Mind Games (9 page)

“Dad, the fire is perfect right now for s’mores. Where’s Mom?”

“She…um got a call in from work and she had to leave for a bit.” Cameron hated lying to Sarah this way.

“I thought she was going to roast marshmallows with us.”

“Me too, honey. But another emergency came up at the bank.”

He tried to be present with Sarah, but his mind kept gravitating towards dread
:
What was Jen thinking? How could she let this happen when she knew the risks? She was blinded by the apparent genius of her own proposal. The abductors must have thought she was the only one with access to the vault, but they must have not known about Sarah’s involvement.

Cameron opened an extra bag of marshmallows and gave the s’more ingredients to Sarah. “Go ahead and get them started. I’m going to make a call. I’ll be out in a minute.”

When Sarah went back outside
,
Cameron closed the patio door and called Amy’s cell phone.

“Wait,” Amy said. “You cleaned up the mess? How am I supposed to figure out who took her?”

“I couldn’t risk Sarah finding out.”

“Well, Cam, she’s going to find out eventually.”

“I don’t want her to worry. How would she sleep?”

“Jen is now number forty-one, Cameron.”

“Forty-one what?”

“There have been forty-one missing person cases in the last two years. And all of those cases are still open.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen the stack of piles on your desk. I thought you gave up on of those.” Cameron felt his stomach drop and churn. He tasted acid in the back of his throat. “Amy, I know one of the other people that went missing. Her name is Melanie Garcia. She lived in our neighborhood. A Spanish teacher.”

Amy paused. “She doesn’t ring a bell, but there’s been so many now...how long ago was Melanie taken?”

“Must have been a few months ago now. I remember seeing her face on the front page of the paper. And, the whole neighborhood was talking about it.”

“Did you know her well?”

“Not really. I mean, we had a block cookout one night and I saw her there. Didn’t really talk to her much. She was chasing around two little boys. Twins.”

“Was Melanie working at a school?”

“Yes. She taught Spanish at the high school, but I haven’t heard anything since she was taken. Amy, why is this happening?” Cameron set the phone on the table for a moment and leaned over it, cracking his neck, trying to control his frustration.
“
What’s going o
n
?”

“I don’t know, Cameron. Listen, I’m going to do everything I can to help you find her.”

Pressing the phone hard against his ear, Cameron paced in the living room, watching the girls through he sliding glass door as they sat around the fire. His voice was unsteady. “Amy I’m scared…I’m scared they’re going to take Sarah next.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She was helping Jen at work. At the bank. It had something to do with the vault…some sort of eye scan system that Jen added an extra security procedure.”

“Really?” Amy said. “Sounds risky.”

“I know. I know. I fought with her about it and tried to stop her, but she made up her mind.”

“Cam, I’m sure you could have found a way to change her mind.”

“This is Jen we’re talking about. And the thing is…if someone took Jen, it’s only a matter of time before they figure out they need Sarah too...if they want to open the vault.”

Amy sighed. “God, Cam. Okay, don’t panic. We’re not going to let them take Sarah. I promise. Is there somewhere you can take her? Some where she’ll be safe for now?”

Cameron stopped pacing and thought through his list of relatives.

“Yes, her Aunt Beth. I could take her there.”

The patio fire died dow
n
, and Sarah’s friends left one by one as their parents came for them, leaving Cameron alone with his daughter. Before they went to bed, Cameron checked the alarms on the doors and windows and punched in the lockdown code in the digital panel.

All the money they’d spent on the system and Jen had still been taken. At least the system was there now to protect Sarah.

Cameron told Sarah he wanted her to sleep in their master bedroom. Sarah ran to her bedroom to get her pillow, then jumped into her parents King-sized bed. Cameron rolled a sleeping bag onto the floor and asked Sarah about her party. She began to excitedly thank him for letting her friends come over, but her words drifted into exhaustion, and she collapsed into the sheets. He locked the bedroom door, turned off the lights and pretended to fall asleep as well.

But he could only lie there, numb with worry.

The next mornin
g
, Cameron explained to Sarah that he and Jen were going to spend the weekend at a bed and breakfast and that he was going to pick her up from the bank on his way back into the city. But first, he told her he was going to drop her off at Aunt Beth’s place.

Sarah gave her father a big hug when he explained it was just for a few days. Cameron assumed it wouldn’t take the abductors very long to learn about Sarah’s involvement with the vault security. If Sarah had been left at home, Cameron’s fears of her potential abduction would have been unbearable. It was better to lie and guarantee her safety.

He drove her about fifty miles south of San Francisco to Aunt Beth’s home. With its barn and old silo, the property looked more like it belonged in the Midwest. Cameron greeted Aunt Beth in the driveway. As Sarah ran up to the house, Cameron pulled Beth aside and told her to never let Sarah out of her sight.

As he drove away from Beth’s country home, he admired how the sunlight blasted through the trees in strong golden rays. It was as if they were reaching out to him through the tree line, through the car window, just reaching. The only barrier between Cameron and the light was the thin windshield.

The arguments with Jennifer two weeks ago seemed much more important now. If only he’d prevented her proposal, keeping both her and Sarah out of danger, but it was too late. The abductors may have taken her anyway, regardless of the security plans.

Cameron couldn’t afford to think about what could have happened. Instead, he needed to focus on what actually happened. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore. He just wanted his wife home. As he drove, her absence instilled emptiness in Cameron. The blank space was growing in him again like an infection; but now it was mixed up with grief.

When Cameron was only thirty miles from the city, he suddenly saw a man waving in the distance, standing near a parked car on the shoulder of the road. Still in a mild state of shock, the last thing Cameron wanted to do was talk to a stranger. He decided to keep driving.

But as he drove closer to the man, he saw his own desperation reflected in the man.

Against his better judgment, Cameron stepped on the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder of the road, cautiously rolling down his window.

Sporting navy overalls, the stranger lowered his hands and smiled a rotten-toothed grin. “I’m not an axe-murderer or nothing…I’m just looking for a little help with my vehicle.”

Cameron clutched the steering wheel. “What kind of help? What happened?”

“I have a flat tire. I think someone threw a beer bottle out here or something, and it was just enough to puncture through. Busted it up pretty bad. Could you help a brother out?”

Cameron parked his vehicle in front of the stranger’s car and walked around to meet the pear-shaped man.

“My name’s Dan. I really appreciate you stopping for a moment. You’re a regular Good Samaritan.”

“I don’t know about that.” Cameron followed Dan around to the back of his car, and Dan opened the trunk – it was filled with red and blue fireworks.

“Don’t give me that look, I sell these just down the road.” Dan laughed.

They removed the car jack and spare tire from Dan’s trunk as they talked. Cameron began to jack up the car and unscrew the flat tire with the wrench. He wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible to reconnect with Amy.

“Usually, my son rides along with me,” Dan said.

“Your son?”

“Yeah. Max. But he disappeared two years ago.”

Cameron stopped pumping the car jack, leaving the car inches from the ground. “He disappeared? A kidnapping?”

“I’m not sure what happened. He was sixteen years old when he…vanished.” Dan put his thumbs through the straps in his overalls. I’ll bet he was taken by the Rabbit’s Foot Hermit.”

“Who’s that?”

“Oh, you don’t know the legend? Let’s get the busted tire off of this…you’ve heard of Bigfoot, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I think Bigfoot is a bunch of bologna. Like there’s some monkey man wandering the woods for a hundred years? Yeah right! A bunch of teenagers probably made up Bigfoot to scare their girlfriends on a camping trip. But the Rabbit’s Foot Hermit – he’
s
rea
l
.”

Cameron decided to entertain Dan’s folk tale. He’d run into several people on the outskirts of town with different stories or legends, but he could tell this one just might top them all. “So you’ve seen him?”

“Well, I’ve never actually seen him, but my friend Randy has all kinds of stories. He told me the Hermit collects certain…things.”

“Like what?”

“Shoelaces.”

“Yeah?”

“Some say the legend of this hermit goes back all the way to 1892, so you know he’s an old geezer. He probably found the fountain of youth or something of that nature. Randy told me he saw him in the woods one night and he had
a
loooooon
g
black beard. The hermit was notorious for eating rabbit stew every night he could catch ‘em. He’d make it real nice, too. Not just salt and pepper, no way. The hermit would make a proper stew, slicing potatoes with carrots and onions, and adding thick gravy to bring out the rabbit’s natural juices. Randy told me the stew made the rabbit meat real tender. Some say he always used traps in the woods to catch larger animals, but rabbits were his favorite. At least he gives the wolves a run for their money. It’s all about food chain diversification.”

If Cameron had been talking to Dan on the phone, he would have hung up a long time ago, but Dan’s story had just enough nonsense to keep him interested. “So your friend Randy must have been a friend with this hermit guy?”

“I wouldn’t say friends really. Randy just knows more about the hermit than anyone else. He’s sort of an aficionado.”

“But why was he after people’s shoelaces?” Cameron asked.

“Oh, yes, I heard he wouldn’t hurt them or nothing. He’d just ask them for their laces and go back to hunting rabbits with his BB gun. That’s why there were so many laceless people driving back to ‘Cisco. The old hermit weaves his own clothing from the shoelaces – it’s a fixation of his. Apparently, the hermit collects other things too – lunchboxes, rusty coins, and even skulls.”

“What, is he a pirate or something?”

“A pirate? No, no, no. You’re funny, though. Yes, skulls, but they’re not human.” Dan stepped up onto his tippy toes, raising his brow in an exclusive expression. “Alien skulls. Some sort of half-bear and half-squirrel breed. Straight out of science fiction.”

“Sounds like more fiction than science.”

“That’s what you think. Heck, they’ve got plenty in common: sharp teeth, brown fur, claws, and the skull structures of the two creatures have structural similarities.”

Cameron wondered how many times Dan had told this story.

Dan pulled the old tire off and placed the new tire on. Cameron rolled the old one to the back and carefully loaded it in the trunk next to the fireworks. Dan screwed on the new tire as he spoke.

“Don’t you look at me like that! I can see all of those doubts swirling around in your head. You just haven’t heard what I’ve heard. But that’s why I’m telling you. The Bear-Squirrels have found a way to crossbreed, but they only last a few years. That’s why the skulls are everywhere. That’s wh
y
h
e
collects them.”

“And you’ve seen these skulls before. These half-bear…”

“Seen them?” Dan scratched the back of his head. “I don’t have to see them to know they exist. It’s called faith. Why do you think UFO’s stopped landing around here? The pile of skulls got so large that it freaked the aliens. You, sir, should count your blessings. Without that old hermit, we’d all probably be sprawled out on some operating table, under some kind of horrible anesthetic with the aliens probing our innards. No doubt in my mind. That hermit has probably played a major role in protecting the earth people.” His eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Our people. Your people.”

Cameron was now convinced he was trapped in some kind of TV show where hillbillies pranked city folk with their rancid ramblings.

As he watched Dan’s mouth motor on, Cameron wondered when Dan would bend over in a belly laugh, calling off his story as nothing more than country legend. Alas, the belly laugh never came. He just kept talking.