Authors: Brandon Massey

Within the Shadows (9 page)

BOOK: Within the Shadows

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She tilted her head. “I see the gears in your mind turning. What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking I’d like to take you to dinner.”

“We might be able to arrange that.”

“Do you live in the area?”

“I’m staying in Buckhead. Near Lenox.”

“That’s a nice side of town,” he said. “I’m about fifteen minutes south of here. We could meet for dinner somewhere in Buckhead, or Midtown. There’re a lot of good restaurants in both of those areas.”

“I haven’t agreed to dinner yet.” She crossed her slender arms on the table. “May I be direct, again?”

“Go ahead.”

“I place a premium on my time, Andrew. I don’t do the casual dating thing that most people do these days. It’s a waste of time and energy. I know what I want, and I don’t accept anything less—from the very beginning. Can you handle that?”

Could he handle it? Was she serious? She had him ready to throw his little black book in the trash.

But he stroked his chin, played it cool, as if he had to give her words some consideration.

“I can respect you having high standards,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your time, promise.”

“How can you be so confident about that?”

“I don’t play games. If I’m interested in a woman, she gets my undivided attention. I’m thirty-one, not twenty-one. I’ve already sowed my wild oats.”

“Good answer.” She leaned back in her seat, smiled. “I’ll remember that you said that, too.”

“Why don’t you give me your number? I’ll call you and we can set a time for dinner.”

“I don’t give out my number—not even to handsome, successful novelists.” She softened her words with a smile. “Give me yours, please.”

He was disappointed, but he wasn’t going to let it show. He took his business card out of his wallet. “My cell number is on here. That’s always the best way to reach me.”

She tucked away the card in her purse, glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run. It was a pleasure meeting you, Andrew.”

“The pleasure was all mine.”

“We’ll talk again soon.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Count on it.
Ciao
.”

He watched her leave. When she pushed through the exit doors, the men in the café released a group sigh—Andrew included.

A young guy with a puffy Afro had been watching Andrew and Mika talk. He flashed a gap-toothed smile. “Lucky-ass Negro.”

Andrew laughed and pointed at the man’s Frappuccino. “Stop sipping on that hater-ade, brother.”

He returned to his table. He had stopped writing in the middle of a paragraph, normally an easy place to resume his flow, but words eluded him. He couldn’t get Mika out of his head.

He hoped that she called him soon.

Chapter 6

W
hen Andrew returned home, he heard noises coming from the basement.

It was half-past noon. He hadn’t managed to do much writing at Starbucks. Thoughts of Mika made it difficult to focus on his story.

He’d been fighting to keep his attention away from his cell phone. Wondering when she was going to call. Or if she was going to call. She might’ve only been playing a game with him, flirting. When the cell phones of people around him chirped, his heart leaped.

She’ll call me,
he told himself.
Give her some time.

But it hadn’t rung once.

Trying to get her out of his mind, he went home. He aimed to work for a couple of hours, and then stop by Eric’s place to play basketball.

But when he walked inside, the laptop case dangling from his shoulder, the sounds coming from the basement immediately set his nerves on edge.

He laid the laptop against the hallway wall. He moved toward the door that led downstairs, opened it.

Deep shadows blanketed the staircase, layered the basement floor. But it sounded as if someone were playing a video game down there, just out of sight. A war game. Probably
Ghost Recon,
which was in his game collection.

“That you, Eric?” he said. Eric and his mother were the only people who had keys to his house, and his mom sure wouldn’t be playing games.

There was no response. He heard only simulated machine-gun fire and grenade explosions.

“Hey, are you there, man?”

Electronic blasts answered him.

Eric would never enter his home without first asking him. They were like brothers, but they respected each other’s space. It couldn’t be him.

What kind of burglar would break in to play games? There were no signs of disarray or forced entry. It didn’t make sense that someone would have broken into his house to do this.

What would Mark Justice do in this situation?

Justice spit out a terse reply:
Arm yourself with something, and check it out.

He owned a gun. A Smith & Wesson .38. He’d originally purchased the revolver while doing research for a novel. If you wrote about characters that packed heat, it helped if you knew your way around firearms yourself. He’d kept the handgun for security purposes.

But the gun was in his bedroom, in a locked storage case in the nightstand drawer.

If someone truly
had
invaded his home, would he make it as far as upstairs without getting into a scuffle?

He couldn’t be sure. So he decided on an alternative.

He went to the garage and opened the trunk of his car, where he kept his golf bag. He slid out a Titleist three iron. A whack with one of those would knock anyone out cold.

Club in hand, he returned inside and paused at the basement door.

“For the last time, who’s down there?”

Another explosion, followed by a computerized wail of human agony.

He tightened his grip on the club.

He plunged downstairs.

The PlayStation console sat on the floor. A game,
Ghost Recon,
was in progress on the projection-screen TV. In the midst of a battle, the soldier on the screen waited for direction from a human player.

But the player, whoever it was, had left.

The basement was empty.

Andrew searched the basement. In addition to the entertainment area, the bar, fitness room, laundry room, storage space, and a bathroom were located down there. All of them were vacant.

The glass double doors that led to the patio were locked, the blinds drawn against the afternoon sun. He parted the blinds. He saw only the green swell of the backyard, elms and pines trembling in a breeze, and a flash of the lake beyond his property. No one running to hide.

He stared at the PlayStation.

“I’m going crazy,” he said.

Had he turned on the game that morning, and forgotten about it? Or neglected to switch it off last night, after the cookout? A bunch of kids had been playing it yesterday.

But he had made numerous rounds of the house last night, putting everything in order. He’d worked out in the fitness room that morning, too. How could he have missed something so obvious? How could he not have at least
heard
the game before now? The volume was so high it would have gained his attention.

Before he came into the basement, the sounds he’d heard indicated that someone had been playing the game, only a minute ago.

He tapped his fingers against his leg.

A shriek burst from the stereo speakers.

He dropped the golf club. It clattered against the floor.

On the screen, a soldier had been killed. The game was programmed in one-player mode, versus the computer.

He picked up the club.

“You’re jumpy as an old woman,” he said. “Calm down.”

He switched off the PlayStation. He unplugged the controllers, wound the cords around the console, and tucked the unit on a table in the corner, where he kept party games like Scrabble and Taboo.

He remembered, however, doing this same thing last night. He was
sure
he had.

He went upstairs. He began to verify that the doors and windows were locked. It didn’t make sense that someone could have slipped inside, as he’d activated the alarm system when he left that morning; it made even less sense that an intruder would’ve been playing a video game. But he had to regain his peace of mind.

As he approached a window in the living room, he detected stealthy movement outside. He snatched away the curtain.

It was one of those gray cats. It perched atop the flower bed. Staring at him.

He met the feline’s steady gaze. It didn’t look away, as most domesticated animals did. It watched him as if they occupied equal footing on the food chain.

Strange, dumb alley cats. He refused to feed them. Sooner or later, they would leave and hassle someone else.

He dropped the curtain, tried to lift the window. It was locked. As it should be.

He confirmed that the rest of the house was secure, too.

He would have to accept that he had forgotten to turn off the video game. It was the only logical explanation.

But this was the third weird thing that had happened since yesterday. There had been the water running in the bathtub. Then the knocked over wineglasses in the china cabinet. Now this.

Was there a connection? Or were all of them unrelated incidents that could be rationally explained?

He didn’t know. And it bothered him. A lot.

Chapter 7

N
ot quite ready to blame the game incident on a faulty memory, Andrew decided to talk to a couple of people.

First, he called his mother. There was a possibility that she’d visited his house that morning for some reason and brought his nephew, who loved to play video games at Andrew’s place. But Mom said that she hadn’t been there. After promising to stop by later that afternoon to cut her grass, he ended the call.

Eric was next. Andrew and Eric lived in the same subdivision. When they were kids, their families had lived next door to each other, and they had promised that, as adults, they would one day live in the same neighborhood. Eric lived a couple of blocks down the street, in a large, two-story brick house. A white Cadillac Escalade was parked in the driveway. The big yard was as neatly trimmed as the greens on a championship golf course.

For two nappy-headed boys raised by single mothers, they’d done all right for themselves.

Eric’s wife, Pam, answered the door.

“Hey, Drew,” she said. She beckoned him inside.

He kissed her on the cheek. “Both of you took the day off, huh? What’s the world coming to?”

“When you’re six months pregnant with twins, your body needs a lot of rest.” Pam patted her bulging belly. She grinned.

“As happy as you look, maybe I need to get pregnant with twins, too.”

“Hush. You sound like Eric.”

“Where’s the dad-to-be?”

“Air Jordan’s on the court, says he’s gearing up for a comeback.”

“Lemme go out there and shame him into permanent retirement.”

He found Eric in the backyard, on the blacktopped half-court that Eric had added last summer. Dressed in a red tank top, shorts, Adidas, and a layer of sweat, Eric performed post-up moves as if he were practicing for the NBA Finals. The boom box at courtside banged out a Public Enemy song, “Rebel Without A Pause.”

“About time you showed up.” Eric tossed the ball to Andrew. Andrew caught it and fired a jumper from fifteen feet. The shot clanged off the rim.

“A few more bricks like that and you can build me a new crib, bro.” Eric mopped his face with a towel. “Anyway, what you been up to?”

“I think I’m going crazy,” Andrew said. He started to tell Eric what had happened.

BOOK: Within the Shadows

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