Ben.”
“Good night.”
He waited until he heard the click of the lock and the rattle of chain before he turned and walked down the hall. A problem, he thought again. One hell of a problem.
H E'D been walking for hours. When he let himself into his apartment he was almost too tired to stand. In the past few months he found he slept dreamlessly only if he exhausted himself first.
It wasn't necessary to turn on a light; he knew the way. Ignoring the need to rest, he went past his bedroom. Sleep would come only after he'd completed this last duty. The room beyond was always locked. When he opened it he drew in the faint, feminine scent of the fresh flowers he put there daily. The priest's robe hung by the closet door. Draped over it, the amice was a slash of white.
Striking a match, he lit the first candle, then another and another, until the shadows waved on the pristine surface of the altar cloth.
There was a picture there in a silver frame of a young woman, blond and smiling. Forever she'd been captured, young, innocent, and happy. Pink roses had been her favorite, and it was their scent that mixed with the burning candles.
In smaller frames were the carefully clipped newspaper prints of three other women. Carla Johnson, Barbara Clayton, Francie Bowers. Folding his hands, he knelt before them.
There were so many others, he thought. So many. He'd only just begun.
Chapter 4
T HE BOY SAT across from Tess, quiet and sullen. He didn't fidget or look out of the window. He rarely did. Instead, he sat in the chair and looked down at his own knees. His hands lay spread on his thighs, the fingers slender, the knuckles a bit enlarged from nervous cracking. The nails were bitten down below the quick. Signs of nerves, yet people often go through life well enough while cracking and snapping and chewing on themselves.
It was rare for him to look at the person he was speaking with, or more accurately in his case, the person speaking to him. Every time she managed to get him to make eye contact, she felt both a small victory and a small pang. There was so little she could see in his eyes, for he'd learned at a young age how to shield and conceal. What she did see—when she was given even that rare, quick chance to look—was not resentment, not fear, only a trace of boredom.
Life had not played fair with Joseph Higgins, Jr., and he wasn't taking any chances on being slipped another shot below the belt. At his age, when adults calledthe plays, he chose isolation and noncommunication as defense against a lack of choice. Tess knew the symptoms. Lack of outward emotion, lack of motivation, lack of interest. A lack.
Somehow, some way, she had to find the trigger that would push him back to caring first about himself, then the world around him.
He was too old for her to play games with, too young for her to meet on the level of adult to adult. She had tried both, and he'd accepted neither. Joey Higgins had placed himself firmly in an in-between space. Adolescence wasn't simply awkward for him, it was miserable.
He was wearing jeans, good, solid jeans, with the button fly raved about in the slick commercials, and a gray sweatshirt with the Maryland terrapin grinning across his chest. His leather high-top Nike's were trendy and new. Light brown hair was cut into moderate spikes around a too thin face. Outwardly he looked like an average fourteen-year-old boy. All the trappings were there. Inside he was a maze of confusion, self-hate, and bitterness that Tess knew she hadn't even begun to touch.
It was unfortunate that instead of being a confidante, a wailing wall, or even a blank sheet of paper to him, she was only one more authority figure in his life. If just once he'd broken out and shouted or argued with her, she would have felt the sessions were progressing. Through them all, he remained polite and unresponsive.
“How are you feeling about school, Joey?”
He didn't shrug. It was as if even that movement might give away
“Good night.”
He waited until he heard the click of the lock and the rattle of chain before he turned and walked down the hall. A problem, he thought again. One hell of a problem.
H E'D been walking for hours. When he let himself into his apartment he was almost too tired to stand. In the past few months he found he slept dreamlessly only if he exhausted himself first.
It wasn't necessary to turn on a light; he knew the way. Ignoring the need to rest, he went past his bedroom. Sleep would come only after he'd completed this last duty. The room beyond was always locked. When he opened it he drew in the faint, feminine scent of the fresh flowers he put there daily. The priest's robe hung by the closet door. Draped over it, the amice was a slash of white.
Striking a match, he lit the first candle, then another and another, until the shadows waved on the pristine surface of the altar cloth.
There was a picture there in a silver frame of a young woman, blond and smiling. Forever she'd been captured, young, innocent, and happy. Pink roses had been her favorite, and it was their scent that mixed with the burning candles.
In smaller frames were the carefully clipped newspaper prints of three other women. Carla Johnson, Barbara Clayton, Francie Bowers. Folding his hands, he knelt before them.
There were so many others, he thought. So many. He'd only just begun.
Chapter 4
T HE BOY SAT across from Tess, quiet and sullen. He didn't fidget or look out of the window. He rarely did. Instead, he sat in the chair and looked down at his own knees. His hands lay spread on his thighs, the fingers slender, the knuckles a bit enlarged from nervous cracking. The nails were bitten down below the quick. Signs of nerves, yet people often go through life well enough while cracking and snapping and chewing on themselves.
It was rare for him to look at the person he was speaking with, or more accurately in his case, the person speaking to him. Every time she managed to get him to make eye contact, she felt both a small victory and a small pang. There was so little she could see in his eyes, for he'd learned at a young age how to shield and conceal. What she did see—when she was given even that rare, quick chance to look—was not resentment, not fear, only a trace of boredom.
Life had not played fair with Joseph Higgins, Jr., and he wasn't taking any chances on being slipped another shot below the belt. At his age, when adults calledthe plays, he chose isolation and noncommunication as defense against a lack of choice. Tess knew the symptoms. Lack of outward emotion, lack of motivation, lack of interest. A lack.
Somehow, some way, she had to find the trigger that would push him back to caring first about himself, then the world around him.
He was too old for her to play games with, too young for her to meet on the level of adult to adult. She had tried both, and he'd accepted neither. Joey Higgins had placed himself firmly in an in-between space. Adolescence wasn't simply awkward for him, it was miserable.
He was wearing jeans, good, solid jeans, with the button fly raved about in the slick commercials, and a gray sweatshirt with the Maryland terrapin grinning across his chest. His leather high-top Nike's were trendy and new. Light brown hair was cut into moderate spikes around a too thin face. Outwardly he looked like an average fourteen-year-old boy. All the trappings were there. Inside he was a maze of confusion, self-hate, and bitterness that Tess knew she hadn't even begun to touch.
It was unfortunate that instead of being a confidante, a wailing wall, or even a blank sheet of paper to him, she was only one more authority figure in his life. If just once he'd broken out and shouted or argued with her, she would have felt the sessions were progressing. Through them all, he remained polite and unresponsive.
“How are you feeling about school, Joey?”
He didn't shrug. It was as if even that movement might give away
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