Mad River Road (28 page)

Brad shrugged. “Okay. If you’re sure.…”

“I’m sure.” Jamie started from the room, turning back to see Brad stuff something into the pocket of his jeans. She quickly switched off the light so that she couldn’t see any more.

“Good night, Mrs. Dennison,” Brad whispered as they passed by her bed. “Sleep tight, you old witch.”

He’s taken on my anger as if it were his own, Jamie thought, wondering why, and realizing that under different circumstances, she might have felt flattered. She stepped into the hall, relief struggling to replace the terror in her lungs, to allow her enough space to breathe. Another minute and they would be out of here. They could put this Bonnie and Clyde act behind them, go back to the people they really were.

Except, who were they?

Who was
she?

“Show me your old room,” Brad said suddenly, his voice a cold glass of water dripping down her back.

“What?”

“Show me your old room,” he repeated, tugging on her arm.

“No. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Not until you show me your room.” He plopped down in the middle of the beige carpeted hall, crossed one leg over the other.

“What are you doing? Get up, for God’s sake.”

“Not till you promise you’ll show me your room.”

“It’s just a room,” Jamie insisted. Then when it became obvious he wasn’t going to budge until she complied, “Okay. Fine. I’ll show it to you.”

Instantly he was on his feet, following her down the hall, grinning from ear to ear.

This is all a big game to him, Jamie realized. He’s enjoying himself. “You think this is fun?” she asked incredulously, stopping in front of her old bedroom.

“Don’t you?” Brad stepped inside.

“No. I just want to get out of here.”

“Come on, Jamie. It’s a kick. Admit it.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her inside the room, stopping at the foot of the queen-size bed. “Is this where you used to do it?” He bounced down on top of the quilted brown-and-black patterned bedspread.

Jamie would have laughed had she had enough breath. “Yeah, right,” she scoffed as her eyes swept across the room. A boy’s room really, with its heavy, dark furniture, its dull, beige walls and slightly darker broadloom, the modern stereo equipment propped against one wall, a large flat-screen TV on the wall across from the bed. No frills or soft touches anywhere in sight. She’d tried to soften it once by buying a Klimt reproduction she’d seen in an upscale poster shop. Even though she’d never formally studied art, she found the painting of a young couple both passionate and tender, and hoped it would inspire some of that in her marriage. She’d hung it over the bed. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she’d asked her husband, and he’d nodded, but the next day the poster was gone.

“Come sit beside me,” Brad said softly now.

Jamie shook her head. She just wanted to get out of here. Seeing this room again made her queasy with unwanted memories: the times she’d spent reaching for her husband in the dark, only to be rejected; the nights she’d spent crying herself to sleep; the mornings she’d awakened to find him already finishing breakfast with his mother. Was she truly so unlovable, so unworthy of even the slightest sign of affection?

Brad patted the space beside him on the bed. “Come on, Jamie. Sit with me.”

Tears filled Jamie’s eyes as she allowed the tenderness in Brad’s voice to seduce her. She sank down beside him on the bed, felt the comfort of his arm as it snaked across her shoulder. He drew her to him, kissed her forehead, cradled her hands inside his own.

“Poor Jamie,” he was saying as she buried her face in his chest, crying into the dark cotton of his T-shirt. “Poor little Jamie-girl.” And then he was kissing her hair and the side of her face, her forehead and her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, and finally her mouth, the kisses becoming more urgent, more insistent, his hands leaving hers to caress her breasts. What was he doing? What was
she
doing?

“Brad, no. Don’t do that.”

“It’s okay, Jamie. Relax.”

“No. What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing.” One hand reached between her legs.

“No. Stop.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
Why?
“Because it’s not right.”

“It feels right to me.”

Jamie tried to push him away, but his arms were like vines that had grown wild and entrapped her, his mouth a pesky insect that wouldn’t go away. “We can’t do this here.”

“Of course we can.”

“No. What if she hears us? What if she wakes up?”

“She won’t hear us. Not if you stop making such a fuss.” He was pulling at her T-shirt, tugging at her pants.

“Brad, stop it.”

“Tell me what you did with him in this bed, Jamie,” he was saying, ignoring her protests.

“Brad, I don’t like this. I want you to stop.”

“No, you don’t. You’re enjoying this as much as I am.” He pushed her back on the bed, climbed on top of her, pinned her arms above her head. “Tell me if you sucked his cock.”

Jamie shook her head, torn between screaming and going limp. Dear God, how had she gotten herself into this mess? Just let me out of here in one piece, she prayed. I promise I’ll never do anything stupid again.

“Tell me if you sucked his cock,” Brad repeated, pulling her T-shirt up over her breasts and kissing her nipples.

“I sucked his cock,” Jamie said dully, hoping it would be enough to satisfy him, to get him off her. The touch of Brad’s tongue on her bare skin was starting to nauseate her. For the second time that night, she felt she might throw up.

“And did he like it?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“But you liked doing it, didn’t you?” Brad unzipped the zipper of her jeans, pulled them down over her hips,
quickly burying several fingers deep inside her. It hurt and she cried out. “Ssh,” he warned, forcing his fingers higher still. “You like this, don’t you?”

“No. I don’t like it,” she said truthfully, crying now.

“Sure you do. I know you do. You like it rough and dirty.”

“No, I don’t. Please, stop.” She heard his zipper opening, felt him tugging at his clothing.

“You like the danger. Admit it. You loved last night in the parking lot, didn’t you? Those guys looking at you the way they did.” He withdrew his fingers, only to force himself inside her, pounding into her relentlessly, whispering in her ear the whole time. “You like the threat of being discovered. You like doing it in this bed, leaving your scent, your juices all over the bedspread. You love picturing that old bat coming in here tomorrow and sniffing her nose in the air, and saying, ‘What’s that smell?’ ” Brad laughed. “Hey, Jamie-girl,” he said, continuing to ride her—SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A COWBOY, she thought as a fresh flood of tears sprung from her eyes—“you think she still remembers what sex smells like?”

Jamie turned her head to one side, closed her eyes, and tried to pretend she was on a beach somewhere, buried up to her neck in sand, numb from the neck down, but every time she tried to convince herself this wasn’t happening, Brad picked up the tempo of his pounding, the ferocity of his thrusts, and she was forced to acknowledge the truth of her situation, that she was in her former mother-in-law’s house, in her ex-husband’s bed, being raped by a man she’d willingly run away with only days before, a man with whom she’d made love in every possible position in every possible place, a man with whom she’d actually
thought she might be falling in love. It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. So
damned
pathetic, she thought, as once again his mouth returned to her breasts. He bit her nipple, and she cried out.

“Ready?” he asked, as if mistaking her pain for passion.

Was that possible? Could he really think she was enjoying this?

Jamie held her breath as Brad suddenly pulled out of her and flipped her onto her stomach, spreading the cheeks of her buttocks apart with his fingers and forcing himself inside her, drilling a hole through her body clear up to her heart. She felt as if she were being split in two, as if someone had lit a torch to her insides, and fire was racing through her, burning up everything in its path. The pain was unbelievable, and she chewed on the bedspread in an effort to silence her screams.

And suddenly he was collapsing on top of her, laughing with satisfaction. “It’s your fault for having such a great ass,” he told her as he slipped out of her, slapping playfully at her rear end. The tips of his fingers stung like a whip, and she whimpered. “Hey, Jamie. You all right? I didn’t realize I was invading virgin territory.”

Jamie said nothing. She lay on the brown-and-black bedspread, unable to move.

“It’s your fault, you know, for being so damn sexy,” Brad continued, zipping up his fly and straightening his clothes. “You make me crazy. You know that?”

It’s my fault, Jamie repeated silently.

“Come on, girl. You better get up and get dressed. We’ve been here long enough.”

Jamie struggled to get up, pushing herself off the bed and onto her feet, her legs giving out as soon as they hit
the floor. She crumpled to the carpet, as if paralyzed.

“Oh, God.”

“Careful there, Jamie-girl. You don’t want to go getting blood on the carpet.”

Blood? Jamie thought. She was bleeding?

“We’ll clean up back at the motel,” Brad was saying as he pulled her to her feet, maneuvering her jeans back over her hips, then zipping them up when her fingers refused to cooperate. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They were halfway down the stairs when they heard footsteps overhead and looked back to see a light come on in Mrs. Dennison’s room.

“Oh, God.”

“Mark? Is that you?” Mrs. Dennison called warily, flipping on the hall light as Brad and Jamie reached the bottom step. Then, “Jamie?”

Jamie froze, as if a giant net had suddenly descended on her head.

“Jamie, is that you?”

“Get out of here,” Brad yelled, galvanizing Jamie into action.

She tore open the front door, fleeing into the night without stopping or turning around.

It was only as she was being sick on the sidewalk next to her car that Jamie realized Brad wasn’t beside her. She looked back up the street just as the light disappeared from Laura Dennison’s room.

A
t first Emma couldn’t decide what to do with her newfound freedom. It had been so long since she’d had an entire Sunday all to herself. When Lily had first suggested taking the boys for the day—breakfast at the International House of Pancakes, followed by a trip to the Art Institute, then lunch at McDonald’s, and finally a movie—Emma had been against it. She disliked fast food almost as much as she disliked art galleries, and a vague but persistent headache at the base of her neck made the idea of sitting in a movie theater with a bunch of noisy five-year-olds something less than appealing, but how could she refuse when Dylan was staring at her with those big eyes filled with such obvious longing and Lily was smiling that sweet smile of hers? “It’s just that I have so much to do,” she demurred as Dylan’s features pinched together in disappointment and his eyes welled with tears. Not to mention my profound shortage of cash, Emma refrained from adding. The thought of wasting what little money she did have on something she wouldn’t enjoy …

“Oh, you don’t have to come,” Lily had assured her brightly, as if she’d been expecting Emma’s response. “Let me take the boys. My treat.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t let you do that.” Her protest sounded weak even to Emma’s ears.

“Of course you can. You looked after Michael last night. Today is my turn.”

“Well, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“I want you to come too, Mommy,” Dylan had piped up.

“I can’t, sweetheart. I have way too much to do.”

“What do you have to do?”

“All sorts of things.” Emma knelt down beside her son. “But it’s up to you, sweetheart. You can spend the day with Michael and his mother, going to the movies and all that other fun stuff, or you can spend the day with me, running errands and all that boring stuff. It’s your choice.” Some choice, she thought, hoping Dylan would feel the same way.

“I want you to come with us,” he’d responded, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

“That’s not an option.”

“What’s an option?”

“It means you either go with Lily and Michael or stay home with me.”

Dylan didn’t like her definition of
option
, and they spent the next five minutes going around in increasingly tight circles, but ultimately he’d made the only sensible choice and left with Lily and her son for breakfast at the International House of Pancakes.

“I’ll have him home by five o’clock,” Lily promised as Emma watched her son disappear down the street with his new friends.

Emma was surprised by the ease, even the eagerness, with which she’d let him go, considering the tight reins she’d held on him this past year. But Lily was so sweet and so reliable, Emma couldn’t imagine anything bad happening to her son while he was in her care. Lily would guard Dylan as if he were her own, Emma knew, feeling giddy and light-headed at the prospect of eight whole hours with no one to answer to but herself.

It was only later, as she stood in the shower, letting the hot water cascade around her head and shoulders, that she realized she hadn’t even asked Lily about her date last night. Not that she’d had to. Lily had been positively glowing when she’d shown up outside her screen door at barely eight o’clock this morning, so obviously the date had gone well. She’d just tell Lily she hadn’t wanted to question her about her evening in front of the children. Hopefully Lily might have a few salacious details to divulge later, although the fact that she’d shown up so early this morning probably meant the detective hadn’t slept over. Emma swallowed two Excedrin as she wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror. “I look awful,” she said.

Her reflection nodded its agreement. How long’s it been since you had a decent haircut? the face in the mirror asked.

Emma pictured the new hairdressing salon that had recently opened in the same plaza as Scully’s. What was its name? She’d walked past it just the other day. Nan’s Place? Nancy’s? Nadine’s? “Natalie’s,” Emma remembered, the large white poster in the small salon’s front window coming into sharp focus, proudly announcing it was now open for business, including, for a limited time only, Sundays from ten to five. Emma wondered how much
Natalie charged for a trim. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t afford it, no matter what it costs.”