Jack Stone - Wild Justice (7 page)

Stone raised an eyebrow. “You have a morning rush?”

“Sure. A lot of the travellers stop in for breakfasts if they’ve been driving through the night. That kind of thing.”

Stone thought about that. “Do you get many locals at the diner?”

“Sure,” Lilley said again. “There’s only my diner and a café on Main Street within twenty miles of Windswept. And the café had a health food violation last fall, so I get more than my share of the business.”

Stone did a bit more thinking. “Had you ever seen those two men before, Lilley? Those men who came into the diner yesterday, I mean.”

“Not at the diner, no.”

“But around town? Maybe driving. Did you ever pass their SUV or see it parked around town at any time?”

Lilley made a face to show she was thinking, digging back into recent memories. Stone knew that not a lot happened in a town like Windswept. If a strange vehicle was getting around, or a couple of strange men, people were likely to notice, and be curious.

“I don’t
recall…” she said slowly. “I’m at work all day, and I don’t get home till nearly sunset, but I don’t remember noticing them or their vehicle before yesterday.”

Stone finished his coffee. “Is there a bar in town?”

“Of course. On Main Street, across from the police station.”

“Just one?”

“We only need one. Why? Are you a drinker?”

Stone smiled. “I never touch the stuff
, because I like to keep a clear head,” he said. “Like I told you yesterday, Lilley, I’m a simple man. Coke when it’s hot, coffee when it’s cold. But it’s been my experience that bars are a good place to find people, or to find information.”

Lilley shrugged. “Most people go to a library.”

“Yes, but most people aren’t looking for the kind of information I’m after,” Stone countered. Then he paused for a long moment and frowned, fired the next question off without warning and watched for Lilley’s reaction carefully. “Have you ever heard of a man named Harper?”

“
Harper?” Lilley repeated the name aloud slowly, like the sound of her saying it might jolt something in her memory. “Is that his first name or last?”

“Unknown.”

Lilley thought hard. “I don’t think so,” she admitted. “It doesn’t sound familiar. Why? Is he important?”

Stone nodded. “I think so. I think that’s the name of the man who receives the women for brainwashing
to become sex slaves. The other name I’ve heard him being called is ‘the Animal Trainer’. He’s the one I’m after, Lilley. He’s the one who will have answers about my sister.”

“And you think this man lives in Windswept?”

“No. I don’t, but I’m hoping someone here has a connection to him. I’m hoping to find Harper through the man I find here.” Stone put his cup in the sink and rinsed it out with cold water, left it upturned on the counter to drain itself dry. Then he asked another question.

“Have you seen any other strangers around town over the past few months
– apart from the two men at the diner yesterday? Anyone who just seemed to be hanging around for a few days, no apparent reason for being here?”

“Maybe…” Lilley said, but her tone was vague and uncertain.
“I don’t know… why?”

Stone shrugged. “I was just thinking about those two men. They were frustrated when they came into your diner. I mean, really frustrated. One of the guys said something about never getting away from Windswept.
Something like that. I got the feeling they were impatient. Like they were forced to wait here for something they expected to be ready for them. So I started to wonder what they might be waiting for, or why there was a delay. Then I started to wonder if maybe they weren’t the first strangers in these parts over recent months.”

Lilley
glanced up at the clock on the wall and finished her coffee in a rush. “If I think of anything I’ll let you know when I get home tonight,” she said. She came to the sink and set her cup next to Stone’s. “I have to go,” she said. Then, before she could change her mind and before Stone could react, Lilley stretched up on tip-toes, put her hands flat against the muscular broad expanse of Jack Stone’s chest and kissed him. Her lips were soft. The touch of them burned Stone like a tiny jolt “I hope you have a good day. I’ll see you tonight,” she said. Her voice was quivering and husky. Then she spun on her heel and snatched up her handbag. She was out the front door and in the Chevy before Stone had the chance to see the embarrassed, aroused flush of heat that colored her cheeks burning bright red.

Eleven.

Stone left soon after. He didn’t feel right being in Lilley’s house alone, so he pulled the front door locked behind him and stepped out onto the footpath. He looked left, following the straight line of West Street with his eyes, taking in the rest of the houses quickly. They all looked similar in style and condition to Lilley’s shack, and he doubted he would discover much.
He could see cross-streets, and figured this was the residential area of the town. Then he looked right, back towards Main Street. It was just past 7am, and apart from a delivery truck idling at the intersection with its indicator flashing, the road was empty.

He turned
that way and began walking back towards the intersection.

The morning was already warm, the air still and dry. The sun was a ball of fire, just cresting the horizon in
to another cloudless blue sky. Stone reached the intersection of Main and West in a matter of minutes. He turned left, and began walking past the shop fronts he had seen from Lilley Pond’s car the night before.

Twelve.

At that time of the morning
, only the general store and a laundromat were open on this side of the street. Stone walked the length of Main Street, bypassing both businesses, just taking in the surroundings and getting a feel for the town. Windswept was still asleep. There was no traffic, no pedestrians. Eerily quiet.

There were about thirty shops on this side of the road, and about the same opposite. Some of the buildings were empty
, their glass windows dusted over, cobwebs gathering in the corners and signwriting faded and flaking. As he passed the little general store he saw an elderly man with a creased wrinkled face stacking bags of pet food out on the sidewalk. Stone nodded to the man, said nothing.

The old man ignored him.

Stone walked on, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans.

The last building on this side of Main Street was a bar. There was a small neon sign in the window that was turned off, but Stone could still make out the words, ‘Stan’s Bar’.
Below where the sign had been fixed, was a faded, yellowed piece of paper with an invitation to a St. Patrick’s night party that had been held months ago. He stood close to the window, pressed his nose to the glass and cupped his hands around his face to cut down on glare. The interior was gloomy. Stone could see a jukebox in the corner, and a television mounted on the wall high above a long timber counter. The floor space was clustered with timber tables, their chairs stacked on top of them so the cleaners could do their job.

Stone stepped back from the window. The door was timber, with ornate iron hinges to create a period effect
. The door was padlocked. He turned around. Across the road was the police station. It was a low single-story building, built from the same drab red brick as every other building he had passed. There was a low wall out front of the station, also made of brick, and a path that led to the station’s front door. Set into the brick wall in shiny steel letters were the words, ‘Windswept Police Department’. Stone studied the building. There were small square windows facing the street, all with bars across them, all with the shades pulled down, and a clump of scraggly bushes beside a driveway that lead down the far side of the building. Maybe there was off-street parking for the staff behind the building, he guessed, or maybe there was another structure behind the façade he was looking at.

There was a nest of antennae on the roof, and two of the windows had cheap aluminum awnings over them, shading the glass from the sun.

Stone followed the road with his eyes, staring out of town, into the distance towards a low blue range of mountains.

The road ran straight as an arrow for as far as Stone could see – one continuing two-lane strip of blacktop in a featureless environment. He figured the police station marked the town’s limits, because beyond this line was just another expanse of flat open desert.

He turned back and stared along the hunched cluster of buildings he had just walked past. Checked his watch. It was still early. He crossed the street, and started walking back the way he had come.

The shops on this side of the street looked no different to the ones he had just walked past; same collection of big windows,
red-brick buildings and closed doors. He noticed the café Lilley Pond had mentioned. The door was open, and a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and wearing an apron over his clothes was carrying a chair and a big red advertising umbrella out through the door to set up on the sidewalk. Stone stopped at the shop before the café and glanced inside the window. It was some kind of a sewing shop. He could see bolts of colored material in racks against the side wall, a long white-topped counter next to a cash-register, and another long bench set against the opposite wall with three sewing machines. The man came back out of the café with a small square table, and set the post of the umbrella down through a cut hole in the table’s center. Then he pushed the chair in neatly under the table and pulled a laminated menu from a pocket sewn into his apron. The man set the menu on the tabletop and was about to step back into the café. Stone smiled a greeting.

“Excuse me,” he
called out, his tone friendly. “I’m new in town. Just arrived yesterday. I was wondering if you could help me out.”

The man looked suspicious.
Jack Stone was an intimidating figure. He looked him up and down carefully, maybe trying to assess whether he was any kind of threat.

“What do you need?” the man asked cautiously.

“Just directions,” Stone said. “I was wondering if there was a library in town.”

The man nodded, still wary, but
a little less so. Stone kept his hands in his pockets, kept well out of the man’s personal space. Just stood back and asked politely.

“Round the corner,” the man pointed further along Main Street. “When you get to the intersection, turn left. That’s East Street. The library is next to the church.”

Stone raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised. “I thought all churches were built on hills,” Stone said.

The man didn’t seem amused. His expression became frosty. “Look around, bud,” the man said. “Do you see any hills?”
and then he disappeared back into the café and didn’t come back out.

Stone shrugged. He started walking again. He reached the intersection and stood on the corner just looking around.

There was traffic now – a scattering of cars coming from the direction of West Street. Probably locals heading off to work, or wherever they
went for the day, he guessed. There were no cars coming into town. No traffic on the turnoff road approaching from the direction of the highway at all, just a light stream of vehicles all heading away from the place. He turned left. East Street was a series of vacant lots, overgrown with weed-like dry grass. It was as though the area might have been set aside for development in years gone past, but the developers had never come. Two of the lots were taken up by the church. A couple of vacant lots beyond it was the Windswept town library.

Stone went up three low stairs and stood at the library’s front door. It was glass with a wide aluminum brace-bar across the middle of the door to reinforce it and to divide the glass panel into halves. The bottom half of the door was covered with some kind of a community health poster that had been sticky-taped from the inside. The top panel of glass had a small white cardboard sign with the library opening hours, printed neatly but not perfectly, probably by one of the staff using their best handwriting.

The library wouldn’t open until 9.30am. Stone glanced at his watch. He had some time to kill.

He went back along Main Street to the café. The man was standing behind a wide glass counter, sliding cakes and slices onto display shelves.

“Find the library?”

Stone nodded. “Yeah. It’s not open yet.”

The man said nothing. Gave Stone a look as if to say, ‘of course not, stupid.’ Stone glanced up at the blackboard above the man’s head. There was a column of chalked menu items under a ‘Breakfast’ heading, and another column under a ‘Lunch’ heading. Stone thought about ordering, then remembered Lilley Pond had mentioned a food violation. He didn’t take the chance.

“Can I
get a Coke, please?”

“You want that in a glass or in a can?”

“Can.”

The man took Stone’s money and nodded to a large glass-fronted refrigerator. “Help yourself,” he said.

Stone took the can of Coke back outside and sat at the sidewalk table. Stretched out, drank slowly. Watched the traffic passing by, not really looking for anything, but noticing everything.

Gradually the town seemed to be coming alive. He saw shop doors opening one by one, and a couple of cars pulled over and parked as townsfolk went about their daily business. The sun crept over the roofline of the buildings and blasted down on the sidewalk.