Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel Read online

“Right. Yes,” I said. Back to Earth. “I’ve got her. Sorry, Hope.”

  I stalked through the dining room and into the foyer, flushed, almost slamming into Ash. “Hey,” I snapped. “Sorry. I’ve got to go handle Rosie. Excuse me.”

  At this, Ash smiled. It rippled slowly to the corners of his lips, and even shone into his eyes. “Let me come with you,” he coaxed. His voice was conspiratorial and naughty, as if we were talking about doing it naked. “I’m great with women.”

  “Rosie is a cow,” I replied flatly.

  Ash laughed. “Of course she is.”

  “Still think you’ll be great with her?”

  “Uh, yes,” he answered, confidence only staggering for a split second. “I am great with all females.”

  We strode out to the pasture, me with a stool, on which rested a can of Vaseline, and him with nothing.

  “So, did you wanna get that ride into town sometime today?” I wondered as we moved through the fence and approached the cow.

  “Not quite yet,” he replied. “Just waiting to hear back from—a friend.”

  “A girl friend?” SHUT UP, I begged myself.

  “Well, she’s a girl and she’s my friend,” he answered coyly.

  I stroked Rosie’s side and murmured coos to her, hoping that this would have a calming effect. I loved the animals. I know that they experience us as fully and really as we experience them; their personalities are complex, and their actions have meaning relevant to their psychologies. The comfort of the bovine is paramount for a successful milking.

  I rubbed my hands together in Vaseline and straddled the bench, positioning myself across from her swollen udders. Ash only watched as I massaged each teat. “It helps bring the milk down,” I explained. “Then, you just squeeze like this.” I showed him with a few gentle, yet firm, downward strokes.

  “Let me get in on that,” he suggested, dipping down and shimmying onto my stool. “This is unreal.”

  I glanced over at him and smiled, taking his hands and positioning them where mine had been. He was like me in many ways: I remembered experiencing the same child-like wonder when I’d first begun indulging my senses in an utterly organic lifestyle. We were children of the city, but we longed for the simplicity and satisfaction of country living.

  “Hey. You’re a natural at this,” I said to him. He worked one set of teats while I worked the other. I couldn’t smother the smile of appraisal on my face. “That’s always a good sign. Helping another living creature comes easily to good people.”

  At this, he went quiet, and we continued to fill the bucket in silence for almost two minutes before he responded. He looked at me, and when he turned his head, his mouth was close to my ear. When he spoke, his breath caressed my hair. “I’m not a good person,” he murmured.

  I smiled and glanced at him. “I’m not either,” I confided.

  “Ha! You?”

  I gazed over at him—his face was very close to mine—and he was grinning unabashedly. I dropped my eyes back to Rosie’s teat. “You don’t know me,” I told him softly.

  He didn’t say anything. In fact, he’d stopped moving entirely, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye—he was staring at me. And I, breathless, stared back. It was an unusually hot day for this time of year.

  Rosie moaned with disapproval and shuffled forward, kicking the bucket from beneath her and sending almost four quarts of creamy milk directly into the dirt.

  “Shit!” I sprang back from the stomping hooves as she continued flouncing forward, and Ash followed suit. “Cows,” I blurted, like an idiot, and cleared my throat. “I should probably head over to the rescue shed and freshen my blue jay’s food, and water, and bandage, in a few minutes; but I’ll let Hope know about the milk first.” I grimaced. “It shouldn’t have to be you. She already doesn’t like you. Anyway, offer to help make lunch. She’ll like that. I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll come with you to feed your blue jay,” Ash offered for the second time today. “You might need some help.”

  “We need to at least get all this damn Vaseline off our hands first before we handle a sick bird then. Dirt just clings to it, and I can’t stand to be dirty.” As soon as I said the words, I heard the innuendo and blushed like a girl. I chanced a glance out of the corner of my eye and found Ash to be grinning slyly at me.

  “That’s funny,” he murmured, seeming thoughtful. “You can’t stand to be dirty, but I don’t want to be clean.”

  “Well…people are different in that way,” I murmured. “We manage to coexist.”

  “Only as long as I don’t touch you,” Ash replied.

  I hesitated and looked up at him. His eyes shone down on me hotly, as deep as a long fall, and Ash advanced on me suddenly, his lubricated hands driving beneath my shirt and tracing silky ribbons of petroleum over my stomach.

  He leaned into me, pressing my back to the rough wood of the shed siding. It leaned with us, and his fingers crept halfway up my back as his hungry mouth caught mine.

  “But I don’t know you, right?” he murmured against my ear, biting it gently.

  I had to admit that it felt like he knew me, and knew me well. He pressed his open palms beneath the wire cups of my bra, glossy thumbs rolling over my nipples torturously. A high-pitched whimper came wavering out of my throat and I grimaced beneath the weight of my desire.

  His mouth crept lower, lower, and I rested my head against the side of the shed, breathing raggedly and urging him to push me further. He wrestled open the neckline of my blouse, trailing like a famished beast over my receptive flesh.

  “Kids!” Hope’s voice rang from one of the main house windows. I gasped and scrambled to shove Ash off me, readjusting my top. She hadn’t seen us—but still. “Lunch is going to be getting cold soon! It was ready before noon today…even if I had to make it all by myself!”

  Chapter Ten

  Ashton

  I wasn’t able to be alone with Isabelle for the rest of the day after we came in for lunch. I had a feeling, from the steely look in Hope’s eye, that she had seen us from one of the windows—or suspected heavily enough to give me the stink-eye. For the rest of the day, it was no coincidence that Hope ran Isabelle ragged with chores—and the express command that I was no longer to be her “helper”. When she’d heard that Rosie had kicked over the pale of milk, she’d glowered at me as if my name was Rosie.

  But, when the sun began to set, Bill reappeared for the first time since lunch, mopping sweat from his brow and looking somehow younger than he had earlier. “Hey, Ashton,” he greeted. His gaze was measured, much like Hope’s, but there was also a degree of kindness. “About to head into town for groceries. Would you like to come? Maybe make some phone calls?” he suggested heavily. “Maybe meet somebody?”

  “I could use the ride, actually,” I said. “I need to hit up a pharmacy.”

  Bill honored me with a sour expression. “Sure,” he murmured, not bothering to hide his disappointment that I might be back. “And maybe,” he added, “we can talk.”

  Part of me—perhaps the part of me, deep down, that actually was still eight years old—turtled at the suggestion, and I wished that Izzy had heard it… She’d never let it happen. But no one had been in the room to hear.

  Bill’s truck was rustic and cluttered; maybe I’d misjudged him. Maybe he was actually kind of cool…once.

  But, as soon as we had moved out of sight of Turner Dairyfarm, Bill’s countenance became darker. There was even a hint of threat to his voice.

  “Isabelle is a good girl, you know,” he informed me roughly. “She had a hard life before she came to my wife and I, but we know that she has a pure heart. She’s…soft, you see? She’s soft, and the world is rough, and hard, and sharp.”

  I nodded resolutely. Did he think I didn’t know that? For fuck’s sake, he didn’t know anything.

  “And I want nothing more than to protect her from that,” he went on, glaring through the windshield. “Look, kid, you
’re obviously in some kind of trouble,” he said. Still, he didn’t direct his eyes my way. I was certain this was hugely uncomfortable for him, and possibly something that his wife put him up to. “And I’m not saying you’re a bad kid. I don’t know you. But I do think it would be better for us if you just went along.” He hesitated, then continued, “I might be able to give you an extra hundred or two if you make it quick.”

  I took a deep breath and held it in. I saw what was going on here.

  They were paying me to leave their daughter in peace.

  Because they knew it, and I knew it, too. She was too good for me.

  “Uh, sure,” I agreed, kind of dazed by the offer. “Yeah. I could be out of here tonight.”

  “Good,” Bill said, nodding to himself as we pulled into the grocer’s. “Glad we see eye to eye on this one.” He looked over at me and flashed an ingratiating smile. “Hard to say no to a little something for the road,” he said, climbing out, leaving me in the cabin, staring after him. An extra two hundred dollars…that would certainly help…but still, my stomach rolled.

  No contract. Free minutes. Fifteen dollars. Not bad for a cheapie phone. The thing looked like it was manufactured in 2008, but it would be civilized enough for my limited needs. I’d probably be on the road tonight…one way or another…with seven hundred dollars.

  I sighed, scanning the aisles, racking my brain for the necessities.

  Food. Some Gatorade, some Combos…some hair dye…a cap that would fit low over my eyes…

  Condoms, hopefully…

  As I went to stand in line, I saw Bill stride out to his truck after visiting the ATM, his voice set with annoyance. I wondered if he’d seen the condoms, but then, I tried to keep those behind the Gatorade. Anyway, he should’ve been impressed that I was so sexually responsible in this day and age, and if I had to guess, I’d say that his real annoyance stemmed from having an unintended errand added to his trip into town. I knew old guys. They cared about little things like that. Every second counts extra-hard at that point, I guess.

  I reached the cashier and nodded at him uncomfortably, keeping my eyes consistently averted. They were my defining feature, or so I’d been told by a few of the women I’d known. “Hey, how’s it going,” I murmured, shoving my stash across the counter.

  Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.

  I wondered if he noticed a theme with this order.

  Bleep, bleep, bleep.

  The hair dye. The hat. The burner phone.

  Bleep, bleep, bleep.

  As I was exiting the pharmacy, I heard the ratty old TV overhead—various senseless commercials, the TV was a talentless cesspool—crackle and cut away to the newscaster.

  “Ashton Carter, escaped prisoner last known to be near Boulder, has been missing for over twenty-four hours now. Police warn that he may be . . .”

  But I moved through the pharmacy doors with my loot, face angled downward, pulling out the low, olive green cap from my bag. The automatic doors snapped shut behind me, silencing the news bulletin. I guess I’d have to find out later, what Ashton Carter might be.

  Chapter Eleven

  Isabelle

  The kitchen seemed to be filled with sunlight, even though it was nighttime now. I pulverized fresh tomatoes in a deep metal pan without really seeing what was going on inside the bowl. My mind was elsewhere...

  Who was he?

  I thought of the way he’d smiled at me last night, biting his lower lip and jostling his hips. The way his slick thumbs had rolled over my taut nipples beside the pasture. And there were other moments, too…moments which made me wish that I knew him better. That soft, shining look to his eyes when he’d said it, just once: “Please.” Like he wasn’t used to such a thing. The look on his face when I had told him that he didn’t know me.

  In the living room, I could hear the television rambling on and on, though I wasn’t sure anyone was in there to listen to it. It was too loud, and every now and then, I heard what seemed like an explosion. If I had to guess, I would say that Hope had left the news on and wandered off.

  She ran a tight and serious budget and schedule, but, at the same time, she had so many kettles percolating at one time, it was common for her to leave things half-finished and return later, forgetting she’d ever started them. Besides, the news was about the only indulgence she allowed herself with the cable networks, even though I had told her that the evening news was bad for her blood pressure.

  I should probably shut it off.

  I dumped the pot of tomatoes into the boiling, salty water on the stove. Next, I would need to add a few spices: the minced garlic, the leaves of basil, the chunks of sausage and sautéed mushroom. Another pot, this solely of noodles, burbled on the next eye.

  But first…better turn off the television.

  I trod into the living room, which was as vacant as I had thought it would be. The anchorman was speaking with great sincerity, gazing deeply into the camera. “If you believe you have any evidence regarding the whereabouts of this man, again, the toll free phone number you can call is 555-0919. He is believed to have remained in the area.”

  I stood there, staring blindly at the television screen.

  The picture on the screen…

  It was Ash.

  It was Ash’s mugshot.

  And, for the first time, I was seeing him without a glimmer, even a thread, of flippancy in his gaze.

  His eyes were bolt open, like a deer on the fringes of the highway, contemplating its future.

  A hard, authoritarian rap at the door caused me to jump.

  I glanced at the door, then back to the television.

  It was a commercial for some special kind of furniture polish, and I advanced to the entrance, trembling from a distant, almost imperceptible shock. Everything was the same—except that everything had changed. It reminded me of putting on someone else’s glasses. The world is your world, but slightly altered; everything is beneath a layer of water.

  I grasped the doorknob in disjointed, slow motion, and pulled the door open.

  Standing in front of me were two officers. This was obvious from their power stances, their humorless expressions, and the FBI badges dangling in their respective hands. They were both dressed in simple yet elegant business clothes. One was a woman, and one was man. Both were closer to Bill and Hope’s age than mine.

  “Good evening,” the woman said, slapping her badge shut as soon as my eyes grazed it, as if performing a very familiar and frankly boring dance. “My name is Agent Carson.”

  The man nodded at me, perfunctory. “I am Agent Harrison.” He had tight, curly hair the color of wheat and a ruddy, well-worn complexion. “We’re canvassing the area for an escaped convict who was last seen heading south on the interstate near this property. He may or may not have left this radius, but you fall within the square mile we are canvassing, ma’am. May we ask if you have seen any of these three gentlemen?”

  Agent Harrison held up a stack of glossy photographs. Ash’s picture was on top, and it was a good picture. Those laughing eyes had burnt themselves into me like fingerprints. I wasn’t going to forget the impish curves of his face anytime soon.

  “The man we’re primarily seeking is Ashton Carter, convicted murderer, who fled a transit vehicle in the early afternoon, yesterday.” Agent Harrison flipped the photograph away from Ash, but I had stopped paying attention. “Witnesses claim that one of his brothers had a hand in his escape.” Harrison flipped through more pictures. Everything felt gray and far away, while simultaneously too close.

  “Have you seen or heard anything regarding any of these men, Miss Turner?” Agent Carson asked.

  I gazed from Agent Carson to Agent Harrison with hazy, unfocused eyes.

  Ashton Carter? Escape convict? And…murderer?

  “Miss Turner?” Agent Harrison reiterated, his voice sharpening as it lost patience. This was probably the hundredth house they’d approached regarding these men. Whoever they were. “Miss Turner, do you kno
w this man?”

  That was a good question.

  Did I know Ash…at all?

  Chapter Twelve

  Ashton

  The Turner Dairyfarm was submerged in night by the time Bill and I returned from the pharmacy and the grocery store. The sky was deep and dark now, the only lights coming from the interior ground floor of the farmhouse. It hadn’t seemed like we’d been gone for that long—dinner would still be hot—and, yet, something pivotal had happened during that hour or so, dividing the two timelines irrevocably.

  I’d heard the TV bulletin issued regarding my escape from the transit van.

  I’d also purchased a burner phone, some hair dye, and a hat. And condoms, but that was beside the point.

  And Bill had offered me an extra two hundred bucks to leave the dairy sooner rather than later…and leave his daughter, too.

  She lingered in my thoughts like a hangover as we exited the truck, wordless, and advanced toward the farmhouse.

  In part, it was the earthy skin tone and taut musculature of a hard-working woman that I loved…not to mention the pert and supple curvature of her youthful form. It was, in part, her tousled chestnut hair, trimmed short at one side, spilling full and wild down the other shoulder. And it was, in part, her plush cheeks, her button nose. But most of all, it was her soft and clever eyes that would haunt me.

  Wasn’t every day that Ashton Carter got a fox pointing a hunting rifle at him—the same girl who could stitch up the bullet wound on his shoulder and would sneak some dinner out to him. The same girl who would milk the cow, visiting his guest room at night… It was no wonder Bill wanted me gone. Isabelle Turner, his little bolt of sunshine, liked me, the unidentified boy with the through-and-through on his arm, who refused to go to the hospital for it. Who had the ridiculous story about a hunting accident when it wasn’t hunting season.

  “Hey, boys,” Hope—Isabelle’s mother—called as the front door swung open and allowed us entrance. “C’mon in. Isabelle made some delicious pasta for us. How did the trip go?” There was a meaningful pause as her eyes settled on Bill, confirming my earlier suspicions that she had put him up to the bribery he’d offered me. “Did you boys get a chance to talk?”