SUMMER of FEAR Read Free Page A

had never—
    Never. Not once. Not even close.
    I can remember standing there, weight back on my heels, thighs
quivering, face raised to the ceiling, mouth stretched open to release a howl
that I instead choked dead in my throat. The throttled scream came from deep
inside, from my very toes, felt like—a wild discharge that left my eyes
throbbing and terrible pain from my stomach clear up to my jaw. The peace
symbols swirled around me.
    I went to the side where her face was. I turned toward her and, bending
low, looked into her dull gray eyes. They were lifeless and remote as old
glass.
    Never, in ten years—
    Reaching out from the red that had settled over me--- everything I saw
was red, tinged in red, outlined in red, steeps in it, drenched in it—I touched
my fingers to my lips, then stretched my hand toward hers. From my mouth to
Amber's, a distance it seemed my hand would never cover, how much farther could
it be? And what a cold and trembling arrival, fingertip to cool gray lip!
    I stood. In the bathroom, I got a handful of toilet paper went back to
Amber, and for a moment looked around the room again. I noted the packed
suitcases—still open—on the floor beside the walk-in. Where had Amber been
going? I force myself to look at her again. Then I knelt, reached out my hand,
hesitated, then reached out again, wiping her lips with it. Then the light
switch in her bedroom as I turned it off. The other switches, too—all of them,
even ones I was sure I hadn't touched. Then the spot where I'd fingered the
screen-door flap, the front doorknob, and a few red, dreamlike moments later, finally, the same cold brass handle of Amber's gate that Martin Parish had cleansed.
    It was roughly
ten thousand miles to my car.
    I drove to Main
Beach and waded along the shore, soaking myself to the thighs. I jammed my
hands in the sand, threw the seawater against my face. I stood there,
knee-deep, and scrubbed my arms with the rough, dripping mud. Now what? I could
call the cops—anonymous tip. I could call the cops, tell them who I was, and
that Martin Parish had killed his ex-wife. I could do nothing, sit back, wait,
and watch them go to work. The one thing, though, that I was not going to
do—even with the smell of murder in my nostrils—was to admit that I had been at
(inside!) Amber Wilson's home, ever. For Isabella, I told myself. For us.
    I had one more thought. And though it
seemed as dismal a product as my mind had yet rendered, I will confess also to
the sizable thrill that accompanied it down my spine and into the chaos of my
heart. As I stood there, earnestly grinding my fingernails into the abrading
Pacific sand, I realized I might have just stumbled onto the biggest story of
my life. Golden material, pure and mine only. Play this smart, I told
myself. For here was more than a secret life, more than a diversion. Here upon
my platter was the kind of event— event! —that, if handled right, could do
more for my career than a dozen secondhand crime books. I knew these people.
I'd been there. I felt a little sick to see finally, in all its hidden
rapacity, the true face of my own ambition. But at that moment, with the chill
of the ocean working its way up my legs and arms, what shame could find airtime
in a soul still writhing with the image of pure horror that was Amber's face?
    Finally, I went back across the beach
to my car in the light of the half moon. Couples walked arm in arm. Lovers
kissed on the boardwalk. A dog trotted by.
    Sojah seh.
    So God speaks.
    Suddenly, it hit me how badly I
wanted to be home, in bed beside Isabella. The yearning surged over me as if a
dam had been blown. Gad, take me back. I drove fast out the canyon, up the
winding road that ends at our precarious, stilted horne.
    In the kitchen, I checked my knees
for blood. I saw none but sprayed them with a stain lifter, anyway. Stripping
down upstairs, I threw everything washable into the hamper.
    I showered forever—hot at first,