Chain Letter Read online

  Mrs. Hurly patted his supporting arm. “It was still wrong of me, especially given the circumstances. After I had a chance to be by myself, to put the accident in perspective, I saw that it was a blessing in disguise.”

  God’s will, fate, destiny . . . Alison could see it coming. Nevertheless, she nodded in understanding. Metaphysical rationalizations were a comfort this poor woman deserved, and she was not going to argue with her personal philosophy at a time like this. A minute later, however, she realized she had totally misjudged the lady.

  “I’m afraid I can’t see it that way,” Tony said.

  “Because Neil never told you the truth,” Mrs. Hurly said, glancing in the direction of the lonely coffin lying beside the pile of brown earth that had seconds ago lost its green plastic cover to the wind. A brief shudder shook her. Around the curve of the bluff, a worker waited impatiently in his tractor. He was probably supposed to be out of sight, but the message was still clear: They were in a hurry to get the body in the ground. Mrs. Hurly continued, “He didn’t want your sympathy, he didn’t want you treating him any differently in the time he had left. Remember once when you were at the house, Tony, and the two of you were going to see a movie? Neil was broke and I was behind on the bills that month. You offered to take him, but he wouldn’t even accept a couple of dollars from you. You remember how proud he was in that way. I think that’s one of the reasons he kept his illness a secret and made up those stories about having diabetes and cartilage damage. He couldn’t totally hide what was happening inside his body, but he thought he could camouflage it with lesser complaints. I went along with his wishes, but it was hard, harder than I can say with words, especially toward the end when he was in so much pain he could hardly walk.”

  “What are you saying?” Tony whispered.

  “Neil had cancer. It started in his leg. Those weeks when he was out of school, that’s when he was receiving chemotherapy. That’s why he lost so much weight. The doctors tried, but it just spread everywhere. The last X rays they took showed tumors in his brain.” She bowed her head. “You see how I could be grateful for this accident. At least he doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  She broke down then and Alison wept with her, filled with shame for all the times she had been with Neil, watching him deteriorate before her very eyes and not once stopping to ask him or herself if he was OK.

  “But I could have helped him,” Tony said, choking on the revelation. “He should have told me.” He clenched his fists and yelled, “Neil!!”

  The cry echoed over the cemetery and through the orchard. Of course, there came no answer. The fury left Tony’s face as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hurly,” he said softly.

  “Most of all,” she said, dabbing at her eyes, regaining her composure, “Neil didn’t want to have you sitting around worrying about him. He was a brave kid.” She handed Alison a handkerchief and Alison took it gratefully, blowing her nose. His suffering in silence filled her with as much awe as sorrow. When she had a cold, she called all of her friends and cried on their shoulders. Neil had taught her a lesson about nobility that she would never forget.

  Tony offered to drive Mrs. Hurly to the home of the friends she was staying with, but she refused, reassuring them that she would be all right. They watched her drive away in silence. With a wedding you could always throw rice, but there seemed to be no good way to end a funeral.

  Tony walked her toward his car, which was a respectable distance—he had parked on the far side of the cemetery by the chapel and had ridden to the gravesite in the hearse. By unspoken consent, they did not hold hands or talk until they were out of sight of the casket.

  “It’s funny the way your mind plays tricks on you,” he said finally. “Just for a moment there I was thinking how sad this day is and how I would have to call Neil when I got home to tell him about it. That’s what I’ve always done these last four years.” He shrugged. “Now I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  She wanted to tell him that she would listen. But she was afraid how poor a substitute she might be. “I wish I had called him a few times,” she said instead. “Just to chat, you know. I always meant to.”

  A scrawny rabbit, looking anxious to get to the neighboring farm fields, cut across their path. “He would have liked that a lot. He liked you a lot, more than you know, I think.” He stopped her and reached into his coat pocket. “That’s what I was trying to tell you that night in the car in front of your house. You were his . . . love.”

  “Me?” Neil had found a shallow phony like her attractive? “I never even suspected.” The information hit her as hard as the fact of his cancer.

  “But he asked you out.”

  “Yeah, just to the movies. I didn’t think anything of it. I . . . I . . . ” Her tears—she should have run out of them yesterday—bubbled up again. She sought the handkerchief Mrs. Hurly had given her. “I turned him down. Damn.”

  Tony hugged her gently. “He didn’t hold it against you. The last time we were alone together, he asked me to do two things for him should the Caretaker get to him. One of them was to give you this.”

  He placed a warped lump of blackened metal in her hand. It took her a moment to realize it was Neil’s emerald ring. The heat had distorted the gold band but the stone had not shattered. “Did he have this on when . . . ”

  “He was wearing it, yes. He was going to give it to me to keep for you but he said he wanted to get it cleaned first.” Tony added softly, “It made the identification easier.”

  “But I can’t take this.”

  “If I’d had more time, I would have had it cleaned up. I think a jeweler could reset the stone.”

  “No. I don’t care that it’s no longer beautiful. I just don’t deserve it.”

  Tony smiled, and she knew before he spoke that it was from a sweet memory. “He used to see you as a goddess. To him, you had everything: beauty, poise, good humor, love. He loved you, and although he was never really able to express it to you, I like to think it made him happy just being in the same world as you. For that, you deserve the ring.”

  “Was he . . . jealous of us?”

  “Not Neil.”

  The question had been unworthy. She held the ring tightly. “I’m honored to know he saw me that way. I’ll keep it safe.”

  They resumed their walk toward the chapel. For the last several minutes, the sun had been hidden behind the clouds and it appeared that a storm truly was on its way. Here they’d been cooking for the last few weeks and now when summer was about to officially begin, they were going to get rained on. Graduation was just around the corner. There would be a few empty seats at the ceremony.

  “What else did he want you to do for him?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s a long story.”

  “Were you able to do it?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Did you check with Mrs. Hurly to be sure it was OK that I keep the ring?”

  “Yes, and it was fine. Please don’t feel guilty about it.”

  “I was just afraid that she would feel uncomfortable losing a family heirloom.”

  “I don’t think Neil’s mother even knew he’d had it.”

  “Oh, for some reason I assumed it had been in the family.”

  Tony stopped.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing important.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The thunder rolled toward the house without haste, starting far off in the mountains, flattening and building over the empty fields that surrounded the deserted housing tract, reaching her ears and filling her head with a lonely, inhuman roar. The storm was thickening, the rain pelting the roof harder with each passing minute. The sun had hardly set, and it was black as midnight outside the drawn curtains. Alison was alone. But it was not yet her turn. She was safe. . . . Sure.

  Earlier in the day, her parents had left for New York, her mother accompanying her father on an important business trip. Her mom had
been reluctant to leave her alone, and Alison herself had not been wild about the idea. But she had refused to let her secret situation interfere with her parents’ plans; they intended to turn the trip into a twentieth-anniversary second-honeymoon combination. They had been looking forward to it for some time. Nevertheless, her mother had almost stayed. Fran’s and Kipp’s kidnappings had been on the other side of the county and Neil’s supposedly accidental death had not even been indirectly connected with the abductions, but mothers have strong intuitive radar when it comes to danger. Only when Joan—of all people, they were getting desperate—had called and promised to bring over Brenda to spend the night had her mother left feeling comfortable. Joan and Brenda would be arriving soon, Alison thought, rechecking the clock, moving magazines from one corner of the coffee table to the other, polishing tables she had polished already, unable to sit still. She was not scared, just uneasy, terribly uneasy.

  Part of the problem was that there were no ceiling lights in these new houses. All they had were lamps, dim, yellow, old-fashioned ones that cast as many shadows as they alleviated. She contemplated unscrewing a couple of shades but she didn’t want the others to see how much the gloom bothered her. They might laugh.

  Searching for something to occupy her mind, she spotted the DVDs she had bought yesterday on her way home from school. The choices were two extremes: The Wizard of Oz and Emanuelle. She had wanted something light and something dirty—both helped one forget. Since Joan probably wouldn’t let them watch the adventures of Dorothy and Toto, she slipped the fantasy tale into the DVD player and turned on the TV, making herself comfortable on the sofa.

  “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

  When she had been small and had first seen the movie, the witch, the wizard and even the tornado had given her nightmares. Since then, she had caught the flick or pieces of it several times, and the magic and terror of believing had never come close to the initial experience. But tonight, with the hypnotic strumming of rain on the windows, the bare drafty spots of the half-furnished house all around her, her isolation and the recent tragic events of her life, the impossible appeared not so intangible, and all adventures, good and bad, seemed just around the corner. Indeed, the accidental landing of the house on the wicked witch’s sister that started Dorothy’s perilous journey closely paralleled their own accidental killing of the man. Now if the man had had a brother . . .

  Or a sister!

  The lights and the TV went out.

  “Eeh!” Alison cried, swallowing her heart.

  The lights came back on, followed by a wall-shaking boom. She eased back into the cushions, trying to catch her breath. Lightning was responsible, nothing more. Brenda and Joan would be here soon. No one was going to kill her.

  I wallow in your evil. You are a bad witch.

  The TV was full of static. At the power surge, the DVD had automatically turned off. Reaching for the PLAY switch, she decided to take a break before traveling any farther along the yellow brick road. She turned off the equipment and picked up the phone.

  Tony had been avoiding her since the funeral. Appreciating his need to be alone, she had tried not to be a burden. Still, she had called occasionally; she was getting low on friends, too, and needed support from someone. It would have been unnatural for him to act normal after the loss of his best friend; nevertheless, his self-absorption, his long blank pauses while speaking, frightened her. Something bizarre was percolating deep inside him.

  There was no answer at his house. His parents had gone to San Diego to visit his brother, but he had specifically told her he would not be accompanying them. She had been calling since eight this morning and had still to receive an answer. Where could he be? It wasn’t his turn, either.

  Joan was a week past the deadline. None of them had gone that long without paying for it. Maybe it had been a mistake to invite her over. After all, when you got right down to it, Joan hated her guts. Then again, she had not invited Joan or Brenda. They had invited themselves.

  Alison called Brenda’s house and got her mother. Yes, Brenda had left a while ago. No, Brenda had said nothing about picking up Joan. Yes, it was terrible weather they were having . . . Thank you, Mrs. Paxson.

  Whenever she was uptight, a hot bath always helped. Figuring she’d hear the girls’ knock even if she were upstairs, she decided to squeeze in a quick one. Before she climbed the stairs, however, she rechecked the locks on the front and back doors.

  The wet warmth was a delight. Slipping all but her kneecaps and face beneath the bubbly surface, she closed her eyes and thought of how when she was a rich and famous actress, she would have a Jacuzzi installed in her Beverly Hills mansion where she could entertain Tony in the way she had seen on Real Housewives. The erotic daydream was only half over—they still had their bathing suits on—when the phone rang. Reaching for a towel and groaning, she pulled herself up. This had better be Tony. She could tell him she was talking to him in the nude.

  She did not waste time drying and got it on the fifth ring. But the instant she picked it up, the party on the other end put the phone down. Whoever it was must not have been that anxious to talk.

  Standing naked and dripping next to her bed, she had the sudden uncanny sensation that she was being watched. Her rational mind knew that eyes perceived only light and could project nothing that could be felt; yet it was as if twin fingers were lightly tracing down her spine.

  Cold air shook her from her frightened pose. The window was open, that was it. Her subconscious had registered the fact before her conscious mind and had been reminding her via her paranoia that she was standing naked in a lit room where anyone out on the street could see her. That sounded reasonable. Hugging the towel to her breasts, she hastily closed the window, pulling over the curtains.

  She dressed warmly, in a heavy pair of corduroy pants and a thick woolen sweater. She was pulling on a second pair of socks when the lights went out for the second time. The darkness lasted and lasted. She’d noticed no flash of lightning, and she counted to thirty and heard no thunder. Having no natural explanation for the loss of power, she began to imagine a dozen unnatural ones, with a sharp blade and a puddle of blood in every one. But once again, before she could go off the deep end, the lights snapped back on. Her tension burst out of her in a cackle of a laugh that sounded alien to her ears. Where were those stupid girls?

  The downstairs TV was also back on, full of static. From experience, she knew the power switch was tricky, and could pop on if not pressed hard enough. But she could have sworn she’d hit the thing squarely. Fretting over the tiny irregularity, she made another check on the doors. What she found did not soothe her nerves. The dead bolt knob on the back door was turned up, which is where it normally should have been to be locked. When it had been installed, however, the carpenter had been either drunk or unfamiliar with the brand and had arranged matters so that the door was locked when the switch was horizontal. Her father had reminded her of this flaw, this morning in fact, and she was almost positive she had turned it sideways before going for her bath. But could she have, out of habit, done the opposite? She must have. What alternative was there?

  Oh, say, the Caretaker just happened to be in the neighborhood.

  “Shut up!” she told herself, twisting the lock, yanking on the knob to prove to herself the door couldn’t budge an inch.

  She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. There was a phone next to the microwave and she tried Tony again. Three tries got her nothing. The wind raking the outside walls howled softly, sad and forlorn. Closing her eyes, she strained her ears to detect a trace of civilization beyond: the hum of the distant freeway, the drone of an overhead plane, the passing of a nearby motorist. But there was only the cold storm, and the beating of her heart. She tossed the milk down the sink.

  The static on the TV was disquieting, so she restarted the DVD and huddled in the corner of the couch. Just her luck, the heroes were creeping through the witch’s wicked woods, a
bout to be attacked by monsters. Although she knew everyone would live happily ever after, she couldn’t entirely dispel the irrational possibility that this was a black market version of the story, with a different ending, a violent and bitter ending.

  “Nuts, you’re nuts,” she muttered, picking up the phone and setting it on her lap like it was a pet that could comfort her. This time she gave Tony thirty rings. No dice.

  She found herself in the garage before she would admit to herself what she was doing there. The excuse of wanting to make sure it was locked didn’t fool her. Without checking the garage door, she had gone straight to the cabinet where her father kept his sporting equipment. He played tennis, golf, and skied. But his hunting enthusiasm was all that was relevant to her at the moment.

  Where is that bazooka?

  She found the shotgun in a maple box at the back on the floor. The black over-and-under twin barrels were cold to touch. Lifting the smooth oak stock, she marveled at its weight. From having watched her dad, she knew it split in the middle and took two shells, both of which were controlled by a single trigger. Once, when she had been a child, he had caught her playing with it, and although it had been unloaded, he had yelled at her something fierce, yet not nearly as fierce as her mother had yelled at him later on. Hopefully dear daddy would forgive her tonight if she brought the gun in the house to keep her company. When the girls arrived, she could keep it in the hall closet for handy reference.

  She was searching for the box of shells when she heard the knock at the door. Whether the sound filled her with relief or the opposite was hard to say. Joan was an old nemesis and was not to be trusted, but Brenda was a good friend. There was no reason not to welcome her arrival. They’d known each other since childhood. Sure, they’d had their arguments, quite a few of them lately, but so did all old pals. Then again, Brenda sure had enjoyed her tasks. Who else of them could say that? She had suffered the consequence of expulsion from school, but there had been a streak of strange satisfaction in that also, judging from how she had joked about it afterward.