Panting uncontrollably, Vanessa tried to comprehend what her hand had done. She did not cry out nor did she touch her son. She just stood there gasping for air and watched him die.
When she heard the deep-throated gurgle, she turned. Without deliberation, she removed a razor knife from the scattered implements.
They did this to me, she told herself.
She didn’t know how they knew about Blake’s paper, but she knew they had set her up tonight, contacted the prick and arranged for that video. It was their doing. Because she had wanted her son back. Because she had insisted they undo what they’d done to him. Because she threatened to blow the whistle when they refused to even try, filling him full of useless chemicals that made him even worse.
“When dealing with the human mind, there’s no way to predict collateral effects.”
Such bullshit. Collateral effects! He was a freak. She had threatened to take him elsewhere, so they brought her down in public. On her night of nights.
She moved to Julian’s bed and sat against the bolster. She glanced once across the room at her son dead on his tilt board, his blood streaming onto the carpet.
For a second, the image of him nursing at her breast flitted across her mind. She let out a long pathetic groan.
Then she slashed her wrists.
For the next several minutes, with her knees clutched to her chest, and her wrists bleeding into a pillow, she whimpered softly and rocked herself to death.
41
Brendan had been in the kitchen cleaning up when the video exposure of Vanessa Watts was going on. He had only learned about it from another waiter on his way out.
Around eleven-thirty, he parked the pickup down the street from the DaFoe house so it wouldn’t be noticed. The only car in the garage was a Lexus SUV. It was green, the color of money, which Nicole’s parents had in abundance.
Unlike the simple little six-room Cape that he shared with his grandfather, Nicole’s home was a big white Colonial with a sweeping lawn, fancy shrubbery, and that European beech elm where he had spent several nights watching her undress, and one having sex with her history teacher.
Nicole let him in the back door. She had changed into green jeans and a yellow top. She looked like a daffodil. She was holding a glass of orange juice.
“You stink,” she said as if announcing the sky was black.
“From the g-g-garlic in the crab cakes’ dip. Carlos always adds too m-much. I’ll w-w-wash up.”
“And work on that stutter while you’re at it.” She led him upstairs to her bathroom.
He said nothing, inured to her bluntness. On one level, it fascinated him that she was so lacking in social cues. He at least had some residual instinct. She waited by the door as he washed up. “You missed quite a scene.” He told her about the plagiarism charge. “That’s not going to go over big with the administration at Middlesex U.”
Nicole shrugged. “I didn’t like her anyway. And her son’s a dweeb.”
Brendan opened his backpack. “By the way, c-close your eyes.”
“You’ve got a surprise for me?”
“Not that kind of surprise—I mean g-g-giftwise. Just keep your eyes closed, and inhale and tell me w-what comes to mind.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes and faced him, and he placed the bottle under her nose. “Okay, inhale and tell me if the odor reminds you of anything.”
She sniffed and snapped her head back. “Smells like …” She opened her eyes and snatched at the small glass container. “Extract of almond.” She glared at him.
“Well? Does it remind you of anything?”
“No.”
“But you didn’t even try.”
“I smelled it,” she snapped.
“No associations, no recollections, no images come to mind?”
“No.”
“Think hard.” And he held it to her nose again.
She pushed it away. “I said no. It reminds me of nothing.”
He stared at her for a moment then screwed the cap back on and stuffed it in his pocket. “How about Mr. Nisha?”
“I told you I never heard of Mr. Nisha.”
“Okay, forget it.” Something about her reaction bothered him. She was too quick to reject it. “I just get some really weird vibes from the odor. So what’s up?”
“Your turn. Close your eyes.”
“What?” Hesitantly he closed his eyes, then heard her leave the room.
“Keep them closed,” she said from the other room. A few moments later he heard her return.
“Okay, open them.”
Brendan opened his eyes. Nicole was stark naked.
“W-w-w-what are you doing?”
Her eyes were small, no dilation in her pupils. No affect in her manner. No warmth in her response. “See if you can figure it out.”
All he could think was: Why is she doing this? But it came out: “W-w-w-w- … ?”
“Why do you think?”
Brendan suddenly wished he were home, that he had not agreed to come over. That this was not turning out well. “I d-d-dunno.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
He scanned her body. “You’re very p-p-pretty,” he said, hoping that she’d put her clothes back on.
“P-p-pretty?”
“Okay, b-beautiful.”
“So,” she said, spreading her legs slightly and leaning on a hip. “Is Mr. LaMotte still a virgin?”
She was a thousand Internet images—a thousand pixel pixies. She wants something, he told himself. Nicole is hell-bent to succeed in life, so she wants something.
“Well?”
It was not a question he wanted to answer. Nor did she wait for one, no doubt assuming he was. She undid his belt and unzipped his fly. He stood there as if he had been shot with a stun gun. He wanted to stop her, and he wanted her to continue—not because he was getting aroused, but because he wasn’t.
She slipped her hand into his pants and rubbed his genitals. He could feel himself stir slightly, but he did not sprout an erection. In fact, the only erections he ever had resulted from unconscious friction with his bedding, but never from sexual musings, or sex magazines or Web porn sites. Naked women, men, children: nothing. Nada. His mojo wasn’t working. He couldn’t even properly masturbate if he wanted to; and the only orgasms were those in his sleep, unattended by raucous adolescent dreams—pure and simple biology: the press of backed-up sperm.
Not getting any reaction, Nicole pressed herself against his groin. He drew back because it hurt. “W-w-why are you doing this? I didn’t c-come here for this.”
“Because I f-f-felt like it.” She made a mirthless laugh. “I remember how you looked at me the other night in my room.”
That was a phony response—one reserved for the legions of normal heterosexual males whose hopeful glances told them she was “hot.” That was not his look. He did not have the hunger. Nor could he imagine that she liked him. They weren’t friends, nor had she ever shown him any interest except to make fun of his stuttering. In fact, whenever she addressed him he felt as if he were being razor-gashed. Besides, being the looker she was, Nicole should be pursuing the alpha studs—those cool, smart jocky dudes everybody else looked up to. He was surely not one of those. Yes, he was smart and tall, but two hundred and sixty pounds of baby fat surmounted by a long shiny black ponytail, braces, facial blemishes, and enough tics to make the Top Ten Geek List. Nicole did not give herself away for nothing. No, it wasn’t how he had looked at her in the bedroom. It was what he had seen in there.
Suddenly she took his hand and put it on her crotch.