The man was smiling at her over the rim of his cup. There was something in his eyes that gave her a prickle of unease. “Kind of dangerous a woman living way out here in the bush,” he said.
There was no point in pressing the lie. He knew there was no husband in the picture. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can, Miss...”
She met his gaze squarely, refused the bait.
“I didn’t mean to pry. You have to admit, though, it is kind of unusual for a woman to be living in such an isolated place on her own.”
“Please don’t trouble yourself about me.” She moved to the fireplace and picked up the poker, worked it in among the burning embers and held it there. “There’s an old farmhouse a couple of miles back. You probably passed it, not that far. They’ll likely have a phone.”
He set his empty mug on the roughhewn coffee table. “Yes, I think I remember seeing the farmhouse. They probably do have a phone. I’ll take my leave then, and thank you again for your hospitality.”
She gave a barely perceptible nod, and then he was gone into the grey mist. She closed and locked the door behind him. She also checked that the back door was locked. It was. She thought about the man briefly, then put him out of her mind.
~*~
But he had not put her out of his mind. Reaching the bottom of the drive, he glared up at the cabin he had just been unceremoniously tossed out of like so much road kill. She didn’t know who she was dealing with. She’d find out though. The pulse in his temple throbbed. “You owe me, lady,” he said aloud to his quiet surroundings, then he turned and made his way down the muddy road. “And you’re going to pay up.”
He’d be back. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be alone. He was still tied to those two idiots. Tattoo had discovered him cutting away the wire in the prison yard the night before he planned to go through it, and decided he was going too. The unspoken threat lay between them. Tattoo would get him thrown in the hole for trying to escape if he gave him an argument. He had no choice but to take him along.
He wasn’t sure how Dog became part of his escape. One thing was sure, if one of them went down, they all went down. So he’d just have to see it through. For now anyway.
Chapter 5
Abby woke the next morning with Corey’s jacket pillowed beneath her cheek. The sun’s rays streamed through the cotton beige curtains and warmed her face. She didn’t move for a while, just lay there enjoying the feeling of something that felt almost like peace. Something she hadn’t felt for a very long time. If she dreamed, it had been a pleasant dream, one she couldn’t recall. Finally, she took the jacket away, leaving her skin warm and tingling where it had been. She traced with her fingertips the tiny lines the folded fabric had made on her skin. It was the first good night’s sleep she’d gotten in months without the help of sleeping pills. She was glad she’d come. It was as if some of the magic of their time spent together here— uninterrupted with work or school or bills — still lingered. Like dandelion seeds scattered on the air. But no. It was more than that.
A few embers still glowed in the fireplace. She stirred them into a low flame and lay on more wood to heat water for coffee. She’d walk down the path to the lake first. She looked out the window, pleased to see the sun.
So unlike the day she had looked out her window and saw the two policemen coming up her walk. She had been thinking how pretty it all looked with the snow gently falling, and her neighbors’ Christmas lights glowing through swirling white flakes, like in a picture postcard. The policemen had solemn faces and were in no hurry. A cold, sick dread had swept through her and she knew. She wanted to scream at them to go away, go away — as if that would somehow change what happened — but of course she opened the door.
Her grief was sometimes so crushing she couldn’t catch her breath. A widowed aunt she’d visited in a nursing home once told her she missed her husband dreadfully. That was the word she used: dreadfully. Only after the accident did Abby truly know the full meaning of the word.
Enough. Enough.
She pulled on jeans and shirt, gripped by a sense that they were still out there, waiting for her. She could almost smell the hotdogs cooking over the fire that Corey had built. Almost hear Ellie’s squeals and laughter as she swam in the lake. Like stepping through a door back into her real life. Not possible of course. Crazy thinking. She slipped into Corey’s jacket, drawing it around her like an embrace. Arms crossed under her breasts, she walked down the path to the lake. The day smelled of sun-warmed earth, freshly washed from the rain.
Water sighed against the shore. Close by, a flock of teal ducks exploded into the air, their velvety green feathers iridescent in the sunlight. She must have frightened them. Her gaze followed their ascent to the most splendid rainbow arching itself across the blue sky. Was it a sign? A sign of what, Abby?
Wings flapping, the ducks settled themselves farther out on the calm lake.
“Mom, isn’t it beautiful here?”
Her heart leapt. “Ellie?” She looked around. But she was quite alone. But she had just heard her daughter’s voice. No. It was only wishful thinking, Abby. No. I heard her. She envisioned Ellie’s face with the tiny dimple at the left corner of her mouth, the mischievous glint in those blue eyes. She could almost smell the strawberry scent of shampoo in her toffee-colored hair.
Ellie’s words still echoing in her mind, she reached into Corey’s jacket pocket and felt something there, something hard and smooth at one corner; she traced its shape with her fingertips, knowing even before she took it out of the pocket that it was Ellie’s blue butterfly barrette. Her favorite one. It must have fallen out of her hair and her dad picked it up off the ground and put it in his pocket. The blue barrette swam through her tears.
“Are you here, Ellie? Corey?”
But there was no answer.
~*~
Karen had dreamed too. But it was not a peaceful dream and brought only a sense of cold foreboding. In her dream, she saw Abby asleep in a room she didn’t recognize and three long shadows were slithering across a wood floor toward the bed where she lay, drawing nearer and nearer to her.
That entire morning, Karen couldn’t concentrate on her work, and one of her wash and cut customers practically jumped out of the chair, yelling at her that the water was too hot. This didn’t happen to Karen. Good thing she was a regular. By way of apology, Karen didn’t charge her.
~*~
Hours later, Abby sat at the table with her coffee and one of the Hillroy scribblers drawn toward her, the one with the red cover. I was remembering, that’s all. Yet her voice had seemed so real, so close. As if she had been right there, right beside her.
She picked up the Cross pen Corey had given her when her first novel was published. He’d also splurged on a bottle of Mum Champagne and kept up the tradition with each new book, including The Scarecrow Man, which she placed on the table near her, like a talisman. Proof to herself that she actually could write a novel, that she’d done it before. Now all she needed was a little inspiration. An idea. Pen in hand, she stared at the blank page. It mocked her. Dared her to fill it with words — words to draw a reader into her story. A story that while it was fictional, rang with sufficient truth so that the reader would be willing to suspend disbelief for a little while. But it had to start with her. She must fall into her own creative trance. She must do the work. There were no shortcuts. How often she had given the same advice to aspiring novelists who were starting on their own journeys.
She had missed her deadline for the new novel and no one was pushing for a new deadline. Kendra Newman, her publisher, knew about her loss and had offered sympathy and flowers. She was kindness itself. “Take whatever time you need, Abby,” she had told her. “Whenever you’re ready, just let me know.”
But Abby knew writing was as much a business as an art, more so now that it was in such flux with ebooks growing ever more popular. Soon no one would remember her name. It was even possible her writing caree
r was over. She could only imagine what Corey would say to that; he wasn’t big on self-pity. Get on with it, he’d say. Pull up your socks, kiddo. Do what you know how to do?
She stared at the blank page a little while longer then sighed and pushed the notebook away from her. The feeling of well-being that she awoke with this morning had been shallow and was short-lived. A respite. The reality was, she didn’t have the strength or motivation to pull herself out of this sinkhole she was in. It was swallowing her up. And she couldn’t seem to make herself give a damn.
She drew her dead husband’s jacket more tightly about her, but this time it failed to offer solace.
“I can’t,” she whispered, then buried her head in her hands and wept.
Chapter 6
“Going someplace?” Ken Roach asked, as he plodded toward the farmhouse to see Tattoo and Dog coming down the steps.
“Takin’ this stuff out to the old bastard’s truck,” Tattoo replied. He was clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker’s red, a green Christmas bow tied about the neck of the bottle, still intact. He yanked the bow off now, as if it were the head of chicken, and tossed it on the ground.
The old man apparently hadn’t been much of a drinker, Ken Roach thought. Behind him, Dog (real name Donnie Leaman) was grinning like a Cheshire cat, holding up a nearly full bottle of cooking sherry, like he’d won it at the circus. A thatch of greasy hair flopped over his wide, flat forehead.
Ken Roach turned his attention to Tattoo. “You wanna pick that bow up off the ground, Tat?” he said evenly. Though he was irritated at the stupidity of the man, he kept a lid on it. “Your fingerprints are all over it.” He gave him a begrudged smile.
Tattoo glared at him for a second, then did as he was told, if with a slight tightening of his mouth. “So,” Roach said, “Do we have a plan, seeing as how you’re all fixed on heading out?”
“No point in hangin’ around here,” Tattoo said. “Nothing more in there any good to us. Might as well take the truck. Those two in there...” he gestured behind him with his chin — “are starting to stink.”
“Don’t think we ought to be going anywhere right now,” Roach said pleasantly. “And driving their truck around sounds like a great way to find ourselves back behind bars.”
“You got a better plan?” Tattoo spat.
“I do, in fact. First thing we’re gonna do is put the bodies in the truck bed and then, Dog, you’re going to drive the truck way off into those woods there where it can’t be seen from the road.” He should have known neither of them would think to get rid of the bodies.
“I’ll set fire to the truck,” Dog said, gleeful at the idea. “I saw a can of gasoline around back.”
Christ, the guy was such a retard. How had he managed to get stuck with these lowlifes anyway? They were animals, sub-human, especially Tattoo alias Jim Ellison. Dog, in fairness, had his uses. He’d just have to handle Tattoo, that’s all. They definitely weren’t part of the original plan. He’d have to be careful though. Tattoo was a maniac when he got riled, like a crazed beast sprung from a cage.
“You don’t want to set fire to the truck Dog,” Ken said, putting an arm around his shoulders, speaking to him as if he were talking to a three year old, which intellectually he might have been. “The black smoke will drift sky-high, probably set the woods on fire, and someone will see it and that’ll bring the cops for sure. Just leave the truck in the woods, make sure it can’t be seen from the road, like I said. That way, folks’ll just figure they went on a little trip or something. While you’re doing that, Tattoo and I will clean up any evidence that we’ve ever been here. No one knows we got this far from Pennington, right? And they won’t if we do things right. Okay?”
Tattoo was standing on the step, listening, saying nothing. Now he said, “Phone rang while you were gone. A couple of times.”
Ken Roach felt a cold clutching of his gut. “I hope you didn’t answer.”
“You think I’m a fuckin’ idiot, Roach?”
Tattoo was looking at him with those cold black eyes, soulless as the eye in the snake’s head inked on his face— brothers-in-spirit.
“No, Tat. Don’t think that at all. Just asking. Old habits die hard. Phone rings, you answer.” Dog looked from him to Tattoo and back again; he looked worried.
The tense moment passed. “Think someone might come by to check the old geezers out?” Tattoo asked him.
“Possible. So the quicker we get this done, the better.”
The couple’s name was Nichols. The name was printed in white paint on the mailbox, and he’d come across a couple of bills in a kitchen drawer. “Suspicions won’t be aroused for a couple of days,” he said, going inside the house, catching the screen door before it could slam.
Would they be the type to take off without telling anyone? Roach wondered. Nah, probably not. He remembered the pictures of the blond girl on the wall in the living room. You could actually follow her from babyhood into womanhood in there. Like being in a gallery. She grew up not-too-hard on the eyes, but nothing to write home about. Probably their granddaughter.
“Well, if you’re wrong and someone does show up, I’ll take care of it,” Tattoo said. “No worries.”
Right, no worries. Just what he needed; more bodies to tie them to. Not that it would matter at that point. But once the cops were onto them they’d have to leave this area in their wake, and he wasn’t nearly ready to do that. He had some unfinished business with the lady in the cabin, and with the cabin itself. There was something waiting for him there that he needed to get his hands on. It was why he’d come here, and nothing was going to deter him.
It had surprised him, finding her there. But in a way it made things easier.
The door closed, the metallic sound amplified in the morning stillness. Seconds later the truck’s engine roared to life.
“Where were you, Roach?” Tattoo asked, his beetle brows furrowing. “How come you took so long gettin’ back?”
He didn’t particularly like getting the third degree from this big baboon but he kept his cool. “I told you guys, I was scouting around for a place where we could hole up for a few days.”
He had told them only that he’d come here with his father once on a hunting trip when he was a kid, and stayed at the cabin in Loon Lake and that, far as he knew, it was still standing. All of which was true. Back then, he got the impression his old man and the guy who owned the cabin had got up to some hard mischief when they were young. He didn’t know exactly what. But they laughed a lot. A kind of dirty laugh that let you know it wasn’t their high school prom they were talking about. He wanted to hear more about it, but they’d always clam up as soon as he came within earshot. Being in that cabin brought those memories back like it was yesterday.
After Abby sent him on his way yesterday, he’d walked for a while and came across an old, rundown shack. He crept inside, simply because he’d wanted to be away from those two morons for a while. He needed time to himself, to plan, to think. He needed money, more than the few bills he’d taken from old man Nichols’ dresser drawer. He planned on getting a lot more when the time was right. But for now, a small stake would do. Enough to encourage Tattoo to take off on his own. He didn’t anticipate any serious problems with Dog. He’d do what he was told.
Chapter 7
Funny how the name Loon Lake had always stayed in his head. The cabin had looked smaller than he remembered, the cedar logs darkened with the passage of years. The old man who owned the place, name of Jake Lenihan, had kept in touch with him. Ken figured it was sentimentality, owing to his friendship with his father. A letter would show up now and then, just a few words. Even got one when he was in prison. The old guy told him he was sorry for his troubles. Came to see him once. Did him a few favors after Ken told him his plan to break out. The last time he wrote, he said he only had a few months to live and that a young fellow had bought the cabin from him. When he told him the name of the buyer, Ken Roach couldn’t believe it. That would just be
too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?
Ken had found the cabin once on Google Earth, could even make out the little outhouse out back. He’d laughed and the guard had peered in at him through the bars and asked him what the hell was so funny.
Destiny, he’d told him. Destiny.
The perfect hideout. And it would have been too. Until Tattoo beat the old couple to death. But there was no stopping Tattoo once the demons took over. Not unless you wanted to be part of the carnage. Besides, they couldn’t just leave them alive to identify them, could they? Hunger had outweighed common sense. The old couple were inside the house with their food. They wanted the food. Just the way it worked out. Gave him a bad feeling though. Should have found someplace where no one was home.
He remembered how Dog had hunkered down on all fours staring into the eyes of the corpses. Cocking his head this way and that, living up to his nickname. Creepy guy, Dog. Really weird.
“So?” Tattoo said, lumbering into the house behind him. “Find anything?”
“Yeah. Nice little cabin near the lake. The one I told you about. Woman lives there by herself. We can stay maybe a night or two.” This could be tricky. He didn’t like this direction of things, but he was confident that once Tattoo had some cash in his pocket, he wouldn’t want to hang around. He was essentially a loner, even in the pen. Even the guards were wary of him.
“She know that?”
Ken Roach just smiled. “You know, I just mighta forgot to mention it.”
Tattoo begrudgingly took the cleaning rag Ken handed him. He didn’t like being told what to do, but he joined Ken in wiping surfaces, anywhere they might have left their prints, other evidence. Self-preservation, he supposed. Nothing like a recent memory of clanging doors and jangling keys to motivate you.
The Deepest Dark Page 3