Michael nodded, finally looking up. “Are you going to tell my dad?” he asked.
Stubbs hesitated. What if Craig Sheffield demanded proof of what Michael had done? Guys could be funny about their sons — never wanting to admit their own flesh and blood could be less than perfect. And Sheffield was a lawyer, and despite the fact that he was Stubbs’s own lawyer, that could lead to trouble. Besides, when you got right down to it, Michael was old enough to be responsible for himself. “Seems to me this is just between us,” he said. “So let’s just keep it that way, okay? Now get out of here, and make sure you’re on time tomorrow.”
Michael left the office, his head still down. Stubbs heard the motorcycle roar to life, and watched from the doorway until the bike disappeared around a bend in the road. Returning to his desk, he picked up the dead nutria. He stared at it for a moment, then shook his head and tossed it out the window into an open Dumpster a few yards away.
“Get Craig Sheffield upset over a lousy nutria?” he muttered to himself. “I may be dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”
• • •
Michael gunned the engine of the motorcycle, feeling an exhilarating burst of speed as the machine responded to his command. Leaning forward into the wind, he tried to put the scene with Phil Stubbs out his mind. But an image of the dead nutria lying on his boss’s desk stayed with him. This morning, on his way to work, he’d let himself hope that Martha would still be in her cage, munching on her food and looking after her pups. Maybe nothing had happened last night at all — maybe his memory of the limp animal he’d returned to the cage had been no more real than the strange image he’d seen in the mirror.
But as soon as Stubbs had called him to the office, he’d known the truth.
Somehow, last night, he’d killed the little creature.
But why couldn’t he remember doing it?
He slowed the motorcycle, banking it into a curve.
Well, at least he hadn’t been fired, and Stubbs wasn’t even going to tell his folks what had happened. He could imagine what his father would say if he’d lost the job — the motorcycle would be gone, and he’d probably be grounded for the rest of the summer as well.
But it wouldn’t happen again. From now on he’d keep his mind on what he was doing, and not let himself be distracted by anything.
But what about today? He couldn’t go home — if he did, he’d have to explain why he had the day off.
And he couldn’t spend the day in town, either. Even if his father didn’t see him, everyone else would, and his dad would be bound to hear about it sooner or later.
Maybe he’d just head out on the bike and spend the day riding. He had plenty of money — he might even head up to Orlando and go to Disney World. Except he’d been there last year and hadn’t liked it very much. Nothing had seemed real, and while Jennifer had run from one ride to another — screaming about everything — he’d wished he’d stayed home and spent the day by himself, poking around in the marshes.
Maybe that’s what he would do today. There was a place he knew about, a few miles out of town, where he could hide the bike. There weren’t any boats out there, but there were paths and trails. Yes, that’s what he’d do. Spend the day exploring. And he’d keep his mind on the time, so he wouldn’t be late getting home.
As he gunned the bike once more, a horn blared behind him. Startled, he automatically glanced into the rearview mirror, expecting to see a car overtaking him.
Instead, he saw the hideous visage of the ancient man, leering at him.
Stunned by the image in the mirror, he swerved the bike, realizing almost too late that the car behind him was now passing. As the car’s horn blasted a second time, Michael jerked the bike the other way. The motorcycle skittered toward the edge of the pavement; then, as the car disappeared around a bend, the cycle slid off the asphalt into the soft earthen bank of the drainage ditch that paralleled the road. The narrow tires began to sink into the mud as Michael struggled to pull the bike back onto the road. Throwing his weight onto the handlebars, he twisted the front wheel around. The bike remained mired in the mud. The rear end rose up, pulled free of the muck, then swung around, throwing Michael onto the ground, the toppled bike beside him.
• • •
The day before, Kelly Anderson had had only a glimpse of Villejeune from the car. Now she realized just how little there was to it. Only a few stores, a café, and the post office with a police station tucked in behind it. A block away she found the school she’d be going to in the fall, which didn’t look like much, either. There were only two buildings, one of which seemed to be a gym, and she didn’t see any sign of a swimming pool. Still, as she wandered around the village she decided she kind of liked it. It didn’t feel at all like Atlanta, but that was all right.
As she came around the corner, onto Ponce Avenue, she saw the kids.
There were four of them, two boys and two girls, and the moment she saw them, she felt her guard going up.
They looked like the kids she’d always avoided back home.
Hicks, that’s what they looked like.
Not one of them was wearing any interesting clothes, and the girls both wore their hair in styles Kelly wouldn’t have been caught dead in, like they’d just fallen out of some old beach blanket movie starring Annette Funicello.
She felt them watching her.
Maybe she should walk right up to them and demand to know what they were staring at.
Except that she already knew.
She’d put on three pairs of earrings that morning, and two sets of cuffs. And even though the weather was hot, she was wearing a black turtleneck shirt and a pair of black jeans that she’d sewn some sequins onto. Back in Atlanta the outfit had looked cool, and not really very weird, compared to what a lot of the kids wore.
But here in Villejeune she stuck out like a sore thumb.
Her first impulse was to go home, but to do that she’d have to walk right past the kids. Even if she crossed the street, it would still be obvious that she was avoiding them.
Making up her mind on the spur of the moment, she turned and went the other way, walking quickly, as if she knew exactly where she was going. Once she was out of the village, and away from the kids who were staring at her, she began to feel better again.
The road, built up like a causeway, wound through the swamp here, with deep ditches on each side. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be water, with only a few patches of soggy-looking land rising above the surface here and there. Dense thickets of mangrove stood above the water, and odd stumplike objects protruded from its surface, as if this had once been some kind of forest.
Birds were everywhere, bobbing on the surface of the water, wading in the shallows, and soaring overhead. Twice she saw alligators basking in the mud, but they seemed unaware of her presence, ignoring her as she passed.
As she moved farther from the town, a feeling of peace began coming over her. After a while she realized what it was. Back in Atlanta there had been the continuous noise of the city all around her: the hum of cars, trucks grinding as they shifted gears, rock music pouring out of boom boxes — a steady stream of sound that, though she’d never realty been aware of it, had simply always been there.
Here there was nothing but the songs of birds, the rustle of the wind in the cypress trees, and the splashing of fish and frogs in the water.