Chapter Thirty-One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

JOE PRIOR ENJOYS his long Sunday drives. He goes all the way to Quebec, Canada. There's a girl there he likes the look of. She works at a Couche-Tard store. His guess is she's about sixteen. A good age.

Through the week his routine is to work and go home and have supper, drink a few beers and go to bed. Sometimes Roddy comes over for a few. Construction is hard work, but the weekends are devoted to pleasure. He'd driven to Littleton, New Hampshire, yesterday, and today it's Magog, Quebec. He likes to check out his favourites and then cruise around looking for other cute girls working the cash register somewhere. When he finds ones he likes, and he's rather particular, he tries to learn more about them. He doesn't want to know what their dreams or aspirations are – he really doesn't care. What he does is follow them home after their shift sometimes, careful not to be noticed, so that he knows where they live. And once he knows where one of his girls lives, he will sometimes stay there long into the night, watching her house.

He tries to figure out who lives there with her, what their routines are. He studies the location, the doors, the windows, and how he might get in, the surroundings where he might park the truck, how he might get away. He commits it all to memory. It's all part of the fun. If it seems too risky – if the girl lives with a large family, like that girl Georgia, that was a shame – he gives up. He couldn't see any way to get at her with so much going on in that house. But it's surprising how many girls live with only their mothers. So many fathers are not around these days. That certainly makes it easier. Roddy's been asking where he goes on the weekend. Nosy little shit. Joe told him he has a buddy in Quebec with a cabin and he goes to see him some weekends, to do a little hunting or fishing. When Roddy asked him where his hunting and fishing gear was, he told him he didn't have any himself, he uses his friend's. Roddy recently asked if he could go with him there one day – he likes to hunt and fish, he grew up in New Brunswick. For fuck's sake, that's not going to happen. There is no friend with a cabin.

Ellen is numb and unbending as Brad tries to get her to stay.

He offers to make a nice dinner, asks her to spend the night. He tells her he's missed her, and that now that she understands why he was avoiding her, everything is okay. Now that she knows everything, he tells her, he just wants her near him. He tells her over and over again that he loves her, that he can't wait to marry her.

But Ellen is afraid she doesn't know everything, and she doesn't want to stay. She can't just accept this disturbing information and have everything go back to normal. She needs time to think, and she can't think when she's around him. This is all too overwhelming.

He's been coaching her on what to say to the police. Just tell the truth , he says, as if she wouldn't. And anyway, she doesn't know anything. What can she tell them? Tell them that you know me, that you know it never happened, that she was exaggerating. You know I would never do anything like that.

But she doesn't know, not for sure.

Something is off about all this. He seems to be … overreacting. What is he so worried about? If what he told the reporter is true, that his friendly gestures were completely misinterpreted, and if that's all it was, why is he so scared? What are these lies Diana told that he won't share with her?

It's important that you stand by me.

He's even said it was too bad she hadn't spent the night here with him on Thursday, because then none of this would be happening. As if it's her fault he doesn't have an alibi. It frightens her that he even needs an alibi.

Maybe she should talk to Kelly, she thinks. He would know.

‘So, will you stay the night?' Brad coaxes.

She thinks about going home, the questioning looks from her parents. They know something's going on. What is she going to tell them? There's nowhere she can go right now and not carry this burden with her.

As she watches him waiting for her answer, his cell phone buzzes.

Brad glances anxiously at his cell phone on the coffee table. His nerves spike. Fuck. Not now.

‘Who's that?' Ellen asks apprehensively.

‘Graham Kelly.' His voice is tight. He'd rather not do this in front of Ellen.

‘Aren't you going to get it?' she asks.

She's watching him, as if it's a test. He lets it ring twice more before he picks it up. ‘Yes?'

Kelly says, ‘Brad, there's something you should know.' He sounds tense.

‘Put it on speaker,' Ellen says. Her voice is cold.

Brad can't let this all go haywire. He thinks quickly. ‘Hi Graham. Ellen's here, so I'm going to put you on speaker, okay?' He's got to hope that he can trust Kelly not to say anything stupid. But he hadn't liked the way Kelly had looked at him that morning, hadn't liked using leverage. ‘I've told her about Diana's allegations. She's been great. Very supportive.' He glances at Ellen; she looks more frozen than supportive.

‘That's good,' Kelly says carefully. ‘Hi, Ellen.'

‘Hi,' Ellen says.

‘It's good that you told her,' Kelly says, ‘because things are about to get ugly.' His voice is tight.

‘I already know,' Brad says wearily. ‘A reporter was here a little while ago. I had to throw her out.'

‘That one from KCVS?'

‘Yeah.'

‘She was here too,' Kelly says.

Brad wishes he knew exactly what Kelly had said to her, but he's not about to ask now, not with Ellen listening.

‘There's something else you need to be worried about.'

Brad's heart almost stops. ‘What?'

‘Another girl has come forward today, about you. She's gone to the police.'

‘What?' Brad says, his world spinning.

‘I thought you should know,' Kelly says, and hangs up, as if he wants nothing more to do with it.

Ellen leaps up and runs to the bathroom. He hears her retching into the toilet.