Approaching Menace Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Approaching Menace

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Approaching Menace

  By June Shaw

  Copyright 2014 by June Shaw

  Cover Copyright 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by June Shaw and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Relative Danger

  Killer Cousins

  Deadly Reunion

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  Approaching Menace

  June Shaw

  Chapter 1

  Josie Aspen rinsed lettuce in cold water, her little brother’s harsh cough attracting her attention. She peered toward the den. This new coughing could signify an intensified problem with his kidneys.

  As though he could hear her thinking, he yelled, “Hey, Joseph!” He would know she’d smile and pretend to be annoyed at the nickname he sometimes gave her. Colin called again. “Somebody’s about to starve in here.”

  She continued to rinse the lettuce. “A little starvation once in a while is good for everyone. And my name isn’t Joseph.”

  He gave no response, but she knew what the eight-year-old would be doing. Lying on his recliner, he would try for a frown, but his pale freckled cheeks would dimple. Beneath fine dirty-blonde bangs, his honey eyes would glisten.

  Special warmth spread inside Josie. She was twenty-three and had been pursuing her goals elsewhere. But now being in Florida to help take care of a brother young enough to be her son took precedence over everything else. Even her relationship with Andrew.

  She smiled, envisioning Andrew’s denim blue eyes and wide comforting shoulders. He’d called and made her wish they could be together tonight. But he had promised to help a friend work on his motorcycle. And she needed to be here.

  Arranging lettuce on salad plates, she piled on cottage cheese, drained the strawberries, and quieted her mind to acutely listen.

  From the next room came the soft strains of her brother’s music. Josie picked out the most important sound, the humming.

  Reassured, she poured tea into small glasses. She preferred a tall glass, but if Colin could drink only a little, so would she. She was clunking ice into his special glass when lightning crashed. Thunder resonated, bouncing against walls.

  A shriek rose in Josie’s chest. It reached her throat and froze. Something shattered.

  “Josie. Josie!” The voice seemed like Colin’s, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Sound no longer registered. She stared at the window. Lightning flashes were trying to come in. They yearned to find her. Just like they had found the other girl…Josie’s eyes narrowed. Again she smelt the horrid crisp burnt odor. Death, when it struck the child playing so near to her.

  Between the open curtains, lightning daggers speared the sky. Thunder exploded. The world outside and in Josie’s home blackened

  Her scream pried itself loose.

  “Josie!” Colin screamed.

  Remembering her little brother’s face and the machine vital to his survival, she automatically attuned her ear. The hum had stopped. Josie willed her knees to unbolt. She moved to a wall and fingered its roughness until her hands crept across the doorframe.

  An ebony abyss claimed the den. No shapes remained.

  Rain slammed the roof. The air thickened into something mean and palpable. Thrumming resonating inside Josie’s scalp made her want to dash back. But her brother was somewhere inside this void. She needed to find him.

  And then…then she would have to take him outside. Into the storm. She would need to rush Colin to a place where medical personnel could fasten him to a machine that still worked.

  She forced herself to think of what she must do. By hand, she would need to crank his blood back into him, and then she would drive through that weather.

  Sound came from her left.

  The noise repeated. Colin’s rasping sounded like he was choking.

  “It’s okay, Josie,” he said between coughs. “Come on. I’m right here.”

  Lightning popped and filled the room.

  Josie jumped, squeezing her eyes shut.

  A small hand touched her back. It rubbed in light comforting circles. “You’re okay,” Colin said.

  Kneeling in front of him, she felt his bony legs she leaned against. She disengaged her head from where it burrowed and noticed the cracked number one on his favorite shirt, the faded red jersey. “I feel so silly.”

  “Hey, being scared is okay.” Her brother’s face wore a reassuring brightness.

  She pressed a fingertip into one of his dimples. He was peering directly in her eyes, surely to make certain awareness had returned. She glanced at the ceiling. What she’d thought was more lightning had been the lights coming back on.

  Colin gave a wide-toothed smile and stroked her arm, attempting to coax reassurance. “You remember when I used to be scared of Fred?”

  The name called Josie to full senses.

  Beyond Colin, a red light flashed. Beeps added more warning.

  Josie plied herself from his warmth and dashed to the machine. She reset the knobs without having to think, and silenced the clamor.

  “It’s okay, Fred,” Colin said to the dialysis machine that again sent cleansed blood back into him. “If you don’t cry anymore, then maybe my sister will feed me some dinner. And maybe I won’t have to die of starvation.”

  He smirked at Josie, but she cringed. She had been so concerned with her own safety while her brother lay here, his existence dependent upon a machine he had named as though it were a friend.

  Of course Fred was. He kept her brother alive.

  She attempted a smug grin. “If you put it that way, maybe I will fix you something. At least one more time.” When he flashed a smile, she felt her normal self-assurance returning. “Okay, young man, one fancy strawberry cottage cheese dinner coming right up.”

  His freckled nose scrunched.

  She grinned. “And I’ll tell you what. Since you were such a nice guy tonight, you deserve a treat. I’m going to peel you something for tomorrow.”
<
br />   “All right! I’m getting a fried potato.” He sounded as if she’d promised him the most scrumptious cuisine.

  Josie lifted her chin and strolled back to the kitchen.

  Tan stains mottled the oyster white cabinet doors. Glass shards, tea, and ice cubes spread across the wheat-colored ceramic floor like tiny icebergs on a tan ocean.

  Her cheeks burned. She flung the ice to the sink and picked up pieces of glass. Scolding herself while mopping up tea and lifting glass splinters, she knew her phobia had to go. How, she still wasn’t sure. She had been fighting the problem for so long. When she’d still lived in Nashville, a friend explained how hypnosis helped with her own numbing terror of snakes. Josie tried her friend’s hypnotist. She’d thought the sessions helped. Or maybe there had not been so many thunderstorms as here, near the gulf. In the two years she had been in Florida, storms often swept in.

  During the most frightening ones, she’d been able to do what the hypnotist made her practice. Clenching fists and envisioning herself powerful, she inhaled, held her breath and counted backward. “Ten, nine, eight…” The rain was nothing to fear. It was only water, just like the pleasant water falling from a cool faucet or showerhead. Josie would shut her eyes and see herself enjoying a shower and smelling fresh with her favorite kiwi scented shampoo. She would relax, imagining herself preparing to go out for a pleasant evening.

  A shard of glass stuck in her finger now. She pulled it out and pressed a dry towel against the spot to make it stop bleeding. Thunder was always more difficult for her to handle. She likened the thunder to a loud, angry voice. But after a while the voice would soften. The anger would leave.

  Lightning was altogether different. The hypnotist taught her what to use, but she had never been able to remember. Lightning killed that girl. Lightning struck her while she played next to Josie, and Josie’s world back then and still years later felt enveloped by blackness whenever she imaged herself lying still like the child.

  What was that girl’s name?

  “No!” Josie spoke aloud and forced away the picture, making her view come back into focus. She was rinsing the sponge mop here in Florida, not back there when it happened. Not when the thunder and lightning struck together. Exactly like they did this time.

  She slid the mop over the floor, determining this experience during nasty weather had been the worst. She’d reacted horribly just recently, when a thunderstorm hit immediately after she entered a supermarket. But while she remained in Florida, she would have to work harder to rid herself of the fear. After all, what chance would there be of another death coming when a storm struck?

  She glanced back into the den.

  The room appeared fine. Colin’s cushioned chair was reclined. To his left, Fred pumped. Dark red blood flooded the plastic tubes entering the machine and flowing from it. No light blinked.

  Beyond the recliner, each mauve throw pillow on the couch stood in its place. Sylvie, their mother, would not have anything askew. The oak floor retained its glistening patina with no scratches. The chair matching the mauve, celery, and cream-colored sofa looked perfect. Books on the walnut bookcase lined up shortest to tallest. Each picture of flowers in muted colors hung in alignment like trained soldiers. Across the room, Josie’s walnut chair stood against the wall. A lace cloth hid her sewing machine inside its table.

  Colin’s head hadn’t stirred. She stepped in beside him. He had waited for this. His lips formed a tight smile and his right eye gave a small wink. I’m okay, his expression said. Thanks for checking.

  The dialysis machine’s timer revealed only a few minutes remained for his treatment.

  The stereo’s subdued sounds had resumed. While Josie smiled at Colin, local news interrupted the quiet classical music he enjoyed. “This just in,” the newscaster said. “Another woman was found murdered on the beach.” The first had been less than two months ago. This woman had also been strangled. Her name was being withheld.

  Josie pictured the white Florida beaches where multicolored umbrellas looked like huge rubber balls. Children ran, laughed, and kicked up sand. Lean and overweight adults stretched on beach towels. One woman’s lifeless body lay still.

  A shiver skittered along Josie’s arms. She glanced at Colin, hating to have him hear that such horrible things could happen nearby.

  His guarded expression let her know he’d been paying attention.

  “All right,” she said to distract him, “you were such a hero for saving your sister tonight that I am now going to prepare your special treat.”

  His face lit. “My potato.”

  When she checked his blood pressure, he said, “What about if I save you again tomorrow? Then could I have French fries the next day, too?”

  She shoved back his shaggy bangs. They flopped again into place. “Nope. Tomorrow I won’t need saving. And you can’t have that many potatoes. They’re not that yummy, you know.”

  “Aw.” He tried to frown, but a corner of his lips lifted.

  Returning to the kitchen, Josie peeled and sliced a potato for him and one for herself. She covered them with water and placed the dish in the refrigerator, where the next twenty-four hours would remove some of their phosphorus. She hated the grim constraints of his diet. So many qualifying factors had been added because of his renal failure.

  Her reflection switched to the news. Two women died on nearby beaches. The first had been alone after dark. Was the new victim, too?

  Stirring strawberries into cottage cheese, she resolved that she would avoid the beaches at night. Not that she went to them anyway. She’d gone a few times with Andrew shortly after they met, but soon her job and the rudiments of caring for her brother set constraints on her time.

  His treatment was finishing when she got back to him. “One great meal,” she said, “ready for one great guy.”

  His chipper attitude had departed. Her brother seemed barely able to smile. But he tried. “I am great, aren’t I?”

  She nodded. Josie unhooked the venous and arterial tubes from his arm and taped his shunt. She weighed him and recorded his weight while he went off to the bathroom. Discarding the used tubes in a red plastic bag required for contaminants, she then covered the bag in the large trashcan that their mother had coated with pretty wallpaper and hidden behind his chair.

  Colin remained quiet when he returned. This concerned Josie. Normally he didn’t talk when something bothered him, or if he felt weak or sick to the stomach. Sometimes, although he seldom admitted it, he was worried.

  “I have something to confess,” Josie told him.

  He sat on his chair and looked up, his cheeks almost bleached of their little color.

  She stood in front of him and frowned. “I broke your glass.”

  He lifted his shoulders and dropped them. “That don’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t? I thought you’d raise heck and say I owed you my next paycheck.” She wished he would complain. Colin loved his special glass. Royal blue and spotted with white soccer balls, the glass had been a gift from their dad the last time he came home. It was right before the final time he left them.

  “Maybe I can find another one like it,” she said.

  “I don’t care, Josie. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  No, even if you’re just eight years old, you are no longer a kid, she concluded. But he needed to care. His stern expression said he was angry. At her?

  He directed his gaze away, his mind apparently far from this room.

  Colin cocked back in his recliner. His lips pursed, his eyelids drooped, and heavy breaths left his nostrils. He coughed and turned toward the wall, curled into fetal position.

  “How about if I let you rest a minute?” Her fingers soothed his brow. His forehead was cool. That was good. She left the room while he squeezed into a pale ball against the celery-colored cushions.

  Josie set their places and tinkered in the kitchen, though there was little that required straightening. Their mother, insisting they call her Sylvie, had ev
erything arranged. Four dainty chairs surrounding the round glass-topped table remained in place on the forever-mopped ceramic floor. The white curtains with tiny mauve dancing girls needed no adjustment beside the polished windows that overlooked the patio. Josie saw that no item in the kitchen Sylvie had looking like the rest of the spotless dollhouse needed adjustment.

  “I’m ready.” Colin stood in the doorway.

  Josie returned to the den and took his pressure the final time. “Looks good.” She recorded the numbers and his weight. His eyes remained diverted. “Can I do anything?”

  His shook his head, then trailed off to the kitchen.

  What a ridiculous question, Josie considered. Can I do anything? “Sure,” he might answer. “How about a new kidney? And while you’re at it, how about getting me new parents?”

  He wasn’t talkative at the table, so they ate in silence. Josie did notice him eyeing the clear drinking glass holding his tea. His gaze shifted toward her eyes and then lowered.

  “You okay?” As soon as she said it, Josie wished she hadn’t. He never liked to be pampered. He didn’t like reminders of his problem.

  He speared a strawberry slice with his fork and nodded.

  Immediately after dinnerColin went off to his room. Josie scraped their dishes and set them in the dishwasher. Flicking on the patio light, she took the trash out, noting the stagnant moist air had been replaced with a cool freshness in the storm’s aftermath.

  She passed near the swing on their covered patio and stepped on wet grass to reach the garbage can hidden behind a large hibiscus bush near the garage. Standing in the dark, she could scan the sky, making certain the horrid weather had moved on. The moon wasn’t visible. Long gray clouds stretched like skeleton fingers, a reminder of what had just come.

  Do the other people who were kids at the party still panic when storms come too close?

  She shuddered, regretting that she’d lost touch with all those she had known as children. But she had moved. So had many of them. Discarding her garbage bag, she wiped her shoes on the mat outside the door when she sensed someone’s presence.

  On the draped edge of light from the patio stood a man. He stared at her.