The Nightmare Girl Read online

  Michelle and Joe exchanged a glance. He was hoping she’d be relieved by the news, but her expression was deeply troubled.

  She said, “So that’s it? They jail Angie and take her child away?”

  “Don’t forget Grandma,” Copeland said. “She as much a part of this as the girl.”

  That word again. Angie Waltz wasn’t a girl, Joe thought. Girls didn’t batter one-year-olds as they sat helpless in their car seats. Girls didn’t flay the necks of men who tried to protect children. Joe realized he was gnashing his teeth and forced himself to stop.

  Michelle moved down the steps, ran her fingers nervously around the rim of her wine glass. “Do you think it’ll be permanent? The loss of custody?”

  Joe saw something in Copeland’s face. Joe said, “We’re not just talking about what happened at the gas station, are we? You found something else in that house.”

  Copeland looked sharply at him, seemed to debate with himself. He pushed to his feet and continued his study of Joe’s books.

  “Angie Waltz is bad news. She’s been jailed twice that we know of. Once for a DUI, another for manufacturing crystal meth with an ex-boyfriend.”

  My, my, Joe thought and glanced at Michelle. It was small of him, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. How’s that motherhood kinship now, dear? Does it transcend drug dealing too?

  Joe made a face, disgusted with himself. Christ, what an evening it had been. And it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet.

  When Joe looked up, he realized that Copeland had been watching him. The man’s dead stare made it impossible to know what he was thinking.

  “Listen,” Copeland said, reaching into his shirt pocket and coming out with a pad of paper and a pen. “If you all need me, here’s my cell phone. I don’t like being disturbed when I’m off duty, but if it’s something to do with this business, you can call me here.”

  He finished scratching out his number and handed it to Joe.

  Michelle said, “You mentioned them finding more in the Waltzes’ house?”

  Copeland regarded her with what looked like bitterness, or maybe just distaste, but before he could answer, there came the ring tone of the cop’s cell. Copeland took it out, said, “I’m here.”

  Joe heard the ghostly intonations of the voice on the other end and saw Copeland’s brow furrow, the man looking indignant.

  “But how could she?” Copeland asked.

  More ghostly muttering.

  Copeland’s lips drew back, exposing straight white teeth. “Son of a motherf—Huh? Yeah, I’m still here.”

  He listened, nodded sourly, and hung up.

  “What is it?” Michelle asked.

  Copeland laughed humorlessly. “Well, you can forget what I said about Angie not making bail. Somebody already paid it.”

  Wind gusted outside their white bungalow home. The rain pattered against the windows, steady but not exactly an all-out assault. Joe did his best to concentrate on the book he was reading—The Nightrunners, by Joe R. Lansdale—but he couldn’t keep to it. The thunking of the rain on the windowpanes kept intruding.

  As did the face of Angie Waltz.

  He kept seeing her not as she’d been yesterday at the gas station but as she might have been as a young, pregnant mother. Probably a scared, young, pregnant mother. He saw her lying propped up in bed because her back ached, saw her stroking the taut skin of her distended belly, pausing every now and then to feel for a kick or one of those breakdancing moves fetuses often performed.

  He saw Angie Waltz in labor, watched her eyes whiten not in rage but in raw terror. He remembered when Michelle went into labor with Lily. God, they’d been through so much trouble and heartache trying to conceive that Joe had assumed the actual pregnancy would be a breeze.

  But it wasn’t. First, there was an ultrasound scare, the OB thinking Lily might have cystic fibrosis. Then, when that fear was quelled, it was the incapacitating morning sickness, which Michelle called morning, noon, and night sickness. Her back hurt like hell, her emotions went haywire. And on the day her water broke, it took twenty-seven hours of agonizing labor for their OB to suggest they try a C-section.

  Had Angie Waltz gone through hell too? Had she experienced even a modicum of what Michelle was forced to endure? If she had, Joe couldn’t help but feel—

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” Michelle asked, and Joe damn near shat himself.

  He put a hand on his chest, felt his heart galloping. “I’m gonna put a bell around your neck, stop you from giving me a heart attack.”

  “It’s one in the morning.”

  “You practice that or something? Sneaking up on people?”

  She made her way over, knelt on the carpet, and placed a warm hand on his knee. “Come to bed, honey. Lily’s gonna be up bright and early.”

  “No doubt.”

  She massaged his knee. “Want a backrub?”

  He smiled wearily. “That’s nice of you, sweetie, but you don’t need to. No reason both of us should go without sleep.”

  She rested her chin on his knee, peered up at him. “You don’t regret it, do you?”

  “What? Helping the kid?”

  She waited.

  He threaded his fingers through her silky black hair, let his fingertips move gently over her scalp. They’d been married ten years, and he was more attracted to her now than he’d ever been. And those brown eyes of hers…they calmed Joe more than anything in the world.

  “Joe?” she asked.

  He said, “Only thing I regret is that there are people like Angie and Sharon Waltz. I’ve never been much for the death penalty, but when it comes to hitting an innocent little kid…”

  Michelle closed her eyes. “I know. I can still hear the sounds of her slapping him.”

  Joe continued stroking her hair. Outside, the wind had abated slightly, but the rain was coming down in sheets. “I keep thinking of Lily.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I can’t help it. She’s not much older than that boy.”

  Michelle exhaled shuddering breath, leaned back. “Come to bed, Joe.”

  “I’ll just lie there awake.”

  “Make love to me.”

  Unexpectedly, he felt a crooked smile forming on his lips. “Isn’t it past your bed time?” And it was. Michelle often remarked how she’d go to bed at seven P.M. every evening if it weren’t for Joe and Lily, both of whom were night owls.

  “I’m awake now,” Michelle said, pushing to her feet. “And the way you were fondling my hair made me horny.”

  “I’ll be in directly.”

  She angled toward the stairs and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Thought that’d get you to come.”

  Joe chuckled. He reached over, fetched the paperback, and dog-eared the page he’d been reading. Placing the book on the nearest shelf, he twisted off the lamp on the end table and rose. He’d already brushed his teeth and washed his face, but he’d never eaten dinner. Of course, he thought as he passed through the dining room and into the dark kitchen, if he grabbed a bite now, his window of opportunity with Michelle might pass. She’d nod off soon, and there was no way she’d wake up just to have sex with him. The woman could sleep through a nuclear holocaust.

  Going mostly by feel, Joe fished a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with tap water. The sensation of it washing over his desiccated throat was exquisite, and for the first time since pulling into the gas station, what might have been the start of some good spirits began to pierce the turmoil that had shaded his existence. He deposited the glass on the counter and made his way through the dark house.

  Coming back into the living room, he noticed that the raindrops were intermittent now. They’d aired out the house earlier that day, and Joe was pretty sure they’d closed all the windows securely. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from walking over and making sure. No sens
e in allowing the windowsills to warp out of carelessness. Joe had checked the first two windows and was reaching for the third when he became aware of chill at the nape of his neck. There wasn’t a draft—he could see well enough now that the third window was shut as securely as the other two had been. Suddenly sure Michelle had snuck up on him again, maybe as a joke or just feeling so frisky she couldn’t wait for him to come to bed, Joe spun and stared into the darkness leading up the short flight of stairs.

  Empty.

  So Michelle was in bed waiting for him.

  He blew out nervous breath, but for whatever reason that sense of being watched remained. Joe was moving away from the window when something in his periphery drew his attention. Something in the road out front of their house.

  Joe froze.

  Holy God, he thought.

  Angie Waltz stood in the middle of the road, hair soaked and tangled. She was staring at Joe. Her head was tilted down, but he could just make out the hollows of her eyes, see how they were upturned and glaring. Searing into him through the veil of murk and rain. It couldn’t be more than forty-five degrees out there now, even colder with the rain and the wind. Yet Angie wore only a sodden tank top and jeans. The rain glistened on her shoulders, drizzled down her slender arms and onto her balled fists.

  Unhinged, Joe thought. The word was inescapable. Unhinged.

  He didn’t think he could move, but his feet obeyed his orders, carrying him away from the girl’s cursed stare and toward the short flight of steps. Joe was about to ascend, but he paused, thinking of the depthless fury he’d glimpsed in the girl’s oval moon of a face. Heart hammering, he rushed over and tested the locks on the front door. After a moment’s deliberation, he hurried to the kitchen and checked the back door too.

  It was locked, but what of the windows? God, of all the days for Michelle to have chosen to open every window in the house. Joe hated the notion of Angie Waltz seeing that she’d gotten to him, sent him scurrying to double-check every window they had. But he had to be certain.

  He moved through the living room making sure not to look toward the street again. He didn’t need to see Angie Waltz to know she was there. Hell, he could feel the malice baking out of her.

  Joe crept into his bedroom, and it was as he suspected. His wife was asleep already.

  Careful not to wake up Michelle, Joe tiptoed out of the bedroom, closed the door, and sat on the stairs. He thought it over for maybe ten seconds.

  Then, he called Darrell Copeland.

  Chapter Three

  “So what’d the cop say?” Kevin Gentry asked.

  Joe shined his Maglite into the dank, cobwebbed basement and shook his head. “Not much of anything. Said it was a free country. Angie’s out on bail, and the street is public property.”

  “Yeah, but that’s your house, man. She can’t just stalk you like that.”

  Gentry was standing too close to Joe, his breath like spoiled eggplant soaked in coffee. Joe had employed the guy for three years now, but Gentry still didn’t grasp the concept of personal space. Or personal hygiene.

  At least he was good with a circular saw.

  They walked toward the eastern corner of the basement, which was even less promising than the other three corners had been. Here there were numerous cracks in the foundation, the brown stains of water damage and rot.

  Joe sighed. “That’s what I said to Copeland. But he said I’d have to file for a restraining order, go through all that rigmarole.”

  “I assume you’re goin’ to, aren’t you?”

  “Damn right,” Joe said. “I don’t want her around Lily. Or my wife.”

  Kevin was quiet a moment. Then he asked, “What’d Michelle say?”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me.” Joe knelt, ran his fingers over one of the largest cracks in the

  cinderblocks. It was almost as wide as his thumb. Bad news, he thought.

  “But you’re gonna tell her, aren’t you?”

  “Why scare her? She was upset enough as it was.” Joe straightened, armed sweat off his brow. “There’s no way they can do that second floor master without shoring this up.”

  “The Johnsons have the budget for that?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Joe started for the steps. Trailing after him, Kevin asked, “So what’re we gonna do?”

  “We’re going to tell them their project can’t go forward until they repair the foundation. Since that could cost twenty grand or more, they’ll tell me to get lost and go with someone who’ll do the job without the foundation work.”

  Kevin groaned as they began trudging up the steps. “Come on, Joe, it’s not that dangerous. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Nothing much.” Joe opened the door to the ground floor. “Other than the whole house coming down on their heads.”

  Gentry shook his head. “Stubborn.”

  “That’s what Michelle always says.”

  “Maybe you should listen to her.”

  “Maybe you should stop humping goats.”

  Gentry chuckled as they passed through the kitchen en route to the mudroom. They went out the back door toward Joe’s truck, the yard mucky from last night’s rainfall.

  “It’s a shame,” Gentry said. “I like this place.”

  “Enjoy it while it’s still standing.”

  They got to Joe’s black Tundra and climbed in.

  Gentry said, “Well, I like it. You know, not all of us can live in the high-rent district like you.”

  Joe ignored that. “You know the place I’d really like to work on?”

  “A titty bar?”

  “The house next to mine.”

  Gentry rolled down the window, leaned on an elbow. “Seriously? You won’t work on this one because of a few cracks, and you wanna go messin’ around in a house that’s one good storm away from fallin’ down?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Joe said, pulling out of the driveway.

  “Place should be condemned,” Gentry said. “Probably full of animals, water damage—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “How you know that?”

  “I’ve been in it.”

  Gentry giggled. “What, you and Michelle go over there and tear one off?”

  Joe arched an eyebrow at him. “What do you think we are, a couple of teenagers?”

  Gentry shook his head. “It was me married to Michelle, I’d sure as hell take every opportunity I could.”

  Joe stiffened. “That’s enough,” he said as evenly as he could.

  But he could see Gentry’s leer from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, you should be worried, ol’ hoss. She’s what, eight years younger than you?”

  “Six.”

  Gentry nodded. “Uh-huh. She might just get tired of you and your Viagra and decide to try out someone closer to her age one of these days.”

  Joe turned left at a four-way stop. “Keep talkin’ and I’ll chuck your sorry ass out that door.”

  Gentry chuckled at that, a little too loudly, Joe thought. He resisted an urge to make good on his threat.

  Easy, he told himself. Kevin’s only a kid.

  He’s almost thirty, a voice answered. That’s old enough to stop gawking at other men’s wives.

  “So where to next?” Gentry asked.

  “Your residence,” Joe said. “It’s your day off, remember?”

  “Then why’d you ask me to inspect this house with you?”

  Joe shrugged, motored slowly toward Gentry’s modular home on the edge of town, where he lived with his wife and two young sons. “If that basement caved in, I wanted someone taller than me to take the brunt of the crash.”

  “That’s awfully kind of you.”

  Don’t mention it, Joe thought. And I
won’t mention the real reason either. That after what happened yesterday and last night, I don’t really want to be alone.

  The more witnesses, the better.

  At least there was the Hawkins place. Though the water had been turned on again and he could’ve just drunk from the tap, Joe went out the back door and headed for the aged red pump back where the yard turned to forest. He’d grown up in a place similar to this, and being here, especially at midday, reminded him of his time with his parents and his kid brother. Reminded him of his dad most of all.

  Joe realized his skin had gone cold.

  Shivering, he raised the thick, cool handle of the pump, and water sluiced out over the grass. In time, if the Hawkinses’ grandkids came out here often enough, the grass would turn to a bare, muddy patch again. But the Hawkinses were elderly and seldom used the pump. Sadie said she operated it occasionally to grab a quick sip during her escapades in the garden, but most of the time the thing just remained there unused, like a neglected child left standing in the corner.

  Joe bent, braced himself on the neck of the pump, and gulped long and lustily. God, it tasted good.

  Joe enjoyed coming out here so much that Michelle had accused him of intentionally losing other bids so he could work on the Hawkins place. And while that wasn’t true, he supposed he hadn’t been in too much of a hurry to finish. After all, the Hawkinses only summered here and would be another two weeks in Punta Gorda, Florida. Joe and his crew would likely be done by then, and his afternoon respites at the pump would come to a permanent end.

  Joe was straightening and drawing a forearm across his lips when Shaun Peterson came around the corner of the white farmhouse looking pale and shaken.

  Son of a gun, Joe thought, because he knew what Shaun would say even before the tall blond kid pulled up about fifteen feet away, as though he was afraid to come any closer because what he was about to say would piss Joe off. But Joe didn’t think he was going to be pissed off. He thought he was going to be sick. Because it was about the Waltz girl.

  “I’m sorry, Joe,” Shaun was saying, breathing heavy and stooped over as if he’d just run the 400-meter dash instead of walking from the front yard to the back. “I tried to tell her you weren’t available, but…” He broke off, looking sheepishly at Joe. Then Joe saw her, slinking around the edge of the house.