Author: K.L. Barnes
Category: Suspense
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“The plan is,” Lory informed them after they had all stuffed themselves on heartburn inducing cuisine, “to shop ‘til we drop this afternoon and then go to the haunted house tonight. You guys can bob for apples and pull taffy and then if you want to you can enter the costume contest.”
“Not after last year!” Claire said.“Remember that girl that was dressed like a mother pig? She sewed all those nipples on her costume and had little baby pigs hanging all over them. We didn’t stand a chance.”
Maeve smiled and looked up toward the back of the room where her gaze fell on the coldly staring eyes of the man she had noticed earlier. He was looking directly at her, or so it seemed, and suddenly he was somehow familiar. Before she could pull her gaze away, he stood and moved his considerable bulk past the other tables and out the door.
Maeve lowered her gaze to stare at her plate and tried to put the moment out of her mind. She told herself she was just, as usual, being over sensitive to other people’s attitudes and that she needed to stop taking things so personally. Pasting a smile back on her face, she mentally joined the group again just as their server came by with the check. Lory made a grab for it, but Maeve slipped it right out from under her hand and passed it off to the server with her credit card before Lory could even get the traditional argument started.
*****
Several hours later they were watching the other kids’ parade before the judges while Claire and Torei joked back and forth about the creativity, or lack thereof, of some of the costumes. They threw in the towel when a man and woman climbed onto the makeshift stage holding an enchanting infant dressed like a hot dog, complete with ketchup and mustard, his little face peering from between the padded bun.
Maeve had been enjoying the conversation and the atmosphere, but as the evening wore on she began to feel uneasy, as if hidden eyes were staring at her from the crush of people. She scanned the crowd in search of a familiar face, thinking that it was probably just the spooky haunted house atmosphere and the fact that it was Halloween, but she couldn’t ignore the unsettling feeling of being watched. Get a grip on yourself, she thought, but the feeling persisted.
Maeve slowly turned her head and studied every corner of the large open warehouse, trying to place the source of her discomfort. Her gaze landed on a tall, heavy set man dressed in a typical store bought horror mask that looked like something from the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Dressed in insulated coveralls that stretched tightly across his chest and wide expanse of stomach, his legs were like tree trunks, the hem of his pants ending a good inch above the tops of his ankle high work boots. His head was turned directly toward them and it seemed that his attention was focused intently on her and the girls. Instinct had her wrapping her arms around their shoulders, pulling them close.
Almost positive she was looking at the same man from the restaurant where they had eaten lunch, Maeve was about to ask her mother if she knew him. When she turned to look again, he was gone. She couldn’t see him anywhere in the old converted hay barn the town used as a community center.
“Maybe he was just trying to decide if he should ask you out.” Her mother wiggled her eyebrows and teased. It was kind of a running joke in her family, mainly due to the fact that she hadn’t been on a date in… well, forever.
The reality was that she had been painfully bashful as a kid and as unassuming as it was possible for a person to be. As a result, there had been very few dates and no boyfriend's at all - until Bob came along.
Now she had two children from that failed union and for years her friends and family had been fixing her up with any available man they could find. As far as Maeve could tell, there wasn't a whole lot of thought going in to those matchmaking attempts and she finally put her foot down. She let everyone know that she wasn't interested in dating, that her hands were full with raising her two daughters, and that she was perfectly happy with her life just the way it was. She wasn't about to settle - not in any part of her life - as everyone in her life apparently thought she should.
The sidebar going on in her head didn't deter her thoughts from the man who she knew had been watching though. She pulled him back into her memory and noticed that the coverall's didn’t conceal the fact that even though the man was quite heavy, he was still powerfully built. His stature gave her the sense that she was being threatened somehow. Her stomach felt a little queasy at the thought of spending any time alone with the overweight mass murderer.
Tired and distracted and more than a little depressed over the thought, she steered the girls to the car and out of the parking lot. Tomorrow they would head home and fall back into the routine of work and school.
*****
Joseph Binyon watched as Maeve joined her family ushering her children into the building. It had taken a very long time to find her, but now his search was over. He was afraid he’d given himself away at the restaurant earlier, but then decided it didn’t really matter. Not that she would recognize him anyway. It had been too many years ago.
The Halloween mask he was wearing gave him the perfect opportunity to observe her tonight. She had grown to be quite an attractive woman. She was average height he estimated, about five and a half feet tall, and she wasn’t bone thin like a lot of women these days. The baggy costume she wore hinted of well-rounded curves and she gave the impression of being strong and capable. Different shades of blonde glistened in her long hair as she turned her head to search for him. But the eyes! The eyes were what made her special.
Joseph watched Maeve from a far corner, satisfied to see her looking for him now.
She knows I’m here for her!
Now he knew. Now he understood the power that had been given to her. And he knew that it had been given to her for him to use. Satisfied that she had indeed nurtured her gift, at least to some extent, he knew she would be useful to him just as he hoped.
Joseph thought for a moment as his eyes traveled around the room, far from amused at the ridiculous behavior of the people crowding the large structure. He almost wished he could feel pity for the senselessness of their lives, though not one of them would be worthy of his attention. But he was an unemotional man, he reminded himself with a sigh, and after all, his patience had paid off and he would soon have what he needed to separate himself from the goings on of every day society. Joseph watched Maeve as he passed through the door and was satisfied to see her looking for him now. Then he walked out to the truck he had parked in the lot and drove south, away from the ugly little town. He had work to do and then he would settle in and wait for the woman to come to him.
*****
Chapter 3
The last time somebody disappeared in the valley he had shown up five years later in Mexico, drinking Margaritas and enjoying the simple life. The guy had been a teacher and well respected in the community, but the responsibilities of day to day life had finally got him down. So he ran his car into the river and left everyone thinking he drowned. You just never could tell what someone was going to do.
Detective Kyle Worth sat on an over-sized leather sofa and studied the round, sweet face of the middle aged woman perched on the edge of the chair across from him. Tears of worry and frustration were beginning to spill over onto her perfectly made up cheeks and she was on the verge of falling completely apart.
Lillian had become terribly concerned about her boyfriend after he failed to keep a date yesterday morning, and she had been unable to reach him since. His office staff, family and friends had all been contacted but no one claimed to have seen or heard from him since Friday evening.
As far as Worth could tell, the good Doctor Makula had stayed late for a critical patient, something he did more often than not, and usually solo. He routinely sent the rest of his staff home to their families long before he finished his last appointment.
“Glenn works so hard, and his practice means everything to him.” Lillian’s voice kept breaking as she tried to make him understand. She twisted the handkerchief in her hands until it was ready t
o fall apart.“We had Saturday plans for weeks, and he would never do this.”
“You didn’t argue, have words over anything?”
“We never argue, there just isn’t anything in our lives to fight about,” Lillian assured him in response to Kyle’s last question, bringing his attention back to the conversation. By all accounts Dr. Makula was a hardworking man who was devoted to his practice, and though most considered him slightly remote, even arrogant at times, not one of them thought he would leave town without letting his staff know if he had made plans to be gone.
The thing was, all of his clothes were still hanging right where they should be. His luggage was stacked in the closet and his underwear folded and placed very precisely in the oversized dresser drawers. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that he had left unexpectedly.
Worth was working diligently to cover all the bases and so far hadn’t come up with a thing. Forty-eight hours had passed since anyone had seen Glenn Makula, and things weren’t looking good. All he could do was offer assurances to the distraught woman and keep beating the bushes for signs of the doctor’s vehicle, and keep his fingers crossed that they didn’t find a body with it.
*****
Chapter 4
They left Sunday afternoon, but by the time Maeve’s mother had talked her into going out to lunch and then having to prod the girls repeatedly to get their things together and loaded in the car, it was much later in the day than Maeve had intended and they didn’t arrive home until well after dark. The girls slept most of the way, leaving Maeve’s mind free to wander over her plans for the week.
Reviewing what she could remember of her schedule, she made a mental note to take the girls shopping for new coats and gloves. They were growing so fast! She felt a pang of sadness that they weren’t small anymore. They had been beautiful babies and she missed their chubby little hands and cheeks and the way their tiny teeth made her think of perfect pearls when they smiled. They were both in braces now, and had lost that layer of baby fat a long time ago. Now they were growing tall and slender like their dad. That was another blessing Maeve counted every day; that they had gotten the skinny gene from their father.
The girls had a dentist’s appointment on Thursday and she added that to her mental calendar, mumbling to herself as she went down the list of things she needed to do.
She’d started talking to herself a lot lately and wondered if she should be concerned. Maybe she was starting to lose it a little and she’d be like her paranoid, demented grandmother before too long. Maybe the paranoia part was already starting to set in, considering she had been on edge the whole weekend. She tried to narrow the feeling down to something she could focus on, but visions of the strange man in the haunted house kept flitting in and out of her thoughts.
Adding to her confusion were details of the dream Claire had talked about. Now why would she be putting those two completely unrelated issues together? It didn’t make any sense and she tried unsuccessfully to put the whole thing out of her mind.
The girls were waking up just as Maeve pressed the button for the garage door opener and pulled the car in. Since tonight was actually Halloween, there was a smattering of teenage trick-or-treaters wandering the neighborhood and the couple who lived across the street sat out in the driveway passing out candy.
Maeve tooted her horn and waived, then opened the trunk to lift out the suitcases and drag them inside.
The girls crawled sluggishly out of the car and headed into the house to get ready for bed.
Claire let out a screech that had Maeve dropping the bags.
“Mom, somebody’s in the house!” she squealed.
“No there’s not,” a perplexed Torei said from the doorway, “but there’s water everywhere and it sounds like it’s still running.”
Maeve immediately shoved the girls back toward the car, grabbed her cell phone and walked quietly to the door.
It was bitter cold outside under a crystal clear sky, but there was no denying she could hear the inexplicable sound of falling rain coming from inside the house.
She felt fairly safe with all the activity going on right outside so she reached for the door and pushed it open. She stood and stared, struck dumb by the steady stream of water that poured from the ceilings and flooded everything in the house.
“Oh my God.” She started into the house but only got a few feet before she realized that the ceilings were gone. Pounds of sopping wet sheet rock and popcorn texture were strewn across most of the floor. The furniture was completely ruined there and in the bedrooms as well, where water continued to spray from the pipes that were now exposed in the ceiling.
“Uh oh,” the girls had come in behind her and were staring around in awe at the devastation caused by the gushing water.
“What’s going on Mom, what happened?” Torei asked, her deep cornflower blue eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“Oh hell! It looks like the refrigeration guys didn’t get over here to winterize the swamp cooler and the pipes froze and broke. I’ll call the landlord and see what he wants us to do.”
Maeve sat down on the step and took a couple of deep breaths. She wanted very much to cry, but she’d been through a lot worse in her life and tears seemed like a ridiculous waste of energy over a problem that could so easily be solved. Besides, she could always have a meltdown later. Instead she picked up the phone and started dialing.
“We’ll have to spend the next few days in a hotel, there’s no way can we stay here.” Maeve told the girls after she hung up. In an effort to calm herself as much as the kids she added brightly, “We’ll just pretend we’re on vacation until we get things straightened out.”
Two hours later a very tired and bedraggled mother and her two young daughters finished registering at a local hotel and carried their bags up to their room on the third floor.
It wasn’t until she was falling asleep that Maeve remembered the dream Claire had talked about from two nights before. Maeve wondered, as she had so many times in her life, if the dream had been a vision of the future, or if the future was the result of the dream.
*****
Monday morning dawned cloudy and cold, with the wind whipping the tree limbs and throwing the dead brown leaves violently through the air. Maeve watched the whirling debris through the hotel window, pacing the floor while she talked to Beth. The beautiful and energetic young woman had come to work for EIR almost two years ago after she decided that she wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. She was bright and efficient and could handle just about anything, and she was also Maeve’s dearest friend, so Maeve shared the events from the night before with as much humor as she could muster.
“Sheesh, Maeve, what a mess. If you wanted new furniture you should have just gone out and gotten it and passed on all the drama,” she joked. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything here and call you on your cell if anything needs your immediate attention. Do you think you’ll be in tomorrow?”
“It shouldn’t take me any more than a day to get everything situated, but we’ll probably be here at the hotel for the rest of the week. The contractors have to wait for everything to dry out before they can replace the ceilings and carpet, but we may be able to move back in next weekend. I’ll check in with you later and see how things are going.”
“Take your time.” Beth assured her that there wasn’t anything there that she couldn’t handle for the moment.
“Thanks, Beth, I owe you one.” Maeve hung up feeling confident that everything was under control, then called the school to have the girls excused from class. The two chatted happily at the lucky disaster that allowed them an extra day off from school and discussed in great detail the stories they would have to tell their friends tomorrow.
The hotel offered a large indoor swimming pool, viewed through a wall of glass that extended from the south side of the lobby approximately sixty feet to the north exit and was decorated with palm trees and tropical plants. The girls were on a mission to make the most of their
free day and they’d been nagging her for the past hour to let them spend the day at the pool.
“Can’t we go swimming, Mom, please?” Torei pleaded. She lounged in her trademark position in the center of the unmade bed, propped on her elbows with her legs bent and her feet in the air.
“Doesn’t that hurt your back?” Maeve stood with her hands on her hips, wrinkling her nose and studying Torei’s posture as her legs swung back and forth like a ticking pendulum.“It can’t be good for you to lie on your stomach like that all the time.”
Claire had been begging to go swimming all morning and she sat forward eagerly as she saw one more opportunity to try and persuade her mother to give in.“Well, if we could go swimming, it would give her a chance to stretch her muscles and she won’t be lying on her stomach.” Claire offered the suggestion in her most mature and logical tone, her expression as serious as a trial court lawyer who knew she couldn’t win.
“Ha ha, not happening,” said Maeve with a scowl.“I have some things to do before we leave and then we have a lot of shopping to do, remember?“Why don’t you two take a shower and get dressed now. I’m going to call the insurance company and get the claim started while you get ready.”
Like the energetic children they were, they began tossing clothes out of their luggage, talking animatedly and bickering over which of them would get the bathroom first.
Maeve followed behind, scolding them for the minor disaster area they had managed to create and trying, as always, to restore order amidst the chaos.
*****
There were mothers dragging their tired and fussy children from store to store, men as well as women of all ages dressed in suits and ties grabbing hurried lunches before rushing back to the office, and groups of young women in two’s and three’s in search of just the right outfit for a night out on the town. Maeve didn’t like to judge, but she sure hoped they would choose something more flattering than the too tight bottoms and skimpy tops that showed off more than one oozing muffin top. She wondered for the umpteenth time when that look had come in to fashion. Maeve seemed to constantly be checking for her own pastry growth these days and she straightened her posture a little just to make sure nothing was hanging over the top of her jeans.