I’m not a night person and even less so a pub person, except perhaps for a Sunday lunch, for what is usually an incomparable steak.
But tonight is different.
We’re meeting people who have come up from Melbourne for a wedding, people we haven’t seen for a long time.
I’m not a conversationalist, so I leave them to it, and go on a character hunt.
And the pickings are rich.
My first victim, If she could be called that, is the one I call the lady in the red dress.
She’s on the other side of 40, with a sort of earthy attractiveness about her. The first thing to notice, for her age, the dress is too short. Maybe that’s the fashion and I’m just an old fogey, but it does say something.
She’s definitely single, or perhaps a player, certainly a flirt. She holds the stage, and talks with her hands, and those around her are captivated.
The untidy hair loosely collected in a hair tie tells me she carries a sort of messy but not messy look, and I wonder at the state of her residence. It’s a leap I know, but small signs indicate bigger things.
I’ve counted two glasses of beer in an hour and a half, so she is sensible, aware of her surroundings, and of the three men she has spent her time with, it’s hard to pick a winner. It’s not hard to captivate a loser.
Next comes the party girls three 20 somethings dressed to be noticed, and overly animated and screams look at us.
Oops, they just parked themselves nearby with the very expensive and exotic-looking matching cocktails. There’s the obligatory selfie together, and then a casual look around to see what’s on offer.
I don’t think there’s a lot, but my standards and their standards are most likely miles apart.
Hang on, news flash, they’re a part of another group nearby, several older office workers who could be the so-called chaperones, or just having a quiet drink before having to go home to any of, a family, a car, an empty flat, or blessed relief the week is finally over.
Next door to us is a family group, the kids are teens, and I’m wondering if the boys are boyfriends. The mother is an older, very attractive version of the daughter.
Perhaps it’s an experience for the girls because I don’t see a man who could act as a husband unless it’s the second time around with a younger version.
Why not. Men do it, why can’t women. But out on the town with your teenage children?
The bar’s entertainment … a single guy playing the guitar, along with backing music that makes him sound better, but people seem to agree that it’s good but not brilliant.
He’s singing covers, which may have made him just so so, perhaps if he sang his own material it might take him to the next level.
But, who cares, no one seems to be listening, the noise level of what seems like a thousand concurrent conversations drowning out any appreciation.
Of course, it’s headache-inducing because he has the volume so high, just to get over the ambient noise, and in doing so, it takes away the intrinsic musicality of it all, and it’s just more noise to contend with.
I suppose it’s better than canned music.
OK, news flash, the red dress had moved down the table and settled on a prospect, about 15 years younger. Her animation has intensified, and yes, there’s the casual brushing against him, like a cat marking its territory.
The night is young, and it’s looking good. I’m not going to pretend I have given a passing thought to spending a few minutes with her, for character creation purposes only.
And yes, we now have a sing-along. At half-past eight, it’s a bit early for the crowd to be too exuberant.
A squeal shatters the, well, not silence, and is one of the groups pretending like someone had dripped ice down the back of a dress that has no back, the next phase of attention-getting.
And, attention directed their way, they do a little dance, skol the drinks, and with all eyes on them, head to the bar for round two, or is that three. Several others join them, but they don’t need to do the dance. The lack of clothes more than makes up for the squeals.
If these are the modern mating rituals a lot has changed in the last 50 years. Or perhaps not, I’m just too old to remember.
It had been a last-minute decision to move from the city to the suburbs.
Of course, the benefits far outweighed the minor inconvenience of the extra commute, but there was room to grow, and for the same money, instead of a cramped two-bedroom apartment, we had a four-bedroom three-bathroom two-story residence with land, a garage with a workspace, a lawn to more and a garden to tend.
And half a street away, the ocean, so near I could sometimes hear the waves, and certainly when the wind was blowing in off the sea, the aroma of salt in the air.
Every morning I woke up and said a silent prayer to the Gods that had made our wishes come true
I woke up to the sun streaming through the bedroom windows, another morning in paradise. I looked sideways, but Tiana was already up and about, more than likely on her early morning run.
I didn’t have the same enthusiasm, for rising early and exercising. I went out onto the balcony and looked in the direction of the ocean, a cloudless sky indicating another hot day was coming.
I went downstairs, and the first thing I noticed, Tiana’s computer was missing. Another check showed she had gone to work, apparently forsaking her usual exercise regime, something she rarely did, and not in the time I’d known her, which was coming up to five years.
I turned on the TV to get the morning news as I did. Every morning while making and drinking that first cup of coffee, and some muesli.
A breaking story.
Tiana worked at the TV station, but her role was to work on the evening news stories, after giving up the morning news role and the 3am starts when we got married. Less pay she said, but less stress, it was one of the reasons we moved to the suburbs.
I hadn’t heard her phone, but she must have been called in, her experience a factor, she was the best in the business, and other stations had tried to lure her away.
The screen was frozen on the words, breaking the story, as if they were building tension.
Then the power shut down.
We’d been having intermittent issues with fuses, and it was probably just another fuse. I went out to the garage where the fuse box was, but all the fuses were intact.
I went out to the street, where Larry, the next-door neighbor was looking first one way, then the other, trying to locate a cause. A few of the other neighbors were doing the same.
I was reminded of a report that was passed on to us to read, about what to expect I’d there was a sudden loss of services, fuel, and food. Each premise preceding such an event was unrealistic, oil supplies stopped, electricity power stations were sabotaged, being attacked by foreign missiles since the latter items were now capable of traveling long distances.
But what was predicted to happen after that was even more unbelievable, that society as we know it would start showing cracks after two weeks, then if nothing improved, two months before complete anarchy would reign? I had faith in mankind and wrote it off as scaremongering.
“What do you think is going on, Dave?” He asked me. “Your station should have some idea.”
Larry thought, because I was a policeman, I had the answers to everything. The fact I was a beat cop held no significance.
“Not a clue. It’s probably just the power station struggling to deal with the heatwave. I suspect it’s probably a brownout. I’m sure you got the same letter from the power company as we did saying supplies might be cut off from time to time.”
“I don’t think it’s that. It’s a bit bigger than just in this neighborhood, my brother just called, and it’s the same thing 30 miles away. This is big.”
Which in my mind had bigger ramifications? With no power, and no communication, especially between police officers, the propensity to commit crime was huge. Was there a crime syndicate behind this? A few months before an attack on a power station stopped supply for a short time, after which it was discovered there had been a spate of robberies.
Criminals were getting more inventive.
“I’ll find out,” I said, heading back inside, hoping my mobile phone still had a signal.
The house was eerily silent without anything running, and it felt weird knowing there was no power anywhere.
Unlike most people, I had a survival kit, all the items we had been trained to set aside in case of a disaster, one we hoped would never happen. Medical supplies, torch, battery-operated radio, and long-life food in the form of bars and cans.
I kept it on the back of a cupboard in the garage, the torch, and radio the most accessible items. I checked my phone and there was no signal. The towers were down.
I put the batteries in the radio and turned it on. The first station I tuned into was in the middle of an announcement.
“…there is a city-wide blackout with all power stations temporarily off-line. The repair crews are on-site and expect the power will be restored imminently. Those with radios who can hear this announcement, please tell everyone to get a battery-operated radio and listen for further instructions.
All police, medical, first responders, fire services, and military should stand by on their respective communication devices for further instructions.”
I hadn’t given that a thought.
Something else I hadn’t remembered was that some time ago I had given Tiana a device similar to the two-way radio I used for work, that used a spare frequency that no one knew about. Yet. I’d found it by accident, tinkering.
I went into the house and up to the clinic in the bedroom where the two devices were kept. If she had left it at home, it wouldn’t be much use, but being called in like she had, I wonder if she suspected something more sinister was developing.
I looked in the box and Tiana’s was missing.
Now I was worried.
When I went back out to the street, I could hear the sound of emergency service vehicles’ sirens, in the distance, and getting closer.
There was a scratchy sound on my device, an indication someone was about to talk.
Then, a voice, Tiana’s. “David, I know you’re there?”
When I turned my device on, it sent a signal to others on that frequency.
“I am. What’s going on, do you know?”
“From what we’re being told, and, at the moment, can’t tell anyone, is there’s been a highly coordinated attack on a dozen powers stations and sub-stations effectively blacking out the city. No one knows why yet, but there’s a chance one of the saboteurs is going to escape the way he came, by sea, near where we live of all places. They tracked his arrival, one the got a photo of him.”
The FBI was very good at tracking people, but I imagine it was a concerted effort between the CIA, the FBI, and local police forces. I guess, being my day off, they thought it best to leave me in peace.
She gave me a description of the man and signed off because someone was coming, and she would get into trouble, or worse.
I also had a gun stashed in the same place as the radios, checked it, and, safety on, put it in my pocket.
Just in case.
A saboteur was on the loose.
It explained why the sirens were so close. Were they chasing him, or just heading to where he was expected to leave?
Was he in a car, or on foot?
I heard what sounded like someone stifling calling out, just the start of a word. Coming from next door, I wondered if Larry had hurt himself. He was, by his own admission a handyman, but according to everyone who knew him, he was not that handy.
I went next door, down the side towards his workshop in a large barn-type building in the yard. The sliding doors were slightly ajar, he was probably inside and hurt.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
I put my head in and saw him with another man at the back where Larry was fumbling with a set of keys trying to unlock the back doors.
On the other side was a pickup with a boat and trailer, ready to head out fishing, when he got the time. I’d been once with him, and the boat was borderline seaworthy.
He’d been tinkering with it a few days before.
“Everything all right Larry?”
“We’re fine. Larry asked me to go fishing with him, and now seemed like a good day,” the man answered for him.
Larry looked panic-stricken.
I’d seen people like that before, usually with a gun or knife prodded into their ribs.
A closer look at the man, he could be the one Tiana described. Certainly, the height, and the look of a construction worker or tradesman.
“Perhaps I might join you since it’s my day off.”
Larry turned, and his expression told me exactly what was going on. “We’re in a hurry, Dave. Just room for the two of us. Another time.”
With the unwritten ‘please leave’ on his face.
I shrugged. “OK. Catch you later.”
I had about a minute, possibly two, before the man realized, I was not going to leave. He knew it looked suspicious.
It just depended on how long it took Larry to open the doors.
I dodged abound the side, and under the window, as I passed it to the other end of the barn.
Just as I reached the end, I heard one of the two doors open, but no talking.
A sixth sense perhaps, told me the man might have come back to the front, and suspecting I hadn’t left, was about to come around the corner. If he did, there was nowhere to hide.
Gun out, safety off, pointing in that direction, I waited.
Nothing.
If he wasn’t…
The sound of a crumpling aluminum can from behind gave me just enough time to turn, make sure it was the man, and shoot.
Not to kill, but to stop. Only after he fell to the ground did I realize he had been holding Larry as a shield, and it was he who stepped on the can.
How he managed to get that fraction of separation, I don’t know, and he probably would never be able to explain it, but there wasn’t time for analysis right then, or for me to realize how stupid I’d just been.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
In a cave, Nadia is a surprise
…
Now the helicopter had gone, the sounds of the sea had returned, along with the muffled sound of the wind which had picked up, along with swirling clouds that looked like they would be bringing rain. I’d heard how the weather could change suddenly, and dangerously along this coastline.
I saw the lightning, and a minute or so later, the cracking of thunder. We were about to get very wet.
‘Look for the big A’. It had been there, heavily underscored in Ormiston’s notebooks. It had also been on the cliff face, crudely, but there.
“We need to go,” I heard Nadia say, over the ambient noise all around us.
Her words were being swept away by the wind, and I could barely hear her.
Another glance up at the cliff to confirm what I’d seen, and, yes, it was a big A, I went over to her.
“We can’t outrun it. And it will be treacherous on those rocks in a downpour.”
“We also have the tide to contend with.”
I could see the high-water line, and it didn’t leave much to the imagination. We needed higher ground. It was one of those situations where we might get caught by the tide. It was a pity there wasn’t room for two of us on the helicopter.
Back the way we’d come I remembered seeing an outcrop that looked like it might provide shelter from the rain. “We should go, there’s a spot a way back that might save us from getting too wet.”
It was about a hundred yards, not far from where the shore rocks started and would require climbing back up. At the very least, we could stay there until the tide dropped. We collected the metal detectors and made it to the base of the rocky outcrop just as the first drops of rain fell.
The overhang I’d seen turned out to be a shallow cave, going back into the rockface about 10 yards or so, carved out by the sea over a very long period.
Then the rain came, so heavy, we could not see through it. Every few minutes a gust of wind blew water into the cave, but standing back from the entrance basically kept us dry.
Nadia sat down and looked despondent. I’d never seen her like this, she was normally more cheerful.
I took a few minutes to explore inside using the torchlight on my phone. I could see the layers of sandstone compressed over the years, and if I had remembered more from the geology part of science at school I might have been able to make sense of it. Was I hoping for fossils, like from long-extinct dinosaurs?
Or perhaps I could imagine this was the entrance to Aladdin’s cave, also reputed to have hidden treasures, and briefly wondered if I’d found a lantern with a genie, what my three wishes might be?
“They’re only walls, Sam.” Nadia had come silently up behind me, and was just behind my left shoulder, the sound of her voice so near startling me.
Also noted, when my potential heart attack passed, she called me Sam, not Smidge. I was not going to write anything into it, she didn’t seem herself.
“You never know. If I say open sesame, or whatever the password is…”
It sounded lame.
I could hear rather than see her shake her head.
“What do you think Boggs was doing climbing up or down that particular rockface, and for that matter, poking around The Grove?”
I turned around to look at her. If I didn’t know her better, I might have said there was at that moment an angelic quality about her. It only reinforced the notion that she was very much out of my league, and whatever we seemed to have going, it was more in my head than hers.
“I think you can make as educated a guess as I can.”
“He thinks the treasure is here?”
“Somewhere in The Grove, yes. His approach might have been different from ours, but the conclusion is the same.”
“We didn’t find anything.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t come ashore somewhere near here, or somewhere along the coast despite the reefs because they might have once been navigable in an abnormally high tide. And those coins found near the old marina tells me that they landed somewhere there, but it was not the final resting place.”
I was going to say anything was possible.
“I can assure you my father and his cronies spent years turning over this whole property, one way or another, and found nothing.”
I believed her. Had he not won the bidding war for the property, sold by the remaining Ormiston’s to settle the debts racked up by successive treasure hunts, Benderby, or anyone else for that matter, would have done the same. Everyone was aware of the obsession, and the possibility of making a fortune.
But, my money was on the fact it was in The Grove, somewhere. The question was, would I be completely honest with her?
When I didn’t say anything, she added, “you think it’s still here, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Why else would Boggs be here? I’m sure his deductions from the resources he has, and I’m sure he hadn’t told me everything for obvious reasons, told him when all else has been eliminated, the last possibility however improbable must be true.”
“Occam’s razor?”
“Ish. When we can get back to the cabin, I’ll go and see him, see what he has to say. If he wants to see me, that is.”
I could see her processing what I just said, and thought perhaps I could have said it better.
“He doesn’t trust you because of me?”
Again I shrugged. “I got that impression when I last spoke to him. I don’t think he quite understands the nature of our friendship. I’m assuming that’s what it is because I’m hardly the sort of boy your parents would consider suitable for you.”
“My parents have no idea what I want or care about. It’s why I left.”
“Why did you come back then?”
“My mother said she had cancer and wasn’t expected to live.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a lie. Their whole life is a lie. I’ve always known about the family, I just chose to ignore it, even bask in some of the glory of it, until it got a friend of mine killed. Vince did it, I know he did, but they all lied. It’s just one of many reasons I wanted to getaway. I was going to go back to Italy until you popped up. I always liked you, you know.”
I didn’t. I thought I was just another pawn in a game of terror and ridicule she played on all of us boys.
“You had a funny way of showing it.”
“I was stupid back then, but that was no excuse. If it’s any consolation I’m sorry, but words never seem to be enough, and besides that, no one I’ve apologized to really believes me, and I get it. My name is a curse. That’s why when I go back I’m going to disappear, a whole change of identity. That’s how much I trust you, Sam, you’re the only one I’ve told.”
“You shouldn’t tell me anything. I’m sure if you disappear, I’ll be the first one your family will come after.”
I didn’t need to know, I certainly didn’t want to know. If she did disappear, I’m sure my doorstep would be the Cossatino’s first stop, and I’d easily fold under pressure.
“Maybe you could come with me, then you wouldn’t have to worry about them.”
Perhaps she could read my mind. Even so, it was an interesting thought, not that I could just up and leave my mother, or worry the Cossatino’s would come after her if I went missing.
“I don’t speak Italian.” Lame excuse.
“I could teach you. We could work in the vineyard, and live a simple life.”
It was hard to tell if she was serious or not. I had to think she wasn’t. I don’t think I could handle someone like her, that anyone could.
How many people do you know have their front door smashed in at the crack of dawn, followed by a swat team, armed to the teeth, swarming through the house ready to put down any resistance?
Just the suddenness of the cacophony of noise, the shouting, and the sheer threat of death, left me firstly shattered, and secondly, in fear of being accidentally killed, especially when there were six guns trained on me.
When the all-clear came, when no one else was discovered in the house, one of the suited men came back and motioned the six to take a step back and raise their weapons.
“Get up.”
If I was expected a ‘please’, or an apology, both would be a long time coming.
“Where is she?”
I barely had time to catch my breath and try to stop shaking. Six guns were still pointing in my direction, and those holding them no less wanted to shoot me for any reason whatsoever.
“Who?” There were two girls in this house.
“Don’t be obtuse, Mr. Jacobs. Obstruction will get you nothing but a stretch in prison with some very unsavoury characters. Where is she?”
The notion that they could be looking for Liz was as preposterous as the day was long. I had known her for five years, since we both left the same company, unhappy with the pay and conditions, and moved to a new company, deciding to stay together, first as a team, and then I was hoping would be something more intimate.
It had to be someone else, like the odd woman who had ingratiated herself with the group I was with, and ostensibly left the bar with me, but only as far as the car park. Perhaps, if we were being observed, it might have been construed as something else.
“Can you give me a name, at least?”
“Elizabeth Morgan.”
Liz? She designed computer games, and I helped with the programming. Other than that, she went to church every Sunday and visited her folks in the next county every second Saturday. I’d met them on numerous occasions, and they were just ordinary people.
“Why on earth would you be looking for her?”
“That’s classified, Mr. Jacobs. All you need to do is tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know. The last time we spoke, she was heading off to the market to get groceries.”
“Which was?”
“About an hour ago.”
A woman put her head in the door, and said, “she’s nowhere on the property, sir.”
I recognized her immediately as the woman in the bar, and suddenly realized she had been subtly interrogating me about Liz, trying to find out where she was, and why she wasn’t there with me.
She glared at me, then disappeared.
“Who are you?” I asked. “FBI, CIA, NSA?”
“Why would you assume that I’m from any of those agencies?”
“Your friend who put her head in the door. I might not have realized who she was last night, but I do now. You think Liz has committed some sort of cybercrime, don’t you?”
“So, you do know what she’s been up to?”
“No. But you just told me. And I suspect a man by the name of Champion has been feeding you scurrilous lies, but you don’t need to say anything more. You’re right, I do know what this is about, but I know whatever he said to you to get here isn’t true, but, then, he has more money or more low friends in even lower places than we have, so do your worst.”
Liz wasn’t a criminal, nor was she guilty of anything except claiming the rights to her property. Champion, though, always maintained that anything she created while working for him was his. True enough, we all signed the contract. But what she created was after she resigned and we were working on a new project together. Now, to get around that, he was claiming her work would be a violation of national security. It would, if it was in his hands, and that was never going to happen.
“It would be good for everyone if she just surrendered and pleaded her case if what you say is true.”
An interesting change in tactics.
I looked him up and down. Just the sort of man who would sell out to the highest bidder. Champion was good only at one thing, knowing how much a person would sell out his principles for, even his mother if it came down to it. Everyone had a price. Unfortunately for us, it would seem, he didn’t know ours.
He shrugged. “Perhaps so time in a dark hole might loosen your tongue.”
Dark hold indeed.
To be honest, I thought he was joking, but he was not.
I was put in a small room with no furniture or anything to sit or lie on. There was just a cold, damp and hard concrete floor, designed to make you so uncomfortable, you’d sell your soul just to get away from it.
There would be some hard choices to be made here. Would I sell out Liz, would I do everything I could to stop Champion who was intent, now that he had what he wanted, in getting rid of anyone who might have a claim.
She had said this was what would happen, and I didn’t believe her. No surprise then she was gone and didn’t tell me.
But if they were to ask me, and I was in that frame of mind to tell them everything I knew, there wasn’t much I could tell them. I think that’s what she had once told me was plausible deniability.
She had been trying to keep me safe, but didn’t realize that my captors didn’t really care whether I knew anything or nothing, they wouldn’t believe me and were going to extract the information they wanted by any and all means available.
Something I definitely wasn’t looking forward to.
It was impossible to stay awake. I was trying to, just in case they came and took me away while I was unconscious.
Despite the hard, uncomfortable floor, I fell into a fitful sleep, and it was appropriate that I would dream of Elizabeth.
I remembered the first time I met her, being introduced as an assistant programmer, the look of contempt she gave me, and the messenger. I’d never seen anyone that focussed on their work.
It took a month before she would let me look at the code, and then only small sections at a time. It was complex, and way beyond anything I had been involved with, which surprised me how it was I got the job.
She said, one morning, and I agreed, that a more experienced programmer was required.
Until I told her five lines of code needed a slight change otherwise there would be a rather interesting result. I was not only a programmer, I had once worked with a scientist whose field was space and time, not exactly time travel, but he theorized that we could move from one place to another through what were essentially wormholes.
I thought he was working on a script for a television show.
My job was to create a data warehouse, and while doing so, did some reading on the side.
I had also seen the coding behind a prototype machine that was supposed to create the wormhole, but it was too complex for me to understand.
But the code Elizabeth had was almost identical but mixed up. When I told her, she said I was an idiot who wouldn’t know what day it was, and demanded I leave.
Two days later she came to my apartment, apologized, asked me to return, and on the way asked a thousand questions.
At that time, I learned the scientist I worked for was her mentor, and that he was dead, ostensibly from a heart attack. She didn’t believe it, and that’s where I got my introduction to the arch-villain Champion.
From there it evolved into something more special, but the constraints of work and her idea of romance seemed to make it more like a rollercoaster ride and I didn’t press.
So, I was, for the time being, content with my dreams, one of which was playing in my head now.
She had appeared, coming through a sort of haze or distortion, and was standing above me, smiling.
It couldn’t be true, and yet it seemed so lifelike.
She knelt down and took my hand in hers, and whispered. “Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s time to go.”
I could smell the aroma of her perfume enveloping me.
When I went to open my eyes I found they were already open. I gently squeezed her hand, and it was real.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Now. We really have to go.”
“Where?”
“Stand up, and I’ll show you.”
I let her pull me to my feet and she gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, “I love you,”
Now I knew it was a dream. She had never intimated such feelings before.
I’d play along. “It’s impossible to escape this cell.”
“Is it?” She took a step towards the distortion, “Come.”
I followed. Then, the next moment, I was in the dining room of her apartment”
“What just happened?”
Before she could answer, I lost consciousness. Last thought, it was too good to be true.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
With Nadia seeking gold at the beach at The Grove
…
I was waiting to be picked up at the bus depot by Nadia, trying to keep out of the public eye, knowing very few people I knew would be there at that hour.
It was early for me, not long after getting home from the night shift, with just enough time to change and get something to eat at the diner a block from the depot.
Nadia didn’t understand my obsession with anonymity, but being seen with her was just going to raise questions, and, if either my mother or Boggs found out, that would be two very interesting conversations.
I just didn’t need the aggravation.
I was not sure what to wear so I dug out the clothes I wore to a farm that a friend of my mothers owned and my mother had graciously offered my services. It hadn’t been such a bad day, but it was hard work.
The clothes had the added advantage of making me almost invisible among the many seasonal workers currently in town.
I nearly missed her because I had been looking for her usual car, but when a large pickup truck pulled up at the curb where I was standing, it took a moment to recognize her behind the wheel. A very unglamorous plain Jane, without make-up and her hair a mess, or so it looked to me. I knew well enough not to make a comment.
The truck was battered and seen better days, but the engine sounded like that of a racing car. A Cossatino’s getaway car. Oddly, I could imagine her behind the wheel waiting for a team of bank robbers, fuelled no doubt by the many old movies I’d seen in my younger days.
I climbed up into the cabin and she had driven off before the car door was closed
“Are we in a hurry?”
“No parking zone. Don’t need the sheriff’s deputies giving us a hard time.”
No, indeed.
“Where’s your car?”
“Too recognizable. Where we’re going it’s better not to be recognized.”
That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I knew it was going to be somewhere along the coastline, her idea to see if any more of the gold coins had fallen out of the treasure chests as they were being brought ashore.
The question was, was there any part of the coastline that hadn’t been surveyed? That was when it occurred to me she might be headed for that stretch of coastline that belonged to The Grove, split by the coast road, either side of the road fenced off and signs telling people they would be shot on sight if caught trespassing.
There had been rumors of shootings but nothing ever made it to the sheriff’s office. I hoped she told someone where she was going if that’s where she was taking me.
“You’re quiet this morning?”
“Just got off shift, and a little tired.”
“You should have said something. I didn’t think…”
“It’s fine. You’re currently the one ray of light on a very dark horizon.”
She looked sideways at me. “That is a compliment.”
“I hope you take it that way. With Boggs on some sort of crusade, my mother giving me dating tips, and Benderby hanging around, being with you Breaks the gloom and doom.”
I turned slightly to get a better look at her. If it was anyone else, I could fall in love with her, but knowing a Cossatino was a dance with the devil, and dangerous for your health.
“Well, I’m glad I bring some light into someone’s life. It seems I can’t do anything right at home.”
“Why did you come home. It seems to me you were happier away from this place.”
“Reasons I now think were stupid.” There was a finality in her tone that warned not to go any further with it.
Instead, we were passing the old mall and I saw the transformation. Fort Knox would be easier to get into.
“Do you know what’s going on at the old mall?”
“The Benderby’s are demolishing it, mainly because they have to, and do a lot of remediation, whatever that is, before they build the new marina and condos. They’re going to tap into the retirement market.”
That premise, according to a financial market magazine left on my desk, and which made interesting reading, was the next gold mine for those who had the foresight, and the financial means.
Benderby had both, and in another article, which to me at the time seemed to be profiling Benderby, opining the fact some of the new rich had not all made their fortunes legitimately, harking back to the war days and profiteering. Had Benderby’s father and his before him, plowed this path to success, and the son and grandson found other Illegitimate means like drugs and worse to perpetuate it?
Was it possible, in this day and age to make a fortune without crossing the line somewhere? No one could link Benderby to anything crooked, but rumors, there were plenty, including the mall, and the fact it was a huge insurance write-off.
Lenny seemed to think so, but cleverly, never quite put what he thought into words.
“Lucky them,” I muttered.
Several miles past the mall, she turned off the main road onto a track that had not been used for some time, heading towards the ocean
I could see now why we were in the truck. A car would not be able to make it without getting bogged. It was wet and muddy, with pools of water forming in ruts.
When we hit a couple and got soundly shaken up, she slowed down. Then, suddenly, the ocean came into view, and the track headed for the cliff, veering at the last minute, and going down the side of the hill until at the bottom we stopped outside a weather-beaten shack about the size of a large room.
She switched off the engine and let the silence surround us until I could just hear the sound of waves breaking on the rocky shoreline.
“Welcome to my castle.”
There was a whimsical expression on her face.
I opened the door and climbed out, in an instant the temperature dropped 10 degrees, and the effect of the wind almost knocking me over.
She slammed the door shut and went to the door of the shack, unlocking, then opening the door, then switching on a light, giving the inside a gloomy yellowish aura. She motioned me to go in, then followed behind closing the door, and immediately it was much quieter.
“Not much of a castle.”
“It is when you want to get away from the rest of the family. It used to be a bathing shack, but the waters around here got too treacherous for swimming, and it fell into disrepair. I had it fixed up and this is where I come when I want to disappear.”
It didn’t look like it had been used in a while, a thin film of dust settled in everything, and smudged footprints on the floor, showing recent signs of habitation. Two metal detectors were sitting on the table.
“It’s like a different world to be in when you have the family I have.”
“They don’t know about this place?”
“They probably do, but it’s been a wreck for years, and no one ever comes here, not anymore. I found it one day, wandering along the coastline, exploring the boundaries of The Grove. This is the southernmost tip. There’s one on the northernmost tip too, where the building is much larger and used for storage.”
Say no more, I thought. The Cossatino’s were allegedly smugglers on top of everything else, and that’s probably where the smuggled good were stored. This part of the coastline was treacherous at best, with underwater reefs and craggy rocks along the cliff line. There were some sandy stretches, but it was hard work to reach them, and at a guess, Nadia knew how to get there without slipping and falling.
Boats could only get within 50 years of the shoreline before the possibility of being dashed on the rocks, and for that reason, Boggs told me, that whole beachfront could not have been used by the pirate to bring his treasure ashore.
The little I’d seen from where the truck was parked verified that, at least for this section.
“But we’re here to check for gold coins, see if there is a possibility the treasure cane ashore somewhere along the Grove’s shoreline. I know the consensus of opinion said it’s not possible, but from my explorations, I reckon there are at least a dozen spots where a longboat could land, especially if you came on the tide.”
That, I was guessing, was high tide, and it may have been a coincidence when the pirate arrived on this shore.
“The reefs would be submerged and even more dangerous.”
“There are ways. I’ve been out there in a canoe once or twice with Vince, looking for passageways. And, before you jump to any conclusions, I’m not a smuggler, and we may have been once, but an accident ten years ago put paid to that. We lost four of the family, and six others in a hair-brained night landing in rough weather.”
I remembered a piece in the paper, the coastguard had been trailing a large yacht with suspected drugs aboard, waited until the Cossatino’s had transferred to the longboat that had gone out to meet the yacht, then chased it to the reef where a navigation mistake saw the longboat hit the reef, sink with all the evidence, and all but Vince had drowned in the heavy surf.
“Vince was lucky.”
“Vince was an idiot then and a bigger idiot now. It made him believe he was invincible. He’s not. But let’s not talk about him, or the rest of them, we’re not exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”
She went to the table and picked up one of the metal detectors and held it out. “Yours.”
I came over and took it, and it was heavier than I expected.
How many people do you know have their front door smashed in at the crack of dawn, followed by a swat team, armed to the teeth, swarming through the house ready to put down any resistance?
Just the suddenness of the cacophony of noise, the shouting, and the sheer threat of death, left me firstly shattered, and secondly, in fear of being accidentally killed, especially when there were six guns trained on me.
When the all-clear came, when no one else was discovered in the house, one of the suited men came back and motioned the six to take a step back and raise their weapons.
“Get up.”
If I was expected a ‘please’, or an apology, both would be a long time coming.
“Where is she?”
I barely had time to catch my breath and try to stop shaking. Six guns were still pointing in my direction, and those holding them no less wanted to shoot me for any reason whatsoever.
“Who?” There were two girls in this house.
“Don’t be obtuse, Mr. Jacobs. Obstruction will get you nothing but a stretch in prison with some very unsavoury characters. Where is she?”
The notion that they could be looking for Liz was as preposterous as the day was long. I had known her for five years, since we both left the same company, unhappy with the pay and conditions, and moved to a new company, deciding to stay together, first as a team, and then I was hoping would be something more intimate.
It had to be someone else, like the odd woman who had ingratiated herself with the group I was with, and ostensibly left the bar with me, but only as far as the car park. Perhaps, if we were being observed, it might have been construed as something else.
“Can you give me a name, at least?”
“Elizabeth Morgan.”
Liz? She designed computer games, and I helped with the programming. Other than that, she went to church every Sunday and visited her folks in the next county every second Saturday. I’d met them on numerous occasions, and they were just ordinary people.
“Why on earth would you be looking for her?”
“That’s classified, Mr. Jacobs. All you need to do is tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know. The last time we spoke, she was heading off to the market to get groceries.”
“Which was?”
“About an hour ago.”
A woman put her head in the door, and said, “she’s nowhere on the property, sir.”
I recognized her immediately as the woman in the bar, and suddenly realized she had been subtly interrogating me about Liz, trying to find out where she was, and why she wasn’t there with me.
She glared at me, then disappeared.
“Who are you?” I asked. “FBI, CIA, NSA?”
“Why would you assume that I’m from any of those agencies?”
“Your friend who put her head in the door. I might not have realized who she was last night, but I do now. You think Liz has committed some sort of cybercrime, don’t you?”
“So, you do know what she’s been up to?”
“No. But you just told me. And I suspect a man by the name of Champion has been feeding you scurrilous lies, but you don’t need to say anything more. You’re right, I do know what this is about, but I know whatever he said to you to get here isn’t true, but, then, he has more money or more low friends in even lower places than we have, so do your worst.”
Liz wasn’t a criminal, nor was she guilty of anything except claiming the rights to her property. Champion, though, always maintained that anything she created while working for him was his. True enough, we all signed the contract. But what she created was after she resigned and we were working on a new project together. Now, to get around that, he was claiming her work would be a violation of national security. It would, if it was in his hands, and that was never going to happen.
“It would be good for everyone if she just surrendered and pleaded her case if what you say is true.”
An interesting change in tactics.
I looked him up and down. Just the sort of man who would sell out to the highest bidder. Champion was good only at one thing, knowing how much a person would sell out his principles for, even his mother if it came down to it. Everyone had a price. Unfortunately for us, it would seem, he didn’t know ours.
He shrugged. “Perhaps so time in a dark hole might loosen your tongue.”
Dark hold indeed.
To be honest, I thought he was joking, but he was not.
I was put in a small room with no furniture or anything to sit or lie on. There was just a cold, damp and hard concrete floor, designed to make you so uncomfortable, you’d sell your soul just to get away from it.
There would be some hard choices to be made here. Would I sell out Liz, would I do everything I could to stop Champion who was intent, now that he had what he wanted, in getting rid of anyone who might have a claim.
She had said this was what would happen, and I didn’t believe her. No surprise then she was gone and didn’t tell me.
But if they were to ask me, and I was in that frame of mind to tell them everything I knew, there wasn’t much I could tell them. I think that’s what she had once told me was plausible deniability.
She had been trying to keep me safe, but didn’t realize that my captors didn’t really care whether I knew anything or nothing, they wouldn’t believe me and were going to extract the information they wanted by any and all means available.
Something I definitely wasn’t looking forward to.
It was impossible to stay awake. I was trying to, just in case they came and took me away while I was unconscious.
Despite the hard, uncomfortable floor, I fell into a fitful sleep, and it was appropriate that I would dream of Elizabeth.
I remembered the first time I met her, being introduced as an assistant programmer, the look of contempt she gave me, and the messenger. I’d never seen anyone that focussed on their work.
It took a month before she would let me look at the code, and then only small sections at a time. It was complex, and way beyond anything I had been involved with, which surprised me how it was I got the job.
She said, one morning, and I agreed, that a more experienced programmer was required.
Until I told her five lines of code needed a slight change otherwise there would be a rather interesting result. I was not only a programmer, I had once worked with a scientist whose field was space and time, not exactly time travel, but he theorized that we could move from one place to another through what were essentially wormholes.
I thought he was working on a script for a television show.
My job was to create a data warehouse, and while doing so, did some reading on the side.
I had also seen the coding behind a prototype machine that was supposed to create the wormhole, but it was too complex for me to understand.
But the code Elizabeth had was almost identical but mixed up. When I told her, she said I was an idiot who wouldn’t know what day it was, and demanded I leave.
Two days later she came to my apartment, apologized, asked me to return, and on the way asked a thousand questions.
At that time, I learned the scientist I worked for was her mentor, and that he was dead, ostensibly from a heart attack. She didn’t believe it, and that’s where I got my introduction to the arch-villain Champion.
From there it evolved into something more special, but the constraints of work and her idea of romance seemed to make it more like a rollercoaster ride and I didn’t press.
So, I was, for the time being, content with my dreams, one of which was playing in my head now.
She had appeared, coming through a sort of haze or distortion, and was standing above me, smiling.
It couldn’t be true, and yet it seemed so lifelike.
She knelt down and took my hand in hers, and whispered. “Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s time to go.”
I could smell the aroma of her perfume enveloping me.
When I went to open my eyes I found they were already open. I gently squeezed her hand, and it was real.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Now. We really have to go.”
“Where?”
“Stand up, and I’ll show you.”
I let her pull me to my feet and she gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, “I love you,”
Now I knew it was a dream. She had never intimated such feelings before.
I’d play along. “It’s impossible to escape this cell.”
“Is it?” She took a step towards the distortion, “Come.”
I followed. Then, the next moment, I was in the dining room of her apartment”
“What just happened?”
Before she could answer, I lost consciousness. Last thought, it was too good to be true.
So there are words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better because reading it in my head, there’s too little background and too many questions.
The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.
The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as. No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.
So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting. There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransigence inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family.
I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.
Graham’s intransigence led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.
And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low-paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard. The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.
There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth. His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.
And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.
It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty-room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.
Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.
Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.
The four years since?
A lot of regrets, and a lot of repentance. Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system. There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.
So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.
That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts. I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.
Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?
I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or even surprise you, as the story evolves.
And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
The beach, and a body
…
I had expected to find the rocks we were slowly and carefully chambering over to be smooth, worn down by the constant washing over by the waves.
They were, to a certain extent, but there were places where the jagged edges were as sharp as a knife, and I had more than one cut on my hand.
Even with the stiff breeze coming in off the water, it was still hot, laborious work and it took over an hour to reach the first part of Sandy Beach, a thin strip below the rock line, and soaring behind it, a rocky cliff face that would required rock climb training to scale, and then notwithstanding a lot of safety gear.
It didn’t surprise me that Nadia was an expert rock climber. She was built like a finely tuned cat, as lithe and graceful moving across the hazards.
At times she held my hand, keeping me from falling off, or worse, into danger, and certain injury. At times, I didn’t want to let go.
Then on the windswept beach, she looked every bit the conqueror, hair blowing in the breeze, completely ignoring the conditions. She belonged here, I didn’t.
The beach stretched for 200 yards or so and was, at times, up to 50 feet wide. Nothing had walked on this beach since the last tide, but more than likely, not for a long time because it was inaccessible from the shoreline unless you were a rock climber
But it was private land, and a fading sign, with Ormistons fading name at the bottom, told anyone who came ashore that trespassers would be prosecuted.
And, I thought. If they survived the reefs, at this tide semi-exposed and covered the whole of the distance. No boat could get through.
That also meant it was highly unlikely that the pirate had landed here, but we did a sweep with the metal detectors. I had my hopes built up where my detector started making a lot of noise, but it was only a cupboard door with a metal hinge that had set it off, a bit of flotsam washed ashore.
We were both disappointed, then lamenting our luck or lack of it, we started heading towards the neck stretch of sand, barely discernable in the distance, but not before another hazardous trek across the rocks.
It took half an hour carefully picking our across the rocks before it was good to be on the sand again. I helped her down from the rock perch and took a moment to rest.
“Did you see something further up the beach, just before you jumped?”
I had, but I thought it was the carcass of a beached fish. Perhaps a dolphin that had been savaged by sharks. Or just a lump of kelp, of which some was scattered along the Highgate line.
“It might be just kelp. Or more flotsam. I’m sure we’ll soon find out.”
We also had to keep an eye on the tide, having started out just ashore or so before low tide, giving ourselves sufficient time to search and get back.
This part of the shoreline was longer, and closer to the edge of the property line, accessible only by climbing the rocks that jutted out into the sea, not exactly the easiest of tasks. In fact, it served as a deterrent, and as far as Nadia was aware, no one had ever scaled that cliff face.
The object on the ground was no closer to being identified from a distance, but now, closer, it looked to me like it might be a body, my first thought, another of the Cossatino’s hit jobs, the shore being so remote it would never be discovered.
“That’s a body,” I heard the panic in her tone, right behind me.
We both dropped the detectors and ran, discovering as we came up to it, that we were both right.
It was covered from head to toe in black, including a balaclava covering the face. It was impossible to tell what sex it was, lying front down with the head tilted to one side as if the ocean had washed it ashore.
The fact there were no tears in the clothing told me, I’d there were reefs out there, the body had not been washed ashore. Just how did it get there.
These were all momentary thoughts because there was a more urgent thing to be done
“Help me roll it over,” I said.
She took the bottom half and I the top and gently lifted it just enough to turn it over onto the back, then I slowly pulled the balaclava off.
As soon as I saw the face, bruised and swollen, I knew who it was.
Nadia shrieked, then said, “What the hell is he doing here?”
The missing Boggs.
I could tell by the look on her face she was assuming her family had something to do with him being here.
But, all that aside, I tried not to panic, or let my surprise or shock take over, letting the medical training I’d received during a stint with the local fire station take over, first checking to see if he had a pulse.
It was faint, but there. That meant we needed medical help. And fast. I pulled my phone out and checked for a signal. Then, with maps, got our location. There was something familiar about the numbers, but their significance eluded me. There were bigger problems to worry about.
Then I dialed 911, and when they answered, described the situation, gave them the location, and with a few other instructions to me from the dispatcher, I went back to Boggs.
By this time Nadia was beside him, wiping his face gently with tissues she must have had in her pocket. I tried not to give her the impression I blamed her family for his situation, simply because that might not be the case.
The last time I saw him he had a rope and his mother had said he was an experienced climber. And with his proximity to the cliff face, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
I checked his pulse again and listened closely to his breathing, shallow with a slight rattle. I unzipped his jacket and lifted his shirt, and could see the discoloration from bruising. It was possible he slipped, or lost his footing, and crashed against an outcrop, knocking himself out, or falling to the ground with the same effect. A closer inspection showed the bare minimum of climbing equipment set up, and now, looking closer at the cliff face, I could see the rope dangling, but stopping short by about 20 feet.
Nadia didn’t speak, but I could see she was scared.
I touched her on the shoulder and she jumped.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
“But it could be…”
“I don’t think so. He looks like he tried coming down the side of the cliff and slipped or fell. I think he may have collapsed here, but the tide has removed any foot or drag marks so it’s hard to tell what happened.”
“Why not go the way we did?”
“He might not know about it or considered it too far. Or the climbing fanatic in him took over. I have to say, I never knew he was a climber, in fact, there’s probably a lot I don’t know. Maybe if I’d spent more time with him this mightn’t have happened.”
While waiting I called Boggs mother and relayed what had happened, where he’d been taken and the prognosis, which was good. He was in no danger of dying, though had he not been found, that would have been a different story. Then I called the sheriff’s office to let them know, but he had already had the news passed on, and I said I would drip in and answer any questions they might have. I guess Boggs might have to explain why he was trespassing.
Not long after that, I turned to look back towards the way we’d just come in response to the sound of a helicopter. If it was, that was a remarkably quick response time. When it came closer I could see it was one of the Coast Guards’ distinctive red Sikorski’s, which was surprising.
The helicopter veered inland and the sound of the approach was somewhat muffled. I had thought they might come on on a sea approach, but then it occurred to me it might be an opportunity to fly over the Cossatino kingdom, having a legitimate excuse to do so. Then it crossed the cliff line with a roar, and hovered while the pilot assessed a landing spot.
I could see several people at the side door making preparations as the pilot brought it down, gently landing on the sand. As soon as it touched down two men jumped out, one, I assumed, a medic.
“You were quick.”
It had been less than a half-hour since I called.
“We just wrapped up at another accident. What do we have here?”
I went through all the things I’d done and ended by showing him the chest bruising.
His was a more thorough check and confirmed what I’d discovered, no broken bones, possible cracked ribs, or sprains to both ankles, indicating he had fallen a short distance.
A stretcher was brought over, and they carefully put Boggs on it, then took him to the helicopter, the whole operation taking no more than ten minutes. I declined the offer of going back with him, there being space only for one other passenger. He gave me the name of the hospital they would be taking him to, and I watched the helicopter leave.
The whole time Nadia had kept her distance, and, I’d noticed, glanced up the cliff. Did she think the arrival of a helicopter on their beach would summon a posse of Cossatinos? That thought had also occurred to me, especially where there were signs, now somewhat faded, that said trespassers would be shot on sight.
I have an electronic notebook on my smartphone and writing pads at the ready at home in my office/writing room/library.
As soon as one hits, I get it down, either on paper or on the phone app. I use SomNote as it’s easy to export the text to an email or have a version of the app running on my computer and just copy and paste. SomNote is great because I can use it anywhere.
Of course, it doesn’t work so well in the shower, so I’m still waiting for a waterproof phone. Or perhaps it can wait for a few minutes until I’m finished.
But the trouble with that is, these ideas come so quickly and are sometimes so vivid that they need to be put down as quickly as possible. I have come up with the perfect dialogue for a tricky scene and played it all out in my head, and by the time I got to the paper, it was almost gone.
Perhaps a whiteboard and a permanent marker on the wall.
Or is that going too far?
A long time ago, I received a portable tape recorder for a present, you know, the one you can hold in your hand, and the tapes so small you wonder how much will fit on it. The gifter said that when ideas came to me, all I had to do was speak. It was also voice-activated.
Needless to say that conjured up a few ideas right there.
But I used it, but I found it quite weird to be talking, ostensibly to myself, in the car whilst driving home, or going to, work, and the curious looks I’d get from others. One thing it did teach me was that when a conversation was replayed, it would sound ok or like most of the time, hardly what one expected a conversation would really be like.
So, because of that device, I learned to read out all conversations, and if they sounded stupid, they were.
So, ideas come in the shower, ideas come while driving, ideas come when reading the newspaper, and ideas even come when reading books.
This leads me to another point that I learned early on. Writers must read. Not only novels of their chosen genre, but any reference books that go with it. The research was, a friend and more successful author than I told me, was mandatory.
So too was the reading to the classics, old English, and sometimes American, literature, to gain an appreciation for the written word. We might not follow those styles, but we can learn the majesty of the English language.
That author taught me a lot, though at the time I didn’t realize it. Perhaps I thought I was already smart enough to write, but I’m guessing that it took a long time before I felt my writing was worth reading before publishing it.
I don’t profess to have a full understanding of the language. I might have loved that school subject called English, and later in university, creative writing, and literature, but not all of it soaked in. But writing is one of those odd things, that it can take many forms and styles, but at the end of the day, if the reader understands where the story is going, and when at the end, is satisfied that it was ‘a good read’, then the author’s work is done.
The only trouble is, getting the next idea, and then they were able to write a second book, or third. It is said everyone has one book in them. For those who can write more, well, that might be what might be called, a gift.
My trouble is that I have too many ideas, too many starts, and brief outlines to work with, I don’t know which story to start on next. I guess being spoilt for choice is a good thing, yes?
It started with a phone call, a phone call that I never expected to get.
I was one of those people who went through life, almost invisible. It was not what I wanted, it just happened.
I was not the sociable sort, at school I tended to spend my time studying and then being labeled a nerd, I didn’t make friends, except for those who wanted help with their homework.
Few friends in elementary school, fewer in middle school, and none in college, that is no one that you could call a true friend. They were more acquaintances that were there for the help I could give them, but no one that would invite me to parties, or to just hang out.
That continues on into university. Except there were several new acquainted that were a little more than that, though not quite BFFs.
There was one, in particular, Anna, who was one of the study group, the one who needed the most help, someone who had been wavering on returning after the first year.
My trouble was that I liked her more than she liked me, my opinion of course, based on what I called the indifference factor, but perhaps I had more expectations than she did
She was doing uni because it was expected of her, not because she wanted to be there. She could take it or leave it, and the last time I spoke to her, she was going to leave.
And when she left to go back home, it was the last time I expected to see or hear from her.
Until that phone call.
“What are you doing this weekend?”
A dumb question, nothing of course, but I wouldn’t tell her that. I was still in shock that Anna would call me, for anything other than school, if at all.
“Not a lot.”
“Good. How would you like to housesit with me?”
House sit? Surely she had a dozen others who would do anything for her. She was that popular and well-liked. And would probably be far more amusing than I ever could be.
“If you like. I had no idea you did house minding.”
“I don’t, but an aunt is going away for the weekend, and she wants someone to look after the cat. I hope you like cats. And gardens. It has a nice garden.”
Cats I could take or leave. Gardens, it was probably a birdbath, two beds of roses, a large tree with a seat under it, and neighbors peering over the fence.
But it was a weekend somewhere else other than my little room, and Anna would be there. Maybe I could try to get past my shyness and actually talk to her.
“OK. I’m in. Do I need to bring anything?”
“No. I’ll send you the address and see you there at 5 pm. Friday.”
Why did I get the feeling I was being set up?
That feeling of impending doing followed me down the path from the front gate to the front door.
Far from the house being a small thatch cottage, based on the address she gave me, it turned out to be a three-story manor house with a large outhouse that looked to be once a stable and coach house
It seemed far too large to be a house for one person.
When I rang the doorbell, I expected a butler to answer the door, but it was Anna herself.
“Nice place,” I said.
“Too large and too hard to maintain. Were trying to convince her that she would be better off in something smaller. But you should see the back.”
Based on the front garden which could happily grace the front cover of any country living magazine, I couldn’t wait.
She let me pass and closed the door behind us. It sounded like the vault was closing and there would be no damage until the timer released the locks.
Inside, the whole place reeked of heritage and antiques, and the personality of its owner. The walls had paintings, table tops had old magazines, the seats worn leather, and worn carpet squares covered floorboards that creaked when you walked on them.
At the end of a long corridor was the kitchen at the end if the house, after passing several sitting and dining rooms. It was a very large house and raised a very important question.
She had not mentioned any family or relatives with anything like the wealth this house exuded. In fact, she had often implied that she was just an ordinary person.
This was anything but ordinary.
I caught up with her on the back patio, just off a large sunroom, to view what had to be an acre or more of manicured laws, garden beds, and trees. All it was missing was a maze.
“Do you actually have a secret life?”
“I was always told not to advertise our wealth.”
“Isn’t showing me this, a form of advertising? After all, I’m apparently from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“I trust you.”
“But you don’t know me, or anything about me.”
“Why do you think you’re here?”
If I wanted to make an educated guess, my first thought was to set me up for something, for the very reason she was aloof, and people like her, and those she kept company with, were not people like me associated with.
I was surprised not to see the two girls I’d once nicknamed ‘the dynamic duo’, Melissa and Winona, with her. Maybe they would turn up later.
My second thought, the most improbable reason, was that she wanted to get to know me, but, why choose a place like this? To make me feel small, grateful, impressed? Ten minutes in a Cafe was all she needed to find out what she needed to know about me.
An alarm bell went off when I asked her where I could get a drink of water, and she said, the kitchen, but didn’t really know where it was. I got an instant bad feeling.
That was followed by a bang that I thought came from the rear of the house.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“You hear all sorts of noises in places like these.”
If she wasn’t worried, neither was I.
Then the door chime rang.
“You expecting more visitors?” My internal fear factor was rising exponentially.
“No, but I’d better find out who it is, just in case.”
I shrugged and headed towards where she indicated the kitchen was, the rear of the house, what I would call an educated guess
After I found the kitchen, not technically at the rear, I returned to find my worst fears had come true. Not only the dynamic duo but also their boyfriends, Chad and Lester, two of the worst bullies from school days.
“Well, look who it is.” Chad was particularly menacing.
A glance to the side, it was hard to tell if Anna was looking pleased or neutral, but she wasn’t surprised. I glanced in Anna’s direction and all I got was a tilt of her head.
“Shouldn’t you be down the country club trying to prove you’re a new version of your drunken bully of a father?”
His smile turned into a very angry look. “Don’t go there, Scanlon.”
“Why are you here then?”
I expected to hear Anna had invited them. Instead, “we’re here to make sure Anna doesn’t make a mistake.”
“I don’t need your help or advice Chad. In fact, you should leave.”
None of the four looked like they had any intention of leaving. “Not until we’ve impressed upon both of you, the error of your ways. We thought you were smarter than this or did Scanlon force himself on you?”
She shook her head, not necessarily in anger, but more in despair. “I don’t know where you get your ideas from Chad, but you are very much mistaken. So, I will only say this once more, Chad,” she added quietly, “otherwise you will find yourself in a world of pain. Leave now while you still can.”
Chad, being Chad, was the master of ceremonies, puffed up as he had been in the schoolyard when he was about the unleash his gang on some poor misguided fool, usually me, or one of three others. But it was Melissa who spoke instead, “You go teach Scanlon a lesson outside by the pool while we have a talk to Anna.”
Lester took the cue, came over, and grabbed me by the shoulder. I thought about trying to shrug him off, but Chad was across the room before I could initiate anything. Best to leave calmly and sort it out outside.
I gave Anna a last look, but she was wearing her poker face. Had she set this up? It seemed as though she hadn’t, but then, it didn’t look like she was worried about the dynamic duo.
I shrugged.
Intentional or not, Chad and Lester were about to learn a very valuable lesson, and revenge, at least on them, was going to be sweet.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 