Deadly Expectations (30 page)

I quickly opened the door to the garage and started the bike in the dark.
 
It kicked to life right away so I held the throttle open for a few seconds until it would run on just the choke.
 
The helmet and gloves were where I remembered and I found them easily in the bit of moonlight that came in the windows in the overhead door.

“Anna.”
 

Shit.

Ray’s voice.

“What’s up Ray?” I asked.
 
I gently cranked the throttle on the bike to see if it would rev up smoothly and pushed the choke in a bit.

“Paul thought you might go after your sister.”

“Really?”
I replied.
 
“I’m not.
 
Can you get the big door for me?”

“No,” he said.
 
“I’m going to get Paul for you.”

“Please don’t do that.”

I opened big overhead door just enough to get under it on the bike hopefully not letting too much sound out.
 
The bike would need more time.

“Why not?” he asked.
 
“You’re not going after Damian alone.”

“I’m not going after Damian,” I told him.
 
I walked up to Ray and a big push almost knocked me into him.
 
“It’s the gusts of wind that push me when I jump.
 
The pressure is building in me … it will take me away whether I take the bike with me or not.
 
If I take the bike I have a better chance of jumping home.
 
How did you know I was here?”

“Paul asked me to stay in the house while he’s on watch … you just about ran me over in the dark getting the key.”

Another gust pushed me into him.

“Sorry … can’t you feel it?
 
How come it’s not pushing you?”

“I just feel the breeze in the door.”

I stood for a minute, listening to the bike, hoping he would let me leave.

“Ray … while I slept I did disappear.
 
I spent a few hours with my daughter.
 
She told me that Paul’s family raised her … she has her father’s long memory.
 
You helped her understand.
 
She said my gifts are for something big … I have to get help to find out.”

I pushed the choke in the rest of the way as I was pushed into the bike.

“She said someone tried to help me … they made a mistake and I lost Paul.
 
I showed up here, dying, you had to cut her from me as I slipped away.
 
You buried me by the pond … she showed me.”
 
Tears started to fall down my face again.

“She never knew me.
 
She’ll find me again, but I’ll never get a chance to be her mother.
 
Paul will find me again, but I won’t remember him.
 
She called you Uncle … unless I can find out how to do things right I have less than twenty weeks left to be your sister.
 
Then I go back to being your best friend’s girl.”

The next gust nearly pushed me over the bike.
 
I exhaled hard as it punched me.
 
“That’s really starting to hurt,” I gasped then I straightened up and held him.
 
He held me tight.

“Please big brother … let me go.
 
I can’t keep it from sending me much longer.
 
Do your best to look after him … he’s going to hurt over this.”

The pressure was painful.
 
I’d never let it get so bad.

“Anna … he won’t understand,” Ray said.

“I’ve left him a letter.
 
That’s the best I can do.
 
I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
 
I held the back of my neck and moaned with pain.

“Please, I’ll call him up here.
 
You can explain …”

“Ray, I have to go now.
 
It’s too painful … I can’t hold on.”

I went back to the bike and quickly put on the helmet and gloves and got on it.
 
I put it in gear and rode past him.
 
He didn’t move.
 
I hadn’t counted on the dark and luckily with the clear sky and the moonlight I could make out where I had to go.
 
I quickly got it up to speed and flew over the bump in the road.
 
The pressure behind me was enormous.
 
I focused, opened the throttle up and closed my eyes.

I thought,
help
.

My Dearest Paul
,

The hardest thing I have ever had to do is to hurt you now.
 
I’m so sorry.
 
I can only imagine what I’m putting you through.

When I slept I disappeared and went to see our daughter.
 
She put these flowers in my hair down by the pond.
 
She said those few hours I was with her would be the only time she would ever get to see her mother.
 
She never knew you either.
 
I need to fix that.
 
She said this trip I have to make was hard on you.

My gifts are more than you can help me understand.
 
Loaned to me for a task I can’t explain yet.
 
She said something got screwed up and she lost us both.
 
I lived long enough for Ray to save her.

Wait for me.
 
I can’t stand to be away from you a moment longer than I have to.

When I get back I’ll take you to your father.

I love you forever

Anna

Chapter 28

I was hot.
 
Damn hot.
 
A layer of sweat filled my coat and ran down my neck after escaping my helmet.
 
Bright daylight and miles and miles of open horizon faced me.
 
Nothing but blue sky and waist high corn everywhere I looked.

The hot breeze started to take the moisture from me as I stuffed the coat into my pack.
 
Before I stood I pulled out my phone and opened it up.
 
The face lit and the little words
No Signal
in the corner ruined my plans to phone home.
 
I turned it off and put it away.

After a minute’s indecision I kicked the bike to life.
 
Help wasn’t going to find me standing here so I rode a ways down the dirt road past the rows and rows of corn.
 
After only a few miles I came to a metal mailbox.
 
The name Pilot was painted on it, along with a bunch of familiar purple flowers.
 
The driveway that it marked disappeared into green stalks.

I decided to look further down the road; I could always turn around if I didn’t find anything.
 
After
another ten or so miles
there was another mailbox.
 
From a distance it looked a lot like the first and as I approached I saw why.
 
It also said Pilot and had purple flowers painted on it.
 
The driveway disappeared into the corn.
 
I reached around to the side pocket on my pack, pulled out the pen and tossed it on the ground beside the mailbox.

After another ten miles I spotted another mailbox.
 
Pilot and purple flowers.
 
My pen on the ground next to it.
 
I hopped off the bike and retrieved it, returning it to my pack.
 
I looked back down the dirt road then ahead again.

I put the bike in gear and turned onto the long driveway into the corn.
 
The stalks grew taller as I went, after a mile they were over my head.
 
The driveway turned and I emerged in front of a low farmhouse.
 
Its deep porch stretched across the front and from what I could see went around the sides.

The roof of a large faded barn stuck up over one end of the house but otherwise there were only buildings.
 
No cars, tractors, trucks.
 
It was so quiet that the idle of the engine offended me.
 
I turned off the bike where the cornfield ended and pushed it to the house.
 

When I neared the stairs up to the porch I put it down on the kickstand.
 
I hoped it wasn’t deserted.
 
It was the only place I could get to from the road.
 
As I took off my helmet something moved in the shade covered chair on the porch.
 
He’d been so still I hadn’t noticed him and by the time my head was uncovered he was standing.
 

I put the helmet on the seat of the bike and took off the pack.
 
My back was soaked with sweat and the hot breeze couldn’t keep up with the moisture springing from my skin.
 

“You didn’t come to shoot me miss, did you?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
 
He was just a kid; curly red hair and all of twelve years old.
 
Dressed like I remembered my grandparents in my father’s family albums.

“No sir.
 
I forgot I had that out,” I quickly took it off and found room for it in my pack.
 
He seemed satisfied it was out of sight.

“I don’t get visitors,” he said.
 
“This place is very … private.
 
Where did you come from?”

“
California
sir,” I told him.
 
I was twice his age but I felt so small compared to his huge presence just a few stairs away.

“That’s not what I consider a place,” he said.
 
“When did you leave
California
?”

“In the middle of the night sir,” I told him.

He shook his head and waited.
 
I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

“You have somehow managed to travel here to me, but you don’t understand where you came from,” he asked like he was speaking to a child.

“I’m sorry … I’m looking for help.”

“By the sounds of things you surely need it miss,” he said.
 
A little more condescending than necessary.

“Yes sir,” I acknowledged and waited.

He sighed.
 
“Where you came from has a place and point in time.
 
That is what I asked for.”

I nodded.
 
“
California
.
 
Mid-November … the year two thousand and ten.”

“That is a long way,” he said.
 
“Have you ever travelled so far before?”

I was starting to understand.
 
“Usually only a few days and a couple of thousand miles.”

“Usually?” he waited.