Back yards seemed to stretch on forever as he traipsed through the woods. Even in the comfort of his borrowed Reeboks, the cuts and bruises on the soles of his feet were reasserting themselves. In time, he reached the end of the existing construction, and could see before him where a new section of town-homes would be built. At that spot, the woods ended, opening up into a huge open swath of dirt, excavated basements and construction materials.
Forty-one twenty was at the end of the cul-de-sac located on the other side of Little Rocky Trail from where he was right now. His plan had been to make entry from the rear of the house, accessing it by walking in a big circle through the woods until he wound up where he needed to be. Now, he realized, the construction made that impossible.
He faced a new set of choices. If he crossed through the construction zone, he’d be sure to be seen, probably by some security guard, and this game would be over. He rejected that option first. Another possibility would have been to stay in the woods and walk all the way around the periphery of the construction cut until he ended up where he needed to be. Problem was, he couldn’t tell how long or how far that would take him. From where he stood, he couldn’t see the far edge of the construction.
Nathan decided it was time to be bold. He straightened his shoulders, combed his hair with his fingernails, and just walked out of the woods, looking for all the world like he belonged there.
Todd Briscow tossed the wad of paper towels into the kitchen trash, then stared at his hand as though to figure out where to throw it out next. His wife, Patty, was busy looking for the carpet stain remover while their six-year-old son and one-year-old Labrador cowered together across the room.
“Dammit, Peter,” Todd cursed as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink, “how many times have I told you to put away food after you use it?” The dog had just barfed up an entire jar of strawberry preserves that young Peter had left out on the counter after fixing himself some toast. And, of course, because they were finally able to afford the Persian rug they’d been saving to buy, that was the precise location the dog had selected as its vomitorium.
Peter wisely chose to say nothing, staying well out of range, and well protected by his only friend in the family right then.
When Patty returned from the basement with the stain remover, she was lockjawed with anger. Todd checked his watch for the hundredth time this morning and said exactly the wrong thing, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.
“Patty, I’ve really got to go. It’s nearly six, the Reischmann proposal begins at eight, and I’ve still got view graphs to print.”
“Why, of course you have to go,” Patty replied icily. “There’s work to be done around the house, isn’t there?”
Her words were a blatant attempt to pick a fight, leveraging the neverending argument centered around the you-never-do-anything-I’m-always-stuck-with-the-rotten-jobs theme. The premise of the argument was as true as it was false. His work as an account executive for the telephone company kept him working most nights and weekends, but he tried his best to factor in family time. It was the major frustration of his life that he no longer controlled his time—the one element he valued most over all the others. What time he had left after doing his job was controlled by Patty and her assigned chores. To be sure, there were hours left at the end of each day, but his body demanded that he dedicate those to sleep.
He declined to take the bait, choosing instead to ignore her comment. She was as stressed as he was, and that damned rug meant a whole lot to her. When he bent down to kiss her goodbye, she turned her face away. He kissed her on the neck anyway.
“I’m really sorry, Patty, but I’ve got to go,” he said. He picked up his briefcase and walked toward the garage, pausing for a moment at the door. “I hope you learned something from this, Peter,” he said to his son, who remained silent on the far side of the room. “And Patty?”
She looked up from her task, her eyes still hard.
“Please don’t kill the dog.” Through the mask of anger, he saw the faintest glimmer of a smile. He blew her a kiss and left.
The garage was like a sauna, the unmoving air instantly bringing beads of sweat to Todd’s forehead. Even as the overhead door rumbled open, there was no relief, not the slightest trace of a breeze. It was on days like this that Todd wondered how he ever grew up without air conditioning.
As he backed down the driveway, he admired his landscaping efforts from the previous weekend. After three months of watching the house rise from its origins as a plot of dirt, and only four weeks after closing on the mortgage, the house was beginning to look like a home, like someone actually lived there. He half hoped that Patty and Peter would appear in the window to wave goodbye, but a glance back caught no evidence of a curtain parting.
Little Rocky Creek was turning out to be a terrific place to live. The neighbors all knew each other, and everyone seemed to be at the same stages of their lives: young professionals struggling to establish themselves, and every month barely scraping together the cash necessary for the mortgage payment on these, their starter homes. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood, no crime to speak of, and a strong community spirit that bonded everyone together.
Who’s that?
A boy, maybe twelve, thirteen years old, was crossing the street in his direction. The face looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place it with any of the families in the neighborhood. But then, Todd didn’t know too many of the folks who lived up in the first section that was built. He was a good-looking kid, long and thin with disheveled blond hair, but there was something in the way he carried himself that made Todd think he was up to no good.
By the time Nathan saw the car approach, there was nothing he could do. His first instinct was to run and duck out of sight, but his last opportunity to do that without being seen came and went in the two seconds it took to consider the option. All he could do was try and blend in. He didn’t even alter his stride as he crossed the street, though he did change his course to head back toward the front part of the neighborhood. No sense showing this guy where he was going.
The Chevy approached from behind him on the left, slowing ever so slightly as it passed. Nathan smiled politely and waved.
Todd waved back. The kid looked normal enough, and he certainly wasn’t trying to run away. Just a tired kid on his way home from whatever a kid that age could be on his way home from at this hour of the morning. One thing was for sure, Todd thought: When Peter got to be that age, he was going to be kept on a tight leash.
As he accelerated toward the end of the street, Todd’s thoughts turned to the Reischmann proposal, and the details of how he was going to structure his presentation. He never even looked back in the mirror.
As soon as the Chevy was out of sight, Nathan made a right-angle turn and headed back for the woods, suppressing his urge to run. Once back in the comfort of shade and obscurity, he leaned his back against a tree and slumped to the ground, taking a minute or two to collect himself.
“That was stupid!” he declared in a whisper, banging the back of his head against the tree bark. “I never should have gone out in the open! What’ll I do if that guy recognized me?”
Just one more thing to worry about over which he had no control. He hated himself for making so many mistakes. In the past twenty-four hours, luck alone had pulled him through every challenge. One of these times, luck was going to look the other way, and he was going to have to engineer his own solution. His head told him that it was useless to worry about things he couldn’t change, but these were things that could get him thrown back in jail, or even killed. That was why you needed grown-ups, he figured, to help keep it all in perspective. That was why he was so lonely without one around.