Chapter Four
Hunted
The thin, shrill cry split the silence of night, jerking me from a sound sleep. Ashley.
“Mom…” she whimpered from across the hall.
I was on my feet and trudging into her room immediately, groggy but steady and coming more awake by the minute. She must have had another nightmare, I realized, taking a deep breath and entering the room slowly so as not to startle the child in her already distressed state.
“Hey, baby doll. Is that you making all the noise in here?” I gently teased.
“I had a bad dream.” Her voice wavered in the dim room, her Dora the Explorer nightlight doing little to banish the deep midnight shadows that clung to the room.
“We’ve got to get you a brighter nightlight,” I muttered, more to myself than Ashley. “I’m turning the big light on, okay?”
“I’ll close my eyes,” she replied, her tiny little voice growing a bit stronger.
“There we go. Goodbye darkness. Now,” I began, moving her small form over and squeezing into the pink ruffled twin bed with her, “do you want to talk about your bad dream?” I steeled myself against the disappointment I knew was coming when she would refuse to discuss the monsters that sometimes ran through her dreams in the night. I was determined not to press her to talk about it if she didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help but feel the sharp sting of disappointment and the feelings of helplessness that went along with that rejection. I was sure that if we could just talk about the dreams, we could make them go away, together. But as I was constantly forced to remind myself, Ashley was her own person. Sometimes she was willing to talk about them, but sometimes she preferred not to drag her fears out into the open. Me forcing her to open up wouldn’t do anyone any good. Tonight, however, was one of those rare nights when she chose to open up a bit.
“I dreamed that Earl was chasing me through the streets and I told him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t so I ran into the park to hide because he had his knife instead of his gun and I’m really scared of knives,” she blurted in a mad rush, pausing halfway through her account to take a breath.
“Okay.” I nodded, mentally struggling to keep up with the child.
“So I ran into the park to hide because the park has great big giant trees, and I was going to climb up one and get away, but when I got to the park, all the trees were made of water and they were see-through, and I couldn’t climb them because they were all water. So I ran to the playground to hide in the big yellow curly slide, but it was made of water too, everything was. Even the swings,” she finished, turning fearful eyes to me.
“Oh, well see? Swings can’t be made of water.”
“Yeah, and if I touched them they went ‘poof’ and all of the water just fell on the ground. Like a water balloon. Only there was no balloon. Just the water in the shape of the swings and slides.”
“Wow. Well, that proves it then, see? It was definitely just a….” I stopped as the full weight of her words hit me. “Ashley, did you say that Earl had a knife, but not his gun?”
“Earl has a gun under his coat. Like the cowboys on TV.”
“He was wearing it in a holster?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded. “Can we watch TV in your room? I want to watch SpongeBob.”
I fought to stay calm. “Ash, why didn’t you tell me and your uncle that Earl was wearing his guns last week?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not last week. He had them on yesterday.”
“Yest-yesterday?” I stammered.
“Yes. He was mad.”
“Mad? Ashley, honey, why didn’t you tell me you saw him yesterday? It’s very important that you tell me these things.”
“But you said not to talk to him and I didn’t.”
“I also said to tell a grown-up right away if you did see him, or if any other stranger tried to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
“What happened yesterday?” I kept my tone light so that she didn’t get scared and clam up.
“He was at school.”
“No one else saw him this time?”
“My teacher talked to him. And the other kids did too. He’s gonna give us ribbons on Friday, but I don’t think he’s gonna give me one because he’s mad at me.”
“Earl was inside your school? Are you sure?”
“Yes. Are you sure he doesn’t know you? He’s really mad. He tried to talk to me when my teacher had to go to the office to answer the phone.”
“Your teacher had a telephone call and Earl was in charge,” I repeated slowly, trying to piece everything together. “She left him in charge of your class?”
“Yes, and he tried to talk to me, but I didn’t talk to him because you told me not to. He got mad. Well, he smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. And he leaned forward, and that’s how I saw his guns.”
“What did he want to talk about?” My fingers twisted around the edge of her bed sheet.
“I don’t know, but he said he would see you soon, and he smiled his mean smile again. Then my teacher came back and he left. But he is coming back to school tomorrow. Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”
“Ah. No.” I pressed a hand to my forehead.
“Yay!” She was practically bouncing with excitement.
“Are you sure it was the same man who tried to talk to you by the playground?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure that he said his name was Earl?”
“Yes. Can we go watch SpongeBob now? I can stay up late since I don’t have school tomorrow, right?”
“No and no. SpongeBob is not on right now, and it’s already the middle of the night. We will put something nice and boring on the TV. But first I want you to do something for me.”
“What?” She sat up straight.
“I want you,” I rummaged around in her nightstand, “to draw me a picture of Earl.” I produced a box of colored pencils and a writing tablet. “Can you do that?”
“Sure. Then can I watch TV?”
“Then you can watch TV,” I confirmed.
“Okay.”
She made quick work of the rough sketch and glanced up at my sharp intake of breath. “Mama?”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. For a moment, it was impossible to process what I was trying my best not to see…what I desperately wished I was not seeing. Lance. Officer Jones. Ashley had not drawn Earl at all. She had sketched Lance Jones.
The room spun, then abruptly cleared. I had to stay focused and remain calm if I was going to be of any use to Ashley, or anyone else for that matter. Besides, the last thing I needed was for Ashley to catch on to the fact that I was borderline terrified and begin to panic. Quite frankly, I was panicked enough for the both of us, and I seriously doubted my ability to calm a panicked child at the moment. If for no other reason than that, I had to keep it together. I knew this. Still, it took no small measure of grace to hold onto my composure and clear my head in order to think clearly and rationally.
“Ashley, are you sure this is who you saw?”
“Yes,” she responded slowly, confused.
“And you’re sure he told you that his name is Earl?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason, sweetie,” I replied brightly, hoping for a nonchalant tone of voice, my mind racing.
“Listen, I need to make some calls in the kitchen. Why don’t you wait here for a minute?”
“But—” she began to protest.
“You can leave the light on. Here, I’ll put on your TV too, okay? I’ll be back in one sec.”
“I guess.” She still didn’t look convinced, but apparently decided not to question it further. I walked calmly into the hallway before my nerves got the best of me and I bolted into the kitchen. Who to call first? I stared at the phone, contemplating the deceptively mundane decision. It wasn’t a mundane no-brainer at all. Who I called first would set the to
ne for how I handled the situation and ultimately, for how it played out. I had to choose wisely, because something about the situation didn’t add up.
The police, I decided, reaching for the wall phone before stopping to reconsider that move. Was calling the police on a cop, on a decorated lieutenant, a wise move? No, I decided. I could not take the chance of calling the Seattle police department. I could call another police department or the state police.
I could even try calling the FBI, although admittedly, I hadn’t the first clue of how to actually contact the FBI. I was pretty sure they weren’t listed in the yellow pages. Either way, I had a feeling that calling the Seattle police department would only put us in more danger. I would start with a phone call to Mike. Tell him to get his ass over here, I decided. I punched in number three on the speed dial and drummed my fingers on the wall next to the phone.
“Come on, Mike, answer the phone,” I muttered.
“Claire?” he mumbled groggily on the fifth ring.
I paused at the sudden click and dead silence that filled the line. “Mike?” I pressed the buttons on the phone, hung it up, and quickly snatched it back up. Nothing. No dial tone buzzed in my ear. Silence. I shivered. The line had been cut. I whirled around and scanned the kitchen. The blinds were closed, the curtains drawn tight. The kitchen was dark. I had not bothered with the light on my mad dash to the phone.
There was a phone in the den. My cellular phone was in the drawer of my nightstand. It seemed an odd coincidence that my phone went dead right as I was trying to call for help. And I didn’t much believe in coincidence.
The line had been cut and I knew it. The timing strongly indicated that whoever cut the phone line was watching and knew that I was attempting to use the telephone. But how could anyone have seen me try to use the phone? And why now? Why cut the lines right this minute? Unless…I hung my head and bit back a curse. Unless they weren’t watching. What if they were listening? It made perfect sense. Ashley’s dream, her drawing, me running down the hallway in the middle of the night. They had heard the entire thing. No, not they. Officer Lance Jones. It was the most plausible explanation.
But how? I thought back to the night he’d been here with his partner, the night he took our statements, and walked through the house to make sure we were safe. I snorted. He must have planted the bugs that night. I looked around sharply and hoped like hell that bugs were the only thing he had planted in my house. I had not seen any video surveillance cameras besides my own. Although, some of them were so tiny, but no, I reasoned.
He hadn’t had time to set up video surveillance. And even if he had somehow managed to bypass my security system and reenter the house at some point, I would have known about it. The private monitoring company for the system always called the owner and mailed out a form whenever the alarm signaled or the service was interrupted, tampered with, that sort of thing. So I was ninety-nine percent sure that there were no video cameras tucked away to carefully record our every move.
I took a deep breath and considered my next move. I had to get Ashley and get out of the house.
Priority number one. The rest could be dealt with later. I thought about the best way to get out safely and came up woefully short. Although my first instinct was to grab Ashley and get in the car, I rejected the idea immediately. It was probably the worst thing that I could do. Lance Jones, not to mention whoever else was waiting out there with him, would be expecting that. I felt it was pretty safe to assume the men who waited outside had guns. No, I could not risk either one of us getting shot.
I shivered again and tried to think fast. The bugs would probably pick up any sound I made. I didn’t even know where they had been placed. Hopelessness washed over me in sickening waves and I gripped the doorframe with white knuckles. We were not going to die tonight. We were not trapped in the house.
There was always a way out. Think, Claire, I silently commanded. Step one, get Ashley and gather some supplies. Quickly. I knew that we probably had no more than ten minutes before they came in after us.
Fifteen if they waited for Mike to show up and took care of him first, because he would surely be panicking and on his way by now. I had to get out of the house. I had to warn him.
I flipped the kitchen light on and went back to Ashley’s room.
“Hey, peanut. You know what? How would you like a quick snack? Then we can drive over to your uncle Mike’s house or Grandma and Grandpa’s. Would you like that?” I smiled and very quietly knelt down to pull her sketch pad toward me.
“Mom?”
I held a finger to my lips and motioned for her to be quiet while I wrote a quick message on the pad.
“Would you like that?”
“Okay….” She squinted to read the message on the pad.
There are men waiting outside. Don’t cry. Don’t make a sound. Please. We are going to my bedroom. We have to be very quiet.
Her eyes widened, but she made no sound. Bless her, she caught on quick.
The bad men? She scribbled.
Yes. But we won’t let them hurt us. I promise. Let’s go.
What?
Go to my room. Put my gun and bullets in my bag that’s in the nightstand. And our shoes. And one sweater. But don’t make any noise. Can you do that for me?
Yes.
Good. Let’s go now. Hurry.
She nodded, slipped off of her bed, and quietly down the hall. I forced myself to walk casually down the hall to the kitchen while Ashley went the other way and slipped into my bedroom without a hint of sound. Normally, the thought of my first-grader handling a loaded gun would have been enough to have me breaking out in hives, yet tonight it was wholly necessary for her to do so. I needed to create a diversion in the kitchen…bang pots and pans around and move about as if I were fixing a snack. Ashley was not tall enough to trade places with me. The lights would cast a silhouette in the window. If I wasn’t in the kitchen, the entire plan would be thrown off. We would have precious little time once everything was packed. The man—rather, the men—outside would make their move, either before we left or as soon as Mike showed up. They couldn’t afford not to.
Mike. I stopped suddenly and it hit me that I still had to get a message to Mike. I was loathe to use a cell phone…the call would be heard. But I could send a text message. I walked calmly to the bedroom and slipped my cell phone out of the bag, pausing to give Ashley a quick thumbs up and a reassuring smile before returning to the kitchen.
Don’t come after us. We are leaving tonight. I need to see him again. Under the light of the Sycamores. I hit send and slipped the phone into my pocket, hoping my brother would be able to decipher the message. It was all I could do. The last thing I needed was for anyone to think that Mike knew what I knew. He would become just as much of a target as Ashley and I were. Of course, I reminded myself grimly, that was assuming we all managed to live through the night.
The clock on the wall stuck three. The witching hour, how appropriate. And oddly enough, reassuring in its own way. Mike would have been knocking on the door already if he were coming, which meant he had understood my text message. One hurdle down, I breathed. Getting out of the house was another matter entirely, and it mostly depended on sheer luck. I was not comforted by the knowledge.
Closing my eyes, I began to count. One, two, three, four, five… The lights went out. Dead silence filled the house…no whir of a ceiling fan, no hum of a refrigerator. It was time.
“Oh, that damn breaker again,” I cursed loudly. “Stay here, Ashley; I’m going to the basement to fix it.”
I darted into the hallway and burst into the bedroom, surprising Ashley. Shh, I motioned and quietly locked the bedroom door. Sliding the dresser in front of it felt like a nerve-wracking waste of time that we didn’t have, but it was necessary. We needed every advantage we could create for ourselves. I knew that the security system would be the next thing to be disarmed. The police would be notified within minutes when the security c
ompany failed to get me on the telephone. I quickly turned off my cell phone and slipped it into the bag, then took out the gun and twisted the silencer onto it. They would be fast. We had to be faster. And very, very quiet.
The front door opened a second before the basement window shattered; the sound was muffled by the neighbor’s dog barking next door. You would think the dog would have reassured us…that Fido’s canine antics would alert the entire neighborhood to our plight. The big, burly guy on the corner would come rushing over with his double barrel shotgun and save the day.
I wished. In truth, the dog next door wasn’t named Fido. His name was Muffin and he was a five-pound Chihuahua mix. He also had a tendency to bark all night long. No one would pay the least bit of attention to Muffin’s shrill alarm. After a while, it was barely noticeable. And my neighbor on the corner wasn’t burly, although he was pretty tall. But he worked the graveyard shift; and anyway, I was reasonably sure that he didn’t own a sawed off shotgun. In short, we were screwed.
“Mom?” Ashley whispered brokenly.
“It’s okay, honey. Stay close to me.” The window opened in one swift and smooth movement. Ditto for the screen. I poked my head out and saw nothing on either side of the house. Could it be so easy? I wondered. “One way to find out.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Me first, okay? Climb up here and get ready to follow.”
Luck was on our side that night. We were out the window and carefully concealed among Mrs. Flores’s evergreens a full minute before three men crashed into my bedroom cursing and muttering.
Ashley shrank deeper into the shadows, but did not utter a sound. I motioned for her to stay silent one more time, then slid backward until we hit the gate that led to Mrs. Flores’s back yard. Tall shrubs rimmed the fenced-in space. We would be completely hidden from view back there.
I carried Ashley to the edge of the yard and cut across the alley to Ridgeway Avenue. From there we stayed in the shadows and made our way six blocks over into one of the older neighborhoods of Seattle…a large cul de sac that was eerily quiet, especially at such a late hour; or at such an early hour. I supposed it depended on whether you were a night person or a morning person. Now, me personally—
“Mom?”
“Sorry, here we are, peanut.”
“Here? Why?”
“Because your uncle Mike is going to pick us up right here.”
“How do you know? I don’t see him.”
“When I grabbed my cell phone, I sent your uncle a text message. A secret message to tell him to pick us up right here in this very spot.”
“Why this spot?”
“Because this is far enough away from the bad men, but still close enough for us to get to in a hurry.”
“Are the bad men gonna come looking for us?” She sounded six years old right then, and scared. I knelt down to hug her close.
“The bad men don’t know that we’re here.” I shivered and looked around, wondering where the hell my brother was, and what could have been taking him so long. Had I been too vague?
“Look, Mama! There’s Uncle Mike’s truck!”
Sure enough, Mike was turning the corner and speeding toward us. I breathed a sigh of relief as the Land Rover skidded to a stop in front of us. I strapped Ashley into the back passenger seat before hopping into the front next to Mike.
“I was afraid you hadn’t gotten my message, or that you hadn’t understood what I was trying to tell you.”
“Message received loud and clear. Under the Sycamores. The corner of Syracuse and Ridgemont.”
“Ted Matherson,” I confirmed.
“Nineteen-eighty-seven.” He nodded. “It took me a minute, but I was pretty sure that’s where you wanted me to go. The question is, where are we going now?”
“Back to your apartment,” I sighed, and scrubbed a hand over my face.
“Mom, who is Ted Masserton?”
“Matherson. He was a boy I had a crush on in junior high. We were going to meet one night at that corner back there. The corner of Syracuse and Ridgemont. When I was little, I called that street Sycamore because I couldn’t say Syracuse.”
“The name stuck and our family has always called that street Sycamore instead of Syracuse,” Mike put in.
“At the time it was cute.” I shrugged.
“What happened to Ted?” Ashley wanted to know.
“He never showed up, so we never ran away together.” I smiled at the memory.
“And she was heartbroken.”
“That’s enough, Mike.”
“So. You want to tell me what that was all about?”
“Who knows? I was fourteen.”
“I meant tonight. You call. You hang up on me, then send me a cryptic message and show up on foot. Are you guys okay?”
“More or less.” I rubbed my temple.
“He came after you, didn’t he?”
“Earl? No. Not that I saw, at least. Ashley woke up around two in the morning.”
“I had a bad dream,” she piped from the back seat.
“Right. She had a dream about the man who showed up at her school and told her that he knows me.”
“Earl,” Mike nodded, and turned left onto Sepulveda Avenue.
“No.” My voice was quiet. “Not Earl. I asked her to draw a picture of the man who told her his name is Earl. She drew a picture of Officer Jones instead.”
“Shit,” Mike swore.
“That’s a bad word,” Ashley chastised.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“He showed up today at her school. As the D.A.R.E officer for her class.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Mom, is that a bad word? Because it kind of sounded like it. But I don’t know that one.”
“Mike,” I warned.
“Sorry.”
“I think he bugged my house, because after I tried to call you, my phone lines were cut. A few minutes later, we lost power. They disarmed the security system after that.”
“They?” Mike’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Don’t creeps always travel in packs? We were ready for them. I suspected what was going on as soon as the phone line was cut. We staged a diversion and escaped out my bedroom window as they were coming in. We hid in the neighbors hedges long enough to see three men burst into the bedroom. I don’t know what happened after that, but I imagine they left shortly after. The security company would have notified the police when they couldn’t get ahold of me. I imagine Officer Jones and his cohorts would have known that. Anyway, we slipped into Mrs. Flores’s backyard, through the alley, and headed straight to Sycamore.”
“Were you followed?”
“I don’t think so.” I bit my lip. “No, I’m certain we weren’t. If we had been followed, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“You think that’s what they were there to do?”
“Who else goes to the trouble to break in during the middle of the night?”
“Unless….”
“Unless?”
“What if they wanted something else?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Mike shook his head and frowned thoughtfully. “But I find the timing to be strange. If they were listening to you, and chose the exact moment when they knew their cover was blown…”
“I see what you mean.”
“So what did they want?”
“I don’t know.” The denial hung in the air between us, because suddenly I did know. “Oh no,” I breathed.
“Claire?”
“I think I know what they may have wanted.”
“And?”
“Don’t get mad,” I warned.
“Wha-oh no. No.” Mike shook his head. “I know that look. Damn it, Claire. That’s why you were asking so many questions about Terlain, wasn’t it?”
“Well…”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Please, tell m
e I’ve got this all wrong, Claire. We destroyed those keys. We burned them last year. I still have the ashes. They’re gone. Right?”
“Yours is gone.”
“And yours?”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “Mine is not gone.”
“How? I saw you toss your half of the key into the fire.”
“No, you saw me toss a carefully crafted copy of the key into the fire. I had a metal worker a couple of towns over make a copy as soon as we got back. After you said we had to destroy the key.”
“Well, that explains how Jones knew you had the key.”
“I know. I just thought of that. John was probably still having me followed.”
“Right.”
“Damn it.”
“You left the key, didn’t you? It’s still in your house, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” I let my head fall back against the seat.
“That’s two more bad words,” Ashley announced. I glared at Mike.
“Mama, is this what you’re looking for?”
“No, it’s something I left at the house,” I responded automatically as I leaned back to see what she was holding out. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Mike glanced my way.
“That’s it. The key.” I took the ornate half circle from Ashley. “How did you know where this was? How did you know to pack this?”
“I found it in a drawer under a bunch of stuff. It was glowing so I took it. Is it important? Can I keep it?”
“Glowing?”
“Are you sure, sweetie? It was glowing?”
“Yep. That’s how come I saw it. The drawer was glowing. It was so bright.”
“Did yours ever glow?” I turned questioning eyes to my brother.
“No. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe…”
“Claire, don’t even think it. Tell me you’re not thinking of going back there.”
“What else could that mean?”
“I don’t know. But not that.”
“Maybe it means exactly that.” I sat up straight, my mind racing.
“And maybe it doesn’t.”
“Well, the fact is Ashley and I aren’t safe here.”
“You think you’ll be any safer there?” Mike was incredulous.
“At least I know who not to trust over there.” I twisted around in my seat to face him. “Mike, one of the men with Officer Jones was Grant Hillson. I didn’t recognize the other man.”
“Grant Hillson? Are you sure?”
“Yes. The new chief. How far up does this go? And why were they after us? For this key? Do they even know what it is, what it means? Are they simply John’s hit men? Why?”
“I don’t know. Damn, I’m getting sick of saying that.”
“Me too. So who do we call? Where do we go? How am I supposed to make sure we’re safe here?” I demanded in frustration.
“We’ll call another department. We’ll go higher up.”
“And how do we know they haven’t been bought too?”
“Fine,” Mike bit out. “But I’m going with you.”
“To Terlain? No, I need you here. I need you to figure out what’s going on.”
“And you and Ashley need to disappear for a while?”
“Exactly.” We pulled into the parking lot of Mike’s apartment.
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to catch a flight this morning. Or pay someone with a plane to take us. I have some cash, our passports. Credit cards.”
“They’ll be able to trace the cards and the flight.”
“They will probably figure out where we are going soon enough anyway. We’ve got a head start. And I know the way. We can stay a step or two ahead of them. Once we’re there, I can find people who will protect us.”
“What about the guards? They know where the entrance port is now. You’ll be ambushed this time.”
“It’s been over a year. It won’t be heavily guarded by now. And if it is…” I trailed off and patted the bag that held my gun.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. See what you can do about the mess here, okay? But don’t let them know you know anything. Tell them you got a message from me that made no sense, and that when you woke up, your car was gone. Tell them I stole your car. File a report if you have to.”
“Okay. When are you coming back?”
“Three months. That’s when Ashley is supposed to start school again.”
“Well, that’s one hell of a summer vacation.”
“Tell me about it.” I sighed. We were going back to Terlain.