Page 3 of Creeping Beautiful

I extend my hand, beckoning her with two fingers and calling to her the way someone might call to a fearful stray dog. “Come here,” I say. “Come inside. You’re wet.”

She takes a long drag on her cigarette, drops it in the gravel, and then crushes it with the tip of her soaked brown boot.

“I need something.” She calls this from across the driveway.

“Come inside. I’m not talking to you like this.”

She never takes her eyes off me, but her left hand dips down to her flannel and she pulls it up. Just a little. Just enough to show me the gun tucked inside the waistband of her jeans.

“Understood,” I call back. “Now come inside.”

She looks to her right, down the length of my long, lonely driveway, then pushes off the wall and walks through the downpour like it’s a calm summer day and not a violent, late-winter evening.

My hand is still extended when she approaches but she doesn’t take it. Just pushes past me, her leather jacket dragging against my t-shirt, transferring some of her wetness to me as she enters.

I turn with her, close the door, and stand there. Just watching her as she places a hand on the surface of my small shop table and starts kicking at the heel of one boot to get it off her foot. She does it again with the other one and then she’s barefoot.

No socks. Never wears socks.

“Don’t start with me about socks.” She reads my mind as she shrugs the jacket off, water dripping everywhere on my concrete floor, and drapes it over the back of a metal folding chair. Then she lets out a long breath of air. “I wouldn’t ask. You know I wouldn’t ask. But I need you, McKay.”

“Of course.” I whisper this, afraid she will run if I talk too loud or get too aggressive with her. “Whatever it is, I’m here. You know that.”

She smirks at me, crooked smile revealing the perfectly straight teeth I paid for when she was fourteen. “I guess I do.” She says this as she peels off her flannel and then tosses it onto the table.

She doesn’t remove the gun from the waistband of her jeans.

I have a lot of questions for this girl. Starting with, Where the fuck have you been for the last four years?

I don’t say it out loud. But I don’t need to. She can read my mind.

“Where haven’t I been? I’ve been everywhere. Every-fucking-where. But this isn’t a social call.”

Immediately my mind is spinning with possibilities. Why is she here? What has she done now? How hard will it be to clean up this mess? And… will this nightmare ever end?

“He’s done it again. I’m so fucking pissed off right now, I could murder someone.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Who is the bane of my existence? Why is he always so uptight and controlling, McKay? Why isn’t he more like you? Huh? I mean… does he like being the asshole? Does he get off on making me angry? Why? Why does he do this?”

I was holding my breath during all that. So I let it out. “What did he do this time?”

She presses her lips together, frowns through it. And her eyes get glassy and bright as she takes a deep breath. “He took him.”

Holy fucking shit. “Who?”

“Adam.”

“No, who did he take, Indie?”

“Nathan. Who fucking else? I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Nathan?”

“My husband.” She snarls these words out like she can’t believe I’m playing this game with her. But I’m not playing at anything. After four years I’m just genuinely sick hearing that name come out of her mouth. “Ringing any bells here? You’re such a fucking piece of work, you know that, McKay? And if you’re just going to defend Adam, I’ll go back the way I came and you can pretend you never saw me.”

She bends down, reaching for one of her boots like she’s going to put it back on, but I put my hand on her arm and give it a squeeze.