by Anna Durand
He was three feet away from her. He lifted a foot to move toward her.
She threw herself sideways, sliding across the bench.
Waldron grabbed for her.
Grace leaped off the bench and bolted. As she fled down the sidewalk, she heard Waldron calling after her.
"You can't hide, Grace. I know your secrets."
Did he know? Maybe. Even she didn't know all her secrets. For all she knew, she'd met Xavier Waldron before. It was possible. Her screwy brain left a lot to the imagination these days. They might've met during the eight months of her life she couldn't remember.
She ran — and she didn't stop until she'd jumped onto a bus headed for her neighborhood.
Maybe Waldron did know her. Maybe David knew her too. Some part of her might actually know which of them to trust, if she could trust either man. The knowledge was buried deep in her unconscious, like a treasure trove in an undiscovered tomb.
Amnesia really sucked.
Chapter Eleven
Mail 'N More resided in the corner space of a building on the courthouse square, beside the smaller of the two movie theaters in town. The building, constructed in the 1920s as a theater and remodeled once in its entire history, had the reputation of being haunted. The movie theater boasted two small screens, dilapidated seats, stairs that creaked, and sticky floors. In stark contrast to the theater, Mail 'N More featured shiny floors, a stars-and-stripes color scheme, and neatly arranged aisles stacked with neatly arranged merchandise of the office supply variety.
At three minutes past eight in the morning, Grace walked through the store's glass-enclosed entryway and between the automatic doors that whooshed open before her. An electronic doorbell bonged, alerting everyone inside that a new customer had entered the premises. A smiling employee trotted to her. The girl looked barely old enough to vote.
"May I help you?" the girl asked, her tone a little too energetic for first thing in the morning. Her name tag identified her as Ashlee.
Nobody knew how to spell anymore.
Grace cleared her throat. "I'm interested in getting a mailbox. Do you have a pamphlet or something?"
"Sure." Ashlee trotted to a nearby display of informational brochures, nabbed one, and brought it back to Grace. "Our rates are listed on the back page."
"Thanks." Grace surveyed the store with one long glance but failed to spot the boxes. "Where are the mailboxes anyway?"
"Let me show you."
Ashlee hustled out the automatic doors, waving for Grace to follow. They turned left toward a door Grace hadn't noticed before, set back in the corner of the entryway. A modest sign above the door announced MAILBOXES 24-HR ACCESS, with a down arrow suggesting they lay inside this doorway. Ashlee pushed the door open and led Grace into short hallway that dead-ended at a longer hallway. Rows of mailboxes lined the longer corridor, which stretched rightward along the store's wall. The hallway was brick, rather than glass, with mailboxes of various sizes set into the wall. They looked just like post office boxes. A door set into the wall at the far end of the hallway was marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
The other sign had said 24-HR ACCESS. She could've stopped by last night and avoided the hours of tossing and turning as she tried to sleep while simultaneously wondering what Kellogg's mailbox held and worrying Xavier Waldron might abduct her from her bed. She'd gotten a little sleep, but nowhere near enough.
Ashlee was reciting the benefits of the store's mailbox services.
Grace raised her hand, interrupting the girl's spiel. "Thanks, I think I've got all the information I need."
Along the wall opposite the mailboxes, a long table held pens — chained to the table, naturally — and free pads of paper. Grace marched to the table. She picked up a pen and began circling items in the brochure. She hoped it looked like she was considering her options. She also hoped Ashlee would take the hint and leave.
Fortunately, the girl had decent manners. She told Grace to "come and catch me" if she had any questions, and then she left.
Grace was alone. At last.
She fished Kellogg's key out of her pocket. The number engraved on it was 208. She wandered among the boxes and, finding 208 in the middle, unlocked the box. Her shoulders sagged. The box was empty, save for a small tin of breath mints.
Picking up the tin, she studied the image of mint leaves engraved on the lid. She popped off the lid but saw only mints hidden inside the tin. Damn. She'd hoped Kellogg stashed the flash drive inside his mailbox. The key had been her one and only lead. Either Kellogg kept the key as a decoy or he died before hiding the flash drive in the box. Maybe he'd never intended to hide the flash drive there. Maybe he had no evidence, no flash drive, nothing more important than a grocery list to give her.
Shoving the mints in her purse, she shut the box and headed out of the store.
On the sidewalk, she paused. A plan would help. A psychic flash would be great. She had neither. As she took in her surroundings, something caught her attention. To the right of the Mail 'N More entryway, nestled against the brick façade, stood a newspaper vending machine. Inside the machine, the headline on the front page of the Lassiter Falls Gazette declared "Tourist killed in botched mugging."
Grace edged closer to the machine. Below the headline was a photo of Andrew Haley, handcuffed, being shoved into a police cruiser by two stern-looking policemen. Andrew's eyes bulged. His mouth hung open. In the background, she could make out the Bed & Bath Inn.
She dug quarters out of her purse and fed the machine to retrieve a copy of the paper. Back in her car, doors locked and engine idling, she read the article.
The story claimed a mental patient had strangled a tourist who carried no identification. Andrew, they said, had escaped from a hospital in California. For unknown reasons, he hitchhiked two thousand miles to Lassiter Falls, where he lived in alleys and abandoned buildings. The attack on the tourist appeared unprovoked.
Where had the reporter gotten his information? Andrew couldn't carry on a conversation, much less dictate his biography. The police must've released the information. Where they got it remained a mystery.
Maybe Waldron told them.
She must know for sure. And she needed to know more about Waldron. Like, oh, why he wanted to abduct her and what "secrets" he knew about her.
David Ransom might know the answers to her questions.
She must find David. An invisible man could hide anywhere he wanted. He could've been watching her right then, sitting beside her, laughing at her confusion, plotting ways of killing her. No, she couldn't believe he would kill her. He had saved her life. Besides, last night she'd realized she trusted him. She had no clue why, but at this point she had to trust her instincts. They were all she had to go on.
Waldron maintained David was dangerous. She trusted Waldron about as much as she trusted a coyote not to kill a rabbit. She shouldn't trust David Ransom either. But she did. Which was crazy.
Maybe she really had lost her mind.
Five minutes later, she still sat hunched in the driver's seat of the Pontiac. This morning she'd remembered the gas can she kept in the garage, stuffed into the corner behind the leaf rake. A hike to the nearest gas station got her enough gas to drive the Pontiac back to the station and fill up its empty tank. She couldn't face another day of bus rides.
The mailbox had been empty. Where had Kellogg hidden his evidence? Where the hell was this flash drive everyone wanted?
Kellogg had concealed the mailbox key. Why would he bother hiding it if the box held nothing?
She dug the tin of mints out of her purse. Popping open the lid, she gazed down at the round mints inside the tin. She poked the mints with her fingertip. The tin's metal bottom shifted.
Crappy construction in a mint tin. What a shock.
Hold on. She poked the mints again. The shiny metal beneath them moved, but the tin itself remained int
act.
The tin had a false bottom.
She tipped the tin until the mints tumbled out onto the passenger seat. The false bottom shifted but stayed inside the tin. She used her fingernail to pry up the slim metal sheet, which someone had cut to fit the box, as evidenced by the sheet's sharp edges.
Grace removed the false bottom, setting it on the passenger seat. In the space now revealed inside the tin lay a microcassette of the type designed for small recorders used in dictation. Most people nowadays used digital voice recorders instead. Microcassette recorders were going out of fashion.
Taking the microcassette between her thumb and forefinger, she examined it. If Kellogg had concealed it with such care, he must've deemed the microcassette important.
She needed a microcassette player. Since she didn't have one at home, she'd need to buy one.
Mail 'N More sold office supplies.
Jumping out of the car, she locked and shut the door — and then half walked, half jogged back to the store. The same sales associate pounced on her as soon as she crossed the threshold. Grace asked about microcassette recorders, and Ashlee escorted her to the correct aisle. Grace figured she must've looked annoyed, or at least harried, because Ashlee excused herself more quickly this time, with the excuse that she saw another customer in need of assistance.
Grace chose the cheapest microcassette recorder and grabbed a package of batteries. Two customers got to the checkout line ahead of her. Their purchases seemed to take an eternity to ring up, and then the credit card reader malfunctioned. Grace drummed the toe of her boot on the hard floor. Her pulse accelerated with every second she waited in this line. Christ, she had possible evidence in her purse and no way of listening to it. What did the tape contain?
If it was nothing more than Kellogg's favorite pop songs, she'd scream.
The cashier struggled with the credit card reader.
Grace gulped back a groan. If this line didn't progress soon, like in the next nanosecond, she'd scream right here and now.
At last, the machine consented to read the other customer's card. A quick signature completed the transaction and the customer moseyed out of the store. The next customer paid quickly — with cash, thank heavens. Grace did the same.
A minute later, she was back in the car. Shoving the key in the ignition, she started the car's engine. The temperature outside was rising, along with the humidity. She turned on the AC but refrained from cranking it up to maximum. The noise of the blower would make it difficult to hear much of anything. So instead, she aimed every vent directly at her.
Then she ripped open the packaging, freeing the microcassette recorder. Inserting the batteries took three tries. The damn icons showing how to insert them were so small she needed an electron microscope to read them properly. With the batteries finally inserted, she shoved the microcassette into the recorder, cranked up the volume, and hit the play button. The tape whirred.
On the recording, someone sighed. A crinkling noise followed, calling to mind pages being turned.
"Where should I start?" a voice said.
Grandpa's voice. The cassette must be his audio journal. He had kept a journal of his thoughts, recording them throughout the day whenever he felt the need. Though he kept the contents of his journal private, he had told her of its existence. She'd forgotten about it. He'd also preferred microcassettes over digital recorders, she recalled. He wasn't averse to the digital revolution, but neither did he rush to adopt new technologies.
The sound cut in and out.
" — the beginning," Edward McLean said. "This morning, I made a decision. I should've exposed them long before now. I — "
Bumping and rattling noises obscured his voice. She waited it out. After a couple seconds that felt like hours, Grandpa's voice resounded in the car once again.
" — ever realized it would go this far. I'm the only one who can stop this. Everyone else has an agenda, some connection, or else they've been frightened out of their minds by his thugs. I've talked to Senator Faulkner and he assures me he'll help stop this madness. I hope to God they haven't gotten him as well."
A bang. Muffled shouting.
The tape hissed. Had the recording ended, or was more noise?
A chill whispered over the back of her neck. Someone's watching.
She surveyed the area outside the car. No one on the sidewalk. Her Pontiac sat on a slight hill, parallel parked a fifty feet from Mail 'N More. No cars were parked behind her, and only a smattering of other vehicles occupied spots in front of her car or on the opposite side of the street. Every other car sat empty, however.
The chill spread down her body, raising goose bumps from head to toe.
Get out of here, a voice inside her urged. She grabbed the microcassette recorder, punched the stop button, and yanked the keys from the ignition.
Thunder grumbled.
Beyond the windshield, the sun burned in a clear sky.
She shoved the microcassette recorder into her purse and slung the bag's strap around her neck, over her shoulder. She grabbed the door handle.
Thunder rumbled. No, not thunder. Almost like a voice. Low and grumbling and speaking words she couldn't understand.
She pulled the handle and thrust the door outward.
A blast of cold smacked into her. The door slammed shut in her face. The lock thunked into place of its own volition. The air grew hot and thick around her. Each inhalation strained her chest. Her lungs wanted to expel the air, but the pressure somehow clogged her lungs too, until she couldn't breathe at all.
No, no, no, this was wrong. An instinct she couldn't explain warned her not to give in, to fight the pressure by breathing. Darkness speckled her vision. Her pulse thundered behind the ringing in her ears.
Breathe.
Clenching her teeth, she breathed. At first, her lungs refused to operate. She shut her eyes, struggling to block out the ringing in her ears and the burning in her chest. Fight, she willed herself.
The first breath came in ragged gasps. She hissed it out between clenched teeth, one molecule at a time. The second breath was easier, though not by much. The pressure inside her lungs eased a little more with each breath. The air around her cooled as the pressure let up.
The engine revved.
She held the keys in her hand — didn't she? Opening her eyes, she glanced down to spy the keys clenched in her fist, the metal glistening in the sunlight that streamed through the windows.
The door handle was frozen in place. The lock was engaged but, though she clawed at it with her fingernails and yanked the handle hard, the door stayed shut. Pulling the handle should've released the lock, yet it refused to disengage. She used a key as a lever to push the lock upward. Still nothing. The mechanism was jammed.
She shoved her finger on the rocker switch that activated the electric windows. The window rolled down a few inches.
The switch rocked upward under her finger. Though she depressed it so hard her finger ached, the switch stayed in the up position. The window slid closed.
She banged her fists into the glass.
A voice — close, almost inside her head — chuckled in that low, gravelly, inhuman tone.
Then the voice spoke. Each syllable was drawn out to a second or two in length, which made the sound that much creepier.
"You are mine, golden girl," the voice rasped.
The gear shift lever clicked. She turned her head. The lever had shifted into reverse.
In the rearview mirror, she saw several empty parking spaces and then …
A massive full-size pickup. It was the brick wall and she crouched inside a tin can — one that might rocket backward at any second.
She swung her feet around and on top of the steering column.
The engine revved again. The brake pedal, depressed as far as it would go, began to slowly lift.
&
nbsp; She pulled her legs back, took a deep breath, and slammed her feet toward the windshield.
The accelerator sank to the floorboard. The car shot backward.
The force hurled her into the steering column. Her torso crushed her legs into the wheel. Lightning glanced inside her head. Hot threads of pain, sharp as razor wire, webbed through her. A cry burst out of her. She gritted her teeth and flung her body sideways onto the passenger seat.
In the rearview mirror, the image of the full-size pickup swelled larger and larger. She drew her knees to her chest and kicked at the windshield. The glass cracked. Pain ripped through her, as if something inside her were cracking too. She kicked again. The glass buckled outward, breaking free of the frame in gummy clumps. She rose into a crouch on the passenger seat and propelled herself through the window. The instant she cleared the window, she rolled off the hood.
Her hip struck the ground first, setting off a cascade of pain. She clenched her jaw as tears stung her eyes.
The Pontiac smashed into the pickup with an explosive crunch. The car's back end crumpled.
She winced, though not in pain this time. Her insurance had a high deductible because she couldn't afford higher payments. She rather doubted the insurance company would agree to go after the responsible party, since he was invisible and had apparently controlled her car through paranormal means. If she claimed a ghost caused the accident, they'd shoot her up with enough Thorazine to put Godzilla to sleep.
Shoes clapped on concrete. Pushing up into a sitting position, she glanced toward the Mail 'N More entrance.
Two security guards were trotting out of the building toward her.
She looked at the Pontiac. The car was totaled. If she had stayed inside it, she would've died.
Something tried to kill her.
The security guards reached her. They knelt beside her, expressions grave, both staring at her as if her head had torn loose of her shoulders. She pressed a hand into the nape of her neck. Strands of hair tickled her hand. With her fingertips, she probed the base of her skull. Nope, still attached.