The Hunter Inside (12 page)

Sandy advanced on her
journey without incident. Her mind went around in circles, one minute wondering
how Melissa would react to her sudden arrival, the next worrying that the boys
would feel let down by the absence of their mother. She hoped Joe would be able
to convince them that she was okay and would be coming back. This was what she
expected him to do, but the reaction of the children was something that could
not be predicted. That was the thing about children - they sometimes reacted in
the opposite way to how adults expected them to react. Something that you
thought would make them happy would often leave them in tears and vice-versa.
Her recent problems with the children had made her reluctant to imagine having
twin teenagers, now she wondered if she would make it to their next birthday.

*

Collecting the children took Joe a
little longer than either of them had imagined. He was resolved in his desire
not to alarm Martha when he arrived. This meant putting on an act for her
benefit, explaining to her how Sandy had been feeling under the weather and had
gotten progressively worse throughout the day with a cold that had lain her
flat on her back, aching all over and unable to undertake her usual routine
tasks.

The boys were both tired;
the excitement of a change to their routine had exhausted them, and it took Joe
a full five minutes to rouse them from their slumber. His journey took him an
hour, and by the time he pulled into the drive and saw the Toyota was gone he
felt as though he must have fielded a thousand questions from the excitable
twins. He had deflected their questions by telling them much the same story as
he had told Martha, preoccupied in what was almost prayer that the Toyota would
be as he had left it and Sandy would be waiting patiently in the house with
everything packed ready for their departure. He did not tell them they were
going
anywhere
- his awareness that their mother may well be gone when
they got back would have inevitably led to another thousand questions on top of
the ones he had already been asked.

Sandy was forty kilometers
away as they went through the door of the house and making better time than she
had thought possible when she had left. She was sure Joe had probably found the
letter some twenty minutes ago and would be explaining to the children that she
had gone away to get over her ‘illness’. She didn’t think he would guess where
it was that she had gone to; he would have possibly five or six places in his
thoughts. It could be any of those places, or none of them.

Her main resolution was to
get to Melissa’s house in one piece and contact her family, just to let them
know that she was safe.

*

Joe entered the house with the
children buzzing around him, trying to find out why their mother was not
waiting for them. He picked up the note that Sandy had left for him on the
coffee table. Reading it to himself proved difficult with the kids taking turns
asking, ‘What’s going on Dad?’ and ‘Where’s Mom?’ and Joe took a moment to gain
his composure and think about his answer.

‘Erm… your mom’s gone to
stay with a friend. She’s got a cold that she doesn’t want you two strong boys
to catch.’

He smiled weakly at the
boys.

His wife was gone and he
may never see her alive again. ‘Come on, you’d better get to bed, it’s been a
long day. I’ll read you a story.’

As they went up the
staircase to the bedroom that the two boys shared, Joe was surprised that the
kids did not ask him any more questions about their mother’s whereabouts. That
was not normally the way of his children, who wanted to know everything from
why the sky was blue to what a slow cooker was. The exhaustion brought on by
their broken routine was evident in their lack of protest at being told it was
bedtime.

Another thing that
surprised him was their getting changed into their pajamas quickly and without
a fuss. They were normally as reluctant to go to bed as they were to get up in
the mornings. ‘Now then,’ Joe said when they were firmly tucked into their bunk
beds, ‘what’ll it be?’

‘Snow White, Snow White,’
Sean cried gleefully, suddenly energized. David looked on with a hateful gaze
in his eye.

‘No, Red Riding Hood,’ he
demanded.

Joe looked from one child
to the other. ‘Well, which do you want?’

He was determined to keep a
brave face for the children, and the way in which he asked the question made it
seem like the most important thing in the world for the Myers family at that
moment in time. His mind wanted to be somewhere else, thinking about Sandy’s
whereabouts and whether or not she was okay.

He tried to think of it in
a ‘No news is good news’ kind of way.

‘Red Riding Hood,’ they
both agreed, David getting his own way for a change. Joe wondered at their
willingness to behave at a time when they could obviously play up, relieved by
their quick agreement on whose choice of story they wished to hear.

‘Okay, let me see,’ Joe
said pensively as he searched through the shelf that held some thirty books in
range of easy access on the boys’ wall.

Both children looked
silently at their father, anticipating the story and trying to learn from his
every movement how a person acts. Learning life.

Meanwhile Sandy was making
good progress on her journey. By the time Joe finished reading the story they
were both asleep and Sandy’s journey was complete. After a further ten minutes
cruising the small streets trying to find Melissa’s address, she pulled into the
driveway exhausted.

Seeing a light go on
upstairs in the house, she was relieved that Melissa was home. Now all she had
to hope for was that she didn’t have company. She lived alone and was a pretty
shy person normally. But even if she were not alone Sandy was sure that Melissa
would welcome her with open arms. She was thankful to have gotten this far in
the first place and now all that she wanted to do was rest, dog-tired by the
journey she had made straight through from Springfield to Jones Beach.

She already missed Joe and
the kids, and the jazzy tune that signified her arrival as she rang the
doorbell did little to make her feel any better. Being out of the safety of a
locked and speeding car made her nervous. She looked around as she waited for the
door to be opened, taking in the tranquility of the scene. For now she didn’t
know what the future would bring. She hoped that her stalker would get bored
and leave her alone like he had the first time. Then she could get back to her
life and her family. How she longed for that day to come. But for now she knew
she must ride out the storm, and as she saw what could only be the shadow of
Melissa Dahlia approaching the door, she pulled her tired and frowning face up
into a smile, betraying the feeling of exhaustion that she felt weighing on
every sinew of her body and soul.

The directions Bill Arnold had
received were good ones. Within ten minutes he had forgotten all about the two
men sat talking oddly at the roadside. He pulled into the lot of the Sleep-Easy
Motel, noting the brightly painted buildings. In all honesty, they were a
little too bright for him – rows of single storey strips split into cube-shaped
rooms and sporting all colors of the rainbow which stood out under the
illumination of fluorescent lights. They had, however, served their purpose of
ensuring that he found the motel without too much trouble.

As he stepped out of the
car and walked towards the door of what looked like the main reception area,
his relief at finding an end to his journey boosted him, and he fixed a smile
on his face. It was mainly for the benefit of the attractive thirty-something
brunette that greeted the ringing of the bell attached to the door with her own
smile – a smile that Bill was sure had left many men either speechless,
jelly-legged or both.

He walked towards the desk
behind which the woman sat.

‘Good evening sir, how are
you?’

Bill wanted to say ‘tired’,
but maintained his composure long enough to make small talk with the woman
before asking for a room.

The reply was instantaneous,
‘Certainly sir, how long are you planning on staying?’

‘Erm, just a couple of
days. Maybe more, but just book me in for two and I’ll get back to you if I
decide on any more than that.’

It was the first time Bill
had been forced to actually think about how long he would be away from home,
and it reawakened a feeling of nervousness, his displacement forcing upon him a
sense of vulnerability. As he attempted to dispel this feeling, the woman
behind the counter took the Visa card that he held in anticipation of her
asking for it.

She really is one fine
looking woman
,
he thought to himself as she bowed her head slightly while swiping the card
through the machine that would print a receipt confirming his payment.

Her hair was shoulder
length and hung straight and simple. That was the thing that drew Bill to her
more than anything else, her simplicity. Classically good-looking women rarely
feel the need to wear much make-up and Joanne (as Bill noticed from her also
gaily colored name tag) was classically good looking with a capital ‘C’.

Her deep brown eyes almost
reduced him to a quivering mass as she held out the receipt for him to sign.

‘Please check the amount
Mr. Arnold, and sign on the dotted line at the bottom. Thanks.’

For a second he froze as he
admired her looks, and a slight tinge of rouge appeared high on her cheeks
before Bill took the slip of paper and mumbled, ‘Sure, sorry.’ Casting a
cursory glance at the receipt, he signed it without registering its contents
and handed it back, taking the chance to get one more look at her beauty
unwatched while she matched the signatures using the back of the card.

Joanne the Beautiful handed
back the card, before standing and walking to a drawer about five feet from her
original position. Bill watched her rear as she went, almost drooling over the
counter as she stood with her back to him and looked through the keys before
pulling one out and returning to the desk.

‘There you go sir, number
Thirteen B.’ she said, smiling a smile which revealed once again to him her
perfectly straight teeth.

Great
, Bill thought. Thirteen
was another of his father’s superstitions and the ‘B’, his own initial, added
an extra wave to the churning sea in his stomach.

He took the key and thanked
Joanne the Beautiful, before stepping out of the office and into the breeze.
The chill in him grew as he walked down the row of small rooms, pausing at each
to look at the number in the fading light as the time crept past 9pm.

Bill found it unsurprising
that the room was the last one on the row, but as he turned the key and opened
the door, nothing mattered except having a relaxing shower and sinking between
the fresh sheets.

The room was adequate for
Bill Arnold. As big as his lounge at home, it had all the comforts. A nice bed,
TV set, and refrigerator. All within reaching distance of one another.

He clicked on the lamp that
stood on a small table next to the bed, and examined his face in the mirror. It
held remarkable signs of the stress he was under, seemingly having double the
amount of lines as it had the previous morning.

Worry lines.

He went into the small
bathroom – which held a toilet, sink and shower – and removed his clothes. The
least pleasant thing as far as Bill was concerned was being able to smell one’s
own sweat. If the smell was bad to him then it must seem ten times worse to
others who encountered him. He turned the knob on the shower and stepped in,
the cold water prickling his skin before giving way to hot. He allowed it to
work on his shoulders, feeling some of the knots slip away as the therapeutic
qualities of the shower soothed him.

As he took the soap and
began to massage it into his shoulders, he allowed his mind to clear of
thoughts of the situation he was in. All that he could think about was
relaxing, cleaning himself up and getting a good night’s sleep.

Tomorrow could look after
itself.

‘Oh my god, oh my god,’ Melissa Dahlia
cried enthusiastically as she threw her arms around Sandy Myers. It was the
first time she had seen her in… she couldn’t remember how long. ‘Wow, Sandy…how
are you? What are you doing here?’ She had almost lost control of herself at
the surprise of her best friend turning up on the doorstep unannounced.

‘I’m good Melissa, I‘m
good’. The repetition did not reinforce the sentiment within her. ‘How are
you?’ Sandy was forced to create a tone of excitement in her voice. The
pleasure of seeing Melissa was tempered by the fact that she was exhausted and
had not thought of a believable story to explain turning up unannounced at this
hour of the night. All of her thoughts while she had been on her journey had
been dictated by the unshakeable feeling that her stomach had been torn out;
she missed home like crazy and it was a real effort to smile and be jolly in
the circumstances that she was in. But these circumstances could not be
revealed.

‘Come in, come in. Look at
me, keeping you standing on the doorstep.’ Melissa stood to one side to allow
Sandy to enter the house, already wondering just what was wrong with her. Despite
their long bouts of separation they could always tell if the other had a
problem or was upset, even when talking on the phone. The moment she had seen
Sandy she had known that she was there for a reason, but Sandy had not answered
her question about what that reason was. She looked exhausted, and Melissa
decided not to press her for a reason; she would tell her when she was good and
ready.