Every time Audie closes his eyes he falls in love again. For a dozen years it has been this way—from the moment he first set eyes on Belita Ciera Vega and she slapped him hard across the face.
Belita had been carrying a jug of water from the kitchen along a baking cement path to fill the water trough in a birdcage that held two African gray parrots. The jug was heavy and water sloshed from side to side, spilling down the front of her thin cotton dress. She looked barely out of her teens, with long hair that was so dark it had a purple tint like satin under a black light; and it was braided like a horse’s tail, reaching down to the small of her back, where her dress was tied with a bow.
Audie hadn’t expected to meet anyone coming around the side of the house and neither had Belita. The cement was hot and she hadn’t worn her sandals. She danced from foot to foot, trying to stop her feet from burning. More water spilled until the front of her dress was plastered to her skin and her nipples stood out like dark acorns beneath the fabric.
“Let me help you,” said Audie.
“No, señor.”
“It looks heavy.”
“I am strong.”
She spoke Spanish and Audie knew enough to understand her. He pried the jug from her fingers and carried it to the birdcage. Belita folded her arms to cover her breasts. She stood in the shade, away from the hot cement. Waiting. Her eyes were brown with golden flecks like you sometimes see on a boy’s marble.
Audie gazed across the gardens and the swimming pool to the dramatic cliffs. On a clearer day he could have seen the Pacific.
“That’s some view,” he said, whistling quietly.
Belita looked up at the same moment that Audie turned. His eyes dropped from her face, to her throat and her breasts. She slapped him hard across the left cheek.
“I didn’t mean those,” he said.
She gave him a pitying look and turned back to the house.
He tried again in broken Spanish. “Lo siento, señorita. No quería mirar…um…ah…your…” He didn’t know the word for breasts. Was it tetas or pechos?
She did not answer. He did not exist. She walked away from him, her dark hair swinging aggressively from side to side. The screen door slammed shut. Audie waited outside, holding his trucker cap in his hands. He sensed that something had happened, some kind of revelation, but he couldn’t fathom the meaning. He glanced back along the concrete path where the damp patches had evaporated. There was nothing left to show of the incident beyond what survived in his memory.
When she reappeared she was wearing another dress, even more threadbare than the first one. She stood behind the screen door and spoke this time in broken English.
“Señor Urban he not home. You come back.”
“I’m here to pick up a package, a yellow envelope. Sobre amarillo.” Audie mimed the dimensions. “He said it was in the study on the side table.”
She looked at him scornfully and disappeared again. Audie watched the fabric swaying as her hips moved. It was effortless, like water sliding down a sheet of glass.
She returned. He took the envelope from her.
“My name is Audie.”
She locked the screen door and turned away, disappearing into the dark cool of the house. Audie stood there dumbly. There was nothing left to see but he kept looking anyway.
According to the red numbers on the digital clock it is just after eight, but light has been leaking from the edges of the curtains for the past hour. Cassie and Scarlett are still asleep. Rising quietly, Audie goes to the bathroom. As he passes the small desk he notices the car keys on the veneered wood. The key chain has a pink rabbit’s foot.
Pulling on his jeans and a sweatshirt, he lowers the lid of the toilet and sits to write a note on motel stationery.
I’ve borrowed your car. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Please don’t call the police.
Outside he slips behind the wheel and takes a ramp onto I-45, heading north out of Houston. The freeway is quiet on a Sunday morning and within half an hour he’s clear of the city and taking exit 77 along Woodlands Parkway past golf courses, lakes, and streets with rustic names like Timber Mill and Doe Run Drive and Glory Bower. He pictures the map in his mind—the one he committed to memory when he searched for the address using a computer at Three Rivers Prison.
Pulling into the empty parking lot of the Lamar Elementary School, Audie gets changed into shorts and laces his new running shoes. He starts off slowly, jogging along bike paths beneath oak, maple, and chestnut trees. There are stop signs at each intersection and the houses are set back from the road, with watered lawns and flower beds. A paperboy rides past him on a bicycle pulling a trailer. He tosses each paper like a tomahawk, spinning it end over end, until it slaps onto porches or front paths. Audie had a paper route when he was in his teens, but he never delivered to a neighborhood like this one.
Sunlight shines through the trees, creating dappled shade on the asphalt as he runs. He sees men on the golf course, fat as pharaohs, riding in gleaming white carts. This is their enclave, white, clean, law-abiding—a semireclusive retreat full of trophy houses with flagpoles and porch swings and their backs permanently turned to their neighbors.
Audie pauses and props his leg on a fire hydrant, stretching his hamstrings. He sneaks a look at a two-story house with a gabled roof and sashayed porch on three sides. There is a teenage boy riding a skateboard on a square of concrete outside the garage’s triple doors. Olive-skinned and dark-haired, the boy moves with an easy grace. He has made a ramp from a sheet of plywood and two cinder blocks. Kicking off on the skateboard, he puts in a couple of powerful strides before launching himself off the ramp, spinning the board with a flick of his feet and landing the jump.
The boy looks up, shielding his eyes from the glare, and Audie feels a breath catch in his throat. He should keep running, but now he’s rooted to the spot. He bends until his forehead almost touches his shin. Behind him, a car pulls into the driveway, the tires crunching over pecan husks. The boy flips the skateboard with his foot and catches it in his fist. He steps aside as the garage door opens and the car pulls inside. A woman emerges from the interior carrying a brown paper sack of groceries. She’s wearing blue jeans, flats, and a white blouse. She hands the groceries to the boy and walks down the driveway toward Audie. For a moment he almost panics. She bends to pick up the newspaper and then spies him, noting the loops of sweat under his arms and the lock of hair stuck to his forehead.
“Nice morning for a run.”
“Yes, it is.”
She brushes a blond ringlet aside, showing her green eyes. Diamond studs glint in her earlobes.
“You live locally?”
“Just moved in.”
“I didn’t think I’d seen you round here before. Where are you staying?”
“Riverbank Drive.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Do you have kin?”
“My wife died a while back.”
“I’m sorry.”
She runs her tongue over her small white teeth. Audie looks across the ample lawn. The boy is doing pirouettes on the skateboard. He loses his balance and almost falls. Tries again.
“What made you move to the Woodlands?” she asks.
“I’m working on a company audit. Should only take a few months, but they found me a house. It’s too big, but they’re paying.” He can feel the sweat drying on his back. He motions to the house. “Not as nice as this place.”
“You should join the country club. Do you play golf?”
“No.”
“Tennis?”
Audie shakes his head.
She smiles. “That rather limits your choices.”
The boy calls to her, yelling something about being hungry. She glances over her shoulder and sighs. “Max couldn’t find milk in the fridge if it mooed at him.”
“Is that his name?”
“Yes.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Sandy. My husband is the local sheriff. Welcome to the neighborhood.”