In the House On Lakeside Drive (10 page)

“Well, you're not sleeping either, Remy,” Rachel pointed out.

“I am too.”

“Don't start with me. I heard you in with Sam last night, chatting like a couple of girls. Remember, I was a girl once.”

“Still are, last I looked.” Remy smiled, showing off even teeth and flashing his deep blue eyes.

“Smartass.”

“I know, I know.” Remy then went in to join Sam in the living room.

“How are they holding up?” their host asked as he motioned Rachel to take a seat in a dining room chair.

Rachel shrugged. “Josh is a giant ball of energy with no outlet—hence why his meds are so important. I think even his parents want to gag him, and they're two of the most patient and easygoing parents I've ever met. I know Remy was up all the first night and part of last, but that's the anxiety. Doesn't help that his routine's changed, and though he's okay now, he doesn't do change well. Or stress.”

“That sounds like autism,” Frank said. “My Lola would talk about her students sometimes.”

“Remy's on the spectrum. Really high-functioning, intelligent, but socially he's awkward. He's doing better than most—he has friends, and you've seen him with Sam—but he still makes the wrong comment, or stresses about the wrong thing. Having to live with Cooper for four years didn't help.”

“God, no. Right bastard, that man.” Short fingers rubbed a balding head. “You don't think…”

“No, though I wouldn't put it past him. Remy would've picked him out right off, even with all the other stuff going on that night. He's terrified of the man. He puts on a hell of a front, but any encounter with him sends him from zero to…” Rachel pushed her fingertips outward from each other, mimicking an explosion while exhaling loudly. “Plus, he and Remy have kind of the same accent, and Remy swears it wasn't Cooper's voice he heard.”

“Well, that's a relief. Do the police think they'll find the ones responsible?”

“I doubt it. Probably kids looking for some quick cash. Still, why they'd go taunting the boys when they had them cornered?”

“More than likely, it was just someone on a…I think the correct term now is ‘power trip.' In my day we would have called it showing off.”

Rachel sighed. “I hope so. No offense, but I'm ready to go home.”

“Surely you'll stay for dinner, at least?” The front door slammed a few times as Evan worked with the lock, and the hiss of pressurized contents being released from a can floated through the dining room.

“Well, we did pick up a turkey. Usually I'd make dressing, but boxed stuff will have to do.”

“That's fine, love. Why don't you have those poor parents over as well? I'm sure it would be easier to pack all the lads back home at once than to do it in turns.”

Rachel grinned. “Especially since I told Remy and Sam cleaning out their rooms was a priority? I'll say.” She pulled out her phone and pressed a number in speed dial. “Penny? Rachel. Listen, have you guys had dinner?”

Chapter 13

“Man, this
sucks.
”

“I'll say,” Sam agreed as he reached for the overturned bookshelf. “Found it. Ready?”

“Ready. On the count of three. One, two, three!”

The six foot shelving unit slowly leaned upright, and soon it fell flush with the wall. “Done,” Remy said. “Now you just gotta put your stuff back in it.”

Sam sighed. The rest of his things were in a giant heap in the middle of his floor. “Great. Sorting.” He made a face.

“Hey, at least you didn't have to trash your stereo,” Remy said, thinking longingly of his favorite stress reliever. “That belonged to my dad.”

“Sorry.”

“Wasn't you that broke it.” Remy flopped onto Sam's bed, jumping up slightly as his backside connected with something hard. “Ow!” he cried. “Sam!”

“Well, look where you're sitting next time. I should be the one yelling. You didn't bend my stick, did you?”

Remy handed over the object in question. “Phew,” Sam said, running his hands over his most prized possession.

“It'll live to slay dragons another day?”

A smile grew over Sam's face. “You want to come on Thursday?”

“Sure. Why not?” Remy agreed. “ Maybe even learn me a few moves…”

Sam's hands glossed over the pile of objects in front of him. He picked up a large book covered in Braille and heaved it onto a low shelf. “One down…”

“…a hundred more to go. Here, let me help.” Remy leaned next to his friend and started putting away some of the smaller pieces, like his friend's harmonica and miniature xylophone. One of the xylophone sticks was broken in two, but some duct tape could fix it until replacements could be gotten. The Perkins Brailler was set back onto a newly painted desk, and remnants of the old furniture were swept up with a noisy vacuum. “God, I hate those things,” Sam said, taking his fingers out of his ears once the noise died down.

“I know. But no one's gonna pick splinters out of the carpet. Or your feet.” Remy looked around the room, eyes searching over what remained of Sam's possessions. “What happened to your presents, Sam?”

Sam stopped. “My…oh.” He smiled. “Luckily, I mailed out my gift cards before we put up the Christmas tree. They're okay.”

“How about your stuff for Evan and Miss Rachel, though?”

The smile faded on Sam's face as he racked his brain. “Oh, yeah. I had Miss Rachel put it in their closet with the other presents. I didn't think I'd remember where I put it, and I didn't want to end up losing it. We had it wrapped at the store, so I wasn't worried about someone peeking.”

Remy smiled in relief.

“How's your room turning out?” Sam asked.

“Well, I'm in here. What does that tell you?”

“Either you're avoiding the problem or it wasn't that bad.”

Remy chuckled. “Try the former.”

Sam stood up. “Get in there and clean. This room's almost done.”

“Make me.” The hint of joviality in Remy's voice was hard to ignore.

The blind man walked toward the door. “Hey, Josh!” he called out.

“Yeah?” a loud voice called back from down the hall.

“Remy needs help getting his room in order. Wanna help me?”

There was silence. “So, how's
that
working out for you?” Remy chortled. Sam just smiled. Soon footsteps crashed down against the thin rugs covering the hardwood floors.

“Man, Remy, did you even
clean
in here?” Josh cried. “Place looks like a trash heap!”

Remy glared at Sam, who merely smiled back at him. “You
suck.
”

“Give me a hand, Josh,” Sam replied, walking confidently toward the room he knew as well as his own. “I don't wanna trip over whatever's left in there.”

“All right, enough,” Remy said, his face sullen. Sam wisely stopped, but Josh kept going until he was near the bedroom window. Soon Sam heard the sound of things shuffling and clattering in Remy's room, and quick-paced
thuds
signaling a one hundred forty pound man stopping short of running into his personal space. “Josh, enough!”

“But…Sam said he'd help…”

“Sam was teasing me,” Remy said. The irritation and anger in his voice was thick. “It wasn't funny.”

“Well, do you want help?” Josh asked. “'Cause I could…”

“
I'll
do it. Thanks.” Remy forced the last word out.

Josh slowly stepped out of the room, and as he did the door slammed with such force the walls shook. “Geez,” the younger man said. “What a grouch.”

“A grouch without meds. I don't know what I was thinking.” Sam heaved a sigh. “How are you coming on your room?”

“Fine. It's just a mess. Gotta reorganize it and everything.”

“Need help?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“But…?”

“How you gonna organize it, if you can't see? I mean, certain things have to go certain places…”

Sam smiled while remembering Josh's limitations. “Wanna find out?”

“Okay.”

Chapter 14

The next day at the school the break-in was all anyone could talk about. OLBC was a school of about two hundred students and fifty staff, and most all of them came from what was commonly referred to as the North Kingston metropolitan area. Otter Lake was the farthest to the east, followed by the titular city and Lakeside Heights to the west. The college town of Campbell lay to the south, just fifty miles away.

“I still can't believe you guys weren't hurt,” Remy's girlfriend Libby said, racing over to him as fast as her limping gait would allow. Her thick glasses offset the wide smile and bright green eyes, and freckles that lightly dotted her angular face.

“Nah, never touched us.” Remy said. “Scared the crap out of us, though.”

Down the hall Sam was getting grilled by his friend Dave, who, like him, had a need for the program's mobility services and education that OLBC offered. Unlike Sam, though, he had lost his eyes to cancer. “What do you mean, you didn't hear them right off?” he cried, shocked. “Sam, you're the first one to hear a pin drop in the middle of a crowded dance hall!”

“Josh was there first,” Sam explained. “Plus, I was asleep.”

In the rec hall, Josh's friend Walter Longoria was animatedly telling everyone how Josh had single-handedly fended off the intruders. “It-it was…it was
e-e-epic
!” he said, his high voice grating on more than a few passersby. “Amazing! Y-you worked some
m-magic
, right there!”

“Not really. I was pretty scared. I got everyone up, though!”

“That's what I'm-I'm
saying
! The im-im-important part!”

In the small staff lounge Rachel suddenly found herself the center of attention. “How bad was it?” her friend Becka Ingham asked, worry coloring her normally pale face. “God, Eric and I were so worried.”

“I heard someone say there were some things missing?” Paul Robinson asked, his dark head tilting back from his favorite chair in the back.

“Do you guys need anything? Replacements or whatever?”

“I can get something going…” piped up little Diana Reed, her plump hands whirling faster than her words came out.

Rachel raised her long arms and called for silence. “We're fine. The kids are fine, as most of you will see today. There are gonna be questions, so if no one minds, let the rest of the kids ask their questions, okay? Insurance will cover most of the stuff that went missing, and Evan's already going out today to pick up the replacements. Diana, we could use some dinner, though. Lord knows the kids have been cleaning since Sunday and they're about half done. Evan and I have been through the kitchen, and most of that's a total loss. Suffice to say, we're not doing any cooking for a while.”

“No one was hurt, though?” Paul asked.

“No, thank God. Remy's gonna put up a front, Sam is still spooked and I'm sure Walter has been telling the story of how Josh is some sort of superhero all morning. Here are the facts as we know them: Josh heard something, got everyone up, Sam confirmed there were burglars, and Remy got everyone in my and Evan's bedroom and locked the door. The police were called, and that was the end of that.”

“I heard there were three of them,” Becka said. “And that they were picking on the kids.”

Does no one in this town know how to keep their mouth shut?
Rachel wondered. “From the sounds of things, yeah, that's accurate. We still don't know why, and we might never know.”

“Thank you, Rachel, for that summary,” a voice said from the staff room door. Everyone turned to see the short figure of Rosa Mills, the building principal. “And she's right. Let the students ask questions. Know when to redirect back to the lesson. Most importantly, no one was hurt.”

A chorus of murmurs filled the room.

“So,” Rosa said, “let's get to work, shall we? And Paul, keep an eye on Walter today, would you? By lunch he'll be telling everyone
he
was chasing off a horde of giant aliens to defend the school.”

“Will do,” Paul said, heading for his first class. The rest of the staff filed out, and Rosa stopped Rachel as she tried to slip out the door. “Rachel, is there anything we can do? Time off, organize a work group, anything?”

Rachel shrugged. “The biggest hassle is food—for some reason our groceries were taken as well as the other stuff—and making it. The kitchen was the only room downstairs that was touched. The refrigerator's busted, the oven's a loss, and the only thing standing is the bar table. Plus there are the kids' rooms, but they're just about straightened up. Evan's out buying replacement stuff now as we speak.”