“Shall we wait, or try again some other time?”
Tyler shrugged. Though disappointed, she also felt relieved; her eagerness to meet Dan was mixed with such anxiety that she was almost glad they had failed. “It might be a long wait,” she said. “Cops have weird hours. He could’ve just started a shift, or something.”
“Then you want to leave?”
“We don’t want to keep you from the Happy Hour.”
“I’m perfectly willing to wait.”
“No, let’s go.”
They left the porch and walked up the path to the dirt road.
“Maybe,” Nora said, “we can check a phone directory when we get back, make sure we do have the right address. You might even give him a ring, unless you’re intent on making a surprise appearance.”
“Yeah, that’s an idea.” A phone call, she thought, would be much easier on the nerves. That way, at least, she might find out how he stood. They could arrange to meet, regardless. Even if he was married or engaged or there was some other reason not to renew their relationship, she still would like to see him again.
“Ahoy there!” a man called.
Seated on a lawn chair atop the strangely painted bus, a beer can raised in greeting, was a white-bearded man. He wore a ragged straw hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and plaid Bermuda shorts.
“Captain Frank?” Nora asked.
“At your service, mateys.”
“We’re looking for Dan Jenson,” Tyler called up to him. “He lives at the end of the road?”
“Not anymore.” Captain Frank chuckled softly. “No indeed.”
“He moved?”
“You might say that.”
“Do you know where we can find him?”
“Can’t find him anywhere tonight. Try tomorrow, if you’re of a mind.”
“Where?”
He tilted the beer can to his mouth, then crumpled it and tossed it down. It landed on the layer of pine needles beside his bus. “Oh, Dan’s not far off. No, indeed. Just down the road a spell. Can’t miss it. A place called Beast House.”
“He
“I wouldn’t say that, not exactly. Go on by in the morning. Tell him Captain Frank sent you, and give Danny boy my regards.” He waved them away.
“Thanks,” Tyler called.
They started walking.
“He must work as a guard there,” Nora said.
“Yeah. I suppose. But he must live someplace.”
Nora shrugged. “You can ask him all about it tomorrow.”
“I guess this means we’ll have to take the tour.”
“You’ll love it. Tacky tacky.”
“I can’t wait,” she muttered.
“Let’s get back to the inn and get tanked.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tyler pulled to a stop in front of their bungalow at the Welcome Inn. “It’ll take me a while to get cleaned up and changed,” she said. “You can go on ahead to the restaurant, if you’d like.”
“Fine,” Nora said. “Meet you there.”
They climbed from the car.
Alone in her room, Tyler checked a drawer of the night stand between the beds. She found a Gideon Bible and a telephone book. She looked up Jenson, Daniel in the directory. The address listed after his name was 10 Seaside Lane.
According to Captain Frank, he didn’t live there now. Not anymore. No indeed.
She flipped the directory shut. The date on its cover was February 1978, making the book more than a year and a half old.
She considered dialing information.
Maybe later. Right now, she had neither the energy nor the desire. She sat motionless on the edge of the bed, the phone book resting on her thigh, and stared into space. She felt weary. Her mind seemed out of focus. In the pit of her stomach was a tiny knot of fear.
She wished that she was home in her own apartment, her life untouched by Barbie Doll, the horrible man on the highway, the leering Bix, the man who stared out like a specter from his cottage on Seaside, or Captain Frank on top of his grimly painted bus. Give Danny boy my regards.
And then she thought, Why not leave in the morning? First thing. As Nora pointed out, there’s no law you have to go looking for Dan.
Just get in the car, tomorrow, and bid farewell to all this. Tyler suddenly felt better, as if realizing she could leave had lifted an oppressive weight from her spirits. The knot of fear in her stomach loosened. She
If I don’t want to, she thought, I won’t.
She put away the telephone directory, pulled the curtains across the windows, and took off her clothes. Inspecting her bra in the dim light, she doubted she could ever remove the bloodstains entirely. Even if she succeeded, she would never forget this was the bra she had worn when the man attacked her. It would always be a reminder. So she took it into the bathroom and dropped it into the waste basket.
Standing by the road, she had cleaned most of the blood from her skin. But she hadn’t taken off her bra. Some blood had soaked through it, leaving faint rust-colored blotches on her breasts.
In the shower, she lathered her body with a thin bar of motel soap and used a washcloth to scrub her face and neck, her shoulders, her arms, her breasts—every inch of skin that had been touched by the man or his blood. She rinsed. She turned her back to the spray and looked down. Her breasts were tawny to the tan line, then creamy white to the darker flesh of her nipples. No trace of the blood stains remained. Nevertheless, she soaped the washcloth and scoured herself once more before leaving the tub.
The bath towel was threadbare and half the size of her towels at home. After drying herself, she wrapped it around her waist and left the steamy bathroom. She turned on a lamp. The towel pulled loose as she sat down at the dressing table. She left it draping her lap and brushed her hair. Only the fringes at her neck were damp from the shower. With the short length, she had no trouble fixing her hair up enough to look presentable.
Leaning against the table’s edge, she studied her face in the mirror. Her eyes needed help. Definitely. They looked haggard and slightly dazed. With a conceal stick from her makeup bag, she covered the smudges under each eye. She darkened her feathery lashes with mascara, then brushed her lids with light blue shadow. A vast improvement.
As she put on lipstick, she wondered why she hadn’t bothered to do all this before driving out to look for Dan. Well, she’d been in a hurry. And nervous. Maybe it was something else, though. Maybe it was simply that she thought he wouldn’t mind her scruffy appearance. Or maybe, deep down, she had somehow known she wouldn’t find him.
She got up from the table. Its edge had left a crease like a long red scar just below her rib cage. She rubbed it as she carried the towel into the bathroom.
She had already decided what to wear. Though she would have preferred slacks because of the chill outside, she’d made up her mind to wear a skirt instead. Rummaging through her suitcase, she took out what she needed. She stepped into fresh panties, hooked her garter belt around her hips, and sat on the bed to put on her nylons. She’d selected a blue tweed skirt. It wasn’t very summery but then, neither was the weather. Not at night, anyway. With the skirt on, she slipped into a wispy bra. Its silken feel made her nipples rigid. She drew a white cashmere sweater down over her head. It wasn’t thick enough to hide the jut of her nipples completely, but her only other
