From A Dead Sleep Page 19

  He inflated his chest, attempting to compose himself. Though the boys had been standing behind him, he was certain they hadn’t seen the gun in the back of his pants. His sweatshirt hung too low, and there was no fear in their eyes.

  The redhead grinned through his freckled face and spoke: “My dad thought you were coming this afternoon. He just left.”

  “Shoot,” Sean answered, placing his hands on his hips. “I’ll just come back later.”

  “Oh no. You don’t have to do that. I can show you where it is.”

  Sean bit his lip and nodded. After a moment, he answered. “Okay, you show me.”

  He followed the boys toward the back side of the house, tracing their footsteps around a small flower garden in the side yard. The backyard wasn’t much bigger than the front. It was spread out about thirty feet before edging up to a retaining wall that looked out over a small ravine in the forest. The vast majority of the property was taken up by the house.

  The boys led him to a rectangular, light green fiberglass cover imbedded in some dirt at the corner of the yard.

  “There you go!” said the redhead, pointing to the ground.

  “Thanks, guys,” Sean replied with his hands on his hips again, his eyes aimed down.

  Both boys stood there, looking at him. They weren’t leaving.

  “Did you guys need something?” he asked, not looking up.

  “Can we watch?”

  It was what Sean was afraid of. He took a breath and lowered himself down to his knees. “Sure.”

  He lifted the cover and saw an intersection of multiple valves and piping between the partially submerged encasing. He placed his hand to his chin. He had never worked on a sprinkling system in his life and he knew nothing about plumbing.

  Feeling the boys’ eyes peering down on him from above, he leaned forward and began turning one of the valve handles, first to the right and then to the left. He then moved onto the next.

  For the first time, the brown-haired boy spoke. “How did you get in here, mister?”

  “What do you mean?” Sean asked, continuing to work the valves.

  “If Tommy’s dad didn’t think you were coming until later, who let you in through the gate?”

  Sean’s face turned pale, but he kept his hands busy, now massaging the piping and pretending to look for flaws. “The guard.”

  Both boys chuckled.

  “I know,” the larger boy pressed. “I mean . . . Who told the guard to let you in?”

  Your mom, Sean fought back the urge to respond, but he understood how important it was to keep the charade going. He’d driven halfway across the country to find out what was at 114 Bluff Walk Road and he wasn’t about to screw it up by arousing suspicions that he shouldn’t be on the north side of that gate.

  He took a moment to find an answer to the boy’s question. One soon came to him. “I did some work at another home in here this morning. You guys are my second stop of the day. They let me in.”

  “. . . Oh,” replied the redhead.

  “What’s wrong with your head, mister?” Sean heard the brunette ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  Sean knew what he meant. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the redhead jabbing his rude friend in the side with his elbow.

  “It looks like a spider or something bit the back of your head. Is that a bite mark?”

  “Nope.” Sean felt as though he was being talked down to and it was pissing him off. He bit his lip and clenched onto his composure. Regardless of which valve he turned, there was no sound or tremble of water pressure. His assumption was that if someone had been called to fix a problem with the system, there was a leak somewhere in the line. That didn’t appear to be the case. The only pipes close to eruption were the ones forming on his forehead as he became increasingly frustrated with the situation and the inquisitiveness of the fat kid.

  “Where are your tools, mister?”

  Sean snapped his back upright. The sudden jolt of movement caused both boys to leap backwards in surprise. His head spun and his narrowed, agitated eyes met those of the interrogator. Both kids’ faces deflated with angst. Sean imagined hammering a fist right into the fat boy’s chest, sending him toppling ten feet backwards and onto his back.

  Seconds of fierce tension dragged by. No one moved.

  Sean’s hands felt around to the side belt loops of his pants. He accentuated the action to get the boys’ attention.

  “You’re right,” he muttered. “I don’t have my tools. I must have left them at the last house.”

  As he stood up, both boys cautiously took a few steps back.

  “I’m going to need to go get them and come back,” he added.

  He sensed the boys breathing again and forced a smile across his rigid chops. An idea had come to mind. “You know, I’ve got a third house to do after this.” He wiped his brow with his arm. “One-Fourteen Bluff Walk Road. You guys know which one that is?”

  The boys looked at each other.

  “Well . . .” the redhead began. “We don’t really know many people in here. Most of us just live here in the summer. But the numbers get higher as you get higher up the road. The last one is one-fifteen, so it’s probably near the top.”

  Sean smiled and thanked the two boys, promising to return later. He sensed some remaining discomfort from them, but not enough for him to worry about them calling security. As he walked down the cobblestone driveway toward the road, he was sure he heard the redhead say to his friend, “I thought he was going to kick your ass.”

  He turned back and waved to the two of them still standing in the backyard. Only the redhead waved back. Once Sean had crossed a knoll and was out of sight of the two, he hustled off the driveway and back into the heart of the forest, following the path of the road from a distance.

  Chapter 26

  He’d have rather been in South Padre along with his buddy who’d flown out two days ago. He’d never been there, and MTV’s spring break coverage from a few months ago made it look too good to pass up. Chicks in bikinis, ninety-degree weather, swim-up bars, and loud music. What fun his friend from the university must be having right now. Oh, to have rich parents, he thought to himself.

  Instead of the arid sun sautéing his sprawled-out body and the indiscriminate spray from the ocean occupying his raw senses, he found himself crumpled up in a fetal position. He hoped it would counter the biting morning frost that neither his dome tent nor his mummy sleeping bag seemed to give him any protection from. About five miles from his hometown, he supposed it could have been worse. At least he had another couple of months before it was back to the stress of exams and projects.

  He’d hoped he’d be able to fall back asleep, but the deceiving sunlight and the abhorrent snoring coming from the tent next to his rattled him awake. There wasn’t going to be any refuge that morning until he got a fire started. It was the argument that eventually won the debate he’d carried out in his own mind. He summoned the nerve to unzip his bag and quickly crawled over to his hiking boots that lay in a clump near the tent’s nylon door. Somehow, he managed to keep his gnashed teeth from rattling as he absorbed the full brunt of the thin, crisp mountain air that heckled his clumsy attempts to pry the tongue of one of his boots from its wedged position above the bridge of his foot as he pulled on the footwear. The more practical answer would have been to remove the boot that he’d never untied in the first place and start over. It was his frigid toes that poured out through the holes in his well-worn sock, however, that won the appeal.

  Clad in an asparagus-colored canvas jacket with a plush, gray collar that he had buttoned up to his chin, the nineteen-year-old exited the tent, and in his haste to keep moving, didn’t bother to zip the hatch back up behind him. His dark, muddled hair from the restless night would have made him a natural fit in a Seattle grunge band, but his personal appearance was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment.

  The surrounding area was lit up pretty well, despite the sun havi
ng not yet topped the mountain range that stood proudly above Beggar’s Basin.

  Beggar’s Basin was a popular recreational area with the locals, mostly for picnics, fishing, and some canoeing. A couple outlets off the Blue River, a tributary of the Colorado River, rejoined there in a partially manmade reservoir before winding back to the Colorado several miles downstream. The reservoir resided about four miles south of Winston.

  Just a few days ago, the area had been overflowing with activity. An annual fishing contest produced a record number of participants. Raised rods and tackle-laced hats decorated every nook and cranny along the shore. But this morning, the boys had the entire valley to themselves. Three campers, two tents, and unbridled nature.

  He hustled over to the stone fire pit where his comrades had spent half the night dousing thick, flaming logs with gratuitous portions of apparently dispensable lighter fluid. Now, there was nothing but piles of gray and black ash and the sparse remnants of burnt timber. In a fluster, he searched for the large box of matches that he distinctly remembered leaving on top of his red and white cooler before turning in for the night. It was nowhere to be found. What have those idiots done with it? He soon answered his own question when he spotted the charred corner of the cardboard box resting along a large round stone on the inside perimeter of the pit. They’d torched it.

  He knew he was the only one of them who’d had the foresight to bring something with which to light the fire. He’d chastised his buddies about it when they’d first arrived the previous evening.

  Dueling chipmunks taunted each other from opposite ends of the campsite, chirping loudly before one took off after the other and they disappeared behind a group of small boulders.

  He glared in agitation at the classic A-frame tent that stood beside his own, where one buddy was still snoring loudly and the other was seemingly unaffected by the clamor. Both had been sucking on the ends of two-liters of Purple Passion the last time he’d seen them. It must have been the recipe for a solid night’s sleep, even in an ice cooler. He contemplated just crawling into the front seat of his parked Mustang and letting the car’s heater warm his body, but a warm engine wasn’t going to cook him the crispy strips of bacon and scrambled eggs he’d been craving for breakfast since about 2:30 a.m.

  He paced over to his pals’ tent and dropped to a knee. In a single motion, he latched onto the bottom of an exposed steel pole and yanked it free of its propped-up position before guiding it outside of the tent. The triangular-shaped canvas slowly deflated behind him as he made his way back to the fire pit. He turned over a thick, sawed log and took a seat on the flat end. After collapsing the top portion of the pole inside the bottom, he held one end to his mouth and guided the other down, just above the ash at the center of the pit. A couple strong breaths exposed some residual ember that still had a little life left in it. He gathered some reasonably dry twigs and formed them in the shape of pyramid above the ember. After ten minutes or so of repetitious puffs through the pole, he had a small flame going.

  A sense of pride triggered a grin below his hunched shoulders and he glanced over at his friends’ tent, wishing they were awake to marvel at his achievement. Despite having half of their tent sunken flat around their bodies, neither had budged and the blustering snoring had continued on unaltered.

  After adding sticks and dry leaves to feed the fire and absorbing its welcome warmth for a few minutes, he grabbed a large frying pan from an Army-green duffle bag inside his tent. It hadn’t been used in a while and hadn’t been cleaned all that well since its last use, so he took it down to the water with a half-depleted roll of paper towels. He squatted along the edge of the shore where a narrow inlet formed a lazy whirlpool of motion and submerged the face of the pan. When he lifted it back out of the water, his peripheral vision caught what he assumed was a trapped log bobbing horizontally against the rocks. He turned his head to take a closer look and his eyes expanded to their brinks.

  The pan fell from his hand, causing a splash he didn’t hear.

  He was back up on his feet in a flash and screaming his friends’ names so loudly and alarmingly that they thought he was being attacked by a bear. Still half-plastered with throbbing headaches, they joined him at the shore moments later.

  All three gazed at the mangled, bloated human body before them, covered almost entirely in black.

  Chapter 27

  Sean stood at the base of a short embankment blanketed with dead, matted leaves from the previous fall. New, thick blades of grass stemmed out from under them like green whiskers. He wished he had brought binoculars, but in his rush to leave Winston, he had not thought to. He was sure though that the digits along the face of the building read “114.” Like the last house he’d perused, the garage faced away from the road. The style of the home, however, looked much different.

  It was a multilevel building that sprouted up from a sloped landscape that had no real yard. Instead, the terrain was composed of large, decorative rock that accentuated staggered bushes and trees, similar to the raw forest that surrounded the residence. A curved row of concrete steps began parallel to the driveway and led up to a secondary row of wooden steps attached to a railed front porch. The edge of a larger sun-porch could be seen wrapped around the backside of the home. The building itself was constructed of dull, gray brick with sections of sprawling windows, and the roof had a mild angle to it. It wasn’t as flashy or homey as the house he’d just left. It was probably a bit older. Still, it was just as large and conveyed a wealthy aura that was unmistakable.

  The driveway was paved but sported a similar route to the long, cobblestone one he had walked down after leaving the two boys. It led to a closed garage door whose color matched the brick.

  His eyes had traced numerous windows multiple times over the past few minutes. There had been no movement from inside. He was unsure of how to approach the situation. A cop would just walk right up and knock, ask some direct questions, but he knew that an out- of-uniform rent-a-cop wouldn’t command the same respect. Sean looked down and evaluated his appearance. A slept-in sweatshirt and dirty jeans. He doubted the sprinkler guy gimmick would work on anyone other than a couple of kids.

  A dull, pounding sound caught his ear. Footsteps . . . coming fast from down the hill behind him. After a few seconds, he was sure they were only getting louder. Most of the forest was lush with trees, but he had little cover between where he stood and whoever was coming his way—nowhere to hide in time without causing a commotion. He dropped to one knee in an attempt to make himself less visible, careful not to make a sound.

  A figure in navy blue apparel emerged from the crest of a small hill to his right. It was a woman jogging. Her eyes hadn’t met his. Thin, white earphones hugged her head above a blonde ponytail. It flipped from side to side with each stride. She was concentrating on pushing her way up the hill along a worn dirt path that Sean hadn’t noticed until just then. He stayed perfectly still and was careful not to make any movements that would catch her attention. Her snug tank top accentuated her athletic frame, and he took notice of her shapely legs that stemmed up from a pair of white Nikes. She passed maybe twenty feet from him, so close that he could hear the music from the little speakers in her ears. She looked young. He guessed somewhere in her twenties. After she disappeared behind some aspens, he directed his gaze back up at the house. A few seconds went by before he heard footsteps again. This time, they came from the driveway. It was the same woman, now nearly sprinting as she made her way up toward the house.

  “She lives there?” he whispered under his breath. Was this who received the dead man’s letter?

  When she reached the garage, her shoulders collapsed and her hands went to her knees.

  He could hear her heavy breathing. He watched her glance at her watch, then press some buttons on a keypad beside the garage door. The door rose steadily without much noise. As it began to lift, she dropped to a squatting position, seemingly impatient and eager to look inside where a single car resided in t
he two-car garage. It was a black Audi. The sight seemed to anger her, as he was sure he heard her drop of an f-bomb. He found it a bit amusing. She walked inside and disappeared from view as the garage door steadily lowered back down.

  Sean’s fingers scratched the back of his head.

  “Well, what the hell was I expecting?” Lisa asked herself out loud before reaching a hand back behind her head and setting her hair free from the ponytail in her kitchen. Her legs felt tight from her run.

  She peered over at the answering machine resting on the counter. The digital display read “0.” She took a breath and made her way through the kitchen, snagging a bottled water from the fridge before strolling into the living room. Still breathing hard, she found herself gazing at a framed picture of her and her husband set on a two-inch thick redwood mantel in front of her, propped up at a slight angle. The photo had been taken at a friend’s anniversary party a year and a half ago. Him in a black suit and her in a dynamic red dress. Both smiling. She pulled it face-down along the mantel.

  An unexpected knock at the door brought a jolt of excitement that shook awake her fatigued body. In one quick motion, she positioned the picture back in place. With a wide grin that lit up her face, she raced to the front door, taking a moment to stop beside a large horizontal mirror on the wall to check her hair. Not ideal, but she didn’t care. Her heart flapped briskly like a wild bird that had just been freed from captivity. She swung open the door, ready to wrap her arms tightly around her husband, but the reunion was not to be.

  Before her stood not her spouse but a tall, imposing figure—the sight of which instantly erased her joyous smile and the gleam in her eye. The man’s broad shoulders nearly eclipsed the sunlight that had made its way through the arms of a towering tree above. He looked rough to Lisa, with his unshaven, weathered face and grimy clothes. He was completely out of place in the upscale, spread-out community that surrounded her. Even for someone who worked the grounds or maybe maintained equipment, he didn’t look right. She was certain she had never seen him before. She never forgot a face.