“Yup,” Winn said. “Yellow garage. Something under a blue tarp right next to it. That’s it.”
“Do I stop?” Deem asked.
“Nothing in the driveway,” Winn said. “Sagan mentioned a red Suburban. Maybe no one’s home.”
“I don’t want to alert this guy in any way,” Deem said. “What do we need to figure out who it is?”
“A house number would be nice,” Winn said. “Slow up as we pass.”
Deem checked her rear view mirror – no one was there. She slowed the car to a crawl.
“13595 are the numbers on the house,” Winn said. “That should do it.”
“Looks completely ordinary,” Deem said. “Who would suspect anything evil would be inside?”
“That’s always the story, isn’t it?” Winn said. “White picket fence outside, gruesome murders inside.”
Deem let her truck roll slowly past the house. “Do you think he’s got children’s corpses in there?”
“He’s got to be getting the corpse poison from somewhere,” Winn said. “So, yeah, probably.”
The windows to the house that faced the highway were covered on the inside with a drape, the backing of which was a bright white, reflecting the sun. As Deem was wondering what might be behind the drapes, she saw the left edge pull back slightly. Someone was looking out at them.
She pressed the accelerator and the truck sped up. “Shit,” Deem said, turning her head back to face the road. “Someone is in the house. I think they saw me.”
“You sure?” Winn asked, looking back over his shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”
“I saw the drape pull back,” Deem said, “and I saw a face.”
“Damn,” Winn said. “So much for subtlety.”
“We might as well just walk up to the door, now,” Deem said. “Why not?”
“Could you tell who it was?” Winn asked. “Was it him?”
Deem pulled her truck off to the side of the road and then made a turn back onto the highway, going back toward the house.
“No, I couldn’t tell,” Deem said. “If it’s him, we’ll confront him. If not, we’ll see who it is.”
“And if it’s him?” Winn asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Awan said the skinrunner can only transform at night,” Deem said. “Now might be the perfect time to talk to him and explain he needs to stop.”
“I’ll be very surprised if that works,” Winn said, becoming uncomfortable with Deem’s plan.
“So what if it doesn’t?” Deem said. “He’s already targeting me. I can at least let him know I’m on to him. Might cause him to back off. He seemed wary when he saw me enter the River.”
“And if it’s not him?” Winn asked.
Deem pulled her truck into the driveway by the house and shut off the engine. “Then we’ll play it by ear,” she said, opening the truck door and sliding to the ground. Winn sighed and followed her.
She walked to the front door of the house. Winn was watching the draped windows, looking to see if there was any movement. He saw none.
She pressed the doorbell next to the front door, then she knocked.
“Mrs. Jones?” Deem said. “Your ride to the airport is here.”
The door slowly opened to three inches. A small woman with long brown hair peered out at them.
“You have the wrong place,” the woman said meekly. “This is the Braithwaites.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Deem said, checking her phone. “You didn’t call for a lift to the airport?”
“No,” the woman said meekly. She began to close the door.
“Says 13959 Highway 59 here,” Deem said, scrolling on her phone.
“We’re 13595,” the woman said, opening the door a little more. “That’d be further down the road.”
“Oh, my apologies,” Deem said. “Could I ask you a big favor?”
“What is it?” the woman asked.
“I can’t get any bars on my phone,” Deem said, “and I need to call into the office to check on this. Could I use your phone?”
The woman’s eyes darted left and right, trying to decide if she should let them in or not. Finally she stepped back and pulled the door open more. “Alright,” she said.
“Thank you,” Deem said, stepping inside. Winn followed.
“It’s just in there,” the woman said, pointing toward a kitchen.
Deem walked in the direction the woman was pointing and located a phone hanging from a wall. She picked up the receiver and dialed a fake number, and began a fake conversation.
While she was giving her performance, she looked around. Everything inside the house looked normal – nothing seemed odd at all. The woman had her arms crossed, with one arm raised to the side of her head. She seemed to be listening to Deem.
Winn looked at the walls in the entryway. They were lined with photographs. One showed the woman with a man and two small children.
“Oh, these must be your kids,” Winn said.
“Yes,” the woman said, “that’s Jody and Jennifer. They’re both off to college now.”
Winn looked at the man in the picture. He was wearing a three piece suit from the previous decade. He had a slight comb-over and large glasses. He looked anything but frightening.
Deem concluded her fake call and hung up the phone.
“Thank you,” Deem said as she approached the woman. “It was nice to meet you, I’m Danielle Smith.” She stuck out her hand.
The woman took her hand and shook it. “Geraldine Braithwaite,” she said. “My husband is John. Works at a bank in Hurricane.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Deem said. “I appreciate you letting me use your phone. Cell reception is kind of spotty out here.”
“That’s why we don’t have one,” Geraldine said.
“Have you lived here long?” Deem asked.
“Ten years,” she answered. “Moved out from Toquerville. John wanted to have more room between us and the neighbors.”
“Well, you sure achieved that,” Winn said, and smiled at her. Winn’s smile lit her up like a light bulb. She tilted her head looking at him, then a broad smile broke out on her face.
“Say, would the two of you like a pop?” Geraldine asked. “I’ve got cold pop in the fridge.”
“Well, we do have to pick up that airport ride,” Deem said.
“But, sure, I’d love a pop, if you have one,” Winn said. “We’re a little early for the pickup, aren’t we Deem?”
Deem shot him a look, then turned back to Geraldine. “Sure, we’ve got a minute.”
“Come in,” Geraldine said, ushering them into her kitchen. She told them to sit at her kitchen table, and she went to the fridge.
“Fanta orange, grape, Sprite, or root beer,” she said. “Which would you like?”
“Root beer,” Winn said.
“Sprite for me,” Deem answered.
“Alright,” Geraldine said. She pulled the cans from the fridge and placed them on the table. “Would either of you like a glass?”
“No,” they both answered simultaneously.
Geraldine went back to the fridge and pulled a root beer for herself. She sat across from Winn at the kitchen table.
“I don’t get many visitors out here,” Geraldine said. “Visiting teachers once a month, but that’s about it.”
“Lovely home,” Deem said.
“Thank you, dear,” Geraldine said. “It’s a three bedroom house, built in 2002. We’ve got two acres. John’s got a garage out back.”
“Oh, I noticed that when we drove past,” Winn said. “Bright yellow.”
“It was yellow when we moved here,” Geraldine said. “John always says he’s going to paint it another color, but he’s too busy. Between his work at the bank and his hobbies out in the garage he barely has time to breathe.”
“Oh, he has hobbies?” Deem asked.
“Yes,” Geraldine said. “I do too. I collect these little Christmas villages. When my youngest daughter moved out,
I took over her room and unboxed my entire collection. I’ll show it to you before you go.”
“Wow,” Winn said, smiling at her again. “That sounds fascinating. You did all the work?”
Geraldine seemed to melt as Winn talked to her. Deem recognized that he’d turned his charm to full blast.
“I did!” she said. “Took months to get everything just right.”
“What kind of hobbies does your husband do?” Winn asked, smiling again.
Deem watched Geraldine’s reaction to Winn’s question. God, he knows how to wrap women around his little finger, Deem thought. Geraldine smiled back at Winn and actually batted her eyes.
“I think he just putters, really,” Geraldine said. “To be honest with you, I don’t know. He doesn’t let me in the garage, he barred me from it years ago. Now it’s his ‘man cave.’ I let it go, since he didn’t object when I took over Jody’s room for the Christmas villages.”
“We should get going,” Deem said. “We’ve got to find this pickup and get them to the airport.”
“Of course,” Geraldine said.
“Would you mind if I used your restroom before I go?” Winn asked.
“Not at all,” Geraldine said. “It’s just down the hall, first door on the right.”
They all got up from the table and Winn made his way down the hall.
“Thanks again for the use of your phone,” Deem said.
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Geraldine said. “So he’s your co-worker?”
“Who?” Deem asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Oh, him? Winn? Yes, he’s the backup driver.” She immediately regretted using Winn’s real name.
“Quite a handsome fellow,” Geraldine said.
Deem was looking at her phone, checking messages. “Yes,” she said without looking up from the phone. “He is.”
“Not such a bad job, riding with him all day,” Geraldine said.
“Right,” Deem said, wishing Winn would hurry up.
“I thought you said you couldn’t get signal?” Geraldine asked.
Deem lowered her phone. “Looks like a text message got through. How, I don’t know.”
Winn came back from the restroom and thanked Geraldine for her hospitality.
“Stop by anytime,” she said, smiling broadly at Winn as he and Deem stepped out the front door. “Come back and see my villages!” she called after them.
Once they were back in Deem’s truck, Winn said, “Nice lady.”
“Yeah,” Deem said. “She sure was into you.”
“And high as a kite,” Winn said.
“What?” Deem asked.
“She’s got an entire pharmacy in that bathroom,” Winn said. “Every anti-depressant you can imagine, and sleeping pills up the wazoo. That’s why she doesn’t know her husband leaves the house at night. She’s medicated to the eyebrows.”
“You think she’s got no idea her husband is a skinrunner?” Deem asked, backing the truck out of the driveway and back onto Highway 59.
“What do you think?” Winn replied.
“You’re right,” Deem said. “She hasn’t got a clue. But honestly, neither do we. We’ve got no proof this is the guy. For all we know Sagan picked a house at random. Visiting with her didn’t really confirm anything. And most housewives around here are self-medicaters. That’s not uncommon.”
“Well, I can think of three ways to confirm it,” Winn said. “We could try going to the bank in Hurricane and confront the guy like you were trying to do here. We could wait until tonight and stake out the place, see if he comes and goes. We’d have to figure out how to make ourselves less obvious – there’s little cover around here. Or, we could break into that garage and see whatever it is he doesn’t want his wife to see.”
“Break into the garage,” Deem said.
“Best time to do that would be during the day, while he’s at work,” Winn said. “Too risky at night. We’ll have to make sure Geraldine doesn’t see us.”
“We’ll come back in a couple of hours,” Deem said. “I’ll hide in the truck and you’ll go to her house. Tell her you just got off your shift and you wanted to see her again, that you wanted to see the Christmas villages. She’s completely smitten with you, she’ll let you in.”
“And then what?” Winn said. “Seduce her?”
“Yeah, whatever it is you do,” Deem said. “Find a way to medicate her. Slip some of her prescriptions into a drink, something like that. Once she’s out, come out and tell me, and we’ll search the garage.”
“What if her husband comes back from work?”
“It’s just after noon. We wait an hour, then you go in. Get her knocked out within an hour. We’d have another hour before it’s three. Plenty of time. But we should leave by three, at the latest.”
“The idea of staking out the place is starting to sound better,” Winn said. “Less risky.”
“I want to see what’s in that garage,” Deem said. “I want to know what we’re dealing with, and something tells me that garage would explain a lot.”
“Alright,” Winn said. “We need to kill an hour before I go in.”
“Let’s go back to Hurricane. I want to refill my Big Gulp.”
“And we’ll need to pick up some bolt cutters to get in that garage. He’s got it padlocked.”
“You could see that from the driveway?” Deem asked. “Man, you must have some kind of super-vision.”
“20/15,” Winn said. “Plus I thought to check.”
▪ ▪ ▪
Deem had been hunkered down inside her truck for a long time, and she was getting antsy. She checked her watch – Winn had been in the house for almost an hour.
It must be working, she thought, or he would have come back to the truck already.
Just as her watch reached the one hour mark, Winn emerged from the front door of the house and gave her a thumbs up sign. She grabbed the bolt cutters, got out of her truck, and ran up to meet him.
“Took long enough,” Deem said. “She’s out?”
“Out,” Winn said.
“You were in there a long time,” Deem asked. “Tell me you didn’t have sex with her.”
“No,” Winn said. “But I could have. She was sending all the signs. Drank a shitload of root beer.”
They walked quickly back to the garage. Traffic on Highway 59 was sparse, but they didn’t want to be seen.
Deem snipped the lock and Winn removed it from the door. Then he pushed the door open and they stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind them.
The room they were in housed an old, half rebuilt Ford Mustang, sitting on blocks. All of the car’s parts were rusted and unpainted, and several panels were on a bench at the far end of the room. To their left, behind the car, was a set of double doors that looked as though they hadn’t been used in a long time.
“Over here,” Winn said. At the back of the garage was another door. He tried the handle.
“Locked,” Winn said.
“Kick it in,” Deem said.
“Really?”
“If you don’t, I will. We’ve already cut off his lock. Come on.”
Winn reared back and landed his foot near the door’s handle. It burst open, slamming back on its hinges.
Deem walked through the door and searched for a light switch. Once she found it, long fluorescent lights overhead came on and dimly lit the room. It was as wide as the garage, but half the size of the room with the car. There were metal shelves along one wall filled with white banker boxes that all looked the same except for a small number label attached to the side of each box. Stacked in a corner were three large blue Coleman coolers. An old refrigerator stood in the opposite corner. A thin work table lined the remaining wall.
Deem wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. There were no strange symbols drawn on the walls or projects half-finished on the work table. In fact, there was nothing on the table. The room looked like any organized garage, except for the oddity of the numbered b
oxes. The floor was clean. Nothing was out of place.
“Is it just me,” Winn said, “or is this place creepier than I imagined because it’s so clean?”
“Come on,” Deem said. She walked to the banker boxes, pulled one from the shelf, and placed it on the table. She lifted the lid.
Inside was a mat of twigs and sagebrush, lining the cardboard. The bottom of the box had a thin layer of red dirt.
“Alright,” Deem said. “Now it’s starting to get strange.”
Deem reached into the box and pulled out the sagebrush and twigs; they came out as a matted clump.
“Is that hair?” Winn asked, examining what Deem held. Deem looked more closely at the handful of dried weeds. There were, indeed, strands of red hair running around and through the twigs and delicate branches of the sagebrush. She looked back in the box and saw something green – it looked plastic. She removed another handful of twigs and dried sage, and found the handle of a brush. She pulled out of the box and showed it to Winn.
“A hairbrush?” Winn asked. There were several strands of red hair flowing from the brush. “Obviously used.”
“There’s nothing else in here,” Deem said, poking through the box. “There’s some dirt, and…wait,” she said, shaking the box to shift the dirt.
She froze. “I don’t really want to touch this,” she said, stepping back from the box to allow Winn to look inside.
Winn stepped up to the box and looked in. Resting on the dirt was a piece of jaw, with three teeth attached.
“Looks animal,” Winn said. “Put everything back in the box, like you found it.”
Deem replaced the hairbrush and then covered it with the twigs and weeds. Then she put the cardboard cover back on the box. She slid the box back onto the metal shelf.
“If that was number five,” Deem said, reviewing the small numbers on the boxes, “I wonder what might be in the last one, number nineteen here.” She pulled that box from the shelf and placed it on the table, then carefully removed the lid.
A similar mass of sagebrush and twigs matted the top of the box. She pulled the weeds out and placed them on the table. Then she looked at what was under them.
“That’s my bracelet!” she said, looking down. “I can’t believe it!”
Blood Oath, Blood River (The Downwinders Book 1) Page 8