No Way Home Read online

  She caught sight of her daughter, standing alone and sipping a Coke.

  “Michele,” she said, “you all by yourself?”

  “I’m waiting for Cherie. She’s inside, in the ladies’ room.”

  “Well, Dad and I are leaving now. Do you want a ride?”

  “Nah. I’m going to stay. I put my dress in the car. Will you take it in for me?”

  “Sure. Are you gonna dance?”

  Michele shrugged. “Probably just watch. We’re meeting Debbie and Bonnie inside.”

  “All right,” said Lillie. “Have fun. But be home by eleven-thirty. Find Grayson and walk home with him. Or call us for a ride.”

  “Mom, I’m not a baby, for heaven’s sakes. Here comes Cherie back.”

  “I’ll bet some nice fellas are going to get you girls out there dancing,” said Lillie.

  Michele cocked an eyebrow at her friend Cherie. “Miracles do happen,” she said. They both started to laugh.

  Lillie had the impulse to hug her, but she didn’t want to embarrass her in front of Cherie. “See you at home,” she said.

  “Bye, Mom.”

  Lillie walked slowly back to the car, savoring the cool, idle evening breeze brushing her face, riffling her hair. Pink already had the motor running and the air-conditioning on. The car was positively chilly. They drove home in silence. As they pulled in the driveway and got out of the car, Lillie could hear the strains of the Tennessee Waltz wafting up from Briar Hill. She gathered up the rustling skirts of Michele’s costume from the backseat.

  “Well, it turned out real nice this year,” said Lillie, standing on the front lawn in the moonlight. “Thank heavens that storm didn’t come.”

  “Yes, it was nice,” Pink said. “And that was some game today. How about that boy of ours? He played like he was in the majors.”

  “He’s a real good player,” Lillie said. “But, Pink, you shouldn’t be telling him all the time. He’s going to get conceited.”

  “I can’t help it.” Pink sighed. “I just want everyone to know that’s my boy out there. He’s so darn good at everything. I tell you, honey, he’s gonna have the world on a string someday. There were always a few boys like that in high school, or wherever you went. I used to always envy boys like that.”

  “You did all right for yourself,” Lillie said loyally.

  Pink sniffed. “Yeah, well. I don’t kid myself. I do okay. I make a living for us.”

  “Come on, Pink. You’re a respected businessman in this town. Why, I remember when you first started calling on me, how impressed I was with you in that jacket and tie, always on the go. Making one deal after another.”

  “I had a lot of dreams in those days,” Pink said wistfully. “It’s just that things haven’t changed all that much since then.”

  “Why don’t we sit up on the porch for a little while? We can still hear the music from the park,” Lillie said gently.

  Pink roused himself and shook his head. “Oh, I believe I’ll go in the house and have a cold beer. The beer down there at Briar Hill wasn’t cold enough to suit me. Warm as piss, if you must know. Besides,” he said, “I wouldn’t sit in those old rockers of your grandmother’s on principle.”

  Lillie yawned and giggled at the same time, readying herself for the familiar tirade.

  “They ruin the whole appearance of the front of the house. Here I buy you a house you could be proud of if you plunked it right down in the center of Nashville, and you put out these rickety old rockers that makes it look—”

  “Like a bunch of country bumpkins live here. I know,” she said.

  Pink smiled ruefully. “You’re used to me.”

  Lillie sat herself down in one of the rockers and let out a sigh of relaxation. “I guess I am,” she said. “I’ll be in in a few minutes. Will you take this dress in, Pink?”

  Pink nodded and took it from her as he went inside. She heard the TV come on in the living room and she put her head back in the chair. The air smelled uncommonly sweet to her, and the night was still, except for the faraway sounds of the band. The long day in the sun made her feel tired all over. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off as she rocked. In a few minutes she was asleep.

  She was awakened by Pink, shaking her on the shoulder.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “I’m going after those kids.”

  Lillie bolted up in the rocker, clutching the arms, disoriented and alarmed. “What time is it?”

  “It’s after eleven,” said Pink.

  “But we told them eleven-thirty,” Lillie said.

  “Well, I’m going anyway. I just heard on the news they haven’t got that guy yet who broke out this afternoon. And he’s a bad apple. Ronnie Lee Partin. Those kids have got no business wandering around at this hour. Especially Michele.”

  “No, you’re right,” said Lillie. She tried to force her foggy brain to focus. “Ronnie Lee Partin. Was he the one that held up that restaurant on Route 31…”

  “…and pistol-whipped the manager and shot the cashier. Right, that’s the one,” Pink said. “Besides, I just want to get them back in this house so I can go to bed in peace.” He jangled the car keys.

  Lillie knew from long experience that Pink was an alarmist when it came to the children. But it was a quality that endeared him to her. She realized that the night was silent, that the music had stopped from the park. “You’re right,” she said. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No. You stay here in case one of them calls. Michele may have gone to a girlfriend’s house. I’ll be back soon.”

  Lillie watched her husband get into his car and drive off in the direction of Briar Hill. The kids will be fuming, she thought, when he shows up before their curfew, but it wouldn’t be the first time. She opened the front door and went into the house. The TV was still on. She shut it off and sat down in her corner of the sofa. A stack of magazines were piled up in a basket beside her. It seemed as good a time as any to go through them. She and Brenda regularly culled recipes from women’s magazines for the business. They were always looking for a good new casserole or dessert to try on their customers. Lillie put a stack in her lap, picked up the scissors from the end table, and began flipping and clipping. Her eyes roved restlessly over the pages until they lit, accidentally, on an article called “Soap Opera Dreamboats” in a woman’s magazine she bought regularly at the supermarket checkout. Jordan Hill, “who plays Paul Manville on Secret Lives,” smiled out of the page, his deep-brown eyes still bright, although a little weary after all these years. She had read the article hastily when it first came out. An article about Jordan was always news in Felton. And people were quick to make sure she knew about it. She could see them looking for her reaction. Lillie stared down at the picture, her fingers poised to turn the page if Pink appeared at the door. There was gray at Jordan’s temples now, and he had long ago grown a thick, well-groomed mustache, but he still looked young and careless to her. She looked up at the mantelpiece at Michele’s picture, Grayson framed beside her, just as the clock on the mantel struck twelve.

  Lillie turned the page and tried to focus on the recipes, but they all began to run together, the ingredients all sounding the same. Finally she set the magazines down. She rubbed her arms absently and stood up. She wandered down the hall to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and thought about having a glass of iced tea. Then she closed the door again. Her eyes went automatically to the clock over the refrigerator. It read nearly twelve-thirty.

  “It’s nothing,” she said aloud. “It’s Founders Day.” It was a given that kids stayed out late on Founders Day. She remembered it from her own youth. She especially remembered the year she was seventeen. She and Jordan Hill had gone off and sat in the front seat of his father’s pickup truck in the clearing by the Boy Scout camp until two-thirty in the morning. They would have been there all night if the superintendent of the camp hadn’t heard his dogs barking and come out and shooed them away. Her father had hit her with his belt wh
en she finally came home. The one and only time she could ever remember him hitting her. She didn’t know it then, but the cancer was already in him, eating away at him. He knew he was going to die, and he was frantic about her. She bit her lip at the memory. Those last few months, those last rushed attempts at love and discipline, to try to leave an impression that would last while there was still time. All parents do it, she thought. When we finally know they’re safe, we strike out at them for the worry they caused us.

  She had walked back into the living room and now she returned to the mantel. She picked up the double heart-shaped frame. On one side was a photo of Michele, on the other, Grayson. She looked from one to the other, then carefully set the frame back down.

  She sat down in Pink’s chair with her back to the door and stared at the blank TV screen. The telephone was on a table beside her.

  Lillie looked down at it now. Ring, she thought. Somebody call and tell me that everything is all right.

  It’s nothing, she reminded herself. Nothing. Any guy who broke out of jail this afternoon is long gone by now. Miles from here. And all the kids stay out late on Founders Day. Pink is probably just having a hard time rounding them up. He doesn’t know where the kids go. And when he finds them they’ll be humiliated to have their father come after them like that, herding them home. There was no reason to worry in a town like this one. This was the safest town in the world.

  She picked up the county newspaper and tried to read it, but the words didn’t make any sense. She threw it down again, stood up, and began to pace through the house. Every so often she would go to the front door and look out at the empty moonlit lawn and the quiet field beyond the street. Each time she came back and looked at the clock, it seemed that another ten or fifteen minutes had passed. She began to clench and unclench her fists as she paced, as if to mimic the beating of her cold heart.

  “Please, God,” she said aloud, “don’t scare me like this.”

  Just then she heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway and the sound of a car’s engine. Her heart lifted and she ran back to the living-room window. Then, through the gauze curtains that were closed between the open drapes, she saw a filmy blue light flashing out in front of the house and heard the faint squawk of a police radio.

  Lillie stopped dead in the middle of the floor. The blue light went out, but the crackle of the radio could still be heard as well as the slamming of car doors. Pink’s weary tread scraped the concrete slab of the front porch, and then the door opened. He looked up at her and then looked away.

  Lillie did not scream or cry out. She stared silently as Pink came in, followed by Grayson, and then, his head bowed as if entering a church, the sheriff, Royce Ansley. Lillie’s eyes darted from one to the other. She could see that Grayson was crying, ruddy tear tracks streaking the smooth face. Pink’s complexion was a sickly gray. He was trembling all over.

  “Where’s Michele?” she asked in a hoarse, unnaturally calm voice that sounded strange to her own ears. “Couldn’t you find her?”

  Pink gripped his forehead with a sweaty hand, as if to still something clamoring behind it. He swallowed hard and licked his colorless lips.

  “Grayson,” Lillie demanded. “Where is your sister? You were supposed to walk her home.”

  Grayson lowered his head and tears splashed down on his shirt, and his heaving chest as he sobbed out, “I…know…I…was…”

  Royce Ansley stepped forward and took Lillie by the arms. “You have to sit down,” he said. He began to push her toward Pink’s chair. She could see that his eyes were bright, as if with tears, but his voice was steady, his expression impassive.

  “Why?” she said. But she knew why. Already she could feel the blood draining from her head, the lightness, the weakness in her limbs, a darkening around the edge of her vision as he propelled her backward.

  “Lillie, I have something terrible to tell you. Michele is dead, Lillie. I’m so sorry.”

  “Dead,” Lillie whispered. “No.”

  “Yes,” Royce said firmly. “She was…apparently someone…killed her.”

  Crouched in the chair, Lillie tried to breathe, but the darkness was closing in on her now, and in the silence she could hear her heart pounding, pounding. Her arms were numb, her hands limp and cold in her lap. She could feel her eyes roll back, and then Royce was pushing her head down, lowering it between her knees.

  “Breathe,” she heard him saying from far away. “Breathe deep. Grayson, go get your mother a glass of water.”

  Lillie felt the tingle of blood returning to her head, but she did not look up. She kept her eyes closed and willed time to go back. It need only go back ten minutes. She would raise her head and see things as they really were. The door was opening and Pink was ushering them in, Grayson and Michele, scolding them. Slowly she raised her head. She saw the sheriff’s somber face and catastrophe distorting the features of her husband.

  “Pink,” she whispered, for that was all the sound her weakened body could make. “Help me. Oh, my God. Say it’s not true.”

  Pink tore his eyes from hers and stared at the back of the sofa. He had to tell it. He spoke carefully, but his eyes reflected the horror of what they had seen. “I found Grayson at Briar Hill with a couple of the boys, oh, a few minutes after I left the house,” he said. “Grayson and the others, they hadn’t seen her. I picked Grayson up and we went looking for her. I drove around and around. We looked everywhere. Finally we went down to the river over near the stone bridge, you know, Three Arches, and we…there we found her. Well, actually the sheriff had already found her. He was out looking for Partin. But instead he found…Michele.” Pink’s voice cracked as he spoke her name. “She was there, by the river, in some bushes.…” Tears began to fall from his eyes now, and his body shook violently. Pink looked up at his wife, his eyes and voice filled with tears. “I was too late. I’m sorry, honey,” he said, his words slurred with sobs. “Too late.”

  Lillie pushed herself up from the chair and went to her husband. She buried herself against him. Grayson entered the room, carrying the glass of water. She reached out an arm and he came to her embrace.

  “No, no,” she said. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. Oh, my God,” she wailed, “how could anyone hurt her? She was just a baby. She never hurt anybody. My little girl.” She had an image in her mind of Michele at the dance that night waving good-bye. She had failed to hug her in front of her friends. Her heart felt as if it was being crushed inside of her.

  Pink struggled out of her embrace. “I feel sick,” he said. “Let me sit.”

  Lillie clung to his arm and he fell heavily onto the sofa. She sat down beside him. Gray offered her the glass of water, but she turned it away. He stood helplessly by, with panic in his eyes.

  Royce Ansley stood up. “I have to get back down there. There’s a deputy with her now, and the coroner is on his way.” He could see that his words were passing virtually unheard by the stricken couple on the couch. “I’ll let you know when we know anything.”

  Lillie blinked up at him. “Oh, all right,” she said in a numb, distracted voice. She got up from the sofa and started to shuffle toward the door as if to see him out.

  “Never mind,” Royce said quickly. “Please, please, sit down.”

  Lillie looked up at him. “Maybe it isn’t Michele,” she said.

  “I’ll be in touch with you,” Royce repeated gently. “Meanwhile, somebody better call her daddy. Let him know what happened.”

  Lillie nodded. “I’ll call him,” she said in a dull voice. Jordan Hill had a right to know. He was Michele’s natural father, after all. And in fact, he had tried to be a real father to her in the last ten years or so. Calling her. Sending her presents. Having her come to New York to visit him.

  It was an hour later in New York City. Nearly two in the morning. Lillie wondered if she would be awakening him with those words. Michele is dead. For so long she had lived in fear of those same words. She had bedded down in cots beside
Michele’s hospital bed, and she had prayed that no one would waken her in the night with those words. And now, when the danger was long since past, when her guard was relaxed, the news had come, striking her, stunning her with the force of a whirlwind.

  She would call Jordan. She would awaken him and say the words, but they were not real. She could not feel the reality of it. Despite all the evidence around her, she thought she might look out the door again and see her daughter coming up the steps, dragging the skirts of a rose-pink ballgown, her child’s face glowing like a bright oval wafer in the moonlight.

  Chapter 2

  IT WAS TWO IN THE MORNING but Jordan Hill was not asleep, although he pretended to be. The girl in the bed beside him sat up and shook her head so that her abundant, wavy hair, the color of a brown-edged sugar cookie, resumed the windblown shape it had lost by being matted on the pillow. She reached down to the end of the bed for his shirt, which lay crumpled there, and pulled it on but didn’t bother to button it. After climbing out of the bed, the girl walked gingerly across the bare wooden floor, past the waist-high bookcases that served as a divider between the bed and the combination living room-kitchen in the long, narrow studio apartment. Bending down to reach the half refrigerator below the sink, she suddenly let out a shriek. Jordan propped himself up on one elbow and called out, “What’s the matter?”

  The girl came back to the bed, carrying an open bottle of beer. She took a swig and offered the bottle to him. Jordan smoothed the corner of his mustache and shook his head. “There’s a roach in the sink,” she said indignantly.

  “Well, I hope you didn’t scare him off hollerin’ like that, Amanda.”