Chuck Logan - Homefront

She lowered her painted eyelids, pursed her painted lips. “Stay on task, Broker. You have to discipline your feral child, remember…punching that kid…”

“Right.” With a slight lump in his throat, he continued through the efficient stations of his kitchen kata, cleaning as he went, doling out the noodles and then the thick sauce, sprinkling on the cheese, pouring milk for Kit, water for Nina and himself. Placing the bottle of dressing next to the salad bowl.

Then he faced his wife across the table, over the relentless, perfectly executed meal he had prepared.

“Dad?” Kit’s voice lanced the moment, needling thin with alarm.

“What?” Broker turned.

“I can’t find Bunny.” Kit came into the kitchen, her forehead a washboard of wrinkles. “She’s not in my bed.”

Broker and Nina exchanged glances. The stuffed animal was a fixture at the dinner table. “Maybe she’s in the truck,” Nina said.

Broker nodded. Sometimes she took the stuffed animal to and from school, left it in the backseat. “Go check the truck. It should be open. And while you’re out there, bring Ditech back inside.”

Kit’s mood immediately rebounded. She darted out the door into the garage and called, “Hey, Ditech, where are you, you naughty kitty-”

Broker turned to Nina and raised his hands in a shrug. In less than a minute Kit was back, face bright with cold, her forehead still creased with concern.

“No Bunny. And Dad, there’s something wrong with the truck.”

Now Broker’s forehead was stamped with wrinkles. What?

“The tire’s flat,” Kit said. “And I can’t find Ditech. She’s gone .” Kit’s accusing tone brought Broker to his feet.

“Naw, she’s just hiding-”

“No, she isn’t. I don’t hear her bell. C’mere, look,” Kit demanded.

Broker followed Kit into the garage. She extended her arm, finger pointing.

Then he saw what she was pointing at as he felt the blast of cold air. The back door to the garage was open, filled with a sudden frenzy of snow.

“You left the door open,” Kit said. “There’s critters out there, and she’s just a little kitty.”

“Get inside, it’s cold out here,” Broker said.

“ Right, Dad.” Arms folded, Kit stalked back into the house and began to cry.

Broker went through the open door. More alert now, he stood on the cold back deck, letting his eyes adjust to the gathering dark. Then he scanned the edge of the forest that abutted the backyard. His fingers moved to the key on the thong around his neck.

He was absolutely certain the door had been closed.

But not locked.

After confirming the flat, he went back inside and told Nina, “Those tires are practically brand-new.” He reached for his coat, flipped on the yard light. As he went through the garage, searching for the cat, he thought back over the day, trying to fix on a road event. At the school, maybe? Distracted, had he run up on the curb? That could bust the seams on a radial.

No cat.

He stood in the drive and stared at the Toyota’s swayback posture. The left rear tire mashed flat. Focusing. If he climbed the curb this morning, it would have been the right front…

He shivered in a gust of wind. The shiver moved deeper, under his skin; he was merely annoyed, innate suspicion a deeper shift and stir. He looked up at the black rumpled clouds, suffused with early moonlight. Shivered again. He’d need his gloves.

Back in the kitchen, he took the time to address Kit, who sat glumly picking at her food. “Don’t worry, we’ll find Old Bun.” Then he added one of his mom’s lines from his own childhood. “Nothing gets lost in the house.”

“What about kitty?” Kit demanded.

“I’ll put some food in a bowl on the back deck.” To Nina he just threw a workmanlike shrug. “Gotta change a flat. Might as well get it out of the way. You guys go on with dinner. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Nina raised her hand as if trying to snag an elusive thought from midair. Then she said, “Take out the garbage, pickup in the morning.”

He nodded. “Good catch.” A positive sign. She was making ordinary connections. But he had his own connections going. As he went out the door, instinct directed his hand toward the heavy-duty flashlight hanging on a lanyard under the shelf where they kept the gloves and hats.

Because…

He just didn’t remember hitting anything that could take out a big honking new snow tire. So before he unloaded the jack and wrenches, he walked carefully around the truck, inspecting the tracks in the mashed snow. He recognized the cleat marks of his Eccos, Kit’s Sorels. Nothing out of place there. He removed the full-size spare from the undercarriage.

As he pried off the hubcap and loosened the lugs, it continued working on him. He fiddled in the snowpack, making sure it was secure where he set the jack, levered up the jack handle. As the truck heaved up, the obvious racheted up in his mind. He was staring right at it. Stenciled in white type on the side of the rolling garbage bin next to the garage. Klumpe Sanitation.

The only thing he’d hit today, in a manner of speaking, was Klumpe.

Efficiently Broker changed the tire, lowered the truck, stowed his tools, and then minutely inspected the pancaked flat with his flashlight. If there was a puncture, it was out of sight, buried deep between the new tread. He tossed the flat in the truck bed, dusted off his work gloves, turned up his collar. Getting colder, the snow starting to squeak under his boots.

Slowly he wheeled the tall garbage bin down the long drive and positioned it, handles back. He scanned up and down the muzzy white ribbon of road. The ridge of snow the plow had thrown up was undisturbed, no sign of a vehicle having stopped on the shoulder near his house.

Okay. Broker fingered the tinfoil pouch of rough-wrapped cigars from his pocket, removed one of the stogies, took out his lighter, and lit up. Slow walk back up the drive.

The usual cautions. Don’t assume. Probably nothing. Still…Klumpe came across as a rube who might strike out. Nutty wife egging him on.

So take a look around, walk the perimeter. Broker retrieved the flashlight and walked a circuit of the house, keeping an eye out for the cat. A few minutes later the flashlight beam picked up a wet yellow-green glare, out of place against the snow. Next to the unused doghouse behind the garage.

Broker stooped and inspected the frozen gob of meat resting in a pool of unfrozen liquid in a brown bowl. He could see the red residue of tomato soup still clinging to the bowl’s rim.

Same bowl he’d served Kit lunch in today. Before they went out skiing…when Nina was sleeping upstairs…

Broker immediately switched off the flashlight, a deeper reserve of energy kicking in. He strained his eyes, tracking the tree line, adjusting to the dark.

Had someone been in the house?

When he arrived back at his truck, Gator stowed his skis in the back, got in, started it up, and cranked the heater all the way over. He blew on his chilled fingers, stroked the warmth on his right side, where the kitty nestled in his pocket. Lit a Camel.

While he waited for the heater to kick in, curious, he removed the folder from under his jacket. Flipped it open.

Hmmm…

Suddenly he didn’t need the heater to warm up.

Gator, who considered himself as an entrepreneur, had done time for transporting cocaine, which he saw as a purely economic gamble. A way to make a lot of money fast to finance his own shop. He’d accepted prison as a penalty for flawed planning. He’d never used coke or anything stronger than the occasional social beer. He believed that stuff about genetic predispositions; given his old man, he eventually gave up even the beer and drew the line at caffeine and nicotine. So he’d never really felt a drug rush.