At The Edge

by David Dun

  Below Dan's inscription in the Shakespeare was Tess's reply:

  My dearest: Your words are more to me than a lifetime of spring mornings, because they have only you as their source. I accept this book of verse only as a supplement.

  She considered the closet full of clothes-hadn't it been at least two years since the accident? Thoughts of the beautiful brown-eyed Tess, a stranger in most ways, familiar in a few, ignited in Maria a real sense of the pain Dan kept hidden under his deadpan humor, his relaxed shit-kicker affect. She guessed that Dan had not yet made the transition to life without Tess.

  Dan had left his camera on the coffee table. It was a late model Nikon and she knew how to use it. Again a sixth sense told her she should not have the documents in only one location. She pulled both the photo and the documents from her purse and placed them on the coffee table. Picking up the camera, she turned it on, then turned on the flash and used the auto focus and electronic light meter with flash function to take a series of quick pictures. She'd tell Dan when he came back.

  After putting the pictures once again securely in her purse, she went back to the photo albums. Not certain what she was looking for, she kept flipping pictures until she found Dan in bathing trunks, carrying a younger Nate on his back. A heavy-muscled hunk, Dan was very well proportioned, broad-shouldered, with a near washboard stomach and muscle tone everywhere. Not quite that trim now, but almost.

  "What are you looking at?"

  Maria closed the album and turned around, not sure what to say. Next to Dan stood a pajama-clad boy who looked about nine.

  "Well, you're a handsome guy, Nate," she said. She saw Dan's bone structure etched in the boy's lean face. "I'm afraid I was spying-looking at pictures of you and your father."

  "And my mother?"

  "Yes. And your mother. She's beautiful."

  "Nate, this is Ms. Fischer. Ms. Fischer, this is my very inquisitive son."

  Nathaniel's freckled cheeks broke into a smile. "Hi," he offered.

  Attentive brown eyes looked up at her from under a reddish-brown mop of hair that sported a slightly unruly cowlick. She noticed Dan subtly attempting to smooth it.

  "Ms. Fischer will be staying with us tonight."

  "Well, we haven't discussed-" She thought better of bothering with an argument. If she felt the need, she would simply ask for a ride. The man was a force.

  The phone rang. Pepacita glanced knowingly at Dan. ''She doesn't call this late," Dan said.

  "Of course she does," Pepacita replied, picking up. "He's right here," she said warmly-with none of the bite of a moment before.

  "Well, what grade are you in, Nate?" Maria asked, curious about the call but not wanting the boy to feel left out.

  "Can I tell you in a minute?" Nate said. "My dad's really getting good at this."

  "It's OK, sis. It's no trouble," Dan was saying. "Now look at the light for me." A pause. "OK and it's red, right?" A pause. "So stay right there in your bedroom. Nobody can get in that house if the light is red." A longer pause.

  "I understand. It's a windy night. Have you got the cassette in?" A pause.

  "Turn it on." A pause. "Now, you know I can be there in four minutes on my motorcycle. Four minutes!" A pause. "At eighty miles an hour I can." A pause. "I'm just kidding, sis.'' A pause.''OK, I'm sorry for exaggerating. Six minutes tops.

  "Are you doing the tape now? Let's hear the breathing. Come on." A pause.

  "I'm calling you back in thirty minutes to see how you're doing." A pause. "OK." A pause. "No, it's no problem. I'm up anyway." Dan hung up and looked at Maria.

  "It's my sister, Katie. She has panic attacks. Having kind of a bad week."

  "Every week's a bad week," Nate said.

  Dan smiled and ruffled the boy's hair.

  "It's the middle of the night, muchacha y muchachos," Pepacita said. Maria could feel that Pepacita wanted her to stay.

  "You're right. Nate, my man, what say I go tell you the story about the time I scared off a grizzly bear?"

  "Really?" Nate said. Maria supposed it was a story that never got old for Nate.

  Dan chuckled. "Really."

  ''Ms. Fischer could take a shower and change clothes and then we'll have a midnight dinner."

  "That sounds great," Maria said.

  The shower was luxurious. A large head poured water down into a spacious Jacuzzi tub set within an ornate three-walled tile enclosure. It had a striking floral shower curtain with rose and blue. In seconds she felt drowsy and lost track of time as the water relaxed her. Leaning forward, she let the liquid heat roll down the back of her neck. Then for some reason she came to with a start and looked to the side. She was almost certain she had seen the bathroom door closing. But it was locked. Perhaps it was Pepacita. Couldn't have been Dan. But she thought she saw a hand. And it didn't seem like it was Pepacita's. After trying to reconstruct the fleeting memory, she realized that she was so tired she could be imagining things.

  Although she sensed he would not spy on her, and tried to convince herself it couldn't have been Dan, it still unnerved her. Then she decided he might have forgotten something. He was such an independent type maybe he would do something uncouth like grab something out of the bathroom on impulse. Then she thought about it and remembered him putting his arm around her when the car was dangling. She remembered the firm security of it. If he did open the door, he meant her no harm and no disrespect. If it actually happened and it was him, he had a reason. But what would justify that?

  Too tired to make an issue of it, or to figure it out, she went back to her reverie, content that if anyone was present they were gone now. When she was out and dried, Pepacita passed her everything she needed, including a pair of jeans and a blouse that fit perfectly. Even the bra was her size. She made her way from the bathroom back to the kitchen, where she saw Pepacita setting the chicken piccata on plates and neatly arranging the vegetables.

  "I'll be right back." Once again Pepacita disappeared down the hallway.

  Nate came wandering in. Maria walked to the table for one more bite of smoked salmon, when there was a noise at the back door. In an instant the house became pitch black. Then came a crash so forceful she thought it an explosion; black turned to bright whiteness, a giant sheet of flame burned into her face, leaving sparkles of light dancing in front of her eyes. As she fell to the floor, it felt as though someone had violently clapped their hands over her ears. Her body hit the oak flooring and rolled. There was no pain. She tried to remember where Nate was.

  "Call an ambulance." She heard a faraway voice, and as soon as she heard it, her head exploded in a throbbing ache. "Call an ambulance."

  She shook herself, struggling to regain her senses, trying to see something other than sparklers. She remembered standing in the family room. Now she was lying flat on the floor. Sounds seemed to travel down a long tunnel. Trying to touch the fingers of her right hand to those of her left, she felt-if she could make the contact-as though she would be able to put together her memory of standing in the room and the current certainty that she was now on the floor. Nothing connected.

  She heard herself say aloud: "Where's Nate?"

  "He's right here. He was farther back. He's shook up, but I think he'll be OK. That's more than I can say for the bastards who did this."

  She saw a strange oblong head looking down at her. It was very fuzzy and indistinct and there were still myriad points of light in front of her eyes. "My head hurts."

  "I know." Dan's hand smoothed her brow. Clasping his hand in hers felt good.

  His face began to come into focus. Then Nate's. Dan had his arm around him and was holding him to his chest. Nate was looking a little bewildered, but then his dad gently shook him and he smiled.

  "Those guys must have thought it was the Fourth of July, Nate."

  "What blew up?" Nate said.

  "On TV they call them stun grenades. And I'd say Ms. Fischer here was certainly stunned."

  "My chest hurts-my purse."

&
nbsp; "It's on the floor over there."

  "Is the photo there? The papers?"

  ''Could you hand it to me?'' Dan said to a frantic Pepacita, who was studying Nate.

  "Are they there?" Maria asked anxiously. "I'm scared," Nate said. She could see Dan still holding him close.

  Dan shuffled through the purse with his free hand. "Gone," he said. "They wanted them so bad they came right in after them."

  Finally Maria managed, with Dan's help, to sit up.

  "This is a home, for God's sake," Dan said.

  "Well, they didn't get what they wanted."

  "What?" Dan said.

  "I'll tell you later," she said. "I can see both your faces now. What a relief."

  "Tell me now."

  ''OK, OK. I took pictures of the pages with your camera.''

  "Brilliant. The ambulance will be here in a minute."

  "Call it off unless Nate needs it. I'm not really hurt, just disoriented."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Nate, how are you doin'?"

  "Fine, Dad," the boy said, obviously trying to be brave.

  ''We're going to the emergency room. If nothing is wrong, then they'll release you," Dan said.

  "What if the police start asking questions?"

  "You may be right about that." He paused. "I suppose we could take you in the car. We shouldn't say anything to the authorities if we can help it until we talk to the clients."

  "All they did was steal back what we took from them."

  "This was different and you know it."

  "Our theft's different from theirs?"

  "We aren't like them." Dan hugged Nate to his side. "Not a bit."

  Pepacita canceled the ambulance. Dan, Maria, Pepacita, and Nate drove to the emergency room with the camera in hand, and by the time they arrived, Maria claimed she felt "almost normal." Nate, although frightened, was not physically injured. Not wanting to argue any more, Dan acceded and they pulled away from the emergency-room door.

  "Let's pack some stuff and go to the Palmer Inn. The door is broken; furniture has burn marks; one window is broken," Dan said as they drove.

  "You know there's that logging conference in town," Maria said. "There won't be a decent room left. And it's three o'clock in the morning."

  When they got back to the house, Pepacita looked dubious and sighed. Dan studied Nate.

  "I'm OK," Nate said.

  "Let's all sleep in the living room, like camping," Maria said. Dan paused as if it was a bit of a stretch. "It's at the other end of the house. They didn't come in there."

  "Yeah," Nate said. "We could even put up the tent."

  Dan smiled at Pepacita and took her aside. They talked, but Maria couldn't hear.

  Then Dan came back to Maria. "We were just saying, maybe if we closed off this part of the house and all got in the tent, it would seem different enough for Nate."

  "I'm not scared anymore, Dad."

  "Uh-huh," Dan said. "OK, we'll try the tent. But, Nate, if you can't sleep, we're going to the Palmer Inn." Dan turned to Maria. "My wife had a heavy flannel nightgown she used to wear with stretch pants. What it lacks in looks, I was told it makes up for in comfort."

  "That sounds great," Maria said. It took her about two minutes in the bathroom to change.

  They moved the couches and chairs in the living room back to the walls, then put the tent in the middle of the room, tying off the lines to the furniture. It was a good-sized cabin-style tent. Dan and Maria blew up four air mattresses.

  "I'm too old and fat for this," Pepacita announced after surveying the situation. "I think I'll sleep in bed."

  "OK," Dan said.

  "Don't let the bedbugs bite," Nate said. After the three of them were in their already-too-hot sleeping bags, the lights were out, and Maria was almost asleep, she was slightly startled to feel Dan's hand cupped over her ear.

  "This is unusual."

  "Not as unusual as what's going on out there in the woods," she whispered back.

  David Dun

  At The Edge

  "What did you see when you were in the tree?"

  ''I'm worried Nate will hear you," Maria said. ''I imagine he's pretty keyed up."

  "He's out like a light."

  "Let's talk in the morning."

  "I'm curious."

  "Well, it seems like I saw a big green something snaking through the forest."

  "A what?"

  "I just remember green and round and, like, translucent. Like a giant garden hose winding through the trees."

  "You're not going to tell me it looked alive, are you?"

  "I don't know what I saw, except it was green. It seemed a block or two long."

  "They're probably hiding the Loch Ness monster."

  She yawned and turned over.

  "Hey, did you hear that?" Nate said in a suddenly alert voice.

  "It's the wind in the trees. They creak," Dan said.

  "Pretty scary night tonight," Nate said.

  "Yeah."

  "Are you gonna go out on dates with Ms. Fischer?"

  "No, I'm not."

  There was silence for a while.

  "I won't rub it in," she whispered.

  "Thanks," Dan said.

  10

  "I hate to lose five hundred thousand." Jeb Otran sat with one arm braced straight against the library table. They were in the conference room at the Hutchin firm with Patty McCafferty on the speaker phone. "As for the compound in the woods, that's really the business of those who own it-unless they have our money. I just wonder if what you saw was on Amada or Metco."

  "We couldn't tell, although I believe it was at least near Amada land, because we were in the upper end of the forest," Maria said. She sat with Dan on one side of the table, Jeb and Hutchin on the other.

  "If you tell the police about this locked room and this threatening conversation or whatever it was, I would suppose you'll have to tell them about the money," Jeb said.

  "Oh, this is great," Patty McCafferty groaned over the speaker box.

  "We could ask the sheriff not to publicize it. After all, there's no particular reason they should. We don't have to officially report the theft."

  "So we just ignore the fact that we were assaulted and robbed with a deadly weapon? That we were shot at? That someone tried to kill us?"

  "Maria, you're right. It's tough to remain silent," Patty said. "And perhaps even dangerous. On the other hand, at the moment it seems you're safe. We also need to worry about what they're really doing out there. If they are doing something illegal, it could be dangerous."

  "If they broke in and stole the photos, they damn well know you've figured out they're up to something weird," said Hutchin. "They'll have some explanation for all that stuff if the police go out there."

  "Of course," Jeb said, and looked at Dan, "they may have come and taken those pictures for purely business reasons. You may have engaged in an act of industrial espionage without realizing it."

  "You mean we stole their property," Maria said.

  "One wonders if we're dealing in both cases with the same people. And that is perhaps the best reason for reporting it. The violence, I mean," Otran said. "What's going on in the woods may be somebody's legitimate business. It's private property. But, of course, breaking into your house, if it was them, makes it illegitimate."

  ''But, Jeb, you've got to be concerned about what's going on out there…," Patty began.

  "Curious is a better word. Like I said, it's private property."

  "For the forty years we've known each other, you've been obsessed with a person's right to screw up the world on his own land."

  "Relax," Otran said, "I didn't say we wouldn't find out. I was about to say I didn't want our lawyer or, for that matter, your lawyer out breaking the law anymore-subject to the proviso that we need to get the money back legally."

  "Well, it seems to me-"

  "Patty, if you'll just let me finish…"

  Dan stared
at Maria, who was also trying to conceal her shock. This strange conversation indicated a level of familiarity between Jeb Otran and Patty McCafferty that they never would have guessed at.

  Now that Otran was telling them to cease and desist in their investigation of the compound in the woods-except as it might pertain to getting the money-Dan decided he would say nothing in front of the others about the photographs in his camera. Still, for personal reasons, Dan felt compelled to tell Otran privately after the meeting. Maria appeared to be staying quiet on the issue as well.

  "We are still left with the theft of the money and the shooting. I think it should be reported," Jeb said.

  "And I do too," Patty agreed.

  "I can claim attorney-client privilege as to the source of the money," Dan said. "I don't think I have to disclose it. Just that it was taken, that we gave chase, that we were shot at in our car."

  "What about the break-in at your home?"

  "I wouldn't bring it up. After all, we took something from them and we don't know what it means," Maria said.

  "Leave it out," Dan said.

  "That's it, then," Hutchin agreed. "We won't do a thing, Jeb, except for Dan and Maria telling their story about the theft of the money, the chase, and getting shot off the road."

  "I'll make a call to Amada and Metco," Jeb said.

  "Once again, I'm sorry about this delivery and the way it turned out," Hutchin said.

  "I can't imagine how anybody found out about the briefcase," Dan said.

  "Well, I can't, either," Jeb said. "We'll be talking. And, Patty, try not to sue me this month, will you?"

  "I haven't sued you in a year, and that was only because you got your back up and wouldn't listen to reason."

  "You mean I wouldn't bow to your threats."

  "Have a nice day, Jeb."

  "You too."

  Jeb rose and Hutchin followed, leaving Maria and Dan alone in the library.

  "We neglected to mention the photos," she said.

  "Uh-huh. I noticed."

  "What do you think we should do?"

  "Well, I have my own score to settle with these people. They invaded my home. That's personal. Now if you're in this thing, I think we should take the photos to a university and find out what some of the science means. Even if it's just routine chemistry, we might discover what sort of routine chemistry they're into."