Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One

by Adam Knight

  I shrugged, turning the Windstar off of Salter and down one of the residential side streets. “No arguments.”

  “So why? What are you hoping to find out?”

  My thumbs were drumming on the steering wheel unconsciously, a soft but insistent thrum-thrum-thrumthrumthrum. Chalk it up to nerves.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  Heavy sigh. “I don’t know.”

  Cathy stared at me from the passenger seat. “Really? So we’re risking our safety on what?”

  “Actually I just planned on risking my safety. Someone decided to tag along.”

  “Deal with it, big boy. You’re stuck with me.”

  “I can think of worse things,” I muttered quietly, under my breath.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You said something?”

  “Just that I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Cathy smirked at me, getting the reference. “So more like a hunch?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well good, because I do not want to be the sidekick in a buddy cop movie.”

  “Too bad, I make a killer damsel in distress.”

  She finally laughed. It was good. Laughter breaks tension. I hate tension. I am always better when things are loose. Relaxed. I make mistakes when I’m tense.

  I can’t afford mistakes.

  We rolled on, the streets getting darker and more pot hole riddled. The people got grungier and more desperate looking, hanging in groups to help keep themselves safe from the more predatorial types. Corner stores and boutiques began to be replaced by boarded up buildings and payday loan establishments.

  The street signs clued me in and I hung a right, deeper into a very old residential neighborhood. The houses along here were very rough. Very short yards, house lots packed together. Any fencing on properties were tagged in spray paint, advertising gang territories and other such nonsense. The state of vehicles parked haphazardly on the side of the road made me feel better about the condition my van was in. We certainly didn’t stand out.

  Making another turn onto the street Cathy had provided I began examining house numbers when her cell phone started to vibrate insistently.

  “Shit,” she muttered, picking up her purse and rummaging in it frantically. “I thought I’d shut this thing off.”

  “All good,” I muttered, still scanning out the window. The house numbers were getting hard to read in the growing darkness.

  She rustled some more, finally finding her phone and checking the display with a sigh. “Dammit, I have to take this.” What, I was gonna stop her? “Hello, Max? You still there?”

  Ah, Captain Boyfriend.

  “Yeah, sorry I meant to call you before the broadcast tonight.”

  The house we were looking for was on the right. I purposefully drove past it as I scanned the area carefully, looking for people. Or cars. Or anything out of place. The sorta stuff that people in movies and on TV always seem to be looking for and only know it when they see it.

  Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.

  “No it’s all right, Max. I know things get busy in the off season too. You’ve got commitments to the team and the league. The price of success, right?”

  I turned my baby around at the end of the block, making a wide U-turn at the intersection. Thankfully there was very little through traffic in this area, gives a guy a chance to have a real wide berth. Which the Windstar definitely needed. Power steering? What power steering? Letting her idle forward on her own volition, I pulled up in front of the house and settled to a stop.

  “That’s fine. If you have to go to a golf tournament in Calgary I totally understand. Fundraisers are important. We can visit my parents for dinner another weekend.”

  It was a very old single story bungalow with the obligatory paint peeling and roughhewn eaves troughs. There had been a front porch at some point that now looked more like a front flop, all listless and lopsided and starting to pull away from the front of the house. The window frames looked original and unpainted in years, with cracks prominent in most of the glass. The roof had seen better decades and looked as leaky as a raft.

  The front door was open slightly, swinging fractionally in the light breeze.

  “Cuba? Well sure, we could try that this year… Well why would we go in July? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of going somewhere warm?”

  No one seemed to be out and about. It was turning into a chilly and wet evening. The snow hadn’t quite melted away so the potholes and beat up curbs were slick and covered with post winter dirt.

  I opened the door to my van and slid out into the cool air.

  “Okay, Max? I have to let you go… No really, I’m just out on assignment …” Cathy gave me an apologetic look, pointing to her phone. “Yes absolutely, I … can you hold on a second?” She pressed the phone to her shoulder and grimaced at me. “We’ve been playing voicemail tag all day. Give me a minute?”

  “Take your time,” I told her, not taking my eyes off the house. “Let me check the place out, see if anyone’s there.”

  “I said I was coming with …”

  “You are with me,” I cut her off, my eyes snapping back to her. I wish I knew what my expression looked like so I could use it again when I needed to win an argument in a hurry. Going by the way Cathy blinked and leaned away, I’m thinking it wasn’t a good look on me. “Please, just stay here a few minutes.”

  Cathy hesitated. Muffled voices could be heard coming from her phone. She glanced down at it guiltily. “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be right back.”

  The van door shut with a creak and I turned towards the house.

  The back of my neck began to tingle in time with my accelerated heart in the cool breeze.

  I crossed the street and headed to the front door.

  Chapter 30

  If there is a drawback to watching too many science fiction and horror movies it’s that they send one’s imagination to wild and crazy places.

  What should have been a mundane, run of the mill walk up to an abandoned flophouse at sunset in a statistically dangerous part of town suddenly felt like the opening scene to a Wes Craven flick. It was all I could do to keep my pace and breathing steady.

  Getting closer it seemed like barren branches of the few nearby trees were looming in, their shadows stretching towards me in a clutching manner. The last of the daylight leeched away from the sky, leaving me with lots of darkness and active imaginings. Wind whistled in my ears as it flowed through shutters and ruffled my shaggy hair, giving me a chill.

  Up close the front porch was even more beat up. Boards were cracked and missing in places. Damned thing looked about as sturdy as a see-saw. All the wood was beginning to rot, which happens without proper maintenance in this climate to houses that aren’t almost a hundred years old. But on this ancient piece of property the rot just added to the overall spooky ambiance.

  I refused to break stride as I got closer. I refused to look about me anymore either. I had every right to be here and nothing untoward was going on. This was what I wanted to project to any passerby or nosy parker who might be near.

  Odds are I failed miserably. I stick out in crowds at the best of times. Even on “stealth mode” I tend to come across as very “Bull in China Shop”.

  Subtlety. Not my best attribute.

  Anyone got a plus-three Cloak of Invisibility to lend me? Or a twenty-sided die? Anything?

  Geekiness. Helps a dude when he’s scared.

  The boards on the porch creaked loudly as my feet hit them, giving slightly under my weight. But they held. The door to the house was still slightly open, no lights on inside that I could see. My eyes scanned all around once again, looking for recent signs of life or activity.

  Nothing stood out to my untrained eye.

  I sighed.

  My knuckles rapped hollowly on the interior doorframe as I knocked.

  Silence.

&nb
sp; I gave it a few seconds and listened hard for anything. No rustling. No rattling. No scrambling sounds of people getting things together.

  Nothing.

  The door swung open wide with a slight nudge from my old steel toed boot, allowing me to peer inside.

  No surprises at first glance. No gaping pit right behind the doorframe. No gang of ninjas hiding just out of site. No portcullis ready to slam down on my head.

  Just a plain old dirty living room with overturned and discarded furniture bits strewn about at random. Peeling wallpaper, cracked plaster and more gang symbols spray-painted everywhere.

  At least it smelled awful.

  My nose wrinkled as I stepped into the house, floor boards creaking under my weight. I gave the living room a thorough once over with my eyes, trying not to touch anything. Seriously, this place was filthy. Next time I go exploring abandoned houses of gang members I’m bringing gloves.

  Down the side hallway were smashed and discarded picture frames, some fast food wrappers and cups strewn about at various locations. One picture was still sort of hanging on the wall as I passed it. Showed a gathering of people, not quite a family portrait though I assumed everyone there was related. A group of aboriginal people hanging around a barbeque pit, hamming for the camera. Kids with hotdogs on sticks, older people holding up beer bottles and making faces. It looked old, like maybe taken in the late eighties or early nineties. No one in the picture was familiar to me.

  Two rooms and a bathroom. The tub was cracked and covered with grime, the shower curtain nowhere to be seen. Toilet had seen better days and was missing the top of the tank. Medicine cabinet had the door ripped off its hinges, laying on the linoleum floor next to the tub. Smashed. Pieces of mirrored glass lay in fragments on the floor, cursing someone to seven unfortunate years. All of the cupboards and drawers in the washroom were standing open, as if ransacked. Likely that’s exactly what had happened, maybe several times in someone’s frantic search for drugs or something.

  First bedroom had been designed for young children at one point. A small single mattress in the corner, no frame or box spring. A filthy blanket crumpled on top next to a thin pillow that looked like it had recently been chewed on. No dresser, nothing at all in the small closet. A broken lamp rested in the other corner from the mattress and more garbage strewn about at random.

  And at one point someone had mistaken this room for the washroom.

  Let’s move on.

  Master bedroom was fractionally larger. Maybe a twin mattress on the floor, more filthy rags acting as blankets and a separate one as a pillow. The dresser in this room was empty save for some more garbage. Old newspaper and some empty beer cases, complete with mismatched bottles and shards. The top of the dresser was heavily scratched and dusty, though not necessarily just because of dust given the dull razor blades resting there.

  It’s hard to call what I was feeling “discouragement” since I had no idea what I was really looking for. Some sign of life? A directional map pointing to Keimac Cleghorn’s current location? A cell phone? A great big neon sign?

  The kitchen was a complete disaster even compared to the rest of the house. Cupboards were beyond bare. A leftover bag of rice was now officially in use as a critters’ nest. The fridge door was completely missing and the vegetable crisper had doubled as a urinal at some point going by the stench. There was a plastic kitchen table overturned and missing a leg against the back wall. The stove was simply not there, even the outlet port ripped from the wall with wires protruding and everything. I didn’t get a tingle or thrumming sensation from any of the exposed wiring, so I felt safe in assuming that Hydro had cut the power.

  Go me, being all intuitive.

  The rear door showed a crumbled parking pad and no garage looking into the back lane. No backyard to speak of either. An old BMX bike missing a chain and a rear wheel lay rusting in a rapidly diminishing snow bank.

  Stairs led down into darkness.

  Really wish Hydro had kept the power on.

  I spared a glance out the filthy living room window. I could faintly see Cathy’s outline in the front seat of my van through the grime and dim light from outside. Looked like she was still on the phone.

  A quick look, then try the next location on Cathy’s list. You know she’s got more than one place to try, Joe.

  I steeled my nerves and started down the stairs.

  Thankfully, none of them were missing. They were a bit wobbly which scared the hell out of me about halfway down, but I steadied myself and continued until I hit the thinly carpeted concrete basement floor.

  The faint light coming from upstairs was surprisingly effective in helping me navigate. Course, it’s not like there was much to navigate around. A big open basement with no rooms and a short ceiling barely high enough to keep me from ducking. A discarded washer and dryer set were against the near wall, both of which had been used at some point for a fire pit given the soot and blackness spoiling them both.

  My eyes scanned the room carefully, trying to pierce the darkness in every corner. Something was on the far wall away from the stairs. I couldn’t make it out.

  I crossed the room.

  Pictures.

  Pictures from newspaper clippings. From cheap computer printers. Maybe done at a shop though more likely off someone’s home office.

  Over a dozen pictures all told.

  Women’s faces. Most of them aboriginal. All of them young and pretty. Names printed sloppily in marker on each one. I assumed the names of the women. What else was I to think?

  The one in the middle. Dark haired. Dark eyed. A smile to light up the room. Young.

  I knew her now. Memories of her at Cowboy Shotz in a red dress at first, then a green dress flashing into my mind. Flaring into place like lightning firing up the darkened skies. Hanging out in VIP, entertaining bigwigs, her hand on their thighs before escorting them up the marble stairs.

  The marker scrawl underneath her face confirmed what I already knew.

  Candace Cleghorn.

  “Son of a bitch,” I whispered, my stomach a cold pit.

  I scanned the other pictures frantically, trying to recognize other faces. Desperately begging my brain to send another lightning bolt of recognition forward.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Wait, go back.

  Memory flashed again, the back of my neck tingling like mad.

  Dark slacks, white halter top showing lots of cleavage, hair done up in curls with a wine flute in one hand and her lips whispering sweet nothings in Aaron’s ear.

  Sherylin Yellowtail, according to the scrawl written under her face.

  I tried to commit the other names to memory. I needed to take them to Cathy, compare them with her notes/. Confirm if these were the missing women that have been in the news. Then my brain kicked in, telling me that Cathy could come in with her notes and confirm it with me.

  Duh.

  I turned from the wall, striding quickly towards the stairs. My mind racing faster than my heart. The back of my neck tingling still, sending shooting sensations of coolness down my body. Energizing me, putting a spring in my step.