BONE DEEP

  BONE DEEP

  A Novel

  By

  Brooklyn Skye

  * * * *

  BONE DEEP

  Copyright©2014 by Brooklyn Skye

  Cover design by Okay Creations

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Other books by Brooklyn Skye:

  STRIPPED

  WITHOUT YOU

  FRAGILE LINE

  “Part your lips a bit more, and I’ll swallow your fear.”

  ~Burn Me Up Inside, Bone Deep

  Chapter One

  It isn’t ironic that instead of Jess feeling me up tonight it’s a cop.

  Ironic would be if this officer was the same who searched Dad for syringes or tubes or those stupid, bent tweezers before transporting him to a room secured with bars.

  Ironic would be if these were the same handcuffs that touched Dad’s wrists, which means I’m touching him for the first time in a year. Or more, considering Dad’s never been the pat-on-the-back sort of parent.

  Ironic would be if one of these drunk idiots sitting cross-legged in a line on the dirt recorded Officer Wells’s interrogation and sent it to Dad with a message that read: Way to be a role model, Pops! But none of my friends would risk the chance to move because all of them have everything to lose. Wells holds out his gigantic hand.

  “ID?”

  Now this is amusing. Because let’s say I did have my wallet with me, it’d be located in my back left pocket. But because Officer Shirt Too Small was suffering from short-man syndrome standing a foot below me, my ridiculously tight cuffs make it impossible to reach into my pocket. So say my wallet was in my pocket, what would be proper protocol?

  Let him reach in and grab it?

  Stick my cheek out to give him easy access?

  I train my eyes on his forehead. “You already patted me down. Don’t you think you would’ve felt it?” Beside us, the fire swells; blots of orange and yellow crawl across his acne-pitted face. His small eyes shift to the half-empty beer on the boulder beside me. It’s not mine. I don’t care if he thinks it is.

  “Age?”

  “Eighteen.” I stare over the line of heads, some bowed in fear of being caught drinking under age, others tipped back for a better view of our sad, gray-starred sky. Just past them, the edge of the cliff and a fifty-foot drop spilling into a deep ravine. I’m only twenty feet from it. Short Stuff is busy writing something down on a clipboard; I could make a break for it—

  “Anyone you can call?”

  “Call? Yeah, of course.” Flames lick my leg. I force a grin. “Do you, by any chance, know the number to Riverside County Jail?”

  The pen stops. He looks up. “You being smart with me?” I open my mouth for my best No, sir, I most certainly am not, but his hand latches onto my arm and drags me to his unit all the while muttering something about not having time for show-offs like me. Behind me, whispering voices mingle with the cool, night air. I can’t decipher their words; so I pretend I can.

  Poor Ledoux.

  Like father, like son.

  And Jess: Just be quiet, and do what they say.

  I grit my teeth against the ugly feeling scraping its way up my throat, close my eyes, and breathe through my nose.

  “Have a seat,” the officer orders as he yanks open the door. A cloud of musty air escapes from the backseat of the car. I want to ask him if it’s been wiped down with antiseptic recently because all I can imagine is spit and sweat and piss scuttling the pleather seats, but he continues with: “What’s your name, son?”

  I cringe. “Krister Ledoux.” My dull fingertips press into my palms as I wait for it—the name to register. It usually doesn’t take long. Seconds pass then, casually, he drapes his arm over the top of the door.

  “Son of Stephen Ledoux?”

  “Regrettably.”

  Quietly, he absorbs this. Perhaps deciding if it’d be unprofessional to tell me what he really thinks of my dad and, consequently, me. After a moment, he settles on mumbling under his breath something about “a waste of space,” and I have no idea if he’s referring to me or my father. Another cop behind him summons Ditty off the ground. Ditty’s shitting his pants, and if my name wasn’t simmering in my chest—hot and acidic—inside I’d laugh at the way my friend nods feverishly with each question. His answers are short and skirted with yes, sirs and no, sirs.

  Like I said: Everything to lose.

  After a moment, Officer Wells tilts his head, his chiseled face not breaking expression at all. “No one else to call? Your mother?”

  I ignore his last question, shift my bound arms out from behind me, and say with a sigh, “I do. I’ll need my hands, though.”

  Ten minutes later Wrenn emerges from her Camry, cigarette stuck to her bottom lip and a god-awful Hawaiian skirt hanging to her ankles. A pea-sized clump of clay clings to her jagged bangs, the color of cement and dried to a crisp.

  “Jesus, K,” she says, tugging her skimpy tank top over her bellybutton.

  Nope, this isn’t embarrassing. At all.

  “Officer,” she says, polite and unrushed, “I’m so sorry—”

  Wells holds up his hand to stop her. “No need to apologize. Are you his sister?”

  “I am.”

  A laugh bubbles out from my lips. They both lower their gazes to me, Wrenn’s stare hardening. I look away, resisting the urge to ask some brotherly question that’d embarrass the impending mock lecture right out of her and tune them both out until I’m in her car, spans of orange groves sailing by as we drive deeper into Chanton. Wrenn lights another cigarette, and the heavy scent of orange blossoms fills the car as she rolls down her window. I press my head into the headrest.

  “Sister?”

  She shrugs, the tip of her cigarette glowing. “It’s just easier.” Smoke trails out her nose. “People look at me, you know. When they figure it out—who you are. And me.”

  They look at her because she’s dating my dad who’s almost double her age. Because her skin’s too smooth and tits too tight up against his crow’s feet and love handles. I suppose it could be worse; Dad’s taste in women could’ve spanned into cougar territory, sticking me with some old hag who interrupts my showers with a knock and a reminder to wash behind my ears. Someone who’d question why I was in the canyon with a few cases of beer or not let me out of the house at all after what happened the last time at Krispy’s.

  Wrenn’s cool; I’ll give her that.

  Ahead, downtown Chanton glimmers bright. I roll my head to the side. “They can’t believe you’d stay with him, that’s why they look at you.” I don’t soften my tone. Eight people dead; three words floating down from the ambiguous dark, coating my tongue with a bitter film.

  Wrenn follows Stone Road to the back entrance of the complex. The metal gate swings wide, and she says in her deep, calm voice, “He’s a good man, K. People are allowed to make mistakes.”

  I glare at her. She doesn’t see.

  “Speaking of…” Her words trail off, followed by a whisper of the other two she doesn’t need to say: your father. She slips a small envelope from her purse and hands it to me. “This came today.”

  Cream colored like the last one. Addressed simply to Wrenn’s apartment; no recipient name, no return address. Still, my fingers burn as I tug a
t the stiff, paper flap.

  “You didn’t open it?”

  Wrenn’s lips purse around her cigarette. “You can’t take that stuff seriously.” My gut clenches at her indifference. The paper emerges just as the car shuts off. The door opens and closes, and then it’s just me with a line of words scorching like fire in my hand. The writing’s no different than the others; precarious letters filled with anger and hatred so strong they move as if they have a life of their own, scream at me from the small square of paper, finalized with a puddle of ink where the pen must’ve thrown up at the thought of ending the sentence. Discolored stains polka-dot the page—tears, most likely, considering who sent it.

  Shall we admire the pattern forming?

  Murderous filigree.

  I lean against the dash. Whichever one of them wrote this thinks I should’ve died, too. Been found mangled and twisted in metal upon the freezing, winter ground.

  Here, the only pattern forming is the more letters I get the more pissed off I become. And I’ll be damned if I sit quietly while some psychopath slowly hunts and kills me with little, white envelopes.

  Wrenn shouts from the front door of the apartment, “You want me to pitch a tent out there for you?” Maybe the note’s for her. She was more involved than I was, texting Dad I love yous and what do you want for dinners and pictures of the day’s output on the wheel just before the train crashed. Probably herself, too, even though the investigation never proved that.

  I fold the paper and slip it into the envelope, add it to the contents of my pocket and join Wrenn in the tiny kitchen.

  “Another useless message,” I say with as little emotion as I can manage, leaning against the dingy countertop. “Something about a bloody, twisted design?”

  Wrenn turns from the fridge, taking a second too long to find that maternal, don’t-be-silly smile. “Quit taking it personally, K.” Ashes fall from her cigarette onto her shirt, and she swipes them away. “These people are releasing their anguish, purifying their souls after a horrible accident. Let them get it off their chests. They’ll stop eventually.”

  Eventually. I try to make it fit—envision a day when crinkled paper and words of animosity don’t populate Wrenn’s mailbox weekly. When the life stolen from me will be kindly returned and memories of this past year will mutate into something less torturous. But I can’t, because “eventually” feels too far off.

  In my room I shove aside my blowing gloves, forcing away the urge to slip them on and sink back into my old self—remember the feeling of melting away the world with the deliberation of wrapping beads and dipping punties—and instead pull out the wooden box and drop in the note. The felted bottom and padding of cream-colored envelopes silences its landing. The lid creaks closed and from beneath I peel the folded square of paper, the tape so old and dry it barely clings to the wood anymore. I scan The List of names; six sliced with a single line. Two intact. Evan Bencich is next. Maybe he’s the one.

  Chapter Two

  It’s not really what I expect. I mean, someone who was riding the train, living in this house? If that’s what you’d call it. Mansion might be better fitting with its mile-long driveway, bushes shaped like stuffed animals, and spewing fountains. You’d think the guy could afford a car. Or three.

  Quietly I catch a line up the side of the huge, manicured lawn, sticking close to the fence as possible to avoid being spotted through the lamp-lit windows. Bushes conceal me up the driveway, and then I make a break for the side of the house.

  Evan Bencich. Seventh victim of my dad’s “mistake.”

  Maybe he was the snooty, city-boy type who went his entire life without learning to drive. Or was so rich he had an on-call driver around the clock to take him wherever he wanted. Guess that wouldn’t explain why he was riding public transportation, though, unless the driver was sick or something.

  With my back pressed tight against the stucco wall, I check my watch. 7:36. This needs to be quick if I want to make it to class on time. I scale the low, wooden fence to the back, land in a crouch, and say a quick prayer that the Bencich’s don’t own a guard dog. No food bowls, kennels, or shit shovels adorn the cemented side yard. Hopefully that means I’m safe.

  I move soundlessly to the rear of the house and, just as I round the corner, a black box with a circular lens along the fence stares at me. Of course a house like this would have a security camera. I duck my head and lift my hood, careful to pull my sweatshirt over my palms before scaling the patio railing. The windows along the back are shrouded with heavy curtains, and useless. Wrapping around the other side of the house, I find myself on the porch again, in front of the lone, uncovered window.

  I lean in. A circle of breath swells over the glass. Inside, the house is just as elaborate as the front. Chandeliers dangle from the ceiling, fancy pillows garnish the uncomfortable-looking couch; all looking very unused and avoided.

  I start for the porch steps, thinking: This might be the first house I don’t get a first-shot clue. Thinking: Ms. Huckins won’t be the only one giving me dirty looks if I slip in late again when unexpectedly a shadow passes over the tiled floor. I freeze, wishing—hoping—whoever’s in there hasn’t spotted me and will keep on walking.

  To my right, the monstrous, wooden door creaks open. Shit, I’ve never approached any of them before. Never spoken a word. Unless you count Don Koelsch, husband of Elsa, who prayed in the park for God to “help my lost soul” when really I was watching him feed the pigeons, thinking: he’d never write me those letters, and it’s a good thing ’cause I don’t want to punch an old guy in the face.

  Quickly, I squat behind a potted plant, use its wide leaves to cover the majority of my face. A second passes. A car whizzes by on the street below. Then I let out a breath and straighten; I refuse to be caught hiding behind a plant like one of America’s Dumbest Criminals.

  The door swings open to a woman in a bathrobe with gray-streaked hair, kinked and sticking out on the sides.

  “Can I help you?” she says, raspy like she just woke up. I stare at her, the hollow in her neck and wrinkles crawling out from it. I bet she’s his wife. Widow. She holds out her hand, palm facing the morning sky as gravelly words tumble out of her thin-lipped mouth, each one as heavy as a boulder. “Is Joe sick today?”

  “Oh, um…” I ease back a step. This is really awkward. “I don’t know who Joe is. I’m—”

  She jabs her hand out farther. “I don’t need to know your name. Just give me the damn package.”

  Someone like her could’ve written the letters, announced it should’ve been me and not her husband lying lifeless on the ground in her strange, poetic way. My worn-out shoes hold my attention. I shake my head.

  “Ma’am,” I say, displaying my empty hands. “I’m not a delivery guy. I don’t have any packages. I came here to talk about Evan Bencich.” This is really, really stupid—mentioning his name. Still, more words spew out of my mouth. “The one who, um, was in the train wreck last year? He lived here, right?”

  Her breath catches, and then silence; the moving sort that swishes like water in my ears. She tips her chin, a bizarre look of recognition crossing her face.

  “Did you know Evan from school?”

  “Was he a professor?” This question is stupid, and I realize this about two seconds after it comes out. A teacher’s salary could never afford this house. Not the crystals above her head, the fancy tile she’s standing barefoot on, the freakin’ glass atrium behind her overflowing with brown, shriveled death.

  A squiggly line crawls across her forehead. “Professor?” She looks me up and down and manages to crack a tiny smile. “Evan hated school. Didn’t want to go to UCLA like his dad, didn’t want to go to college at all. He’d never become a teacher.”

  Didn’t want to go to college? So that means: “He was in high school?”

  She nods, standing a little straighter. “A senior at Bennington. Did you know him?”

  All at once, I feel sick. How did I not realize he was a sen
ior? It wouldn’t have been that hard to find out more about him—that he was fucking seventeen. Not forty.

  I shake my head. “I don’t live…” I start to tell her my imprisoned father would never have enough money to live here in Sunset Heights, send his son to Bennington High, even before he had to peddle his tiny, two-bedroom house to pay his legal fees, but stop. I don’t want her to know who I am. Don’t want to see her face twist furiously when she finds out my last name is the same as the man who killed her son.

  I jam my hands into my pockets. Her face crinkles again, lips pucker with another question, and maybe this was a bad idea. Coming here. Butting in. I don’t care if it was her. The letters.

  “I have to go,” I say and hop down the steps. “Sorry to bother you.” I get five feet away, thinking the big, fancy door should be clicking shut any second now but then—

  “Did you ever see him play?”

  For a reason I can’t explain, I stop. Turn. “Play?”

  “The Gas Caps.” She steps out onto the porch, sunlight highlighting the dips in her cheeks, the sickly collarbone clawing out of her skin. I have no idea what The Gas Caps are, but I want her to stop talking, want to get out of here, so I tell her, “Yes, I’ve heard Evan play,” and run down the driveway with her dull stare burning into the back of me.

  In my car, I google The Gas Caps from my phone. It’s the name of a bar in Ohio, and of a hat store in Colorado, and the third listing down…

  A band. The Gas Caps is a local, Southern Californian band. And they’re playing tonight at the Underground.

  ~*~

  “You look hot in handcuffs.” Ditty claps me on the back, replacing the last image I saw of him—quivering lips and bulgy eyes—with a smile.

  “Better than with a piss stain on my jeans?”

  Jess rounds my other shoulder. Her blue-eyed stare slides over the side of my head. I don’t look at her.