Torn Apart (2 page)

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Pinky said. “Damn heat and humidity. Ain’t good for nothin’ but skeeters and gators.”

Newt didn’t have an argument for that.

The yellow tint of neon lights behind the counter reflected off Pinky’s bald head as Newt set his cold pop and canned meat on the counter.

“Add a candy bar to that,” Newt said, as he flipped a ten-dollar bill onto the counter, chose a Snickers off the shelf beside the register, tore the end off the wrapper and took a big bite while he waited for his change.

“Take it easy,” Pinky said, as Newt stuffed the change in his pocket and headed for the door.

“You, too,” Newt said, and walked back toward his truck.

But he didn’t get in. He cast a quick glance around the area, making sure none of the local cop cars were cruising nearby, then disappeared into the shadows. By the time he got to the street where the Earles lived, he’d finished his candy and was downing the last of his pop. He paused on the sidewalk, giving the neighborhood the once-over. All the house lights were out except for a second-story window down the block.

Newt knew who lived there and that the presence of an upstairs light posed no threat. That was Carlton Weaver’s house. Old Carl was a widower with a penchant for women with big boobs. If the light was on, that meant Carl was still up watching the Playboy Channel, which meant he wouldn’t give a shit about what was going on outside his house.

Newt glanced up and down the empty streets one last time, then took it as a sign it was time to make his move into the alley that ran behind the Earles’ white frame house.

A few yards down, he tossed the empty pop bottle and candy wrapper into a trash can, then popped the top on the can of Vienna sausages. He knew the scent was going to reach the dog in the next backyard before he did, just like he also knew that the routine he’d fostered would keep Old Sounder from barking.

Sure enough, as he moved toward the back of the fence, he heard the dog whine in anticipation.

“Hey, boy,” he whispered, then paused long enough to dump the meat into the yard.

The old hunting dog was still licking his lips when Newt lifted the lid on the garbage can to dispose of the tin, then ducked behind a hedge and into the Earles’ backyard.

Their one-story house was dark except for a dim yellow light coming from the bedroom window on the south side. His heartbeat accelerated, knowing that butter-yellow glow came from a teddy bear night-light in Bobby’s room. He would not have been interested in the fact that J.R. had been making love to his wife in the bedroom on the other side of the house, or that he was being watched by a pair of barn owls up in the tree above his head. His entire focus was on getting to that window.

He could hear the steady hum of the air-conditioning unit near the back door, as well as the familiar night sounds of singing crickets and tree frogs. By the time he got to Bobby’s window, he had the beginnings of another erection. Hoping that the shade had not been pulled, he stepped behind a pair of lush pink azalea bushes in full bloom and peered into the window, then ran his hand down the front of his pants.

Ahh.

The sheers were pulled back and the shade was more than halfway up, giving Newt an unobstructed view into the room. He could see the little boy’s dark, tousled hair against the white of the pillowcase, and one bare arm sticking out from under the covers. He smiled, seeing the brown, floppy teddy bear Bobby clutched beneath his arm. Newt once had one just like that, which strengthened his connection to the child even more.

Anxious to get down to business, he began masturbating, using the fantasy connection to the child as his high.

When the climax came upon him, he groaned and slumped forward—farther than he’d meant to, hitting his shoulder against the side of the house so hard that it rattled the window.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, as he frantically pushed himself back from the wall, then looked up.

To his shock, Bobby Earle was sitting up in bed and staring at him through the curtains with a wide-eyed, panicked expression on his face.

Newt didn’t know that to Bobby, the face appeared to be that of a monster—a monster that was surely coming through his window. For a few frantic seconds they stared at each other. The frightened tears running down Bobby’s face gave Newt a new kind of high, but when he saw the little boy’s mouth suddenly open wide, he knew enough to run before the scream that came afterward. And he did run.

Out of the yard.

Down the alley.

Out onto the sidewalk.

Down the street to his truck, which was still parked in the shadows at Pinky’s Get and Go.

By the time he got back to the trailer park, he was fairly confident he’d gotten away without being seen. He crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep, unconcerned about the chaos he’d created.

“Mommmeee! Mommmeee. Help! Help!”

Katie was awake and running out of the bedroom almost before her eyes were open. The screams coming from her son’s bedroom had nearly stopped her heart. J.R. was right behind her, scared half out of his mind. They burst into Bobby’s room within seconds of each other.

J.R. turned on the light just as Bobby came up from his bed and leaped into Katie’s arms. Katie staggered from the impact, and they would have tumbled to the floor together if J.R. hadn’t caught them.

“We’re here, honey…we’re here,” Katie soothed, as Bobby’s arms snaked around her neck, his little hands fisted in the tangled length of her hair. She turned around and sat down on the side of the bed with him still in her lap. “What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?” she asked.

“No! No!” he sobbed, burying his face against her neck. “The monster! The monster! He was coming in my window to get me!”

J.R. looked toward the window and frowned. It sounded like a bad dream, but Bobby’d had bad dreams before without this kind of frantic reaction.

Like J.R., Katie glanced toward the window. She didn’t see any shadows, or anything that would have made him think of monsters. All she saw was darkness between the sheers on either side of the window. It was then she realized they hadn’t drawn the shades.

“I’m sure you were just dreaming,” she crooned, rocking him where they sat.

But Bobby wasn’t having any of it.

“No, Mama, no,” he sobbed. “I saw him. I heard him. He was coming in my window!”

J.R. frowned. Heard him?

“What did you hear, son?”

“A thump. A really loud thump. It woke me up. When I looked at the window, the monster was looking in at me.”

Katie gasped and looked up at her husband, but he was already ahead of her.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the room on the run.

Katie heard the sound of his footsteps as he ran through the house, heard him open a drawer in the kitchen where the flashlight was kept and then the slam of the back door as he went out. She didn’t think he would find anything, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Daddy’s going to look,” she said softly. “Everything’s going to be all right, okay? You know Mama and Daddy won’t let anyone or anything hurt you ever…right?”

Bobby nodded, but he wasn’t turning her loose, and he wasn’t lying down. Not until Daddy came back with word that the monster was gone.

J.R. cleared the back porch steps in two leaps and began circling the house. The grass was damp against his feet as he ran through the shadows. The hum of the air conditioner was almost drowned out by the thunder of his own heartbeat. He didn’t even notice that the yard had gone silent, that the crickets and tree frogs had stopped their midnight chorus.

He reached the south side of the house within seconds. Light spilled out from Bobby’s window onto the lawn in an oblong patch. He swung the flashlight along the line of the house, looking behind bushes and trees, before moving closer to Bobby’s window.

He paused between the azaleas and swept the flashlight beam along the ground. He couldn’t discern actual footprints, although the grass beneath the window appeared to have been flattened. Then the beam of light caught on something shiny on the side of the house. He frowned, then moved closer.

A few drops of a viscous-looking liquid were running down the side of the house, a snail’s trail, he thought. And when he squatted down to shine the light beneath the azaleas and saw two fat slugs beneath the farthest bush, he considered the mystery solved.

J.R. stood, then looked into his son’s room. From where he was standing, he had a very clear view of his son and the bed.

He swung the flashlight around the yard again but saw nothing out of place. Even if someone had been in the yard, he was obviously long gone. The fact that he hadn’t heard the neighbor’s dog barking alleviated even more concern. If there
had
been a prowler or a Peeping Tom in the area, the dog would have freaked. Old Sounder barked at everything.

He walked to the back of the yard, then swung the flashlight up and down the alley, which set off the neighbor’s dog, just as he’d known it would. He saw nothing and no one. Then he switched off the flashlight and waited in the dark, looking to see if someone came out of hiding.

But nothing happened. Still uneasy that he was missing something important, he went back and circled the entire house twice, but found nothing amiss. Finally he went back inside, locking the kitchen door behind him, then headed to Bobby’s room.

Katie and Bobby were still sitting on the side of the bed. The matching expressions on their faces made him sick. He couldn’t help but wonder how many times Katie dealt with things like this on her own when he was gone. It made him even more anxious to get his family moved.

“All’s well,” he said quickly, then sat down beside them and gave them both a hug. “I promise, buddy,” he added, when Bobby frowned. “I went all the way around the house twice, and I looked up and down the alley. Old Sounder wasn’t even barking until I got to the end of the yard, and we all know how he likes to bark, right?”

Bobby sniffled, but nodded. Daddy was right about that. Old Sounder barked at everything. So maybe Mama was right, too. Maybe it was just a bad dream. Still, when he crawled out of Mama’s lap and back into bed, he was nervous.

Katie saw him glancing toward the window.

“Would it make you feel better if we pulled the shades?” she asked.

He grabbed his teddy bear and tucked it beneath his chin as he nodded.

J.R. quickly pulled the shade, then repositioned the curtains.

“Okay, buddy?”

“Okay, Daddy,” Bobby said, but his shaky voice and teary eyes tore at J.R.’s conscience.

“Would you feel better if Daddy and I lay down with you until you fell back to sleep?” Katie asked.

It was all the little boy needed to hear. “Yes, please,” he said, and scooted into the middle of the bed with an expectant expression on his face.

J.R. turned out the lights and climbed in on one side of the bed as Katie lay down on the other. They heard Bobby sigh, watched as he pulled the teddy up against his cheek and closed his eyes.

Katie’s heart swelled as she watched father and son settling down together. Bobby was his father in miniature—from the angles in their faces and the slight clefts in their chins, to the dark hair and brown eyes. These were the two most important people in her life. Impulsively, she reached across Bobby and clasped J.R.’s hand.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she said softly.

“Me, too,” he whispered.

But J.R. couldn’t sleep. The secret ate at him as painfully as the fear that kept him from revealing it. So he watched as his family fell back to sleep, leaving him and the teddy bear night-light on guard duty.

The rest of the night passed without incident, and it wasn’t until they were getting dressed for church the next morning that J.R. got up the nerve to tell her about the job and the need to move.

Katie had chosen a yellow-and-white polka-dot sun-dress with a matching white jacket to wear to church. It was bright and sunny outside, and her clothing reflected both the weather and her mood. Getting ready for church with J.R. was one of her favorite things to do.

She loved to watch him shave, scraping away the black-as-sin whiskers. She also loved to watch him get dressed. Despite the fact that they’d been married almost eleven years, she still got turned on by his strong, muscular frame.

When she caught him watching her as they dressed, she thought nothing of it. They loved each other. She was glad he liked to watch her the way she liked to watch him. It wasn’t until she was brushing her hair at the vanity, and he walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, that she realized he had something besides sex on his mind.

“Katie…honey, you look beautiful already. Come sit down on the bed with me a minute. I have a surprise.”

She smiled as she laid down the hairbrush.

“Goody. I love surprises.”

J.R. smiled back, but inside his gut was in knots. Something told him this news wasn’t going to be as exciting to her as it had been to him.

Katie sat, then turned to face J.R. It wasn’t until he took her hands in his and took a deep, shaky breath that she began to worry.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“No, no. To the contrary,” he said, and gave her hands a quick squeeze. “I got a promotion.”

Katie squealed, then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Oh, honey…that’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you. Congratulations!”

J.R. hugged her back. “Thanks, sweetheart. You make me proud, too. All the time. You take care of this house and our son for days on end on your own, and don’t think I don’t appreciate the sacrifices you make. That’s why this promotion is such good news.”

“What do you mean?” Katie asked.

“The promotion also means no more traveling from rig to rig all over the country as a troubleshooter. I’ll have an office and a regular quitting time. No more motels. No more lonely nights and restaurant food. I can share the burden of raising Bobby with you, and he can grow up knowing we’re with him, under the same roof, every night.”

Katie nodded, but something wasn’t adding up.

“Um, honey…how will that work? I mean, is Macklan Brothers going to open an office here in Bordelaise? It’s pretty small and too far inland, I would think.”