Part 6 (2/2)
A deer stood in the middle of the highway, fifteen yards ahead, eyes wide.
Ann swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic, a horn wailed at her, and she yanked the wheel back to the right. The car on her left pa.s.sed her by inches at the same time her right b.u.mper clipped the deer's back leg.
She screeched to the side of the road and grabbed her legs in an attempt to keep them from shaking. It didn't work. Ann rubbed her face. ”Oh, no, no ... deep breath now. Get out, see if it's okay. Come on.”
It was one of her worst nightmares. Her pa.s.sion for animals overrode most other things in life.
She fumbled with the release on her seat belt, flipped it back, and stumbled out of her car.
”Please don't be dead.”
When she reached the spot where she'd hit the deer, there was no sign of it. No blood, no fur, nothing.
Was the deer all right? She glanced off the road on both sides. ”Please let it be okay.”
Ann returned to her car and eased back onto the highway. Was this a sign of how much pain she'd have to go through before she was done with Three Peaks, or Three Peaks was done with her?
CHAPTER 7.
Cameron looked at the address on Gillum's piece of paper and then gazed at the numbers on the two-story house in front of him. This should be the home of Susan Hillman.
Thirty seconds after the chime of the doorbell faded, Susan opened her door. Her short, tossed brown hair made her look like she'd just come in from a windstorm.
She offered iced tea-must be the official Three Peaks' drink-which Cameron declined explaining he'd had a gla.s.s during his last visit. But he did accept two cookies and a gla.s.s of milk, making him feel six years old again. They sat outside on her covered redwood front porch and made small talk for a few minutes about the heat of a Three Peaks summer and how long she'd lived in town.
”Fifty-seven winters.” A smile played at the corners of her eyes. ”But my age and how warm it gets here isn't what you want to know, is it?”
The small-town gossip grapevine must be on overdrive. ”No. I'd like to talk about my dad. About his childhood.”
Susan nodded.
”His name was Boscoe Vaux and he lived here till he was nine.”
Susan laughed. ”Well, fancy that.” She leaned back in her chair till it b.u.mped into the planter behind her filled with blue Larkspur. ”I remember him.”
”You what?” Cameron jerked his head and squinted. ”You remember my dad?”
”Isn't that funny? I haven't mulled over the memory of Little Boss for ages. And you're his son. He was one of my closest friends in those days. Fascinating.” Susan ran her hands through her hair. ”G.o.d has a sense of humor, yes? Little Boss and I shared the same paint set in first and second grade.”
”Little Boss?”
”That's what we called him, due to his being named after your grandfather, who of course was Big Boss.” She smiled again. ”Boscoe wasn't the best name for a little boy to have. I think he appreciated being called something different.” She shook her head. ”That takes me back a few years. If Little Boss went two minutes without laughing that was a long time. And what a great smile. Everyone loved him. So tell me, how is your father?”
”He pa.s.sed away eight years ago.” The familiar ache settled in his stomach as an image of his dad and him standing on West Seattle's Alki Beach filled his mind. Cameron missed that grin and the hearty laughter that always accompanied it.
”Oh, Cameron, my heart hurts for you.” Susan blinked and covered her mouth. ”So young.”
”Thanks.” They sat in silence for a minute, and it seemed to fill a dark corner of his heart with light, if only slightly. ”My dad said when he was a kid, he saw a book that showed him the past and the future. Do you know anything about that?”
Susan stared into Cameron's eyes, then looked down and smoothed her forest green shorts. ”I haven't thought about that for years, but I do remember a few things. Wow. Funny how it's stayed with me.” She tilted her head back and scanned the ceiling, as if she would find what to say etched on its surface.
”Boscoe and Big Boss were involved in this group called Indian Guides, and they'd go on all these hikes and adventures together. Every Monday morning at lunchtime in the school's orange cafeteria, Little Boss would report what they'd done and where they'd gone.
”Well, after one of their weekend hikes, he started acting all closed up and wouldn't talk to me or anyone else. After a few weeks of that I finally asked him, 'Why are you being so quiet all of a sudden?' or something like that. He poked his straw up and down in his chocolate milk and said, 'I know when I'm going to die.'
”It was a strange thing to say coming from a nine-year-old kid, and I didn't know how to respond. Then he said, 'When I grow up I'm going to have a son and I know things about him too.' I laughed but Little Boss just kept staring at his milk carton.
”I asked him where he saw these things, but all he would say is, 'I don't know if I could find it again. Maybe I dreamed it all up.'”
”We never talked about it after that. Back then I thought he was making up stories, but over the years I've often wondered what he saw. Looking back with an adult's perspective, he certainly believed he saw this book you're looking for.”
Cameron shuddered. His dad had seen something. Maybe he was just a kid, but what he saw had changed him. ”I have to find that book.”
”Why is this book so important to you, Cameron?”
”My dad said I needed to find it to understand.”
”Understand what?”
”What would happen to me. Or what is happening to me. What he thinks he saw.”
”And what is that?”
Cameron stared at Susan Hillman. Wisps of her brown hair hung over her eyes. This was a woman it would be easy to slide into friends.h.i.+p with, a woman he'd be tempted to spill his guts to. ”I'm not sure.”
”I see.” And by the way she looked at him, it seemed Susan truly did see.
”Are you hoping that if you find this book Little Boss spoke of, it will give your life meaning?”
”No.” Cameron held his breath and looked away, as if turning could deflect the question. How could he tell her he had to find the book because he was scared he was losing his mind and he was hoping his dad was right and the book would cure him?
How could he describe losing his memories of Jessie and tell how he would try anything to get them back? How he was terrified of ending up like his dad, talking about nothing and everything mixed up into a mess the best linguists in the world couldn't decipher? How he'd promised his father he'd search for a book that probably only existed in his dad's mind and Jessie's imagination?
Susan looked at him with compa.s.sion. ”I had a son about your age. Are you thirty-four? Thirty-five?”
”Thirty-three.” Cameron s.h.i.+fted in his seat. ”Had?”
Susan nodded as she brushed back her hair. ”I'd like to offer you a stone.”
Interesting. Susan understood loss but didn't want to talk about it. Part of him didn't want to talk about Dad and Jessie, but she had a choice. He didn't. ”Offer a what?”
She reached over and opened an old dark mahogany cabinet sitting next to the front door and brought out a bowl made of stained gla.s.s. It was full of rocks, all polished to a brilliant s.h.i.+ne.
”This one is pretty.” Susan picked a piece of jade. ”I found it myself. I let it scuttle around in the polisher with all that fine sand working on it, rubbing off the rough spots, for three straight weeks.” She handed him the bowl and he set it on his knees.
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