Firefly Rain Read online

I kept coming. The gap closed. Rain came down, and thunder and lightning split time slicing through the clouds.

  When I got within fifteen feet this time, the car sped off again.

  I stood there. Waited. Looked back at the house to see how far I was getting from it, and thought briefly that maybe someone was using this as a way to bust in while I was gone. I put the thought out of my mind, though. If they wanted in, there were easier ways to do it. Besides, I wanted my damn car.

  Slower this time, I started forward. It was an angry man’s pace, deliberate and righteous. Little wisps of smoke puffed out of the tailpipe as I came forward, the engine letting me know it was still alive.

  I closed within a dozen feet. Looked back over my shoulder at the house again. It was hiding behind a curtain of rain, barely visible. If I kept going forward, I’d soon be out of sight of it entirely.

  I didn’t care. A few more steps brought me closer. Still the car sat there. Little rivers streamed off the back and around the tires.

  I kept walking. My car, I said to myself. No doubt about it. This was my car. The Massachusetts tags were plain to see. The brake lights glared at me, angry red eyes through the storm. I didn’t care. I pulled my robe tighter around myself and started forward.

  The driver waited until I was maybe five feet behind the bumper and gaining before stepping on the gas. Mud and cold water spun up behind the wheels and caught me full in the chest as the car jumped forward.

  I stumbled. A flash of lightning sizzled the air just overhead, searing everything into an image of stark black and white. I could see the shape of the driver up ahead, outlined against the white light. Then the thunder came and knocked me to my knees. The rain hammered into my back like it was trying to push me down into the mud, bury me, and hide any trace of my existence.

  I fought it off, stood against the wind and started forward again. My robe was soaked, my legs were covered in cold mud, but I didn’t care. Through the sheets of rain I could see the taillights of the car, but nothing more. Two red lights shining through the storm, taunting me.

  Another flash of lightning cut the sky ragged, a little farther away this time. I braced myself for the thunder and started moving forward. One thought filled my mind: I was going to kill the man who was driving it. I was going to reach the car, pull the door open, and wrap my hands around the neck of whoever was inside. This I knew with a calm certainty, the same way a preacher knows that the Lord is up there and watching.

  Twenty more steps. The car just sat there in the rain, thunder shaking the air around it. Ten. I could almost see him through the solid sheets of water coming down.

  The engine roared to life as that son of a bitch threw the car into reverse and came screaming back up the road at me. I threw myself to the side just in time, landing in the drainage ditch in half a foot of red-brown water. My shoulder took the impact, slamming hard into the mud. Water splashed up as I hit, mixing with the splashback from the car’s passage in a curtain of muddy spray. It hid me from the road for a moment, long enough for the driver to throw the car into first and gun it. I could hear the engine protest and grind, but it obeyed and charged forward. More water spattered down on my back and neck, mixed with pebbles and clots of mud. I shouted something then—curses I can’t remember—as the car rolled off into the storm. The rain came down double hard, like Heaven wanted to hide the sight from me. After a minute, even the sound of the engine was gone, drowned out by the wind, the thunder, and the rain coming down in a hurry.

  A sensible man would have gone back inside then, I think. I never claimed to be sensible, though. Just proud sometimes, and stubborn.

  Facedown and on my hands and knees, I waited in that ditch for something to tell me what to do next. Cold water flowed around me, the chill of it getting under my skin. My robe was soaked, clinging wet to my legs and back. I shivered and clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. Even if the damn car was gone, I wasn’t going to give the driver the pleasure of seeing me shake.

  Slowly, I stood up. Shook myself to get the worst of the mud off.

  The car might have been out of sight. It might have been out of earshot. Hell, it might have been swallowed by the mud or the storm or the sky, for all I knew.

  But I had seen it go off into the distance, and for as long as I could, I would follow.

  With one last look back at the house and a quick check of my pocket to see if the keys were still there, I climbed back onto the road. My fingers tore gashes out of the mud as I hauled myself up, but eventually they found rocks to cling to that would hold my weight. Red water ran off me in streams as I stood, sliding down my legs and puddling around my feet as I stared off into the distance.

  Then, I started running. My slippers slapped against my feet for maybe a dozen steps before I kicked them off and my bare feet hit the road. Cold mud spread around my toes with each step, but I kept running, water and wet dirt flying up behind me. My face was a mask of reddish dirt and my hands were caked in mud. My footsteps sank into the surface of the road, leaving prints that the rain washed away before I’d gone another twenty feet. Gravel from the roadbed tore at my feet, but if they drew blood I didn’t see it.

  I just ran.

  Lightning flashed again, and through a sudden lull in the storm, I saw lights up ahead on the road.

  Red lights. The taillights on my car, sure as sunset.

  I ran faster. Fence posts went past, their outlines blurred by the rain. Trees were distant shadows, fading through shades of gray. I knew I was off my land now, was farther down the road than I wanted to think about. It didn’t matter.

  I could see that the lights had stopped moving up ahead. Maybe the thief was waiting for me. I didn’t care. The road felt good under my feet, each footstep splashing in rhythm. The rain didn’t feel cold anymore. My breath steamed up in front of me, then trailed away in thin streaks.

  I could hear the car now. The engine’s rasp cut across the noise of the storm. And above it, another sound: the high-pitched whine of tires stuck in mud.

  Now I knew why the lights weren’t moving. I could feel my lips curl up in a wolf’s grin.

  Stuck. The bastard was stuck. And I was coming for him.

  The car got closer. It was pinned at the bottom of a slight rise, a place where trucks had long since spit all the gravel off the road and left ruts in the hard-packed dirt. Now it was deep mud, and the Audi was trapped in it. The engine roar got louder. If the thief kept that up, he might burn the engine out. Mud spray flew up and coated the taillights, dimming the lights that had drawn me this far.

  It didn’t matter. I was close.

  Lightning flared again in ragged forks from east to west. If the driver was looking, he would have seen me in the rearview. I was that close. My hands had gone numb and my lips were thick with the cold, but I didn’t care. I’d open the door. I’d pull the thief out. I’d take care of business.

  And suddenly, there it was. My car. Right in front of me. The wheels still spinning, digging it in ever deeper. The figure inside turned, looked over its shoulder at me through cold-misted glass, then hunched over the wheel. He was big, whoever he was, too big to be Carl. For a second, I worried that I’d read the man wrong, then I put the thought out of my mind. Carl had a lot of friends, as Hanratty had reminded me. No doubt I was just about to find out who one of them was.

  I put my hand on the trunk. It felt warm, like the rain hadn’t touched it. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that I’d touched it. I took another step forward and pressed my palm against window glass.

  The thief rocked back and forth in his seat, no doubt trying to shake the car loose. I could have told him he was wasting his time. That car wasn’t going anywhere. I was sure of it. The engine howled as he floored the gas pedal.

  I put my hand on the driver’s-side door. Wrapped my fingers around the handle. Tugged it up.

  Lightning hit a tree at the top of the hill. I pulled my hand away to cover my eyes.

  And the
car leaped out of the hole it had dug for itself and roared away.

  I sank to my knees, watching the taillights fade like the devil’s eyes into the distance. Tired. I was tired. If I’d had anything left in me, I would have cried, but there wasn’t any point to it. The house was somewhere behind me, but I didn’t care. It was too damn long a walk. I didn’t have it in me. Not now. Not after that.

  I managed to get to the side of the road before collapsing, sliding and tumbling down into the drainage ditch. Cold water wrapped itself around me, running past like it was in a hurry to be somewhere I wasn’t. It felt good—the chill of it sucking the pain and warmth out of me by degrees. I closed my eyes and waited. Silly thing to die over, really, I told myself. I could have bought another car. Didn’t even really like that one so much when I thought about it.

  The noise of the rain went away, and the thunder with it. All the cold left me, too. Freezing to death in Carolina rain, the last waking bit of me said to myself. Isn’t that funny?

  Yes it is, I agreed, and I went to sleep.

  ten

  Light.

  Strong arms, lifting me.

  A voice saying, “You’ve had enough adventure for one day, Mr. Logan. Rest easy now.”

  Hands stripping away my robe, something I knew I should find disturbing. A warm blanket, rough to the touch, slipping over me instead.

  “Tsk-tsk-tsk” and “My God, look at his feet.”

  And Officer Hanratty saying, “How the hell did he get all the way out here?”

  These were the only things I remembered.

  I woke up the next morning in my own bed, stark naked under blankets I hadn’t used since I was a boy. My head hurt, and so did my hands and feet, but I felt bruised rather than broken. The smell of scorched coffee was in the air, and I could hear someone whistling in the kitchen.

  My brain started coming on line then, and so help me God, for a minute all I could think was, Sweet Jesus, Carl took my pants off. Then the rational part of my brain, or at least the part that had other things to worry about besides who’d seen me naked, woke itself up and told me I should probably get out of bed. Wrapping the blankets around myself, I sat up and tried to take its advice.

  I looked around the room, but my bathrobe was nowhere to be seen. My clothes were in the dresser against the far wall, but the door was open, and there were footsteps coming down the hall. Heavy ones, too, by the sound of things, and my nose told me someone was bringing coffee.

  I decided that the better part of valor involved not having my balls flap in the breeze in front of a stranger. So, rather than make a mad dash for my boxers, I just settled in and wrapped those blankets tight.

  After maybe ten ticks of the clock, Officer Hanratty came around the corner and stomped into the room. That woman walked like a cat I used to have, which is to say that she might have moved with authority and dignity, but someone had left grace out of the package. In her left hand was a steaming mug of what my nose told me was freshly brewed coffee, and in her right was a paperback novel about as thick as my wrist.

  “You,” she said without preamble when she saw I was awake, “are a goddamned idiot. You’re also lucky as hell, and don’t you forget it.”

  She shoved the coffee into my hands. I took it gratefully and slurped at it while she dropped herself into the chair in the corner. It groaned in protest, but not too loudly.

  “Thank you,” I said, and I took a long swig of the coffee. It was too hot and too strong and it burned going down, but my, it was wonderful. I came up grinning and saw she was looking at me over the top of her book.

  “You seem to be feeling better,” she said neutrally, flipping a page.

  “I am,” I said. “Do I have you to thank for bringing me back here?”

  “In part.” She looked down, skimmed another few lines, then dropped the book into her lap. “What the hell were you thinking, running five miles along that road in that storm and dressed like you were going down the hall to take a leak?”

  I shifted myself backward a few inches so my back was against the wall and my weight helped pin the covers around me. “I had good reason,” I said. “And as much as I appreciate the coffee, I’m a bit surprised to see you in my house.”

  “Well,” Hanratty said, leering at me, “it was me or Carl Powell. I figured you’d be happier with me. Besides, the door was open.”

  “Funny, I thought I’d closed it.”

  “You did,” she said. “At least, maybe you did when you went out. Then again, things have happened since then.”

  “Whatever that means, I guess.” I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand, trying to wipe away the headache that had decided to wake up with the rest of me. “Tell you what. You tell me how you got me back here, and I’ll tell you why I was running down the road in my skivvies. Deal?”

  “Bathrobe and skivvies,” she corrected, but she was smiling. “Fair enough. Here’s what happened, at least from my end.

  “Carl Powell found you laying facedown on the side of the road, damn near dead of hypothermia. I still don’t know why I agreed to let him bring you home, by the way, instead of taking you to the hospital. I may yet change my mind.”

  “Carl?” I asked. “Now how about that.”

  She snorted. “I’m glad to see you’re taking interest. Don’t go starting with any crazy talk about Carl now, not until you at least put some pants on. You see, he said he’d come out here to talk to you. Said he wanted to clear some things off his chest about what was going on.”

  “Must have been pretty important, for him to come out here in that weather,” I said.

  “Well, it is Carl. Once he sets his mind to something…” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged. “But in any case, I was telling you what happened. Carl came by and found your door open and the rain blowing in. He stuck his head in and hollered for you but got no answer. So he walked in and poked around, and he still couldn’t find you. That’s when he got worried. He called the station from your kitchen, then he got in his truck to look for you. Since he hadn’t seen you coming in, he kept going out, and that’s where he found you. I got there about three minutes later, and by then, he’d gotten you off the ground and wrapped you in a blanket. Wouldn’t let me take you to the hospital, though, like I said. Insisted you’d do better at home. I tell you, I think when I suggested an ambulance he was ready to haul off and hit me.”

  I sipped my coffee and didn’t say anything. Hanratty watched me do it and didn’t say anything either.

  “So what happened then?” I finally prompted.

  “About what you’d expect. We brought you back here and threw you in a hot shower for a while. It works for the drunks, so I figured it would work for you. After that, we threw your sorry butt into bed, and Carl stayed up all night watching you. I came by about an hour ago to relieve him. That’s about it.”

  “He stayed all night?” I blinked. “Seriously?”

  Hanratty nodded. “Seriously. Which means if he wanted to do something unpleasant to you, or take something out of this house, he had plenty of time to do it in.” She looked around. “If you ask me, it doesn’t look like he did, now, does it?”

  I shook my head. “It’s just a little confusing, that’s all. I’m not accusing anyone of anything anyhow, at least not until I have another cup of coffee. Don’t you go jumping to conclusions, either.”

  She threw her hands up in a gesture of surrender, a thick finger holding her place in the book. “You got me there,” she said, and she chuckled. “Now tell you what—you tell me what on earth possessed you to go running down the road like that, and I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”

  “Seems fair to me,” I said, holding out my cup.

  “Cream and sugar?” she asked.

  “Neat,” I replied, and I got another laugh. She put her book down with the spine cracked, then marched off back down the hallway. I took the opportunity to shut the bedroom door and find myself some boxers and a pair of jeans. No time for soc
ks, though, and I took the first T-shirt I could find, one that read Braintree HS Athletic Department. I shrugged into that, ran my fingers through my hair, and dropped back onto the bed just as Hanratty knocked.

  “All decent?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I answered.

  “Well, damn.” She pushed the door open, grinning. “And here I was hoping for a nice view.”

  “You could have had all you wanted while you were bringing me back here,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but I get as much of that as I want helping out with autopsies.” She snorted at my expression, shoved the overfull mug into my fingers, and sat herself back down. “By the way, you might want to learn to put away your toys before you go running around in the rain.”

  “Toys?” I blinked. “What toys?”

  She shrugged and jerked one thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “There was a toy soldier in the middle of the kitchen floor. Aren’t you a little old to be playing with those?”

  “They were Father’s,” I heard myself say. “Where did you say the soldier was?”

  She thought for a moment. “Middle of the floor, like I said. Facing the doorway, like he was guarding it. Not that it was going to do much good if someone came bigfooting through there.” She lifted one booted foot, then set it down fast, to make sure I knew what she was talking about. “I picked it up and put it on the table, so you can thank me later. If they were your father’s, you might want to take better care of them.”

  “I thought I had,” I said mildly, but my thoughts were racing. More than anything, I wanted to go check the box I’d left in the drawer to see if—no, how—it had been disturbed. But I wasn’t going to do that in front of Hanratty. For all her newfound cheer, talking to her was still not something I was all that comfortable doing. The last thing I wanted was to have to explain why I was going through my old socks like a dog digging for a bone. No, better to check later.

  If, mind you, I decided I really wanted to check at all.

  Instead, I breathed in the aroma of the coffee for a moment, reluctant to start the real conversation. I could feel Hanratty’s eyes on me, questioning.