The Kind Worth Saving (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #2)(20)

He’d been getting more potatoes, as well, and he looked up.

“Meet me in the library after dinner,” Joan said. “I have news.”

Richard nodded, and Joan went back to her table, feeling a little stupid and a little excited at the same time. It felt as though they were playacting, being secretive, but it wasn’t entirely playacting, was it? When Richard talked about doing something to Duane, he seemed serious.

When Joan got to the library, Richard wasn’t there yet, which was fine since there was a woman in a muumuu looking through the fiction shelves. Joan pulled a random Judy Blume book from the kids’ section and plopped down on one of the leather chairs. It was Deenie, a book she thought her older sister had once read, and she flipped through the pages, not looking at them. The woman, whose hair was dyed and stiff and looked like a helmet, kept talking to herself as she browsed the books, saying things like, “Oh, I think I’ve read that one,” or reading the titles out loud. At last she pulled a book down, a chunky paperback, and was quiet while reading its back cover. “I guess this’ll have to do,” she said aloud, then glanced in Joan’s direction. Joan kept her eyes on her own book. The woman left.

About ten minutes passed, and Joan was pretty sure that Richard wasn’t going to show up. She felt angry again, wondering if he was trying to avoid her, but then he was suddenly standing at a nearby shelf. She hadn’t heard him come in.

“Oh, hi,” she said, as though they were meeting randomly.

“Hi, there,” he said.

Joan leaned over in her chair to see around the shelf that was in the middle of the room.

“We’re alone here,” he said.

“Oh, good. Guess who I talked with today?”

“Duane?”

“Yep. I was swimming right before dinnertime and when I got out of the water he was standing by my clothes and towels waiting for me. Like he hadn’t attacked me the other night.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to know if I’d come down to the beach again tonight and hang out with him and his friends.”

“Jesus. What did you say?”

“I was going to tell him off, but then I figured maybe I’d say that I was going to come, at least lead him on a little.”

“Uh-huh,” Richard said. He seemed to be thinking.

“He said there would be more kids there this time, including two girls who are staying at some rental house. I guess he figured I might come if I knew other girls would be there.”

“So are you going to go, or what?” Richard said.

“Where? To Duane’s beach party?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Maybe you should go, but just for a little bit, like one beer, then leave.”

“Last time I went he was all over me. This time he’ll probably kill me, or something.”

Richard grinned, exposing his very white teeth. “I don’t think Duane is a serial killer. At least not yet.”

“Why do you think I should go?”

“It will be like baiting the hook. Remember we talked about how the best way to kill Duane was to get him out to the end of the jetty and then push him in the water?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’ve got to get him interested first, make him think he has an actual chance with you. And then it will be easy to lead him out to the jetty.”

“Tonight?” Joan said too loud, then whispered, “You want me to lead him out there tonight?”

“No, not tonight. There’ll be other people on the beach, and they’ll all know you went with him. No, I just think you should show up tonight to keep him interested, and then sometime next week you could ask him to secretly meet you at the end of the jetty.”

“You are using me as bait?”

“I guess so,” Richard said. “Do you feel like a worm?”

“A little bit.”

There was a sound in the hallway, like someone knocking on a door, and Richard went to the entryway to the library and looked out. “Nothing,” he said when he came back.

“Do you think it will be safe if I go meet Duane and his friends tonight? I mean, do you think there will really be other girls there?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said. “If you want, I could go down to the beach, too, and spy on the party. It will be dark, and I don’t think they’ll see me. That way I can make sure that you get there safe and that you’re able to leave. Just don’t stay long, but act like you don’t totally hate Duane. Then later he’ll do whatever you ask him to do.”

Joan thought about it. Her skin was tingly, like she was about to give a presentation in class.

“Okay, I’ll go down and have one beer with them.”

“Good,” Richard said. “What time did he say?”

“He said around ten o’clock.”

“You want me to come to the beach, too?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Sounds good. And maybe we should meet back here tomorrow night at the same time and talk about what happened.”

“Sure,” Joan said.

Richard left the library first, then Joan, going back to her room. Lizzie was out. Joan began to imagine what it would be like if she was the one who walked out on the jetty with Duane on the night he died. She imagined the attention she’d get, the pity, the worrying looks. She thought about that time when she was eight years old and went missing for a night. It was the week after Lizzie had gotten the all-clear on yet another cancer scan, and as a celebration present had gotten a Discman. She’d spent every minute listening to grunge music on it, singing along tunelessly. One night when Lizzie was out Joan stole the Discman plus a couple of CDs and went into the deep closet that was located in the spare bedroom of their house. She sometimes went there to be alone, burying herself underneath a bunch of old blankets that were stacked in the far corner. That night, she’d lain in the closet listening to Lizzie’s weird music until she must have fallen asleep, not waking up until the following morning. After stumbling out of the closet in the early morning she was surprised to hear adult voices that didn’t belong to her parents coming from downstairs. She followed the sounds, walking into the kitchen where her mother and father, both standing, were talking to a uniformed police officer sitting at the kitchen table taking notes. It was her mother who spotted her first, her eyes widening, mouthing Joan’s name then racing and pulling her into a tight, smothering hug.