Salem Falls Read online

  "Thomas."

  He wheeled around to find Chelsea standing there, and the floor dropped out from beneath him. "Hi," he said.

  Before he could follow that up with a coherent comment, Selena returned with two dripping cups. "Disgusting stuff," she muttered. "Enough sugar in it to kill a horse." She handed one cup to Thomas, then smiled brightly at the girl beside him.

  "I'm Chelsea Abrams," she said, sticking out her hand.

  "Selena Damascus. Charmed."

  "Apparently," Chelsea whispered beneath her breath.

  The DJ resumed his post at the head of the gym, and music pulsed around them again. "So," Thomas said, "would you like to dance?"

  "Love to," Selena said, at the same moment that Chelsea answered, "Sure."

  Chelsea reddened and stepped back. "I'm sorry ... I thought ... "

  "I did," Thomas assured her. "I was."

  "You two go on ahead," Selena demurred. "I want to finish this drink first." Grimacing, she took a large gulp and smiled over the edge of the cup.

  But Chelsea shook her head. "My friends ... they're waiting for me," she said, and darted away.

  Thomas's chest ached as he watched her navigate the crowd. He would have given anything to touch her hand and lead her onto the dance floor, to see her smile at something he'd said, to feel his pulse speed up at the possibility of what might happen next. And yet here he was once again, the victim of another missed opportunity. He tried to pretend that he was perfectly fine, schooling his face into nonchalance before turning to Selena.

  But it was there in his eyes, this wish that things had turned out differently. Selena did a double take, as if she could not quite believe what she was seeing.

  "What?" Thomas asked.

  "Nothing." Selena sipped her drink. "For a moment there, you just looked so much like your father."

  When the door of the diner opened after hours, Jack glanced up in surprise. He'd assumed Addie had locked it, and he felt a quick flash of anger--who dared to interrupt the time he had alone with this woman?

  The man who entered was a regular trying very hard not to appear as drunk as he actually was. "Ms. Peabody," he said, "can you help me mainline some caffeine?"

  Jack stepped forward. "I'm sorry, but we're--"

  Suddenly Addie's small hand was on his arm, and he lost the power of speech. "I think we can manage that, Mr. McAfee." She gestured imperceptibly toward the man, so that Jack would understand. The guy was certainly having a rough night; that much was clear from the way his hair stood on end and his eyes sank into red-rimmed sockets, from the scent of despair that buzzed around him like a cloud of midges. "It'll just be a minute."

  Characters in this literary work include the characters Christian, Faithful, and Evangelist.

  Jordan glanced up at the sound of Alec Trebek's voice. "The Biography of Jerry Falwell."

  Addie grinned. "Is he right, Jack?"

  "No. It's The Pilgrim's Progress."

  When the answer was announced, Jordan laughed. "Impressive." He picked up the steaming mug of coffee Addie had given him. "Tell me then, what great oeuvre includes the characters Spurned, Screwed, and Royally Fucked?"

  Jack looked at Addie and blinked.

  "That," Jordan said, belching, "would be the story of my life." He took a healthy swig from his mug. "No offense, Ms. Peabody, but women ... God, they're like broken glass lying in the middle of the road. Cut a man to shreds before he realizes what's happened."

  "Only if you're intent on running us over," Addie said dryly.

  Jordan gestured toward Jack. "You ever have trouble with women?"

  "Some."

  "You see?"

  Addie refilled Jordan's coffee cup. "Where's your son tonight, Mr. McAfee?"

  "School dance. And he took that goddamn piece of glass with him."

  "Piece of ... glass?"

  "The woman!" Jordan moaned. "The one who ruined my life!"

  "I'm going to call you a cab now, Mr. M," Addie said.

  Jack leaned his elbows on the counter. It turned out people truly did cry into their coffee cups. Worse, Jordan McAfee seemed to have no idea that he was doing it. "What did she do to you?"

  Jordan shrugged. "She said no."

  At the words, a shudder ripped through Jack.

  Suddenly, the door opened as Wes blustered in, his stint as a chaperone now finished. "Addie, you got some coffee for a guy who's been forced to listen to rap for the past four--"

  "We're closed," Jack said.

  Wes's eyes passed over Jordan and landed on Jack. "Thank God you're not alone with him," he said to Addie.

  She smiled. "Mr. McAfee may be a little tipsy, but he's not dangerous ..."

  "I'm not talking about McAfee." He protectively closed his hands around her upper arms. "You okay?"

  "Fine," she said, wrenching away.

  "Oh, I get it. You'll let scum like St. Bride touch you, but not me."

  "Watch what you say, Wes," Addie warned.

  The policeman whirled toward Jack. "You gonna let her fight your battles? Maybe you want to tell your boss what you didn't tell her the day she hired your sorry ass."

  For a moment, the only sound was Alec Trebek's voice: With 8,891 points, Dan O'Brien holds the world record in this track and field event. Jack felt the floor shift beneath his feet and thought, not for the first time, that life is in the details.

  He could not bear to meet Addie's eyes--Addie, who had trusted him. "I was in jail," Jack admitted. "For eight months."

  It was all coming together for her now--why Jack had surfaced from nowhere, why a man moving to a town would have only a box of possessions and the clothes on his back, why he did not talk about his past. Jack waited for her to speak, his own mouth dry as a desert.

  "Tell her why," Wes prodded.

  But that, Jack wouldn't do.

  "I'm sure if this is true, Jack can explain," Addie said shakily.

  "He raped a woman. You think there's any explanation for that?"

  The room fell away, until all that was left was the small rectangle of silence that trapped both Jack and Addie. Her nostrils flared; her eyes were bright with disbelief. "Jack?" she said softly, urging him to set Wes straight.

  Jack knew the exact moment she realized that he wasn't going to answer.

  Addie grabbed for her coat, slung over a counter chair. "I have to go," she managed, and she stumbled out the front door.

  Jack started after her, and found a hand at his throat. "Over my dead body," Wes said quietly.

  "Don't tempt me."

  The policeman's wrist cut into Jack's windpipe. "Want to say that on the record, St. Bride?" Then, abruptly, Wes released him. "Do us all a favor. Lock the door behind you; keep walking until you cross the town line."

  When Wes left, Jack sank down onto a banquette and buried his face in his hands. As a kid, his favorite toy had been a snow globe, that held a small town of gingerbread buildings and peppermint streets. He'd wanted so badly to live there that one day he'd smashed the glass ball--only to find that the houses were made of plaster, the candy stripes painted on. He had known that this existence he'd carved in Salem Falls was an illusion, that one day it would crack open just like that snow globe. But he'd hoped--God, he'd hoped--that it wouldn't just yet.

  "They can't do that to you, you know."

  Jack had completely forgotten that Jordan McAfee was still here. "Do what?"

  "Run you out of town. Threaten you. You paid your debt to society for eight months; you're now free to join it again."

  "I didn't belong in jail."

  Jordan shrugged, as if he'd heard this a hundred times before. "You just spent three-quarters of a year in a place because you had to. Don't you think you deserve to stay somewhere because you want to?"

  "Maybe I don't want to."

  A pair of headlights swept the interior of the diner, the arriving cab. "Well, I'm a pretty good judge of character. And that sure wasn't the story I got from the look you gave me when I inte