He looked at me with uncharacteristic concern. “You afraid?”
“Of the killer?”
“Yes.”
“I guess,” I said.
He nodded. “Thing like that, finding a foot. That’ll screw you up. Make you … struggle.”
NOTICE THE CODE WORD? The one people use about people with mental problems, as previously discussed? I didn’t, at the time. I wish I had. It meant that he had spotted that something was up with me. It should have been blinking with red lights, that word, flashing.
“Hmm,” I said, instead of noticing.
“I’ll ask at the restaurant,” he said. “See what the latest is.”
“Oh, okay, thanks, Dad,” I said.
“Don’t let it get to you so much, Cass,” he said.
ANOTHER WARNING SIGN I MISSED. People were already talking.
“I won’t, Dad.”
“Just, you know, keep safe,” he said. “Keep sensible. Don’t go out after dark. Keep dressing sensibly.”
“Dressing sensibly?” I asked.
“Yeah. You know. Like, not provocative.”
“Provocative?” I probably shouldn’t have been getting into an argument, but I couldn’t help it.
He blinked. “You see the photo in the paper of the last girl who went missing? See what she was wearing in that photo, taken just before she left the club? Looking like that, I’m not surprised that—”
“That someone decided to kill her?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m—”
“Dad,” I said. “This is called victim blaming. Girls don’t ask to be attacked. Everyone should be able to wear what they want without creepy guys going after them.”
“I know that, but—”
“And men are not animals. I mean, shouldn’t we expect them to control themselves if they see a girl in a short skirt?”
“Yes, Cassie,” he said with a sigh. “You’re right. But I’m not victim blaming. I’m protecting my daughter.”
“Really?” I said. “Because mostly I thought you just played with bugs.”
Silence.
A long silence.
But he didn’t leave. Just stood there outside the door, on the top step, the garage below us, a motion-activated light above us that gave harsh halogen light and always came on automatically. Moths circling. The sound of a distant car engine, and way under it, ever present, the hushing noise of the sea.
“Cass, I—”
“What?”
He swallowed. “Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t be late for school.”
Of course, he never did find out anything at the restaurant. If he even asked.
“Slap yourself again.”
I slapped my face; it stung.
“Again.”
“Please. Please, no more.”
“Oh, okay, don’t. Let’s go play on the slot machines instead.”
JUST KIDDING.
Can you guess what the voice actually said? Yes! One hundred points to you. It said: “No. Do it.”
So I did.
I was in my bedroom in the apartment, sitting on the bed. Sunday before the last week of school. Outside it was getting hot, bright sun in the blue sky. A few scraps of cloud. The town was getting busier already. The workers for the piers had started arriving too. I even recognized a couple of them when I saw them walking down the street. Men and women who had been running concession stands since I was a kid. What they did in the winter, I didn’t know.
I went across to the main house. Dad was in his insect room, standing over a tank filled with tree bark and leaf mulch. He beckoned me in. I went over and stood by him. Shirtsleeves pushed up, he lifted a box. The tattoo of the seal on his arm seemed to swim as he moved. It was weird—he’d spent his whole life in the ocean, diving, and he lived in a town by the Atlantic, but he never went down to the beach anymore, not since he’d taught me to swim. Just played with his bugs in his study.
“I called your cell,” he said.
“Yeah? I must have missed it.” This was not true. I had taken the battery out and hidden the thing under the seat in the apartment. When you hear a voice that isn’t there, a disembodied voice, a cell phone becomes an unsettling object.
He sighed. “Okay.” He opened the lid of the box, which had holes punched in the side of it, and used tweezers to gently lift out a wriggling millipede. The thing was the length of his finger, bright pinkish red with spikes on its back, huge, like something out of a horror movie.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Desmoxytes purpurosea,” said Dad. “People call this one the dragon. Because of the red. From Uthai Thani province.” He deposited it on a branch, then reached into the box and took out two more.
“It’s gross,” I said.
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
This was a script we followed. But then I went off-script because I realized he was holding his arm kind of funny. His hand and wrist were swollen. Then I saw the purple bloom around his eye. “You get in a fight?” I asked.
He grunted.
“At a bar?” This would have been bad. There had been a time after Mom died. A time with bars. And fights. Now there was a sponsor on the other end of Dad’s cell phone, and a disk in his pocket with ONE YEAR CLEAN written on it.