Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  But that didn’t stop the feeling she now had from tugging at her entire core.

  “Tim,” Burrows said, ripping her from her thoughts. “Isn’t that-“

  “Yes,” she said, cutting him off. “Yes, it is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The trunk door rose without so much as a sound, an auto-release that sent it flying up so fast it almost caught me under the chin.

  What a damn disaster that would have been, getting my ass all the way across the country, skirting my WITSEC cover in the process, only to wind up flat on my back in the driveway of the man I was coming to check on.

  Shoving the mental image away, I ducked my head into the narrow space and unscrewed the plastic twist in the middle of the floor. Starting high in my scalp, sweat ran straight down my forehead, dripping from the end of my nose as I worked the hasp free and tossed it the side.

  Hooking my fingers under the circle cut in the center of the wooden panel it was holding in place, I pulled it free, letting it slide to the ground, leaning it against the side of the Charger.

  Parked at the angle I was, tucked into a tight clump of pine trees, most of the sun from overhead was blocked from view. Only a few stray spots of light made it through, dappling the space, providing just enough illumination for what I was looking for.

  The two-foot length of steel tucked into the well alongside the spare tire.

  Six years had passed since I last held a gun, even longer since it was anything beyond my standard service issue rifle. Right now, I would give anything to have access to a Kimber Ultra-Carry or a .45 ACP.

  Even something as basic as .38 would do.

  Having expended all the time and money I really cared to on the Charger though, for the time being, the tire iron was the best I could do.

  For the past eight hours, I had sat behind the wheel of one car or another, trying to imagine how the next few minutes would play out. In my mind, I’d gone through every possible permutation, ranging from showing up to find Uncle Jep sitting on the front porch, working at one of those damned handheld wood carvings he was never without, all the way to walking in to find him in various states of disrepair, the life drained from his body.

  Now that it had finally arrived, I couldn’t help but feel the electric buzz of adrenaline pulsating through my system, lighting me up in a way I hadn’t experienced in years.

  As much as I feared for the safety of my friend, I’d be lying if I said the effect wasn’t a little intoxicating.

  Returning the lid to the hidden compartment in the trunk, I didn’t bother putting it in place or screwing it down tight. Barely able to keep my nerves even, I closed the trunk door and surveyed my surroundings, ears attuned to any sound.

  After the death of my parents, this place was my home for three years, every inch of these woods as ingrained in my memory as the apartment I’d been penned in for the last six.

  With every inhalation of pine, I could feel memories rushing back, my senses recalibrating, body and environment reacquainting with one another.

  Gripping the tire iron tight by the hooked curve at the end of it, I tucked the metal up close to my leg, the elongated screwdriver pointed at the ground. Eschewing the dirt lane I had first turned down, I set off at an angle through the woods, exiting the clump and picking my way through the underbelly of the forest.

  The world was much hotter than I remembered it ever being – especially for June – but otherwise things seemed to be just as I left them.

  Exposed roots and a thick mat of pine needles covering the ground. Bits of slanted light traveling through the treetops. The faint sound of running water from the creek out back.

  Moving slowly, more than fifteen minutes passed as I walked through the woods, every part of me wanting to go faster, to take off at a sprint, to cover the last bit of ground and see what I’d traveled so far for.

  Just as fast, the more prudent part of me won out, the internal voice that will forever sound like Uncle Jep telling me to slow down. To not do something stupid.

  That if something had happened, it was long past the point where my charging in would make a damned bit of difference anyway.

  A half mile after leaving the Charger hidden near the drive, a shape emerged ahead of me. Dark and ominous, it was a solitary box set deep in the woods, cut from straight lines that nature could never produce.

  Rising two stories in height, light glinted off a polished green metal roof.

  Feeling my chest draw tight, I tapped the tire iron against my leg, the comfort it gave me immeasurable as I pushed forward, my gaze darting back and forth, looking for any sign of trouble.

  Or sign of life, for that matter.

  As if sensing what was occurring, what might have already occurred, the world went silent, taking with it the birds in the trees, even the sound of the breeze whistling through the branches.

  In their place was nothing but stillness, the air so heavy it had painted me in sweat, my clothes sticking to me.

  When my parents died, Uncle Jep never blinked about taking me in. I had spent so much time with him already, I had my own room in the cabin I was now standing before.

  Even his dog, a cantankerous old mutt that didn’t like anybody, had accepted that I was around, regarding me with an accepting detachment.

  Every last thought I’d had on the drive in rushed to the fore, the good ones falling by the wayside, the bad ones filling my thoughts as I drew close.

  If I walked in to find him face down at the kitchen table, keeled over the side of his bed, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d respond.

  Even less if I arrived to find something far more heinous had occurred.

  Stopping just short of the pair of stairs leading up onto the porch, I gave the front of the place a quick once-over, looking for anything that might lend the impression of him passing by recently.

  In the driveway, there was no sign of his old truck, not even a fresh set of tracks carved into the loose dirt.

  On the front porch, there wasn’t the faintest scent of tobacco in the air, not even a cigarette butt in the ashtray on the roughhewn table beneath the front window.

  The sound of my steps echoed hollow as I stepped up the two stairs and walked across the front porch, a place I’d spent so much time, yet still felt completely detached from.

  Right now, this wasn’t my home.

  It was a place with an odd and foreboding feeling hanging over it, my core clenching as I walked past the twin Adirondack chairs we built together a decade before. Cupping a hand to my face, I peered in through the front window, hoping to catch some flash of movement, some sign that the old man was inside.

  Instead, all I saw were shadows.

  Retreating a step, I grasped the arm on the closest chair and lifted it a few inches. Rotating the tire iron in my hand, I ran my fingers over the bottom of the rear leg, sliding the spare key out from the groove carved into the wood.

  Holding it up to the light, I could see the brass had faded, the teeth of it dull, carrying nowhere near the gleam it once had.

  Meaning it likely hadn’t been used in quite some time.

  With my breath held tight, I lowered the chair back into place and turned toward the front door, praying that every bad vision I’d had in the preceding eighteen hours was incorrect.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I hadn’t set foot inside the house in almost a decade, but there was an instant recognizability to everything that was undeniable. Like the most intense form of déjà vu I’d ever felt, the entire world seemed like a snapshot of a time gone by.

  Like every last detail was exactly the way I remembered it, except for me.

  I’d aged ten long years according to the calendar, more than that in terms of appearance and life experience, but the place around me hadn’t changed an iota.

  Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but allow a single corner of my mouth to curl up.

  Exactly like Uncle Jep, for sure.

  As fast as it a
rrived, the smile was gone, my muscles tensing as I raised the tire iron before me.

  “Uncle Jep!” I called, raising my voice as loud as I dared. “Unc! You here?”

  The sound reverberated off the exposed wooden floors and beams lining the ceiling, echoing through the house and back to me before being swallowed up. Moving nothing but my head, I looked over everything, searching for any sign of movement.

  Any sign that he might have been by recently.

  The living room was the same as the very first time I visited, a boy of no more than four or five. The left side of the room was done in red brick, a black Dutch oven stove sitting in the middle of it, pipe rising straight up before making a ninety-degree turn and exiting through the outer wall.

  Resting on a ledge was the chessboard we made together, hours upon hours of entertainment represented by the multi-colored squares.

  To either side were armchairs of dark green, the fabric wore threadbare on the seat and arms from years of use.

  Beside each were small magazine racks, each stuffed to capacity with Western Living and Field & Stream issues dating back to God knew when.

  On the floor was an oval rug, an ancient entertainment center with a box television atop it, a layer of dust as thick as my fingernail covering the screen.

  To this day I had no idea if the thing even worked, having not once seen it turned on.

  The sole personal touch of any kind was the pair of framed photographs sitting on the entertainment center. Matching silver filigree, one was of Uncle Jep and his wife Marilee, a woman that passed before I was even born.

  The other, my parents on their wedding day, Uncle Jep between them, all three smiling, adorned in their Sunday best.

  Or, as close to it as the seventies would allow.

  It had been years since I’d seen that photo, one of the few remaining of my parents in general, but right now I didn’t have the time to stop and say hello to them.

  Soon, but not just yet.

  Instead, I worked my way across the living room and through the open passageway into the dining room, a pair of double doors on the back wall letting in sunlight. Casting a bright gleam across the varnished top of the table sitting square before it, I raised a hand to block the glare, checking the space over.

  Just like with the living room, the world seemed to be locked in a state of suspension. Everything was cleaned, put where it was supposed to be, but there was no sign of life.

  Not even the scent of coffee in the air, as sure an indicator as any that he hadn’t been by in quite some time.

  Hooking a quick right, I could feel my heart rate continuing to rise. The combination of being inside this house, of seeing the polished remnants of a life that no longer seemed to exist, had adrenaline seeping into my system with a steady drip.

  Glancing to my arms, I could see sunlight catching the rivulets of sweat tracing down from my shoulders, the taste of salt strong on my lips.

  “Uncle Jep!” I called once more, moving down the back hallway. Cramped and narrow, it lasted no more than a few feet before ascending sharply, the stairs protesting with each of my steps.

  One by one, I climbed them slowly, my makeshift weapon held at the ready, the screwdriver point extended, ready to be used as a prod. Turning my shoulders to try and peer up onto the second-floor landing above, I slowed my pace, drawing in air through my nose.

  The upper story was at least ten degrees hotter than the one below, the pinched ceiling sealing in the heat for the house, holding it hostage in an impromptu sauna.

  Flashing back, I could remember more than one summer night when that very same phenomenon had forced me out through my bedroom window, the slanted shingles of the roof serving as my bed for the evening.

  With each step, the house responded in kind, small creaks and groans, an old friend’s way of welcoming me home.

  Or accusing me of being too late, wanting to know where the hell I’d been for so long.

  Standing inside the space, I’d be lying if I said the same thoughts weren’t occurring to me as well.

  For a moment, I considered calling out again, dismissing the notion just as fast. The house was so small, there’s was no way anybody inside wouldn’t have heard me already, especially someone with as keen an ear as Uncle Jep.

  Instead, I passed by the futon sitting pressed along one wall, the bookcase lined with Louis L’Amour and Ed McBain novels, the spines cracked from being read and reread over the years.

  With little more than a passing glance, I peeked into the room that had at one time been my own, everything exactly as I had left it, right down to the poster of Kathy Ireland still on the wall above the bed.

  Thinking nothing of it, the pulsating nervousness I felt numbing my body to any sort of response, I kept my focus aimed at the second bedroom.

  With the door standing open, a dark shadow extended into the space, my pace slowing as I walk toward it, tire iron at the ready. Swinging wide, I squared up to the entry, coming straight through, uncertain of what might lay inside.

  Again, previous thoughts of Uncle Jep’s decaying body, of a ghastly crime scene, of Lord knows what else, all enter my mind.

  Stepping over the threshold, though, I found nothing of the sort.

  What I did find was much, much worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sound of Sheriff Charbonneau’s voice carried out into the bullpen area of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, a small, square structure that was essentially four rooms. The edge of the building was parceled off into three smaller ones of equal sizes, one for the Sheriff, one for a kitchen, and the final for a holding cell that Talula Davis had never seen used for anything more than young men that had imbibed too much the night before.

  The remainder of the space was the central bullpen, the area housing a large front desk where dispatch sat, also serving as the greeter/receptionist for the office.

  The majority of the time that post was manned by Dan Tanner, a large, bulbous man with thin red hair and a thick red beard. Even when he wasn’t around – as was the case at the moment – his presence was felt, the smell of canned meats or potato chips always in the air.

  Which in turn led to equal amounts of flatulence, which also hung like a heavy cloud at the entrance.

  Behind the desk stretched almost the width of the building were two smaller desks, each facing a side wall, their backs to one another.

  The left side went to Deputy Marc Adams, a local that had been with the department seven years. Lining the top of his desk was a menagerie of photos and drawings, all done in the colorful hand of his two young daughters.

  Cute kids – and family as a whole, if Talula was pressed – but after a while it got to be too much, sugar shock setting in.

  The far corner was reserved for her, a single wooden desk and chair, the top of it carrying not a single item of her own, stripped clean of any work papers before she left each night. More than once she had thought what the effect would be if she didn’t return the next morning, almost always coming back to the same conclusion.

  The rest of the office would have to start doing their own shit work for a while.

  “Don’t you know it!” Charbonneau called, his voice rising, full of mirth. Carrying out into the bullpen, the sound of it only made Davis tighten her grip on the ink pen in hand, pressing down hard enough on the paper she was currently filling out to almost tear a hole clean through it.

  An hour earlier, the Sheriff had called and asked her to come by. Knowing it was to fill him in on the results of her canvas at Lake Edstrom, she had agreed to do as asked, ignoring the fact that the conference would not even begin until after her shift was scheduled to end.

  Now that he had blown by that time by a considerable margin, almost all of it spent discussing the state of Tennessee Volunteer football loud enough for her to hear, she couldn’t help but feel her ire spiking.

  Looked like a second consecutive day of double sessions in the basement gym.


  “Alright, then, I should get going too,” Charbonneau boomed. “I’ve got something waiting I should finish up. I’ll talk to you later, Charley.”

  Again, Davis felt her grip tighten, this time enough to make the veins on the back of her hand stand out.

  “Alright, bye.”

  A moment later, the sound of the phone being dropped into its cradle could be heard, followed in order by the wheeze of the springs on Charbonneau’s desk chair. One heavy step at a time, he crossed the floor, loud breaths escaping with each one until he emerged at the door.

  “Hey, you ready?”

  With her back turned, Davis paused a moment, her eyes and lips all three mashing into straight lines.

  She had come to the office specifically for the reason of meeting with him, had been going through the motions of filling out paperwork ever since simply to give herself something to do that didn’t involve scrolling through her cell phone.

  Of course she was ready.

  Ready to get out of the office and home to strip out of her sweaty uniform.

  “Absolutely,” Davis said, grabbing up the spiral bound notebook from the desk beside her as she rose. Turning to face the man, all she caught was his back as he retreated into his office, saying nothing as he went.

  Turning her head to the side, Davis pushed a silent obscenity out through gritted teeth, picking her way past Adams’s desk and into the Sheriff’s office.

  Almost as large as the bullpen, most of it could easily be classified as wasted space, a full-size sofa and mini fridge taking up one whole side. In the corner, the newest in window air conditioners pushed frosted air into the room, the space significantly cooler than the rest of the building.

  “So,” Charbonneau said, dropping himself unceremoniously in his seat, the chair sliding a few inches beneath his bulk, “what’d you find today?”

  Settling herself onto the straight back wooden chair across from him – far and away the most uncomfortable seating option in the room – Davis didn’t bother flipping open her notebook.