Snared wd-3 Read online

  He started walking to the back of the house, pausing at a window and looking in.

  Lindsay’d had enough. She turned away from the window and focused her attention on her laptop. She checked her email, but there was nothing interesting: a piece of spam from one of those online pharmacy places, a notice from Amazon that her DVD order was shipping, and a note from her friend Trey.

  Like Kate, Trey had been Lindsay’s friend forever. He was just so nice. She’d never heard him say a nasty thing about anyone. It was like he liked everyone, and he always said the sweetest things. Lindsay knew he’d kind of crushed on her for a while in the eighth grade, but then he’d met Sarah Thomas during the summer break, and by the time he’d come back for the ninth grade he was in love with Sarah. Unfortunately, the relationship ended last year, when Sarah moved to California with her family. Trey had been miserable, and Lindsay had felt miserable for him. But she’d taken him out for coffee every day for two weeks, letting him unload his sadness on her, and soon enough his smile was back.

  She looked at his email and smiled. For the tenth time in three days, he told her how much he would miss her at Kate’s party. She’d run out of ways to thank him, so she simply replied with a smiley emoticon.

  She reminded herself that she needed to run downstairs and help her mom with dinner, but for the moment she just wanted some quiet. Lindsay scooted back on the window seat and leaned against the wall. Just then a light came on in the house next door. She leaned closer to the window, close enough that her breath made fog on the glass. The burner was gone, probably dancing over the sand, too high to care about the storm. The light came from the second window about halfway back on the house. Someone moved in the room, throwing shadows up and down the wall. Lindsay wiped a cloud of vapor from the glass.

  Then she saw him. The distance and rain made it impossible for Lindsay to make out any details, but a boy came to the window, and she saw him. So not the pot-smoking looz. Black hair. A slender muscular build. He was wearing distressed jeans and no shirt, and even through the gloom, she could see his developed pecs and six-pack abs. She pushed as close to the glass as she could to see if his face was as fine as she wanted it to be, but the weather smoothed the specifics of his features, leaving nothing but an impression of the boy, a very hot impression.

  Suddenly the family vacation was looking a lot better.

  At dinner Lindsay was in better spirits. She ate and joked with her mom and dad. As parents went, Lindsay knew she had it good. Her mom and dad were still married, still in love. They still had sex way too much, and she soooo didn’t want to think about that. But at least they hadn’t split like so many of her friends’ parents had, and despite having dragged her on this vacation, they usually let her do her own thing and didn’t gripe too much. They rarely yelled at her and didn’t pull cheap stunts like snagging her cell phone as punishment (an art Kate’s mother had perfected).

  “Your mom wants to go flea marketing tomorrow,” her dad said, before raising a fork full of corn to his mouth. He chewed and drank some wine. Then he said “You feel like coming along, or do you want to check out the beach?”

  Winnie the Pooh, Lindsay thought. Her dad looked like Winnie the Pooh. He had a round face, and when he smiled his cheeks pooched out. His eyebrows were really thin and neat, but the rest of his face was rounded and blunt. Pooh had been her favorite cartoon character when she was a little girl. Strange that she’d never noticed the resemblance before.

  He had his eyebrows arched and grinned like he was waiting for the punch line of a joke. Lindsay almost laughed at the expression.

  “I’m going to hang here,” she said. Her dad’s smile faded into disappointment. “I’m going to be on panic alert with Kate until her party is over. She’s kind of counting on the long distance help. I’ll just hang and explore the beach or something. You guys have fun.”

  “We won’t be out long,” her mom said.

  “Cool,” Lindsay said. “If the weather is still crappy, I can watch the box.”

  “It’s supposed to be clear and warm,” her dad said. “I’ll bet the beach will be swarming with kids.”

  “Well, they better stay on the beach,” her mom said. “I don’t want you bringing strangers into your uncle’s house unless we’re here to meet them.”

  Lindsay rolled her eyes and put her fork down. “Right, because I want a bunch of slack-jawed mouth breathers to know where I’m staying.” She smiled widely to show her parents she was just playing.

  “You might be surprised,” her dad said. “I told you the real estate market has been booming in this area. A lot of new people have moved in, and a lot of tourists are renting houses for the summer. Your uncle told me it’s quite the resort town these days.”

  Sure, Lindsay thought. It’s Cancún and Ibiza all rolled into one. That’s why there’s a trailer park half a mile up the beach.

  Still, she realized it was better than she’d thought. There had been new shops downtown, and some of the houses were new and cool. And of course the bit of eye candy next door didn’t hurt.

  Though she’d only caught a glimpse of him, she thought about the boy, wondered if he were visiting or if his parents owned the house. She reminded herself that she hadn’t seen him very well. Close-up he might look like Freddy Krueger, or he might be old, like twenty-five or something. But she didn’t think so. He might be a couple years older than her, and maybe he wasn’t a total CW throbber, but he could be.

  “Did Uncle Lou say who owned the house next door?” Lindsay asked, making sure she sounded really casual.

  “No,” her dad said. “I know he was pretty upset when Don and Judy sold the place, but that was over a year ago. He hasn’t said a word about the new owners.”

  “And what’s so interesting about the house next door?” her mom asked.

  Lindsay knew she couldn’t say anything about the boy without enduring her mom’s goofy jokes about romance, so she didn’t. “Someone needs to introduce them to Total House Makeover,” she said.

  “It could use a bit of renovation,” her dad agreed. “I noticed the porch was missing a couple of boards when we were unloading the car. It’s a shame. The structure looks pretty solid. The place could be real nice with a little work.”

  “Maybe a bulldozer would help,” Lindsay joked.

  “Be nice. It’s not that bad,” her mom said.

  “I have exacting standards and exquisite taste. As such I can’t help but notice how much most things blow.”

  Her dad laughed loudly, and her mom smiled.

  “That’s my girl,” her dad announced, and jabbed his fork into a piece of chicken.

  She found the binoculars on the windowsill in the den. Lindsay certainly wasn’t looking for them, but there they were. After dinner she’d wandered into the room, wanting to see more of the ocean. She picked the glasses up and lifted them to her eyes. The metal casing was heavy and cold against her soft skin. Looking through the lenses, she adjusted the focus until the distant ocean waves came to her crisp and clear, though still terribly gray from the storm. Breakers rose and crashed and foamed. It looked cool, if depressing. She swept the glasses over the horizon and down the beach, where she again adjusted the focus, bringing a new object into view.

  “Jeez,” Lindsay yelped, tearing the glasses from her eyes. There was something hideous and unbelievable out there. It looked like a baby, buried in the sand.

  She looked through the binoculars again and relaxed. It was a doll. The plastic head was crushed and most of the body was buried in wet sand, but its sad and mangled face was clear enough. One of the eyes was open, while the other was covered with the broken eyelid, which drooped askance against the doll’s cheek. The plastic fibers that once looked like hair fanned over the sand, dirty and wet.

  Farther along, she saw the side of a distant house and then a window. Lindsay adjusted the focus yet again, and nearly dropped the binoculars when the image cleared.

  A woman, maybe her mom’s age bu
t totally beautiful, walked through the upstairs bedroom of the house. She wore a brightly colored piece of fabric knotted around her waist. Its lovely purple and crimson swirls draped to the woman’s knees. Besides the loose skirt, the woman was naked.

  Embarrassed, Lindsay put the binoculars back on the sill and stepped away. It occurred to her that the half-naked woman was the exact reason her uncle Lou kept the binoculars on the sill, and she shuddered at the idea.

  Still, she might be able to use the binoculars.

  She wouldn’t watch the boy next door, wouldn’t spy on him or anything. But at least she could get a good look at him. More than likely he’d turn out to be just another guy, and that would be that. Though if he was cute…

  The thing was, Lindsay had to take something good back from this trip, even if it was just a story about the hot guy next door. Her parents had dragged her away from the party of the year. That’s all anyone would talk about when she got home, and Lindsay would feel like a complete shadow if she didn’t have an equally cool—no, cooler—story to tell. She needed an adventure or a summer romance, something none of the other kids would have. She couldn’t go home with stories about flea markets or rubbing suntan lotion on her mom’s back.

  Lindsay left the binoculars on the windowsill and walked through the dining room to the kitchen door. Wanting to make sure her parents were busy before she lifted the binoculars, Lindsay pushed open the swinging door and froze.

  Her stomach knotted up, and she reared back a step. Her parents were making out against the kitchen counter.

  They weren’t just kissing either. That was gross enough, but they were really lip-locked, and her mom had her hand inside her dad’s shirt, rubbing his stomach. She didn’t even want to think about where her dad’s hands were.

  At least they’d be busy for a while.

  Lindsay closed the door quietly. She grabbed the binoculars and went up to her room.

  Lindsay stood next to the window seat, adjusting the binoculars, focusing on the window of the house next door, but she didn’t see the boy. The light was out in his room and not so much as a shadow moved. After a few minutes, she felt like a perv, and hid the binoculars under the green cushion before logging onto the web. She surfed around for a while, but the long day had exhausted her, and soon enough she turned off her computer and crossed the hall to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  Ten minutes later, she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. The house was so quiet she could hear music playing next door. It was strange. It sounded New Agey, with the muffled chime of bells and a small drum being rapped beneath a moaning melody like chanting. Maybe the kid’s grandparents were hippies or something. Her friend Trey’s grandparents were like that. They wore headbands and said things like “groovy,” “peace,” and “far out” a lot. They really liked a place called Woodstock and a band called Happy Dead or something like that. Of course, Lindsay had no idea what that band sounded like. They might be just like the odd monotone voices she was hearing, punctuated by chimes and drums. They probably were.

  Don’t let it be his music, she thought. How sad would that be? A hot guy who listened to decaf tunes? That would be tear-worthy.

  The moaning chant rose in volume, sounding deep and ominous.

  Then a cry pierced through the muffled music. It sounded like someone was in pain. And it didn’t seem to be part of the drum and chant song. Lindsay looked at the window, worried. Did someone outside need help?

  Is it part of the song?

  Afraid, Lindsay curled up tightly under the covers. The sound didn’t come again, though she strained to hear. After a while, the music stopped and the night grew silent. Then she rolled over, faced the wall, and waited for sleep to come.

  3

  Lindsay woke to sunshine, the fear of the night forgotten. A wedge of golden light fell through the window, cutting a swath across the room and the end of her bed. Her parents moved around in their room at the other end of the hall. She heard their footsteps and their voices. Her mom giggled, and her dad made a growling noise. Lindsay did her best to ignore them. She felt great. Rested. Clear-headed. She wanted to pretend she was alone in this house and shared the beach with no one but the boy next door.

  Lindsay rolled over and snuggled deeper into the quilt. He would be hot, she decided. No way did he listen to that hippie music. He would be young and cool and totally into extreme sports. A guy didn’t get a body like that by playing video games all day. He was probably at the beach to surf. So cool. And he wouldn’t be one of the immature guys she met at school. He’d be an adult, but not too old. He’ll be perfect, she thought. Just perfect.

  When she finally left her fantasy behind and got out of bed, she powered up her laptop and cast a glance out the window. No one moved in the yard or behind the windows of the rundown house. Disappointed, she grabbed her robe and put it on. Downstairs she found her parents in the kitchen again, only this time they weren’t macking all over each other. That was a relief.

  They exchanged good mornings and her dad, still smiling, asked if she’d slept well.

  “Pretty good,” she replied, heading directly for the coffeepot.

  “It’s the sea air.”

  “Mmmm,” Lindsay replied, already deeply involved with her first cup of bean.

  “I’m fixing pancakes,” her mom said.

  “Mom,” Lindsay said, “you know I don’t eat breakfast.”

  “You’re on vacation.”

  “Try to convince my thighs,” Lindsay said. “Thanks anyway. Coffee is fine.”

  She took her coffee upstairs and carried it to the window seat. After getting situated with her computer in her lap and her coffee next to her hip, she opened her email, but the house next door kept distracting her. She read a line of one of Trey’s messages, looked down at the window, read another line. Kate sent an email telling her that Nick Faherty—only the hottest guy at school—was definitely going to be at her party and…OMG, do you believe it? He’s bringing his older brother who looks just like Tom Welling. I wish you could come. I’m going to be a total head case.

  Yes, you will, Lindsay thought. She looked through the window, thought she saw movement across the way, but the boy didn’t appear.

  Lindsay clicked the Reply button so she could tell Kate how happy she was for her. Nick and Ian Faherty were quite a party coup. It was epically unfair that Lindsay wouldn’t be there to hang with them.

  Before writing the note, she again looked out the window and was startled to see two men looking up at her from the backyard of the unpleasant house. The sight of them was unnerving. They just stood there, staring. But what really got to her was the fact that they were the same guys she’d seen at the grocery store wearing black parkas and holding huge umbrellas.

  Today they wore black T-shirts and gray shorts. Both men seemed to be several years older than her dad but in infinitely better shape. The day before, she thought they were exact opposites, one skinny and one fat, but now she could see their muscle through their tight shirts. The short one was so buffed it looked like his shirt would tear open if he moved his arms at all. The tall one was narrower but ripped.

  Lindsay looked away, hoping she hadn’t stared too long. It was freaky enough to have them looking at her; she certainly didn’t want to get caught staring back.

  A thought began to emerge as she gazed at the blank email template on her screen. Maybe the boy next door had two fathers. He was the son of a gay couple. How cool would that be? Her friend Rachel had two moms, and they were really nice.

  Maybe the boy was adopted. That made him even more exotic. Another thought tried to creep in—a thought about the boy being something other than a son to these two men—but she pushed that away quickly. Life just couldn’t be that unfair.

  She threw another quick glance outside. The shorter man was pointing at the base of the house and talking to the taller man, who stooped to hear. The tall guy nodded his head. In the window, thirty feet from where these men examined the r
undown house, the boy appeared.

  Lindsay’s heart raced, and she looked away to her computer screen. Let him see you first, she thought. Don’t let him catch you staring. He’ll think you’re a major freak. Just be cool. Pretend he isn’t there and write back to Kate. Flip your hair just a bit, but don’t look out the window. Smile like you’ve just thought of something brilliant. Drink some coffee. Hold the mug at your chin for a moment. Look up like your brilliant thought is totally deep. Put the mug down. Casually look out the window, and…

  The boy was gone. The two men in black T-shirts stared up at her from the backyard. Both looked pissed off.

  Feeling uncomfortable under their gaze, Lindsay lifted her laptop and carried it with her to the bed so she could write back to Kate.

  Lindsay waited for her parents to leave for the flea markets before taking her shower and cleaning up for the day. She stood in front of the chest of drawers looking at the tops and the shorts she’d packed and didn’t like any of them. All the clothes looked like something a little girl would wear, all pinks and yellows and whites. This always happened to her. Every time she needed to look good, she just couldn’t find anything to wear. Most of her clothes were brand-new, but somewhere between the store rack and her uncle’s house they’d lost their appeal. None of her outfits looked special enough. What if she ran into the boy outside? She didn’t want to look like some Hicksville teen. Crap. These things were all she had, though. Something from the drawer would have to do. Finally she chose a pair of yellow shorts and took a white blouse from the closet.

  Once dressed, she returned to the window for a moment to look down, but the boy wasn’t there. She wandered downstairs and onto the porch of her uncle’s house. The sky was clear and blue and the day hot, though the breeze off the ocean cooled her skin. Not far up the beach, she noticed the crowds. Dozens of people lay under the baking sun, walked over the sand, soaked in the ocean. She looked south and saw a handful of people there as well.