I followed him across the room and flopped down on the blue couch in front of the big-screen TV that took up half the wall, while Roberto sorted through the games on the bookshelf. “Where’s your parents?”
“Out.”
“Doing what?”
With a shrug, he answered, “Rolling drunks for food stamps. How do I know? They don’t tell me where they’re going. It’s like every Saturday is their own personal screw-fest. They rent a room so I can’t hear them.”
“No joke? At the Holiday Inn?”
He shook his head and frowned at a game before shoving it back on the shelf. “Naw, a fleabag down the mountain called The Garden Plot. Seventeen bucks an hour.”
My brows lifted in admiration. He knew the price. Roberto prided himself on being the 007 biker witch of Georgetown. Spying on people wasn’t a hobby with him; it was defense intelligence work.
“You followed your parents to their love nest? And asked the desk clerk how much it cost?” I asked in disbelief.
“Sure. After they forced a bottle of ammonia into my hands and made me wipe my greasy ear prints off their bedroom door, they stomped out of the house. I wanted to know where they were going.”
He tossed a couple of games aside, and finally turned around to squint at me. “Want a beer before we play?”
“Okay.”
When Roberto slouched toward the kitchen, I slid Cleo’s bag from my shoulder and turned my attention to the twenty or so smutty paperbacks that covered the coffee table. Used bookstores had been his salvation since the age of eleven when he’d first discovered Internet porn, and his parents had first discovered “parental locks.”
I fanned through the pages of a couple of books. Most were sizzling romances with lurid covers, but a few “adult” westerns sprinkled the mix. Usually these hid under Roberto’s bed. He must be absolutely certain his parents weren’t coming back for a while, or they wouldn’t be out here in clear sight. Roberto had never actually read the books, of course, just the dog-eared pages.
While Roberto clattered around the kitchen, I used the books to build a pretty respectable replica of the Giza pyramid. A short time later, Roberto returned with two Buds stuffed in his jacket pockets and a plate mounded with cold hot dogs and Velveeta slices. He pulled one beer from his pocket and used it to demolish my engineering marvel, before he tossed me the can and set the plate in the middle of Giza’s ruins.
“You’re a freak, you know that?” He gestured to the paperbacks. “Hot throbbing thighs and pulsing manhoods stare you in the face, and all you can think of is the Sphinx? You need help, bro.”
It wouldn’t do any good to explain to Roberto the difference between a pyramid and a sphinx, so I just said, “I tried to read a couple, but all the dog-eared pages were stuck together.”
Popping the top, I downed a long satisfying drink of Bud. My mother only drank wine, and Dad didn’t approve of any beer unless it resembled crankcase drippings. By my standards, the total lack of flavor was a gourmet treat.
Roberto dropped onto the couch beside me and cracked open his beer. “So, how’s your day been? Holed Cleo yet?”
I shook my head. “Bad day. Dad had a heart-to-heart with me. Told me they were banning Cleo from coming over for a week.”
“No way.” Roberto looked truly concerned. He knew I was madly in love with Cleo, and he liked her, too. Mostly because she was strange and shunned at school. Roberto was a loyal sort who figured all of us outcasts had to stick together.
“Yeah. In the middle of the lecture Cleo texted me, and Dad started climbing the walls, told me to give him my phone and go to my room, because I was grounded for the day.”
Roberto leaned back and draped one arm over the couch back to stare at me. “Yet here you sit. How’d that happen?”
“I shoved the phone in my pocket and told him he could beat it out of me when I got home.”
Roberto took a long swallow of beer, belched loudly, and said. “You’re my hero. So, you’re going to stop at the pharmacy on the way home to stock up on bandages, right? Your dad lifts weights.”
I upended my beer, expertly drained the can, and set the empty on the coffee table. “Not going home.”
Roberto stared incomprehensibly at me for a second, then a broad grin split his face. “Yeah? Headed to LA to become a movie star? I always wanted to become a street beggar in New York. You know how much those shysters make in a day? There was a PBS special on it.”
I thought about it before I lied, “I’m going to hide out in the forest behind Cleo’s house for a few days. Can you take care of my phone for me? Otherwise, they’ll track me down like a rabid dog.”
“Yeah, sure, but if you’re going camping for a week, you’ll need a shitload of toilet paper, my man. Remember last year when Mom and Dad shipped me off to that summer conservation institute? Two or three days of leaves and rocks and you’ll run home screaming.”
I’d actually scoped out the forest before, thinking that if I ever had to make a run for it the old, boarded-up gold mine shaft that sank into the mountainside behind Cleo’s house would make a reasonable hideout. Providing that no idiot miner a hundred years ago had left a crate of crystallized dynamite down there, I figured I could survive for at least a week.
“So, bring me a four-pack of toilet paper.”
“Jesus! Four rolls in a week? I’d barely use one, if that. You really are full of shit.”
“Okay, one roll. I’ll make do.”
Roberto took another drink, and gave me a sideways grin. “Can do. Be there tomorrow.”
That was the thing about Roberto. Despite his quirky personality, I could depend on him. I suspect if my life was in danger, Roberto would throw himself in front of a bullet to protect me.
“Okay, I’ve got two new games: ‘The Ghost of Cleopatra II’ or ‘The Gangster Cyclops from Centaurus.’ Your choice. ”
“‘The Ghost—’”
“Yeah, I knew it. You get orgasmic when Cleopatra’s ghost starts following you through the ruins of Karnak.”
Roberto chuckled, finished his beer in four swallows, and walked to the bookshelf to pull down the TV remote, but before he could get there, my phone vibrated.
Digging it out of my pocket, I checked the number, and said, “Hi, Cleo. What’s hap—”
“Halloran, help!” she shouted into my ear loud enough that Roberto heard her. “Oh, my God. They. . . !”
He spun around. “She sounds freaked. What’s wrong?”
“Cleo, what’s wrong?” I leaped to my feet, grabbed her bag, and slung it over my shoulder. “What . . .”
The phone went dead.
“Cleo? Cleo?” Like an idiot, I held the phone out in front of me and stared at it.
Roberto’s blue eyes widened. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know, but we have to get there fast!”
“Let’s take my bike!”
I followed him at a run through the house and into the garage where I jumped on the rear of his 1973 rust-bucket Honda SL 125. It took Roberto four tries to kick it to life, and then we whined off down the street in the middle of a downpour so heavy we couldn’t see thirty feet ahead of us. Old Man Jackson, standing in his window next door, stared at us as we sped by. Soon, the mountains disappeared in the onslaught. All I could see from the back was a gray lightning-slashed haze.
“Faster, Roberto! Faster!”
CHAPTER FOUR
The tires slipped as Roberto swerved around the corner and we wobbled onto the dirt road that led to Cleo’s house. When we hit the potholes, the Honda bounced and rattled as though about to fall apart. I clung to Roberto’s middle and tried to see anything through the rain. Finally, her small log house appeared, and the first thing I noticed was that the front door was wide open.
“Come on! Come on, Roberto!”
He g
unned the throttle and almost lost the bike in the mud, but managed to keep it upright long enough to slide to a stop in front of the house.
I leaped off the back and ran through the open door.
The house looked as though a bomb had exploded inside. The refrigerator and kitchen stove lay on their sides, heaped with splintered wood. It took me a minute to figure out that the wood had been chairs. The couch. The dining room table. Thousands of torn pages fluttered in the storm winds that whipped through the front door. They were all that was left of the books that had stuffed the bookcases.
I stood there gasping for air for way too long before I raced through the house, calling, “Cleo? Cleo, where are you?”
“Oh, dear God,” Roberto said as he entered the house, but by that time I was up the stairs searching the two demolished bedrooms. There was almost nothing left of Cleo’s room. Her dresser, bed, and beloved history book collection were little more than piles of debris.
“Roberto!” I yelled down. “She’s not here!”
“Okay, I’m going outside to search for her!”
Roberto’s boots hammered across the wood floor, and then I heard him shout, “There are footprints in the mud out here, but they’re getting washed away fast!”
I lurched down the stairs and found Roberto kneeling, looking at the mud.
They were Cleo’s tracks, all right. I knew the tread of her Nikes better than my own.
“Somebody tore this place apart, Hal. Looks like she ran away.”
Cupping a hand to my mouth, I shouted into the storm, “Cleo? Where are you?”
The deluge eased slightly, becoming a normal rainstorm rather than a downpour, and I could finally see her trail heading toward the old boarded-up gold mine. She must have been trying to reach it. It took three or four seconds for it to occur to me that if I could still make out her tread, it had only been moments since she’d burst through the front door. I unzipped the shoulder bag and pulled out the ancient medallion. I didn’t have anything else to protect myself.
“What in holy hell is that thing?” Roberto asked. “Where’d you get it?”
My heart almost stopped when two rifle shots rang out.
From up in the trees.
Then screams.
Another shot.
I roared, “Cleo?” and lurched toward the sounds with my feet slipping and sliding in the mud.
“Hal! Dude, we’re running into gunfire. You crazy?”
I didn’t have the time to answer. To his credit, Roberto kept following, panting right behind me. I knew he was scared stiff. So was I. But that’s how you know a true friend. When you’re in trouble, he gives himself up for dead and follows you into gunfire.
“Look!” Roberto said. “She veered off before she got to the mine, and ran up the slope into those trees.”
Jerking around, I saw where he was pointing, saw her trail curve sharply right, and head for the towering pines. I charged up the hill. When I entered the trees, the wind picked up, flailing the branches and shrieking around the trunks. The water-soaked needles shook rain down on me. Her trail had vanished in the springy forest duff.
“I don’t see her, Roberto. Do you?”
“No. I don’t see her or her trail!”
With my heart in my throat, I ran blindly up the slope. A hunting rifle lay about thirty feet into the trees. Her uncle’s. I almost stumbled over it. Even before Roberto picked it up, I knew it must be the weapon she’d used to try and protect herself.
“It’s been fired. I can smell the gunpowder,” Roberto said. He drew back the bolt to check the magazine for bullets and then stared through the barrel. He was an expert rifle and pistol shot. “Empty. She fired until she ran out of ammo.” He started to put the rifle down.
“Keep the rifle,” I ordered. “You can use it as a club, if nothing else.”
“Should have thought of that myself.” Roberto cradled it across his chest. “You think the guy who attacked her is still here?”
“Could be. Be careful!”
I trudged higher up the slope with my gaze moving across the forest, expecting to see men with guns everywhere. But all I saw were smoke-colored wet trees dripping rain and an occasional squirrel leaping through the branches.
“No . . .” Roberto said. “Is that her?”
Roberto swept by me, his legs pumping, struggling up the mountain, heading for what appeared to be a white T-shirt visible between two dark tree trunks.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get air into my lungs. What had she been running from? Something terrible.
Roberto dropped the rifle and fell to the ground beside her.
“Hal, get up here!”
Each step I took, my heart pounded more forcefully. It became a hammer in my chest, battering my ribs. Light-headed, I could no longer feel my feet striking the ground. What had happened? Why would anyone hurt Cleo? She was just a troubled sixteen-year-old girl.
When I arrived, Roberto was quietly sobbing. On the ground before him, Cleo lay on her back with her hair spreading like a black halo around her pretty face. The coppery scent of blood filled the air. Standing there with the medallion clutched in my fist, I didn’t realize I was shaking until I dropped it. Slashes, like knife wounds, split her arms and legs. Or . . . claw marks?
“Cleo?”
I was crying when I sat down and cradled her head against my chest. Rocking her back and forth, I said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t walk you home.”
No answer, but an agonizing second later, I realized she was breathing. I sucked in a surprised breath. “She’s alive. Roberto, she’s alive! Call the police.”
Roberto stumbled to his feet and pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. While he gave the police the details, I smoothed Cleo’s silken hair with my hand and whispered to her, “Everything is going to be okay. I promise. Help is coming. Can you hear me? I’m right here, Cleo. I’m not leaving you.”
She stirred weakly, and her eyes fluttered open. I saw our whole life together reflected in those green depths. All the smiles and laughter, all the serious discussions. I saw how much she loved me.
“Medallion,” she whispered.
“It’s right here, Cleo?” I picked it up and held it in front of her so she could see it.
“Don’t . . . don’t let . . . My aunt and uncle can’t get their hands on it.”
A suffocating feeling closed my throat. I reached down to twine my fingers with hers. “You are not going to die, Cleo. Help is coming, I can hear sirens—”
“If they find it, they . . . they’ll . . .”
“Roberto,” I said as I tossed the medallion to him. “Start thinking crime scene, and hide this somewhere nobody will find it.”
“Got it!” He plunged down the hill and into a big briar of currant bushes.
“Did your uncle do this, Cleo? Did he hurt you?”
She gave me a sleepy look. As though it took too much strength to keep her eyes open, she blinked a few times and closed them.
Roberto yelled, “Cops coming!” and ran stumbling farther down the slope, waving his arms at the two sheriff’s cruisers, shouting, “Here! We’re up here!”
“Halloran.”
Her voice had grown so faint I had to place my ear almost over her lips to hear her. “What is it, Cleo?”
“I . . . I don’t want to live forever. Need to . . . to get to the island.”
My throat had gone so tight I could barely answer: “I know, Cleo.”
Cleo was fading away, slipping into oblivion before my very eyes. As her blood soaked through my pants, her eyes seemed to sink into her skull. I almost couldn’t feel it, but she weakly squeezed my hand, then her fingers relaxed, and Cleo went limp in my arms.
“Cleo?”
My soul was dying. I could feel it draining from my body, along with every ounce of stren
gth I had left. The scent of pines seemed suddenly stronger, as though the storm winds had collected the fragrance from all across the mountains just to blow it down upon us.
That’s when I heard a crackle.
Twigs snapping.
Through a blur of tears, out in the forest, I saw something . . . Turquoise. An Egyptian uniform. Red hair. For one blinding instant, it leaned out from behind the spruce to stare at me.
It was a face straight out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
As though stepping back into Duat, I saw a burst of light. Then it vanished.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was sitting in the interrogation room at the local sheriff’s office, shaking, when the officer came in. Roberto sat slumped in his chair beside me. I kept staring at my right fist. I couldn’t seem to unclench my fingers. My hand was covered with Cleo’s blood. I was holding onto a part of her, the only part I had left, and I couldn’t let her go. It didn’t matter that I’d held her as she’d died. I knew she still needed me to protect her.
“You boys okay?” the officer asked as he closed the door behind him and walked over to sit on the other side of the table, opposite us. He had wiry gray eyebrows and buzz-cut gray hair.
Cries from the Lost Island Page 3
