The Lost (26 page)
Authors: Jack Ketchum
He wasn’t sure she did.
But no one else in her life had ever confessed to murder, that was for sure. Not even one of her biker-type boyfriends from Frisco. No one had ever in her life trusted her with a secret that big or that dangerous. In fact it was a measure, he said, of how much he cared about her and trusted her that he was telling her at all.
He had to tell somebody, he said.
He was all alone carrying all this weight, all this guilt, this shame, all these years
. Alone.
It was probably why he’d had this problem just now, he said. Why he’d gone off so fast on her.
There was just so much inside him. So much bottled-up guilt and tension. And being here where it happened, that just brought it out again.
They’d dressed and he’d shown her the tree and the campsite and where the tent was and the place where he’d fired on them from the bushes, and she listened seriously and quietly and didn’t even ask him any questions except, finally, at the end of it,
Why?
and to that he said he didn’t know. He was a kid, he wanted to know if he had guts enough to do it he guessed, to see what it felt like. That was cold, he knew. He was mad at his parents that day he remembered. Mad at everybody. Mad at the world. He was crazy. An angry, crazy, troubled kid. But now as an adult, knowing what he’d done, he felt horrible.
Fucking horrible for those two poor innocent girls. Horrible for taking somebody’s life for no reason.
He couldn’t go on like this, alone with this awful secret
.
Of course there were a few things he
didn’t
tell her.
He didn’t say that they were a pair of fucking rich-bitch lesbos.
He didn’t tell her about Tim and Jennifer being there. Mentioning them would just complicate things. He said he was alone. She already didn’t like either of them. It was easier.
He didn’t tell her about hunting the second little bitch through the goddamn woods half the night and then losing her.
That part was humiliating.
But he told her enough of the rest to make it believable he thought. He gave her enough of the detail.
And when he was through he had this feeling that something had happened between him and Kath that was a lot like what he’d had the last four years with Tim and Jennifer. A kind of bond.
A closeness that only a certain kind of knowledge can bring.
From now on he’d be special to her. She’d be carrying his secret.
He’d done what he’d set out to do, needed to do.
He’d marked her.
He didn’t worry much about her telling somebody. She wouldn’t tell. And even if she did, all it was was hearsay and all he had to do was deny he’d ever said a thing. Plus the cops had squat on him in the way of proof.
But he didn’t think she’d tell. He thought it very unlikely.
And that he’d finally managed to intrigue her
.
He drove silently. Slowly and seriously. Shouldering his guilty burden for her and happy as he’d been in his life.
This was really twisted.
She was pouring a scotch for a guy who said he’d committed murder. He was sitting outside in her living room.
She was alone.
The guy definitely had a line of bullshit and he was probably in most things an out-and-out liar. She didn’t believe his story about the broken legs for one minute. So why should she buy this one?
But if this was a lie it was the strangest damn lie she’d ever heard.
Why would he tell me this shit?
Did he think it was romantic? She thought about the Tate murders on the news tonight and wondered if they’d maybe fed into his story somehow, if they’d brought on some kind of weird dark personal fantasy for him.
The guy was
strange
.
Her father would die if he knew she was sitting around with him. The truth of the story be damned.
It was late at night.
She was alone.
I should have gone with him
, she thought.
I should have gone with dad
. The thought came unbeckoned and nagged her.
What kind of a daughter am I to him, that I wouldn’t go too?
She pushed the thought angrily away. She’d made her decision on that one. She’d have to stick by it. And she had enough to think about right here and now.
She could not say this was the smartest thing she’d ever done, letting him in tonight.
But the sheer
weirdness
of it. A couple of dates and the guy confesses murder. Shows her where and how he did it and how he cleaned up afterwards.
In a way it was more twisted if it was a lie than if it was the truth. You could have some motive for spilling your guts out even to someone who’s practically a stranger, even to someone you’ve fucked only once and spent a few evenings with. But what in the world would be the motive for making the whole thing up? What in god’s name could you hope to gain?
He said he cared for her. Was maybe even falling in love with her.
She thought it was a little early for that.
He said he trusted her.
Why would he trust her?
He hardly knew her.
Something inside her was inclined to believe his story. Another part of her denied the possibility, said that he was a liar.
Still another part wanted to play detective.
Maybe that third part was the reason she was pouring the scotch here.
It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to her, though. No contest. And she had to admit there was something exciting about it too and probably dangerous as well because whether truth or fantasy there
had
to be something dangerous about a guy who would tell you stuff like this.
Murderer or nutcase.
Either one could hurt you.
You’re playing with fire here. Kath. You’re pushing yourself again. But this is a game you should maybe think about twice, you know?
He was sitting on the couch just staring off into nowhere when she brought in the drinks. He looked exhausted. Drained. If he was acting it was easily the best performance she’d seen from him so far. She handed him his scotch and sat down across from him in the armchair. She wanted that space between them, and he looked as if he expected as much. She took a sip from her vodka and tonic.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Ray. I honestly don’t.”
“I don’t expect you to say anything.”
“And I don’t know whether to believe you, either.”
“I figured.”
“It’s fucked up, though, you know? Either way.”
“
I’m
fucked up. I been fucked up all these years. Shit, I used to think it was because I was adopted but that’s not true. My parents are good to me. And the fact that I never got to know my real mom and dad, well, so fucking what? Lots of kids don’t know their real parents. That’s got nothing to do with anything.”
That’s a new one
, she thought.
He’s adopted. Or says he is
.
She took another sip of the vodka.
Ask him
, she thought.
It’s sick but it’s what you really want to know most of all, isn’t it? So go on and ask him. Truth or lie you want to hear his answer
. She lit a cigarette and shook out the match.
“So you didn’t tell me, Ray,” she said. “What did it feel like?”
“Huh? I did tell you.”
“You told me how it felt after. Not then. Not at the time.”
She took another long drink and looked at him.
“Not when you were out there killing people.”
“Jesus, Kath.” He looked uncomfortable as hell but she noticed that the spark had come back to his eyes. “You really want to know this?”
“I guess I must. I’m asking.”
The house was silent. She could hear the ice clink in his scotch as he tipped the glass and drank. She felt absurd for a moment and a little frightened. Like they were sitting around a fire and she was about to hear him tell a ghost story.
He pushed himself up on the couch. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
He spoke slowly, carefully, like he really was having to work at this.
“It felt scary,” he said. “It felt dangerous and scary. But I gotta tell you, I gotta be honest. It also felt like I had all this power all of a sudden. I mean, I could scare them or just wound them or whatever. And then, even when I started shooting I could still stop and let them . . . let them live. Or I could . . . go on doing what I was doing. But also it was like I was on a fucking roller coaster, you know? I mean, part of me
couldn’t
stop. It was . . .
it was so fucking
. . . it just
grabs hold of you
, you know? Jesus! I’m sorry. That’s so sick. That’s
so
fucked up. I’m . . .”
He shook his head. She leaned over and put a finger to his lips.
“Shhhh,” she said.
She couldn’t believe it. She was going to do this, she thought.
She was going to do this just once and then never again.
I dare you
, she thought.
I dare you, Katherine. Double-dare
.
Ray was fucked up all right. Either way. Truth or no truth. But then so was she and here she was, about to prove it again. The fact was nothing new to her. She’d known for a very long time. She was her mother’s daughter. She’d grown up practically comfortable in the knowledge. It had the familiar sting of the inevitable.
Katherine’s about to screw up again
.
Only question was, how bad?
She was going to do this whether he was lying or not, but do it believing he was telling her the truth because at that moment it was what she wanted to believe and the truth right now was unknowable anyway
. She was going to take a certain leap into the murky waters of
what it feels like
. A place she liked to visit now and then. A place where she felt wide awake and wholly at home.
In her mind tonight and for just this one time and then never again, she was going to fuck a murderer. An enemy of human life. She was doing it just to see what it felt like inside
while
she was doing it and for no other reason than that. No good reason, certainly. Certainly not to comfort him.
Did that make them two of a kind?
Maybe
.
Whatever.
She put down her drink and went to the couch and straddled him and she could feel the energy pouring off him, he was practically vibrating in the grip of it staring at her wide-eyed, unbelieving as she pulled her sweater off over her head and put her hand down onto him and found he was already hard and closed her hand over him.
And that was when the phone rang
.
She turned and looked at it like she’d been bitten by a snake.
The phone was hard reality.
What she’d been doing, it suddenly occurred to her, was not.
What she’d been doing fell squarely into the category of sick twisted fantasy and that was all it was. She felt suddenly ashamed.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t get it”
“Jesus. You know what
time
it is?”
“It’s probably a wrong number.”
“It’s not a wrong number, Ray. Not at this hour.”
She got off him, shaking now and not knowing whether it was him or what she’d almost done with him that made her shake or if it was what the call might mean. All she did know was that she was afraid of picking up that phone and afraid of herself most of all.
She picked up the receiver and listened and when she heard the voice on the other end in all its sadness and lost desolation she began to cry but tried not to show it for her father’s sake. She let him speak until it seemed he was through and his voice was almost normal and then told him that she’d call right away, she’d be on the first plane in the morning and said she’s better off, daddy, you know the way she suffered and he said yes I know, I know, but dammit I loved her and Katherine said, so did I and then she didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was crying, the shock that it was simply true and inevitably true ran all at once too deep. All these bitter spiteful years she’d loved her and hadn’t known, not really, it was a small light in a cave, a light too dim to penetrate the dark but it was burning now. She was a child parted forever from the mother she had loved and no more and no less than that and she hadn’t known.
She hadn’t known at all.
“There are no intact men.”
—Pete Dexter,
The Paperboy