The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4

by Robertson Jr, Michael

  Oh no.

  She was wearing flannel pajamas.

  Lance watched in horror, rooted in place as the woman then rushed to the bed, flinging the comforter back and ripping off the sheet. Then she zipped back to the table and grabbed one of the chairs, only inches from Lance. He darted a hand out, lightning fast, hoping to grab her upper arm and stop her, but she passed right through, a small tingling in Lance’s fingers. If the woman had felt him, her reaction had been impossible to see at such a speed.

  And then in a flash she was beneath the wooden latticework, standing on the chair with the bedsheet tied above and the other end around her neck.

  “No!” Lance yelled, but his voice sounded as if he were underwater, muffled and slowed and unintelligible, dampened by the jittering energy around him as the room speeded on. History speeded on, uncaring and uninterrupted by him, an out-of-place visitor.

  Then the woman’s mouth moved and she said something Lance couldn’t hear—maybe a goodbye to somebody unseen, maybe a message to her missing son—and then she shifted her weight and kicked the chair out from under her. Lance turned away, not wanting to see the fall, see the end result—he’d already seen it once.

  And the room crashed back to normal again and Lance found himself looking directly at the sheet of folded paper on the table, and the word scrawled across the outside of it.

  Meriam.

  9

  She’s lying.

  That was the thought that had flashed across Lance’s mind when Meriam had told him she’d had no idea who the woman who’d killed herself was, or why she’d come to stay at the motel. Why she’d picked this very spot to end her life.

  He’d had that thought then and he was having it again now. Meriam’s name scribbled across the front of the dead woman’s letter all but confirmed it. She knew more than she was letting on. She was holding secrets. Likely had been for many, many years. Ever since the woman had died.

  But why?

  Lance had to wonder how much if any of the story she’d told him—the woman coming from several states away to such an obscure location to look for her missing son—was true. But deep down, he felt there was some actual truth to Meriam’s words, pieces of the puzzle that somehow fit together. But there were missing pieces, too. And Lance was going to have to find them.

  The copy-and-paste boy, for one. That was a big piece, Lance knew. Who was he? What had he done? And, maybe most importantly, where was he now?

  Lance reconsidered the words Meriam had uttered quietly from the cracked-open door when Lance had first arrived—Is it really you?—and thought about how taken aback she had sounded. How full of wonder and disbelief and, yes, maybe even fear, her words had felt as they’d hit Lance’s ears.

  He’s been gone a long time, Lance reasoned. Why? And where did he go?

  The fact that Lance and the copy-and-paste boy bore a slight resemblance to each other, Lance was shelving away as nothing but a small coincidence.

  But he could not fully shove away his mother’s opinion on coincidences.

  Do you, a person with your gifts, honestly believe things could be so random?

  The motel room was still now, and as Lance continued to think and stare at the folded letter on the tabletop, the slight creaking of the wood as the dead woman’s body swayed gently from where she hung was like a taunting playground bully. Look at me, Lance, it seemed to say. Look what I had to do.

  Lance did not look. Instead, he decided to get answers, answers that had been sitting directly in front of him as he’d lost himself in contemplation. The letter beckoned to him, full of words that at the very least would give a direction to pursue. Ammunition to press Meriam harder to tell him the truth. He reached down to pick up the letter, but when his fingertips touched the paper, they simply passed through, first the letter and then the table. And then the room did another quick jitter and—

  And he was standing back in his room. The photographs dusty again and the headboards chipped and tarnished and the carpet worn down. The pillows on the bed and the forest-green comforter showed his imprint from where he’d dozed earlier. His cell phone charging cable snaked from the wall to the table where his flip phone sat charging.

  No more letter.

  He looked to his right.

  No more dead woman.

  He was back. Back from where, he still wasn’t quite sure, but the sight of his cell phone made him quickly pick it up to check the screen. Still no service. A small, simple X where the reception bars should be. He couldn’t say he was surprised. He set it back down on the table, gently this time so he wouldn’t have to go chasing down another flying battery, and then he dashed around the bed and picked up the handset of the beige telephone. He pressed zero, waited three rings before Meriam picked up.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re lying to me,” Lance said, his adrenaline from the last few moments still pulsing through him, his frustration and confusion causing him to speak more harshly than he would have preferred. His mother would not have been impressed.

  Meriam said, “I suppose I could say the same about you, don’t you think?”

  Lance said nothing. He’d been called out. But, had he lied? Or had he just omitted certain facts?

  Was there really a difference?

  He thought a moment longer, Meriam’s breathing echoing across the line and into his ear. His only trump card would expose him. It wouldn’t tell the whole truth of who he was, what his abilities were, but it would raise eyebrows and cause questions to be asked, and, to somebody in Meriam’s position, potentially make him a curious threat.

  How would she react? With swift capitulation and relief at being able to tell her story, a burden she’d been forced to carry all these years, just waiting for the right person to come along and offer her the moment of salvation she’d needed?

  Or with anger, fast and hot and terrible?

  In the end, Lance understood that he’d arrived at this motel for a reason—there was absolutely no denying that now—and he needed to do what he felt was right and deal with the consequences accordingly.

  He just wished he could have had one more phone call with Leah first. He was beginning to understand that talking with her helped him think, offered fresh perspectives and advice and, well … he missed her, what else could he really say?

  “I know that the woman who killed herself wrote you a letter before she died. She left it on the table in this room. I’d like to know what it said.”

  Now it was Meriam’s turn to go silent. A long pause in the conversation filled with a thousand unspoken questions. Finally, and Lance was relieved to hear not a denial, but an honest question, she said, “How could you possibly know that?”

  Lance slowed himself down. He was pressing hard, for him, but this would still require some tactfulness to keep him from sounding like a complete lunatic. What could he say, really? I watched her write it? Instead, he said, “May I have another cup of coffee, and we can chat some more? I’m feeling a bit of insomnia coming on myself, I believe.”

  Meriam gave a soft sigh through the phone, and Lance imagined her, eyes closed, fist squeezed tight around the phone’s handset, nodding her head, full of the realization that everything was finally coming to the surface. “Yes,” was all she said, and then she hung up.

  Lance replaced the handset onto its base and headed toward the door, then stopped himself. Glanced back at the phone. He felt silly for not thinking of it earlier, and while he knew Meriam would be waiting for him, the desire to make the call was stronger. He walked to his cell phone and pulled it from the charger, flipping it open and scrolling through his contacts until he found Leah’s number. Then he walked back around the bed and picked up the plastic phone on the nightstand and dialed. Put the handset to his ear and waited.

  Nothing.

  No ringing, no busy signal, no beeping or tone or anything. Lance pressed the little plastic nub in the phone’s cradle to end the call and start over. Dialed zero. The phone rang onc
e and Meriam’s voice answered, “Yes?” a bit impatiently.

  “Yes, ma’am. I was just wondering, am I allowed to make outside calls from this phone.”

  “Of course,” Meriam said, almost as if Lance had insulted her. But Lance thought there was some apprehension in her voice as well, as if she might be worried about who he might be calling.

  “Right. Thank you. It’s just, well, I just tried dialing a friend and nothing happened.”

  “Snow probably took the lines down. It happens from time to time. Welcome to rural America.”

  Lance nodded and said thank you again and assured her he was coming right over.

  Right, he thought. The snow. That’s all it is.

  He replaced his cell phone on its charger and then pulled his hood over his head, cinching it tight and bracing for the cold. He walked to the door and reached out and grabbed the handle and turned it and two things happened at once: first, as soon as he began to turn the knob to open the door, he heard the faint sound of voices from outside, from near the room next door. Second, the room did another jitter, another whoosh, and then the door was open and Lance was staring out not at a parking lot full of snow and wind and the bitter cold, but at a warm, summer evening. The sky clear and with a pinkish-orange tint as the sun settled beyond the horizon, insects chirping and buzzing in the air, rock ’n’ roll music playing from somewhere in the distance. A few cars in the parking lot, pulled in nose-first up to the doors of their owners’ respective rooms.

  Lance stared at all this, his mind desperately trying to catch up. He turned around, wanting to look back inside his room and see if it had changed as well, but as he did, he found he was already standing out on the walkway, unaware of having taken any actual steps of his own.

  The door to his room was closed.

  10

  (1993)

  Mark Backstrom’s mother was finally gone, and as he drove his trusty blue Dodge pickup that he’d had since college down the rural road, balding tires rumbling over cracked asphalt, the summer sun finally setting after a long day of burning high and bright and hot, he thought to himself, Good riddance to the bitch. Maybe now she’ll finally let me be. Then he looked over to his wife in the passenger seat and added, Let us be. It was the very first day of the rest of his and April’s lives together. Alone. Finally.

  Mark Backstrom’s mother had been dead for two months.

  It had been the longest sixty days of Mark’s life. Because in death, his mother had become even more irritating than she’d been in life.

  Elizabeth Backstrom’s body had finally given in to her years of greasy foods, cigarettes, whiskey, and constant judgment. A small stroke, followed by a larger one two days later, had finally tamed the beast that had been a thorn in Mark’s side his entire life, and a downright cannonball through the chest to April ever since Mark had announced that the two of them were engaged to be married.

  “I’ve asked April to marry me, Ma,” Mark had said, beaming, though sweating bullets inside, as he and April had sat at his mother’s kitchen table, hand in hand, while Elizabeth lit a cigarette and fiddled with a pill bottle and seemed to try and occupy herself with anything except what her son was trying to tell her.

  Her response had been simply to shake her head and stand from the table and say, “Oh nonsense. You’ll come ’round. Now, who wants dinner? I’ve made lasagna.”

  April had cried the rest of the night. Mark had been furious. But he’d honestly expected nothing less from his mother, whose only happiness seemed to come from nicotine and alcohol and the misfortune of others. She’d been a miserable creature Mark’s entire life, and even more so after Mark’s father had died at the young age of fifty-two. A heart attack that adult Mark now liked to joke was his father’s way of permanently escaping his mother’s scornful look and sharp tongue. When Mark died—which he hoped would be roughly a hundred years from now—and if there was a Heaven where he might see his father again, Mark’s very first question was going to be what could have possibly ever convinced him to marry Mark’s mother. Mark could only assume the words blackmail and shotgun would be a part of the answer. Mark would even accept the phrase, Well, your mother was pregnant with you, so…

  Though he hoped it wasn’t that. Then he’d feel somewhat guilty for playing a part in sending his father to an early grave.

  Despite his mother’s disapproval, Mark and April did get married. No big wedding, just a simple trip to the courthouse with a few of their closest friends and April’s parents. Mark had invited his mother the day before by calling her up on the telephone and letting her know the plans. Her response had been that she would not be missing The Price is Right to watch her only son make the biggest mistake of his life. Mark had said he understood—implying not that he agreed with the reasoning, but that he understood that she was a disgusting old hag who he honestly wished would just drop dead and be gone from his life.

  Elizabeth acquiesced to this wish, but it took eleven years.

  Well, eleven years and two months, to be precise.

  Because while she’d been alive, her snakelike demeanor and insults and general displeasure at Mark and April’s life could only be heard or seen via the telephone or the once-a-month visit for dinner Mark forced himself to have at his mother’s house—which was a bit like a double-edged sword, because Elizabeth seemed to truly despise them being there, but also became incredibly insulted and derogatory when they failed to attend. But after she died … she was everywhere.

  Yes, when the hospital had called and delivered the news that his mother had passed away, Mark had breathed out a long-held sigh of relief, a breath of air full of a lifetime of frustration. April had shed a tear or two—which surprised Mark, given his mother’s never-thawed coldness toward his wife—but the mourning period was brief, and only out of a sense of social obligation. But the relief was as brief as the mourning. Because Mark quickly discovered that while his mother’s body was gone—incinerated to nothing but a pile of bone and ash and then buried in the earth and topped with a small gravestone—her effect on his life grew greater and more intimate than ever. In the worst possible way.

  It had begun immediately after the burial, a small gathering at the back of the local cemetery that consisted of Mark and April, Elizabeth’s remaining sister, Ginny—who was as startlingly pleasant and warm as her sister was heartless—and the minister from the Presbyterian church where Mark had not attended service in nearly a decade. After a few words were said and a few hugs were given and the remains of Elizabeth Backstrom were safely under the soil and out of everyone’s sight and mind, Mark and April had walked back to the Dodge parked in the grass along the edge of the cemetery path and started the trip home.

  The quickest way back to their single-story ranch house in the county was to jump on the highway and take a loop around the city and avoid the traffic. Mark had just taken the on-ramp and gotten the Dodge up to about sixty when he was suddenly overwhelmed by the sickening aroma of his mother’s brand of cigarettes and her sour breath, reeking of whiskey and potato chips. And just as his mind registered the smell, his mother’s voice came at him from over his shoulder, as if she were sitting in the nonexistent backseat.

  “You always did drive too fast for your own good. It’s a wonder I’m the one dead and you’re still upright. Keep on like this and you’ll be joining me soon.” And to make matters worse, the words were followed by his mother’s deep, phlegm-filled laughter that always graduated into a coughing fit that made it sound like her lungs were filled with pebbles and bubble wrap, as if the act of her breathing at all was a miracle that should be studied by doctors at some major university.

  Mark had let out a yelp of surprise and spun around in his seat, nearly slamming the Dodge headfirst into the highway guardrail. If April hadn’t taken the wheel and cried out, bringing Mark’s attention back to the road, they both might have died. Which, Mark couldn’t help but admit to himself, might have been his mother’s intention.

  Mar
k, too shaken up and too stupefied to even begin to think of a lie or excuse as to why he’d nearly driven himself and his wife to their deaths, parked the truck on the shoulder, and as cars whizzed by his window, he told April exactly what had happened.

  When he was finished, she’d offered him a small smile full of sympathy and taken his hand. “Maybe your mother’s death is hitting you harder than you want to admit. I mean, I know she was terrible”—she laughed, trying to lighten the mood—“but she was still your mother.”

  Mark nodded, and because he wasn’t sure what else to say, he mumbled something that sounded like he agreed and then put the truck back into gear and waited for a break in traffic before stomping on the gas and driving the rest of the way home.

  He didn’t tell April that he still smelled the cigarettes and whiskey and potato chips.

  After a restless but uneventful night’s sleep, Mark was ready to convince himself that his episode in the Dodge was only due to stress, or maybe like April had said, it was some sort of delayed grieving that he wasn’t aware he’d needed. He showered, dressed, and made his way to the kitchen, where April was sitting at the table in her pajamas, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the paper. She looked up and smiled at him, and he leaned down and kissed her on the mouth.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “Yes, very much,” he said, pulling a coffee mug from the cabinet and filling it. He turned back to the table to leaned against the counter. “I think yesterday I just—”

  He dropped the mug, and it crashed to the floor and shattered to a million pieces, black coffee spreading across the linoleum like an oil slick on the ocean.

  He hadn’t even gotten the mug to his mouth for his first sip before the powerful, gag-inducing aroma of his mother hit his nostrils and he heard her whisper in his ear, “Look at her, the lazy cow. Just sitting there while you get your own coffee. Can’t even get up and pour you a bowl of cereal, if not cook you a real breakfast—eggs and bacon and all the things a growing boy needs. I always told you, Mark, you were always too good for that one. What a mistake you’ve made. What a sad, pathetic mistake.”