Headlights dotted the distance and grew closer. Lance stood and opened the front door, stepping out onto the porch and waving blindly into the lights. Luke’s Jeep took form and parked, two silhouettes jumping from the doors and approaching the porch steps as the headlights cut off.
“Hi,” Susan said. “I hope pizza’s okay.” She offered a large pizza box, stained with grease.
“Perfect,” Lance said, taking it from her and stepping aside so the two of them could enter the house.
Luke, carrying a six-pack of soda, offered his fist and Lance bumped it. “Not exactly how I expected to spend my evening,” he said. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Lance followed them inside and closed the door.
Luke and Susan stood motionless in the foyer, ramrod straight, heads tilted up and swiveling slowly back and forth along the walls, rooms, stairs, hallway. They took it all in silently, like two patrons at a museum admiring a piece of art that both captivated and stunned them.
Lance waited. Said nothing.
Finally, Luke turned and said, “I feel weird being here. Do you feel weird?”
Lance shrugged. “It wears off. I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
Susan was still silent, staring down at the floor. Lance noticed a single tear spill down her cheek. Luke took notice as well. “Suze? Everything okay?” He put his arm around her, and she nodded and laughed and shook her head.
“It’s surreal, I guess. I mean, I played here a few times when I was little. Once or twice was all. But…” She stifled a sob, then shook her head again and smiled. “Sorry. It’s been a long time, but I guess it just seems more real now that I’m actually standing in the house.”
Lance mentally kicked himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. It was completely insensitive and—”
“It’s fine,” Susan cut him off. “Really. I’m glad you invited us. Honestly, and this might sound strange, but by being here I sort of feel like I’m keeping Mary’s memory alive a little longer in my head.” She waited a beat, and when neither Lance or Luke said anything, she shrugged and wiped away the tear. “Anyway, I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
They walked into the kitchen and sat around the table—Susan giving it an appraising glance, probably recalling another memory. A meal she’d shared with the Benchley family at this very table, or maybe an after-school arts and crafts project with Mary. Lance swallowed down his guilt. Susan was old enough to make her own decisions. If she wanted to leave, she was more than welcome to. But he didn’t think she would.
Luke flipped open the pizza box and grabbed a slice, his eyes darting around the kitchen as he chewed, taking it all in. Then he asked, “So I’ve been dying to ask you, why exactly did I get a call from the sheriff while I was finishing up my workout at the Y?”
“What?” Susan said, head swiveling toward her boyfriend. “What do you mean?”
Luke didn’t answer. Instead he looked to Lance, eyes full of curiosity more than any hint of anger or irritation.
Lance grabbed his own slice and started to eat. He saw no sense in being coy. Besides, he was hoping his two friends could answer some of his questions. Figured it better to divulge some of his own information first, level the playing field as best he could. “Victoria Bellows came by the house this morning to clean the place. She was doing it as a favor for her husband because the cleaning people he usually uses for rentals are terrified to come here because…” He paused and gave Susan a quick glance before continuing, “They believe Mary Benchley was a witch.”
Susan scoffed at this and rolled her eyes. Luke took another bite of pizza.
“But that’s not the problem,” Lance continued. “Shortly after Luke picked me up to take me into town, somebody entered the house and attacked Victoria Bellows. Hit her over the head hard enough she blacked out. She didn’t see who it was, and the sheriff’s department thought it prudent to eliminate any potential suspects as quickly as possible, which included me. Luke verified my alibi.”
“Shit,” Luke said in between chews of pizza. “Weird day this’s been, huh? First I get used as an alibi, and now I’m eating pizza at the spook farm. I wish I had a vlog. This would get big-time views.”
Susan looked at him and shook her head. Lance laughed, though he wasn’t positive he knew what a vlog was. “It’s been interesting. I’ll give you that. But there’s more. Somebody was here when you all dropped me off last night. I didn’t see anybody—other than some movement at one of the windows when we pulled in—but the back door was wide open when I got inside. I’m positive somebody took off when they saw us arrive. My suspicion, and this is nothing more than a hunch, is that whoever was here last night attacked Victoria Bellows earlier today. Aside from the main question of who, I’m almost more curious as to what it is they want. I mean, there’s nothing here.” Lance held out his arms, gesturing to the empty kitchen around them. “It’s an empty old house.”
“Squatter, maybe?” Luke suggested. “Some homeless drifter who’s pissed somebody showed up to boot him out? I mean, nobody’s been here for a while, right?”
“Maybe,” Lance said. “But there’s no sign of forced entry anywhere I’ve seen. So whoever got in, they either found a door or window unlocked, picked a lock, or—and this is the one that I’m a bit concerned about—they had a key.”
Silence around the table. Lance had laid it all out, and it appeared his two companions were just as out of answers as he was. He wasn’t surprised. He sighed and grabbed a slice of pizza and wolfed it down in three huge bites. Started on a second slice.
Susan popped open one of the soda cans and took a long swig. “Mmmm,” she said. “Nothing beats warm soda.”
The three of them chuckled, the tension slowly evaporating. “I’ve got a couple bottles of water,” Lance offered. “Also warm, but maybe better than the soda?”
Susan politely declined, but Luke took Lance up on the offer. “Sure, I’ll take one. I don’t need all that sugar in those things,” he said, pointing to the remaining five cans. Lance couldn’t help but think he and Luke would be good friends under different circumstances. In another life that Lance tried to keep himself from fantasizing about too frequently.
“I completely agree,” Lance said and reached down under the table, where he’d stowed his backpack. He unzipped the front pouch and then sighed to himself. Wrong pouch. But as he was about to close it, something caught his eye. There, sitting on top of all his other small items he kept for ready access in the front pouch of the backpack, was a sheet of paper, folded in half. Yellow legal pad, from the looks of it. Lance reached in slowly, as if the paper might scurry away if frightened, and plucked it out with his thumb and index finger. He kept his hands below the table, his torso still bent over toward the bag, and unfolded the paper.
It was a list of names, handwritten. Scribbled in a hurry, from the looks of it.
And Lance was back in the interview room at the sheriff’s office, the ghost of Sheriff Bill Willard echoing softly in his head.
(“So when you get your bag back, maybe in the smaller front compartment, you find a list of names. Maybe those names were all people of interest in the Benchley case. Not because they were suspects, necessarily, but because they were thought to maybe have information that could help in discovering the truth. Maybe…”)
Lance read over the names, surprised that he recognized a few.
The first name that jumped off the page was the most confusing. It sat atop the list, the most neatly printed of them all.
Ray Kruger.
Lance crinkled his brow and had to calm his brain from racing to figure out why the current active sheriff would be on this list. Did his previous ownership of the house somehow implicate him?
He shoved the thoughts aside and looked at the second name that stood out to him. He had no solid knowledge to verify that the name belonged to who he thought it did, but, as with many things he couldn’t explain, he knew all the
same.
He opened the main compartment of his backpack and tossed Luke a bottle of water. “Sorry if it smells like a gym bag,” he said. “I sort of live out of this thing most of the time.”
Luke waved him off and cracked open the bottle, taking a large swig.
Lance, hopefully not sounding as somber as he suddenly felt, looked at Susan. “I know this is random, but what’s your last name?”
Susan swallowed a bite of pizza and without hesitation answered, “Marsh.” Then, after a quick pull from the soda can, “Why?”
Because you’re on the short list of people who might know what happened here the night the Benchley family was killed, Lance thought.
21
The problem with talking to the living was that they tended to ask more questions than the dead.
Lance needed to ask his own questions to Luke and Susan, see if they could help him piece together some of the puzzle, but in doing so, they’d undoubtedly question the information he already possessed and, more importantly, how he’d come by it.
These were questions Lance could not answer honestly. Not with the two new friends sitting around the table with him, eating pizza and drinking lukewarm beverages. They were good people. Mostly honest, Lance felt, but he would not trust them with his secrets, his abilities. There were so few whom he had.
His mother.
Marcus Johnston.
And most recently … Leah.
He’d felt the connection with her the moment they’d met. Explored it, treaded its waters that first day, and in the end he had told her everything. And she’d accepted him completely. Believed him wholeheartedly. Had developed more faith in him than he’d ever had in himself. She was special. He knew that beyond any doubt. And she’d felt it in him as well, able to see there was much more to Lance Brody than was on the surface.
And when he’d held her hand, when their lips had met for the first kiss, it’d felt more right than anything he had ever felt before. For those moments, Lance was normal. Just a guy kissing a girl and wondering if this was what love felt like. Wondering if it was possible to be hit with it so fast, and under such unexpected circumstances.
But since when had life ever followed any sort of script? Since when did life care about the circumstances? Things happened when they happened, and you could drive yourself mad trying to make heads or tails of it.
“Well?” Susan said.
Lance’s eyes refocused on the room, the table, his friends. They were both looking at him expectantly. Lance shook his head, resurfacing from the deep waters of his daydream. “I’m sorry, what?”
“What are you looking at?” Luke said, starting on yet another slice of pizza. “What’s that in your hand? It looks like it spooked you.”
Lance sat up and laid the sheet of paper on the table, running his hand over it to press it smooth, his mind scrambling for some sort of plausible explanation. Something he could work with to drive this conversation where he needed it to go.
And then it came to him. Something so convenient he almost laughed. His mother’s words echoed in his head, an adage of hers that Lance consistently found validated.
(Do you, a person with your gifts, honestly believe things could be so random?)
He picked up another slice of pizza and took a bite. Chewed and swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Susan, what’s everybody in town saying I’m here for?”
Susan’s eyes widened, like she’d been caught in some sort of lie. “What? Why are you asking me?”
Lance smiled, held up his hands to show he meant no harm. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I know people are gossiping. Joan made that pretty apparent this morning at breakfast. I just figured you’d probably heard something through the grapevine.” He waited a second, then asked again, “Why do people think I’m here?”
Susan sighed in a sort of admission. “They think you’re a reporter, or journalist or something like that. They think you’re going to write one of those true crime books about the night of the murder, or some big exposé piece for a big magazine. Try and win a Pulitzer. Whatever reason they believe, they think you’re here for money. Blood money, to be specific.”
Lance wasn’t surprised by any of this. He supposed it could be worse. “So I don’t have a lot of fans, huh?”
Luke and Susan both shook their heads.
“And what do you both think?”
Luke shrugged his shoulders and finished off the bottle of water. “You seem like a cool dude, and you don’t seem to be hurting anybody by being here, so I don’t really think it matters what you’re up to. You say you’re here for work, that’s good enough for me. Innocent till proven guilty. That’s America, right?”
Lance looked at Susan. She seemed a bit more apprehensive than her boyfriend, but her eyes were still soft, kind. “I agree with Luke,” she said, “but I also don’t think you’re telling us everything.”
And Lance wouldn’t. It was better for everybody if they never knew the truth.
“I can promise you this,” Lance said. “I’m not here to hurt anybody or disrespect anybody’s memory, and I’m certainly not here to cause any trouble.”
Luke and Susan waited. Knew there was more coming.
“So, I’m asking you to trust me here, okay?”
The two of them looked at each other, then back to Lance. Nodded.
“For the sake of everything going forward, let’s assume that I am a journalist. And as a journalist, I have to protect my sources. So please, don’t ask me how I’ve gotten certain information, because I can’t tell you. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but believe me, all I’m trying to do is get to the bottom of this. I want to know who really killed the Benchley family.”
Susan sat forward at this, alert and eyes glinting with … was it excitement? “So you don’t think Mark Benchley did it, do you?”
Lance heard the voices in his head—the argument between who he presumed to be Mark Benchley and the mystery fourth person who’d been in the house that night. “I think there’s more to it,” Lance said. Then, without any other preamble, he slid the sheet of paper across the table to Susan. Luke slid over close to examine it with her. “What do you make of that list of names?” Lance asked.
Before Susan could answer, there was a knock at the front door.
“Expecting somebody else?” Luke asked.
Lance stood from the table. “No,” he said. “I usually never am.”
22
Lance walked to the door slowly, hearing Luke and Susan’s steady footfalls behind him. Keeping their distance, but curious all the same. The yellow light from inside the house reflected off the windows next to the door, making it impossible to see out, try to catch a glimpse of who’d knocked.
Then another knock at the door. Not urgent, not angry, just a simple one-two rap of knuckles, loud enough to hopefully be heard. Lance reached the door and then turned, whispered to his friends. “It’s probably fine, but just in case, get ready to go out the back door.” He nodded back toward the kitchen, but neither Luke nor Susan turned to check. They nodded and kept staring at the door, waiting with breath held to see who was on the other side.
Lance turned the knob and opened the door, slowly, only a third of the way. Peered out.
Saw the man and the boy who’d been chopping wood earlier as Lance had walked up the trail. The boy held the man’s hand, standing shyly, almost hiding behind the man’s leg. He was wearing jeans and dirty sneakers and a red flannel shirt. The man, also clad in jeans and wearing a tight-fitting black t-shirt despite the cool night air, held a battery powered lantern in the other hand, its light bright and fierce. Lance felt his body loosen, his muscles relax and his lungs suck in a full breath of air that almost sounded like a sigh as he exhaled it. Then he opened the door completely and said, “Hi.”
“Miss Susan! Miss Susan!” The little boy shot from the porch and ran on still-unsteady legs across the threshold and into the foyer, rushing to Susan’s side and wrapping
her leg with a hug.
“Hey, Ethan! How are you, sweetie pie?” Susan squatted down and kissed the little boy on the top of the head and returned the hug. Ethan started to talk rapidly, and to Lance, mostly incoherently, using his hands to animate what appeared to be all sorts of adventures and fascinating tales. Susan smiled and nodded and played along and encouraged.
Luke stood and watched, disinterested, rubbing the side of his face and then looking to Lance, as if to ask, What’s happening?
Lance had the same question. He turned and found the man still standing politely on the porch, eyes locked onto the boy as he continued his rapid-fire storytelling. Then the man’s gaze shifted back to Lance, and his smile broadened and gleamed in the darkness.
“Hi,” he said. “Sorry about that. Ethan loves Susan. More than me, I’m afraid.” He laughed, and Lance offered a small grin. It was all he could force. His confusion was still overpowering the rest of him. The man, seeming to sense this, said, “Oh, sorry.” He stuck out his hand. “Jacob Morgan. I’m sorry it’s getting so late, but I’d heard there was somebody new staying here, and then I saw you walking up the trail earlier, so I figured Ethan and I would come and introduce ourselves. You know”—he shrugged—“since we’re basically neighbors and all.”
Lance shook Jacob’s hand. It was rough and calloused and the grip was strong. “Lance Brody,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you. I saw you chopping wood when I walked up. I didn’t figure you could see me, though, because of all the trees.”
Jacob nodded, as if this was a story he’d heard a hundred times. “I mean, I probably couldn’t have picked you out of a lineup, but I got the general idea. Human. Male. Tall. Not Sasquatch.” He smiled.
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