Chapter 16

After pulling up in front of the house, Deja began to lift the bags of groceries out of the car. Seeing her struggle with the bags, Mort rushed out to help.

"Thanks," Deja said gratefully, letting Mort grab two of the bags.

They went inside and began unpacking. Deja was trying to figure out the right words to use when bringing up the 'story' Diana had told her. She didn't want to offend Mort in any way, so she decided to ask a general question and just let him go from there. The least she said, the better.

The couple had decided on having an early dinner and they began to prepare spaghetti. Deja figured no time like the present to get her questions answered. "Mort?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he looked up.

"Mind if I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"Well, I was just curious about your ex-wife...and...her disappearance..." Deja managed to finish.

"Oh," Mort said, completely caught off guard. "What did you wanna know?"

"I guess I was just curious about the details surrounding it."

"Well, where do I start...," he began, "Amy and I were separated for about six months, and I was living here at the cabin. One day I get a knock at my door and standing there is this guy named John Shooter. He accuses me of plagiarizing one of his stories, which I never did by the way." Mort took a deep breath and continued, "Anyway, over the next few weeks strange things start to happen. My dog is killed, our house, the one Amy was living in, gets burned to the ground, just lots of bad things. I know it's this guy Shooter doing it, but because he wasn't from around here, and I was the only one who'd seen him, there was no evidence to link him to the crimes. In the end, four people came up missing. Amy and her boy toy, Ted. Tom Greenleaf, the only other guy that had seen Shooter here in Tashmore Lake, and a bodyguard I'd hired named Ken Karsch. Shooter ended up disappearing so the police tried to pin it on me. It was absurd really."

"Why would they blame you for it?" Deja asked, completely engrossed in the story.

"Because I was somehow linked to every single one of the missing people, I guess."

"Has the Shooter guy ever come back to see you?" Deja was worried about this guy trying to come back and do her or Mort harm.

"Um...no, not really," Mort sounded unsure.

"Not really? What does that mean?"

"No, no," he shook his head, "haven't seen him since."

Deja got her questions answered so she decided to drop the subject. Something didn't quite fit right to her, but she shook that feeling off. The entire story creeped her out and she didn't want to spend her entire week here looking over her shoulder.

It was almost 11 pm and Deja was worn out. She got up from the couch, where her and Mort had been lying watching television, and began walking towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Mort asked.

"To bed. I'm beat," she answered, "You coming?"

"I'll be in later. I'm gonna try to get some more writing done." With that Deja went up the stairs and to bed.

She awoke to the faint sound of someone talking. She rolled over and looked at the alarm clock on the night stand on Mort's side of the bed. It was 3:43. Mort was still not in the bed. She thought it must be the television until she recognized Mort's voice. Was he on the phone? she thought. No, it's too late to be on the phone.

She quietly made her way over to the door and pressed her ear against it so she could hear better. At first, she only heard Mort, but then the second voice, also male, spoke up. Deja couldn't really make out what they were saying, but that didn't matter anyway. What she wanted to know was who this other man was.

As Mort was busily writing the next installment for his book, he heard a knock at the front door. He checked his watch. It was 3:20. Who on earth could be coming to see him at this time of night? He didn't want the knocking to wake Deja up so he quickly ran down the stairs and opened the door. To his disdain it was Shooter.

"Well, hello there," Shooter said walking past Mort into the house.

"What are you doing here?" Mort angrily asked.

"We've got some things we need to discuss, Mr. Rainey."

"Oh and what would that be?"

"That girlfriend of yours," Shooter looked Mort directly in the eyes.

"What about her?" Mort was becoming worried.

"Seems to me she's askin' too many questions." He took off his hat and placed it on the coffee table.

"About what?" Mort tried to play naive, but he knew exactly where Shooter was going with this.

"I suggest you don't supply that lil' lady with anymore details about me, or I'm gon' have to get real nasty with 'er."

"You," Mort said in a raised tone, "will not lay a single finger on her!"

"If you do your job and tell 'er to keep her nose out o' things that don't concern 'er, you won't have to worry 'bout me touchin' a single hair on that pretty lil' head o' hers."

And with that, Shooter picked his hat up off the table and walked out the door. Mort was still in a daze. He was finally brought out of it by a creaking noise coming from the steps. He turned around to see Deja standing there. Had she heard the entire conversation?