Lost Cargo (22 page)

She opened the passenger door. “Well, we can’t think about that now. We need curtains, and I don’t know what that’s going to cost. It all went to Dr. Lynch today.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“The bill was really high,” she told him.

“Oh, yeah? How high?”

“Twelve thousand dollars. Twelve thousand, one hundred, to be exact.”

“Twelve thousand, one hundred dollars!” Ian cried. He shut the door and walked around to face his wife. “Lisa, you go to the dentist every year. Why would you need to spend over twelve thousand dollars? That’s outrageous!”

“He said I need the work done. I’ve been having these awful headaches. It’s worth it to me to do something about them.”

“But twelve thousand! Get a second opinion.”

“I took it out of savings. I already paid him.”

“You already paid him,” Ian repeated.

“He gave me a discount because I prepaid. I mailed the check to his house today.”

Ian stared at her. “You mailed a check to his
house
?”

The last traces of the sun sank behind the black trees. The shadows were growing. A couple came out of the restrooms, got in their car, turned on their lights, and drove off, leaving only Lisa and Ian’s car and an empty SUV at the other end of the lot.

Lisa shrugged defensively. “He must do his bookkeeping at home. A lot of small businesses do that. It’s not unusual.”

Ian shook his head. “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. Mailing a check to somebody’s house. Is this clown a partner or an employee?”

“He’s not a clown,” she said. “I resent that. And I assume he’s a partner.”

“Well, you’d better find out.” Ian’s normally calm face looked flushed. “That’s one thing I would never do, mail a check to somebody’s goddamned house. I can’t believe you did that.”

Her eyes widened in anger, but she held her tongue. What if Dr. Lynch had played her for a fool? “He didn’t have an assistant. He was by himself in the office.”

“Lisa, he has you off the books.”

“He’d never do that. He wouldn’t want to risk his license.”

“He figured you out. He had you in there on a Saturday because the rest of the people in his office weren’t there. You’ve been diagnosed with migraines. How could you fall for that? Don’t you grasp that there are unscrupulous people in the world?”

“He said it’s my teeth and don’t tell me what I don’t grasp,” Lisa snapped.

“Your teeth are fine. And it’s true, sometimes you just don’t grasp things.”

“I grasp plenty of things. Don’t you dare tell me what I don’t grasp.”

He threw his hands up. “Here we go again.”

“I’m suspicious, I’m obsessed with crime, I don’t grasp that everybody in the world is not out to get me. Now I don’t grasp that the dentist is a world class criminal. Maybe he’s the head of the mafia.”

“You’re blowing everything out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not!” she exploded. “I don’t grasp this, and I don’t grasp that. That’s your favorite word in the English language,
grasp
. You’re always telling me what I don’t grasp, and I’m sick of it!”

She turned her back, shaking, and refused to look at him. It was nearly twilight, too dangerous to storm off, so she stayed by the car. She wanted an apology but wasn’t going to ask for one. Throughout their marriage he’d never apologized until she prompted him, but just as she’d done dozens of times before, she held out, hoping.

From the corner of her eye she could see him by the hood of the car. Once again, the apology didn’t seem to be coming. She opened the door to the back seat and picked up a bottle of water, stalling.

Ian moved away from the car. She felt a flutter of anxiety. Where was he going?

Now he was crossing the parking lot toward the restrooms behind the Pierce Barn. She took her time getting out her keys. A full minute later, she walked around and sat in the driver’s seat.

When she finally looked out the car window, she couldn’t see him at all.

He must have gone in the restroom. Her worry grew. The fight suddenly seemed stupid, just an angry squall of emotion that wasn’t worth carrying on this far. The shadows lengthened. She heard a car door shut and turned to see the SUV pulling out of the parking lot, leaving her alone. The dull orange sunset deepened, fast fading into night. It was no longer safe to be sitting there.

“Now what am I supposed to do?” she asked the silent car with a flash of anger. “Sit here or go home? Bastard, walking off like that, leaving me by myself. Damn it, I’ll have to go get him.”

She hid her purse under the floor mat and hurried to the restrooms. “Ian? Are you in there?” she called in a thin voice outside the men’s room, afraid to go in. The strong scent of old tile, urine, and industrial soap wafted out.

No answer. When she looked up, she thought she saw the back of his jacket crossing a distant picnic area on the other side of Tilden Street.

Why would he go over there, if it was even him? She walked to the end of the slate sidewalk to peer across the road. On the other side of the pavement a row of pines turned into a single formless shape in the dusk. A dirt path between the trees led to picnic tables and another parking lot framed by deep woods.

Whoever she’d seen had disappeared. It had to be Ian. Maybe he was sitting down, waiting for things to cool off.

Tilden Street was hard to cross. Cars turned off the parkway every few seconds, rumbled over a small stone bridge, and whizzed by, shining their brutal headlights in her face. After she made it across, she took the dirt path to the second parking lot, which turned out to be empty. A large white building with darkened windows sprawled beside the lot, half hidden by towering fir trees. An embassy, but she wasn’t sure which one, and it looked closed.

Park Closed at Dark: Park Watch said a sign in the grass.

Everything was closed. How much time did she have before they towed the car? Furious at her husband all over again, she hurried across the empty parking lot, past bags of trash piled against overflowing trashcans, until she came to a small stone building steeped in long shadows. More restrooms and empty picnic tables.

“Ian?” she called in a shrill voice. There was no answer.

Beyond the building a gravel path led into the woods. She walked along the path past the last picnic table, surrounded by the cries of starlings settling down for the night. When the scent of leaves grew overwhelming, she stopped to look into the black woods.

“That’s where he went,” she realized. “He walked home though the woods. He took that path he was talking about. Damn you, Ian. How could you do that?”

He was probably home by now. She brushed back her fears. He’d said the path was thirty minutes from their building, and she’d been looking for him at least that long.

You have to get out of here. The animal attacks
.

She sprinted through the shadows, back down the gravel path, past the picnic tables, across the empty parking lot, and through the traffic. Their car was still in the lot. She climbed in and clicked on the locks, grateful for the safety of the cocoonlike windows and doors. When the instrument panel glowed on, she remembered he had his cell phone with him.

And she didn’t have her cell phone. She shook her head and started the car. She’d call him when she got home.

L
isa pushed through a crowd of revelers in the lobby, a lot of office types braying out loud laughter and leaning all over each other. The building’s Halloween party. Everybody in the place seemed to be in costume with an imported beer in their hands. Even the faded concierge was there with ten pounds of makeup and a shiny orange blouse, imitating a pumpkin.

But no Ian. Lisa glanced down the hall at Dr. Lynch’s office. She was a fool.

When she unlocked their door, she knew Ian wasn’t home because the lights were off. “Bastard,” she said. “Leaving me alone like that.”

He should have been back a long time ago. A cold breeze fluttered through the papers on the dining table. The windows and the balcony door were still open, just as they’d left them hours ago. She closed up the condo and called his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. He’d turned it off. Or maybe he’d never turned it on. Maybe he’d stopped for coffee, or headed to a bar to let her stew, but that wasn’t like him.

Damn him. Now what? She curled up on the sofa and felt her anger cool to raw anxiety.

Her wedding ring was still cold from the night air. Before the wedding they’d ordered their rings from a jeweler and then walked through snow flurries to a coffee shop. They’d held hands in the bright window, filled with the flush of their new love, waiting for the day when they would say “I do.”

Why did she have to blow up at him like that? Maybe he was still out there in the dark. She looked at the jack-o’-lanterns on the mantle. What was the point of decorating for Halloween if Ian wasn’t there to share it?

Click
. The soft sound came from their bedroom.

“Oh, my God, Ian must be home,” she whispered. The place didn’t look or feel as if he was there, so she soundlessly slid her feet to the floor.

If it wasn’t Ian, then it had to be the cats. One of them had probably walked on the remote control and turned on the TV. And if it wasn’t the cats, it had to be the heating system, or the building shifting and settling the way old places do in the winter. The building was over a hundred years old. They had to expect a few creaks.

Lisa tiptoed into the hall and peeped around the bedroom door, expecting to see her husband.

But Ian wasn’t in the bedroom. A small child in a Halloween costume stood beside the nightstand, caught in the wide beam of light from the hall. When the child turned around, Lisa saw he was dressed up like a traveler from outer space.

How did he get in?

They stared at each other. He didn’t look exactly like a child, although that was the only explanation she considered. He looked like an alien, about three feet tall with spider-thin arms and legs and a big head with one spectacular slit of an eye.

A mask
, her brain informed her.

The child’s one-eyed mask didn’t even clear the stack of paperbacks and the bottle of aspirin on the nightstand. How old were you when you got to be three feet tall? Five years old? Lisa wasn’t sure. And some Halloween costume. The child’s mother didn’t pull it off the rack at Walmart or the drugstore, that was for sure. It was an incredible outfit made of soft blue shimmering fabric molded to the child’s body like fish skin, with a realistic utility belt holding space tools and gadgets.

He got in here because of the Halloween party in the lobby
. She seized the idea.
That’s right. He got in because of the party. His parents must be downstairs, and he wandered up and walked right in… except we locked the door
.

But Ian had left the windows and the balcony open. Her mind scurried around the crazy possibilities. The kid must’ve snuck up on the roof and jumped down on the balcony. After all, they were on the top floor.

Did kids do things like that when they were five years old?

“Hi there,” she said, kneeling in the doorway so they were eye level.

The child didn’t answer.

“Sweetheart, did you come up from the party?” she pressed. “Your mother must be looking for you. How did you get in here?”

The small intruder just stared with that long slit of an eye. What a mask. Masks got weirder and weirder every year.

“What’s your name?”

The intruder still didn’t say anything. It was time to take action. Lisa stepped in the bedroom and flipped on the overhead light. She could take the child back to the party. The parents must be frantic by now.

The overhead light seemed to disturb the tiny intruder, who skittered toward the open closet. The shimmering alien costume looked strange against her ordinary skirts, blouses, and wool suits, and the one eye began to unnerve her.

“Come on, now, don’t be afraid of me,” she said.

She took another step. The intruder moved into the hanging clothes and reached out with a stick hand to steady himself. Something was wrong with his other arm. He was favoring it, letting it hang down while he held something in his hand.

“How’d you get in here? Come on out of there.”

To her shock, he had a cell phone. Her stomach fluttered. A background photo of Ian with his arm around her shoulders glowed on the cover.

“Where did you get that?” Her voice edged toward hysteria. “Did you find it in the woods? What do you know about Ian?”

The intruder stared with that slit of an eye and vanished behind her bathrobe.

“Get out of there,” Lisa shrieked. “Where did you get that phone?” She got down on her hands and knees, tossing shoes out of the way, crawling around on the bare wood floor under a forest of skirts and dresses, belts slapping her in the face. There! There was that awful child, hiding in the back of the closet, still staring behind the mask.

“You’re not going to break in here and hide in this closet.” She pushed the bathrobe out of the way and ripped off the mask.

A pale blue prune face stared back at her, wrinkles layered upon wrinkles, with six eyes clustered across the forehead. She gasped. The stars were in those eyes, along with more shimmering images that pulled her in and held her, entranced.

Galaxies spinning through the silence of the deep, seas of suns, luminous planets and molten moons covered with ancient craters and wide, cold deserts, and a net, a blue net holding monstrous things with vast mouths and writhing tentacles, biting, swelling and thrashing, straining to break free. Cages. Transporting terrible things in cages. An accident caused by the solar wind, everything rolling out of control, plummeting toward a blue planet with swirling white clouds, third from the sun.

A continent with the lights of civilization, a region, a city, spiraling down, down, down. Falling faster and faster. Woods. Branches. Boulders.

Smashed.

The eyes blinked at her.

I’m losing my mind
. “Another crazy mask,” Lisa said, reaching out to pull it off.