Thin gloves, clean and black, jerked and stretched, then clenched as the figure remembered where he was.
There were voices.
"Promise me!"
"Fine, babe, I promise. I'll swear it on my mother's grave, if you want."
"You hated your mother."
It was Belinda, arguing with Ditch. The figure pulled himself away from the dirt wall where he had leaned, dozing. He was still stuck in Ditch's cellar. He checked the time—8:12 p.m. He had been here for sixteen hours.
Ditch stomped around upstairs, moving objects—boxes, it sounded like—stacking them near the front door. He preferred to do his work in the late afternoon and after dark. Maybe he would leave soon.
"You'd better keep your promise," Belinda persisted.
Ditch's feet paused in the kitchen. "Hey, how long have you known me? If you can't trust me, who can you trust?" Belinda snorted and began to speak again, but Ditch cut her off. "No more of this. After your birthday, you're free. Until then, you still work for me. So take this—"
She grunted as he handed her something. He strode out the door, his voice disappearing with him. Her tip-tapping steps followed. Ditch returned inside twice more, fetching the boxes.
Then his footfalls thudded into the second bedroom, where the hidden cellar door lay. "Yeah, I know you're in here," Ditch said roughly, and the figure drifted back into the darkest corner again. But Ditch didn't open the cellar door. Instead, he stepped over it and shoved something heavy to the side with his foot. The man lying on top of the door—he was still there. He mumbled something in reply, stumbled to his feet, and made his way unevenly to the living room.
Ditch followed him, scolded him, and left the house. A car engine rumbled to life outside, then drove away.
Stepping past the crates in the dark, the figure climbed the ladder silently and paused at the top, listening. The enormous TV in the living room was on and blaring full-volume; it would cover any sound he made.
He lifted the cellar door. No one was in the second bedroom, so he climbed out and closed the door behind him. One person to get past. Would Robin Hood sneak by or make a run for it? Robin was more the sneaker-type, the figure decided.
He crept through the house to the edge of the large entryway, where the living room was set off to one side. A young man with a long, black, uncombed beard and hair to match lounged on the living room sofa, staring vaguely at the TV screen. He was facing the entryway. The figure couldn't cross the opening without coming into his full view.
Sixteen hours in the cellar having eroded much of his interest in caution, he strode boldly across the entryway. The other man glanced up.
"Hey," the figure said, waving a hand.
"Hey," the other man replied with a nod. His eyes swung back to the television.
The figure slipped out the front door and strode briskly down the street, checking behind him frequently, but the other man did not follow. Two blocks away he found his getaway car. He jumped in, cranked it to life, and slipped out of the neighborhood.
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 53