Unquiet Ghosts

by Glenn Meade

“A meeting with the president. I couldn’t just walk out.”

  “You know, it always surprises me,” Tarik remarked.

  “What does?”

  Tarik gestured with his cigar toward the Pentagon. “Why they chose the Pentagon that day in 2001 when they crashed the aircraft. The White House would have been a more prominent target, a priority for both aircraft that day, I mean including the one that went down in Pennsylvania when the passengers rushed the cockpit. The White House was a far more strategic target. And you can see it so easily. I mean, the effect on the American psyche and the world would have been profound, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll try to remember to mention that to the president the next time I’m talking to him.” The man pulled up his coat collar, shook his head. “Don’t be stupid, Tarik. The White House has protective missile systems. An incoming aircraft would be shot down.”

  “You really think they could have reacted that fast? With air traffic so close at Reagan, and suddenly two passenger jets come speeding like rockets toward their target? I don’t think so.” Tarik grunted, and it sounded like a tiny laugh.

  The other man rubbed his gloved hands together. “You almost make that sound like a wish. You still hate us, don’t you?”

  Tarik said nothing.

  The man pulled back a leather glove, stared at his watch, as if bored already. “Can we get this over with?”

  “I met her. My men have been following her.”

  “And?”

  “She’s asking questions, and soon she’ll start to piece things together. I’m certain of it.” Tarik sucked in a slow breath. “So we need to put this to bed, once and for all, or we are all finished.”

  “Yeah, I get the picture.”

  Tarik took another drag on his cigar and stared toward the White House. “Do you really?”

  “I don’t like your tone, Tarik. And I don’t like you. Never did. You’re a conniving sleazeball, a snake in the grass. But we’re joined at the hip on this one. Remember, you’re here because of my recommendation, buddy. That’s how you and your friends got out of that rat hole of a country of yours. You aided the U.S. military. You’re a rat.”

  Fury lit Tarik’s face. “I was fool enough to take your dollars and work for your people. But I always despised you. Your nation, your culture, your arrogance.”

  “Yeah? You prefer living in a mud hovel in some desert armpit of a town? I don’t see you buying a return ticket back to the miserable lives you and your friends led there.”

  “I can never go back, never. There is nothing to go back to. You people made sure of that. Brought ruin and bloodshed to my country, all because of your lust for oil. You brought destruction, anarchy, madness.”

  “And it was way better under Saddam?”

  “No, but at least we had a people, a country. Now we no longer have a country but a war zone, factions killing each other, a society that’s spiraling down the toilet.” Tarik gave a mock salute. “Thank you, America.”

  The other man stared at him. “What do you want, Tarik? Cheese with that whine? A violin accompaniment?”

  “Don’t mock me, American.”

  The man grabbed Tarik’s arm hard. “Listen, you dirtball. You were a tribal chief’s son who was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, like your father before you. You’d have ransomed your own grandmother if there was a profit in it. Save me the crocodile tears. You gladly took our money to switch sides.”

  Tarik shook off the man’s grip. “And one of your countrymen took it back.”

  “The fog of war, Tarik. Strange things happen.”

  “I told you, don’t mock me. The only reason we’re talking is because you fear me. Fear what I can do to you if the truth comes out. Don’t forget that.”

  “You’re right. But it works both ways. We need each other. So the truth won’t ever come out, will it?”

  “Not if I get what rightfully belongs to my people.”

  “You’re no longer one of your people, Tarik.” The man grinned. “You mean what belongs to you.”

  “It was stolen from me. From my people.”

  “Whatever. If he’s still got it, you’ll have it all back.” The man turned to go, heading back to the Denali.

  Tarik gripped his arm. “He’d better have it.”

  The man gave Tarik a hard stare and pulled his arm away. “Don’t ever threaten me. Not ever.”

  “No threat. I don’t have to make threats. But you and I know the consequences if the truth comes out. For you and people like you.” Tarik ground his teeth. “That’s why we need to bring this whole sorry business to an end. Kill them all, including the woman. Cover our tracks.”

  “We don’t even know where they are.”

  “But we will. I have a plan.” Tarik grinned, his pencil mustache stretching across his face as he tapped his nose in a scheming gesture. “I have inside help.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Someone close to the woman.”

  65

  * * *

  About a mile from DJ’s home, I pulled in by the lake and let the engine idle.

  It was almost 6:50 p.m. I didn’t see the SUV or the van tailing me again. Maybe that was a good thing. Or a bad thing. I couldn’t tell which.

  Were they still out there, watching me? Not knowing was driving me a little crazy.

  I was feeling apprehensive, my heart pitter-patting.

  Not just about revisiting DJ. I needed to ask him about Quentin Lusk. If the intruder knew Jack, he probably knew DJ.

  I was still shaking after confronting my father. Nothing seemed to have been resolved. It was all still up in the air. And Jack’s refusal to see me hurt even more. Muddled as I felt, all I could think of was working on one of the only clues I had.

  And I knew I had to tell Tanner and Courtney about Jack making contact and the truth about the break-in. I couldn’t hide all that any longer. Just as soon as I spoke with DJ, I’d call them both.

  Snow streaked the ridges of distant mountains, looking as if some giant truck had dumped tons of castor sugar over them. A ragged wind blew gray clouds across the lake.

  I felt on edge, my nerves jangling, and I was barely able to muster the concentration I needed to go into Magpies Bakery on North Central Street and buy a big red-velvet cake. I had it wrapped up in a white box with a crimson bow. DJ and Vera had made it very clear that I was not to call again. But DJ was holding out, knew more than he was saying, and there was no one else I could talk to.

  I figured if things got off on the wrong foot when I knocked on the door of the double-wide, I could always say I just came by to apologize and the cake was a peace offering. I’d try to wing it from there.

  So long as DJ or Vera didn’t blast me before I got my spiel out. Having the gun in the glove compartment definitely gave me a feeling of comfort if the muck hit the fan. But what if things turned nasty inside the home and then they found my weapon?

  I began to think I was crazy to risk coming here again. DJ was suffering from PTSD and maybe volatile. And I figured Vera’s belt didn’t go through all the loops, either. And just like she’d hinted, they could shoot me and claim I was invading their home.

  I opened the glove compartment and palmed the Taurus .38 revolver. I stared at it in my hands and couldn’t decide if I was more likely to get killed by going in armed. I wasn’t exactly happy about my final decision, but caution won out over fear. I slid the gun into my coat pocket.

  A thin drizzle of icing snaked across the side of the white cake box. I ran the tip of my finger across it and put the icing to my lips.

  It tasted delicious, and I enjoyed the sugar hit.

  I just hoped Vera’s sweet tooth could make a difference.

  But I couldn’t help thinking—actually, I was pretty certain—that I was somehow deluding myself.

  Crows rose no
isily into the air like wet black rags as I turned down the track to DJ’s home. Sixty yards from the double-wide, I coasted the car to a halt, killed the engine, and stepped out. Fear hit me like a hard slap. I felt my legs wobble. The crows cawed as they landed on some trees. I hefted the boxed cake from the backseat and kicked shut the rear door with my foot. The noise of it slamming echoed like a gunshot.

  I prayed the kids were there. That DJ and Vera wouldn’t be crazy enough to let them witness a shooting. But I felt sure of nothing. It was aces wild—parents who waved guns around in front of their kids were probably capable of anything.

  The mustard-colored hound wasn’t around, but the metal stake in the ground was still there, the blue nylon rope discarded in the mud. A mash of paw prints blotted the lawn. I guessed the dog was inside the double-wide on a cold day. The blue Dodge van was still parked around the side.

  The same junk was scattered on the lawn—the mildewed pink Barbie tricycle, the rusted old cars, the stuffed toys. As I walked up the dirt path to the front door, I felt my heart stutter. I thought I could hear the TV or shouting inside, aggressive voices muted. All the curtains were still closed.

  As I carried the cake, my chest felt tight with anxiety. Another group of crows announced their arrival and landed high up on a big old white oak tree across the track. I’d hated crows ever since I was a kid. They always spoke to me of evil and death.

  My eyes shifted to the rusted metal sign nailed to a two-by-four stake in the middle of the lawn. I remembered it: “Is There Life after Death? Trespass Here and Find Out.”

  I just hoped it wasn’t a bad omen. That DJ wasn’t about to validate his warning. I was about to find out.

  I reached the door, sucked in a sharp breath, held it, made an O of my lips, and let it out.

  I rapped hard.

  66

  * * *

  No one came to the door.

  I knocked again and tried to peer through the curtains. It was dark inside except for the TV’s faint blue flickering. A ball game was playing, the volume too loud. I was sure I heard some kind of shuffling or scraping noise inside. Had anyone heard me? After a couple of minutes, I rapped harder.

  “DJ? Vera? Are you home?”

  No reply.

  “It’s Kath Kelly. I just called by to say sorry, to apologize. I wanted to leave a gift for you.”

  I sounded such a licker. But when someone threatens me with a 500 Smith & Wesson, I’ll lick until my tongue hurts. I heard the shuffling, scraping noise again, as if someone was moving about. My pulse started to race.

  “DJ? Vera?”

  Still no reply.

  I rapped again. Nothing. I gave it another half a minute, and then I laid the cake box down on the ground by the front door and cautiously walked around the side of the property, passing the van. Inside was the same mess. The floor was still covered in McDonald’s and Burger King cartons, crushed chicken nuggets mashed into the carpet. The only thing that looked different was that the grubby, food-stained child seat was tilted over to one side.

  I walked a little farther toward the rear of the home, my legs still trembling. I saw a door with some wood steps leading down. It looked open just a crack. I moved toward the door but hesitated. What if DJ was waiting to spring a trap? No, thanks.

  I turned back and paused for a while when I reached the front door again. I knocked hard for at least five seconds. Even a deaf man could have heard my woodpecker rap as it echoed all over the lot.

  No neighbors appeared at their windows, at least none that I could spot. The other lots looked deserted, no cars, either. I heard the noise again—it sounded more like scraping this time. It faded away and stopped. I stood there for a few minutes, curious, my ears cocked, listening, but the noise didn’t resume.

  I felt on edge, like one of Pavlov’s dogs expecting an electric shock at any moment. I decided I couldn’t linger here all day. My nerves were frayed enough. I touched the front-door handle with my thumb and forefinger, levered it open about two inches. The metal creaked like a scream.

  I stood there, fear in my throat, waiting for some kind of violent reaction, for DJ or Vera to appear, screaming obscenities at me, telling me to get off their property, waving the big Smith & Wesson.

  Nada.

  All I saw was a TV’s dreamy blue reflections, and I heard the TV, louder.

  It was still too dim inside to see clearly.

  “DJ? Vera? It’s Kath. I came to apologize.”

  That’s when it happened.

  I felt something brush against the door I was holding, as the scraping noise started up again. I jumped back in fear, let go of the handle, and the front door creaked wide open. I got the awful stench of dog and excrement.

  The mustard-colored hound appeared, pawing weakly at the door crack, trying to get out. The dog made a weird choking noise. And then I saw why. A bloody gash stained its neck with congealed blood. The animal was trying to bark but couldn’t—its throat had been either shot or cut.

  The pitiful creature stared up at me with pained eyes before it stumbled out onto the lawn and toward the cover of some bushes, leaving a trail of bloody paw marks in its wake. The swinging door yawned open and slapped against its stop, making me jump.

  Daylight spilled into one end of the room through the open doorway.

  I stared at the scene inside the home, then staggered back, clasping a hand to my mouth, my scream caught in my throat. I felt as if I was going to gag. Vera was slumped on the floor on the other side of the room, a huge gunshot wound to her skull. Her hair was strewn about her head, a lake of blood around her upper body, staining the blue carpet. I noticed bruise marks on her arms and neck, a cut under her chin, as if maybe she had been assaulted or tortured.

  I felt something cold seep into me. For at least a minute, I stood there, shaking violently, my hand still on my mouth, until I mustered enough courage to step forward again. Two slow, scared steps, filled with dread.

  Then I saw DJ, sprawled across the La-Z-Boy, staring up at the ceiling, one eye wide open, the other eye missing, blown away along with half of his skull, his brain matter spattering the couch and walls with bloody slime. The big Smith & Wesson revolver dangled from his hand, hanging over the side of the couch. His prosthetic leg with the silver buckles lay toppled on the floor.

  There was no sign of Elvis and his sister. A split-second thought registered: murder-suicide. For some reason, that was what the scene suggested. Were the children dead, too? I stared at DJ’s and Vera’s bodies, put a hand to my mouth again to stifle my cry, but if it came, I never heard it.

  A creak sounded as something moved behind me, freaking me out, my heart exploding like a bomb in my chest. I glimpsed a dark shadow flit across the TV-blued walls, and I spun around.

  A figure stepped out from behind the door, his arm raised.

  It took a split second for me to see that he had a baseball bat in his hand. And I recognized the youthful face.

  It was Sean’s face, my son, grown older. A mother never forgets her child, and there was no mistaking Sean’s features, even after all these years—his full lips, his pale-blue eyes and high cheekbones—not even in that fraction of a second.

  He struck me so hard with the bat it felt as if I’d hit a wall of steel.

  Pain blossomed like a grenade going off inside my skull.

  And then everything turned a dreamy black.

  67

  * * *

  Serenity Ridge, Sevierville, Tennessee

  Agnes Hatmaker checked her lipstick in her makeup mirror, twitched her lips, and blinked to examine her seriously heavy blue eyeliner. She ran a hairbrush through her thick mullet mane.

  Looking good.

  Well, maybe not that good.

  Her hair needed doing, but her Kenny liked it that way. Kenny was a mountain man, five foot nothing, a few months off seve
nty, and twenty years her senior. He also dressed like a hillbilly living fifty years in the past, all plaid shirts and denim bibs—buffet pants, he called them—but you didn’t want to displease a twitchy little terrier of a man who was once a tunnel rat in Vietnam.

  Kenny still carried a gun everywhere. More than one gun, actually. One in his bib pocket, one in a leg holster, and another inside the pants. “One is none, and two is one,” Kenny liked to say.

  “Meaning?”

  “Always have a spare, just in case. If you only got one and it fails, you’ve got none.” Then he’d get that glint in his eye. “Always wanted to catch or kill me a thief.”

  He insisted that Agnes get her conceal-carry permit, too. Now she carried a firearm everywhere and prided herself on knowing how to use it. Kenny taught her how to shoot, plinking tin cans in the back field of his farm. “You never know”—that was always Kenny’s cryptic warning. Never know what? Heck, she didn’t care. For an old guy, Kenny was still a firecracker, in and out of bed.

  She saw the nerdy guy come in through Serenity Ridge’s entrance hall, dressed casually, carrying a metal briefcase that looked more like a toolbox.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  The man noted her name badge. “Yes, ma’am. We did an online check of your video security system. Seems to be a problem with a flaky power supply.”

  “Flaky?”

  The nerd smiled knowingly. “By that I mean the supply is intermittent, ma’am.”

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Agnes glanced up at the TV monitor high on the wall, showing a changing feed of video streams. She could see most areas of Serenity Ridge, every patient and every room if she wanted. “Looks OK to me.”

  “Your system could fail at any minute. Got to check it out.”

  “Well, hot dog. Nobody told me.”

  “It’s no big deal, ma’am. But we can’t have the system going down, or the customer won’t be happy.” The man grinned and winked. “You want to keep this place tighter than a high-security prison, right?”