Lost Cargo (8 page)

Then they heard a thump, and another thump. Two lights gleamed through the shifting fog. At first he thought two burning yellow eyeballs were pursuing them, rolling up the hill. He held his breath. The lights blazed. A white truck appeared, and an arm shot out the window, tossing newspapers in long arcs toward the porch steps. They landed with soft thumps in the wet grass.

“Stop, stop, help us, please,” Lexie shouted, who still had her wits about her.

The driver gave them a startled look, gunned the motor, and took off.

They kept running uphill. At last the hedge around her house appeared, followed by white columns and railings. They made the porch. “Let me find my key,” she whispered, tearing through her pockets. Once they were inside, she slammed and locked the door and turned on the hall lamp. Black shadows flew like long distorted arms over the walls.

“She killed that guy,” Lexie said, wild-eyed.

“Killed him?” Travis said. “She ate him like a ham sandwich.”

“She
flew
. Did you see that? She flew up on the roof of that house.”

“I’m going to check the doors and windows,” he said, and forced his feet to move. They went through the first floor together, closed drapes that had been open all day, checked locks, and turned on every lamp in every room. Light flooded the spacious house, drove away the evening shadows, and lit up Burke’s antiques and paintings.

Lexie went back to the kitchen, set her camera on the black granite counter, took out a French press to make coffee, and put the kettle on to boil, but she just seemed to be going through the motions.

Travis took off his coat and sat down, watching her.

“She killed that guy,” Lexie said again. “And she went in that building on Connecticut Avenue. How many people live in that place?”

“Hundreds.” He shook his head. “My sister and her husband are buying a condo there. She told me on the phone tonight.”

Lexie gave him an incredulous stare. “You’re serious?”

“They’re signing the papers this week.”

“You’ve got to say something! Tell them the truth. Tell them we saw her kill somebody.”

“Yeah, but what am I really going to say? I can’t tell them we saw her eat some guy like he was a stack of pancakes on a plate.”

“I don’t know, but you’ve got to do
something
.” She sat down beside him. “We have to go back for my brother and that thing goes in the woods. Her photo was in that camera you found.”

“There’s a gun in my mother’s house. It’s an heirloom, but it’s a gun.”

“You know how to shoot it?”

“No, but it can’t be that hard. It belonged to Harry, my great-great-great-grandfather, I forget how many greats. He was in World War I, and he finagled something somehow, and he brought his gun home. It’s a Colt 45, the kind they named the beer after. I think the bullets are around, too.”

Lexie looked relieved. “I want to see if the photos came out,” she said.

Travis followed her up the long staircase to her bedroom and watched her turn on lamps and draw the curtains. Once he saw her unmade bed with its mountains of plush pillows, he felt consumed with wanting her, but he stood there awkwardly, staring at the cluttered room.

More antiques. Three oriental carpets at different angles on the wide plank floor. Lamps with low, intimate light. Her brother was neat and orderly, but Lexie couldn’t be bothered. A jumble of silver earrings lay on her dresser, thrown in with lipsticks and nail polish, books, papers, bottled green tea, and framed photos. What was she reading? He was too far away to make out the titles.

The room opened up beyond her bed into an alcove with a small fireplace, a curved desk, and a baby blue camelback couch. She’d thrown sweaters, jeans, and stockings across the couch and tossed more clothes in an open closet. Dresses. He wondered what she’d look like in a dress.

Travis piled the clothes at one end of the couch and sat down, feeling too big for the delicate furniture. She sat at her desk and began to download the photos. The lamplight turned her skin golden and cast little shadows under her eyelashes. She wore a beautiful pearl ring on her left hand. He remembered he’d held her hand when they ran through the fog and ended up with his arms around her under the pine tree. Now he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

“Nice ring,” he said.

“Thanks. My boyfriend gave it to me.”

His heart crashed. “You have a boyfriend?”

She nodded. “He’s out of the country.”

“What, in the military or something?”

“No, working on his doctorate. Research in the Brazilian rainforest. He’s an entomologist.”

“A PhD in bugs,” Travis joked, but to his own ears he just sounded jealous.

She smiled. “His name’s Tom Feldman. He’s flying here in December. Maybe you’ll meet each other.”

Travis took another look at the photos around the room. The pictures showed a handsome man with dark hair and a slanted, reckless grin standing with one arm draped around her shoulders. Her boyfriend didn’t look like a scientist. His wide open face was too impatient for such a meticulous profession, and his smile suggested speed and force. Racing cars, maybe, or spending somebody else’s money on the stock market. The couple stood in one photo on a perfect beach, Lexie in a killer black swimsuit, her boyfriend with his hand on her bare waist. Next to the photo sat a glass bowl filled with seashells. They must have collected the shells together.

Travis caught himself in the mirror, his hulking frame crammed on her elegant couch beside a mountain of her underwear and her jeans. Just an ordinary guy who wanted to teach English Lit someday. Nothing for Tom Feldman to worry about.

“Downloaded,” she said. “Here they go.”

He forgot about himself when a human foot appeared on the screen. More terrible images followed. Blood-soaked concrete. Glittering glass. The smashed-in utility box and long ruts in the grass where the car ripped up the ground. Damp asphalt shimmered under the streetlight and trees and shrubs floated in the fog. And there was the giant’s monstrous cape swirling in the darkness. The flash caught her menacing shoulders and long arms.

“What do you think?” Lexie asked him. “Take them to the police?”

He leaned forward. “They won’t do anything with them.”

She looked surprised. “Why not?”

“Because you can’t tell who it is. You didn’t get her face.”

Lexie sighed and turned off the computer.

He waited downstairs while she changed clothes for the second time that night. Finally she appeared in black jeans, hiking boots, another white sweater and a quilted jacket, her hair brushed over her shoulders and the camera around her neck. She looked stunning.

Maybe there was a chance they’d find Burke in the daylight. Travis called a cab and watched the sunrise as the streets rolled by from behind the safety of the cab’s windows. They’d been up all night, but he was so wired it didn’t matter. He left Lexie at Bustelo, a cafe on Connecticut Avenue, and took the cab to get the gun, planning to meet up with her within the hour.

The
Washington Times
was still on his mother’s porch, a good sign. Nobody seemed to be up when he unlocked the door, another good sign.

He crept through the dark hall to the den and opened the curio cabinet. Where was the gun? Shadowy keepsakes crammed the shelves. Old tickets to Europe, cork coasters from a German beer hall, photos of his grandfather on a troop ship, dog tags, military patches and pins, and pink-cheeked Hummel figurines with umbrellas, books, and ducklings. He moved down the shelves. Ancient rosary beads, a yellowed baseball from some long ago game, and more photos of people he didn’t recognize wearing old-fashioned clothes. There was the Colt 45, all the way in the back.

He held his breath and slipped it out, trying not to bang the barrel against the glass doors. The gun smelled of oily metal and dust. World War I. He could feel the weight of history in his hand.

Triple-great Harry stared down from a painting over the fireplace, stiff and formal behind a drooping gray mustache. The last person to handle the Colt 45, once a vibrant young man fighting on the faraway fields of Europe.

Travis saluted the portrait with two fingers, whispered “For luck,” put the gun in his coat, and remembered the bullets. He sifted through the cluttered shelves again. Then he saw the clip, had second thoughts about arming the gun, put the clip and the gun in separate pockets, and banged the glass doors.

“Travis, is that you?” came his mother’s clear voice from the kitchen.

“Damn it,” he swore under his breath. There was no point in trying to sneak out now, so he went in the kitchen and grabbed a cinnamon roll. His mother was standing at the counter with flour all over her hands, and he could feel the bad vibes before she even turned around.

“So you couldn’t make it to Lisa and Ian’s welcome home dinner,” she said.

“No, I had an emergency,” he said.

“Who’s this girl that you took to the hospital?”

“You don’t know her.”

“Where did you take her?”

“Hey, I’m not here for the third degree. I just came by to borrow a book.” Think fast. Mr. Electricity. “That Ben Franklin biography you were reading it a few months ago. What’re you making?”

He could see her fuming.

“Walnut bread,” she said at last. “We have a budget meeting today and we’ll be at the office for hours so I’m bringing something for us to nibble on. That book’s in the living room. Don’t get coffee on it.”

The unopened
Washington Post
sat on the breakfast table. How many newspapers did she take? Another shooting on Capitol Hill. The Redskins and the Cowboys playing at one. He ignored the headlines and thumbed through the city section. The murder they witnessed on Newark Street didn’t make the paper.

“Lisa looked great last night,” she said, kneading the dough. “After they settle in, she can take the Metro and forget about her car.”

He sized up his mother’s perfectly combed hair, her designer sweatshirt, and spotless running shoes that never left the gym. “What do you think about
UFO
s?” he threw out.

She laughed. “Where did that come from?”

“No reason, just asking.”

“Some people want to believe in Santa Claus the rest of their life,” she replied and shaped the dough into a loaf. “When I was a kid I thought Mickey Mouse was real.”

“Mickey Mouse is real. He’s a classic cartoon.”

“Come on, Travis. You know what I mean.”

He opened a bag of potato chips. “How about crop circles, those patterns they find in English fields? Some people think
UFO
s make the patterns when they land.”

“People make those patterns at night with boards. You’re smart. You’re not that gullible. It all has to do with advertising.” She washed her hands and reached for a towel. “People make up these ridiculous stories because they want to sell you something. They probably make money off crop circle tours. It’s the same with haunted houses. The haunted houses on the travel channels are always inns, hotels, and bed-and-breakfasts.”

She turned around, gave him an odd smile as though she wasn’t quite sure about him anymore, and picked up her purse. “I’m going to run out for a couple of things. And get yourself some breakfast. Don’t just eat potato chips.”

The minute she left, he called a cab.

Twenty minutes later, he swung by his house for his cell phone and paid the cab to wait, worried that Lexie would give up and leave the cafe. Foley spun in a circle when he opened the door.

“No, come on, Foley, I can’t take you for a walk right now,” he said, ran upstairs, took a fast shower, changed clothes, found his phone, and ran downstairs again. Annie and Monroe’s voices rose from the basement apartment, arguing about something.

Lexie was waiting at the same marble table in Bustelo and looked glad to see him. “Got it,” he told her and patted his coat.

They circumvented Buchanan House, walked to the next block, and entered Rock Creek Park behind a condominium on Tilden Street. He could still see Buchanan House through the trees and felt relieved when its stone walls passed out of sight.

The weekend had brought people out. Every few minutes they passed hikers and joggers. The laughter of families echoed through the trees. The forest seemed safe near the city, but the voices faded and died out as they went deeper into the woods. Travis grew more and more on edge and questioned their sanity. He kept the gun out at his side.

The sporadic rain over the past week had soaked the land. The creek had spread beyond its banks and formed swampy brown pools under slippery leaves. It would be hard to run if something happened, and there were too many places to hide. The ground rose and fell, concealing whatever lay over the next ridge.

“Maybe we should call Burke,” Lexie said.

He shook his head. “That thing might hear us, too.”

They stopped talking. The sun hung like a gray pearl in the overcast sky and began its descent into afternoon. The muddy creek whispered through the gorge. He expected to see the socks they’d hung in the brush every time they took a turn in the path. But although they followed the creek for hours, they couldn’t find the black triangle again.

Lexie turned around with a desperate look. “There was that boulder, and we left our socks, so we should’ve passed them. We’ve been out here all day.”

“Maybe the deer got the socks.”

“I can’t believe this.” She stared at the woods. “The camouflage was breaking down. We ought to be able to find him again. We should have seen something by now.”

He brushed some leaves from her hair. “I wish I had some answers for you.”

“He’s here somewhere, and he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink, and what if he’s sick? It was in the thirties last night. Promise me you’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Absolutely, of course I will,” he told her, ready to say anything to get her to turn around.

She gave a bitter nod. They set back. The air grew chill after the sun vanished behind a heavy cloudbank. Travis took off his muffler and wrapped it around her shoulders. After an hour, a quiet sound grew behind them. Footfalls on the forest floor. Something scrabbled over the hillside. Silence. Seconds later, it moved again, the unmistakable sounds of claws on rock. Whatever it was snuffled in the leaves and fell still again.