Cold Springs(44)

It was pouring in earnest now—a rare event, especially this time of year. Rain sheeted off the awnings, drummed on the roof.

She stepped into the living room in bare feet, her hair wet and cold on the back of her bare neck, and she saw him—a lean black man silhouetted in the doorway of her deck. No, not a man. A teenager. Norma backed up and seized the phone as the boy came toward her. He was wearing a mud-splattered T-shirt, jeans drenched up to the thighs with water, and a tattered camouflage coat.

She dialed 911.

“Ms. Reyes,” the boy said. “Wait!”

She tripped over a chair, backing into the hallway. The emergency number was ringing.

“Ms. Reyes,” the boy said. “It's me.”

She realized she knew those eyes, the red hair, the strange set to his mouth and jaw, as if he'd been pulled lengthwise when he came out of the womb. She heard herself say, “Race?”

The emergency operator was on the line.

“Please,” Race said. “Please, just listen.”

“911 switchboard,” the operator repeated. “What is the nature of your emergency?”

Norma's fear was turning to anger. How dare Race—of all people.

She said into the phone, “I have an intruder in my house.”

“No,” Race said. “No. Listen.”

Norma had spent years trying to follow Ann's advice—trying not to blame this boy for what his family had done. And Race had made it easy for her, most of the time. He seemed to understand her hatred. He countered it with politeness, went out of his way to treat her with respect. The older he got, the more Norma had grown to like him, and she was angry at herself for allowing that to happen.

Mallory would have been a good kid, would've gotten past Katherine's death, except the Montroses had stayed in their lives, like carbon monoxide, slowly poisoning her.

The Montrose bitch. Had John been so wrong, calling her that?

Norma remembered a few months after Katherine's death, just after Chadwick had left for Texas—Talia Montrose showing up at Laurel Heights in her pink pants and cheap satin blouse and bleached hair, looking like a hooker—her mouth trembling, but her eyes defiant, full of vengeance she had no right to want. She asked for an application for her youngest boy. And four days later, when Ann broke the news to Norma that she was actually accepting the child—Norma exploded. She'd brought up the affair with Chadwick—forced the truth out of Ann. They'd said horrible, hurtful things. Then they didn't speak for two years.

All of that was the Montroses' fault, and Race wasn't any better than the rest. He had brought a gun to school, gotten himself expelled. He'd gotten Mallory involved in drugs, and a murder.

Why would he come here now?

“Ma'am?” the operator was saying. “Can you safely exit the house? The police are en route. Is there a window or a door—”

“Please, Mrs. Reyes,” Race pleaded. “You got to listen. Please.”

The boy was shivering. He was more frightened than she was. He looked like he hadn't eaten in a week—his eyes jaundiced, his lips dry and cracked.

Her maternal instinct stirred, unwanted, the way it used to when Mallory would come over to escape her parents' arguments. She would sit at the dining table, right there, and let Norma stroke her hair while she sobbed.

Norma took the phone away from her ear, punched the off button.

“You had better explain yourself,” she told Race. “What are you doing in my house?”

His chin started quivering. He sat down on the couch, smearing it with mud and leaves, running his fingers through his red hair. “Don't say I was here. Please—don't tell anybody. Okay? You have to promise.”

“Race, I can't promise that. The police are looking for you.”

“My mother . . .” he said. “She was murdered.”

The words came out like they'd been cut from him, and suddenly Norma remembered her first reaction when she'd heard Talia was dead. She had thought, It serves her right.

Now, she realized how heartless that had been, how little Race deserved the pain.

“I'm sorry, honey,” she said. “I really am.”

“Mallory was with me. My momma—she was . . .” He curled his hands as if trying to grasp the image. “She was stabbed . . .”

“Honey,” Norma said. “You need to go to the police.”

“No! No police. I know who they're gonna blame. You got to listen to me. She ain't going to be satisfied until they're both dead.”

“Who, honey? What are you talking about?”

Race swallowed, held out his hand and watched it shake. Norma got the uneasy feeling he had been talking about his dead mother—as if Talia were whispering things in his ear.

“The money,” he said. “Check the money, you don't believe me—”

Then he stopped. Norma heard the sirens a half second later, a long way off, but getting closer.

“Race,” Norma said. “Stay with me. Talk to them . . .”

But he was out the back door faster than Norma would have believed possible—over the deck railing, the fence, then down the hillside, skidding across the black plastic tarp that was supposed to keep the slope from turning into a mudslide on nights like this. He plunged through a wet clump of manzanitas and disappeared over a ridge that dropped ten, maybe fifteen feet, straight down to Columbus Avenue.