want a beer?” Brett asked me. He’d settled us to one corner, cross-legged on the cold plywood, then gone in search of refreshments. Now he handed me a can of Bud, which I opened and sipped at, wondering how many laws I was breaking by drinking with a slew of minors. I hadn’t bought them the stuff, but I thought that might be a technicality if we were raided. I got a shiver all over as I pictured Officer Newell’s frowning face, and could practically hear him saying, “I’m disappointed in you, Jane Kelly,” right before he cuffed me and hauled my ass off to the Clackamas County Jail.
I suspected claiming I was working undercover wouldn’t cut it.
The answer, then, was to not get caught. To that end I searched the faces of the knots of kids, hoping to find the driver of the Taurus. She didn’t seem to be in the “house.” I thought she might be on the grounds, maybe down by the lakeshore. There was a stairway leading to the basement, which was an OSHA nightmare—no rails, rickety boards slammed up by a carpenter to gain basic access, no lighting—but my bigger problem was how to extract myself from Brett. Because he’d introduced me to the group I was apparently now officially his.
To underscore this, Brett slipped an arm over my left shoulder, his hand and arm hanging over loosely. Golly, gee whiz, it looked like we were on the verge of being a couple, at least for the evening.
“So, you go to Lake Chinook High,” I said, feeling the need for conversation. “What grade are you in?”
“I’m a junior,” he said, belching loudly. He really threw himself into it, in fact, and as soon as it was heard, it started a volley of belching from all the strutting roosters.
“Shut the fuck up,” Keegan said without heat, and the immediate silence was deafening.
“So, you’re seventeen?” I asked. Great. Just great. He wasn’t even an adult.
“Just about. Next February. How about you?”
Sixteen. My heart sank. “A senior,” I murmured.
“You eighteen?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“I thought you looked older.”
“Yeah?”
“Just something about you,” he said. He tilted his head and gazed at me thoughtfully. “You seem…wise.”
“Huh.” I inclined my head toward the stairs. “Wanna go down to the lake?”
“Brrrr. No. Much better here.”
“I’m kind of ready to take a walk,” I said, easing from beneath his arm. The damn thing was like a lead weight.
“Oh, come on,” he said grouchily, trying to struggle to his feet.
“I’ll be right back,” I promised, easing away.
He let me go but he didn’t look happy. It didn’t seem like many of the girls argued with these guys. I couldn’t get it. What did they see in them? Most of them were the kind of guy I’ve avoided my entire life: self-important, narcissistic, nefarious and self-serving. I sensed it in that age-old way men and women have possessed since the beginning of time. I wasn’t safe here. Brett might not be one of the true baddies, but if mob mentality prevailed, he would side with Keegan. I had no doubt.
I felt my way down the stairs and through the hazards of the lower level of construction. Chunks of wood had been tossed around. Lots of nail heads showed on the subfloor, dark spots visible in the uncertain red light that glowed through cracks from the upper floor. The only other illumination was from a three-quarter moon fighting off fast-moving clouds.
As I stepped onto the back grounds I listened to the low moaning of wind through nearby trees, the soft lap of water against the shore and the metallic clang of a flagpole’s tethering chain. I glanced over to the Pilarmos’ yard. They not only possessed a wolf dog and a menagerie of plastic lawn ornaments, they proudly displayed the Italian flag, now fluttering madly in the stiff night breeze. Either the flag was a new addition, or, more likely, I hadn’t paid near enough attention while looking through Dwayne’s binoculars. It occurred to me I’d focused way too much attention on Tab A and Slot B, but then, there was a lot to see there.
Three figures stood at the water’s edge. The three friends from the Taurus, I determined, as I walked toward them. I kept about thirty feet between us; didn’t want them to think I was horning in. But the girlfriend and guy were still all over each other. She of the giggles, he of the roving hands. Both hands were beneath her sweatshirt as he gave her a series of kisses on her mouth, cheeks and neck. She just kept right on giggling.
The other girl kept moving away from them. She was about as far as she could go, nearly pressed up against Social Security’s chain-link fence. I gave a glance over to their house. A yellow outdoor light was the only sign of human habitation. The place could have been abandoned for all the life it showed.
I was still trying to figure out how to start a conversation when the kissing couple bumped into their friend, nearly knocking her off her feet. She caught herself before she slipped, said, “God, you guys. Stop it,” then huffed around to my side.
Giggler singsonged, “Sorreee…”
The boy was too busy rubbing himself against her as best he could to bother with a response. He was going to get as much body contact as he could before she shut him down, though she didn’t seem even close to that yet.
Now the Taurus driver was only about five feet from me. I looked from her to the struggling couple. “They could fall right into the lake,” I observed.
“I wish to God they would,” she said with feeling. “Judd is such a horndog.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Glory? Oh, she’s just being stupid. She never goes all the way, though. I mean, she’s not in love or anything,” she added quickly.
“I’m Ronnie,” I introduced.
“Hi.” She’d been studying Glory and Judd, but now she shot me a quick look. “I’m Dawn.”
“You go to Lake Chinook?”
“Yeah. Oh yeah.” She gazed at my Lake Chinook sweatshirt. “You don’t, though, do you?”
“Sunset,” I said. “A senior.”
“Oh. I’m a sophomore.” She shivered and pressed her chin into her neck, hunching her shoulders. “Where’d you get the sweatshirt?”
“A guy named Glen.” I told her about my Lakeshore one in the trees and how it had gotten there.
“Glen’s a big dummy, but he’s okay.” She sniffed. “God, it’s cold.”
“I know. I gotta go home and get warm.”
“Me, too, but I’ll never get my car out.”
“You need a ride?”
“No, I live just down the street. I shoulda parked at the house, but my parents get all weird when I come home just to leave again. So I’m stuck. Unless
