Warrior Soul by David Barbur

Author:David Barbur [Barbur, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cougar Rock Press

23

“I just don’t know what this guy wants,” Deborah said as she leaned on her cane and gestured around the living room. “Nothing valuable was taken.”

Tye had given Deborah and Vivian a ride back to their house to retrieve some more clothing and other items. Their Subaru still wasn’t fixed.

Tye stood there, listening to the sound of the river outside. He looked again at the back door. It had been pried open very carefully, to minimize the damage. A familiar muddy footprint, from a size-fourteen moccasin, marred the hardwood floor just inside the door.

“Nothing at all?” Tye asked.

Vivian came down the stairs. “I’ve checked,” she said. “My jewelry is still there. Deborah’s shotgun she got from her dad is still in the corner of the closet.”

Deborah breathed a sigh of relief. “I love his old Browning.”

“He trashed the junk room upstairs, though,” Vivian said. “The one we haven’t remodeled yet.”

“Can I see?” Tye asked.

“Of course.”

Kaity and Tye followed her up the stairs, following a trail of muddy footprints as they went.

Tye stopped in the hallway at the top of the stairs. It was just like his dream. The upstairs was all one room, with hardwood floors and ceilings that sloped almost to the floor. The rock band posters from his dream were missing, but he thought he could see faint outlines on the walls where they had been.

The room was full of boxes, all of Deborah and Vivian’s stuff they hadn’t gotten around to organizing yet. Tye felt the vague unease he always had when he was in a cluttered, disordered space. One box was half-open, with clothes sticking out the top. Another had tipped over, and old vinyl records spilled out across the floor.

“All these boxes were lined up over there,” Vivian said and pointed at the narrow space where the ceiling met the floor along the west side of the house. “I don’t know why he moved them.”

Tye walked the length of the floor, right where the ceiling sloped low enough to brush his head. There were streaks of mud here and there from Peter’s moccasins, but he couldn’t make out any kind of pattern. There were marks in the dust where boxes had been shoved out of the way.

The other wall was the same, boxes moved away toward the center of the room. Most of the boxes were still sealed up with tape. The only open ones had not been taped. The flaps had been folded over instead, and Tye got the impression they were open just because they’d fallen over, not because Peter had sorted through them.

“What does he want with boxes of old clothes and knickknacks?” Vivian wondered.

“I don’t think it’s the boxes,” Tye said.” I think he’s looking for something in the house.”

“Like a secret compartment?” Kaity asked.

“Oh! That’s like something out of a movie,” Vivian said. “That doesn’t happen in real life.”

“I don’t know,” Kaity said. “In the last few months, I’ve seen quite a few things that I thought only happened in movies.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.