Expiration Date (17 page)

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Anything for you, Mom.”

And anything to keep an eye on your Avon partygoers
.

“You really don’t have to.” Della’s motherly line was baited with guilt.

“It’s fine,” Clay assured. “I’ve been busy with work, but if I take you to the party, at least we’ll have a few minutes together, right?” He set a kiss on her cheek.

“You’re welcome to drive the Dodge,” she offered in reward. “We’ll need to leave soon, though, since I’m expected to help Mrs. Dixon with refreshments. How will you occupy yourself while waiting at her place?”

“Actually, I’ve got some reading to catch up on.”

“Reading? You’ve never been much of one for books.”

“People change,” he mumbled. “At least, outside of Junction City.”

Della ran a hand over her arm, back and forth, as though soothing her nerves. She said, “Stability does have its good points, dear. Some people use change as an excuse to run away.”

Clay had no response.

As Della went to fetch her purse, he grabbed an old Stephen Lawhead novel from a shelf in the hall, then tucked a written draft of a divorce agreement between the pages. The paperwork had arrived in today’s mail. A formality.

As if some fat-cat lawyers can decide the outcome of my marriage
.

Twenty-five minutes later Clay dropped his mother at the Dixons’ front door. He stationed the Dodge truck between the three-car garage and a fermenting burn pile and remained vigilant as vehicles began turning from Lovelake Road up the meandering drive. He felt confident strapped to the powerful diesel engine.

All part of the plan. If he spotted his target, he’d be ready for pursuit.

He counted the arrivals.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen …

Would he find his tormentor here? He mulled over the few clues he’d obtained. Apparently, the note writer had been using a scented Avon pen, and judging by the paperboy’s description, she was an adult woman with blond hair.

The fifteenth guest parked along the Dixons’ lawn. She was a young Hispanic mother, nudging along a toddler in a pink dress, fussing over every ruffle.

Clay knew his own mother enjoyed these Avon parties. Friendship. Connection. All the things she lacked at home in the churlish weather systems Gerald generated.

Clay thought of his wife, Jenni. Of her Bunko nights with the gals.

Had she been crying out for something deeper?

Although inconvenient, he’d always viewed those Monday evenings as his opportunity to hang out with Jason, order pizza, stay up late playing Xbox together.

Rarely, though, had he given Jenni the same amount of attention. Time had become scarce, particularly as Satellite Mapping Elite nosedived, gobbling up his grandfather’s investment and bringing a lien against his and Jenni’s home. Some nights, paralyzed by inadequacy, he had shrugged off Jenni’s attempts to woo him to bed, opting for the couch and the remote. With business not performing as hoped, he feared failure might show itself in other areas of their marriage.

Of course, Jenni’s disappointment only intensified his shame.

Bunko …
Even the name felt like a slap in the face.

Shifting in the truck seat, Clay lifted his eyes as another guest—
let’s see … that’s number sixteen
—stopped a Subaru near the front entryway. The
sinking sun drenched the woman in copper hues as she strolled to the door. Thin, wearing sandals and a shawl, with blond hair. Mid to late twenties.

She smoothed her shawl, then turned her face his way.

Henna? The lady from the Greyhound?

Electricity jolted through Clay’s hands, up his arms, to the roots of his hair. Each follicle was a needle on a seismograph, registering his suspicions. She was here. Now. He knew with all certainty this lady was involved in his recent turmoil. Did she recognize him as well? Or was he shadowed by the sun at his back?

Henna entered the house without knocking.

Asgoth shuffled his feet through the apartment’s gold shag carpet. He stopped at the window, where mold ringed the glass like a black weather seal. He could see warped roofing and tarpaper spanning the causeway below. On the roof’s surface, empty beer cans glinted in the sun, and a curled magazine flashed suggestive images as leaves ballet danced over the filth.

He despised this pitiful existence.

From the beginning of time, the unscrupulous had found profit in the sex and drug trades, and he’d been told that the others in the Consortium enjoyed places regal and palatial. His home was nothing but a washroom to them.

Well, that’d change. He’d peel this town open, revealing once and for all the dark core of even the smallest of communities.

Earlier in the day Asgoth had met with his circle of recruits. They came with open minds, eager to establish a presence in Junction City, trusting in the finances he planned to tap—although he provided no details of Engine 418. With enthusiasm, they’d agreed to start things off with a bang.

Yet they were unaware of his ultimate, much more intimate, goal.

A goal spawned by a memory …

Cold water. Dragging him down. Open wounds pumping into the river’s current. Knots in his stomach as death reached in and twisted his internal organs. Staring out through luminous eyes. Fading. Sinking into black depths. The end at hand.

Or so everyone thought! But I’ve never left this place
.

In five weeks, at the Scandi-Fest, his deception would be revealed. Each of his victims would be another timecard punched for compensation—one fat paycheck, signed in Clay Ryker’s blood.

As Clay stepped down from the Dodge, he let the door rest against its latch. He moseyed toward Henna’s car, stretched his legs. Gave the house a casual glance.

Thin curtains filtered the living room’s light onto the rhododendrons outside, and laughter escaped through the picture window. Motion-activated porch and garage lights clicked on simultaneously.

Clay knelt on the Subaru coupe’s far side. Tested the passenger door.

Ti-shtikkk …
He was in.

Keeping an eye on the house, he ran a hand through the glove box. He found a pouch of registration and insurance papers, which listed an address on … Lovelake Road? He ran his gaze from the paper to the numbers beneath the porch light. They matched. He verified the name of the vehicle’s owner:
Hannah Dixon
.

Had Hannah chosen “Henna” as a nickname?

Not unlikely. A fashionably Oregonian thing to do—in honor of mother nature.

As he thought about it, he remembered the Dixons had two daughters who had been underclassmen in his high school—gangly, dark-haired girls. Time and hair coloring must’ve worked wonders. He could barely put faces to them, and as far as he knew, he had no ties to them, no deep dark history.

So the Subaru’s owner was Henna. Hannah Dixon.

No wonder she had approached him on the bus. To her, he was no stranger. She knew his name; the circumstances of his marriage and business were readily available within the circle of small-town gossip. Nothing mystical about it. When he’d failed to recognize her, she had used the encounter to her advantage.

Clay slapped away a fly, his mind full of new questions.

Sure, Henna could be the one writing the notes. Mrs. Dixon could provide her daughter enough scented pens to keep her tormenting him for years.

But what was the motivation? How’d she know about that day at the river?

He recalled images of Henna and Bill Scott together at a football game. For a time, they’d been seen hanging together. They’d even showed hints of a romance—or something more likely attributable to raging hormones.

With the sun blurring his vision, Clay turned back to the truck, caught a hint of movement there at the driver’s side. He heard the door click shut. Who was out here? In a flash, his legs were eating up the distance. He caromed around the hood, scanned the truck bed, dipped to peer under the chassis. He raced around the entire vehicle, but the intruder had disappeared.

Through the window, he spotted a generic white envelope.

He grabbed it and ran toward the house. The front door was unlocked. He slammed his way through and arrived breathlessly in the middle of the living room with multiple sets of eyes trained upon him. These ladies could think what they wanted, but he was determined to solve this mystery.

“Where is she?” he barked out. “Why is she doing this to me?”

Della stood with one hand raised. “Clay, what’s taken over you?” She looked about at the Avon guests. Through an archway, women moved in and out with glasses of punch and small plates of sliced cheese and crackers.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Henna.” Clay’s tone was incriminating. “Henna Dixon.”

“Why, she’s right behind you, doll.”

Clay turned, following his mother’s gaze, and found Henna settled into the sofa beneath the picture window. He saw her lips twitch. “You,” he said. “You were on the bus. In the seat next to me. You tried to … tell me things.”

“Is that a crime?”

He held up the envelope. “Why’d you put this in the truck?”

“What is it?”

“Oh, come on! I know you were just out there.”

“She hasn’t moved from that seat since she arrived,” Della said. “Honestly, Clay, what’s this all about?”

Henna flashed a benign smile. “If I’d known you liked Avon so much, I would’ve sent you your own invitation to my mother’s party.”

Peals of laughter followed her statement, easing the room’s tension, and Clay muttered apologies on his way back to the truck. Had he turned into a head case? What was going on? He opened the envelope and found another note addressed to him.

Kenny Preston was eager to return to Engine 418. Monday his mom had dragged him into Eugene for his doctor’s visit and for her appointment to reapply for food stamps. Today she’d given him a list of chores, which included removing Gussy’s “attempts to revitalize the back lawn.”

He frowned at the memory. Why not just call it what it was?

Doodie duty. How disgusting.

By a quarter to twelve, the day was already sunny and hot. Mom thanked him for his help, “rehydrated” him with a glass of cran-raspberry juice, and told him he could go play arcade games at Nickel’s as long as he returned for lunch around one.

Although he’d lost his game card along with his jacket, he knew there had only been five or six credits left. No big deal. For an hour he was free.

On his way to the arcade, Kenny stopped at the locomotive. Huddled in the engine’s cab, he felt an apprehension brought on by the large, menacing machinery.

He chose to slip into his imaginary role as a secret agent.

I’m a shadow, a spy on a mission. No fear
.

Spymaster Kenny ran his hand along the cab floor, dredging black sludge before detecting once again that piece of carved wood. He blew out a sigh, surprised at how concerned he’d been that the object would be gone. With his pocketknife jabbing and slicing—almost into his own skin—he freed the thin tube.

Kinda disappointing. Grungy and stained, it didn’t look like anything special.

Never could tell, though. With a little washing up …

The spymaster stuffed it into his front pocket before vaulting back over the fence. In a crouch he darted to the rosebush and threw his leg over the bike that now had become a Nazi motorcycle, stolen with the help of a young
maiden for his clandestine escape. Roaring through occupied territory, the spy extraordinaire headed for Allied lines with his secret bundle intact.

Was he being tailed? Had the lovely maiden betrayed him?

Throwing glances over his shoulder, Kenny stood on the pedals and raced along Sixth Street, then cut through an alley that led to Nickel’s Arcade. He saw no signs of a pursuer, but he had a growing sense he was being followed in real life.

The stronger the feeling, the more convinced Kenny became that he should keep his discovery to himself. Nobody would expect him to find something worthwhile, but what if he had? What would he do with it? Was there anyone he could trust?