RAINEY DAYS (6 page)
Authors: R. E. Bradshaw
Rainey heard two girls approaching and watched, as they laughed and talked, passing right in front of her, never once looking around them, not aware of her presence. She wanted to get out of the car and scare them. She wanted to shake them both, telling them how stupid it was to walk out here, in the wee hours of the morning, without once looking around to see who else might be there. She wanted to rip off her shirt and show them what happens when you do not pay attention. Instead, she peered into the darkness, at who might be watching them, the silent guardian of this tiny block.
Rainey checked the cameras, stopped the recording, saved it to a file and started another recording. This way she could review the earlier recordings while she waited in the car. She opened the file she had just saved. Using the fast forward key, she scanned the video for any vehicles that drove by more frequently than others did. She looked at the foot traffic for anyone repeatedly passing the Wilson house. From her position, the camera had a clear view of the front door and boxwood hedge on the right side of the property line. Even with the night vision, the tall shrubs cast dark shadows the camera could not penetrate. If this was her house, Rainey thought, those bushes would be down. It would not be pretty, but it would be so much safer.
Rainey reviewed five hours of video, stopping the playback to listen and look around her every few minutes. By the time she finished, it was deep into the night. Rainey raised her eyes from the laptop and listened. Traffic sounds from a distance where punctuated by the summer insect cantata going on all around her. She heard nothing unusual. Still, the hair began to prickle on her arms and down her neck. She did a quick three hundred and sixty degree check of her surroundings. She looked at the feeds from the webcams, nothing moving.
Rainey fought off the thoughts that it was her own paranoia again. Something was not right; she could feel it and she had learned to respect that primal instinct. She peered into the shadows cast by the boxwoods. There. There, something was moving. She blinked her eyes and sat up, so her face was closer to the windshield. Her left hand automatically checked that the Glock was there and ready in its holster. Again, she saw the low crawling shadow creeping down the hedge. He was coming closer.
Rainey’s left hand went to the door handle. She had disabled the interior light so the car would not glow when she opened the door. Her right hand took the keys out of the ignition and slowly dropped them into her front pocket. Gradually she opened the door and stood up. All the while, her eyes never left the shadow. She did not shut the door, but stepped around it, steadily moving toward her target. She removed the Glock from the holster and held it down at her side. If she went directly at him, she would have to cross under a streetlight.
Rainey decided to come up behind the moving mass. She walked down the street a few paces and then turned, crossing over to the Wilson’s neighbor’s yard, avoiding the direct light from the streetlamp. While she accomplished this, her eyes lost contact with the shadow. She crept closer to where she had last seen him. He was not there. Rainey looked down the boxwoods. The darkness swallowed her, as she inched her way down the shrub line. She told herself to take deep, slow breaths, but her breathing quickened with every step. She felt her scalp crawling and the chill bumps forming on her arms. She could almost smell him.
Rainey crouched down, listening. The only sound she heard was her own heart beating in her ears. She had to calm down. She took several deep breaths and listened again. She heard a faint sound, back by the street. There were footsteps coming closer, running down the brick sidewalk. He had not seen her. He was coming right at her. Her breathing quickened again as she moved, now using the shadows, inching closer to the sidewalk. She crouched again and waited for the right moment. When she could hear his heavy breathing, just steps from her hiding place, she sprang up, stepping onto the walkway, in front of her prey.
“Jesus, God! You scared the shit out of me.”
It was JW, dressed in sweats with the hood pulled up over his head. He was sweating profusely, as he grabbed his knees and tried to catch his breath.
“What the hell are you doing out here, in the middle of the night?” Rainey snapped, the adrenaline coursing through her body, causing her hand to shake a little, as she re-holstered her pistol.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, followed by more heavy breathing. “I went for a run.” He finally stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Why did you jump out of the bushes like that? You could have killed me.”
“I wouldn’t have shot you,” Rainey said, defensively.
“No, but I could have had a heart attack,” JW shot back.
The adrenaline rush was subsiding. She tried to sound calmer, “I saw something moving by the hedge. I was checking it out and then you came running down the street. I thought you were him.”
JW looked around, “Did you see a man?”
Rainey shook her head, “No, more of a shadow. I didn’t get close enough to see clearly.”
JW had finally gathered himself. “Rainey, you can’t be jumping out of bushes brandishing a weapon. Suppose it had been a neighbor or some kid out for a run?”
“I didn’t aim it at you,” Rainey said, thinking no way was she going to be out here unarmed.
“Well, I’ll give you that, but I don’t want to draw attention to this thing, you know,” JW, said. “Can you try to be more subtle?”
Rainey laughed, “I’ll just bring the taser next time.”
JW started backing away. “Just try not to kill anybody,” he said, smiling. Then he waved and ran back to his house.
Rainey walked back to the car and got in. She was still on edge. She knew something or somebody had been out there. She stopped the video recording from the dash camera and rewound to the moment she had gotten out of the car. She watched herself cross in front of the car and walk down the street. She stared at the dark place, where she had seen the movement earlier. Rainey’s heart almost stopped when she saw the dark figure of a man rise up, watching her walk across the street, before running down the hedge line and out of view.
She stopped the video and rewound it to the spot where the darkness rose and took the shape of a man. He was dressed exactly as JW had been, in sweats and a hoodie. It was a good disguise for a stalker. If he was stopped by the police, he was just a guy out for a run. Again and again, Rainey watched the man watch her and then vanish. He had been so close and now she knew he had seen her. He knew someone was watching Katie. Maybe it would scare him off. Rainey did not think so. It was the way he watched her, coming after him, that let her know he liked the game.
For the remainder of the night and into the morning, Rainey was alert and focused. Even though she knew the guy probably would not come back tonight, the way he had watched her kept her vigilant. At seven fifteen, Katie Wilson left her home and headed back to work. She drove east on Franklin and then turned onto Estes drive, stopping for gas and coffee, and then straight to school. No one followed Katie, as far as Rainey could tell. Once Mrs. Wilson was safely inside her classroom, surrounded by her eager minions, Rainey headed home for some much needed rest.
She drove under the cottage, just as Ernie was pulling into her parking place. It was Ernie’s, because she had painted a sign that made it so and nailed it to the building, right in front of her spot. Ernie waved to Rainey, who was crossing the lawn to the office, then unlocked the door and went in. Rainey watched her through the windows, flipping over the open/closed sign, then going to her desk. She sat down her purse and went straight for the coffee maker. Such a creature of habit, Rainey thought.
She walked into the office, heading straight for the couch. She flopped down on it with a loud sigh, “Damn, I’m tired.”
Ernie looked up from her coffee making, “You should go get some sleep.”
“I will,” Rainey brushed the suggestion off. “Hey, is there any more watermelon?”
“I think so. Let me look,” Ernie said, finishing the coffee and heading to the back room.
Rainey laid her head back and closed her eyes. She listened to Ernie’s heels clicking on the concrete as she walked around in back. She opened her eyes again when the clicking grew louder, as Ernie reentered the room. She was carrying a bowl piled high with cubes of watermelon.
“Will this do you?” Ernie said with a smile, handing the bowl and a fork to Rainey.
Ernie sat down on the couch beside Rainey. She did not say anything. She just looked Rainey up and down and shook her head. Rainey ate the watermelon, careful to keep her mouth full, because she really did not want to talk to Ernie right now. Rainey did not want to tell her, how she had discovered the man in the bushes and how he had watched her. She did not want Ernie to worry any more than she already did.
Ernie bore her silence as long as she could, then stood up and walked back to the coffee pot. While she made her coffee, she spoke quietly to Rainey, not looking at her.
“Rainey, you need some real rest and a few good meals in you. I am not nagging. I am truly worried about you…”
The bowl in Rainey’s hand grew heavy. The words Ernie was saying became a distant murmur. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Her ears were ringing from too much caffeine. She chewed the mouthful of watermelon slowly, letting the cool juice bathe the inside of her mouth, before swallowing. She tried to lift her head back up, but gave up easily and relaxed into the couch, the bowl perched precariously on one leg.
In the last moment, before she slipped off to sleep, she felt Ernie’s gentle hands taking the bowl away. Her eyelids fluttered and she briefly glimpsed Ernie standing over her with a worried smile on her face. Rainey could fight it no longer, dreamland awaited.
CHAPTER SIX
Rainey’s eyes blinked open. A searing pain was telling her to wake up and move her neck. She slowly brought her head up from the back of the couch and then rolled it from side to side, trying to relax her neck muscles. The office was quiet. She did not see Ernie and looked out front to see that her car was still there. Rainey thought she must have been really out of it, because Mackie’s Escalade was in the parking lot. She could not believe she had slept through him coming in. They must be outside, because she didn’t hear them inside.
Rainey stood and stretched out the kinks from sleeping, sitting up on the old couch. She looked down at the coffee table and saw a yellow sticky note with a message from Ernie.
“Rainey, call this number,” was all it said, and listed a number Rainey did not recognize.
Rainey used the business line to call the number, not wanting her private number on any callback list. She dialed and waited for the phone to ring on the other end. Her attention was drawn to her closed office door, which was never closed unless she had a client in there. The ring, in the receiver next to her ear, was followed by a ring, from inside her office. As soon as the second ring came through the phone in her hand, it was echoed by a ring from behind the closed door.
Rainey slowly sat the receiver down on the desk, letting it continue to ring. She reached for her Glock, but the holster was empty. She must have taken it out in the car. She had been distracted and tired on the way home. She looked out the window toward the Charger parked under the cottage. The rings continued behind the door. Maybe they were just trying to surprise her. They both should know better than that, she thought.
Very carefully, Rainey approached her office door. She listened, but only the ringing could be heard from the other side. She touched the doorknob softly, trying to avoid the click from the latch. The latch clicked anyway, forcing her to enter the room quickly, before whoever was in there could react.
The scream left her throat before she was fully able to take in exactly what she was seeing. There on her desk was the ringing phone and above it was the mutilated body of Ernie, strung up from the ceiling. The gaping Y-incision spilled the contents of Ernie’s body on her desk, still dripping blood on the ringing phone.
She heard him behind her before she had time to act. He grabbed her and shook her, all the while yelling her name over and over. Her arms and legs refused to move. She screamed in terror at the familiar black mask, inches from her face. She screamed until she had no breath left. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain to begin.
“Rainey!” she heard him shout her name. “Rainey!” again, but this time the voice was recognizable.
Another voice, a female, yelled, “Caroline Marie Herndon, wake up this instant!”
Rainey’s eyes flew open. Mackie’s face was inches from her own. He was shaking her and calling her name. Ernie’s face glowed red behind him. It was her voice that finally broke Rainey out of the nightmare.
“That is not my name,” Rainey said, groggily.
“Well, the other name wasn’t working,” Ernie said, visibly upset.
Mackie’s big paw brushed the hair from her face, “You were screaming, baby girl. I had to shake you.”
Rainey looked back and forth between the two worried faces. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.
Mackie stopped pawing at her and asked, “Are you okay, now?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Just give me a minute,” Rainey said.
He knew better than to ask what she was dreaming about. She would not have told him, if he did. She certainly would never tell Ernie what she saw. She excused herself to the restroom, feeling both sets of concerned eyes follow her all the way out of sight.
When Rainey closed the bathroom door, she fell back against it. Running her fingers through her hair, she tried to erase the images she had just seen from her mind. It was only a dream, but her reaction to the images had been real. She was horrified. Terrified that, if and when the time came, when that monster reappeared, she wouldn’t be ready. She knew that was what drove her dreams. The thought that he would find her, stepping out to grab her when she least expected it, to finish what he started.
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