Ashley was his latest conquest, a stay-at-home-mom, and she had dropped off her kids at her parents’ house for the day. Pete’s own wife was doing lunch and a movie with her friends and wouldn’t get back home for hours.
What Pete hadn’t counted on was Ashley’s husband, Rick, coming home early. The douchebag was some kind of ad salesman, supposedly out all day trying to close a deal with a potential client downtown.
Pete had Ashley propped up on the cherry-oak dresser in her bedroom. Her long, tanned legs were wrapped around his waist. The dresser and attached mirror rocked as he thrust into her.
Grunting, waves of pleasure cascading over him, Pete happened to glance in that mirror and saw the reflection of her husband Rick standing in the bedroom doorway holding a golf club.
His erection wilted like a punctured balloon. He pulled out of Ashley.
“What is it?” she asked, and then she looked over his shoulder and covered her mouth, a scream escaping her fingers.
As Pete spun around, snatching up his shorts, Rick thundered toward him with the club. There was something seriously wrong with the guy’s face. His eyes looked as if they had been soaked in corrosive acid. Weird blisters dotted his pale complexion. A fat vein pulsed like a malignant worm in the middle of his forehead.
“Hey, man.” Pete said, raising his hands.
Rick swung the golf club at him. As it whistled toward him, Pete couldn’t help noticing that it was a nine-iron.
This is gonna hurt like hell, he thought.
The crack of the club head against his skull was like an explosion. As Pete collapsed to the floor, Ashley ran past them, naked as the day she was born, and Pete’s last coherent thought was: Run, girl. Run for your life . . . .
***
Ty came out of his house late that morning to retrieve the bundled newspapers dropped at the end of his walkway. A self-employed day trader, Ty subscribed to paper editions of The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Baron’s, and other periodicals that covered the fast-changing world of finance. Each publication offered a digital edition, but he preferred to read the hard copies. Skimming them on his lunch break gave his eyes a respite from the bank of flashing screens and the Bloomberg terminal in his home office.
When Ty strolled out of his residence and glanced at his neighbor’s house across the street, he had to wonder if his eyes were failing him.
Layla was in her front yard watering her roses, and she was bare-chested.
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, pinched the bridge of his nose as if to clarify his vision.
Layla was a retiree and lived with her husband. She had to be in her mid-sixties, at least thirty years older than he was, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from her every day appearance. She was fit and always looked fashionable. Ty also believed she’d gotten some work done: she had some of the most incredible boobs he had ever seen on a woman of any age, a sheer marvel of cosmetic surgery. A few months ago, she had invited Ty and his wife over to her house for wine and cheese, and between sips of pinot noir he had kept sneaking peeks at her amazing cleavage. She had caught him looking once, and winked, obviously aware of the mesmerizing effect she’d had on him, and well-pleased with his attentions.
Those perfect breasts of hers were on full display as she swept the spray nozzle back and forth across her bed of multi-colored roses. He was convinced she had to be wearing a bra but she wasn’t. She wore only a pair of khaki shorts.
Watching her, Ty swallowed, his newspapers forgotten.
Was this a joke?
He looked back and forth across the street, saw no one else out on his block. It was only he and Layla.
He began to cross the street. “Good morning, Layla!”
The woman ignored him. She was intent on her flowers, sweeping the water nozzle back and forth, back and forth. The roses were thoroughly soaked, and he noticed that the runoff from the flower bed was streaming across the front walkway, trickling onto the curb, and running into the storm drain.
Is something wrong with her? It’s as though she’s in a trance.
“Layla!” he said again, advancing onto the walkway. His flip-flops squished through water. “Hey, good morning!”
Finally, she turned.
Oh, Jesus, look at her face . . .
She snarled at him, like a dog interrupted while chewing a bone.
“Back . . . get!” she screamed.
“I’m sorry, I was worried.”
Layla flipped a switch on the spray nozzle—and turned the jet spray on him. The powerful stream caught him full in the face.
It was like being punched by an icy fist. Ty spluttered, gagged, staggered backward and lost his balance. He fell to the ground, smacking his tailbone hard against the pavement.
Layla stalked forward, continuing to spray him. Blinded by the cold water, he struggled to his feet, turned, and stumbled across the street. The jet of water hit him in the back of his head, and he nearly fell down again.
Dripping wet, he hurried back to his house. When he reached the region of his own property, Layla turned away.
She returned to her flower bed and resumed watering her roses.
She’s out of her goddamn mind, Ty thought.
He was going to call the police. Her attack on him qualified as an assault, and from the look of her face, something was deeply wrong with her.
But first, he went inside and locked the door.
***
“Girl, get your lazy ass up and fix me some breakfast.”
Clint was starving, and it was his girlfriend’s responsibility to do something about it. That was how he’d been raised. His daddy had been a hardworking man, and when he’d come home after pulling his shift at the old Ford auto plan, dinner had damn sure better be on the table, hot and delicious, or else someone’s ass was gonna get whooped. Usually that someone had been Clint’s mama.
You gotta train up these women, son, Daddy had taught him. Spare the rod, spoil the woman, that’s what I say.
It all made perfect sense to Clint. But evidently he and his lady, Sara, were still in the training phase. He’d pulled an all-night shift on his road construction gig and come back to their apartment in South Haven expecting a hot breakfast. Was that too much for a hard-working man to ask for? He was so hungry he could have eaten a whole damn hog.
But as he stood in the bedroom doorway, looking into the shadowed room, he saw Sara was still in bed, wrapped under the sheets. If it weren’t for the lick of blonde hair curling over the edge of the sheet, he wouldn’t have known she was under there at all.
“Hey!” he said, and kicked the door. “Get your ass outta bed!”
She stirred, but made no effort to get up.
Clint grunted. He couldn’t believe she was ignoring him. Actually, he could. It was this goddamn neighborhood they lived in. It was full of rich bitches that stayed home tanning by the pool while their men earned all the money; these woman weren’t required to cook, clean, or even take care of their own goddamn kids. Clint saw them roaming around South Haven all the time, prancing around in their tennis skirts and sipping expensive coffee drinks.
Sara most likely had fallen in with some of that moneyed crowd and picked up their pretentious attitude. But they weren’t like those people and never would be. He’d allowed her to choose this apartment, and let her stay home while he worked, but he’d be damned if she wasn’t going to fulfill her responsibilities as a woman.
He stomped into the room, his dusty work boots leaving crumbs of dirt across the carpet. Unbuckling his leather belt, he approached the bed.
“Training time,” he said, wrapping one end of the belt around his hand.
Clint popped the tip of the belt against the shape of her rump.
Sara shrieked, squirming underneath the covers like an agitated sack of snakes.
“I told you to get up!” Clint snatched away the bedsheets.
Sara snarled at him. There was stuff on her face, as if she had chicken po
x, and though the room was dim, he could nonetheless see something was deeply wrong with her eyes, too.
Involuntarily, he took a step backward.
Shrieking, Sara sprang like a spider off the bed. She leaped onto him, wrapped her legs around his waist and bit his face.
***
Pernell Jackson worked as a mail carrier for the US Postal Service, and the highlight of his work day was delivering mail through South Haven. Due to the design of the community, he couldn’t stay in his mail truck, winding his way down the side of the road and depositing letters in mailboxes posted at the curb. No one had curbside mailboxes in South Haven.
There, he had to get out of his truck and walk from one residence to the next, inserting the day’s mail in either a slot at the front door, or in a box posted beside the entrance. It was old school delivery, and Pernell enjoyed every minute of it.
That morning, he parked his mail truck at the usual beginning of his residential route, at the intersection of Gold Road and Mill Street. He gathered all of the pieces for delivery in his big canvas mail satchel, climbed out of his truck, adjusted the bag across his shoulders, and kicked off his route.
He had covered half the block when he spotted the dogs.
There were four of them, of varying sizes and breeds. A Golden Retriever, a Collie, a beagle, and some kind of terrier. In his twenty-two years working as a mail carrier, he’d had numerous encounters with all kinds of canines, been barked at, chased, and had to blast a few with his pepper spray. None of these was the kind of dog that typically would have concerned Pernell. A Golden, in particular, was usually one of the sweetest dogs he’d ever seen.
But the animals’ behavior was damned strange. They had emerged from the backyard of a home across the street, traveling in a pack, and something looked . . . wrong about them. Their eyes were inflamed, and they were drooling.
Rabies, Pernell thought. He had never personally seen a rabid canine but he knew the symptoms. His hand quickly went to the canister of pepper spray riding his hip.
As he reached for the spray, the dogs snarled, and charged.
“Oh, shit,” he said. His heart leaped. Although armed with a powerful deterrent, he didn’t like his chances fighting four vicious hounds. He raced along the sidewalk, heading back the way he’d come. The mail satchel slipped off his shoulders and crashed to the ground, letters and circulars fluttering everywhere. Pernell pumped his arms and forced his legs to move, move, move.
He barely made it to his truck in time. One of the dogs, the beagle, leaped toward the open window, and if Pernell didn’t have the pepper spray still in hand he would have been breakfast. He blasted the snapping dog in the face. The beagle yelped and dropped off the window ledge.
Pernell rolled up the glass. The other dogs surrounded the mail truck. They barked and snarled.
Sweet Jesus, what is going on? Pernell thought. He felt as if he’d been dropped into an old Stephen King movie.
He fumbled out his cell phone and called the police.
***
Manuel arrived at the job site precisely on time, at eleven thirty in the morning. He was a carpenter, specializing in custom cabinetry and woodwork; he took pride in punctuality, in doing an outstanding job and leaving his clients satisfied that they had hired him. When he rang the doorbell of the Craftsman home on Merriam Lane in South Haven, where he was slated to resume work on a job in the kitchen, he anticipated another opportunity to complete a project that exceeded his client’s expectations.
No one came to the door. But Manuel heard several people talking inside. Their voices were so loud that he assumed they hadn’t heard him ring the doorbell. He mashed the button again, and waited.
Still, no one answered. Strange.
Access to the home was controlled via a numeric keypad posted next to the door. The homeowner had given Manual a temporary passcode, allowing him to let himself in and out as needed throughout the duration of the project. Manuel had pressed the doorbell out of courtesy and habit, but he urgently needed to get inside and resume working. He pulled up the notepad app on his phone where he had stored the passcode, used the six-digit code to unlock the door.
As he pushed the door open, the sounds hit him like a sonic blast.
“If Clemson wants a chance to beat Alabama in this football game, they’ve got to discover more offense in the second half . . .”
Manuel realized what he was hearing. It was a recorded television broadcast of a college football game.
Personally, Manuel was more of a futbol fan. He found the American game to be overly violent and slow-paced. But from his understanding, the homeowner, a retired lawyer, was an ardent fan of Clemson football, and had decorated his house with team memorabilia.
To each his own. But for the guy to be re-watching the game at a decibel level that could ensure permanent hearing loss was damned weird.
Manuel advanced along the entry hall. The hardwood floor thrummed in tune with the sounds of the broadcast.
“This stout Alabama defense is the toughest challenge the Clemson Tigers have faced all season . . .”
An arched doorway led to the spacious family room. A seventy-five inch, flat-screen television dominated the wall that faced the hallway. It was the largest TV Manuel had ever seen in someone’s home, and would have been more appropriate in a sports bar.
The homeowner, Mr. Allen, sat on a leather sectional sofa, his back facing Manuel. Manuel didn’t recognize him at first because of what the man was wearing: he had on a football helmet with the Clemson Tigers insignia, and a jersey, too, as if he were a member of the squad waiting on the coach to sub him into the game.
Warily, Manuel entered the room. “Mr. Allen?”
Mr. Allen ignored him. He was fixated on the screen, where it looked as if play had resumed.
“Sir?” Manuel said. “I only wanted to let you know that I’m here to resume the job.”
“Asshole . . . tear ‘em a new one!” Mr. Allen shouted at the television.
Manuel noticed that Mr. Allen cradled a leather football in his lap. He also noticed that there were crimson blisters on the man’s hands.
“Mr. Allen, are you okay?” Manuel asked.
As he asked the question, he stepped in front of Mr. Allen, blocking the view of the television. It seemed the only way to get his attention.
When Manuel saw Mr. Allen’s eyes, simmering in the shadowed depths of that helmet, he realized something was very wrong with this man.
Mr. Allen screamed at him.
“TV . . . goddamn . . . move!”
Mr. Allen flung the football at Manuel. The ball smashed into Manuel’s nose. Crying out, Manuel stumbled backward and crashed into a table.
His nose bled, and it hurt terribly. It might have been broken.
Mr. Allen retrieved his football from the floor and settled back on the sofa as if nothing had happened. He yelled at the screen again, something unintelligible.
Keeping close to the floor, blood dripping from his nostrils, Manuel crawled out of the room and fled the house.
He saw a police cruiser veering around the corner, lights flashing, followed closely by another squad car. He heard an ambulance warbling, too.
I’m getting out of here, he thought. The people here have gone totally loco . . .
Chapter 9
South Haven was a gated live-work-play community, but the developer of South Haven, Ronald Falcon, lived behind an additional set of gates, on a wooded, five-acre parcel of land at the southern edge of the community property. Deacon parked the golf cart at the wide entrance and pressed the buzzer.
The boss man had sent him a text message. He’d demanded a face-to-face meeting with Deacon, immediately.
After they’d witnessed the mauling of the young woman, he and Jim had spent some time searching for the dog, this time with the assistance of a Fulton County Animal Control officer armed with a powerful tranquilizer, and a Roswell PD cop armed with a rifle. Although they were adequately prepared
for another battle with the St. Bernard, their search of the greenway proved fruitless. The canine had given them the slip.
But the dog was still out there, somewhere. It was just the beginning of what had become an epically bad day.
Deacon waited outside the gate, fingers drumming the steering wheel. He could anticipate the purpose of his employer’s unexpected summoning, and he wasn’t looking forward to this discussion.
The ornately designed entrance gates were nearly ten feet high. An “F” as big as Deacon’s head was carved in the center of the gates; a rendering of a giant falcon in mid-flight stood at the top of the entrance. There were security cameras posted throughout the community, all of which Deacon’s team could access on closed circuit televisions. A security camera was posted at the entrance to the Falcon property as well, standing atop a tall wrought-iron pole bristling with lights—but no one except Mr. Falcon could access the feed.
A buzzer sounded. The electric-powered gates parted silently.
He drove down a long, winding driveway flanked with tall elms on both sides. Soon, the trees cleared and the residence came into view.
South Haven was full of large, stately homes, but even the biggest of those was like a studio apartment when compared to the Falcon estate. It looked like a mansion that had been transported from the French countryside. Once, Deacon had been granted a tour of the sprawling residence, and recalled that it boasted something like fifteen thousand square feet of living space. You literally needed a map to navigate the place.
He parked the golf cart underneath the porte-cochere, and walked to the front entrance. Another gigantic “F” was carved in the expensive polished oak of the door.
A wooden box was attached to the brick beside the doorway. Deacon slipped his hand underneath and withdrew a pair of disposable shoe covers.
All outside visitors were required to wear shoe covers when entering the Falcon home. Mr. Falcon had an aversion to dirt, germs, and filth of any kind.
Shoe covers installed over his Rockports, Deacon was about to ring the bell when the door opened.
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