Jodi Thomas - Twisted Creek

Drive into town and look for a job, I answered myself, then frowned. Part of me didn’t want to leave.

I climbed out of bed and walked to the window. In the years of traveling around, I’d somehow forgot to pack my dreams in one of the moves. When I’d been in school, I’d always felt I was waiting to live-that somehow life lay just around the corner ready to take my breath away. I’d be working in a famous art museum somewhere, talking to creative people, jetting off with friends or at worst teaching at a fine private school and saving my money to travel with Nana in the summer months.

Nowhere in those dreams had there been endless, mind-numbing jobs and people who thought becoming floor manager would be the ultimate measure of success. Not one dream had even hinted at an old lake house on a muddy bank in the middle of Texas.

Staring out at the water, black except for the reflections of firelight dancing along its ripples, I longed for the beauty of the masters. As I stared, the tall form of Luke moved against the firelight that seemed muted in the foggy night.

My curiosity rose as he lifted the basket I’d tossed all the useless mail in that morning. Slowly feeding the fire, he let the catalogues and magazines tumble into the flames.

“He’ll set the whole north shore on fire,” I whispered as I grabbed my flannel shirt and ran for the stairs.

At the edge of the porch, I tugged at a rolled water hose and charged down beside the dock toward the flames dancing almost as high as Luke’s shadow. Maybe my under-the-bed monster wasn’t going to kill us. Maybe he’d be happy just to burn us out.

Ten feet from the fire, I reached the end of the hose and almost fell backward with the sudden stop. I pointed the drizzle of water at Luke. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He turned and put down the empty basket. Though his face was in shadow, I could tell by the angle of his head that he studied me. “More pointedly,” he mumbled, “what are you doing?”

The drip from the hose tinkled across my toes and I jumped with the sudden cold. Tossing the worthless water hose aside, I took a step toward him. My foot sank into the puddle I’d just created.

I straightened, trying to ignore the disgusting sensation of cold mud moving between my toes. “We have to put the fire out,” I said far more calmly than I felt. “Not build it bigger.” I noticed several big chunks of driftwood at the base of the campfire. Luke had planned for a big fire.

He didn’t move, just stared at me with that what-kind-of-alien look he had whenever he faced me.

Straightening, I tried not to notice that I was only wearing a thin T-shirt that didn’t quite cover my panties. I pulled the flannel shirt around me.

His eyes met mine. Those blue eyes were guarded now, giving away nothing.

I picked up the basket and headed for the lake. “If you’re not going to help me, I’ll do it myself. I’m not about to go to sleep with this fire blazing a few feet from the dock. If it catches the walkway on fire, it’ll burn right up to the house.”

Two feet from the water, the bank turned slippery with mud.

I told myself it didn’t matter. I was on a mission. This place might not be much, and I might not have it for long, but I had no intention of losing it to fire.

Mud caked my ankles by the time I was close enough to bail water out of the lake. I made it back to the fire, sloshing and leaking more water than I had remaining in the basket.

I could have spit and done more good.

I tried again and again while Luke watched me. If he hadn’t been a foot taller than me, I would have given serious consideration to clobbering him.

On my fourth trip to the lake, I heard a splashing sound coming from the water. I stared out into the blackness. The fog had grown so thick I couldn’t see more then ten feet.

The sound came again, like someone slapping at the surface with even beats.

At this point, if the Loch Ness monster came up out of the depths, I wouldn’t have bothered to scream.

“Hello!” someone yelled. A moment later a pair of long canoes sliced through the darkness toward us.

“Thanks.” The boy in the first boat laughed. “We were too far out to see where to dock. If you hadn’t lit the fire, we’d have been on the lake all night.”

Luke waded into the shallow water and helped the boys tug their boats in.

“You got any more of them biscuits?” one thin kid asked as he warmed by the fire. “We flipped the canoe that carried all our food.”

I nodded and invited them in. While they loaded their boats onto the trailer, I duckwalked back trying to fling off as much mud as possible before I tracked it into the house.

Scrambled eggs defined the limit of my cooking skills. That, added to the fried pies, seemed to keep the four teenagers happy. They sat in a line on the stools, inhaling the food and coffee while they talked about their grand adventure.

I had a feeling it would be even more exciting by the time they got home.

“How much?” one finally asked when his plate appeared licked clean.

When I looked confused he added, “For the food.”

“Nothing,” I said. I would have fed them even if they hadn’t a dime.

The boys stood and left, thanking me.

When I turned back to clean the plates, I found a twenty in the tip box.

Wednesday

September 18, 2006

2200 hours

Luke stayed out on the porch telling himself he needed to keep an eye on the fire, but he knew in truth he needed to keep his eyes off Allie.

She’d almost stopped his heart when she’d stepped from the fog into the firelight wearing nothing but a shirt he could almost see through and pink underwear.

Pink panties. Dear God. Didn’t she know that women out of their teens wore black, or red, or even white, not pink? At least he thought they did. He couldn’t really say he’d had a great deal of experience researching the matter.

But there she stood, her hair reflecting in the firelight, her breasts high and pointed, and her pink panties showing-her eyes blazing at him like she wanted to throttle him.

Luke thought of explaining, but he was having far too much fun watching her storm around.

Then, when she’d realized why he’d built the fire, she didn’t even look in his direction. No thank-you. Nothing.

Luke leaned against the porch railing and stared into the night. Allie Daniels was messing with his mind. Hell, the sight of her was messing with his body. He was a man who prided himself on always being in control. He liked his job, it challenged him. And he liked having no complications in his private life.

Shifting his weight, he realized he had no private life. The only reason he’d taken time off from work was to investigate Jefferson’s death. He didn’t just work for the ATF in drug enforcement, he was the badge he carried. Most nights he left the office, stopped off for fast food, then did paperwork until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He kept his life and the people he met in neat little files.

She might not be a suspect, but she was definitely a person of interest in this investigation.

He shook his head as the sound of her laughter drifted onto the porch.

It was late. Luke needed to bank the fire and get some sleep. He had predawn plans at a few of the houses he’d found on the west shore. The more he walked the land of this lake, the more the place smelled of trouble.

But as he stepped off the porch, all he could think about was pink panties.

After I did the dishes, I walked back out to the porch and noticed Luke had let the fire burn low. Sitting on the first step, I watched him move onto the dock. The one yard light still burning appeared fuzzy now that the fog had turned into a slow rain.

Tomorrow I’d say I was sorry for acting like an idiot. If he hadn’t built the fire, the teenagers would have spent a miserable night on the lake at the least. I felt bad for not even remembering their old car parked over beside the junkers. The day had been so long it seemed like a week had passed since they’d asked to shove off from my dock.

A thin smugglers’ moon rose, offering just enough light for me to make out Luke. He walked down the long dock toward the water as he had the night before. In fluid movements, he removed his clothes without slowing his stride, dropping them carelessly. The outline of his form was long and lean, powerful with movement and as natural as an animal in his element.

He dove into the water, his hands over his head, and sliced the midnight lake as soundlessly as a shadow’s passing. I sat motionless, listening to the whisper of his long strokes cutting into the water.

When I stepped back inside, the twinkle lights along the back wall greeted me and I was glad I’d left them up. I walked to the small office area tucked almost invisibly between tall shelves. I’d intended to turn off the desk lamp, but reached for a pencil from the can and opened the empty ledger instead. On the back of the first page, without lines to hamper me, I sketched what I’d seen in long bold strokes.

An hour later, I went to bed still thinking of the slim form stretched between land and lake. It might be Luke’s body I drew, but somehow my feelings had poured across the paper.

In what seemed like minutes, I awoke to the sound of Nana talking to someone. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. Sitting up, I decided Uncle Jefferson never put up doors on this apartment so he could hear anything going on downstairs. The stairwell acted like a megaphone to the second floor.

Bumps and scrapes rattled as if someone were moving bricks downstairs.

My first thought was that we were being robbed. But that seemed unlikely. Who would want anything on the ground level, or upstairs for that matter? Even the old safe was just a joke around the place. It seems Jefferson spent years trying to give the thing away but no one had the strength to carry it off.

I shoved my legs into jeans as I hopped toward the landing. I managed to pull on my shirt by the time I reached the stairs.

Now the voices were clear. I slowed, listening.

“I’ll put the chips over here and the drinks here,” a woman announced. “Where do you want the candy and bait?”

I reached the bottom of the steps to find a dozen boxes stacked in front of the shelves. “What’s going on?” I asked to no one in particular.

A large woman, dressed like a man down to her black, round-toed shoes, faced me. She had short, curly hair that reminded me of Neapolitan ice cream. Her roots were white, then two inches of dark red. The tips were chocolate brown. “Howdy.” She grinned and her clean-scrubbed face crinkled like twisted plastic wrap. “I’m Micki. Mrs. Deals called and told me you guys were moving in so I figured it was time for me to make a delivery.”

Shaking my head, I tried to settle on which question to ask first. The smell of dead fish distracted me for a moment, then Willie Dowman wandered into my line of vision with a cup of coffee in his hand. He sat on the safe by the cold stove, propped his elbows on his knees, and watched.

Nana handed me a cup of coffee, then offered one to Micki, giving me a moment to think.

“Nice to meet you,” I managed. “There must be some mistake. We didn’t order a delivery, and I don’t know a Mrs. Deals.”

The woman lifted a clipboard. “Your uncle ordered this over two months ago. Said for me to deliver it when you arrived.” Micki’s smile sparked across her face and then was gone, replaced by an all-business stare. “I guess he figured you’d never know what was needed.”

“I guess,” I agreed.

Micki continued, “And Mrs. Deals is the old lady who lives down the road in that big house that reminds me of the Alamo. She’s got more rooms in that thing than she can count. She also has the only dependable phone. Cells don’t work out here half the time and most folks don’t bother putting a line in at their cabins.” She gave me the “duh” look middle school girls always seem to know. “Mrs. Deals keeps up with everything.”

She pointed to a box marked “cookies.” “My guess is she’s missing her Milano cookies. Jefferson always stocked them for her. Said she never bought but one bag at a time like no one would notice that way.”

I glanced at all the boxes marked with brand names for snacks, drinks, and candy. I decided on a more direct approach. “We can’t pay for all this.”

Micki shrugged. “Jefferson has an account and it’s well in the black. All this stuff has already been paid for in full, plus the next couple of loads. He said he wanted you stocked for the fall. I left you our listing, but if you need something not on it we’ll try to get it for you. I make my rounds once a week.”