“Come away from the window, Pink. Neighbors might see.”
Pink leaned his forehead against the glass and swiveled his head from side to side. Claire and Kenny had no neighbors for a hundred yards in either direction. Pink came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re having some kind of woman problem,” Claire said, pressing the horse’s eye into place.
“Aw, what do you know about it?” Pink leaned over and wrapped his fingers around her ankle, sliding them up over her calf, her thigh. “I’m getting back in the mood.”
Claire straightened and pushed his hand away. “Did you hear that? It’s Kenny.” Claire jumped up and grabbed her robe off the door. “Shit, Pink. Go out the back.”
“Well, hell, Claire. Don’t you think he’s seen my Suburban in the driveway?”
“Don’t just stand there—”
“We’ll tell him Isabelle’s doing real bad tonight and I came over to get something.”
“Like what?”
“Christ, Claire, I don’t know. She’s your sister. What would she want?”
A moment later Kenny appeared in the doorway, his metal Thermos clutched in his hand. “Pink helping you with the horse’s ass?” Kenny said to Claire.
“Pink came over to get something for Isabelle . . .”
“Soup,” Pink said. “She can’t keep anything down and the stores are all closed. I thought you and Claire might have some . . .”
Kenny smiled. “Well, sure, Pink. We got lots of soup. Come on out to the kitchen and see what hits you.” Kenny turned in the doorway and disappeared down the hall. Pink shrugged at Claire. Claire pushed Pink away and glared at him.
“Lots of soup,” Kenny said, pulling cans down from the cupboard. Claire followed Pink into the kitchen. “Tomato, cream of broccoli, chicken noodle . . . that’s supposed to be good when you’re sick, right?”
“I’ll take the chicken noodle,” Pink said. “And the tomato, if you don’t mind.” He thought he might eat them both when he got home.
“That’s what family’s for, Pink.” Kenny shoved the cans into Pink’s opened palms. “Hope Isabelle’s feeling better soon.”
Pink thanked him again, said goodnight to Claire, and hurried out to his Suburban, thinking the lie had gone pretty well. When he reached the driveway he stopped and scratched his ear. Kenny had parked his pickup truck directly behind Pink’s Suburban, the bumpers practically touching. Pink didn’t want to go back in and confront Kenny and ask him to move his truck; it might tax Kenny’s charitable mood. He opened Kenny’s door and tried to pull the shifter into neutral. That was the problem with automatics; nothing worked without the key. He pushed on the front fender, trying to roll the truck back enough to pull his Suburban forward and back out around it. The truck barely rocked, the tires unmoving.
Pink started his Suburban and pulled forward until the front bumper nudged the siding on the house. It made a crinkling sound. “Damn. I hope he didn’t hear that.” He backed up, cutting the front wheels hard to the left until his back bumper kissed the front bumper of Kenny’s truck. For several more minutes, Pink pulled forward and backward, unable to move his vehicle much more than a foot in either direction. “This’ll take all year. I’ll run out of gas before I get out of the damn driveway.”
With the motor running, Pink got out of the Suburban, hitched up his trousers, and shuffled toward the front porch steps. He cleared his throat before knocking.
“Door’s open, Pink.” It was Kenny’s voice. The sound of it bothered Pink, as if Kenny had been expecting him to come back. Pink went in. Light from the kitchen bled into the dark living room. In the dim setting, Pink could make out the outline of Kenny sitting in the lounger, Claire sitting on the couch dressed in jeans and a white blouse. Kenny smoked a cigarette with one hand and pointed a chrome-plated .357 Magnum pistol at Pink with the other.
“Trouble getting out?” Kenny said.
Chapter 18
Michelle turned off the shower and waited for another knock. It came like the last sound in the world. At first she thought it might be Lyman, or maybe Pink, but mostly she figured it was the police. Pink probably called Sheriff Fisk, related the crazy things she’d said at the Hilltop and how he’d found her earlier that evening curled on the floor like an overdose victim. Pink may even have told Fisk the story about the cabin and Cliff disappearing. Fisk would surely remember her then, the woman they’d taken away in an ambulance, the drugs they’d shot her full of to end her ranting.
The knock came louder this time, and Michelle wished she had undressed and showered in the dark and just gone to bed. Weariness overtook her, anxiety propping her back up. She couldn’t have Sheriff Fisk take her to the station for threatening Lyman with a gun.
“Shit!” She grabbed her blouse and jeans off the bed and struggled to put everything on at once, pushing her feet into her shoes. Still buttoning her blouse, she hurried back to the bathroom, to the small window above the toilet. She snapped her jeans then ran back for her purse, the gun. The window looked too small. The pounding continued at the door, growing louder, impatient. She thought she heard someone shouting her name.
Michelle climbed up on the toilet and jerked the window open, the top of it pulling down slightly. She tried to wrestle it free from the aluminum frame so she could fit through the small space.
“Michelle, open up!” someone called from outside.
She pounded the metal on the side with her palm, trying to free it then grabbed the top edge of the glass and pulled down with all her weight until it shattered, showering her head and arms. Glass scattered across the toilet and floor like hail.
“Michelle! Open up. Are you okay?”
Using the barrel of the gun, she broke the remaining glass from the window frame, sliding the barrel back and forth along the aluminum until all the pieces were gone. She stared at the opening for a long moment before the tears started. If she pulled the entire window frame out of the wall, the hole would still not be large enough for her to crawl out.
She wiped her eyes as she walked toward the front door, the knob rattling as someone tried to open it from the outside. The door had no peephole, and she didn’t want to pull the curtain back. But what difference would it make now? Whoever it was knew she was in the room, and she had no way out.
She unlocked the latch and slid off the chain. Cliff rushed in “Are you okay? Jesus, I thought I heard glass breaking.” Michelle turned away from Cliff and sat on the bed next to her purse. She wondered if Darcy had told him about the gun.
Ed arrived. “Everyone okay here?” he said. “Ma’am, you okay? Looks like you cut yourself.”