The Good Neighbor - Bettes Kimberley A. - Страница 20

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“This is fine. Thank you,” I said, picking up a cookie. Andy elbowed me in the ribs and shot me a wary glance. I ignored him and took a bite. “This is very good.”

“It’s my wife’s recipe.”

“You’re married?” Andy asked quickly.

“Was. She passed a few years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that.” I could hear the empathy in Andy’s voice and imagined he was thinking about Jill.

“Do you not have children?” Andy asked.

“Andy. That’s not polite,” I said curtly.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. No, we didn’t have any children. She had one before we got married. After Linda died, that girl came and took the house. That’s why I had to move here. That girl of hers never visited us or anything, but as soon as she found out her mother had died, she was right there with her hand out.” He shook his head sadly.

“Bummer,” Andy said.

No one said anything for a few minutes. I ate another cookie and washed it down with one of the glasses of milk. Andy sat silently. I felt him watching me as I ate. I didn’t care. The cookies were very good, and the milk complemented them perfectly.

Finally, Andy asked, “So what do you do to pass the time?” Had I been eating a cookie then, I probably would’ve choked on it at Andy’s boldness.

“Oh, I manage to find things to do,” Jenson answered.

After not getting the answer he wanted, Andy asked to use the restroom. Jenson told him which door it was, and Andy excused himself.

I made small talk with Jenson, getting a better feel for him. He was very friendly. I felt bad now that I saw he was a lonely old man. I could’ve – no, I should’ve been visiting with him all along.

When Andy came back, he didn’t come as quietly as he’d left.

He burst into the living room and shouted, “I knew it!” His face was nearly as red as his hair. His eyes were wild. Even from across the room, I could see him trembling.

I stood quickly. “You knew what?” I did my best to remain calm.

Jenson didn’t stand, but he turned to face Andy.

“I opened the door to the basement, and I saw it. I saw it, old man!” he shouted, thrusting his finger toward Jenson.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, raising my voice. I didn’t want to add to Andy’s panic in any way, and I was hoping that a stern tone would snap him back to reality and maybe calm him down a bit. He was nearing hysterics. I’d never seen him behave this way.

In a shaky voice, he said, “Down there, in the basement, is a huge...vat of blood!”

27 Carla

After breakfast, I went outside with the kids. They wanted to play on the swing in the backyard. I wanted to catch up on some reading.

It was a nice day. Too nice to stay inside. The niceness of the day wasn’t entirely dependent on the weather. A lot of it had to do with Owen. Making love to him had made everything nicer. It didn’t seem that anything could wipe the smile from my face. It had been so long since I’d felt this good.

I sat in the rocking chair on the porch with one leg folded under me. I looked out at the kids before I started to read. They were swinging and giggling as always.

My eyes fell slowly to the book, and that’s when I saw it.

There, on the porch near the steps, sat a beer bottle. Just one bottle. Not on its side as if it had been thrown. It stood upright as if it had been placed there.

Which I was sure it had been. And there was only one person who might’ve done it.

Bernie.

Just thinking his name made my skin crawl. My heart was beating faster. I quickly looked over at his house, scanning windows for him. I didn’t see him anywhere.

But he had been here. At my house. While my kids and I had been upstairs asleep. If that bastard harmed my kids...

I couldn’t seem to still my racing heart. I was going to have to do something about this. But what? I could call the police, but what would I say? My neighbor gives me the creeps, and I think he left a beer bottle on my back porch? They’d laugh at me for sure.

I had to do something.

I looked back at Ethan and Shelby. They were having so much fun. I wanted to go inside and do some research on self-defense, but I didn’t want to make them go inside on such a nice day. I wasn’t about to leave them out here alone. Not with Bernie right next door.

I would just have to wait until later.

Unable to concentrate now on my book, I rocked back and forth slowly, my eyes darting from the kids to Bernie’s house to the beer bottle and back again.

28 Owen

“Andy, calm down. What are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you, Owen, he has a vat of blood in his basement. I saw it!”

We both looked at Jenson, who didn’t appear to be concerned at all about the accusations being made against him. He slowly got up from his worn recliner and turned to Andy.

“Come on,” he said, motioning for us to follow as he walked out of the living room. When he motioned for us to follow him, I noticed the red under his fingernails. In fact, his whole hand had a red tint to it.

And I had eaten two cookies made by those hands. My stomach rolled.

Andy and I exchanged a quick look. His was full of fear and panic, mine full of questions. I didn’t want to doubt my best friend. If he said he saw it, I had to believe him.

We followed Jenson anyway. He led us down a hallway. Andy was between Jenson and me, and he was keeping several feet behind the old man. I could see that his muscles were tense. He was ready for anything.

The basement door stood open, as Andy had left it in his frenzy. Jenson stepped through the door and walked down the steps.

We hesitated, but followed. Is this how the old man lured all his victims to their deaths? So easily, with a wave of a red hand?

I was only two steps from the top when I saw what Andy had seen. Yes, there was a large vat in the basement. And yes, it was full of blood.

We froze on the steps. Now it was my muscles that tensed. I fought my instincts, which were telling me to get the hell out of there. For some reason, I couldn’t leave. I wanted to know. I wanted to know, and I wanted him to tell me.

“Come on down, boys. Nothing to be afraid of here.” The old man certainly did have a friendly voice. Add to that my morbid curiosity and I knew I had to go down there.

I urged Andy forward. He reluctantly took a step, then two, and finally we made it to the bottom.

The old man stood there amongst a large machine and several big vats. He looked around, as if trying to see it for the first time. He laughed.

“I can see why you’d think that was blood.”

“If it isn’t blood, what is it?” Andy asked without disguising his anger and distrust.

“It’s red dye.” He motioned to the large machine behind him. “It’s cheaper to buy white and dye it red.”

Still confused, I asked, “What are you talking about? White what?”

He motioned for us to come closer. We did.

“Fabric. White is cheaper. I dye it the colors I want. In this case, red in this vat, and blue in that one over there.” He indicated one of the other vats. “I’m making flags this month.”

I looked around at his equipment, closer now, trying to make it make sense.

He must’ve seen the confusion on our faces.

“Quilts, boys. I make quilts.” He turned on the large machine behind him. It started to hum, a noise I recognized from the previous evening, and began quilting a gorgeous quilt. Raisins his voice to be heard over the machine, he said, “This was my wife’s hobby. When she died, I had so much free time I took it up as my own hobby. It makes me feel closer to her.” He held onto the handles and moved the needle over the fabric, stretched taut on the frame.

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