She couldn’t risk it. Not only would she be implicated, but the truth of what Peter had been doing would become public knowledge. They would see her as a victim.
“Peter,” Greta said.
He looked up from his bowl of Franken Berry cereal. It looked like a puddle of sodden pink mush, and Greta’s stomach churned with disgust.
“What?” he asked gruffly before scooping another spoonful into his mouth. Pink milk dribbled down his chin.
Disgusting pig, she wanted to hiss.
Instead, she smiled and tugged at her t-shirt. It pulled up, offering him a slight glimpse of her pale belly.
His eyes immediately dropped to the exposed skin, his mouth falling open.
“Matt’s not as good as you, not as large.”
Greta stared at the table as if her eyes could pass through the cheap wood. His erection had probably already pushed against his dirty sweatpants.
He stood, pushing the chair back, cereal forgotten.
“Not here,” she said, gazing at him seductively. “Matt will be here any minute to pick me up. He has football practice tonight. I’ve always wanted to screw beneath the stars. Meet me at Black Rock. The cliff at the top of the red trail. Matt and I have been there a few times in the afternoon. We have a pile of blankets up there and a bottle.”
Peter didn’t move. His hands were balled at his sides. His little prick poked against his sweatpants.
Greta’s stomach churned again, but she forced herself to lick her lips as she gazed at his hard-on.
“Tell Dolly you’re going fishing.”
Outside, they heard the rumble of the Pinto as Matt pulled up to the trailer. He didn’t honk the horn. He never did.
“This a trick?” Peter demanded, looking towards the window.
The shades were closed, but they heard Matt’s car door open and shut.
Greta closed the space between them. She pressed her hand against Peter’s erection and squeezed.
“A girl wants what she wants,” she whispered. “Meet me there.”
She pulled open the door before Matt could knock. She didn’t look back at Peter, but she saw Matt’s eyes narrow at the man behind her.
Greta gazed at her watch. It was a quarter after nine and still no Peter. She stayed in the shadow of the trees, knowing the daylight waned.
Her fury at being stood up grew, but quelled when she heard loud footsteps on the dirt path. Twigs and leaves stamped under his heavy boots, and his breath came out in ragged wheezes just as she knew it would. Peter was not in shape. Lugging a beer gut up the steep wooded trail would leave him winded and with little fight when he reached the peak. She’d laid the blanket near the cliff’s edge, knowing he would go there, straight to the spot of colorful fabric like a bull chasing a red flag.
“Steep climb, huh?” she heard a woman ask.
Greta’s eyes shot wider, and she slipped further into the darkness.
“Ugh, yeah,” Peter wheezed.
“Great workout, though,” another man said.
As Greta watched, two svelte twenty-somethings powered up the hill, their arms and legs pumping as they walked. They both carried walking sticks.
They passed within feet of Greta, oblivious that she stood in the shadow of the trees.
How long did she have? They’d hike to the overlook, surely, another quarter mile up, maybe stay to catch their breath, and begin their descent down. Fifteen minutes, twenty tops.
They disappeared up the slope, and Peter appeared to her right.
He was panting, hunched over. He spotted the blanket but didn’t walk to it, choosing instead to lean a hand against a tree. It wasn’t night. Wouldn’t be for another half hour. She had no time to waste.
She stepped from the forest and pulled her long sleeve shirt over her head, revealing a slinky black tank top. She let one strap drop down her shoulder. She’d taken off her bra, and her breasts hung loose beneath the shirt.
Peter’s mouth fell open, still heaving for breath.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Exactly,” she told him.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the blanket. He started to sit down, but she squeezed his arms and shook her head.
“Not yet,” she told him.
He glanced nervously at the drop off behind him, trying to corral her back.
“I want to hear the waves,” she told him, holding him steady. “While I suck you off.”
He was already hard. He’d probably been hard since she’d spoken to him that morning. She tugged his sweatpants and underwear down to his ankles, feeling his hard flesh press against her hip. He pinched one of her nipples and she gritted her teeth against the sensation.
Taking him in one hand, she used her other hand to prod him back another step. He no longer remembered the cliff edge. He’d closed his eyes. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. She released his penis for only a moment, putting one foot back to increase her strength. She shoved him as hard as she could, ramming both palms against his chest.
Peter’s eyes shot open, his arms reached, but he was already over the edge, falling, flailing.
He didn’t scream.
There was no time. She heard a grunt as he struggled to catch hold of something, but air surrounded him. He hit the rocks with a far-off thud.
Greta stepped to the cliff edge and studied his broken body. She couldn’t see his face, but imagined his eyes open and terrified, staring at her as he died.
She glanced at her watch. Barely five minutes had passed.
Greta savored his broken body for another moment, and then she gathered the blanket and slipped into the trees.
47
Now
Nate widened his eyes and let out a little whistle of breath.
“Oh man, that’s bad. I haven’t seen Greta in a very long time, but unless she found Jesus or has spent the last twenty years in intensive counseling, I’m guessing she’s only gotten more hateful.”
“I don’t really know her. Her name’s Hillary now. Hillary Meeks,” Bette admitted. “I met her and she seemed… I don’t know, kind of unfriendly. But then I talked to her and she sounded really hurt by the affair. I was convinced that Weston did something to my sister, but now…”
“Weston is Greta’s husband?” Nate asked.
Bette nodded.
“Don’t count on it,” he said. “Greta wasn’t the type to date a violent man. She was the violent one. She treated Matt like a horse that needed to be broken. But she played him exactly the right way. She had the perfect sob story. Both parents dead. She was an orphan forced into that trailer. And there was more, lots more. I’d bet my life Matt knew things about Greta that he never told me.”
“What do you mean, more?”
Nate scratched his goatee and tugged on his large lower lip.
“I think Greta Claude was getting raped by her Uncle Peter. I went with Matt to pick Greta up a few times, and he stared at her uncle like he wanted to kill him.”
“And then Peter died,” Bette murmured.
“Yeah, but Matt had nothing to do with Peter’s death. He was with me the night Peter Budd fell off that cliff.”
At the front of the store, they heard the meow from the plastic cat as someone entered.
“I thought Greta did it. I said as much to Matt. He defended her. I told him she was bad news. She hated me. She hated anyone that came between her and Matt. He kept blowing me off and one night I confronted him. I told him he was pussy- whipped. He told me her whole story, parents dead and all that. I felt bad for her. I did. But I also knew she was twisting it, using it to control Matt.”