by Alexie Aaron
“We could light a fire, but then Rory would probably find us…” Blair paused before nodding his head saying, “But we could build a fire, and sit a few yards away and wait for him to sneak up on us. Bing bang boom, game over.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sean Smithe said. “I’m ready to head back anyway. Vince, are you ready to head to the car?”
His brother nodded and picked up his gear.
“You guys amaze me. You spend the day fried, and as soon as it gets dark, you sober up and become responsible adults,” Blair observed.
“It’s a curse. It goes back generations. Evidently my ancestor was caught partying with the wrong crowd all day and was cursed with respectability at night,” Sean told them.
“What a boring load of bullshit,” Keith said.
“It’s part of the curse,” Sean admitted. “We Smithes are boring when we’re responsible. Anyway, I’m going to leave you to your reindeer games. See you Monday in school. Come on Vince, I’ll race you back.”
“Adios, amigo, thanks for nada.” Keith saluted their backs.
“Now, now, don’t be like that. We still have Ethan and Jason wandering around trying to flush out the hardware man.”
“Next time, you pick the victim. I sure shit all over this one,” Keith admitted.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Rory Kline looked like a viable candidate. Lesson to be learned is, you can never tell who’s going to rise to meet the challenge or who is going to run off and be a victim, until they are tested. Consider this a lesson in…” Blair stopped talking.
“What?”
“Shush, there’s someone standing just a few feet away in the darkness,” Blair whispered.
Keith turned around and scanned the area. He saw a tall thin figure a few feet away. The person was tall, too tall to be Jason or Ethan. Rory was tall but broad. This guy was skinny.
“Can I help you, sir?” Blair asked politely. “We were going to make a fire to keep warm until our friends show up. You’re more than welcome to join us.” Blair pulled out the flask from his pocket and opened it, handing it in the direction of the thin man. “It’s a woodsy single malt with a nutty aftertaste.”
The man just stood there in the darkness. He didn’t acknowledge the flask or the attempt at conversation.
“I see you’re the silent type. If you’ll excuse us, my brother and I have some place to be,” Blair said, putting away the flask. He picked up his marker and pulled the trigger, sending a series of pellets at the figure.
Keith followed suit and was amazed by the punishment the man was taking and still standing.
When they had emptied the guns, Blair said, “Maybe it’s no one at all. Give me your flashlight. I’ve misplaced mine.”
Keith tossed it to his brother, and Blair turned it on. He shown the light in the direction of the standing man and started laughing. “It’s a statue made of wood, grape, no, rose vines,” Blair said stepping closer. The light illuminated the form dripping with purple and orange paint. “Why we didn’t see it when we arrived is beyond me.” He put his gloved hand on the arm of the statue and tried to shake it. “It’s pretty solid. I suppose it’s someone’s art project. Shame about the paint. Maybe they could call it Chap Christened in Orange and Puce?” Blair said, laughing at his witticism.
Keith watched his brother turn his back on the thing, and as he did, a hand dripping in orange grabbed Blair’s shoulder.
Blair spun around. “What the fuck?” He directed the light into the head area of the form. Eyes opened out of the center of the head. Green-blue orbs narrowed as it raised its other hand and smacked the light away. “Run Keith!” Blair managed to shout before he was silenced with a thorny hand.
Keith did just that. He took off running. Another man would have stayed and fought to free his brother. But Keith wasn’t that man. He ran until his lungs were about to burst. He stood bent over, trying to catch his breath. When he had, he stood up and looked around. He thought he heard a car. He must be close to the road. He ran in the direction of the sound. In his haste, he forgot about the ravine between the trees and the field where the Hummer was parked. He fell, rolling head over foot until he reached the bottom, landing badly on his ankle which snapped beneath him. He struggled to rise, but the pain sent him back to the ground. He crawled to the other side of the ravine dragging his bad leg.
Keith tried several times to crawl out of the ravine but only managed to aggravate his injury.
“Help, Ethan, Jason!” he called out. “Sean, Vince, I’m hurt. Help me.” After calling for his friends and receiving no answer, he knew he had no other recourse. “Rory, help me. I’m hurt. I can’t get up. Rory! Listen man, I’m sorry. Rory, help me!”
There was movement behind him. Keith turned around and saw a shadow above him. “Thank god, Rory, Blair’s in trouble. I can’t move and…”
The shadow slid down into the ravine gracefully and headed towards Keith, dripping orange and purple paint.
Chapter Twenty-five.
Tom put the finishing touches on his Saturday night DUI reports and hit print. The citizens were all snug and vomiting in their cells. Some were demanding phone calls, which had already been provided. Hangovers were on the menu for the morning in the county lockup. He was tired but still had four more hours to manage before he could head home.
The sheriff walked in carrying a large canvas grocery bag. He had become addicted to Entenmann’s pumpkin donuts. He hoarded them like gold. No deputy in the office upon being offered one took advantage. To do so would mean extra duties that would send you away from the station, and his beloved fried orange confections.
“Braverman, you got the DUI reports?” he asked as he walked by towards his office.
“Printing now, sir.”
A bell sounded at the front of the building, signaling someone had come in the citizens’ entrance. It wasn’t unusual for a distraught spouse to show up, hoping to bail their loved one out before they attended church. But six am was a bit early, and the Sheriff Station’s welcome counter wasn’t staffed until eight. Tom got up and walked around the low wall and into the lobby.
Mrs. Kline stood there wringing her gloves in her hands. She sported dark circles and red eyes. Like most of the town, Tom knew that her husband was serving in Afghanistan, and she was having a tough time of it making ends meet. Long hours working late into the night on medical transcriptions had reduced the normally smiling, comely woman into a tight-lipped overly-caffeinated wreck.
“Tom, Rory didn’t come home last night,” she said. “He’s not answering his phone. I called the hospital and the state police, and they told me to come here and file a report.”
“When was the last time you saw Rory?” Tom asked, pulling a form out from beneath the counter.
“Breakfast, yesterday. He told me he was going to be gone all day. I assumed he had a Saturday shift at the store. But that can’t be right? He doesn’t work Saturdays,” she said. The woman’s hands shook, and she was very pale.
Tom walked around the counter and put a comforting hand on her arm. “Come on back and sit down. We’ll find him,” he promised.
John Ryan watched his deputy handle the woman with professional compassion that couldn’t be taught. You either had it or you didn’t. Tom pulled out the chair in front of his desk and waited until she was settled before moving behind his own desk.
“Can you give me a description of the car he was driving?”
“He wasn’t. We only have the one car.”
“Mrs. Kline, were there any problems at home?”
She looked up panicked. “You don’t think that Rory has harmed himself?”
“No, I’m just going down the list,” he lied. “Dotting the I’s, crossing the T’s.”
“Rory was having trouble with his friends. After his injury…” she trailed off. “It’s not that they dumped him. They’re good kids, but they no longer have much in common. They were too afraid to talk about football in front of him, and
he didn’t have much else going on, I guess. He had the job at the hardware store. I had hoped he’d meet someone else to pal around with there.”
“Tell me about yesterday,” Tom urged.
“He was happy. He ate a big breakfast, and come to think of it, he wasn’t wearing his work clothes.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A dark green T-shirt and pants… military pants. Why was he wearing his father’s clothes?” she asked herself. “I’m sorry, Deputy, I just now realized he was dressed in his dad’s old camouflage utilities. Why would he be wearing those?”
“Did he have boots on?”
“No, he doesn’t have any that fit. He had on his old Nike sneakers.”
John witnessed that Mrs. Kline was calm now but confused by the information she was relating. He walked over and nodded to the woman.
Tom continued to get as much information from her as he could. He looked up at John and reported. “We have a missing juvenile, fifteen years old, six one, brown hair, brown eyes, weighing about …”
“215, I think,” Mrs. Kline supplied.
“Wearing green camouflage, Nike running shoes,” he finished.
“Is there anything else you know that could help us find him?” John asked softly.
“Just that when I went to the Ace to tell him that his dad was calling one hour earlier -I thought he was there working - Deb Booker said that Rory called off sick on Friday. He wasn’t ill. I think he must have played truant from school too.”
“Anything missing from his room?”
“I don’t know?”
“Mrs. Kline, I’m going to send Deputy Braverman over to your house. Let him look around. Maybe he can find a clue to what your son was up to Friday and where he is now.”
“Yes, Sheriff. Please find him. I know my boy, and he wouldn’t miss a phone call from his father unless…” she let the words trail off. She got up, steadying herself by grabbing the edge of the desk. “He’s hurt somewhere. I know it.”
“We’ll find him, ma’am. Tom, give me a moment before you leave.”
Tom followed John back into his office, shutting the door behind him.
“Do you think the kid’s done himself harm?”
“His football career is done with, but he seemed to be coping. I think he’s just got himself in a jam and is afraid to come home. Although, I don’t think he would have worried his mother by staying out all night without leaving her a message. He didn’t seem self-centered.”
“Bring back a recent picture… You know the drill. Let’s find this boy. I hope he didn’t spend the night outside. It was colder than a witch’s tit out there.”
Tom nodded, left his office and followed Mrs. Kline out of the building. John’s phone rang.
A state police officer identified himself and said, “Sheriff, we’ve had a few calls from folks from the east side of Big Bear Lake. Evidently their sons didn’t make it home last night. Are you ready to copy?”
“Sure, go ahead,” John said, sitting down and putting the officer on speaker.
“Blair and Keith Summerfield. Sean and Vince Smithe. Jason Jones and Ethan Aldridge. All these boys knew each other. I think the Smithe housekeeper said that Sean and Vince were fond of playing paintball.”
“Could be our vandals.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ll fax over the description of their vehicles. I’ve already run the plates, and they haven’t been reported as being involved in any accidents. The Summerfield gardener says the boys frequently were out all night but always would roll in before dawn, just in case mummy and daddy were in residence.”
“Gardener and housekeepers, were any of these boys reported missing by their parents?”
“Ethan. Although Jason’s nanny was very concerned.”
“Nanny? How old is the boy?”
“Let’s see, Jason Jones is seventeen.”
“Fax me over everything you have. I’ll sort it out.”
“Let me know as soon as you have something. They have my chief’s home number on speed dial. He wasn’t amused when the calls came in early this morning.”
“Will do. I have a missing local lad reported by his mother…”
“Rory Kline?”
“Yes.”
“She called and dispatch recommended she call you.”
John ended the call and walked out of the office. A deputy handed him the faxes. He looked over the copied forms, concerned. If these were his vandals, did they get themselves into something dangerous? And if so, what? Was Rory involved? It seemed too coincidental that he too was missing. But Rory lived on the wrong side of the lake to be hanging around with these rich kids. How did he fit in?
John would have to wait on Tom’s examination of the boy’s room before lumping him in with the vandals. In the meanwhile, he had dispatch put the vehicles into the system and hope that a patrol car spotted one of them.
He sat down and opened the package of donuts. He sipped his coffee while perusing the week’s reports. Cid Garrett’s name came up in reference to a possible sighting of the paintball vandals on the road that ran on the south side of Sentinel Woods. He picked up the phone and asked dispatch to contact the nearest patrol cars to the area and have them look around to see if they could spot any of the vehicles reported missing. His next call was to Mia Cooper. Perhaps the teens ventured into Cold Creek Hollow and got themselves into mischief there.
“Mia, sorry to bother you so early but…”
Mia listened to the sheriff and winced. “I’ll take the truck over and see if I can spot anything. If they came in from the Perry Dam Road however…”
“I’ll have a car run over there. If it weren’t children in jeopardy, I’d never impose this on you,” he told her.
“I understand. I’ll wake Cid and ask if he heard anything last night when he came in.” Mia hung up the phone and looked over at Ted who was pretending to sleep. “Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty. Sheriff Ryan has missing teenagers and wants me to check out the hollow.”
Ted’s eyes popped open. “That’s a horrible way to spend our Sunday.”
Mia dragged on some sweats and ran her hands through her hair. “Let’s get this over with. I’m going to wake up Cid. If we have to be up, so does he.”
“Mia, you are a cruel landlady, I likey. Come here and…”
“After we check out the hollow. If you’re a good boy, we’ll stop for pancakes on the way back.”
“Hey, there’s no restaurant between here and the hollow,” Ted said, pulling on his jeans.
“I know. So we’ll have to take a detour...” Mia said, closing the bathroom door.
Cid rang the bell and Murphy came running.
“We need to check out the hollow for some missing kids. They shouldn’t be hard to find; they were driving a Hummer, a Ford Mustang and a Lincoln SUV. We’re going to drive over to the houses. Could you check the side roads?”
Murphy bounced his axe a few times on the ground before moving off.
Cid jogged over to the truck and got in beside Ted. Mia was driving. She knew these roads better than the two of them. Cid braced himself as she sped down the drive, spinning gravel as she made the turn heading into the hollow.
Her phone rang. Ted grabbed it. “Mia Cooper’s phone.”
“This is Ryan. They found one of the cars over in Sentinel Woods. Cancel the hollow search.”
“Will do,” Ted said.
“Turn around. They found one of the vehicles on the other side of the lake,” he reported.
“Thank god,” Mia said, putting her foot on the brake, slowing the truck. “We need to let Murphy know, and then I’m buying pancakes.”
“Aren’t we celebrating too soon?” Cid asked. “The kids haven’t been found yet.”
“We’re celebrating that we don’t have to visit the hollow this morning,” Mia said. “The last thing I ever want to do is to walk into that hornet’s nest.”
“I thought Father Santos was going to take care of th
e middle house?” Ted asked.
“He is, but the hollow is more than the malingering ghosts. It’s an energy that can fuel things that I don’t want to think about before a gallon of coffee. Where did they find the car exactly?”
“Sentinel Woods,” Ted answered.
“I wish that made me feel better,” Mia said honestly, pulling in the drive. She stopped the car at the bell, and Cid jumped out and rang the all clear. Murphy showed up. Mia rolled down her window and explained.
Murphy nodded his head in the direction of the lake, and Mia shook her head. “Let’s leave it to the law enforcement professionals for the time being. We’re going to IHOP, wanna tag along?”
He shook his head and motioned that he would take Maggie out to the hillside for a run.
Mia nodded, waited for Cid to get back in the car and backed out of the drive.
Murphy watched the trio and shook his head. His mother would never have let him out of the house without a clean shirt on and combed hair. Those three looked like they just rolled out of bed. He walked around the back of the house and let Maggie out the back door. She was so pleased to see him and wagged her tail with such enthusiasm that she ran crooked and ended up in the bushes. He couldn’t help himself. He fell to his knees, he laughed so hard. Maggie, misunderstanding his situation, ran to him to see if she could be of any help. He reached a hand out and willed it solid and petted his rescuer saying, “I’m alright, girl. Murphy’s just fine and dandy.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Tom looked at the text John Ryan sent for a moment and continued looking through Rory’s things. He was instructed to head for Sentinel Woods after he had completed his search of the Kline home.
Rory’s mother followed him into her son’s room.
“Did you straighten it, make the bed?” he asked, surprised by the neat condition of the teen’s room.