“You cannot tell them about Benton!” Natalya whispered. She was seated on the bed, patting the figure, which did not appear to have moved underneath the covers. “Please, Stella, do not say a word. Our lives depend on you. We will stay very quiet—do not let them find us here. Get rid of them, you have to.”
“Who’s that under the—”
“Go!” Natalya hissed, her voice thin with terror and choked-back tears. “If you care for Chip at all, you must not tell!”
More confused than ever, Stella went back to the door, where the knocking had resumed, louder now. Her thoughts raced as she tried to piece together the latest developments, the phone call, Natalya’s panic, the mysterious figure on the bed. The sliced and disposed-of ex-husband. Whether she could believe Chip, who she really didn’t know very well at all, or Natalya, who she had just met—
There was no time for that sort of conjecture just now. She pasted what she hoped was an innocently inquisitive look on her face and opened the door.
The cop on the steps narrowed his eyes at her as though she were not what he was expecting. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He held up a badge, which didn’t look a whole lot different from the one Goat carried around. Same basic shield shape, same flip-out leather case. “I’m Officer Petal. Can we come in?”
“Hello,” Stella said uncertainly. Should she just tell them about Todd? Convince them to marshal the resources of the entire department, start a full-scale investigation? Except if she did that, the odds of the police discovering wrongdoing in the house—any lingering evidence of the earlier carnage—went up exponentially.
What was worse, Stella knew all too well how these small-town law enforcement teams worked. Prosper was lucky to have the fierce and dedicated Sheriff Goat Jones, who was willing to do whatever it took to get things done, but most little municipalities had to make do with a lot less awesomeness and a lot more bureaucracy and incompetence. Stella didn’t doubt that the Smythe PD would get the forces corralled and dispatched—eventually—but first, there would be a whole lot of hemming and hawing and calling up the road and checking in with nearby departments, notifying higher authorities, and calling in specialists. In the time it would take to mount a proper search, Stella could be hitting the streets and hunting down leads herself.
And in situations like this, Stella always bet on herself.
“Is there … I mean what are you … what’s going on?” she hedged.
“Well, we had a call. Concerned neighbor, said he heard a scuffle going on here. Thought he heard a fight going on in the house but looks like what happened here was your truck was broken into. That your truck?”
He pointed at BJ’s truck, as though to differentiate it from any number of other pickups and flatbeds and crew cabs lining the street, though the only other vehicle parked along the curb was a grimy old white Ford Probe that had been liberally patched with Bondo.
“Yes,” Stella said, thinking fast. She wished she’d taken the time to clean up the glass, make it look like the window was merely rolled down. Except maybe this was better; a break-in might distract the cops from the report of trouble coming from inside the house. “Well, a friend’s, anyway. I borrowed it. Oh, no. He is not going to be very happy to see that.”
“Did you leave any valuables in sight, maybe on the seat? A purse?”
“No, I—” Stella hesitated, trying to get her rusty, middle-aged brain to catch up with the latest developments, and thinking of her purse, which was indeed inside the house, but which also contained the unregistered and filed-down SIG that she got for a song when an ex-client of hers decided, a few weeks after treating herself to it as a get-out-of-relationship gift, that she’d be even happier with a higher caliber. “Um, I mean, there was … sunglasses … and a, an iPod.”
Officer Petal shook his head as though she were just the dumbest thing he’d come across in weeks. “Ma’am, you can’t be leaving stuff out like that. Not in a neighborhood like this. So how about if we come in?”
“Yes, please,” Stella said, stepping aside and holding the door open. There wasn’t any way around it; refusing would only make her look suspicious. The other cop ambled up the walk and the pair came in and stood in the small living room, sniffing; the potpourri stench that had nearly knocked Stella over when she arrived had now been overtaken by strong notes of Windex and bleach.
“Hello, ma’am, I’m Officer Kruger. It smells … clean in here,” the second cop said. “This is your home?”
“No, actually, I’m visiting. My nephew. My, uh, stepnephew, actually. I just came up from Missouri for a few days.”
“Is he home, ma’am?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” Stella said, “He, um, wasn’t feeling well. He went out for some of that Theraflu.” She had an inspiration. “He’s been throwing up something awful. I would’ve gone to get it for him but I thought I’d stay back here and clean up. I’m telling you, that poor man couldn’t quite make it to the commode.”
She pointed at the kitchen floor and raised her eyebrow suggestively, as though the vinyl flooring bore traces of vomit rather than a dismembered body. The cops followed her gaze, and Petal, who was closer, stepped back in alarm.
“Is it that flu bug’s been going around?”
“Oh, I think it must be,” Stella said. “I’m just so afraid I might be catching it myself. I’m feeling a little queasy. They say it’s very contagious.”
“Well, look here, we can do this outside,” he said. “That’s where the break-in was, anyway. We’ll take down some information, just need to see your ID, and we really ought to speak to your nephew.”
“That’s fine,” Stella agreed, relieved, as the cops backed toward the door. She got her wallet from the purse, as well as her reading glasses, shoving the little handgun farther down in the depths and pushing the purse to the back of the counter. As she followed them outside, the thin morning sun lighting the dingy neighborhood a soft gold, she saw Chip round the corner, behind the wheel of his beat-up little Hyundai.
For a moment their eyes locked, and Chip slowed and veered as though he were considering a U-turn and a hasty getaway. Stella could see the surprise and consternation in his expression even at twenty yards.
If he turned around now, he would draw the cops’ attention, especially since they thought there had been a break-in. Stella waved at him and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, and after a second Chip steered the Hyundai toward his driveway, concentrating fiercely as though he were navigating through close-spaced buoys. The garage door stuttered open, creaking on old tracks.
“Well now, there he is, poor thing,” Stella said. “Oh, I don’t want to worry him about this.”
“Been a few break-ins in this neighborhood,” Officer Kruger said. “Won’t be a surprise to him, I don’t expect.”
Chip got out of the car and shuffled toward them with an ashen face, a look that certainly could have been the expression of a man who had just come from or was about to resume heaving his guts out.
“Oh, Chip, sugar, I was just telling these officers how
poorly
you’re feeling, and how you had to go to the drugstore for something to settle your stomach, and how I wished there was someone else here with us who could go fetch the medicine for you but it’s just us. Just the two of us, you and me, no one else here.”
Chip regarded her as though she were speaking Sanskrit, and then his confusion slowly cleared. “Oh. Uh. Right.”
“Sorry you’re not feeling well, sir,” Officer Petal said. “If it’s all the same to you, I won’t shake your hand. Don’t need to be catching that bug of yours.”
“No, no, that’s fine.”
“My truck got broke into,” Stella said, continuing to enunciate very carefully, as though Chip were a dullard instead of merely out of sorts. “I’m going to fill out these forms the officers have and then I’ll be in. Why don’t you lie down, Chip, and see if you can catch a little more sleep? After that awful night you’ve had puking and all.”
“I. Um. Okay. Er, thank you, officers,” Chip added, causing Stella to reflect that somewhere between now and the last time she’d shared a holiday table with the young man, he’d acquired a modicum of manners.
Chapter Nine
“Just who the hell y’all got locked up in that back room?” Stella demanded as soon as the cops drove away. Chip had closed the door of the bedroom gently after checking on its occupants.
“That’s Luka, Natalya’s boy. Didn’t we tell you about him?”
Stella bit her lip in an effort to keep from snapping at Chip, which in the long run would not be the least bit helpful—but the temptation was just too great. “
No.
You never mentioned, in all the time that I was watching you carve up your girlfriend’s husband, that you had a whole other person here who could’ve come out of that room at any moment and scared the shit out of me, and me with a gun in my hand!
Honestly!
”
“Oh, no, Luka wouldn’t’ve ever got up,” Chip said, evidently taken aback by Stella’s tone. “Seriously, Stella, that boy’ll sleep through anything. Why, sometimes we go on in there, he’s got that, that shitty music the kids like blarin’ out the speakers, and he’s all curled up like a little pup on his bed, and he don’t even budge when his mama tries to wake him up so she can get the covers on him. Well, you know how kids are.”
“Wait—so let me get this straight. That’s Natalya’s son?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I—?” Chip smacked his forehead with the back of his hand. “Oh, man, I guess I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. You know how they’re always sayin’ don’t operate power tools and shit like that when you’re sleepy. Only it wasn’t like that little job was gonna keep for morning, you know?”
“Natalya’s. Son.” Stella enunciated very carefully, snapping her fingers in front of Chip’s face. “Talk. To. Me.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Chip managed to look wounded.
“That’s who’s back in the spare bedroom?”
“Yeah. Name’s Luka.”
“’Cause Natalya took a call on that phone that made her pretty upset, she went racing back there—”
“Oh, that’s probably just his friends, up to something. You know how moms get, Luka probably forgot to tell her they got caught breaking curfew or something. That’s his phone on the counter, but she answers it sometimes.”
“How old
is
he?”
“Seventeen.”
Three years older than Todd. Which was interesting. Stella did the math in her head: If Natalya’d had her son at the tender age of twenty, she’d be thirty-seven, nine years older than Chip. “I’m not sayin’ I know a whole lot about the mail-order bride business—”
“They don’t call it that anymore, Stella, and I sure wouldn’t be using that term around Natalya, if you want to stay on her good side.”
“I don’t care about her fucking good side!” Stella bellowed out her frustration and fear and, while she immediately regretted losing her temper in front of Chip, it did make her feel better, and she considered doing it some more. “I don’t care what you call it, and right now I don’t even much care who she married or didn’t marry or wants to marry, I got a missing boy and a fearsome headache and no idea what to do next ’cept askin’ these questions and tryin’ to figure out what to do so if you don’t mind, Chip, how about you cough up some answers instead of arguin’ with me?”
Chip had the good grace to gulp and look both chagrined and worried. “Okay. Okay. Sorry.”
“So what I was going to ask was, my impression was that gents generally prefer an unencumbered lady when they send for—er, get hooked up with—erm, uh—”
“Gain an introduction,” Chip said helpfully. “That’s what they call it, on LovelyBrides-dot-com.”
“Yeah, that. I’m just surprised Benton was, you know, happy to get a kid thrown in on the deal when he married Natalya.”
“Oh no, well, he wasn’t, at first. He just wanted Natalya that much. Back when they were corresponding, she used her wiles and all, her beauty and charm and what have you, but I don’t blame her, not one bit. She did it all for Luka, in fact, is the whole reason she married Benton. It wasn’t any kind of love match for her, but she was willing to do it to make a better life for her son.”
“So she talked Benton into marrying her and bringing her son over here, too?”
“Pretty much, even though it took a lot longer to get Luka here after Benton brought Natalya over. All the legal shit and delays and all. The whole time, though, she made a good-faith effort. That part’s true, Stella, she tried to be a good wife. But Benton was always yellin’ at her, ordering her around, wouldn’t take her anywhere nice, expected her to stay in his place all day like she was in some sort of prison. And jealous like nobody’s business.”
“So I imagine things got worse when the boy came over. What with him being a teenager and all.”
Chip grimaced. “Yeah, and that’s how Natalya ended up finding the strength to walk out on Benton. You know how it is with a mother, she’ll just do anything for her kid.”
Stella wondered where Chip had picked up that observation, since his own mother had spent most of his growing-up years in a prescription-drug haze, after which they barely ever saw each other until her death a few years ago. Was it wishful thinking? Was his attraction to this older woman based on some sort of twisted-around desire for maternal attention?
“So how are
you
dealing with having Luka around, anyway?”
“He’s a nice kid, Stella—he really is.”
Something in Chip’s tone caught Stella’s attention, like he was working hard to convince himself. “Uh-huh. That don’t exactly sound like a ringin’ endorsement.”
“Well, I mean, sure, it’s tough on him, leaving everything he’s ever known and coming here where everything’s unfamiliar. I’m not saying he’s not having a few, you know, adjustment issues, but who wouldn’t? And Stella, when you consider what he’s seen and endured in his life—sharin’ a room with four other kids, all of ’em distant cousins or something, never enough to go around, hand-me-downs and ice on the inside of the windows—”
“Okay, got it, he’s fuckin’ Oliver Twist—”
“I mean, you’re a mother, so you understand.”
That shut Stella up, because it was at least a little bit true. What would she do, if Noelle faced hunger, and terrible medical care, and food lines, and those horrible kerchiefs Russian women wore—well, yes, she supposed she’d be willing to make all kind of sacrifices to give her daughter a better life.