Chuck Logan - Homefront

Broker looked off through the silent trees in the direction of the asshole skier. The guy had vanished. The small crisis passed. “You’re on,” he said.

Kit took the lead, and he made a production of staying just behind her, goading her faster, as they herringboned up the incline. He watched her breath surge in tight white bursts next to her green cap as she half ran the hill. Broker was reminded of something he’d learned long ago; how the Vietnamese wrote their prayers on slips of paper and burned them. Because the ghosts of their ancestors could only read smoke.

They reached the top, and a minute later the trail forked; beginners to the left, advanced to the right. Without hesitation Kit dug in her poles and plunged toward the steep downhill they’d nicknamed Suicide One. Broker double-poled to catch up, tucked into the slope, and heard Kit’s exhilarated squeal echo in the trees. Her breath streamed over her shoulder, and in that exuberant white cloud Broker, giddy with the rush downhill, read a happy answer to a long prayer.

The journey that had brought them here was terrible, but finally the long separation had ended and they were together, living under one roof. Then Kit came down too fast on the steep bend at the bottom of the run and misjudged shifting into her step turn. Her left ski wobbled out of control, and she lurched in front of Broker, who was on her too fast. He tried an impossible hockey stop. No way. They tumbled together into a snowbank in a tangle of poles, skis, and laughter.

Gator put a few hundred yards of twisting trail between him and the man and the kid and then slowed, stopped, and leaned on his poles. He panted, catching his breath after the near collision at the bottom of the hill. That was fun, but now he was more than a little intrigued. Not so much the way the guy called him an asshole like that. He could let that pass under the circumstances. He’d gone by too fast and nearly creamed the kid. But he managed to get a good look at the guy. And there was something about the way his hard eyes peeped out from his gaunt face and thick Ernie Kovacs eyebrows. Suspicious, judgmental, a little too in charge. Cop’s eyes, his gut told him.

Like Cassie said, something that didn’t fit.

So maybe go in a little deeper, see what these folks are about. He figured he had about an hour, maybe more, if they skied the whole loop.

He skied back and turned in at the connecting trail, stepped into the parallel tracks, and skied up to the trees at the edge of the yard. He watched the house for five minutes. No shadows moved in the windows. His eyes went back and forth between the house and the new Toyota truck parked in front of the garage.

Go in, see if you can get a look at the wife.

But stay practical. Think. The house invaders he’d met in the joint always said, first, you look for the dog. Gator looked again. No piles of crap in the yard, no evidence of tracks. Just the green Toyota Tundra in the drive. He stowed his skis and pack out of sight and pulled the roomy felt liners over his ski boots.

He walked in crooked on the tracks already in the yard up to the garage, peeked in the side window. No other car. Maybe the wife was out on errands? He crossed to the back deck, went up the steps, and knocked on the sliding patio door. Waited a minute. No one came. He tried the door. It slid open.

Okay, dude. This is what’s called a threshold for a guy with a parole officer. And home invasions had never been his thing. So take some precautions. He knocked again and called out. “Anybody home?” If the wife appeared, he’d ask to use the phone. Say his cell phone battery went dead. Say he fell on the ski trail, hurt his knee, needed to arrange a ride.

No sound, no wife. Gator went in silently on his felt booties and-shit! — froze when he heard a tinkling bell. A black kitten appeared in the doorway at the end of the kitchen. Gator vibrated alert, straining his ears. All he heard was the bell move off into the next room. Then go silent.

He stopped, perplexed. He could see killing a dog if there was a reason. But a kitty? He’d have to think about that. He smiled. Starting to enjoy the thrill, he went deeper into the house. Past the kitchen there was a small room that held bookcases and a desk with a fax machine and stacks of envelopes, a checkbook, stamps. Paying the bills, it looked like. He studied a stack of cardboard boxes piled next to the desk. The top one held an old high school yearbook, some books, and a few frayed manila folders. Some kind of paperwork. Like they weren’t really unpacked. Not really settled in.

He continued into the living room. Christ, more piles of boxes against the wall. Renters, Cassie said, so all this stuff was Griffin’s. Futon couch and chairs. A quilt hanging on one wall was interesting; a pattern of black, red, and white stitching that Gator found appealing.

But he wasn’t a thief. And, besides, they’d miss it right off. He continued through the living room and paused at the foot of the stairs to the second floor.

“Hello,” he called again, looking up the stairs. “Your back door was open, and I wondered if I could use your phone…”

No response. Dead quiet here.

Come this far, might as well go up and have a look. Probably no one home. God, I love this shit. Stepping carefully, he climbed the stairs. A tiny hall, two doors. The door to the right was open. Where the kid slept. Yellow comforter on a twin-size bed, a gallery of stuffed animals arranged above the fold. Not much on the walls for a kid’s room. More cardboard boxes spilling toys and clothes.

Gator turned to the other bedroom on the left. The door was ajar.

And there she was, asleep at one in the afternoon, flung face down. A redhead. Hard to tell what she looked like, with her face flattened out on the tangled sheets, surrounded by a frizz of hair that needed a wash. Her ass made a tidy swell in her purple pajama bottoms, but the effect was spoiled by the dark bath of sweat that pasted her gray T-shirt to her shoulder blades. He tiptoed into the room and stared down at her. He made a face when he heard her labored breathing and saw the sheets under her head soaked with sweat. Beads of it like a wet headband, starting at the roots of her hair. His eyes moved away, and he noticed a stack of books on the bedside table.

Darkness Visible by William Styron. A Memoir of Madness. And a fat red volume: DSM-IV. He squinted, his lips moving as he read the subtext on the thick spine: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Fourth Edition.

Hmmmm. Real fun folks Cassie had run into here.

Oh-oh! The woman shifted on the bed. Gator froze as he watched her twist at the waist, one arm flung above her head, turning, the other arm coming across and flopping on the edge of the bed, the limp fingers almost grazing the pant leg of his camos.

He started. Jesus!

Not her face, which he could see now and which was not half bad as far as he could see, eyes still clamped shut in troubled sleep. Shit, no, it was the faded type printed across the front of shirt, like a sweat-soaked pennant stretched between the mounds of her tits:

EAST METRO DRUG TASK FORCE.

Sonofabitch! What have we got here?

Gator reeled as his mind tacked out, going from zero to sixty in a second flat. Had to concentrate to keep his balance. He backed quietly from the room, rocked by a weird hilarity that alternated with a pure spooky sensation. In the hall his eyes traveled over the kid’s bed, and he had an inspiration. Riding the impulse, he entered the room and plucked a worn blue-and-white-striped bunny from among the toys tucked into the fold of the bed. Then he hurried down the stairs, wanting to get out fast…but couldn’t resist shuffling through the paperwork on the desk next to the kitchen door.