Corrector (14 page)

He had already loaded clothes, food and a week’s supply of water and other drinks.  He had a small laptop stowed away, and would be bringing  his iPad with 4G which would provide him with Internet access any place a phone would work.  He would be able to log into his home system and use the computers remotely.  The iPad was also configured with a monitoring program that allowed him to access a special network of security cameras he had placed around his property and in the house. There were twenty cameras in all, and they stored their data on a RAID system that he would be able to access.  Motion detectors and alarms would tell him immediately if the security had been breached and he could call up the relevant camera data.

Nate had keys and had promised to make a weekly walk through of the place while he was gone.  That would give him a human set of eyes and would also verify that the triggers on his security were working as they showed Nate’s walk through. 

Jake would be bringing his cell phone as well.  He’d hesitated, because the damn things told people where you were and had been, but he wanted the ability to stay in touch.  It would have been a bit difficult to explain not having his phone, and in truth he had nothing planned that would mean he needed to be hidden.  There were a pair of un-activated throw away phones in the hidden storage he could use if something changed.

With a final look into the rear of his truck, he closed the door to the camper and locked it.  Then he turned and headed back inside for something to eat and sleep.  He would be leaving at first light in the morning.  He hadn’t decided if he would tell Karin he was leaving town for a while or not.  It didn’t seem like she cared, so maybe it was best just to take off.

Six weeks later Jake was tiring of his trip.  It didn’t help that fall was setting in and this part of the country was being treated to frequent early and heavy rain.  It was still too early to think in terms of snow, but the wet weather had taken the fun out of traveling and Jake had been slowly making his way west.  He’d spent a couple of days in Rapid City, South Dakota after some sightseeing in the Black Hills, a place he’d wanted to visit for a long time.  Now, he was in Laramie, Wyoming. Today was Sunday.  He’d been in town since Friday, which was far longer than he’d ever intended, but events had stacked up against him, and only a bit of luck would get him out of town by tomorrow.

He shook off the Stetson he was wearing to block the rain despite his dislike of headgear as well as his raincoat as he entered through the front door of the diner intent on getting some breakfast.  The current storm had come in from the north yesterday morning and was colder than the stuff they had been getting.  It would be passing through and continuing onward to soak the states to the south over the next couple of days, close on the tail of another major downpour that had drenched the area the previous week.  The weatherman had promised that tomorrow would be clear, but Jake wasn’t sure he could believe the report.  For the past couple of weeks it seemed the weather predictions had been wrong more frequently than they had been right.  Hanging the wet garment on one of the hooks by the door where it could add to the puddle of water from other similarly soaked items placed on the rack by other patrons, he looked around to see if his usual spot was open.  The place wasn’t overly busy, with less than a half dozen customers at the moment, and his spot by the side window where he could look out at the square blocky and somewhat colorful buildings of downtown Laramie was available.

Jake’s right hand inadvertently stroked the fully grown beard as he looked around the room.  He’d had it trimmed the day before since he had time on his hands, and the result was quite respectable.  It was almost too bad that he would be cutting it off once he returned home in a few days.  His boots, although waterproof, left wet footprints, as he walked across the linoleum floor to the benched booth he wanted.

“Still here, I see,” Meg said moments after he sat down.  She slid a cup of coffee across the table so it sat in front of him.  “Menu?”

Jake looked up at the waitress and shook his head.  “Steak, eggs, hash browns, and a couple of slices of wheat toast,” he ordered.  It was the same order as the day before.  The food here was good, and that, plus the close proximity to his motel room had kept him coming back.  Meg was a ratty haired, ancient looking, fifty year old who had spent that last thirty years of her life serving tables.  She had picked up right away that Jake had something on his mind and had wormed the situation out of him during his first meal here.

“When do you get your car back?” she asked.

“The mechanic says he should be able to finish up later today,” Jake replied.

“You got someone to work on Sunday?”

“I offered him an incentive, and given the weather, he agreed he wouldn’t be able to do much of anything else today anyway.  I’m going to take a taxi over there after breakfast and see how it’s going.”

During the long drive from Rapid City the Silverado had started making unpleasant noises in the rear end.  By the time he’d approached Laramie, he’d been concerned he wouldn’t make it into town and had stopped at a large auto repair shop on the east edge of town.  It didn’t take the mechanic long to confirm what Jake had suspected.  Something in the drive train.  It had been late on Friday, too late to get parts, but the mechanic had promised to get right on it Saturday morning.  Jake had grabbed a bag of clothes and some key items, and had taken a taxi to the small Holiday Inn a couple of miles west of the repair shop, where he was still located.  When he had visited the shop the day before, he could see that progress was being made, but the job would take longer than initially planned. That’s when he had made an appeal to the mechanic to try and complete it today.

Meg shook her head and stuffed the ordering pad back into a pocket inside her apron.  Then she smiled and walked away, making toward the kitchen where she clipped the single page from the pad to a small steel turnstile and smacked a small bell.

Jake stared out the window at the puddles in the street, the surface of which were marred by constant splashes as the huge drops of rain continued to fall.  The gutters were filled with rapidly flowing water rushing toward the drains, which were backed up by the onslaught forming large pools of standing water waiting for a chance to drain away.  The wet buildings looked a bit worn and old from the water downpouring they had been getting, and the mostly empty streets looked a bit sad.

For his own part, Jake felt pretty good.  He was relaxed, and had gained some perspective over the past weeks, he had wandered through Idaho, parts of Montana, as well as North and South Dakota.  He’d been in South Dakota and had been considering spending some time in Colorado before heading home when the weather had turned changing his mind.  He was now following 80, which would take him through Salt Lake City and then on to Nevada and home.  He wasn’t sure what waited for him when he returned, but was prepared for any outcome.  He hadn’t contacted Karin since well before he’d left Sparks, which probably hadn’t been wise, but she had his email and cell phone number and could have tried him as well.  She hadn’t done so, which told him something.  Well, if it was over, so be it.  He was who he was and if she had problems with that, there was nothing he felt he could do to change it.

A newspaper was spread over the bench of the empty table to his right, and for some reason Jake decided to see what the local news might be while waiting for Meg to return with his food.  For the most part he got his news via the Internet. He’d been preoccupied with the truck and hadn’t spent any time with the iPad for a couple of days.  Besides, the paper would have a local flavor missing from the more nationally focused reports he read online.

The paper had more substance to it than he’d expected.  The front section was national news, which was filled with some of the same ongoing stories he’d been seeing online for some time.  There was also a local section that he flipped through, and a sporting section that he ignored completely.  He wasn’t into sports at all, and the local sports would be of absolutely no interest.  A thin business section summarized the market’s performance the past week, which continued to be lackluster.  The last section was the entertainment section which he almost set aside, but he decided to read the comics while he ate.  Meg had set his plate on the table while he’d been reading an article in the business section.

The comics were less entertaining than he’d expected, even the two or three strips he used to follow, and he folded the section closed and dropped it on top of the stack of other sections.  The comics had been on the back page, and now the front page was upright, showing the headlines.  A picture of a familiar actor was shown in black and white, half hidden by the crease.  Curiosity got the better of him, and Jake reached out and retrieved the section, opening it up so he could see what the article was about. 

Bret Granger had long been a favorite of his.  The forty-something year-old actor was handsome and had always seemed to be down to earth and a nice guy.  That might all be Hollywood hype, but the reports he’d read seemed to support his observations.  In any event, the man had made a series of movies that Jake had really enjoyed.  Perhaps something new was coming out.

He wasn’t prepared for the headline.  “Bret Granger Killed in Mudslide at Colorado Ranch,” the large black letters screamed at him.  Jake couldn’t believe it.  The smiling face from the photo was somehow completely at odds with the news itself.  Quickly Jake read the short article summarizing the actor’s death. 

“Isn’t that a shame,” Meg said, coming over to set down his bill as he was reading.  “He always seemed like such a great guy in his movies,” she added.

“This says his place was in Glenwood Springs, Colorado,” Jake said.  “Do you know where that is?”

“It’s a small town west of Denver,” Meg replied.  “It’s on the way to Aspen.  There’s a lot of golfing in the summer around there, and of course, skiing in the winter.”  She smiled at him a bit sadly, then hurried away to respond to a call from another customer.

Jake continued to stare at the paper.  It had happened on Friday night, about two in the morning.  The water soaked hillside behind his country house had given way, and the tons of mud had carried the place away.  They had found Granger buried in the broken remains of the structure that had slid more than two hundred meters down the hill under tons of mud.

The Chevy Silverado sounded a whole lot better this morning, Jake decided.  He had picked it up late the previous afternoon, and now, Monday morning, he was finally on his way.  He had picked up a couple of maps at a gas station when he’d filled the vehicle up, and was now headed east, back toward Cheyenne.  Once he reached Cheyenne he would turn south, making the run to Denver where he could pick up Highway 70 and turn west again.  Along 70 he would eventually pass through Glenwood Springs. 

Jake had spent several hours surfing the net the previous afternoon searching out news on the incident.  There were surprisingly few details given the popularity of the actor.  He’d thought about the matter for some time.  This wasn’t the kind of thing he normally involved himself with, but damn, Bret Granger.  The problem would be how to approach the matter.  Granger wasn’t the sort one could easily just walk up to.  And how to convince him to stay out of the house that night?  The man would more than likely try and have him arrested as a nut.  The only plan he’d come up with involved exposing himself to the man and taking significant risks that his abilities might be revealed.  There was even a possibility of getting himself arrested for bothering someone like Granger.  In the latter case, at least if it happened while he was in Glenwood Springs, he could see how he might correct the situation by back-tracking.  It wasn’t so obvious how to deal with the longer term risks.  On the other hand, if he could save Granger, it would be like a personal reward to himself.  Here was a case where he could do something for someone he liked, in a remote sort of way.  It would be the perfect cap on his trip and would reaffirm to himself the correctness of his decision to continue to use his ability.  That meant going to Glenwood Springs and have a first hand look at both the site of the mud slide and try and gather more intelligence than the papers and Internet had provided.  Once there, he would decide how to proceed.

As he drove, passing through Edwards with the rain starting to slack off a bit, Jake considered his options.  If he decided to give the matter a pass, he could retrace the route he’d just completed.  That would mean probably spending the night in Denver.  The alternative would be to continue west, making a big loop and swinging north in the middle of Utah to get back to Salt Lake City and Highway 80.  If he decided that something should be done, he would need to return to Rapid City.  That long drive would be necessary to place himself close to where he’d been when the event occurred.

He could see why this area was appealing.  The impressive mountains with the river off to his left as the roadway wound through the valley.  The occasional small towns, with a surprising number of golf courses testified to the number of people who had money that lived in the area.  At the moment the area seemed thinly populated.  Winter with the snows hadn’t come yet and the early rains appeared to have chased away many of the summer folk.  Of course, they could be indoors given the weather.  Jake couldn’t be sure.