Vapor Trail

It wasn’t fair.

She thumbed the remote on her key ring, and the door locks responded with a reassuring metal shh-chunk. She lifted the rear hatch, pulled up the floor cover, and removed the heavy saddlebag purse nestled in the concave bin in the middle of the spare tire.

When she returned to the studio, Drew was looking at himself in the mirror. He seemed to be trying to flex his not quite defined abdominal muscles. He had made a concession to modesty and slung a bright red towel low on his hips, sarong fashion. The towel had blue and green monkeys on it, and coconuts and palm trees.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

Annie held up the purse. “Went to get my toothbrush.” Among other things. Then she cocked her head toward the bathroom. She could hear Laurie talking in the tub. “Is someone else here? She’s talking to somebody.”

Drew shrugged and said, “She talks to her dolls.”

Annie walked a circuit of the studio, making sure they were alone. When she returned, she said, “I have a minor confession to make. I read about you in something.”

Drew acted interested, but his eyes wandered back to the mirror. “And what was that? A review of a book?”

“It was a complaint. You were accused of something; I thought of investigating you.”

Drew turned and smiled. “You can investigate me anytime,” he said, sashaying his towel around in a mock striptease.

“This is serious, Drew. I used to go out with this county cop, you know.”

“Uh-huh. You told me.”

Annie nodded. “Well, your name was on this list he brought over. Your neighbor complained about you walking around naked when her daughter had a play date with Laurie.”

Drew’s striptease ended abruptly. “Oh, Christ. Mrs. Siple. Are you for real? She tried to get us on a complaint about our fence encroaching on her yard. When that didn’t pan out, she tried character assassination. I talked to a cop about it. He saw it for what it was; case closed.”

“But you do walk around naked in front of kids,” Annie said, setting her jaw slightly.

Drew shook his head. “Not other people’s kids,” he said firmly. “Jesus, talk about mood swings. How can somebody screw like a mink one minute and be such a prude the next?”

“Maybe you were a little too casual about nudity, but you seemed to be a good father.”

“I guess I should say thank you very much.”

Annie walked past Drew without a response. She went to the bathroom, shut the door behind her, and knelt at the side of the tub. Laurie was pink and shiny with several Band-Aids on her fingers and gauze wrapped around her knuckles. Because of the dressings, her hands were marooned on the sides of the tub. Otherwise she was perfectly formed. Three Barbies surrounded her, floating facedown, arms and legs extended, hair adrift like miniature drowning victims.

That’s when Annie noticed the Nokia cell phone lying on the wet floor. She picked it up. “Is this your dad’s?” she said.

Laurie clammed up and pursed her lips tight together. But she bobbed her head affirmatively. Annie slipped the phone into her purse. “This shouldn’t be in here on the floor where it can get wet,” she said.

“I really need my dad to wash me. My hands hurt if I get them wet,” Laurie said.

“Okay, I’ll tell him. But right now I have a present for you,” Annie said.

“Oh-thank you,” Laurie said apprehensively.

Annie took the medallion from her purse and carefully draped the chain around Laurie’s neck. Then she gently patted Laurie on the cheek, stood up, and left the bathroom.

Chapter Forty-one

Drew puttered in his cramped kitchen area, getting an ice tray from the small refrigerator. He dropped some cubes into two glasses and added ginger ale. In the bathroom, Laurie began to sing a lackadaisical lyric of her own invention. Annie stood very still in the middle of the room with her purse slung over her shoulder. She had her right hand stuffed into its depths.

“You know what the really hard thing is?” she said.

Drew carried the two glasses of ginger ale to his round coffee table. “What’s that?” He indicated one of the chairs, then sat in the other one.

“My father started making sexual advances toward me and my sister when we were not much older than Laurie in there,” Annie said.

Drew’s head came up abruptly. “That’s horrible.” He watched her for several beats. Annie had the feeling he was making some great male discovery about her and sex. “It must be difficult to talk about,” he said, leaning forward, looking genuinely concerned.

Smooth.

“It is, but right now I need to,” Annie said.

Drew nodded. “I’m a good listener.”

“I guess what set me off was seeing you and your daughter and you being naked. That’s like my dad; he’d wash us and then he’d show us how to-wash him.”

Drew winced. “You mean. .”

Annie nodded and studied his face. “Right, I mean.” An edge hardened in her voice that Drew hadn’t heard before. “By the time we were eleven, he had progressed to actual intercourse with Angela, my twin sister. Angela had always protected me. She convinced Dad to do it to her and leave me alone. I’d lie in bed and pray to God to help me. But the only person who helped me was my sister. I pretended I was invisible.”

Drew studied her face. Annie thought the story fascinated him. Just as he’d seemed to be excited by making love behind a curtain while his daughter watched TV fifteen feet away.

But his voice was serious. “Makes sense, denial as a cloaking mechanism. It’s one of the ways kids cope. Jeez, Annie, I’m really sorry. . how long did this go on?” He removed an ice cube from his glass and slid it in little melting circles on his sweaty chest.

“Until we were fifteen; that’s when Dad had a heart attack and died.”

“What about your mom?”

“She denied it right up until her death. Angela tried to stuff it, too. She worked hard as an attorney, but she had to take meds for depression.” Annie paused and set her jaw. “The meds didn’t work for the cancer.”

Drew winced. “Cancer? On top of. . Jesus, Annie, what happened to you?”

Annie shrugged. “I went to college in Madison. I floated from library to library and wound up back here. But when Angela died, something just. . snapped. That was just about the time Ronald Dolman was acquitted.” Annie leaned forward. “You remember Dolman?”

“Sure,” Drew said, “the child molester last summer. He was. . wait a minute.” Drew sat up, thinking out loud. “On the news last night, the prosecutor who committed suicide; they hinted she might have killed that guy last summer as well as a woman yesterday-that she was. .?”

“The Saint.”

“Yeah, the Saint.” The indulgent afterglow dropped from Drew’s face. He narrowed his eyes. “What are we talking about here?”

Annie withdrew her hand from the purse and dropped the medallion and chain on the table.

He pushed the chain with his finger. “What’s this?”

“St. Nicholas, he’s the patron saint of children. That’s why I gave one to Laurie just now.”

Drew sat up and looked at the bathroom door. “Wait a minute, you what?”

“Hung it around her neck, to protect her.”

Drew began to breathe more rapidly.

Here comes the first fear, Annie thought. “Do you know how Ronald Dolman