Long Lost

In the middle was the redbrick house. I’d come at it from its right side. The two—and—a—half—story wall had ivy. White wooden lawn furniture and a brightly colored miniature windmill decorated the lawn.

  I took binoculars from my knapsack and made sure that the sun wasn’t at an angle that would cause a reflection off the lenses. Then I focused them and studied the downstairs and upstairs windows. All had lace curtains. Nothing moved beyond them. In the photographs I’d taken, the pickup truck had been parked on the opposite side of the house, so to find out if it was still there, I’d have to crawl around to that side.

  I stayed as flat as possible while I shifted through the undergrowth. When I came within view of the back of the house, I still didn’t see movement in any of the windows. I stared at the open area behind the house, which from ground level seemed to have a natural slope, its slightly sunken outline no longer apparent. An unsuspecting visitor would have noticed nothing unusual about it, except that the lawn and gardens were attractive. If there was indeed a room beneath it, I assumed that Petey watered and fertilized that area frequently to compensate for the shallow roots that the underground structure would cause. If so, today wasn’t his day to work in the garden. He wasn’t in sight. The place seemed abandoned.

  I dared to hope that I’d gotten lucky, that he wasn’t home. But as I crept through the bushes toward the other side of the house, my stomach soured when I saw the pickup truck where it had been the previous afternoon. Angry, I continued through the undergrowth on that side of the house, coming to a view of the front, where a roofed porch had a rocking chair and a hammock, homey and inviting.

  But no one was visible there, either, and I retreated to a sheltered spot that gave me a view of the side, part of the back, part of the front, and all of the truck. Bushes enclosed me. I eased out of my knapsack, sipped from one of the canteens, ate more beef jerky, peanuts, and raisins.

  And waited.

  13

  Hours later, I was still waiting. The sun eased below the trees. Seeing a light come on in a downstairs window, I felt my muscles compact. Then a light came on in an adjacent room, and another farther over. I strained to see movement through the curtains, but the house continued to seem deserted. For all I knew, the lights were controlled by timers. When an upstairs light came on and a shadow moved past a window, I held my breath for a moment.

  A man’s shadow. I was certain of it. I’d caught only a glimpse, but the broad shoulders and forceful stride obviously didn’t belong to a female. Several seconds later, the shadow appeared downstairs, going from one room to another. Raising my binoculars, I strained to see through the windows and suddenly focused on a man with a beard. His face was toward me for only a few seconds before he went through an archway into the kitchen.

  But a few seconds were all I needed. Regardless of the beard, I couldn’t fail to recognize him. Even through binoculars, the solid shoulders and the intense eyes were unmistakable.

  The man was Petey.

  “Go home,” I’d told him. After a lifetime of being lost, he’d done exactly that. He’d come back to Woodford. Did he ever drive by the house where we used to live? Did he ever go to the baseball field and remember that afternoon, brooding about how different his life would have been if I hadn’t preferred my friends over him and sent him away from that baseball game?

  Stop thinking like that! I warned myself. Get control! Guilt and regret weren’t going to change the past. They were a weakness. They could get me killed. They could get Kate and Jason killed.

  Petey wasn’t my brother any longer.

  He was my enemy.

  My impulse was to crawl from my hiding place, reach the window, wait for him to step into view again, and shoot. But what if I missed? My hand was shaking enough to throw off my aim. Or what if Petey noticed me outside the window before I could pull the trigger? Suppose he ducked out of sight and used Kate and Jason as hostages? Or what if I did manage to shoot him, but Kate and Jason weren’t where I suspected they were?

  Shoot to wound him? How did I know the wound wouldn’t be more serious than I intended? Petey might die before I could question him. I’d have lost the chance to find Kate and Jason.

  Stay put. Think it through, I warned myself. If I make a wrong move, it’ll be the same thing I was afraid the police would do.

  I had to keep watching the house. I needed to get a sense of his patterns. When I phoned the police, it had to be at the right time.

  When the situation was in my favor.

  Sure. And when the hell will that be? I wondered.

  In the darkness, the air was damp and chill, making me pull a woolen shirt from the knapsack and put it on. It didn’t warm me. As Petey’s indistinct shape prepared food in the kitchen, I told myself that I should eat also, but I didn’t have any appetite. Acid burned my stomach.

  Eat! I told myself. I forced a chunk of beef jerky into my mouth and reluctantly chewed. The side dish was another handful of nuts and raisins, the dessert dehydrated apples. I had thought about bringing sandwiches, but I’d been worried that they would spoil and make me ill. After all, I had no idea how long I’d have to stay in the woods and watch the house. That was why I’d brought three canteens of water. Determined to conserve it, I took only a few sips to help me swallow the dehydrated apples.

  How long would the police have been willing to hide like this? I wondered. They’d have swatted at the mosquitoes buzzing around them. They’d have felt the cold seeping through their clothes, the dampness sticking their pants to their legs. They’d have thought about hot coffee and a warm bed, someone to share it with. They’d soon have lost their patience and stormed the house.

  I buttoned the woolen shirt all the way to my neck but still felt a chill. Raising the binoculars again, I stared through a window, through an archway toward the kitchen, which was on the far side of the house. There, Petey continued to prepare food. Eventually, his silhouette disappeared.

  My muscles cramped from not having moved in quite a while. My arms and neck ached from keeping the binoculars raised. Minutes passed. I checked the luminous dial on my watch. A quarter of an hour became half an hour. When a full hour had passed, I couldn’t ignore the pressure in my bladder. I crawled back from where I was hiding, stopped among trees, and urinated close to the ground, doing my best to make as little noise as possible.

  The moment I returned through the bushes, the light went out in the kitchen. I tensed, watching Petey’s shadow move from room to room downstairs, turning off the lights. A minute later, one of the upstairs lights went off also. I spent an hour gazing at the remaining upstairs light. Then it, too, went out.

  The sky was overcast, hiding the stars. The house remained dark. I hugged myself, trying to keep warm. My eyelids grew heavy. I fought to keep them open, turning from the house toward the murky lawn and garden in back, under which, I was certain, Kate and Jason were imprisoned. So close. Have to get to them. Have to … My eyelids fluttered shut. I sank to the ground and drifted into sleep.

  14

  A door banged, jolting me from a nightmare of being whipped. My eyes snapped open. I jerked my head up enough to be able to see through low bushes toward the house. The clouds had passed. The sun was behind me, glinting off windows across from me. The reflection stabbed my eyes, aggravating a headache. A breeze from the day before had strengthened, ruffling bushes. The movement of the leaves around me must have been the source of my nightmare about being whipped.

  I stared toward the back of the house, where I’d heard the door bang. Petey came into view. He wore a light green shirt, which contrasted with his dark beard. I recognized the shirt. It was one that he’d stolen from me a year earlier. The wind tousled his thick dark hair. He peered around, assessing the woods, then pulled a hose from a hook on the wall and went over to the area behind the house. Watering several bushes, he confirmed my suspicion that something beneath the ground caused shallow roots in need of frequent care. The wind sometimes sprayed the water back at him, eventua
lly annoying him enough that he dropped the hose, went to the back wall to shut off the water, and returned to the house.

  The sun’s reflection off windows prevented me from seeing what he was doing inside. After a half hour, the wind had parched my lips so much that I reached for a canteen, only to stop when I heard another door bang, this one at the front. Petey came onto the porch. He’d changed his spray—soaked green shirt for a gray one. It, too, had belonged to me. He raised his head, almost as if he was sniffing the breeze. That’s what my brother had become: an animal assessing if there was danger. Because of me.

  Stop thinking that way! I again warned myself.

  He came down the porch steps and rounded the house, making my pulse quicken when he got into the truck and fastened his seat belt. The truck was faced in my direction but away from the sun’s glare, so that I saw his beard and his stark eyes through the windshield before he made a U—turn. Dust blew as he drove down the lane, the blue of the truck soon vanishing among the windswept trees.

  For a moment, I was sure that my mind had played a trick on me. Had I actually seen what I most wanted to see? Was the sound of the truck actually diminishing in the distance? For several long minutes, I didn’t move. Perhaps Petey had only gone to check the mailbox at the road and would soon be coming back. Or perhaps he had somehow suspected that someone was watching the house and had driven away in order to lure an intruder into the open. As soon as I started toward the house, would he shoot me from where he’d sneaked back and was watching from the trees?

  The sun rose higher. The wind grew stronger, buffeting the bushes I hid among. But it didn’t cool me. Instead, the morning seemed unduly warm. Sweat dried immediately on my dust—caked cheeks. Nervous, I checked my watch and saw that fifteen minutes had passed. If Petey had merely gone to the mailbox, he’d have been back by now, I told myself. I scanned the woods where the driveway disappeared into them. But the wind kept shifting the leaves and prevented me from noticing any movement where he might be hiding, watching for an intruder.

  I stared toward the bushes behind the house. The police. Use the cell phone, I thought. But as I reached for it, I worried that if Petey was watching from another part of the forest, he’d hear me. Instead of muffling what I said, the wind might carry my voice directly to him.

  Or what if Petey wasn’t alone? What if someone else was in the house and would hear my voice as I used the phone? To prevent that from happening, I’d have to retreat several hundred yards into the forest before I felt safe using the phone, but that would mean losing sight of the farmhouse, and there was no telling what might happen while I was away.

  The sun rose higher, no longer reflecting off the windows. Nothing moved beyond them. Last night, I’d seen no other silhouette, only Petey’s. Was it safe to assume that he was alone? The police wouldn’t be able to get here in time before he got back. Damn it, this might be my only chance. I crawled through the undergrowth toward the back of the house. If Petey was watching from the trees in front, he wouldn’t be able to see me approach from the rear.

  Squirming through low branches, I came to the edge of the clearing. I checked again for any movement behind the lace curtains. Then I drew my pistol and hurried into the open. The wind tried to push me back. I reached a lilac bush, used it for cover, then darted toward a grape arbor, which screened me while I studied the house a final time. I sprinted to the back wall and pressed against its sun—warmed bricks.

  Steps rose to the back door. At the top, I raised my head warily to peer through a window. Beyond gauzy curtains, I had an indistinct view of a kitchen, cupboards, a sink, and a stove on the right, an archway and a refrigerator on the left. A small table was in the middle. A single chair suggested that Petey lived by himself.

  What I started worrying about now was that Petey might have a dog, a pit bull, for example, trained not to show itself until an intruder entered the house, at which time the dog would tear the intruder apart. It would make sense for Petey to have one, but the more I thought about it, the more I doubted that he did. I’d been watching the house for over twelve hours, and Petey hadn’t let a dog out to relieve itself. True, Petey might have done so while I was asleep. But wouldn’t the dog have picked up my scent and attacked me? And unless Petey was super—scrupulous about cleaning up after his dog, wouldn’t I have seen dog droppings on the lawn? Besides, a dog locked in the house would limit Petey’s ability to stay away for periods of time. He could leave food for Kate and Jason in their prison. But it would be harder to leave enough for a big dog to survive for any length of time, and that didn’t take into consideration the mess that the dog would make in the house.

  No, I was increasingly convinced that Petey didn’t have a dog. But on the off—chance that he did, I prepared to shoot it.

  I tried the back door. No surprise—it was locked. I was going to have to smash the window, reach through, and open the lock from the other side. I changed my position so that I could look down through the window and see the area above the doorknob. The handle of a lock came into view. After I smashed the window, all I needed to do was reach through, twist the lock’s handle, and …

  Maybe only an architect or somebody in construction would have been bothered. The lock was a deadbolt, a type that I recommended. On the outside, the only way to get in was to use a key. But on the inside, there could be two ways to open the lock, depending on how it was installed. If there wasn’t a window through which an intruder could reach, a handle on the lock was both convenient and safe. But in the case of a window, the secure way to install the lock was to use another key arrangement rather than a lock with a handle. That way, even if an intruder broke the window and reached through, he couldn’t free the lock unless he had a key.

  So, did it make sense for Petey to have a superior lock and an inferior installation? Granted, Mrs. Warren might have been the one who’d had the lock put in. But would Petey, with every reason to be cautious, have ignored the security lapse? I doubted it.

  As I brooded about the problem, something else troubled me. The door had been installed so that it opened toward the cupboards on the right rather than toward an open space on the left, an inconvenient arrangement that prevented the door from being opened to its full range and that risked damaging the cupboards if the door was opened forcefully.

  Nervous, I used the butt of my pistol to smash the window. With the barrel of the pistol, I carefully pulled the curtains toward me. Once they were outside the window, I yanked them loose, gaining a clear view of the kitchen, at least of the parts that I could see. I went back down the steps. Exposing myself to the wind, I found a dead branch on a shrub, broke it free, and snapped off the twigs. I wanted a dead branch rather than a live one because I needed the branch to be stiff. I climbed the steps again and peered down through the gap in the window. Careful not to show my head or hands, I put the branch through the broken window and pressed down on one side of the lock’s handle, which was horizontal rather than round and thus could be manipulated with the stick. Moving, the lock made a scraping sound. Ready with my pistol, I turned the doorknob, stayed where I was, and pushed inward.

  The shocking blast made me flinch as a ten—inch jagged hole appeared in the opened door. My ears hurt as if they’d been slapped. The stench of gunpowder widened my nostrils.

  Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I inched my head forward and peered cautiously through the doorway. To the left, I saw a pantry area, where hinges on a door—jamb showed that a door had been taken off. In the pantry, a shotgun had been mounted to a worktable. A strong cord had been attached to its trigger. The cord went around a pulley behind the shotgun, then up to another pulley, and finally overhead to a metal hook at the top of the door on the inside. The tension on the cord had been adjusted so that the shotgun would go off only when the door was opened a certain distance, allowing for the intruder to show himself before the shotgun detonated.

  The massive hole in the door made me wonder what the blast would have done to my
midsection. Sickened, I warned myself not to get distracted. I still couldn’t be sure that Petey didn’t have a dog.

  Uneasy, I aimed toward the only other entrance to the kitchen: the archway on the left. The ringing in my ears prevented me from hearing anything else. I saw no movement.

  I stepped into the house.

  15

  The wind strengthened. When I shut the door, the gusts came through the broken window and the jagged hole beneath it. As urgent as I felt, I moved slowly. When I passed the kitchen table, my architect’s training again warned me about something. The archway on the left was the only other entrance to the kitchen. That didn’t make sense. There should have also been a door straight ahead that would give easy access to what I assumed were stairs in front leading up to the second story. The way the rooms on the ground floor were laid out, someone coming down from the second story had to take an indirect route from the front hall, through the rooms on the other side of the house, and finally into the kitchen. Mrs. Warren, who was elderly, wouldn’t have tolerated the inconvenience. The wall straight ahead wasn’t being used for anything. It would have been easy and logical to install a door there. Why hadn’t it been done?

  Maybe there had been a door in that wall at one time, I thought. I stepped closer, noticing a slight difference between the top molding on the wall in front of me as opposed to the molding on the wall to my left. The white paint on the wall ahead of me looked slightly brighter than the white paint to my left. The plaster felt smoother. Someone had put a new wall over the doorway, preventing access to the front hall.

  Had Petey done it? Why? Even for a young man, the indirect route into the kitchen would be a nuisance. Why had he deliberately wanted it?

  The only answer I could think of was that Petey had blocked the other door because he wanted to force an intruder to go the long way through the house. He’d set other traps.