River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(19)

“What’s that smell?” Becca asked.

“Oh.” Jackie rubbed her forehead. “I think he went to the bathroom.”

“What do you mean he went to the bathroom?” Becca looked at him. He was staring at the wall, humiliation all over his face.

“All right,” Jackie said and pulled the covers down. “You can help me change him.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said, embarrassed for him, for herself.

Jackie glared at her. “Yes, you can,” she said. “It will go much quicker with two of us.”

“But I’ve never done this before.”

“It’s easy.”

She didn’t want to, but she said, “Okay,” and released a slow breath. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Her father kept his eyes cast on the wall. He wouldn’t look at either one of them, and Becca had to admit she couldn’t look at him either. For him to be reduced to this, to this state. She stared at a spot on the bed, forcing herself not to look at the parts of his body a daughter shouldn’t see, but she couldn’t help but see, loathing herself the second she did. She wanted to run out of the room. God, the smell was awful. Oh, Dad.

Jackie was quick, changing the soiled diaper and replacing it with a clean one while Becca helped raise his bottom. When they’d finished and the blankets had been pulled back up to his chest, Jackie picked up the remote to turn off the television as the news came back on.

“Wait,” Becca said, touching Jackie’s arm, stopping her from hitting the button.

Becca recognized the man behind the reporter and standing next to an unmarked cruiser. It was Parker.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sixteen-year-old Becca sprawled out on a flat rock by the river. She was wearing shorts and a bikini top. The hot sun kissed the exposed areas of her skin. A small pool of sweat collected in her belly button. Every now and again she dipped her toes into the cool water for a little relief from the heat, then kicked her feet in an attempt to get Parker’s attention.

“Don’t splash,” Parker said. “You’ll scare the fish.” He cast his line upstream, letting the current carry the lure downstream in hopes of hooking a shad. The shad were making their way upriver to spawn, according to Portland’s local fishing association.

“I’m not splashing,” Becca said. She extended her legs, letting her feet dangle over the side, careful not to spray the water as it dashed by. School would be letting out in another three weeks. Their junior year was almost over, and the long, lazy days of summer stretched before them.

She dipped her feet farther into the water, the current carrying her legs in its hurry to pass by. Parker hadn’t caught a single shad in the last two hours, and she was getting hot from sitting in the sun waiting.

“Pick up your pole and help a guy out,” he said.

“Fine.” She sat up, grabbed her fishing pole. “But if you catch something the second I cast my line, I’m pushing you in.”

Parker couldn’t seem to catch a fish unless they were competing. He thrived on the thrill of the catch, but he lived to one-up her. Whether it was a race to see who could make it to his pickup truck first or who could eat an entire hot dog in the least amount of bites, he challenged her on everything. Sometimes she wondered what the heck he had to prove. They’d been friends all through high school.

She tied a lure she borrowed from his tackle box to her line. It was white with a red head, the same lure Parker had on his line. If they were going to see who could catch a fish first, she wanted to make sure the competition was fair and that there wouldn’t be any debate later on about which kind of lure they each had used.

She glanced at him as he slowly reeled in his line, looking at him in that new way that seemed to have happened overnight. Heat pricked her neck, cheeks, remembering the way he’d covered her hand on the gear shift on the drive over. He’d been teaching her how to drive stick. His skin had been warm and dry. And then he’d left his hand on top of hers. He’d never held her hand before. She’d lost focus, taken her foot off the gas. The truck had slowed; the engine had groaned.

“Easy,” he’d said, explaining how to downshift.

They’d bucked forward, then stalled.

He’d removed his hand, and she’d instantly missed the warmth of his touch. She’d turned her face toward him, felt his breath on her lips. She’d closed her eyes, leaned forward, expecting him to kiss her. This was it, the moment she’d been waiting for, when he would see her as more than a friend.

He’d pulled away suddenly. “Let’s get to the river,” he’d said and grabbed the stick shift.

She’d kept her eyes on the road after that and couldn’t look at him. She’d been confused, her emotions mixed up and conflicting. Why didn’t he want to kiss her? All she’d thought about the last few weeks was what it would be like to press her lips against his, taste what it was like to be the girl who had finally captured his attention.

She watched him now. He was shirtless, his skin tan and smooth. The muscles in his back and arms flexed each time he cast and pulled. There was a soft patch of dark hair below his belly button. His abdominals were ridiculously toned.

“What?” he asked, catching her staring.

“Nothing,” she said and cast a little way downriver from where he was standing. It was a poor cast. She reeled the line in to try again.