Multiples of Six (23 page)

Epilogue

On the northern edge of Lake Michigan, up past the great Green Bay, a spit of land juts out into the lake, just south of the Hiawatha National Forest. If you follow route 483 down the peninsula, a mere 8 miles across at its widest, you’ll eventually come to a bend in the road called Devil’s Corner. It was here that Ted Masterson had staked his claim. The country was exactly what he was looking for; rugged, intimidating, but also full of the kind of people you could trust. The kind of people who did as they were done in return. His thirty-five acres allowed him the type of privacy he liked. His nearest neighbor was a five minute drive on roads they didn’t even bother naming.

Here, he had tucked himself away, half hoping to forget the world; half hoping the world would forget him. But, despite his seclusion and the hours spent immersed in manual labor around the farm, he couldn’t allow himself to forget. Once a year, he would start preparing, sometimes unbeknownst to himself, to leave his retreat. He would visit his brother in New Jersey. He would visit the boy. Make sure all was well. Make sure that his mistake had not cost his brother any more than it already had. Then his brother had died unexpectedly. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Little brothers were supposed to bury you, not the other way around. He had remained stoic through the service. A hardened face of courage for Maggie, only a few years from death herself, and the boy. A lie revealed only the week following his burial, when he spent three straight days weeping alone in the darkness of his cabin. When the sorrow finally abated, he plunged himself into the farm, pushing himself to his own physical limits and beyond. It was only later that he could admit that he’d been trying to kill himself. Trying to break the heart in his body as his brother’s had been broken.

He was soon confronted by a new sorrow. Maggie was dying. There would be no merciful quickness to her death. He watched from afar as she withered under the chemotherapy. James rose to the occasion, becoming the kind of young man Ted had hoped he would become. He wasn’t blood, and Ted couldn’t see him as a military man, but he always felt that the boy had something in him. Something that lay just beneath the surface, waiting to be scratched out. His mother’s death had made him bleed, but he would be ok. He was going to be ok…with some help.

Ted looked down at his hand, which was still on the phone’s receiver. Dan Johnson up at the airport had just called in. He knew Ted well. Knew enough of Ted’s history to understand his desire for secrecy. Knew that someone who asked where Ted Masterson lived was probably looking for trouble. Knew that someone looking for him after dark was really looking for trouble. There were at least two of them, perhaps a third in the car, but he couldn’t quite see. Came in on an unregistered chopper. No flight plan needed for a chopper in that region.

They were about a half hour away. Even if they didn’t know where they were going, they could still be there within forty-five minutes. It wasn’t a large place.

Ted changed into his fatigues and pulled the rifle out from under his bed. The black cap was snug on his head, and the uniform was a little tighter in places it hadn’t been before, but it would do. For a moment, he considered taking the boat out into the lake. From there, he could watch at a safe, unapproachable distance. Instead, he made his way out into the woods about a hundred and fifty yards from the house. He could easily see the house and the driveway. He glanced at his watch once and began to count down in his head. He glanced in his binoculars at sixty second intervals and checked his surroundings every two minutes. He closed his eyes and focused on the sounds of the woods around him. He heard the car approach from about a mile off. Saw as the headlights turned into his driveway. Watched intently as the car moved brazenly towards the house. Whoever it was, wasn’t concerned with how much noise they made, which worried him. He glanced over his shoulder trying to decide if the sound he had heard was an echo from the car in the driveway, or whether his instinct was correct. The car hadn’t stopped though. He raised the rifle, placed the sight to his eye and steadied his breathing. He watched as a man got out of the car. An odd looking man in a red coat, white pants, and a straw fedora. The man must be freezing, Ted thought. Then he heard it again and turned his head. The butt end of a gun came down upon his temple and he saw no more. As the darkness came, he heard a man’s voice.

“Hello, Uncle.”

Acknowledgments

Behind every writer is a group of people who have helped, coaxed, poked, prodded, redirected, and motivated them along the road toward completion. This book is dedicated to the folks in my life who have been there for me in one way or another: my wife, Kelly, for letting me escape to write; my mother, Kathleen, for encouraging me to follow my talent and instilling in me the understanding that everything happens for a reason; my buddies, Joe, Matt, and Brian, for their regular inquiry of "Finish that novel yet?"; and finally, my father, David, for teaching me the difference between wrong, right, and just plain bullshit.

The following people were instrumental as readers, commenters, and editors: Laura Klein, Laurene Graham, Mollie Friedman, Jo-Ann West, Glenn Wieland, Carolyn Nicholas, Craig Nicholas, and Kelly Mulraney. Your help and input brought this story to a whole new level. Thank you.

About the Author

Raised in the “wilds” of northwestern NJ, Andy admittedly led a bit of a sheltered life. Books and a vivid imagination were a large part of his childhood. After an ill-fated and thankfully brief college career as a Chemistry student, he discovered a love of writing. He studied Literature and Creative Writing at The Richard Stockton College of NJ, where he first got the idea for
Multiples of Six
.

He now lives in the not-so-wilds of NJ, with his wife, son, two cats, two chinchillas, a salamander named Fred, and an ever-changing number of fish that may...just may...have cannibalistic tendencies. He looks forward to telling stories that people like to read.

If you liked this book, Andy hopes you'll take the time to let him know! If you didn't like it, he hopes you use kind words to tell him so. He can be found all over the internet in various forms:

http://www.andyrane.com

http://andyrane.blogspot.com

http://facebook.com/AndyRaneAuthor

@andyraneauthor (Twitter account)

Look for the second book of the
Six
trilogy,
Divisible by Six
, in late 2011/early 2012!