Read an Excerpt
OUT OF SIGHT
By T. J. MacGregor PINNACLE BOOKS
Copyright © 2002 T. J. MacGregor
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-7890-1323-0
Chapter One
1
THE TOWNSENDS
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Renie Townsend believed in signs-not the road variety, but those that seemed to rise unbidden from some place within the hidden order of things. And on June 8, all the signs seemed to be pointing to the same thing, that she should stay home and let her husband and daughter head out together on their camping trip to the Everglades.
Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a difficult choice. Renie hated camping. The bugs, the hard ground, the sleeping bags that stank of mothballs, the flimsy tent, the absence of lights and air-conditioning and a decent bathroom: it spelled disaster in her book. Youth hostels were fine when you were eighteen, but she was forty-four and liked her creature comforts, It seemed, though, that for the last six months, she and Andy and Katie had been running in opposite directions from morning till night. Now that school was finally out, Andy had gotten some time off from the ER and they had a chance to spend a long weekend together.
She had been hoping for a resort somewhere and, if not that, then at least a motel on the beach up the coast. But Katie had informed her in that blithe, offhanded way endemic to young teens that she and her dad were going camping in the Everglades. And they hadn't asked her if she wanted to come. That was what had prompted her to say she was going, too.
You'll hate it, Mom, Katie had said. Bugs, humidity, snakes, the hard ground ...
I'm going.
As it turned out, the camping trip wasn't just a critical turning point in their lives. It was the worst decision they ever made.
2
The first sign happened shortly after eight that morning.
Andy was outside, loading the Jeep, and Renie was standing in front of the fridge, wondering what else she could jam in the cooler. Did she have time to run up to Publix to buy a new, larger cooler? Would there be room in the canoe for three people, two coolers, and all their camping gear? Probably not. But Christ, she had to have cold water, lots of it. Never mind that the ice would be melted by tomorrow morning. As long as it lasted, cold water would go a long way toward mitigating other physical discomforts.
She flipped open the lid on the cooler, wondering how the hell they were going to lug this thing through the Everglades. But the couldn't remove anything. Tonight they would have the cold chicken she'd baked and the potato salad she'd made and a can of baked beans. Camping food, for sure. She had grapefruits and cereal with milk and fresh strawberries for herself and Andy for breakfast and the usual coffee yogurt for Katie. She had bread for tuna fish sandwiches tomorrow for lunch. That left canned shit for dinner tomorrow night because by then the ice would be melted. No point in packing anything for tomorrow night, she thought, and removed the hot dogs and veggie burgers.
I'm going to be an insane woman by Sunday morning.
No, no, no. It would be fine. She would do okay on this little jaunt into the wilderness. She would slather herself in insect repellent and turn on the little reading light that clipped right on to the book, and make sure that she was having a good time.
And that was when Katie started screaming.
Until just then, Renie never had understood the phrase bloodcurdling scream. But that's what this was, a sound so primal that she felt it in her cells, her blood, at the very core of her being. As she slammed open the French doors to the back porch, she had visions of Katie lying on the ground next to her trampoline, her spine broken, her body paralyzed from the neck down. She had visions of Katie lying at the bottom of the swimming pool, her hair drifting like pale seaweed around her.
She exploded through the porch door and the humidity struck her instantly, air of a texture like cotton. The screaming collapsed into shrieks.
In the morning light, the pool looked tranquil, inviting, not even a tipple on the surface. She knew even before she could see the bottom that Katie hadn't fallen in. The surface was too still, too perfect. She rounded the corner of the house, where the trampoline was, and spotted her daughter. Katie wasn't on the ground. She was standing at the fence, her back to Renie. Not dead, not injured, she's okay ...
So why the hell was she screaming like that?
"My Gods Katie, what's going on?"
Katie's head whipped around, horror frozen in her eyes, one hand stabbing at something Renie couldn't see, the other plastered against her mouth. She was trying to stifle her cries and they sounded like great, heaving hiccups.
Renie stopped beside her, struggling to catch her breath, to stem the assault of adrenaline that now raced through her body. She followed her daughter's fingers to the grass, where a tiny bird lay on its back, chest moving up and down so fast that Renie knew it was dying. She knew it before she saw the foam caked at its beak, knew it before she slid her hands up under it and felt its heartbeat faltering.
"It's ... it's dying, oh God, Mom, it's dying," Katie wailed. "Do something. It's in pain."
Give her something to do, get her out of here. "A shoe box, get me a shoe box from my closet and an old towel, a soft towel. Quick, go, go ..."
Katie took off and Renie, with the bird now lying in her cupped hands, rocked back onto her heels. She raised her hands to the light, so she could see the bird better. It was such a little thing, a baby mockingbird, and it probably had fallen out of its nest somewhere at the top of the tall ficus tree to her left. Or perhaps the mother had pushed it out of the nest because it was sick. She knew from experience that wild birds rarely survived such injuries.
Over the years, she and Katie had rescued injured doves, ducks, crows, and all but the ducks had died. Baby birds often took a long time to die, hours of excruciating writhing and wheezing while their organs shut down. She didn't want to bring this little mockingbird along in their canoe, on their camping trip, not in a shoe box or any other kind of container. It was already suffering more than she could bear. So she did for the bird what she had done for her father. She moved her hand in small, tight circles over its little head, opening the energy center, making it easier for its spirit to depart. Then she pressed her thumb and index fingers over the slits that served as its nostrils and, with her other hand, gently closed its little beak.
It was over in seconds, the suffering done, the life gone.
She started to cry, she couldn't help it. She cried and closed her hand over the little bird and waited for her daughter to return with the shoe box.
3
She and Katie buried the little bird in the backyard, in among the marigolds, the violet Mexican heather, the flaming vines. Other pets they had lost over the years were also buried here, the Townsend pet cemetery.
Katie patted the dirt with her hands and made a cross out of twigs. "At least it died fast," she said. "I ... I just couldn't stand seeing it suffer like that."
"When we get back from this camping trip, we'll buy a new plant for the grave."
"Something blue."
"Perfect."
"Did you talk to Dad yet about getting a dog?"
"I'm planning to do it on this camping trip."
Pets were a touchy subject. During her and Andy's sixteen years together, they'd had all sorts of animals, from hamsters, guinea pigs, and mice to cats and birds. But each adoption was preceded by ranting and raving from Andy, who invariably listed all the rational reasons why they shouldn't have this pet or that pet. He eventually came around, but Renie had learned that half the battle was timing. Andy seemed to believe that someone had to object, to present an opposing viewpoint, so once he'd done it, then it was okay to join the tribe. She figured this trip would be the perfect opportunity. Right now, they were without animal companions and as Katie entered her teen years, pets might mitigate some of the problems she and Andy were anticipating. That would be her argument, anyway.
"C'mon, we'd better get our stuff. Your dad's probably wondering where that cooler is going to fit in the Jeep."
The screen door slammed open then and Andy called, "Hey, Renie, where's this cooler supposed to fit?"
Renie and Katie glanced at each other and laughed as they stood up. "It can go under my feet, Dad."
"What's so funny?" he asked, eyeing them both suspiciously as they strode toward him.
"Mom was just saying that you were probably wondering where the cooler would fit."
He smiled at that, a quick smile that lit up his blue eyes and reminded her of all the reasons she loved him. At nearly six and a half feet tall, Andy was more than half a foot taller than Renie. Like many very tall people, he had a slight stoop to his shoulders, a dead giveaway that he'd gone through his early school years feeling self-conscious about his height. He was the tallest doctor on the hospital staff, the tallest person among their friends. Katie apparently had inherited the tall gene, as they referred to it, because she was already five feet six inches. But she enjoyed her height, enjoyed the edge she thought it gave her, and never hunkered over to make herself less noticeable.
"So what was going on over there by the pet cemetery?" Andy asked once they were in the kitchen.
Katie told him about the baby bird. Andy slung one of his long arms around his daughter's shoulders and planted a kiss in the middle of her forehead. "If you really decide to become a vet, kiddo, you're going to have to develop a thicker skin."
"Maybe I'll just be an animal documentary filmmaker. Jeez, I'll be right back. I forgot my video camera."
"And her I Ching for Kids," Renie murmured.
"So what's the Ching say about this trip?"
Renie shrugged. "Beats me." She rarely had any idea what the I Ching hexagrams meant. Hell, she couldn't even interpret the simplified Ching for kids. Her mind simply couldn't wrap itself around archaic Chinese thought. Besides, she didn't have to use the Ching to know she would be happier staying home.
"My God," Andy groaned as he picked up the cooler. "This feels like it has bricks in it."
"I even took out some stuff."
"We won't need all this, Ren."
"Ha. You'll see. I'm going to bring the little cooler, too. Just for more bottled water," she added quickly.
Andy just shook his head, as if to say she was a hopeless case, and headed for the garage door, struggling with the cooler.
When they finally hit the road, Andy handed Renie his pocket notepad and asked her to jot down the time and mileage. Mr. Organized, she thought with a touch of envy.
"It's a good idea if we keep track of all our stuff, just so we don't forget anything at the campsite," Andy said.
"I'll call out the stuff, you make the list, Mom."
This routine happened at the beginning of every vacation. Andy simply had to take inventory. Renie didn't know if the roots of this habit lay in medical school or in Andy's childhood, but either way, it drove her crazy at times. She was the most dis-organized person she knew. Leave her alone in a tidy room for about five minutes and when she walked out, there would be clutter everywhere. Her desk at work was constantly strewn with folders and papers and notes to herself. Yet, she usually was able to find what she needed when she needed it, and in her seventeen years in real estate, had never blown a deal because she had lost a file or papers.
Renie suddenly couldn't remember if she'd packed her toothbrush and toothpaste. There was nothing worse than going through a day with your teeth feeling as if they had moss growing on them. As soon as the list was done, Renie handed Andy his notebook and searched her purse, then her backpack for the toothbrush. Not there. She asked Katie to look through her bag, but she didn't find a toothbrush, either.
"We have to stop somewhere so I can buy a toothbrush and toothpaste, Andy."
Andy glanced at the clock on the dashboard and shook his head. "No time. We left an hour late, it's a two-hour drive to the park, and it'll take us another three hours of paddling to get to the campsite, depending on the wind. You can use mine."
"Gross, Dad."
"I don't want to use yours. I want my own."
"Okay, okay. As soon as we see someplace, I'll stop."
Yeah? Which exit? They were already speeding west and the farther west they went, the less of everything there was. Out here, she would be lucky if anyone even knew what the hell a toothbrush was. And what was the deal with the three hours of paddling once they put the canoe in the water? That meant Andy had some specific spot in mind, probably a place where he and Katie had gone on one of their frequent camping trips together, some hidden nook no one else knew about.
Thirty minutes later, they pulled into a place called Last Stop Quik Stop with a single rusted pump. Potholes riddled the parking lot and the window of the store looked to be covered with several years' worth of grime and dirt.
"This place doesn't inspire my confidence in the human race," Renie muttered as she and Katie got out.
Katie wrinkled up her nose. "I'm not using the rest room here."
Inside, an old geezer with an unshaven jaw sat behind the counter, paging through a tabloid. "Mornin'," he said. "Help you ladies wit' something?"
"Do you carry toothbrushes?" Renie asked.
"Ayuh, sure, over there." He gestured off to the right.
A scrawny cat came out from behind the counter and rubbed up against Katie's legs. "What's your cat's name?"
"Stray."
"What?"
"Stray. She lives out yonder, in the fields. Comes in here to cool down."
Shit, Renie thought, and wandered over to the right side of the store to look for a toothbrush. First the bird, now this. The universe seemed to be trying to tell her something.
She looked through rows of motor oil mixed with canned goods, camping supplies, and paper products. Then, on the very bottom shelf, she found the toiletry supplies: a box of tampons, two tubes of toothpaste, and a toothbrush in a container so dusty that she figured it had been in this same spot for as long as the Last Stop had existed. But it was better than brushing her teeth with her finger. She grabbed the toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste and hurried to the counter, where Katie and the scrawny cat already had bonded.
"Girl's a nat'ral with animals," the geezer remarked.
"Yes, she is. I'll take these."
"That's eight-fifty."
"For this?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Continues...
Excerpted from OUT OF SIGHT by T. J. MacGregor Copyright © 2002 by T. J. MacGregor
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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