McCafferty gives a shrug of the shoulders. “Just thought I’d let you know before some reporter started to spout things off. Your father was the one who mentioned the gap in the woods. I told him I’d look into it.”
His eyes round out a moment before he goes right back to dismissing all thoughts of earth swallowing anyone whole. It figures that his father would have landed us on this morbid topic to begin with. Morbidity in and of itself has plagued the Price family for years. James and I are going through hell, but his parents beat us to it.
McCafferty starts heading back toward the street. Her footsteps carefully lift the ground fog making her feet disappear and the very sight of her has an ethereal flair. “The Indians believe in just punishments, that whole circle of life thing. You take our land; you will become our land. I guess you can say they take their curses pretty seriously.” We watch as the mist swallows her, but it’s not good enough. A part of me wishes the ground had yawned open its greedy mouth and ate McCafferty for breakfast. How dare she align her thoughts with Heather Evans of all people. Dear God, what the hell is happening? “For what it’s worth, my sister is a realtor. You know what she always says? The people don’t pick the neighborhood, the neighborhood picks the people.” Her lips pull tight. Idiot. “If I get any new leads, I’ll get in touch.”
Her words resonate in my mind long after she’s no longer visible. They take their curses pretty seriously.
Heather thought Len was cursed and I all but laughed. It’s not true. There is no bullshit curse. This is just another mind game the universe is trying to take me down with.
Len wasn’t cursed and neither is Reagan. But that doesn’t stop me from dropping to my knees and clawing at the soft piles of dry brush. A fresh bite of soil hits my nostrils as my fingers feverishly comb through years of debris. James tries to pick me up again, but I scratch and claw at the earth as if I were rabid. She’s here. Something’s here. It’s that smell. It’s making me mad.
Where in the hell is my baby?
I hit soil and grind a fistful in my hand before pitching it to the sky.
The soil rains all of its fury right back over the two of us as if to say there is nobody to blame but you.
“Come here,” James says tenderly as he lands his arms around me. His phone jumps out of his pocket and lands face up before me like an offering.
A text is there to greet us. Hannigan again. It has a ring to it.
Coming out to visit soon. Time to show you my stomach.
My heart thumps all the way into my skull. Why do I get the feeling Hannigan isn’t some fifty-year-old beer-bellied man from the city?
6
James
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I could blame my father or McCafferty on the fact she dragged us out for that ridiculous history lesson from the annals of Friday the 13th, but really, I should place the blame where it truly belongs—square on my shoulders.
I told Allison, rather conveniently, that Hannigan, this man from work, my old work when I still was viably employable, was threatening to come out to help with the search. He meant to say he can’t wait to show me what he can stomach. I had told him no in an earlier, verbal conversation—that not even I could stomach what was happening.
The deception flowed from me like oil. How quickly my mouth had become a hot sewer of deceit.
You see, once you tell a lie you need to cover it with another lie, and that lie quickly blossoms into a tangled web of deceit the size of the damn universe. It’s like a game of telephone gone bad. You’re so far away from the truth, you almost want to laugh or in my case claw your eyes out at the very same time.
Hailey Oden is having somebody’s baby. For now, she wants me to believe it’s mine. It very well could be, and that alone scares me almost as much as having Reagan out there in this world, God only knows where. And speaking of which, since God does know where and isn’t opposed to keeping it a secret, one of the local morning shows has offered to hear our story, and they’ve tossed in a psychic just to sweeten the deal. Both Allison and I outright refused. The last thing we want this circus to turn into is, well, a bigger circus. But both Rich and McCafferty said it would be a good idea to try to regain the trust of the public once again. As of right now, my wife and I are the two most hated people on the planet. The Western world has pegged us for the crime, hung us by our ankles in the very public square of the comments’ section in just about every online article, and don’t get me started on the fact we have been the brunt of tasteless late night television jokes as well. Nothing is sacred anymore. It’s open season on the Price family, no matter how big our loss.
At five forty-five Halloween morning, Allison and I march ourselves down to KWTV for hair and makeup. We have another shot to make things right with the imbeciles who have chosen to judge us, and this is our shining moment. Sons of bitches, bastards. I wish I could kill them all. A visual of that brain-stained dining room fills my mind like a screen saver that refuses to dissipate. I’d love to take them all on one by one. God knows I have the pent-up rage to do it. My blood boils like a lava current through me. All I see is red.
An employee from the studio meets us at the gate and escorts us to the makeup lounge, an over lit room with a few stray women all waiting to greet us, but it’s the tall brunette with knife sharp teeth that sends a chill up my spine.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in!” Monica Phillips dances over with her boobs swinging side to side like a pendulum underneath her sweater. “You handsome devil, you. I knew you would be here today!” She throws her arms around me in a strangulating hug, and Allison rolls her eyes at the sight. “I put a good word in to the boss for you and your wife,” she whispers directly into my ear, her lips molesting the hell out of it while she’s at it and I shudder.
So this was Monica’s doing. “I’m not sure if I should thank you just yet.” I offer up a forced smile.
“I’m doing you.” Her tongue does a quick revolution of her lips. Monica dusts my nose with her finger while pushing me back into a waiting chair. I give a nervous glance to my wife. Women coming on to me is what got us into this nightmare to begin with. Little did I know one tug at the string of lust and my world, our worlds would unravel like a cheap sweater. Allison pitches her brows, bemused as she settles next to me. A demure brunette with thick red glasses wordlessly gets to work on her, and I cringe at the torment that’s about to begin for me.
“Handsome here and I used to date.” Monica smacks my forehead with a sponge before aggressively dotting my face with it. “Isn’t that right? We were in l-u-v.”
Allison twitches a smile, but she’s too sane to give it. We are grieving our missing child for shit’s sake. How does any of this feel appropriate to this woman? She’s batshit all right. I called it years ago.
“But life happened, didn’t it?” She reaches for a pair of tweezers and gives a few quick pinches over the bridge of my nose, clipping over my eye like a fire line and I grunt through it.
“Painful.” I try to tough it out without squirming. This right here is why I could never have been a woman. I would have made a lousy tranny, too, failed Woman 101 right off the eyebrow plucking bat. She gouges into my skin, and I reflexively move her away. “Shit. Sorry.”
“Play nice.” Allison warms the room with her voice. I really do love that woman. I wish with everything in me that I could go back in time and say no to the damn pool party for two. The affair never would have started. Hailey would not be threatening to show me her stomach. God forbid. And we never would have moved to Timbuktu, Idaho to get the hell away from her. Reagan would be safe in my arms.