Untitled Novel - Summer 2010

Chapter 1

Never before so happy to see a cab, she dove in headfirst and sprawled across the backseat, forcing herself to revel in the pleasure of her prone position and not to think of what might be crawling on and beneath the hot sticky vinyl.  “You’ll have to put on the safety belt before we can go, Miss.”


Lindsey Coleman righted herself and gave the cabbie her address as she pulled the shoulder strap across her chest.  She let her head fall back against the seat for several long moments before reaching down to unstrap her shoes.  The straps had cut into the flesh across the tops of her feet and around her ankles, leaving little red roads through the swelling.  It had been a long day.


She wound the ankle straps of her shoes through the shoulder strap of her purse and wondered if she’d ever want to wear them again.  Maybe she should just leave them on the seat.  Her feet would thank her.  Her boss, on the other hand…


Her thought was cut short as the cabbie slammed on his breaks, pitching her hard against the nylon seatbelt strap.  She opened her mouth to swear at him but instead saw what had made him stop.  A man stood in front of the cab, staring in through the windshield, completely unaffected by the near death experience. 


If it were happening on a movie screen, Lindsey thought she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from laughing.  But here, in real life, happening to her, she understood why a script writer would have written it this way.  He was taller than what would ordinarily be called tall, broad enough to be proportionate, wearing a black hat and long black coat, despite the heat of the night. His hands were deep in his coat pockets and the whole scene gave Lindsey chills.


The man turned slowly away from the cab, as if the cab had been the inconvenience, as if the cab had made him have to stop, not the other way around, and continued across the street.  He covered the three wide lanes in about half the steps of any average sized man and was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.


Now fully awake, Lindsey considered telling the cabbie to forget about it, she’d walk the rest of the way from here but before she could complete the thought, her feet began to throb in response. So she decided to enjoy the rest of the cab ride to her apartment.  She wished that he could drive her up the stairs to park directly in front of her door.


When they arrived, she paid the twelve dollar fare in ones, apologizing half-heartedly as she counted them out to him, and staggered to the sidewalk.  She stood at the base of the front steps and lifted her eyes to her bedroom window, on the fourth, and top, floor.  The old building had been built before elevators were fashionable so she steeled herself for the walk up.


Halfway between the third and fourth landing, Lindsey felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end.  Something didn’t feel right.  She stopped and pressed her back against the wall, pulling her cell phone from her purse.  She stared at the keypad for several seconds, debating what number to dial.  She punched 9-1- clear, twice before pulling up her contacts and scrolling through to find Erin’s number. 


Her friend of nearly twenty years picked up on the second ring.  “Are you okay?” Erin and Lindsey’s mother both worried about Lindsey walking home from her job at two in the morning so they made her promise to call Erin, or 9-1-1, if she had any trouble on the way. 


“I’m not sure.  Something doesn’t feel right.  I just wanted to have you on the phone, in case.”  She wasn’t at all clear about what Erin would be able to do if she really needed help but just having her on the other end would be comforting.


She made her way to the top of the stairs and stood in front of her apartment door.  The building was set up with four apartments, each occupying its own floor.  At each landing there were two doors, the apartment door and one that opened into a small storage closet that was included with each apartment.  Lindsey kept cleaning supplies and winter coats in hers.  Both doors were closed, and when Lindsey tried the knob on the apartment door, it was locked.  She still wasn’t convinced that everything was Kosher in the pickle jar so she kept Erin on the phone while she fished her key out of her purse. 


When she got into the apartment, the sense that something was wrong grew even stronger.  “Something’s not right,” she whispered into the phone.


“Do you want me to come over?”


Lindsey thought for a moment.  “Could you?”


“Of course.  I’ll be there in just a few.”


Without another word, Lindsey flipped the phone closed and slid down the door to sit on the floor.


She was still sitting like that, back against the door, knees pulled to her chest, when Erin used her key to unlock the door.  The Irish girl who looked like someone had shaken her out of the illustrations of a children’s book, pushed against the door, unable to move both it and her friend.  “Linds, Linds, you have to get up.  I can’t open the door.”


Lindsey shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs that had formed in her vigilant trance, and hauled herself unsteadily to her rounded, swollen feet, feet that screamed in protest.  She looked guiltily at her friend.  In the time she’d been waiting, she hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary in the apartment; the door had been locked when she’d gotten there, there was no reason to think anything was wrong, no reason, of course, except for the feeling of dread and foreboding in the pit of her stomach and all along her spine.


Erin simply smiled sympathetically and led her friend to her couch.  “Sit here and I’ll check it out, see if there’s anything out of place.”  If there were anyone more qualified than Lindsey to check the apartment, it was Erin.


After a few minutes, she returned to the living room looking satisfied.  “Looks like everything is where it should be.  Do you want me to stay for a while?”  Lindsey nodded and Erin joined her on the couch. Lindsey told her friend that she still felt like something wasn’t quite right then recounted the man the cabbie had very nearly run over on the  way home.  “That is weird, but I doubt it has anything to do with you.  He was just one of those jerks who thinks ‘Yield to pedestrians’ means everywhere, all the time.”


She got up from the couch and headed toward the kitchen.  “Are you hungry?  Can I fix you something?”


Lindsey considered the question for a long time before answering.  “No.  Yes, I’m hungry, but I want to go somewhere.  Maybe if I go out and come in again, this feeling will go away.”  She got up and wobbled on sore feet to her bedroom.  A few minutes later, she reemerged wearing plaid cotton pajama pants, a t-shirt and flip flops on her feet.


“A full 180 from the leather skirt and boob shirt.” Erin chuckled.


“Shut up.  That leather skirt and boob shirt pay my rent.”


“Ha! I’ll bet it does.”








Lindsey pushed her plate away, gathered her coffee cup in both hands and turned in the booth seat to lean back against the wall, putting her feet where she had been sitting.  She let loose a long drawn sigh, letting the length of the day go with it.  “How do you manage both jobs in one day?” Erin asked after she was sure her friend was relaxed.


Lindsey shook her head slowly.  “I try not to.  But most days it’s not so bad.  Today was just long with the festival and then the festival overflow into the bar.  The tips were phenomenal tonight, though.”


“How was the festival?”  By night, Lindsey Coleman was a bartender at a highly trafficked bar in the center of town.  Nearly every big event that happened in town happened within walking distance of her bar so whenever there was something going on, they had a big night at the bar afterward. 


By day, she covered those events for a local entertainment magazine, distributed weekly by one of the city’s two major news papers.


“Great.  There were a couple of really great bands…”  Before she could say any more, the door to the diner opened and the tall man in the hat strode in.


“Is that the guy?” Erin asked, startled by his size.  Lindsey was only able to nod.  The man looked at the two girls for a long moment before turning and crossing to the back of the dining room in five long strides.  “What do you think he’s doing here?”


Lindsey shook her head and turned back to sit correctly on the bench seat.  “I don’t know and I don’t think I want to know.”


“Have you seen him before?”


She shook her head. “Not that I can remember but maybe at the bar.  If he came in without that coat, I may not have noticed him.”


“He is kind of creepy.”


“He is super creepy.”


“You okay?”


Lindsey waited a long moment before answering.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  How was your day?”


Erin considered ignoring the subject change but decided there wasn’t anything left to say on the subject of the man in the black coat so she shrugged and said, “Not bad.  Long.  While you were enjoying the benefits of the festival, I was enjoying a day without any customers.  It was dead.”  Erin managed a bookstore that was farther from the center of town.  Hot sunny summer days were normally good for business; people could come in and browse and drink a cold drink in the coffee bar.  But when there was something going on downtown, they all flocked to that.  If they did any shopping on days like this, they did it because they wandered into one of the downtown shops to get out of the heat for a few minutes.


Lindsey nodded. “At least when it’s busy, time goes by faster.”  She stirred her coffee absently, watching the thin layer of foam spiral around her spoon, creating a tiny whirlpool.


After several long, silent minutes, Erin stood up.  “Let’s get out of here.  That guy’s giving me the creeps.  You can come home with me, if you’re still worried about your apartment.”


“No.  I’m sure it’s fine.  After all,” She pointed to the man in the far corner. “If he’s here, he can’t be there, too.”


“I can’t argue with that.”