Lucid

by Brian Stillman

  I sat up in bed. I stared at the open door, the brightly lit hallway, anticipating some silhouette to lurch into view. Horace. Mr. Pederson. Pat Corley. However many sets of hands it took to make the dream a reality.

  Mojo barked. She was downstairs. I froze up. Mojo kept barking and barking.

  Ruth’s gun was on the bedside table next to my phone. I could call someone. I could. I started reaching for the table. Mojo kept barking. I wanted to yell and tell her to shut up, but I didn’t want whatever had made her bark to know I was here. Or awake.

  My hand acted independent of me. It seemed to be angling for Ruth’s gun.

  The phone rang.

  I cried out.

  It took a moment, but I slid to the side of the bed and set my feet on the floor. Picked up the phone and checked the caller ID. I blinked at it and finally answered.

  “Hey,” said Kitty Ferguson.

  “Hey.”

  “Did I wake you up?” I could hear a dog barking from near where she stood.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here. Outside. On your porch. I’m sorry. I saw all the lights on. I thought you were…I don’t know. I didn’t mean to make the dog bark.”

  After I exhaled, I told her I’d be right down. I hung up and sat there, not sure if the sound I’d made after killing the connection was a laugh or a sob or some forced marriage of the two.

  With Kitty inside, I turned off some of the lights, leaving the kitchen overhead on while we sat in the semi-dark living room, Kitty on the couch and me in Dad’s chair. I’d thought about bringing the gun downstairs, but was pretty sure Kitty would freak a little. Mojo sat on the floor between us, optimizing the possibility of ear scritches.

  Kitty had made a mistake.

  She’d told Geoff something she now thought she shouldn’t have. He was pissed. It wouldn’t let her sleep.

  Sometimes if she had insomnia she’d get out of her house and walk around a little. Tonight she’d decided to really leg it, maybe go as far as Geoff’s house, and probably just look at the house from the roadside or their driveway. She’d imagined knocking on his bedroom window, but actually doing that seemed impossible. She wasn’t that brave.

  Walking down the gravel road in the quiet and the coolness of a cloudless sky she’d seen our house lit up. Before she knew it she’d diverted from her original intent, was lightly pounding on the door and listening to Mojo go a little berserk.

  Not last Friday, but one of the previous times the trio of Nick, Geoff, and Kitty had been together, Nick had waited for Geoff to be out of the room and then he’d grabbed Kitty. Kissed her. Slid his tongue in her mouth. Cupped her breast and rubbed his thumb over her nipple. Told her anytime she wanted to hook up they could. And then by the time Geoff was back in the room, it was like nothing had happened. Nick playing it cool, Kitty looking a little freaked out, but everyone knew that was Kitty’s default setting.

  She’d told Geoff all about that after the funeral, at the wake at the Verney’s house. The mood at the house was already weird enough. Nick’s older brother Tyler back in town and unable to stop crying, and then she took Geoff aside, outside, and told him what Nick had done. He’d asked her why she was telling him. She said she didn’t know. She just didn’t want him not to know. He hadn’t spoken to her since. Wouldn’t even text her back.

  I told her about visiting the Pederson’s, about coming back home and everything that had happened. Knowing now that Tyler Verney was in town, I wondered if he hadn’t been the one behind the garage door graffiti, crying the whole time he applied the spray paint.

  Kitty stayed on the couch while I let Mojo outside to do her business. Outside everything was coated in the moonlight.

  Thursday morning, the sun up, just hours away, the whole lot of Lucentologists would pack up and fly away.

  One of their directives was to not carry around unnecessary weight. It impeded ever moving forward.

  Maddy was trying to do that. She had to get home in time for Small Town Girl’s official Hollywood premiere Friday. She didn’t want any more weight.

  “I think she meant it,” I told Kitty. “When she said she never wanted to see my dad again. Never wanted her kid to see him or even know about him. I mean, what if I tell her what Ruth said, about Aster, about Horace, and she decides to do the same thing to me? Disown me? Pretend for her kid that I don’t exist, that I never existed. I guess that just means that I complete it in a way, you know? People will be able to be all, ‘Lucy’s got no mom. Her dad’s in jail. Her sister hating her for the rest of her life. She lives in that house out on Jennings. Her and her dog. No one else’.”

  Mojo’s toenails clicked on the steps as she trotted up from the lawn back inside the house. I took a long last look outside, making sure no shadow moved like a person sneaking up on the house. I checked myself over for the red glow of a rifle tactical site. Then I shut the door.

  “I’m kind of the poster child for what happens if you don’t keep your mouth shut,” said Kitty. “At least right now. If it was me I’d…I don’t know.” And then a few seconds later she said, “I don’t know,” again.

  Kitty offered to stay in the house if it helped me sleep. If she was going to be awake, she might as well be helpful. I told her we had plenty of beds to choose from. She said thanks, but the couch seemed comfy enough.

  We both set our phones to have the alarms go off early enough in the morning I could drive her back to her house so she didn’t get in trouble.

  It was good thinking for two people operating on the vapors of coherence.

  Kitty’s alarm didn’t go off at all. She was still knocked out on the couch when I came downstairs. She didn’t move at all when I started coffee or went outside to the car, but back inside, she startled awake when I rocked her shoulder.

  The moment my coffee was poured into a to-go mug, we loaded up in Sherman’s car. Mojo’s tail wagged slower and slower as she watched from the front lawn, realizing she had to stay.

  I dropped Kitty off at her house, the car engine vibrating as I held down on the brake at the side of the road. Kitty hugged me and through yawns told me she hoped everything went all right. I told her the same.

  She didn’t look back as I continued driving west rather than turning around and zipping back past the house towards town.

  There was no one at Uncle Bob’s. No cop cars. No obvious sign of Will Leasey. No one but a couple cows I could see in the field. I hoped Leasey was taking care of the animals. He was a nice guy, but everyone thought my dad and Uncle Bob and Pat Corley were nice guys, too. Nice guys didn’t mean so much anymore, not to me.

  I parked right next to the garage and killed the engine and got out. Driving up to the building I thought I could make out the shape of a Jeep inside.

  The key remained on top of the doorframe. I slid it into my hand and opened the door. I paused just inside, staring into the dimness at the Jeep, wondering why it was still here. Sheriff Younger had said they were moving fast as they could on the investigation. Easier to impound our car for some reason I guess than make the trip out to Uncle Bob’s and get Pat Corley’s rig. Maybe it didn’t matter so much since he was dead. They could take their time. I didn’t care. At this point, neither did Pat.

  The glass remained shattered from Jack’s swinging of the wrench. I opened the Jeep’s passenger side door and looked into the back. I reached back and grabbed the Army green duffel bag and ran my hand around inside, finally feeling duct tape and handcuffs.

  I shut and locked the door behind me and got back into Sherman’s car.

  I drove fast enough a trail of dust rose behind Sherman’s car all the way into town. My heart beat a little faster passing the turn off to the Wink’s place.

  Swinging through town to get to the highway and then the 4-lane to Ashmond, I glanced at the county cour
thouse and just as quick let the fact of two of its jails current residents fall from my mind.

  I had to focus. I had to clear my head. I had to get across to Maddy, be lucid, and if she chose to condemn me the way she had Dad, then that’s what she did. She could leave me here to rot. At least I’d tried.

  Chapter 64

  Belknap Towers had once been called The Roosevelt Hotel. Its heyday peaked well before color television.

  Local entrepreneur Henry Belknap had made millions from a wireless company and reinvested some of that money locally. He was part owner of a Seattle Mariners farm club they were building a stadium for out by Ashmond’s community college. Wineries were big in eastern Washington. He owned one of the biggest. And at least two restaurants and one bar. And he’d built a house out in the country that cost almost $12 million if you believed the rumors.

  His grandparents had been married at The Roosevelt and celebrated their 50th anniversary at the establishment - at that point it was in possession of about its umpteenth owners. When he heard rumblings the building might get demolished, Belknap swooped in and tossed what for him was pocket change at the city, taking over the dilapidated structure with an eye on a sidewalk to spire top reboot.

  The refurbished hotel had a display room on the ground floor holding his collection of antique motorcycles and there was also an art gallery focused on local talent. His wife acted as the gallery curator - her other hobby when she wasn’t sampling too much wine, if you believed the rumors.

  I’d parked in the underground garage and rode the elevator up to the lobby. To get to any floor above the lobby you needed to be a guest with a card key. Before getting on the elevator I’d looked around at the parked vehicles. I hadn’t seen black SUVs anywhere, but there were at least two floors of additional parking below where I’d parked Sherman’s car.

  The lobby floor was red brick and the walls were tan stone. A fountain placed centrally between the doors to the street and the front desk gurgled. A man and a woman behind the front desk spoke to one another although the woman looked in charge. She pointed a jabbing finger at the man and he took off, coming out from around the desk and walking like he had left a burner on at home. Still, passing me, he generated a smile and a good morning that rang authentic. He walked past the closed gallery and vanished down a corridor

  The story leaked to the press was that following all the events of the last few days Maddy was resting back in Los Angeles. Home or at a hospital or a private retreat, depending on which interpretation of the official statement via her agent you subscribed to.

  I hadn’t heard back from Jamie Jane. I’d left one message and figured that was enough. I’d creeped myself out imagining her walking or paused at a traffic light, ignorant of the sudden appearance of a bright red dot on her forehead.

  There were no plans for me to see Maddy before she left. And she wasn’t picking up her phone, but for all I knew, she could still be asleep or eating breakfast or she could be working out. A world-class fitness center was also one of Belknap Tower’s advertised amenities.

  I bet if I approached the woman behind the front desk and asked after Maddy it would do no good. Either the staff knew and were paid to act ignorant, or, Maddy and Jack were checked in under assumed names. So it could actually make things worse. The woman might have a deal with some local reporter to call in whenever something odd occurred. I wasn’t sure how anonymous I was anymore. If my face would open any doors or if it might be the lone pebble setting off an avalanche of interest in current guests.

  For once I had my hair loose, falling across the shoulders of a bulky leather jacket I’d pulled out from Dad’s closet. It had big pockets.

  The door to the street opened, admitting a laughing voice. She was tall and blonde and wearing clothes that heightened your knowledge of her proportions. A more mature SharDi Leasey. Sherman would’ve approved.

  The woman was carrying Starbucks in her left hand, her cell phone against her right ear. The woman behind the desk glanced up from her computer to look at the pretty blonde and then returned her attention to the monitor.

  The pretty blonde called the elevator to the lobby and by the time it arrived, I was standing right behind her, my phone out, my thumb moving over it like I was locked into texting, unaware of the world at large. Moving across the lobby to get to the elevator I’d taken one self-conscious glance back at the desk, but the hotel employee didn’t notice what I was up to or just didn’t care.

  Once we were on the elevator the blond grunted at me.

  “Hey. Hey!” She thrust her chin towards the wall panel. “Key card. Could you-“

  She sighed. Raised her occupied hands like I was an idiot for not noticing she was already multitasking.

  She processed my sheer terror as further evidence of stupidity.

  “Whatever. Here.”

  I took a step back as she wrestled the key card out from the collar of her shirt. She had it on a lanyard. She caught the lanyard between thumb and coffee and hunched over, swiped the reader. Hit her floor choice. I went for the top floor. The blonde squinted like she couldn’t quite believe someone with needs great as mine could occupy that esteemed floor level.

  After she vacated the elevator and it continued ascending I wondered how exactly I planned on getting down to the lobby if no one I knew was on the top floor. Or, how I’d ever planned on poking around any of the other floors without a keycard.

  The top floor hallway paintings featured wheat fields and then a lot of abstract stuff. I stared at the violent splashes and scribbles, trying to figure out how long it would take to knock on all the doors until I was greeted by Maddy or Jack. I was scared to use the cell and call and either get no answer or be told they were all already at the airport. Sorry, Luce. Just missed us.

  I dialed Maddy’s number and held my breath.

  “No shit!” was how Maddy answered her phone. She sounded energetic. Enthusiastic. She told me to stand where I was, and in seconds flat the door to room 1210 opened.

  Once Rocco waved at me there was no going back.

  “Hey,” I said walking in.

  Rocco dimpled.

  “How you doing, Lucy?”

  I didn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t want to ruin the dimples.

  Chapter 65

  Jack seemed back to normal Jack setting. He nearly crushed my ribs with his hug.

  “Hold on, Steven.” He spoke into a hands free device. “Just hugging my sister-in-law.” Letting go of me he looked right at me, but was still talking to the caller. “She is. She is a lovely young lady. Hold on. Lucy? Steven thinks you’re a lovely young lady, but more importantly a very strong person. Wait.” Jack put his hand to the Bluetooth. He clapped his hands and let loose a Jack Ford laugh. “And he said you have to be to survive a goon like me for a brother-in-law.”

  Jack ruffled the top of my head like I was 4 and walked towards what looked like a bedroom. He turned into the room and I could hear him calling Maddy.

  I looked around. The foyer was at an angle to the living room. Rocco stood back in the foyer, out of sight. The hotel room seemed giant. The size of our living room and dining area and kitchen put together, and that was before factoring in the balcony let alone the size of the bedroom and bathroom.

  A tray with juice, glasses, toast and jams sat on top of the coffee table, surrounded by a couch and a couple comfy looking chairs, the setting just a couple wide steps down from the rest of the room. A flat screen TV hung on the wall facing the couch.

  Once you stepped up out of that area, there were more chairs and tables along the floor-to-ceiling high windows and a door with a gleaming metal handle opening out to the balcony.

  The sun came through the glass unimpeded by clouds. The sun hit the carpet in big yellow wedges I suddenly desperately wished to curl up in and then eventually wake, back in my own bed, on my
own or by someone gently rocking me awake, anyone with the good news that any and all things that had happened of late were one big bad dream.

  “Here she is, bright eyed and bushy tailed,” announced Jack, walking into the main room ahead of a dressed and seemingly ready to get on an airplane Maddy, less bushy tailed once you took into account the tired eyes and the grim line of mouth.

  She stopped and looked at me. I waved. She said to Jack, “I’m going outside. I can’t stand to listen to you talk right now.”

  “Sure,” said Jack, head tilted, pressing the Bluetooth device against his head.

  Moving towards the windows in little steps Maddy said, “You’ve got that ‘I’m going to take on more responsibility than I possibly can keep track of’ thing going on in your voice. It sounds great to you. It sounds great to Spielberg, but at some point you’ll realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. And then he’ll realize what he’s gotten himself into.”

  “Hold on, Steve. Hold on. Mads. What was that?”

  She sighed and sagged, her hands on the handle to the balcony door.

  “Nothing. Never mind. Ask him for an unlimited budget. And final cut. And Harrison Ford’s fucking phone number. You’re going to need someone of the caliber of Indiana Jones to get you out of the shit at some point, Mr. Would-Be-Director.”

  With that, she went outside.

  I looked at Jack. Jack looked at me.

  I said, “Bet you’re glad we got her back, huh?”

  Maddy leaned back in the balcony chair, hands stringing her hair upwards like she was going to hold it in place while the morning sun did it’s work, almost making her brown hair white. Her eyes shut, a small but satisfied smile on her famous face like a cat lazing in the heat.

  “Where’s Dina?”

  She produced a soft grunt and lowered her arms and the hair. Wiggled in the chair a little.

  “Somewhere. I don’t know. Keeping us safe. Did you want something to eat, Luce?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Ok.”

  “You guys are leaving today?”

  “Matter of minutes.” She didn’t bring up the fact that she was probably going to fly away without ever having told me they were leaving. Anything Eaton an afterthought at this point. All the fine details something an Aster handled, but an Aster wasn’t around, and that was another fine detail no one had pointed out to my sister.