Behind the red haired man, Martin Lynch observed cautiously. His son did not like this man.
The red haired man covertly swept the room with just his eyes. On the night stand beneath a lamp he saw a magazine. He recognized the title. He picked it up and casually paged through it. “Do you like to read?”
Simon’s rocking increased.
The red haired man skimmed through The Tinkery and stopped at the first page of the puzzle section. “Do you like puzzles?”
Simon’s head tipped up toward his daddy and then fell again. His thumbs began to work hard against the skin of his hands. Martin Lynch stopped leaning and stepped forward.
The red haired man tilted his head to look beneath the angled young head. “Do you like puzzles?”
“Hey.” Martin Lynch tapped firmly on the red haired man’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Just trying to make him comfortable, Mr. Lynch.” Get the information…period.
“Up,” Martin Lynch said, and the red haired man stood and faced him. “He’s not comfortable. That’s the problem.”
“I guess so,” the red haired man said. He chewed at his lower lip and added a nod, then laid the magazine on Simon’s lap. He seemed sorry.
“He’s not going to talk to you,” Martin Lynch said.
“Well, maybe we should just talk, you and the Mrs. and I, downstairs,” the red haired man suggested. …period.
Martin Lynch nodded and looked to his son. “I’ll be back up in a few minutes, Simon.”
Simon rocked quietly as his daddy and the stranger left his room. Footsteps tapped on the stairs after the door closed. The box spring squeaked beneath his motion. A truck passed the house. At this time Simon knew it would be the truck that delivered milk to the market on the corner. A man named Mr. Toricel—
Tsewp-Tsewp. Tsewp-Tsewp-Tsewp. THUMP. THUMP. Simon’s rocking stilled at the sound of breaking glass. Mommy must have dropped a plate. She had done that before. On the day they ate turkey and mashed potat—
Footsteps rose on the staircase. Heavy feet.
Simon began rocking again. Daddy walked softly.
The door eased open and stayed open. The red haired man walked into Simon’s room alone. Simon smelled something strange. Like smoke.
“Hi again, Simon,” the red haired man said as he neared the kid. He reached into his pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. “I wanted to talk a little bit more about the puzzles.” He stood directly in front of the kid. With a gloved hand he took a fistful of hair and lifted the kid’s head until his face was visible. “You know it’s rude not to look at someone when they’re talking to you.”
Simon’s lower lip turned to jelly, but he did not cry. His eyes darted about in search of something familiar. They locked on the picture of his old dog, Ranger, on the wall by the window. Ranger had died when—
“Look at ME, kid.” The red haired man shook Simon’s head sharply.
“You’re a stranger.”
“Nah.” The red haired man put his face very close to Simon’s. “I’m your friend.”
Daddy hadn’t told him that.
“I just want to talk about some puzzles. You’ll tell a friend about puzzles, won’t you.”
This man was a stranger. He was not a friend.
The red haired man backed off, but kept hold of Simon’s hair. He unfolded the paper in his other hand and held it in front of Simon’s face.
It was covered in letters and numbers.
There were fifty numbers and letters mixed together at the beginning, and fifty letters at the end. In between were 1450 numbers.
“What do you see, kid?”
Simon’s eyes flitted over the numbers and letters. He blinked several times.
“What does it say?”
Simon knew this kind of puzzle. It was not hard. “I know kiwi.”
The red haired man pulled the paper away. “Right.” He stuffed the paper in his coat pocket and aimed Simon’s face toward the magazine on his lap. “There’s a puzzle like that in there. Remember that?” He lifted the head again with a tug. “How’d you figure it out, kid?” His other hand was now unoccupied. He drew it back, palm flat under black leather. “How?”
Martin Lynch lay in a spreading pool of his own blood when his son’s cry echoed down to the kitchen. With a great draw of air he forced his head up and looked around. His wife lay where the two walls of cabinets met. Her dress clung to the front of her body, soaked dark. A line of red trickled from the center of her forehead over one cheek.
He shot us, Martin Lynch realized. He did not remember it happening, but he knew. He should have sensed it coming, like Simon had—
“Thsimon,” Martin Lynch said in a weak, wet voice. Blood spurted from his mouth as he did. He rolled to his side, sat against the stove, and looked down. There was a dime-size hole in his work shirt, just right of the pocket. The blue cotton had turned red. He touched a hand to a fiery spot on above his left eye. One finger found a wet depression that stung tremendously.
Martin Lynch was suddenly nauseous and vomited onto his legs. My God, I’m shot… In the head, and in the chest… I’m going to die… He looked again to his wife. She was still. He killed my Jean…
A SLAP from above snapped Martin Lynch’s throbbing head upward. Simon winced loudly.
“Noth my thson,” Martin Lynch said. He let anger fill him, let it overcome the pain, the sickness, the sorrow, let it lift him from the floor, let it guide him step by step through his wife’s blood out of the kitchen and into the den.
The Red haired man’s hand was cocked for a third blow when a crashing sound rose from the first floor. He let go of Simon’s head and drew his weapon. A slender blued tube extended from the barrel.
“You stay…” The red haired man caught his folly. Like you’re going anywhere, kid. “I’ve got some unfinished business downstairs. Be right back.”
Holding the silenced Walther PPK in a relaxed forward stance, he left the upstairs bedroom and advanced with care down the stairs, measuring each step, easing his feet lightly to the treads below. Near the bottom he crouched and scanned the front room. Nothing. The front door was still closed, and nothing seemed amiss here. He continued, coming upright at floor level and checking both left and right; left farther into the living room, and right toward the kitchen. He saw the mother’s legs through the arched opening, but not the—
“Bastard,” Martin Lynch said from behind the red-haired man. He had gone into the den through the archway directly across from the kitchen, and had come out through the opening to the living room. In the den was a china hutch. Resting atop it had been a .38 caliber revolver. Martin Lynch now held it in his right hand.
He shot the red haired man six times in the back before collapsing himself. His last thought was of his son, and what would become of him, and before the world went dark Martin Lynch dropped the revolver and reached into his shirt pocket.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Simon’s body shuddered at the loud noise. It seemed to echo, going on, and on, and on. His ears rang almost painfully.
It scared him. The loud noise scared him.
He knew what to do.
With his face stinging and one eye swollen almost shut, Simon pulled his cards from beneath his sweatshirt. He flipped through them to the one titled STORM. IF A LOUD NOYZ SKAIRS YU AND IT GTS LOUDR AND YU KANT FIND MOMMY AND DADDY THN GO TO TH BASMNT