Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,16

presence of Vic’s mother. The other thing he couldn’t talk about, not even with Alvie—and God knows he would never discuss it with Vic.

Harm’s mother, Sylvia, swore that Vivian Plumley rehearsed that voice of hers, trained it, so that it would sound sexy and “drive the men wild.” That was Sylvia’s exact phrase: “drive the men wild.” Like most of the women in Norbitt, Sylvia did not like Vivian Plumley. Harm had overhead his mother and some of the other mothers talking about Vivian, claiming that she had been observed at the edge of the woods a few months back, standing by her car, shouting until she was hoarse, trying to permanently lower her voice. Make it sexier. Was it true? Maybe. Harm didn’t know. But the other things about her—her jutting breasts and her full hips and her mouth, a mouth that was never without a generous splash of red lipstick—had nothing to do with shouting at the woods.

Harm could not think about her too much. If he did, things happened to him, confusing things. Things he could not control.

“Yes, ma’am,” Alvie said. “I had my breakfast.”

“Harmon? How about you?” Vivian Plumley said, looking down at him.

“Me, too, ma’am.”

She seemed a little disappointed. Harm wondered if he should have said no. If he had lied, she would have invited him into the kitchen and he could have been in the same room with her for as long as it took him to eat a second breakfast. Oatmeal, probably, is what it would have been. Or maybe pancakes. Hard to say.

The screen door closed. She did not slam it. Only kids slammed screen doors, Harm thought.

For some reason, he wished she had slammed it. Just let it go. That would have put something final and absolute between the moment when Vivian Plumley was there, and the next moment, when she wasn’t there. A dividing line. A boundary. But without the slam, it was as if she might still be there behind him, waiting at the screen door, watching. He knew she wasn’t—she never spied on them, not like his own mother did—but without the slam, she could be. She could still be standing there, with that slight smile on her lips, a smile of faint amusement but not ridicule or mockery. Without the slam, she continued to be present. It was as if she spent the day with him. Invisible—but still there. Distracting him.

Harm thought about Vivian Plumley lots of days, of course, but this day was one that he would remember for as long as he remembered things.

Because this day—the day of Vic’s twelfth birthday—was the day they committed murder. The three of them did it. Each boy was equally responsible.

Okay, well. Maybe Vic was a little more responsible. That’s what Harm and Alvie both thought later, and who could say it wasn’t so, but they kept that conclusion to themselves. Because it seemed grubby and small and disloyal. In the event, they agreed that the blame would be apportioned equally, that they would think of it one way and one way only, and that was how they would learn to live with what they had done.

Chapter Three

The snow rose high on both sides of the road. The plow had been out here early, its blade pushing back a thick continuous curl of snow like a razor slicing through shaving cream on pitted gray skin. Carla had not actually seen the plow—that was hours ago—but she could imagine it doing its work based on the size of the ramparts lining the road: the heavy scraping sound, the patient, straight-ahead effort.

She was grateful for the clear road. She needed to make this journey in a hurry, before she changed her mind.

She had stopped just once.

“All outta Diet Dr Pepper.” The old woman behind the counter at the little store had offered five words and no smile. She wore an oversized flannel shirt. Her hair was a runaway blaze of white fuzz. She looked very tired. Everything sagged—her face, her breasts, the skin on her neck. “Got Coke and Sprite and Dew, though.”

Carla wanted a can of Diet Dr Pepper. No: She had to have a can of Diet Dr Pepper. It was a symbol, not a liquid. It was her reward to herself for having gotten this far, and it was her incentive to keep going. As her agitation had increased, she’d persuaded herself that if she could just get a can of Diet Dr Pepper, she’d be okay. It