Hollow Road

by H. P. Bayne

  “I know. It looks broken. Try not to move around too much.”

  “I’m trying, believe me. If you weren’t lowered down here, does that mean you fell too?”

  “Yeah, probably the same way you did.”

  Emory lifted his head at the neck, eyes growing rounder as he sought out his companion’s. Sully hoped the hood was doing its job, concealing his eyes in shadow. “Did you see her?”

  “By ‘her,’ I’m guessing you mean Faceless Flo?”

  Emory managed a tight nod before lowering his head back to the ground. “I saw something while I was in Loons Hollow. I couldn’t tell for sure—it was kind of out of the corner of my eye—but it looked like a woman in a white dress. My girlfriend and I have been going out there for quite a while, hunting for Flo. I thought about calling Takara—that’s my girlfriend—to come with me, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. I felt like I needed to follow, and fast. I ran all the way out of the old town and into the woods, chasing after this person or ghost or whatever. I never did see her full-on; just a flash here and there. It was weird. I kept feeling I should turn back, but it was like I couldn’t.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “So you did see her?” Emory’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Yeah. I did. I guess I ended up down here the same way you did.”

  “Only you don’t look hurt too bad.”

  “I managed to slow my descent a bit,” Sully said. “Are you hurt anywhere besides your leg?”

  “Everything’s sore, but my leg’s the worst. And I’m really cold.”

  The statement formed a reminder, and Sully’s gaze returned to the arms Emory had wrapped tight around himself. Sully shrugged out of his outer jacket, draping it over the injured man’s upper body.

  “Thanks,” Emory said.

  “Not sure how much good it will do.”

  “Still appreciate it.”

  “You said you saw her,” Sully said. “Have you seen ghosts before?”

  “Once, when I was a little kid. I saw my grandmother in my room late at night. I found out later she’d died a couple hours before that.”

  Sully was thinking through how far down that road to go, when Emory re-asked a question of his own.

  “You didn’t really answer me before. Is someone else around who can help us?”

  Sully thought he had answered the question, but supposed there was plenty of reason why Emory’s head might not be fully in the game at the moment. “The only other living being up there is my dog.”

  Emory swore under his breath, prompting Sully to tack on a more hopeful statement.

  “A friend of mine will find us, though. He knows I came out here looking for you and the ghost. If I don’t show up, he’ll come searching for me.”

  “Yeah, but you said there are already people trying to find me. Takara would have called for help pretty early, so that means whoever came spent the whole day looking and didn’t find me. What makes you think your friend is going to have better luck?”

  “Search parties only go on for so long. My buddy won’t give up until he finds us.”

  “Must be a good friend.”

  “The best. He’s… like a brother to me.” It seemed a good transition, an opportunity for Sully to launch into that other topic he’d considered upon his first solid view of Emory’s features. “What about you? You have family?”

  “No siblings. It was always just me and my mom growing up.”

  “Your dad’s not in the picture?”

  “Why are you asking?” Suspicion coloured Emory’s tone, and Sully thought fast. It was true this wasn’t the sort of chat you had with a stranger.

  “Just making conversation. We’re in a bad spot, and talking about family makes me feel better. I thought it might make you feel better too.”

  “Well, it doesn’t. Not about my father, anyway.” A pause followed, but one pregnant with unspoken thought. Sully let it play through, avoiding filling it with further questions. He knew he’d done the right thing when Emory again spoke. “The answer is no. My father’s not in the picture, and I’m happy to keep it that way. He bailed when I was a kid, left my mom and me alone. The guy’s a prick of the highest order. I barely ever see him, and I’m not exactly eager to change that. Last time was a couple of years ago, and the only reason I went to see him was because he manages to get this medication my mom’s sister needs for her mental health problem.”

  Sully risked taking the conversation one step further. “You look like someone I’ve seen before. I used to know someone who was a patient at Lockwood Psychiatric Hospital.”

  “My father’s head orderly there. That’s how he was always able to get the meds my aunt needed. I don’t really know anything else about him, and I don’t care.”

  But Sully cared. Emory’s reply had given him the answer he needed. Larson Hackman was Emory Davis’s father.

  Unfortunately, it had opened up a new can of worms. Sully’s time as a patient at Lockwood had been spent under the influence of heavy medication. He had very little visual memory of the place, save within those moments he was restrained within the Blue Room. If Emory had seen him during a reluctant visit to his father, there was a chance he might recognize him now—beard, long hair and cover of darkness notwithstanding.

  “Did it ever bother you, seeing the patients there?” Sully asked. “Some of them were pretty messed up, as I recall.”

  “I never really saw them. I waited in the reception area, and Larson came to meet me there with the meds. All I wanted was to get in and get out. The only good thing I got out of those visits, besides the meds, was meeting my girlfriend.”

  Sully treaded carefully, “Ara, you said her name was?”

  “Takara,” Emory corrected, leaving Sully to puzzle through that one. Ara had always insisted on being called by the shorter term, having told Sully she didn’t much like her full given name.

  “So she was a visitor, too, I’m assuming?”

  “Yeah. Her boyfriend was a patient there, some guy who’d apparently tried to kill himself a couple of times. She refused to date me at first because of him. We were just friends until he got killed in some freak accident a short time later. When he was in there, though, he was basically a vegetable, she said. She didn’t think he even knew she was there.”

  He knew, Sully thought to himself. He knew, and he’d been grateful for her visits. If only he’d had the chance to tell her.

  He found he couldn’t fault her for moving on, even if it was with the son of one of his worst enemies, and even if she’d met Emory while Sully was technically alive and present in the next room. Sully knew how badly Dez, Eva and his mom had been impacted by those visits. He knew Marc hadn’t even had the strength to face going. Ara couldn’t have had it any easier, devoting time, energy and emotion to a seemingly hopeless and heartbreaking task. She’d recognized a chance at happiness and she’d taken it. She deserved it.

  “You sound like you care about her,” Sully said. He was prying; he knew that. But it was a necessary prying. No way he’d simply sit back and watch Ara get hurt if it turned out Emory was nothing more than Hackman Junior.

  “Yeah, I care,” Emory said. “I love her. Honestly, I can see us getting married one day… if I can ever get out of this damn pit.”

  A small part of Sully wasn’t so sure he wanted to see Emory pulled free, not if it meant losing Ara forever. Sully, too, had entertained ideas about her, about what life might be like once he could finally come out of hiding. He’d never been sure about marriage, uncertain whether his life’s path lent itself to something so normal or permanent. But he had pictured Ara at his side nonetheless.

  Suddenly the picture had changed, and he didn’t like the look of it.

  It seemed a good time to get off the subject.

  “I’m thinking it’s a solid twenty feet to the top,” Sully said. “I’m wondering if there’s a way I can scale it. If I can get out of here, I can get us help.”

  Emory wasn’
t about to argue, so Sully dug through the pockets of the jacket he planned to leave draped over the injured man, retrieving his wallet and the keys to Emily’s car and Dez’s apartment. The wallet wasn’t much good for anything. He didn’t have a driver’s licence anymore, and he’d removed all of his identification just in case. But he hadn’t been able to part with the couple of family photos he kept tucked away in there, and the thought of a stranger finding them—let alone one who was related to Hackman—unsettled him. Placing the items into the pockets of his hoodie and jeans, he readied himself for the upcoming task.

  He had the height to pull off the move, so long as he was able to keep his upper back and his feet pressed to the walls. It would involve shuffling up, one painstaking step at a time, and a level of patience he wasn’t sure he possessed. But with no immediate hope of rescue, this seemed the only option.

  Looking up once more at the gap in the earth above his head, Sully leaned back against one wall and placed his feet against the opposite side. The rock felt slick beneath his boots, a constant threat of slipping. And already he could feel a dampness seeping through his jacket. But his position held, and he took some comfort in that. If he could maintain that until he reached the top, he could get help to Emory.

  If Sadie would allow it.

  “You sure you’re okay for a bit?” he asked the injured man.

  “I’ll have to be.”

  “If this works, I’ll be back soon with help.”

  “Then good luck.”

  By the time he got partway up the crevice, Sully realized he would need more than luck.

  This might work if the walls were even, and if they were bone dry. Twice now, he’d almost completely lost his footing. And twice he’d had to shuffle sideways to get around an outcropping of rock that impeded further progress.

  His current angle prevented him from looking up, making it impossible to tell precisely how close to the top he’d come when the inevitable happened. In this spot—likely the place he’d slipped from when he ended up next to Emory in the first place—there was nowhere to grip, the stone smooth and wet. Holding onto what he still had of a grip against a rougher area beneath, Sully cast the light from his cellphone around him, wanting a spot that might prove easier. What he saw was purely unhelpful, evidence of the crevice widening out far enough he wouldn’t be able to pull off his current move with any success.

  He could try to push forward, move up farther. But a glance down changed his mind. He was higher than expected, Emory a distant face blinking in the light from the cellphone. He estimated this was indeed where he’d lost his grip the last time, and it was only a matter of luck he’d escaped without serious injury. The last thing either of them, or any future rescuers, needed was having to cope with two seriously hurt men.

  The best bet seemed to be giving the search party or Dez—or even Rosie Dalton, with any luck—a chance to find them. If too much time passed with no rescue, and no immediate hope of it, Sully would try again.

  Emory appeared dismayed when Sully returned to him a few long minutes later. “What happened?”

  “The rock’s really slick, and it’s too flat in one spot up there to get a good grip on it. I was lucky the last time not to break anything. I might not be so lucky a second time.”

  “So we’re stuck down here? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “For now,” Sully said. “I can try later, if no one comes around to help us. Maybe everything will be less damp during the day. It feels kind of humid right now. If that bit of rock was dry at least, I could probably make it up okay.”

  Sully gave Emory what he intended to be a reassuring smile, speaking through it so Emory could hear his attempt at confidence. “Don’t worry. My buddy will come for me. He’ll find us.”

  “One thing you should probably consider,” Emory said. “What happens if the ghost finds him first?”

  14

  Early morning sunlight bathed the master bedroom in gleaming warmth.

  Dez felt a warm glow of his own as his mind returned to last night. Eva lay next to him, eyes closed in gentle slumber. He rolled onto his side to study her, eyes tracing her delicate features, her narrow yet strong shoulders, the swell of her breasts beneath the bedding. He tried and failed to resist the urge to close the slight distance between them, draping an arm across her form as he inhaled the scent of her hair. In the heady enthusiasm of last night, he hadn’t had the time or the inclination for this level of study. Now a smile formed on his lips as recognition took hold. He knew this smell: tones of vanilla and some sort of flower he couldn’t identify, the scent of her favourite leave-in conditioner.

  It was the smell of home.

  A humming noise formed on his lips as he nuzzled deeper into her hair, eyes closed to allow him to more fully bask in the scent.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice held a combination of sleepiness and amusement.

  “Memorizing,” he said. “I miss the smell of you.”

  She chuckled. “Clearly, you’ve forgotten post-workout me.”

  “I miss that too.”

  “You’re weird.” She turned her head to kiss him anyway. “Morning, Snowman.”

  He smiled into her lips. “Morning, babe.”

  No risk now of waking her, he tightened his hold, drawing her more fully to him.

  “I don’t want to go back to Riverview,” he said.

  “So don’t.”

  “But Sully—”

  “We’ve got room here, you know. Now that Kayleigh knows about him, he could stay here with us.”

  “I appreciate that. I really do. But the problem was always bigger than Kayleigh knowing. There are too many people who want him. The risks are too huge. I’d never forgive myself if somebody found him here, and if something happened to you or Kayleigh because of it. And I know Sully feels the same.”

  “What risks, exactly?”

  “We’ve talked about this.”

  “Remind me. Right now, all I know is I want you home. I need you to convince me otherwise.”

  Dez allowed himself a moment to bask in that statement. It didn’t last long. It couldn’t. Not until they got all of this resolved.

  “First of all, there’s his birth family.”

  “Who believes he’s dead.”

  “For now. Let’s face it. Greta Raynor’s not exactly what I’d call trustworthy. If she chooses to go back to them—and she might if she falls back into addiction—there will be nothing to stop her from telling them.”

  “Except the possibility of a murder conviction. Her silence is about more than her getting clean or being with Forbes instead of her batty mother and grandmother. If she isn’t careful, she’s looking at a life sentence for killing Brennan Wakeman.”

  “Even so, you know addicts aren’t exactly reliable. In the middle of an alcohol or drug high, people will say and do all sorts of things they might not otherwise. If she ends up back with her family, and something slips out, that would be it. Next thing you know, that pair of loons would be rolling back into town planning to set fire to whatever building Sully happens to be in at the time. Then there’s the whole Lockwood thing. Gerhardt will want him back in there the second he finds out he’s alive, and there’s a lot more to that than we ever realized.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dez had been sitting on this secret ever since Emily told him the truth about what Gerhardt had done to Lucky Dule, Sully’s birth mother. There was no question Sully would want to know; he had a right to know. But he had enough on his plate, and the last thing Dez wanted was to give his brother one more thing he would struggle to digest.

  “I haven’t told anyone about this, but I know I can trust you not to say anything. I don’t know what to do, and I could use someone to talk to.”

  His tone had changed; he could hear it in his own voice. Eva responded by turning fully onto her side and propping her head up in one hand as she studied him from beneath lowered brows. She didn’t say anything, just wa
ited him out. He loved that about her, her disinclination to fill every gap with unneeded questions, her way of letting him get things out at his own pace.

  By the time she finally interrupted with a question, it was one for which he was grateful, keeping him from having to say the words out loud himself.

  “You’re trying to tell me Gerhardt is Sully’s biological father, aren’t you?”

  Dez nodded his confirmation.

  “And you haven’t told Sully?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s got enough to worry about, don’t you think?”

  “Dez, you can’t keep treating Sully like a kid. He’s a grown man and he’s a mature one at that. Far too mature for his age, actually. A whole lot of twenty-four-year-old guys are busy chasing skirts and having drinking competitions with their buddies. Sully’s helping homicide victims get justice. He’s never been a kid, not really. You need to give him more credit.”

  “I know what you’re saying makes sense. But how exactly am I supposed to tell him he’s the product of a rape? And let’s not forget, Gerhardt confined and tortured him. Sully’s got plenty of issues with the man already. How’s he going to react when I tell him the guy who gave him PTSD is his biological father?”

  “You know how he’ll react. He’ll be upset. He’ll be angry. He might even hate himself for a while. But he’ll come back. He always comes back.”

  “The last time, he only came back because I was in trouble. He was gone two years, and he would’ve stayed gone if Aiden hadn’t found him for me. What if this drives him away again? Or worse, what if he decides to confront Gerhardt? The second he reveals himself, he not only risks returning to Lockwood as a patient, his life will be in jeopardy because of the Dules, and Raynor will be clear to pursue murder charges against him over Betty Schuster’s death.”

  “You don’t think Forbes is still after him on that, do you? It seems pretty obvious Sully didn’t kill Betty.”

  “Obvious to you and me and anyone with half a mind. In my experience, the obvious is lost on Raynor.”