In the late morning, Danny Edwards cruises down the residential street where Stephen and Nancy Small live. He is driving slowly, trying to look for anything suspicious, but also trying not to look suspicious himself. Everything seems normal. A man is trimming his lawn with a push mower. A teenager is riding his bike. An elderly woman is kneeling in a planter of flowers, clipping roses.
Danny pulls over near the Small house and pretends to consult a piece of paper. Really, he’s looking around for evidence of law enforcement. He doesn’t see any marked cars or uniformed officers. The Small house looks like it does any other day, except the blinds are pulled and there are no kids running around in the yard playing in the sprinkler.
Danny is about to put the van in drive when he sees one of the curtains shift. A man in a suit looks out, glances around, and then pulls the curtain shut again.
“Damn her,” Danny growls, firing up the engine and speeding down the street. “That bitch called the goddamn cops.”
Danny heads out of town, careful to make sure he isn’t followed. He drives to the sand hills, finds the spot where Stephen Small pulled off the road last night, and follows the tire tracks.
The Mercedes is just where he left it, hidden in a cluster of bushes and trees. He keeps going and pulls up to the place he buried Stephen Small. It’s easy to see that the dirt has been disturbed here, but because the air tube sticks out of the ground twenty feet away, Danny doesn’t think anyone who might wander upon the spot would think that a person is buried alive down there.
He heads over to the place where the pipe is sticking out of the ground. The sunlight seems unusually bright and oppressive. The air is hot and humid. A mosquito buzzes around his ear, and he swats it away.
Danny leans over the tube sticking out of the ground and calls out, “Hang in there, man. This is almost over.”
He stops and listens for Stephen Small to say something.
“Stephen, you in there, buddy?”
There is no response.
Danny opens his mouth to call out to Stephen again, but he hears something in the brush nearby. He freezes and stares. He sees no movement. Was it a bird? A rabbit?
Or something else?
You’re just being paranoid, he tells himself. Keep it together.
He hurries back to his van and spins the tires in the sand trying to get out of there. When he gets to the blacktop, he keeps looking around, checking his rearview mirrors.
Is someone following him?
He doesn’t see anyone who looks suspicious, but he just can’t shake the feeling that he’s being spied on.
Maybe this is how I’ll feel the rest of my life, he thinks. Like someone is after me.