Family Murders: A Thriller (2 page)

At first she couldn't believe it. Hers had been only car in the lot, but this car must have come from the lot too—the road had no other nearby entrances. She couldn't figure it out for a second, but then she had it. The employees must park somewhere, the acne-faced kid must have parked somewhere. Maybe behind the building.

Could this be him? The headlights got closer. Could this be some kid leaving after his shift? Angela made a left and held her breath. Just when she let the air out of her lungs, two beams slewed around the corner and attached themselves to the Celica's trunk. There was a high-pitched whining that could have been a gear shift, lower to higher.

She took a right into a subdivision. This was her alternate route home, the one she rarely took. No one was out this time of night, and the world was plenty full of subdivisions. It seemed a slim chance that some supermarket worker would just happen to live here of all places.

Or maybe not. Two headlights appeared behind her, two headlights with the same spacing, the same brightness. Angela realized the follower's brights were on. Even at this distance, they blinded her to any other details.

For some reason, the rudeness of that was her tipping point between fear and anger. She'd had enough, and gunned the engine for home. Get home, she thought, get safe. The headlights were still getting closer and closer, but the Celica's engine seemed maxed out. She couldn't go any faster. Up ahead was a familiar mailbox, and with a final twist of the wheel, her car turned down the driveway. She hit the brakes and threw it into park. And waited.

At the end of the drive a big engine slowed, then sped up, and two bright headlights flew past her down the road. In a few seconds Angela's heart stopped racing, and she started feeling foolish.

"Let's get this straight," she said to herself, "a guy talked to you in the store and then there was a car behind you on the road. Wow, sounds scary." She swallowed the lump in her throat, grabbed the ice cream, and went inside to her family.

Tuesday, October 9th, 1990

3

Julie looked up from her asparagus. Earlier she had tried feeding it to Rocky, but even he wasn't having it.

"When is dessert?" she asked

"When you finish your vegetables, sweetheart."

Julie started to pout, then looked over at the counter and the cake Ted had picked up earlier today, a white one covered in pink roses he had thought would be appropriate. Angela watched Julie's eyes narrow and knew she was thinking it through, weighting the benefits of cake against the cost of actually eating her asparagus.

"Okay, Mommy," Julie said. She held her nose and started eating in tiny bits.

Angela looked around the table at her family—Julie already starting to think like a young woman, Ted looking at her too and grinning—and felt near total contentment. Her right hand jumped up to her chest, and she sighed.

"I love all of you." Julie appeared unmoved, completely focused on somehow managing to eat without tasting. Ted reached up and took his wife's hand off her heart. She hadn't told his about the store. The time had never seemed right.

"I love you too, Angela." His smile turned into a frown. "What about Klaus? Are you sure you two are going to be alright tonight without me?"

"It's just a storm, Ted," said Angela.

"It's a hurricane."

"No, they downgraded it, it's a tropical depression. But the only depression I'm going to feel is when you leave."

Ted groaned and Angela laughed. Sappy romance was one of their inside jokes. He squeezed her hand a little more tightly. "Don't kid about that. You know I hate taking all these business trips. I hate being away from here."

"Oh, sure, Ted. That's why you spent half the day mowing the lawn."

"Hey now, that's my 'me' time," he said. "Gotta get centered before something like this you know." Next to the door was a suitcase, garment bag slung over it, ready to go. Ted was planning on cutting out of his own celebration dinner to fly to St. Louis.

"I just hope the partners appreciate how much you give up for them by doing these trips every other week."

"They do, Angela. And it'll come back to us. In spades. Someday soon I'll be here all the time."

"And who'll go to St. Louis for a short notice deposition?"

"Someone younger," said Ted, trying for grin. Angela laughed again.

"Now you're fishing for pity. Do you need me to say it? Okay, you're not that old."

"Daddy? Daddy is old. Daddy! You're old!" As always, Julie added her distinctive point of view to the conversation.

"Thanks, peanut. Alright everybody, I think that about wraps it up for me. I've got to get to the airport if I'm going to make this flight before the weather hits."

"Daddy, will you take me with you?"

Ted picked up his daughter. "Maybe I could just make you my carry-on, take you on under my arm, like this." With his other arm, he picked up his luggage and walked out the door. It was no trouble for a man over six feet with broad shoulders.

After he'd packed his things in the trunk, Angela and Julie stood next to the driveway and waved as Ted pulled out. He stopped on the street and called back through the open window.

"Save me some cake!"

Angela and Julie watched him head west, into the sunset. "Remember, Mommy, it's bad luck to watch someone out of sight."

"Yes," Angela said, "it is." They waited until Ted's sedan was a distant speck nearing the bend in the road, then turned and walked inside.

***

Two hours later Angela found herself shuttled between the darkness of sleep and the darkness of the world around her. One too many celebratory pieces of cake had induced an idea into her head, the idea that she should rest her eyes—just for a second. Angela got up at dawn every morning for a jog; late hours and cake were a dangerous combination. A jerking back and forth on her arm made her suddenly awake.

"Mommy. Mommy!" Julie was pulling on her, shaking her awake, but Angela couldn't see her. Her eyes were open, but the house was completely black. Angela's skin went cold. This was all wrong. At the very least, the photosensitive floodlights should be on at this time of night. She held tight to Julie's hand and pulled her into an embrace, her mouth close to her daughter's ear.

"Julie," she whispered, "why did you turn out the lights?"

"They just went out."

"What do you mean?"

"I was playing here on the floor, and there was a bang. A loud bang. The lights…they went out."

Rain lashed the windows, underscored by what sounded like thunder. But it was too consistent, too omnipresent, to be thunder. A flash of lightning lit the room, then another, revealing Rocky at the sliding glass door leading to the deck at the back of the house. He was crouched low to the ground, tail pointed down. Angela had never seen him like that, knew nothing about dogs, but understood instinctively that he was lowering his center of mass in a kind of preparation. His lips were pulled back, and the lighting flashed off his canines. The rumble Angela had heard was coming from his throat and seemed emanate in all directions. It was a visceral thing, a deep bass, that had the power to reach out and slide a finger across your internal organs. Instantly, she knew that something was out there.

She felt the tingle of adrenaline as it flooded her heart, then the tremble of cardiac acceleration. Without thinking she was up, off the couch, and backpedaling across the living room carpet, one hand still locked around Julie's wrist. Whatever was outside the door, Angela didn't want to know about it—was prepared to forget about it—assuming it would just go away.

"You're hurting me."

Angela gasped, then shot her other hand out to cover her daughter's mouth.

"Quiet. You've got to be quiet. If you need to talk, whisper." Julie nodded. Angela dropped her and and knelt to put her mouth close to her daughter's ear again.

"Mommy, Rocky's acting weird. He's been acting weird since you went to sleep."

"Do you remember when we talked about emergencies?"

Julie's eyebrows went up and her eyes widened. Her upper lip started to tremble. She grabbed onto Angela's arm and held on tight.

"Is this an emergency, Mommy?"

"I don't know, sweetie, but I think we should be careful, don't you?"

Julie nodded slowly, old enough to to follow the logic behind better safe than sorry.

"What do we do in an emergency like this, sweetie? When Daddy's not home and something bad happens?"

"We go to our rooms and hide, and wait for Mommy to come get us."

"That's right, Julie. Go to your room. Wait for me there. Don't make a sound." Angela pushed Julie towards the stairs. Silent as a ghost she was up them, and gone.

Sending her daughter to wait alone in the dark raised the bile in Angela's throat. She'd spent too many nights like that during her childhood, waiting for her father to come home. Of course, sometimes she didn't hide. That was worse.

Thinking about her father transformed Angela's distress into outrage, and then into a kind of maternal fury. Her daughter was curled up under her bed, or buried in her closet, and whoever or whatever was at their door had caused it. Her hands clenched into fists. She stood up, faced the door, started forward.

"Easy boy. Easy Rocky." Angela ran her hand up through the short, stiff hairs on the back of his neck. Usually, when Rocky was riled up, she would grab him by his collar. Now her hand ran over it, past it, and came to rest on the top of his head. Her face was close to the glass in the sliding door.

It was dark out there. If there had been any lights in the house at all, Angela would have been staring eye-to-eye with her own reflection, totally unable to see anything else. Suddenly the darkness in the house seemed an advantage: she might not be able to see out, but at least no one could see in.

A bolt of lightning cracked across the sky and lit up the back yard. It was about an acre square, flat and lined on all three sides by stands of trees that reached back far from the house. The terrain seemed unusual to Angela, the yard somehow rougher than she had ever seen it. Out at the edge of the yard, something was moving.

Up. Down. Up. Down. It didn't seem like the movements of a person, but she couldn't see much. The edge of their deck was in the way, and Hurricane Klaus continued to spend itself against the glass. Some of the rain drops were moving sideways, some down, making a lattice that obscured her view of the yard.

Despite everything, Angela realized she was curious. Her hand went to the door handle. The other one got a firm grip on Rocky's collar, and then she pulled the glass open and stepped outside.

It was a shock. The rain hitting her in the face felt like hail, more solid than liquid. Rocky started pulling on her firmly. He didn't run; rather, he moved forward fluidly, purposefully, like a lion stalking his prey. Angela's hold on him was nothing more than a distraction, and in a few seconds he had pulled them to the edge of the deck. They were standing there, looking out, when lightning punched its thousand watt glow down into the yard.

Holes. Holes everywhere. The yard was covered with holes. In the darkness they had been impossible to pick out, nothing more than shadows, but for a second she could see that each one had a small mound next to it, a small pile of black earth. Rocky picked that moment to make his move. With one smooth movement he wrenched free of Angela's grip, leapt over the wooden bench surrounding the edge of the deck, and was traveling across the lawn like a shot, bad leg and all. He threaded his way between the holes, heading for a spot near the yard's rear corner. Angela stiffened in alarm and started down the deck's steps.

"Rocky!"

Rocky was barking, then snarling, then growling. Suddenly there was a yelp, but it was distinctly human.

Lighting flashed again. A figure, tall enough that Angela felt sure it was a man, stood dressed all in black. He was holding Rocky off with some kind of stick. Her worst fear was realized; someone was out here after all. Without thinking, her throat tightened into a shout.

"Rocky!" This time her scream found some momentary pause in the storm.

Man and dog both looked back at her. For a moment, everything was frozen. The dark figure dropped the stick, turned, and ran. There was a peal of thunder, and then the only evidence he was ever there at all were two swinging branches. Rocky stayed exactly where he was, triumphant. The threat was away from the house, so he stood still and continued to guard his territory.

Angela walked the last thirty feet to Rocky, to where the man had been standing. On the ground, at the edge of the woods, was a shovel. In the ground at her feet was a hole. Already, it was filling with rain.

She watched the water level rise. A plastic bag, lifted from below by trapped air, bobbed to the surface. She reached in, picked it up, turned it over. Though the mud and the water there was a glint of silver metal. It looked like a necklace, but she couldn't say for sure. It was dark and hard to see.

It may have been dark, it may have been hard to see, but just for a second—just before he turned and ran—Angela would have sworn the man had been wearing sunglasses.

Pink ones.

Wednesday, October 10th, 1990

4

"He was right there."

Angela had one arm and one finger extended, pointing toward the back of the yard. Her other arm was wrapped tight around her chest, the first two fingers clutching a cigarette. She had quit smoking two years earlier.

"Mrs. Gray, I can understand why you would insist someone come out here. You're freaked out. Hearing that story, I'd be a little freaked out too. But look at it from my perspective—what exactly am I supposed to write down here?"

Frank Cooper looked at her from the other side of the deck, resting his pen and notebook on the knee of his brown flannel pants. His blazer was mismatched; his tie had the telltale signs of being slipped on each morning and off each night without ever being re-knotted. His hair was the same color as the overcast sky, unusual for a man who only seemed to be in his late forties. Most unusual of all, the eyebrows on his craggy face were still a dark brown. The mismatch was jarring.