Lost Cargo
Page 25
“He seems fine,” she said. His wife was still a beautiful woman, but under the kitchen light the tiny scar from the attack in the black triangle still showed on her throat. “He went with us to the zoo and we had lunch in the old neighborhood. I think he enjoyed himself. And you’ll never guess who I saw. Annie Broussard.”
“She’s still at Maxwell’s?” he asked.
Lexie nodded. “I think she bought the place a long time ago. She came into some money or something. It’s been Annie’s for a while. We went in there for lunch. Her twins were there, too. To be honest, I don’t care for one of them, the way she stares right through you. Ten years old and she gives me the creeps.”
“Future lawyer.”
“Future criminal. I did say hello to Annie, but there were too many people to really talk to her. She looks the same. Sad. I probably made her think about Monroe. I wish we’d found some way to tell her the truth.”
“She never would have believed it,” he said.
“I know, but it doesn’t seem right. It didn’t seem right years ago, and it still doesn’t.” She turned out the light over the sink. “We finished our scrapbook for Gram’s birthday. Could you put the photos back in the attic for me?”
Upstairs he opened a small door off their bedroom, climbed the narrow attic stairs, and pulled the light string. The bare bulb clicked on. One more step and a blast of hot, stuffy air hit him in the face. The attic had been baking under the sun all day and retained most of the heat. It was the kind of attic you would find in a lot of old Pennsylvania farmhouses, with a slanted wooden ceiling, exposed brick walls, and tiny dormer windows.
He stacked the flowered photo box against the wall beside the luggage and bins of winter clothes, but he had something else to do before he went downstairs.
His biggest problem had been finding a place to hide it.
He’d dismissed the blanket chest. Lexie would go through that at some point. And he’d skipped storing it anywhere in the main part of the attic for the same reason. The house downstairs was out. His children might find it. In the end he chose the floorboards. People had been hiding treasures under the floorboards for centuries, and if it was good enough for the rest of humanity, it worked for him.
When he lifted the loose floorboard, a soft glow spread through the attic. He took the alien tracker from the hollowed out space underneath the floor and held it in his palm.
The cool silver metal gleamed, spread like flowing mercury, and molded itself around his fingers as if it knew him. Lines formed on the surface and settled into a humanlike symbol with a blue sun in the chest. Me, he thought, reading the familiar symbol. Then the image moved through the house to the fields where it raced across the tall grass to the black woods on the horizon. Once the image stopped, it lifted beyond the bright, cold face of the moon to the stars, waiting, searching.
Bu there was no symbol of a net that slowly spun into a helix. He’d never seen it again.
He weighed the tracker in his hand. Years ago he’d figured out how to keep it on all the time as a beacon for Monroe. He faithfully checked it every month, quietly climbing the attic stairs, looking over his shoulder, making sure nobody was around before he pulled up the floorboard. It seemed wrong not to let Lexie know he still had it, but he knew she would show it to somebody.
Travis placed the glowing tracker back under the floor, tapped the floorboard into place, and walked over to the window. Three cautious deer drank at the creek. Somewhere in the darkness a red fox called to another fox. More stars had come out.
He looked for moving lights again, but the night sky was still.
Of the three men who’d disappeared, two had come back. Ian’s marriage to Lisa survived the night he left her in the parking lot and walked home through the woods. He had adjusted to his terrible injuries and continued teaching. Burke recovered his footing in life, but he was never the same man again. Over the years he’d let the edges of his perfect world soften and adopted a small, loyal dog, a black and white Shih Tzu. Sometimes they would find him reading a book with his dog beside him and his feet propped on his antiques. He’d never mentioned the black triangle again.
Travis leaned against the window. The stars glimmered.
Monroe Broussard was up there somewhere, circling one of those faraway points of light. Two of the three men had returned, and the third would, too. He felt certain about it, even a decade later. Someday Monroe would remember Annie. He’d loved her too much to leave her forever. Someday he would remember his wife and earthly home, and he would come back to discover he had twin daughters waiting for him.
Someday it had to happen.
“Travis?” Lexie called. “The movie’s going to start.”
“Coming,” he said. His own wife and children were waiting for him. He crossed the dusty attic floor, looked back at the window full of mysterious stars, and turned off the light.
Acknowledgments
My gratitude goes to my father Murray, who loved books and classic sci-fi films (I hope one day we meet in heaven to talk philosophy and watch a monster movie together), and most of all to my beloved late husband Jack for his love and encouragement. This book is for Jack.
My thanks also go to these writers for their support: Chuck Zetterholm, Kim Dana Kupperman, Dustin Beall Smith, Barbara House, Ian Bontems, Kathleen Rockwood, Andrew Stone, the writers of the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, and Nathan Bransford’s blog and forum community.
Special thanks to Gene Thomson for graciously allowing me to use his alligator foot photo; to Stewart A. Williams for the terrific cover; and to 52 Novels for the book design.
And finally, thanks to the Colt and Nikon companies for answering my questions about guns and cameras.
About the Author
Hollister Ann Grant was born in Washington, D.C. and lived for years in the Cleveland Park neighborhood where Lost Cargo takes place. She now lives in Pennsylvania. To contact her, visit http://www.hollistergrant.blogspot.com.
If you enjoyed Lost Cargo, please post a short review on the book retailer’s website.
The author has also released Haunted Ground: Ghost Photos from the Gettysburg Battlefield, a short nonfiction ebook with 20 color photos.
Copyright © 2011 by Hollister Ann Grant
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover photos courtesy of NASA and Gene Thomson
Cover by Stewart Williams Design
Book design by 52 Novels
Published by Expedition Books, P.O. Box 3861, Gettysburg, PA 17325