“You know,” he said, regaining his composure, “you could give me a little bit of a warning. What if I’d been driving? I could have wrecked.”
Annabelle Winters shrugged her bony shoulders. “Don’t suspect it would bother me much.” Then she turned toward him and offered Lance the tiniest of grins.
He shook his head. “You’re hilarious.”
“I tried to warn you about the boy earlier. Sorry I couldn’t sooner. It’s funny how it works on my end. I know things … but sometimes I don’t know things. And other times, it’s like … it’s like I only get a whiff of the smell right before everybody else. That was one of those times.”
Lance leaned back in his seat, rubbed his eyes. He was so tired. “Why are you here?”
“You don’t like the company?” she asked.
Lance chuckled, exhaustion pouring over him. “No, I mean … I mean why are you here? Why are you still in our world, instead of moving on to … whatever is out there? Like most others.”
Annabelle Winters smiled. “You know, I’ve been asking myself that question since the day I died.” She looked out the window into the darkness and trees. “I’ve gone over every aspect of my life. Every decision, every choice. I’ve thought about all my good days and my bad days, and I analyzed my life until there was absolutely nothing left to ponder.”
“And?”
“Nothing. For the longest time I just sort of assumed I was living in my version of hell and was damned to never understand why.”
“You say that like something’s changed.”
She grinned again. “It did.”
“What?”
“You showed up.”
“You’re kidding.”
Annabelle Winters shook her head. “No. Like I said, sometimes I just know things. And the moment I saw you in the diner the other day, it was like the locked box of information in my head snapped open, and it all flooded out and it all made sense. I’ve been here waiting for you. Because something knew what would happen to Westhaven. And something knew you would come to save us. And I’m the lucky one who gets to help.”
“Something?” Lance asked.
Annabelle Winters sighed and used a wrinkled index finger to point up toward the roof of the truck’s cabin, toward the sky. “Whatever’s in charge. The big guy upstairs, so to speak.”
“God?”
“Call it whatever you want.”
Lance rubbed his eyes again. Said nothing.
“You’re missing something,” Annabelle Winters said.
Lance forced another chuckle. “I know. I can’t figure out why Allison Strang is doing this. What’s her endgame, and what’s really in charge?”
Annabelle Winters shook her head. “No. No, I think … I think it’s more than that. Something else.”
Lance looked over at her. “But you don’t know what?”
She shook her head. “If I can get close enough and it comes to me, I’ll let you know the best I can. I promise. But until then, be careful, Lance. I think you’re meant for bigger things than Westhaven.”
He nodded. Said nothing.
“She loves you, and misses you. And she understands why you had to leave her.”
Lance thought of Leah and felt that small tingle of excitement coupled with turmoil. “It’ll never work, will it? Leah and I can’t be together.”
“Not her, Lance,” Annabelle said. “I’m talking about your mother.”
Lance looked at her with the widest of eyes, his mouth gaping.
Annabelle Winters smiled. “I told you. Sometimes I just know things. Be careful, Lance.”
And then she was gone.
Lance sat in the cab of the truck, his foot still pressed hard to the brake for another full minute, the road and trees behind him bathed in the red glow of the brake lights. He thought about Annabelle Winters’s words about his mother.
Can she really know that?
Of course she could. She’d have to. Lance had told Annabelle Winters nothing of his mother, or the night he’d had to leave his home.
Leave her to die.
For the briefest of moments, Lance felt the idea of tears begin to build in his brain, but he slaughtered the thought and relished the idea that his mother’s spirit was still burning somewhere. Some form of her was strong enough to offer him a tiny bit of reassurance.
And that was enough for Lance. It eased his mind just the right amount to feel the warmth of his mother’s love inside him again, gave him a renewed and focused strength to deal with what was at hand.
He was about to let off the brake and start forward, but his phone buzzed again in his hand. He looked down. Another text from Leah.
I know you like to wing it, and I know you’ve got all these hidden talents, but thought you might like to know Daddy keeps a gun under the driver’s seat. Daddy’s got a saying. Doesn’t matter how big you are when somebody else can pull a trigger. XOXO
Lance reached down with his left hand and felt—gently!—around the bottom of the truck’s bench. First it was all smooth, and then his hand found some sort of holster and mount attached to the bottom, directly under his butt. It was a smallish pistol, nothing like the shotgun he’d left with Leah. In this case, he didn’t imagine the size would make much of a difference.
He used his thumb and texted back: Thanks. Your father is a smart man.
He thought about using his own set of Xs and Os, but decided against it. If his phone had been newer and more modern, he might have considered one of those red heart icons. What were they called? Emojis? But maybe it was too soon for that, too. Plus … like he’d told Annabelle Winters …
He pulled up the previous message containing the directions to the Strangs’ house, memorized them, and then released the brake and drove forward, headed toward Route 19.
As he approached the intersection where he could turn right toward town or keep straight to head toward the high school, which was where he needed to go, his eyes were drawn left, toward the bright orange glow flickering in the dark night sky. Flashes and bounces of amber light glowed from atop the tree line, accompanied by the shadowy presence of billowing smoke.
The motel on fire.
Part of Leah and her daddy’s livelihood, reducing itself to ash and rubble.
All my fault.
He ignored the guilt and drove on, fueled partially by anger and partially by an overwhelming feeling that this would be the end. Whatever waited for him at the Strangs’ house, it would all be over soon. The only question he didn’t know the answer to was whether good or evil would prevail. Fifty/fifty weren’t the worst odds, but certainly not the best.
He checked that the road was clear and then drove straight. He crossed Route 19 and was maybe a quarter mile from the high school when something streaked across the sky, causing him to jump on the brake again. The truck skidded to a stop and Lance ducked down and then craned his neck to peer out the windshield and up at the sky, his heart stuck somewhere between his chest and throat, slowly sliding back down.
Something had just flown by overhead. Something there, but not. It seemed to blend with the black of night, but still, Lance had caught a glimpse, just long enough to see the shape of a head … and the wings and the tail.
A dragon?
He shook his head, nearly laughed at the thought. Really, Lance? A Dragon?
He’d never even seen an episode of Game of Thrones.
He stared up, looked around him. Nothing but the faint outline of clouds scattered and the dancing of treetops in the breeze.
Tired, he thought. I’m too tired.
But as he drove on, he couldn’t quite convince himself that was the case.
He recalled Leah’s directions and watched the truck’s odometer closely. He needed to go three miles from the school and then turn right.
He’d only made it a mile when his cell phone vibrated in the seat next to him. He took a quick glance down and saw it was Leah calling. But just as he reached over to answer the call, the
sky split open like a paper bag ripped in half, and down came a thunderous downpour of golf ball–sized hail.
Lance jumped at the sudden noise and assault against the truck, his visibility reduced nearly to zero. He pumped the brakes hard enough to send his cell phone sliding across the truck’s bench seat, unable to hear it clatter to the floorboard.
He never heard the buzz for the voicemail.
Never heard the buzz of the incoming text message.
The only sound was that of the hail, pummeling the truck from all sides as Lance drove slowly along the road, steering wheel gripped tightly in his hands, eyes squinting, peering intently out the windshield through the manic whooshing of the wipers.
This, he thought, is not a coincidence.
37
The hail did not let up, a phenomenon of a storm that Lance knew was meant for him in some twisted cosmic way. It didn’t stop him, but it certainly succeeded in slowing him down. Samuel Senior’s truck had big tires with deep treads, meant to churn through the toughest of weather, and they did their job well, gripping the road and keeping the truck true to its course. It was seeing where he was going that was the problem. Calculating what he could from his memorized directions, Lance figured the trip from the Route 19 intersection to the Strangs’ house should have taken roughly fifteen minutes. It was thirty minutes later when Lance finally found the last turn on his list and guided the truck into it.
And just as suddenly as it had started, the hail stopped, a few stray pebbles of ice clink-clanking off the roof of the cabin for good measure before finally ceasing completely.
Lance stared through the windshield at the fully visible outside world. The cabin sounded deathly silent after all the staccato tinkering of the hail. “Well, that’s not weird at all.”
Ahead, on a small hilltop surrounded by a white privacy fence, was the largest house Lance had seen in Westhaven. It was easily twice the size of Bobby Strang’s home, and despite the upscale feel of Bobby’s neighborhood, the house on the hill made those houses look like secondhand gifts.
The road was freshly paved, and Lance had to wonder if the Strangs had built this home when they’d moved to Westhaven and created this road as a lengthy driveway. There were no other homes on it, as far as Lance could see, just what looked like a half mile of blacktop with a slight curve up the hill, leading to a gate.
Two porch lights burned at the house’s front door, and another by the gate, but otherwise, Lance saw no lights anywhere in the house. No movement.
He sat another minute and stared at the house, tried to reach into it with his mind and feel the people inside. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply and focused.
He got nothing.
Never works when I want it to.
He sighed, then drove forward slowly. The truck climbed the hill with ease, requiring little more than a feather’s touch on the gas pedal, and as Lance rounded the corner and approached the fence, the entry gate slid sideways on a motorized track, disappearing behind the rest of the fence’s wall and leaving a wide and inviting mouth for Lance to enter through. He looked at the tall lamppost mounted by the gate, searching for a camera or speaker box or anything else. He saw nothing. One of two things were happening: either the gate was activated by a motion sensor, or somebody knew he was here and couldn’t wait to meet him.
You know what you have to do, Lance. Drive the darn truck.
He drove forward, hating himself for being so vulnerable to his self-motivation. This could be suicide, he thought.
But, maybe not. Fifty-fifty, remember?
As he drove the next fifty yards to the front of the house, the gate began to close behind him. He glanced in the rearview and hoped the symbolism of what he was seeing wasn’t as foreboding as it appeared. If this had been a horror movie, that shot of the gate closing him in would have all but sealed his character’s fate.
The truck’s engine rumbled once thrown into park, and Lance killed it by turning off the ignition switch and sliding out the key. He bounced the key up and down in his palm, checking his surroundings, seeing if he could get a feel for things.
He’d parked directly in front of a two-car garage that was attached to the main house by what appeared to be some sort of breezeway. The house was all stone and brick and was essentially a towering, beautifully designed masterpiece of home architecture. A winding concrete walkway wove along a garden path in front of the home, approaching a large front porch on which sat two large rocking chairs. Lance’s eyes shifted from the rocking chairs and followed the line of sight away from the house. From up on the hilltop, he was sure the view would be spectacular. The two porch lights still burned with a comfortable glow, but otherwise the house was dark and still. Lifeless.
Lance got out of the truck, thought for a moment, then reached under the truck’s bench and fumbled with disengaging the pistol from its holster until he was holding the gun in his own hand.
Lance wasn’t afraid of guns—until they were in the hands of the wrong people—but he’d never had reason to handle firearms before and therefore felt almost as uncomfortable holding this handgun as he had when he’d been entrusted with the family shotgun earlier. The pistol he was holding looked a lot like the weapon Bobby Strang had used. Sleek, compact, and surely powerful enough to get the job done. He found a latch that he was certain was the safety, checked it was on, and then—while saying a silent prayer he wouldn’t maim himself, tucked the weapon into the waistband of his shorts and pulled his shirt over it.
As Lance made his way through the garden path in the darkness, a tingle at the base of his skull told him the gun wouldn’t matter. The outcome would be the same with or without it.
But still, it definitely didn’t hurt his confidence to feel its cool surface against his skin. And plus, he’d been wrong before.
He reached the porch, stepped up and then was directly beneath the two lamps on either side of the door. They were wrought-iron and meant to resemble hanging lanterns. Elegant. A few bugs buzzed around the bulbs. A breeze rocked the chairs in a slow, ghostly show.
What’s your plan, Lance?
He watched his right hand rise up, watched his index finger point itself out, and then felt the cool plastic of the doorbell’s button and heard a soft, soothing chime come from behind the large wooden door.
I don’t have one, he thought. I usually never do.
The chimes faded away in a decrescendo, and then there was silence. A few creaks from the house as a gust of wind whipped by and then vanished.
Lance waited.
One full minute. Then two.
He’d been expecting to be expected, anticipating a “so we meet at last” moment to take place as the door swung open to reveal the villain, unmasked and ready to battle.
He’d been expecting something!
He pressed the bell again. Again the chimes followed and faded, and Lance stood on the porch like a man being stood up on a date.
He felt confusion, and disappointment. Disappointment in himself for getting it wrong. He’d been certain this was where he was supposed to be. He and Leah had pieced it together and Lance had had the vision with Bobby, and … it was supposed to be here. It knew he was here, and it knew Lance had found it out.
He felt in his pocket for his cell phone, intent on texting Leah. His pocket was empty, and he suddenly recalled some flicker of memory of his cell phone sliding off the truck’s bench as he’d braked for the hail. He turned, ready to walk back, and that was when he heard the deadbolt disengage.
Lance froze, his heart suddenly hammering. This is it, he thought. Now we face the Devil.
The front door opened slowly, first just a crack, and then all the way.
Allison Strang stood in the open doorway, wrapped in a large plush robe with her hair falling around her shoulders. A vast atrium of a foyer was visible in the background. A tasteful lamp on a small table by a massive staircase backlit her with a soft glow. Otherwise, the house was dark.
Lance stared in
to her eyes, stared into the eyes of a killer, a murderer of four innocent boys. The reason Deputy Miller’s family was mourning tonight and so many nights to come. The reason Leah and her daddy’s motel was burning to the ground. The reason Leah had almost been killed at the football game. Lance had blamed himself for most of the latter, but now, staring into the face of his foe, he cast all his blame outward toward the woman before him.
And as their gazes met, Lance took a step backward, nearly toppling from the porch. He regained his balance and looked hard into Allison Strang’s eyes. He breathed in deeply, one quick gasp of air, and nearly fell to his knees with the overwhelming surge of love and happiness and compassion he felt coming from the woman in the doorway.
“You’re the boy who was with Leah at the game,” Allison Strang said, her voice pleasant and warm. “What on earth are you doing all the way out here so late? Are you all right? Do you need to come inside?”
Something propelled Lance to nod and step over the threshold as Allison Strang stepped aside and motioned him in. And as she closed the door behind him, Annabelle Winters’s voice echoed in his head.
You’re missing something.
38
She reminds me of my mother.
This thought solidified as Lance watched Allison Strang turn the deadbolt, locking him inside the Strangs’ home.
It wasn’t the way Allison Strang looked—Lance’s mother had never been one for excessive beauty products or fancy clothing, and she’d had the same hairstyle Lance’s entire life—and it wasn't the way she talked. It was the vibe she gave off. That aura of happiness and kindness. It was so strong Lance could nearly reach out and touch it, grab it, as if it were tangible and his for the taking.
A kind soul. That was the best way to describe it. Folks used that term all the time, but Lance was blessed (or cursed) to truly know when it was an appropriate saying. His mother had had one, and Allison Strang’s soul was nearly as pure and as light. But, just like snowflakes, no two souls were alike. They each had their own unique fingerprint, their own pattern. And Lance’s mother’s had been the most exquisite he’d ever seen.
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