Allie stepped into the cool night. Dinner had just ended and Miss Bitty was on the way to pick her up. Hannah and her mother were in the living room arguing again, so Allie had been able to slip out unnoticed.
All she wanted to do was go home and crawl under her soft, clean sheets. She felt drained.
She had cigarettes, compliments of Big Joe, whose tidy little guesthouse bedroom she’d raided earlier in the day. She reached into her pocket for a cigarette and lit it. Taking a long drag, she stared up at the pale moon, waiting for the knot in her stomach to unfurl.
As she took her second drag, she saw something move in the darkness a few yards away.
Her body grew rigid. Coughing on the acrid smoke, she took a few steps backward and prepared to run back into the house.
“Hello?” she called. “Who’s there?”
Nothing at first. Then, after a long moment, a person stepped out of the shadows. He was tall, but he was backlit by the naked lightbulb hanging above the garage and she couldn’t make out his features very well.
“It’s just me,” the person said, his voice deep but gentle. “Don’t be scared.”
Allie sucked in her breath as the man stepped out of the shadows. But then she realized it was just Ted, Hannah’s stepfather.
“Shit! You scared the—” She stopped, gathered her breath. “You . . . scared . . . me,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to,” he said, reaching out as if to steady her.
She pulled away from him.
He bent to pick up the cigarette she had dropped. He handed it to her. “Are you okay?”
Allie nodded. Glancing down at her cigarette, she realized it had stopped burning.
As if reading her thoughts, Ted stepped toward her with his lighter. He flicked the tab. A flame shot out of the lighter and, reluctantly, she bent toward it and lit her cigarette.
Quickly straightening again, she created as much distance between them as she could without it being too obvious. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and lit it. Then, the two smoked their cigarettes in the darkness for a couple of minutes, neither saying a word.
After a while, Ted spoke up. “Sorry for the scene at dinner tonight. That happens a lot these days between Hannah and her mother. I’m not even sure why she invited you, knowing that something like that would probably happen.”
Allie remained silent. Feeling his eyes on her, she glanced at him, her expression steely. He grinned, his crooked teeth gleaming in the darkness.
Allie didn’t trust his smile. But then again, she wasn’t very trusting of any man these days.
The ember from Ted’s cigarette glowed in the darkness as he dragged long and hard. Several seconds later, he spoke, his voice gruff. “You know, if I were only ten years younger, I—”
Her mind flashed to the way he stared at her during dinner . . . and the memory of the truck driver who had tried to rape her . . . and of all the older men over the years who had mistreated her and asked her to do dirty things to them. Just the thought of a man, especially an older one, touching her again turned her stomach. She felt an unexpected burst of anger. “Yeah? Well, you’d still be freakin’ ancient.”
Ted looked confused for a moment, then he grinned. “Darling, I was just going to say that if I were ten years younger, I’d wrestle an alligator for Hannah. She’s been talking about it nonstop. I think it’s a strange fascination, but I’d like to see her happy again. She’s been through a lot lately with the move. It’s really taken its toll on her.”
“Oh. Sorry. I thought—”
His face stretched into a smile. “No, I’m happily married.”
Really? He calls that happy?
“And besides, you’re just a kid.”
Humiliated, Allie said nothing. Headlights appeared from around the corner. It was Miss Bitty.
Thank God.
“Okay, I’m going to go now,” she mumbled, tossing her cigarette to the cement and grinding it out with her shoe.
“Nice to meet you, Allie,” Ted said, turning to watch Bitty pull up the drive.
In the darkness Allie thought she saw him grin again. It was probably his way of laughing at her.
So much for making a good impression.
She rushed to Miss Bitty’s car.
CHAPTER 25
BACK AT HOME, Allie washed up, then eagerly slipped into her nice, clean bed.
A heavy rain drummed against her window, almost immediately lulling her into a deep sleep—and a nightmare of an especially frightening summer afternoon when she had been seven years old. It was the day her mother had killed a woman Allie had really liked: Norah Duvall, a young, aspiring writer.
Norah, in the middle of writing a mystery about a small-town prostitute, had taken an interest in Allie’s mother and interviewed her several times that summer for research to see how a real prostitute lived. The woman would visit the house with food (and also a little cash) and talk with her mother, sometimes recording their interviews with a cassette player.