The Discarded

CHAPTER 10

By the time Abraham flew out of Tampa, it was already mid-afternoon.

The closest airport to Moss Point, Mississippi, was in Mobile, Alabama, but the earliest flight headed there was booked, so it was faster for him to fly into Pensacola, Florida, and then drive the ninety-five miles in a rental. By the time he turned off I-10, the sun was nearing the horizon, triggering the automatic headlights to flick on.

The road led over a bridge and onto a spit of land that took Abraham into Moss Point. Using the car’s built-in GPS, he navigated through the area until he found himself on a wide residential street lined by trees and brush and well-manicured lawns.

He slowed so he could read the numbers printed on the mailboxes at the end of each driveway. When he reached the one corresponding to the address Orlando had given him, he drove on without looking directly at the house. The most he could gather from the corner of his eye was that it had a brick façade, a For Sale sign stuck in the front yard, and no cars parked in the driveway.

He continued on until he reached the end of the block, where he turned and found a place to park. This being a small town, he knew a stranger would be noticed so he let the evening grow a bit darker before he finally climbed out of his car.

When he reached the intersection, he paused next to some trees and studied the street where the target house was. While there were no streetlights, several of the homes had powerful porch lights and flood lamps mounted to garages that could, if he wasn’t cautious, expose his presence. The right side of the road, the side opposite the house, seemed the darkest, so that was the one he used.

He was only a couple houses shy of being directly across from his target when he heard a car engine start. He dropped to a crouch and shuffled off the shoulder into a clump of bushes. Back the way he’d come, headlight beams fell across the road from one of the driveways. A moment later, a truck rolled into view. It sat at the meeting point of driveway and road for several seconds before it turned onto the street and drove right past him without slowing.

Abraham waited until the taillights disappeared in the distance before he continued on. Once he had an unhindered view of the brick house, he paused again. Though the driveway was still empty, he noted that its garage was large enough to easily accommodate three cars. The house itself was a decent-sized one-story structure. Three bedrooms would be his guess, more if the house extended farther back than he could see. Like the other homes in the neighborhood, this one had no fence, only hedges and trees that seemed to mark the boundary between properties.

He’d expected to see lights in at least some of the windows, but the place was dark. Perhaps the people who had arrived in the ambulance were sticking to the rooms at the back of the house. If they were holding Eli against his will, that was certainly a possibility.

He continued down the edge of the road opposite the house, going a hundred feet past the driveway entrance before deciding it was safe enough to cross to the other side. He then made his way back to the edge of the target property and scanned the tall hedge dividing its lot from the one he was standing in front of. The hedge was fairly thick most of the way back, but not thick enough to prevent him from angling his way between bushes. He checked the neighbor’s house — a few lights on and the telltale flicker of a television.

Dog? he thought.

Probably. But he hadn’t heard any barks yet, so if there was one, hopefully it was inside.

He took a tentative step onto the target property. When no one yelled at him and no dog barked, he took another and another and another. When he was level with the garage, Abraham squeezed slowly through the bushes, a task that was not as easy as it was in theory. He’d put on a little weight since he’d retired, so his stomach rubbed against branches it would have never touched when he was active.

Once he was on the other side, he moved up tight against the garage wall and worked his way to the back corner. He listened before he peered around and found that the rear of the place was as dark as the front.

His confusion growing, he snuck over to the house. No voices, no sounds of plumbing, no television. Nothing.

There were several windows across the back and an elevated wooden deck with a set of French doors leading into the house. In a crouch, he moved over to the nearest window and rose just enough to peek inside, but it was a wasted effort. The window was covered with a shade and he could see nothing.

No shade on the next window, but beyond was only a bare room.

He headed over to the short staircase leading up to the deck. No shades or curtains over the French doors, only the same empty darkness he’d seen in the bedroom. He stopped a tread shy of the deck and stared inside the house, looking for the slightest hint of movement.

“No one’s home.”

Abraham nearly jumped out of his skin. He twisted around, his hands moving up, ready for a fight.

The voice belonged to a tall woman with wavy dark hair. She was standing on the grass by the base of the stairs, holding a sound-suppressed GLOCK 9mm at her side.

“We already checked,” she said. “Whoever was here is long gone.”

Abraham was weaponless, but he wasn’t about to let himself be taken prisoner by whoever these people were. When she opened her mouth to speak again, he rushed down the steps and slammed his shoulder into her chest, sending them both to the ground.

Just because he was getting old didn’t mean he’d forgotten his moves. It did, however, mean some of those moves came with greater consequences. As he pushed himself back to his feet, there wasn’t a joint in his body that wasn’t screaming in pain. He tried sprinting around the side of the house to get away, but what he accomplished was more of a fast walk.

“Hey!” the woman yelled. “What the hell?”

Expecting a bullet to pierce his back at any second, he kept going, grabbing the corner of the house as he reached it and using the redirection of his momentum to propel him toward the street. But he’d barely reached the front yard when a man raced out from God only knew where and grabbed him around the arms. The shoulder Abraham had slammed into the woman felt like it was on fire. He stifled the scream but could not keep the pain from his face.

The man released him and said, “Dude, are you all right?”

Before Abraham could answer, the woman ran up, fire in her eyes. “I do not appreciate getting pushed to the ground.” When she noticed his discomfort, some of the anger left her face. “What’s wrong with you?”

Abraham took a couple of deep breaths, forcing the pain down. “Whatever you want, there’s nothing I can tell you,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”

“Uh, sure. Whatever,” the guy said. “We don’t actually need anything from you. We’re only here—”

“Then you won’t mind if I leave,” Abraham said, taking a backward step away from them.

“Mr. Delger, we’re here to help you, not hurt you.”

“Speak for yourself,” the woman said as she rubbed her chest. “I might want to do a little hurting.”

Abraham stared back and forth between them. “How do you know my name?”

“What do you mean, how do we know your name? Orlando told us,” the guy said.

Abraham cocked his head. “Orlando?”

“Yeah. She’s the one who sent us.” The man studied Abraham for a second. “I take it she didn’t let you know that.”

Abraham shook his head.

“That explains a lot, doesn’t it?” The guy held out his hand. “Dylan Winger.”

Cradling his right arm to keep the pain in check, Abraham said, “You’ll understand if I don’t shake.”

“Oh, sure. Sorry.” Winger dropped his hand and asked, “What happened?”

“He rammed his shoulder into my chest is what happened,” the woman said.

“Then you’ve already met Marguerite,” Winger said.

Abraham and the woman glanced at each other but made no other acknowledgment.

“Why would Orlando send you?” Abraham asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Marguerite said. “Maybe because she thought you’d do something foolish like walk up to a house that might have been occupied with people who would not have been as friendly as us? Think that might be it?”

“You already told me the house is empty.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“I suspected it.”

“At what point? Before you snuck up on the house? Or after you looked through the windows?”

Abraham glared at her, more because she’d hit too close to the truth than anything else. As he broke eye contact, another wave of pain shot up his shoulder, causing him to wince and suck in air.

“Maybe I should take a look at that,” Winger said, taking a step toward him.

“I’m fine,” Abraham told him.

“Clearly you’re not.”

Reluctantly, Abraham let Winger approach. The man gently probed his shoulder.

“The good news is, it’s not dislocated. Just bruised, I think. You might want to take it easy on who you tackle over the next few days.”

“Gee, thanks,” Abraham said.

“Always happy to help.”

Abraham looked back at the house. “You’re sure it’s empty?”

“If it weren’t, don’t you think someone would have come out by now to ask what we’re doing on their lawn?” Marguerite said.

Abraham turned to Winger, “You’ve been inside?”

“Marguerite was first on scene. She did a quick look around.”

Abraham glanced at her again but said nothing.

She grunted and rolled her eyes. “Come on. You’ll want to look anyway.”

She led the two men back around the house and through the French doors.

“Ruts,” she said, pointing at the depressions in the carpet leading from the foyer and into the hall to the bedrooms. The ruts were parallel, a couple feet apart.

Marguerite, Abraham, and Winger followed them down the hallway and into the bedroom, where the shade had been pulled down. Unlike every other room Abraham had seen in the house, this one was not empty. Near the door were a couple bags of trash, and against the wall a cheap plastic outdoor chair.

The carpet marks led right into the middle of the room and then stopped. Marguerite knelt down.

“See these?” She nodded at the end of the depressions, where an inch-long stretch had sunk deeper into the carpet than the tracks in general. “And there.” She pointed to a spot several feet back down the trail, where two identical marks had been left.

There was no need to explain what they were. Abraham had recognized them as the points where wheels had stopped. He could surmise three things from this. One, by the length between the sets of wheels, the object attached to them was long, like a table or a bed. Since Eli had apparently been taken away in an ambulance, it wasn’t much of a leap to guess the marks had been made by a gurney. Two, by the depth of the four indentations, the gurney had remained in position for at least an hour, probably more. And three, the depth also meant the gurney had been carrying something heavy. Like a body.

He walked over to the bags of trash. Mostly they contained fast-food cartons and empty cups and dirty napkins, but there were also some wadded tissues, a few cotton balls, and a few empty bandage wrappers.

“How long ago did you get here?” he asked Marguerite.

She stared at him blankly.

With a sigh, he said, “Look, I’m sorry I hit you, but you would have done the same in my circumstances.”

“I would have knocked you out,” she said.

“So you’re mad at me because I didn’t knock you out?”

She groaned. “I got here about two hours ago.”

“And they were already gone?”

“Yes,” she said, disinterested.

“Did you find anything else?”

“What, like a note with a forwarding address?”

Matching her tone, he said, “Well, if you did, that would be helpful, wouldn’t it?”

She stewed for a moment before saying, “No. I didn’t find anything else.”

Abraham headed for the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?” Winger asked.

“To look around,” Abraham said. “I assume that’s all right.”

He searched the rest of the house, carefully checking for anything that might have been left behind, but there was nothing else, so he headed out the French doors, intending to return to his car and get the hell out of there. As he stepped outside, he found Marguerite and Winger on the deck, leaning against the railing.

“All done?” Winger asked.

“Yeah,” Abraham said. “Uh, thanks, I guess, for…I don’t know. Whatever reason you were supposed to be here.”

He headed for the stairs.

“Mr. Delger, please. Not so fast,” Winger said.

“I’ve got things to do,” Abraham said, not stopping. “So if you’ll excuse me—”

“Actually, our instructions were to stick with you.”

That stopped Abraham. He turned back around. “What? Why?”

That’s when he realized Winger and Marguerite weren’t the only ones who’d been waiting on the deck. There were two others near the house.

“Because that’s what I told them to do,” Orlando said.