Hush (23 page)

stabbed Davy's picture with his finger—"to stop biting people, start talking

again, and get him back to school. Those are the kinds of results that count.

Let's keep it simple, Celia. Simple. And never ever ask a parent if he's abusing

his kid if that kid hasn't specifically told you so."
Celia stood up unsteadily and reached across the desk for Davy's drawing. She

heard anger in the way air moved sharply into and out of her lungs, and felt it

in the dizziness that ruled her for a moment.
She held up the picture, noticed it shaking. "I know I haven't had a chance to

totally analyze his work yet, I'll get to that this weekend, but I can assure

you that this isn't unusual. Every one of his Batman drawings comes out the same

way. Every one of them."
"You told me." Tony sounded bored.
She tried mightily to ignore his smug expression. "I know it's not like finding

the stains on the underwear, but I think he is trying to tell us something, and

we should be listening to him." She found it a strain to speak in such a

well-modulated voice when she wanted most of all to scream at him. She resisted

the impulse. "Davy draws. That's how he talks. His father has his own way of

letting you know what he wants."
Without sitting down, Celia told how Mr. Boyce had threatened her with the snake

and then started to cut off its head.
"Are you sure he wasn't just trying to help you?"
She wondered if Tony was deliberately trying to antagonize her. She slipped

Davy's drawing back into the file and tried to still her trembling hand.
"No, he wasn't trying to help me."
"Then why didn't you call the sheriff, if you were so sure he was threatening

you?"
"Tony," she said with exasperation as she sat back down, "what was I supposed to

do? Report that he'd tried to butcher a snake with a knife? Do you really think

they would have done anything?"
"Maybe not." He shrugged. "Look, this ties right into what I wanted to talk to

you about. Maybe you shouldn't be working with Davy. I think you're getting too

wrapped up in this case and losing your objectivity. Frankly, I'm also losing

confidence in your ability to work with the boy. And after this run-in it's

clear you're not the best person to work with his stepfather either. I'm not

saying the whole thing was your fault— I don't know, I wasn't there— but I can't

have my staff running around and getting into confrontations like that outside

the Center."
Celia's hands fell to her lap, almost spilling the folder and drawings onto the

floor. Where the hell should she begin? Losing confidence in my ability to work

with the boy? Not saying the snake was my fault? Running around and getting into

confrontations? Jesus! She realized that every one of his statements was meant

to wound her, and that she'd have to triage her concerns.
"I think I'm working very effectively with Davy. He's drawing! He's not

responding to anyone else. He sits staring off into space most of the day until

he gets into my office. Then he works, and when he goes home he keeps drawing. I

think that's significant progress. Furthermore, if you take me off this case,

Mr. Boyce accomplishes exactly what he set out to do."
"First of all, this is not some contest of the wills. If I determine that it's

in the best interest of the boy to do another type of therapy, something with

more rewards and punishments built in, then Mr. Boyce can view it any way he

wants. I found it wholly inappropriate, as you might have gathered, that after

Davy bit Mrs. Tucker you had him draw a picture of where he felt safest."
"What do you think I should have done?"
"He likes to draw, right?"
"Yes, he does, very much."
"Anything but drawing then. Make him sit in containment by himself for an hour

or two. Let him know there's a price to be paid for his bad behavior. But don't

reward him."
"We're not talking about a child with mild behavior problems here, we're talking

about a boy with long-term disturbances that may have been caused by serious

abuse. He's not even talking, for God's sakes."
"Please don't get emotional on me," Tony said with evident distaste. "I'm not

going to debate this now. I'll tell you what. I'll think about it over the

weekend. I don't like having to take this case from you—"
Like hell —
"— but it's getting a lot more complicated than it needs to be."
She stood up to leave, paused, then reached back into the folder.
"I think," she said in little more than a whisper, "that you should look at

this. It's Davy's idea of what he would look like if he were a rosebush."
She laid down Davy's drawing, a nightmarish vision in black of a bush that

appeared to be all thorns and barren, brittle branches. Davy had managed only

two flowers, and both looked dark and menacing. A black fence with pointy

metallic posts surrounded the rosebush. They resembled the bars of a medieval

prison. She knew better than to consider this a trump card, and knew too that it

was unlikely to convince Tony of the value of art therapy; but she hoped that

maybe, just maybe, he'd begin to understand that Davy was a boy far too deeply

troubled to respond favorably to a one-dimensional behavioral approach.
"Nothing,"— she shook her head—"is simple with this boy."
33
Jack strolled up to Ruth's desk and told her she could leave early. "It's

Friday, go on. Helen and I can take care of things. Enjoy the weekend."
He'd tried to make it sound casual, the boss exercising his prerogative to be

kind, but he could see her suspicion in the way she glanced first at Helen and

then at him. She might just as well have wiggled her finger in his face and

said, I know all about you two. Recognizing this made Jack realize that she was

due for a raise. He'd tell her how much he appreciated the "discretion" she

showed in every aspect of her work, and he'd make sure to point out that you

just can't keep a job in this business without it. Ruth was smart, she'd get the

message.
Hush money. No, he corrected himself, not really. Insurance. Most people paid

good money to insure their homes, cars, boats, businesses. A fine tradition. He

would pay Ruth merely to insure his privacy.
Of course then he'd have to give Helen a raise too, but that could get a little

sticky because he was already paying her more than he paid Ruth, who had a lot

more experience. Maybe he could convince Helen to stay at her current salary for

a while. Fat chance. Helen, he had come to see, was good at making her demands

known. It was her idea to send Ruth home early, her idea to have a picnic in the

vault, and it was her idea to put the champagne on ice in a cooler to "celebrate

our weekend together." All of which left Jack more than a trifle nervous. One of

these days Celia would stop by the agency and find it all locked up. Then she

would discover that her keys no longer worked and wonder what the hell was going

on. But he'd finally brought in the locksmith because he couldn't enjoy himself

when he was worrying all the time about his wife walking in on them. And

naturally there were Celia's feelings to consider too.
But after this weekend his worries would be over. He'd already told Helen that

he wanted their affair to slow down, though her preparations at the moment did

not suggest that she was taking him all that seriously. He could hear her in the

vault spreading out the comforter and popping open the champagne. He hoped she

didn't spill any of the bubbly. He'd hate for it to start smelling like a saloon

back there. He was afraid it already smelled like a bordello.
"Jack?"
He looked back and saw her peeking around the corner. "Yes."
"Are we alone?"
"We are now."
"And we're all locked up?"
"Yup."
"Is there anybody out front on the sidewalk?"
"Nope, but why—"
"All right!" Helen burst out butt-naked and started a rude dance that involved

several violent thrusts of her groin in Jack's general direction.
He panicked because anybody walking by— hell, anybody driving by— could see

this— this bawdy display. Not exactly the staid image he wanted for his

insurance agency.
Helen bopped up to him, her ample breasts swaying and bouncing and slapping her

chest to a beat only she could hear. As she gyrated she reached out and started

to undo his tie.
"Are you kidding! Not here, for Christ's sakes!"
He hustled her back to the vault, pausing only long enough to make sure they

hadn't been seen. No telling because a car had indeed driven by. He could only

hope the occupants hadn't noticed anything amiss at The Griswold Insurance

Agency because this...well, this was as good as the grist gets for a small-town

gossip mill.
"Champagne?" Helen held up two full glasses that she had waiting for them in

their "love nest," as she had started referring to the vault with all of the

agency's most important records. He dearly hoped she would not slip up and use

that term during office hours, as in "While you're back there, Ruth, would you

check in the love nest for the fire-insurance records?" Jack lost water weight

just thinking of a mishap of that magnitude.
He grabbed the glass of champagne and slugged it down. "Thanks." Actually, he

needed a belt of something stiffer to calm his greatly frazzled nerves. He still

couldn't believe she'd danced naked in the front office and tried to disrobe him

in full view of the policy-buying public. Was she on drugs? Maybe he should have

made weekly urine tests part of the job requirement.
Helen drained her glass and refilled it. Jack did likewise. What the hell.
She took his tie and used it to perform a number of obscene tricks involving a

fair amount of tension against certain of her body parts. He reminded himself to

get it dry-cleaned ASAP. Either that or burn it.
Then she slipped his belt from his middle-aged girth, buckled it around her own

waist and used it as a hula hoop. Now this Jack could appreciate. Wow. His

member responded to this latest provocation but clearly not to her satisfaction

for she yanked off his briefs, took a deep swallow of champagne, and placed him

in her fizzy mouth.
Within moments Jack's perspective on Helen changed notably, and he no longer saw

madness in her actions but a distinct poetic grace. Yes, even the public

dancing, those wild pelvic thrusts, now appeared to have been nothing less than

inspired.
He stripped off his shirt in the midst of her ministrations and stood there

until his legs started to shake. She looked up smiling despite the obstruction

and drew him down to her. He lay on his back and she straddled him. The smell of

sex filled the air, the slightly sour scent they both found so persuasive, and

she guided him to her opening. He began to fill her inch by inch. For a moment—

no more than a twitch in time— they were still. And then she squeezed, and he

began to move.
34
By the time Celia left the Center, the rest of the staff had cleared out for the

weekend. The only other car that remained in the parking area was Tony's new

Toyota. She was still smarting from her meeting with him, and glad that her

workweek had officially ended. Sure, she'd have to study Davy's pictures and

prepare an evaluation by Monday, and she was on call if any of the clients had

an emergency, but at least she wouldn't have to deal with "Tony da Lip," as

Ethan had dubbed him, or with Ethan either, for that matter.
They'd always flirted a little, but they'd never kissed, and certainly neither

of them had ever suggested an assignation before. But even as Celia unlocked her

car and considered what had happened, she took pleasure in the memory of Ethan's

hands on the small of her back, the gently persuasive pressure of his fingers

and the ready willingness of her body; indeed, the neediness she'd known the

instant she'd been touched. And she'd liked his kiss too, open and eager, as

hers had been.
Her excitement had surprised her, and when she'd reached down she'd found Ethan

erect and ready. When was the last time Jack had been aroused that easily? No,

she chastised herself, when was the last time you were? That's the question. The

painful answer, she knew, could be measured only in years. She didn't want to

think how many. But the more she brooded over her dalliance with Ethan the more

she began to realize that simple lust hadn't been the sole force driving her

into his embrace. Hadn't she found herself gazing at him just two days ago in

containment, deciding that he'd make a terrific father? Maybe, she thought, your

hormones really do start to bubble when the need to breed asserts itself. If

Jack's reluctant, find someone who isn't. Or maybe, she reconsidered, you're

just skimming the surface of sociobiology to justify what you did, making

excuses while you make a travesty of trust. But that judgment seemed way too

harsh, even to Celia's Catholic side, and as she fired up the engine she thought

about what she'd told Tony less than an hour ago: nothing is simple. Well, she

repeated, nothing is. Not Davy. Not desire.
She felt oddly grateful to "da Lip" for his inadvertent intervention. His loud

call to Barbara had stopped them from going any further, and now that she found

herself once removed from the romance of the moment she could see the wisdom of

restraint. Plus, it just seemed so tacky. In the office, no less.
She backed up and started to pull away when she spotted Davy burrowed into the