Rafferty put the car in park, turned on the flashers; the lights strobed red and blue against the black Dodge Ram. He got out of the car and went to the driver’s side door of the pickup. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife, then clicked it open. The kid who was driving looked like he had just seen the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future all at once.
“This is for your smart-ass fucking friend.”
Rafferty pressed the tip of the knife against the side of the truck, dug it in and ran the blade down the driver’s side. It left a thin white scratch the entire length of the truck.
“Aw, man,” the driver said.
Rafferty walked to the driver’s side door and looked at the kid behind the wheel. “Stay off of my road.”
Rafferty stomped back to his car and got in. Turning the gumballs off, he pulled away from the truck. He took a look in the rearview mirror and saw the driver standing on the road, yelling and pointing at the kids in the back. No doubt he was chewing out his friend for causing so many problems.
Two minutes later, Rafferty pulled up in front of Folsom.
Grabbing his flashlight, he got out of the cruiser and walked to the doorway. The steel door was open, and the inside lock was busted. He pulled his revolver from his holster, shone the light inside and saw a pile of kitchen chairs and a splintered pallet blocking the entrance. The chairs’ legs had snapped like toothpicks and the pallet lay busted in half, the wood all jagged shards.
There came a thud and a clang from around the back of the building, the sound of metal hitting metal. Was somebody hiding on him?
He shone his light down the alley between the two buildings and saw only murky brown shadows. Revolver in one hand and flashlight in the other, he crept down the alley until he reached the rear of the buildings.
He was in a courtyard. The rest of the buildings in the complex butted up against the concrete slab on which he stood. To his left was the warehouse, a green-and-white sign reaching BUILDING 57 hanging on the wall. Behind the warehouse was a blue Dumpster with the name
BROWN RECYCLING
painted on the side. A cloud of flies buzzed over the container.
He lifted the Dumpster lid with the barrel of the revolver and found only maggots squirming on a grease-covered piece of cardboard. Apparently he had missed whatever happened at Folsom. He was ready to go back to the car and tell Clarence to get down here. Put old Red to work, have him haul some chairs out of the way.
When he turned to leave the alley he heard shuffling coming from the other side of the Dumpster. Shining the beam, he hunkered down and moved to the front of the container.
He pointed the revolver in the direction of the noise. “Come out of there. Put your hands where I can see them.”
A man stepped out from behind the Dumpster and Rafferty’s flashlight beam lit up his face. He was thin and pale with white-blond hair and had full, almost feminine lips. The lips were an unusual feature, but not his most unusual. The man was naked except for a collapsed cardboard box wrapped around him like a towel.
“Nice outfit. What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you’re standing naked with a cardboard box around you at a furniture factory in the middle of the night?”
“Well—”
“What’s your name?”
“Charles Dietrich.” The guy lifted the box a little, as it had begun to slip down further on his body.
“Hold still,” Rafferty said.
Rafferty stepped toward him until they were standing nose-to-nose. He sniffed, taking in the rotten fruit smell of the trash, Dietrich’s underlying body odor, and underneath that, underneath his skin, the smell of Rafferty’s own kind. A hint of sulfur. It would smell like skunk or rotten eggs to most people. But you had to get up close, within kissing distance, and really take a good sniff to notice it.
Rafferty took a step back. “I’m taking you back to the station, Charles. I want to hear your story, and I mean all of it. If I don’t think you’ve told me everything, I have a Tazer in my office and I can use it on some very unpleasant places on your body. Tell me the truth and we won’t have a problem. Got it?”
Dietrich nodded.
Rafferty motioned him ahead with the revolver, and they headed down the alley.
C
HAPTER
3
Jill glanced at Matt as they sped down Elmwood. He narrowed his clear blue eyes and seemed to take aim, as if the car were a torpedo and there was a ship to sink in the road. What if he was a psycho? Nah, he was just wound like a jack-in-the-box after their encounter. So was Jill, the muscles in her neck feeling like tangled barbwire.
Her hand crept down to her belly. The blood had gone sticky in spots and although there was a lot of it, the wound would amount to nothing more than a bad scratch. The shirt, however, was a loss, unless she clipped it and brought it back as a crop top. Or a dust rag.
She took another glance at him. Good-looking in a college boy sort of way. Close-cropped hair, nice flat stomach and a fine set of blue eyes. Looked like a guy who might bag your groceries, help you to the car and say, “Have a good day, ma’am.” Looked innocent enough at first glance.
He peeked in the rearview mirror and braked. She watched the speedometer needle drop from fifty-five to thirty-five. The engine rattled and knocked. The only sound in the car was Jill’s breathing.
“We were a pretty good team back there,” she said.
“I’d say we’d get the gold in the run-for-your-life Olympics.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “What were you doing out at that hour?”
“Jogging,” she said. “I usually do it in the morning, but today I overslept.”
“It almost cost you your life.”
She couldn’t disagree with him. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, there was no telling what would’ve happened. She had been jogging on Elmwood when she heard the metal door screech and fly open with a bang. A man darted toward her, quicker than she had ever seen someone move. Jill was no slowpoke, but before she knew it, he had his arm across her throat and dragged her into the warehouse. Her throat still felt raw from the attacker’s grip.
“So what happened?”
She told Matt the story, adding, “And when you got there, things started getting weird.”
He looked at her belly. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital for that?”
“Eight hours there was enough.”
He looked at her quizzically and then looked back at the road.
“I’m an R.N. at Lincoln Mercy. We should be taking
you
there for that ankle. I banged you pretty good with that crowbar.”
A smile curled up at the corner of his mouth. “Nothing that crutches and hours of painful physical therapy won’t cure.”
“That’s rotten,” she said, but laughed anyway. It felt good, drained some of the tension. “You should have yourself checked out. I can go with you and have one of the docs look you over.”
He shook his head. “Hospitals give me the willies.”
“Typical man.”
She gave him directions to her house on Wharton Street.
Normally she would never invite a stranger into her house, but he
had
helped her out of the worst jam of her life, and he looked like he needed some repair work. A purple-yellow bruise was beginning to swell on his cheek, and she knew his ankle must have been killing him. “At least come upstairs and let me have a look at you. Maybe do a little first aid.”
He shook his head again.
“You sure you won’t let me pay you back? Dressing your wounds is the least I can do for you.”
Matt blew out a stream of air. “I
should
call my aunt and let her know I’m still alive. Would a free phone call be included in the deal?”
“I think I could manage that. And after you call your aunt, I should call the police. We really should have called already, but—”
“No police,” he said. “Not in this town.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She brushed hair off of her forehead.
“They’re crooked. The chief’s the worst one.”
“I take it you’ve dealt with them before.”
“Yeah. Just let’s leave them out of this, okay? Maybe I can explain it to you some other time.”
That was weird. She hoped that he didn’t have some sort of record, maybe for kidnapping and raping joggers. Looking at him, she dismissed the thought. He looked weary, and incapable of doing her any harm at this moment. There were purple bags under his bloodshot eyes, as if he hadn’t slept well. Maybe he hadn’t. She decided to drop the matter of calling the police for now.
“Can I ask you something? Something weird?”
This night couldn’t get any weirder
, she thought.
“Were you dragged into that building by a man?”
“Actually, it was an Ethel Merman impersonator.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah. It was a guy.” Despite her joking, her heart thudded and she could almost feel the guy’s arm tightening across her windpipe. His forearm had been sweaty, and she remembered the slimy dampness of his skin pressed against her throat. “Why do you ask that?”
“Did you see what was chasing us? You had to have heard it.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it, but yeah, I heard it.” She just didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. Things like that could blow holes in the fabric of your sanity. She’d always had a healthy appetite for all kinds of novels, science fiction and horror included. But to think they had been chased by something that should exist only in a movie or a book blew her mind.
“Where are you going with this?” she asked.
“I can’t explain it all right now, just like not calling the cops, but I have my reasons. I want to tell them to you. But not right now. I hope you don’t think I’m nuts,” Matt said.
“A little odd, but not nuts.”
“Did you get a look at the guy?”
“He was tall, blond and pale. For some reason I noticed he had thick lips. Don’t ask me why.”
“It’s funny the things you remember.”
“There was something else about him.”
“What’s that?”
Jill thought about not telling him, thinking that maybe she had imagined it. “He smelled funny. It was almost like, I don’t know—I can’t put my finger on it.” She frowned, frustrated at her inability to describe the odor accurately.
“Like rotten eggs, maybe sulfur?”
“Yeah! When he had me in that armlock, the smell was so strong that my eyes started to water. How did you know that?”
He watched the road.
They approached the corner of Wharton and Elmwood. It was nearly midnight and the pizzeria on the corner was still open. A white sign with purple letters proclaimed
PIZZA MAGIC
:
WHEN ORDINARY PIZZA ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH
. Next to the lettering was a cartoon chef complete with a floppy hat and curly mustache drawn over his lip. A few teenagers stood at the pinball machines, swerving and juking as if body English would influence the little silver ball.
Matt still wasn’t talking. He had insider knowledge and didn’t want to give it up. He would, Jill vowed silently.
“You know something about what was in that warehouse, and I wish you’d tell me. I’m having trouble accepting the fact that we might have been chased by the bogeyman—I think if I admit it to myself I might go a little bonkers. At least if you admit it too then maybe I’m only half a crackpot.”
“Not right now,” he repeated.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Promise? I know we barely know each other, but we need to talk about this,” she said.
“I promise.”
They turned down Wharton, drove under the canopy of leaves created by the maples that lined the street. She told him to start slowing down and pointed out her house. Like most of the houses on the street, Jill’s was a double, with a large porch upstairs and down. He turned into her driveway.
Faintly, in the distance, she heard a howl. Maybe just a neighborhood dog, but maybe not.
“Let’s hurry and get upstairs,” Jill said.
“I heard it too.”
The two of them got out of the car; Matt went around the rear of the Cavalier and opened the trunk.
“What’re you doing?” she said.
“Do you mind if I change clothes? I can’t go to my aunt’s looking like this.”
She said she didn’t mind, because he looked like he had just fought the Third World War and lost single-handedly. His T-shirt was torn and smeared with dirt; his hands were covered with dust and grime.
After pulling his suitcase out of the rental, he slammed the trunk and followed Jill up the front steps. She produced a single key from the pocket of her running shorts, opened the door, and flicked on the foyer light. There were two doors in front of them; Jill explained that the one on the right led to the downstairs apartment, which was vacant right now.
He followed her through the door on the left and went upstairs to her apartment.
Jill went around and turned on the lights. There were cardboard boxes lying around, some marked BOOKS and others KITCHEN. A laundry bag with a white shirt poking out of it lay slumped in the corner of the dining room.
“Excuse the mess. I’m still in the middle of unpacking, as if you couldn’t tell.”
She went over to the answering machine and pressed the Play button. Matt didn’t listen to the content of the message but the woman had a shrill, nasally voice. Jill explained with a sigh, “It’s my mother calling to check up on me. “Sit down. Want a Coke or something?”
“Coke sounds good.”
He limped into the living room and sat on the couch, his ankle throbbing the whole time. Jill had three big oak bookcases in the living room, two flanking the fireplace and one on the wall near the door to the upstairs porch. He scanned the titles and saw a who’s who of popular fiction: Dean Koontz, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, and a few Stephen King titles. There was also a book of poetry by Robert Frost and a collection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe.
“Nice collection of books,” he said, raising his voice so she could hear.
“Surprised?” she asked from the kitchen.
“Not really.”
“Most guys assume because you’re a woman that all you read is Danielle Steele and Judith Krantz.”
He heard an ice cube tray being bent and cracked. Then he heard her digging in the cupboard for something and heard it clang as she pulled it out.
She walked into the living room carrying a tray with two cans of Coca-Cola and two glasses filled with ice. There were also two folded dishrags that looked suspiciously lumpy, and he knew she had made makeshift ice packs.
“Be right back.” She disappeared through a hallway that ran off the dining room.
While he waited, he surveyed the living room and noticed a picture on the mantle. It was a young Jill flanked by a man and rather dour-looking woman. The man was tall with thick chestnut hair and was handsome enough to be in the movies.
The woman was dark-haired, with an Elmer’s glue complexion and puffy purple circles under her eyes. She looked like she’d been pretty at one time and either time or a hard life had caught up with her.
He didn’t see a picture of a boyfriend, and that was a good thing. Jumping from city to city didn’t make for long-term relationships with women. But if he got to know Jill, who knew what could happen?
She reappeared from the hallway, carrying a box of gauze, Band-Aids, a bowl of water and a tube of Neosporin. A washcloth completed her homemade first-aid kit.
“Take your shoe off.”
Matt leaned forward, untied the sneaker and pulled it off slowly. Then he pulled his sock off and rested his foot on the table. “I feel sorry for your table.”
“Don’t worry about being embarrassed. I’m a nurse. Besides, right now I don’t smell like a peach tree either. Now off with the sneaker.”
He looked at the ankle and saw it hadn’t swollen. He had expected it to look like someone had stuck a balloon under the skin and inflated it.
“We should really get you some X-rays,” Jill mused.
“No hospital.”
She frowned at him, giving him the same look that a mother might give a petulant child who refuses to take medicine. Shaking her head, she took an ice pack off of the tray, sat on the table and put the pack on his ankle. He flinched a little at the cold, but then it felt mercifully cool on top of the pain.
She poured the Cokes, handed him one and joined him on the couch. While he drank, she tended to his wounds, washing out the cut on his face and applying a Band-Aid. He sipped his Coke and it felt icy cold to his parched throat. Matt was surprised she had let him up here considering she’d almost been killed by a stranger. It had been a long time since he had felt a woman’s touch and it felt good. At the moment, it wasn’t erotic or sexual, but comforting. Her hands were soft, the skin cool, and she touched him with the delicacy only a woman possessed.
Jill asked him a few questions (how many fingers am I holding up, what day is it, do you know where you are?) and concluded that he probably didn’t have a concussion but told him he should go to the ER anyway. Again he refused. He noticed she had tended to her own wound while in the bathroom with a piece of gauze and some tape. The torn shirt remained.