Better Left Buried Read online

  “You were, but she had a job interview she couldn’t miss. She asked me to tell you. I’m sure Sylvie has already told you about the power situation.” Sylvie Herr had been Harmony’s social worker for the past two years. “It’s back on now, but my mother has to work for it to stay that way.” The admission about the power situation was her attempt at looking cooperative.

  “I see.” Bennett scribbled down the excuse, but she could see he didn’t believe it. “How are things otherwise?”

  “Otherwise? Fine.”

  “I’m not sure that was the word Ms. Herr used when she contacted me about the power being shut off and a number of other things.”

  “What other things?” The phrase made her nervous. She coughed and sniffled, reaching for the box of tissues on the table next to her.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Sooner or later she was going to have to explain her condition. “I think I’ll take that water now.” She drank down two cups from the water cooler in the corner and settled on her cover story.

  “Better?”

  Harmony sat back down. “Much. I’m sorry. I stayed at a friend’s house last night and I think I’m allergic to her cat or something. I woke up and my eyes were all swollen and itchy and I can’t stop coughing.”

  “You should try some antihistamine for that.” He shifted in his chair and took off his glasses. His expression became severe. “Harmony, we need to talk about your mother. She missed the last several appointments and again she’s unable to attend. I have no choice but to notify family court of her non-compliance. I hope you understand that. And I’d like to talk to you about the situation your mother was involved in several days ago.”

  “Situation?”

  “The police informed Sylvie of your mother’s recent arrest. One of the conditions of you staying home is your mother’s sobriety.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” The pepper spray made it that much easier for her to manufacture tears. “It was my fault. Please, we had a fight. I was angry with her and I said the meanest things …” She dabbed at her eyelids with the tissue. “I ran away from home and she looked for me the entire night before she started drinking. Her sponsor called me and I hung up. I knew she was in trouble, but I was just so mad. She drank, okay, fine, but it was one slip. Do you know how hard it’s been for us?”

  “I do,” he said, “but violence without provocation, that’s something else altogether.”

  “Violence? Against who? The liquor store clerk?” It wasn’t the first time her mother had said “no” to being refused.

  “No, against Joan Miller.”

  “Brea’s mother?”

  How had she not heard about this?

  “I see you didn’t get the whole story.” Dr. Bennett folded his hands over his chest and blew out a sour breath. “My goal is to keep you at home, Harmony, for the next six months until your eighteenth birthday when hopefully you’ll be able to take care of yourself. The group home is overcrowded and honestly, there are younger kids that need the available beds, but I will send you there if you can’t follow my rules. I want you to make a follow-up appointment, soon, and I need your mother to be here. Failure to keep the appointment for any reason is an immediate remand to the Midtown Home for you. Do you understand me?”

  Harmony nodded, still floored that her mother had gone after Brea’s.

  “This new behavior from your mother is troublesome. She was fortunate that Ms. Miller dropped the charges, but I need an explanation as to what provoked the attack in the first place.”

  “You and me both.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Brea erased ten lines of work for an algebra equation she couldn’t solve and threw her pencil across the room. She was still shaken from what happened with Rachael and wondered how many people had read the word “whore” painted on her locker. She pushed her lap desk to the foot of her bed and watched a chunk of red goo float to the top of her lava lamp.

  “Knock knock.” Jaxon smiled from around her partly closed door. He was wearing a snug black v-neck, a white t-shirt, and jeans.

  “What are you doing here?” After the day she’d had, the last thing she felt like was company.

  “Your mom let me up.”

  “Figures.” Anyone else would be relegated to the living room with the lights on and the drapes open.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Stupid homework. I hate algebra.”

  He picked her pencil up off the floor, sat on the bed next to her, and took her notebook into his lap. “I had this assignment last week. You have to move the variables all to one side.” He marked up the problem, added the numbers, and wrote a clean second line. “Like this.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see that.” She solved the rest in no time. “I was making it harder than it needed to be.”

  “Isn’t that just like you?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  He wasn’t talking about math.

  “You left school early. I was looking for you.”

  “Really? Looking for me? Like you didn’t hear what happened?” She tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned back against her pillow.

  “Not exactly looking so much as wondering where you went. I heard.” He dug his phone out of his pocket, swiped his finger across the screen, and handed her a picture of her locker. She knew it was hers by the pink combination lock.

  “Did the janitor clean it?”

  “No, I did. Took paint thinner from the art room to do it, too.” He held his hands out for her to smell. “I don’t think that will ever come off so I hope it’s some small consolation that Rachael’s hands stink, too.” She wrinkled her forehead, confused. “You don’t think I’d let her get away with something like that? Took the threat of releasing some high profile secrets, but I got her to pitch in. You know she’s just jealous, right?”

  “You made her help you?”

  “Her bark’s worse than her bite.” Jaxon leaned over and looked her straight in the eyes. “But you’d know that if you ever came out of hiding. What are you so afraid of?”

  Brea shrugged, unable to admit that their relationship felt too good to be true, or that she was afraid his popular friends might pull him away from her. It was easier not to contend with them, or Harmony.

  She used the latter as an excuse.

  “Do you know the kind of crap I’d get from Harmony for seeing you? Us dating opens the door to a lot of unnecessary aggravation for both of us. Can you imagine telling Rachael or Pete about me?”

  “You don’t think they know?”

  “Okay, they were bad examples, but them suspecting something is different than you admitting to dating the weird girl.”

  “The whole thing is bad, Brea. You’re my girlfriend.” It was the first time he’d used the word. “And you’re not weird, unless we’re going by the people you hang with. Harmony, she’s weird. You? You’re just … different.”

  “Now you sound like my mother.”

  “Then she has a point. Besides, why do you care what Harmony thinks? Why do you care what anyone thinks? You want me to tell my friends? I’ll tell them tomorrow morning at your locker. I’ll shout it to the whole school and since Harmony’s locker is right there, we’ll kill two birds with one stone. You game?”

  “It’s not that easy, Jaxon. I need to tell her on my own terms.”

  He held her hand and smirked. “Then I’d get it out of the way if I were you. After today, there’s no way she won’t suspect something.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Harmony showered off the last of the residue and put on a pair of Adam’s sweat pants and a hoodie. The effects of the pepper spray had worn off within an hour, but the experience had left her unsettled.

  The darkness seemed darker, the emptiness somehow emptier, and there was a sense that someone was lurking. She told herself that her attacker had no way of knowing where she lived. For all she knew, he was dead in that alley, but if he was, what did th
at mean for Adam?

  No matter what they picked up of hers, he’d left behind his blood.

  “Do you really have to go back to the garage?”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but I left Walter with more work than he can handle and people want their cars back.” Adam put several slices of pizza in the oven. “You’ll be fine.” He rinsed his hands under a stream of cold water, focusing on his split knuckle.

  “Of course I will. I just thought maybe we could watch a movie or something.” She’d never admit how badly the man had scared her. She turned on the 6:00 news and rummaged for first aid supplies. “Here, let me look at that.”

  Neither of them had mentioned the attack since it happened.

  “Interested in current events all of a sudden?”

  “You know better.” She took a bottle of peroxide and a tube of superglue from under the sink. Adam was almost always hurting himself at work and she’d become a practiced home surgeon. The gash was the deepest she’d ever treated, and it was red around the edge. “This is going to hurt.” She handed him a kitchen towel to bite down on. “Ready?”

  “Ready.” His words were muffled by the gag.

  Harmony held his hand above the sink and poured the peroxide over the wound, which instantly bubbled and fizzed. The thin scab that had started to form melted away and as the skin pulled back apart, the reaction to the peroxide got worse.

  Adam grunted as she dabbed the knuckle with a paper towel and repeated the process.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the E.R.?”

  Adam spat out the towel. “And tell them what? I split my knuckle assaulting—and possibly killing—a bum who was trying to rape my girlfriend?”

  “Then make something up.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Yeah, I guess not. One last rinse and I’ll close it up.”

  The news anchor announced the story she’d been waiting for. She set down the bottle and rushed to turn up the volume.

  “Um, hello?” Adam held pressure on his hand to stop the bleeding.

  “Hang on a minute. Listen.”

  “In other news, a homeless man was found in an alley just off of 9th Street in Mason earlier this morning.” A picture of the man who attacked her appeared on the screen. He was wearing a hospital gown and had a gauze bandage on his right temple, but was very much alive. Adam wrapped the paper towel around his hand and joined her in watching. “Police are investigating the attack, but the victim, identified only as John Doe, is unable to answer questions at this time. Anyone with information on either his identity or the incident should call the Mason Police Department.” A phone number appeared on the screen and the feed cut to the weather.

  “Well that’s a load off.” Blood seeped through the paper towel. Adam exchanged it for a clean one.

  The news was a mixed blessing. Adam wasn’t a murderer, but her attacker was still out there. No way was she taking that bus again. She twisted the top off the glue and hurried to seal Adam’s cut, holding it closed until it set.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Adam blew on the glue to dry it.

  “I’m just tired and worried about how to get my mother to Bennett next week. She doesn’t care if I go to a group home or not. What does she stand to gain by going?”

  “Well, we got her power turned back on, so there’s that.”

  Harmony shrugged. “On/off, it doesn’t matter to her. It’s only temporary.”

  “Even in winter? She’s not going to want to stay in that place if it’s freezing cold.”

  “Her boyfriends will pay for hotel rooms. She’s figured the system out.”

  “What about Brea’s mother?”

  “What about her?”

  “Bennett said she attacked her. What if you bluff? Tell her she’s reconsidering pressing charges.”

  “I don’t think she can legally do that.”

  “And you honestly believe your mother will know the difference?”

  “Good point. I can probably sell the story with Brea’s help.”

  “Why didn’t she tell you about it in the first place?” Adam grabbed a slice of pizza with a set of tongs. Cheese had melted through rack and was sizzling on the oven floor, causing it to smoke. He set the slice on a paper plate and handed it to her before taking the other two for himself.

  Harmony set the pizza on the counter, her stomach more upset than hungry, and shrugged. “Why didn’t who tell me? Brea? I’m guessing she didn’t know. She tells me everything.” Brea was one of two people in the world that she trusted.

  “Think she’ll help con your mother?” He was halfway through his second slice of pizza before she took her first bite.

  “As long as it doesn’t get back to her mother she will.”

  Adam checked the time and threw out his paper plate. “It’s getting late. I have to go.”

  Harmony kissed him, hating how vulnerable she felt, but relieved to know the man who had attacked her was hospitalized, at least for the night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Hey, come out here and have a look at this.” The smiling man is honking in the driveway, calling for Harmony to come out.

  She eyes the peck of apples on the kitchen table and smiles at her mother peeling one over the garbage can.

  “Can I, please?”

  “Only if you put your jacket on.”

  Her purple and pink windbreaker smells of campfire and has the sticky remnants of s’mores on the collar.

  Her mother follows her to the front door and watches as she runs off the porch.

  A cherry red IROC-Z Camaro gleams in the sunlight. It’s the shiniest thing she’s ever seen and she runs to the man, flinging herself into his arms.

  “Is it ours?”

  “It’s ours, baby girl.” He nestles against her, grinning from ear to ear. His beard tickles her face and she shoves him away with a giggle.

  “We have to show Mommy.”

  The man sets her down and when she turns to run into the house, the front door is shut.

  She heads around to the back screen door and calls in.

  “Mommy, come see the car!”

  The kitchen chair her mother had been sitting in is toppled. Apple peels cover the green linoleum floor.

  “Mommy?”

  Muddy footprints trail to the top of the basement stairs. She follows them, but doesn’t go down.

  She smells dirty water and mold, hears a struggle.

  “Daddy?” The man she left wiping down his new car with a cloth diaper is missing. She returns to the stairs, drawn by the noise. “Mommy? Daddy?”

  A gust of wind threatens to suck her in and she screams. She loses her balance and grabs the jamb, white-knuckling the wood until the breeze passes.

  She flips the light switch. A single bulb casts the cinder block room in shadows.

  “Daddy? Where are you?”

  She hears the thud-thud of sneakers in a dryer, the sound of feet shuffling through water.

  “Mommy, are you down there?”

  “Down here, baby girl.” Something’s wrong with her mother’s voice. “Come downstairs.”

  She knows better. The basement is off limits.

  Harmony screamed and woke up, sweaty and nervous.

  “Adam?” She threw the blanket on the floor and jumped up from the sofa. The television was the only light in the otherwise dark apartment. “Adam, please answer me.” She squinted to read the microwave clock, confirming what, deep down, she already knew. It was 2:34 in the morning. She counted down the seconds in slow Mississippis, expecting the time to change, and panicked when, at seventy-five, it still hadn’t.

  The TV shut off first, then the microwave, and finally the night light in the kitchen.

  Her hands shook as she searched the junk drawer for a flashlight.

  “It’s just a power outage. Pull it together.”

  A cold breeze travelled up her arm and surrounded her body like an anti-blanket that caused her to shi
ver.

  The vertical blinds fluttered as if blown by some invisible fan and the dark, shadowy figure of a man stood in the corner.

  Her mind went immediately to the man from the alley.

  “How did you find me? Get out of here. Get out of my house.” She pulled the pointed chef’s knife from the butcher block. “I mean it. I’ll kill you if I have to.” If it was her or him this time, she’d do what needed to be done. “I’m warning you.” She flipped the switch, but the light wouldn’t come on. Her heart pounded and her hands shook. She hoped the man couldn’t see her terror. “I’m going to call the police.”

  Still, he stood there, wavering in and out of focus.

  She grabbed her cell phone. The indicator light told of a message.

  “I mean it. I’m calling.”

  She dialed 9 and the phone flew out of her hand, smashing against the cabinet before hitting the kitchen floor.

  The dark figure exploded into fractals that reached for her and spun around her like a tornado. She collapsed to her knees, breathless.

  Napkins rained down from the counters and a coffee cup shattered on the floor. A shard of ceramic nicked her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut, fearful of more. The chill in the air magnified tenfold, plunging her into a painful cold like being submerged in an ice bath. She was frozen and unable to fight back.

  “Help me,” she whispered as her throat closed. Something was holding her down, choking her. Whatever had been standing in that corner wasn’t a man.

  Ten men couldn’t have so fully restrained her.

  Still, she wouldn’t stop fighting.

  “Help me,” the man said, his voice a gravelly whisper. “Help me.” Was he mocking her? Was she going crazy? “Help me.”

  “I’ll help,” she said, gasping. “Just let me go, please. I’ll help you.”

  The front door opened and the light turned on. Harmony’s eyes struggled to adjust, her mind unable to comprehend what just happened. Whatever had been holding her disappeared as quickly as it came, burning its pain into her soul.