Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  It was his turn to answer with silence. I knew from our conversations that, despite its slogan as “The Most Haunted Town in America,” Donn’s Hill was an uneventful place to live. People worked. They farmed or ranched or made things, and once a year they cut loose at the Afterlife Festival, getting just crazy enough to give themselves something to talk about for the next eleven months.

  Wallace’s nickname for me—The Body Magnet—was eerily accurate. I didn’t like it. In the short time I’d lived here, I’d found three bodies. Three. That wasn’t normal.

  I balled my hands into fists and struggled to put all these thoughts into words, eventually dropping into a chair and cradling my head in my hands. A moment later, Striker pawed my knee and a large hand squeezed my shoulder.

  “Okay,” Graham said. “This will sound like a punishment, but I have an idea that might help.”

  “What?” I peeked up at him through my fingers.

  “Sometimes, when my head feels like a mess, I’ll organize something. Like clean out my car or inventory my studio.”

  “You’re not tricking me into cleaning out that Geo.”

  “Oh, I like you way too much to make you do something like that. But I have a project I could use an extra pair of hands for. I was saving it for tomorrow, but we might as well get a jump on it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Cleaning the butler’s pantry. Phillip left it in good condition when he moved out, but it could use some sprucing up before Amari can move in.”

  “Wait—what?” I stared at him, my brain failing to translate my thoughts into something my mouth could work with. I was forced to repeat myself. “What?”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed. “Okay, that’s my fault for assuming Kit told you. Amari isn’t comfortable staying at the inn with all the reporters and everything. She’s renting a room here for a while.”

  “How long is ‘a while?’” Despite it coming out of my own mouth, the question surprised me. What did I care how long she was here? She was just another tenant.

  Except… she was more than that. She’d been here less than a week, and I could already feel a distance growing between Kit and me. The recognition of that distance put a stone in my stomach, though I couldn’t say why. It didn’t feel like jealousy, but whenever I thought about Amari, a clump of worried energy the size of a boulder seemed to balloon to life inside my chest. I rubbed the skin below my collarbone. Maybe it was just indigestion.

  Graham reached out a hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come on. I’ll let you pick the music.”

  Striker and I followed him down the stairs to the main floor, and I scrolled through his iPod. My mood called for some '90s grunge, and I was pleased that he had plenty of Alice in Chains. I was just debating whether Jar of Flies or Dirt would be a better choice for housework—both titles felt thematically appropriate—when Graham abruptly stopped on the last stair. I bumped into him and tipped backward, but he caught me by the elbows.

  “Look,” he started, “I know you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do. But promise me something. If there’s anything I can do to help, tell me.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re the most helpful guy I know.”

  He ignored the flirtatious tone in my compliment. “And promise me you won’t do anything dangerous.”

  I frowned, unsure where that was coming from. As far as I knew, I’d never done anything dangerous. Well… apart from hitchhiking. And staying in a seedy motel by myself. And trying to talk to ghosts on a professional level.

  As I opened my mouth to answer, a pounding sounded at the front door of Primrose House. Graham stepped off the last stair and opened the door, revealing a pair of Driscoll County Sheriff’s Deputies. I recognized them from the inn’s lobby the day before, but I didn’t know their names.

  “Mackenzie Clair?” one of them asked, leaning around Graham to address me.

  I swallowed. My heart pounded in my chest, and my hands twitched at my sides. For some reason, my first instinct was to run. I forced my feet to stay where they were and answered. “Yes?”

  “We need you to come with us.”

  The pair of them stepped forward, intending to push past Graham, but he held his ground, blocking the doorway with his tall frame.

  “Is she under arrest?” he demanded.

  “Not yet,” one of them said.

  “But she can be, if that’s what it takes to get her down to the station.” The second produced a pair of handcuffs and dangled them in front of Graham’s face. “Sir, move aside.”

  I have absolutely no idea where I summoned the courage to step around Graham and face the deputies. “Will Deputy Wallace be there?”

  The first one nodded. “She’s who asked us to come get you.”

  That felt odd. Why hadn’t she just called? I’d have gone to the station right away, no questions asked. Why had she sent these strangers here to collect me?

  Instead of voicing these concerns, I simply nodded and followed the deputies outside. Graham hustled along beside me, and Striker ducked back and forth between the deputies’ legs, nearly tripping them several times on the walk to the curb where a black SUV with the seal of the Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department waited.

  “I’ll follow you,” Graham said as the deputies helped me into the vehicle.

  I swallowed again, trying to clear the lump of anxiety from my throat. All I could do was nod as the heavy door clunked shut, locking me in the backseat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’d thought I had good reason to be nervous the last time I’d visited Deputy Wallace at the sheriff’s station. That time, I’d traveled there on my own two feet, not contained in the backseat of an SUV by a thick sheet of bulletproof glass. And I’d met with Wallace in a comfortable, well-lit conference room.

  This time, the deputies led me into a small interrogation room. The gray cinderblock walls stretched high above me, touching a flat, featureless ceiling at least ten feet above the steel table. My cold, metal chair had been bolted to the concrete floor. There wasn’t much to look at apart from my reflection in the window-sized mirror across from me, and I hated the way my wide eyes and unhealthy pallor made me look. If I didn’t know me and saw a photo of this woman in the paper, I’d assume she was guilty of anything they said.

  When Deputy Wallace walked into the room a few minutes after I arrived, I knew she was thinking the same thing. Her eyes held no trace of the warmth from the inn. There was no sign in her stiff, official manner that we were friends. She dropped heavily into a chair let a thick manila folder fall onto the table with a loud fwap!

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she held out a hand to stop me, shaking her head. A moment later, a heavyset man about Yuri’s age walked into the room. He wasn’t as tall as Wallace, but he looked like he weighed enough to take her down in a fight. His bushy mustache covered his mouth, making it difficult to tell if he was smiling or frowning. He tucked his thumbs into his belt as he considered me from the doorway. Then he sighed, removed his brimmed hat, and set it onto the table as he lowered himself into the chair beside Wallace.

  “Miss Clair, this is Sheriff Harris.” Deputy Wallace gestured toward the man beside her. “I don’t believe you’ve met.”

  I shook my head. He didn’t offer his hand, so I left mine pinned beneath my thighs.

  “As I hope the deputies made clear, you’re not under arrest. We just have a few questions for you.” Wallace folded her hands on the table. “Let’s start with this: why didn’t you tell me you assaulted Raziel Santos the night he was murdered?”

  “What?” The question exploded out of my mouth. Assault? What were they talking about?

  “We have a witness who claims you attacked Mr. Santos following an attempted séance at a cabin near Lake Anam,” Wallace said.

  “The same cabin where, I might add, a friend of yours killed two people earlier this year,” the Sheriff put in.

  “Wha—I—” I sputtered, unab
le to find anything untrue about his statement but wholly unsure what Gabrielle’s crimes had to do with Raziel’s murder.

  Deputy Wallace rested a hand on the Sheriff’s forearm. “Look, we know you had nothing to do with those earlier deaths. But I find it strange and, to be honest, very disconcerting that you did not mention your confrontation with Mr. Santos when we spoke yesterday.”

  “I did!”

  “No. You told me you ‘argued.’ You made zero mention of a physical altercation.”

  “There wasn’t—”

  “Let’s skip to the part where you tell the truth, Ms. Clair.” Sheriff Harris leaned forward and spoke in a low, calm voice. “Did you, or did you not, attack Mr. Santos at the lakeside cabin?”

  “No!” I paused. “I mean, not really. I sort of lunged at him. But that’s it! Graham pulled me back and calmed me down.”

  “That must have been very frustrating,” Sheriff Harris said. “Is that why you visited the inn that night? To finish what you started at the cabin?”

  My mouth fell open, and I stared at him, too stunned to speak.

  “See, there are a few holes in your story.” The sheriff leaned back, mirroring Wallace’s posture. “You claim you arrived at the inn at six o’clock in the morning, but we can’t find anyone who can corroborate that.”

  The wheels in my brain finally started turning again, and I wracked my mind for anyone or anything who could back me up. Striker was the first creature to come to mind, but her communication skills with humans were pretty much limited to demanding treats. “What about the barista? Or cameras? The inn had to have cameras, right?”

  Wallace shook her head. “The barista doesn’t remember seeing anyone that morning. And unfortunately, Mrs. Bishop’s contractors are still behind on the camera installation.”

  “A weakness in the inn’s security system,” Sheriff Harris said, “that we believe you knew about prior to Mr. Santos’ arrival.”

  Had I known that? My mind spun. I couldn’t be sure.

  “We also have statements from a witness saying you threatened to harm Mr. Santos if he didn’t,” Wallace consulted her notes, “quote: ‘get out of town.’”

  “What?” The word erupted out of my mouth at top volume. “Who said that?”

  “You seem agitated, Miss Clair,” Sheriff Harris said. “Why do you want to know the names of the people who’ve come forward? So you can try to intimidate them, too?”

  “No!” I stared at Deputy Wallace, begging her with my eyes to shed this callous shell and revert to the person I’d befriended over the past few months. Didn’t she know me well enough by now to know I could never kill someone? “I just want to know who would lie about me…. and why they would lie about me.”

  The sheriff snorted, and Wallace pressed her lips together into a thin, hard line.

  “Where’s the phone, Ms. Clair?” she asked.

  I hated the way she kept calling me that. She hadn’t called me “Ms. Clair” since before I’d confided in her about my psychic abilities. She’d offered to make me a police consultant that day, and she’d called me Mac ever since.

  The biting formality when she addressed me, coupled with the stony expression on her face, made the truth painfully clear. We weren’t friends. Not right now. Maybe never again. I was just a suspect, someone who might have information Deputy Wallace needed to do her job. When she finished with me, she’d go home and take off her hat and turn into regular old Alicia Wallace in front of the TV.

  When I didn’t answer, she asked her question again. “Where is Mr. Santos’ cell phone?”

  “What cell phone?” I asked.

  “The one Raziel filmed you with. We hear he threatened to share video of you attacking him with your network.” She gazed at me from across the table for a while with cold, calculating eyes. “We’ve searched his room, his luggage, even his team’s gear, and there’s no sign of his phone. Somebody took it. Probably the same person who killed him.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” I told them honestly.

  They exchanged glances. Wallace leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. She held her hands out to me, palms upward.

  “Mac,” she said. “Help us out here.”

  Oddly, when she finally said my name, it felt even harsher than hearing “Ms. Clair.” She’d chosen to use it, to make me think we were pals. My eyes narrowed.

  “All we want is the truth,” she said. “Here are the facts. Someone murdered Raziel Santos. You had a fight with him the night before he died. You were at the inn the morning his body was found—”

  “Yeah, by me!” I shouted.

  The sheriff’s mustache twitched. “You’ve got quite a temper. Raziel made his name exposing fake psychics, right? What would you have done if he’d posted that video and painted you as a violent fraud?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’d hope people who know my gifts are genuine”—I nodded at Wallace—“would back me up.”

  She blinked and momentarily ducked her head. Then she stood up, gestured for the sheriff to follow her, and the pair of them left me alone again in the interrogation room.

  I sighed and rested my head on the metal table. All I wanted to do was go home. It had to be after midnight by now, and Striker would be livid about the lateness of her bedtime meal. I closed my eyes and thought about my soft bed and my cozy apartment, and the way the cold air tickled my cheeks if I left the windows open at night. I breathed in deeply, imagining I could smell the fallen leaves outside my window.

  When I opened my eyes, I half expected to be sitting at the window seat in my apartment. But I was still in the strangely proportioned room, trapped by the gray cinderblock walls. When I sat up, my red, tired eyes gazed back at me from the reflection in the large mirror across the table.

  Eventually, Wallace came back. The door swung closed behind her, leaving the two of us alone in the small space.

  “Okay, Mac,” she said. “You’re free to go.”

  I stood slowly. Part of me expected her to shout “Gotcha!” and slap a pair of handcuffs on my wrists, but she just pulled open the door and watched me exit the room in silence.

  Graham waited for me in the station’s lobby. He leapt to his feet when he spotted me, closing the distance between us in a few quick bounds so he could gather me up into a tight hug.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered into my hair.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, pressing my face against his chest. It was an ineffective way to hide my tears; they gushed onto his Sonic Youth t-shirt, soaking it on contact.

  Wallace cleared her throat. Graham and I pulled apart, and he stepped in front of me, partially blocking my view of the deputy.

  “Thanks for coming down,” Wallace said, seeming to ignore Graham’s protective stance. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Great,” I said. “Glad I could help, I guess.”

  “Listen, remember what I said. Don’t leave town. And Mac…” Her dark eyes bore into mine. “Be careful.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Morning sunlight warmed the best room in the entire world: the kitchen at Primrose House. Large and airy, it was the opposite of the tiny interrogation room in every meaningful way. I sighed as I leaned against the counter with a mug cradled in my hands. Through the wide windows at the back, I watched Graham ferry sculptures out of his garage-turned-studio and onto a pair of long folding tables he’d set up on the driveway. He often liked to sculpt outside on sunny days, but today he was working with finished pieces, wrapping them in layer upon layer of bubble wrap to ensure they’d survive the trip to Chicago the next day.

  Beside me, Kit poured coffee into a pair of simple mugs from the collection of Graham’s creations he’d deemed “unsellable.” She added her usual splash of vanilla-flavored creamer into one and gave the second cup a hearty pour from the milk carton. I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Don’t start,” she told me.

  “I wasn’t saying anything,” I murmured into my mug.
I took a sip of coffee and glanced at the closed door to the butler’s pantry. “I was just wondering what to get Amari for a housewarming gift.”

  Kit glared at me and I cracked, allowing a chortle to escape my nose. Her foot connected with my shin, just hard enough to send a message.

  “Ouch!” I balanced on one leg so I could rub the other. “Be nice to me. I had a rough night.”

  She grimaced. “Ugh, sorry. I still can’t believe Wallace treated you like that. I thought she was cool.”

  I thought back to Wallace’s apologetic explanation just before I’d left the station the night before, and her warning. After a good night’s sleep, it was easier to see things from her perspective.

  “She’s still cool,” I decided aloud. “I think she means well. The sheriff, too, even if he is callous as hell. They just want to find Raziel’s killer.”

  “Are you really a suspect?” Kit asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. They let me go, but…” I remembered the way they’d badgered me. “It sort of feels like I’m the closest thing to a suspect they’ve got.” Looking for a happier topic, I asked, “What are you up to today?”

  “I’d been planning to edit the episode, but the network nixed it.”

  “What?” I let my mug clunk onto the counter, splashing a few droplets of coffee onto my shirt. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “The cameras didn’t pick up anything. Our thermometer registered a drop in ambient temperature, but that’s it. The footage just isn’t super compelling. Put that together with it being Raziel’s last night alive, and…”

  It made sense that the network would want to delay airing anything recorded the night Raziel had died, but the other half of Kit’s news sent a wave of disappointment washing over me. I’d been hoping the red-eyed spirit would’ve shown up on the footage, even if he just appeared as a dark shadow the way Daphne had seen him. He’d seemed so… present. It was weird that a spirit would show itself to me so clearly yet make little impact on our instruments.