Chapter 16 “Hey, that’s two.”

April 19, 2009 at 1:41 pm (Uncategorized)

            It smelled of strawberries and woman.  It was his first time, and Lazarus was entering virgin territory.  Walking around the studio apartment, he marveled at how clean it was; there were not even dust mites floating in the air.  The morning sun, filtering in through the bare windows, rested on the bed in the back left corner of the room opposite the kitchen.  He had never slept there.

            Scarlett had given him the keys to her apartment in case he had ever needed them, but for some unspoken reason, they had never gone to her apartment for anything.  What he admired the most about this place was the rose petal pattern on the ceiling.  To him, it seemed that someone had tried to throw petals all over the floor, bed, kitchen table, and furniture but that gravity had stopped working and they had gone to rest on the ceiling.

            Lazarus smiled.  This was his woman.  He glanced over at the door, nervous that Scarlett would catch him in the act of infiltrating her domain, even though she was not due back for another day.  He wanted to get any last information about Pyrle before Amelia and he paid a visit to his house.  Lazarus’s stomach hurt for doing this, but Amelia had convinced him there was no other way.

            He padded over to the dresser and picked up the photo of the two of them.  It was not a particularly flattering one as they were covered in mud.  He guessed she kept it because of the smiles.  Lazarus had tripped after a particularly rainy day and fallen into a large mud pit next to the sidewalk.  She had been laughing at him until he had pulled her into the mud as well.  Lazarus snorted and put the photo down.

            As he did, the photo in the loose frame shifted revealing the corner of another picture behind it.  Lazarus turned the frame over, undid the plastic clasps, and removed the back.  Two pictures fell onto the floor.  One was the one he had just seen, but the other was of two girls.  The date said the picture was taken four years ago.  It was Scarlett; he recognized her figure but not the other girl.  He guessed it must be Samantha, Scarlett’s sponsor.  Someone else had taken the photo of them and had captured a warm fall day on the campus.  Lazarus recognized the Cuppaccino store where Amelia worked.  The two girls were walking away from the camera holding hands.  Unseen wind blew their hair to the left and three leaves had been forever captured in flight in the bottom lower left.  Shafts of light pierced through the branches of the trees and landed on the sidewalk.  Lazarus looked up at the light on Scarlett’s bed.  He suddenly felt sick.  With shaking hands, he put the photo of Scarlett and him back.  Closing the door, he left the apartment almost the same as he found it, minus one picture.

            In the darkening twilight, Amelia and Lazarus sat in the cab of her truck on the city limits of Masonville, the small town near Falhorn.  It wasn’t quite the one horse town, but it was close.  Pyrle’s house was on the outskirts of town; it was a rancher.  They were waiting until nightfall so that they could sneak a peek into the windows, and according to Amelia, have a look around inside. 

            “Let’s go,” she said, “It’s dark enough.”

            Lazarus looked outside and without a word he got out of the truck, his mind still on earlier today.

            “Okay.  Now don’t make too much noise or set off any motion detectors.  Otherwise the neighbors will be out looking for wild animals.”

            He nodded.

            They snuck across the lawn and went up to the side window.  The house stood on the end of the block with one house on its left, woods on the other two sides, and an abandoned house across the street.  Covered by the woods, they peered into what turned out to be the living room window.  It looked like something out of a magazine.  There was a spotless coffee table, smooth leather sofa, and lots of books crammed neatly on floor to ceiling shelves. 

            “Guy likes to read,” Amelia whispered.

            For lack of anything better to say, Lazarus whispered back, “He’s really smart.”

            “Let’s go check out the next room, and then look for a back door,” she said.

            The next window exposed the kitchen which definitely occupied.  There were pans and dishes stacked in the sink, crumbs and food on the counter.  The table was the most interesting.  It was a beaten up looking thing with an empty glass and a bowl with a spoon in it.  In the dark, they could see the top of the table was discolored.  Without lights, they could not see what caused the stains, but Lazarus automatically jumped to blood.

            Seeing this, he said, “Let’s get inside.”

            He back away from the edge of the house and ran around the corner of the house disregarding Amelia’s whispered exhortation to stop.  A motion sensor went off tripping a floodlight around back.  It lit up the backyard like daylight, and Lazarus froze as if a deer in the headlights.  Amelia came and got him, pulling him back to the car.  She dropped him off at his apartment without a word.

            “We’ll try again?” he said.

            She looked at him and drove off.  Lazarus sighed and went into the apartment.  After showering he climbed into bed, holding the picture of Scarlett and Samantha to his chest as he fell asleep. 

            The door to his bedroom opened sometime later and Scarlett walked in back from her trip.  She dropped off her bag and changed into her pajamas, her shadowing dancing on the bed.  Scarlett climbed under the covers and cuddled up next to Lazarus.  She snaked her arm over his chest and stopped when she felt the picture.  Pulling it out of his loose grasp, she simply stared.  Then she put the photo on the nightstand in front of Lazarus’s sleeping form.  Scarlett put her arm back under the covers and pressed even closer to him.  After giving him a light peck on the back of the head, she closed her eyes.

            Lazarus woke up with an unfamiliar presence in the bed.  He had gone to bed alone and now had an arm on his stomach.  Then he smelled the light scent of strawberries.  His heart bounced, and he rolled to face Scarlett.  In the morning light, her face was relaxed and unworried.  Picture forgotten, he stared at her until she woke a little bit later. 

            “Hey,” he said.

            She smiled and croaked out a ‘hey’ in return.

            “Glad to have you back.” he said, “Unharmed?”

            She nodded.

            In a quick motion she had wrapped her arms around him and hugged him so tight Lazarus could not breathe for a second.  She let go, and they studied each other as if meeting for the first time.  Then they both spoke at once.

            “There’s something I need to tell you.”

            “I have to get something off my chest.”

            “One word,” Lazarus said, “Apartment.”

            “Samantha,” she said.

            Lazarus started and sat upright, “Harry’s journal.”

            She shoved him playfully, “Hey, that’s two.”

                  Chapter 15                         Chapter 17