Sign

By Lou Rera

Jim Thompson received a phone call from a dead man—a man he watched die one drunken, adulterous night while out of town on business.

Jim’s wife, Deirdre, doesn’t know his secret. Neither does Detective Frank Gibbons, who is hot on the case of the year-old crime. In this supernatural thriller, Jim’s past surfaces through his guilt and lies. As Detective Gibbons closes in on the truth, Jim and Deirdre must run from a malevolent stalker in this terrifying horror tale of deception and murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mirador Publishing
• Release date: Jul 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910105221

Book preview

Prologue

The Call

Anyone who knew Jim Thompson would say he was a sane man. They would add that he was intelligent and logical almost to a fault. And Jim himself would have probably agreed, for discussion’s sake, that it’s impossible for people to speak to the dead.

*

Tonight it didn’t matter what he or anyone else believed.

*

I’m off to bed, Deirdre said. Let’s get an early start tomorrow, okay?

Sure, Dee, whatever you’d like. I’ve already called in, so we can leave anytime. Jim said without taking his eyes off the television. He watched as Ethan Hawke kicked in a woman’s apartment door. The woman tells Hawke that anger is the purist form of love. Hawke chokes the woman. Strange indeed.

Jim couldn’t multitask. As a result, he half-listened to what Deirdre had said. This annoyed Deirdre—it always had—but this time she didn’t say anything. She was too tired.

Sure, Dee, that sounds good, Jim said, in a distant voice, answering a nonexistent question. Deirdre shook her head and turned to walk upstairs. He said he would be up soon. This was another Jim thing. He would always say he’d be right up, which in Jim language meant three or four more hours of reading, cruising around the Internet, or watching some movie that made a pit stop at the theaters, then bounced to where it was originally intended: Netflix.

Jim wasn’t a bad guy, but last year he did a bad thing. And now he was preoccupied. He needed diversions—big ones. More so now than ever before in his life. He had the worries of someone dealing with the knowledge that they’ve been diagnosed with a deadly disease. But it wasn’t a disease that kept him up at night. It was the stress from an insane mistake he had made over a year ago. His mind battled for control of the truth. The ethical and morally responsible Jim made an effort to confront the truth and figure out a way to come to terms with his mistakes, confess the whole mess to Deirdre. The chicken shit side of his brain tried to bury the memory, the guilt, and the responsibilities of his actions. And this is where he teetered—on the fence of indecision. So to say that Jim Thompson was constantly distracted was an understatement. Deirdre was clueless about this part of Jim’s life, and she had the right to know. After all, what is the value of a relationship without truth?

In fairness to Jim, part of his plan for the upcoming weekend trip was to tell Deirdre as much as he could remember about the disastrous night in San Francisco one year earlier.

*

Jim’s iPhone vibrated on the coffee table as the screen lit up. A call at 12:45? No big deal for a night owl like Jim, but after all, wasn’t there some unwritten form of phone etiquette—like the cutoff point to call someone unless it was an emergency? He hit the mute button on the television and picked up his cell. He noticed the area code and took a deep breath.

Hello, Jim, the caller said in a normal tone. You’re telling yourself right now you don’t remember me, but you should. In fact, I know you do.

Who’s calling? Jim said as he rubbed his eyes. Now all of a sudden he was tired, but every nerve in his body was alive with fear.

Cut it, Jim. You know me. You watched me die.

Jim knew without a shred of doubt that the man on the other end of the phone was indeed dead. A year earlier, Jim had witnessed his brutal murder. As Jim tried to speak, the man on the phone cut him off.

They killed me and guess what? The cops are looking into this again. Are you still going to let them get away with my murder?

Who the hell is this? Jim barked. But the logical Jim knew the caller’s name. Is this some kind of sick joke? he asked.

The man on the other end of the phone screamed. It was a shrill banshee’s wail that cut through Jim’s mind, bringing back the cold terror of a memory he had tried so hard to forget. A phone call can’t hurt a person physically, but bad news can drop a person to his knees. And tonight, for Jim, the phone call did just that.

There was an abrupt silence as Jim held the phone slightly away from his ear.

Does this sound like a joke to you, Jim? the man whispered.

Jim paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and said, What was I supposed to do? What do you want? Jim listened for a moment. Static. Hello? Jim said. Hello—hello?

Jim put the phone down and glanced at his watch. His wife, Deirdre, had been sleeping upstairs for over two hours. His head ached. He got up, bathed in the sick green glow of late-night television. Even though he was rattled, he still found a way to make light of what just happened. What else could he do?

Either I’ve lost my mind or those crazy TV shows about ghost hunters are true. But he knew it was worse than that—much worse.

Chapter 1

Regret

Guilt is a mean emotion. It’s slow and methodical—relentless in its pursuit. Jim’s conscience crept up on him, stalked him, ravaged his ability to find peaceful sleep. It all began one night last year with the stolen car. Then the alleged sexual assault, and his subsequent arrest. The woman at the center of his personal hurricane intervened. All charges were dropped. He remembered these things after the fact, the booby prize for bad judgment. But most of all, he remembered her. Marlene, the woman he met as he floated on a cloud of gin in a bar in San Francisco. When he closed his eyes, he could almost feel what it was like to have her lips graze his ear.

Jim had been a willing participant in a classic cliché: a married man takes a trip out to the West Coast for business. The man meets a woman in a nightclub. They hit it off and go for a spin in her car. How could he have known that a quickie road trip would change the rest of his life?

It is said that deep psychological trauma sets off defense mechanisms in our brains to protect our sanity. We have an innate ability to shut out events we can’t bear to remember. A year ago, Jim saw something, the details of which he was now unable to remember.

He should have gone up to his room after the first two martinis. He should have crawled into bed and let the room spin. In the middle of the night, he could have staggered to the bathroom, guzzled water to chase away the cotton mouth. But as predictable as the aftermath of drinking can be, it wasn’t time yet. Jim was on a roll. He had places to go.

That was his first mistake. The Bible talks of temptation, that Satan does his best to barter for souls. All men say they are sorry, that it was the booze, that they’ll never do it again. And this is a cliché, too. A good person can make mistakes. Jim wasn’t looking for trouble—but it happened anyway.

*

Jim was married to Deirdre Thompson. They lived in a modest ranch home outside the quiet suburb of Oakdale in western Pennsylvania. On summer nights, they would sit in the yard and drink mojitos and talk about their day. Birds and cicadas filled the air with the music of rural living, pleasant sounds that replaced the constant drone of traffic from the years when they lived in downtown Pittsburgh. But the humid rains of summer were behind them, and the ghosts of Halloween would soon give way to another brutally long winter. Life was about to change for them in ways they could never have imagined.

Jim and Deirdre had been together for over six years, and most of those years had been good. Sure, they’d had problems, but small ones, nothing insurmountable. They had always done whatever it took to fix or patch whatever was broken. They were confident they always would.

Now they were faced with something different. Jim held back a secret, something that could destroy their lives. This was more than complacency and outside stresses. Those were there, too. They needed to discuss things. To get to the root cause of their problems and to avoid the usual interruptions, they decided to leave town for the weekend, to drive out to some quiet part of rural Pennsylvania, to talk about their problems and how to deal with the stresses pushing in against their lives.

Deirdre Googled a few bed-and-breakfasts where they could relax Friday night and, if the place was pleasant enough, stay through Sunday. That would be enough time to figure out a plan to make things better. But there was a catch: Deirdre didn’t know about San Francisco, about Marlene and the other nastiness. In order for an honest relationship to work, full disclosure was essential. Like it or not, Jim needed to tell Deirdre about Marlene and the dead man. He did not remember all the details, but he needed to tell her what he did.

Chapter 2

Get Out of Dodge

The dining room reeked of wall primer. The Oriental rug had been removed, and Jim’s chair groaned as he dragged it across the hardwood floor. He steadied himself on the arm of the chair as he eased into the seat. His coffee was cold, but he drank it anyway. Starbucks got five bucks for the same kind of stuff. Jim couldn’t stop thinking about the phone call last night. Had it really been from a man he knew without a doubt was dead? He knew the man was dead, because he saw the man die. Jim put that aside for the moment, if one can put aside a thing like that. The phone call, or whatever he imagined, put Marlene front and center in his thoughts again. Blood rushed to his face as if he were embarrassed. Maybe it was because he recalled the heat of Marlene’s touch.

Upstairs, Deirdre packed for their weekend. She needed just one small bag. She searched closets and drawers. In the bedroom, an oval mirror with a heavy wooden frame lifted slightly off the wall when Deirdre slammed a large drawer. The mirror had intricate carvings of angelic children’s heads in the frame—mahogany faces of children that seemed to be hiding, afraid. Deirdre looked at her reflection. The woman who looked back seemed tired and frustrated.

She’d had a nasty day yesterday at the nursing home where her mother lived. She hated seeing her mother slumped over the side of her wheelchair, out of it from dementia and drugs. The nursing home stank of Lysol, which did a less than perfect job of covering the underlying stench of urine and feces.

Jim was reading when she got home. He hadn’t noticed she’d been crying. Lately there were so many things he hadn’t noticed. Jim had other things on his mind. Secrets. And there was tension in those secrets. If he couldn’t see she was upset, she wasn’t about to talk about it. Any discussion could wait until the weekend.

Jim, she called down, where’s my brown leather bag?

He tipped his head back, closed his eyes—the smell of breakfast bacon hung in the air.

Don’t know, Dee. He hesitated and glanced at his watch. Look in the office closet, top shelf. The floor creaked above his head as Deirdre moved from room to room. She said something, but Jim was too distracted to answer.

A young girl, maybe seven or eight years old, who had just moved in next door, walked by the dining room window as the sunlight streamed through the panes to cast bright orange rectangles on the floor. The girl wore a plaid school uniform, with that Catholic school look, and carried a bright blue and yellow backpack. Distracted, Jim watched the dust float in slow motion in the shafts of light. The screech of tires and the simultaneous blast of a horn made him jump. The girl stood in the street, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, with her hands folded in front of her as if she were about to receive Communion. The girl was only inches away from the front bumper as she grinned at the shaken driver. She looked calm. The girl turned toward Jim in the window, smirked, and waved her finger back and forth, the way a teacher would scold a child—as if Jim had done something naughty.

Jim?

Jesus, Dee, you—

I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I’ve been calling you for the last few minutes.

Sorry, I heard a car skidding. There was this girl—

What girl? Is everything okay?

I think so.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a move on. I’d like to put in at least four or five hours. Get as far away from here as possible.

Jim looked out the window again, but all he saw was the driver speed off. There was no sign of the girl. Two boys playfully shoved each other, as a dog pulled at the pant leg of one.

I want to get out of here, too. I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

And talking, she said.

Yes—and talking.

Deirdre wore a long blue terry robe, her hair pulled back as always after a shower. Barefoot, she placed her coffee cup on the hallway table and cinched her robe tighter.

What do you say we get moving, okay?

Sure, I’ll give you a hand.

Of course you will, she said with a smile. He walked over to Deirdre, put his arms around her waist; she tipped her head to one side as he kissed her.

I love you.

I love you, too.

I can’t find my overnight bag. Any idea where it might be?

I’ll find it, he said smiling.

*

He had so much to say, so much to tell her. He had never breathed a word of what happened to anyone. He was too embarrassed. Too scared. But looking back on it now, he knew it had been a colossal mistake. She was his best friend, his wife, and he trusted her with everything. He just couldn’t find a way to talk about the maze of bad choices he’d made. He could barely recall what happened, but forgetting is not the same as blocking out. He’d done everything he could to push aside what happened last year. But through the blackness in the hidden corners of his mind, he still had nightmares. Bad ones.

Jim, did you find the bag?

Yeah, I’ll be right up.

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. The speech he’d been rehearsing for months was more than a mere admission of meeting another woman; it was a confession, a recounting of events during a night when everything imaginable had gone wrong. There must be a way to make something wrong right again, he thought. But some things can’t be corrected. There are no words to undo time. There’s no way to retrieve a bad decision that ended in chaos. If a simple explanation could whisk away the night he met Marlene, that would be okay. He could try to work on repairing the damage he’d done to the trust in their relationship. It would be difficult, but possible, if Deirdre could accept his human frailty. Maybe he was expecting too much. Because there was more, much more, to what happened in San Francisco.

As Jim walked up the stairs toward the bedroom, he heard Deirdre softly singing. She zipped up her worn but favorite jeans and pulled on a beige sweater, the one he liked so much. She’s wearing that for me. She always looked great. Deirdre leaned back to stretch, inverting her hands on her hips with her fingers facing the back of her jeans. She had the fingers of a pianist, long and delicate. Her body arched slightly, with the small of her back tucked in and her buttocks in the classic curve of a beautiful woman. In spite of the underlying tension with Jim, Deirdre looked serene. She looked like a dancer preparing for her first move. The daylight streaming through the bedroom window lit her image as if she were on a stage. Her auburn shoulder-length hair shimmered in the light—a moment that, for an instant, seemed frozen in a photograph.

The scene didn’t escape Jim as he watched her, a voyeur in the shadows ogling his own wife. Deirdre was a lovely woman, tall and supple, with soft, feminine features. He knew she would do well on her own.

As she walked out of the bedroom, Jim startled her. He was leaning against the wall like a man loitering in his own home. She gave him a curt smile, in part because in an odd way, in just that moment, he made her feel uncomfortable. In the hall mirror, she touched up her makeup. In the reflection, they made eye contact. In her eyes he saw something he didn’t like: the look of doubt. This had been the problem over the last few months. He got the feeling from Deirdre that she wavered back and forth between love and mistrust. When you’re paranoid, you imagine things. After all, he’d lied by omission.

He tossed a few things in her bag, grabbed his wallet and Kindle.

Almost set?

I have a thermos of coffee, and turkey and hummus sandwiches. That ought to hold us until we get there. Oh, and your phone rang while you were downstairs.

Jim’s stomach lurched.

Okay, thanks. I’ll check the message later. I’m leaving my phone here.

He hoped to God it was a wrong number, anyone but the dead man.

Jim made the final ritualistic walk around the house, making sure the answering machine was on and the timers on the exterior lights were set to stay on until daybreak. The windows were locked, and the motion detectors would alert the police if someone broke in.

He glanced out the window toward the driveway. He watched as Deirdre put her bag in the trunk, and he noticed she was securing a couple of bottles of pinot noir. He felt better. Things were going to be okay this weekend. It was a warm fall day. The leaves had changed to amber and crimson, but the weather report predicted a frost in the outlying areas. A good day for a drive. Jim picked up his phone one last time and was relieved to see it was his office that called. He would deal with work on Monday. For Jim and Deirdre, Monday was a million miles away.

Got everything? Jim said, stepping outside and locking the door.

Ready, Freddy—let’s go, she said with a laugh.

He smiled and felt the tension, at least for the moment, lift from his shoulders. As they drove from their neighborhood, he was relieved to be leaving town. He knew Deirdre had her own issues dealing with her mother. Jim and Deirdre had a lot of things to talk about. A small town might be the very thing they both needed. The story of his night with the woman from San Francisco would remain his secret. At least for now.

Chapter 3

The Road to Fairvale

Wasn’t one of the B&Bs you mentioned located near the town of Fairvale? Jim asked. I’m not familiar with that part of Pennsylvania, but according to the GPS, it’s not that far from here. The only trouble is, we’ll need to drive a little bit longer than planned.

How much longer? Deirdre’s voice held a note of uncertainty, as Jim underestimated how long it would take to do most anything.

I don’t know, maybe an hour or so. I know you wanted to stop before dark, but as you’ve probably noticed, there’s not much around here.

All right, if you think it’s not much more than an hour.

They’d made a point of staying off the interstate to enjoy the back roads and the intimacy of small towns. But like everywhere in America these days, many scenic villages and towns were skeletons of their former selves. What was once postcard perfect was now a place where cracks and blemishes showcased unmistakable poverty. More than one clapboard house had an old washer or dryer on the front lawn and chickens strutting near a broken-down pickup truck on concrete cinder blocks. Bubba had indeed come home to roost in small town America.

Town halls were boarded up and abandoned, and the men and women who drank coffee while they raised local taxes and approved building permits found themselves at the other end of the unemployment line. Jim had randomly picked Fairvale from Deirdre’s Google search. There were many other towns of note, but the Fairvale Chamber of Commerce kept its website enticing with picturesque images of gardens and country charm.

Despite the pictures of white picket fences and the general store with kids eating ice cream on the park bench near the main window, there was something very fake about Fairvale. An intangible oddity behind the photos. There was a very real nightmare buried in the town’s secrets.

The sheriff of Fairvale shot himself after he was caught with a twelve-year-old girl in the back of his police cruiser. The

Reviews for Sign

[darcia_10 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm a sucker for a supernatural thriller, heavy on the creepy atmosphere. This book absolutely delivers on that aspect. Lou Rera is a master at creating a setting reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode. I loved the eeriness of the story. As the mood darkened, I ventured ahead with both trepidation and fascination. The scenes play out with a cinematic feel, and I felt like I was standing alongside the characters, seeing exactly what they saw.Throughout this book, the reader, like the characters, is kept off balance. We're shrouded in a dense fog of the unknown, left on our own to determine what, if anything, is real. While this held me riveted in the first half of the book, by the second half of the book this aspect became too convoluted. I needed some sort of foothold to keep me grounded in the story. We have a lot of back-and-forth in time, with scenes shifting constantly, which added to confusion.This book is heavy on symbolism. Again, this worked well for me in the first half, but, by the second half, I wanted to understand their meanings. Things such as the green needles and the man with a cane are never explained. This could have been a stylistic choice by the author, allowing readers to reach their own conclusions. For me, though, the sudden shift away from the things that played such a huge role in the story left me feeling cheated. I wanted the connection, so I could understand the pieces of the puzzle.The plot has some loose ends, with minor aspects unresolved. And, unfortunately, the ending fell apart for me. This has to do with Marlene's character, as well as some police involvement. I don't want to give spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. Ultimately, the second half didn't live up to the promise of the first half. That being said, Rera's writing style easily pulled me right into the story and kept me turning pages. The issues that bothered me certainly won't bother all readers. So, if you enjoy supernatural stories that make you question reality, give this book a try.