Bad Games (16 page)

The sheriff spit more tobacco and adjusted his hat. He was back in control, bored again. “I can send my deputy down to patrol the area if that will help you sleep better.”

“Don’t bother,” Patrick said. “You said you’d do that last night, and a hell of a lot of good it did. Besides, we’re not
staying
the night. We’re waiting for Norm to return with our kids and then we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at Patrick’s language. Patrick continued undeterred.

“And I’ll tell you something else, sheriff. I’m not quite sure how you got your badge, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you ordered it off the back of a fucking comic book.”

The sheriff’s flicked the tip of his hat up with his middle finger. His bushy gray eyebrows were now a sharp V. He took a step towards Patrick and got in his face. Patrick smelled the tobacco and cheap after-shave.

“I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Lambert. Maybe you and your wife made this whole thing up; maybe you didn’t. I can’t be sure. Maybe it’s something you city folks like to do to entertain yourselves way out here in the sticks with us ignorant country folk…”

Oh we’re going there again, are we?
Patrick thought.

“But what I
can
tell you, Mr. Lambert, is that us country folk have jail cells that are just as uncomfortable as the ones you got in that big city of yours, and you’re about one more wrong word away from finding yourself spending the night there instead of headin’ on home with your wife and kids.”

Patrick stayed quiet. He was angry but not stupid. The sheriff continued.

“Now, my suggestion is to go back inside, pack your things, and wait for Norm to come back with your kids. Once that’s done, I suggest you do exactly as you said, and
get the fuck out of here.
”

Patrick took a step back and swallowed his rage. He waited until the sheriff had walked back to his cruiser, out of earshot, before saying, “You got it, dickhead.”

He guided Amy through the front door then slammed it.

“Where
are
they, Lorraine?” Amy asked.

All three sat around Lorraine’s kitchen table, each with a mug of tea.

“They should be back soon. Like I said, the ice cream parlor is a bit out of the way. That’s why I wanted Norm to drop me at home first.”

“And he’s got no cell phone?” Patrick said.

Lorraine gave an apologetic shake of the head. “Sorry. We may be the only couple on the East Coast now without one.”

“Fuck,” Patrick said, to which he immediately followed with: “Sorry.”

“That’s okay, Patrick,” Lorraine said. “Given the circumstances, I would say ‘fuck’ sums things up rather well.”

Patrick forced a quick smile.

Lorraine sipped her tea and added, “To tell the truth, I’m more than a little unsettled myself. The thought of having horrible men like that roaming around our community isn’t sitting too well with me. Perhaps Norm and I will leave
with
you tonight—stay away from the lake for awhile until those men are put in jail.”

Patrick nodded hard. “Not a bad idea at all, Lorraine. Although I wouldn’t hold my breath about those men being put in jail. That sheriff is about as useful as a mesh condom.”

“I’ll tell you what’s strange,” Lorraine said. “I’m nearly certain I saw the Blockers only a couple of days ago.”

“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.

Lorraine’s face scrunched with uncertainty. “I thought I spotted them taking a stroll around the lake. They were a good distance away, but if I had to bet, I’d say it was Maury and Lois.”

“And when was this?” Patrick asked.

“The day before you arrived maybe?”

“Is it possible they’ve since packed up and headed back for the winter?”

“It’s possible…” Lorraine began tracing a finger along the rim of her teacup, her mind elsewhere.

Amy asked her, “What is it?”

Lorraine’s eyes flicked up from their trance. “Just remembering something.” Her brow furrowed as she tried recalling events. “I can remember driving back here with Norm a few years ago, a couple of days before Thanksgiving. I’d forgotten a picture album we were planning to show the family. Took me all summer to put the darn thing together and I went and forgot it.” She paused, the furrow in her brow etching deeper, the culprit now mystery instead of recollection. “But the Blockers were still here; they hadn’t left yet. I distinctly remember Norm making mention of it now. He’d said he’d spotted them on their front porch. He wondered if they’d chosen to stay put for the holidays that year.”

Patrick and Amy said nothing, their silence prompting Lorraine to elaborate.

“Some folks around here do that. They’re year-rounders. They don’t mind the cold.”

Patrick went to speak, but as if reading his mind, Lorraine spoke and answered his question. “Except the Blockers
aren’t
year-rounders. They
do
leave for the winter season. I know that for a fact. I guess that year Norm spotted them they’d gotten a late start, or, as Norm wondered, they decided to stay put for the holidays.” She shrugged. “Maybe they had family coming to see
them.
Had their holiday at the cabin.”

Patrick stood from the kitchen table and began to pace. “Okay then, having said that, what are all the possibilities we’re looking at here? I mean, to be brutally honest, I only see two. Either that douche bag sheriff was right and the Blockers
did
leave for the upcoming season, which would mean those two assholes somehow broke into their empty cabin and left without a single trace, or…” He looked at the two women. Their eyes met his gaze for only a second before skittering away, “possibility number two” realized, yet neither woman willing to say it aloud for fear that once spoken it could, and would, be a likely certainty.

To Patrick’s surprise it was Lorraine and not Amy who eventually finished his thought. “…Or the Blockers were still home when those two men entered their cabin.”

“Exactly,” Patrick said without a trace of satisfaction. “And if that’s the case, then the Blockers…”

Neither woman finished his sentence this time, the superstition of voicing fears at its pinnacle when murder was the implication.

Amy stood and walked to the window. “I want to leave.” She turned her head towards Patrick. “Do you think we should go back to our place and start packing so we can go the second they get here?”

“No,” Patrick said. “No, we’re staying here together. When Norm comes back we’ll
all
head over to our place and pack. Then we’ll
all
head back here so Lorraine and Norm can pack.” He looked at Lorraine. “I think you we’re right; it’s a damn good idea if you guys took off for awhile. I’m sure Norm will agree.”

Lorraine nodded. “I’m sure too.”

Amy and Patrick both took their seats again.

Patrick thrummed his fingers across the surface of the table.

Amy dropped her head and started massaging her neck with both hands. She stopped suddenly, head popping up. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

Patrick stopped thumping the table top with his fingers and held them up for Amy to see. “That was me. Sorry.”

“No,” she said, standing up. “Something else. Listen.”

The room went quiet. Nobody breathed. In the distance there was the faint sound of chimes.

“Do you
hear
that?” Amy asked again.

“Bells?” Lorraine said.

“Chimes,” Amy said. “Do you and Norm have wind chimes?”

“No.”

Patrick stood and went to the window. He put a hand over his eyes to cover the glare from inside the house, and squinted towards their cabin. The back porch was dark, but he could still make out the silhouette of something small hanging from its canopy. Something new. He cracked the window and stuck an ear out. The chiming was definitely coming from their cabin.

Patrick’s mind suddenly flashed on the man with the shaved head. His finger flicking chimes on the Blocker’s porch…

Patrick pulled his head inside and shut the window. “Stay here,” he said as he headed towards the front door. Amy went after him but he turned and thrust out his palm. “
Stay
here
,” he said again. She did.

Patrick went out the Mitchell’s front door. He did not walk cautiously to his back porch. He ran, almost hoping to collide with his antagonists. In movies everybody slinks slowly, gives the bad guys time to hide and wait. Patrick wanted to rip the goddamn Band-Aid off quickly. Wanted to run feverishly towards his tormentors, shock them and catch them by surprise as they tried to scurry away after setting their trap.

Arriving at his back porch, Patrick instantly reached up into the dark to snatch the chime. His intent was to rip it down and hurl it as far away as possible, hoping to maybe hear a definitive splash should it reach the lake.

Except he didn’t. Instead, Patrick jerked his hand away from the chime as though it had scalded him. He jerked his hand away because when he touched the chime, he felt something furry.

Patrick reached into his pocket and fumbled for his key. He opened the door, reached inside, flicked on the porch lights, and froze.

It
was
the same wind chime that had been hanging on the Blocker’s porch.

It
was
the same wind chime that the man with the shaved head had been flicking with his fingers.

But that wasn’t what froze Patrick.

What froze him was the furry something he had touched. It was hanging dead center in the middle of the surrounding chimes like a rope-handle to a bell. It was a tail. A tail that looked like it belonged to Oscar the dog.

Patrick reappeared at the Mitchell’s front door with a rifle gripped tight in both hands. Both Lorraine and Amy took several steps back, Lorraine involuntarily raising her hands in a submissive gesture.

“
What?
” Amy said. “
What’s wrong?
”

“They’re still here,” Patrick said. He gripped the rifle with such intensity it looked as though he meant to break it.

The rifle had always been at the cabin. The Lamberts were not hunters, but Amy’s father was. He kept the gun locked away in the cabin for the rare times he still went on hunting trips. Patrick knew where he kept it, never approved of it, always ignored it, and was now grateful for it.

Amy looked at the rifle in her husband’s hands with frightened eyes. “What are you talking about? Why do you have my dad’s gun?”

Patrick ignored his wife and turned his attention on the front door. He locked it then twisted and pulled at the handle, testing its stability. Satisfied, he whirled around and took powerful strides towards the back door where he repeated the same ritual.

“Patrick.”

He returned to the living room, slid the rifle open, double-checked the ammunition he’d loaded at the cabin, nodded to himself, slammed the metal bolt home.

“
Patrick!
”

Patrick’s frantic trance broke, eyes wide, looking as if he’d been shaken from a nightmare. “The
chimes
,” he said. “The wind chimes that maniac was flicking on the Blocker’s porch…they’re dangling from our back deck with Oscar’s fucking
tail
hanging in the middle of them.”

Lorraine gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

“They killed the dog?” Amy asked.

Patrick snorted and tightened his grip on the rifle. “My guess would be yes. Either that or they held the poor bastard down and sliced off his tail. Either way, I think it’s safe to say that things have gone from bad to exceptionally fucking worse.”

Lorraine lowered her hand from her mouth and said, “Oh that poor little thing.”

Patrick hurried back to the front door, cracked the blinds on one of the adjacent windows. The driveway was empty. No headlights in the distance. “Where are they, Lorraine? Is the ice cream place
that
far away?” he said.

Lorraine shook her head in quick bursts and said, “Yes. I mean, no. I mean
yes,
it’s kind of far, but
no
, I would have expected them to be home by now.”

Patrick faced Amy, the rifle tight to his chest. “
Please God no
,” he said in a breathless whisper.

“Please God no
what?
” Amy said. “What are you thinking?”

Patrick swallowed hard, his mouth drying up on him. “I’m thinking that if these bastards have been three steps ahead of us this whole time, then how the hell do we know they don’t have Norm and the kids?”

Now it was Amy who put a hand to her mouth.

“But when could they have done that?” Lorraine asked. “
Someone
had to recently put that wind chime up on your porch. The parlor is far. The distance and timing doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe they never
made
it to the parlor,” Patrick said. “Did you watch them leave?”

“What?”

“After Norm dropped you off, did you watch them
actually
back out of the driveway and
leave
Crescent Lake?”

Lorraine thought for a brief moment, her eyes dropping to recall. When she eventually looked up, she could not meet Patrick’s stare. “No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t think I’d have a reason to. I didn’t think…”

Amy rubbed Lorraine’s back.

Patrick lowered his head. “So there’s a chance they never even left the lake.”

Amy asked, “So what exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting those two fucks might have grabbed them before they even had a chance to leave.”

“Doesn’t that sound like a big risk?” Lorraine asked. “Suppose someone saw them?”

“And suppose someone didn’t?” Patrick said. “Or suppose they didn’t even use force to get hold of them. These guys are
smart
, Lorraine. Norm’s one of the nicest guys in the world. For all we know these men could have tricked him; said they had a flat, needed directions…who the hell knows?”

Amy made a face of horrific possibility. “Are you saying its possible Carrie and Caleb were there? They were being
held captive
in the Blocker’s cabin while we were dealing with those guys?”

“Maybe,” Patrick said. “I don’t know.”

Amy looked like she wanted to punch things and cry.

“The sheriff said he searched that cabin,” Lorraine said.