Shades of Deception

by Piper Dow

  Wayne stared at her, then looked wildly around the room. “The window!”

  Trying to move as quietly as possible, they crossed the room to assess the possibility. The window faced the same neighbor’s driveway that the window between the chairs in the living room faced. There were no vehicles in the driveway.

  “If we can get out and get on the other side of that house, we can watch and wait for him to leave,” Wayne suggested, moving to unlock the window.

  Kelly groaned quietly but nodded. He hung his backpack out the window and dropped it softly on the ground beneath them. As he swung his legs out the window, he pointed with his hand toward the rear corner of the house. “We have to make sure we go that way, so he doesn’t see us from the living room window.” He dropped down to join his backpack.

  Kelly turned her head to listen for the front door, but heard nothing. She swung one leg out the window and pulled the second out. She was getting ready to jump when she heard the key being turned in the lock on the front door. She bent to get her head through the window and pushed against the wall with her feet to clear the window. The impact sent her sprawling. Wayne pulled her quickly to her feet. Keeping close to the side of the house, they worked their way quickly to the back corner of the house. The neighbor’s picket fence was too high to jump, and not sturdy enough to try to climb over, but it only went the length of the yard. Glancing again at the window they had climbed out of, Kelly pointed at the back corner of the fence. They ran, making the end and ducking behind the fence quickly. Wayne snuck glances around the side of the fence for a few minutes until they were sure they hadn’t been seen.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “We didn’t close the window,” Kelly moaned, sneaking a glance at the building between the slats of the picket fence. “What if he opens the door to Sam’s room? What if a breeze comes up and he realizes there’s a window open somewhere and starts looking?”

  She turned her face from the apartment building and looked back at the house on this side of the fence. A cat sitting on the table on the back deck looked at them with idle curiosity. Kelly closed her eyes, hoping they didn’t also have a dog somewhere on the property.

  Wayne was still peering around the fence at the apartment. “He hasn’t noticed anything yet,” he said, “or, at least he hasn’t stuck his head out the window yet. There’s no breeze to come up, and it’s a little cool out here, but Sam likes to keep her apartment cool, so maybe he won’t notice that, either.”

  He turned back to Kelly and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “That was quick thinking, about the lock,” he said. “You’re a little scary, how fast your brain works.”

  Kelly opened her eyes and gave a weak smile. “Yeah, well, that’s how I roll,” she said. Glancing around the yard again, and back at the apartment with the window wide open, she pointed to the other side of the deck. “Do you think we should try to make it to there? If he does look out that window, we’re probably too easy to spot sitting here.”

  Wayne looked at the deck, then around at the yard around them, considering.

  “There isn’t a lot of cover in this yard, besides this fence,” he said. He jerked his thumb at the blockade fence separating the back property line from the next yard. “And this pretty much keeps us out of any of the yards on that street back there. Do you want to try -” but what he was going to suggest was lost as they heard the screen door on the porch of Sam’s apartment swing on its hinges.

  Both ducked lower and tried to take up as little room as possible on the ground. Kelly had her head against the fence and risked a searching sweep of her eyes to see if the man was heading toward them. She held her breath as the sound of his steps tapped down the steps and strode briskly to the car. They listened as he opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. The engine hummed a few times before catching, then the car was thrown into reverse and roared out of the driveway. Another few seconds passed with the sound of the vehicle fading away as it drove down the road while Kelly and Wayne stayed frozen where they were.

  Slowly, Kelly lifted her head and turned to Wayne. He sat back heavily and leaned against the fence.

  “How did we manage that?” he asked softly. He wiped the palms of his hands on his legs.

  Kelly shook her head. Her heart was still beating to burst out of her chest. She put one shaking hand up to pull a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Do you think we need anything else inside the apartment? Or do you think we have enough?” She waited half a beat before adding, “Because, to be honest, I think I’d rather grab the bikes and go back to town. We can sit in the coffee shop and look through what we’ve got. Or we can go to a park - there’s one Sam used to take me to, where she used to go jogging. It’s not too far from here. No one would think to look for us there.”

  Wayne nodded. “The park would be better than the coffee shop, I think,” he said. “Not as many ears to overhear so we don’t have to be so careful about what we say.” He stood. “Let’s just close the window first. We can do it from outside - at least get it mostly closed, anyway. That way if he didn’t see it just now, it’ll buy us more time before he does.”

  Kelly nodded but didn’t move. She was willing her heart to stop pounding so hard. Her hands clenched the grass as though to secure her body to the ground.

  “Just, let's sit here just a couple of minutes, OK? Just a couple,” she said, leaning her head back against the fence with her eyes closed.

  Wayne peeked back around the fence again. “Kelly, I want to get away from here. We don’t know who that was, why he came back, where he just went or when he’s coming back again - but we do know there’s a couple of boxes of body parts in there, and I don’t want to be caught anywhere near that.”

  Kelly heaved a deep sigh, then nodded slowly as she moved to get to her feet. “Yeah, okay. Let’s close the window and get the bikes out of here.”

  They crossed the backyard to the side of the house and were soon standing under Sam’s window. If Kelly reached her hands above her head, she could touch the bottom window sill. Though taller, Wayne couldn’t reach the raised window, either. He leaned down and laced his fingers together. Kelly put one foot into his make-shift stirrup, and between the two of them, she managed to grab the window bottom and close the window. She noted the bedroom door, still shut.

  They walked cautiously around the back of the building. The car was gone, and no one stood waiting to catch them as they hurried to the bikes they had leaned against the lamp post at the end of the walkway. Wayne slung his backpack over one shoulder, threw his leg over the seat and prepared to ride. Kelly, who hadn’t taken her bag off since they had arrived, quickly hopped onto her bike and pushed off. She didn’t want to be near the house any longer than they needed to.

  She headed down the road, reviewing the route to the park in her mind. Sam had used the trails at the park to run - she had said being in the woods and getting to appreciate nature while also getting her runner’s high was the closest to being in Heaven she could imagine. There were also fields used for team sports and a route set up for doing calisthenics, as well as a playground. When Sam had taken Kelly to the park over the summer, Kelly had walked a few of the wooded trails with her camera while Sam had run. Kelly had some of the photos from that week on her computer at home.

  “Hey, Kel - stay up on the sidewalk, okay?” Wayne’s voice drifted up to her. “It’d be better to look like we’re just out for a ride if that guy comes back - we’re headed the same way the car went.”

  Kelly lifted her head and glanced around, surprised. So lost in remembering, she hadn’t realized that Wayne was right. She directed the tires up onto the sidewalk at the next driveway and slowed so that Wayne could pull up alongside her.

  Kelly scanned the road ahead. There were a couple of intersections close together; she hoped she could remember which one led to the park. She had been to the park a couple of times with Sam, but each time Sam had been driving, and Kelly had
been chattering away, not really paying attention to the directions.

  They neared the first intersection. Kelly slowed, looking down the road to the right. Nothing there really looked familiar. Shaking her head, she kept leading toward the next street. At the next right, she looked down the road and was relieved to see a street sign with a picture of a tractor on it. She remembered Sam laughing as she told Kelly about the time she had seen a tractor in line at the coffee shop drive-through when they passed the sign. She took the right and looked for more familiar sights to make sure she was correct. If she was, the park should be coming up in a few minutes.

  They rounded a corner in the road. Kelly was struck by how pretty it was in this town, with the Autumn leaves changing color and beginning their drift to cover the edges of the roads and yards. There weren’t too many houses on this street; it was mostly wooded with an edging of grass on the side of the street. Ahead, Kelly saw the entrance to the park.

  They slowed as they entered the driveway. Kelly noted a few cars in the parking lot. A couple of women were walking around the ball fields with baby strollers. The sound of a ball being hit back and forth drew their attention to the tennis courts, where a couple were in fierce competition. There were fewer people, overall, than when Kelly had been to the park last, but Kelly realized that there would have been more then, as it had been summertime. The park had been alive with screams and laughter from running children. Now, it was a Tuesday, mid-school week, and the majority of those children would be in school.

  They walked their bikes over to a picnic table between the ball field and the wooded trails that Sam had used for cross-country running. Kelly sat on the bench with her back to the table and closed her eyes. It would feel nice to sit and relax - if she could pretend that nothing was upside down in her world.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Ok, so what do we have?” Wayne’s words intruded on her fantasy. He sat on the bench beside her.

  Kelly opened her eyes and sighed. She dug out a notebook and pen from her messenger bag. Lists always seemed to help her keep her mind organized.

  “Well, there’s boxes of body parts in Jill’s closet! We have a scale and baggies in the drawer in her room, and those weird cacti and bottles of pills on the shelf. We have a man who has obviously been living in Sam and Jill’s apartment,” she wrote.

  “Hang on, we don’t know for sure he has been living there,” Wayne said. He was rummaging in his backpack.

  “He took a shower there! He has a key!” Kelly was irritated.

  “Yeah, he had a key,” Wayne said. He surfaced from his backpack and looked at her. “Kelly, you’ve taken showers at other people’s houses before and not been living there. Besides, we don’t know for sure it was him that took the shower – we just know a shower was taken.”

  Kelly grimaced. Of course, Wayne was right – his points were entirely logical. Somehow, though, she knew that she was right. She looked at her list and frowned.

  “Fine. You make good points. I still think he is living there, though,” she said as she scratched out the line that said “man living at Sam’s” and wrote instead, “man has key to Sam’s,” and “someone took shower this morning.”

  Wayne looked over at the list. His hands were busy pulling sandwiches and juice pouches out of his backpack.

  “Don’t forget the take-out container,” he said, “and the otherwise empty fridge.”

  Kelly nodded, adding them to the list.

  “It’s obvious that something was going on,” Kelly said. “This isn’t all just Sam’s imagination.”

  Wayne had made a stack of food for Kelly and was opening up his own sandwich bag.

  “Unless Sam was in on it,” he said. Glancing up at Kelly and noticing her glare, he shrugged. “I’m just trying to look at all angles. Isn’t that what you said we had to do? Although,” he took a bite from his ham and cheese, “it doesn’t really look like that. Make another list – we should really make two more. One that lines up stuff that could make it look like Sam was involved, and one of stuff that makes it look like she wasn’t involved.”

  Kelly flipped to a new page in the notebook without speaking. She hated to admit that Wayne was being more logical about this than she was, but she and Sam had been closer that Wayne had been with Sam. Wayne would be happy to have someone else in the family divert the scrutiny off of him.

  “Ok, so what makes Sam look like she could be involved?” she asked, prepared to write whatever points he might come up with.

  “Well, for starters, she lived in a house that has pills, a scale, baggies, and freaking boxes of body parts in it. C’mon, Kel, Sam isn’t stupid. She must have known that stuff was in there,” he said.

  Kelly didn’t answer him but wrote it down. “What else?” she asked.

  Wayne shook his head, his mouth full of sandwich. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted after swallowing the mouthful.

  “Ok, so what makes it look like she wasn’t involved?” Kelly asked. She started writing. “She was attacked. She is in the hospital. She posted in her journal that things were freaking her out; stuff was being moved, food was tasting funny. At the apartment, everything in the shared spaces – the kitchen and living room – were spic and span and organized, like Sam’s room. The only room that was a pig stye was Jill’s room – and that door was closed. Sam would have wanted to give Jill privacy, so she wouldn’t have gone into her bedroom, would she?”

  Wayne had finished his sandwich and started on his apple. “Oh, here’s another point for the other list – she had drugs in her system. That’s huge, Kel.”

  Kelly’s mouth tightened as she conquered the urge to scream. She added the point to the list.

  “Kelly,” Wayne’s voice was soothing. “I don’t want Sam to be involved. I don’t. I just want to make sure we are looking at all the angles because, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re sitting out here in a park, two and a half hours from home, because we just got chased out of the window of the apartment by someone coming in who shouldn’t be there. You said we need to be smart about this, right? So let’s be smart. Eat something for lunch.”

  He nudged the pile of food next to her notebook.

  Kelly slapped the pen down on the notebook. “Wayne, honestly! I haven’t forgotten we had to jump out of the window. I haven’t forgotten how serious this is. I just don’t agree that Sam could be involved. I was here over the summer, remember? I know how Sam is – she would not be involved with drugs. I can’t even imagine who would be involved with the rest of that stuff!”

  She stood up from the bench and started pacing, unable to contain the energy she felt coursing through her body.

  “When I was here over the summer, Jill had lost weight. Remember when we saw her at spring break, she was wearing mostly yoga pants and baggie sweatshirts? Sam told me that she had thought Jill might be pregnant – Jill was sick a lot, and she was crying, but she wouldn’t tell Sam what was wrong. Then she broke up with her boyfriend. By the end of the school year, she was going with a new guy, but Sam didn’t seem to like him. You know Sam, she doesn’t really say anything outright bad about anyone, but she just acted like she didn’t seem comfortable with him. And Jill changed – and I know, that happens when people start going out with someone, they want to spend all sorts of time together and don’t have time for other people anymore. This went beyond that. When I was here in the summer, Jill would write her name on food in the fridge. They never bothered with that before – if Sam wanted a yogurt and didn’t have any in there, she’d eat one of Jill’s and replace it later.”

  The more Kelly talked about what had seemed odd over the summer, the more she remembered, and the stranger it seemed.

  Kelly stopped pacing and sat on the bench again. She picked up the apple Wayne had packed for her and took a bite absentmindedly, still thinking.

  “You remember when Sam came home right before school? She said Jill’s boyfriend really made her uncomfortable. She was wondering whether s
he was going to stick out the lease on the apartment or whether she and Jill would end up splitting and one take the apartment and one leave, because the boyfriend was always there. She said it wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, she just didn’t care for him.” Kelly swallowed the bite of apple. “He wasn’t hanging around when I was there at the beginning of summer. I saw him once, but that was when Jill had just started seeing him. They were going to some party at his friends’ house, I think. Jill was wearing a really short skirt and had straightened her hair - she looked really different.”

  “Okay, so she was acting different,” Wayne said. He had watched her pace without interruption, but couldn’t contain himself anymore. “And Sam probably would have not wanted to go into her bedroom.” He stressed the word probably, putting a question into the word. “Kel, maybe we need to start with figuring out where Jill is. Any idea on how to do that?”

  Kelly took another bite of the apple and stared into the woods, thinking as she chewed. Jill and Sam had attended a lot of the same classes to begin with, but Sam had branched off into history whereas Jill had gone into sociology. If they could figure out some of the classes Jill should be taking this semester, they might be able to go to the school and see if she was still attending them. Or, maybe find some other classmates who might be able to give them some insight. Kelly expressed as much to Wayne, surprised when he looked hesitant.

  “Do you have a better idea?” she asked, at a loss.

  “How are we going to figure out what classes she was in? You know I have a hard time coming up with stories on the fly, Kelly. What if someone asks me something? I don’t want to blow it,” he said.

  Kelly pulled out her phone. “I’ve got an idea about the classes. What if some of the textbooks were Jill’s? Or what if there were some in her room? I took photos of everything in the apartment - we can look through them to see if we see any textbooks. When we get to the school, we can ask at the library what classes are using those textbooks - they ought to have copies of all of the textbooks the school is using, in the reference section.”