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Authors: H. D. Thomson
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pounded against his ribs, he stood transfixed. Malcolm’s words reverberated inside his head. The truth in them ravaged him. A wave of impotence and frustration crashed over and around him. Only when his ragged breathing subsided, did he turn and shut down John’s computer.
Then the thought rushed out at him and hit him full force. Malcolm. Margot. Malcolm was going up to the house to find out what she knew.
Margot sat slouched over the computer terminal in her den. Extending the right fingers of her hand, she stretched muscles stiff and cramped from inputting book descriptions into her database. She’d been at it all afternoon and evening. She picked up the last book, which she’d found in a little shop outside of Flagstaff, and trailed a finger across its spine. It was a first edition of Nostromo by Joseph Conrad in beautiful condition. The find had made her week.
With gentle hands, she placed it beside the stack of books by the keyboard. Books were her saviors, her escape. Within their pages she could be the hero, invincible, able to slay dragons and fly to the outer limits of space. They’d helped her get through an awkward and troubling teenage period, a divorce and the loss of her job.
Now there was Johnny to cope with. Everyone had loved her brother. Even with only five years separating them, he’d been the one she’d run to as a child, the one she’d strove for approval while going through college, studying for the bar. Not her parents, never her parents. By the time she’d hit her teen years, she’d long since given up on proving herself to her mother and father. She wasn’t the boy, the brilliant child, but a gangly, awkward, very average girl. Then she’d turned eighteen, it didn’t really matter what her parents thought. They’d died in a boating accident off the coast of Baja, California that year.
Strange that she’d never been jealous, but Johnny was just that type of person. One could never stay angry with Johnny for long. And he’d always been there for her, championing her at every turn in her life.
To her deep regret, the one point of advice she’d never taken from her brother was Malcolm. Johnny had never liked him, but her brother, one to always have explanations grounded in fact, couldn’t explain why, other than a gut reaction.
She fought back the sudden ache in her throat. She’d cried far too much already.
Sighing, she rose from her chair, all the while rubbing at the crick in the nape of her neck. The sun had long since slipped over the horizon, leaving the house in complete darkness.
She reached over to turn the desk lamp on when a light from outside flashed between the curtains and disappeared. Frowning, Margot turned away from the untouched light and walked over to the large window. With some caution, she pulled the thick velvet drapes aside.
Someone was driving down the road, which wound through her property to highway 46. The car was unfamiliar, some type of recreational vehicle, but it had a longer, bulkier frame than Joyce’s Land Cruiser. It couldn’t be Jake. His vehicle was a small pickup, nothing like the one crawling over the snow-incrusted road. Headlights blinked through the trees, then vanished as the car turned onto the main road to the highway.
Strange that they hadn’t come to the house. Unless, they were up to some mischief on her property, but Margot quickly discounted that. She wasn’t living in a large metropolis anymore but a small town in the mountains with a fraction of the population.
They were probably lost, she finally decided as she smoothed back the drape.
A noise, a metallic click of some sort, echoed faintly from the front of the house.
“Jake?”
She walked into the hall and found the front door closed along with the one to Jake’s bedroom. He was still gone for the day.
“Johnny? Is that you?”
Silence.
“Are you trying to tell me something? Is that it? Are you here for a reason?” Slowly, she turned in a circle. No
Then the thought rushed out at him and hit him full force. Malcolm. Margot. Malcolm was going up to the house to find out what she knew.
Margot sat slouched over the computer terminal in her den. Extending the right fingers of her hand, she stretched muscles stiff and cramped from inputting book descriptions into her database. She’d been at it all afternoon and evening. She picked up the last book, which she’d found in a little shop outside of Flagstaff, and trailed a finger across its spine. It was a first edition of Nostromo by Joseph Conrad in beautiful condition. The find had made her week.
With gentle hands, she placed it beside the stack of books by the keyboard. Books were her saviors, her escape. Within their pages she could be the hero, invincible, able to slay dragons and fly to the outer limits of space. They’d helped her get through an awkward and troubling teenage period, a divorce and the loss of her job.
Now there was Johnny to cope with. Everyone had loved her brother. Even with only five years separating them, he’d been the one she’d run to as a child, the one she’d strove for approval while going through college, studying for the bar. Not her parents, never her parents. By the time she’d hit her teen years, she’d long since given up on proving herself to her mother and father. She wasn’t the boy, the brilliant child, but a gangly, awkward, very average girl. Then she’d turned eighteen, it didn’t really matter what her parents thought. They’d died in a boating accident off the coast of Baja, California that year.
Strange that she’d never been jealous, but Johnny was just that type of person. One could never stay angry with Johnny for long. And he’d always been there for her, championing her at every turn in her life.
To her deep regret, the one point of advice she’d never taken from her brother was Malcolm. Johnny had never liked him, but her brother, one to always have explanations grounded in fact, couldn’t explain why, other than a gut reaction.
She fought back the sudden ache in her throat. She’d cried far too much already.
Sighing, she rose from her chair, all the while rubbing at the crick in the nape of her neck. The sun had long since slipped over the horizon, leaving the house in complete darkness.
She reached over to turn the desk lamp on when a light from outside flashed between the curtains and disappeared. Frowning, Margot turned away from the untouched light and walked over to the large window. With some caution, she pulled the thick velvet drapes aside.
Someone was driving down the road, which wound through her property to highway 46. The car was unfamiliar, some type of recreational vehicle, but it had a longer, bulkier frame than Joyce’s Land Cruiser. It couldn’t be Jake. His vehicle was a small pickup, nothing like the one crawling over the snow-incrusted road. Headlights blinked through the trees, then vanished as the car turned onto the main road to the highway.
Strange that they hadn’t come to the house. Unless, they were up to some mischief on her property, but Margot quickly discounted that. She wasn’t living in a large metropolis anymore but a small town in the mountains with a fraction of the population.
They were probably lost, she finally decided as she smoothed back the drape.
A noise, a metallic click of some sort, echoed faintly from the front of the house.
“Jake?”
She walked into the hall and found the front door closed along with the one to Jake’s bedroom. He was still gone for the day.
“Johnny? Is that you?”
Silence.
“Are you trying to tell me something? Is that it? Are you here for a reason?” Slowly, she turned in a circle. No
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