Coming Home (Norris Lake Series) (16 page)

“Now, now Caitlyn,” he said in a calm measured voice.  “He’s had a bad evening that’s for sure but he’ll pull through.  He’s badly beaten, as if the attacker not only wanted to incapacitate your father, but also was enraged enough to hit repeatedly.  Your Dad’s lucky that he has such a hard head and is such a mean S.O.B.  Men like your Dad are hard to kill.”

“But…is he awake yet?  Can we see him?” Caitlyn implored.

“Yes, go on in.  He’s conscious but don’t stay too long. He’s still groggy from the medication and he needs his rest.”

Caitlyn pushed through the door to the private hospital room only to see her father lying prone in the bed his head and hands wrapped in bandages.  His face showed signs of black and blue bruises with red tinges.  One arm was immobile in a cast, broken in either the beating or fall.  One leg was also in a cast and traction the cast crossing the breadth of his hips. His eyes were closed and immediately her heart fell, thinking he’d died in the passing moments.

“Dad?”  Caitlyn said gently.  Michael stepped around to the other side of the bed and stood there very still, his cap wrung tight in his hands.

“Dad?” Michael called quietly too.  “Dad?  It’s Mike;  Cat and I are here.”

Opening his eyes, the old man licked his lips. “Water,” he croaked his voice hoarse. 

Caitlyn reached for the water nearby and held a cup with a straw up to her father’s dry lips.  He drank in large gulps then leaned back on the pillows. 

“Raise this bed up,” he barked at Michael.  Michael struggled a moment with the controls and the old man reached over to take them from his son.  “Lord, can’t you do anything right?  Here’s the button.”

As the bed rose, the old man continued, “Caitlyn, I don’t know what happened tonight.  I just remember hearing someone come up behind me as I was turning out the lights and then I was hit over the head.  After that, there’s nothing.   I can’t recall anything.  How bad was the loss?”  

Were we robbed?

Caitlyn looked at Michael and then to her father.  “No. Arson.

Her dad’s eyes glazed over.  “The complex is gone?”

It’s bad, but not a total loss.  The intruder set the place on fire. The police are saying it was arson, but don’t have anything suspects yet and your injuries were meant to look like you died in the fire, maybe even staged so it looked like you were the one who caused it. 

“If it’s not a total loss, then we can still finish the project.” Tarlington started to sit up and grabbed the side of the hospital bed. 

Caitlyn jumped forward and put her hand on her father’s shoulder pushing him back without much resistance.  “The police have said that you can’t go back there, Dad.  First, it’s too dangerous and second, you are in no shape to.  You’ll be here for a few days and then home.”

“Nonsense, I’ve got to get back.  That condo project has to be done by November 1st or I stand to lose the shirt off my back.  I’ve put everything into this project and won’t lose it all now.” 

“Maybe I can manage it?” Michael began; wanting desperately to help salvage the project and his father’s esteem.

“What? You’ve got to be kidding boy.  You can’t manage a project like this.  Hell, Michael, you can’t even finish school.”

“But Dad, Michael can do it,” Caitlyn protested as she saw her brother’s flushed angry, embarrassed face.

“Caitlyn, you’ll need to do it.  There’s no other choice.”

“Dad, I wasn’t planning on staying that long. I don’t know.” 

“You will do it.  That’s the end of the discussion.  Bring me the papers.  I will sign over my power of attorney to you and give the foreman a call to let him know that you’re in charge.  We need to finish the project quickly.  Once it’s done, I can sell the business at a profit and finally retire.”

Michael jammed his hands in his pockets and looked on without further comment.  Another chance to change his father’s opinion of him disintegrated. He wanted to protest, but no words would come to him.  His thoughts were frozen.  Rejection and it’s pain had stolen them from him.

Chapter 14

He shoved a lock of dark hair from his forehead as he leaned forward to look out the window of his secret apartment.  There was condensation on the window and he wiped it away with his palm.  The dog days of summer were synonymous with the hum of the air conditioner which purred almost silently keeping the room chilly against the heat of the late afternoon. 

The room was sparse and austere with rented furniture and no accoutrements on the walls.  The only noticeably generous piece was a large cherry desk with a single desk lamp and matching chair.  In the middle of the desk squatting like a large toad on a lily pad was an expensive laptop powered down waiting for its owner to initiate contact with an electronic world. 

He leaned over the desk ignoring the few boxes he possessed that were yet to be unpacked.  Most of his belongings were in a storage building in town rented in another name with cash so to not be detected and traced back to him as was the apartment.  Flipping open the screen of the computer, he pressed the button at the top right corner of the powerful machine.  Its screen came to life with the Windows XP graphic.  Singing an electronic hum it powered full force.  He sat down in the expensive leather chair and pulled it close to the desk positioning his palms on the keyboard.  With a few quick strokes he pulled up the internet and entered a URL he knew well. 

Typing in the dark room, he became another person, an anonymous voice able to express not only his dreams but also his nightmares.  His computer genius, known only to himself, allowed him to reach out into other systems hacking his way in silently behind almost any firewall or safeguard;  no manner of security could keep him at bay.  He was invincible and a force not to be reckoned with. 

If only everyone would recognize how brilliant he truly was.  He had been wrongly accused and now had plans to make sure those who had ruined his life would pay.  He would make sure those that had ridiculed him and made him to feel insignificant and different would be similarly abused.  He opened up his home page and the dark man went to work to begin his soul’s salvation. 

Several hours later, he rubbed his palm against the back of his neck and flipped off the PC.  The screen glowed white for a moment then black dousing the room in darkness.   It was late, the early hours of the morning.  Pushing back from the desk, he swiveled the chair to the side and stretched his long legs to rid himself of the cramped feelings in his thighs. 

Standing he untucked his black t-shirt from equally black jeans and pulled it off over his head revealing light untanned skin.  The cool air felt good against his body.  He opened the sliding glass door and stepped out on to his back porch watching the Orion meteor shower.  The black sky peppered with stars like white pinpoints in a dark cloth.  Against the still lights were several bright streaks of light moving west to east high up above his head as if a child had lit a 4th of July sparkler. 

Blocking the view in thin sections were the leafy branches of several tall trees.  Maples, evergreens, and oaks were coated in inky darkness.  In the distance a mountain loomed like a great beast crouched sleeping waiting to be wakened from its watchful slumber.  He breathed deeply the wood smoke smell of autumn as his neighbor’s fireplaces smoldered with early season flames.  He went back in the apartment, removed his contacts, pulled off the rest of his clothes and climbed naked in between the cool sheets of his queen bed.  In a moment he was dead asleep. 

Later that evening, he sat in the semi-darkness of the local tavern, the Hitching Post. An almost empty pitcher of beer sat on the table in front of him. He recounted the problems the business was having and thought of Caitlyn.  The bar was located on Norris Lake near the Andersonville boat dock.  It was a small dark dive nestled back in the woods overlooking the lake.  The structure was approximately 1000 square feet and looked from the outside to be a two-story, A-frame chalet. 

In fact, it probably was a personal home at one time.  There were wide wooden stairs leading up to double French doors situated in the middle of the front of the inverted V of the roof.  A small 6 foot by 4 foot balcony rested above the double doors with double doors of its own leading to the loft of the A-frame structure. 

Inside there were three rooms, a storage room, a unisex bathroom and a large bar area upstairs was an empty room with only the balcony reserved for private conversations. 

The indoors was raw wood timbers as was the outside.  The walls held hundreds of pictures of the history of the area; pictures of locals with bass they’d caught, deer they’d shot, and piles of ducks with Labradors and duck hunters proudly standing next to their catch. 

A second set of double doors sat opposite the front ones except they opened up on to a large deck which stretched the length of the back of the A-frame out over the black lake water on sturdy pilings.  Wooden booths aged with burn marks and carvings were set at intervals inside. 

On the back deck were six wooden picnic tables which also carried years of wear. Layers of smoke hung in the air as patrons filled ashtrays with cigarette and cigar ashes.  The smell of stale beer mixed with the sour stench of fish and wafted on the slight humid breeze that blew in across the lake through the open back doors. 

A tall bald man with a beard and mustache passed drinks from behind the bar.  He looked like the typical Harley-Davidson rider muscular with a black Harley t-shirt, faded blue jeans, black motorcycle boots, and an intricate cross tattooed on the back of his neck. 

“Hey buddy, send over another pitcher.”

With a nod, John poured a pitcher of beer.

“Here you go bud.”

“Put it on a tab.”

“No tabs here, man.  Pay up or get out.”

He dug around in his wallet and pulled out a twenty. “There, my last one.  Now leave me in peace,” he swore with disdain.

John picked up the twenty and made change out of a wad of bills from his front pocket. “I ain’t no servant boy.  Mind your tone when you speak to me or you’ll find your ass out in the lake,” John warned with both hands on the table and a snarl in his voice.

The young man backed up as far as possible and nodded without a word then reached out and poured himself another beer as the big man stalked away.

As he took a swig he saw two vaguely familiar faces walking towards him.  They each took a seat at his table. 

“Hey man how’s it hanging?  I haven’t seen you in forever. Hell, since high school.”  The dark headed man with a goatee exclaimed.  The other man with straight blonde hair pulled back in a long braid down his back said nothing as he sat down. 

“Yeah, good to see you.  Where’ve you been? Here have a drink, man.  Let’s get drunk and remember old times.”

The bar filled over the next few hours and the three slowly got stone drunk. 

Smoke filled the air and the sound of cue balls chirped as two pool tables in the back of the room were constantly monopolized.  Each new rack drew a new set of pool sharks to the frenzy.  There was little room to move. Few women, if any, were present, not welcome in the dark environment.  Here was a place where the men could come drink, shoot pool, smoke and make lewd conversation without watching their backs for judgment from the opposite sex. 

The three had moved from the indoor table to a picnic table out on the back balcony overlooking the lake.  Their conversation was as dark as the night.

“Life’s shit.  There’s something I want you to do for me.  I need for there to be an end to that new condo project on the other side of the lake.  I am not asking for you to do anything except make a little trouble and stir things up so they miss their deadline.” 

“What’s in it for us?  Not that I think that old sheriff could find his ass with two hands and a flashlight, but I just finished a stretch in county and don’t want to put my ass on the line unless there’s something in it for me.”

“I can pay - $1,000 a piece.  I want that bitch managing the project to look bad.  She and her old man have been nothing but a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember.  Just once I want them to know what it feels like to be on the bottom struggling for a way up.”

“The risk’s too large. That’s not enough cash.  The cops are bound to be keeping an eye on the place.  That Tarlington is loaded and has those good old boy cops in his back pocket.  If we were caught….”

“Well, then I’ll take the first step. You make it hard on her and the crew. If she can’t show up and can’t get her men to show then there’s bound to be trouble.  Accomplish that and I’ll make it $2,000 each.” 

“I don’t trust you, man, how are you going to come across that kind of dough?”

“I have it. To prove it, I’ll front you a half now and the rest when the job’s done.”

“One more thing, I know the bitch you’re talking about.  I’ve seen her around town and remember her from high school.  She was one stuck up cunt and wouldn’t have given me the time of day.  So, man, you give me a third up front and I’ll do it.  One catch, you turn your head when I take the bitch and have some fun with her first.” 

“You do what you want with her.  I don’t give a rat’s ass, just as long as that project comes in behind schedule.”

“You got it, man. This should be some fun.  I can’t wait,” the blonde said licking his lips.  His interest finally peaked enough to make a comment.