The Ninth Step Read online

  “Yeah,” Nikki said, “you know the big yellow things with brown centers. . . ?” She was looking quizzically at him.

  He walked over to where she sat cross-legged on stacked boxes of new hardwood flooring studying design magazines and paint chips. He said, “You know it’s going to be awhile before we’re ready for any of that.”

  “But I have to plan, right? I’m thinking yellow for the walls, or maybe green, with a border of sunflowers. I could stencil them.”

  “It’s your clubhouse,” Cotton said.

  “Studio.” She corrected.

  He put up his hands. “Sorry. Studio.”

  Cotton had heard her tear into Wes when he’d smarted off that she’d probably want pink for the walls and ruffles on the curtains. “Don’t you know anything about me?” she’d demanded. “Have I ever wanted anything pink? Have you ever seen me wear a ruffle?”

  Wes had been totally blown off course. He’d shot Cotton one of those head scratching looks that a guy gets when a grown woman throws him a complete curve. But Nikki wasn’t grown; she was only twelve. A kid, right? And there it lay, the whole scary, unavoidable, unfathomable idea of a dad on his own trying to raise a daughter, trying to understand and guide her. And it wasn’t as if Wes could send Nikki to her mother. No. As Wes had explained, she’d been killed by some whacked out hit and run driver, who was still on the loose, a jerk the cops hadn’t caught. Wes would take care of that, no doubt, if he got the chance.

  Cotton found the light fixture and went outside.

  Nikki followed him to the door and leaned against the frame. “You want to hear the latest?”

  “What’s that?” Cotton climbed on the ladder.

  “Daddy thinks he’s found a new housekeeper. What he really means is he’s found me a bodyguard.”

  Nikki held up the fixture while Cotton twisted the wires and capped them. “Because of the break-ins.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They haven’t been caught yet.”

  “Nope. I heard the sheriff tell Daddy two more houses got robbed since Mrs. Langley’s, both at night, while the people were asleep.”

  “Maybe a housekeeper is a good idea.”

  “But how many watchdogs does one girl need? Dad’s already got Mrs. Langley spying on me.”

  “He just wants to make sure you’re safe.”

  “But it’ll be bad for business. How’s it going to look, the neighborhood babysitter having a babysitter? Anyway, it’s not like I’m scared,” Nikki added after a moment.

  Cotton glanced at her. She was engrossed in picking her cuticles, that were already raw-looking. He wanted to tell her to stop it. Not scared my ass, he thought.

  She said, “Besides you’re here. Why do we need somebody else?” Nikki looked up at him and he had to jerk his gaze away from the shine of what seemed like admiration, like trust, in her eyes.

  “Pretty soon, I’ll be finished though.” He pushed the light fixture against the siding and tightened the screws. He thought he didn’t want to be finished, he didn’t want to leave Nikki. What if there was a robbery here, what if Nikki was hurt? Cotton thought he’d kill any scumbag who touched her with his own bare hands. He thought: What the hell am I thinking?

  “Not ‘til this job’s done, right? They’ll catch them by then and everything’ll be fine.”

  Cotton didn’t answer.

  #

  They were on the back steps later, having a lemonade break and sharing a plate filled with Linda Langley’s oatmeal cookies freshly baked from her oven. Cotton was crunching melted bits of ice. Nikki rested her chin on her knee and he watched as she doodled in the dirt with a stick.

  “Sometimes I really miss my mom,” she said out of nowhere.

  Cotton’s breath froze. He felt as if his heart had been cut open.

  Chapter 7

  “I can’t believe you turned him down.” Kat followed Livie across the back porch.

  Livie held Stella’s hand and bent down to her. “Do you and Zack want to feed the fish?”

  “Can we?” Stella dropped her current favorite Barbie doll without a qualm.

  “Me!” Zack jumped up and down in front of Livie’s face. “I want to.”

  “You know where the food is?”

  Stella nodded. “In the potting shed on the shelf by the door.”

  “You know how much?”

  Stella drew on the palm of her hand. “Two circles full.”

  Zack shot down the porch steps.

  “Wait for your sister,” Kat called after him.

  Livie retrieved the discarded Barbie that was dressed in a pink ball gown, pink stiletto heels and her weight in fake diamonds. The tiny stones that dotted her fingers, wrists, earlobes and neck glinted in the early Saturday morning sunshine. “Which one is this?” she asked Kat. “Rhinestone Barbie?”

  “Who knows. Fashion Diva or something. Please do not tell me that bunch of wilted flowers in the kitchen is what stopped you from going out with Joe.”

  “They’re irises.”

  “They’re dead like your relationship with Cotton. You should call Joe, Livie. You deserve to have a life, the chance for a family, your own children, though God knows, I don’t mind how often you borrow mine.”

  “Remember when we used to play Barbies? We always wanted the house, but Mom would never buy it.”

  Kat sat at the wrought iron table. “I only played Barbies because you made me and you wanted the house. I wanted the pink Corvette.”

  “We never got either one.”

  “We didn’t have the money.”

  Livie sat across from Kat, fingering Barbie’s gown. The sharp snap of the potting shed screen door was followed by Zack yelling that Stella should let him have the fish food.

  “No,” she said wrenching the box to one side. “Auntie Livie said I should get it. You’re not big enough.”

  “It’s okay, Stell.” Livie raised her voice. “Put a little in his hand and you do a little.”

  “Can we put our feet in?”

  “Take off your shoes first.”

  Stella knuckled her fist on her non-existent hip and gave Livie a look. “Duh. . . .”

  “Duh, yourself,” said Livie smiling.

  “It was a weird thing for Cotton to do,” Kat said. “Coming up on your porch in the middle of the night, leaving those flowers. It gives me the creeps. Did Charlie talk to the sheriff?”

  “I don’t know,” Livie said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I told Cotton I didn’t want to see him. I just hope he’s gone to see Delia-- Oh, my gosh. Zack! Zack, what are you doing, honey? Only your feet, I said you could put in your feet.” Livie flew down the steps and scooped him up from the side of the pond.

  “Zachary, how many times has Mommy said never to get in the water without your floaties?” Kat came up behind Livie.

  “I told him not to,” Stella said placidly.

  “I want to swim, too,” he said, squirming to get down.

  “Where are your clothes?”

  “Over there.”

  Livie looked where he pointed and saw his small shirt, shorts and underwear in a heap on the ground underneath a clump of black-stemmed bamboo. She bit her lips to keep from laughing. The pond was wide but so shallow, there was little chance of his drowning. And in any case, Livie knew he and Stella could both swim as well any fish. But still . . . . She hugged him close, burying her face against his damp neck. The wriggling weight of him in her arms and his smell that was earthy and sweet all at once brought her almost to tears. “You’re as naked as the fish,” she said.

  Stella shot Livie a scornful glance. “He’s so stupid. He thinks you’re s’posed to have your clothes off when you go swimming. He thinks ‘cause it has water, it’s a bath tub.”

  “Don’t call your brother stupid,” Kat said, retrieving Zack’s clothes, “it isn’t nice. Buster,” she took him from Livie and began dressing him, “how many times have we said Auntie Livie’s pond is not a swimming pool?”

&nbs
p; “But--”

  “No buts. Only the fish can swim in there.” Kat buttoned his shirt.

  “You want to sail the little boat, Zack? It’s in the--”

  “I know where,” he shouted, running to the shed.

  Stella paddled her bare feet. “Boys,” she said in disgust.

  “I know,” said Livie.

  #

  “You have to call him,” Kat said later.

  They were lingering on the blanket in the shade of a live oak tree near the pond. Livie had packed the leavings of a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese-flavored goldfish crackers and apples back into the small wicker hamper. Zack had fallen asleep; Stella was lying down next to him singing nonsense to her Barbie.

  Livie said, “No, I don’t think so.” She watched Stella’s eyelids shutter and then fly up only to shutter slowly again.

  “Why not? He helped put away your groceries, so we know he’s a gentleman. He’s a doctor, of animals, it’s true, but at least we know as a lover of animals, he can’t be a serial killer. He doesn’t fit the profile. He grows Christmas trees--”

  “I’m not sure of that part.” Livie was still looking at Stella who, like Zachary, was sleeping soundly. Zack’s mouth was open and as pouty as a loose purse. The quilt underneath was dark where he’d drooled.

  “So what’s the problem?” Kat asked.

  Livie brought up her knees and rested her cheek on them meeting Kat’s glance. “We had sex.” She mouthed the words.

  Kat’s eyes widened. “As in s-e-x?”

  “Shh,” Livie whispered even though the children were beyond hearing.

  “But I’m in total shock. You mean you were naked and everything? This was the night you went with Charlie to Bo Jangles, I guess, when you were snockered?”

  Livie looked away.

  “You didn’t even know him,” Kat sputtered.

  “Charlie introduced us.”

  “Still, it’s not like--”

  “First, you’re mad at me because I don’t get out, then when I do--”

  “I’m not going to lecture you, or psychoanalyze you, or whatever you’re going to say. It’s just usually you’re so cautious and this-- Picking up strange men in bars is so--”

  “Like Mom?” Livie challenged. She’d been right to keep quiet about it. Kat would only hate her if she ever found out about all the other nights, the terrible history of red dress nights that Livie had thought she’d left behind in Houston.

  “It’s dangerous,” Kat said after a moment as if Livie didn’t know.

  “You’d do it.”

  “Back in the day, maybe, but there are so many kooks out there now. What if he’d been some kind of psycho?”

  “But he wasn’t. And anyway, a minute ago, you were sure Cotton was a kook for leaving flowers on the porch.”

  Kat leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. She picked at the coverlet, huffed a sigh. “You’re right. It’s good to be impulsive once in a while. I’m proud of you. Just tell me you took precautions.”

  Livie stared at Kat.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Livie gave her head a slight shake. “I was wondering how things are with Tim. He called me. Did I tell you?”

  Chapter 8

  It was out in the open between them, that was the difference.

  They’d both brought it up to him.

  The accident.

  That thing he’d done that had wrecked their lives. And now he was forced to see it where he hadn’t really noticed before, the raw evidence of what they’d lost. Maybe it was only his mind putting it there, that terrible shadow in Nikki’s eyes, Wes’s eyes, but it was real as far as Cotton was concerned. It was there every time he looked at them. Nikki only grieved, but Wes was enraged. Wes wanted something done, lawfully or not. He was past the point of caring and who could blame him? Not Cotton. He’d figured they’d tell him; he’d been waiting for it, but he hadn’t thought about how it would make a difference, make it matter more. Make it hurt in some way he couldn’t name. By Sunday he was in bad shape.

  Sundays were bad anyway. They were trouble. Crammed with hours that hung in front of him, vacant and loose. He wanted to sleep in, but he was up at first light. He couldn’t eat; his head was on fire, full of everything that was wrong. This fake life he was living, like he was some ordinary guy.

  He made himself do his chores, the usual Sunday stuff, laundry, grocery shopping. He repaired a leaky toilet for one of Gooney’s tenants. He sat on a bench in the park. A wife whisked crumbs from her husband’s lower lip. Their children’s laughter burst in the air around him like bright sparks. Every minute he thought he’d drink, but he fought it. He went home at nightfall and called Anita. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t hold it alone anymore.

  She wanted to know how he’d kept his composure, how he could look Wes in the eye at all. Cotton said it was weird.

  “The guy’s got no clue, no clue who I am and I’m standing there listening while he tells me what happened like I don’t know, like I’m just-- Then he says something about how ever since he lost his wife he’s got no faith in the cops, you know? Like with these break ins?--he’s not waiting around for the police to catch this gang, hell no. He borrowed a gun from a buddy, a Glock, he says, nine millimeter, and he knows how to use it.”

  “My god, Cotton, you can’t go back there.”

  “I just stood there like an idiot, Nita. He thinks I have a problem with him having the gun, that I don’t get it. And it’s scary because I know if it was me? if somebody had run Livie down? I’d kill the bastard with my bare hands if I had to. You just can’t imagine how bizarre this is. I mean it’s like I’m wishing Latimer would get what he wants and what he wants is me. Dead.” Cotton laughed but not as if it was funny. Except in a way it was. He went to the window and pushed aside the moldy drape that hung over the A/C unit, looked out at the dark brick face of the building next door. “Did I ever tell you how bad I hate being sober?”

  “Not more than a gazillion times, but, Cotton, be serious. You have to get out of there.”

  “Everything is so damned clear now, you know? So clear it hurts. Everything except what in the hell I should do about it.”

  “I just told you--”

  “If you could have seen his eyes, Nita. Latimer’s eyes. It’s gone past just losing someone he loved, you know? It’s like his pride is mixed up in it. Somebody took something from him, got one over on him. It’s not happening again. If I was those crooks working his neighborhood?--I wouldn’t choose his house to break into, that’s for damn sure.”

  Anita interrupted. “Would you listen to yourself?” She was plainly exasperated. “You’re as good as saying if Latimer finds out--let’s make that when he finds out, he’ll kill you. You have to turn yourself in.”

  “Not until the job is done.”

  “That job--it’s worth your life?”

  “I owe it to them, to Nikki.”

  “God, you are so hopeless.”

  Cotton said he knew it; he said he’d been out to Livie’s, that he’d gone onto her porch but couldn’t bring himself to knock.

  “What if you had? What if she’d opened the door? What would you have done then?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes, I go and it’s enough to just sit there.”

  “You’re in worse shape than I thought.” Anita waited a bit and said, “I hate to be the nag, but are you going to meetings? Did you get a sponsor? Are you talking to anyone or just chasing this garbage around in your own head?”

  “I’m making the meetings when I can,” Cotton said. “I’ve had no luck with finding a sponsor, though. Your fault,” he told her. “Big shoes to fill,” he said and he waited to hear her laugh her big, brassy laugh, but she didn’t laugh, no.

  She said, “You worry me.” She said he was playing a mind game, that she’d played plenty of them herself. She was starting to piss him off and he told her that. She interrupted him like she didn’t care about
his feelings. “Tell me, is this what you went there to do?” She sounded about half sarcastic.

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “I thought you intended to tell the truth. I thought you were interested in making amends to these folks, but it sounds like the agenda has changed. Like you think there’s some way around the hard part.”

  “The hard part--”

  “It’s called taking responsibility, Cotton. I mean, c’mon, can you honestly say you’re handling the situation? You need to go to the police, tell them what happened and face the consequences. It needs to be over, for everyone’s sake, before someone gets hurt worse than what’s already happened.”

  Maybe it was the depth of Anita’s concern that got to him, or his regret at being the cause, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, Cotton was suddenly furious. “Okay,” he agreed, “fine. I’ll get it over tonight. Is that what you want? I’ll go see Latimer right now and tell him who I am.”

  “Not Latimer, no, Cotton--”

  “But you just said it needs to be over. Isn’t that what you said?” He was pacing, working himself up on purpose; he could feel it. He didn’t know why. He found the overhead light switch, flipped it on and watched a cockroach skitter under the baseboard. He thought how sick he was of living in shitholes; he thought how nuts he felt. He said, “You’re right, Nita, I need to get this over with.”

  “Maybe you should wait, huh? Until tomorrow. Go see the sheriff in the county where you had the accident-- Cotton? Are you listening?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “See the sheriff. I have to go, Nita. Thanks for being there. Okay?” Cotton tossed the cell phone onto the bed; he grabbed the keys to the Mercedes. He could still hear her shouting his name when he left.

  #

  He was headed to his car, parked down the block, but his steps lagged when he got close to Smitty’s. The bar was packed. Somebody had wedged open the door and a jabber of conversation sanded the night air. He could go in there and buy himself a shot, be somebody, belong somewhere. He could order drinks on the house and be a hero.