“We’re just playing Scrabble,” Echo announced. “Vivi is beating me by seventy-three points. If we could just forget this whole game happened, that would be great.”
Jeanie said nothing.
His kid flashed Echo a smile as she slid around a few wooden tiles, but her grin did little to diminish the weird feeling clambering up Lucas’s throat. Vivi? Echo’s new nickname for his daughter made him feel queasy and violated, as though someone had come into his home and stolen something invaluable out from under his nose.
Echo was looking a little too comfortable lounging on the floor the way she was. And Jeanie—a girl who avoided strangers—appeared more laid-back around her new friend than she did around her own dad.
Something twisted deep inside his guts.
“Can’t play,” was the only thing Lucas could manage, his mouth gone dry, full of cotton. “Jeanie . . . you should wrap up. I still want to drive up to Seattle today.”
The drive would get them out of the house and away from Pier Pointe for long enough to let him get his head straight. The news about the inmate, the guard, and now Jeanie’s weird silence, the strange stolen glances between her and Echo . . . it was all too much.
He turned away from them and stepped into his study. Closing the door behind him, he caught his breath, sure he was on the verge of vomiting his lunch down the front of his jeans.
After a few seconds of standing there with his eyes shut tight, a gentle knock sounded on the door. Echo peeked her head inside and gave him an apologetic sort of smile. It was almost as if she knew what was bothering him without an explanation.
“Okay, I’m off,” she told him. “Have a good trip into the city.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said.
Echo turned to go, then paused. “If you need me to watch her again, I’d be more than happy to do it. Don’t hesitate to ask.” She gave him a conciliatory shrug, then stepped away from the door.
Lucas didn’t move from where he stood. He considered running out and apologizing. He was acting crazy, his jealousy bubbling up green and ugly from the pit of his guts. He couldn’t afford not to be Echo’s friendly neighbor, couldn’t risk her taking her stuff back. He needed those photos to fix his life.
It was only then that he realized what that sick feeling truly was. He was being held hostage. And while it would have been easy to tell Echo to never set foot near his rental house again, Echo wasn’t his captor. He was a prisoner to his own insatiable need, his own obsession. Because falling prey to desperation was easy when you had nothing left to lose.
That’s what had bothered him most about seeing Jeanie sitting there with Echo that way. It made him feel as though he’d screwed up one too many times. She’d finally given up on him. And if that was true, Lucas Graham was done. Nothing was all that he had left.
40
Monday, April 19, 1982
Ten Months, Twenty-Three Days Before the Sacrament
THE GROUP HAD taken to making biweekly drives into Pier Pointe, breaking into houses. Avis didn’t dare mention how uncomfortable the trips made her. She went along every time.
They now had more food than they knew what to do with. Cardboard boxes lined the wall of the kitchen, giving the place the look of an in-process move. When Avis offhandedly mentioned that they could take a break from their little trips, that they had enough food to feed ten people and a dog for at least a month, Jeff pulled her into the sunshine-yellow downstairs half bath and murmured scoldings into her ear.
“You’re not here to give advice,” he said, his fingers tight against her arm. “You’re here to participate.” She winced against his grip but kept herself from trying to wriggle away. “And if you don’t want to take part, then why are we here, Avis? Why are we here?” When she didn’t answer, he tightened his grip. “Why are we here?” he demanded.
“Because I want to participate!” She blurted it out, twisting away from him. “I’m sorry.” Her voice drew out into a whisper. “I want to participate.”
Avis had thought being part of things would be limited to walking along the beach, sitting around a bonfire, growing vegetables in the backyard. Now participation had escalated from a “Kumbaya” circle to breaking and entering. And it was becoming very clear that it wasn’t about the food. It was about the thrill.
Standing in the kitchen over a colander of freshly harvested rhubarb, Avis eavesdropped as Noah and Kenzie sat around the kitchen table. They laughed as they discussed plans to rearrange furniture in each house they hit.
“Everything is inside out,” Kenzie explained. “A couch against a right wall instead of a left. A TV on the opposite side of a room. Pictures reversed and backward. We gotta find a name for it.”
“A name . . .” Noah leaned back in his seat, gazed up at the ceiling, then snapped his fingers a moment later. “One-two switcheroo.”
“Switcheroo!” Kenzie howled with laughter.
When they told Jeffrey about their plan, he muttered something about how they were both idiots. They were going to get them all caught. But he failed to demand they not do it. Avis guessed it wouldn’t be long before they figured out how to glue furniture to ceilings and stick light fixtures to the floors.
But the switcheroos were the least of her worries. It seemed that the family had officially gained another member. Maggie was visiting almost every day now with Eloise in tow. “My mom is just . . .” Maggie shook her head, aggravated, when Avis had asked about Eloise’s standard babysitter. “She’s gone crazy, I think. I don’t want my kid around that.” And while Avis wouldn’t have minded had the group treated Maggie the way they had behaved toward the former Audra Snow in the beginning, Maggie certainly didn’t suffer the same level of rejection. She had nothing to prove.
Jeffrey loved three-year-old Eloise. He played with her every chance he got, giving her piggyback rides and playing “camp out” in one of the old red tents Deacon had pitched in the yard for them. Just the day before, Avis watched Jeff, Deacon, and a few of the girls dig a fire pit close to the decommissioned tent. They roasted marshmallows after dark. Maggie sat at Jeffrey’s right and Eloise was poised on his knee. Avis spied on them from inside the house like a woman scorned. They looked like husband and wife, as though they’d known each other for all their lives, not for the few months that had passed. For the first time since Avis had laid eyes on him, she felt a pang of disdain for the man she’d grown to love. And her best friend? Avis would have done just about anything to never see Maggie again.
What made it worse was that both Clover and Gypsy seemed to like Maggie more than they liked Avis. Like that’s a surprise. She watched the three of them huddled together like a trio of best friends—the wicked stepsisters—probably making life-altering plans that didn’t include her. Eloise took to calling Jeffrey “Uncle Jeff,” which set Avis’s teeth on edge. She thought about cornering the toddler and filling her head with stories of how Uncle Jeff ate little girls, how the entire family lived off the flesh of children. But she had yet to talk herself into it. There was no telling how Jeff would react if Eloise decided to rat her out.
She missed her pills, and was starting to resent Jeff for confiscating them every time she picked up her prescription from the clinic. There was also the germ of regret at putting all her trust in a single person.
The euphoria of her newfound family was wearing thin.
Yet again, despite being told that she was part of the family, Avis—no, Audra—couldn’t help but feel like she was on the outside looking in.