The Killing Moon: A Novel

windows as she came to his driveway. She had wanted to surprise him. That was the whole point of walking all this way. Playing out different seduction scenarios on the walk over. She didn't know why she was fixated. It wasn't even him, probably, if she had to be honest. It was her idea of him.

The good cop. The incorruptible.

She turned in past the FOR SALE sign. The surface of his driveway was hot as a cookie sheet, so she tread the grass lane next to it, feeling slinky in her bare feet. She followed the flagstones past a big planter in front, where the face of his house angled toward the quiet street. It was pretty isolated, bordering a quarter acre of buggy, high-weed wetlands.

There he was, sitting on the front step. He had seen her coming from the window. She couldn't even sneak up on this guy.

She spread out ta-da hands. 'Trick-or-treat.'

Maddox said, 'I think you're a couple of months early.'

'This is how I do it. Start early, avoid the Halloween crowds.' She liked what her mouth was saying. 'Surprised?'

'You could say.'

'Pleasantly surprised?'

'Surprised.'

'What if I told you I'm here to open my heart to you? To bare my everlasting soul.'

He had on a great-looking, soft green cotton tank shirt, hanging off his thick shoulders and chest. His shorts were knee-length, his calves hairy but not furry. He sat half in and half out of shadow, leaning back against one of the narrow pillars. Almost guarding his house from her. She felt powerful and feared, and it made her smile.

'You're drenched,' he said.

'I looked a lot better when I started out.'

'What's with the wristbands?'

She wore two big ones together on her left arm. No pain today, at least not right now. 'It's a look,' she said. She was proud of her skinny limbs. 'I think I burned some new freckles into my shoulders.' She moved the straps to check, giving him a little peek inside.

'Your feet okay?' he said.

She wiggled her toes. They were filthy, and worse inside the cracks. She saw a little blood around her left heel, nothing to get excited about. 'I walked a long way,' she said, working a smirk. 'You should be flattered. I started out in these flip-flops, but the thong thing was cutting into my toe cleavage, killing me.'

'Toe cleavage?'

'Don't pretend you don't know what that is. I passed this yard, and there was this little bike, pink with tassels? The kind I always wanted as a girl. Though maybe I shouldn't be telling this to a cop.'

'You shouldn't be telling it to anyone. You stole a little girl's bicycle?'

'I borrowed it, who do you think I am? Not my fault if the chain snapped.' She chewed on a cuticle, what was left of her fingernail. 'I was going to bring it back.'

'You walked barefoot all the way here from Bucky's house?'

She put her hand on her hip. 'Didn't take long for him to come up. Jesus. Like talking to a guy who only wants to talk about your best friend or your sister or something. Except in this case, it's my guy he's obsessed with.'

'You don't stay over at Bucky's?'

'You know I don't.'

'I must have forgot.'

'No, you didn't. You wanted to make your point that he doesn't treat me right.'

'He's a private guy that way.'

'And what's wrong with that?'

'I don't know. You think he has someone else?'

'He's a Black Falls cop. What do you think?'

'And that's fine with you.'

'Maybe I got somebody else too.' She tried to wink at him but she had never been very good at winking. 'Hey, if I wanted to be married to someone, I'd be married, right? We have something different from that. Something deeper.'

'I'll bet those are his words exactly.'

'Like partners. Maybe he chases it on the side, but he can only catch so much. I know he doesn't bring it home with him. No one gets inside his place 'cept me. Why I captivate you so.'

'What's he do up there on his mountain, he needs so much privacy?'

She moved to the short stone patio before the brick step. 'Kiss me and I'll tell you everything you want to know.'

Maddox smiled in that way he had, of appraising her, which made her frown and sent her back to working on her nail.

'You seem a little hyped up,' he said. 'You eat anything today?'

'I had a Popsicle.'

'That's not food.'

'Oh, sorry. See, the food stamp people got me and Daddy on this strict twenty-four-dollars- a-month diet.' She tried out a wide, dirty grin. 'You want to take me inside, feed me something?'

'I don't think so.'

She scratched the itch on the back of her neck. 'You are such a drag, you know that? It's just rude, not inviting me inside. Why you so hot for Bucky?'

'I'm not.'

'So hot for him instead of me.'

'Give me a break.'

'So secretive all the time. Talk about privacy.' She shifted posture, her bare knees rubbing. 'You're playing me. You think I don't know it.'

'Then that means that you're playing me.'

'No. Because I don't play.'

'You said you and Bucky are partners. Partners in what?'

'Partners in life.'

'Uh-huh.'

'You know, he was a new cop when I met him. Just like you. Used to cruise by me in his patrol car when I was walking home from school. Kept offering me rides, until I took him up on it.' She smiled. 'He liked it on the hood of his patrol car. He was into being a cop when it was new. What about you? You into it still?'

'I'm not that into it.'

She looked him over. 'You're into it, all right. What is it you do there all night at the station by yourself, anyway?'

'Fight crime.'

She snickered. 'You're a bad boy. You are. Act all good, but you're bad inside, I can see it. You do bad things.'

That hit something in him. Something real. She watched his eyes narrow, and was surprised.

'Maybe your bedroom's air-conditioned,' she said. 'We could go talk in there.'

'No.'

'What are you so afraid of?' She took another step closer to him, her bare feet touching the smooth stone landing, just now starting to feel the day's journey in her soles. 'You know you don't come around me just for the questions.'

'No?'

'No. The way you look at me sometimes. Not now. Today you're being kind of a dick. But other times.'

Maddox looked out at the overgrown marsh his house faced, the weeds humming with bugs. 'I guess maybe you remind me of someone.'

She was shocked to get any water out of this stone. 'All right. Now it comes out. Now we're getting somewhere. Not your mother, I hope.'

'Are you kidding me?'

'First love? College sweetheart? Old girlfriend?'

'Just someone I knew.'

'And she's dead now?'

He showed surprise at her insight. Even Wanda was a little impressed with herself.

'So come on, then,' she said, moving closer still. His sneakers were flat on the landing, his bent legs bunching up his package in between. She reached out and touched his bare knee. 'Let's start up the old air conditioner. Go for a spin on my pink bike. What do you say?'

Maddox stood, a head taller than she, so that her hand fell from his knee. 'I have to get ready for work now.'

'It's personal, this thing between you and Bucky. I can tell. So what better way to fuck him over?' She reached for his shorts over his thighs, wanting to run her hand up inside.

Maddox shook his head. 'It's not like that.'

'Of course it is. The ultimate get-back. You can't fuck him so you fuck the one he fucks. Believe me?he would jump all over your girl. If you had one.'

Maddox's hand guided hers away from his shorts with a firm grip. 'Maybe you don't realize what an ugly thing that is to say.'

Wanda could only smile at the chill she felt, brought on by her discovery. 'You do have a girl?'

Maddox reached out and pulled the sunglasses off her face. It was confusing because she had forgotten she was even wearing sunglasses, and so the change in light disoriented her. A pair she had borrowed from Bucky, too big for her face.

'Good Christ,' said Maddox.