In the Shadow of the Tiger (The Fighter Series Book 2) Read online

  “Want to go for a walk?” He asked suddenly.

  “Okay.”

  They walked toward E dock all the while Riley read the names on the back of the boats. “Are all these boats unclaimed?”

  “Only a few,” Eric answered. “Why you want one?”

  “No. I’ll enjoy Jack’s.” She said softly. She felt loneliness seeing all the boats in slips without people to enjoy them.

  Eric stopped her at the railing and looked down through the rows of boats. It seemed impossible to care for all of them, but someone had. Axel had managed to find reliable workers, and the boats looked to be in good shape.

  “Sure you don’t want one?” Eric asked.

  “Nope. I’m good.” She said smiling.

  “Come on. I want to show you something.” He said excitedly.

  Riley followed him down several rows until they stopped in front of F dock. Eric stopped in front of a long and elegant looking boat. She glistened in comparison to some of the others.

  “She’s beautiful,” Riley said.

  “She’s mine.” He said pulling her hand towards him and guiding her forward. “Come on. I’ve been working on her. She’s a 1965 Stephens classic motor yacht.”

  Eric tugged on her excitedly. Riley followed stepping onto the deck gingerly. She followed Eric’s lead taking off her shoes. The boat was big enough to live aboard much like Jack’s but a little more on the classic side. There were three rooms one being the captain’s quarters. The smaller ones accommodated guests. The rich burgundy carpet and drapery had an elegant touch as well as a warm feel. There was no couch yet. A newly built base awaited cushions and covers. Against the far wall hung a flat-screened television still in a box with several more boxes.

  The galley was beautiful with light gray, white marble counters and splash panels. The unfinished floor also awaited completion. A table with just a base completed the rough look. More tile work was needed to finish the guest bathroom. The project was keeping Eric busy. Like her, if he was idle for too long, his mind wondered. This boat was the perfect distraction for him.

  He led her to the Captain's quarters, which was the largest of the three rooms. Riley was surprised at the space. Leaning forward, she looked out the small windows directly to the water.

  "It's wonderful Eric. What's her name?"

  “We don’t know yet. Axel is trying to find that out for me. It’s not good to change a boat name.” He said. “It brings bad luck.”

  “You’re not superstitious.” Riley laughed. “Are you?”

  “You’d be surprised.” He replied. “I found a bed on Second Street and sheets and a comforter on Third.” He teased. “I think I can knock out this bathroom today. I’m sure you and Jack could use some down time.”

  “Or you could use some alone time.”

  “I thought maybe I’d bring Jonah out here for a little while.” He said, and that made her smile.

  "I think that'd be fun." She said. "Jonah would like this."

  Eric gave me a hug. “Thanks, sis.” He said. She stepped back and looked around.

  “I miss Megan.”

  “I bet she misses you too.” He said. “Good thing Lilly and Jonah are there.”

  “I’m hoping Summer gets a hold of us soon. I love it here, but I miss the ranch.”

  Eric smiled at her. “You know what I miss.”

  “I know. I miss Shay too." Riley said watching the sadness return in his eyes.

  "What happened in Oregon?" He asked changing the subject.

  “There was nobody else. Crazy.” She looked at him. "Cozy. Scary. Lonely. It was better after I found Max though." She watched the sadness in his eyes disappear. "The weather sometimes got foul and unpredictable. I thought the world was ending." She paused thinking back to the house on the hill. "I found the people who lived there, you know. After that, I didn't think anyone else was alive. Until Utah and Megan found me." She stopped and smiled. “What about you? You’ve got a story of your own.”

  Eric sat quietly for a moment, and she wasn’t sure if he was ready to talk about it.

  “When I woke up, the SUV was on fire. Shay was gone. I caught a ride with a truck driver back to Prescott.” It was his turn to pause. “You know what that man said to me?”

  “No?”

  “He said, run and hide. I knew we were in trouble. I knew I had to find you and I had to find Shay.”

  His tone changed as if remembering. “He dropped me off on the highway, and so I had to thumb my way back to the house. The first car that came along tried to run me over, and he ended in a ditch. I had to kill him to get his ride. I drove back to the house covered in his blood. It was surreal. Something you'd see in some movie." He paused for a moment. “I packed what I needed, stole a truck and headed back out to where Ringo’s men forced us off the road.”

  “You looked for Shay?”

  “I looked for a longtime.” His voice dropped a notch.

  “You were pulled in two different directions. Me and Shay.” Riley said slowly. “I was running from Mark but trying to find you.”

  “Yeah.” He said. “I’d finally talked you into leaving him. Ironic you left the night the Shift happened. I thought I could find her and then find you. By the time, I got to the cabin people were destroying buildings, burning buildings. ”

  “And I wasn’t there.”

  "Markers ransacked the cabin. I grabbed a few things. Hell the entire town was dead or gone. It was as if the whole world had gone away. I wasn't so sure if either you or Shay survived. I figured you try to find me, so I went back.”

  “It’s okay Eric. You didn’t know and time went by.” Riley sat down. “Those two years on that hill allowed me to heal. It gave me time to make some choices. I should’ve listened to you a longtime ago.”

  “So what you’re saying is you’ll listen to me from here on in?” He asked grinning.

  “No, but I’ll give it better consideration when you tell me something,” Riley replied and then paused. “The note you left me.”

  “I left it in a book. A classic.” He said. “You found it?”

  “I found it. I wore it out reading it.” She said. She and Kid had always been close. They never allowed anyone to get between them. “It kept me alive.”

  Eric smiled a boyish grin. “Glad you found it.” He said.

  “So I think I figured out what you were doing while I was wasting my time being with Mark.

  Eric chuckled. “Really?”

  “I have resources, and they do not lie." She said.

  “It’s not important anymore.”

  “You were important.” She said.

  “Yes.” He inhaled softly. “I can help people like Axel and Jack.”

  Riley had been fortunate the Shift hadn’t taken all of her family. She knew Eric had always been a fighter, but she never dreamed she would've chosen this path with him. They were both fighters now.

  “So what happened?” He asked.

  “When?”

  “The night you left,” Eric asked.

  “Cake. I was eating cake.” She said.

  “Cake?”

  “Yeah, Jackson and the…anyways, I felt it right before I was about to step out the door.”

  “What did you feel?”

  “Pulling sensation. Like something wasn't right. It was like something, or someone was holding me. I thought it had lasted only for a few seconds, but it was more like 50 minutes. Phones stopped ringing, electricity stopped buzzing. A freak storm in the middle of summer. Thunder and lightning. I hadn't even made it to my truck when I ran into Tim…" Riley stopped. "There was a little girl."

  “You remember it then?”

  “Yes.” She said. “The family was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He killed them all.” She felt the chill of the rain and the rise of the fine hairs on her arms.

  “Sounds eerily familiar.” Eric murmured.

  “What?” She didn’t want to hear him.

  Riley glanced away from Eric.<
br />
  “You recognize them?” Eric asked.

  “The family?”

  “No.”

  “It all happened so fast.” She then turned and stared into her brother’s eyes. “Ringo?”

  “I don’t know sis. Only you know.”

  "He wanted to kill me, why didn't he?" Riley rubbed her leg where the bullets had entered.

  Riley said nothing.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She said.

  “There is no way Mark survived. However, you left before he could take you with him.” Eric said standing up.

  “It would make things easier if he were dead,” Riley said.

  “Jack loves you, Riley. He would kill for you.”

  “I know.”

  Eric leaned against the wall his hands crossed over his chest in silence. Riley thought about the house on the hill and all the horrible images she’d imagined days before she left. Clarity came into her mind, and she suddenly felt foolish.

  “In a sick way, the Shift set you free,” Eric said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lisa looked at the dishes piled in the sink. It was Jaden’s turn to do them, but here they sat, the food drying onto the surfaces. She grabbed the bucket of water adding soap immersing each dish until the food particles began to loosen. The warm water relaxed her churning thoughts though she had little hope that life would ever be any different from this.

  Lisa Carson and her daughter Jaden had barely survived the shift, but her husband hadn't. Every time she thought of his death, it made her tremble with fear. Lisa wanted to be sure her daughter would live and that they weren’t the next to die. Just being a single parent was survival at its fittest. As time passed, she'd become a solo parent picking up where her husband, Jason, and she had left off together. She and Jason had married eighteen long and healthy years ago before the Shift occurred.

  Recollecting was something she did often forcing her to remember. Like many others, she ignored the warning signs that change was about to happen. They’d lived in a modestly large home near Folsom, California, had nice cars, money to spend and an honest relationship. She’d been a stay-at-home mom caring Jaden and her friends to wherever they needed to go. She’d always been there for her daughter, supporting her at volleyball games, taking her and her friends back and forth to the beach, and many of the times hosting Pajama parties. They’d lived life with little chaos and minor drama.

  When the clock chimed midnight on June 12, Lisa and her husband were curled up on the couch watching old Friday the 13th movies, a traditional marathon on any given Friday the 13th. Jaden was with a friend, and the house was eerily quiet fitting for a corny old scary movie setting.

  “I can’t believe this scared me once." Lisa laughed aloud. She tossed a piece of popcorn at Jason who caught it in his mouth.

  “You were an easy scare.” Jason teased.

  The television went to static. “Hey," Lisa said scrunching her eyebrows together. Then stillness engulfed them. Neither said a word as the station went quiet and the house hummed a strange silence.

  When they heard the screams break through the sound on the TV, they'd both jumped to their feet.

  “What the hell?” Jason blurted out nearly falling off the couch. She’d remembered him going to his knees and then they both just stopped.

  How long they’d sat there, she didn't know. What she did know was that when Jason climbed to his feet, the screams became louder. He'd scrambled on the hardwood floor nearly tumbling forward. The television had come back on, and the sound was blaring.

  “Jason.” She’d yelled out.

  Lisa ran into her daughter’s bedroom forgetting she was with her friend for the night. When she got back downstairs, Jason was gone, but the front door was open?

  Jason was standing on the lawn. Lisa went to him. Then Jason went to his knees. The light on the front porch flickered and then held steady. Her husband was holding his head with his hands between his fingers blood dripped in a thick stream and fell to the grass below his knees.

  “Jason.” She whispered feeling a wave of panic.

  "What is happening?” She grabbed his hands, but he refused to let go. Now her skin was covered in his blood, and he was beginning to sway side to side. “Did you fall? What happened?” She screamed.

  “Call… for… help.” He cried.

  Not here. Not in this neighborhood. A quiet community where women gathered for pampered Chief parties and men drank a cold beer while watching football. The voice screamed in her head. Her voice. Bloodied Jason weaved and then fell forward.

  Lisa ran to the house. She slid to a stop seeing blood in the foyer. She spun towards the phone nearly colliding with their neighbor of thirteen years. Splotched with splatters of what looked like red paint, Bill raised a bloody hand. She felt a deceptive wash of relief when she saw him and then a tidal wave of horror as she realized Bill wore blood. Jason's blood? Not here!

  “What have you done Bill?” The voice was coming from her, but the words seemed foreign and muffled.

  Bill stood with an icy glare. His eyes held hers glazed and fixed. He said nothing. Bill wasn’t there to help her. Bill was there to kill her.

  “You prima donna bitch,” he growled. “You and that little princess of a daughter of yours are about to get a lesson in sharing.”

  Lisa backed up the stairs feeling trapped. When Bill pulled a hammer out to the front of him, blood still dripping off the claw, she turned and ran.

  “I’m losing my house, my wife, and my kids. You and Jason just turn your heads and keep buying, buying, buying. All snuggly and cozy in here.” Tim yelled.

  Lisa’s hands shook as her fingers grasped the doorknob of her daughter’s room. The only room upstairs that offered an escape was Jaden’s. Tears streamed down the sides of her face.

  The distant squawking of a crow brought her back to current day. The water in the sink had turned cool. She realized she’d been standing there the entire time with her eyes closed. It was a daily ritual, she wanted to stop, but it was all she could do to remember. Her fingers swirled in the water, and she leaned in to brace herself for the last of the memory.

  She spun around. Six steps from her.

  “You know women talk about everything.” He raised the hammer. Lisa felt bile rise in her throat, but adrenaline washed it away.

  Bowling had never been her favorite thing, but tonight it was going to be her saving grace. She swooped up the bowling ball from Bill’s sports bag letting it dangle behind her back. Bill was taking the stairs methodically. As his foot landed on the second to the last step, she brought her arm up with as much strength as she could muster and flung the ball in his direction.

  The Yoga and Pilates classes had paid off! The ball connected to the side of his face and sent him reeling backward down the stairs. She kicked in her daughter’s door. There was nothing. Complete silence hummed once more sending a surge of chills across her skin. She went to the window and looked down. Besides Tim, was Jaden laying in a fetal position next to her father? Her daughter had returned home just in time to have her father die in her arms. Jason stirred and then went still. She dialed 911. The lines were busy. Slipping out the window, she slid down the roof catching the edge before falling. Now she had no choice but to drop. Her feet stung and tingled but no broken bones as she landed on the grass.

  Jaden leaped off the ground jumping toward Lisa. Lisa held her ground grabbing hold of Jaden. The girl struggled and Lisa, feeling vulnerable at the sudden movements and sounds in the neighborhood, drug her daughter through the back door of their home and into the living room. She held on for what felt like hours and only after she felt her daughter’s body go limp, did she leave her to drag Bill’s body from the house. She left him laying where she’d typically pace the weekly garbage cans.

  When the sun peaked in the morning sky, and the darkness of the room turned to light, Lisa was holding her daughter. She picked up the phone to redial 911, but this time only to he
ar silence. Slipping away from her daughter but not leaving sight of her, she grabbed her cell phone. "All lines are busy…" Long strands of sirens whined day and night. She never got through to 911, the Sheriff's department, or the fire department. The phone never rang until her sister from Wyoming somehow got through.

  “I’m calling to say good-bye.” She whispered.

  Her sister talked only for a few minutes after. Lisa pleading with her to get in the car and come to her. Then the line went dead. Lisa and Jaden stayed inside the house for several days listening to the outside world. They heard gunshots, screams, and voices in the night. They lived in the dark. They lost water first and then the electricity, but by then Lisa had made some household changes. Changes most people would rather not have.