Cornered

by Brandon Massey

  “How was your day?” Jada asked, gray eyes ever curious.

  He merely smiled and ran his hand across her cornrows. “Hmm, something sure smells good. What’re you and Mom cooking?”

  “Beef stronoff!” she said.

  “Stroganoff,” Simone corrected. Dressed in a yellow tank top and black terry cloth shorts, she leaned against the granite counter near the cook top, nursing a glass of red wine. Fragrant meat sauce and egg noodles simmered in a pan. “This is a good pinot, baby. Want to try it?”

  “In a minute, sure. Be right back.”

  He went to the security system’s touch-screen command center mounted on the wall next to the interior garage door. With the tap of an icon on the graphical interface, he activated the sensors installed on the house’s ground-level perimeter; the system sounded a series of short beeps, indicating the newly armed status. If an intruder lifted a window or pried open a door, the alarm would sound, and the police would be notified within sixty seconds.

  Feeling more at ease, he returned to the kitchen.

  Simone gave him a puzzled look. “Why are you turning on the alarm? It’s sort of early for that.”

  Typically, he waited until they were ready for bed to activate the system.

  “I’m running some diagnostics,” he lied.

  Doubt touched her features, but she said nothing further about it. She handed him a goblet of pinot noir. He thanked her, set the glass on the counter, and leaned in to give her a moist kiss. Her lips tasted of black cherries.

  “Hmm, it’s a good wine,” he said.

  She smiled, cinnamon-brown eyes full of bottomless love. He had looked into those beloved eyes of hers every day for ten years, and they had not lost their ability to captivate him; in fact, time had given them greater character, power, depth. It was because of those eyes that he believed he could be a good husband; because of them he believed he could be a good father to a child when he had never known his own father; because of them he aspired to be a man who was in all ways worthy of her love.

  He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t.

  He kissed her again. Her mouth opened wider to accept him, and she hung her arms around his neck. He slid his hands to her small waist, and lower still, to the sensuous flare of her hips. She pressed her pelvis against him, and he suddenly wanted her so urgently it was like a gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach.

  “Okay, guys,” Jada said, face red with embarrassment.

  Corey stepped back. “Cut me some slack, Pumpkin, that was only a PG-rated kiss.”

  As Jada rolled her eyes, Simone comically fanned herself with an oven mitt.

  “Whew, honey, where did that come from?” she said.

  “Glad to see my wife, that’s all.” He smiled. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable.”

  “We’ll be ready to eat in five, ten minutes at the most,” she said.

  Their master bedroom was on the first floor. In the large walk-in closet, he changed out of his work clothes and dressed in a T-shirt with a character from The Boondocks on the front, denim cargo shorts, and Nike slides.

  At the back of the closet, hidden on a shelf behind a stack of shoeboxes, lay an aluminum case with a combination lock. He lifted it off the shelf and sat on a stool in the dressing area. Placing the case on his lap, he thumbed in the combination and raised the lid.

  A Smith and Wesson.357 lay inside in thick, dimpled foam.

  From a shoebox, he extracted a speed loader bristling with hollow-point ammunition, and a DeSantis in-the-waistband holster, for concealed carry.

  Although he had installed a top-of-the-line security center in their home, electronic measures didn’t cover every possibility. As far as he was concerned, complete peace of mind could be achieved only with a firearm.

  Simone knew about the gun, and he’d trained her in its proper use, but she didn’t like keeping it in the house because of Jada. As a compromise, he locked it away in a safe place.

  He loaded the revolver, secured the holster snug against his waistband with a belt, and buried the gun inside. He pulled his T-shirt over his waist.

  He checked his profile in the full-length mirror that hung inside the closet. Looked good. Felt even better.

  He didn’t know what Leon might try to pull next, but if it involved crashing into their home, he was going to be in for a surprise.

  “Honey!” Simone called.

  Armed, he went to have dinner with his family.

  10

  After dinner, Jada took a bath and dressed for bed, and then they all piled onto the sofa in the family room and watched Shrek, one of Jada’s all-time favorite movies. Although many of the adult-oriented jokes were way over her head, she nevertheless found it hilarious and insisted on watching it at least once a week.

  Corey normally laughed at the film, too, but that evening he couldn’t manage more than a lukewarm chuckle at the funniest parts. Sitting beside him on the sofa, Simone seemed to take note of his low-key mood, but she made no comment. If he knew her, she was filing away every detail of his behavior in preparation for a future conversation.

  Let her file away all she wanted. He wasn’t talking. He would keep his own counsel and take the necessary measures to protect his family.

  At nine-thirty, Simone announced that it was past Jada’s bedtime. Jada protested, but a huge yawn betrayed her. Giving in with no further argument, she kissed both of them and shuffled toward the staircase. She’d recently declared her independence as a “big girl,” as she put it, and at bedtimes would kiss them good night, go upstairs, and crawl under the covers without asking to be tucked in.

  When Corey offered to give her a piggyback ride to her bedroom, however-something he hadn’t done in at least a year-she happily accepted. He lugged her upstairs, hiking up her feet to his rib cage to keep her clear of the holstered gun.

  “Whew, you’re getting heavy, kid,” he said. Winded, he set her down at the threshold of her room, straightened, and massaged his back. “That might be the last piggyback ride ever.”

  “Do you think I’m fat, Daddy?”

  She gazed up at him, eager for approval. Sometimes, Jada would make observations or comments that made her sound mature beyond her years, an old wizened soul trapped in a little girl’s body, such as the time a few months ago when she’d approached him in the study and asked him, point blank: “Daddy, do you ever wonder what you would be like now if you had known your mom and dad?” Stunned, Corey had stumbled through an inadequate response and afterward spiraled into an hour of agonizing self-reflection.

  At other times, such as that one, she was only an insecure kid who craved validation.

  “No, no, Pumpkin,” he said. “I didn’t mean you were fat. I meant you were getting older, that’s all. You’re far from fat.”

  Her face twisted into a scowl. “Logan said I was fat.”

  “Who the heck is Logan?”

  “He’s a boy in my class. He calls every girl fat. He said Melissa is fat, but I think she’s skinny as a matchstick.”

  He chuckled. “Skinny as a matchstick, huh? Where’d you hear that?”

  “I read it in a book.”

  Jada was only nine, but she had probably read more books than he had. He put his arm around her shoulders and ushered her into the bedroom.

  “Sweetie, don’t pay any attention to this Logan kid,” he said. “You’re a beautiful girl. Always remember, that, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Have you brushed your teeth?”

  “I did that after I took my bath,” she said, with a tone that said he should give her more credit. “But I have to feed Mickey.”

  Mickey was her one-year-old pet budgie. Jada had originally wanted a puppy, but Corey and Simone didn’t think she was quite ready to train and care for a dog. The parrot had filled in nicely.

  The domed birdcage stood beside a window on the other side of the room. Jada approached the cage, the little green-feathered bird on his perch, watching
her with dark, beady eyes. She shook a packet of seed near the metal bars. “Ready to eat?”

  “Bring on the food, dude,” Mickey said, one of the comical responses she had taught the parrot to give on cue.

  Smiling absently, Corey went to the window, parted the curtains and Levolor blinds, and looked outside.

  The road in front of the house was dark and quiet. By then, their neighbors would be shut away in their homes, dinners eaten, dishes cleaned, children tucked under covers, everyone settling in for the night in preparation to do it all over again tomorrow, the predictable and oddly comforting cycle of suburban life.

  Most of the tension that had been collected in his muscles throughout the evening finally drained out of him. He wondered if maybe he’d been overreacting. Leon was bold and impulsive, but he would not be reckless enough to kick in the door knowing that Corey would be anticipating him.

  Maybe he should just relax. A house was a man’s castle, after all-and his was exceedingly well fortified.

  Jada finished feeding the bird, drew the cage cover halfway across the dome, the way Mickey liked it, and burrowed underneath the covers.

  “Good night, Pumpkin,” Corey said. “I love you.”

  “Night, Daddy. Love you, too.”

  After he kissed her forehead, she removed the speech processor attached to her ear and placed it within arm’s reach on the nightstand.

  Without the device, Jada was essentially deaf. In the event of an emergency such as a fire, Corey had installed a flashing, vibrating red beacon on the wall beside her bed; the beacon was wired to the security system, and when triggered, caused enough of a ruckus to rouse Jada from all but the deepest REM slumbers.

  He cut off the light and drew the door shut, satisfied that his little angel was safely tucked away. For his own peace of mind, he’d needed to see her to bed, as if the ritual somehow guaranteed her safety from all outside threats.

  He returned downstairs. He heard Simone in the master bathroom, brushing her teeth.

  He took the opportunity to remove the gun from inside his waistband, and placed both gun and holster in the night-stand drawer on his side of the bed. Leon might not attempt anything while he was home, but he would sleep better with the piece close at hand.

  As he was closing the drawer, Simone sauntered out of the bathroom wearing a red lace-up chemise that exposed a tantalizing amount of skin. She walked to the bed with the easy grace of a feline, hips swaying.

  He kicked off his slides so quickly he almost fell down.

  She laughed. “Easy, tiger, I’m not going anywhere. I thought we could resume what we’d started before dinner.” She peeled back the duvet from the mattress and slid onto the sheets. “Did you tuck in Jada?”

  “Tight as a bug in a rug.” He pulled off his T-shirt, dropped it to the floor.

  “You haven’t done that in a while.”

  “Done what? Taken off my shirt in front of you?”

  A small smile. “No, tuck in Jada.”

  “Just felt like it.” He rolled down his cargo shorts.

  She drew her legs underneath her Indian style and cocked her head, studying him. “If there’s something on your mind, honey, you know you can talk to me. I’m here to lend a listening ear whenever you need it-free of charge.”

  “There’s nothing like having a therapist in the house. But I’m fine, babe, really. Want some proof? Check this out.”

  He pulled down his boxers. She did a double take at his rigid length.

  “Well, that’s definitely proof of something good,” she said.

  He climbed onto the bed, and she came into his arms. He was captive to a heavy, urgent lust, the likes of which he had not felt in ages, as if he were a horny teenager again. Simone was gorgeous, of course, and they had a healthy sex life, made love often and with great passion and tenderness, but the desire he felt then was something deeper-a primal drive to connect with her, to reaffirm the realness and strength of their union, as if to do so would magically ward off all hazards and evils, then and forever.

  I’m not going to lose what we have, he thought, as he entered her and she gave a small gasp of pleasure. No one’s going to take this away from us. Ever.

  What would happen the next morning, unfortunately, would prove him completely wrong.

  11

  Late that night, Ed Denning circled the wooded banks of the lake near his home, flashlight in hand, searching for one of his dogs.

  “Here, girlie!” he called out, his raspy voice echoing across the lake’s still waters. He blew three bursts on a rusty whistle. “Come, girlie!”

  The dog he sought was a young female black Labrador-Great Dane mix, a sweetheart of a hound that he had found rooting through trash one day on the side of the road, her body so emaciated that every one of her ribs was visible. He’d offered her a meaty treat, coaxed her into his old pickup, and brought her home.

  To live with the fifty-seven other dogs he’d rescued.

  “I know you’re out here, girl,” he muttered, picking his way through the weeds with a gnarled wooden cane he needed to support his bum right leg. “Come on home to Ed. Ed loves you. Ed needs you. Come on home, please.”

  Ed lived to rescue dogs. Although he had dim memories of doing other things in life-he vaguely remembered fighting a war in a foreign land of rice paddies and fearsome enemies who wore hats that looked like lamp shades-his life had not truly begun until he’d launched his rescue mission, until he’d begun to fill his home with wonderful canine lives that, if it had not been for his intervention, would have been snuffed out by soulless bastards who thought “putting down” an innocent animal was a humane thing to do.

  They were murderers, in his opinion, no better than Nazis running gas chambers in concentration camps. Cold-hearted killers. They were the ones who really deserved to die.

  He often saw cats that needed to be rescued, too, but felines did not seem to like him, and would scramble away when he tried to cajole them near with treats. But he had a natural affinity for dogs.

  In fact, he much preferred dogs to the company of people. All a dog wanted was food, a belly rub, and a warm place to sleep. People. . well, he’d never been much able to figure out what the hell they wanted, and had long ago washed his hands of them.

  He’d once had a people family, though. A wife with jewel eyes and a little girl with a smile like July sunshine. They had left him one day, and in spite of his best efforts, he could not understand why.

  But the dogs were his family now. Although one or two sometimes wandered away, tempted by alluring scents or noises, it was only because in their innocence they didn’t understand the dangers lurking out there in the world. The fast cars that would crush them and keep on moving. The malicious teenagers who would torture them for laughs. The Nazi patrols who would capture them and sentence them to agonizing deaths in their gas chambers.

  If he could, he would save every stray dog in the world, bring them into his home and let them live in comfort as a member of his family. The thought of so many sweet-hearted dogs roaming the night, scavenging for food and suffering at the hands of a cruel world, filled him with a nearly crippling sadness.

  He had to find his dog. He had to.

  The night was dark and quiet. Ahead, a forest bordered the lake, and beyond the woods, They had erected their atrocious homes.

  “Hope you didn’t wander over into Their territory.” He squeezed the cane’s handle more tightly. “That’s not a safe place for you, girl.”

  They had erected their monstrous creations some time ago. He couldn’t recall when exactly because he didn’t have a calendar. They had come in, ripping apart the earth with their mighty machines, leveling trees, driving out deer, foxes, and other natural wildlife as they raped the land.

  And then, They put up those abominations they dared to call homes.

  A railroad ran along the southern perimeter of some of the so-called homes, carrying freight train traffic that occasionally woke him in the middle o
f the night. But some of the other houses were smack-dab on the other side of the woods, not far from the lake.

  His lake. Dog Lake, he called it.

  What troubled him about the homes They had built was that none of them were finished. Once, feeling brave after drinking several cans of beer, he had ventured into the territory. He’d discovered almost two dozen residential plots, some of them completely empty, the red clay bare, other parcels occupied by huge houses that were missing windows or doors, and others that had only the wooden framework of the home completed and stood like the preserved bones of some prehistoric creature in a dusty museum.

  But there were no people, anywhere.

  It was strange, and deeply disturbing.

  Shivering, he entered the woods and sounded his whistle several times. “Here, girlie!”

  He blamed himself for the dog escaping the house. It was hard to keep track of fifty-eight dogs, but he managed to do a good job, had never lost one. He’d opened the door earlier that evening to sit on the porch and drink a beer, and a few of the dogs sat out with him, the lost one included, and she must have slipped away from the pack and gone exploring.

  “Here, girl! Look what Ed’s brought for you.”

  He removed a hot dog from his shirt pocket and waved it, spreading the scent through the warm air.

  “Ed’s got a hot dog for you! Come get it, girl!”

  He heard a rustling in the undergrowth, on his right. He shambled in that direction, parting the weeds with his cane, tattered shoulders of his fatigue jacket bending back tree branches, long mane of gray hair billowing behind him.

  In a small clearing, he found the Lab and two unfamiliar dogs tearing into the bloody carcass of a raccoon. At his approach, his dog’s tail wagged.

  “There you are, girlie,” Ed said. “Who are your two new friends here, huh?”

  He panned the flashlight across them. The new dogs, both female, looked to be barely older than whelps. They were some sort of Lab mix, like many strays he encountered. Based on their age, black coats, and similar white markings on their chests, he guessed they were litter mates.