I’d even dated (and gotten laid). Alas, none of these men worked out and it wasn’t like I always had a guy. But at least I had some companionship that was more than shooting the breeze with Milagros, going to her house for dinner when she asked me, or hanging out with my girls in town.
As far as I knew, and I knew not very far because I knew him not at all, nothing had changed for John Priest, except he had an updated SUV.
I wondered, vaguely—which was the only way I allowed myself to wonder before I shut it down—where he was after one in the morning.
Then I focused on the cabins, the one with the boys being lit up like a beacon, but worse, the cabins on either side of it and three more besides had lights on. Lights I knew that had been turned on because they were probably right now phoning my cell to tell me to do something about this crap.
I felt my blood pressure rise as I tightened my grip on the bat and stomped up the steps to cabin six. Horizon cabin. The cabin painted in the muted blues and grays and purples of a Rocky Mountain horizon with prints of horizon vistas on the walls.
The Navigator was out front, as was another SUV.
I walked right to the door and knocked. Loudly.
The music went off quickly. A lot more quickly than the door opened.
In fact, the door didn’t open at all.
I hammered on it, shouting, “Open up!”
“Who is it?” a boy-man’s voice shouted back.
I didn’t share who I was because he knew who I was.
Instead, I threatened, “Open up immediately or I’m calling the police!”
Several moments passed before the door opened. But not far. I still caught a glimpse of the space beyond filled with food wrappers, beer cans (in fact, on the coffee table there was a beer can pyramid and it wasn’t a small one—how was it that the youth of America never got out of doing stupid crap like that?) and the couch was covered in bodies. Two to be precise.
A boy on top.
A girl on the bottom.
And another girl who was not on the couch but on her feet. She disappeared out of sight within moments of the door being opened.
At what I took in, more precisely, at the way the girl was laying there, a feeling of dread shifted through me as the tall, rather muscular, very fit boy who I guessed was the parents’ actual son filled the narrow space he’d opened the door.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Open the door and let me in,” I demanded.
He didn’t open the door.
He said, “Sorry about the music. We won’t turn it on again.”
I held his eyes and informed him, “I need to speak to your parents.”
He shifted out of the space, not totally but so I couldn’t see his face. Then he shifted back and said, “They’re asleep.”
Did he seriously think I was that stupid?
“I need to speak to them right now.”
“Maybe you can talk to them in the morning,” he suggested.
Ugh.
What a punk.
I put my hand with the flashlight on the door and pushed.