J. Gonzalez - They

Frank told him what happened. He spoke slowly, at first not looking at Vince as he began the story. But as he told it Vince sat down on another chair and Tracy sat on the desk next to Vince. They held hands, listening calmly and patiently as Frank told them about getting Mike’s frantic call, his arrival at the house, and Mike’s panicked state. He told them about the condition the house was in, the blood on the floor in the bathroom, the signs of a struggle. He told them about their search for the second key to the safe deposit box, about Mike’s frantic grief. “I brought him back here and put Valium in his drink so he would chill out,” he concluded. “And then I called you.” He’d straightened his posture around the middle of the narrative, but now that he concluded it he slouched down a little bit. “I didn’t think we should be alone tonight. Plus, I thought maybe we should go to Mike’s friend Billy with what we have now. We have enough documentation to take to him. It’s all circumstantial, but…” He shrugged. “I’m hoping it’ll be enough.”

Tracy looked concerned; Vince looked alarmed. “This is getting too big.” He looked at Tracy, his eyes wide. “The more this goes on the scarier this shit is getting. It’s like everywhere we turn something else is just hitting us.”

“Okay, let’s put some of this in perspective,” Tracy said. Whatever anger she had had upon entering the room seemed mostly gone as her tone of voice became serious. She still ignored Frank as she spoke mostly to Vince, but Frank could tell she was including him in her observations as well. “You haven’t called the police yet, which is a good thing. I’ve got a feeling that if you did they might have put two-and-two together and hauled you in for the shooting back in PA. Two, there is the shooting investigation to still think about. Have either of you been watching the news since you got back?”

Frank shook his head. “Not much. I scanned CNN a few hours ago and went online to see if there’s anything new and there’s nothing.”

“Okay, so I guess we have to assume they’re still looking for you.” Tracy turned to Vince.

“What about Mike?” Vince asked.

“My first concern was getting him out of his house,” Frank said. “Far as I knew, they could have been waiting for us in there. It looked like whoever hit the place did it a few days ago. The house was locked up and had that stuffiness a house gets when it’s been closed up for awhile.”

Tracy nodded. As much as Frank didn’t want to admit it, she was very much a part of the equation now. “So you think they broke in when his wife was home? You think they kidnapped her or something?”

Frank shrugged. “ Something happened. There was blood all over the bathroom and the master bedroom.”

“No sign of forced entry, right?” Vince asked.

“No.” Frank frowned. “Mike said he let himself in, just like always. The minute he walked in he saw the place was trashed.”

“I wonder if she let them in,” Tracy mused. She leaned against the desk. “You know, maybe they knocked on the door and she answered it and they forced their way in. They chased her upstairs and got her in the bathroom.”

“It’s possible.”

“You’re sure they took the key to that safe deposit box?” Vince asked Frank.

“Yeah.” Frank nodded, glancing at Mike. “We looked all over for it. Mike’s pretty sure they took it.”

“So they knew he was working on this, that he’s been keeping information on the investigation,” Vince continued. “That means they know about us.”

“That’s why I thought we should be together tonight,” Frank said. “You know, safety in numbers.”

“What do we do with him in the meantime?” Tracy motioned to Mike.

“Fuck if I know. I know the first thing we should do is go to his bank tomorrow and see if we can get to that safe deposit box. He has another key. Besides, I think he wigged out a little too hard about that thing. If his signature was the only one on file, nobody else can access it, even his wife. The bank would need some kind of death certificate or something for them to allow anybody else access to it.”

Vince nodded. “That’s true.” He looked down at Mike’s sleeping figure. “How long you think he’ll be out.”

“Till tomorrow morning.”

“So there’s nothing to do ’till then,” Vince said.

“Nope.”

“And we’re not going to the police,” Tracy said, addressing the statement to Vince and Frank.

Vince glanced at Frank, who shrugged. “No. I don’t think we should. Not yet. Going to the cops is going to cause a bunch of shit.”

“I still think we should seriously consider going to William,” Frank urged. “Tonight, if possible.”

“Who’s William?” Tracy asked.

“That’s not your concern now,” Frank said, dismissing her question. He was looking at Vince. “I went through Mike’s shit after I called you and found William’s phone number. Haven’t gotten around to calling him yet.”

“It’s pretty late,” Tracy said, her voice low, soft. “It might be best to wait to call him in the morning.”

“She has a point,” Vince said. “What time is it?”

“Well after midnight,” Frank said. “Okay, we call him at eight o’clock sharp.”

“What do we do next?” Vince joined Tracy at the desk.

Frank regarded the couple. As much as he didn’t like having Tracy Harris here, he was stuck with her. He sighed. “I guess we crash here tonight and wait for tomorrow.”

Mike was sprawled on one side of a king-size bed. “You guys want to sleep on the floor, you can have some blankets and an extra pillow.” Frank picked up a pillow from the bed and threw it at Vince. “We should probably get some sleep.”

Which they did after a few hours of lying in the darkness. Frank lay down on his side of the king sized bed staring up at the ceiling. He’d checked the lock on the door and the windows, and they were secure. Vince and Tracy settled down on the floor in the clothes they were wearing. They were using one of the pillows from the bed, a cushion from one of the chairs, and a sheet. Frank didn’t look at them and made no attempt at starting a conversation as they lay in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. He was still angry with Vince for breaking their pact and bringing Tracy into the fold. The fewer people who knew about their investigation of the Children, the better. Especially now that their security appeared to be breached.

He thought about the breakin at Mike’s. As much as he tried to tell himself that it could be a random act, that Carol might have been the victim of a crime unrelated to the cult, something told him that wasn’t the case. Something had happened there. And it had happened when the three of them were flying to Pennsylvania. Frank wondered if Mike and Carol’s kids knew their father was leaving town; he wondered if they’d tried calling their parents or stopping by in the past few days. How many kids did Mike and Carol have anyway? Frank tried to remember. Two sons, maybe a daughter. They were all within his age range, so they were probably married with families of their own now. Surely one of them had to still live in the area. Even then, it might still be a day or two before one of them got suspicious and decided to drop by mom and dad’s to pay an unexpected visit.

The rasping sound of snoring made Frank turn his head to the floor. Vince was asleep. Tracy’s eyes were closed but Frank didn’t think she was asleep yet. He turned back and closed his eyes, thinking of Mike and Carol and their kids, his own wife and kids, and hoping that letting Tracy into the fold wasn’t going to do any more damage than was already being done, and then he was asleep.