Expiration Date

  “I’d love to, Clay, but I can’t. No matter how much I’d like to say yes.”

  He cocked his head as though her answer hadn’t registered.

  “I can’t,” she reiterated. “Not tonight.”

  “Gonna tell me why? It’s an innocent request, you know.”

  “I know it is. It’s Mylisha I’m thinking of. She’s missed you and hasn’t even been serious with anyone else since you left. She should be the one to share a night out with you. Am I wrong?” Summer slipped a hand into his and squeezed.

  He flinched. Jerked away.

  The reaction made something inside her hurt. “I shouldn’t have come,” she said. Turning her face up to his, she was caught by his dark green eyes, dilated and full of fear. “Clay, are you all right?”

  He wobbled.

  “What happened? You feeling sick?”

  “No.” He scrubbed his hand on his jeans. “Nope, I’m fine.”

  “You want me to help you back inside?” She reached for him.

  “Stay back! I can do it myself.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I was only trying to … I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re right anyway. It’s getting late, and I should head back. Thanks for talking, Clay.”

  “You betcha.”

  “You know, maybe I could take a rain check.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I might have some free time in the next week or two.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “In touch?” His eyes shifted to his palm. “That might not be the best idea.” With overwrought focus, he turned and worked his way up the steps into the house.

  Summer’s Prelude carried her back down the hill. Vying for her attention, the look in Clay’s eyes continued to trouble her. He’d been unquestionably shaken.

  She sighed. Oh, what might’ve been.

  Her red car sped through the curves until the road broadened once more onto the flatlands. She refused to live her life victimized by fear. Her sister, Milly, had died in an auto collision, and Summer often found herself tempting fate.

  Before her, night clouds stretched over the smattering of town lights, and she wondered what Mylisha was up to. Nothing much, probably. What made her friend tick? Would she be ready to carry the weight of a secret or two?

  Summer knew she’d been hard on Mylisha earlier. A peace offering was in order, an apology card.

  After a detour into a corner market, Summer headed for her friend’s apartment on the south end of town. A semitruck rumbled by. A sports car wearing a coat of gray primer purred alongside, long enough for the driver to try to catch her eye.

  Get a clue, jerk!

  On Maple Street she edged to the curb. Pushing ten o’clock already. Was it too late for Mylisha? Hard to tell anymore.

  Summer’s left hand opened the car door, and her right clutched for—

  “Omigosh!”

  On the sidewalk a man was facing her with a lewd fire in his eyes.

  She thought of slamming the door and hitting the locks, imagined peeling away. Then, thinking of Mylisha alone in the apartments behind this stranger, she chose to face him. She would put on her game face. As if to confirm her decision, a cone of light washed over the man’s form and revealed ugly tan pants and an argyle vest.

  So much for his cloak of intimidation. Hellooo? What a loser!

  Now he was wearing a secretive grin, and she flung the door wide, rising to meet this challenge.

  “Listen, buddy, what’s your problem?”

  Screeching rubber and a revved motor were all she knew of the vehicle that caught her from behind. She felt something snap as her arms were thrust over the door. With disembodied, fading vision, she rode the torn metal panel through the air, her head careening toward a picket fence in the yard that became her resting place.

  4

  The Envelope

  Despite disquieting memories and a boozy heaviness slogging through his head, Clay woke early. The noise of a lawn mower grew louder outside his window. His father, no doubt: Up and at ’em. No sleeping in around here, Son.

  Mumbling, Clay found his way to the bathroom.

  Splash of water. Excedrin. A towel to dry off his face.

  Funny thing. Last night the alcohol had helped him forget, whereas here in the piercing light of morning it only deepened his gloom. Back in Cheyenne, as a concession to Jenni, he had once upon a time attended an AA meeting. Some in the room had been a mess. Screwed up in a big way. He knew he was different, though. He didn’t drink all that often; he just used an occasional buzz to take off the edge.

  And to forget. Mostly to forget.

  He combed a hand through his short brown hair. Even his scalp felt bruised.

  This time he ran both hands over his head, facing his discomfort head-on. This was a new day, a fresh set of circumstances. Time to get on with life.

  Of course, a job and a paycheck would help in a big way.

  In socks and boxers, he fetched the Register-Guard from the paper box on the porch and spread it on the table tucked into the dining nook. As coffee percolated, he ran a finger down the classified columns.

  Déjà vu. At this same table, scanning the same subscription who knew how many years ago, he’d sought out his first real job. He’d landed three summers’ worth of work with the Junction City Parks Department and climbed his way to crew supervisor.

  Yep, I was a working machine.

  With his mom’s Avon scented pen, he began circling job possibilities.

  Gerald Ryker burst through the back door, grass clinging to his boots, sweat staining the T-shirt beneath his overalls. “Clay, you’re home.”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “You get in last night? You have a safe trip?”

  “Uneventful.” Clay knew anything more would be a waste of breath.

  “The lawn mower wake you up?”

  “What lawn mower?”

  “Never mind.”

  Clay tried not to smile at this subtle victory. Score one for the Claymeister.

  “You get the coffee brewing, Son?”

  “In the pot.”

  “Good. Back under my roof, I expect you to do your part.”

  Gerald Ryker hefted his omnipresent blue travel mug. To the trained eye, it functioned as a barometer of the man’s disposition, and its present configuration boded well for Clay. Empty, with the lid off: partial clearing, chance of sun.

  Seconds passed while a torrent of caffeine filled the container.

  Clay said, “Cream’s here on the table.”

  Gerald snapped the lid into place and stood rigidly in the middle of the kitchen.

  “Hold on, Dad. You drink it straight up, don’t you?”

  Clay braced himself for an admonition or, more likely, a sound bite from the past: Black for me, Son—same way I like my women. The phrase had been monumentally offensive to Clay in high school when he’d started dating Mylisha French. With nervous defiance, he’d introduced her to Gerald, expecting a reaction. Instead, he’d received stony silence on the subject.

  Here in the Ryker residence, silence was a language of its own.

  “You looking for a job?” Gerald ignored the creamer, hooked a chair with his foot to join Clay at the table. “Tell you right now, you’re wasting your time.”

  “Huh?”

  “Did I mumble, Son?” Gerald took a long slurp from his mug. “Forget the classifieds. You got work all laid out for you. Stan Blomberg’s expecting you.”

  “Blomberg?”

  “Used to work with me in the lumberyard. Heavyset, red hair, a real religious fanatic. He left the lumberyard to manage things over at the monument company. Blomberg’s a character, but we’ve stayed in contact over the years.”

  “Did you say monuments? You mean tombstones?”

  “Now’s no time to be picky, Son. Pay’s not bad starting off.” Gerald set a fist atop the blue mug and elaborated. “Ten and a half an hour. Could go up at your ninety-day review. If I remember right, ins
urance and 401(k) will kick in too. You’ll have to ask Blomberg. One judgmental son of a gun, but he’ll lay it all out for you.”

  “And I’ll be doing what exactly?”

  “Like I said, you’ll have to ask him.”

  Clay tried not to react. This was his parents’ house, so it was only natural they’d nose into his decisions. He folded the half-read newspaper and pushed it across the table to his father.

  In handling the newsprint, he realized he’d smudged his fingers with ink. He gazed at the stains, felt a quiver of foreboding, the same sensation he’d had after last night’s encounter with Summer.

  She’d taken hold of his hand, and he’d felt indentations throb beneath his skin. Cryptic numbers. Ephemeral, yet undeniable.

  6.2.1.0.4 …

  Just like the incident with his mother … 1.2.2.5.2.1 …

  He forced the sequences from his mind like a bad dream.

  “So, Dad, Blomberg’s open to this idea? He’s expecting me?”

  “This Monday morning, the twenty-first. Eight o’clock.”

  “And you didn’t think to ask me about it?”

  “Job’s a job, Son.”

  “Guess you’ve got it all mapped out for me.”

  “Man’s gotta go out and make things happen. The least I can do.”

  “The least.” Clay crossed his arms. “You know, maybe next time you could run it by me first. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  Gerald looked up over the newspaper. “This your way of saying thanks?”

  “It’s my way of letting you know I’ll be making my own decisions.” Clay pushed away from the table, wishing Jenni could hear this newfound candor. She’d said he couldn’t verbalize his feelings? Well, try this on for size.

  “Listen,” Gerald said. “For the time being, you’re under my roof.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “Good! I don’t need you to come in and tell me how to live my life.”

  “Funny thing, Dad. I was trying to make the same point.”

  Gerald’s fingers, white at the knuckles, twisted around the travel mug with the strength of a man who worked daily to the point of exhaustion—though the exhaustion was nowhere to be found in his flashing eyes. He coughed, spit twice into a handkerchief, which he returned to his pocket, then opened the sports section.

  End of discussion.

  Flashbacks of adolescence clouded Clay’s view of his father’s immobile form. The man meant well. Clay could almost hear Dr. Gerringer expounding the need for maturity: Ironically, self-preservation finds its greatest ally in the survival of the social unit. You become a whole individual by becoming part of something larger than yourself … And blah-dee-blah.

  Clay cleared his throat. “Early Monday morning, Dad? I’ll be there.”

  “Good.”

  “Thanks. For trying to help. For finding me a job.”

  “Here.” Gerald slapped the paper down on the table. “Take your stuff.” Clay looked down. There between sports pages four and five, a generic white envelope bore his name in black block letters.

  Mylisha was exhausted. She couldn’t believe she’d caved in again, staying at her sister’s place in Eugene. She’d done it for her niece and nephew. She’d slept fitfully on the couch, wondering about Clay, waiting for Shanique.

  At five thirty in the morning, Shanique had plunked down on the cushions.

  She reeked of smoke and perspiration. She sounded cheery, bragging about a group of businessmen who’d wandered over from the Hilton. “They’s in town for some convention.” A sharp laugh. “And some sightseeing. These boys was throwin’ down the benjamins, you know what I’m saying.”

  Mylisha sat up, pulled on her shoes. “The kids fell asleep around midnight,” she said, “and both got baths. Tyrone wouldn’t eat a bite of dinner though.”

  “Yeah, he be like that sometimes. Never can tell wit’ dat one.”

  “Shanique?”

  “I know, I shoulda been home sooner.”

  “Tyrone asked about you.”

  “Me?”

  “ ‘What kind of work does my mama do? Where she go?’ he wanted to know. ‘Ain’t no stores open in da middle of da night, not dat I seen.’ I couldn’t do it, couldn’t lie to him. I told him he’d have to talk to you.”

  “Mylisha, baby, you don’t gotta cover for your li’l sister.”

  “He’s six. He’s a smart kid.”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout nothin’.”

  “Why would I worry?” Mylisha gathered her college books and homework, tried to keep bitterness from seeping into her words. “Things’ll work out for you, Shanique. They always do.”

  “I know dat’s right. The Good Lord takes care of his own.”

  As Mylisha headed back to Junction City, she mulled over Summer’s words, Clay’s presence in town, Shanique’s situation. She turned onto Maple Street. Along the curb, between two police cars and an unmarked vehicle, a tow truck was hefting a red Honda Prelude with a missing door. Dark stains dotted the pavement underneath.

  Missed. Missed again.

  Man, what’s wrong with me? That stupid envelope’s throwing me off.

  Still wearing his boxers, Clay Ryker found his mark at the free throw line in the driveway. With exaggerated patience, he bounced the basketball once more, bent his knees and cradled the ball, felt its leathery surface on his fingertips. Fixing his eyes on the back of the rim, he let the energy climb through his legs and shoulders and hands, then propelled the ball in a graceful arc toward the red metal hoop.

  Ka-lunk-ah-thunka-thunk … Denied again.

  He was out of practice, true, but he never missed free throws. Certainly not three in a row.

  Where had the envelope come from? Who had sent it? The Rykers’ property was on the outskirts of town, but the sender must’ve been on the premises this very morning, slipping the note between the newspaper’s pages. Gerald had been up and about, but maybe it’d happened while he was mowing.

  Regardless, someone had been out here. Someone who knew Clay’s secret.

  How was that possible?

  Clay tore the envelope from the elastic at the back of his shorts and once more read the hand-scrawled message.

  You like to push your secrets down, don’t you?

  But this is one bill you can’t run away from!

  Fear punched Clay in the chest. He wanted to discount the handwritten words, but they touched on the truth. Someone knew. He had pushed down his “secrets”—literally. He had run from that “one bill”—all the way to Wyoming.

  Here he was back in JC, and the past had resurrected.

  Or maybe it had never really died.

  Moving to the side of the garage, he shredded the note and then shoved it deep into the garbage can full of lawn clippings. Burying his sins. It was what he did best.

  5

  A Stubborn Leech

  Clay watched a man with a hand truck browse through blank headstones. Monday morning at Glenleaf Monument Company. Compared to Clay’s satellite mapping business in Cheyenne, this place was hopping. If the gravel lot was a desk, the stacks of stones were reams of paper, ready for appropriate data, waiting to be filed into the graveyard for safekeeping.

  Another life. Another death. Sinners and saints.

  “You catching all this?” Stan Blomberg asked. “Think you can handle the job?”

  “Yes, Mr. Blomberg.”

  He followed his new boss into a corrugated metal building where black marble slabs and white crosses rolled over chest-high runners toward a sandblasting chamber. Annoyed by the interruption, two men and a woman looked up, steel hooks and rollers poised in canvas-gloved hands.

  When Blomberg explained that Clay would be joining the team, the woman’s look changed into a shy smile. Clay shook hands with the male workers, then gave a sharp nod.

  He issued a softer nod to the lady. She could read into it what she wanted.

  “Then after the lettering’s been etched,” Blomberg
was explaining, “and the stones’ve been sent through the sandblaster, they come here to be brushed and sealed. It’s vital that we get the lettering peeled correctly. Our work around here is as unto the Lord. A sacred task. Now see this right here? This is what happens when we get rushed. Are you guys getting paid to cost me money?” he barked. “You gonna show Ryker here how it’s done, or do I have to come back and show him myself? For the life of me! See that nick? That’s where the blaster found their mistake. You think the grieving parents want that on their little one’s stone?”

  The words tugged at Clay. Jason’s face swam into focus.

  “You with me, Ryker? You grasping the nature of this job?”

  “More than you know.”

  “Glad to hear it. Because,” Blomberg prattled on, “when mistakes like this happen, we gotta start all over again. A stone wasted. Money dribbled down the drain. And if that happens too often that means less for me. And when there’s less for me, I become a real bear … which is no picnic, let me warn you now. Instead of smiling and throwing you a bone for a job well done, I start breathing down your neck. If that doesn’t do the trick, I kick your can through the front gate, and you find yourself hoping and praying you don’t stumble into me in the Bi-Mart parking lot anytime soon.”

  Clay gave a laugh, recognizing humor’s ability to communicate a point.

  Blomberg stared at him.

  “I get your meaning, sir.”

  “I hope so. You’re Gerald Ryker’s son, and I’m bringing you on ’cause I owe him a favor. Your qualifications have diddly to do with it. Warning you now that if you let me down, you’ll let your old man down. I’ll show no mercy. You gonna laugh again?”

  “No sir.”

  “Good thing, because I’m serious as a heart attack.”

  “I’m here to work. Show me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Blomberg weighed this riposte, pursed his lips, then clapped a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Get to it. What’re you standing around for?” He pointed back along the runners. “Digs … he’s the guy with the fuzzy ears. He’ll show you the way we do things around here.”

  “Digs?”

  “He’s been called that as long as I can remember. He can tell you the story if he wants. No loitering though, not on my clock, not on my payroll. You got that?”