The Ruse Read online

  He stepped toward the door and left the rest of the sole of his right boot on the wooden floor behind him. When the thick winter sock on the underside of his foot touched down, Jared yelled out. The cloth couldn’t hold back the searing heat from the floor. He pitched to the side and landed on the back of the living room sofa.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He twisted up to examine the wound, but in the dimming light could barely make out the shape of his foot.

  “What the hell is this? Where are you guys? What the fuck did you do to the floor? You fucked up my boots, man.”

  He hauled himself upright on the couch. At least the couch wasn’t hot.

  How come the house isn’t burning up and falling apart with this much heat?

  He tapped the pockets of his jacket and found a purple Bic lighter. A fast flick of the ignitor and a flame shot out. He held down the tiny black tongue and turned the lighter in all directions to see who was setting him up. He couldn’t make much out past the limits of the small flame and the smoke floating by.

  “Where the hell are you?” he called out.

  The fog he’d seen when first entering the house began to collect around the flame of his lighter. At first, it moved slow and then increased in speed. He watched, fascinated by the intense movement of air, or whatever was in the air, toward his little lighter. The flow intensified, rushing toward the flame. One moment the fog was simply moving toward the light and in the next it overwhelmed it.

  The Bic went out.

  “Shit.”

  He tried to restart it but couldn’t. Every flick with his thumb brought nothing but pain to his skin.

  Outside the window lay only darkness.

  Inside the rank house that smelled of burned hair, Jared sat in almost absolute darkness. There was a very tiny amount of light coming from the kitchen.

  The stove.

  He had to get out of the house.

  But how?

  He looked around. Everything he touched was too hot. It felt like everything was on fire but without the flames. He couldn’t walk on the floor. His boot had all but melted off his foot, and he couldn’t touch anything.

  But maybe he could walk on the cushions of the sofa.

  He grabbed each cushion on either side of him and tossed them to the floor. Then he slid sideways and pulled the one out from under his butt. He held on to that one to use when needed.

  On his feet now, favoring the burned foot, he stood on the arm of the couch and got ready. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to make out the faint outline of the square cushions.

  They can play their jokes, but I won’t be a part of it.

  He leapt off the couch and landed solidly on the first cushion where he waited and balanced himself for the next jump toward the front door.

  Something moved underfoot. He looked down but in the darkness couldn’t make out what he was seeing. It appeared the cushion was also melting — becoming one with the floor of the chalet.

  What the fuck?

  He couldn’t believe this. Wood couldn’t be that hot. Decayed wood ignited at 150 degrees. It was a stupid fact he’d looked up because of the burns he’d received at a campfire cookout years ago. There was no way the wood on the floor was below 150 degrees, which meant he should see flames. To melt his boots it had to be higher. He was sure of it.

  Something very wrong is happening at this house. I need to get the fuck out. Now!

  He jumped from the first cushion to the second one and realized his mistake. The first cushion, as well as the second one had been melting into the floor the whole time, just as his boots had.

  The second cushion had shrunk to less than half its size and was almost no comfort when he landed on it. Standing on his good foot, he was down to seconds before his other boot would start to melt and he’d be left standing on two sock feet.

  Jared tossed the cushion he held in his hands and jumped on it at the exact second his boot began melting into the floor. He was still four feet from the closed door. The same door that someone had slammed shut just minutes ago.

  Fucking assholes.

  He’d make them pay.

  He reached for the knob but couldn’t touch it from where he stood. He would have to take one step on the burning wooden floor. Why hadn’t he stayed on the couch and used his body weight to shift it along the floor? On second thought, why wasn’t the couch burning? How were the couch’s legs withstanding the heat?

  Before leaping at the door, he turned around one more time to look at the couch, but in the darkness, he couldn’t see it anymore.

  Jared squinted and stared as hard as he could into the living room. As far as he could tell, it was completely empty.

  “Now that’s messed up, man.”

  All the furniture was gone. If the couch wasn’t there and had never been there, then the cushion was also not there.

  Slowly, he looked down at his feet. The square cushion he thought he stood on had disappeared. The wood below his socks turned a deep shade of red. The heat coming through his skin registered, and for every sense his mind had understood since he was born, he couldn’t understand this one. He rejected it. Denied it. There was just no possible way to explain what was happening.

  Then the pain was too much.

  Jared screamed and ran for the door like one of those guys at a Tony Robbins motivational seminar walking on hot coals.

  The door wouldn’t budge. He yanked and pulled on it with renewed fervor, but to no avail, the whole time bouncing from foot to foot.

  Finally, before he completely collapsed onto the floor, Jared turned from the door in a panic and ran for the kitchen, his feet barely touching the floor in his haste.

  The oven still glowed red with its prize, but now the door was open, the remains of an animal inside. He moved closer for a better look.

  Then he threw up. All the nerves and all the fear gave way to a clenching of the stomach, dislodging his lunch and tossing the half-dissolved contents onto the floor of the kitchen, where it sizzled and fried. He considered his sanity. Yeah, I’m losing it.

  The heat overwhelmed him. Jared lost his balance and fell. He rolled on the floor as the intense heat rushed through his jacket. His hair caught on fire, lighting the dark kitchen with the flames.

  Jared screamed and rolled until he hit the wall, batting at his head.

  Something lifted him. The pain decreased for a passing second. His mind surrendered to the chaos of uncertainty as he levitated.

  One rational thought seeped through. Who’s carrying me?

  Chapter 2

  Friday, May 18, 2012…

  Tessa saw the police car approaching before she heard it.

  “Eric,” she shouted down the stairs. “Looks like we have company.”

  She set the paintbrush down on the plastic floor cover and took the turpentine with her to the bathroom to wash the paint off her hands. She hated using oil-based paint because of the lingering smell, but until they got the chalet aired out after a long winter closed up tight, she would rather smell paint fumes than the charred smells from last season’s woodstove fires.

  She dried her hands on her painter’s apron and headed downstairs as the doorbell rang.

  Eric stood close to the door, anticipating the cop’s approach. Before opening the door, he looked at Tessa as she walked down the huge staircase. He frowned, and she shrugged in a don’t ask me gesture.

  Eric opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, officer. Can we help you?”

  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer came dressed in full uniform. He wore the Stetson hat, the pressed shirt and even the red stripes down the leg of his pants. But he had no horse.

  Is there a parade in town today or has this guy gone off the reserve?

  As Tessa approached the door, he lifted off his hat, and nodded ever so slightly.

  “Afternoon, folks. Sorry to bother you. Just wanted to do a routine drive-by to see how things were going.”

&nbs
p; Eric shot a look at Tessa, his eyebrows creased. “Everything’s fine here, officer. It’s Banff. It’s beautiful, warm, and we’re in our brand new house in the mountains. Nothing could be more right.”

  The cop looked from Eric to Tessa and back to Eric. The expression on his face made Tessa wonder if there was more to the visit he wasn’t telling them.

  “Good to hear. I’ll be on my way, but first, here’s my card.” He handed a white business card to Eric. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “If there was an emergency, wouldn’t 9-1-1 work just as well?”

  Tessa could tell that Eric wanted to know what precipitated the unannounced visit but he was too shy to ask the cop directly.

  “Nine-one-one would work well, but I live two kilometers away,” the cop gestured behind him, “and I could respond faster than any officer on duty in Banff. Oh, and I can see you’re wearing a Medic-Alert bracelet. I’ll let the local paramedics know.” The cop stepped back and examined the front of the house. “See, around here we all stick together and get to know each other.”

  Eric glanced back at Tessa again. She could see he was working up the courage to be more forthright.

  “Thanks again, folks, and sorry to bother you,” the cop said as he turned and walked to his car.

  “Wait,” Eric said. “Is there something we should know about?”

  The cop looked up and down the length of the porch then studied his boots like they were on the wrong feet. He lifted his left foot and inspected the underside.

  Weird.

  “There’s nothing to know about,” the cop said. “Consider this a personal housewarming gift from a neighbor who happens to be a cop.”

  “I need to be honest. As kind as this seems on the surface, it feels like there’s more purpose than a neighborly gesture. Did something happen here? In our house? Is that why we got it so cheap?”

  “Nothing happened that we know of.”

  “What does that mean? Did something happen that you don’t know of?”

  “Look, just call me if you need me. Really, everything’s fine. I only wanted to welcome you to the area.”

  The RCMP officer adjusted his Stetson and turned toward his car. Tessa’s stomach felt unsettled at how the cop acted. Could there have been a crime committed on their property or something worse? She’d never been welcomed in any home by a local cop offering his personal number.

  She stared at the officer’s back as he got to his car. When she looked at Eric, he stared at her. She knew he’d seen her expression of concern.

  Eric turned back to the cop. “Sir, please …” He jogged up to the front of the cruiser.

  From where she stood, Tessa could barely hear what the cop was saying. She stepped down front the steps to get within earshot.

  “… a man, Jared Tavallo, went missing last October after hunting in this area. We had detected his footprints in the snow, but they were quite faded by the time we found them. At this point, he’s still missing, and now that most of the snow is gone, his family has been roaming the area looking for his body.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Eric asked.

  “His tracks were found around here.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with the house, right? I mean, we did get it pretty cheap.”

  “Jared’s hunting rifle was found on your porch. Everyone knows that, but when we searched the house, we found nothing.”

  Tessa could tell the cop was lying. The whole conversation, he’d looked at either one of them directly when he talked. He seemed sure of himself as a veteran of the RCMP. But when he said they’d found nothing in the house, he looked away and fiddled with his car keys as if lost in thought.

  Eric would’ve caught it too. He was a writer and claimed to be a people watcher. He studied them to grab nuances and character traits that he could offer his characters.

  “Okay, well, thanks officer. We’ll keep our eyes open, and at least now we’ll know what they’re doing if we see people wandering around the property.”

  The cop nodded and slid into his cruiser. He backed the car up, spun the wheel and drove down their narrow driveway too fast for the curves.

  “What was that all about?” Tessa asked. “I’m seriously creeped out now.”

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  Chapter 3

  Tessa stayed on the porch as Eric walked into the house, no doubt on his way to the computer to see what he could research on the house and area.

  I know him too well.

  She took in a deep breath and detected the faint smell of something burning. It had been permanently stuck in her nose since they’d moved in.

  Eric shouted, and she jumped on the spot.

  “What?” she yelled back.

  “Get in here.”

  Tessa ran through the front door. Their furniture lay piled in the center of the living room covered in a white sheet until the room could be painted. The cathedral ceiling was sixteen feet high with a wooden railing along the top that led from one bedroom to the other. He wasn’t upstairs by the railing where she’d last seen his computer.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “In the kitchen,” he said.

  At the archway to the kitchen, Tessa stopped and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Why did you do that?” Eric asked.

  She had nothing to do with what sat in the oven, and since it was only the two of them at the house, it had to be him.

  “You know I didn’t do that,” she said, pointing at the oven. “I’m not capable of doing that.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  Eric looked away from her. “You don’t have to be sarcastic. There’s only the two of us and since I didn’t do it, it had to be you.”

  The smell intensified as the oven’s door lay open. Tessa wanted to cover her nose but instead crossed her arms and stared at Eric.

  “That’s funny. I was just thinking the same thing. Is this some kind of prank?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You set this up and now you’re pretending it was me.”

  “Okay, Eric, I trust you,” she said, unfolding her arms. “But if I didn’t do this and you didn’t, then who did?”

  He looked at the stove and then back at her. “I have no idea. Could someone have come in while we were talking to the cop?”

  “How? The back door is covered up with furniture. They would’ve had to walk right by us at the front door.” The smell became overwhelming. “Can you grab that thing and toss it in the bush, and then we’ll talk about this outside?”

  Eric opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out the barbecue tongs. Carefully, he leaned into the stove and applied the tongs to either side of the rat’s burnt carcass. With the blackened rodent’s body held firm in his grip, Eric walked across the kitchen toward the door. Once outside, he continued away from the house and tossed the body into the trees.

  “There, it’s gone,” he shouted back at her as she stepped outside.

  Tessa shuddered the length of her body. “We’ve been here since yesterday. Do you think that charred smell was the rat all this time, and we just found it?”

  Eric shook his head. “No, the oven light was on when I went back into the house after the cop left. This is new.” Eric touched his chin and looked sideways, lost in thought. “Funny how it coincides with the cop showing up.”

  “Yeah, funny,” Tessa said, with sarcasm.

  Dark clouds formed overhead. Blue sky still surrounded the area and the sun shone in the late afternoon position. “It looks like we might get a sun shower.”

  “Tessa, I’m going to run into town to see if I can find our real estate agent. After that, I’m going to see if the library is open. Maybe they have newspapers or records on the Jared Tavallo missing person report. I’d like to know more about that. Will you be okay here?”

  “Yeah, but maybe you could walk through the whole house to make s
ure whoever stuck the rat in our oven isn’t still here?”

  “Of course,” Eric said and stepped past her.

  He entered the front door and skipped up the steps. Tessa stood alone, staring up at the gorgeous chalet they had just bought for a steal. They paid less than half the going rate without wondering why. Full disclosure didn’t reveal that any murders or suicides had taken place in the home. As far as they could tell, the mysteriously anonymous previous owners just wanted to unload the property as fast as they could.