“Holy shit, is he dead? Dude, are you all right? What the hell happened here, man?”
The voice was muffled. Lance’s ears had still been ringing from the cannon-like explosion of gun fire inside the house. He looked up and saw Luke standing at his side, Susan close behind.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he’d said.
Luke’s eyes were wide, and he looked over to where Sheriff Kruger was headed back in their direction. “Dude, you got some serious air coming off that porch. Took me back to when we played each other. I forgot how high you could jump.”
And then Sheriff Kruger was there and telling Luke and Susan to get back in their car, and looking down at Lance like he was seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time.
And then everything had been a whirlwind.
Police cars and an ambulance and a firetruck had all flashed and screamed their way onto the hillside, heavy tires digging deep ruts into the wet and muddied yard.
Deputies and paramedics had scrambled here and there, barking orders to each other but also all looking to Kruger for direction.
Lance assured the young male paramedic who’d approached him that he was fine, and after a brief examination, the man had agreed.
Jacob Morgan had been loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled away, his wrists cuffed to the side rail of the gurney. From the looks of it, he was conscious, but barely. A large bloody bandage had been haphazardly applied to the gunshot wound the sheriff had inflicted on the upper right side of his chest. An oxygen mask was over his face. They loaded him into the ambulance and it drove off, flashing lights like fireworks in the night sky.
And then Ray Kruger had walked up to Lance with a look on his face that said the man was expecting a terrible answer. “Where’s the boy?” he asked. “My guy says he’s not at Morgan’s house.”
Lance looked the sheriff in the eye, and instead of the tired, sad, haunted man he’d become, Lance saw the eyes of a young, innocent boy, playing with his uncle in the basement of the house directly in front of them. Suffering things he wouldn’t come to fully understand until many years later.
Lance pulled the key from his pocket and handed it to Kruger. Told him what he’d find.
Ray Kruger looked down at the key in his hand for a long time, and Lance didn’t want to know what the man’s mind was conjuring. Then the sheriff nodded, turned and looked at the house, which had taken on a towering, menacing appearance in the stormy night, and walked up the porch steps and across the threshold, letting the house swallow him whole.
Later, in the same interview room Lance had been placed in when he’d been accused of assaulting Victoria Bellows, after the many rounds of questioning and statement taking and fact checking and rechecking, Lance had been left alone for maybe only ten minutes, but after the long night, that’d been enough time for his eyes to grow heavy and sleep to creep up his spine. He’d just about face-planted into the desk when the interview room door had creaked open and startled him awake. He found Ray Kruger standing in the doorway, two Styrofoam cups of coffee in his hands. He elbowed the door closed and sat down at the table, handing one of the cups to Lance.
“Thank you,” Lance said. He sipped it. It was terrible, but also the best coffee he’d ever had.
The sheriff sipped his, too, eying Lance, but never saying a word.
Lance, never one to shy away from breaking the ice, said, “So, you have a great-nephew.”
And just like that, everything in Sheriff Ray Kruger’s face softened. His eyes lightened and his lips twitched up in what could only be described as the makings of a smile. “Yeah,” he said, taking a long sip of coffee that Lance thought was only a ploy to hide the look of elation on the man’s face. “I guess I do.”
Family is powerful, Lance thought. Family is what this man has always cared about the most.
“Morgan confessed to everything,” Kruger said. “I went and had a chat with him after they got him patched up. Showed him the journal. He cracked like a nut. I think this has been weighing on him a long time. He doesn’t care what happens to him. All he keeps asking is what’s going to happen to Ethan.”
Lance thought about this. “What will happen to Ethan, sir?”
“That’s for me to worry about,” Kruger said.
Lance said nothing. Nodded once. But his mind had been shown flashes of future memories Ray Kruger would make with his new great-nephew. Adventures in the park, Little League games, school plays. A toy badge and a set of flimsy plastic handcuffs for Christmas because Ethan said he wanted to be sheriff when he grew up.
Family.
Family was a wonderful, strange, powerful thing.
Family, Lance had deduced during his long hours of giving statements and waiting in interview rooms, was why he’d mistakenly believed Ethan possessed abilities similar to his own. The boy hadn’t lied to him when Lance had asked if Ethan had ever heard voices in his head before, or seen people who weren’t really there. Hearing Mary Benchley in the farmhouse had been Ethan’s first—and likely only—experience communicating with the dead.
Family.
Lance remembered his own connection with his mother. The direct line of thought and instinct and communication that had seemed to exist between them. A link. Unbreakable. Forged at Lance’s birth. Mother and son.
The same link had existed between Ethan and Mary, although much weaker and diminished after Mary’s death. Lance had reasoned all these years that for a spirit to present itself required some great energy, some great purpose. Mary Benchley’s spirit might not have been completely trapped on this side of the veil, had found it impossible to present herself to Lance for whatever reason the governing rules of the Universe dictated, but she’d been able to use him. Those moments when the world had wobbled and his vision blurred and his head buzzed and his stomach rolled—that had been Mary, tapping into Lance’s power and abilities, using him as a sort of signal booster to reach out and touch her son. Helping them both to discover the truth.
It had been a first for Lance, being used in that way. He wondered how many more firsts there would be. How much of his own ability he still didn’t understand.
Then there was a long period of silence. Lance sat opposite the sheriff, and the two men sipped at their coffee and enjoyed the quietness, the calmness of the room. It had been a long, terrible night for both of them.
“My uncle molested me in that house when I was a child,” Kruger said. And even though this was not new information to Lance, he still nearly spat his coffee into his cup. “More than once. I’ve never told that to a soul.”
Kruger’s eyes stared deep into his coffee cup, getting lost in the blackness. He spoke slowly. “Tonight was the first time I’ve stepped foot in the place in almost thirty years.”
Lance said nothing.
“I knew that room was down there,” Kruger said. “I never knew how to open it, because Uncle Joe never let me come down until he had the door open, but I knew it was there. I keep thinking … the only way that Natalie could have known was if Uncle Joe showed her, too. And if he showed her the room … does that mean…?” Kruger trailed off, his eyes sinking deeper into the coffee. “I never imagined there’d be anything back there. Even after that night when they died … I … I fucking convinced myself there was no way anybody had gotten into that room. I lied to myself for years. A fucking coward. Too afraid to go in a house because of some bad things that happened to me a long time ago. I was the only person alive who had the information needed to find the last piece of evidence to help us figure out what really happened that night, and I sat on it for six years.” He shook his head. “The worst part … I’d still be sitting on it if you hadn’t shown up.”
Kruger looked up then, his eyes ripe with tears. “I’ll never forgive myself for that, Lance. Never in my life will I forgive myself for being such a coward.”
Lance said nothing.
Sheriff Kruger downed the rest of his coffee in two large gulps and threw the c
up across the room. It floated in the air like a fallen leaf and landed softly on the ground, dribbling drops of spilled coffee.
“You’re going to have to try, sir,” Lance said. “For Ethan.” Then: “For Natalie, and for Mary. For your family.”
And then Kruger had cried. Choked back sobs and large splashes of tears on the table. A man shedding his past, stripping away the remnants of a demon he’d been carrying for nearly his entire life. A man with a new future.
When he’d finished, Kruger wiped his eyes with his hands and looked at Lance, no hint of embarrassment on his face. He asked, “How did you do it? How did you figure this out?”
Lance thought about his answer for a long time before finally shrugging and saying, “Right place, right time. I guess we can thank the Universe.”
Sheriff Kruger gave Lance a long look that told him he was well aware there was more to this story, but he was going to take Lance’s answer at face value. The man nodded once, shook Lance’s hand, and said, “Thank you.”
And then Lance’s cell phone and backpack were returned to him and he was allowed to leave.
After a quick stop at R.G. Homes, where Lance had very politely asked Rich Bellows for his deposit back, which he was given, and had not so subtly suggested that Rich tell Sheriff Kruger about the emails and money he’d been receiving from Jacob Morgan, Lance told Luke that he’d walk the rest of the way back to the bus station.
“Are you sure?” Susan asked, stepping out of the rear passenger side. She looked exhausted, and leaned against Luke along the side of the Jeep. “We don’t mind, do we, Luke?”
Luke shook his head and kissed the top of Susan’s head as she nestled it against his shoulder. “Don’t mind at all,” he said. “We can go get some breakfast first, if you want. I’m starved.”
Lance looked at his two friends, envied the affection between them. Loved them for their kindness. People like Luke and Susan helped remind him of the good there was in the world.
“I appreciate it,” Lance said. “But I think I’m ready to hit the road. I think I’m done here, you know?”
They both nodded. Susan’s eyes were growing heavy.
Luke stuck out his fist. “If you’re ever back this way, give me a shout. We’ll get a pickup game together.”
Lance bumped his fist against Luke’s and nodded. “Sounds great. Thanks for chauffeuring me around town.” Then he looked at Susan.
It had been her who’d saved his life.
While Lance had been giving one of his initial statements at the sheriff’s office, he’d asked Ray Kruger how the man had known to be at the farmhouse. How had Lance been so lucky to jump off that front porch and find the sheriff waiting?
“Susan Marsh called the station saying she’d gotten a disturbing voicemail from you, said she heard a bunch of commotion, like things slamming and breaking. She sounded terrified and worried and said she was going to go up herself if nobody here would.” The sheriff had shrugged then. “Any other day, I might have sent somebody else. But something about tonight…” He trailed off. “Anyway, you’re lucky I didn’t shoot you instead. I’d heard the gunshot but saw your hands were empty when you jumped off the porch like goddamn Evel Knievel.”
Lance remembered his phone call to Susan. The way he’d felt so compelled to call and then so angry when she hadn’t answered. He silently thanked the Universe. Didn’t tell the sheriff how little luck had to do with it.
After thinking of a million things to say to Susan, Lance finally settled on, “Thank you. For everything. I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Susan pushed herself off her boyfriend and sleepily gave Lance a hug, slipping her hands beneath his backpack to give him a proper embrace.
Lance hugged her back.
And then they left, piling into Luke’s Jeep and driving down the street. Probably to live the rest of their lives together.
Lance walked the opposite direction.
Bought a bus ticket. The first one out of town.
Waited half an hour to board and then climbed up the bus’s stairs with a handful of other travelers, most of which were staring like zombies down at their smartphones.
He found a seat near the front and tossed his backpack into the seat next to him.
Leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
As the bus pulled away, Lance started to drift off to sleep, the image of Luke and Susan leaning against Luke’s Jeep standing out in his mind like a sudden recollection of something he’d forgotten.
He let this image float in the forefront of his thoughts for a long time before he finally opened his eyes and lifted his head. Dug in his pocket for his phone and pulled it out.
Flipped it open.
Scrolled through his contacts until he got to the Ls.
38
It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, and most of the weekday breakfast rush was over at Annabelle’s Apron, Westhaven’s upstanding citizens having hustled off to their nine-to-fives after scarfing down plates of eggs and gallons of coffee.
Leah, who’d only been working at the diner for about a week, was in the back corner booth, counting her tips with Samantha, the other waitress on duty this morning, and laughing about the plate of bacon Samantha had spilled in Hank Peterson’s lap.
Samantha squealed as she told the story. “And you just know he wanted me to reach down there and pick it up. Probably be the most action he’s gotten in twenty years!”
Leah laughed and folded her stack of money neatly, placing it back in her apron. “You mean other than Margie, right?”
This caused the girls to break into a hysterical fit of laughter that made Margie slide through the door from the kitchen and give them a stern look. This only made Leah and Samantha laugh harder, and after a small grin of her own and a shake of her head, Margie disappeared back into the kitchen.
Samantha slid from the booth and said, “Come on, we better get back to work before she has us waiting on Hank full-time.”
Leah nodded and started to slide out of her side of the booth when her iPhone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out and checked the screen. She had a new message.
Her heart jumped into her throat and her hands started to shake when she saw the name of the sender.
She failed to enter her passcode correctly twice before finally getting it right.
The message was short—three words, to be exact—but they brought to Leah’s face a smile that was unrivaled.
“Hey,” Samantha said, “what’s got you so happy there?”
Leah looked up and found the other girl holding a half-full coffeepot, staring at her with curious eyes.
She looked down and read the message again.
And again and again and again.
I miss you.
Epilogue
Two weeks later, Ripton’s Grove’s sheriff, Ray Kruger, sat at his desk, looking out over the sea of scattered paperwork and an ancient desktop computer that he hadn’t used for anything other than solitaire in a decade. On the opposite side of the desk, sitting in a worn and sagging office chair that had been sat in by countless concerned and worried citizens over the years, was a tired-looking man of maybe fifty years old with a head full of shaggy gray hair. He was rail thin and wore a suit that might have fit him well a long time ago but now was many sizes too big.
Sheriff Ray Kruger held the newspaper clipping in his hand and looked down at the image—a tall, athletic boy, captured in the act of what appeared to be a high school basketball game.
“And you say this boy is your son?” Kruger asked, looking up from the picture and meeting the gray-haired man’s eyes.
The man nodded and said in a weary voice, dripping with sadness, “I’m really worried about him, Sheriff. Haven’t heard from him in months. Have you seen him? I heard he might have passed through here.”
Ray Kruger looked down at the grainy newspaper print again. Looked into the boy’s face for a long time.
&
nbsp; Felt something tugging at his gut. Some might say it was a cop’s intuition, if you believed in such a thing.
Sheriff Ray Kruger handed the clipping carefully back to the man in the chair across from him. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t say I recognize him at all.”
And then the gray-haired man did something that Ray Kruger found very strange. He turned his head and looked into the corner of the room, his eyes narrowing as if focusing in on something that wasn’t there. Then the man nodded and left without a thank-you or a handshake.
When the man was gone, Ray Kruger turned and looked into the corner behind him. Saw nothing except a dusty set of golf clubs and a faded KRUGER FOR SHERIFF campaign sign resting against the wall.
What Kruger couldn’t see was the spirit of Sheriff Bill Willard, staring at the closed office door and thinking to himself, The bastards are coming for you, Lance. I hope you’re ready when they get there.
Author’s note
Thanks so much for reading the first three titles in the Lance Brody series. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing them. If you did enjoy the stories and have a few minutes to spare, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review on Amazon saying so. Reviews help authors more than you can imagine, and help readers like you find more great books to read. Win-win!
-Michael Robertson Jr
For all the latest info, including release dates, giveaways, and special events, you can visit the page below to sign up for the Michael Robertson, Jr. newsletter. (He promises to never spam you!)
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