by Lyle Howard
At the far end of the hallway, she spied an illuminated exit sign. “Stairs!” she muttered to herself.
Already barefoot, she headed for the stairwell. Her tight red dress made running torturous, so halfway down the hall, she stopped and tore a foot-long rip up the side of the restricting garment. She could only think of what her mother would have said if she had seen her do it.
Now with total freedom of movement, her adrenaline was pumping at epic proportions. She had no idea why she was so frightened, but she knew Brandon, and he was scared as hell.
Sprinting at top speed, the hallway proved to be an endurance test. She had to jump over scattered debris such as empty paint cans, discarded nails, and long rolls of carpet padding that had yet to be installed. As she maneuvered toward the exit, all she could wonder to herself was, why were they moving in when the building was clearly not ready. From the shoddy shape of this hallway, how could an occupational license have ever been granted?
Leaning against the exit door were two pieces of painter’s scaffolding. Crystal looked at them inquisitively, trying to assess their weight. “How can they block an emergency exit like this?” she grumbled under her breath. She looked down at her pristine white hands that had never seen a day of manual labor and winced. The scaffolding didn’t look that unwieldy, but she was more worried about what would happen if she damaged the nails that had taken her so long to refine. The hours of sitting idly in the salon while her manicurist labored over her blemished cuticles was a thought that made her skin crawl.
Brandon had to be blowing this entire matter out of perspective, she convinced herself. I’ll just wait here for a few more minutes and then I’ll go back inside and tell him that I made the call.
Crystal leaned against the wall and tried to catch her breath. This short run was the first real exercise she had performed in years, excluding walks through malls. Her plentiful breasts were straining the fabric of her dress as her chest heaved in and out for oxygen.
As she closed her eyes and allowed her body to cool back down, she couldn’t believe that all of this craziness was because of Spunky. She had owned the dog for twelve years, and while she had never grown attached to the animal the way some of her friends did with their own pets, she still cared for it and showed it what little affection it had ever known. When she had announced her engagement, her parent’s immediately ordered that she either take Spunky with her, or turn him into the pound. When she learned that the condominium bylaws prohibited pets of any kind, her choice had been an easy one. But what was it about the stupid dog that had Brandon so riled up?
After a few more minutes, she had made up her mind. The only logical thing to do was to waltz right back into the apartment and show Brandon that it was just Spunky in that cage, that there was nothing wrong with him, and that he was not some demonic hound let loose from hell!
Crystal burst through the front door to find Brandon lying flat on his stomach, watchfully eyeing the front of the cage.
“Are you alright, Brandon?”
Muller put his finger over his mouth. “Shhh, I think he’s falling asleep.”
“I don’t care if the dog’s in a coma, Brandon. I asked if you were okay!”
Muller nodded as he whispered. “I’m fine. Did you make the call?”
Crystal shook her head as she took a few steps closer. Brandon looked up at her and couldn’t believe the disheveled state she was in.
“What happened to you?” he asked, climbing to his knees.
She lifted the corner of her torn dress and shrugged. “I must have caught it on something.”
Muller wiped his hands together to remove some dirt that had collected on them from the floor. “So, you told the operator to contact Lance Cutter?”
Crystal chose not to answer the question. She casually glanced down at a box marked “towels” so that Brandon wouldn’t see the guilt written all over her face. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” she asked.
Muller stood up and arched his back until it cracked. “I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, sweetheart. Let’s just wait until the rescue unit gets here and then we can discuss it, okay?”
“It’s only a little dog, Brandon. You’re acting like it was possessed or something!”
Muller watched as Crystal moved closer to the carrier. “Don’t get too close, Crystal,” he warned.
Inside the cage, Spunky yawned and then rolled over on his side. His dark brown nose sniffed at the foreign surroundings until his ears perked up, hearing Crystal’s familiar voice.
Crystal inched closer to the cage until she could see the dog through the air vents cut into the top. “Come on, Brandon. Aren’t we acting just a bit silly? This is Spunky, for goodness’ sake!” she said, pointing at the cage. “The same Spunky that you’ve played with a thousand times at my parents’ house. Why are you so afraid of him all of a sudden?”
A frightening realization overtook Muller. Crystal was hiding something. He grabbed his fiancé by the arm and spun her to face him. “You didn’t call, did you? You couldn’t have! There’s no way you could have been back here this quickly!”
Crystal tried to yank her arm free from Brandon’s fierce grip.
“Tell me the truth, Crystal!” Crystal swung her free arm and caught Brandon squarely on the side of his face. The blow was fierce, and caught him by surprise. It reeled him backward and he knocked over a table lamp.
“No, I never called!” she screamed.
Muller was dazed. His vision began to blur as the room suddenly turned upside down around him. A warm trickle of blood meandered its way from his left temple where his head had hit the side of the coffee table. He tried to lift himself up, but his arms felt like elastic bands. “I’ve … I’ve got to … call … Cutter.”
Crystal was so infuriated by Brandon’s manhandling of her, that all that mattered to her was proving to him that there was nothing devilish with the dog. She began yelling at the top of her lungs and spit flew from the corners of her mouth with every word. “You will never … ever … grab me like I’m some kind of…of…rag doll! No one touches me like that, Brandon! Not my father, not you, no one!”
Muller wasn’t listening. His face had turned as pale as writing paper, and his mind was too busy fighting off the advancing grip of unconsciousness.
Crystal stepped over the cage until she was straddling it between her legs. “I’m going to demonstrate to you how foolish you’ve been behaving, Brandon, and then I want you the hell out of this apartment!”
As if he were looking through a dirty camera lens, Muller could barely focus as Crystal bent over and unlatched the front of the cage. His lips tried to form words of warning, but his disoriented brain wouldn’t allow his vocal chords to respond.
The dog let out a low growl as Crystal reached inside to pull him out. “Come on, Spunky, it’s only me.”
Muller again tried to raise himself to his elbows, but the room was spinning like a carnival ride. “Don’t … touch …”
Spunky snapped at Crystal’s prying hand and Crystal pulled it back. “Goddamn it!” she screamed, examining the wound on her finger. “I think he broke the skin!”
Muller tried to hold out his arm, but all of his valiant struggling was only in his mind. His head had struck the hard tile floor, and he was staggered like a prizefighter who had been rabbit punched one too many times.
Crystal stuck her injured finger in her mouth and began sucking at the tiny wound. “Enough is enough! I want you out of that cage, Spunky, and I want you out now!” she demanded.
Reaching down, she shook the pet carrier until the brown and white terrier tumbled helplessly onto the floor. The dog scrambled to get back into the cage, but Crystal was quicker and managed to snap the latch shut. The sniveling canine spun in a circle as if he were looking for a safe place to hide, but Crystal shuffled back and forth to stay in front of the pooch so that he had nowhere to run.
Muller attempted to lift his head, b
ut it felt as heavy as a bank vault. “Crystal … no…”
Crystal finally corralled Spunky in her arms and lifted him against her chest. “You see there, Brandon? Look at this little guy,” she said, using the same coddling voice that one would use to speak to a newborn baby. “How could this little fellah be any trouble?” she asked, turning the dog’s face in Brandon’s direction.
Muller’s breathing was shallow and rapid as he called upon every ounce of strength he had to lift himself up onto his elbows. “Put him back, Crystal … please!”
Crystal held the terrier’s jowl next to her cheek and began stroking the dog’s matted fur. “Oh, he’s just so cute…”
In less time than it would take to strike a match, both Crystal Barnes and her Scottish terrier, Spunky, erupted into a funeral pyre of white-hot flames. Brandon Muller passed out before he could see the ghoulish vision of his fiancée stumbling backward onto the patio.
The nearly indistinguishable human torch collided with the terrace railing before it plunged headlong over the side of the balcony. Like a flaming meteor burning up in the earth’s atmosphere, the remains of Crystal Barnes and her dog gracefully cascaded down six stories to the roof of the lobby below. The cremated entity impaled itself, with a hideous tearing sound, on the copper pipes that had been leaning on the main air-conditioning unit.
By the time the proper authorities would be notified, there would be nothing left of Crystal Barnes and Spunky, except a smoldering lump of charred bones and melted jewelry.
FIVE
Twenty-five minutes after their drenching assault on the southern Florida coastline, the pacified thunderclouds rolled indiscriminately westward, passing over the fire station where Julie Chapman fumbled with small talk while walking Lance Cutter to his car. The air was thick and moist outside, and it made a few strands of Julie’s red bangs cling to her forehead. Lance hesitated with one hand wrapped around the handle of the driver’s door and with his free hand, made an effort to wipe the stray hairs off of Julie’s face.
“You look tired,” he said, desperately fishing for any words that wouldn’t make him sound like an uncaring jerk.
Julie pulled away when his hand moved toward her. “That’s all you have to say to me? I look tired?”
Lance shoved his hand into his pants pocket and nervously began fumbling with his car keys. The annoying sound quickly brought out Julie’s hostility. She stepped between Lance and his car and pressed her back against the door, blocking it. There was no way in hell she was going to let him drive away this time! “Are we going to talk, or are we going to stand here and tap dance around the issues again?” she demanded.
The keys rattled faster in Lance’s pocket as he agitated them in his hand. “Come on, Julie, I didn’t ask you to walk me outside just to argue over the same old things again. I just thought that maybe by now we could put those old bitter memories behind us, once and for all.” He looked up at the sky and watched as the gray clouds glided overhead. “Look up in the sky,” he said, dreamily. “The clouds are clearing out and the sun is beginning to shine again. Why do you insist that we live our lives under the same overcast all of the time?”
Julie clenched her callused hands into fists and cemented her raw and battered knuckles against her hips. “Is that what you think? That I want to live my life in the dark?” She put her left hand up to her chin as though she was lost in thought. “Let’s take a trip back in the way-back machine for a moment … it seems like you were the one always keeping me in the dark! You and your little secrets … disappearing for days at a time without even having the courtesy of leaving me a note telling me where you’ve gone gallivanting! You could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known it!” She struggled valiantly to keep her emotions in check, but there was just no holding back the flood of tears that were gathering behind her eyeballs.
Lance gnawed tensely on his bottom lip and tried to move closer, but Julie’s extended arm kept him at a wary distance. “Julie, you know I never meant to cause you any pain, but there are just some things that I just can’t talk about to people.”
Being categorized as just “people” made Julie cover her mouth with her hand. She prided herself on putting up a strong exterior for the crew inside the station, but deep down, her passion was as brittle as a dead tree. She turned her head away, feeling a gentle breeze cooling her moistened cheeks, as the faint smell of rain filled her nostrils as if to foreshadow the great storm that was just being born thousands of miles away. “Just fine … now I’m just ‘people’ to you!”
Lance looked across the parking lot to Manny Garcia who had come outside to check on one of the engines. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry … the words just don’t come easily to me. You’ve got to believe that you’re more than just the average person to me.”
Julie looked down at her soot-covered pants leg. From mid-calf down to her shoes, the uniform was clean where her boots had protected them. She drew in a deep breath that swaggered into her lungs because she had been fighting back the urge to cry. “I thought I was, Lance, but I can’t be a part of your life if you’re never going to confide in me. What is a woman supposed to think when her boyfriend disappears for days at a time?”
As he stared into Julie’s face, he wondered if he would ever be able to confide in anyone. Perhaps it was stupid to keep his whereabouts a secret, but until he lost that unearthly danger sensation that he had learned to live with over the years, Lance would choose to keep his journeys a secret. As far as he believed, the government thought he had become just another victim in that fatal plane crash ten years earlier, and he and his family both wanted to keep it that way. It had been only after weeks of squabbling between themselves that Lance’s grandparents had decided to sell the fish hatchery in Laramie and find a less conspicuous place to live. This was a year after Lance had left for Florida, and after the government agents had stopped snooping around the hatchery. The Cutters packed all of their belongings into the back of a rented U-Haul trailer and moved to Jackson, Wyoming. They took whatever savings they had, and the healthy profits from the sale of the hatchery, and bought into a small cowboy bar on the outskirts of town.
The hustle and bustle of the year-round tourist trade in the town made it simple for Lance to visit them without drawing undue attention to his presence. Floyd and Eva Cutter loved the fish hatchery that they had poured their hearts and souls into for so long, but it paled in comparison with the love for their grandson. It was to Jackson Hole then that Lance would withdraw to every few months, to spend far too few days with his only family. To the patrons of the cowboy bar, and to its co-owner Chester Douglas, Lance was introduced as a third cousin on Floyd’s side of the family. It was a charade that sometimes got a bit confusing. However, the awkward moments brought about by trying to stay anonymous far outweighed the risk of discovery.
It was only in this small town in southwestern Wyoming that Lance felt secure. As he would stroll along the wooden-planked sidewalks at the end of the day, with the sun setting over the Grand Teton Mountains to the northwest, all of the fear and apprehension seemed to lift off his shoulders like an invisible fifty pounds. Every day except Sundays, the streets of Jackson would fill up with carefree tourists all fighting for a glimpse of the daily Old West shootout that had grown to be a tradition in the town. It was an untroubled atmosphere that Lance could learn to love. He felt that one day he might settle here for good, but something else, some other guiding force deep in his gut, told him that the timing just wasn’t right now. It was that same instinct that he let steer his emotions with Julie Chapman.
Sure, he wanted Julie to understand everything about him, but until they both shared a stronger commitment to each other, he felt there was no reason to endanger her if the government were to somehow find out he was still alive. Until that time, she would either have to accept him the way he was, or he would have to live his life as he had always done in the past … alone.
“Look, Julie,” Lance said apolog
etically. “Sometimes I’ve just got to get away from all of the stress, all of the pressure. Can’t you understand that? You’ve been fighting fires for five years now. Surely you understand how tough this line of work can be.”
Julie blotted her cheeks with the palms of her hands and sniffled. “But I don’t run away without telling anyone where I’m off to. That’s not exactly a normal response to job-related pressures.”
Lance pouted. “I know … I know.”
Julie pointed at herself. “I mean.. .how was I supposed to know that it wasn’t something that I’d done? I come home from my shift and you’ve vanished like Houdini! Do you know what kind of mental anguish I went through trying to figure out what I had done wrong?”
Lance knew she was right. It was unfair for him to torment her the way he did. He reached down to take her hand and this time, she let him. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Julie. As a matter of fact, you’re probably the best thing that’s come along in my life for quite some time.”
Julie sniffled. “Then why won’t you open up to me?”
Lance glanced down at his watch. It was getting late and he needed to find Toby Bilston before five o’clock. “There is so much that I want to tell you,” he said, squeezing her hand warmly. “So much that you need to know … but I just don’t think that the time is right just yet.”
Julie had noticed the quick glance at his watch. Her body wriggled as though she were realigning herself in a suit of armor. “Fine then…when you have time for me, we’ll talk.”
Lance would have had to been totally blind not to notice the chameleon-like change in her attitude. “Did the temperature suddenly plummet around here?” he asked sarcastically.
