Or something? Are you trying to get me into bed?”

“Shut up. I'd really like to talk. I had a kind of frightening thing happen tonight.”

“Okay. Talk and wine. I'm there.”

“Thanks. I mean, hurry over, okay?”

I didn't want to be alone. I needed to talk about everything with someone. Ann-Marie was so involved with Lou, so totally obsessed. We were still close, but it was harder to get through to her. Especially since I told her about Lou coming on to me. That kind of changed things between us. I could see it in her eyes. A distance that was never there before.

Shelly was funny and nice. Yes, he could get intense, but of all the guys I'd been seeing, he was the only one I could confide in.

I went to the mirror, brushed my still-wet hair, and pulled it back tight into a blue scrunchie. I was spreading lip gloss on my lips when the phone rang again.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

Hard, noisy breathing.

I let out a gasp. “Stop it—please!”

Raspy throat sounds. The breathing came faster.

“Stop calling me!”

My heart pounding, I clicked off the phone and threw it across the room.

Why do I do that?

Lindy is such a nice girl. And I think she really likes me.

Why do I call her and breathe and groan like that? Am I a sicko? I don't even find it that thrilling.

You're such a bad boy, Shelly. Why do you keep calling her?

Okay, it's a little exciting. Admit it. You love to hear that intake of breath she makes when she realizes it's the breather again.

You like to hear her shout at you.

You're bad, Shelly. You have to stop.

You have to be nice to her. You like Lindy. You like her a lot.

Now put down the phone and get over to her apartment. She's waiting for you.

PART FIVE

33

Dune Road in Westhampton stretches through a narrow strip of sandy ground, with the ocean on one side and Peconic Bay on the other. Houses on stilts, all windows and light wood and weather-graying shingle, rise up on the yellow sand on the ocean side. The houses are pressed close together, as if huddling against the powerful waves. Some of them tilt into the wind off the ocean. Frothy water from high-tide waves washes under the stilts of houses built close to the shoreline.

Sand blows over the narrow, two-lane road that separates the beach houses from the bay-side houses. Every year, the ocean beach grows a little narrower. As it erodes, the houses find themselves more vulnerable, closer to the powerful waves that steadily crash onshore.

The houses on the bay side of Dune Road are more modest. Many of them are just bungalows, clapboard cabins and shingled, one-or-two-bedroom shacks built as summer rentals. The houses sit lower to the ground, many of them surrounded by tall grasses and reeds, swaying in the ocean winds.

The backs of the houses face the gentle, saltwater bay. Sometimes the bay is flat as a lake. Sometimes low waves splash on the grassy shore. No one swims in the bay here. The water is much too shallow. You'd have to walk for miles before the water came up to your knees.

Westhampton is the first Hampton town you come to when you drive out on the Long Island Expressway from the city. It is the youngest and flashiest and sluttiest and least snooty of the Hamptons. Westhampton has more young people jammed into share-houses, more dance clubs, more bars, more silver and gold beach jewelry and thong bikinis, more Beamers, more people my age desperate to hook up, to find a summer romance.

I know I sound like Lindy, the travel guide. But you have to understand, I've been coming out to the Hamptons all my life. Usually to visit friends, because my parents could never afford a place out here.

Sometimes when I was little, we'd wake up at dawn and drive out just for the day. Mom would pack a big cooler of sandwiches and canned sodas for lunch. We'd change our clothes out of the back of our old station wagon and spend the whole day on one of the ocean beaches, Hotdog Beach in Hampton Bays, or Cooper Beach in Southampton on those rare occasions when my parents wanted to spread their beach blanket near the rich and beautiful.

Sunburned and yawning, we'd have dinner at a dinky little drive-in called Slo-Jim's on Montauk Highway that Dad said had “the best clam rolls on Long Island.” Then we'd make the long drive back to the city and arrive home after ten o'clock, exhausted, sandy, and happy.

Those sunny days in the Hamptons formed some of my happiest family memories. And I couldn't help remembering them in great, slow detail as Lou drove my two roommates and me to the summer house Luisa had found for us on Westhampton Beach.

This was supposed to be an escape for me, for all of us. But of course I couldn't leave my problems behind.

What a shame I couldn't summon up the joy and expectation I had felt when I was a kid. Now, I had to fight back my feelings of dread, my thoughts about the killer I had attracted on the Internet.

Ann-Marie sat in the front passenger seat of the SUV, complaining most of the way about Lou's driving. He was one of those guys who thought it was a sport to dart from lane to lane, cutting off other cars, then speeding up to tailgate the next car, forcing it to change lanes and make room for him.

I slumped low in the backseat beside Luisa and wished Lou wouldn't turn driving into some kind of macho test. Once in a while, I could see his face in the rearview mirror. I could see his eyes on me and the biggest leering grin. I hoped I was imagining things.

“Lou, give us a break,” Ann-Marie pleaded, as he cut sharply to the right in front of an enormous Shell oil truck.

He slid his right arm around her shoulders and held the wheel with his left. “Hey, you've been on my case the whole trip. I thought you were crazy about me.”

“I never drove with you before. You're starting to lose your appeal.”

She was serious, but it made him laugh for some reason. Ann-Marie hadn't said a kind word to him the whole trip. In fact, she'd seemed angry from the time he picked us up, which I thought kind of strange. Lou was doing us a favor, after all. Driving us two-and-a-half hours out to our beach house.

I tried to change the subject. I turned to Luisa. She wore black tights and an oversized black T-shirt with a white spiderweb down the front. She had a blue and gold Florida Marlins cap pulled down over her straight black hair.

“Where'd you get that hat?” I asked. “You're not a Marlins fan.”

She pulled off the cap and examined it. “Someone left it in the bar. I thought it was kind of kitschy.”

“It's so awesome that your cousin found us a place right on the beach,” I said. “A house we can actually afford.”

“See? It's all who you know,” Lou chimed in.

“Actually, I had to be very very nice to him,” Luisa said with a sly grin. “If you know what I mean.”

Ann-Marie gasped. Lou and I laughed. “You said he was your cousin,” Ann-Marie said.

“A distant cousin,” Luisa replied, spinning the cap on her finger.

“You've been watching too many reruns of
Sex and
the City,
” I said. “People don't really act like that.”

Luisa rolled her eyes. “Right.”

“I can't wait to see Goth Girl with a suntan,” Ann-Marie said.

“Neither can I,” Lou said. “And in a thong bikini!”

Ann-Marie punched him on the shoulder. “Shut up.”

Luisa leaned forward, wrapping her hands around Lou's throat. “Lou, how funny are you?
Not!
”

“Hey—let me drive!” he protested.

Somehow we made it to Westhampton, and found the little red clapboard house on the bay side of Dune Road. We loved it immediately.

A short gravel driveway led past a white picket fence to the side of the house. Two flower beds bursting with bright red and purple impatiens framed the front walk.

The house was small and hot and damp inside. I hurried to open windows and let some fresh air in. Then I glanced around, trying to take it all in. One large, high-ceilinged room downstairs, kitchen, diningroom, livingroom all in one, a lot of knotty pine paneling, lots of wicker furniture, a square dinette table at the back window looking out to the bay, an enormous silvery blue swordfish mounted over the mantel.

Lou plopped down on the only armchair, an ugly brown thing with a recliner head and footrest. “This is a great make-out chair. Who wants to sit on my lap?”

Ann-Marie shook her head. “I'm warning you, Lou . . .”

Ann-Marie pulled Luisa and me away to explore the rest of the house. “Come on. He's being a total pig for some reason.”

A short hall, also knotty pine with framed sepia-toned photos of the lighthouse at Montauk Point lining the walls, led to a downstairs bedroom. Very nice. Walls painted a creamy off-white, filmy, white curtains at the sides of a large window with a cushioned window seat to gaze out at the sunset over the sparkling bay.

Sliding glass doors led to a private flagstone terrace. Painted wrought-iron table and chairs . . . a small-sized Weber barbecue grill, rust forming on one side of the lid . . .

“We need a pool back here,” Ann-Marie told Luisa, shielding her eyes from the lowering, red sun. “Why don't you talk to your cousin about it?”

“Too close to the bay,” I said. “I don't think a pool is allowed.”

“Look.” Luisa pointed. “What is that?”

I followed her gaze. A hummingbird buzzed over a clump of tall grass. “Haven't you ever seen a hummingbird before?”

Luisa shook her head. The three of us stared at the tiny creature as it hovered over some wildflowers at the edge of the terrace, bumping the blossoms gently, its wings a blur.

“Wow, that's so cool,” Luisa said. “Aren't humming-birds supposed to be good luck?”

My cell phone rang. My breath caught in my throat. “I hope so,” I said.