Eye of the Beholder Read online

  Kate’s pitiful meow came from the backyard again. Vince made a tsking sound. “Really, I should call the SPCA. It’s just abominable how some people treat their animals.” With a hateful laugh, he went out into the night.

  Leah leaped up and, limping painfully to the door, she closed and locked it.

  Then she remembered Kate and wondered how she would find the courage to go out into the night and retrieve her cat, meowing, wet, and suffering, from the box by the back wall.

  Still thinking she didn’t have the guts, she opened the door, crossed the patio, and hurried, terrified, into the darkness and the rain.

  Chapter 23

  Monday

  The uniformed policeman with the crew cut asked Celia’s permission to put the flyer up on the window. Celia asked Greer, who said, “Yes, of course.”

  The young officer took the black-and-white notices and taped them to window, one facing out and one facing in. It was simple, a single sheet, slightly blurry, like a bad school photo reproduced too many times, and a few words handwritten underneath it that read, Missing, Zoe Caldwell. Last seen Saturday, January 25, in the vicinity of Foothill Boulevard and Mount Gleason. If you have any information please call the Foothill Precinct. It then gave a brief physical description as well as a phone and case number.

  When the officer had thanked them and gone, Greer moved in to look at the picture more carefully, feeling a wave of old emotion. Sarah. This girl was maybe Sarah’s age, and she was missing. She regarded the photo. In it the girl was smiling, but she didn’t look happy. Her short dark hair looked limp and dirty, pulled back on one side with a single bobby pin.

  And then over the girl’s picture was suddenly superimposed the figure of an eye. Greer gasped and reeled back. The eye in her vision was drawn in fire. She saw the girl’s face surrounded by blackness, and knew that she would die soon. She gasped and pulled her hands up to her mouth and then felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” It was Sterling, and as she turned to look at him, horror-struck, tears filled her eyes. Sterling glanced at the photo and scanned it quickly. He pulled her into an awkward, first-time hug. “Do you know her?”

  “No,” Greer said, grateful for his comfort, but unable to release the image of the burning eye over the girl. “But I know something about her.” She pulled back and looked up at him. He seemed both curious and slightly nervous, as though he suspected she might have hysterical tendencies. Greer knew that it would be a long stretch for him to believe what she had seen, so she just said, “I had a best friend who was taken and killed when she was about that age. I’ve never really gotten over it.”

  “I guess not,” Sterling said. “That’s not the kind of thing you ever get over.” He regarded the picture again and said, “Let’s hope that she just ran off for a couple of days; teenagers do that kind of stuff sometimes. Maybe she’s okay,” he offered.

  “She’s not.” Greer said it in a whisper.

  “How do you know?” Sterling asked sharply.

  “I can’t really explain it. Sometimes I just know things.”

  She looked up at him and waited for the inevitable doubt and mockery to come into his eyes, for the change of tone in his voice, but they didn’t. Instead he continued to look sadly at the girl’s photo and said, “Well, I hope you’re wrong this time.”

  Pistol walked in the front door, his mailbag slung over his shoulder and his keys jangling on his belt. He spotted the two of them looking at the flyer, and he jerked his head at it, his eyes glowing with pleasure.

  “Know her,” he said casually. “Her family’s on my route.”

  “Seems like you know just about everyone,” Sterling commented, and managed to make it sound like a neutral comment.

  “Goes with the job,” Pistol intoned, but as he handed Greer a stack of letters the glow in his eyes deepened, and he said. “She’s bad news, that one. I’m not really surprised she ran off.”

  Greer bristled, but she stayed calm as she asked, “What do you mean, bad news?”

  “Ran with a nasty crowd; her mother couldn’t keep any kind of control over her. She was using drugs and sleeping around.”

  “You know all that from delivering her mail?” Sterling asked, his voice colder and harder than it had been before. Pistol didn’t seem to notice.

  “Sure, her mom would come out and chat with me sometimes. She was really at the end of her rope. Plus, I’ve seen her hanging out drinking and smoking with her bad-boy buddies out behind the school. It’s hard to miss when you drive by every single day.” He looked at the Xerox and then said lasciviously to Sterling, “Plus, she’s got a body it’s hard not to notice, if you know what I’m saying. And she didn’t exactly hide it.”

  “It says here she’s sixteen,” Sterling said pointedly.

  “Yeah, well, nobody told her that. She was headed for trouble.”

  Greer had heard enough of this ugly gossip. “I don’t really think it’s any of our business whether a young girl dressed sexy or smoked cigarettes. I’m just concerned about her safety.”

  “She wasn’t just smoking cigarettes,” Pistol continued, unchecked. “I’m talking about crank.”

  There was a resounding absence of comment until Sterling asked, “And how do you know that?”

  For the first time Pistol didn’t answer right away. He just smiled slightly and raised an amused eyebrow before saying, “Small town.”

  As if she’d touched an exposed electrical wire, the hairs on Greer’s arms shot up.

  Sterling sensed that their postman’s inappropriateness had gone far enough, and he interceded. “I’ve got some outgoing mail for you. If you’ll come with me I’ll give it to you.”

  Much to Greer’s relief, Sterling led Pistol out the door. As she watched him go, she remembered Jenny’s discomfort with the man, and she couldn’t have agreed more wholeheartedly. Moving quickly back to where Celia stood at the desk, she addressed her. “Celia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor. When Pistol comes in, don’t talk to him alone, okay?”

  “Why?” The young girl’s eyes had gone all round and curious.

  “Because . . .” Greer hesitated and then went on. “Because I don’t think he’s a very nice person.” It sounded hopelessly lame, but she didn’t want to frighten Celia. “Just promise me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Still shaken, Greer went back to the flyer. The image of the burning eye did not repeat itself, but it remained lingering in Greer’s memory. Was it the same eye that Joshua had seen over Joy? He had said nothing about fire. Yet she felt sure with all the power of her substantial intuition that it meant something, both to this poor girl and to Joy. She raked her mind and her feelings, but she couldn’t find any answers. She was sure of only one thing: It meant something deeply evil.

  Chapter 24

  Franklin High was a big school, and even though Joshua had spotted Joy a couple of times in the last week, it had been only by chance and from a distance. Today, though, instead of eating his lunch in the cafeteria, he ignored the drizzling rain and went to sit out under the covered awning, where he knew the smokers hung out.

  She was there, leaning against one of the posts, talking to a boy wearing a black longcoat over a black T-shirt and black jeans. The coat was so big on him it almost brushed the ground. He had the pale, sickly look of a bug that lived underground. His body was thick in the wrong places, and his yellowy eyes bulged slightly. He did not look healthy, and the badly dyed hair and eyebrows did little to complement his sallow complexion.

  Joshua sat on the end of one of the long tables and took out his sandwich. When Joy glanced his way, he pretended to notice her for the first time.

  “Hi!” he called out. “How’s it going?”

  She looked as though she might ignore him for a moment, but then, after muttering something to the potato-bug boy, she crossed over to him. “Kinda cold out here for a picnic, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t s
ee you huddled by the radiator,” Joshua told her, and took a big bite of his slightly soggy sandwich. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Oh, that’s Joey, but he likes people to call him Elvis.” She rolled her eyes a little.

  “Okay. Anyway, it’s not that cold, and I like dining al fresco.”

  She smiled, tight-lipped, in spite of herself. “Whatever that means. I’d rather be out here than hang out with the dweebs in the cafeteria.” Her eyes kept darting to the far side of the football field. “At least I can steal a smoke if none of the Nazis are around.”

  “You want some chips?” Joshua offered, holding out an unopened bag.

  Joy looked as though the idea were slightly nauseating. “No, thanks. But if you could lend me ten bucks, I’ll give it back to you after I get home today.”

  Joshua was a little taken aback. Ten bucks? He was on the verge of asking her what she wanted it for when he realized he would sound like a parent asking her what she was up to. “Uh, let me see if I have that much.” He grimaced as he reached into his pocket. He had exactly twelve dollars on him, but he handed over two fives and put the two ones back in his wallet.

  Joy’s eyes looked hungrily at the bills as she stashed them away. “Cool, thanks. See you at home.”

  Her whole demeanor had gone from listless and stagnant to motivated. She moved quickly back to Joey, and they resumed their conversation. Feeling stupid, Joshua finished his sandwich and was tossing the bag in the trash when he saw Joy and her friend start out across the soggy playing field. “Bye, see ya,” he muttered under his breath. He sat morosely and watched the pair until they reached the far chain-link fence, Beyond it was a strip of sidewalk and then the street. He wished that he could be sauntering casually across the field with her, just hanging out.

  A few cars were passing on the street; a mail truck stopped at each mailbox on the opposite side. Joy and Bug Boy had reached the fence, and they leaned against it, looking out. The mailman got out of his truck and waved at them. Before he could even see it, Joshua heard the sound of a loud motorcycle coming up the street, and he wondered why someone would be riding in the rain. He continued to watch Joy and Joey—Elvis, whatever.

  “Hi, you’re Joshua, right?” An expressive voice spoke so loudly to his right that Joshua actually jumped a little as he turned to see the speaker. She was one of those extremely animated girls who he had assumed was a cheerleader only because everything she said sounded enthusiastic. He’d seen her looking at him in his chemistry class.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Hi.” The syllable sounded as though it were going down a spiral slide on a playground and having a great time doing it. “I’m Natalie; I’m Celia’s sister,” she continued, as though this were fabulous news. Joshua’s face registered no comprehension, so she seemed delighted to expound on the subject. “Celia works for your mom. She answers the phone and stuff at the Eye of the Beholder. You know, the salon,” she added helpfully in case Joshua had forgotten the name of his mother’s business.

  “Oh, right. Celia. Yeah, you look like her.” This was true in only the remotest of ways. While Celia was dark, hesitant, and superthin, this girl was golden, perfectly rounded, and perky to an inflated degree. All Joshua could think was that it must drive Celia crazy to have such a popular, outgoing sister when she seemed to be so timid.

  “Anyway, I wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if there’s anything you need to know about the school, or the games or the”—she blushed slightly but seemed completely unfazed by her own reaction— “the dances, you could ask me.” She left it at that, and Joshua wasn’t sure if she meant for him to ask about the dances, or to ask her to one of them.

  “Thanks, Natalie. That’s really nice of you, but I seem to be figuring it all out pretty well.”

  “Not really.” She shrugged apologetically and then explained: “Only the losers come out here for lunch in the rain. You should really come sit with me and my friends in the cafeteria.”

  Joshua glanced back across to Joy and Joey and was surprised to see the postman standing at the fence and talking to them.

  The bell rang, and Joshua reached for his book bag. “Well, nice to meet you. See you in chemistry.”

  Natalie raised her well-shaped eyebrows and beamed at him. “Chemistry, right,” she said, her tone thick with innuendo. Natalie was definitely not subtle.

  She turned on her heel and pranced off, glancing back over her shoulder at the door with a bright smile. Joshua waved feebly.

  He lingered, pretending to fuss with a buckle on his bag, until Joy and her buddy returned and passed him; then he fell in behind them, trying to think of something to say to her.

  They had reached the door when he saw Joy reach into her pocket, start to pull something out, and then glance around. She looked startled to see him there, and she shoved the hand back, deeper into her pocket. “What do you want?” she asked accusingly.

  Joshua shied back. “Nothing,” he said quickly, feeling shunned and hurt. “I just want to get to history.”

  She seemed to relax a little. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and then hurried away, the streaks in her hair looking garishly violet in the brightly lit hallway.

  Crushed, Joshua shuffled toward his next class.

  Chapter 25

  The bar at Al Wright’s looked as though it had been nice once and then a cheap restaurant had come and squatted around it, refusing to move away. Greer took a stool at the end of the bar and asked for a glass of white wine. She sensed immediately that it was the wrong thing to ask for, but the bartender, who seemed older than the wood, poured it without comment.

  She took a tentative sip and settled against the back of the stool to look around. She could feel that Dario wasn’t anywhere nearby. While she waited for him she entertained herself by observing people.

  But she had just begun to enjoy watching an older couple cooing at each other like teenagers when the door to the bar opened, and, glancing up, she saw Sterling enter and look around. He spotted her, looked surprised but—she thought—pleased, and then came over to her.

  “Hi! Well, this is kind of a coincidence,” he said, and looked questioningly at the empty stool next to her.

  She indicated that he should take it. “Yeah. Strange that you would come in the same night as Dario and me.”

  Sterling was trying to catch the bartender’s eye, but he turned to her at these words. “Dario? Not really.”

  “Yes, really.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but he invited me to have dinner with him.”

  Greer felt confused, annoyed, suckered, and then begrudgingly amused in rapid succession. “That bastard,” she said with a fond smile.

  Sterling seemed to follow her train of thought, and though he looked slightly embarrassed he nodded and then asked, “So, I take it he’s not coming?”

  Greer shook her head. “Never meant to, I would guess.”

  “Ah.” Sterling looked uncomfortable just long enough for Greer to doubt her previous impressions.

  “You don’t have to stay. It’s not fair,” she said to him.

  “Oh, no! It’s not that. I mean, I’d like to, if you’d like to. It’s just that I hope you don’t think I put him up to this. Not that I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I wouldn’t want you to think I would trick you.” His words rushed together.

  His discomfort was so apparent that Greer laughed. “Don’t worry; when you get to know Dario, you’ll realize that this is small-time meddling for him.”

  “I see. Well, if we’re staying, I guess I’ll order a drink.” He tried again in vain to subtly catch the bartender’s eye. The older gentleman avoided it with practiced dedication and went on washing glasses.

  With a smile, Greer focused her beautiful green eyes on the man. He seemed unable to resist looking back at them. She flicked her look toward Sterling, and the bartender followed the look. “Can I get you something?” he asked.

  “I’ll have a gin and
tonic,” Sterling answered gratefully.

  “How very British of you,” Greer said playfully.

  “Good thing I’m not Russian; then we’d both be drinking potato vodka,” Sterling told her. “You’re Greek—aren’t you supposed to be drinking ouzo?”

  She laughed again. “I’m not really much of a drinker.”

  “Me neither anymore. I used to be a bouncer in a pub in one of London’s less fashionable neighborhoods, and in England they don’t tip; they buy you a pint. So, I saw—and lived through—enough drunken brawls to keep me to a two-drink limit, one if I’m driving.” His glass arrived and he saluted her with it.

  “So,” he said with the inflection of one who was just beginning, “how do you like Shadow Hills?”

  Greer frowned slightly; it was a tough question. The truth was that she liked it very much, especially Sterling and her new friends, but how could she tell him about the visions and her sense of impending dread?

  “I love the place,” she answered finally. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s pretty special. A combination of LA and rural living; I guess that’s why I like it. Plus, being located where people have at least a couple acres for a yard instead of a couple hundred square feet is good for my business.”

  Greer nodded. “How did you pick landscape architecture?”

  He shrugged and ran a finger down the condensation on the outside of his glass. The dark brown of his skin was a beautiful contrast to its opaque luminosity. Greer felt a little twinge and found herself thinking of that strong finger brushing her skin as softly as it did the tumbler.

  “I love two things: spatial design and gardening. I couldn’t find any other job that let me work with both of those.”

  “And you didn’t see pub bouncing as a lifetime career?” Greer asked him.

  “More of a means to get through university.”

  Another couple came into the bar and took seats at one of the booths. Glancing up, Greer recognized the bank manager who had been so upsetting to Leah. What was his name? Vince, that’s right. He was with a young woman about college age. She looked pretty, but not very worldly. They were both dressed in leathers, the expensive kind.