Free Strangers by Bill Pronzini

out.
    *   *   *
    I parked where I had the night before, on the street in front of Cheryl’s house. I didn’t relish the idea of leaving the car there for a lengthy period, with my laptop in the trunk and the GPS unit and the .38 Bodyguard clipped in a compartment under the dash inside—all three of which I’d taken into the motel room in my briefcase last night, and would every night for the duration of my stay. Unlike the Jeep, my car had no alarm system. I’d had a struggle with myself as to the advisability of bringing the handgun into Nevada in the first place, where I had no vehicle carry permit for it, but I was glad now that I had in spite of my solemn promise to Kerry. The way things were in Mineral Springs, I was better off hazarding a gun violation charge than being without means of self-defense if things got hinky. But I’d be a fool to carry a loaded weapon without good cause, and the risk of leaving it in the locked car in broad daylight was pretty small. Even if some idiot did break in, it was safe enough; the dash compartment was well hidden and you had to know it was there and where its spring catch was located, far down beneath the wheel, to pop it open. Plus there was the fact that vandals, like vampires, are creatures of the darkness.
    For that last reason, probably, Cheryl’s house and property hadn’t been targeted again since last night. I took a turn around it to make sure. In pale sunshine the fire damage to the shed seemed minimal enough: scorched boards, mainly, though several would need replacing. The Jeep Cherokee parked under the portico was a four-door, five or six years old, its fire-engine-red paint job pitted and dulled by streaks of dirt and dust; there were some scrapes along the passenger side and a couple of hood dents, but they had been there awhile, apparently the result of careless driving. Small miracle Mineral Springs’ lunatic fringe hadn’t attacked the Jeep in their nocturnal prowlings.
    In the kitchen, I plucked the keys off the hook. I intended to leave right away, but there was something, an aura of dark melancholy, in the empty stillness that kept me standing there. It wasn’t my imagination. Strong emotions such as pain, suffering, fear have a way of imparting a mood to a place, and I’d always been sensitive to such vibes. Cheryl’s emotions alone? Or some of Cody’s, too?
    I knew so little about him, and all of what I did know was hearsay colored by personal feelings. What kind of young man was he? An unfiltered opinion of my own was what I needed, but if Sam Parfrey couldn’t arrange even a brief meeting with him …
    Well? I thought then. He lives here, doesn’t he?
    Snooping without permission is not something I normally do—I respect people’s right to privacy—but these were special circumstances. And here I was, already inside the house by invitation. What Cheryl didn’t know wouldn’t hurt either of us and it might help me.
    The bedrooms were on the north side of the house, two of them, the door to one open and to the other closed. The open one was Cheryl’s room, the bed neatly made, a nightgown folded on the counterpane. I bypassed it without entering. The closed door was not locked; I took a long look around from the doorway before I stepped inside.
    It was both a boy’s room and a man’s room. Shelves containing model cars, a miniature Nerf basketball hoop attached to the closet door, stacks of well-thumbed comic books (old) and automotive racing magazines (recent). A small desk with an equally small Dell computer on it. Something in one corner that looked like a heavy-duty electric winch, the kind that can be mounted on a Jeep Cherokee. A Le Mans racing poster on one wall, and over the bed, a fairly large Playboy centerfold-type photograph of a nude blond woman. Joe Felix and one or more of his deputies would have been in here; I had a pretty