Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

of you to come over,” Lola said, rubbing her hand over Mrs. Enfield’s shoulder after a fresh wave of tears but still looking at Silence. “You’re lucky I’m visiting, or you’d be the one taking her to the vet.”

She leaned closer to Mrs. Enfield.

“It’s time for us to go, ma’am.”

A moan from the old woman, hands going to her face.

“Will be all right,” Silence said.

Lola took the carrier from Silence, their hands brushing on the handle. A sudden laugh as she looked past Silence.

He turned, but he already knew what she was looking at.

That damn photograph.

It sat in a pewter frame on a small accent table near the base of the stairs. To Silence, it felt like the photo had been taken yesterday, but as he thought about it, it had been over three years.

Lola had taken the photo. At Mrs. Enfield’s request. Silence, sitting upright in a hideous old wooden chair, one of many items in Mrs. Enfield’s house that looked like it had been yanked straight out of a horror movie. On Silence’s lap was Baxter, looking at the camera, head twisted just so, the biggest goddamn cat smile you’ve ever seen in your life, a steady line of drool draining from the lower corner of his mouth, a puddle of it clearly visible on Silence’s pants, which he remembered were one of his favorite pairs of Calvin Kleins at the time.

Silence, too, was looking at the camera. And smiling. He rarely smiled and never did so on command, so the expression would have been unnatural enough had his mind not also been both toying with the humiliating awkwardness of the situation and also wondering why the hell he was being forced to pose for a photo for a blind woman. The resulting look on Silence’s face was one of pain, bewilderment, and despair, something truly hideous, something that would scare small children and wilt perfectly healthy fields of crops. Just absolutely hideous.

And it made Lola break into hysterics every time she came to Pensacola to visit her former employer.

She kept a hand on Mrs. Enfield’s shoulder as she bent over, folding at the waist, the knees. Her laughter turned so intense it went silent.

“You’re looking at the picture again, aren’t you?” Mrs. Enfield said. Her white eyes roamed her immediate surroundings, drifting over Silence to Lola, bent over beside her. She sniffed. And a small smile came to her lips, the first all morning.

When Lola couldn’t respond, Silence answered for her. “She is.”

“Now you stop it.” The old woman stepped out of Lola’s hand and padded to the table, picked up the frame, held it gingerly, squeezed it to her bosom. “It’s a beautiful photo. My two boys.”

“You can’t see,” Silence said.

“Stop it! Both of you. I was there when she took it. I know what it shows.”

Lola finally straightened up. Her laughter became audible again. She wiped tears from her eyes, took a deep breath, sighed.

“Come on, Mrs. E.” She stepped over and took Mrs. Enfield’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Outside, the temperature was pleasant, but the sun was hot, the humidity high. Willinger Street was one of many quiet streets in Pensacola’s East Hill neighborhood, full of historic homes, well-kept gardens, and children on bicycles. Lola’s Ford Taurus was parked right in front of the house, and once she’d seat-belted Baxter’s carrier in the back seat and Mrs. Enfield in the front, she closed the door and stepped to Silence.

“I’ll take good care of her.”

“Thanks.”

“Tonight’s my last night in town…” She left it dangling. Not unfinished. Just open.

“Okay.”

She knew Silence was engaged. That’s what Mrs. Enfield had always told her. That’s what Silence had always told her. And in Silence’s mind, it was true.

But through the years, Lola had noticed that Silence never got married, that his fiancée was never around. Mrs. Enfield hadn’t told her that C.C. was dead, and neither had Silence. And while Lola had never expressly asked him out, she was more friendly to him than she should be to an engaged man.

She looked at him. Waiting.

BEEP!

His pager sounded.

Thank god.

He pulled it from his pocket, squinted at the screen, perhaps a bit too dramatically, then gave Lola a Work, Whatcha gonna do? shrug and left for his house.

“Bye,” she called behind him.

He turned. She stood where he’d left her, a few feet from the Taurus.

He waved.

When he dialed the number that had beeped him, the voice that responded didn’t say hello. Nor did it offer any other word of salutation. Rather, the greeting was a laugh—a big, hearty belly laugh, the kind of laugh that belts across a restaurant or an airport terminal upon the reunion of two buddies who haven’t seen each other in years. It was a man who went by Falcon but whose actual name was Laswell. Silence’s boss, a higher-up in the Watchers. And it had been less than three weeks since they’d spoken.

“Hahaaaaaaa!” Falcon shouted. Silence pulled the phone from his ear. “Si, how you doin’, you big, dog-voiced son of a bitch?”

Like Mrs. Enfield, Falcon had very early on chosen to shorten Silence’s name to Si.

“Good. You?”

“I’m doing great. Just great. Thanks for asking, amigo. The sun’s shining here in whatever state it is I live in.” Silence wasn’t permitted to know Falcon’s location, occupation, or even his real name, though Silence had figured that last one out. “Meatloaf’s on the menu tonight. And I have a hell of a juicy assignment for my Florida man. You ready for this?”

“Yes.”

“Orlando. Two months ago a newlywed woman disappeared a couple weeks after the wedding. Amber Lund. She was driving home from couple’s therapy.” He chuckled. “Therapy after two weeks of marriage—love must not’ve been in the air. Car was found at the side of a highway a couple miles from a bus station. Of course, the immediate assumption was she got retroactive cold feet, that something big came up in the therapy sessions and she ran off to cope with it, hopped on a