A Small Town

Chapter Twenty-Two\ Flight of the Barn Owl

Bax crossed Nipissing Road trotted down the sidewalk and grabbed the door handle of Paige Turners. He was about to step inside when he spotted Teddy's red truck parked down the road in front of the White Birch. Teddy was standing with his back to Bax talking animatedly with Sara Massie.

Bax rushed to open the door open hoping Sara hadn't seen him. One awkward conversation was more than enough and he was about to have one with Lisa.

The bell over the door tinkled and he saw Sara look his way before he ducked inside and locked it behind him. Bax let out a long breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He smiled ruefully to himself. Woman trouble was the last thing he had ever expected when he set out for Sundridge and his new life. 'My god, had that only been ten days ago?'

He kicked off his boots and ran up the stairs to Lisa's apartment calling her name as he did so.

His voice seemed to echo, returning to him harsh and metallic. "Lis'!" he called again, louder this time.

There was no answer. The tiny kitchen was empty as was the living room. He opened the bedroom door, expecting to find her curled under the thick comforter and for a moment considered pulling off his clothes, slipping in beside her and forgetting everything. But the bed was empty.

He stood there in the door with his mouth slackjawed, her name caught in his throat. Where was she? There was danger... part of him had known that from the beginning but the rational part of his brain had ignored it, dutifully.

He remembered a family trip when he was just a boy. His parents had packed up the car and they had headed north for a week at a cottage. After four boring hours, they had turned off of the main road onto a dirt laneway covered with a canopy of trees that had all but blocked out the rays of afternoon sunlight. As dense foliage crowded the single lane, leaves and branches scraping the windows and the sides of the car, his dad had jokingly whistled the theme from Deliverance. Bax didn't know the movie then, he watched it later when he was in his twenties and found it good if a little slow, but his fathers whistle that day had sent a shiver of fear up his spine none-the-less and he was glad when the road had widened out again.

Everyone has that feeling from time to time that things just aren't quite right and normally its just that, a feeling and nothing more. In an age of computers and cell phones those old instincts have become not only unreliable but a liability. Or so he had thought.

Leo Hennesseys notes and Pastor Black's confession had now confirmed his initial fears. Yes, there was great danger here for both of them.

Bax snapped back to the present, turned and bolted back down the stairs. He quickly pulled on his boots and ran outside. Up the road, Teddy's truck was gone. Shit!

He pounded down the sidewalk ignoring the derelict buildings with their boarded up windows and doors. He felt a sudden pain in his left shoulder and ignored it too. He burst through the doors of the White Birch and for once, thank God, Sara was standing behind the check-in counter.

"Have you seen Lisa?" He demanded, between gasps for breath. The pain in his shoulder now seemed to be moving ominously down his arm.

Sara stared at him, her face could have been made of stone and her eyes were unkind.

"Hello, Mr. Baxter." She said, crossing her arms and taking a step back. She wrinkled her nose as if he smelled.

Bax slapped both hands on the top of the counter and was glad to see Sara wince. "I don't have time for this Sara, have you seen Lisa?"

Sara bit her lip in an almost perfect impersonation of Lisa and shook her head, no.

Bax blinked and Sara was herself again. "Well, do you know where Teddy went?"

"Who's Teddy?" She asked, taking another small step back.

"Teddy! Teddy, for fuck's sake, the guy you were just talking to outside!" His voice was rising and part of him wondered if the old man would come to see what was happening. 'Let him come!' Bax thought angrily.

When she next spoke there was an audible tremor in her, too high, Betty Boop voice. "I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't been outside this morning and I don't know a Teddy..."

Bax stared at her incredulously and suddenly he felt like he was really seeing her for the first time. Her makeup was thick and uneven. Like a coat of paint over an old stucco wall. Her hair, once beautiful seemed brittle and dry beneath a layer of hairspray. Even her lipstick was ugly, bleeding at the edges as it does on very old women.

Now he backed away, feeling that sense of danger stronger than ever before. Was Sara Massie part of it? Perhaps her, oh so obvious, flirtation had been nothing more than part of the plan to keep him here in Primacy. Of course... it hadn't made sense from the beginning, a sexy Marilyn Monroe type woman coming on to him. That had never happened before, so why had it happened the moment he stepped into Primacy. The comically sexy voice, those stockings the kind with the seams up the back which he had always found alluring, even her flowery perfume and those dresses... were they all part of the trap?

He backed away another step.

"... Bax?" She said, looking concerned at his sudden change in demeanour.

He turned and ran, bursting through the double doors back onto the sidewalk. He looked around frantically and there it was. Teddy's big red truck was parked at the back of the Church. He could just see the front corner poking out behind the rectory. Bax sprinted across the road, back through the park, past the wishing well and towards the door. The pain now ran all the way from his left shoulder to the very tips of his fingers. 'No time for a heart attack you out-of-shape son of a bitch!'

The door opened as he approached and Teddy stepped out looking grave. Bax stopped and the two men stared at each other for a moment. The weight of that moment lay heavy between them and Bax broke it with a question to which he already knew the answer.

"Is he...?"

Teddy nodded not meeting his eyes. "Yep, he's gone."

Bax looked at his shoes. "I'm sorry for your loss..."

"Thanksss," Teddy said, his lisp was back. "What are you doin' here? Lisssa sssaid you went out to the foresst. I jussst took her out there."

"The forest... shit! Of course," Bax said. "I need to go get her, she's in danger... we all are. Can you give me a ride?"

"Danger? Sssure, I'll take you Bax."