Distant Memory (16 page)

Massey stepped in front of him, his eyes flashing with a burning, searing rage. McCullers stared in confusion. Massey’s mouth was pulled tight, his shoulders set, and he wore an expression that could freeze water. McCullers had seen expressions of fear, terror, uncertainty, and anger, but nothing like what he was seeing now. For the first time in his life, he felt the chill of terror.

Raising a thick finger, Massey spoke loudly. “If you move, if you bat an eye or say a word, I’ll tie you to the back of the car and drag you to death. Got it?”

McCullers was enraged. With a loud roar, he charged, swinging his large fist at his companion’s head.

Again McCullers landed hard against the car. He straightened himself and charged, throwing punches. Massey easily deflected each attack. Screaming obscenities, McCullers renewed his futile attack with kicks and punches. Massey blocked and deflected them all, then threw a rocket-fast fist. McCullers saw it too late.

Everything went dark.

S
he knew it was a dream, yet it frightened her. Her subconscious would allow neither logic to take control nor reason to assert itself. Instead a series of hot emotions poured through her mind, shaking her, drawing her, abducting her into a world of bizarre images, garish colors, and uncontrollable sensations.

Lisa was floating above the earth, circling it in a rapid, wild, and erratic orbit. Below her a blue, green, and white orb spun on its axis like a child’s top, spinning, spinning. It wobbled as it plied its course through space. The sight was terrifying. All those countries, all those people would certainly die if the earth did not correct itself.

The detail she could see amazed her. At first the globe, then layers of clouds, land formations, cities, buildings, trains, buses, cars. And still her vision continued to focus. People were walking on the streets: A mother held the hand of a young girl; a father played catch with his son; a small group gathered in a circle, each holding and studying from a book. This last one struck an emotional chord with her.

The bitter cold of airless space began to seep into her body, passing through her skin as if it were but tissue paper. With each passing second, she became colder. The chill of absolute zero pressed in invasively until it froze the marrow of her bones. Still she lived, she saw, she experienced all that was around her.

Floating free of gravity, free from the confines of a spacesuit, Lisa watched as her planet bobbed and quivered as it streaked by the black, starry backdrop. She circled the world again, orbiting faster and faster. She was falling, dropping like a rocky meteor from some unknown region of space. As she spiraled closer and closer to the earth, she panicked, flailing and whipping her arms in a futile, frenetic motion.

Lisa screamed again, but this time no sound came from her mouth.

The dream changed as only dreams can do. Now she was in her car, her Lexus, plummeting to the ground. Dream or no dream, she was about to die. She knew that.

Light reflected off her rearview mirror, stabbing her sensitive eyes. Gazing into the bright beams, she struggled to make out the source of illumination. She saw two lights—headlights—closing in on her at a frightening speed. The sound of a horn echoed through the car. It sounded again and again, bellowing like a rogue elephant.

Her heart pounded percussively, her head shrieked in pain. She was going to be rammed. She pressed the accelerator as if spinning wheels - could propel her faster. She turned the wheel of the car. Nothing happened. And still the lights closed the distance between them. The lights. The horn. The spinning earth. The descent, the fall, the fear.

Then the sound of screeching metal erupted in her ears, and her head snapped back. Her car lurched forward and began to spin out of control. As she turned, she could see the headlights and the vehicle that had been pursuing her—a red Dodge Ram pickup truck. It spun out of her sight as she was rammed again. Now her car was flipping and spinning. Stars came into her view, the earth, the truck, then …

Lisa sat straight up in bed, sucking air. Perspiration trickled down her forehead. Her chest heaved as she gasped for sweet air.

“Oh, Lord,” she prayed. The words seemed natural to her, normal to her speech. “Oh, Lord.”

Looking around, she struggled to make sense of her location. She
was sitting on a strange bed in a strange room in an unknown house. Swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress, Lisa sat, willing her thundering heart to calm and her shaking hands to still. Her mind raced. The dream was so real, so powerful, so dreadful.

Taking a deep breath, she held it for a few seconds, and then slowly released it. She repeated the act several times until her tripping heart settled into a normal beat. Her confusion began to clear up. The room was not strange. She remembered having walked into the room. She recalled lying down to nap. She remembered Nick and the motel room and the truck drive.

Glancing at the clock radio next to the bed she discovered that she had been asleep for only forty minutes. Something about the clock was familiar. It took only a moment for her to realize that she had seen one just like it at the Pretty Penny Motel. “How ironic,” she said softly.

She paced the large bedroom. Turning to face the dresser, she saw her image cast back at her. She was a mess. Her black hair was tousled. Her white T-shirt was severely wrinkled. Only her jeans seemed unscathed by the long trip and the thrashing dream.

She felt dirty, soiled by the grimy motel room, worn by the long drive, sticky from terror-induced perspiration. Nick’s offer of his sister’s clothing came to mind. A shower and a change of clothing would make her feel better. In the closet she found a large selection of garments.
Nick’s sister must be quite the clotheshorse
, Lisa thought. She selected a pair of striped Capri pants and checked the size by holding them up to her hips. It looked as if they would fit. She also found a white sleeveless cotton T-shirt. The size of the garment also seemed right. Nick had been correct; his sister and she were the same size. Seeing a terry cloth robe, she grabbed it. She found everything else she needed in the drawers of the dresser. She felt odd using another woman’s clothing, but she was thankful that it was available.

Two minutes later she was in the hall bath, hot water streaming
from the showerhead and caressing her body with its warm fingers. She washed her hair and scrubbed her body, focusing on every act as if she were performing surgery. Every act was meant to push away the raw emotions that lay beneath the surface. In her mind, she constructed a dam to hold back the pressure of fear and loss.

Tears began to pour from her eyes, and trying to ignore emotions that would not be denied attention, she scrubbed her bruised body hard. Sobs and ragged breathing joined her tears.

Setting the soap on the small shelf in the shower where she found it, Lisa leaned back against the cold tile, then slowly slipped down until she was sitting on the floor. As hot water rained on her head and shoulders, her eyes caught the motion of the water spiraling down the drain, disappearing from sight. It was a metaphor of her life: Everything she had known, everything she had been, was gone.

Lisa continued to weep, the sound of water pouring from the showerhead drowning out her deep sobs.

The painful throbbing in Carson McCullers’s jaw prodded him back to consciousness. He rubbed his tongue mindlessly along the front row of his teeth. One tooth felt loose. He groaned aloud and raised a hand to rub his jaw. Blinking back the blurriness from his eyes, he took in his surroundings. He was in the front passenger seat of the rental car. Next to him was Massey, who was staring out the window and holding a device that reminded McCullers of a policeman’s radar gun. “What did you hit me with? It felt like a brick.”

“You’re an idiot.” The anger in Massey’s voice was unmistakable, his words rumbling like an earthquake. “I should have left you in the street for the police to deal with.”

McCullers repositioned himself in the seat, stretching to relieve his stiff muscles. “It was a lucky punch. I didn’t see it coming.”

Massey, his face rock hard and his eyes like flint, redirected his attention to McCullers. “You do anything like that again, and I’ll make sure that it’s your last day on earth. Do you understand me?”

McCullers had been in more fights than he could remember and had never lost one, yet Massey had dropped him with one punch. Whoever he was, there would be a payback time. “They teach you to hit like that at Moyer Communications?”

“No,” Massey said flatly. He turned his attention back out the window.

A part of McCullers, a very large part, wanted to reach over and strangle the man next to him, but he thought better of it. There was more to Massey than McCullers knew, and that made him cautious. Looking around, he saw that they were parked across the street from a line of upscale homes. Between the homes, he could catch glimpses of the ocean. He had no recollection of being driven there. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes south of where you played your little game,” Massey answered. “That house is the one we want. I found the truck half a block away.”

“How do you know that’s the house?”

Massey held up the device. “I’ve been listening.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a laser-based listening device. It lets me listen to what’s going on in the house.”

McCullers knew of such devices. The devices projected a laser beam on a windowpane and measured the vibrations made by sounds on the other side. They were extremely expensive. “What have you heard?”

“Not much of substance. The man started making calls, but I - couldn’t get much. He’s a smart one. He turned on a radio and put it by the window. He may also be using a PNG—a portable noise generator. I could only make out a few words. He mentioned a woman.”

“What man doesn’t?” McCullers said. “What’s this?” he asked,
reaching for a small electronic instrument that looked like a walkie-talkie.

“It’s a scanner,” Massey answered. “It’s set to pick up calls from cordless phones. I was hoping to listen in on any phone calls he made.”

“Let me guess: He doesn’t use a cordless phone.”

“That’s right.”

“You must be very disappointed that your toy didn’t work,” McCullers said sarcastically. “Can we get this over with?”

“First things first,” Massey replied. “I’m taking no chances. You see that unopened briefcase in the back?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Pull it up here. I want something out of it.”

“Like what?”

“Just get it,” Massey barked. “We don’t have much time. The police could roll up any minute. That family is sure to file a report. I was able to convince the woman that her husband needed to be in a hospital and that the nearest one was back in Santa Barbara.”

“Is that true?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I gave them a card.”

“You gave them a business card?” McCullers was aghast. “And you said I was an idiot.”

“It’s a dummy card. Fake name and phone number. It will take them a little while to figure that out, but not long, so we have to move fast.”

“You carry dummy business cards?”

“They have their advantages,” he said. “Now open that case.”

McCullers turned in the seat and brought the briefcase forward. Opening it, he saw two small, black plastic boxes. “What are these?” He reached for one.

“Don’t touch them,” Massey said loudly. “They’re clean. I don’t want your fingerprints on them. There are latex gloves in the other case.”

“Okay, don’t be so sensitive.”

“Those are tracking devices. They work with the global positioning
satellite system. We’re going to put one on the big rig and one on the car in the garage if there is one, and I assume there is.”

“What if he has two cars?”

“Then guess.”

“Me. You want me to do this?”

“Yes. Place them underneath the vehicles. A magnet will hold them to the chassis. We’ll be able to track them no matter where they go.”

“Why don’t we just whack them in the house and go home? Then we wouldn’t have to play with all this James Bond stuff.”

“It’s a contingency plan, McCullers. Something isn’t right here. Someone thwarted your attempts once, it could happen again.”

“Not likely.”

“Was it likely that I could knock you on your can?”

McCullers chose not to respond.

“You may be good at what you do, but you’re overconfident. You assume nothing can go wrong. Well, things do go wrong. A smart man plans for those events.”

“Okay, so I plant the tracking devices. Then what?”

“Then you come back to the car. Once I know that the traces have been planted, you can do what you were hired to do: kill the woman.”

McCullers liked that. “What about the guy?”

“I don’t care. Kill him, too, if you want, but don’t underestimate him.”

“I can handle him. He’s probably just a good Samaritan or something.”

Massey shot a hot glance at McCullers. “That’s what I’m talking about, stupid. This guy is no good Samaritan. Do the math. He appears out of nowhere in an unmarked, untraceable truck. Just in time to rescue the damsel in distress. He brings her here. When he makes a phone call, he cranks up a noise generator. Who has a noise generator in their house? Not an accountant and certainly not a truck driver. This guy’s a spook of some kind; I just don’t know what kind.”