“He left alone, and then he drove away,” Susan finished for her. She winced at the thought of him vanishing like that.
Rosie reached over the counter and patted her hand. “Oh, honey, I’m sure he’s fine.” She glanced back at Mattie, oblivious, playing with one of the toys. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your fiancé looked like a man who can take care of himself. He probably decided to go into town for something at the last minute and got sidetracked….”
Susan tried to smile at her. “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe that’s what happened.”
She wished she could believe it. She wished right now that Allen’s black BMW would pull in front of the store. And she’d see him step out of the car.
But right now, she didn’t see any other cars in the lot but her own. And all she heard was the distant wail of a police siren.
As he hit the first rough patch on the dirt road, Jordan heard more knocking and kicking from inside the cramped trunk of his car. No doubt, the son of a bitch was getting quite a pounding back there over the rear tires.
Meeker had been out cold during their last trek on this bumpy trail. In a way, Jordan had done the guy a favor knocking him unconscious earlier, because he hadn’t been awake to feel every jolt of the bouncy, nausea-inducing ride.
Jordan watched the road ahead, resisting the temptation to torture his indisposed passenger and steer toward the rough patches.
Jordan remembered: “A rough patch” was how his mother had described the divorce. Jordan had been eight years old at the time.
“This is going to be a rough patch for you,” she’d told him when she was getting ready to move away from their house in Bellingham to her own apartment ninety minutes away in Bellevue. “I really wish you could stay with me, but the people who decide these things think you’re better off with your dad—for now, at least. But don’t you sweat it, kiddo, because we’ll get to spend weekends and holidays together. It’ll be a lot of fun, you’ll see….”
A beautiful, curvaceous blonde, his mother looked like a movie star. All of his friends thought he had the coolest mom. She came to every one of his Little League games and threw parties for the team afterward—the worse the defeat, the grander the party. After one particularly humiliating trouncing, she even rented two ponies to give the kids rides in the backyard. As one of the most affluent families in one of the most affluent sections of Bellingham, they had a huge house, which had become headquarters for Jordan and all his pals—much to his mother’s delight. She was always cooking up something for them to do—putting on skits, water-coloring, shaping clay, and a ton of sports activities. One bitter-cold winter afternoon, she suggested they flood the driveway so he and his friends could play hockey. She didn’t tell his dad about it, and that night, the old man pulled his Mercedes-Benz into the driveway and slid right into a tree. That impromptu hockey game cost $5,300. At least, that was the repair bill for his dad’s precious Mercedes.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Jordan overheard him yelling at her. “Jesus Christ, Stella, this house is a sty half the time because of you and your projects. And I’m still finding pony crap in our backyard. Haven’t we talked about this? Did you go off your medication again?”
When their parents had first separated, Jordan had been kind of glad, really. It would mean an end to all the fighting. He’d imagined he would stay with his mom and that his dad would move out. But it was his mom who left, and “the people who decide these things” forced him to stay with his dad—and a series of nannies and housekeepers.
His first weekend with his mother after the divorce was at the family’s bayside house in Cullen. It had been three weeks since he’d last seen her, his longest time between visits. He remembered seeing the name
Syms
on the mailbox at the end of the long driveway on Birch Way and realizing she’d changed her name back. She wasn’t Mrs. Prewitt anymore. The summer home in Cullen had originally belonged to her parents, so her maiden name was on the mailbox now.
Jordan remembered how she came running out the front door as his dad pulled down the driveway. Jordan got so caught up in seeing her again that he almost jumped out of the car while it was still moving. His dad had to hold him back for a moment. Once the car stopped, he bolted out and raced into his mother’s arms. She hugged him so fiercely, Jordan could barely breathe.
One of the first activities she’d lined up for them was a hike through the hilly woods beside the house. She’d donned a big backpack for their excursion, and after a while trudging uphill on the forest trail, Jordan could tell she was having a hard time lugging it. Her breathing became more and more labored, and sweat glistened on her forehead. He kept asking if he could carry the backpack for her, but she said she was fine. They found a bald spot in the woods she’d been talking about for most of the hike. There was a break in the trees that offered a gorgeous, sweeping view of Skagit Bay. Jordan gathered sticks to build a fire. They roasted hot dogs his mother had packed in a cooler. She’d also brought Cokes and potato salad. For dessert, they made s’mores with marshmallows, Hershey bars, and graham crackers.
It was during this feast that she asked him if he’d noticed anyone following them. She insisted a man was always a few feet behind them, hiding behind the trees and shrubs just off the trail.
“I didn’t really see him, Jordy, but I know he’s there,” his mother said. She moved her marshmallow-roasting stick away from the fire so she could wave it in the general direction of the woods. “He’s hiding out there somewhere. I’ll bet your father hired someone to spy on us. He doesn’t trust me with you. I’m sure that’s why he bought that dumpy little place over on Cedar Crest Way last month, just to keep an eye on us when we’re here together. He says it’s because he loves it here on the bay, but no…no…” Shaking her head, she moved her marshmallow away from the flame and started making another s’more.
After they put out the fire, his mother left behind the backpack and the cooler. “Some lucky hiker will be happy to find this stuff,” she reasoned out loud.
For the whole rest of the hike back, Jordan was scared. He kept looking around for the man his mother said was following them. At one point, he thought he saw someone duck behind a berry bush. “Who’s there?” he shouted.
His mother shushed him. “We mustn’t let him know that we’re on to him,” she whispered. “We have to pretend he’s not there.”
But later, as darkness fell over the house on the bay, his mother could no longer pretend the elusive man wasn’t there. She claimed she saw him in the backyard, creeping up to their windows. Jordan didn’t even want to pass by a window—for fear of seeing some kind of apparition hovering outside. He was terrified and clung to a baseball bat while watching a video with his mom in the sunroom after dinner that night.
The movie was
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
Just when he’d forget to be scared and laugh at something in the movie, his mother would jump up from the sofa, saying she heard a noise or saw something move outside the window. She’d pause the movie each time she went to investigate a potential threat. For at least ten minutes, Jordan sat alone in the sunroom and watched Alan Arkin frozen in mid-sentence on the TV. All the while, his mother was on the kitchen phone with the Cullen police, reporting a prowler.
When Sheriff Stuart Fischer’s patrol car pulled into the driveway, he had the red swirling strobe going, but the siren was off. Jordan watched from the living room window. He was relieved to see the police lights out there, where it once had been so dark and foreboding. He quickly put the bat away because he didn’t want the police to think he was scared. Seconds after he returned to the window, a bright searchlight on the side of the police vehicle went on. Aimed at the house, it blinded Jordan for a moment. He stepped back from the window and rubbed his eyes. When Jordan peered outside again, Fischer had turned the cop car around and was shining that intense light toward the forest at the edge of the driveway. As the bright beam moved across the trees, it created a ripple of shadows. Jordan kept waiting to see a man hiding amid those trees, but there was nothing.
Sheriff Fischer got out of the car, then lumbered around the house with a flashlight. He even went down to the dock and checked around where they’d moored the junior kayak his mother had recently bought.
“Well, if someone was truly out there, Ms. Syms, I’m pretty sure I’ve scared him away,” Fischer said. He stood in the dining room with a can of Sprite in his hand. Jordan’s mother had offered him something to drink—and she’d told Jordan to go watch the movie. But he was distracted by the other drama unfolding in the dining room next door.
Fischer was a tall, wiry but potbellied man with a mustache and dark, receding hair. When he called Jordan’s mom
Ms. Syms
, he seemed to make a point of extending the
Ms.
so it sounded like
Mizzzz.
And while he talked to her, his eyes kept wandering over to the TV in the sunroom.
“You don’t have a description of the guy?” he asked—for the second time.
“No, like I told you, I only caught glimpses of him,” Jordan’s mother explained, shaking her head. “I never really saw his face—not this afternoon in the daylight. And tonight, it was just shadows and—and movement. But I could see someone was out there.” She shuddered, then tugged together the front of her white cable-knit cardigan. She was always cold at night; even during the summer she usually put on a sweater after dinner.
“Well, you probably just ran into some hikers or hunters in the woods earlier,” the sheriff surmised. He glanced toward the TV in the sunroom. “Who’s that blonde? She looks familiar.”
“Eva Marie Saint,” Jordan’s mom answered, rubbing her forehead. “Listen, Sheriff, hikers or hunters wouldn’t be lurking around this house at eight-thirty at night.”
“Well, I’m guessing you had some teenagers checking the place out, Ms. Syms,” Sheriff Fischer said. He sipped his Sprite. “They go around looking for empty rental houses they can mess around in. On top of that, you have a dock, and it’s a pretty night. That’s an invitation to all sorts of shenanigans.” His eyes strayed toward the sunroom again. “Isn’t Jonathan Winters in this movie?”
The sheriff didn’t stay long. He assured them that he’d make another drive-around search on his way out, and he’d have his deputy conduct an extra patrol of the vicinity tonight. “You folks will be all right—right as rain,” he told them.
Jordan’s mom was still scared and asked Jordan to sleep in bed with her. Several times that night, she threw back the sheets and got up to look out the bedroom window. Jordan would watch his mother as she stood by the window, a sweater over her nightgown. Then she’d climb back into bed.
“Didn’t the sheriff promise we’d be okay?” he asked her—after she’d gotten up and come back to bed for the fourth time.
“I suppose,” she muttered, patting him on the hip. “I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. I’m just kind of wound up. Pay no attention to me. You try to get some shut-eye, kiddo….”
“The police will protect us, Mom,” Jordan remembered saying—just as he’d started to drift off that night.
But of course, he’d been wrong….
There hadn’t been any noise from the trunk since he’d pulled off the bumpy dirt trail and turned onto Carroll Creek Road. Either Meeker had passed out, or he’d just gotten tired of pounding, kicking, and whining.
It was out of his way, but Jordan drove to Birch—as far as the end of the driveway, where there had once stood a mailbox with
Syms
stenciled on it. He stared at the police car parked in front of the house.
He wondered if Sheriff Fischer was now explaining to that nice woman about the hunters and hikers who sometimes strayed too close to private property, and the teenagers who liked to party in deserted rental cabins.
Jordan turned the car around and glanced at the house in his rearview mirror.
He could almost hear the good sheriff telling the frightened woman that she and her little boy would be all right—right as rain.
Outside the sliding glass door, the handsome, husky blond deputy held his hands up in the air. Wearing the deputy’s cap—which came down almost over his eyes—Mattie stood in front of him on the porch. He pointed his finger at the deputy and kept his thumb extended. “You’re under a dress!” he proclaimed.
The deputy got a big kick out of this, but kept his hands above his head and played the part of the crook to the hilt.
Barely cracking a smile, the sheriff ignored the skit going on outside. He was a tall, paunchy man in his early fifties, with a thin grey mustache that had turned brownish-yellow at one corner—maybe from smoking a cigar or something. Hairy arms akimbo, he stood near the sliding glass door in the sunroom, beside a chair that had a basket of dirty laundry in it. At the top of the heap were Susan’s bra and a pair of panties. She might have been a bit embarrassed if she weren’t so worried right now about Allen’s disappearance—and that creepy man in the army fatigues who had paid them a visit earlier.
Sheriff Fischer seemed to think she was overreacting about Allen. After all, her fiancé had been gone less than two hours. “Ordinarily, he would have phoned you by now, right?” Fischer said. “You know, it’s too bad they yanked the landline phones out of this house when they converted it into a rental. And I’m sorry about the cell phone reception around these parts. But in some ways, it’s a blessing. Just imagine how many accidents we’d have around here with kids trying to maneuver these winding roads while yakking away on their cell phones and texting and Twittering and what have you.”
Sitting in one of the dining room chairs, Susan nodded. At Rosie’s earlier, she’d already given the sheriff a description of Allen, what he was wearing, and his car. He’d jotted it down and told her not to worry. They’d keep a lookout for him. “I’m sure he’s fine,” the sheriff had said back at the store.
He was saying it again now: “I bet, any minute, your fiancé will be pulling into the driveway in that fancy black BMW of his. In the meantime, I wouldn’t let this Peeping Tom business upset you, Ms. Blanchette.” He put a strange emphasis on the
Ms.
—as if after forty years he still hadn’t gotten accustomed to saying it. “I doubt it’s this fella you say followed you down from that McDonald’s in Mount Vernon—”
“Ah, it was an Arby’s,” Susan gently corrected him. “Why do you think—”
“Arby’s, right,” he nodded, interrupting her. “Nevertheless, we will keep our eyes peeled for this—” he consulted the notes he’d scribbled down at the store earlier, “Ah, red MINI Cooper you told me about.”
“Thank you,” Susan said. “But why do you think it couldn’t be this man who followed me from Mount Vernon? As I told you, he was awfully familiar and pushy….”
Sheriff Fischer tucked his little notebook in his back pocket, then cleared his throat. “Well, Deputy Shaffer and I had a good look around here, and there’s no sign of an attempted break-in. It’s obvious someone has recently been in the woods surrounding this house. But I don’t think he’s after you or your little boy. And I don’t think it’s this fella you’re worried about. Let me show you what I mean.” The sheriff turned and called over his shoulder. “Corey, would you like to come in here and join the adults? Bring in what you found.”
The blond deputy took the police cap off Mattie and put it on his own head. He reached for something on the porch step and lugged it into the sunroom. It was a big rock, at least ten pounds. The bottom of it was covered with dirt.
“What is that?” Susan asked, getting up from the dining room chair.
“It’s a mineral rock, a salt lick,” the deputy explained, setting it down on the sunroom floor—dirt side up. “Some hunters use them as bait to lure deer or antelope. I found this in the woods over there….” He pointed in the general direction of the forest bordering the driveway. “There was another one just like it about a hundred feet away.” Stepping toward the sliding door, he nodded at the forest on the other side of the house. “And if you check those woods south of here, you’ll find one just beyond that first set of trees near the water there….”
But Susan wasn’t looking toward the trees. She noticed the sheriff, staring at the basket of dirty laundry. His stubby fingers casually brushed against the top of the load, touching her bra and panties. He didn’t seem too conscious or sneaky about what he was doing—just curious.
Her mouth open, Susan numbly gazed at him. She thought about saying something, but just then he took his hand away and hooked his thumb in his pants pocket. He turned to gaze out at the section of forest bordering the bay.
“You see, ma’am,” the deputy was saying. “This guy’s obviously been using these woods as his own little hunting ground, and he—”
“What we have here, Ms. Blanchette,” Sheriff Fischer interrupted, “isn’t a stalker or a Peeping Tom. We have some amateur hunter who’s using this land unlawfully. And that’s a serious offense around these parts. But I don’t think you or your son are in any real danger.” He frowned at the mineral rock on the floor, then turned to his deputy. “Get rid of that thing. And then you can go, Corey.”
The younger cop seemed a bit perplexed. “Well, I can get around Ms. Blanchette’s car, but your prowler is blocking me in.”
With an impatient sigh, Sheriff Fischer dug into his pocket and tossed the keys at him. “Then move it, and park it back where it was after you’ve backed out.”
“Yessir,” the deputy muttered. He shoved the keys in his pocket and then hauled the rock out to the back porch. “Hey, want to help me carry this back into the woods, partner?” he asked Mattie. “Then you can ride in a police car….”
“Cool!” Mattie exclaimed, chasing after him.
Outside, Mattie let out a labored grunt as he put his hands under the rock, though it was clear the deputy was toting all the weight. “We’ll need to wash our hands after this,” the handsome cop was telling him as they moved down the porch steps together.
“Anyway, I doubt this hunter character will be back,” the sheriff said. “I saw what was left of that barrel you shot with the flare. If this joker was anywhere near there, he’s not about to make a return appearance. It’s kind of ironic, but most hunters I know don’t like being shot at.” He laughed at his own remark.
Susan tried to work up a smile.
“Anyway, you probably scared him more than he scared you.” Sheriff Fischer chuckled. “I’ll tell you who got the biggest fright. It was Chris over at Bayside Rentals. You really had him going with that e-mail you sent. He thought for sure you were a goner.”
“So did I for a while there,” Susan said. “I’m very grateful he called you.”
The sheriff nodded. “Well, you got to us first. In the meantime, Ms. Blanchette, I wouldn’t worry about your fiancé too much. I’m sure he’s close by. If he’s not in town, maybe he swung by the winery to surprise you with a bottle of wine. I know I wouldn’t stray too far if I had such an attractive lady waiting for me at home.”
“Well, thank you,” she said coolly. She might have been flattered if he hadn’t been touching her under-things two minutes ago.
“So—do me a favor,” Sheriff Fischer said. “Once your fiancé turns up, I’d appreciate it if you’d pop on over to Rosie’s and give us a call. Let us know he’s okay. If I don’t hear from you in a couple of hours, I’ll be sure to check in.”
Susan nodded. “I’ll do that, thank you again.”
“Can I ask for another favor?” He smiled and licked his lips. “You wouldn’t happen to have something cool to drink for a thirsty policeman, would you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” Susan started backing toward the kitchen. “Would you like bottled water? I also have some Coke—
Coca-Cola
, I mean, and root beer.”
“A Coke would hit the spot nicely, thank you.”
She ducked into the kitchen and retrieved two cans of Coke from the refrigerator.
By the time she brought them into the sunroom, Mattie and Deputy Shaffer were back, shaking off their wet hands. “I rode in a police car!” Mattie announced excitedly. He wrapped himself around Susan’s leg.
“We rinsed off our hands with the garden hose, but you better give him the soap and hot water treatment,” the deputy recommended, grinning at her. “You don’t know what kind of cooties get on those salt licks.” The smile faded as he turned to his boss and gave him a set of keys. “The prowler’s back just where you parked it.”
Sheriff Fischer wordlessly took the keys and put them in his pocket.
“Um, here’s a cold drink for the road,” Susan said, handing them each a can of soda.
The deputy thanked her. Sheriff Fischer opened his Coke can, took a sip, and smiled at her. “Y’know, I can stick around—if you’re still a bit uneasy and lonely.”
Susan held Mattie against her. “Oh, I think we’ll be all right. I’d feel better if I knew you were out there looking for Allen. Besides, I’ve already taken up enough of your time. Thanks.”
They left by the back porch. Susan was glad to be rid of that sleazy sheriff, who made her skin crawl. She’d been so afraid he would insist on staying.
She led Mattie into the kitchen, propped him on a step-stool by the sink, and washed his hands thoroughly. “I think we’ll go ahead and have our lunch,” she said, with a glance out the window.
The deputy’s car pulled out of the driveway. But the sheriff’s car remained.
“Is Allen under a dress?” Mattie asked.
“What?” she asked, distracted for a moment. “Um, it’s
under arrest
, honey. And no, the police are just going to look for Allen, and tell him to hurry home, because we’re worried about him.” She dried off Mattie’s hands with a dish towel. “Will you be a good boy and wait for me on the back porch while I go down to the boat? I left our lunch in the little fridge there.”
Mattie nodded.
Susan looked out the window again.
The sheriff’s patrol car was still in the driveway. She couldn’t see if anyone was actually inside the vehicle.
Why didn’t he go already?
she thought.
Taking Mattie by the hand, she walked him out the sliding glass door to the back porch. He sat down on the bottom step, grabbed a long stick, and poked at the ground with it.
As she started down toward the dock, Susan turned back to wave at him. She saw the sheriff’s car was still parked beside the house. She noticed something else—the red Coke can sitting on the corner of the porch railing. It was odd that the sheriff would just leave it there.
Hesitating, Susan headed back toward the house—and the driveway.
The cop car finally backed out of the drive, just as she was about twenty feet away. Susan watched him use the turnaround and then continue out the driveway. She retreated toward the house.
“Bizarre,” she murmured. She glanced over at the Coke can on the railing again. “What a pig.” She reached up for the empty can, and felt it was near full. Baffled, she poured it out and then pitched the can in the recycling bin by the side of the house.
Susan shrugged it off and hurried down toward the boat. Stepping around the life vests they’d abandoned on the dock earlier, she climbed aboard, unlocked the cabin door, and went below. She’d shut off the power before, so the lights didn’t work. But the mini refrigerator was still slightly cold, so their lunch hadn’t spoiled. Susan stashed the Tupperware container of food and the Tuscan bread into the bin with Mattie’s toys. She managed to lug the bin up the stepladder to the deck and then locked the cabin door behind her. She glanced over toward the house.
For a second, her heart seemed to stop.
Mattie was gone. She didn’t see him on the back porch.
“MATTIE!” she screamed, dropping the bin. She almost tripped scurrying off the boat. It rocked back and forth, and the side banged against the dock. But Susan barely noticed. She raced up toward the house. “MATTIE, WHERE ARE YOU?” she cried. “MATTIE!”
“I’m here, Mommy!” he called, coming around from the side yard. He still had the stick in his hand, and he waved it at her.
Susan stopped and caught her breath. “Honey, I told you to stay on the porch!” she called wearily. “Now, wait right there….” Slump-shouldered, she returned to the boat to pick up the bin. She wished right now Allen would pull into that driveway “in that fancy black BMW of his.” And then, after the hugs, and screaming at him, and listening to his explanations, and more hugs, she could tell him,
My God, what an afternoon I’ve had….
Susan carried the bin up to the house. Mattie was telling her how he’d seen a “reindeer” in the woods, and he’d gotten up to “look at it better.” But the animal had apparently run away when it had seen him coming. Susan figured with all the deer, elk, and antelope bait in those woods, there would be plenty more “reindeer” around, which was just fine by her—as long as she didn’t encounter that creepy hunter again.
She set the bin on the dining room table. “You can eat your lunch in front of the TV for a change, sweetie,” she announced. “So go pick out a DVD, okay?”
While Mattie ran into the sunroom to pick through the collection of Disney and Pixar DVDs she’d packed, Susan shut the sliding door. She locked it—just to be on the safe side.
Passing by the laundry basket, she noticed something. Her bra and panties had been at the top of that pile of dirty laundry. The bra was still there, but the panties were gone. Susan examined the heap of clothes, just to make sure the panties hadn’t somehow, miraculously, shifted among the rest of the things.
She thought about Sheriff Fischer touching them earlier, and how he’d asked for something to drink. But it turned out, he hadn’t really been thirsty.
He’d just needed for her to turn her back on him for a few moments—so he could take what he wanted.
“I’m opening the trunk now,” Jordan announced.
He stood in back of his Honda Civic, parked in the driveway by the cabin on Cedar Crest Way. Fortunately, Leo and Moira hadn’t come back yet. Jordan had already ducked inside the house and quickly found what he’d needed—a sharp knife, some rope, and a roll of duct tape, all of which he’d taken down to the basement. He’d been in and out of the cabin in less than five minutes.
Meeker banged on the inside of the trunk’s lid again. No one was likely to come by and hear him. The nearest neighbor was the woman Meeker claimed was his fiancée, staying at Jordan’s old family summer home a mile and a half away.