Relentless: Three Novels Read online

  “Hello?” said a male voice behind her.

  She screamed in surprise, but when she turned around, she saw a pleasant-looking dark-haired man with crystal-blue eyes. He held a spade in one hand and a tray of flowers in the other. She put her hand over her mouth when she realized that he was just a smiling gardener. Humiliated, she tried to catch her breath. “Oops! Sorry. I was…I am…jumpy sometimes.”

  “I’m so sorry I startled you,” the man apologized. “I was just about to plant some more flowers in the back yard.”

  “I didn’t hear you come up behind me. I was just looking at the house.”

  “That’s okay.” He paused. “I’m the owner of this house for sale. Are you interested in taking a look?”

  She hesitated and then replied, “Sure. I’d like that. Very much.”

  He put down the spade, took off his gardening gloves and reached out to shake hands with her. Out of politeness, she took it. His handshake was firm and his sweaty hands were calloused.

  “Jimmy Matthews,” he said.

  “Jimmy Matthews? The boy who used to mow our lawn?” she blurted.

  “Your lawn? Tara? Little Tara?” he asked, his eyebrows raising slightly.

  “No, I’m Nikki, her younger sister.”

  “You’re all grown up. I didn’t even recognize you.”

  “I didn’t recognize you either.” She hesitated. “How do you own our old house?”

  “My parents bought it from your grandparents after your mom died and your dad…disappeared. My parents passed it onto me when they recently died in a car accident. I really need to sell it.”

  “I’m very sorry your parents died.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Drunk driver.”

  “What a terrible tragedy.”

  He nodded and looked at the ground for a few moments.

  “The yard looks amazing,” she said appreciatively. “Even nicer than when you took care of it when we were kids.”

  His eyes met hers. “Thanks. I own my dad’s landscaping and lawn care service now. I started fixing up the house on the outside about a month ago. Believe it or not, it was much worse.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it was full of trash and dead shrubs. My dad wouldn’t let me touch it when he was alive.”

  She shuddered. “I’m glad you cleaned up the grounds.”

  “Fresh paint is next for the outside, but I have no idea of what to do with the inside until I get it emptied out.”

  “Emptied out? What do you mean?” she asked. “No one’s lived here since?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “My parents owned the house, but they never did anything with it. They never rented it, much to my mother’s frustration. It’s almost just as your family left it, 25 years ago. To the day, apparently.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Nikki said, swallowing hard with the realization that he even remembered the exact date. “Now, I really want to see it.”

  “It’s locked. Let me run down the street and get the house keys.”

  “Okay. I’ll wait here,” she said.

  He jogged toward his big house on acreage at the end of the dead-end street, down by the river.

  After he left, she sat on the front steps and waited for him. She could remember sitting here to play jacks with her sister and eat homemade ice pops made from Kool-Aid. Her mind drifted to the past and only good memories surfaced. She was relieved. On impulse, she texted her sister, Tara, and told her where she was.

  Get out of there! Tara texted back. What are you even thinking?

  No! I want to put my fears to rest, once and for all, Nikki texted back.

  Call me later! Tara texted. I’m worried about you.

  Okay, sis, Nikki texted back.

  Before she knew it, Jimmy Matthews showed up with the house keys and a flyer with the price of the house and a list of its features. She got up from the front steps and glanced at the flyer before she put it in her purse.

  “Good price. Thanks for your phone number, too.”

  “You’re welcome. That price is for the house in its current condition. After it’s all cleaned up, the price will be raised.”

  “Of course,” Nikki said. “I just told my sister I was looking at our old house and that it was for sale.”

  “Oh,” he said, blinking in surprise. “I hope going in here won’t upset you.”

  “It’s been a long haul, but I came because I want to put the old fears to rest, once and for all, by seeing the house. You know, without crying or drama.”

  “Wow. Are you okay now?” he asked.

  “I should be fine,” she said calmly, though she felt shaky. “I take meds for anxiety, but I don’t even remember much of what happened that day.”

  “You don’t?” he asked, his expression calm.

  “No, nothing. I was too little. Therapists said my sister and I were either too traumatized to remember, or too young to understand what happened. Or maybe we weren’t in the room when it happened. When she got—”

  “You poor kids,” he said sympathetically and sighed. It took some doing, but he got the lock to yield and the door to unstick when he gave it a little kick at the bottom.

  The peeling front door swung open into her past.

  Chapter Two

  A musty smell drifted out as Jimmy flipped on the light. “I had to have the utilities turned on for a potential buyer who came out with a home inspector, but the sale fell through because of his bad credit. At least I know everything’s working. Electricity, plumbing, washer, dryer, everything’s good. I had to haul the fridge to the dump. The roof is purple slate, and still in perfect shape. Those roofs can last 120 to 150 years.”

  “Wow,” Nikki said. “Who knew?” She could see dust motes floating in the air and the couch was all torn up by rats or squirrels. The bottoms of the once-beautiful drapes were likewise shredded.

  “I just need to upgrade the electrical and put in smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors to meet the local code. Otherwise, things are fine. That’s as far as I’ve gotten on the indoor cleanup, just to get the fridge out of here because food had been left in it all that time. The electricity was off for years.”

  Her lip curled in distaste.

  “I know. It was gross. Everything else was clean, though. Your mom kept such a tidy and organized house. There’s not even any clutter.”

  “I remember. The only place she was a little messy was in the attic; that was where she painted her watercolors.”

  “I haven’t been up there. Where’s the access to it?” he asked.

  “The stairs pull down from the ceiling in the master bedroom closet. I can show you.”

  “Great.” He paused. “Sorry, I haven’t emptied the house yet.”

  “That’s bad for you, but good for me,” she said. “I’ve missed seeing my home. Being in it.” She stopped in the middle of the living room, shocked, and stared at the faint chalk outline that showed under the dust on the bloodstained wood floor. Her chin trembled. That was where her mother had fallen, no, where she had died.

  “My mom died right there,” she murmured, her voice trembling.

  He scratched over the chalk outline with his work boot. “Oh my God, Nikki. I’m sorry I haven’t cleaned up in here at all. I just got my parents’ affairs settled and the house transferred into my name. The place is going to be fixed up before I sell it, of course. It will be totally cleaned up and painted, inside and out. I probably shouldn’t have put up the ‘for sale’ sign yet.”

  There was a lump in her throat and she nodded. She touched a dusty toy phone. “This was mine, and before that, it was my mother’s toy,” she said. “I was playing with it that day, just before it happened.”

  “Would you like to have it?” Jimmy asked.

  “Sure,” she said, touched.

  “Take it.” He paused. “Do you want the other stuff from your old house?”

  “Oh, my gosh. Really?”

  “Yeah. I was just going
to pack it up and take most of it to the dump, but I saw your mom’s silverware, dishes, and costume jewelry. I bet you want to have those things instead of me selling them off. You should grab the photo albums, too. Take your things home where they belong.”

  “Jimmy, I’m so grateful to have some of our things back. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Nik-Nik.” The familiar nickname rang a bell and she realized that he had once called her that, long ago. She couldn’t remember the circumstances. All she remembered was that Jimmy Matthews had mowed their lawn for his dad’s lawn service. She remembered his dad’s green pickup truck with a picture of a grinning tree on it. It was parked at their house a lot. She leaned on the door frame between the living room and dining room.

  “I can’t believe my mom’s Noritake china is still here,” she said, looking at the dishes still displayed in the dusty china cabinet.

  “You and your sister can have all of that. It’s only right that you do. I had no idea of how to contact either of you or I would have.”

  “I’m glad I stopped by then. I’ll call my sister tonight and make arrangements for us to come and get what we want from the house before you take the rest to the dump.”

  “Fine.” He hesitated. “Do you mind showing me your driver’s license, so I can be sure that you are who you say you are and not some scammer?”

  “Of course.” Something felt funny, and she swallowed, but she took out her wallet and showed him her driver’s license. He looked at it for about fifteen seconds and then said, “Great. You got married, huh?”

  “Yeah, that’s why my last name is changed. I’m still the same Nikki, though.” She shifted uncomfortably.

  “Yes, you are. How about Tara? Is she married?”

  “Nope, she’s married to her bakery.”

  “Which one?”

  “Tara’s Old-Fashioned Bakery and Diner. Best chocolate layer cakes in town. And pumpkin pancakes. And cream puffs.”

  “Sounds yummy. I’ll check it out sometime.”

  Nikki nodded, looking at the familiar things in the living room. Even a dusty TV Guide from 25 years ago was on top of the old box TV with its rabbit ears antenna. She turned to the big stereo. “Look, my mom had taken out a record to play the night before it all happened. The Carpenters. She and my dad would have a cocktail every day when he got off work and they’d listen to one album. I remember when they were dancing to the song, Close to You. Then, when the record was over, she’d serve dinner.”

  “That’s…sweet.”

  “It was. When they had their cocktails, my sister and I had ours, too. Of course, we had Shirley Temples in cartoon glasses. No booze in ours.”

  Jimmy smiled.

  “It’s like time stopped in here,” she said, looking around.

  “Yeah, it is.” He said, “Come see the kitchen.”

  She carried the toy phone into the sunny kitchen with the tattered café curtains with coffee pots printed on them. The window over the sink overlooked the garden—the back yard was completely filled with brilliant flowers.

  “Look what you did! It’s beautiful, Jimmy,” she said, standing at the sink, choked up. “My mother would have loved what you did in the back yard. She was forever trying to grow flowers, but she said she had a brown thumb. She always wanted a view over the kitchen sink. And I’d say this is quite a view.”

  “I put in about five hundred dollars’ worth of flowers and topsoil, more than anyone would ever order.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  He sighed. “To make the house really attractive to sell fast. I’m good at one thing and one thing only: Plants.”

  “Everyone should be good at something,” she replied.

  “What are you good at?” he asked.

  She smiled. “I’m a good mom to my little girl. She’s nearly five. I think I’m a good wife. I hope I am. My husband seems happy. And I’m going to school to earn my degree in elementary education. I’m going full time so I can get my degree really fast. It’s an accelerated program.”

  “That’s wonderful,” he said patiently.

  “It’s exhausting, though. I drag myself everywhere, just praying I can get in at least six hours of sleep a night after spending time with my family and grinding away at the homework and then driving back and forth to the campus. Sometimes, I forget if I am coming or going.”

  “I’ll bet.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I’m going to go get a couple of empty cardboard boxes from my house. I bet your little daughter would love to play with your old toys.”

  “Thanks,” she said gratefully.

  “Do you think you might want…” His voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Do you think you might want to buy the house?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of good memories are in this house, but also, one really bad one. Sunny like this, it brings back good memories. At night, it might be hard to get past its grim history. I think I would fear the nights. They would terrify me.”

  “Yeah, what was I thinking?” he muttered. “I’m embarrassed. Forget I asked, okay?”

  “It was a perfectly logical question,” Nikki said.

  She spent the next couple of hours going through each room. She left with a few boxes of toys and things from her mom’s dresser, like her jewelry, the dried-up bottles of perfume in vintage bottles, and the family silver. Tara collected old perfume bottles and would be thrilled to have these. Nikki put the toy telephone on top and drove home with her treasures. She’d get the rest another time.

  One room remained to be seen. Jimmy had been unable to get the attic stairs to pull down, and she wasn’t tall enough to reach the cord, so she hadn’t gone into her mom’s art studio in the attic.

  She had Jimmy Matthews’s flyer and he also had her phone number, which she had written down for him. She would try to pry Tara away from her bakery to go and retrieve the rest of the things that they wanted from the house, hopefully, this weekend. Jimmy Matthews had said he had potential buyers coming on Monday and wanted to clean up the inside. She’d promised to come this weekend, with or without Tara, and get the rest of the mementos that they would divvy up.

  It had been good to see inside of her old house, yet she felt sick inside, as if she wished she hadn’t gone there at all. The good memories were reassuring, but just underneath the surface of her happiness at having her old toys and some things of her mother’s in her possession, there lurked a horrific dread that seemed to be rising from the past into the present.

  Chapter Three

  “Mama, Mama, come play with me!” said four-year-old Katie as she handed the vintage toy telephone to Nikki. She was wired from being at the day care center for several hours. It was a lot of stimulation to be with so many other kids just to play, eat and nap. Next year, she would be in all-day kindergarten. Finally. They had budgeted the nearly $3,000 for it. Full-day kindergarten tuition would cost more than her community college tuition.

  So, Nikki mostly stayed home during the day with Katie and homeschooled her, except when she needed to go somewhere and used the drop-in service at the daycare center across the street. Next year, Katie would be entering kindergarten as a strong reader. Nikki was proud of her daughter, and of her decision to go to school at night, so she could be with her daughter as much as possible before public school took over many hours of Katie’s day.

  “Play, Mama!” Katie said again, bringing her out of her reverie.

  “Katie, Mama’s so tired. She needs to rest. She has to get up very early tomorrow to study for a big test.” She was also tired from the anxiety meds that she faithfully took. Year after year.

  “But you gave me your old toy phone,” Katie said. “I want to play with it, with you. Please?”

  “Tomorrow, I promise.”

  “Okay, Mommy. Can I play with it by myself?”

  “Of course. You can play with all of Mama’s old toys by yourself.” It dawned on Nikki that Katie was nearly the same age that she had been
when her mother had been murdered.

  Nikki turned on the television to Katie’s favorite cartoon. She was hoping the silly show would distract her daughter long enough for her to squeeze in a half-hour nap. Nikki locked the doors, climbed on the couch and made herself comfortable. Sleepily, she watched Katie dance along with the TV, and then began to close her eyes, trying to remember everything she needed to know for her test tomorrow. It was easy to tune out the cartoon. It was not so easy to tune out Katie.

  Katie was happily chattering away on the toy phone. “Hello! It’s Katie…I’m four, almost five…Uh-huh, she’s laying on the couch…No, she’s just pretend sleeping.”

  Nikki opened one eye when she heard Katie say that. “I heard that. I’m only pretend sleeping because it leads to real sleeping.”

  “Sleeping is boring. Mama, play with me,” she again insisted plaintively as she handed the toy telephone to her mother. Nikki stirred on the couch, realizing Katie wasn’t going to let her rest.

  “What are you playing?” she asked patiently.

  “Mama, it’s your turn to talk to your mama,” Katie said.

  “My mama?” Nikki sat up, shocked. “Not right now, Katie-girl.”

  Katie handed her mother the telephone once more. “But it’s your mama.”

  Nikki looked at the toy telephone. It was made to look like an old-fashioned phone from the 1950s. She hung up the receiver.

  “No, Mama! She was already on the phone. You just hung up on Grandma.”

  Nikki was startled. It was the first time that Katie had used the word, Grandma.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that ‘Grandma’ was on the toy phone with you.”

  “I told you! Call her back! Hurry!” Katie insisted.

  Humoring her daughter, Nikki dialed her old childhood telephone number. She winked at Katie and said, “Ring! Ring! Okay, it’s ringing,” she pretended.

  “Listen!” Katie said. She watched anxiously as Nikki put the phone to her ear.