Leslie Tentler - Edge of Midnight

“It was the only one that never came.”

Allan Levi entered the fastidiously neat ranch house.

“Mother? I’m home,” he called, closing the front door behind him. He noticed the interior was too warm, which wasn’t surprising since Gladys was always claiming to be cold and tampering with the thermostat. At least her frugality kept the air-conditioning bills low. Carrying the white paper bag with Walker’s Pharmacy printed on its side, he followed the television noise until he found her sitting at the kitchen table. Her gaunt frame wrapped in a floral housecoat, she was watching the small set on the counter, which she seemed to favor over the larger one in the living room.

“There you are.” Allan bent to kiss the top of her gray head, catching a whiff of baby powder and White Shoulders cologne. He ignored the low warning growl of Puddles, her arthritic Chihuahua, who was curled into a dog bed on the floor nearby.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she accused. Her eyes remained glued to a religious talk show. “You’ve left me alone all day.”

“You’ve been on your own for three hours,” he corrected. “I had some errands to run. I told you that, remember?”

“Did you get my medicine?”

He gave the bag a shake so the plastic pill vials rattled inside it.

“Humph. Took you long enough.”

“I went into the city to get a television for repair. They’re paying fifty extra for pickup and delivery.”

Allan moved to the sink and washed his hands, taking care to scrub under his fingernails with a small, stiff-bristled brush before drying off with a paper towel. Then he sat in the chair across from Gladys. Depositing the bag’s contents onto the table, he began the process of placing pills and capsules into the lidded, plastic case that helped him keep up with which medications she had to take and when. There were morning, noon and evening compartments for every day of the week. It was tedious, but he didn’t mind the task so much. In fact, he rather enjoyed the order of it.

One red, one blue, one pink.

As he worked, he noticed Gladys had rolled her mobile oxygen canister into the kitchen. The tubing and cannula hung around her flaccid throat like a necklace, however, unused. His eyes slid to the counter. An ashtray sat next to the sink. “Have you been smoking again, Mother?”

“Shush,” she said irritably, waving him off. “I can’t hear my program.”

“I didn’t move all the way back down here to watch you blow yourself up.” Allan frowned. He would have to talk to the cleaning woman—he knew it was that dirty Mexican whore sneaking cigarettes to her and at probably quite a profit. Normally, it would be enough to send him into a rage, but he reminded himself he had a lot for which to be thankful.

For starters, there could be law enforcement crawling all over the place right now.

He placed the last capsule into its proper slot.

“I’m going to my workshop,” he announced, referring to the cinder-block building in back of the property, nestled among the tall pines.

“You spend too much time out there,” Gladys criticized as he rose from the table. She finally looked at him, her watery blue eyes narrowing suspiciously in her lined face. From his vantage point, the droop to the right side of her mouth was clearly visible, a result of the stroke she’d suffered three years ago.

“I need to get started on that television—”

“Boy like you, with an expensive college degree I paid for.” She shook her head, fretful. “And here you are. No wife or kids and not much of a job, if you ask me. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.’”

He felt his face heat. “I do work, Mother. I’m self-employed. And I take care of you now, too. That’s a job in itself. I’ll be back at five to make you dinner. We’ll have spaghetti with meat sauce—how does that sound?”

Gladys remained sullenly silent. The Chihuahua growled again as Allan left through the kitchen’s screened door. He slunk across the backyard and onto the beaten path through the copse of trees. The skeletal remains of a car went unnoticed. He had much to think about.

It had been two days of uncertainty, but he’d finally begun to relax. No one was coming. According to her own newspaper, she remembered nothing at all. The potent drugs used to make her manageable and compliant had provided the very fortunate ancillary effect of erasing her mind. Allan ran again through his mental checklist, trying to figure out where he had been remiss. What careless blunder he’d made that allowed her to escape.

She had been so special to him, too.

Reaching the cinder-block building, he unlocked the door with his key, flipping on the overhead light as he went inside. Unoccupied. The redhead was rightfully gone, but she should still be here.

He’d first noticed her name bylining the articles on the missing women. His girls. Then a column had run that included her photo. He took a clipped copy from a drawer in his workbench and studied it. The window-box air conditioner behind him hummed. Here, he kept things as cool as he liked.

She was older now, of course. But even after all these years he had still recognized her. What were the chances he’d found her? And that she was a reporter, covering his…work. He didn’t believe in coincidence. It was almost as if it were meant to be.

Allan’s inner voice—the voice of reason—spoke.

She got away and you got lucky. It’s too dangerous. You have to forget about her now.

Pick someone else.

He’d gotten rusty, that was all. Too much time spent trying to keep a low profile, until his darker urges had finally won out. No more Mr. Sloppy, he admonished himself.

The morning’s paper had said the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit was being called in. That couldn’t be helped now and truth be told, it made Allan feel important.

His lips formed a thin smile as he thought of Special Agent Eric Macfarlane and the bond they had shared.

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