I came around the side of the building, away from the road—the fastest way back to the trail that would get me close to Persephone—and Oscar was there. He had a cigarette pinched between his fingers, the glowing end ready to kiss his fingertips if he took another drag. He flicked it onto the ground and looked at me with hooded, lazy eyes.
“Got milk?” he asked, and laughed at his own shitty joke. I started past him. “Come on, little girl. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Fuck off, Oscar,” I said. It was maybe the first time I’d spoken to him in more than a mumble, and it came out feral.
“Pussycat’s got claws,” he said with a chuckle. He ambled toward me, hands in his pockets. “You want to bite and scratch, is that it? Grrr.” He swiped at me with a lopsided grin. I danced away.
“Leave me alone.” Still trying to sound fierce. Still failing.
“Come on,” he said again. He grabbed my wrist, spun me around like we were dancing. Like we were playing. “You know when a guy is mean to you, it just means he likes you.”
“You don’t like me,” I told him, knocked off-balance in more ways than one.
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Want to find out?” He tugged me in closer. I could smell the booze on his breath. It was eleven in the morning and he smelled like liquor. I knew the smell, and I knew the way it made my dad, maudlin but harmless. I didn’t think Oscar was the same kind of drunk.
“Just let me go,” I said, barely a squeak. It only made him laugh again. He swung me around, one hand on my waist, and then my back was up against the wall of the convenience store. The scents of malt liquor and tobacco and gasoline mixed together. I felt sick.
“We are destined to be together, did you know that?” Oscar asked. His head tilted, a sly smile playing over his lips. I looked at him in mute incomprehension. “Oscar the Grouch loves trash, see? I’m Oscar, you’re trash. You and me were meant to be.” He said the last sentence in a crooning song, a leer on his lips.
“You wish,” I bit out. Stupid thing to say. He just grinned wider.
“You mean you wish, don’t you?” he said. His hand snaked up under my sweatshirt, scrunched up the fabric of my T-shirt. “Do you even really have anything under there?”
His questing fingers dug into my ribs. I didn’t move. Didn’t fight back, didn’t scream. I’d tried to be Artemis, the fearsome huntress, since the summer began, but there was none of her in me now. Only the quailing fawn before the hunting dog’s snapping teeth. I froze, not fear but numb surrender washing through me.
And then Oscar was hauled backward. “What the fuck are you doing?” Cody demanded, yanking Oscar off me.
“Just kidding around,” Oscar said, laughing, hands held up in surrender.
“She’s eleven years old!” Cody shouted. His face was red with anger. He shoved Oscar hard in the chest, knocking him back a step, and moved up to match. “What are you, a fucking pedophile?”
“I wasn’t going to do anything. Fuck! Relax, Benham,” Oscar said. “Not like she has enough under there to actually cop a feel.”
Cody swung. Oscar didn’t even put up his hands, like he couldn’t believe Cody was going to do it. Cody’s fist connected with his jaw, and Oscar reeled, blood bursting from his split lip. He gave Cody a level look, one hand up. A look like Cody had made his point.
But he wasn’t done. “Do not. Fucking. Touch her,” Cody said, and then he was on Oscar again. This time Oscar tried to fend him off, swing back, but Cody had been in just as many fights as he had. Was just as big as he was. And the fury in his eyes was like a wildfire. He slammed Oscar against the wall. “You piece of shit—”
Fists thudded dully against ribs. Oscar wheeled away. Cody caught him by the collar and swung him around, throwing him to the ground, and then it was his boots connecting with Oscar’s torso.
“Go near her again and I will kill you,” Cody said, ragged but calm. He looked at me, eyes still burning. Oscar groaned, clutching his stomach. “Get out of here, kid.”
I ran. I didn’t look back. I ran to the trees and down the trail, in among the forest paths that still felt like safety. I ran until my breath was a sharp wheeze and a knife’s point of pain was lodged behind my lung and then I stumbled to a stop, braced against a tree trunk.
You and me were meant to be. Because I was trash.
I’d never forgotten it. I’d never entirely stopped believing it. And that day in the shed when I was newly fifteen and trying to discover what kind of oblivion might suit me, he’d whispered it again, and I’d said nothing. Nothing at all.
We pulled up in front of the motel, and Ethan sat tapping his thumb against the steering wheel.
“We need to talk to Oscar soon. Before the FBI does,” Ethan said. I grunted. “Or … we let the FBI do what the FBI does, and we take a breather.” I stuck out my chin mulishly, and he sighed. “Right. Dumb idea. So what do you think? Could Oscar have attacked you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I rubbed my thumb along my jaw. Oscar had known Jessi. He was perfectly capable of violence. It was easy to imagine him as the thread stretching between Jessi, me, and Liv. Our monster.
But that would mean that Cass almost certainly lied. And Liv …
Could Cass have convinced her to cover for Oscar? I had a hard time believing it. But maybe Liv, in her panic, hadn’t seen him clearly. Cass had pulled her away, after all. Oscar fit the basic description they’d given. It was possible that Liv hadn’t put it together. Maybe even Cass hadn’t.
No. She’d told me she watched the whole thing. She couldn’t have failed to recognize her own brother, which meant that if Oscar had attacked me, she’d lied. Lied to Dougherty, lied on the stand, lied to my face, only days ago.
“Naomi?” Ethan asked. I’d been staring out into the distance for over a minute, and my hand was shaking. I tightened it into a fist. Ethan looked at me, his expression open and guileless.
I didn’t want him talking to Oscar. I didn’t want him finding out the things I’d done or the things that had happened to me. But I couldn’t avoid talking to Oscar any longer.
“I’m starving,” I said. “Any chance you could go pick us up some lunch?”
“Or we could go sit down like civilized folk,” he suggested.
I shook my head. “I’m beat. You go, I’ll lie down for a bit until you get back.”
“Sure,” Ethan said. He hesitated like maybe he sensed something, but he got back in the car. I stood with my hands in my back pockets, watching him pull out. I waited until he was out of sight before I walked over to my car.
The Chester Lumber Company was a ghost of its former self. With the mill shut down, all that was left was a muddy lot filled with trucks and equipment—skidders, loaders, woodchippers that could handle a small elephant. The offices were single-wides on blocks.
Big Jim was out in front of the offices, talking to a grizzled strip of a man with a graying ponytail and stubble you could grate cheese with. The guy gave Jim a nod and headed into the office as I approached.
Big Jim came by his name honestly. He was where Oscar had gotten his massive frame and squared-off features. He loomed literally as well as figuratively in Chester. He’d been mayor for twenty-eight years, and the only person who’d ever come close to unseating him was Clark Jensen, who’d carried three wounded fellow soldiers through a hail of gunfire and still lost the election by six points.