“Shh,” he said. “Keep your eyes closed.” It was, in fact, the first time his beeper had ever gone off, since so few people had the number. He had bought it almost a year ago, so that one person could get in touch with him. Dillon.
He ran his hands down the woman’s new knee, deeply massaging her calf, and flexing her ankle. Her foot was still in the process of regenesis. He massaged the emergent tarsals, until the five nubs elongated into toes.
“All better now,” he said, standing up.
The woman looked down, and gasped. In a moment she was up, testing her new leg, walking on it, bursting into tears.
Winston quickly reached into his pocket, pulled out the pager, and read the alpha-numeric message.
And the message was signed
Dillon! Winston’s heart skipped a beat, and he began to calculate the fastest path from Bel Air to the mountain community of Lake Arrowhead, a two-hour journey, at least.
The woman was now absorbed in ballet moves, watching herself in a full-length mirror. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.
“I do.” Winston approached her, and handed her a slip of paper that contained a bank account number.
“Whatever you feel it was worth, deposit in this account,” he said. “And when people ask, don’t tell them anything.” Then Winston showed himself out.
At dawn, Winston drove past the Lake Arrowhead address three times before finding it. The deteriorating cabin just off the hillside road was hidden behind a gauntlet of overgrown pines, and appeared as unloved as a place could be, except for the fact that a shiny red SUV sat in the driveway.
It only took a moment for Winston to make the connection— something he should have considered from the moment he received the page—but he had so wanted it to be a message from Dillon, that he neglected to consider that the initials D.C. could belong to more than one person.
Winston knocked on a door painted a deep rustic blue, and peeling like eucalyptus bark. When he received no answer, he knocked again. This time a very tired voice beckoned from within. “Come in. The door’s open.”
Winston slowly pushed open the door to reveal a figure sitting in the gray shadows of the cabin. He couldn’t see the face, but he knew who it was. Drew Camden sat lazily in a rocking chair, his feet up on a coffee table, gently pushing himself back and forth.
“Welcome to my humble commode,” said Drew.
Winston stepped closer, his eyes beginning to adjust to the dawn yawning through the dusty windows. He tried a light switch, to no success.
“Don’t bother,” said Drew. “My parents haven’t paid the electric bill on this place for years. I think they’ve forgotten they own it.”
What Winston had first taken to be a coffee table in front of Drew was actually a foot-locker, strangely out of place in the faded country furnishing of the cottage.
“Three and a half hours,” said Drew. “Wherever you were, you made good time.”
The casual laziness to Drew’s voice was markedly off, and there was a bloody dressing encircling his left forearm.
“Twenty-three stitches. I told my parents I ran into a gate while jogging. The simplest lies are the best.”
On the edge of the foot-locker sat an orange vial of pills. Winston reached for it, but it was too dark to read the label.
“Vicodin,” volunteered Drew. “Takes away the pain and a whole lot more.”
“How many of these did you take, Drew?”
“Oh . . . more than I should have, but not enough to kill me.” He took a glance at the foot locker. “Can’t numb everything, though.”
Looking at Drew made his own arm hurt. Winston rolled his neck, and rubbed his eyes. The looming dawn was no friend to Winston today. Not when he hadn’t slept for almost two days.
“You paged me, Drew, and I came. Would you mind telling me why I’m here?”
Drew looked away for a moment, then angled his eyes toward Winston again. “I want to talk about my mother.”
Winston sighed. “I’m not your therapist.”
“My mother began packing things away in our house last week,” Drew said, ignoring him. “First it was just old clothes, but once she got started, it was like she couldn’t stop. She boxed clothes we still wore, kitchen utensils, plates, crystal. I come home from school, and half the house is neatly packed away in boxes. ‘What’s the matter, Ma,’ I say. ‘Are we moving?’ ‘No’ she says, sitting at the table, drinking coffee, ‘just getting our affairs in order.’ She doesn’t know why she’s getting her affairs in order. She just is. Like the way my father cleaned out a year’s worth of crap in his downstairs office. Getting his affairs in order.”
Winston sighed. This was nothing new. It was no more strange than the millions of other people sensing an end to the comfortable paved roads of their lives; a coming evil they dared not consider in their conscious life.
“What do you want me to tell you, Drew?”
“I want you to tell me what the hell is going on. Why is everyone suddenly acting like someone just canceled our lease on the planet? And what is Dillon doing about it? He’s the one who holds things together isn’t he? ‘The King of Cohesion.’ Isn’t that’s why he’s here? Isn’t that why you’re all here? Or are you just going to watch as everything turns to shit?”
“Hey, I’ve got my own troubles, so if you called just to bitch at me, you can take your attitude and shove it up your ass.”
Drew smiled a slow, sedated grin. “Looks like we’ve both earned bitching privileges these past few days.” Drew took a deep breath, pumping enough oxygen to his brain to sober him. “Sit down. There’s things we’ve got to talk about. Important things.”
Winston crossed his arms. “I’m listening.”
“Trust me,” said Drew. “You’re going to want to sit down.”
Reluctantly Winston pulled up a musty high-backed chair, and took a seat across from Drew. The cushion stank of mildew.
“Ever hear of someone named Vicki Sanders?”
Winston shook his head. “Should I have?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Drew reached beside him, picked up a backpack, and tossed it to Winston. “Take a look.”
Winston peered into the pack before reaching inside, as if whatever it held might bite. Inside he found some paperwork from a funeral home, a plot plan of a grave yard, and a red bible with a gold Gideon stamp.
“Stealing a hotel bible, Drew? That’s low.”
“It’s not mine. Check the inside cover.”
Winston opened it to find that someone had used the watermark as a note pad, filling it with various phone numbers, and doodles. The only name on the page was that of Vicki Sanders, but there was no phone number beside the name.
“The blueprints are of Corona Del Mar Memorial Park.” Drew said. “The circled grave belongs to Michael. And this backpack belonged to the man who tried to rob his grave.”
Winston snapped his eyes up from the backpack in surprise, but it quickly resolved into resignation.
“Reason enough for the bat signal?”
Winston flipped through the bible, but found no other marks beyond the ones on the inside cover. “Who was he?”
“His name is Martin Briscoe, and he’s pretty damn self-important. Even more self-important than you. He said he was on some kind of mission. Now do you want to hear the creepy part?”
Winston wondered if there was any part of this story that wasn’t creepy. “Sure, why not.”
“He said he had to destroy Michael’s remains.”
The morning sun did nothing to carry away the chill of the news. Even in death could there be no rest for
