Bruce’s normally yellowish skin turned ashen, and his thin eyes grew round.
“If you see him, stay clear, okay. I’ll try your cell phone.” The machine went dead, and in the haunting silence, Bruce’s pocket began to buzz.
Jon’s eyes locked on the pocket, then lifted to meet the somewhat panicked and accusing stare of his friend. “Seriously, Bruce? Do you think I could kill somebody?”
“I didn’t think your dad could kill anybody. He like, goes to church and stuff.”
Jon pushed off the counter. “Are you kidding me? He’s a foul-mouthed drunk who was sleeping with a bartender. I’m surprised he didn’t catch on fire every time he stepped into that stupid church.” He snatched his iPad off the counter. “You know what? Forget it, man. I don’t need you.”
Bruce’s round, Samoan face drooped. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”
“You didn’t exactly say you did!”
“If you say you didn’t do it, I believe you, dude.”
Jon shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I have to get out of here. You’re gonna get in trouble just being around me.”
“No,” said Bruce, “we’re in this thing together.”
They had been friends since kindergarten, and Jon recognized the look in Bruce’s eyes. If he’d made up his mind, there was no talking him off the ledge.
“Are you sure about this?”
His friend pressed his lips tight and nodded. “We’ll just go to the police and tell them you’re innocent,” he said.
“What? No way. I’m not going anywhere near that place till I find out what’s going on.”
“But you’re innocent. The truth will come out.”
“Truth,” he laughed. “What truth? Their truth? My father’s truth?” He placed the iPad down on the kitchen table, slid a chair out and plopped down. “I’m gonna check the local news and see what the story is. I need to get a handle on this.”
Within a few seconds the story was sitting on the screen in all its gruesome glory. A photographer had gotten a shot of his dad in the back of a police cruiser, and another of the body being wheeled out on a stretcher. The details were sparse, but there was no missing the fact that his father had blamed the shooting on him.
Jon gripped the tablet. “He really did! He told them I did it—that I shot Sandra? My own father!” He stared at the screen as if it were crawling with bugs. “Why would he do that?”
“I know, it doesn’t make sense.” Bruce’s voice sounded distant.
Jon felt his world collapsing. It was one thing to have a father who killed his girlfriend in a fit of jealous drunken rage, but to blame it on him put into question everything he understood about his father. How could he do something so horrible? How could he betray his own son? There had to be a mistake. There had to be a reason—something he was missing.
He read the headline again and the reality of the situation began to fully sink in. “Look at this headline, Bruce. Police are searching for a young man believed to have murdered his father’s girlfriend. Not suspected, believed, to have murdered. Not only did my father put the blame on me, the police believed him! Why?”
“Maybe he planted something that implicated you.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, maybe the gun.”
“My prints aren’t on that Colt. That was his precious. He never let anyone touch it, especially me.”
“What if there aren’t any prints on the gun? What if he wiped it down and wore gloves when he shot it? He could have put it in your room and said you did it.”
“No, there would still be residue.”
“Residue?” said Bruce.
“Yeah. They say when you shoot a gun it leaves residue on your hands and clothes, traces of gunpowder and other chemicals.” As he spoke he looked down at the photo of his father in the back of the cruiser. “His shirt is blue,” he said, eyes locked on the image. “He wasn’t wearing a blue shirt. It was green. I’m sure of it.”
“He changed his shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“To hide the residue!” said Bruce.
“Maybe there isn’t any evidence. Maybe he just covered everything up and blamed it on me.”
Bruce shrugged.
“I have to find that shirt,” Jon said, “if I’m going to prove I’m innocent.”
Bruce scowled. “You won’t get anywhere near your house with the cops there. How are you going to find that shirt?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rising from the table. “But we have to try.”
Bruce’s oriental eyes became oval again, “We? What? Do you have a rat in your pocket?” He looked down at Jon’s pocket. “Okay. So you do have a rat in your pocket, but you know what I mean.”
“What was all that stuff about we’re in this together?”
“You know—the go-to-the-police-and-turn-yourself-in kind of together.” Bruce looked sheepish.
“Whatever. Don’t worry about it, man.”
“I’m sorry, dude. I’m just not Bonnie and Clyde material.”
“That makes two of us,” Jon said, starting to pace. “But if I don’t do this, they’re going to Shawshank me.”
“Where do you think he would hide the shirt and the gun? Maybe we can call someone and have them go over.”
“I don’t know, but even if I did, I don’t want to pull anyone else into this.”
“Well you can’t go over there and try to sneak in. You’d be better off going directly to the police and telling them your side of the story.”
“Yeah. That should go well. I dress in black, paint my nails black, and listen to hard rock. They’ll have me stereotyped before I get past the front door. No. I’m gonna work this out. I just need some time to think.” His mind drifted back to the mysterious whispers that had warned him to get out of the house.
Maybe they would help him now.
“I’m going to use your bathroom,” he said, shifting things somewhat.
“Sure,” said Bruce, raising his eyebrows. “You going in there to think?”
“No. I’m going in there to take care of business!” he said with a scowl. “God only knows when I’ll have another chance.”
He went down the thickly carpeted hall and locked himself into the scented shrine Bruce’s mother fancied a bathroom. Everything was covered with carpet, even the toilet seat.
He looked at his lean, muscular frame in the mirror. It wasn’t exactly the visage of your comely, law-abiding citizen. Although, if he removed the heavy metal t-shirt, the hair gel that held his hair up fashionably on the sides, the light gauge plugs in his ears, and the black fingernail polish, he could almost pass for a handsome frat boy. But it would take the police all of one minute to see through it. Years of struggle and rebelling against authority had brought him to a place of no return. He was an outcast, and outcasts didn’t get the benefit of the doubt. It was up to him to prove his own innocence. He had to make them see him for who he was, not the image in the mirror.
CHAPTER FIVE
David Chance scanned through the job listings and took a sip of his coffee. The list seemed to shrink daily, and almost everything was part-time work. How was he supposed to provide for his family on a part-time salary? Putting the whole God thing aside, didn’t the city of Boston owe him more than a pizza delivery job? He’d saved it from a fiery death, after all, the least they could do was offer him a decent job. But the television station was downsizing, and his hopes for full-time employment were dwindling with each passing day.
“Don’t let Coldfield see you job hunting,” said a familiar voice. He looked up to see Karen Knight displaying a perfect set of white teeth, which seemed even more brilliant against her rich tanned skin. She always looked like she was primped for a photo shoot with her bronze hair flowing down in lightly tossed waves, swooping out at the ends as if gravity had no effect on it.
“You’re still here, Karen?” he said. “Don’t you have a job in New York to go to?”
“I promised I’d work till the end of the month and I’m keeping my word.” Her deep chestnut eyes studied his face.
He looked down at the paper. “My job is already on the chopping block so I’m not too worried about what Jim Coldfield thinks.”
“First off,” Karen said with a scolding finger, “you don’t know for sure they’re going to can you, and second, I already put in a good word for you. When my team heads out, there’ll be four jobs opening up. Jim knows you’re a hero. That will play into things.”
“If I’m such a hero, why has it been six months and I’m still running coffee errands and making photocopies? I would think, at the very least, they’d have me running cam like Larry, or logging hours in the edit suite.”
“Boy! You wish you could run camera like me?” said a rough cowboy voice from the other side of the partition. David looked, but saw no one. Larry Turner was probably working on a computer in one of the other cubicles, no doubt proud of himself for being in the right place at the right time to make his snarky remark and give the illusion that he was ever-present.
Karen ignored him. “Look. The whole industry is taking cutbacks, David. You know that. Internet is killing us. Just be patient. The I.T. Division is growing by leaps and bounds and...”
As she spoke, David’s eyes suddenly rested on the word Tell at the top of a poster over Karen’s shoulder, then shifted to a paper taped to the side of his cubicle. The paper was an announcement that Brad and Karen Knight would be leaving the station for an assignment in New York. His eyes fixated on the word Karen.
His breath became shallow. Was it happening again? After six months of silence, was he getting a message? His eyes dropped down to the newspaper on his desk and landed on the word oak, then bounced to the word street.
Karen’s irritated voice yanked him back to reality. “David? Are you listening to me?”
He looked up at her with large, round eyes.
It took a moment, but she was quick to catch on. “Did you see something? A message? What’d it say?”
“Tell Karen Oak Street,” he said, his voice distant.
“Oak Street? What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. That’s it. That’s the message.”
“Is something going to happen to me on Oak Street? Do I get hit by a car or something?”
His eyes landed on another word at the bottom of a poster for a local court show.
“Innocent,” he said, staring blankly.
She tried to see what he was looking at. “Innocent? Who’s innocent?”
“I don’t know. That’s all it says. Tell Karen Oak Street, innocent.”
Since announcing his secret to the world, Karen had become David’s biggest supporter. She was quick to stand up for him when coworkers teased him, and had gone to bat for him when the FBI investigated his involvement in the bomb scare. Yet he couldn’t help but detect the disappointment in her brown eyes, a disappointment that mirrored his own.
Finally the messages had returned, but not with a helpful suggestion on what direction to take with his life, or a lead on a full-time job. Instead, it was probably another cryptic task for him to accomplish—a task, no doubt, with consequences he didn’t want to face. He heaved a sigh and looked up at Karen. “What did you expect? That’s how they all are. They’re always weird and cryptic. I told you that.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I was just hoping for more.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, trying not to sound too sour. “Well, I’m sure it will please you to hear that there’s probably something really nasty coming our way—if this is anything like last time. And if we’re really lucky, there will be lots of death and mayhem, and you might even get a story out of it.”
“You’re right,” she said brightly, ignoring the implication of his remark and the condescending nature with which he gave it. “Let’s go take a look at the news feed and see if there’s anything happening on Oak Street.” With that, she took off down the aisle.
Karen’s hips swung in rapid rhythm as her shoes thumped on the carpet and her right hand floated to the side, keeping her morning coffee in perfect equilibrium. She was a sight to behold, dressed to the hilt in tight-fitting business wear with a splash of body spray and light layer of makeup to accent her warm Spanish skin. It was her armor in the bull pen, her way of commanding the room which, in her job, was vital. No one could dispute that Karen was the queen of this newsroom, not even resident star and nightly anchor Cindy Coulter.
Karen swerved and entered the computer room. The room was dimly lit by computer screens, and Karen was already sitting in front of one of them when David entered. He watched as her manicured nails clicked furiously on the keys and her eyes scanned. “This looks promising,” she said.
David stepped up behind her and leaned over her shoulder.
Breaking news in Milton: Police are on the hunt for seventeen-year-old Jonathan Blake, accused of killing his father’s girlfriend, Sandra Pinkerton, at their home on 2661 Oak Street. The father, Ross Patrick Blake, is being held for questioning at the Milton Police Station. Authorities report the weapon used to kill Miss Pinkerton has not been recovered. Jonathan Blake, who goes by Jon, is considered armed and dangerous.
“Could this be the Oak Street we’re looking for?”
“Well, we have a kid accused of murder, and the messages seem to imply that someone is being wrongly accused. Sounds like it.”
Karen’s phone sounded in her pocket. She rolled her eyes. “This is good timing.” She placed it to her ear. “Karen Watson. I mean, Knight.”
After the bomb scare six months prior, Karen Watson was a name everyone recognized, even if they’d had their head under a rock. It was the bomb scare that landed her the job in New York, but being the wife of Brad Knight, her long time love interest and fellow reporter at the station, trumped all that. While most public figures would have labored over the name change or opted to keep both names (Karen Watson-Knight), Karen had decided to send a message to her new husband. The message being: we’re in this together. There had been a pool set up by some of the staff members on whether or not Karen would keep her professional name. Interestingly, Brad lost $20.
Karen pulled the phone from her ear and stood up. “That was Jim,” she said with a smile. “Guess which story he wants me to work on?”
“You’re kidding.”
“And guess who I’m bringing as my camera man?” she said, breezing past him.
“Larry?”
“No, you!”
“Whoa, slow down. I never said I wanted to follow this message.”
She turned and faced him from the doorway. “Why not?”
“You saw what happened last time.”
“Yeah, I did. You saved Boston from a nuclear bomb.”
“Karen, I’m not... I don’t know if I’m the right guy for this.”
“You want a full-time position, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, squirming in his skin, “but these messages have only one agenda, and that is to put my life, and everyone I care about, in danger.”
She put her hands up in front of her. “Okay. Look. If things get dangerous, we’ll just stop, all right?”
Would she stop? Did she even have the ability to control her reporter impulse? “Promise me you won’t do what you always do and push me in over my head.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Do you want a full-time job or not?”
“Yes. I want a full-time job,” he said, running it together as if it were one word.
“Then go gear up. I’ll start researching the story.” With that, she disappeared into the hall.
CHAPTER SIX
Jon Blake sat down, closed his eyes, and attempted to push away the anxiety, the fear, and the toxic blend of flowery smells in the bathroom. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out, pulled in another, held it, and let it out. In order to hear the voices he had to set the proper environment. But his mind wasn’t cooperating; it was bent on runn
ing through scenarios on how he might get to his house without being seen.
He imagined a wind blowing the thoughts away, and welcomed the quiet emptiness the voices enjoyed playing in. It seemed to take forever, but finally a sheet of familiar darkness pulled over him. He sat quietly in the emptiness. Waiting.
“It can when it’s done,” said a man’s voice. He repeated the words in his mind reflexively, but stopped, knowing it would prevent the others from emerging.
“There’s only ONE?!” screamed a voice in the far distance.
“We can help you,” said another.
He resisted the urge to answer, for fear the voices would retreat. After a long time a woman’s voice said, “Knock knock.”
A sharp noise ripped him from his meditation.
“Did you fall in?”
They did it again! The voices predicted what would happen before it happened! Jon sat, mouth hanging open. How creepy was that?
“Jon?” said Bruce again.
“I’m not well,” he snarled. “I’ll be out when I’m done.”
“You want me to get you some prunes?”
“I want you to leave me alone!”
“I’m sorry, dude, but I’m dying out here. This whole thing is freaking me out.”
Freaking him out? Try hearing voices that know what’s gonna happen before it happens!
“I’m just waiting for the truant officer to kick the door in and find me skipping school—and harboring a criminal.”
“Please, Bruce! I need time!” As the words left his mouth a voice pushed forward from that place deep inside. “Ring ring,” it said.
In the muffled distance, the phone went off. Jon froze. There was no doubt something was communicating with him. But what?
“I’ll be right back,” said Bruce, only slightly hysterical.
Jon released the tension in his body, took in and released a breath, then posed a question in his mind. Who are you?
A short pause. Then a phrase: “Down by the waterhole.” It was in a bizarre, country accent. That wasn’t an answer, but it felt like a response.
VOICES: Book 2 in the David Chance series (Suspense, Mystery, Thriller) Page 3