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BJ turned off a state highway and onto a dirt road that competed for space with the surrounding growth. Driving fast, the top of the house soon came into view.
“Speckled with mildew, the old white farmhouse resembled an alien mushroom growing fat and tall amongst the Joe Pye weed.”
Yeah, you’re no poet.
She glanced at her watch. Four-thirty.
Getting closer to the house, facing west, she clearly saw the line of thunderstorms stretching the length of the horizon. Distant jagged bolts of lightning lit up the sky. She cracked the window a hair to listen. No sound of thunder. Yet. Nighttime won’t be far away, either.
She slowed her car, then stopped. Slouched down in the seat enough to view the house through the window on the passenger side without first having to make a U-turn.
House of the Rising Sun? No. Hotel California? Hmm.
She got out, folded her arms on the top of the car.
Reflected on why she was so calm about the place.
“Because. They may have bruised my body and battered my soul but they never broke me. I’m still here. And they are not.”
Lightning briefly shimmered on an upstairs window with partly open girlish curtains. She continued to stare. The shadowy image did not reappear. Thunder rumbled across the sky. She felt a slight tremor under her feet.
“No wonder everybody went nuts.”
BJ resumed driving west until she was at the far end of the property. Steering to the right, she drove over tall grass and weeds. Parked in a field. Uncovered a flashlight buried beneath a couple of road maps and a few gas receipts in the glove compartment. Made sure the batteries were still good because she had no replacements.
She trudged back to the house.
“Lightning continued to put on a great show, and was then followed by the raucous applause of thunder.”
A blasé shrug.
I definitely don’t have a poetic nature.
But I know a lot about poetic justice.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she said in a soft singsong voice.
* * *
Jacob had been unsuccessful, ever since he was a teenager, in maintaining a successful relationship with girls, and then later with women. Kelly Murphy had been the only girl in his whole life who seemed to genuinely love him. He ambled aimlessly across the back field. Marveled over how the Joe Pye weeds had grown so thick and tall they each resembled a genetically altered cornstalk.
He was alone and lonely when he met BJ Donovan on the internet. In the beginning he toyed with her until he got her full attention. But he was careful about everything he said to her.
He had unburdened his soul to another online. And after being together in real life for only a couple of weeks, she hooked up with her old boyfriend. Her actions hurt him far more than he supposed possible, and made him gunshy by the time he met BJ.
Falling back on old habits, he escalated the relationship between him and BJ because he desperately wanted to meet her and to be with her.
Once again, he’d made all the mistakes of an overachiever.
Jacob picked up a stick. Absentmindedly flogged the stems of the weeds as he passed by. He still had strong feelings for her, and it had been next to impossible to just leave her alone. He eventually unloaded his heart and soul in his emails to her, but in the end she rejected him.
He only knew one way to be.
A thunderbolt illuminated the sky. He turned west.
If she’s coming, she damn well better hurry. Storm’ll be here soon. So will the night.
Her last phone message to him replayed itself through his mind. She was cold, impolite, and downright disrespectful, and for no good reason.
He envisioned the candid shots he’d taken of her and Gary Northcutt. Recalled missed opportunities for photos. Them ambling down the gangway of the cruise ship. The cozy little scene in Sonnier’s kitchen.
Fuck it. The second I see her I’m going to let her know just what I think of her.
He detected movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned toward the source. Snippets of pale yellow flickered in and out of the shadows between the weed stems, as the person strode quickly in the direction of the house.
“Hey,” he called out.