Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) Read Free

the situation at hand—the same single-minded focus that marshalled you through the near-impossible military assignments where you excelled. Form a plan, eliminate distractions, go!
    He stood, did a disciplined 360-degree take of the kitchen and walked across the hall to the parlor. The boys were never allowed into this room. Even now, he stepped back from the forbidden threshold. Finally prodding himself forward, for the first time in his life he entered this area of his childhood home. Like a museum still-life with everything in place, the room was frozen in time. He swept a finger through dust on the nearest end table. Clearly his mother also avoided this room, keeping it perpetually unused and pristine for company who never came.
    Returning to the hallway, he followed the threadbare carpet runner’s trail from the kitchen to the first bedroom. As a child, he’d peered into but never entered his mother’s room. Hesitantly, he opened the door to reveal a bed with bare mattress, an austere dresser, a listing lamp and a tattered floor rug. Adding to the unwelcoming dimness from tightly drawn shades covering otherwise bare windows, an unpleasant sick-room odor assaulted his nostrils. He’d later find that smell concentrated in the mattress when he threw it away. He choked, gripped by unbearable claustrophobia. Backing out rapidly, he lurched heavily against the wall and closed his eyes to gather courage and resolve.
    The next bedroom triggered yet another memory. He and Mathis had shared this room with twin beds when one wasn’t punished by imprisonment elsewhere in the house or outdoor sheds. “Elsewhere in the house” shook a kaleidoscope of crisscrossed, nauseating images through his mind. He glanced anxiously at the closet and cringed at a vision of the cellar.
    Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Clutching his chest, he hurried down the hall, through the kitchen, wrenched open the back door and gulped in the cold winter air. Still sitting in the previously ordered position, his dog studied him, alert for the next command.
    “What the hell are you looking at, you mangy hyena?” Ruger shouted, booting the animal fiercely in the ribs. Propelled into the air by the vicious kick, the dog yelped sharply, landed hard and scrambled to recover footing. With an anxious look at its master, the dog eased itself back into the “stay” position again.
    His anger relieved by action, Ruger took more deep breaths before finally reentering the house. The second time was easier. He walked back down the hall to the third bedroom, pushed open its door and gaped at a room outfitted for a little girl—a room he’d never seen. Faded hand-sewn gingham curtains hung limply at the window and a matching drab coverlet lay on the simple twin bed beside a scuffed chest of drawers. On a child’s chair sat the shabby remnant of a worn teddy bear, the penetrating stare of its remaining eye aimed straight at Ruger.
    He drew back and shut the door hard. Despite no memory of her room, he vaguely recalled a little girl. From Bromley’s story, she must have been his young sister.
    Returning to his truck, Ruger sat down to think. Should he stay here tonight or go to a motel? Should he move in here at all or rent a flat in town? Admittedly, this isolation provided privacy and security for his clandestine computer work, never mind rent-free. Until he sold this property, money might get scarce once his military pay ran out and before his “consultant fees” rolled in.
    Hadn’t he survived Navy Seal training to which his Army Special Forces unit was attached? Hadn’t he accepted military assignments so risky that only he volunteered? Hell, if he could do that he could take on an empty old house and in the process rid himself of whatever demons it held. The sensible solution was to stay and come to terms with the violent memories.
    A simple, constructive plan dawned. He could erase the past by erasing everything in the main part of the house that