by Sean Platt
The car was now one house away, cruising just faster than a crawl. It rolled silently by him, its black windows looking like black robot eyes scanning for life.
The car passed him and though he couldn’t see it past the trees to his left, he imagined it would soon start its turn at the end of the cul de sac and head back up the street on its way toward Houser. This time, the passenger side occupant would have a much better view of Houser.
If shit’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen now.
The car, still out of Houser’s line of sight, seemed to be taking forever to crawl back up the street.
Had it stopped?
Had the driver noticed something worth investigating at another house?
Did the car simply belong to someone who lived in one of the houses at the end of the street?
Houser waited for the car to appear again, holding his breath the entire time.
The car finally came into view, now just one house away. Houser raised the rifle, bringing it level with the dashboard. He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, then held his breath.
Come on, you fuckers. Keep driving.
The car pulled even with the house and Houser glared into its black windows, wondering if the person on the other side could see him. He watched as the car slowed even more, as he stared into the abyss of those black windows. Houser waited for the red of break lights. The second he saw them, he would launch into action.
Come on, come on, come on.
The brake lights stayed dim and the car kept crawling.
Houser exhaled a sigh of relief.
Houser stared at the car as it went back up the street, and counted the seconds until it turned back onto the arterial road.
Once the car was out of sight, Houser keyed the ignition. As he did, he heard something just above the sound of night. Something out of place.
Something mechanical.
Then he saw it in his rearview. A bird. But not a bird.
The thing was shaped like a bird, but was obviously robotic. It had no wings. It just hovered in place, breathing with the slightest of mechanical hums, as though spying on him.
Houser started to reach for his pistol when blue sparks shot from the robo-bird and sent Houser into a painful seizure.
He screamed. Or tried to, but nothing came from his mouth as his entire body was seized by the robotic thing and its electric leash which burst from its chest and shot its electricity into Houser’s skull.
Though the world was little more than a painful, violent blur, Houser was still aware enough to see the robo-bird zip to the right and then back into view, before slowly floating toward him.
Houser stared helplessly as it made its way toward his face, looking even more like a bird, if nature had a workshop where it added black sensors to dead eyes. The electric arc shut off, but the pain, and immobility remained. Houser watched as the robo-bird hovered inches from his face as if inspecting him.
Houser’s eyes caught movement in the rearview — one of the men in black coming around to his side of the car.
Oh, fuck me.
Houser felt movement returning to his limbs. Not slow, but all at once. He reached up, grabbed the robotic bird, hot in his hands, and threw it back and through where the rear window had shattered, and outside toward the man behind him.
Houser’s right hand found the gear shift, threw the car into drive, as he slammed his foot down all the way on the gas, then lurched forward, peeling out onto the street.
Gunshots erupted behind him, a few slapping into the metal on his car. The others missed him entirely.
The car quickly accelerated, roaring forward faster than Houser had ever driven on a residential road, and nearly lost control as he turned onto the main road, his heart hammering in his chest.
What the fuck was that thing?
Who are these people?!
Ahead, Houser saw the car that had been looking for him. It was in the opposite lane headed back toward the street where he’d just been.
He jerked his car into the oncoming lane and aimed straight for his enemy.
The other car swerved at the last minute, then ran up onto someone’s yard, hitting a tree.
Houser considered stopping, getting his rifle, and taking care of business right there, but his body was still buzzing from whatever the bird had done to him, and he couldn’t be sure he’d be able to accurately hit his targets.
So Houser kept going, as fast as he could.
He raced back to the main road, and had the car nudging 120 as he raced north to find somewhere to call Jon, and put as much distance between himself and the men as possible. The road narrowed from four lanes to two, and twisted and turned as it he went up a steep incline. Thick forest buried the night on either side of him obscuring him from anyone who might be following.
Houser was so distracted, staring into the rearview, that he didn’t see the car without its lights in the middle of the street until it was too late.
He slammed on the brakes and swerved right off the road. His car tumbled down the steep incline and into the forest below. The car kept flipping, turning over and over as the airbags on the sides and steering wheel exploded open and Houser felt as if he were being pummeled by darkness.
The car finally came to a stop.
For a minute there was nothing but silence and pain, followed by darkness.
* * * *
CHAPTER 3 — Jon Conway Part 2
Jon flew his Porsche past the Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, then up and along the snaking coast to Greenwood, counting the countless ways he hated Warren throughout the short, zippy drive up and into the mansion-peppered Cedar Park.
Fuck. Him.
Jon planned to use his thumbs to give that pile of shit brother of his a brand new set of eye sockets.
Jon yelled as his Porsche fishtailed across the center lines of the road, having to swerve his car across the dividing line to avoid a deer that may or may not have been standing in the middle of the road. He barely missed the metal guardrail which was the only thing that might prevent him from going off the road and down a 200 foot or so drop.
The car evened out and Jon floored the accelerator, wondering how many times he’d imagined crashing through those same barriers, metal crinkling as he flew from one side, hovering in the air for a moment before gravity sent him plunging to the depths of the Pacific and the certain death under her surface.
And while Jon could easily see himself dying in a fiery car crash, he didn’t see it happening at anytime soon. He had been driving these roads since before he was legally allowed. It didn’t matter how much he’d had to drink, he wasn’t too drunk to drive.
He was, however, just drunk enough to tell Warren exactly what he thought.
Jon pulled the Porsche to the gate of Conway Gardens.
“Good evening, Mr. Conway,” Carl said over the intercom.
“Good evening to you, Carl,” Jon said, trying not to scowl. “I won’t be long tonight.”
“Take your time, Mr. Conway. And welcome home.”
The gate opened and Jon pulled into the circular drive, killed his engine and got out of the car. He rang the doorbell, then went to knock, but the door swung open before his knuckles hit the wood. “Good evening, Madge,” Jon said, doing everything in his mortal power to keep his words from slurring.
“Well, good evening, Mr. Conway. Seems like you’ve been at yours for a while.” She winked, then smiled and held the door open.
Jon smiled. “I won’t be long, I promise. Just wanna talk to my brother for a minute.”
“Anything you want to talk about with me first?” She looked nervous.
Jon shook his head. “Not this time, Madge.”
“Jon!” Warren suddenly appeared on the other side of the foyer. He folded his tablet, then set it on a long table against the wall and started walking toward Jon.
Asshole.
Warren’s tablet was slicker than snail snot — so paper thin and remarkably pliable
, Jon could see it from across the foyer. It looked at least two years ahead of anything Jon had seen.
Fucking showoff.
Jon wondered if Warren had actually had the tablet in his hands, or if he went to get it when he heard the bell.
“What brings you here in the middle of, oh whatever time it might be,” Warren said. “Unless it’s the promise of our bottomless wine cellar?” He laughed.
Jon turned to Madge, put his hand gently on her shoulder, then said, “thank you.”
Madge said, “Of course,” then left the foyer.
Warren allowed a half-minute for Madge’s footsteps to fade to nothing, then turned to Jon and said, “You look, and smell, like you’re here to have one of those long chats where you do all of the talking, except for the few moments when you pause and wait for me to say, ‘I’m SO sorry, Jon! Whatever I’ve done to offend the everyman inside you, please forgive my trespasses.’ Not gonna happen.”
Warren didn’t wait for Jon to respond. He said, “Follow me,” then disappeared down the hallway, expecting Jon to follow.
Jon did, but it took everything inside him to keep his hands at his side, instead of pounding his knuckles into the back of his brother’s skull.
When they reached the end of the corridor, Warren gestured toward the bookcase against the wall. It slid to the left with an almost elegant sounding whoosh, and revealed the open mouth of Warren’s office.
Impressive. Last time Jon had been inside his brother’s office, the sliding bookcase had worked with an old fashioned remote, and it took nearly five seconds to fully open.
The inside of Warren’s office was more impressive than the entrance, with exercise equipment, three wide work benches, and a long, circular desk with two dozen gleaming monitors making a mosaic on the wall behind it, all of them off.
The bookshelf slid closed behind them, giving them privacy. Warren then turned to Jon and said, “What?”
Jon wondered if he should start the conversation by making Warren eat a knuckle sandwich, but opted to impale him on the sharp end of a question instead.
He took a step closer to Warren, staring him in the eye. “What happened with Sarah nine years ago? And don’t give me any of that ‘I don’t know’ shit. I want to know why I never knew about my baby, Warren. I want to know exactly what you did to make Sarah push me away!”
Jon felt his eye start to twitch — the cost of keeping his rage at a boil and fists at his side.
Warren laughed. “That? My God, Hamlet, you act like we’re in the third act of some great tragedy. That was nothing. She already hated you for fucking some model, so it didn’t take much to convince her she was better off without you.”
Jon inhaled then exhaled, his labored breath falling from his mouth with the speed and rhythm of a rabid dying dog. He wondered if Warren realized how far he was pushing it.
“Tell me what happened. Now.”
“Simple,” he said. “Sarah and Cassidy.” Warren’s face twisted in mock confusion. “Cassidy is the trashy one, right? Sorry, I mean trashier.”
Warren looked at Jon, waiting to see if he was going to strike. But Jon didn’t. Wouldn’t. Not yet, anyway.
“Anyway,” Warren went on. “It turns out Cassidy was quite the pill popper. And like most pill poppers, she had a run in with Johnny Law. The old Johnny, not the new one.” Warren winked. “As you well know, charges at a police station are like charges on your credit card. If you pay them immediately, they go right away.” Warren shrugged his shoulders. “We made a fair trade. Sarah kept her mouth shut about the baby, and the junkie got all of her charges dropped, and we sent her to one of those nice dry-out places you Hollywood types love so much. A good, or even great deal for her, considering. If memory serves, we spent around a grand a day to flush her out. As you can imagine, she was there for quite a while.” He shook his head. “And really, Jon. You should’ve seen the mile of charges.” Warren dropped his voice to a whisper. “Some of the charges might surprise you. You sure you want to hear this?”
Jon’s fingernails were deep enough into his palm to dig blood, but he wasn’t sure whether the slick on his skin was blood or sweat. “My life is not a piece on a board for you to move around.” He stepped toward Warren, teeth clenched.
Warren’s eyes widened, broadcasting fear for the first time. He retreated a step; Jon took one more forward.
“What are you afraid of, Warren?”
“Calm down,” he said, holding his palms out in front of his body. “Just calm down.”
Jon spoke, slightly above a whisper. “You have no idea how calm I am. If I wasn’t calm I would have already delivered your head to Madge on my way out the front door, apologizing a final time for a mess I was leaving her to clean.”
“Okay, killer, I get it, you’re mad.” Warren chuckled and took another step back. “Let’s talk about this. I’m sorry for being a dick. Of course you have questions.”
Jon smiled. He’d have to do the smoldering volcano bit with Warren again. This shit was working. Maybe next time he’d even bring Houser. He continued to whisper through his rage.
“Why would you do something like that, Warren? Why are you so intent on making my life miserable? Why wouldn’t you want me to be happy?”
“You got it wrong, little brother,” Warren shook his head, then leaned his palms behind him on the top of his desk. “Sometimes you don’t really have a clue what’s gonna make you happy. When that happens, it’s my job to step in and fiddle the dials. And believe me, some trailer park chippie living over on the far side of Seabreeze isn’t gonna cut it. I stepped in because you were born for bigger and better things. And fine, you weren’t going to work the family biz, but you’d finally done something with yourself. You made it in Hollywood! And as much as I may make fun of you for it, you know what you’ve done this last decade is amazing. Sarah was holding you back. And she refused to get an abortion. So, as fate would have it, the stars aligned, and you fucked some model and pissed her off. Tell me that Hollywood pussy isn’t so much better than the homegrown variety, brother.”
Jon said nothing, glaring at his brother.
“I know you, Jon. You were all ready to come back here to grovel and apologize to Sarah. You would’ve thrown your whole career away, and for what? For her? For some brat? Please. I fucking saved you from a life of utter boredom and misery.”
Jon swallowed. “Who are you to say what I would or wouldn’t have done with Sarah? Or where we would have, or could have, taken our lives together? You think I didn’t deserve to know I was a father?” Jon clenched his fist tighter. “How would you feel if someone did this to you?”
“To me?” Warren lifted his hand from the desk so he could point at his chest. “To me?” He shook his head. “No, Jon, that would never happen. I draw the plans of my life with straight lines, and use pencil in case I have to erase. You don’t. And never have. You refuse to use rulers because you wrongly believe that everything can be eyeballed, and you prefer using pen because you think you’re above making mistakes.”
Like an asshole, Warren pushed himself from his desk, then ambled to the bar and poured himself a drink, knowing Jon would stand, heaving, while waiting for his next crumb.
Warren replaced the lid on the decanter, then lifted the tumbler to his lips and said, “Sorry, Jon. I’d offer you something but I think you’re best cut off.” He took a sip.
Jon said, “You had no right to interfere with my life. My mistakes are mine to make. I’ve done amazing things on my own. Is it so hard for you to believe I could have done them all, maybe even more, without your interference?”
Warren laughed. “Oh, kid, you’ve never done anything on your own. Not once. Business is business and us Conways are our best assets. Your life must be managed like anything else in the portfolio. You think you got ‘discovered’ in Hollywood? That you made it on your talents, alone? Please, brother. Dad made calls and got you in the right doors. Hell, I made calls to clean up your many little messes ea
ch time you pissed someone off over the years. The Conways are the only thing that stood between you and your self-destruction, so don’t come in here all high and mighty like you’ve been wronged. We made you. We saved you from yourself.”
Jon was seconds from unleashing a bottomless fury on his brother.
Warren would be lucky if Jon didn’t leave the Gardens with Warren bleeding out from a shard of shattered decanter. He felt himself shaking so violently, and from places he’d never shaken before. Warren’s next words would determine whether he ended the evening with breath in his lungs.
Jon growled, “Dad would never stand for this.”
Warren looked surprised. He blinked, then took a step back. “Stand for what?”
“Any of this. What you pulled with Cassidy and Sarah, treating me like a pawn on a chessboard. None of it.”
Warren had the nerve to start laughing, first soft and quickly loud.
His broken cackle might have been enough to end his life all on its own, but then he caught his breath and spoke: “Jon, who the hell do you think told me to make your little Sarah problem go away?”
* * * *
CHAPTER 4 — Cassidy Hughes
Friday night
Cassidy was sitting in the hospital room doing something she never, ever did: singing Vivian’s praises in the back of her head.
Cassidy was 18 miles past exhausted. When Vivian called offering to spend the night in the room with Emma so Cassidy could have the evening off, she didn’t know what to say.
At first she said no, arguing with Viv like she always did. But when her mom insisted on staying, saying it was the least she could do after being MIA for the search, Cassidy finally relented and instantly started dreaming about being back in her place, back in her own bed, if only for a night, by herself.
As she waited for her mom to arrive, Cassidy sat at Emma’s bedside, wrapped snug in the comfort of knowing her niece was safe. She had seen her safe return, and even if Jon were to take her away, at least she didn’t have to feel the wretched horror of not knowing where Emma was.