SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (9 page)

Daley was roaring with laughter, holding onto the table for support, his stomach aching, his eyes welling with tears at the unexpectedness of the scene.

"Look what she did!" Nick continued to bellow. "I can't believe what she fucking did, Daley!"

Daley still was holding himself around the middle. He was laughing so hard it hurt to try to get his breath.

A dead mouse in his brother's plate! Even he had never done anything so outrageous as that to his brother, his big, frightening monster of a brother.

Finally Daley noticed the ominous silence and straightened up to find Nick glaring at him. The room's temperature dropped twenty degrees. The giggles suddenly dried up. Daley's hands dropped to his sides and he had to look away from Nick.

"That was pretty cute," Nick said harshly. "She's a winner, this girl of yours."

"It was a joke, Nick. You asked for it. Don't be a badass and pretend you're an injured party." Daley was determined that if this had to turn into a battle of the wills, he would be ready for it. He might not win it, but he'd be ready.

"I want her out of here," Nick said flatly.

"You don't have any say about it. I pay my half of the rent. She stays." Daley paused for emphasis. "And you lay off her."

Nick's lips moved as if he wanted to say more, but nothing came out. Daley threw the cloth napkin he still clutched in his hand against the table. At the doorway he turned and repeated,
"Lay off her. "

Madra had listened to Daley's hysterical laughter and Nick's furious shouts as they drifted up the stairway to the bedroom. She had undressed, placing the black cape over the back of a wooden chair Daley was about to refinish, and donned a flannel nightgown that touched the floor when she walked. She sat cross-legged on the bed, listening, occasionally smiling at what she had done.

Nick deserved his comeuppance, she thought, fingering the massed gown in her lap. He's always trying to get me; let's see how he likes feeling like a fool for once.

She heard Daley coming up the stairs. Madra lifted her gaze, expecting him to appear in the doorway.

When he did not, she slipped from the bed and crept to the hall.

The bathroom door stood open. Walking on tiptoe, thinking she would surprise him and make him laugh even more, Madra made her way down the dim hallway. She stuck her head around the corner and opened her mouth to repeat a snatch of poetry from one of Emily's poems only to be surprised herself. Daley was not in the bathroom.

She turned her head and surveyed the far door, the door to his workshop. It was closed. He had been spending an inordinate amount of time in the workshop lately. Several nights recently he had gone there before joining her in bed. She had thought he was working on a project, perhaps stripping a chair or an old steamer trunk he had bought at an estate sale, but she never heard any sounds from the room, and when she asked what he had been doing, he only said he had been thinking.

She put her ear to the door. Not a sound. Was he sitting and brooding on what she had done to his brother?

Was he angry with her?

Then it happened again. The warm, pleasant sensation of floating right out the top of he head. She did not go anywhere. Not really. She could not tell anyone what happened during these daydreams. It was all too fuzzy, too overlaid with gossamer threads. While it was happening, she was not the least bit frightened. There was no anxiety. The real world was shuttered away. If someone was talking to her when it occurred she did not hear what they said. If she was in the middle of doing something-- preparing dinner, smoking a cigarette, reading an assignment for a class--it all waited until she returned. Sometimes the ashes on the cigarette she held were nearly two inches long. But after it happened she always discovered she was trembling, sweaty, her throat dry. Where had she gone and for what reason? When other people noticed, what would they think of her? That she was an idiot. That's all they could think.

Madra stared without blinking at a scrap of torn wallpaper. Her blood pressure dropped. Her pulse rate slowed. Her heart thumped once, sighed, thumped again, sighed...

She blinked and she was in the world, returned to herself.

The fear that followed her seizures came instantly. Her heart beat erratically. Pressing a hand to her breast she could feel her heart thumping against the bones in her chest. Blood drummed in her ears.

Oh my God, she screamed in her mind, clenching her teeth against the urge to scream aloud. I'm losing my mind! What if I never come back when this happens? What if I get trapped in that nothingness and can never get back?

Her hands went to her temples and massaged them as she closed her eyes. She turned away from the door and went down the hall to the bedroom. She climbed onto the mattress and pulled the long gown tautly around her drawn-up knees. Within minutes she was asleep.

In the workroom Daley was sitting in a green vinyl swivel chair. The cedar wood box containing war medals and the garrote was before him, the lid open.

Nick knew he had the garrote. Well, it should not have surprised him so. How could he keep anything important from his brother?

Daley took the weapon in his hands and sat back in the chair. He held the garrote's handles in each hand and every few seconds tightened the wire until it vibrated. It produced a slight hum and seemed to electrify the air. His vision began to swim and he let his eyes go out of focus so that he could watch the wire dance between his taut hands as if behind an aquarium of green water. He thought he could hear the vibrations singing in his ears.

I want to go home
, it seemed to chant.
I've been here too long
.

Once before the wire had sung the same lyrics. Daley felt his skin prickle and a terrible loneliness came over him.

He shook his head sadly and looked at his watch. It was barely seven-thirty and already the house was quiet as a tomb. Madra was probably asleep and there was no telling what Nick was doing. Tending his wounded pride probably. Daley had never seen him so volatile. Their home was a war zone just as dangerous as Nam had ever been. There were invisible land mines and concertina wire strung throughout the rooms. There was the smell of disaster dancing on the wind. Something dreadful had happened, though Nick had not mentioned it when he had come home earlier. But Daley saw it in the blue of his brother's shadowed eyes.

He had seen it in the little debate played out at the dinner table.

Daley sighed and closed the lid of the cedar box to block the garrote from view. He did not need to be reminded of death and madness. He had to protect Madra from attack, he had to steer his brother back onto the edge, and keep him from tumbling into the clutches of his demons. It was a burden, but without him they might both be lost. Lost to the real world forever...

JACK AND SAM sat on the porch steps of the DeShane home watching the last of the light dissolve in the night sky. Already Jack had voiced concern over his son's unusual lateness in returning home, but not until the sun disappeared did he truly begin to worry about Willie's safety.

"He's only done this once before," Jack said, unable to keep still.

"Done what? You mean Willie?" Sam was confused. He had almost forgotten about the boy during their conversation about the police department.

"Yes. He should be home. He's been told not to be out on the streets after dark."

"Hold on, Jack. It's still early. You know how it is with kids. They forget they're supposed to be home at a certain time when they get to playing. I wouldn't worry. He'll come straggling up any minute."

Sam's words did not lessen Jack's anxiety, and his mood was contagious. After fifteen minutes of aimless conversation interrupted by long pauses, Sam too began to fidget. Streams of car lights shone on the nearby freeway. Across the street Maggie had turned on the lamps in the lower-floor sitting room, and the three windows threw yellow light across the lawn.

Suddenly Jack stood up. "I think I'll call some of his friends."

Sam followed him inside the dark house. When Jack switched on the lights Sam blinked and his eyes watered. His old eyes were giving him a lot of trouble lately. Could it be the booze? he wondered.

At the kitchen table Sam kept watch through the hallway to the front door while Jack dialed numbers from a tattered address book. Sam expected the boy to walk in any second. He knew Willie almost as well as he did Jack, and the kid was obedient. Oh sure, he liked to try his hand at stretching parental reins now and then, like any kid. But most of the time he came home on time and did as he was told.

"You haven't seen him since when?" Jack's voice went up a few decibels, and Sam turned to look at his friend.

When Jack hung up, he quickly began flipping pages in the address book, looking for another number.

"Marvin said they left Willie around five-thirty. Said Willie was on his way home."

Sam automatically checked his watch. It was seven-thirty, and outside the windows twilight was being engulfed by night.

"I don't like it, Sam. He wasn't this late getting home the last time it happened. And I gave him hell about it. It isn't like Willie to worry me."

The four boys Willie played with were called and questioned. They told Jack the story. Willie was with them until five-thirty. Then he wanted to go home. Two of the boys thought Willie had no intentions of going home. One thought he had a secret hideout. Another thought be was getting too big for his britches and just did not want to play with his friends.

Jack slumped into a kitchen chair beside Sam. "Where could he be?" he asked, rubbing the scar on his cheek. Sam almost reached out to still Jack’s fingers but stopped himself in time. He knew Jack only did that when he was terribly upset.

"What do you say we ride around the neighborhood and see if we can pick him up?" Sam asked gently. "He might be a couple of blocks from home."

Jack was instantly on his feet, relieved at a course of action. "That’s a good idea." He stared out the window over the kitchen sink. Dark, dark.
Where the hell was he? Where was Willie?

"Let’s get moving."

Jack had the Monte Carlo’s engine running and the passenger door open for Sam by the time he came down the walk..

They drove slowly toward the freeway and the feeder lane. The sidewalks were empty. More and more lights came on inside the houses. Sam saw that Jack was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

"I don’t see him," Jack said twice within a minute.

"Let’s go around the block," Sam suggested.

Jack turned before they reached the freeway and drove down a street shrouded in darkness. Jack drove even slower until they were barely creeping along to the corner. Still no one was to be seen on the street.

After circling the block where they lived, Jack drove in ever-widening circles. "Maybe we missed him and he’s already home,” he suggested hopefully.

"Should we go check?" Sam knew that was exactly what they should do.

Jack deliberated for a minute, then swung the wheel into a U-turn. "Yeah, we’ll go back. He’s probably sitting there waiting for me. "

But Willie was not.

"Dammit, Sam. What could have happened?" Jack hurried as the they returned to the car to begin the search again.

"Take it easy, Jack. The boy’s smart. He knows he might get his tail whipped for this and he’s probably skedaddling as fast as he can to get here. He might really have some ‘hideout’ and didn’t notice how late it was. Maybe it’s a ways from the house. You know kids."

Sam meant to be reassuring, but his words sounded lame even to his own ears.

"I never believed Willie could pull a stunt like this. What time is it?" Jack asked.

Sam consulted his watch as they pulled from the curb. "Eight-ten."

Jack rubbed the back of his hand across the scar. He was perched on his seat like a stiff bird, his eyes searching both sides of the street. "We’ll go around the neighborhood once more then we’ll branch further out." Jack coughed and cleared his throat. "I guess you think I’m acting silly, but you know yourself Willie doesn’t stay out. Not at night this way."

Sam held his tongue. He did not blame Jack for the state he was in. If it was his kid, he would be worried too. Something was wrong and they both knew it. Neither of the men really believed Willie had forgotten the time or had not noticed it was dark. Something had delayed him. Something was keeping him from home.

The sirens came like an announcement of doom. Jack slammed the brakes and the two men were pitched forward in their seats. For a moment they were motionless, their ears attuned to the familiar sound. The two sirens grew louder. A third and a fourth siren joined in.

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he felt a shiver creeping up his spine. Willie.
Sirens, trouble, Willie.

Sam broke the spell. He leaned toward the center of the dashboard and switched on the police scanner.

"I have a possible homicide corner of Hadley and Pearce. All available units respond," came the dispatcher’s nasal twang.

Sam turned the radio off with a savage flick of his wrist. He looked over at his young friend. He did not have to second-guess Jack’s thoughts. Could it be Willie? Even if there was the remotest possibility, it was enough to turn a man’s blood to ice.

Sam put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. "We have to go to it," he said.

One of the sirens neared and headlights rushed toward the Monte Carlo from the rear. A horn blared, but was drowned in the ear-shattering siren. The patrol car swerved around what it took to be a stalled vehicle in their lane and sped past. Sam was shaking Jack roughly.

“Come on, Jack. We have to roll on it!"

Jack pressed the accelerator and they pursued the dwindling red taillights of the patrol car. They ran through stop signs and shot across empty intersections. Sam held onto the door rest and the edge of the seat.

Jack’s lips moved in silent prayer. He had lost his nerve when he had heard the sirens, but he was being ridiculous. Wasn’t he? This had nothing to do with Willie being late. How many sirens had he heard in his lifetime? Yet no matter how he argued with himself, the shiver remained, chilling him all the way through.