As he stood up, she leaned back on the couch and looked around their pretty living room with deep satisfaction. “Isn’t it wonderful to be back home, Bradley? California was great, but three months was much too long, don’t you think?”
God, did he ever agree with that, thought Brad, but he merely nodded.
“Sandwiches for supper okay with you?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll try not to be too long.”
Once in the car, though, he hesitated about which way to go. The office first, he decided, brushing back the strands of dark hair that fell across his forehead. Janice didn’t exactly keep tabs on him, but it wouldn’t hurt for the guard on the desk to be able to tell her he’d been in if she should call.
And then?
He had been so careful over the years. Never a single slip. And then there was the extra precaution he’d taken when he married Janice, a precaution that worked so well he’d come to rely on it and eventually take it for granted. It never once occurred to him that those extra weeks in California that the company had tacked onto his original assignment could be his undoing. He should have read the fine print, but who knew? And where did he go from here? He’d made himself face that guy Friday night and where had it gotten him? He should have stayed away.
But maybe it was going to be all right. It was almost forty-eight hours and no one had come looking for him. No reason for Dwight Bryant or anyone else to connect him to a sordid little carnival murder.
Reason said to just leave it alone, but fear made him remember the fingerprints, the pictures, and all the other details that could bring his world crashing down.
“How’d Lamarr find this place anyhow?” Stevie asked Eric as they drove slowly past the deserted-looking house and its collection of outbuildings, set down in the middle of nowhere.
“Aw, you can find anything on the Internet. He looked up Ames Amusement Corporation and found their schedule. So last week, when the carnival was over in Rocky Mount, he got tight with one of the brothers that helps set up the rides, got him talking over a couple of beers after hours. The guy’d been here to help pick up a generator. He remembered the road because it was such a dumb name, and Lamarr checked it out. Only place on the road that fit the description.”
They came to the end of Fannie Feather Road.
“Probably somebody’s sweet old grandmother,” said Eric.
“Or somebody’s favorite stripper,” said Stevie as they circled around the stop sign.
They hadn’t met a single car the whole length of the road. Things might be booming in the western part of Colleton County, but here on the eastern edge, it was still pretty much untouched farmland and third-growth wood lots.
Lamarr Wrenn was in the white van in front of them. The plan was that they’d cruise past twice, and if they didn’t see anyone, they’d drive into the yard and honk the horn. If anyone came to the door, they’d pretend they were lost and ask for directions to a nonexistent friend’s house.
“There he goes,” Eric whispered as the van turned into the long drive, through scraggly bushes that almost hid the place from the road.
With heavy misgivings, Stevie followed.
They had been speaking in such low voices that the sudden horn blast made them jump.
“Jesus!” Stevie said.
“Amen!” Eric agreed fervently.
Lamarr sounded the horn again and still no one appeared in the door. No curtain twitched. There wasn’t even a dog to bark.
With that, the van moved forward, down the rutted sandy lane that led to the sheds out back. This, too, was part of their plan: get the Jeep and the van out of sight behind the barns and then reconnoiter till they found what they had come for.
Lamarr drove in behind the furthermost structure, through thick weeds that looked as if they hadn’t been mowed all summer, and when Stevie swung around him, pointing the Jeep out for a quick exit if needed, Lamarr gave him a thumbs-up and repositioned his own vehicle. Built like a linebacker, Lamarr got out of the van and handed them each a pair of latex gloves like the ones he was already wearing.
Eric rolled his eyes. “You been watching too much television, man.”
“No, he’s right,” Stevie said as he slipped them on. “No point leaving them a business card.”
They fanned out, each checking the open or unlocked sheds that held gaudily painted signs and boards, boxes of stuffed toys, a popcorn maker with the glass missing from its sides, and bits and pieces of old carnival games and stands. At one locked door, all they had to do was tap the pin from the hinges to peek inside. The space behind was stacked with crazy mirrors from a fun house, so they carefully replaced the pins.
Finally, nothing was left but the shed they’d parked behind, the one shed with a hefty padlock. It stood a foot off the ground on rock supports. The windows were too high to look through even standing up in the Jeep and balancing on the roll bar. Worse, the door was hinged from the inside.
Lamarr reached into the back of his van and pulled out a tire iron.
“I don’t know, guys,” said Stevie. “So far, all we’ve done is trespassed. This knocks it up to breaking and entering.”
“No pain, no gain,” said Lamarr, sliding the flat end of the tire iron up under the hasp.
Before he could put some muscle into it and lever the hasp right out of the wood, Eric said urgently, “Somebody’s coming!”
Out on the road, a car slowed down and they heard it enter the brush-lined drive. As one, they dived back
