Within the Shadows

by Brandon Massey

  Carmen finally spoke. “What’s on your mind, honey?”

  “You.”

  “What’re you thinking about me?”

  “All the stuff we’ve been through together over the years. How we somehow managed to stay platonic for so long. Wondering why we waited.”

  “Hmm. I think it’s timing. We weren’t ready for each other as more than friends, till now.”

  “Not until the rest of my world is collapsing, huh?”

  “We’ll get past it,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about bad stuff, Drew.”

  “Neither do I. I’d much rather talk about us. Where this is going.”

  She rubbed his chest. “Ah, a man is bringing up plans for the future. I’m impressed. Usually guys hate to talk about that stuff.”

  “We’re normally commitment-phobic. I can’t front, I’ve been that way myself, in the past. But this is different—I wanna do this right.”

  “You want an exclusive with me?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Want me to be your numero uno girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “Your ace-boon-coon chick?”

  “The Bonnie to my Clyde.” He grinned.

  She grinned, too. “Sounds tempting. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.”

  “What?” He looked at her.

  “Drew, Drew.” She giggled. “Always so gullible.”

  “And you’ve always got jokes. But seriously, what do you think? Do you want the same thing?”

  “This is what I think.” She grasped his chin, guided his mouth to hers, and kissed him, repeatedly and tenderly.

  “I take that as a yes,” he said.

  “I’ve always been your lady,” she said.

  As they lay together, both of them half asleep, his cell phone rang.

  “Who can this be?” Groaning, he got up, Carmen rolling off him.

  It was Eric.

  “Drew, you’ve gotta get over here now!” Eric said. “Your house is on fire.”

  Chapter 35

  Flames devoured Andrew’s home. The ravenous fire swallowed the roof, ate the walls, and chewed the windows and doors, belching a stream of acrid, gray-black smoke into the cloudy night sky.

  One arm draped loosely around Carmen, Andrew watched the conflagration from a safe distance across the street. A team of firefighters battled to save his house. But they had arrived too late, and the fire had spread too quickly, for them to prevent most of the devastation.

  Earlier that evening, he had stood in the driveway and regarded his home with protective pride.

  Now, everything he owned was going up, quite literally, in smoke.

  He had homeowner’s insurance, but that wouldn’t replace everything. Photos, memorabilia special only to him—they were lost forever.

  Most of all, insurance could never replace the sense of violation that had numbed him to the deepest core of his being.

  Eric was beside him. Talking to him. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue. Dazed, Andrew couldn’t comprehend his words.

  Although it was past ten o’clock in the evening, half of the neighborhood had clustered nearby to gape at the gigantic torch that was Andrew’s house. Many of his neighbors had offered supportive words, had given his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. But he could read the thoughts lurking beneath the friendly surface of their eyes, and the thoughts were: I’m sorry, man. But I’m sure as hell glad that’s not my house.

  He probably was imagining things. But he couldn’t help it. He had never in his life felt so hollow. When the wind occasionally picked up, he felt as if he could just be carried away on the breeze and spun through the night like an empty soda can.

  A grim-faced fire investigator approached, holding a clipboard. “Mr. Wilson?”

  Andrew looked at him. Fuzzily realized the man had spoken to him. Said nothing.

  “We’re very sorry about your home, sir. We’ll do a full investigation to find out what caused the blaze. Could’ve been electrical, chemical, natural or—”

  “She did it,” Andrew said flatly. “She’s punishing me.”

  “Who?” The investigator clenched his pen.

  Andrew shrugged. “I filed a restraining order against her. But it doesn’t matter. You won’t catch her.”

  “Pardon me?”

  Tears came to Andrew’s eyes. He wiped his eyes quickly, almost savagely.

  Carmen stepped in. “He means a psycho bitch burned his house down. But she’s too slick for you guys to catch.”

  “Ma’am, I promise you, we’ll investigate this and if an arsonist is responsible, we’ll see that justice is served.”

  “Do whatever you want, follow your little procedures,” she said. “We’ll handle our business, thank you.”

  The investigator pursed his lips, offered a card and told them to call him in the morning to answer more questions, and walked away.

  Carmen gave Andrew a handkerchief. He blotted his damp eyes.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. Probably when his grandfather had died, seven years ago. Shedding tears wasn’t his style. But he couldn’t stop them from flowing out of him, lava-hot.

  Carmen rubbed his back, murmured words of comfort. Eric rested his hand on his shoulder.

  “Thanks, guys,” he said. He drew in a hitching breath. “I’ll be okay.” His cell phone rang. The call was from a private number.

  He knew who was calling. He didn’t want to talk to her.

  But he did.

  “Mika,” he whispered, in a voice that, if it were a weapon, could have killed.

  “See what happens when you make me angry?” Mika said.

  She sounded cheerful. Triumphant.

  If he could have channeled his rage through the phone lines, it would have struck her down like a lightning bolt.

  “I love you, Andrew, but you had to be taught a lesson,” she said. “Stay away from that bitch. Stop hiding from our love.”

  Fury had strangled him, made it nearly impossible to draw the breath necessary to speak.

  Eric and Carmen watched him. His body language had transmitted itself to them. Their eyes had narrowed and their jaws had clenched, as if they were striving to contain explosive rage.

  It went without saying that they realized who had called him.

  “You don’t need that hovel you called a house, anyway,” Mika said. “Soon, you’ll come to our home, and you’ll scarcely remember that miserable, third-rate place of yours.”

  He clutched the phone so tightly the handset’s edges pressed red indentations into his palm.

  “And I know all about Sammy, that pathetic little soul you’ve been talking to about me,” she said. “I pay him no mind, and neither should you—he can’t help you hide from the truth. No one can. Your only choice is to give in to our love, accept our joyous future together. Tell me that you love me, baby. Say it how you said it earlier, when we were driving—”

  Shouting, he hurled the phone into the night.

  A young boy who lived across the street retrieved his phone. Andrew accepted it reluctantly.

  Mika had hung up. But a text message awaited him.

  CAN’T RUN FROM R LOVE I WON’T LET U

  He deleted the message. He glanced at his burning house, and turned to Eric.

  “We’ve got to get away from here,” he said. “Guess I’ll be moving into your lake house after all.”

  Chapter 36

  Raymond sprang out of sleep with a scream on his lips. Accustomed to his eruptions from nightmares by now, June automatically touched his arm. “Ray?”

  He licked his dry lips, touched his aching temple.

  “Had another one,” he said.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing new, more of the same craziness.”

  She lay back on the mattress. “Head hurt?”

  “Like hell. Probably got a brain tumor.”

  “Hush with that. Whatever it is, we’
ll find answers, just like we’re finding answers to that awful house.”

  “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’m going to stay up for a while, do some reading.”

  He kissed her cheek, sat up, and swallowed the two Tylenol capsules that lay on the nightstand, beside a tall glass of water. The pounding headaches so reliably followed his nightmares that he’d begun to keep Tylenol at his bedside.

  The clock read 1:31 A.M. He’d slept less than three hours. He had stopped taking the Ambien pills that his doctor had prescribed. Fighting for every scrap of sleep was preferable to the waking-nightmare hallucinations that the drug had apparently induced.

  Thankfully, tomorrow was Saturday. He could sleep in a bit, though he still planned to go to the office and put in a few hours.

  He slipped on his house robe and shuffled into the kitchen.

  He boiled water in a tea kettle, to brew tea. You knew you were getting up in age when hot tea became your preferred nighttime drink. In the wild days of his youth, he’d wake up to Budweiser and go to bed with Crown Royal. What a reckless young buck he’d been. It was a wonder that he’d fathered only one child out of wedlock and not a whole litter of them.

  Considering how much he’d struggled with Andrew, he supposed it proved that God never gave you a burden heavier than you could handle—but he’d sure as hell strained under the weight of being Andrew’s dad. Had pushed him to his limits. But it motivated him to become a better man.

  Thinking of his son and their golf outing tomorrow afternoon, he took a mug of Earl Grey tea to the study and settled in the comfortable leather chair. Tried to ignore his throbbing headache and concentrate.

  A thick manila folder lay on the cherry wood desk. It contained the results of the research that he and June—well, mostly June—had conducted for the past couple days. He’d labeled it, “The Nightmare File.”

  It was an apt name, for more than one reason.

  He pushed up his glasses on his nose and opened the folder. He paged through the documents, most of which they’d printed from the Internet, others of which they had copied from library resources.

  His wife, a professional researcher, had done a splendid job. They’d learned enough about the mansion that haunted his dreams to write a short book.

  If he ever decided to pen such a work, it would be the equivalent of a horror novel.

  They’d acquired information about the land on which the estate resided, the original owner and his family, and the town in Bulloch County in which the house was located. Colorful stuff. Crazy stuff.

  Especially the things about the heiress.

  But as fascinating and informative as the data was, it failed to answer his pressing question: why was he having these recurring nightmares?

  He was missing something. An important connection awaited his discovery that, he believed, would coax all the pieces into their proper place.

  A framed photo stood on the corner of the desk. Taken two months ago, it depicted him and Andrew standing together on a golf course, clubs propped in front of them like elegant canes. They grinned.

  He took the photograph in his hand.

  Andrew had something to do with all of this; his appearance in Raymond’s nightmare proved it. But when he’d asked his son if anything unusual had been going on with him lately, he said no. He thought Andrew was lying. But he had no proof.

  The years had created a chasm between them as wide as the Grand Canyon, inhibiting their ability to communicate honestly and openly. But they were going to have to bridge that gap. Somehow. And soon.

  He was beginning to believe that their lives depended on it.

  Part Three

  HIDE

  Whether he wanted to admit it or not, whether he wanted to discuss

  it or not, whether he wanted to deny it or not, the nasty truth

  remained the same.

  He couldn’t hide from it. It would follow him wherever he went.

  He might as well learn how to deal with it.

  —Mark Justice, The Surrender

  Chapter 37

  Late the next morning, Andrew and Carmen left for Eric’s home on Lake Sinclair, located in the town of Eatonton, Georgia, over one hundred miles southeast of metro Atlanta.

  Sunshine brightened the lush blue sky, showering the world in golden rays. The temperature was in the low eighties, accompanied by a cool wind that moderated the humidity.

  It would have been an ideal day to begin a vacation if they weren’t running for their lives.

  Most of his belongings had been destroyed in last night’s fire; the items that remained reeked of smoke. They’d stopped at Wal-Mart, and he had stocked up on clothing, toiletries, and groceries. Enough supplies for a week. He planned to be away for at least that long, and longer if necessary. Carmen planned to use vacation time from her job to be with him.

  He still had the. 38, for all the good it had done against Mika. He’d purchased a Buck hunting knife, but he had doubts about its usefulness, too.

  They packed Carmen’s laptop, in case Sammy decided to reappear. Optimistically, Andrew hoped to do some writing, too—if he could clear his mind to focus on something other than the nightmare in which he now lived.

  To reach Lake Sinclair, he took I-20 east for about fifty miles, and then exited on US-129, which eventually turned into Milledgeville Highway. Traffic was light; he spotted a few trucks pulling boats to lakeside residences.

  But he didn’t see a black Rolls Royce, either ahead of them, or trailing them.

  He turned onto Crooked Creek Bay, a hilly, two-lane road that wound around the densely wooded lakefront properties. Eric’s place was ahead, at the bottom of a steep dip in the road.

  He braked at the mouth of the driveway. Pines, maples, and head-high shrubbery concealed the house from view.

  “Why’d you stop?” Carmen asked.

  “Hold on.”

  He climbed out of the car and stood beside the road.

  And watched. And waited.

  Birds chirped. Somewhere far away, an airplane soared.

  The Rolls Royce did not appear. In fact, no vehicles at all passed.

  He got back in the car. “Wanted to be sure no one followed us.”

  “Good idea.”

  He turned into the gravel driveway and burrowed under the canopy of trees. Shadows cloaked them on all sides—as if they were being hidden from the world.

  Andrew slowly rolled down the driveway, toward the house.

  A basketball goal with a tattered net hung from a thick pine tree in the middle of the driveway. Even here, Eric loved to play ball.

  Farther ahead, a wooden sign was posted to a maple. “The Pattons” was carved in the sign, in big, cursive letters.

  He parked at the end of the driveway, near the house.

  It was a white clapboard, two-bedroom home, with a reddish roof blanketed with leaves and twigs. The door was on the left side, accessed by a short flight of wooden steps. A storage shed stood beside the house.

  He shut off the car.

  The only sounds were chattering birds, the sighing breeze, and the murmurs of rippling water.

  “This place is pristine,” Carmen said. “We’ve gotta be safe here.”

  “Let’s hope so. Hang tight. I want to take a look around.”

  While she waited in the car, he walked around the perimeter of the house. Pine needles crunched beneath his feet.

  Beside the house, an air-conditioning unit hummed. A stack of chopped wood leaned against a tree, reminding him that Eric kept an axe—a potential weapon—in the shed.

  At the back of the property, a grassy slope descended to a dock, a path of smooth circular stones providing a walkway. A pontoon boat, moored to the dock, floated in the water.

  The lake gleamed in the sunlight. Numerous piers and boats dotted the banks; he saw a couple of people across the lake, fishing. A gaggle of Canadian geese quietly swam the waters.

  He returned to the house. A large deck wound around the back,
reachable by a set of sturdy steps. He climbed the stairs and walked across the floorboards, which were layered with acorns, pinecones, and brittle leaves. A big gas-powered grill and wicker patio furniture sat on the patio. The glass patio door was locked.

  But of course, locks didn’t mean anything. He smiled sardonically.

  The deck curved around the side of the house, to the main door. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  The still air was cool, scented with a lemony fragrance. He checked out each room—one hand resting on the butt of the revolver he wore in the shoulder holster.

  The house was full of no-frills furnishings and minimal decor. The bedrooms were tidy, each bed neatly made. The bathrooms, living room, and kitchen were spotless, too. When Eric or his friends were not present, he leased the house to renters, and he hired a house-keeper to clean up after every guest. The place was sufficiently well kept to meet even Andrew’s obsessive-compulsive standards.

  Most importantly, he saw no signs of Mika or her cats.

  He returned to the porch.

  Leaning against the car, Carmen looked at him.

  “All clear?” she asked.

  “Looks like it. Let’s unload.”

  They unpacked the car. Inside the house, while Carmen put away the groceries and familiarized herself with the kitchen, he set up the computer in an alcove off the living room, and left a word processing program on the screen. Then he walked around, locking windows and doors.

  It was a waste of time. No locks could keep Mika at bay. He secured the house out of what had become an illogical, paranoid habit.

  Afterward, he walked to the dock.

  The dock always had been his favorite feature of the property. He loved to sit there and watch the sun rise, and set. But this time, he ignored the beautiful panorama and focused on the boat.

  It was a Premier Marine pontoon boat, twenty feet long, built to accommodate up to eight individuals. As he climbed onto the deck, the cream-colored bimini top shielded him from the sunlight.