Part 4 (1/2)

Your mom broke her word.

Your mom drank too much wine with Tom after you and William went to bed and invited him up to her bedroom. He swore he'd get up early and be out of the house by the time you and Willie got up. He promised!

But she could hear Annie reply that Monica had sworn she'd never let a man-a stranger-into the family unless it meant they'd really have a father. Annie didn't ask for the vow; Monica had volunteered it. Now she'd betrayed her own children with this man. How could she let herself do it? How could she ever fix things?

Annie was tough and smart beyond her years. The girl was grounded in bedrock and would forgive her eventually. But she wouldn't forget. Willie, though, poor Willie. This was the kind of thing that could scar a child, send him down the wrong path. A breach of trust was a serious thing. Dashed expectations were just as crippling. She'd give anything if only she could somehow erase Willie's memory of the morning when Tom joined them at the breakfast table.

And Tom's way of dealing with it was to say, ”Things happen, Monica.”

He was an idiot, and it would be easy to blame him for what had happened. But she was the one who'd brought him into their home.

”I need to be alone and wait for my children,” she said. ”They are probably the only thing I've ever done right.”

He responded by visibly softening, and approached her, wrapping his arms around her. She remained stiff, refusing to give in to his physicality. With his grip on the back of her head, he pushed her onto his hard shoulder.

”I'm sorry, honey,” he said, cooing into her hair. ”They're your kids, so they're important to me, too. Of course you're worried about them.”

”I'm sorry, too, Tom,” she said. Sorry she'd ever met him.

As he hugged her she opened her eyes and saw her reflection in the gla.s.s door of the microwave oven. She was still slim, blond, with oversized eyes and a wide mouth, and an overbite most men liked. She knew she didn't deserve her looks; she had done nothing to earn them. It was the fault of genetics that she looked ten years younger than she was. She wanted to push away and run somewhere. How could he not read her in the slightest?

Tom was talking, saying, ”I'd like to think you consider me one of the things you've done right.”

She didn't respond, hoped he wouldn't press her for an answer. He didn't.

”It's not often we're alone without your kids here, honey,” he said. ”We could, you know, use this time just for us.”

Of course, she knew what he meant, but she couldn't believe he'd said it. She could feel him getting hard against her. He had moved his hips so his erection rubbed her abdomen.

She looked at the clock above the stove-5:45.

”Tom ...”

He didn't let go.

”Tom,” she said, pus.h.i.+ng away with more force than necessary, alarmed at the revulsion she felt for the same man who had been in her bed the night before, ”why don't you go home now? I need to talk with Annie and William. You shouldn't be here. You've done enough for today.”

A shadow pa.s.sed over his face, and his eyes looked harder than she could ever remember them.

”Okay,” he said, flat. ”I'll get out of your sight.”

She didn't correct him.

”This is all about not taking Willie fis.h.i.+ng?” he asked. ”Is that what this is about?”

What had she ever seen in him? she wondered. How could she have ever let his looks and steady job cloud the fact-the glaring fact-that he was a self-absorbed a.s.s?

”Go,” she said.

Tom rolled his eyes, started to say something, but stopped himself. ”Later, then,” he said, heading toward the mudroom and the back door. ”You know, it's hard to walk when you get me all riled up like this.”

”Don't ever come back,” Monica said, her tone flat. ”It's over. It's so very over.”

He snorted and shook his head in disbelief. ”And I came here to apologize.”

Turning back to the stove to check the lasagna, she said, ”No, I don't think so.” The cheese was bubbling and turning brown. She reduced the heat to keep it warm.

”Hey,” Tom yelled from the mudroom. ”That little b.i.t.c.h took my fis.h.i.+ng rod and vest!” He filled the doorframe, his face red, his lovely mouth contorted.

”What?”

”That's a six-hundred-dollar Sage fly rod,” he said. ”I've got hundreds of dollars of flies in my vest. And the little b.i.t.c.h took it.”

It was as if the two bulbs in the overhead light had been replaced with red ones. She looked at him through a curtain of deep crimson, thinking she had never seen such an ugly man before.

”Leave,” she said, her voice rising into a screech, ”and just keep going. Don't you ever come back in my house!”

”Oh, I'm coming back,” he shouted. ”I'm coming back for my rod and vest, G.o.ddammit.”

”LEAVE!”

For a second, she thought he would come back in after her. But he stayed within the doorjamb, veins popping on his neck and at his temple. Without turning her head and looking, she noted the block of knives on the counter next to her hand.

”Monica,” he said, ”you're a pretty good f.u.c.k. Not great, but good. You've got a nice mouth. But you'll never get any man to stay around here as long as you've got that little b.i.t.c.h here. And that mama's boy, Willie.”

It felt as if she had grabbed one of the knives and plunged it into her own chest. She gasped for air.

”GET OUT!” she screamed raggedly.

He shook his head, glaring at her, and went out the door, slamming it behind him.

She put her face in her hands and sobbed, calling him every name she could think of, feeling her heart break, terrified by the fact that she didn't know where her children were and she was utterly alone now.

Knowing it was her fault they were gone.

Friday, 6:15 P.M.

WHAT ANNIE had noticed first, as they'd driven up the road toward Mr. Swann's house, was the smell. Something ripe and bold coursed through the pine-scented air, and it got stronger as they neared his home in the thick trees. He had allowed them to get off the floor once he'd turned from the service road onto his private two-track drive, and Annie had seen what it was that made the odor: hogs.

”There's my family,” Swann said, smiling. ”They know Daddy's home.”

”Look at the pigs,” William said, leaning over Annie toward the open window of the pickup. ”Man, they're excited.”

When the hogs saw the red truck coming, they squealed and ran about in their pen, racing up and down a sloppy track, splas.h.i.+ng through coffee-with-cream-colored puddles. Annie counted at least twenty hogs, maybe more. One was huge, tan and bristly, and looked to be the size of a small truck. She didn't know hogs could get that big.

”The big one's name is King,” Swann said, winking as if he a.s.sumed she knew who King was, which she didn't. ”I named him after a guy who gave us a lot of trouble once. King won me a blue ribbon at the Pend Oreille County Fair this summer.”

”He's awesome,” William said. ”I bet he can eat a lot.”

Annie had stopped trembling, although she still felt numb. She couldn't wrap her mind around what she and William had seen at the campsite. Was it possible the man who was shot was still alive? No, she thought, it wasn't. The image of those men standing over him and firing again and again would never leave her. The eyes of the Driver locking on to her own sent a spasm through her, even now.