Dead Echo

  Chapter 15: The Phoenix Revealed

  Tomas Lorca had not been home long, had in fact, only been peering through his living room curtains with the Range Finder binoculars for ten minutes or so, when he spotted Patsy’s car at the far end of Samane Street. His own street had the added benefit of running perpendicular to hers, which was the only street that ran all the way to the back of the neighborhood from the highway. His property sat on the corner, his backyard close up to an as-of-yet undeveloped tract that stretched back to a finger of Miller’s Stream about two-hundred yards in. Valhalla crossed Achin Street just off the right corner of his front yard and nosed up to the Dead End not twenty feet from where his privacy fence began. He’d had the fence people install a gate so he could access the woods behind his house but that had no hold on him at all, now.

  Now, all he could think about was her.

  The light gray Impala got closer, sucked into his view by the Range Finders. He saw her face and the response from his cock, the steady rising pulse, was instant. He took one hand off the binoculars and adjusted his jeans. He wanted focus, mind-focus above all else. Here was Purpose; he could feel it all over. She came up to her driveway, put on her blinker he noticed obliquely, and turned slowly, coasting up the drive until she was hidden from his view by first the maple in her front yard and then her carport. Nonetheless, he kept his eyes trained hard, hoping for anything to get another glimpse. Then it came. He pumped his fist into the air, twice, hard, in satisfaction, holding the Finders to his eyes with the other, a large grin spreading the expanse of his dark, flat face. He could only see her legs until she cleared the tree, but he concentrated to remember every second. He hadn’t seen her since the hardware store and he wanted to remember everything. Every last detail. Stylish blue jeans, cut tight at the ankles, black tennis shoes. Perfect. And then she broke from behind the tree. He licked his lips. The blouse was yellow, pictures of suns and birds dotting her breasts, her beautiful angular back. She’d forgotten to check the mail, he could see that now. Great! Then, now at the box, both feet in the street. She’d have to walk back down the drive to the house and it was wonderful, wonderful! The binoculars pulled in her profile and there wasn’t much, he found, he’d forgotten. His memory had always been good but he’d only had those few minutes in the hardware store and he’d been sure there was something he’d overlooked or forgotten. She took out the mail and went through it in the street. He saw from the stack it would take a minute or two, and he fumbled to unbutton and unzip his pants. Cursed himself for jogging the Finders up and down, but sprang his cock free just before she closed the mailbox and started back for the house. He memorized everything about her in the few seconds he had left, and when she was gone he set the binoculars on the side table, closed his eyes, and masturbated. When he was finished he walked nonchalantly into the kitchen, grabbed a roll of paper napkins, and returned to clean up the mess he’d sprayed on the back of the leather chair. Then he spun it around so that it faced away from the window and into the room. It sat across from a 32-inch Sony Home Entertainment Center, but right now, he had no interest in it whatsoever.

  Right now, he was thinking about the past.