A Nice, Safe Place (The Cutler Series Book 1)

Book summary

Wayne Snyder's search for his missing daughter Amy uncovers dark secrets in the seemingly quiet town of Belvue. As Amy awakens in captivity, the true horror of her situation becomes clear. Wayne's desperate quest to save her reveals a community hiding sinister truths beneath its surface.

A NICE, SAFE PLACE is a tense thriller that explores the darkness lurking in a small Midwestern town.

Excerpt from A Nice, Safe Place (The Cutler Series Book 1)

Chapter 1

Five teenage girls were missing from Belvue. No one knew where they’d gone, or why, or if someone had taken them, and the police didn’t have a clue.

Belvue is a small city in Missouri, 45 miles northwest of St. Louis. It’s a nice place to live, the locals say. This kind of thing doesn’t happen around here. We trust our neighbors, we all know each other, and we don’t even lock our doors most of the time.

Meth was a problem here, like it was all over Delmar County. Opioids too. Domestic abuse, alcoholism, drunk driving, robbery, vandalism, drug dealing, a little gun violence and child abuse. Sexual assault, especially during football season. Foreclosures, obesity, unemployment, diabetes, homelessness. It wasn’t really such a great place, and they probably should have locked those doors.

There was a Starbucks now, and another one in the new Barnes & Noble by the highway overpass. The city had a lot going for it. Panera, Chipotle, Dunkin’, Chick-fil-A. Over by the Franklin Mill there was a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths, a skylight and red cloth napkins. The Holiday Inn had pretty good food too, but the waitresses looked at you funny if you weren’t wearing a collared shirt.

There was a new pharmaceutical plant in Delor, the next town over, and they were putting up a Target in Chippewa. This meant more jobs so the construction industry was starting to pick up because more jobs meant more people and those people needed somewhere to live. If you weren’t afraid of an honest day’s work, there was plenty of money in building houses. Circling quietly overhead, the realtors and lawyers were also doing pretty well for themselves.

Wayne Snyder thought about this, and a few other things, driving his white Chevy Silverado along Laclede Avenue. He stopped at the railroad crossing and waited for the train to go by.

The city council had voted to buy up several blocks of cheap and abandoned properties north of the tracks on the east side of Laclede. Ramblers, trailer homes, Cape Cods, a pale-blue Victorian that had seen better days. The King & Queen apartments looked like a cheap motel, and no one was sorry to see them torn down, along with everything else. The United Methodist church was demolished too, since no one needed it anymore.

Soon, a row of McMansions would spring up in yards far too small for their bulk. Wayne thought of husky middle school boys growing out of their old clothes. He used to work construction during high school summers and three semesters in junior college. McMansions, Christ. He wasn’t sure if you actually built those eyesores, or if you just inflated them.

The train rattled past and the crossing arm popped up.

Wayne put the car in gear and drove north on Laclede.

A bright silver chain-link fence surrounded the building site. He knew the guys who put it up. A particle board sign was zip-tied to every fourth or fifth section of fence: TDE, Inc.

The city manager, Bobby Decker, was also president of the city council, which had voted to sell the land to TDE. In fact, whenever they bid on a city contract, they got it, which made their executive director happy as a two-dick dog. Tony Decker Enterprises was owned by the city manager’s brother.

Wayne turned up the radio and muttered a string of inventive curses. He hated the Deckers. They owned almost everything in Belvue, and they never stopped talking about it. Not even Aerosmith on full-blast could make him forget.

Truth be told, a few glasses of whiskey might help.

A tiny strip mall passed by on the left. Subway, Dry Cleaner, Chinese take-away. He turned right on Gravois, made another right on Meramec, and drove downhill to the end of the block. Their cul-de-sac was on the left.

Wayne pulled into the slanted driveway and parked in front of the garage. Amanda’s car was on the street.

He turned down the radio but left the car running.

A man needs time to settle, he thought. A few minutes to himself.

He reached for a duffel bag in the passenger seat, sliding his hand inside without looking. The fifth of Jim Beam was smooth and cool, and it felt like home. He twisted off the cap and took a sip.

If he pulled all the way up to the garage and parked on the far right side of the driveway, no one could see him from inside the house. The neighbors could, if they were looking, but fuck them.

Cody was in the living room playing a video game, but Wayne had no idea what it was called. He tried to grab a name out of the air, any name, but came up empty-handed. Super Mario Brothers was the last new one he could remember, but that was already a few decades old.

Where’d all the time go? And who is this kid? He’s 15 and bigger than I am. Getting there, anyway.

Wayne stood in the doorway watching Cody, who looked over for a second and nodded. He thought about all the things he’d missed over the years. What was the name of Cody’s friend? The short one with the funny hair who used to hang around all the time? He couldn’t come up with a name for any of his friends or remember the last time he’d seen one of them. He thought about asking the boy, but he wouldn’t answer. Not in the middle of a game.

He walked down the hall into the kitchen but stopped halfway to fix the family picture hanging on the wall. It was tilted over and covered in dust.

Amanda was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the landline up to her ear. Ashtray on the left, coffee mug on the right, cigarette between her fingers. Same as ever. He smiled. Soon, they’d be married for 25 years. Since right out of high school. He stared at the 43-year-old woman but saw the teenage girl she used to be.

Amanda looked over at him, with a face on. “Hard day at the office?”

He didn’t answer.

She laughed, then turned back to the phone. “Sorry, that was nothing. Just Wayne.”

He walked over to the sink for a glass of water. His wife laughed some more, and her eyes crawled toward him for a second.

Amanda spent a lot of time on the phone complaining about him, mostly to her family. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been out of work for more than a year and a half. At the beginning of every month she gave him an update about how long it had been and then she complained about his drinking, as if the two things weren’t related. As if one didn’t make the other pretty much inevitable.

Wayne leaned against the kitchen counter and disappeared. Sometimes he felt like no one saw him, or knew who he was, or that he wasn’t even alive.

When he came out of it, he was staring into the laundry room, an elevator-sized box next to the refrigerator. He could see the orange-handled pliers on the edge of the washing machine. The starter knob had broken off a few months before. He’d been meaning to fix it but wasn’t sure he could. He shook his head and tried to forget how much a new appliance would cost.

He walked back toward the living room looking for a place to relax, but Cody was still on the couch playing his game. There was a small room to the left, by the front door. The realtor had called it a sitting room, whatever the hell that was, but Amanda reserved it for special guests. The kind who wouldn’t appreciate being shoved into a living room filled with video game cartridges, fishing magazines, and a green corduroy chair that was slick, almost oily-looking, with age. The kind who never actually showed up.

Wayne didn’t like to step foot in the sitting room. The chairs were stiff and unwelcoming, and anyway Amanda got after him if he went in there and made a mess or so much as moved a coaster.

Still, a man needed somewhere to call his own. The garage was filled with tools, lawn furniture, bicycles, all their old junk. He didn’t have a workshop or den, and there was no basement.

The bedroom would have to do, for now, though it was really her turf, not his. So was the kitchen.

He walked upstairs. Amy was listening to music in her room, and probably talking on the phone too. She didn’t like silence, which Wayne found difficult to understand. He was always looking for a way to shut out the noise.

Amanda was making pancakes and sausage. Breakfast for dinner. Wayne could smell it, but he already knew what was for dinner. He could always tell by the pots and skillets laid out on the stove, the spices down from the cabinet, if there was oil or butter, a ladle or spatula. When they were first married she bought an Italian cookbook, and every week she’d try a new recipe.

He lay on the bed, shoes off, staring at the ceiling. Another drink would be nice. He stared at the duffel bag as if that would help him decide.

No, not yet. It’s not even 5:00. A man needs discipline.

He got up and washed his hands and face in the bathroom with cool water. That always made him feel better.

Afterward, Wayne looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t vain. Far from it. He hardly ever bought new clothes, and he only trimmed his beard once every few months. A baseball hat was as good as a haircut, or a comb.

He inspected his face under the harsh bathroom lights. Getting old, that’s for sure. Few more wrinkles. Skin’s going pale. Hair’s turning gray. Age washes you out until one day you’re not even there anymore.

But Wayne didn’t really care about any of this. He was looking for those thin red lines, broken blood vessels. His dad had them all around his nose and down the sides of his face like sideburns. He was a drunk.

It was about time for dinner. He could tell. The house just felt a certain way. The air changed, and everything went quiet. Every family had a rhythm and texture of its own.

Before he went back downstairs, Wayne stuffed his bag in the back of the closet. He fluffed up the pillows and flattened out the comforter. Amanda liked everything nice and neat.

Cody was standing in front of the couch, yawning his way up to the ceiling.

“Why don’t you put that stuff away.” Wayne pointed to the game console, headset and controller.

At first the boy didn’t seem to hear, but eventually he tidied up. Wayne nodded, walking into the kitchen to see if Amanda needed help setting the table.

“Can we eat in the TV room?” Cody called out.

Amanda didn’t answer right away. She stopped for a moment before sliding the pancakes into the oven to warm.

She turned down the heat on the cast-iron skillet before walking halfway down the hall. “Yes, we can eat in the living room, but please don’t call it the TV room. And don’t shout at me from the other side of the house.”

“Sorry.” Cody set up the TV trays and shouted up the stairs. “Dinner!”

He could hear his sister ignoring him. Amy’s silences were always so loud. He switched the TV input to Cable. The local news was on. He sat down and looked at the screen without really watching.