Page 146 of Hello, Summer
“Okay,” Conley said meekly, blinking back tears. “I will.”
She sat very still, crouched in the dark, in the middle of her childhood bed for a minute or two, feeling vulnerable, even cornered, two emotions she despised with all her heart.
“Fuck this,” she said finally. “This asshole doesn’t get to do this to me.” She shoved her feet into a pair of flip-flops. She glanced out the bedroom window. The street below was deserted. She turned on the overhead light, then went out into the hallway. Moving rapidly, she opened every door on the second floor, flipping on lights as she went.
When she came to the last door, she stopped and leaned her forehead against the white-painted doorjamb. She hadn’t been in this room in years. Six years, to be precise.
It had been a warm summer night like this one. G’mama and Winnie were already out at the beach. Grayson and Tony were newly married and living in Tampa. She’d come home to Silver Bay because she was worried about her father. He hadn’t been answering her phone calls, and he’d lost a lot of weight, according to her grandmother.
“I don’t think things are going well at work. That big bank from Charlotte swallowed them up, and now they keep sending consultants down here, telling Chet how to run a bank he’s been running all his grown life,” G’mama said. “He hardly eats, and I know he’s not sleeping, because I see lights from under his door at all hours of the night.”
She’d timed the surprise visit for Father’s Day, taking extra care picking out his gifts—a biography of Franklin Roosevelt that he’d mentioned wanting to read, a box of his favorite chocolate-covered cherries, and,as an inside joke, the most hideous necktie she could find, a puke-green satin number with a repeating pattern of purple armadillos.
That Saturday, she’d parked behind her father’s Chevy and used her key to unlock the front door. The house was unusually quiet—no radio playing in the kitchen or television playing in the den. She walked through the downstairs rooms, calling for her father.
“Dad? Daddy?” He wasn’t in the backyard either. She climbed the stairs, wondering if he was napping, which would have been totally out of character for her father, who claimed he was unable to sleep during daylight hours.
She stood outside his bedroom door. For it washisnow. Some of Melinda’s clothes still hung in the closet, and the room still held the king-size bed they’d shared, but everybody knew Mrs. Chet Hawkins was not coming home again.
“Dad?” she called, tapping on the door. “Are you asleep?” When there was still no answer, she’d turned the knob. He was stretched out on the bed, his face turned away, toward the window, the empty bottle of pills still clutched in his now cold, stiffened fingers.
Conley clenched her teeth together, opened the bedroom door, glanced around, and flipped the light switch. The room was empty except for some boxed-up books and old bank files.
She closed the door again and ran downstairs, moving through the rooms, switching on lights. In the den, she turned the television on, comforted by the high volume. She went into the kitchen and rechecked the back door.
Her phone was tucked into the pocket of her shorts.
It had been ten minutes since she’d called 911. Plenty of time for a police cruiser to be dispatched from anywhere in the city. What was taking so long? She could feel the tension ratcheting up.
This was stupid, she decided. Skelly was two doors away. Yes, it was a ridiculous time to call somebody, but Skelly cared about her. If she called, he would come, and it wouldn’t matter what time it was.
She scrolled through her contacts until she came to theKs.
When the doorbell rang, it startled her so badly she dropped the phone. She ran toward the door, peeped out the window, and saw the cop. He wore wraparound aviator sunglasses, and a baseball cap shaded his face. He was holding a leather badge holder in front of the window.
Relief swept through her body, and her hands shook as she began to unbolt the door. As soon as the tumblers on the lock clicked, the door slammed violently open. Her mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out.
56
The inside of the Corvette was stifling—like a coffin. Buddy’s eyelids drooped, then fluttered. He sat up, shook his head. He had to get out of the car and move around if he was going to stay alert—or else just give up and move on, as the cop driving the pickup had probably done fifteen minutes ago.
He was about to turn the key in the ignition when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. As he watched, a shadowy figure stepped out of the shrubbery bordering the side of the driveway where Conley Hawkins’s Subaru was parked.
The bill of a baseball cap obscured his face, and he now wore dark, wraparound sunglasses, but nothing could disguise his bulked-up physique. He was studying the house, where lights were blinking on, room by room, one after another.
“Shit,” Buddy muttered as the cop inched up the driveway. He had to do something. Shit or get off the pot. That girl, Conley, was in trouble. He scrabbled around in the Vette’s console, looking for his phone. He heard a dull thud as something bounced on the passenger-side floorboard, and he leaned over to grab for it.
He was still fumbling around in the dark when he heard the crack ofwood, and when he sat up, he saw that the door of the house had been kicked in and the cop was inside.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He was frantic. The phone must have slid beneath the seat. He got out of the car and sped around to the passenger side, opening the door and kneeling on the cracked asphalt, groping around, trying to find the phone.
Finally, his fingers closed on it. He dialed 911 and waited.
“Come on, come on.” He was staring at the door waiting to see what happened next.
“Nine-one-one,” a male dispatcher said.
“I want to report a break-in at a house over here on Felicity Street,” Buddy said.
