“Not yet.”
“Do that straight away. That’s an order.”
Ian rolled his eyes mockingly, like a chastised teenager. “Yes, boss.”
Linda’s lips fluttered, but she resisted temptation as though the act of smiling would crack her makeup. Composure in all things.
“I mean it.”
“I know you do, and I appreciate the concern.”
Ian rose to his feet and headed back through the reception area to his own office. In the opposite corner from Linda’s, Ian’s cubicle-sized space had one small window that looked out on the parking lot across the street. Like a lot of the furniture in the office, his secondhand chair still held the faint aroma of smoke damage from its previous owners, and its tired springs groaned when he leaned back to pick up the phone.
He called the police to file a report, but the officer who took his statement sounded so disinterested that Ian felt bad for wasting his time. The officer dutifully took his name and number and told him to call back if he received any more threats or if he figured out who had placed the call.
Ian considered asking, “Isn’t figuring out who called your job?” But he decided to let it lie. He then spent two hours digging through filing cabinets for his reports over the last three months and scouring them for someone who would hold a grudge and want him to pay.
There were a lot of angry and distraught people in the files—mothers and fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles—but none of them jumped out as having fingered him as the source of all their troubles.
By the time he closed the files, the office was dark. He vaguely remembered Jeannie popping in to say she and her mom were heading home for the day, but he had no idea how long ago that had been.
He locked the outer office and headed down the stairs to the narrow lobby. A plastic sign beside the bank of primer-gray mailboxes pointed people to the Children First offices upstairs. The green-and-gold sign looked lonely as most of the spaces beside it were blank. Since the 24-Hour Church of Elvis vacated, the landlords had struggled to find any new tenants for the remaining space.
On the street, Ian turned to lock the main doors when a grimy hand reached out from the shadows. This time the hand didn’t grab his arm, just simply touched his sleeve.
“I got a paper for ya.” The man from earlier in the day held up the same folded newspaper.
Ian sighed in defeat and dug in his pocket for change. He didn’t have any coins, and the smallest bill he found was a five. He reluctantly handed it over.
“Are you new in town?” Ian asked. “There are missions nearby that provide free hot meals and showers. I could—
“He says he’s sorry,” the man interrupted as he shoved the newspaper into Ian’s hand.
Ian raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
The man stabbed the newspaper with a nicotine-stained finger. “Read it.”
Ian stuffed the paper under his arm, figuring the man was likely talking about yet another headlining politician or celebrity addict caught with his pants down in the wrong bedroom.
“Watch yer step now,” said the scruffy man as he shuffled away. “Sometimes when yeh miss that first one, it’s a long way down.”
Don’t I know it, thought Ian as he finished locking the doors. I’ve been falling so long, I’ve forgotten what up looks like.
3
The house had all the appearance of an empty shell. Blinds and curtains were seldom open, very few lights ever lit up a room, and it was always too quiet. The neighbors knew it hadn’t been abandoned, since they saw Ian’s car in the driveway each night, but it was no longer a house where someone lived, just where he slept.
Secretly, the neighbors wished Ian would put the house on the market and move away. For every time they caught a brief glimpse of him in his yard or bringing home groceries, it made the breath catch in their throats and froze their tongues as if the temperature had suddenly dropped into negative digits.
Ian felt their looks, too. Each pair of troubled eyes burned into his back, reigniting the uncontrollable anger that bubbled within. He preferred coming home in the dark now, when he could pretend no one was peering through the kitchen slats or between monotone bedroom curtains, and everyone could continue on with their own busy lives for another night.
After parking in the driveway, Ian walked quickly to the front door. He kept his head down and concentrated on finding the right key, fitting it in the lock, and sliding inside. He didn’t realize it, but from the moment he left the car until he closed the door behind him, he held his breath.
Inside, he kicked off his shoes and draped his coat over a chair. He headed to the kitchen, removing his cell phone from his pocket as he walked and slipping it into the charger on the counter. He dropped the used newspaper on the table and opened the fridge.
Seeing nothing of interest, he moved to the cupboard. The bottom shelf was littered with cans of soup, baked beans, and boxes of Kraft Dinner. At one time he had enjoyed cooking, experimenting with new recipes, firing up the gas barbeque, slicing and dicing strange and wonderful salads. But food had lost its flavor, and now he ate simply to quiet his stomach.
He selected a can of split pea and ham soup, emptied it into a pot, and turned the stovetop burner to the midway mark. Moving to the counter beside the sink, he checked the water level in the electric kettle, decided there was enough to make a mug of tea, and clicked it on.
Leaving the kitchen, he headed to the washroom, where he lathered up a bar of soap and scrubbed the day’s grime off his hands and face. The soap was a new brand that made his skin feel dry, but it had a musky scent designed for men that held no memories. He had thrown out all the gentler soaps, shampoos, and powders.
After rinsing, he ran wet fingers through his hair and studied himself in the mirrored doors of the medicine chest. A haircut was overdue, and he wondered if he had remembered to shave that morning. His stubble looked thicker than it should for a single day’s growth. He also noticed tiny flecks of white, like an invading force, starting to infringe on the once unspoiled peppery landscape of his chin.
His gaze flicked up to meet its own reflection, but Ian quickly looked away. He didn’t want to know.
Back in the kitchen, he poured the warm soup into a bowl, grabbed a box of crackers and a spoon, and carried everything to the table. The table was small and square and fit in the corner of the kitchen with room to spare. The woman selling it at a weekend garage sale had apologized that it only came with one matching chair, but that had been fine with Ian.
With nothing better to read, he flicked open the newspaper and was surprised when a sealed brown envelope fell out from within its folds.
Curious, Ian flicked the envelope over and froze with a spoonful of green soup halfway to his lips.
The envelope was addressed to him.
THE HANDWRITING was clunky. Big, fat individual letters. All capitals. Practically screaming. No address. Just his name. Ian Quinn. Underscored. Twice.
There was no return address or any other markings to indicate who it was from.
He says he’s sorry.
Ian shuddered as he recalled the vagrant’s words, each syllable increasing the pressure in his chest as if a balloon was being inflated around his heart. He pushed his soup away and opened the envelope.
Its contents spilled onto the table. Two pieces of paper. The first was a visitor’s pass to the Oregon State Penitentiary in nearby Salem. It contained the name of a prisoner, a time, and tomorrow’s date.
The second piece was a note written in the same clunky style that marked the envelope, and its message ripped at Ian’s heart. All the pain and suffering of the last eighteen months weighed on him like a coating of tar and grit, and the words contained in that note turned grit to acid. Goosebumps peppered his flesh and erupted like a million tiny volcanoes, causing his skin to burn.
The author of the note had destroyed Ian’s life. In one reckless moment, measured in the briefest blink of an eye, he had taken away the m
ost precious thing in the world.
And Ian had let it happen.
Ian stood across the street as the school bell rang, impatiently glancing at his watch and mentally juggling the time between getting Emily home from first grade, preparing a snack and settling her in front of the TV, so that he could squeeze in a few more calls before all the lawyers and social workers went home early for the weekend.
If he could take it back, he would smash that fucking watch, run across the damn road, and scoop his daughter into his arms. He would hold her tight and keep her safe and never, ever let her step off that curb just as Tyler Young, reeking of booze and weed, mistook the gas pedal for the brake.
And now Young wanted to see him.
The bastard, barely out of his teens, had managed to turn a six-month, minimum-security stroll into ten years’ hard time when he came out bloody but victorious in a nasty prison brawl that left another convict dead.
The police—knowing how much he had resented Young being charged with negligent and impaired driving rather than vehicular manslaughter—had interviewed Ian after the prison fight to make sure he hadn’t hired someone to knife the prick in the back. And although forgiveness had never once entered Ian’s heart, the truth was, if he had known how to hire someone inside the jail, he likely would have; he was just never that street-smart.
Young had been transferred to maximum security at Oregon State Penitentiary, and Ian hoped never to set eyes upon him again.
He read the note for a second time. The words went out of focus through a mist of tears, but he didn’t need to see them. Each one had already been seared into his brain.
The message was short.
Only seven words.
I was paid to kill your daughter.
4
If Tyler Young was telling the truth—and Ian had to consider the strong possibility that the note was a cruel joke being played by a desperate, delusional bastard—the question became: Who? Who would have hired this drunk son of a bitch to kill his daughter?
To answer that, he would also need to know the reason behind it. But in truth, he didn’t care why. If it was something he did, he was already living with that guilt. But give him a name, a neck he could wrap his hands around, and he could focus some of this pain into his grip, find some release as he squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
He thought of the files he had spent the afternoon reading through, looking for someone angry enough to lash out with verbal threats. But murder? Of a child? That was a whole other level. His daughter had been killed eighteen months ago; Children First opened its doors four years earlier. That was a lot of files, a lot of potentially angry people.
Pushing away from the table, Ian walked into the adjoining living room. The weight of his footsteps thudded off the hardwood floor and ricocheted from bare wall to bare wall. The large room was empty except for a wooden rocking chair that had belonged to his grandfather, a box of collectible LPs, and his World War II–era Gibson L7 acoustic guitar. There was no TV, couch, artwork, or computer, not even a turntable on which to play the records. It had actually come as a surprise how few of the things that once brought him pleasure held any value to him anymore. It was all just stuff now, disposable and meaningless.
Before Emily’s death, the vintage Gibson had been his most loyal companion. Although his daughter was too young to ever hear him play in the late-night smoky jazz haunts he enjoyed so much, she always requested a song before bed. Her singing voice when she joined him on the chorus was that of an angel—pure innocence and light. He wished he had made a recording of her voice, but he always assumed that he had plenty of time.
Ian moved to the staircase and stared up the risers to the floor above. He rarely went up there anymore. He had made a bed for himself in the spare room on the ground floor. Half a house was all he needed, and most of the time not even that.
After climbing the stairs, he turned left. The master bedroom lay to his right. The door was closed, but there was nothing to see inside. Just another empty room filled with dust motes and hazy memories.
A chill emanated through the door to the main bathroom, and the taste of copper pennies coated the back of his throat, almost causing him to gag. He swallowed, knowing the taste wasn’t real, just another lingering ghost.
He hesitated at the door to Emily’s room, but somehow reached out and turned the knob. The door swung open, and for a moment he expected it to be a wonderland of stuffed animals and bright yellow sheets—Emily’s favorite color—but the room had been emptied. It had seemed the right thing to do at the time, to purge, to vent, to clear any obstacles toward healing.
But the healing hadn’t come, and now Ian wished he could see his little girl’s room again. Just the way it had been.
Ian slid down to his knees in the doorway and stared into the murky gloom.
What kind of monster could have targeted his daughter?
And why hadn’t he been able to stop it?
What kind of father did that make him?
What kind of man?
He didn’t have the answers, but maybe Tyler Young did.
My Dearest Darling:
It has begun again, I’m afraid.
The worms are wriggling on the end of hooks, daring to challenge their scripted fate. Such tiny minds they must deploy to be already numb to the lessons imparted and all too willing to spurn my generous nature.
Such angry news to share, my dearest, I wish it were not so.
It is an eternity since I last gazed upon your loving face and those kind, soulful eyes.
I miss the way you look at me. Those glassine mirrors of purity. I miss your scent and your taste—sunshine and berries. Your pillow has gone stale from being crushed against my tear-stained cheek, and the only smell remaining is of my own disconsolation.
Forgive the sins of flesh I must indulge to make the merry go round and the limp bodies dance to my tune. The pleasure it gives is shameful, but the reason is not.
They shall pay and this time the lesson needs to be undeniable.
I have been too kind—a failing of mine I know you understand all too well, my darling. The cuts inflicted were too shallow, too quick to heal. But no more.
This time, I shall draw blood by my own hand and they will tremble before me.
This I vow.
Until we are together again,
may my love keep you safe.
xxx
5
In the morning, Ian shaved and showered on autopilot, thankful for the routine, for being awake and not trapped in that fitful state of half sleep that felt too much like drowning. In the kitchen, he poured untouched cold soup down the sink and switched on the kettle. While the water boiled, he lifted his cell phone out of its charger and tapped the speed dial.
Jeannie answered with a chirp, as though he was caller number four and had won a prize. “Children First. We’re here to help.”
Ian opened his mouth and suddenly wondered if he had lost the power of speech. His throat felt thick and dry as though all the moisture in the air had suddenly evaporated, or he had just bit into an unripe persimmon. He cleared his throat and croaked, “Is she in?”
“Ian?”
“Yeah.”
“You OK, hon? You sound tired.”
“I’m fine, Jeannie. Just distracted. Is Linda in?”
“Hold on.”
A brief pause before Linda picked up.
“Ian, you OK? Jeannie says—
“I’m fine,” Ian interrupted, trying not to snap. He needed to suppress his irritation with the questions, knowing that both women were only trying to express how much they cared. “But I need to take some time for an appointment in Salem today. Can you cover me?”
“No problem, but…” an uncomfortable tightness entered Linda’s voice, “did you remember you have Molly Flannigan this morning? She’s already—
“Shit. I forgot.” Ian glanced over at the prison pass on the table. His appointment wasn’t until the afternoon,
and Salem was only an hour’s drive. “I’ll take Molls if you can get someone to cover the rest of the day.”
“Good.” Linda’s vocal chords relaxed. “Molly would have been disappointed otherwise. Poor kid doesn’t know which way is up. You’ve been her only constant.”
“You don’t have to sell it. I want to be there for her.”
“OK.” Linda’s voice turned curious. “So what’s in Salem?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s personal.”
“You don’t know?”
“Yes … No … Look, can we drop it for now?”
“But you’ll tell me when you get back?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Ian could hear his friend shaking her head over the phone; the movement made her earrings jangle.
“Not good enough,” Linda said firmly. “We’ll talk tonight.”
Ian sighed and relented. “Fine.”
“Good. Be safe.”
The kettle began to whistle as Ian hung up the phone.
MOLLY FLANNIGAN was an eleven-year-old tomboy with short, dirty-blond hair, a squashed button nose spattered in dark freckles, and large, oval-shaped eyes that reminded Ian of opals.
It wasn’t the color so much—a stirred hazelnut with tiny flecks of orange and green—as it was a luminescent sparkle that hinted at the true intelligence within. Under different circumstances, she could have been a spelling bee champ, math whiz, or promising artist. As it was, her skills ran more toward chronic shoplifting—especially exotic fish from pet stores, which she kept in jam jars in her room until the fish inevitably died—and running away.
When Ian drove up to the foster home, the fourth one she had been placed in this year alone, Molly was standing on the sidewalk out front, hands stuffed deep in her pockets, waiting.
She was dressed in her customary, long-sleeved black T-shirt underneath a bibbed pair of denim overalls. The overalls were baggy with the cuffs rolled at the ankles and crudely stapled to hold the hems in place. Molly had scribbled over the denim in black permanent marker, creating her own design. Although there didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to her doodles, mostly squiggly lines and concentric circles, there was a crude Angel fish or two in there somewhere if you looked hard enough.
The Fear in Her Eyes Page 2
