Flypaper Cast: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 3 Read online

  Chuck came out of a back room. “Howdy Nick. Howdy, um…‘Princess Peach,’ was it?”

  Nick sighed and hobbled in the direction of the stairs in the back of the store. For someone wanted in several countries and states for any number of online criminal activities, Corpse hadn’t taken the premise of her cover as his ‘visiting from out of town’ niece very seriously.

  “How’s the leg healin’ up, Nick?” Chuck gave him a pat on the back.

  “Not bad, actually. They say I was pretty lucky all things considered. Cast should be off in a week or two.”

  “Good deal,” Chuck said. “We’ve missed seeing you up here as much. I know your mom has too.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” Nick muttered to himself just out of Chuck’s earshot. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Terrible exercise in torment, these things. He’d only been up the torturous incline once since his leg had been snapped in half by a passing car on Northpoint. By the time he’d made it to the top, he’d been drenched in sweat and the pain was nothing short of excruciating. He may as well have climbed Mount Everest. That had been a month ago, and because they did most of the heavy lifting for the rest of his body these days, his arms had bulked up a bit since then. He hoped it would help him get to the second floor without popping a hernia this time.

  He mounted the first step. It was a good start. So far so good. The crutches dug into his underarms, but his leg was cooperative. Back in the front store he could hear Corpse make small talk with the Littleberrys.

  “You still like staying with your uncle?” Chuck asked.

  “Totes magotes. I got to beat a dude with a baseball bat today.” Corpse was swollen with pride regarding her violent defense of Nick’s home.

  “Oh dear.” The consternation and worry in Bonnie’s voice was palpable.

  Nick groaned as he approached the stairway’s midpoint. The cast on his leg had gotten heavier in the past four minutes. Gravity pulled at it like a greedy child.

  Twenty feet behind Nick, Corpse squealed in excitement. Another quirk of hers. She made that noise when she found a movie worth renting in Bonnie and Chuck’s legit VHS collection. He could appreciate that. He’d made similar noises himself when he’d first moved to town.

  Two steps away from the second floor. Beads of sweat ran out of his pits and along his ribs, a noxious mixture of perspiration and deodorant. He rested against the wall of the stairway and thumped his head against it. This was a stupid idea. A phone call would have sufficed, but no. He had to look her in the eye while he told her what for. Idiot.

  A door opened upstairs. Meredith Dawkins poked her head around the corner. Her eyes sparkled. “Nickie. Oh my gosh baby, let me help you.” She put her arms around her son and pulled him the rest of the way.

  Nick didn’t say anything despite the overwhelming urge to lay into her. He’d spent the last half-hour thinking of fifty different ways to tear her down and salt the earth with only his robust vocabulary as a weapon. Verbiage of mass destruction. But all of that had ebbed out of him three stairs back. Now, the only thing he wanted to do was sit down and catch his breath.

  He stumbled into his mother’s room and collapsed onto her bed. Spots danced across her ceiling. “Dammit Mom,” he said between lungfuls of oxygen. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Meredith sat in a chair across from him. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like to be touched, but you looked like you needed help.”

  Nick sat up. His second wind was upon him. “Not that, Jesus, the interview. The podcast. Why would you think it was okay to spill your guts to the entire fucking internet? TMZ picked it up. They’re calling it ‘Nick Dawkins’ Munchhausen Mother’. It’s not a good look for either of us.”

  His mother tugged at her sweater and stared at a cat calendar on her wall. “Well, they called me and asked if I’d be willing to talk to them. They were very nice, they clearly adore you. I didn’t think there’d be anything wrong with letting them get to know you a bit more through my eyes.”

  “No.” Nick thumped at the wooden floor with one of his crutches. “That had nothing to do with me. It was about you. You’re doing it again.”

  Meredith let go of her sweater and fidgeted with her fingers. “Doing what, sweetie?”

  “You know what.” She looked at him, her face as blank as a sheet of paper. “Or maybe you don’t know. Maybe you don’t even know you’re doing it. I don’t know and I don’t care. But you going on that show is no different than sucking up attention at support groups or in the hospital cafeteria—it’s the same bullshit in a different shirt. I’m all jacked up and yet again you’ve found a way to make it about you.”

  His mother looked at him, eyes wet. “Oh my god, baby. I didn’t think of—I swear, it never even occurred to me.”

  Just once, he’d like to have a conversation with her that didn’t end with her in tears. In all fairness, he did yell at her a lot. Also in all fairness, not without reason.

  She reached for his hand, but stopped short of touching him. She knew better. “Please Nickie, please believe me. I just got so excited when they called me. You’re so special and so many people see it and I wanted to be a part of that. It made me feel like I was a part of your life.”

  Nick slammed his crutches into position and leveraged himself up off the bed. Second wind achieved. “Yeah, well that’s done now, Mom. We’re done.”

  Meredith stood up. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Nickie, please.”

  A sense of déjà vu washed over him. They’d done this scene before. It was okay, such was the nature of their relationship. She did something terrible that impacted his life, she was called on it, and then became reticent. That was fine, because this time would be the last. “I want you gone. I want you out of Forest Down. You tell Bonnie and Chuck whatever you have to. I don’t care. I want you out of my life. I don’t love you and I don’t want to know you.”

  He opened the door to her room and turned around. To his surprise she wasn’t pulling at him. She didn’t even speak. She stood unmoving and wept. He thought he heard a teardrop hit the floor at her feet.

  It was unsatisfying. It wasn’t cathartic. He felt like a bully.

  He needed someone else to direct his vitriol at. And he knew just who it should be. “Those podcasters, you said they called you?”

  Meredith bobbed her head up and down.

  “Text me their number. Then delete mine. Don’t contact me again.”

  Nick didn’t feel anything physical as he limped down the stairs. Not the crutches in his underarms. Not the steel rod holding his leg together. The only thing he felt was shame. It was irksome given that he wasn’t the one who’d screwed up.

  Corpse stood at the counter and watched Bonnie bag up their groceries. She looked Nick up and down. She had that face again. The apologetic one.

  “Well, that was fast,” Bonnie said. “Everything okay?”

  Bonnie and Chuck didn’t know anything of his mother’s history and her sudden departure from Forest Down was bound to raise questions. They were folksy, not stupid. Nick searched for words.

  Corpse performed her dual role as oddball niece and bullshit buffer admirably. “Uncle Nickie, look.” She held up a VHS cassette in a plastic case. “I rented Meet the Feebles. Can we watch it when we get home? Huh? Can we? Please?”

  Nick read Corpse’s face. Look at me, I’m a distraction. Gratitude swelled in him. Every day the girl found a brand new way to make his life easier.

  “Yeah, kid. Come on.” He turned back to Bonnie and Chuck as Corpse gathered the bags of groceries and sang the Meet the Feebles theme song at an unreasonable volume. “We’ll see you guys.”

  “Be careful out there you two,” Bonnie said over the sound of Corpse’s caterwauling. “These winter storms are nothing to mess with.”

  The store’s door closed behind them and Corpse stopped singing. “You okay, friend-brother?”

  Nick plowed ahead, one crutch in front of the other. “I have no idea. Than
ks for the save back there though. That wasn’t a conversation I was crazy to have.”

  Corpse smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She began singing the Feebles chorus again.

  “Damn you kid, that song’s going to be in my head for a we—” Nick stopped a few feet away from his car.

  “I know, right? Isn’t it glori—?” Corpse stopped too, skidding a little on some salt.

  A moment of silence passed as they absorbed the sight before them. Corpse could always be counted on to the stomp out those moments when they overstayed their welcome. “Fuck me running.” She looked up and down the street, eager to tear into anyone of a suspicious nature. “Are you shitting me?”

  Nick rested on his crutches and surveyed the damage to his car. One smashed windshield. One side mirror busted and scattered across the sidewalk. The words GO HOME ASSHOLE scratched into the hood.

  Forest Down, ladies and germs. Nice place to live.

  Chapter 4

  “So you were at Bonnie and Chuck’s place for what—? Fifteen minutes?” Sheriff Reed filled her notepad with Nick’s account of the incident. What the hell did she do with the dozens of little yellow sheets he’d seen her fill out over the years? Were they in a filing cabinet somewhere? Did she digitally record it all in a file called DawkinsBullshit.doc?

  “Yeah, about fifteen minutes. Went in, talked to Mom, came out…” Nick gestured at the car. “Found this.”

  Reed looked up and down the street. A handful of locals talked amongst themselves and watched the spectacle unfold. “Broad daylight. Un-be-freaking-lievable.”

  Nick tapped at the handle of his crutch. The exhaustion that followed the monumental task of climbing a simple flight of stairs had been replaced by nervous energy and a desire to punch someone in the throat. He wasn’t particular about who. It had been that kind of day. “I’m guessing ‘nobody saw nothing’, right?”

  Reed cocked her head to one side and scribbled in her pad some more. Nick leaned in to get a look at what she had written, but she threw him a nunya glance and turned away. “I’ve got the boys talking to Grimley and a few others, but so far… yeah. That looks to be the long and short of it. I’ll be honest, I’m getting the feeling that even if somebody saw something, nobody saw anything.”

  Nick leaned against his car. “Jesus, Sheriff, I do love this town.”

  Reed closed her pad. “Believe me, I’m no happier about this than you are. This isn’t who we’re supposed to be. I like to think we’re better than this. I’m not playing a blame-the-victim card here, but maybe some of these folks have seen their limit. It’s a small community. Everyone knows Delbert Williams. Everyone knew Harold Trent. Clark’s not around to account for those, which leaves you to take the blame.”

  Nick knew the feeling. Delbert had crabs sewn up inside him. Harold died on the side of the road with a syringe in his eye, his reward for being the proverbial Good Samaritan and trying to help Nick. He still blamed himself for both.

  Corpse walked up the street. She glared at a curious bystander. Reed pointed her pen in the girl’s direction. “How is it living with ‘Qualsnarg of the Crab Nebula’?”

  Nick planted his forehead in his hand. He’d forgotten that’s what the webmaster had told Reed her name was. “It’s different. The company is a nice change, but she’s um…” He searched for a description that didn’t have a negative connotation. “…High energy.”

  Officer York, the newest and youngest agent of Forest Down law enforcement, came out of the Post Office and followed Corpse up the sidewalk. “Hey, I was wondering if maybe, like, you wanted to get out of your uncle’s place for a bit later, there’s this Italian place on the other side of town—”

  Corpse didn’t so much as look at York. “Boy, I would break you in half. Run on home to your momma before I put my foot all up in your ass.”

  York looked devastated. Nick was pretty sure the kid had gotten off light.

  Reed slapped on a blatantly fake smile. “Your ‘niece’ is a joy. What have you got on her, anyway? Ten years?”

  Nick hopped over to the car’s passenger door. “You know it’s not like that.”

  Reed shoved her pad in her pocket. “I also know you are an only child.”

  Corpse walked past Reed on the way to the driver’s side. “Nothing of interest on that side of the street. Also, I’m sixty-three. Also also, boys are gross.”

  Nick opened his door. “See? She’s sixty-three and thinks boys are gross.”

  “Right.” Reed pointed at the car with her notepad. “You realize that thing is in no way street legal with that windshield.”

  Corpse started the car. Nick shut his door and rolled down the window. “Then you’ll have to arrest us because there’s no way I’m leaving it out here. Fifteen minutes in broad daylight. What the shit, Sheriff.”

  Reed threw her hands up in resignation as Nick and Corpse pulled away.

  The webmaster drove with her face inches away from the shattered windshield. “Useless po-po. I’m amazed you’re still alive, three years with only the cast of Police Academy watching your ass.”

  Nick pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, they’re alright. Reed’s the closest I’ve had to a friend out here and Kern… well, Kern’s kind of a dick, but he literally—proper usage of the word—saved my life. That’s worth something, right?”

  “Respect.” Nick’s phone caught Corpse’s eye. “What you got there?”

  A text from Nick’s mother was on his phone. A phone number, along with the message: I’m so sorry but will respect your wishes. I still love you. Mom.

  Guilt gnawed at him. He kicked it away. “Text from Mom. The number of these Flystrike idiots. I think I want to call them and yell obscenities. Thoughts?”

  Corpse slowed as she navigated one of the hairier curves on 2273. Nick suspected she had a harder time seeing the road than she let on. “Undecided. On one hand: super entertaining. I’d record the call and listen to it on repeat when I’m feeling blue.”

  Nick sensed a but. “What’s your other hand say?”

  She waggled fingers at him. “It, in all its wisdom says, these are hardcore Myiasis Maggots. There’s a reason you never engage these cats. No good can come of it.”

  The hum of the car’s engine did all the talking for a long minute. Nick looked at the number on his phone. The feeling was all too familiar; a rising urge to spit in the faces of people who rubbed him the wrong way. Radio personalities, studio executives, editors… it didn’t matter who someone was, or their station in life. When he felt poked, he poked back. Sometimes it got him yelled at. Every now and again it got him physically assaulted. But more often than not, it felt righteous.

  “They called my Mom, Corpse. I have to at least find out how they got her number, right?”

  Corpse kept her eyes on the road. “Hey, you’ll get no argument from me, Brogurt. The whole thing about them being big-shot Maggots aside, you don’t fuck with family, no matter how fucked up the family may be.”

  She had a point, or at least she had one Nick could sell to himself as a legitimate reason to make contact, aside from the release of pure unadulterated fury. He pressed the number on his phone.

  A female voice on the other end. “Hello?”

  Nick looked at Corpse. He’d want a second pair of ears on the call. He pressed a button and the call switched to his car’s speakers. “Hello? Who’s this?”

  The female spoke again. “Uh, who is this?”

  Corpse pointed at the dash of the car and mouthed “Hellen” at Nick. She would know best. She’d certainly spent more time listening to Flystrike than Nick had.

  “Is this Hellen?” he asked.

  The voice on the other end spoke to someone else and then at Nick. “Who is this? How did you get this number?”

  Screw it. If Corpse thought the person on the other end was this Hellen person, it was good enough for him. “Hellen, this is Nick Dawkins.”

  There was a long pause. “Bullshi
t.”

  Nick shook his head. Impatience clawed at the back of his throat and crawled past his tongue. “Not bullshit. Really me. I got your number from my mother.”

  Silence filled the car. Nick cut it short by reading his mother’s number off his phone.

  “Holy shit.” Hellen bought it. “Worm, it’s Nick Dawkins. Mr. Dawkins, I’m putting you on speaker, is that okay?”

  “Knock yourself out.” He looked at Corpse. Might as well make this a four-way.

  Wormwood’s high-pitched voice boomed from the car’s speakers. “Mr. Dawkins, we’re big fans, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  In the past, flattery had been a very quick path to Nick’s good graces. These two did not have that luxury. “Yeah, I wish I could say the same. The reason I called is I need to know how you got my mother’s number.”

  Neither Hellen nor Wormwood spoke, but Nick couldn’t imagine they weren’t communicating. Reading each other’s expressions; sign language; maybe even some form of text. Wormwood stuttered out a response. “Mr. Dawkins, it would be a tremendous betrayal to reveal our source. If we did that to someone else, how could you ever trust that we wouldn’t betray your confidence?”

  The impatience in Nick’s throat leeched itself on his words and rode them out of his mouth like a Valkyrie. “You’re not a fucking journalist, Wormwood. You’re a kid with a broadband connection. Don’t give me that ‘protect your sources’ horseshit. You called my mother.”

  Hellen chimed in. “Mr. Dawkins… may I call you Nick?”

  Nick smashed down the urge to hit the dash of his car. “You can call me whatever the fuck you want if you’ll answer my question.”

  Corpse clutched at the steering wheel. Nick’s anger spilled onto her. She ground her teeth.

  Hellen worked the diplomacy angle, oblivious of how futile it would be. “Nick, let’s talk this out. Would you be interested in doing an episode of the show?”

  “How about you just answer the question, you fucking slag?” Corpse screamed at the dash of the car. Nick was taken aback. And a little proud.