The Neighbors (21 page)

With a towel wrapped around his waist, Mickey made a beeline to his bedroom, shoved piles of clothes away from his closet door, and threw an old suitcase onto his bed. He was done. If there were any chance of helping Andrew, he’d have to save himself first.

He knew Harlow would come after him the moment she sensed that something was wrong. Even his mention of the Wards being “off” was enough to make her crazy with rage, her palms itching for blood, and if Drew trusted her as much as Mick suspected, it was likely that he had mentioned Mickey’s misgivings
about the Wards by now. He had to get out of the house, get out of Creekside, had to hole up in some roach motel until he could figure out what to do—
if
he could figure out what to do. All he knew for sure was that he had to vanish. If nothing else, it would buy Drew more time. Mick was confident that without him at Harlow’s disposal, she’d stall on spilling Andrew’s blood.

After his father had died, Mickey had insisted that he didn’t want to move away from Cedar Street. Despite his inability to walk past the room where his dad had pulled the trigger, despite his sudden insomnia and heightened anxiety, he begged his mom to reconsider. When she had asked him why—why he would
possibly
want to continue to live in the nightmare that had become their life?—he had lied and said that he didn’t want to change schools.

But Mickey hadn’t given half a damn about his classmates. He hadn’t wanted to move because it meant leaving Drew behind—scrawny little Andrew Morrison, all broken up about his pops disappearing; that kid didn’t have two friends to rub together, and neither did Mick. Mickey had told Drew to scram more than a handful of times. Andrew could be a pest, always showing up after school, constantly asking about bands that Mickey listened to but Drew didn’t know. He was more like a little brother than a friend, but Mickey liked it that way. It meant that no matter what, they’d always be close—because that was how brothers were. He didn’t want to be the next person to disappear out of Andrew’s life. And yet that was exactly what happened.

Now disappearing was exactly what Mick had to do to help him.

Grabbing arbitrary articles of clothing off the floor, he tossed them into the open suitcase. Clean or dirty, it made no difference. He’d find a Laundromat. He’d always wanted to visit one of those intensely bright places, shove a few quarters into a machine and sit in a plastic chair reading a magazine, waiting for the girl of his dreams to wander through the front door.

He flipped the top of the suitcase closed and looked around the room, considering what else to take. His eyes paused on the gun tacked to the wall. In that split second he imagined himself marching next door, that shotgun loaded, his intentions clear. He’d kick the Wards’ door in and shoot Red square in the chest, and, as he lay dying, Mickey would trudge down to the basement where Harlow would be hiding. He always pictured her down there. It was the right place for her. She probably peeled that perfect exterior away every night before bed—flawless skin and bright red lips shed like a reptile, exposing a greasy troll beneath, teeth slick and black with blood.

He considered writing Drew a note, something dramatic like
Get out
or
Save yourself
, but decided against it. Telling Andrew to make a run for it was like telling him to jump off a bridge—he’d probably make it to the edge, but Harlow would give him the final push. No, it was safer to keep Drew in the dark. If she even suspected he wanted to run, she’d clip his wings and lock him away.

He dressed quickly. Clutching his suitcase, he jutted his arm into the bathroom and snatched his toothbrush off the sink on his way to the front door. He paused there, surprised at how hard his heart was beating. She would be watching. She was
always
watching. If the TransAm didn’t start, if his bag tore open in the middle of the yard...these factors would decide whether Mickey got away or whether Red would tail him until the Pontiac ran out of gas. And if it did, she would put a bullet through his skull; a real-life Mexican standoff in the Kansas prairie, complete with wind and storm clouds and a lonely highway.

“You just gotta do it,” he muttered, psyching himself up. “Just toss this shit in and jet.” He took a deep breath, tore open the door, and bolted across the brittle grass.

Harlow nearly choked on her Tom Collins when she saw Mickey run across the front lawn carrying a suitcase. In a knee-jerk reaction, she called out to the only person she knew would help her.

“Red!” she squawked. “Get the car!”

Red scrambled out of his recliner, but stopped short of running for the door.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked, glaring at her motionless husband, her blood boiling beneath her skin.

Red shook his head, slowly at first, then with more fervor, alerting her that this wasn’t going to happen, that he wasn’t going to be part of her plan. “Get your boy to do it,” he told her. “Let’s see if
he
passes your test.”

Stunned, she watched Mickey walk out of the house, across the front lawn, and down the tree-lined sidewalk, wondering whether he’d ever come back, wondering whether she’d ever see him again. She assured herself that she wouldn’t care, that it would be better if he faded into the sunset—but she knew better. The idea of watching him bleed to death didn’t shake her, but the idea of him walking out on her made her weak in the knees.

“You son of a bitch,” she whispered into the empty air, reeling away from the window and to her purse upon the armoire. Drawing out her revolver, she narrowed her eyes at its weight in her hand.

That was when Harlow decided that Redmond Ward wouldn’t be given the chance to come home, because she was going to march up behind him in broad daylight, press the barrel of the gun hard against his skull, and fire. And after he hit the ground with his brains spilling out of his skull, she’d shoot him again—shoot him until he resembled the pulp she had left in Danny Wilson’s apartment.

She pivoted on the hard soles of her high-heeled shoes, her finger twitching against the trigger when she caught sight of Andrew out of the corner of her eye. He appeared at the far end of the yard, shielding his eyes from the sun. He was looking after
Red, looking in the direction Mickey had fled. Sweet, wonderful Andy—her darling, always so concerned for the well-being of everyone around him.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a breath, turned away from the door, and slid the gun back into her bag.

She wouldn’t allow Red to ruin this for her.

Andrew was going to be hers, no matter how hard Red kicked and screamed.

From the side of the house, Drew watched the TransAm jump the curb and bounce into the road. Unable to contain his curiosity, he left his paint can and brush behind and wandered into the front yard, wondering what the hell had happened to make Mickey bolt the way he had. Half-expecting to find a cop parked on the street—red and blue lights whirling—he would have been less surprised to see Mickey in a standoff with the police than to see what he saw, which was a whole lot of nothing. Despite his abrupt departure, the house was still standing. There were no cops. No fire. Everything looked normal—just the way it had been since the day he arrived.

He nearly jumped when Red slammed the front door behind him and started to march, looking as though he were pursuing Mickey on foot. Drew opened his mouth to call out to him, to ask what was going on, but he stopped short of yelling Red’s name. That man was no longer Andrew’s friend. It was still unclear as to how it had happened—how Red had gone from gracious neighbor to reserved and reticent foe—but there was no denying that Drew was no longer in Red’s good graces.

Turning away from the scene, he saw Harlow watching him through the front window. She offered him an odd sort of smile. It lacked her usual confidence—the kind of smile someone gave when they weren’t sure whether they were in trouble or not. It
was the smile Emily had given him the moment she knew he was staying in Kansas while she left for Illinois.

Harlow lifted her hand to expose her palm, a silent hello through a pane of glass. She eventually turned her back to him, pulling a knuckle across the apple of her cheek, her eyes glinting in the light. Just then, she looked like the ghost of his mother, standing at the window, waiting for her husband to return.

It was dark by the time Drew stepped into the garage. He stood at Red’s basin sink, trying to wash as much paint out of the brush bristles as he could. Eventually, he wandered across the yard to announce that he was finished for the day, expecting Harlow to insist he stay for dinner, or just to talk. To his surprise, she met him on the front porch. She was lying in the hammock, puffing away on a skinny cigarette with the skirt of her dress folded in around her.

Andrew paused on the bottommost step when he saw her, taken off guard by the tendrils of smoke that curled from between her lips. She turned her head to regard him, but didn’t make a move.

“Finished up?” she asked.

He nodded in reply, continuing up the steps, but stopped when she spoke again.

“We’ll see you in the morning, then.”

No invitation. No dinner. For a moment, Drew wasn’t sure what was happening. He suddenly felt terrible, as though he’d done something unacceptably wrong. It was like déjà vu, but instead of his mother’s detachment, it was Harlow. He pictured her beautiful golden hair fading to gray, imagined the smooth complexion of her skin growing sallow with grief. And that fairy-tale house—the flowers would die, the grass would sprout weeds, the front porch steps would sag with sadness.

“Are you OK?” he asked, but Harlow waved him away with the burning tip of her cigarette, smoke curling through the air.

“I want to be alone,” she told him. “Off you go.” She motioned toward the house next door, reminding him where he belonged.

Andrew frowned but did as he was told, stalking down the walkway toward the fence’s gate. Halfway there he paused, turned back to her like a street urchin looking up at a rich debutante.

“Did I do something?”

Harlow didn’t answer.

“Is it Red?”

She responded by getting up, crossing the porch, and slipping inside without a word.

Drew was left outside, surrounded by dusk, crickets chirping their sad song. He eventually turned toward Mickey’s place, his shoulders slumped, his heart tight as a fist.

He was losing her. And it scared him half to death.