"When you're laying there on that floor and they're counting, for nine seconds, all you can think is how free you are. But then you know, you gotta get up, and you gotta fight some more, cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you."
Dalton West is lost. Not in a physical sense, much deeper than that. From the time he'd awakened on the side of the road in an old pickup truck six months back, until today, was all he could remember. Even the name he carries is borrowed from a sticker on the back of that truck.
A fading polaroid image of a young boy, with a big, antique teddy bear that he somehow knows is him, and a small, silver medallion on a string around his wrist, are the only clues he has to who he might be, and what happened to make him forget everything else. Everything except an urge that keeps telling him someone's life depends on him remembering.
When he meets Leeanne, a small town girl, with even bigger problems, he'll put his search on hold to make sure she gets more than nine seconds of freedom.
PART SEVEN
It was almost midnight when I dropped into bed. It was the most comfortable bed I’d been in, since I could remember. I laughed at that thought. That phrase meant a whole lot more to me than most people, I thought.
I was asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes. The place felt like home. I hadn’t felt this safe in six months. Within ten minutes, I was deep into unconscious territory, that’s when it happened.
I had dreamed a few times since I’d been found. Always the same thing. I was inside the polaroid, sitting on a big bed. There were people around, but I couldn’t see their faces. But, I heard a woman’s voice. She was singing.
Mr. Ted, Mr. Ted, Got a secret in his head. When he’s tucked up tight in bed, then his secret can’t be read. But, if he should lose his head, it’s too bad for Mr. Ted.
When I woke up, the song was stuck in my head. I’d heard it before, I was sure. When I was a kid. When that picture was taken and other times too. Like a macabre nursery rhyme. It was the reason for all of this. I’d dreamed it the night after they’d found me.
That time, I had an image in my head too. It was Mr. Ted’s head, under an X-ray machine, and there, buried in his head, was a little box. The lid of the box opened and out danced my mother. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew who she was. And then my father danced out. And then I woke up.
On the way to the kitchen I thought about the song. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I was pretty sure if I could find that bear and open it up, I’d know. I picked up the wooden box from the table in the living room where I’d left it. I put it on the kitchen table.
The night before, Fred had promised to drop by with groceries that morning. He was true to his word. There were two paper sacks on the table. He’d remembered what I’d told him. There was Bran Flakes cereal, a loaf of wheat bread, sandwich meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
In the second bag, there was a gallon of milk and a big box of microwave popcorn. He’d asked what I liked, and the list of things I liked was very short these days.
I found a bowl and a spoon. I poured cereal and milk. As I ate, I examined the box. It was about ten inches long, and six inches wide. It stood about four inches tall. Other than the carving on the lid, the box was smooth. I turned it over.
On the bottom, the same emblem appeared, only stamped. It looked like a maker’s mark, right in the center. I opened it again and looked inside. It was completely empty. Whatever it had once held was long gone.
I held it to my nose and sniffed. Nothing but wood, and glue. Not a hint of whatever the box had held. Unless someone could tell me what it was for, or where it was from, the box was another dead end, like the road last night.
Then Hal’s face popped into my head. What had that been about? Did Crawford have every stranger followed, or only ones he didn’t like? I couldn’t blame him much for being suspicious. I did ask weird questions, and then there was what he’d found in the truck.
Besides me, he and Skinner were the only people who knew about that and I intended to keep it that way. In fact, I needed to clear the truck out, but somewhere someone wouldn’t find it. Something like that ending up in a dumpster in a little town where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone’s business, would raise questions. Questions the sheriff would be only to happy to answer.
So, in place of the one item I hadn’t gotten to from my agenda yesterday, finding Vern, there were now three. Empty the truck bed, find Vern, find out what the box meant. In that order.
I checked my watch. Quarter to eight. I’d told Leeanne I’d be downstairs at eight to create a shopping list and gather supplies. Dumping the truck would have to wait. At dinner, we’d discussed contract details.
“So, what’s all this going to cost me?” Ben asked.
“Well, normally, I’d say your firstborn, but since I didn’t see a nursery,” I said.
Ben laughed.
“Well, I’m not looking to make money off of you, but I do have to live. So, how about room, board, and expenses?” I said. “Then, if, by some twist of fate, we can finish this together, you can pay me what you think it was worth.”
“Okay, sounds fair. What sort of expenses, if you don’t mind me asking,” Ben said.
“Not at all, just travel, to nearby towns. I’m looking for a rare collectable,” I said.
“Ah, yes, the teddy bear,” Ben said. “I heard.”
There were times I felt like everyone else knew more about me than I did.
Today we were starting with doors. I figured the renovation would go a lot faster if we could move the power tools needed onsite. But, that required securing the property to make sure the tools didn’t walk off. That meant taking out the old doors and rebuilding the frames to make them secure.
I was halfway down the stairs when it occurred to me. They’d need to pack gear in my truck to get there. I needed to clear it out now. Checked my watch. Still not enough time. Well, I’d think of something.
Leeanne was waiting for me. She sat on the front counter, long legs dangling against the dark oak panel along the front. She was wearing shorts and a T Shirt, and while neither was revealing, I hadn’t remembered feeling this way about her. She was pretty.
She must have noticed.
“Like what you see?” she said.
She flipped the end of one pigtail so that it swung across her face and dropped back onto her shoulder. It took a full second for her feet to hit the floor as she slid off the counter. The long legs thing was an illusion, but it was working.
I laughed. “Sure, I was looking at my reflection in the front window,” I said.
It was true, I could see myself. The morning sun was coming in at an angle that made the interior reflect back, off the sparse dust on the inside of the window.
Now Leeanne laughed. “Well, that will teach me to assume,” she said.
Fred sniffed. “Yes, we need to clean those windows. It’s the dust that does that,” he said.
He was dressed for work in jeans and a black flannel. The shirt looked as if he’d just pulled the straight pins from it to put it on. If I’d gone by the newly polished work boots, I would have underestimated Fred. At the moment, I was wondering how much work it was going to be, keeping him from hurting himself.
We trooped down to the basement and Fred handed me a clipboard. It had a neatly typed list of tools with check boxes following each one.
“Inventory. If we know what we take out, we know what needs to come back,” he said.
Made sense to me. I wished I could remember what I’d done in the past. Assuming, that is, I wasn’t completely making this up as I went along. So far, my carpentry skills had held true and I’d had no indication yesterday that I couldn’t handle this.
I took the clipboard. It was very thorough. There were four pages with every possible tool and material listed. The last page was half blank lines for new items.
“Okay, well, let’s gather the tools we need on the workbench here and we’ll get started on the materials. Is that the only way out of here?” I asked. I squinted up the stairs.
“No. Follow me,” Fred said.