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It was outrageously opulent, dripping in riches. There was even a two-story outbuilding that was bigger than the biggest dwelling in his neighborhood, a spare building that he knew the family never used.
It was especially heinous when you took into account that only three of them actually lived there. The state of California commanded one of the highest rates of homelessness, yet three people lived on a property that could have easily housed several hundred if notthousandson its grounds.
Life was terribly unfair, but made even worse with people like her.
Dragging himself out of his thoughts, he stared down at the fully developed image in the tray.
Using a pair of rubber-ended tongs, he lifted the print carefully, rinsed it under water, then submerged it into the stop bath. This step would stop the image from developing any further. Then it went into a tray of fixer. One more much longer rinse and it was done.
Squeegeeing off the remaining water on the surface of the print, he hung it up to dry beside the dozen of other prints he’d already developed that day. They moved gently in the breeze caused by the fan he had brought in to speed up the process.
Wiping his hands on his pants until they were dry, he sat on the stool by the bench he’d crudely made using pieces of driftwood he’d found and bound together.
A large brown envelope waited for his attention in front of a line of wooden figures that he’d painstakingly carved by hand. He liked that they seemed to be watching him as he worked, his little silent friends.Theynever had a bad word to say about him.
They never said a word at all.
Carefully opening the mouth of the envelope, he shook its contents onto the bench. Black alphabetical letters that he’d pre-cut from magazines and newspapers floated out, stockpiled for just this purpose.
This would be the third note he was sending to them. With each one, he was becoming better and better at making them.
A jolt of excitement shot through him as he thought of how his plan was coming together.
Using his whittling knife, he arranged the letters onto a sheet of white paper, gluing them down until the two sentences were formed. Leaning back from the bench, he held up the sheet of paper to the red light that was suspended from the ceiling and read over his work.
You act like you’re so nice, but I know the truth. And I’m going to make you sorry. I’m going to make you ALL sorry.
His mouth curled into a sneer.
Turning back to the wall of photographs, he glared at her many oblivious faces, from all the times he had watched her without her knowing.
Soon…
Soon he would make her pay.
2
He had just come off a trying assignment and was looking forward to some R&R when the call had come, smack in the middle of what constituted packing.
A few shirts, his trusty camo shirts, briefs, and cargo pants as beat up and put through the ringer as he was, were being shoved into a canvas backpack when his phone had buzzed.
The melodic rap by D’angelo that had been blasting from the old school sound deck that provided his one luxury in life stopped playing, replaced by that annoying ringtone that seemed to reverberate around the tin walls of the Airstream Travel Trailer he called home.
Though it was only thirty feet long, the trailer had everything he needed for full-time living: a bedroom with a double bed that connected to a small but serviceable living room that also doubled as his kitchen and office, with a shower room and laundry at the other end of the trailer. And it came with one of the most glorious views of the Malibu ocean that he would never be able to afford in his lifetime if he wasn’t living in a mobile home.
Truly, it offered the best of both worlds. And the icing on the cake? When he inevitably felt that siren call to move, he could simplyshift his home and his life by attaching it to his truck and hauling it off to the next place.
The ringing continued its insistent call, interrupting his thoughts. Lips turning down with disapproval, he looked for the phone but couldn’t locate it anywhere near him.
“Bud,” he called out. “Fetch my phone.”
The German Shepherd who had been snoozing by the bed sprang up and raced into the lounge, letting the rings guide him. When he padded back, the phone was gripped carefully between those two strong jaws of his. Intelligence shone from his brown eyes as he looked up at his owner for approval.
“Thanks, Boy.”
He took the phone from him and ran a hand over his dog’s smooth head in the way that he liked. Bud chuffed happily, lifting first one paw, then the other before returning to his position by the foot of the bed, circling round in the way that dogs do before lying back down.
The man stared down at his phone, at the name of the lowlife who dared to interrupt this most holy of times — that of vacation.
