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Flynn knocked on the door and leaned against the frame, studying the name Symonds on the mailbox. He’d rehearsed the lines nine times and each time sounded worse than the last. Broken down car? Baloney. They’d only want to drive out and find it, and the damn thing had likely been impounded. As for his feet, he could hardly stand and he didn’t expect to find a nurse to give him first aid.
The pink phone... He’d read most of the texts on the way to the house. Fifteen sick, twisted texts from a sick, twisted man. He’d pop him if he could, cut off his—
“Yes?” A woman answered the door, hair all mussed and tied up on the top of her head. The smell of cigarettes hung thick in the air.
Rail thin with a thick daub of white makeup. Not pretty, but not unattractive either. She had the type of memorable features battered women got after years of trying to make themselves invisible.
“I’m sorry to bother you.” Flynn let out two long pants for good measure. “My car was stolen outside the Golden Nugget. It had my phone—”
“Come on in. There’s a phone over there.”
The phone excuse came tumbling out in a mass of nervous drivel and it took him a while to close his mouth. He stood in a narrow kitchen, cupboards once white had turned a tea-stain yellow and there was a rancid stench from the drains. On the stovetop a layer of fat had formed a moat around the burners and a fly buzzed behind the fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling.
“I’m sorry to bother you so late. I wanted...”
What did he want? A good home-cooked meal? Or to give her the bad news about her underage daughter?
“You’re not bothering.” She pulled a string of gum from her mouth and curled it around one finger. “A man like you shouldn’t be out all alone.”
Her eyes grazed his torso and settled on his chest. She wasn’t alone. Not with an animal print skirt hiked to mid-thigh and perfume that stuck to the hair follicles inside his nose. It was sensual in a repulsive way.
“I hope they catch the bastard. What type of car was it? Probably one of those Corvettes,” she said, bracelets jangling. “Hot item. Course, you’re a hot item and all.”
Flynn felt a flush of heat in the back of his neck and caught sight of his face in the silver rim of the microwave. Pale and sweaty, hair stuck to his cheeks.
She pointed at a wall phone with a curly cord stretching at least eight feet, a throwback from the 1980s. Flynn mouthed a thank you and lifted the handset. He watched her slink barefoot towards the couch and squeeze herself between a grey-haired man and a young girl, the same ones he had seen in the wood. A TV murmured in the living room accompanied by the occasional cheers from a football game.
He could have dialed three numbers and called the cops right there and then to arrest the old man. But Flynn was a witness and witnesses had to show up court. The conversation he ended up having with himself was loud enough to be heard over the dialing tone and plaintive enough for them to believe it.
He wanted to leave the pink cell phone on the countertop while he had the chance, but something told him to leave it in his pocket for now. He’d never stolen anything before, well... not since eleventh grade when he took Jonah Saavedra’s tobacco tin which contained four freshly rolled joints. He’d smoked the lot with Dennis.
“How’s it going?” said the woman, sauntering towards him with a frown.
“They said I should go down and make a report at the station tomorrow morning,” Flynn said over the din. “There’s been three more car thefts tonight. They’ll let me know.”
“How are they going to let you know if you don’t have a phone?” she asked, head aslant.
Good question, he thought. How would they let him know? “I gave them my girlfriend’s number. She’ll know what to do.”
Her eyes slid down to his fourth finger and then back up to his face. “How are you going to get home?”
The man on the couch leaned forward and cursed loudly. “Leave the guy alone, Misty! Give him a damn beer.”
Before Flynn could refuse, Misty staggered into the kitchen, tore the tab off a nearby can and thrust it under his nose. “Want something to eat?” she mouthed.
“Oh, no, no. I’m fine,” he said.
But he wasn’t. The look on her face was enough to tell him she knew his stomach was screaming for food. She probably knew he hadn’t called the cops and the longer he stayed, the longer her mind tallied the freckles on his arm likely assigning each a number. If he wasn’t careful she’d pull out a duty belt and shove a badge in his face.
“It’s stew?” she said, taking the lid off a slow cooker, nostrils twitching in the steam.
“I’d like to stay but—”
“That’s settled then.”
The curt response took him by surprise and he said thank you before he could stop it. He sat beside her, glancing briefly at a pair of white thighs sticking out from beneath her skirt like two Aspen twigs. She balled the gum into a wad and pressed it against the edge of her bowl.
“My husband, Larry.” She nodded at the man who rubbed his neck and sauntered over to the table without his shirt on.
Larry barely glanced at Flynn, spent too much time staring at the fifteen-year-old he’d already seen too much of in the wood. Introduced her as his stepdaughter, Paula, and snapped his fingers to wave her over.
There was a strong odor of alcohol and Larry’s eyes were glazed and dull. Flynn didn’t know what to make of it. Felt like he’d been snagged by aliens and he was about to be splayed out on the kitchen table and used for some scientific experiment.
“Thanks for dinner,” he said, wondering if they’d read the newspaper, whether his face was already on the front page.
They might have known how Tarian died and they might have known he had run away like a coward. He kept Misty in the periphery of his vision because she was watching him as closely as he was watching her.
“Too many cop cars in town tonight,” she said, pulling the sleeve of her sweater down to hide a scar. “They could be looking for a psycho runaway or a bunch of strippers.”
“Takes one to know one,” Larry said, waving an empty bowl. She spooned out a large portion before he ambled back to the couch to eat it.
The stew was tough and the carrots were barely cooked but Flynn ate it all the same. He studied a full mouth and a tongue wiping away a glossy trail of gravy. Misty was studying Larry. And then she stared at Flynn.
“Are you honest?” she whispered.
Flynn shifted in his seat. He noticed a thick smear of make-up beneath her right eye which appeared to cover a bruise. “Am I what?”
“Honest.”
“Yes, I’m honest.”
“Does being away from home make you feel bad?”
“Why should it?”
“Being away from your wife?”
“My wife?”
“Something wrong with your hearing?”
Flynn took a swallow and stared at icy-blue eyes. She was studying the wedding band on his hand again and giving it a sideways smile. It was an unusual design. “You do have one, don’t you?”
“My wife’s dead.” The words sounded hollow in his head.
“I’m sorry,” Misty murmured. Her eyes snapped towards the couch as an afterthought. “Did you hear that, Larry? He’s a widower.”
“Damn lucky I should say. I’d pull the trigger on mine if I could find my damn gun.” Larry stabbed a chunk of meat with his fork.
Misty resumed the whispering, cocking her head to one side. “When did she die?”
“Recently.”
“How long were you married?”
“Not long.”
“The only reason I ask is fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. It’s the world we live in. And now you’ve got a girlfriend,” she persisted, taking a few more mouthfuls of stew.
“She’s a friend who’s a girl,” Flynn corrected. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but it was the best he could offer.
“So, what are you doing twenty-five miles from the border? Running away from the grief? Can’t be done. It’ll follow you all the way to Arizona.”
“I’m not running away.”
“Oh, right.”
Misty tapped the cigarette box on the edge of the table, tilted her head toward him and said she was going out for a smoke.
Flynn wiped his bowl clean with a wedge of bread and studied Paula. He asked her if she was OK, if she needed another spoonful of stew. The downturned chin made him realize she didn’t trust him, eyes grazing the blue and white tablecloth as if there was something odd in the pattern. She was full-lipped like her mother, freckly faced with long brown hair. You wouldn’t notice her in a crowd.
Larry let out a throat-curdling belch and wiped a whiskery chin with the back of his hand. He reached over the coffee table and grabbed another can of beer. There was no telling if he was fully alert, whether he noticed Misty leave. But one thing was certain. He wouldn’t let her be gone for long.
Flynn opened the front door and felt a rush of cool air and cigarette smoke against his face. She was sitting in a wicker rocker, staring straight ahead.
“So, you’re on the run,” she said.
Flynn almost threw up all the food he’d barely eaten. “Excuse me?”
She took a deep hit into the pit of her lungs. “You’re almost as famous as Al Capone.”
Perhaps it was the beer, perhaps it was the absurdity of the situation, but he chuckled. “Do you have a newspaper?”
She pushed a hand down the side of her chair and pulled out a copy of the Gallup Independent. It was the picture of a solemn groom and a radiant bride that bothered him. Nothing like he felt now.
“If we’re going to do business, Mr. McCann,” she said, lips locked around a cigarette, “you gotta tell me something I don’t know.”
“You mean like your husband’s doing your daughter?”
She leaned forward on the rocker, cigarette poised between two fingers. “You got proof?”
“As a matter of fact I do.” He pulled the pink phone from his pocket, pressed the home button and showed her the text Larry had sent. “Meets her same time, same place. He made her do it, if you must know. She was crying afterwards.”
Misty glared at him and Flynn figured she was thinking of a way to rip her husband to shreds. “Where d’you get this?”
“In the wood behind the school. Must have fallen out of her pocket.”
“I don’t believe it.” Misty closed her eyes and shook her head. The phone blinked out. “I don’t...”
“Is he violent?” Flynn asked.
“Larry? He can be stubborn.”
“He’s threatening her. Makes her delete the texts because he knows you check. There’s no lock screen.”
Misty stared at the cigarette in her hand, watched the smoke curling from the tip and gave a grunt of annoyance.
“He’ll text her again,” Flynn said. “And when he does you can take it to the cops.”
“What are they gonna do? He’d be back out in three hours.”
“For touching a minor? Call it what you want, but it’s child abuse.”
Misty’s eyes were focused and from a pale shaft of light from the kitchen window he could see she was crying.
“Take it to the cops,” he said. “While you’re there, you might want to show them the bruise you’ve got.”
“Why are you limping?”
“I’m glad you asked. Got anything for burns.”
“You dumbass. Stay here.”
She slipped back inside the house. He only had to wait a minute before she was back out with a roll of gauze and a tube of Neosporin. “Take it. That’s all I have.”
“Thanks. You will go to the cops?”
“I will if you will.”
Flynn heard Larry shout, heard him thumping towards the door.
“Keep your head down, McCann,” she said, flicking the cigarette on the ground. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep walking. And don’t ever come back.”
Flynn was wide-eyed now and breathing rapidly. He stuck his hands in his pockets and began stumbling down an empty street.
