Cold Summer Nights (11 page)
Read Cold Summer Nights Online
Authors: Sean Thomas Fisher,Esmeralda Morin
Nick’s heart spiked. He opened his mouth while his mind ran through different options.
“Uh, Rusty.”
“Why?” he asked, producing his pad and pen.
“Because,” Nick said slowly. “I just had a cop question me about a murder and it seemed like something I might tell a close friend.”
“Okay,” the detective laughed. “And you weren’t calling him because you wanted to make sure your stories were straight before I got to his apartment?”
Nick’s brow folded. “What? No.”
Ron quietly evaluated the response, his foot wagging in the air.
Nick broke eye contact and began picking at the label on his beer bottle.
Ron exhaled tiredly. “Come on, Nick. What’s going on here?”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Bullshit!” Ron snapped.
Nick jumped and a dead silence followed.
“It’s been a long damn day and I want the
motherfuckin
truth!”
Nick’s heart beat thickly in his ears as he tried to round up a plausible response. He swallowed hard, not sure what to say next.
“Nick listen,” the detective started in a calmer voice. “Lying to me any further is only going to result in a much harsher punishment. I’ll remind you that interfering with a murder investigation is a felony.”
Nick’s stared into Ron’s piercing eyes, seeing himself behind bars in their reflection.
Detective Hubbard leaned forward and pointed at him. “Do you want to ruin your career?
Your life?
Your family’s lives?”
“I told you everything I know,” he mustered.
Ron leaned back in the brown chair and sighed. “There is no record of a,” he said, glancing down to his notepad.
“Summer Sorenson working at the Jordan Creek Wells Fargo, or any other Wells Fargo for that matter.”
He looked up to gauge Nick’s response.
Nick’s eyebrows dropped and the detective cracked a thin smile at him.
“In fact, there is no record of your girlfriend anywhere. The DMV, the IRS, triple fucking A, nada!”
Nick’s breathing became heavier and he set his beer down. “That’s impossible,” he wheezed.
“Now, what is going on here?” Ron asked through gritted teeth.
The flier whisked through Nick’s mind, like it
was caught up
in a swirling breeze.
“Nick, don’t throw your life away over this. Trust me, it’s not worth it. You hardly even know this girl, and she’s either lying or you are. Now which is it?”
Nick envisioned a man, wearing sunglasses and a fancy suit, shoot
Summer
in the back of the head with a gun he clutched in gloved hands.
“The truth will set you free, Nick. Otherwise I’ll bring my heel down on you and Rusty,” Ron whispered, tapping his pen on the pad and not taking his eyes off of Nick. “I swear to fucking God.”
Nick’s throat clicked when he swallowed. He grabbed the beer and took a long pull.
Detective Hubbard watched him intently. “She’s in here, isn’t she?” he whispered, peering around the room again.
Nick swallowed and took another drink.
“Isn’t she?” he repeated more firmly.
Grudgingly, Nick nodded and pulled the wrinkled missing persons flier from his back pocket and handed it to the detective.
Ron snatched it, his eyes getting thin as he digested the information. He looked back up to Nick. “
This her
?”
Nick nodded. “I just confronted her about it right before you got here,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on, but she says she was in an abusive relationship with a guy who is in the mob.”
Ron’s face wrinkled. “What?” he laughed lightly.
“Said it was the only way to leave him without getting killed.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“Rusty found it online.”
The detective glanced around the house again. “Where is she?” he whispered.
Nick pointed to the basement.
Ron quietly got up and gestured for Nick to lead the way. At the basement door in the kitchen, Ron grabbed Nick by the shoulder and took the lead. Gently, they crept down the staircase, one step at a time. Ron grimaced with each creak of the wooden steps. Nick’s pulse raced at the thought of
Summer
being arrested or, worse yet, murdered. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her because of him. There was still a chance that things could work out between them, but not without some help. At the bottom, they let their eyes sweep the small basement. There was no sight of her or her wine glass. They eased in deeper with Ron leading the way, checking each nook and cranny as they went.
At the other end, Ron stopped and held his arms out. “Where is she?”
Nick stared at the empty basement with disbelieving eyes. “I don’t know.”
Ron stared at the two tiny basement windows. “Unless she can turn into a cat, I doubt anyone could’ve gotten out of here.”
Nick’s eyes refused to believe that she was gone. It was impossible. He had watched her go down the stairs with his own eyes. “I don’t get it.”
“What kind of car is she driving?” Ron asked
,
pulling out his cell phone and heading back up the stairs two at a time.
“A red Honda Accord.
It was parked right in the driveway.”
Ron stopped in the kitchen and Nick ran into him from behind.
Ron slowly turned around. “The only car in the driveway when I got here was yours.”
Nick looked at him like he was mistaken and walked past him into the living room, where he raised a blind to see the detective’s
Prius
sitting just inches behind his Jeep in the driveway. He dashed over to the front door and yanked it open.
“Hey!” Ron shouted, running to catch up.
Nick’s chest rose and fell on the front porch as he scoured the night with wide eyes. “That’s impossible,” he murmured. “She was right here.”
Chapter Eleven
“Rodriguez,”
came out of the
Prius
speakers.
“Hey, I just came from Foley’s house and I need you to check out a Summer Parker for me,” Ron said, steering the car with one hand and holding the missing persons flier with the other.
“Summer Parker,”
Rodriguez repeated.
“Check the Illinois missing
persons
data banks and see what you come up with,” he said, listening to Rodriguez typing in the background.
“Got it.”
“Hey, any word on the kid in the pickup?”
The typing stopped and the humming tires gripping pavement filled the car.
“Hello?”
“He didn’t make it,”
Rodriguez said somberly.
“Skull fracture.”
Ron stared blankly out across the open road ahead. “Damn,” he whispered. The wheels picked up the slack in conversation and droned on. “Did he say anything else before he died?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
The boy’s words floated back through Ron’s mind as the streetlights flipped by. He knew that somehow the teen’s words
were connected
to whatever happened to Amy Miller. Something was off and he always listened to his gut. “Alright get back to me as soon as you find anything out.”
“I’m on it.
And hey, Hubbard?”
“Yeah?”
“Watch your back out there. I got a bad feeling about this one, amigo.”
Ron thought about giving Rodriguez shit about the voodoo crap he was always spouting but didn’t. “Me too,” he said instead.
Ron clicked the phone off with a button on the steering wheel and opened the box of donuts on the seat next to him. “
Sonofabitch
!” he cried, seeing the box was empty.
When he looked back to the road, he noticed someone in the rearview mirror. “Holy shit!” he yelled, as a passing streetlight briefly lit up a woman’s colorless face, draped in shadows in the backseat behind him. A surge of adrenaline mainlined through his veins. His face twisted in the flickering light.
Her head suddenly twitched and came to rest at an awkward angle.
He stared in silent horror at the black eyes staring back at him in the mirror. His foot came off the gas pedal just as her cold hands clamped around his neck. Her strength surprised him, causing his foot to reflexively press the gas pedal to the floor. The
Prius
lurched forward, its engine revving to a high-pitched squeal. With one hand on the wheel, Ron used his other to wrestle with the icy claws digging into his neck. Stars began streaking across his field of vision as he tried navigating the car and his airflow at the same time.
The tiny motor whined. Other drivers laid on their horns as he sailed wildly past, missing them by inches.
He gasped for air and managed to pry one of her cold fingers loose. The car bounced over a curb and the finger snapped off in his hand. His other hand left the wheel and joined in the fight. Darkness blurred his vision around the edges. Frantically, he fought the scaly death grip with everything he had just before the
Prius
crashed head first into a car wash’s cinderblock wall, ejecting Ron’s body through the front windshield.
For a few minutes, Nick thought he was going to jail for sure and the life he had known was all but over. People don't buy houses from criminals. Even if they did, companies don't hire criminals to sell houses to anyone. But instead of cuffing him, Detective Hubbard had taken the flier and given Nick the old
don't leave town
treatment.
Nick tossed and turned in bed, replaying events that didn’t add up. He refused to make matters worse by looking at the clock next to him. His grandma’s funeral was at ten o’clock in the morning and he was going to need some sleep, but his racing mind refused to shut down. What remained of her family and friends would be at the funeral and then the reception at Matt’s house afterwards. It was going to be a long day, filled with small talk he couldn’t imagine making. Not now. He wondered if it was past midnight and almost opened his eyes.
Unanswered questions shuffled through his head. Where had
Summer
gone? And how had she gotten her car out of the driveway without running over the detective's car? He could still hear the female recording telling him her cell phone was out of service. Suddenly, there was no trace of her existence and, subsequently, his story now had more holes in it than a miniature golf course.
The more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off. Rusty was right. There was something off about her all right, just like there was with all of the girls he had ever dated. Some turned out to be psycho, some were drunks, and some ended up being two-timing cheaters. But a missing person on the run from the mafia was a new one. He snorted into the darkness, staring at the ceiling fan’s outline above. Hubbard was right too, she wasn’t worth going to prison over.
He felt the mattress compress as someone sat down next to him on the bed. His breath clenched and his eyelids flipped open. He screamed when he saw the dark silhouette sitting next to him. He scuttled across the bed, knowing it was Amy’s murderer, knowing he was next. He fell off the other side of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud. The smell of strawberries wafted past him.
"It's just me."
Nick tried to catch his breath, but his pulse was racing too fast. Guardedly, he poked his tousled head over the bed and squinted.
“Summer?”
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she said quietly, getting up.
Nick stumbled to his feet and turned on the light. He squinted at the thin brunette wearing the same jeans and low cut top she had on earlier.
He put a hand to his chest, feeling every beat of his kicking heart. If he was thirty years older he probably would have just had a major heart attack. "What the hell?"
She frowned. "I’m sorry, but I couldn't take a chance on that cop finding me."
Nick's eyes darted around the room. “How’d you get in here?”
“The patio doors were unlocked.”
His eyebrows drew together. “No they weren’t. I locked them before going to bed. I double-checked everything.”
She shrugged. “You must’ve missed one.”
He scanned the room with wild eyes again, trying to breathe. "I didn’t
miss one
,” he scowled. “How'd you get your car out of the driveway?"
"I went around on the grass and over the curb."
Nick’s jaw dropped. "That’s impossible! He checked the grass for tire tracks with his flashlight."
She shrugged again. “Nick, I just wanted to…”
“Why isn't your phone working?" he interrupted.
An ashamed smile crept across her colorless lips. "I forgot to pay the bill and they shut it off."
He let out an exhausted sigh and realized he was standing in his underwear. Hurriedly, he threw on a pair of sweats and began pacing the small room. "He said there’s no record of you at Wells Fargo, or any record of you anywhere."
She tilted her head and let go of a long sigh. "I'm sorry I had to lie to you. I couldn't take the chance of telling you the truth, of telling anyone the truth."
His cold stare was long and unwavering. “What's the truth?” he whispered.
"The truth is," she began, a lone tear escaping down her pallid cheek. "I should’ve never gotten you involved in any of this."
His brow folded.
"Any of what?"
She dropped her eyes to her hands and twisted her bony fingers.
"Did…did you kill Amy?"
Her mouth popped open, insult skittering across her face. “Are you serious?”
He threw his arms out into the air. “I don’t even know who you are! Of course I’m serious. All I know is you have some bullshit story about an
alleged
abusive husband in the mob.”
“He wasn’t my husband and it’s not bullshit!” she snapped, dropping back onto the bed. “I - didn't - kill - Amy. I don't even know what she looks like," she sobbed.
Nick slid down into the gray armchair and shot a glum look her way. "I gave him the missing
persons
flier," he said flatly.
He didn’t think it was possible for her face to lose anymore color but it did.
“You what?" she said gravely.
“He was threatening to take me to jail! What was I supposed to do?”
Her face dropped into her hands. Tears slipped through her fingers and disappeared into the carpeting.
He shifted uneasily in the chair.
“I am so screwed,” she sniffled.
“You?” he snorted. “I’m the one who got stuck with another…” He bit his lip before continuing.
She lifted her wet face and dried her hands on her jeans. “This is the last thing you need right now with your grandma and everything. I am so sorry.”
He watched her get up and walk out of the room. “Where are you going?” he asked, following her into the living room.
She wiped tears from her face and shook her head. “I've got to figure some things out. I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry for lying to you. I had no right to drag you into this.”
Nick put his hands on his hips as she grasped the front doorknob.
“So what now?”
She opened the door and turned back to him. “I don’t know.”
They held each other’s stare for a brief moment that seemed like forever. The silence was infectious.
“Well, how do I get a hold of you?”
“It’s probably best that you don’t, at least for awhile” she said, stepping out onto the front porch and sinuously gliding down the cement steps.
He followed her onto the porch, his incredulous eyes watching her briskly walk to the driveway. His mind screamed at him to say something as she got into her car.
To stop her.
To help her.
If he let her go now, he may never see her again. He galloped down the steps and raised a hand into the air as she backed into the dimly lit street. “Wait!” he yelled, as she stepped on the gas without looking back. When her taillights faded into the night, he stood at the end of the driveway, listening to the cicadas conduct their nightly orchestra beneath a blanket of radiant stars above.
“Well, that went good,” he mumbled, scratching his head and slowly making his way back inside.
His churning thoughts pushed sleep from the realm of possibility so he dropped onto the couch and let his eyes roam the quiet room. The feel of the mattress dipping down when she had sat down next to him haunted his mind and body. Goose bumps plagued his arms. It was a feeling no one should ever have to feel, no one who wasn’t expecting it. He shook his head wondering how she had gotten in. He grabbed the remote from the coffee table and hit the red power button. Nothing happened.
Nick woke with a thick head, which had to suit up and begin battling intrusive thoughts right out of the gate. The last thing he wanted to do was go to his grandma’s funeral this morning. As he brushed his teeth, he stared at the dark circles ringing his eyes in the bathroom mirror, a gift from two hours of sleep. With any luck, a hot shower and the coffee he could already smell brewing in the kitchen would make him look like less of a heroin addict today.
He arrived early at Westover Funeral Home to make sure everything was in order before the service. The long, golden door handle was cool in his hand and for a moment he thought about leaving, but guilt crept in and he pulled the door open instead. The smell of flowers and dead people slapped him in the face as soon as he stepped inside. He figured this is what a barrel of embalming fluid would smell like inside a flower shop.
He hung up his coat and the impeccably dressed funeral director tenderly ushered him into the small room holding his grandma’s casket. Even from across the room, the heavy make-up made her look like a mannequin. As they walked past the rows of folding chairs and bouquets of brightly colored flowers, Frank gently repeated how things would progress from the service to the cemetery procession afterwards. Nick missed most of it. He was too busy staring at his grandma, who was getting closer and striking the same funeral pose she had donned in his nightmares.
They stopped in front of the shiny casket, his grandma Helen resembling someone he didn’t recognize. Frank remained quiet for a minute and then said something about a hearse in a stoic voice. He adjusted the yellow carnation on his expensive suit lapel and told Nick to let him know if he needed anything. On autopilot, Nick thanked him and turned back to the brown casket as Frank disappeared into the wide hallway outside the room. With puffy eyes, Nick gazed at the doughy skin poking out of her favorite red dress with white polka dots. He glanced behind him and sighed, wishing his brother was running on time for once in his life.
He took a deep breath of the fragrant air and straightened his sports coat and tie. She looked better with her teeth in but they hadn’t been able to do much with her stringy white hair. He felt terrible for wishing he was anywhere else but here. His grandma deserved better than that from him.
When her eyes opened, his heart caught in his throat. Without blinking, her clear eyes stared at the popcorn ceiling above. Nick stood frozen, his pulse beginning to race as her hollow stare seemed oblivious to his presence. He tried to back away but couldn’t move. Her soulless glare was unwavering. The silence grew thicker, like they were the only two on the entire planet. Suddenly, her dark eyes slowly turned towards him. Just like in his dreams. He swallowed. She knew about the stolen quarters.