Crystal Lies - Melody Carlson [55]
As luck would have it, Jacob got hired at the Red Devil. It was one of those discount gas stations—the kind that Geoffrey always warned against. “You get what you pay for, Glennis,” he’d told me once after I’d filled the Range Rover with cheap gas and it had started thumping and pinging. “Those cut-rate places are known for getting the last dregs off the tanker trucks.”
The last dregs, I thought as I drove by the Red Devil just to see if Jacob was really at work like he was supposed to be. To my relief his car was parked around in back, and I spied him talking to an older guy who I had begun to suspect was Daniel. I still didn’t know Daniels last name. According to Jacob,“It doesn’t matter.” But that only made me more uneasy.
I’d taken to driving around town as part of my daily routine. I would check on Jacob at the gas station. Then later in the evening, if Jacob failed to come home, which he’d started doing again, I would drive by the “duplex dump” to see if Jacob was there. I also kept track of the other cars that came and went from that place. I suspected that the old blue Ford van belonged to Daniel since it appeared at both the duplex dump and the gas station. But there was also a beat-up gold station wagon and a little red Honda parked there frequently. For some reason I felt the Honda belonged to Amber. Don’t ask me why.
Jacob had been pumping gas for a couple of weeks. He still stayed out late, sometimes all night, but he seemed to have the uncanny ability of guessing when I was about ready to give up on him. And that’s when he’d show up with a smile on his face, sometimes even with flowers, and he’d say all the right words, and, presto, I would feel better. Of course, he was often “between paychecks” at those times and usually needed a “little cash” to get him by, fill his gas tank, things like that. I would tell myself that at least he was still working. Somehow I imagined that if he was working, everything was pretty much okay.
Until the day I found a used syringe. I’d like to say it was quite by accident, but to be perfectly honest, I was snooping. I still cleaned Jacobs room for him. I did his laundry and made his bed. Somehow I believed that this would help him on his road to recovery. Or maybe it was just my penance for being a bad mom. Who can be sure?
Whatever the case, I had taken to looking around a bit as I made Jacobs bed and hung up his clothes. I had discovered some odd things under his futon bed, like a cinnamon candle he had obviously filched from me, although I hadn’t noticed it was missing. I didn’t see any harm in this, although I wondered why it was under his bed. Worried that he might burn the place down, I got a nice big candle holder and put the rust-colored pillar on it and placed it on his dresser. I figured if he was going for ambiance, he should at least be safe about it.
I’d also found a number of grimy spoons, but why should this seem strange since I’d also found dirty glasses and cereal bowls and the occasional slice of uneaten pizza. But I was curious about the mirror at first. It was just a piece of broken mirror, about eight inches in diameter, but I knew it hadn’t come from anything in the apartment. Still, I figured that Jacob must’ve wanted to look at himself in the privacy of his own room. And so I bought him an inexpensive mirror from Wal-Mart and hung it above his dresser. No big deal.
But on this particular day, I noticed what appeared to be a roll of tissue in his wastebasket. Curious as to what it was, I picked it up and examined it. The tissue appeared unused and clean. Somewhat