The gentle wind became a fierce gale. Thunder and lightning filled the sky, while in her mind’s eye she saw Glenn rolling away from Joseph and kicking his feet out from under him, his captor hitting the ground hard and knocking the air out of him. And then she surprised herself by running at Joseph in a fury she could never have believed possible, tearing at his skin with her nails and hitting him with every ounce of strength she had. She actually heard a satisfying crunching sound and felt the cartilage give way as his nose shattered under the force of one blow.
Battered and beaten, Joseph turned to run into the woods, and with a small satisfied smile, Maeve drifted away into an exhausted sleep.
*****
Chapter 21
Carl saw the sheriff’s vehicle coming from a quarter mile up the road. “Pop,” he said seriously, “they’re coming.”
Joseph walked purposefully over to the window and moved the curtain very slightly. He calmly watched as the cruiser crawled slowly over the rough pitted road, the driver carefully moving the car around the deep ruts and potholes.
“Have you secured the cellar and the basement like I told you?” Joseph asked in a frigid tone that let Carl know any mistake would cost him dearly.
Carl decided he was through being afraid of the old man and brushed off the question with a combative look of his own. “You think it was those two guys that were up here this morning?”
“Don’t know, doesn’t matter. As long as they don’t find anythin’ interesting they’ll just turn around and go back where they came from.” Joseph said casually as if he could make it so just by saying it.
“And if they don’t?” Carl’s voice had taken on an eager tone, as if he were excited at the prospect of a confrontation.
“Don’t go provoking these officers,” Joseph warned. “We mustn’t forget what we came here for.” Carl made a rude snorting sound and turned to make a wandering circuit around the living area.
Joseph had stepped back from the window and now waited for the knock on the door. He wasn’t overly concerned about Carl. The boy had less self control than he himself had practiced at sixteen, but he was smarter and much more calculating. He was also a coward and Joseph knew he wouldn’t take too big a risk if he thought the odds of his getting caught were very high. Even so, they made a good team and if he could just teach the boy patience, there was no limit to the pleasure they could experience and the power they would gain.
Smiling didn’t come naturally to Joseph, but he formed his mouth into what he perceived to be a friendly grin and opened the door.
“Evening officers,” he greeted almost painfully. “What can I do for you?”
“Good evening, sir, I’m Deputy Clark and this is Deputy Jameson. We’re with the sheriff’s department.” The tall blonde cop motioned to his partner, a short heavy set kid who was much too young to be sporting such a pronounced receding hairline. “How are you doing this evening?” He went on to ask the next question without waiting for a response. “Is Ralph around, I’d like to talk with him for a minute if I could.”
Joseph didn’t bat an eye when he told the officer that Ralph had moved to Phoenix for the winter. “I’m Joseph Binyon. We worked out a trade so he could go down there and my son and I could spend a winter up here in the mountains.” The lie came easily as he studied the two officers.
“We’re in the area asking folks if they’ve seen this woman.” Officer Clark, who was obviously the senior partner of this Mutt and Jeff duo, motioned with a hand and Jameson passed over a photo of Maeve Tidewell.
This is probably the most excitement these dick heads have ever seen, thought Joseph as he pretended to study the picture in his hand. He shook his head and told the officers with a completely straight face “No sir, we don’t get much company up here you know, especially this time of year. What makes you think she’d be around here?”
“We received a call. Someone thought they spotted her over around South Mesa Lake in the last few days.” Clark spoke casually and smiled back at the devilish countenance of the man standing before him.
“Well I sure wish we could help you. Has she gone missing or something?”
“Would you mind if we had a look around?” Clark asked without answering the question.
Joseph responded without hesitation. “Go right ahead officer, if you need any help just holler.” He nodded obligingly toward the rear of the property.
“We’d actually like to take a look inside. Uh, we’re supposed to search all of the cabins in the area.” Clark thought he did a pretty good job of sounding apologetic.
So far Jameson hadn’t said a word and now he peered around Joseph’s shoulder into the house, his pale face and large round eyes reminding him strongly of one of those stupid mimes he’d seen on the street in Denver.
Joseph opened the door wide and stepped aside, allowing the two deputies to enter the large front room.
“This is my son, Carl,” Joseph said as Jameson eyed the boy standing against the wall. “Help yourselves.” he offered and headed to the kitchen where a fresh pot of coffee was waiting on the stove.
“Care for a cup?” Joseph asked as he lifted the pot and turned to see the two visitors standing behind him.
They both declined politely and as they could see there was no one hiding in the spacious room they proceeded to search the rest of the house.
They passed the mud room first where boots, coats and several articles of fall clothing hung on wall pegs and seeing nothing of interest, continued down the hall, opening doors along the way.
The second door down the hall opened on to a steep staircase and Jameson was breathing hard by the time he reached the landing. There was nothing to see here but an empty room. Jameson took a minute to study the space and catch his breath before he headed back down again.
They passed through the back door and walked out to the shed. There was no electricity running to the outbuilding so Clark pulled a flashlight from his belt and shone it into the corners and rafters of the old storage building.
A heavy cistern pump sat rusting in the center of the floor and all around lay an accumulation of odds and ends that had been discarded or forgotten over the years. Although it was dim and gloomy, the officers could still plainly see that there was no sign of habitation here and they reluctantly turned away.
I may be a small town cop, Clark thought, but I know when something doesn’t feel right. Unfortunately there wasn’t much he could do about it since they had looked everything over and found no sign of the woman, or anyone else for that matter.
They walked back to the car and Clark waved at Joseph as he drove away feeling uneasy, a tenseness growing in his neck and shoulders that he didn’t want to ignore. He would take Jameson back to the station and call the detective down in the valley with his report.
As he drove he thought about the peculiar father and son with their unnatural looking eyes and unnerving manner.
“That was weird.” The comment came out of the blue from Jameson, whom Clark had practically forgotten, he was so entirely engrossed in his thoughts. Jameson hardly ever spoke and Clark couldn’t figure out how he’d managed to pass the police entrance exam, let alone achieved the physical prerequisite for employment with the force.
“What?” Clark asked in his usual blunt manner.
He was a big man with well-defined muscles that he perfected with daily work outs at the gym and looked like a middle aged Robert Redford on steroids. He intimidated the hell out of Jameson so the rookie seldom said much during their riding tours.
“The whole thing.” Jameson retorted shrugging his shoulders and holding his hands palms up. “That guy didn’t seem to have any problem letting us look over the property, but I got the impression that he was nervous somehow, watching us all the time and trying to act like he wasn’t. He was tense, like he was waiting for us to find something and he had to be ready.”
Okay, so maybe the kid had some operating gray matter after all, Clark mused. Let’s see i
f what’s on his mind looks anything like what’s on my mind. “Ready for what?” He said. “Spell it out for me, okay.”
“Well. he sort of followed without really following and the kid was right there wherever he wasn’t. The dad I mean.” Jameson was having difficulty putting his perceptions into words but Clark encouraged him to go on.
“Keep going, I want to hear what you’re thinking. It’s important.”
“Things seemed a little too perfect, almost like a stage set, you know? Everything was in the right place but something was missing.” Jameson’s voice had grown stronger and more confident as he continued talking about his observations in an effort to put his finger on exactly what was bothering him. “Who did the small clothes belong too?” He sounded distracted and then zeroed in on it suddenly. “There were a small kid’s clothes hanging in the mudroom. So where was the kid?”
Jameson had pretty much been summing up Clark’s thoughts in his own mind and they came to the realization at the same time.
“Good question, but I’m not sure what it has to do with our missing person.” Clark thought about the possibility of going back with a warrant, but they really hadn’t seen anything that would justify calling for one.
“And we can’t exactly walk up to the door again and ask.” Jameson added, perplexed by the nagging feeling that they had overlooked something they shouldn’t have.
They pulled up in front of the station and Jameson headed home while Clark went in to make his call.
He couldn’t discount the fact that Jameson had confirmed what his intuition was telling him. He hung up the phone and sat thinking for some time. Then he decided it couldn’t hurt to keep a close eye on the area, just in case, and he headed out to his dusty truck to take a casual drive under the waxing moon.
*****
Chapter 22
“They’re sending someone up to the cabin to have a look around,” Ben announced as he walked into the room and dropped his coat on the bed nearest the door.
Jason had jumped up to face him with an expectant look as Ben had entered and now he paced around in a circle, restless and unsatisfied with the slow moving search.
“Can we eat?” Jason surprised Ben with his sudden request. He had gone down to the pool while his father was meeting with the police in an effort to work off some of his frustration and had worked up an appetite instead.
“Sure, what’s on the menu?” Ben said, trying to sound upbeat and cover the fact that he was on edge as well.
“There’s a Mexican restaurant down the street. I’m hungry for lots of cheese and salsa.” Jason made the suggestion with his own attempt at cheerfulness.
Ben picked up his coat and stood aside for Jason to go out ahead of him, then grabbed him around the neck as he passed and hugged his head close. Jason gave him a hint of a grin and then they were out the door and on their way.
The food was great and the cold beer Ben had ordered was perfect for washing down the warm salty chips and spicy Pico de Gallo. They talked about the man up at the cabin and the boy who had followed them, rehashing the day’s activities and trying to accept the fact that they were now out of it. Either the police would find the missing woman and her children or they wouldn’t.
There just wasn’t anything left for the father and son to do and the conversation eventually turned to their plans for the next few days. But it was obvious to both of them that neither one of them was really interested and they were unable to move their thoughts away from the fate of a woman they didn’t even know.
They paid the bill and went back to the hotel, deciding to turn in early and make a plan in the morning.
Ben lay there for a long time trying to shut off his brain, along with the voices that urged him to keep looking. He could hear Jason in the bed next to him, tossing and turning, apparently having as much trouble with sleep as he was. Eventually the rustling stopped and the slow even breathing told him Jason had dropped off at last.
Ben lay there wondering what it was that kept driving him to pursue this useless cogitation. Chasing the thoughts around in his mind he finally returned to the dream that had now twice invaded his sleeping reverie.
*****
Ben hovered in the trees looking at the woman standing near the mist shrouded lake. She turned to him and he reached out, but as she extended her arms toward him she suddenly turned her head to peer past him, surprise and fear showing on her pale face. He turned and saw his son there, puzzled by his appearance although he didn’t know why. Why would she be afraid of him? And then he was running through the low growing scrub, the brittle branches catching at his clothing and tearing at his skin. His heart was pounding and he was so afraid that he wouldn’t make it in time. In time for what? He thought as he slowed his pace and crouched down to peer unseen at the spectacle before him. In the clearing stood a ring of torches, the flames blowing in the increasing wind. A man was on the ground, seemingly tied there and unable to move. There was a large figure standing above him, intoning what sounded like a prayer for power and the endowment of absolute divinity. He held a long blade that reflected the wavering light from the torches as he waved it back and forth over the prone figure. Suddenly, a carnal scream rose from the shadows and a wavering figure emerged, charging the man like a demon from out of the dark.
We’re here, the voice kept saying in his mind. He was no longer hiding among the naked limbs of woodland bramble. He didn’t seem to be anywhere at all. He was floating in a sea of nothingness and the voice kept saying over and over again “we’re here; please tell them that we’re here.”
*****
Maeve stood by the lake, her arms outstretched to the man who waited in the trees. Once again her gaze was drawn to the boy standing behind him and she felt a flash of fear.
And then she was in the clearing. Glenn was lying on the ground with Joseph looming above him. She ran from the shadows and launched herself at the depraved monster who threatened to destroy everything she held dear, ripping at his face and shattering his nose.
Now it was peaceful, her mind was calm and she could see the stranger in her mind’s eye. She wondered who he was and hoped that some day she would meet the handsome, dark haired man who was always there in her dreams. ‘I wonder if he dreams of me, too? She thought, then wondered if he would hear her in his dreams. She smiled to herself and then concentrated on his face, telling him over and over that they were here. It was silly, she knew, to think that she could talk to him this way, but it was her dream, and she guessed she could do whatever she wanted.
*****
Ben had dark circles under his eyes and he felt like an insomniac who hadn’t slept in a week. He sat at the small table drinking strong black coffee and thought about the dream that he couldn’t seem to bar from his nocturnal psyche.
Ben had always considered himself to be open minded and, though not a religious man, he accepted that there were some things in the universe that one just should not question. He wasn’t sure this was one of them. Jason was probably right. He hadn’t had a date in a long time. He couldn’t bring himself to think about it when he and Katherine had first started having problems, and then she wanted to talk about getting back together and it didn’t seem right to start dating then. That was probably it. He saw a woman he thought was attractive and, coupled with the knowledge that she had mysteriously disappeared, his imagination had conjured up an exciting scenario to relieve the tedium and loneliness of single life.
But his gut was telling him something entirely different. Why couldn’t he just let this go? According to this morning’s paper, the police were running down leads and doing everything they could to find Maeve Tidewell and her two children. They were confident they would soon find answers to the questions surrounding their disappearance.
Ben closed his eyes and tried to calm his troubled mind but the scene at the cabin kept replaying through his memory like a movie on a continuous reel. Hazy visions from his nightly dreams intertwined with pictures from.
/> Pictures. He hadn’t printed the pictures from the two days they had spent in the area and now he jumped up, grabbed his camera bag and ran out the door. It was early but the grocery store down the street had a one hour photo stop and he was sure he could at least drop them off and with luck, would have them back in a few hours. Feeling better for having taken at least some action, he went back to the room and ordered breakfast.
Jason had gotten up while Ben was gone and he came out of the bathroom looking surly.
“Where did you go?” He was obviously unable to overcome his grumpy morning mood.
“I got to thinking that we hadn’t looked at any of the pictures we took.” Ben’s answer sounded so very casual. “So I dropped the file off to have them printed.”
Jason looked sideways at him but didn’t say anything. He picked up a piece of toast and methodically covered it with jelly. He seemed to be giving something a great deal of thought but he held his tongue and worked his way through three pieces of toast, about a pound of bacon, and a mound of scrambled eggs with cheese.
While Jason ate, Ben talked to him about going up to the Colorado National Monument for the day to see the monoliths and take in the birds’ eye view of the town below.
Jason finished his breakfast then took a shower, and Ben noticed with pleasure again that he hadn’t been forcing his hair to stand on end for a few days now. Maybe it had gotten to be too much trouble or something, but whatever the reason, Ben was happy to see it back in its’ glossy pony tail.
“Let’s go pick up those pictures,” Ben suggested and they left the room once more.
Jason had been extremely quiet all morning and Ben wasn’t exactly sure how to get him out of this uncharacteristic silence.
Once they had picked up the photos, which cost Ben a small fortune, they went down to the town’s scenic main street and sat down for coffee at a local bagel shop. “Is something on your mind, Jase?” Ben finally had to ask, deciding that his son’s brooding had gone on long enough.
Jason shrugged his shoulders and stirred his drink. It no longer looked anything like the coffee he’d ordered.