Never Smile at Strangers Read online

  But she had no complaints. The relationship, as it stood, was perfect for her. Since her father died, she had lost most of her interest in conversation and usually worried that she was a bore when she was with him anyway. She was no longer the witty girl she’d been when they first met. But Mac, not much of a conversationalist himself, didn’t seem to mind. They did things that didn’t require much conversation, like watching movies, television or reading on the couch. Sometimes he just fiddled around alone, repairing something in the house, cutting the lawn, painting the trim. He mostly kept to himself.

  Haley rested her head against the passenger seat. She closed her eyes and inhaled. Austin's truck had some of the same comforting grease smells, minus the stale, smoky odor Mac’s had. And it was less dusty.

  Austin stopped in front of her house and yanked the emergency brake. In the time it took for her to pick her purse up from the floorboard, he was already at the passenger door, opening it for her. He helped her out like Mac always did. But when his hand touched hers, a jolt of electricity shot through her body.

  “You get some rest,” he said, walking her to her front door. “Chris said he’ll bring your car by this evening. If you need it beforehand, just call Luke’s and we’ll get it to you.”

  “Thanks,” she said, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. “I guess I did need the ride,” she admitted, wiping at her eyes. All of a sudden, she realized that she felt a little better.

  “See you at Luke’s when you’re ready to come back. Chris is concerned about you.”

  Two pecans fell onto the porch. Haley bent to pick them up. “By the way, did Chris ask you to take me?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh,” she said, realizing she had wished it had been his idea. “Please thank him for me.”

  “I’ll do that. Take care of yourself.” He walked back down the dirt driveway.

  Haley stood on the porch and rolled the pecans around in her palm as she watched him walk the dirt driveway and climb back into his truck.

  Sighing, she opened her front door.

  Chapter 18

  ERICA LOVED THE way Rachel wrote on the chalkboard. Her words straight, sharp. Always in capital letters, very legible. She double-underlined the important words, the ones she wanted to emphasize.

  The chalk often made her sneeze. And when she did, “Bless you’s” bounced off the walls of the small auditorium. It was because everyone loved her. But not as much as Erica did.

  Erica enjoyed Rachel’s fluid, confident movements as she walked back and forth, teaching the importance of dialogue. The way her eyebrows became perfect V’s when she asked her summer class a question. And the genuine smile that spread across her face when a student answered correctly.

  More than once, Erica heard the boys discuss Rachel.

  “What a knockout.”

  “She’s hot for an older chick.”

  “Hell, I’d do her.”

  Erica bet her mother was just as beautiful these days, if not more, if that were possible. She longed to see her again. To know for certain what she looked like.

  Erica could barely sit still. She’d had a breakthrough with her writing that morning. A brilliant new idea. An epiphany.

  Rachel glanced at her watch. “Let’s recap before moving on,” she said, peering up at the class, her slender hands clasped together. “Dialogue is so much more than words. In fact, it is one of the most important tools you will use in moving your stories forward. You will also use dialogue to help develop your. . .”

  Erica usually sat in the front of the class. But she was late that morning and now she sat in the back row. Earlier she’d gone to the little cemetery off Harper’s Road to brainstorm. It was another one of her mother’s writing traditions. Another of her muses. Sometimes she would sit there for long hours with just the dead and her thoughts, concocting macabre situations and worlds. So Erica tried it, too. Like the woods, Erica felt a unique calm just being in the cemetery. The people who lay below her weren’t threatening, unlike the ones she had to interact with on a daily basis.

  But as she cut through the woods on her way back home that morning, she was met with the startling realization that someone else was with her. Someone unseen and very alive. Leaves had rustled, then she glimpsed someone about thirty feet away. She called out and the person began to run.

  But why. . . Why would someone run?

  A knock on the classroom door. Rachel excused herself, then after a few hushed whispers outside the classroom, she poked her head back in. “I’d like you to begin doing the exercises at the end of chapter ten,” she said. “At 10:50, you’re all free to go.”

  “Think it’s the police?” a tall girl sitting in front of and slightly to the right of Erica asked a freckled girl.

  “The police? Why would it be the police?”

  “Because that girl was sleeping with her husband.”

  Erica quit thumbing her way to chapter ten. Her fingers slipped out of the text. She disliked where the conversation in front of her was heading.

  “What girl?” the freckled girl asked, scrunching up her forehead.

  “Where have you been? The missing girl. Tiffany Something.”

  Erica watched the girl’s jaw drop. “Oh. Mrs. Anderson’s husband was sleeping with her?”

  “Sure was.”

  The freckled girl looked skeptical. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s only public knowledge. Mrs. Anderson found out about it and freaked. And some people think maybe she’s the reason she’s missing.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  Erica bit into her lower lip, willing herself not to say anything. These girls were stupid. What did they know anyway. She kicked the back of the tall girl’s seat.

  The tall girl turned.

  “Accident,” Erica muttered, staring at her text, not bothering to look up.

  She felt the girl gaze at her for a quick moment before turning back around.

  The freckled girl whispered, “She doesn’t look like a killer.”

  “Hel-lo? Did Dahmer? Bundy?”

  “Dahmer did.”

  The tall girl ignored her. “Well, Mrs. Anderson isn’t as perfect as she may look. She obviously had a motive. And get this, she kept visiting the diner in Grand Trespass where Tiffany worked. Like clockwork. Like some sort of stalker.”

  Erica kicked the back of her chair again.

  The tall girl turned.

  “Oops,” Erica said, her voice hard. Her eyes boring into the girl’s.

  The girl studied her for a few seconds, the expression on her face a mixture of anger and confusion. Then, understanding the unspoken message, she turned back around and said nothing for the rest of the period.

  Chapter 19

  WEDNESDAY EVENING, HALEY sat at her father’s grave. “We’re having such a hard time, Daddy.” she told him. “Everyone’s so miserable without you. I just want so badly for things to go back to the way they were.”

  As each new day passed, her memory of those old days seemed to fade. There were times when she couldn’t even remember what her father had looked like. Sometimes she forgot how his laugh had sounded. Forgetting terrified her.

  She reached out for a dandelion blossom and began picking it apart, tears stinging her eyes.

  “And Tiffany still hasn’t come home. No one seems to have any idea what happened to her. I wish you were here to help us. I miss you so much.”

  Sheknew that even if her father were still alive, he wouldn’t be able to do much. It wasn’t as though he were a detective or bounty hunter. He had been a bookworm, a college professor. A slight, gentle man. But it didn’t stop her from aching to see his face again, feeling his thin arms around her shoulders trying to comfort her.

  She hugged her knees and looked out at the trash on the side of the dirt road that led to the cemetery. Beer cans, abandoned fishing tackle, a Wendy’s wrapper. The barb wire that was meant to shelter the cemetery was loose in places and
leaning, hardly a protector of anything.

  None of the headstones were as nice as her daddy’s or Nana’s. Some of the dead only had markers. Simple license plates containing the name of the deceased, dates of birth and death. Other markers were mere stones, some odd-shaped, some jagged. She noticed a lawn chair had fallen across one that read Mother in sharp, pointy letters.

  She thought of her own mother. “Mama’s still in bad shape. She won’t even get out of bed,” Haley whispered. “I don’t think she wants to live without you.”

  She tried to push back an awful thought, one that had come to her over and over the months since the accident. Wishing it had been her mother, not her father who had died that night. Aside from Tiffany, her father and Nana had been her best friends. And in many ways, she had been much closer to them.

  While Becky had been attached to her mother’s hip, it had been Daddy who Haley was most attached to. They were able to talk about anything, and they often did. She also knew that if it had been Mama who’d died, her father wouldn’t have abandoned them as she had. He would have been stronger, even if just for his girls. His princesses.

  Several feet away, a branch snapped. Haley let go of her knees. Feeling her body stiffen, she peered out at the woods, a dandelion with no petals between two fingers.

  “Someone there?”

  Another branch snapped.

  Her breath caught in her throat. She squatted, and planted her feet firmly on the ground, prepared to run.

  After a terrifying moment, she heard a familiar female voice. “Sorry. It’s just me.”

  She saw a hand, then a head full of hair emerge from the brush. In the murky light, it took her a second to realize that it was Erica Duvall.

  “Hey,” Erica said, nervously brushing off her t-shirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

  She turned to go.

  “No. Don’t go,” Haley called. “You can stay.” She shuffled to the other side of the graveyard and sat down.

  Erica stood still for a few seconds, as though she was trying to decide. Finally, she walked toward Haley and set her backpack down. “Any news?”

  Haley shook her head. “No. None.”

  Erica fumbled with her backpack and pulled out a bottle of wine. She twisted the top off and took a swig. “The wind is shifting,” she muttered, holding out the bottle for Haley, but not meeting her eyes. “It’s going to storm.”

  Haley studied the bottle before reluctantly accepting it. She had only drank once in her entire life, but wondered if it might, for one teeny moment, help her forget. She took a sip of the bitter-sweet liquid. . . grimaced and handed it back.

  “You visit him every day?” Erica asked, gazing at the other side of the cemetery. The side where Haley’s father lay.

  Haley hugged herself against the chill in the air. The cemetery always seemed cooler than the rest of the town. “Most days.”

  “I’ve seen you here before,” Erica said. “But figured you needed to be alone, so I left.”

  Haley watched her down more wine and wondered how often her conversations had been overheard. “Why do you come out here?”

  “There’s a different energy here,” Erica said, handing the bottle back to her.

  Haley took a longer swig of the wine and winced at its sharpness. She marveled that after all these years she was actually sitting across from Erica Duvall, having a real conversation. Out of all the people she’d ever known, she couldn’t think of anyone she had been more fascinated with. The girl had a dark sense of mystery about her that no one else she knew possessed. Although barely five feet tall and rail thin, she also possessed a certain toughness. Not the feigned toughness a lot of teenage girls tried to exude, but the real thing.

  The wind shifted and Haley wrinkled her nose. An overbearing, musky odor blanketed the air. “I smell a skunk.”

  “Yeah, there’s a dead one on Harper’s Road,” Erica said, pointing to the dirt road to their right, easing her feet out of her flip flops and rubbing them across the grass. “Lying with his legs in the air. His beady black eyes staring up at the Lord. Not that there really is one, of course.”

  Haley could tell by the way the girl slurred her words that she was drunk. She looked at her bare feet. “Aren’t you afraid to go barefoot around here?”

  “No, not really. My feet are tough. Besides, it’s better to feel the world around you. People let themselves become too desensitized. How can you write if you don’t feel anything?”

  Haley nodded.

  Darkness blanketed the graveyard in a matter of minutes, bathing the cemetery in eerie shadows. Erica lit a cigarette and the two passed it back and forth. The orange ember was now the only light in the graveyard besides the dull bluish glow of faraway stars.

  They remained sitting, passing the wine and cigarette to each other. Soon, Haley’s head was spinning with alcohol and nicotine.

  “You know, this is the longest we’ve gone without talking since we were like three?” Haley muttered.

  “You and Tiffany?”

  Haley nodded. “If she was okay, she would have called me. But she’s not okay. She’s either hurt or she’s. . .”

  The orange ember of Erica’s cigarette grew sharp against the night as she sucked in. She said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes.

  “You know, it’s probably not the right time to say this,” Erica said, “but I never liked Tiffany. Not to say I hope anything bad happened to her. I just don’t want to lie to you. Just thought you should know how I feel about her.”

  Haley shrugged. “Not everyone likes her. Or me, for that matter.”

  “Are you kidding? Everyone likes you.”

  Haley thought about it and silently agreed. After all, she’d never had an enemy. It had just seemed the right thing to say.

  A branch snapped a few yards away. Haley jumped. “Did you hear that?” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the woods.

  “Shhh. . . Stay still.”

  Another branch snapped, then leaves crunched as something or someone made their way through the tree line. An owl screeched from somewhere up high, then a dull, circular light appeared. It bumped between the tree line and the cemetery.

  A flashlight.

  But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, and darkness returned to the cemetery.

  “Quiet,” Erica whispered.

  Haley nodded, and held her breath.

  For several long seconds the two sat quietly. Haley’s ears strained against the night, but she couldn’t hear a thing out of the ordinary. Just a chorus of bullfrogs and the night breeze stirring the leaves above them.

  Then she felt Erica’s small hand on her wrist, and the girl jerked her up. Before she realized it, she and Erica were running toward Harper’s Road. Fat raindrops began to fall from the sky as they ran. Erica had been right. A storm was coming.

  Chapter 20

  AT THE ANDERSON house, Tom Senior glared at his wife, his face flushed. “I’m not validating that question,” he snapped.

  “Validating?” Rachel asked from the edge of the bed. She planted both palms against her chest. “I’m not one of your college students, Tom. I’m your wife! Were you or were you not truthful about ending your affair with her when you said you did?”

  She took a good look at her husband and tried to see him from an objective point of view. His hair had receded, the light strands now gray. A hangdog expression had taken over his once strong jaw, and as he angrily waved his hands, she noticed several sunspots.

  “I’ve answered that question a million times! I’m not answering it again. I told you the truth so either you believe me or you don’t. It’s your decision.”

  Did he seriously think it was as easy as that? That their world was still so black and white? Even after all of his betrayal, his lies. No, their world was now shades of the dreariest gray. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t tell what was up and what was down, what was true and what wasn’t.

  “I don’t know what
to believe,” she said honestly, staring at him, her body racked with anger.

  His arms fell to his sides. “I’ve apologized. Over and over, I’ve catered to your doubts and tried to make you feel better, Rachel. I can’t do anything more.”

  Her laugh was sarcastic. “For your wife you can’t do anything more? What’s that say about our relationship? Just where are we, huh? Where are we, Tom?” As the words left her mouth, she realized she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  He turned his back to her and opened his closet door.

  As agonizing as it was, she repeated her question. “You said you can’t do anything more. What exactly does that mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  Rachel glanced at the purple comforter they’d picked out at J.C. Penney’s the weekend before, and the valances they’d hung together. The expensive David Leroux canvas they’d chosen on the Internet minutes before they’d made love for the first time in months. That had been less than a week ago. Somehow she had thought the new décor would help them start over. That it would offer them a clean slate. She’d had plans for the kitchen, too, and the carpet in the den.

  Thunder rumbled outside. She peered out the bedroom window. It had begun to storm. “So where does that leave us? You not being able to do anything more. You being unable to fathom why I’d have a problem with believing the words that come out of your mouth after you ran around with that little whore for three months.”

  “Rachel!” Tom spat.

  “Rachel, what?” she screamed. “What do you mean?” she asked, fingering the bracelet on her wrist with such intensity, it could have snapped in half.

  “I’m sick and tired of this game. That’s what.”