Bitter Sweets

by G. A. McKevett

  Feeling good about the turn of events, Savannah left the house and strolled down the deserted sidewalk toward her parked car. The air currents had shifted, the Santa Ana winds abated, and an onshore flow of evening breeze had covered the city with a thick layer of fog.

  The streetlamps glowed golden, haloed by the mist, their haze-diffused light casting a dim, surreal glow over the quiet neighborhood. Children, parents, and pets had deserted the streets and were behind closed doors, attending to homework, late evening meals, and the perpetual television viewing. Only the trash cans—beige for recycling, green for normal—stood, silently waiting for the morning collection.

  As Savannah approached her car, a particularly cool breath of evening air whirled around her, invading the thin linen jacket she wore. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose and she shuddered.

  It was a feeling she had experienced several times before, a distinct, unpleasant sensation that had little to do with the weather.

  Pausing, she stood still in the middle of the sidewalk and studied her surroundings.

  Silence.

  Stillness.

  But for all the quiet, the air didn’t seem empty. She didn’t feel alone.

  Straining to hear, she listened for anything: the sound of muffled footsteps, movement in the nearby shrubs . . . . even the sound of another human being breathing.

  But there was nothing. Nothing, except for her overpowering premonition that someone, somewhere was watching, waiting, listening . . . . even as she was.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, knowing there would be no response.

  But there was.

  From the darkness behind the closest house came the deep, bass growl of a dog. A big dog. Probably about the size and temperament of Beowulf. Then the animal began barking in earnest.

  As it was hidden by the shadows, Savannah couldn’t see the creature, but she didn’t have to. She wasn’t interested in being introduced. One ferocious beast per day was her quota.

  Without wasting another moment, she hurried to the Camaro, jumped inside, snapped down the door locks, and started the engine. A few seconds later, she was headed down the street and out of the neighborhood.

  There wasn’t anyone there, she told herself as she pulled onto the better lit, more heavily traveled Harrington Boulevard. It was just the dog. That’s what you sensed. The dog. It was looking at you and . . . .

  Sure, that was all it had been, she decided. But a voice inside told her not to believe it. That little something inside knew better.

  You know it wasn’t just the dog, she warned herself.

  It was just the dog . . . . and Lisa’s stories about her creepy husband, came the comforting reply.

  Since when do you lock car doors against stories and watchdogs?

  Okay, she admitted, it had her there.

  Steering her car toward home, she decided it was too late to try to contact Brian O’Donnell. He had waited all these years to get in touch with his sister. Surely, he could hold out until morning.

  Besides, Savannah had already decided that she had to sleep on it before turning the information over to him.

  Lisa and Christy Mallock were trusting her. And Savannah knew she was going to spend a fitful night, wrestling with the demon—or maybe it was her own intuition—who was telling her that she was about to do something she would regret.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Savannah woke with a start and sat up in bed, gripping her sheets with shaking hands. Her new silk nightgown clung to her perspiration-soaked body. It was a cold, clammy, sick sweat. She was deeply frightened, her pulse pounding in her ears, her mouth dry. Probably the residue from a nightmare . . . . but she couldn’t remember many details.

  The last time she had awoken this abruptly and this unpleasantly had been during the Northridge earthquake, an event that she and her fellow Southern Californians weren’t likely to forget anytime soon. But the fern hanging in the corner was still, not swinging wildly, as before. The pictures remained on the wall. The same walls were intact and basically vertical . . . . always a good sign.

  So, why did she feel as though she needed to throw up?

  She wasn’t sure, but her dream had been inhabited by tiny, star-spangled dancers in pink ruffled skirts and a dark, menacing presence, that had somehow gained access to the innocents by way of her own actions.

  Earl Mallock. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Dark hair, heavy set, blue eyes. And pure evil. That had been Lisa’s description of her ex-husband.

  Brian O’Donnell. Dark auburn hair, slender, soft-spoken and brown-eyed.

  They couldn’t be the same person.

  But what if the man in her office had been working for Earl Mallock? Perhaps he was a misguided friend performing some sort of grim favor?

  No, he had seemed sincere enough. Savannah prided herself on being an astute judge of character, and she could have sworn that she had seen only honesty in his face, that she had heard only love and concern in his voice.

  But then, she had been fooled before. Good judgment or not, no one was infallible. Not if a con was good at his job.

  Either way, she couldn’t simply lie there in bed, thinking, worrying. The hope of going back to sleep was a futile fantasy.

  With a sigh she threw back the sheets and duvet and stared at the alarm clock on her bed stand as though it were a mortal enemy—1:25 A.M. Great . . . . she had been asleep a whole hour and a half.

  Dragging her tired body from the warm, soft bed, she walked to her closet and pulled on some jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers, sans the socks. Then she headed downstairs to get her purse and car keys.

  She wasn’t sure where she was going, or what she was hoping to accomplish at this time of night. But she knew she had to do something. She had to make sure everything was okay with Brian O’Donnell. Because, in eight hours, she was supposed to tell him where to find Lisa Mallock and her daughter.

  And before she gave him that precious information, she had to be absolutely, positively sure.

  Just outside the San Carmelita city limits—fifty yards outside, to be exact—sat the Blue Moon Motel. The sign in front of the establishment boasted easy access to Lake Arroyo, the best fishing, boating, and skiing in the county. But, cynical as she was, Savannah had long suspected that its location had been chosen because it was beyond the jurisdiction of the San Carmelita Police Department.

  With only occasional interference from the county sheriffs deputies, the Blue Moon owners provided a convenient, out-of the-way, no-tell motel for those individuals engaging in clandestine meetings. Twenty-five bucks would buy you three hours of uninterrupted debauchery beneath mirrored ceilings, on vibrating beds with blue crushed velvet spreads—circa: 1972.

  And if you weren’t fortunate enough to have company in your room, any one of four X-rated cable television stations would show you what you were missing.

  Fourteen units long, the building glowed an anemic blue-white in the light of the flickering neon sign which announced that there were, indeed, vacancies.

  Each dark blue door bore a crescent moon, reminiscent of a couple of outhouses Savannah had known as a child in Georgia.

  Savannah pulled her Camaro into the parking lot, gravel crunching under her tires. The area was dark and located behind the motel. No doubt to provide even more privacy for nervous customers.

  As she entered the squeaking front door, she spotted the innkeeper sitting behind the counter, his feet propped on a table beside a chrome coffeepot. From beneath the rim of a battered fishing cap, he was staring at a small, black-and-white television set, which had been shoved onto an overhead shelf, above the ancient cash register.

  “Yeah?” he asked without taking his eyes off the TV. She couldn’t see enough of the picture to know what had him so entranced, but from the groans and moans that issued from the set, she assumed he was watching one of his own cable channels.

  “I need—” she began.

  “How long?”

&
nbsp; She stepped closer and caught a glimpse of exaggerated male anatomy on the screen. “I beg your pardon?” she asked.

  “How long do you need the room for?” he replied, still not looking her way. “We rent by the hour. I got one with a king-size water bed and—”

  “No, thank you. I just wanted to visit one of your guests.”

  “Fine with me.” He finally turned toward her and shifted the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. “But, you visit, you pay.”

  “I’m just going to talk to him.”

  “Yeah . . . .” the guy grinned unpleasantly, revealing teeth that looked as though they hadn’t been acquainted with a toothbrush in a decade or so. They appeared to be wearing tiny yellow-green sweaters. “. . . . you just wanna talk. Now, don’t they all.”

  Unconsciously, Savannah reached for the badge, which she had worn for so many years on a heavy chain around her neck. The badge which had been stripped from her, along with her authority as a peace officer. It certainly made moments like this more complicated.

  “My name is Savannah Reid,” she began, opening her purse to produce her private investigator’s license, “and I—”

  “Savannah Reid? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  Mmmmmm. . . . he had heard of her; she wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad.

  “I didn’t know it would matter,” she replied.

  “Of course it does.” His grin widened, revealing gaps between the rows of “sweaters.” “I got a message for you, right here.”

  He bent over and began to riffle through the pile of papers on his desk top. After tossing aside an assortment of ancient phone messages with curling edges, musty girlie magazines, and wadded gum and cigarette wrappers, he produced a fairly fresh-looking slip of pink paper.

  “A message, for me?” she asked. Her stomach began to chum, as though she knew she wasn’t going to like what she was about to receive. “Who is it from?”

  Do you really have to ask? she told herself.

  “It’s from a fellow who was staying here for a week or so.”

  “A red-haired guy.”

  “That’s him.”

  “You say he was staying? Does that mean he’s gone?”

  “Yep. Checked out a couple of hours ago. Don’t know why he’d leave so late. Might as well have stayed. I’d done charged him for the night. He seemed to be in a hurry to get on his way.”

  Adrenaline flooding through her veins, Savannah unfolded the pink slip of paper and read three simple words:

  Thanks for everything.

  “That’s it?” she asked, staring at the writing, which looked as though it had been scrawled in haste. “He didn’t even sign it?”

  “Guess not,” the clerk said with a shrug as he leaned over the counter to glance at the note. As though he hadn’t already read it.

  “What did he say when he gave it to you?”

  “Just said something like, ‘There’s gonna be a lady come in here by the name of Savannah Reid. She’ll be asking for me. Give her this.’ Then he sorta grinned and handed that to me.”

  “He grinned? What do you mean, he grinned? Was it a nice, friendly smile?”

  “Nope. It sure wasn’t. It was one of those weird grins like people give you when they’re enjoying something they shouldn’t.”

  Savannah mentally digested that for a moment, then pushed a bit further. “Do you mean like a mischievous gr—”

  “I don’t know, lady.” The clerk settled back into his chair, obviously tired of the subject and eager to return to his television viewing. “Just a weird look. That’s all I can tell you. That and . . . . well . . . . it kinda gave me the creeps.”

  “Gave you the creeps,” Savannah muttered as she turned to leave, clutching the terse note in her palm, which had suddenly grown moist and cold.

  Her client had disappeared abruptly, without collecting the information he had hired her to uncover, without paying her the remainder of what he owed, leaving behind only a three-word message and a smile which even a weirdo had described as “weird.”

  Not good, she decided.

  Definitely not good.

  “Don’t cry, Christy. Everything’s all right. Mommy’s here now and you don’t have to worry about anything.”

  Cradling her sobbing daughter in her arms, Lisa Mallock tried to sound more calm and confident than she felt.

  That ghostly, nocturnal creature, the Night Mare, had galloped across the landscape of more than one victim’s dreams tonight, it seemed. Lisa herself had been plagued with disturbing images of violent confrontations, off and on all night. Perhaps most disturbing of all was the fact that in her dreams she was losing those battles. And there was so much at stake; she simply couldn’t afford to lose.

  Just before dawn she had awakened to find Christy standing beside her bed, weeping. She had pulled the shivering child into her bed and snuggled her close. Lisa didn’t want to think about how much she needed that comforting contact herself. How weak and vulnerable she felt at this point in her life.

  “Daddy’s gonna find us again.” Christy buried her face against her mother’s neck. Lisa could feel the child’s tears, wet and warm, tickling down her skin. “He’s going to hurt us. I know, because I saw him in my dream.”

  “A dream is just a story that your imagination tells when you’re asleep, honey.” Lisa stroked the glossy copper curls, so like her own, and kissed the girl’s forehead. She tasted salty with sweat. “Dreams are like fairy tales. Some are pretty, and some are scary. But none of them are real.”

  “Then Daddy isn’t going to find us, ever again?”

  By the light of the bedside lamp, Lisa saw the innocence, the trust in her daughter’s eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to the child. “I don’t know if he will or not. But even if he does, you don’t have to worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

  The words seemed to have little effect on the girl. Reaching up with her small hand, Christy stroked her mother’s cheek. “I know you will. But Daddy’s really big and strong. Mommy, who’s going to keep you safe?”

  Who, indeed? Lisa wondered, trying to find an honest answer that would reassure her daughter. And herself.

  The courts? The police? They hadn’t been much help in the past.

  “My husband is going to kill me someday,” she had told them, again and again. “Really, he will. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Get a restraining order,” they would suggest.

  “I have one.”

  “So, when he shows up at your door, give us a call,” they had replied. “We’ll be there within ten minutes.”

  Great, she thought, he could kill me five times in ten minutes.

  Maybe, God would protect her. Maybe He would remember all those mornings she had spent in Sunday school as a child, all the Bible pictures she had colored oh-so-carefully, all the quarters she had placed in the offering plate. Maybe He would send a host of angels to rescue her when the time came.

  But somehow, Lisa Mallock didn’t think so. She had chosen to marry Earl Mallock of her own free will. She had ignored that wiser, inspired voice inside that had warned her about him. Now, she had the sinking feeling that God had decided to let her deal with the consequences of her actions alone. She had no one to blame but herself.

  And she had no one else to protect her. Just she, herself . . . . and the pistol locked in her nightstand . . . . if she could get to it in time . . . . if her aim was straight . . . . if she could summon the courage to shoot someone she had once loved more than life itself.

  If.

  Lisa felt the child in her arms go limp, relaxing at last as her breathing slowed and her eyes closed. Christy had drifted off to sleep without an answer to her question: Who would protect her mommy? And Lisa was thankful, because she didn’t have an honest answer, for her precious daughter, cuddled warm and trustingly against her side . . . . or for herself.

  “I can’t believe you would haul me out of bed at four in the morning and n
ot even bring me an apple fritter and some java.” Usually, Dirk’s voracious appetite was a source of mild amusement for Savannah, but, under the circumstances, she wasn’t in the mood.

  “Don’t hassle me, Coulter,” she said as she slid onto the chair in front of a police station computer and began to type furiously. “Take my word for it, this isn’t the time.”

  “That bad?” Dirk asked, the pout dissolving from his face.

  “Yeah, that bad.”

  “Whatcha looking for?” He leaned over her shoulder to study the blue screen that quickly switched to green. She had accessed the Department of Motor Vehicle files.

  “Earl Mallock.”

  “Your lost sister’s old man?”

  “Yeah, but she isn’t lost anymore. I found her last night.”

  “Good work.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Savannah’s pulse pounded in her ears as she punched in the necessary codes to find what she was looking for . . . . what she hoped to high heaven she wouldn’t find.

  Mallock’s name appeared on the screen, along with his basic identification stats.

  Name: Mallock, Earl R.

  Address: 312 Elm Street, San Carmelita, CA

  Height: 5’ 10”

  Hair: Dark brown

  Weight: 220 lbs.

  Eyes: Blue

  “That’s the same description Lisa Mallock gave me last night,” Savannah said, trying to feel better.

  Dirk read over her shoulder. “So, what’s the problem?”

  “I’m afraid I might have helped Lisa’s abusive ex-husband find her.” She peered at the screen. “But the guy who hired me looked completely different.”

  “Maybe he’s a friend of the husband’s, trying to help him out.”

  “Could be, or . . . .”

  She waited for the photo to appear, her hands and insides shaking . . . . and it wasn’t only because she needed a cup of coffee.