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“You next, Tim,” Reid announced as if he were the commander.
“Nope. I’ll go after you.” All Tim’s laughter had disappeared. Apparently he’d frightened himself.
“I’ll go.” Lauren suddenly wanted this entire adventure to be over with. With her luck, animals were wintering in the old place.
“I’ll help you down.” Reid lowered her into the window space.
As she moved through total darkness, her feet wouldn’t quite touch the bottom. For a moment she just hung, afraid to tell Reid to drop her.
Then, she felt Lucas’s hands at her waist. Slowly he took her weight.
“I’m in,” she called back to Reid. He let her hands go, and she dropped against Lucas.
“You all right?” Lucas whispered near her hair.
“This was a dumb idea.”
She felt him laugh more than she heard it. “That you talking or the Gypsy’s advice? Of all the brains dropping in here tonight, yours would probably be the most interesting to take over, so watch out. A ghost might just climb in your head and let free all the secret thoughts you keep inside, Lauren.”
He pulled her a foot into the blackness as a letter jacket dropped through the window. His hands circled her waist. She could feel him breathing as Reid finally landed, cussing the darkness. For a moment it seemed all right for Lucas to stay close; then in a blink, he was gone from her side.
Now the tiny flashlight offered Lauren some much-needed light. The house was empty except for an old wire bed frame and a few broken stools. With Reid in the lead, they moved up rickety stairs to the second floor, where shadowy light came from big dirty windows.
Tim hesitated when the floor’s boards began to rock as if the entire second story were on some kind of seesaw. He backed down the steps a few feet, letting the others go first. “I don’t know if this second story will hold us all.” Fear rattled in his voice.
Reid laughed and teased Tim as he stomped across the second floor, making the entire room buck and pitch. “Come on up, Tim. This place is better than a fun house.”
Stepping hesitantly on the upstairs floor, Lauren felt Lucas just behind her and knew he was watching over her.
Tim dropped down a few more steps, not wanting to even try.
Lucas backed against the wall between the windows, his hand still brushing Lauren’s waist to keep her steady as Reid jumped to make the floor shake. The whole house seemed to moan in pain, like a hundred-year-old man standing up one arthritic joint at a time.
When Reid yelled for Tim to join them, Tim started back up the broken stairs, just before the second floor buckled and crumbled. Tim dropped out of sight as rotten lumber pinned him halfway between floors.
His scream of pain ended Reid’s laugher.
In a blink, dust and boards flew as pieces of the roof rained down on them and the second floor vanished below them, board by rotting board.
Lucas reached for Lauren as she felt the floor beneath her feet crack and split. Her legs slid down, scraping against the sharp teeth of decaying wood.
The moment before she disappeared amid the tumbling lumber, Lucas’s hand grabbed her arm just above her wrist and jerked hard. She rocked like some kind of human bell as boards continued to fall, hitting her in the face and knocking the air from her lungs.
But Lucas held on. He didn’t let her disappear into the rubble. He’d braced his feet wide on the few inches of floor remaining near the wall and leaned back.
When the dust settled, she looked up. He’d wrapped his free arm around a beam that braced a window. His face was bloody. The sleeve had pulled from his shirt, and she saw a shard of wood like a stake sticking out of his arm, but he hadn’t let her go. His grip was solid.
Tim was crying now, but in the darkness no one could see where he was. He was somewhere below. He had to be hurting, but he was alive. The others had been above when the second floor crumbled, but Tim had still been below.
Reid jumped into the window frame that now leaned out over the remains of the porch. The entire structure looked as if it were about to crash like a hundred deformed pickup sticks dumped from a can.
Reid didn’t look hurt, but with the moon on his face, Lauren had no trouble seeing the terror. He was frozen, afraid to move for fear something else might tumble.
“Call for help.” Lucas’s voice sounded calm amid the echoes of destruction. “Reid! Reach in your pocket. Get your phone. Just hit Redial and tell whoever answers that we need help.”
Reid nodded, but his hand was shaking so badly Lauren feared he’d drop the phone. He finally gripped it in one hand and jumped carefully from the window to the ground below. He yelped a moment after he hit the dirt and complained that he’d twisted his ankle. Then he was yelling into his cell for help. They were still close enough to town to see a few lights in the distance. It wouldn’t be long before someone arrived.
Lucas looked down at Lauren. “Hang on,” he whispered.
She crossed her free hand over where his grip still held her arm. “Don’t worry. I’m not letting go.”
Slowly, he pulled her up until she was close enough to transfer her free hand to around his neck. Her body swung against his and remained there. Nothing had ever felt so good as the solid wall of Lucas to hang on to.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so. Don’t turn loose of me, Lucas. Please, don’t turn loose.”
She felt laughter in his chest. “Don’t worry, I won’t. I got you, mi cielo.”
They inched along the edge of the wall where pieces of what had once been the floor were holding. “Tim?” she called. She tried to shine her light down to see Tim, but there was too much debris below. His crying began to echo through the night, as did Reid talking to Mrs. Patterson on the phone.
“She must have been the last person he called,” Lucas whispered near Lauren’s ear. “So when he hit Redial, he got her.
Lauren brushed her cheek against his. “She’s the last person I’d turn to for help.”
“I agree,” Lucas answered.
Their private conversation amid the chaos helped her relax a bit.
“Send everybody!” Reid kept yelling. “We need help, Mrs. Patterson.” When he hung up he must have dialed his brother because all at once Reid was cussing, blaming the mess they were in on whoever answered.
“Hang on, Lauren,” Lucas whispered against her hair. “I’ll try to reach the window.”
“I’m scared. Don’t let me fall.”
He bumped the top of her head with his chin. “So am I, but I promise I’m not letting you go.”
Finally Lucas reached the window that Reid had dropped from, and he lowered Lauren slowly to the ground outside.
“I got her,” Reid shouted just as car lights began to shine through the trees. Emergency vehicles turned off the main road and headed toward the Gypsy House—one volunteer ambulance, a small fire truck, along with one sheriff’s cruiser and Mrs. Patterson’s old gray Buick tailing the parade.
Lauren watched Reid move toward the men storming through brush.
“We’re all right,” he shouted. “I got Lauren out, but Lucas and Tim are still in the house. I was going in after them next.” When he spotted the sheriff in the half dozen flashlights surrounding him, he added, “I tried to tell them this was a bad idea, sir, but thank God I went in to help Lauren, just in case she got into trouble.”
The first men hurried past Reid, ignoring him, but finally Sheriff Brigman and an EMT stopped.
Men with bright flashlights moved into the house with ropes and a portable stretcher. She could hear Lucas yelling for them to be careful and guiding their steps. Tim was somewhere below, still crying.
Her father shone his light along her body. She could feel warm blood trickling down her face, and more blood dripped down from a gash on her thigh. “I’ll take her from here, son,” he said to Reid as if she were a puppy found in the road. “You all right to walk, Reid?”
“I can make it, sir.” Reid limped, making a show of soldiering through great pain.
“We’ve got the boy,” someone yelled from inside the house. “He’s breathing, but we’ll need the stretcher to get him out. Looks like his leg is broken in more than one place.”
Her father never let go his hold of her as they watched Tim being lifted out of the house. One of the EMTs said that, besides the broken leg, the boy probably had broken ribs. The sound of Tim’s crying was shrill now, like that of a wounded animal.
She listened as her father instructed the ambulance driver to take Reid and Tim. They needed care on the way to the hospital. He picked up Lauren and carried her to his car as if she were still his little girl. “I’ll transport her to the emergency room. She’s got wounds, but she’s not losing much blood.”
“Lucas is hurt, too,” she said as the boy who’d saved her life was helped down from the second floor window. Lucas was the last to leave the haunted house. He’d made sure everyone got out first.
The sheriff nodded. “Make sure he’s stable and put him in my car, too. I can get them both there faster than the ambulance can.”
Two firemen followed his orders.
Lauren looked over her father’s shoulder as Lucas moved clear of the shadow of the house. She’d had far more than the little adventure she’d wanted tonight. When her father set her in the back of his cruiser, she wondered at what point she’d gone wrong and swore for the rest of her life she’d never do something so dumb again.
One of the men from the volunteer fire department bandaged up Lucas’s arm and wrapped something around her leg. The sheriff oversaw the loading of the other two injured, then returned. She could almost feel anger coming off him like steam, but he wouldn’t step out of his role here. Here he was the sheriff. Later he’d be one outraged father.
Wrapped in blankets, she sat in the backseat of her father’s cruiser with Lucas and watched everyone load up like a small army. Mrs. Patterson had tripped in the darkness, and two firemen were taking her home for treatment.
She looked over at Lucas sitting a foot away. He was leaning his head back, not seeming to notice that his forehead dripped blood. He’d saved her and helped bring out Tim. She realized he’d passed her to Reid so he could go back for Tim. No one was patting him on the back and saying things like “great job” as they were to Reid.
Lauren seemed to have been labeled “poor victim” and Lucas was invisible.
“You saved me tonight,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell my dad? He thinks this whole thing was your fault, thanks to Reid.”
“The truth isn’t worth crossing Reid. Let him play the hero. All I care about is that you’re all right. If I spoke up, I might not have a job tomorrow. One word from Reid and the foreman will take me off the list of extras hires, or worse, tell my father to find another job.”
“We’re alive, thanks to you.” She was touched that he worried about her. “The cut on my leg isn’t deep. But I owe you a blood debt for real now.”
“I know.” His white teeth flashed. “I’ll be waiting to collect it. You’ve got to save my life now.”
Her father climbed into the car without saying a word to them. He spoke into his radio and raced toward the county hospital, half an hour away.
Lauren didn’t feel like talking. She knew the sheriff was probably already mentally composing the lecture he planned to give her for the next ten years. Worry over her would be replaced by anger as soon as he knew she was all right. She’d be lucky if he let her out of the house again before she was twenty-one.
In the darkness, she found Lucas’s hand. She didn’t look at him, but for the rest of the ride, her fingers laced with his. They might never talk of this night again, but they both knew that a blood debt bound them together, and sometime in the future she’d pay him back.
CHAPTER FOUR
Yancy
THE GREYHOUND BUS pulled up beside the tiny building with Crossroads, Texas, United States Post Office painted on it in red, white and blue, and Yancy Grey almost laughed. The box of a structure looked like it had been rolled in on wheels and set atop a concrete square. He had seen food trucks at county fairs that were bigger.
This wasn’t even a town, just a wide spot in the road where a few buildings clustered together. He saw the steeples of two churches, a dozen little stores that looked as though they were on their last legs framed in the main street, and maybe fifty homes scattered around, not counting trailers parked behind one of the gas stations.
A half mile north there stood what looked like a school, complete with a grass football field with stands on either side. To the east was a grain elevator with a few buildings near the base. Each one was painted a different shade of green. Yancy couldn’t see behind the post office, but he couldn’t imagine that direction being any more interesting than the rest of the town.
“This is the Crossroads stop, mister,” a huge bus driver called back to Yancy from the driver’s seat. “We’re early, but I guess that don’t matter. Post office is closed Sundays anyway.”
Yancy stood and moved down the empty aisle as the bus door swished open. He’d watched one after another of the mostly sorry-looking passengers step off this bus at every small town through Oklahoma and half of Texas. He didn’t bother to thank the driver for doing his job. Yancy had been riding for ten hours and simply wanted to plant his feet on solid ground.
“You got any luggage?” the driver asked. “It’s been so long since Oklahoma City, I forgot.”
“No,” Yancy answered as he took his first breath of the dawn’s damp air. “Just my pack.”
“Good.” The driver pulled out his cigarettes. “Normally I stop here for breakfast. That café across the street serves an endless stack of pancakes, but since there are no cars out front, I think I’ll move on. I’ll be in Lubbock next stop, and that’s home.”
Yancy didn’t care what the driver did. In fact, he hoped the fat guy would forget where he left off his last passenger. All Yancy Grey wanted was silence, and this town just might be the place to find it.
For the past five years in prison he’d made a habit of not talking any more than necessary. It served no purpose. Friends, he didn’t need, and enemies didn’t bother chatting. He kept to himself. The inmates he’d met and got along with weren’t friends. In fact, he’d just as soon never see any of them again. One of them, a dead-eyed murderer named Freddie, had promised to kill him every time he’d passed within hearing distance, and another who went by “Cowboy” would skin a dead man for the hide.
And the guards and teachers for the most part were little more than ghosts passing through the empty house of his life. He had learned one fact from every group-counseling session he’d attended, and that was if he was going to stay out of prison, he needed to plan his life. So he’d taken every course offered and planned how not to get caught when he next stepped out into the free world.
He dropped his almost empty backpack on the post office steps and watched the bus leave. Then, alone with nothing but the sounds of freedom around him, he closed his eyes and simply breathed for a while. He’d known he was low-down worthless since he was five, but now and then Yancy wanted to forget and just think of himself as a regular person like everyone else who walked the planet.
At twenty-five, he wasn’t the green kid who’d gone to jail. He was a hardened man. He had no job or family. No future. Nowhere to go. But, thanks to positive-thinking classes, he had goals.
The first one was simple: get rich. After he got past that one all the others would fall in line: Big house. Pool. Fast car.
On the positive side, he had a lot going for him. Without a plan, he didn’t have to worry about holes in his strategy. He wasn’t running away from anything or anyone, and that was a first. He’d also learned a little about every trade the prison tried to teach.
Yancy had bought a bus ticket to a town he’d once heard his mother say was the most nothing place on earth. Crossroads, Texas. He figured that was where he’d start over, like he was newborn. He’d rebuild himself one brick at a time until no one who ever knew him would recognize Yancy Grey. Hell, he might even give himself a middle name. That’d be something he hadn’t had in twenty-five years of being alive.
Sitting down on the steps, he leaned against the tin door of the twelve-foot square post office and looked around at a tiny nothing of a town that sparkled in the early light. He might not have much, but he had his goals, and with some thinking, he’d have a plan.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought his mother met his dad here. She never talked about the man who’d fathered him except to say he’d been a hand on one of the big ranches around. She’d fallen in love with the hat and boots before she knew the man in between. Yancy liked to think that, once, she might have been happy in Crossroads, but knowing his mother, she wouldn’t be happy anywhere unless she was raising hell.
Yancy warmed in the sun. The café would probably be open in an hour or two. His first plan was to eat his fill of pancakes, and then he’d think about what to do next. Maybe he’d ask around for a job. He used to be a fair mechanic, and he’d spent most of his free time in the prison shop. There were two gas stations in town. One might have an opening. Or maybe the café needed a dishwasher? He’d worked in the prison kitchen for a year. If he was lucky, there would be a community posting somewhere around for jobs, and he’d bluff his way into whatever was open.
If nothing came up, he’d hitch a ride to the next town. Maybe he’d steal enough lying around here to hock for pocket money. Six years ago he’d caught a ride with a family in Arkansas. By the time they let him out a hundred miles down the road, he’d collected fifty dollars from the granny who rode in the back with him. The old bat had been senile and probably wouldn’t ever remember having the money in the first place. That fifty sure had felt good in his pocket.
Another time, when he was about sixteen, he’d hitched a ride with some college kids. They’d been a fun bunch, smoking pot as they sang songs. When he’d said goodbye, they’d driven away without a camera that was worth a couple hundred. Served them right for just wandering around the country spending their parents’ money. No one ever gave him a dime, and he’d made it just fine. Except for one dumb partner and one smart cop in Norman, Oklahoma.
Yancy pushed the memories aside. He had to keep his wits about him. Maybe try to go straight this time. He was halfway through his twenties, and hard time would start to take a toll on him soon. He’d seen guys in prison who were forty and looked sixty.
Taking a deep breath, he let the air sit in his lungs for a minute. It felt pure and light. Like rain and dust and nothing else.
A few cars passed as the sun warmed, but none stopped at the café. Yancy guessed the place might not open until eight or even nine on Sunday. He’d wait. With twenty dollars in his pocket, he planned to celebrate. Maybe if they had pie out early, he’d have it for breakfast.
One man in a pickup stopped and stuffed a few letters in the outside drop. He tipped his hat in greeting, and Yancy did the same with his baseball cap. It had been so long since he’d been in the free world he wasn’t sure how to act. He needed to be careful so no one would recognize him as an ex-con. Most folks probably wouldn’t anyway, but cops seemed to have a knack for spotting someone who’d served time.
Yancy went over a few rules he’d made up when he was thinking about getting out of jail. Look people in the eyes but not too closely. Greet them however they greeted him. Stand up straight. At six-one he wasn’t tall enough to be frightening or short enough to be bothered. He continued with his rules. Answer questions directly. Don’t volunteer much information, but never appear to be hiding anything.
About eight o’clock he heard one of the church bells. The day was cold but sunny and already promising to be warm. The dusting of snow from last night was blowing in the street like a ghost snake wiggling in the frosty air. In an hour it would be gone.
He decided to set his first freedom goal. He’d buy a coat. After all, winter was already here. The first year in prison he’d been either hot or freezing. If he had a good wool coat, he could be warm all winter, and then if he ever got hot, he’d just take off his good coat. He sighed, almost feeling it already covering his shoulders. The old sweatshirt he’d found in the lost-and-found bin at one of the bus stops last night was too worn to last the winter.
Yancy smiled, knowing that if anyone passed by, they’d think he was an idiot, but he didn’t care. He had to start somewhere. Daydreaming might not get him anywhere, but a goal—now, that was something he could sink his teeth into. He’d listened to all the tapes. He had to think positive and do it right this time, because he was never going back to prison.
Two old men came out of a couple of the small houses across the street. One had a saw and the other carried a folding chair. They must live in the cluster of little bungalows surrounded by a chain-link fence. The sign out front, looking as old as the two men, said Evening Shadows Retirement Community.
As he watched the men, he almost felt sorry for them. In Yancy’s mind the place looked little better than prison. The homes were in bad shape. One roof sank in at a corner. One porch was missing a railing. The yard had been left on its own for so long it looked like nothing but prairie grass and weeds. A few of the homes had flowers in pots with leftover Christmas greenery, and all had tiny flags tacked up by the door as if they’d been put up as Fourth of July decorations, and no one had bothered to take them down.
Yancy stopped studying the place and decided to pass his time watching the old men. One at a time they each tried to stand on the folding chair to cut dead branches off the elms between the little houses. One kept dropping the saw. The other fell through the opening in the back of the chair and would have tumbled to the ground if his partner hadn’t braced him.
Yancy laughed. The two were an accident about to happen, and he had a front row seat.
The second time he laughed, one of the old men turned toward Yancy and pointed his cane like a rifle. “You think you can do any better, mister, you get over here and try.”
“All right, I will.” He headed toward them. “If one of you break a leg I’ll probably get blamed.” With nothing to do until the café opened, he might as well lend a hand. That’s what normal people did, right? And Yancy wanted to be nothing but normal.
Sawing a branch that had been scraping against the house was no problem, even with both the old guys telling him how. Yancy had planned to stop there, but they pointed to another branch that needed cutting and then another. As he moved from house to house, more old people came out. Everyone had elms bothering their roof or windows or walls. Before long he felt as if he was leading a walker parade around the place. Every time he cut a branch down, one of the residents would grab it and haul it outside the chain-link fence to the lot beyond.
Listening to them chatter and compliment him was like music to his ears. None of the senior citizens ordered him around or threatened him. They all acted as if he was some kind of hero fighting off the dragon elms that had been torturing them when the wind blew or robbing them of sleep.
“We should pile them up and have us a bonfire,” yelled the one old man with Cap written on his baseball hat.
“Great idea,” his friend said, joining in. “I’ll buy the hot dogs and we can have us a weenie roast.”
“Won’t that be a fire hazard?” Yancy asked as he used a stool to climb high enough to cut the last of the dead branches off a tree.
Cap-hat puffed up, making him about half an inch taller. “I was the captain of the volunteer fire department here for twenty years. I think if I say it’s all right, nobody will argue.”