Most of the girls chased after him. They wanted a ride in his Trans Am. They wanted to swim in the Olympic-sized pool in his father’s backyard. Peter went from one girl to the next, doing what he did with Laura, pushing them to have sex. Most said yes. Rumor is, he even bedded down a couple of the married teachers at school. That’s the way life is when you’re a Stanhope. The word “no” isn’t in your vocabulary. Peter’s father, Randall, owns a big mining operation in the harbor. People are afraid of him. He’s the kind of man who can get what he wants by picking up the phone. So Peter lives that way, too. Taking the things he wants.
I resented him, because we never had much money in my house, and I figured anyone with that much money probably got it by stepping all over other people. I also didn’t like the way he treated Laura. I was never sure why she went out with him. But he didn’t care what I thought. I was nothing. He looked right through me, and I could see him stripping off Laura’s clothes in that horny brain of his.
“Come on,” I said to her.
We hurried out of the field. It got dark again as we entered the forest. Laura glanced behind her, as if Peter might be following us.
“He’s a creep,” I said.
Laura didn’t say anything at all.
The stream tumbled over stones beside the path. We walked beside it for ten minutes until the creek split out of the trees into a furry brown nest of cattails, where we could see the midnight blue waters of the lake pooling at the shore just past the weeds. We both ran out onto the beach. My toes bunched the sand as I headed for the water, where I splashed in the foam. A handful of ducks lifted off noisily.
“You want to swim?” I asked Laura.
“I don’t have a suit.”
“So?”
She shook her head.
I came out of the water and sat down in the sand. Laura slid the backpack off her shoulder and sat down next to me. We didn’t talk. I watched the black stain in the sky grow as it blew closer. The north side of the lake was already obscured by nightfall, and the line where the water became the trees was impossible to distinguish. There was another beach on that side and more trails that wound down from the other end of the park.
The warm breeze turned cooler. Laura sat with her hands around her knees, staring at the water.
“You and Dad really went at it last night,” I said.
Fights weren’t new between them, but this one was worse than usual.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Laura said.
“What was it about this time?” I persisted.
“Nothing.” She looked away, shutting me down. Her legs twitched. She twisted her neck to stare over her shoulder, and I thought she might get up and run away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said.
“You sure?”
Laura shrugged. “Life’s weird.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. Just weird.”
“You’re pretty weird, too,” I told her, smiling.
She didn’t smile back at me.
“Sorry,” I said. “It was a joke.”
“That’s okay.”
I felt a spatter of raindrops on my skin.
“Seriously, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just thinking about stuff.”
“Like what?”
Laura hugged her knees together. The drizzle ran like tears on her cheeks. “Do you think you could ever kill someone?” she asked.
I stared at her. “What kind of question is that?”
“I mean, do you think only an insane person could do it?”
I tried to read her face, which was a mask of shadows. I realized it wasn’t rain. She was crying.
“You’re scaring me, Laura. What is this about?”
“What if Dad were abusing me?” she asked. “Could you kill him?”
I felt a chill. “Oh, my God, did something happen between you two?”
Laura shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
I was afraid she had opened up to me as much as she ever could. “Laura, please.”
“I just wish everything weren’t so complicated,” she said.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Everything.” Laura looked at me. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course.”
“Even from Jon?”
“If I have to, sure. What is it?”
She didn’t tell me. She never got the chance. This time, we both heard it. Something snapped in the woods behind us. We spun around, and I heard Laura suck in her breath. We couldn’t see anyone, but someone was there.
“Jonny?” I called.
No one answered.
“Wait here,” I said.
I didn’t shout this time. I charged the woods, sprinting through the sand onto the trail, where I skidded to a stop. I listened but heard only the wind as it landed with a frenzy, kicking the forest to life. I made a slow circle, my eyes narrowing as I tried to penetrate the darkness. I stared where I thought I had heard the branch break and was rock still.
I knew I wasn’t alone.
I heard a shout from Laura, and when I turned back toward the beach, I could see that the rain had come. It was sheeting down. Lightning sizzled, and the forest shook with thunder. The noise covered everything else. Whoever was near me could use the storm to escape.
I waited a few more seconds, and then I smelled something odd and sickly sweet above the freshness of the rain.
Marijuana.
7
Tish Verdure nursed a gin and tonic and studied the row of aging high school sports photos hung above the booth in the downtown bar. One was a group photo of a state championship hockey team. Another was an action shot of two tall white boys fighting over a basketball layup. In a third, she saw a cheering section of baseball players in a stadium dugout, with bats strewn around them on the ground. Some of the photos were from the 1970s, and she saw faces that looked familiar. For all she knew, some of the boys were in the bar right now. She wouldn’t recognize them today.