Sarah hadn't returned my calls for days. I drove by her place at least twice a day. Her car wasn't around but that didn't mean much. It was a Junker and it could be broke down or dead. Maybe that was why I hadn't heard from her but that really made no sense either. If she was without transportation she might need my help even more.
I didn't dare knock without calling first. I had no idea if she did regular business at her place or not, She did me there. If I showed up and she was working it would be the end of our very tenuous friendship.
It was the end of week two since we had been to Oakmont Circle together, the last time I saw her. I was pulling through the court and looked to the camper but there was now a vacant space. The camper was gone. I stopped my truck in front of an old rusting thirty-foot Coleman with a sign in the window declaring it was the office.
I knocked on the door and after being thoroughly interrogated by a weathered old woman regarding my interest, it was my honesty and a twenty-dollar bill that got me just so far. The Brooks' had moved over a week ago, she didn't remember what day exactly, and the camper sold to a local farmer yesterday; I guessed he was probably going to raise goats in it. They had towed it off that morning.
She had no idea where Mr. Brooks and his daughter had gone but added that they moved their stuff using a small van with the name Vandenberg Painting on the side. The phonebook at home showed a single listing for Vandenberg Painting. It was about twenty-five minutes south.
I had been setting in a parking lot across from Vandenberg Painting, Inc. since seven this morning. It was now two in the afternoon. It had taken me a few days deciding to drive down this way to check the place out. I was now thinking daddy Brooks might have just known someone who simply loaned him the truck to move.
About then the old dark blue Toyota Tercel I had come to love turned in from the north. Sarah was behind the wheel. When it pulled out. A guy who could be daddy was driving and Sarah was in the passenger seat.
I followed them back to Cape Coral and when they turned onto NW forty-fifth Place I pulled to the shoulder and waited. The car stopped in the driveway of the corner house and the two went inside. If he were Sarah's dad, he would have been quite young when she was born. The man was tall and fit and shirtless.
The next morning I waited till after eleven and drove by. There were no cars. I pulled in the driveway and felt my ankle, making sure my gun was there. I took it out and slipped it in my front pocket. When I knocked on the front door there was no answer. I waited and knocked harder and longer, still no answer.
I ditched my truck two blocks away next to a canal fishing spot and walked back. I circled the house and found a rear slider unlocked. I opened it and called out. The big dog stood from his lounging spot in the kitchen next to his big chrome food dish. I had forgotten about the dog. It didn't growl or bark though, that was a good sign but it walked over to me and sniffed my leg.
Almost as if he remembered me, He turned and went back to his special place and flopped down laying his head on top of his empty bowl. Maybe he remembered that he got hamburger when I visited?"
I finally got up the nerve to go inside and look around. The place was a dump. It was a fairly new construction, maybe fifteen-years old, but not so well cared for. The Cape had developed a lot of these after the bubble busted. All of the rooms were shy of enough furniture. There were dirty pans on the stove, dirty dishes in the sink, and cleaner ones in a strainer setting on the counter. Down the hallway there were two bedrooms. One was nothing more that a mattress on the floor and men's clothes scattered around. The next one was furnished a bit better, single bed that was made up, everything in order but still modestly done; Sarah's room.
I had been waiting around for about an hour, not knowing why, when a car pulled in the drive. I decide to hide out in Sarah's closet. If it weren't her, the new arrival would have no reason to be in there. If it was her, I at least had an arguable chance. I pulled my pistol just in case. I slipped behind louvered doors and waited.