Scammed (10 page)

When Lucy returned and poured him yet another glass of wine, they began to talk about painting: specifically, how it was that with such a talented and famous father, Greg had felt so alienated from his world. “Even back when we were kids,” Lucy said, “I remember you hated anything to do with art. Once I actually heard you yell that at your dad. He was so mad. And I was shocked, because normally you hardly said boo to a goose. Have you any idea what made you dislike something your dad was so passionate about?”

Greg grinned crookedly. “Him! The old man himself! I disliked it
because
he cared about it. My only way of getting back at him. Pretty childish, I guess.”

“But understandable. Your dad certainly could be a fierce old general. Never quite stopped, I'm afraid.”

“Which brings up something I've always wondered. How come
you
were never scared of him? He had our whole family under his thumb, but not you.”

Lucy pursed her lips in thought. “I'd like to say it was because my own folks were so easy-going, but it was more than that. Even as a kid, I seemed somehow to understand that if you didn't take his bluster seriously, if you didn't let him ride you, he usually calmed down. That's part of it. But also—it's hard to put this into words—in some odd way our particular personalities just seemed to—
fit.
”

Lucy started to blink and Greg realized there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, man,” he said quickly. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” she replied. “I don't think I realized until now how much I miss him. He wasn't so much
teaching
me painting, you know, as . . .”

“What?”

“Letting me grow into it, working in his studio, surrounded by his stuff. Letting it demonstrate what could be done, but allowing me to be free to take my own direction.”

“No kidding!”

“You're amazed, of course. Knowing Walter, who wouldn't be. But I think he was changing. Doing his best to, anyway. Maybe, in some odd way, he was even trying to make up for how he'd been with his own family, driving you and Jill away like he did.”

“He
told
you that?”

“Goodness no!” Lucy chuckled. “I said I thought there'd been a change, not a miracle. The thing about why you and Jill left, I got from your mum. Poor Mary might not have been able to stand up to Walter, but she knew perfectly well what had happened with her children. It wasn't her fault, but she blamed herself anyway, and I know for sure that it broke her heart.”

Hearing Lucy speak of his mother that way brought back everything that had happened so powerfully that he was shocked by her death all over again. He turned away, feeling an almost overwhelming urge to blurt out everything that had been going on: the foul trickery behind his parents' demise; his rage at the architects of their misery and his own; the plot he was hatching in revenge. All the indignation and hurt, dammed up so long, threatened to burst through and make him spill everything. A moment more and his tongue would start babbling. Not only would his secret be out, but he would likely as not scare the wits out of Lucy, something that was not to be considered.

The only way to prevent this catastrophe, he knew, was to get out of there fast. “I'm sorry, Lucy,” he muttered. “I can't talk about this anymore tonight. It's getting late and I should go.”

If Lucy was surprised by the sudden change, she didn't show it. “Of course. I understand. I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn.”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “What you said was wonderful. You obviously knew both Mum and Dad better than either Jill or I did. I'm grateful for everything you did for them. At the end, it was a lot more than I did, that's for sure.”

She argued about that, and they sparred gently a few moments longer, trading compliments and reassurances, until, amidst a final round of thanks and farewells, he managed to extricate himself.

For much of the walk home, he was trailed by the companionable shadow of Hatch. The animal left him at the border of the property. Only then did Greg remember that in his haste to depart, a vital purpose had been left undone: he had not taken steps to keep Lucy away from his trap.

B
y Sunday, the rest of the preparations were complete. Having built the alarm, Greg prepared the garden shed for what was likely to be a long period of surveillance. This hiding place could be regarded essentially as a blind, the wildlife to be spied upon being human, subspecies criminal, and it needed careful preparation. To that end, he stocked it with food, drink, a comfortable chair, reading and writing material and his iPod.

He paid particular attention to his cellphone: this, after all, was the single most important element in his plan, vital for contacting the authorities once the intruder was spotted, so he made sure to test it. From the shed, he phoned several numbers in Duncan and was promptly connected, so that would be no problem. His cell battery was good for days at a charge, but to make doubly sure, he ran an extension cord from the house for his cell charger and the iPod, plus any other power needs that might arise. He also took another trip into town, purchasing a couple of good flashlights, a small plug-in night-light, a big Thermos bottle, food and coffee—everything necessary for a long siege. He was in business.

But he still hadn't warned off Lucy. On Sunday afternoon, when he caught sight of her heading in the direction of the studio, he knew he could delay no longer. He followed her inside, where she was setting up for work. He had decided upon a story and started in right away.

“Hey, Lucy,” he said cheerfully, “good to see you again. And thanks for the other night.”

Lucy smiled over her easel. “You're welcome. I hope talking about your parents didn't upset you too much.”

“No. I was a bit tired, is all. Look, speaking of them—well, of my dad—I was just on the phone to his gallery in Vancouver. They want to arrange a big exhibition and sale. Now that he's, you know, passed on, the interest in his work, not to mention the value, has shot up.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“But here's the thing: they were very worried about all this priceless work sitting here unguarded. They insisted I lock the place up tight and keep it that way. I've found I have to go back to work sooner than I thought, so I'm going to be leaving tomorrow and I won't be back till I can arrange to have Dad's paintings crated. So I was wondering if you'd mind working at home, just temporarily? I could help you move your stuff, and you could take anything you need. Then, in a couple of weeks, when this has been taken care of, you could come back for as long as you like—or anyway, until the house is sold. What do you say?”

Apparently he was getting good at this trickery thing. The story sounded so plausible that Lucy didn't turn a hair, even offering to stop what she was doing right away. So sweet and reasonable was she that, had the subterfuge not been vital, he would have felt guilty. As it was, he insisted that she stay as long as she liked today, and that he'd help her move, when she was ready.

That evening, after his usual scratched-together supper, sitting alone with a Glenfiddich, the lights bright and CBC playing a concert on the radio, Greg was thinking that on this, the last night of ease before he would go into hiding with his trap loaded and set, he was feeling something which, in other times, might have passed for happy.

O
n Monday morning, Greg shut his parents' old minivan away in the garage, but realized he hadn't decided where to hide the Prius. He settled for parking it out of sight behind the studio, covered by a tarp; should anyone come upon it there, it would merely seem to be in storage. Having closed and locked the house, he retreated to a distance to judge the effect. Yes, the property looked convincingly deserted. Farther up the drive, he reset the switch for his warning buzzer, installing a new thread.

Satisfied, he went back to the garden shed and spent the rest of the day there. Unlikely as it was that anyone would show up so soon, it was safer to be careful. In fact, not even a rabbit stirred during the long hours Greg watched and waited, but that was okay; he figured it was valuable practice.

In the early evening, when it seemed a visitor was least likely to arrive—they'd either come in full light when they could see properly, or in pitch dark to be hidden—Greg retreated to the house. Without putting on any lights, he made supper, used the bathroom, and finished all the preparations for his first night. Then, locking the house again but avoiding the courtyard light, which had come on at dusk, he made a roundabout passage to the shed and settled down.

Just after 1:00
AM
, with the buzzer stubbornly silent, his neck stiff and his mind numbed with boredom, he was shocked into alertness—but not by any intruder. His head had fallen forward and cracked painfully against the windowsill. Without warning, he'd fallen dead asleep. He rose to his feet, heart pounding, and, in the glow of a flashlight, poured coffee from his Thermos. Sucking some down cleared his head, but with that came the realization of what he should have known from the start: how could a single person, on permanent vigil, survive without sleep?

Obviously, it was impossible. With no one to spell him, a watcher would sooner or later have to surrender to biology. Greg had no idea when his visitor would arrive, but it might not be for days. If his oh-so-clever plan was to have any chance of success, he'd have to take account of that.

The problem was enough to keep him edgily awake for the rest of the night. But by the time dawn was paling the sky in the direction of Duncan, eclipsing the glow of the courtyard light, which had shone all night on emptiness, he thought he had come up with a solution.

• • •

At 5:30
AM
he concluded that no one was coming, at that time anyway, so he went into the house. Considering the distance from Victoria, it seemed unlikely that any daytime prowler would arrive until later in the morning. He searched around until he found an old-fashioned alarm clock. When wound and shaken, it began ticking sturdily, and a test of the alarm confirmed that was working too. He had a quick breakfast, then fell into bed.

The alarm clawed him awake at 10:00
AM.
Not exactly chipper, but rested, he carefully checked outside to make sure no one had come. Finding everything still and silent, he slipped back to his hiding place to wait out the day.

The mindset that made Greg a good accountant also allowed him to be comfortable with such things as mathematical probability, the law of averages and the random nature of chance. Had he been thinking clearly, rather than involved with the emotion of catching his “account inspector,” he would have considered the inevitable need for sleep. Brought to his senses, he now used that logical mind to adjust his plan of action. He had to stop trying to be alert every minute. He must spell himself, aiming to keep guard at the most likely times, doing the best job possible.

That settled, his second day in the shed, Tuesday, passed a lot more pleasantly. Having checked the thread on his warning buzzer, he decided to put his full trust in this first line of defense. Thus he could stop staring numbingly out the window every second of the daylight hours, and take regular naps at night. As long as he didn't become too exhausted, the warning buzzer would wake him if someone approached. Regular sleep periods in the shed could be regulated by the alarm clock, suitably muffled against being heard from outside.

The weather, which had been clear, turned cloudy in the afternoon, with the threat of rain. None arrived, however. At 6:00
PM
, Greg went inside for his evening routine. He ate quickly and changed his clothes, keeping a careful eye on the driveway. Stifling the urge for a shot of Glenfiddich, he made a fresh Thermos of coffee. Carrying this and an extra-large mug, he dutifully returned to the shed.

For the next few hours, happy in the knowledge that he could rest when he needed to, he maintained his watch. The image of the big old house, a still photo of ghostly planes and shadows revealed by the courtyard light and later, as the sky cleared, the pale glow of the moon, became etched upon his retina. But still there was no movement. And still there was no sound of the buzzer.

Around midnight, beginning to feel sleepy, Greg set his alarm to go off at 1:00
AM
. This was it, the first test. For the next hour, until the alarm wakened him, he was trusting himself to the buzzer. He put out the nightlight and settled back in his chair . . .

And was almost instantly dreaming. From his window, he seemed to see not one but hundreds of intruders, creeping in a dark line toward the house. Horrified, he tried to shout—and started awake, to find that exactly ten minutes had passed.

Grimly, he checked the outside, but of course no one was there. He sat back, relaxing again with surprising ease. The next thing he knew, the alarm was going off. Momentarily mistaking it for the warning buzzer, he felt his heart racing, but that soon passed. He put on the light and poured coffee into the big new mug. His system was working: it was going to be all right.

For the rest of the night, the next day, and the night after that, he continued the same routine. The indignation and rage—not to mention the personal guilt—that had sparked this enterprise did not abate during the long period of waiting. Rather, these emotions were transmuted into a constant background hum of sour resolve, providing nourishment for the near-mystic faith that sooner or later his plan would bear fruit, that the quarry so long awaited would walk at last into the trap.

In fact, it was 2:00
AM
on Thursday morning, minutes after he'd woken from his first nap and was pouring coffee, that the silence was finally shattered by the sound of the buzzer.

B
rrrrrr
. . . !!!! Like the whine of a small, vicious insect, the sound split the quiet of the night. Greg was momentarily frozen in shock, then he was clawing at the battery. He found the terminal and wrenched the wire free. Blessed silence, save for the painful echoes in his head.