“That didn’t work,” she said.
“No crap,” Jimmy said.
“If you had fallen in, I don’t know if we could have even seen you,” Luke said.
“You wouldn’t jump in after me?” she teased.
“You know I would,” Luke said. “I wouldn’t like it, but I’d jump in.”
She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for saving me.”
“Hey!” John said. “What about me?”
“Thank you, John,” and she kissed him on the cheek too. Luke felt a little twinge of jealousy, and it bothered him that he would feel that way toward his best friend.
Jimmy was studying the pool, lost in thought, when he said, “You know, if somebody fell in this thing, I don’t think anybody would find them ‘til spring.”
“Nah—somebody would see,” John said.
“Wanna bet?”
“How’re you going to prove it?” John asked.
“I got an idea.” And Jimmy explained his plan. They all grinned.
* * *
That evening, at dusk, they met together on the side of Luke’s house with the items they had collected. Jimmy had his dad’s giant MagLite flashlight, and John had an ice pick along with some old clothes. Luke and Ellie had brought old clothes too. They sat in the snow and put together a stuffed dummy with the clothes and rags. The only things missing were shoes and hands. Luke didn’t think it would matter.
Ellie held the stuffed dummy up and said, “He needs a name.”
“How ‘bout George,” John said.
“George it is,” Ellie said. “Come on George, let’s go swimming.”
It was full dark now, no moon, and Jimmy led the way through the wooded backyard with the flashlight shining the way. It was very quiet and Luke kept thinking he would hear the voice again, but nothing made a sound.
When they got to the pool fence, they tossed ‘George’ over and climbed after him. Jimmy doused the flashlight and they worked in the dark. John took the ice pick and chipped the ice around the hole Ellie had made earlier until it was big enough for ‘George’ to fit through.
“Get the lifeguard pole, John,” Jimmy whispered.
John grabbed the pole that was hanging by brackets on the fence and brought it over. Jimmy used it to stuff the dummy up under the ice and push it out deeper into the pool. He then took the hook end and pushed the snow around on top of the ice, clearing an area so they could see the dummy through the murky thin ice. From their point of view, ‘George’ looked exactly like a body that was trapped under the ice.
“Come on,” Luke said and giggled at the sight. “Let’s go!”
They all quickly climbed back over the fence, laughing nervously and trying not to make too much noise. Luke got stuck at the top of the fence for a minute, his coat snagging on the chain link. He panicked and pulled it hard, ripping it as it tore free. He almost fell when it came loose.
They ran back to the hole in the fence, worked their way back up through Luke’s backyard, and stood in his driveway, proud of themselves.
“Now we wait and see how long it takes for someone to find him,” Jimmy said. “I give it ‘til spring.”
“I say two weeks,” John said.
“Three weeks,” Luke said.
“A month,” Ellie said.
They were all wrong.
Chapter 7
After they made bets with Jimmy and John on when ‘George’ would be found, Luke and Ellie said goodnight to the brothers and then went to his house.
“Mom?! Ellie’s here.”
“Ok,” Luke’s mom yelled back. “What happened to kick the can?”
“It’s too cold.”
“Alright, don’t keep her here too late. Her mom will be worried.”
“I’ll call her, Mrs. Harrison,” Ellie yelled.
Luke’s mom came to the door of the kitchen and looked them both over. “Ok, Honey. That would probably be good. Are you doing ok? We haven’t seen you here in a while. So sorry about Bentley.”
“Thank you, ma’am. And yes I’m doing better.” She looked at Luke and smiled.
“That’s good. You guys gonna watch some TV? I could bring you some cookies and milk.”
“Thanks, Mom. That would be great. Come on, Ellie.” Luke led her down into the basement where the Harrison’s had a game room of sorts. Luke found the TV remote while Ellie called her mom. He grabbed a blanket, since it was a little chilly in the basement, and waited until she finished with her mom.
“I have to be home at 9:00,” Ellie said.
“Ok, that’s cool.” He turned the TV on and found an old movie to watch. Luke’s mom came down with the cookies and two glasses of milk on a tray and set it on the coffee table in front of them.
“It’s freezing,” she said. “Are you sure you guys want to stay down here? You can watch upstairs in the living room.”
“We’ll be fine, Mom. We have a blanket. Thanks for the cookies.”
“Thank you Mrs. Harrison,” Ellie said, grabbing a cookie and taking a big bite.
“You’re welcome, Sweetheart. Ok. If you guys change your mind…” and she turned and went back upstairs.
They ate a few cookies in silence and then she snuggled up next to him, pulling the blanket over them both. Her head was resting on his shoulder with his arm around her and he could smell the shampoo she used. He put his hand on her head and gently stroked her blonde hair, feeling the fine softness of it as his fingers ran through it.
She hummed softly and said, “That feels so good. Is that weird?”
“Not to me,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time now. Is that weird?”
“You should have done it sooner.”
“I told you, I was too scared.”
“You don’t seem scared now.”
“You promised not to hate me.”
She looked up at him. “I did, didn’t I?” She kissed him shyly and then more confidently. He felt he could get lost in those lips.
She broke the kiss and touched his face. “So, are we boyfriend and girlfriend now?”
He hadn’t thought about it. “Well, I’m a boy and you’re a girl, so…”
“Really?” and she punched him playfully. “I suppose you’re going to say ‘And we’re friends…so…’”
“We are, aren’t we?”
“The best.”
“Ok then. We’re boyfriend and girlfriend.” He smiled at her and she kissed him again.
As he got lost in the softness of her lips, a faint ‘tap, tap, tap’ invaded his senses. She pulled away and looked toward the back sliding glass door a few feet away.
It came again. Three quick, light taps, as if someone was using their fingernail against the glass. Luke tensed and he felt her shrink into him.
“What is it?” she said.
“Wait,” he said softly, and she waited.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Shit,” he said and got up. She followed him to the door and he tried peering through the glass into the darkness. He could see nothing. He flipped on the outside light and brightness flared into the backyard illuminating the white snow.
He could see nothing out there.
She held onto his arm, leaning into him, as he took another step closer to the glass. Suddenly an object crashed into the door and she screamed as they both jumped back.
It was small, black, and fluttered around on the ground for a second outside the door, then grew still. Luke knew what it was.
“A bird,” he said. He stepped up to the glass and looked closer. “A crow. That’s weird.” And that’s when they heard the sirens.
Chapter 8
The whole neighborhood, it seemed, had turned out to watch the spectacle. Luke, Ellie, and his mom and sisters, all stood at the edge of the crowd surrounding the pool and watched as the firemen and policemen rescued ‘George.’ His dad and little brother had stayed at home.
John, Jimmy and their dad came up and stood with them,
joining the growing crowd.
“What’s going on,” Mr. Besner said to Luke’s mom.
“I don’t know. I think someone fell in the pool.”
Luke tried not to look at John and Jimmy, but he could sense their nervousness. Ellie held his hand tight and pressed up against him. He could feel her trembling beside him.
“Are you gonna be ok?” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded quickly but said nothing. Her eyes were shining in the flashing lights and her mouth was set in a tight line. He felt surreal and wondered what they had got themselves into. He looked around at the crowd and thought for sure everyone was staring at them though he knew he was probably imagining things. How could anybody know? No one had seen them he was sure.
The rescue workers grew a little more active and the crowd murmured louder seeing that something was happening. Luke watched as they pulled ‘George’ out of the pool and then quickly lay him on the ground. The paramedics seemed frantic.
Something wasn’t right.
Luke craned his neck to look and saw the paramedics urgently hooking up I.V.’s to ‘George’ and one was pressing on his chest doing CPR. Luke’s knees suddenly felt weak and he turned to John next to him, but John stared dumbfounded at the scene, his mouth hanging open.
Luke looked harder, straining to see through the crowd and as he heard Ellie gasp, he saw a small, white hand poke through the sleeve of the clothing they used to make the dummy. Then, as someone shifted in the crowd, he saw a paramedic bend to a white face and press his lips to the cold blue lips of the boy they pulled out of the pool. The paramedic was giving mouth to mouth to a real person.
Luke grabbed Ellie as she swooned and sank to her knees.
* * *
Detective Jaxon Jennings, homicide investigator for the Fairfax County Police Department, looked down at the boy the paramedics were frantically working on and shook his head. He turned and scanned the crowd, looking for anything. All he saw were scared parents and children of a quiet neighborhood suddenly turned upside down. He knew this place. He had been here a couple of weeks ago on a call about a mutilated dog. No big deal, right, but the department had a policy of investigating all acts of cruelty toward animals. The FBI training they had received dictated it. Too many people who tortured animals graduated to humans later in their demented lives.
“Is he gonna make it?” Sally Winston, his partner, asked over his shoulder.
One of the paramedics working on the boy thought she was talking to him. “Don’t think so. He’s been gone too long. We don’t even have any electrical activity in his heart.”
She looked at Jaxon and her eyes conveyed a sadness he no longer felt at his age. At forty seven, he’d seen too much to feel anymore.
“How long are you guys gonna work on him?” Jaxon asked.
“As long as it takes,” the paramedic snapped.
Jaxon took it in stride, nodded his head and wandered over to the fence, looking out at the crowd.
“What do you think?” Sally said to his back.
He turned and looked at the boy again. “Hard to say right now. Looks like a simple drowning. There are no marks on him I can see at the moment, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any.”
He looked around the pool deck and something caught his eye. He wandered over to the southern side of the deck and stared at multiple footprints near the fence. On the other side, they led off into the parking lot and the crowd.
Sally came over and bent down to look.
“Have any of our people been over here?” Jaxon asked.
“No. The area hasn’t been contaminated. Didn’t know if it was a crime scene yet.” She stood, and he watched her follow the footprints with her eyes as they meandered over to the edge of the pool, where they blended with the footprints the paramedics and cops had made.
Jaxon bent down and looked at the imprint of one shoe. “Kids?” he asked.
She joined him. “Looks to be about the right size.”
“We better get some imprints of these,” he said.
“Sure,” and she left to get the kit.
Jaxon continued to look around and noticed something brightly colored, caught on the top of the fence, fluttering in the breeze. He walked over, careful not to disturb any of the other tracks, stood on his tip toes and pulled the piece of fabric off. He studied it, and then stared out into the crowd again not sure what he was looking for. He pulled an evidence bag out of his jacket pocket and slipped the fabric inside. He was beginning to think there was more to this than met the eye.
* * *
Luke’s mom knelt in front of Ellie and ran her hand across Ellie’s face. She looked up at Luke. “Lucas, you should get her home. She shouldn’t be seeing all this. It’s upsetting her.”
“I’m alright, Mrs. Harrison. Really,” Ellie said and stood.
“Are you sure?”
Ellie nodded and grasped Luke’s hand. “I’m sure.”
“Alright.”
Ellie gripped Luke’s arm tightly and leaned up against him. “Sorry,” she whispered in his ear.
“It’s ok. It shocked me too.”
“What is going on?”
“I have no clue. Let’s talk about it later, ok?”
She nodded and stared at the ground. Luke turned to John who gave him a worried look and then proceeded to ignore him. Jimmy looked stoic as he watched everything happening in the pool area.
Luke scanned the faces, worried the person behind The Voice was mingling with the crowd. Didn’t they say the person always returned to the scene of the crime? All the faces seemed normal, and he could see no one acting weird or suspicious. He wondered how he looked to everyone else.
He turned back to the pool and saw the cop who had come out to investigate Ellie’s dog, Bentley. He tensed and then shifted a little so he was hidden behind the man in front of him as he watched the cop scan the crowd. Peeking around the shoulders of the man, he stared as the cop talked to another woman and then they walked over to the fence and looked at something on the ground.
Ellie nudged him. “What are they doing?” she whispered.
“I think they’re looking at our footprints. Crap!”
“Maybe we should go.”
“No, not yet. Let’s see what happens.”
They watched for a while longer, and then the paramedics loaded the body onto a stretcher and attached a machine which continued the CPR compressions with a piston like arm. They loaded him up in the ambulance and drove off with the siren wailing. Shortly, a uniformed police officer announced there was nothing more to see and asked if everyone would kindly return to their homes.
People shuffled off, talking about what they had seen. Luke and Ellie joined his family and the rest of the neighbors from his court as they all headed back home. He glanced back as they left and saw the woman cop fiddling with some equipment by the fence. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, but he knew it had something to do with them.
To purchase a copy of FROZEN PAST, click the link or visit:
http://www.amazon.com
Near Sighted (A Jake Townsend Science Fiction, Action and Adventure, Thriller Series Book 2) Page 28
