Lineage(54)

Lance stopped typing and turned his head toward the kitchen window. He could see John sitting astride a fairly new riding lawn mower as grass clippings flew in a torrent from beneath the deck. Lance turned back to the computer and tried to regain his focus. The words came in bits and spurts as he hacked them out onto the screen. The sound of the mower running outside slid across his nerves like a cheese grater and kept throwing off his focus. As the gaps in typing became longer and longer, he found himself glancing over his shoulder at the place on the floor where the stain had been and he pictured it, floating there in the darkness.

“Shit,” he said, as he pushed himself away from the table and exited out of the Word document without saving it. He pondered changing into different clothes, but instead, grabbed his wallet along with the Land Rover’s keys off the shelf in the entry and locked the front door behind him as he left the house.

The air had begun to heat into a balmy mixture of bright light and oppressive humidity as Lance climbed behind the wheel and started the vehicle. He looked in his rearview mirror as he pulled past the turnabout and headed down the drive.

John still sat hunched over in the seat of the lawn mower, his hat pulled down to shade his aging eyes. Lance didn’t see him look up as the SUV curved with the driveway, soon hidden from sight behind the thick growth of trees.

Lance’s mind crept back over the events of the past few weeks as he drove, trying to string them together into some semblance of reason. He had heard a voice speaking his name just after setting foot in the house. The door to the storage room seemed to be welded shut with God knew what inside, and someone had been there with him in the house last night, he was sure of it. The memory of the figure standing motionless in the dark outside his door washed over him, and he felt goose bumps follow in its wake.

“Get a grip,” he said quietly. He felt the urge to call Dr. Tyler and tell him about the happenings, but he was afraid the psychologist would be concerned about the stability of his mind and of the emotions that ruled it. If he called, it wouldn’t surprise him if the doctor drove straight here just to see him in person, and he didn’t need that. Not now. He needed to focus on his writing and stop worrying about kids playing pranks, or his own overactive imagination.

Lance curved the SUV around the last bend and Stony Bay’s main drag came into view. Seeing the small town always lifted his spirits, and over the past weeks he had become attached to the friendliness of its inhabitants and the quaintness that permeated the streets and buildings.

Without bothering to signal, he pulled into an empty parking space outside the local grocery store and shut the car off. Several couples passed him on the sidewalk, offering smiles and nods as he made his way to the entrance.

Cool air pushed at his face as the doors slid open, and he began to walk unhurriedly toward the coffee aisle.

“Musta forgot something,” a thin voice to his left said as he passed the fresh vegetable stand. A white-haired woman wearing an immaculate red apron leaned against a pallet of assorted boxed fruits. Her lined face was lit with a warming smile that Lance assumed was reserved for anyone who happened to be within speaking distance. He recognized her from the day before when he’d stopped for supplies.

“Yeah, coffee. I can’t go a morning without it,” Lance said, smiling back. The woman strode closer to him in such a way that belied her apparent age. For just a second, He could see the young woman she used to be, and he figured in her heyday she had turned more than one head.

“Rotten stuff … I drink a pot every morning myself. Course it’s more sugar and creme than coffee.” The woman punctuated her smile with a cackle fit for a grandmother, which Lance was sure she must be. She held out her hand. “I’m Josie, I own the place. You must be the one that bought our local mansion.”

Lance laughed and nodded as he shook the old woman’s surprisingly strong hand. “Guilty. I’m Lance. You guys have a great town here.”

“It’s something, especially in the summer. Now stick around for January and you’ll have other things to say about it. You get settled in up there yet?”

“Yeah, slow but sure,” Lance said, as he noticed a woman with dark hair walking through a nearby aisle. She disappeared behind a display of cereal before he could catch a glimpse of her face.

“Anything specific bring you to our neck of the woods?” Josie continued.

Lance forced his eyes from searching for the woman and back to the business owner. “I’m actually writing a book.”