Where Are The Ducks – Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of my short fiction story of “Where Are The Ducks”. If you didn’t read Part 1 (the below link), you’ll need to read that before you read this one. I asked via a poll question whether I should continue the story. The consensus was 100% yes.
Now on to Part 2:
Thoughts were swirling through Jack’s head. He kept seeing the calendar in his head of the appointment Walt had with Tina. But was it with his Tina? What was he thinking? She wasn’t his anymore.
As he was on his way back home with the kids, he almost drove off the road. His mind was aching from the constant thinking. He had to pay attention. He had two important packages in the truck.
He remembered Tina told him that she was dating Grant. Could Grant be Walt?
He wasn’t sure about asking the kids but he had to find out.
“Hey boys. Do you know anything about who your Mom is seeing?”
“What do you mean?” Kenny says.
“Your Mom is going out on a date with someone. Who is it?”
“Some guy,” Kenny says.
“What’s his name?”
“It’s Grant,” he says.
“Can you describe him?”
“Why?”
“I might know him.”
“Why don’t you just ask her?”
“She won’t tell me.”
“Well, he’s tall.”
Bobby jumps in and says, “He’s got brown hair like you Dad.”
“Does he wear glasses?”
“Yes,” one of the kids blurts out.
Well, that narrows it down some, he thinks. Both Walt and the mystery Grant wear glasses. But so do a lot of people.
Then he gets another idea.
“What kind of car does he drive?”
“I don’t know,” says Bobby.
“Yeah you do Bobby. Remember he shows up in that red sports car,” an enthusiastic Kenny says.
“Oh yeah. We got to ride in it once.”
“You’ve gone in his car?”
“Yeah. He revved the engine and we took off fast down the street,” Bobby says.
Jack doesn’t know if Walt has a sports car or not. He drives to work in an old 1971 Oldsmobile 442. It’s so old he wonders how it still runs.
As he pulls back into the driveway of his ex-wife, he sees a car he’s unfamiliar with. It’s a gray minivan. The kids jump out of his truck and run to the front door. The door opens and a woman appears that Jack doesn’t know. As quick as she appears, she’s gone and the door closes. He wonders who she is. He thinks about going to the door and seeing who it is. But Tina told him earlier never to come to the door again. She was so mad that she may just call the police if he does that again.
As he backs the truck out of the driveway, the woman comes out the door and saunters to the minivan. She gets into the vehicle and starts backing up. He’s on the street now and decides to drive away. As he heads down the road, he can see her car coming up behind him. When they reach the light, he turns left and she turns right.
The next day at work, he sees Walt working in his office. He has his glasses on. He wants to go into his office. He wants to see if he has any photos of a sports car. But he needs a reason or he could just break in after hours. He doesn’t want to break in. That would look too suspicious. His company doesn’t have any security cameras, at least that he knows of.
As he’s thinking about it, Walt comes out of his office and sees him.
“Oh. Hey Jack, I was just coming to get you,” Walt says.
“You were?” Jack asks suspiciously.
“Yeah, I need to talk to you about that James proposal we’re working on.”
Jack was one of the sales managers for the proposal. Walt was the Director of Marketing.
Walt invited him into his office and started talking to him about the intricacies of the proposal. Jack’s eyes wandered searching Walt’s desk for any sign of a photo of a sports car. He can hear Walt talking but he isn’t listening. The words go into one ear and out the other. He’s obsessed with finding a photo. Suddenly, he hears Walt loudly talking to him.
“Huh?” he asks.
“Are you listening to me Jack?”
“Oh yeah.”
“You seem to be off in la-la land.”
“I was listening.”
“Tell me what I just said to you.”
He wracks his brain trying to remember what he had said. He couldn’t do it because he wasn’t listening. He finally fesses up.
“I don’t know. I was kind of preoccupied.”
“Jack! You need to pay attention! This is a big deal.”
“Sorry Walt. It won’t happen again.”
“What’s on your mind that you’re not listening to me?”
“Oh just some stuff with the kids.”
“Everything okay with them?”
“Yeah, they just said something about their mother...scolding them for something.”
He couldn’t bring himself to say that she was seeing someone. What if it was Walt. How could he confront him right here. It would be pretty awkward to work with him after that. And what if Walt wasn’t Grant.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“How long have you two been divorced now?”
“Six months.”
“Well, do you still love here?”
“Of course I do but she doesn’t love me anymore.”
“There will be someone else out there for you.”
Jack took offense to that. He wanted to get back with Tina. And the way Walt said it to him, he couldn’t figure out whether he was taking a jab at him or not. Here he went again. He was thinking Walt was Grant. But why would Walt make up another name. Maybe there was more to Walt than he knew.
He and Walt continued their talk about the proposal and Jack left his office an hour later. As he walked back to his office, he knew he had to break into the office. He didn’t have enough time to look around. He had to find that photo.
He decided to hang around work until the rest of the employees left for the day. Walt usually stayed until six p.m. But how could he explain that he was still there? He had to come up with something in case someone confronted him.
He continued to work on some other projects well after six p.m. His office door was open while he worked. He crunched numbers on his computer and typed up some other proposals. He saw Walt go by his office door. He thought he hadn’t noticed him, since he didn’t say goodbye.
He got up from his chair and headed toward his own door. He crept up on the doorway and peeked around the corner. He didn’t see anyone. He started going down the hallway and looked in each cubicle to see if anyone was still around. Those office doors that were closed, he tried the door handle. If it was locked, he knew no one was around. If it wasn’t locked, he peeked into the office to see if someone was still there. Seeing no one, he proceeded to Walt’s office. As he approached Walt’s office, he heard a voice call out to him. He turned around.
“Jack, you still here?”
“Walt, I thought you had left for the day.”
“I did but I forgot something.”
“Oh.”
“What are you still doing here Jack?”
“I was finishing up some other proposals.”
“Well, you don’t have to work all night. Tomorrow’s another day.”
“Sure. I just wanted to do it when it was fresh in my mind.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see what other proposals you have. I thought we weren’t working on anything else.”
He had to think fast.
“I’ve got a couple of businesses that might be interested. I was just putting something quick together.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see them.”
Walt goes into his office and shuts the door.
Jack decides to go down to the conference room and hang around there. He can’t still be outside Walt’s office when he comes out. That would look too suspicious. He can still see Walt’s door. Walt appears a few minutes later. He waves down to Jack and tells him not to work all night.
Jack is sweating bullets as he sees Walt leave. He’s scared to go into his office now. He doesn’t want him to reappear and catch him. But he knows he has to do it. He’ll be able to get it off his mind. He waits a good thirty minutes before his attempt.
He walks up to the door. The sign board on the outside of the door reads Walt Colton. He tries the door. It’s unlocked. Walt usually locks it. He must have forgotten when he came back. He slowly opens the door. He finds the light switch and flips the lights on. He moves quickly to his desk. He looks at the top of his desk. There are no photos of a sports car. He tries the drawers. Two drawers are locked. He wonders what’s in them. He searches for a key that might be hidden under the desk. He finds nothing and moves on. He doesn’t have anything to try to jimmy them. He’ll have to wait for those another day.
He opens a large drawer. There are papers galore stacked on top of each other. He wonders why these aren’t in the filing cabinet. He doesn’t pay attention to them and moves onto the other open drawers. He finds candy and alcohol.
He opens the filing cabinets but finds only business papers. Before he leaves, he takes a look at the calendar. What he finds makes him angry. Today’s date says, Tina 7:30 p.m. Now he’s seen two calendars with the same information. But is it his Tina?
He races out of the office and back to his office. He locks up his office and races to the elevator. He can’t get it to go fast enough. He presses the button continuously like it is going to go faster. As soon as the elevator doors open, he sprints out the double doors and to his truck.
He fiddles with his keys trying to get the key into the ignition. He can’t get it to go. He hits the steering wheel with his fists. He yells, “That dumb bitch!” He calms down and gets the truck started. He tears out of the parking lot. He is speeding down the road. He has no care in the world. Suddenly, he sees it and hears it. The police car behind him screaming for him to pull over. He pulls to the side of the road.
He waits in his car as the police officer exits his car. The officer walks slowly up to the driver’s side.
“License and registration, please.”
“What did I do officer?”
“Are you kidding me?! You were going so fast, you almost took out that kid on the bike.”
He hands over the information. He wasn’t thinking when he was driving. But again he was thinking. He was thinking about Walt and Tina.
He tries to remember the kid on the bike. He can’t because he wasn’t paying much attention. What if he had killed that kid? Was the kid the same age as his kids?
He watches the officer return to his car in his rear-view mirror.
About ten minutes later, the officer returns. He doesn’t come back empty handed either. He issues Jack a ticket for $250.
As he pulls back onto the roadway, he drives toward Tina’s house. He is going to confront her and Walt.
His truck full-throttles into the driveway. He jumps out of the seat and runs to the door. He starts banging on the door and yelling Tina’s name. The door takes his anger entirely. There are sidelite windows next to the door on each side. He starts banging hard on one of them, not paying attention to what might happen. Suddenly the window breaks. He cuts his right hand. There is blood everywhere. The alarm goes off. He says to himself, “She has an alarm?” He hears sirens in the distance. He rushes back to his truck. He starts the truck and puts it in reverse. He hits the gas so hard, he backs into the neighbor’s mailbox. He leaves just as he sees the police car turn onto the street. Luckily for him, he is going in the opposite direction.
He tells himself he has to get out of there. He hopes no one saw his truck or his license plate. He drives away at a fast rate of speed, only to tell himself to slow down. He doesn’t want to attract attention.
He is almost home when his cellphone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket and glances at the number.
It’s Tina.
Conclusion
What I had planned to write for Part 2 didn’t happen. Only because I didn’t have space for it. So what I thought would be a 3-part story is going to turn into at least a 4-part story. I’m enjoying writing this. Who would have thought that writing a short snippet of 50 words on
and Fifties by the Fire, would turn into a full-fledged short story.Let me know what you think in the comments section. And most of all, do you like that I’m mixing some fiction into my usual writing?
Until next time, happy reading!
-Matt