In the Shadows of Fate

by Rick Jurewicz

  "Why would someone want to hurt my family?" asked Miranda. "Do you have any leads at all? Anything?"

  "That is one of the things that we wanted to ask you. We have nothing. There are officers interviewing your father’s co-workers your mother’s friends and your brother's friends at school. Grief councilors have been called into the school for friends and classmates of Steven. He was a pretty popular kid, I understand."

  "Yes...he was far more sociable than I ever was...he had lots of friends..." she went on, almost in a daze with all that she had been told in the last few minutes alone.

  "Can you think of anything? Anyone that may have had an issue with anyone in your family?" asked Rice.

  Miranda sat silently still for a moment before her emotions overtook her once more. She broke down again, sobbing with her hands holding her head above the table. Detective Rice reached across the table and placed his hand gently on her wrist, trying to offer whatever little comfort it may. Miranda looked up at him with the tears streaming down her face. She could barely form her words when she spoke to him.

  "I have no idea who could have done this! I've rarely even spoken to my parents since I left home. I hardly ever came back to see them...I don't know what has been happening in their lives! What kind of a daughter am I? What kind of a sister? I don't even know if my brother had a girlfriend, or if he even cared about that sort of stuff!"

  Rice feared that Miranda might start to feel survivor’s guilt going through all of this. She could have just as easily been in that house last night. She could have just as easily been another body bag.

  Under almost all circumstances, she would have been considered a suspect just as well as anyone else. She had an alibi though, and her phones GPS had already proved that she had been in the U.P. for the last few days. Rice had already confirmed this. Even though she had not been at the house when this happened, she was not being considered a suspect in the investigation.

  "I know you are feeling guilty right now. That is a natural feeling. But I need you to try to stay strong and think. Is there anything at all you can tell me that might help us? Because frankly, right now we have nothing to go on. No suspects, no fingerprints. Nothing," said Rice, looking tired and anxious now.

  Miranda sat across from the detective and tried to think of something, anything at all, that might help.

  "My mother called me yesterday," she told Rice.

  He pulled a notebook from his inside jacket pocket, along with an ink pen, and placed the pad on the table.

  "What time was that?" asked Rice.

  "It was...hold on," she said, pulling her phone from her pocket. She found the call log with Lorri's call to her. "It was 3:07 p.m."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "She just wanted to know how my trip was going. But we didn't talk very long. She said that someone from the gas company had just arrived at the door. Something about the meter not working right, and that they had been being overcharged. A man was there to fix it."

  "We spoke to administrators at the local office for the gas company. There hadn't been any work orders for the house since the service was connected a few months back."

  Rice took his cell phone from his belt and dialed it.

  "Yeah, it's Rice. We need to get officers canvassing the neighborhood, asking the neighbors or anyone who might have been in the area if they saw anything going on at all at the Stratton house between 2:45 and 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Any strange vehicles, people hanging around? We have a timeframe now for possible suspects. Call me as soon as you find something. Thanks."

  "That is more than we had to go on 10 minutes ago. All it takes sometimes is the smallest detail to unveil the biggest mysteries. You did well. There is something else that we need to consider here though, Miranda. I don't want to alarm you, but with the timing involved here, we have to also consider the fact that your family may not have been the target of a malicious act at all."

  Miranda's facial expression revealed her confusion about Detective Rice's statement.

  "What do you mean? You still think that this may have actually been some sort of an accident or mistake? You said this looked like it could have been professional. I don't understand?"

  "You just arrived home from being away for months at school. You said you hardly ever come home for visits. Who knew you were back home now?" asked Rice.

  Miranda began to understand the direction that Detective Rice was going with this. She felt a whole new chill run down her spine.

  "You think that someone was after me? Why would someone try to hurt me?"

  "I am just trying to make sure all of our angles are being covered. I want to get whoever is responsible for doing this as much as anyone else."

  "I'm sorry," said Miranda. "I can't really wrap my head around this right now."

  Rice placed his hand on Miranda's hand across the table.

  "I know it's been a rough day for you. It's all a lot to take in. You need to get some rest for now. Think about it. If there is anything, it will come to you. Call or come down here to the station. I imagine that I will be in the local office all night going through everything that we have so far. Sleep on it."

  Rice took from his pocket a business card and jotted down a phone number on the back of it, and handed it across the table to Miranda.

  "Here is my card with my contact info. My personal cell phone is on the back, in case you need anything or think of anything. Call me anytime."

  Rice rose from the table and Miranda followed. He opened the door for her, and Jake was waiting in a chair beside Loretta's desk. He got up and walked towards her, but he didn't say anything as he approached her. Words didn't seem to mean very much in moments like these.

  "Do you have someplace to stay tonight, Miranda?" asked Detective Rice.

  "She can stay at my place tonight. I have plenty of room," said Jake.

  Miranda didn't argue. She knew with how she was feeling, the familiar face close by would be comforting, even given the circumstances of their past together. Regardless of how their relationship had ended up, it was Jake that was the one who was there for her when she came to the horrific realization that this wasn't someone's bad joke; that Detective Rice had told her the truth about what had happened to her parents. And here he was now. The friendship that they had transcended their former relationship. It wasn't something that she had consciously known, merely something that she felt deep within her.

  Rice looked to Miranda.

  "Is that alright with you? I am sure that I can find you a place to stay if you aren't comfortable with that."

  "No, it's good," she said. "Jake is an old friend. I'll figure out where I will go from there tomorrow."

  Detective Rice tried not to be too expressive with the frown on his face. Right now to him, everyone was a suspect, and that included Jake Neilson. Jake had known that Miranda was in town; Rice understood this, even if she had not revealed that fact directly to him. Jake's arrival and apparent fear that he showed in thinking Miranda may have been a victim as well was enough to reveal this to Rice. Miranda reminded Rice of his own teenage daughter in many ways, and he found himself feeling protective of this girl. It was hard to find escape from the sadness that was reflected in Miranda's eyes.

  Miranda walked to the door and took a quick glance back at Detective Rice before walking out. Jake followed close behind.

  CHAPTER 9

  Miranda followed Jake to his home, about five miles west of town. Jake had not told her that where he lived now was out a few miles past the subdivision that Miranda's parents had lived in. Not that the fact would have mattered. She needed someplace to stay, and really didn't feel like being alone, but it was hard not to look once more at the flashing lights and gawking crowds that lined the once quiet road that was now the scene of a police investigation. She forced herself to look away after allowing it all to capture her attention for a moment, then continued concentrating on Jake's motorcycle ahead of her. Up about another mile and a half, he
turned off onto another paved road, and went on for another half-mile before he turned into a driveway of a large, blue mobile home.

  As far as mobile home standards are generally concerned, this place was fairly large and new looking. It was certainly well kept, and even the yard was a nice cleared lawn with surprisingly few leaves scattered about it. Oaks and maple trees surrounded the edge of the yard, and the fallen leaves had all been pushed or blown back into the trees beyond the yard.

  Jake pulled his bike underneath a covered pavilion of sorts that looked like it had probably been made just for the bike. The roof of the small structure was finished and shingled, supported by four 4-inch by 4-inch treated posts. Two sides of it had walls that were simply grey tarps to block the wind. The front and the back had tarps also, but they were rolled up tightly to the top and secured with bungee cords. It was a homemade Michigan mini-garage, but this was at least constructed with care and respectability, unlike many of the others that one might see when wandering into the backwoods communities in the surrounding area.

  Miranda parked her Vibe alongside Jake's bike shelter, and grabbed her laptop case and her luggage bag from the car. Jake took the luggage bag from her without saying a word. She could tell he was trying to be as delicate as possible given the situation. He was never really at a loss for words, so his silence revealed to Miranda that he wanted to tread carefully with her, as well as the fact that he was hurting just as well. She knew some of the relationship that Jake had kept with her family after the break up. It was mostly her father that would mention Jake occasionally on the phone after Miranda had gone off to school, but Miranda rarely commented back. She thought that her father had become rather fond of Jake, despite the rocky times early on in the relationship, and that he hoped some day they would get back together. But she also knew at the same time that her father was her biggest supporter in following her own path. Now he was gone, and she was here with Jake as her friend. She believed her father would think she was in good hands.

  But Miranda felt she was in no one’s hands but her own. It had been stirring in her head what Detective Rice said to her just before she left the police station. Although it made no sense to her whatsoever that someone might be trying to hurt her, was it possible that this had something to do with her coming home? She wasn't the type of person to garner enemies. If nothing else, she got along just fine with most people that she came across. Although she might not be the most open and outgoing of people, those she did interact with and meet along the way she accepted for who they were, and most people respected her for that. As far as bad blood with anyone, the only person around this town that could have even come close to being in that category was Jake, and she knew that was impossible. She saw the pain in his eyes.

  She followed Jake into the trailer and was probably more surprised walking in than she had been driving up to the house.

  The house was clean and organized and well kept. There was a large 52" flat screen television on the wall with a couch and matching recliners in the living room. The carpet was dark blue and looked like new, and there wasn't a dirty dish anywhere in the kitchen. A thought crossed Miranda's mind at that moment that caused her some concern. Does Jake have a girlfriend that he hadn't mentioned to Miranda before she agreed to stay with him? Not that Miranda would have a problem with that, because she had no interest whatsoever in this being anything more than an old friend trying to help her out. But what would the girlfriend think? Miranda certainly didn't want to get herself in the middle of anything like that. In her experience, guys just don't live this clean and organized on their own. At least not the straight guys she's encountered. She couldn't hold back any more from asking the question before she would just decide to bolt out the door.

  "You live here alone?" she asked, trying not to sound ungrateful or snobbish.

  "Yeah," he said, as a slight grin formed on his lips. "Why? Not up to your standards?"

  Jake could tell what was going through her mind. Even though they hadn't seen each other in almost four years, some things hadn't changed as far as what he could pick up from her voice and body language that revealed what was going on in her head. She would get pissed at him sometimes for doing it, and he would know when she was pissed because she would start referring to him as "Sherlock" in the most derogatory of ways.

  Miranda set her laptop case down on the chair nearest the door.

  "I'm sorry. I had to ask. This place looks great, really."

  Jake humbly grinned to ease the momentary tension.

  "It's fine. I understand where you're coming from. It actually belongs to my grandpa. At least that is what he said. I pay him rent, but not very much. He bought it after I moved out of my parent’s place. He stopped over one day to see the place where I was living at the time. It was a dump, but I was alright with it. I guess he wasn't. He told me he picked up this place as an 'investment', and suggested that maybe I would want to rent it since no one else had come by to check it out. He just didn't want to have to see me living in a dump."

  "He has a good heart," Miranda told him.

  "Yeah. The furniture was a gift last Christmas. The TV was a housewarming gift from my parents. Ever since I started going to school they have been like that - new dishes, second hand dining room table, stuff like that."

  "You're going to school? For what?"

  Jake's sideways smirk came back to his face.

  "Well...right now, it's for nursing," he told her.

  Miranda's jaw dropped just slightly, and she caught herself letting it drop. But not before Jake caught on to it. His smile widened.

  "Yeah, I thought that might be your reaction," Jake told her.

  "It's just...I'm having trouble seeing you as a nurse," Miranda said, awkwardly.

  "It's a start. I plan on eventually going on to become a physician’s assistant."

  "That's...that's great."

  Miranda slowly walked over to one of the recliners on the far side of the room and sat down. She felt exhausted from the emotional overload of the past few hours, as well as all of the other thoughts spinning around in her head about all she had discovered in the days before. Jake could see the emotional fatigue that was overcoming her.

  "Hey, I'm gonna take the couch tonight. Why don't you get yourself settled into my room and get some rest," Jake told her.

  "I can't take your bed, Jake."

  "You can and you are," he insisted.

  Jake walked over and put out his hand to Miranda. She looked at it for a moment, and reached out with her own hand and he helped her out of the chair. She hadn't realized until that moment how tired she actually was. Jake showed her to his bedroom, which was pretty much in the same orderly fashion as the rest of the house. She sat on the edge of the bed and kicked her shoes off, and pulled her legs onto the bed. Jake walked around the other side of the bed and grabbed a blue quilt off of a pile of blankets and pillows that were stacked between the wall and the nightstand, and placed it over Miranda. He closed the blinds, and began to walk out of the room. As he began to close the door behind him, Miranda wearily interrupted.

  "Jake...thank you," she said.

  Jake smiled at her without saying anything, and continued on out the door. Miranda was asleep within a minute afterwards.

  Miranda's eyes still felt heavy when she opened them again. She knew that she could smell food of some kind being made, but couldn't make out what it was. The clock was out of focus for the first few seconds before she could make out that the time was 5:17 p.m. Pushing herself up and out of the bed, she made her way into the bright kitchen.

  Jake was at the stove, pouring a jar of spaghetti sauce into a large saucepan. There was another pot on the burner next to the sauce full of boiling water with what she assumed was spaghetti noodles cooking in it. Jake heard her approach and turned around with a smile.

  "Hey...did you sleep alright?” asked Jake. "You were out cold pretty quick."

  "I think so. I guess I didn't realize how tired I was
," she told him.

  "You've been through a lot. And you need some food. You still like spaghetti, I hope? I made it with burger, so I hope you haven't gone vegetarian on me," said Jake.

  "No, it's fine. Right now I feel like I could eat almost anything," she told him, taking a sideways seat at the dining room table.

  "It'll just be a few more minutes. The sauce is ready, but the noodles aren't done cooking yet."

  Thoughts of Aimsley suddenly came to mind. Miranda stood up and walked over to her jacket next to her laptop. Her hurried movement caught Jake's eye.

  "Everything okay?" he asked her.

  "Yeah...there is just someone I have to call," she told him.

  She dialed Aimsley's cell number and waited for a few rings. The call went to voicemail.

  "Hello, you have reached the Book Stops Here bookstore and Aimsley Carter. I'm sorry I cannot take you call at this time. Please leave your name and number and a brief message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible."

  There was a long beep, and Miranda waited to speak.

  "Aimsley...it's Miranda. I really need to talk to you. Call me back as soon as you get this message. Please."

  Miranda pushed END on her phone and just stood there for a moment, holding it in her hand. Jake was finishing up with the noodles while watching Miranda with concern out of the corner of his eye. Not paying full attention to what he was doing at the sink, he made a sudden noise when he burned himself with the hot water from the noodles. This snapped Miranda out of her troubling daze, and she moved quickly to Jake to help him at the counter.