Mike wondered momentarily about whether he should have brought her flowers, like he had done the previous week. It had worked to the extent the conversation was, at least for the Saturday, less depressing. But, then, to continually bring home gifts to raise the atmosphere to normality would be seem to almost be rewarding her distance. It would possibly just be simpler to ask her what was wrong, but he guessed he already knew the answer to that.
Janey had turned forty years old just two months earlier. He still found her as attractive as ever, but he often found her scrutinising her reflection in the bathroom mirror. He suspected she was lonely. In some respects, he understood it couldn’t be easy living in such an isolated property, with no real neighbours for miles, but the secluded bungalow had been her dream house. At least, it had been, at first.
Mike’s jeep was rounding the curve of Tom Wels Road, when the speeding bus nearly hit him. The narrow road was neither designed for, nor accustomed to, an intercity bus. It thundered around the corner, taking up most of the middle of the road. The suddenness of the unexpected wall of metal, shuddering towards him, forced Mike to skid on to the dusty verge of the road. This misshapen verge of the road was so strewn with rocks the wheels of the jeep shuddered and threw up a cloud of debris, forcing him to a stop. He swore, as he slammed a fist against the dashboard. Glancing in his side view mirror he found - as expected - the bus was long gone into the cloud it had left in its wake.
Whilst he waited for the dust to settle, Mike pulled a packet of Winston cigarettes out of the glove box, removed one from the pack, and pushed in the cigarette lighter. When it popped, he used it, and blew a grey cone of smoke out. His brief brush with death left him off-centre for a minute. Staring into the dry scrub-land, his eyes fell on the distant Rockies, and he felt the soothing effects of nature. It seemed perhaps more important than ever to get things back on track at home,
Once his rattled state of mind had settled, Mike restarted the engine, and drove off the verge and back on to the road. He drove much more slowly around the next bend he came to. He knew this corner well, as it was located only fifty meters from his home. Perhaps if he had been driving faster, he would not have noticed the thing at the side of the road. This small fact would be something he would think about for years afterwards. But, the slow pace allowed him to catch a glimpse of it - a bright yellow tennis shoe, just like the ones his wife wore. This was not a soft pastel yellow, but rather the screaming bright colour of emergency services. Whenever she wore them around the house, Mike would call her Big Bird or BB for short. What a strange coincidence, Mike thought, that a shoe, just like his wife’s, should be discarded in the scrub land so close to their house.
Mike smiled to himself, and decided he would use this funny fact to break the ice when he got back to the house. He would ask Janey if her shoes had started breeding. Maybe they could take a walk along the verge together, so he could show her the lone shoe. He could tentatively take her hand on the walk back and offer to fix brunch, or they could go out to somewhere nice in Blythe - get back on track together.
Steering into the driveway of his sprawling bungalow, Mike switched off the engine, and stepped out of the jeep.
At the side of the house white, clean clothes were drying on the taunt washing line. This sight was always something which reminded Mike of his childhood, and he found inexpressible comfort in the fact Janey was so reliable in her quietly meticulous care of their home.
Opening the screen door, Mike found the inner door was ajar. This did not alarm Mike - on hot days, both the front and rear doors were kept open to allow a through breeze. What did alarm him, however, was the single item of footwear lying in the middle of the hallway.
‘Janey?’ he called, as he knelt down and picked up the tennis shoe.
There was no reply.
Mike felt an uncomfortable shift of energy inside him, confirming at some primal level something was very wrong. He took the shoe with him, as he hurried back outside into the bright morning light. Clambering back into the jeep, he revved the engine, and sped off in screeching cloud of dust.
When he got the place where he had seen the shoe, Mike pulled up the jeep, switched on the emergency warning lights, and climbed out. The internal part of him already knew what to expect, and was simply allowing his conscious mind to catch up.
As he reached out to the discarded training shoe, Mike picked it up, and held next to Janey’s shoe - making a perfect pair. On the recovered shoe, a smear of blood was vividly contrasted against the bright yellow material. He held the two shoes to his stomach, and let out a single sob.
Staring at the dusty roadside in disbelief, he noticed something that broke his paralysis. There were tyre tracks alongside the verge where his wife’s bloodied shoe had been lying. Given the fact Mike had spent thirty-one years working as a truck mechanic, he knew the tyre tracks belonged to a bus, and most likely the one that had near run him off the road, seventeen minutes earlier.
Climbing back into his jeep, Mike pulled the glove compartment open again, only this time, he threw the cigarettes aside and removed a 9 mm Cougar pistol. He took the safety off the handgun, started the engine, and slammed the jeep into gear.
34
Abigail Reiner walked through the front door of the beach house, carrying her two items of matching luggage, and closed the door with her foot.
‘Victoria – are you in?’ she called, and placed her bags neatly against the wall closest to the door.
Despite the fact she had been joint owner - along with her deceased ex-husband - of the house for over a decade, Abigail Reiner felt little emotional connection with the place. Her ex-husband had suggested she was incapable of such a response, but he was wrong. She simply had too many responsibilities to indulge in time wasting emotions. Without her efforts and lack of soul searching, she would not have a successful career, and luxuries such as the beach house could quite simply have never been achieved.
The house felt warmer than she liked it – possibly as a consequence of spending so much time in the fresher environment of the East Coast. Her heels clicked noisily on the tiled floor as she walked over to the wall mounted panel and turned on the air conditioning. She walked through to the living room, and surveyed the place with a critical eye.
Making her way along the hallway to the bedroom, Abigail fully expected to find her over-sensitive daughter to be curled on her bed, hiding from the world. This personality defect in her daughter, which must have been inherited from her father, was what had driven Mrs. Reiner to return to Oceanside for the week. If she allowed Vicki to spend any more time retreating from the world, her career prospects would plummet even further. She called her daughter’s name again. There was no response.
Eventually, Abigail walked into the stale air of what had once been her own, beige-coloured bedroom. She crossed the spacious room, and sat on the bed. Reaching down, she opened a small bedside cabinet, and removed a TV controller.
Abigail switched on the wall-mounted television. She then bit on her bottom lip as she selected the designated channel connected to her security camera, and the HD recorder located in her wardrobe.
As she reviewed the car park footage of the previous few hours, Abigail resisted the urge to scream in rage.
Instead, she snapped open her phone, and used a manicured nail to tap a staccato pattern on the screen. Holding the telephone to her ear, she chewed on inside one cheek.