Lost Contact (The Bridge Sequence Book One), Nathan Hystad [primary phonics books .TXT] 📗

door, and Hardy’s aide led us to the master. She leaned toward me and whispered words of caution. “He is having a good day, but it might not last. If he starts to lose focus, please come and tell me, and you’ll have to leave.”

I nodded as she opened the door. Everything changed. Gone were the neatly-washed hardwood floors and the uncluttered living space. This was the room of a madman. Books were everywhere, numerous stacks of them behind a huge wooden desk.

“Whoa.” Marcus walked toward the hundreds of papers across the room, where clippings were taped, thumbtacked, and glued to the surface of the wall.

Brian Hardy sat in a recliner, oxygen feeding through a tube into his nose. His left hand was clutching the arm of the chair, and his fingers twitched as I approached him. He was a skeletal man, with only a few white wisps of hair remaining on his liver-spotted pate. His eyes could have been blue once, but they were so clouded with cataracts that I couldn’t tell for sure.

“Hello, Mr. Hardy. I’m Rex Walker.”

“I met you once. Did you know that?” His voice was oddly deep, powerful despite his diminished frame.

I sat on the bed, noting the mattress was rock hard. “I didn’t. When was this?”

“You weren’t much more than a baby. Your father and I were good friends.”

My arms tingled at his words. “Do you know what happened to him?” I couldn’t believe my mother hadn’t mentioned Hardy before, or that his missing journals had been hidden so well, I’d never found them.

“Who?” he asked, his glance settling on Marcus.

“My dad.”

“Right. Dirk. He was a good man. Who’s the kid?” Hardy seemed cautious of the young black man reading his clippings.

“He’s my research partner,” I said.

Hardy nodded slowly. “You look just like him.”

“My dad?”

“Yep. Same nose. Penetrating eyes. Have you found him yet?”

I froze. “How could I find him?”

“The Bridge.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, my words so quiet, I wasn’t sure he’d heard at first.

“They exist.” He lifted a scrawny arm, pointing upwards. “They’re real. Everyone thought I was a lunatic, but I was right. Your dad saw that too.”

“Aliens?” Marcus asked, coming over to crouch near Hardy. “You’ve seen them?”

“I don’t need to see them, son. I gave everything I had to your father and that sidekick of his. They weren’t supposed to leave without me…” His hand trembled, and he set it in his lap. All I could hear was the beating of my own heart and the hiss of his oxygen tank.

“What did you give my dad?” I asked, louder this time.

“The signs were there. It just took solving the clues. I was always good at puzzles. Not so much anymore,” he grumbled, sending himself into a coughing fit.

His aide came to the door, poking her head in, and he waved her away. “I’m fine, Phoebe.” She disappeared, and he glared at the hallway. “Damned woman. Thinks every little hiccup is the end. Wouldn’t she like that? Probably rob me blind and vanish before I hit the floor.”

“Can we return to this puzzle you’re speaking of?” I asked.

He wore a dress shirt, but the sleeve wasn’t buttoned at the cuff. I spotted the matching tattoo on his skin, the same one I’d duplicated on my chest in homage to my father. I motioned to it. “What does it mean?”

He lifted his arm, glancing at the marking. “We were brothers. The four of us.”

“The four?” I asked. “Who? Dirk, Clayton, you, and who?”

He blinked quickly, and his breathing grew more labored.

“Mr. Hardy, what is the Bridge?”

He didn’t answer, and I peered at Marcus. “Look for a journal. Something that looks old.”

Marcus stood, and Hardy disregarded the young man as he rifled through his stacks of books.

“What is the Bridge?” I asked, louder this time.

He met my gaze, smiling widely. “I was supposed to go with them. Now look at me.”

I needed to change tactics, to uncover something valuable. “Where did they go? Where did my father and Clay go in 1989, when they vanished?”

“Estrelas,” he said, pointing up to the ceiling.

I didn’t know Portuguese, but it sounded familiar. “Can you be more specific?”

He started coughing again, his face turning bright red. I rose quickly, panicking, and Phoebe ran in, adjusting the dial on the machine. She wiped his mouth and turned to us. “Time for Mr. Hardy to get some rest.”

I ignored her as she helped the old man to his bed. “Hardy, where did they go? What is the Bridge?”

Phoebe recoiled in fear, and Hardy only laughed gruffly as his head settled on the pillow. “Estrelas. Don’t you see, Dirk? You better not leave without me.”

Marcus arrived, breaking my hypnotized state. “I found something.” His voice was quiet.

“I’m sorry, Phoebe. Maybe we can return when he’s…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Please go.” She spoke with authority, and I let Marcus lead me into the hallway.

I was shaken by the whole experience, and Marcus paced the corridor, running his hands over his short black hair. “What the hell was that? He knows about the Bridge! The tattoo! This is like some real-life mystery stuff right here.”

“What did you get?” I asked, and he smiled again as he pulled a notebook from under his shirt.

We returned to the stairwell, me clutching the book tightly as I tried to read the first page under the half-burnt out light fixture. There was a drawing of the five stars with the streak between them. “This is in my father’s journal. Let’s go to the hotel. We have some reading to do.”

“Where are they now?” a voice asked, and I pressed the stairwell exit open a smidge to see the doorman’s big body standing by Hardy’s suite.

I left the keys on the stairs and ran. We made quick work of the steps, taking two or three at a time, and rushed through the exit into the alley, out of breath, a minute later. Marcus kept moving, turning to face me as he walked