Expiration Date (25 page)

Kenny remained frozen in the path of destruction.

Dmitri wiped his greasy hands with a wad of paper towels. He stood over the trunk of the rental car, a white Taurus, and dropped the towels beside his ice chest. Disappointment squeezed his stomach. He had tried to search Engine 418, with less than pleasing results.

Almost a week in Portland? Inactive.

Now this opportunity to further his preordained purpose? Interrupted.

He’d questioned the validity of any old Rasputin curse, but the strange reaction at the fence had convinced him. Lenin himself had left an object on this Finnish locomotive; yet pressing concerns and early successes had distracted the man from later tracking it down. The secret had remained dormant until recent studies brought its existence to light. Without delay, Brotherhood forces had squelched this revelation and schemed to make the object their own.

Dmitri was called forth, delegated, and deployed. An agent of destiny.

I’ve followed instructions. Here I am, in Junction City, halfway around the globe
.

“And a foolish curse holds me back?” He shook his head at this absurdity.

His outburst startled an elderly woman plodding along the sidewalk. She drew her leashed dog near and lifted it to her chest, eyeballed Dmitri as though he were an animal abuser deserving severe punishment.

“I apologize if I frightened you.” He reached into the ice chest, peeled a lid from a thin tin can. “Would your pet like a pickled herring?”

The woman’s mouth crinkled with cynicism, while the Chihuahua made no attempt to hide perked ears and flared nostrils. It began to whine.

The woman took one step back. “What’s that you have there?”

Dmitri relaxed his facial muscles, opened wide his blue eyes—the epitome of a kindhearted dog lover. He moved toward her, herring can extended.
“Your pet is welcome to eat. I wonder … you must know many things about this city. Perhaps you have knowledge of this train engine?”

“Walk by it every day. Have for years.”

“Is it true? Rumors about Lenin on Engine 418?”

“Those aren’t rumors, my boy. Those are well-guarded secrets. I’ve been keeping an eye on this train for a long time. For ages, it seems.”

Astride his mountain bike, Kenny watched Clay’s valiant but failed attempt to protect him. He should’ve run, as Clay had insisted. But how could he leave behind his new companion?

Kenny chose instead to stay. It was what friends did.

Now he realized the foolhardiness of his choice. Too late to escape. If he took off at this moment, he might get twenty yards. By that time, the Rottweiler would draw even with him, clamping teeth into his leg and bringing him down.

Kenny brandished the bike pump. He could use it to swat the beast away.

Yeah, right!

He dropped the pump, leaned low over the bike, used his thighs to propel him headlong on a collision course with the dog. Better to face his attacker than allow it to catch him from behind.

Speeding forward, he zeroed in on the creature. He heard men’s yells, but they accomplished nothing. The dog was still coming at him.

The Rottweiler leaped. Kenny hunched his shoulders, lowered his helmeted head between the handlebars, drove a knobbed front tire into the heaving tan belly. Strands of drool lashed his chin; fur and claws blurred past his face. A crushing weight careened into his back, then tore free on its way down to the pavement.

The bike wobbled and collapsed beneath him.

Kenny, powered by adrenaline, paid no heed to the pebbles in his kneecap and elbow. He scrambled and felt Clay’s large hands lift him to his feet.

As he whipped around, he was certain the Rottweiler would be pouncing at his thirteen-year-old throat. He braced himself. Tensed every muscle. His
imagination ran wild with movie-generated images as the noise of claws tearing into asphalt awakened primal fears.

He was screaming.

But he was unaware of it until a sound much louder cut him off.

Planted in the neighboring gateway, a man wearing cowboy boots and coveralls lowered a sleek black handgun. He hooked a meaty thumb around a shoulder strap, spit with distaste into the dirt at his feet.

“Friggin’ waste of a dog! A full-on, mind-blowin’ waste.”

Kenny was still wary. He stared at the immobile form.

“Count yourselves lucky,” the man grumbled. “I’ll never know where she got it, but that dog was born with a mean streak. Woulda killed ya and been downright proud of it.” He scratched at his chest. Cursed. Considered the dead animal in the driveway. “Think you two can help lift her into my stink-in’ garbage can?”

Dmitri Derevenko reevaluated the white-haired woman. “You are … a guardian?”

Standing no higher than his chest, she wore an overcoat, a jewel-encrusted brooch, and a set of silver wire bifocals. Nurse’s shoes cradled small feet, while knee-high stockings appeared content huddled about her ankles. Her furry companion was on the sidewalk, lapping sauce from the bottom of Dmitri’s fish tin.

In this country Dmitri knew that the woman would be viewed with ridicule and condescension, whereas the matriarchal underpinnings of his country demanded he show respect. He felt an urge to bow.

“A guardian, oh yes. But a cranky one,” she confided. “It’s a thankless task.”

“Who has given you this …” He searched for the word. “This commission?”

She made the sign of the cross, lifted her gaze heavenward in reverence.

“You’re doing this alone? Or do you have help?”

“Don’t be silly, my boy. I’m old, tired, and impatient.” She swept opaque
violet eyes across Founder’s Park and its environs. “I could not hold them off on my own.”

“Who?”

“Not so loud. You can’t see them, but they are close.”

Dmitri experienced a first tinge of skepticism, mixed with sympathy. He commiserated with her desire for significance and worried that years from now his own lost dreams might push him over the edge into decrepitude. Da. It was harsh enough when a body turned on itself, but a mind crumbling beneath the weight of dissolution …

Stop such absurd thoughts
, he warned himself. His dreams were close at hand.

“If I wait, will I see them?” he asked.

With a finger to pale lips, the woman leaned forward as though to reveal a mind-altering revelation. “They are invisible.”

He decided to play along. “Do they ever go on the train?”

“Of course not. I will not permit it.”

“Because you are a guardian.”

“One of many jobs I’ve held. I’m not incapable, you know. Cranky, yes. But I already mentioned that, did I not? Pay better attention, if you will. I say things once, and once only.” She gripped her tuft of chin hair, shifted her eyes over Engine 418. “Oh, there’s something I’m forgetting. Yes, that naughty little child … Kenny Preston.”

Dmitri tucked in his shirt. A man preparing to leave.

“He’s unruly, I tell you—climbing on the fence as though it were a playground, gallivanting about the train. Such behavior is prohibited, but he’s shown a flagrant disregard for the standard proprieties. Even taken something that was not his.”

Dmitri froze. “What’s this thing he took?”

“Well, can’t say I got a good look at it. But he absconded with it, that he did.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because it’s gone, of course.”

“Of course. And he lives nearby?”

“What concern is that of yours, my boy? Your question is irrelevant, and I would not tell you if he did. Perhaps I’ve said too much already.” The woman gasped, then covered her mouth. Her Chihuahua yapped. “Oh my, now they’ve seen us.”

“They?”

She pointed a pasty, translucent finger.

As Dmitri suspected, the street was devoid of strangers, hostile or otherwise. He turned to leave, saw the old lady’s lips twitch with secretive glee. He hoped that, despite her addled state, she had guided him in the right direction.

Kenny Preston. He must find this boy.

His mother’s calm demeanor surprised Kenny. Was she not seeing, not hearing? His clothes were torn, his knees bloodied, his bike scratched up.

Sure, a route overseer had delivered the rest of his newspapers, but a Rottweiler was dead. Earlier, a stern police officer had stopped by for clarification of the events at Juniper Street. The man in the coveralls was facing questions of animal cruelty and unlawful use of a handgun within city limits.

C’mon, Mom. You’re s’posed to freak like never before. You all right?

She had both elbows on her knees, hunched forward on the sofa, warming her hands around a cup of Stash tea. Her light blue eyes blinked behind the steam. Her lips blew softly, cooling the liquid or getting rid of tension. Maybe both.

“Thank you for saving my son’s life, Mr. Ryker.” She turned her face toward Clay. “I’m glad there’re people like you left in this world. Sometimes you wonder.”

“I was there and saw the dog get loose. Didn’t even have time to think about it.”

“No, you’re selling yourself short. You didn’t have to do what you did.”

“Yes,” Clay said, “I did.”

“Well, it was very brave of you, Mr. Ryker. Really it was.”

“Just Clay. Please.”

“I’m Kate Preston.” Her eyes dropped to his ring, to the bandages that wrapped his forearm and his thigh, then shifted back to the tea. “Kenny tells me you’d like to stick around for the afternoon, keep an eye out for him.”

“Uh, well. I’m concerned about him, I guess.”

“Might be nice, actually. That officer seemed to think you were an okay guy, and as a mother, I tend to worry myself silly over my son.”

“I have a son too. Couple of years younger than yours.”

“Well then, you understand. But you’ve done more than enough already. Look at you. Are you going to survive?”

“What? These tiny scratches? They look worse than they are. I mean, those EMTs acted like they’d been insulted by showing up for such minor injuries.”

“Eight stitches.” Kenny whistled in admiration. “You’re a hero.”

When Clay lifted his face, his chiseled cheeks glowed as if he’d turned toward a spotlight. The corners of his mouth stretched into a smile of relief, and he took a deep breath. Chuckled. Kenny reached forward, and they knocked fists together. Clay laughed out loud in the sitting room, a healthy, rippling sound that splashed over Kenny’s darkest fears and disappointments.

He liked having Clay in the house. He understood now why his mother hadn’t gone ballistic. It was this guy. Here. Within arm’s reach.

There was one way to keep this going.

“Anybody for a game of Scrabble?” Kenny submitted.

“Scrabble? With my injuries? You’ll have an unfair advantage.”

“Yeah right, dude. So whaddya say, Mom? We already missed church anyway. Can he stay, just for a while?”

“For a while?” Kate’s eyes glimmered above her smile. “Is that any way to treat a hero? I think he deserves to stay for pot roast and garlic potatoes. But don’t say a word about the blackberry cobbler. That should be a surprise.”

When Kenny opened the back door and watched Gussy bound back inside to join the party, he thought life couldn’t get much better. From one extreme to the other? Within a few short hours?