The Wicked Page 2

  Her husband glanced over at her, taking his eyes off the road for only a couple seconds. He turned the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” down to a dull murmur on the 4Runner’s radio.

  The clock on the dashboard displayed 6:13.

  “You okay, baby?” David asked. Genuine concern painted his face as he blinked at his wife with those big blue eyes, childlike eyes, she’d always thought, those eyes that had attracted her to him more than anything else years ago.

  “I think so.” Kate sat up in her seat, but never let the afghan slip below her shoulders. It was her temporary barrier against the world, a warm shield she held tight to her chest like the chain-mail those muscle-bound warriors always wore on the book covers David painted. Kate’s hand went to her swollen belly for a second as she thought of the life inside her, but then it fell back to her thigh like some tired old bird no longer able to fly.

  “Bad dream?” David asked.

  “Mmm,” Kate replied, fondling the gold crucifix dangling from her neck. She rarely told him about her nightmares anymore, as doing so usually led to yet another argument. A fight about that. Again.

  Kate glanced in the backseat at Becca, reassuring herself that their daughter was still back there. As if, along with her peace of mind, the blank-faced shadow-man from her nightmare might have also whisked away the seven-year-old while she slept.

  Becca was snoring softly. The child appeared so tiny beside the mountain of cardboard boxes crammed into the back of the 4Runner. Kate could not see her daughter’s face through her curly blond hair (save for one small patch of cheek stippled with those adorable freckles inherited from Kate’s own side of the family), an impossibly large wig of gold for such a tiny girl. Lying there in the backseat, in her pink felt jacket and blue jeans with the pink piping, the Beach Blast Barbie dangling from her little hand...she was so precious the sight of her brought tears to Kate’s eyes.

  Kate turned back around to gaze out her window at the houses set closely together along the highway. Each house was so different from those on either side of it, yet at the same time so uniformly alike in their small town simplicity. For some reason Kate found that oddly comforting. Few houses along this street were more than a single story; most were stucco, painted in safe, soft earth colors mirroring the vibrant tones of the countryside around them. Not a single skyscraper in sight. Nothing more breathtaking than the foggy-blue mountains in the distance, the lavender-pink skies behind them. Kate smiled as she took it all in. Several homes along this particular road were already draped with rainbows of lights or vibrant green wreaths upon their doors for the upcoming Christmas season, bright bulbs blinking rhythmically like multi-colored eyes watching Morganville’s streets. Garland twisted around light poles like vines of silver and gold everywhere Kate looked. A half-dozen or so plastic Santas waved from a half-dozen or so snowy lawns. Western North Carolina had seen its first snow of the season several days before. Kate tried to focus on a single spot outside her window as the 4Runner cruised along, the thick muddy chunks of snowy slush piled along Morganville’s sidewalks blurring into a fat gray stripe a few feet away from her.

  “We’re almost there, aren’t we?” Kate asked her husband, yawning.

  “Welcome to Morganville, babe,” David replied. “Shouldn’t be long at all now.”

  David glanced at her again, then back at the road. He’d always been a very careful driver, never taking his eyes off the road more than a second or two. That’s how accidents happen, he’d explained to Kate on more than one occasion. If people would realize that, instead of looking for a CD or gabbing on their cell phones when they should be paying attention to the road, there wouldn’t be half as many damn accidents. At which point Kate would inevitably scold him: “Language.” Still, she had to agree with his little credo, however hard it was to believe such words of wisdom came from a native New Yawker. She had been so surprised when he decided to haul everything down in the 4Runner, considering how all those boxes in the back made his visibility practically nil.

  Kate fidgeted anxiously as she continued to gaze out her window. So this was going to be home. She nearly pinched herself, fearing it might all be a dream. It was too perfect. This was exactly what she needed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so much grass! So many trees, a multitude of colors even in the first days of North Carolina’s winter. What happened to all the concrete, the stone-gray monochrome and ugly dried-blood brick, the only scenery she had known for the past thirty years?

  So perfect.

  Kate looked back toward her husband, and he quickly looked away. He had been stealing glances at her every few seconds, so concerned, but she could tell he didn’t want to make it obvious. Now came her turn to stare at him, to consider the hint of unease in his face. He really was doing this just for her. It certainly was not what he wanted. David Little could have gladly remained in New York City until the day he died—he probably would have requested, in fact, that his ashes be scattered from the top of the Empire State Building when that day came.

  The Littles hoped that moving to Morganville would herald a new beginning for them, for their family. Here at last was a chance to rebuild what had been so abruptly devastated, to repair what had been shattered in one unforgettable evening. They had needed a change for quite some time, as far as Kate was concerned, but especially after what had happened.

  She could barely sit still as the 4Runner drew closer to their new home. An image of a mighty phoenix came to the forefront of Kate’s mind, a majestic creature rising from the ashes of its old self, rejuvenated and reborn.

  Like David, Kate had been born and raised in New York. She had lived there all her life with no complaints. Not that she could ever really say she liked living there—New York was simply all she had ever known. The thought of leaving the “Big Apple” never occurred to her, was never an option until she and David married and started a family. Then she began to ask herself, on those long nights when she sat up nursing baby Becca while the sounds of police sirens and screams and gunshots and an all-around sense of hopelessness echoed off the outer walls of their apartment building mere feet from where she sat, do I really want to raise a family in this place?

  She had known the answer for quite some time, but never admitted it to herself. And she knew why.

  Because of David.

  Since the day they met, David had stressed how he loved the excitement of the place—there was never a dull moment in New York! The place was “one big roller-coaster ride,” in her husband’s words, a ride he never wanted to get off (Kate had refrained from reminding him that she’d never been a fan of amusement parks). Not to mention the fact that, as a book-cover artist, New York City was the ideal place for David to be. They practically lived next door to all of the major publishing houses. Not a bad place to call home, if one wished to rub shoulders with all the right people. Kate had agreed with David’s reasons for staying in New York, as he was the sole breadwinner in their family, but with Becca’s birth things changed. Kate found that her opinions on the city gradually morphed into less-than-favorable once a child figured into the equation. After Becca came along, Kate found herself craving life in an environment where, well, where nothing happened. Perhaps even somewhere...boring. What was so wrong with that?

  For the first time since they were married, Kate found herself asking David if the thought of raising a child amidst all that crime—did it not frighten him in the least? It didn’t seem to bother him at all, that constant threat of violence lurking like a toxic mist in the New York City air, and Kate never understood why. Though he rarely talked about it these days, David’s own father had been seriously injured by a mugger shortly after Becca’s first birthday. The old man had never been the same after the attack, yet David’s eternal outlook, always spoken so nonchalantly that it could be rather sickening depending on Kate’s mood, was: “Crime’s everywhere, babe. You’re gonna find that wherever you go.” End of discussion. David loved the city. His city, he had c
alled it more than once, and Kate had been quite sure that nothing would ever change his mind. He was a native of the Big Apple, for goodness’ sake, and still he owned one of those stupid “I LOVE NY” tourist T-shirts.

  Of course, all of that changed after on May 3.

  After that night, seven months ago, Kate decided her only option was to leave New York City. She could not—would not—continue to live there. So she had given her husband an ultimatum: He could come with her, if he chose to do the right thing, or not. But after what happened, she could no longer live in that vile place.

  “Should we grab a bite to eat before we find the house?” David said, startling Kate from her melancholy reverie. Again he reached to turn down the radio. This had always been a somewhat annoying habit of his, the radio thing, but one Kate had long ago grown to live with. Got something to say? Turn down the radio. Done? Back up goes the volume until the conversation begins anew.

  “You’re kidding, right?” She gestured toward the uneaten half of a vanilla Moon-Pie on the seat between them and a warm bottle of Dr. Pepper from which he had taken only a sip or two since their stop at that Seven-Eleven in Virginia.

  “I’m still hungry,” he lied. “Maybe we could turn around, grab a late dinner at Brunhill’s one last time before we say good-bye to New York forever?”

  Say good-bye to New York forever. God, how she loved the sound of that.

  “Brunhill’s is a loooong way behind us, hon,” she said. It had been their favorite restaurant back home. “And it’s ‘supper’ now, by the way.”

  David didn’t get it. He glanced over at her several times, still keeping his eyes on the road. That was another thing she had always loved about him—that dumb yet adorable expression that came to his face when he was oblivious to what was going on. Or pretended to be.

  “You’re in the South now, darling,” she explained. Mock-slowly, as if to a child learning how to read. “It’s not ‘lunch and dinner’ anymore. It’s ‘dinner and supper.’”

  “Ah.” David mulled that over for a few seconds. “And who filled you in on that little tidbit of intellect? Brother Joel?”

  Kate grinned. “He’s an expert now, I guess. The only native New Yorker I know who says ‘y’all’ on a regular basis.”

  “No way.”

  “Last time I spoke with him, he told me he’s even developed a taste for grits.”

  “Grits?” David grimaced as if she were trying to convince him of the culinary potential of fresh roadkill. “Please tell me we’re not gonna turn out like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said, though her sing-songy you-never-can-tell tone gave her away. Obviously Kate wouldn’t mind turning out like that at all.

  “Anyway,” David said, “I was thinking—”

  “Hurt much?”

  “Cute. Very cute.”

  She winked at him.

  “I figured we could stop,” he went on, “grab a burger at Mickey D’s before we move in.” He pointed, and Kate spotted a McDonald’s coming up on their left in a shopping center called West Park Plaza. “Maybe let Becca run wild on the playground for an hour or two?”

  “Honey, she’s fast asleep. Quit joking around—you know I’m dying to see the house!”

  He shrugged. She slapped him lightly on the shoulder, and he chuckled mischievously. Even after they passed by the McDonald’s, he kept it up.

  “What’s the hurry? We have the rest of our lives to see every inch of the place.”

  “I know,” Kate said, beaming. “And I don’t want to waste another second.”

  Everything was going to be okay, she told herself for the umpteenth time. A new home, in a new town, as far from New York City as she could get...and on top of everything else, she would get to see her baby brother soon, for the first time in three years! Could things get any better?

  The only problem now was the matter of the child inside her.

  Her smile faltered. It always came back to that, didn’t it? The baby. Something that should make their family so much stronger, a gift from God, was slowly tearing them apart instead. And the child wasn’t even here yet.

  How was this little dilemma going to end?

  Kate did not want to think about that. Not yet. Not now.

  David steered the 4Runner to the right, past an abandoned apple-packing warehouse and onto a road identified by a small green-and-white sign as Honeysuckle Lane. He glanced down at the odometer and reset the bottom counter with a tap of his middle finger. “Almost there. We’re exactly a mile-and-a-half from this point.”

  “I can’t wait,” Kate said, forcing her thoughts back to the moment at hand. She held her belly as they drew closer to their new home, as if the baby inside of her might somehow experience their arrival through her trembling hands.

  “Honeysuckle Lane—sounds like a great place to live, doesn’t it?”

  “It sure does.” With a sad little smile, Kate admired the other houses on Honeysuckle Lane as they passed: split-level, middle-class homes belonging to folks with fine WASP-ish names on their mailboxes like Smith and Gray, Robinson and Rose. “It sounds...absolutely perfect.”

  Kate absentmindedly began to curl her husband’s shoulder-length hair around her fingers as he maneuvered the 4Runner through a deep curve. She couldn’t wait to see the house again. David had driven down to North Carolina several times since they decided to buy the place, taking care of all the paperwork, but Kate had only seen it once. That had been enough, however, for her to know that—like the first time she saw her future husband—it was truly “love at first sight.” She sat up, peering through the windshield like a child on Christmas Eve searching for Santa’s sleigh on the horizon.

  “I love you, Kate,” David said softly.

  His hand went to her thigh. Tentatively, but it was there.

  She covered his hand with her own. “I love you, too.”

  In the back, little Becca began to stir, as if she sensed they were almost home.

  “It’s alive!” David said, grinning at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “Howdy-ho, sleepyhead.”

  Becca gazed out her window, already wide awake as she took in this new world around her. “Are we there yet, Daddy?”

  “Just about.”

  “Yay!”

  “Excited, are you?”

  Becca nodded, golden curls bouncing every which way. “This place doesn’t look anything like New York!”

  David glanced at Kate. “It sure doesn’t, sweet-pea. Not at all.”

  And then suddenly Kate had to hold herself back from squealing with delight as the 4Runner rounded a curve and their new home sat before them. In its sycamore-lined cul-de-sac at the end of Honeysuckle Lane, painted with a mosaic of crisscross branch-shadows and pinkish tint from the late day’s dying sun, Kate would have known even if she hadn’t seen the house before that this was it. This was home. She could feel the place calling to her: Welcome, Kate Little. I’ve been waiting for you. So glad you’re finally here...

  “Wow.” She could say nothing else for those first few minutes. As far as Kate was concerned, this was the most beautiful house on the block. Even if it wasn’t the largest, or the fanciest—she could already spot several things about its outer facade and the property that held ample room for improvement—none of that mattered. 31 Honeysuckle Lane was perfect.

  Kate could barely sit still when she noticed the shiny new mailbox out front. David must have put it up the last time he came down. 31 LITTLE, big blue block letters spelled out on its side, and that cinched it. They were home.

  Home.

  “This is it, isn’t it, Daddy?” Becca squealed. “We’re here!”

  “We’re here.”

  “Neato!”

  They couldn’t have stopped little Becca if they tried from flinging open her door and jumping out before the vehicle came to a complete stop. In her excitement she almost hit their new mailbox, a millimeter away from leaving a nasty silver scratch through the 4Runner’s teal paint. David his
sed through his teeth as he witnessed the near-miss. But he stayed silent as he watched his seven-year-old daughter sprint through patches of half-melted snow in the yard, heading for the tire swing he had hung from the oak tree out front just for her.

  “Awesome! Mommy, look!”

  Jackpot. He had known she would love it.

  “I take it Little One approves,” David said, before exiting the vehicle himself and coming around to Kate’s side.

  “She’s not the only one. Wow. Oh, David...wow.” The scene before her blurred as tears filled Kate’s eyes.

  “I’ll get those boxes later,” David said, helping her out of the 4Runner. “Let’s go inside.”

  His arm went around her as she waddled through the yard toward their new home. He led her patiently up the concrete walkway to the front step, mindful of any lingering slabs of late-winter slush or ice in their path. Kate’s belly seemed to lead the way for both of them, and she was gleefully aware of it even as she admired the house.

  “Ooo...oh!”

  “What is it?” David’s hand clenched her own a bit too tightly. He halted in mid-step. “Kate, what’s wrong?”

  She placed his hand on her stomach. “The baby! He...it kicked! I felt it! I think the baby’s excited about the house too!”

  David’s hand fell from hers. His smile faltered. It was back less than a second later, though now it was cold. Forced.

  As it had been so many times before, the moment was ruined.

  “Daddy! Come push me!” Becca’s musical laughter echoed across the yard as she twirled around and around upon the tire swing. Her skinny, blue-jeaned legs kicked in the air below the old Michelin, too short for her feet to reach the ground.

  David did not hear her. Or perhaps he chose to ignore his daughter completely. At the mention of the baby, his mood had changed once again.