Crystal Lies - Melody Carlson [52]
“Yes!” I nodded. “Is he here?”
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I think he’s back there in the bedroom.”
I swallowed hard, trying to hold my breath against the stench all around me. “Uh, do you think you could go get him for me?” I asked.
Then she actually smiled, and it was really a rather sweet smile, and it occurred to me that this was someone’s daughter. Someone’s beloved little girl. And did her parents have any idea where she was at this very moment?
“Sure, I’ll get him for you.”
I nodded. “Tell him I’ll be outside.” And then I bolted for the door. One more minute in that place and I think I would’ve become physically ill. I couldn’t get away from the smell quickly enough. It felt like it had adhered itself to me, as if it were clinging to my clothing, seeping into my pores. I wanted to rush home and take a long, hot shower, to scrub and scrub until all traces of this foul place were gone. How could my son stand it? How had he been able to spend so much time here? How could anyone sleep among that kind of filth? Drugs, I reminded myself. The answer is drugs.
I went over and stood next to his car. Even his piles of blankets and junk looked like neatness and order compared to what was inside that horrible duplex. I waited and waited, for nearly thirty minutes, and I was almost ready to go back inside when I finally saw the door open, and Jacob emerged. All he had on were his jeans. His feet and chest were bare, but he was pulling on a sweatshirt as he blinked up at the sunlight. Then he seemed to take a few moments to focus his eyes before he finally spotted me and staggered in my direction.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. His eyes looked just as glazed as the girl’s had been when she’d first answered the door.
“What’s wrong?’ I parroted back to him.
He leaned his head back and ran his fingers through his unwashed hair, then exhaled loudly. “What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Looking for you, Jacob.” I pressed my lips together, searching for the right words to say everything that I was feeling. I really wanted to scream at him—to shout and yell and demand to know what on earth he was doing here. Instead I took another deep breath.
“Well, you found me.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “But this doesn’t seem like a very good place to find you.”
He rolled his eyes now. “Maybe not to you.”
“Jacob.” I pointed toward the duplex. “This is obviously a drug house” “A drug house?” He laughed. “Really, Mom, what makes you think that?”
I considered this. “Well, for one thing it’s a filthy pigsty.”
I could tell by the spark in his eyes that he was sobering up now, and I could sense that I had insulted him. “Not everyone has your high standards for housekeeping, Mom. Not everyone is a neurotic neat freak.”
“I am not a neurotic neat freak.” But even as I said those words, I knew it was true. Still, it was beside the point.
“Look, Daniels been a little depressed lately, and I suppose he’s let the place go a—”
“Let the place go?” I felt the slightest twinge of hysteria climbing into my voice now. “That place should be condemned by the health department. Not only that, but I’m sure there are drugs in there, Jacob.”
He shook his head. “There you go with the drug thing again, Mom. Really, you’re acting kind of paranoid.”
“I’m paranoid?”
“Yeah.” He sat down on the hood of his car. “Did you see any drugs in there?”
I thought about this. “Well, not exactly.”
“So, maybe you imagined that you did?”
“I didn’t imagine anything.”
“But you’re absolutely certain it’s a drug house?”
I shook my head. “I’m not certain of anything, Jacob, except that it’s filthy, nasty squalor and you shouldn’t be spending any time here.”
“There you go again,” said Jacob,“making accusations and judgments. Just because some people aren’t rich like you and Dad—”
“That has nothing to do with it—”
“And just because someone’s not a total neat freak—”
“A person could pick up a disease in there!”
Jacob frowned. “Look, Mom, just because my friends don’t measure up to your high standards doesn’t give you the