by Cindy Myers
“That’s right.” Olivia smiled at Cameron and Theo. “Hey, boys. We’re going to get started in about twenty minutes or so, but you’re welcome to pick out an easel and do some drawings with colored chalk if you want.”
“I guess you’re babysitting today?” Maggie forced herself to smile and sound pleasant as she addressed Mindy.
“I told Shelly I’d bring the boys here and she can pick them up when she gets off at the bank.” Her gaze shifted toward the goats at the other end of the park. “What kind of place keeps livestock in the city park?” She laughed. “And I thought I was originally from the sticks.”
“And here I thought you were a sophisticated city girl,” Maggie said. She caught Olivia’s eye and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“Oh, I haven’t lived in the country for years.” Mindy fluffed her hair. “I moved to Dallas when I was still a teenager to pursue my modeling and acting career.”
“I see.” Maggie congratulated herself on not saying the half dozen snide remarks that came to mind. “Well, I’m sure you’re anxious to get back to it. It must be very boring for you here.”
“Oh, I’m managing to find a few ways to amuse myself. The right company can make even a boring place exciting.” Her sly smile sent a shiver up Maggie’s spine.
“Are you gonna fill all those easels up by yourself, Olivia?”
The women turned to see Bob Prescott striding toward them. “Hello, Bob,” Olivia greeted the old man, a regular at the Dirty Sally, where she’d waited tables and tended bar when she first came to Eureka.
“When are you going to come back to work?” Bob brushed a kiss on her cheek and nodded to Maggie. “Nothing against that husband of yours, but he don’t put a proper head on the draft like this little gal.”
“My bartending days are over,” Olivia said. “I’m teaching art to kids.” She nodded to the easels.
“That was some performance you put on last night,” Bob told Mindy. “I don’t think Eureka has ever seen anything quite like that.”
“Why, thank you.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I was happy to be able to share my talent.”
“What talent is that?” Maggie tried to keep the edge from her voice.
“The Dirty Sally’s got a karaoke machine now,” Bob said. “Mindy did quite a few numbers. She was very enthusiastic.” He winked.
“I tried to talk Jameso into doing a duet with me, but he was too busy behind the bar,” Mindy said.
“Jameso doesn’t sing,” Maggie said.
“Oh, but he does!” Her eyes widened. “By the end of the evening, we talked him into singing a Bob Seger song. He did a great job.”
Maggie looked to Bob, who nodded. “He did. I wouldn’t have believed it, but he has a pretty good voice.”
Maggie wished she were a better actress, or that she knew how to keep her face from betraying her dismay. How did she not know that her husband could sing? What other secrets about himself was he sharing with others but not her? She looked at Mindy, which was a mistake; Maggie had to curl her hands into fists to keep from slapping the smirk off the younger woman’s face.
“What are you doing here, Bob?” Olivia asked, filling in the awkward silence. “I thought this time of morning you were usually at the mine.”
“Daisy’s moving the goats today and I volunteered to help her.” He nodded toward the herd, and the white-haired woman who’d emerged from her camper and was making her way toward them.
“Anxious to have the goats out of town?” Maggie asked.
“Well, they aren’t going far,” Bob said. “Brice Alcott, just north of town, hired her to do weed mitigation on his place. He saw what a good job the girls did here, so he wanted to try it out.”
So now the goats were “the girls.” Maggie fought to hide her amusement. “I thought you weren’t a fan of the goats,” she said. “You swore they were a scam.”
“I never said that.” He looked offended.
She was sure he had, but Daisy was within earshot now, so Maggie kept quiet. “Hello Maggie, Olivia,” Daisy said. “I don’t think I know your friend.”
“This is Mindy,” Olivia said. “She’s visiting from Dallas.”
Daisy nodded, then turned to Bob. She looked less pleased to see him. “You’re early. I’m not supposed to be at the ranch until this afternoon.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked almost sheepish. “I needed to get away from the mine for a while, so I figured I’d come hang out with you.”
“I’ve got work to do. I don’t have time to entertain you.”
“You don’t have to entertain me. I can take it easy in your trailer until you need me.”
Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “What are you up to, old man? Don’t you have work to do at the mine?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?”
“I think maybe Bob is trying to avoid the mine right now,” Maggie guessed. “Maybe he doesn’t want to run into a certain private detective who’s made it clear he wants to interview the last man to see Gerald Pershing alive.”
“You mean that good-looking, tall drink of water I’ve seen around?” Daisy asked. “I heard he was an investigator from Texas.”
“I know who you’re talking about,” Mindy said. “He is good looking, though a little old for me.”
The others ignored her. “What have you done now, Bob?” Daisy asked.
“I haven’t done a blasted thing,” Bob said. “But I don’t care to waste my time with a man who’s spent entirely too much time nosing into business that don’t concern him.”
Mindy yawned. “I guess I’m not needed here anymore,” she said. “Maybe I’ll do a little shopping. Is there someplace in town where I can get my nails done?”
“You might ask at Maxi’s salon,” Olivia said. “It’s over on Third Street. Behind the post office.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. I think a good manicure is so important to a woman’s appearance.” She frowned at Maggie’s unpainted nails. “See you all around.” She fluttered her fingers and sashayed back to her car.
“She’s certainly, um, interesting,” Daisy said when Mindy had driven away.
“She put on a show last night,” Bob said. “Throwing herself around on the stage like she was having some kind of fit. After a few beers, it was pretty entertaining.”
Maggie didn’t want to talk about Mindy, or about last night, anymore. “Bob, do you know anything about Gerald Pershing’s disappearance?” she asked.
“If I did, would I tell you, Ms. Reporter?”
“Who is Gerald Pershing and why is everybody so interested in him?” Daisy asked.
“He was a lying, thieving, good-for-nothing swindler who tried to steal all the town’s money,” Bob said. “I don’t have any idea where he is now, though hell wouldn’t be a bad location for the likes of him.”
Daisy turned to Maggie. “Care to translate that into plain English?”
“Gerald worked an investment scam that took most of the town’s treasury,” Maggie said. “The town got some of the money back by selling him shares in a fake mine, which turned out to have gold after all.”
“Then he tried to steal the money back by ordering all these safety improvements for the mine,” Bob said. “But instead of seeing to it that the improvements were made, he siphoned off the money.”
“Which came back to bite him when there was an explosion and part of the mine caved in and there was no way out,” Olivia continued the story. “Bob was trapped down there with him for five days. By the time they were finally rescued, Gerald had agreed to sell his mine shares to Bob. He left town and no one has seen him since.”
“Good riddance,” Bob said.
“So why not just tell this Duke character that you didn’t have anything to do with Gerald’s disappearance and you don’t know where he is, and be done with it?” Maggie asked.
Bob studied her. “If you’d known your father better, you’d know the answer to that
question,” he said.
Maggie stiffened. “What does Jake have to do with this?” She’d heard plenty of stories about her father since she’d come to Eureka. He hadn’t had the guts to contact her during her lifetime, but he’d left everything he owned to her, and she’d met plenty of people who would attest to both his kindness and generosity, and his toughness and at times, downright meanness. She’d formed a picture of a complex, angry, hurting man she’d probably never figure out. “I thought the two of you were enemies.”
“Oh, we didn’t see eye to eye on most things, that’s for sure. But one thing Jake knew is that it never hurt for people to think you’re capable of killing a man—even if you never have, and have no intention of doing so. You’d be surprised the trouble you can avoid with a reputation like that.”
Except that Jake had killed people, Maggie thought. In the war, at least. That was one of the demons that drove him.
“Come on, killer.” Daisy took his arm. “I’ll let you hide out in my camper, but you’ll have to pay me back later.”
Bob looked wary. “How will I do that?”
“Oh, I’ll think of something. Don’t worry.”
Olivia waited until they were gone before she spoke. “What do you think? Did Bob ‘help’ Gerald disappear?”
Maggie pulled out her car keys. “I think there are some questions I don’t want to know the answers to.” Maybe that included not knowing why she still felt left out of so much of her husband’s life. She’d always thought love should bring people closer but sometimes, it seemed, it put up barriers that she didn’t know how to get around.
The darkness in the cavern was unlike any darkness Shelly had ever known. It was the darkness of outer space. The darkness of the womb. The blackness swallowed up all sense of time and place, creating a dizzying disorientation that forced her to sit flat on the ground, frozen in place.
She shut her eyes, rather than stare into that blackness, and breathed deeply of the damp, musty smell of the place, an ancient aroma that hinted at dry bones and dripping limestone. Fine gravel covered the ground beneath her palms. In the quiet, she could hear her heartbeat, and the blood rushing in her veins.
After a while, her initial panic gave way to calm, an enveloping peace, sheltered from all conflict and danger, cocooned here in the darkness and silence.
But just as she settled into this tranquility, she heard a distant uproar. The noises grew louder, until she could hear people shouting her name, begging her to come out. She moved onto her knees, crouched on all fours, staring at a crack of light overhead, which gradually widened to a blinding beam aimed directly at her. Rough hands clutched at her, pulling her out of her sanctuary. She fought against her captors, trying to back away from them, but she stumbled into a spider web, the sticky strands catching in her hair, twining around her arms....
“Shelly! Shelly, wake up!” Charlie’s hand on her shoulder, warm and solid, and his voice in her ear, familiar and caring, pulled her from her struggle against the sticky spider’s webbing and strangers’ reaching hands. She blinked up at him, heart pounding, too frightened still to speak.
“You were having a nightmare. You’re all tangled up in the sheet.” He carefully unwound the linen from around her and patted her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Now I am. Thanks.”
Though Charlie was six years older than Shelly, his face was younger than his years, apple-cheeked and unlined. A baby face, people said, which had led him to grow a full beard when he was still in his twenties. Now the beard was flecked with silver, but the face above it remained smooth and young. Worry lines etched his forehead as he studied her now. “You want to talk about it?”
Did she? Could she? “I dreamed I was back in that cavern—the one I fell into when I was four.”
“No wonder you were struggling. That must have been terrifying.” He lay down beside her and pulled her close.
She rested her head against the pillow of his shoulder. Charlie was a big guy, well muscled and well padded. She liked the combination of softness and hardness—he made her feel comfortable and safe. “In the dream, it really wasn’t,” she said. “It was very dark and very quiet—peaceful. I wanted to stay there.”
“Then why were you struggling?”
“I was just beginning to enjoy myself when all these people showed up, shouting and shining bright lights, reaching for me to pull me out. I was trying to get away from them.”
His hand on her shoulder tightened its grip. “Is that how it was when you were little? Did the people who tried to rescue you frighten you that way?”
“My memory of that time is all mixed up,” she said. “It was so long ago, and I think I’ve made myself forget part of it—the worst of it. I don’t remember being cold and hungry and thirsty and scared, but I must have been. I remember I cried, and that I missed my mom and dad. I believe I was happy to see the first rescuer. He was a man in workman’s coveralls and a hard hat, and when he lifted me out he held me as gently as you’d hold a baby.” She hadn’t thought of that man in years. He was a cowboy who worked at one of the local ranches, who had volunteered to help with the rescue efforts. She wondered where he was now, and if he ever thought of her, and wondered what had happened to her. Would he buy a copy of Travis and Mindy’s book to read about her? Or was it enough for him to know he’d helped save a little girl who had moved on with her life?
“Your parents must have been sick with worry,” Charlie said. “I can’t even imagine what I’d do if something like that happened to the boys.”
“They must have been,” she said. “I think if something like that happened to Cameron or Theo, I’d want to hold them so tightly and never let them go, but Mama wasn’t like that. When the man who’d pulled me out handed me to her, she held me out for everyone to see. Suddenly, there were all these bright lights and flashbulbs going off, people pushing and shoving to get closer to me, people shouting questions and shoving big microphones at me. I was terrified, trying to get away, but Mama just held me out there, an arm’s length from her. ‘Say thank you to all the nice people who have been praying for you,’ she said. But I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was cry.”
“That’s a crazy thing for a little kid to go through.” He kissed the top of her head. “But you’re okay now. You made it through all of that.”
“Yeah, I’m okay now.” Most of the time, anyway. She hadn’t even thought of her time in the cavern in years, until Mindy showed up, and brought it all back. Now here she was, reliving it for the second time in two days. It was as if talking about that time with Sharon had broken down some barrier, and sent the memories flooding in.
“What has you so upset now?” He idly stroked her hair. “Is it that reporter, giving you a hard time? Or your sister?”
“No, it’s actually been good seeing Mindy again, though I worry about her. And Travis is annoying, but I can handle him.” She rolled to face him. “I think it’s Cassie and this business with her play.”
“I know you’re shy about taking a bigger role in the play, but you had fun doing it last year. I think you’d be good. She wants you to play a schoolteacher, right?”
“She wants to put Baby Shelly up on stage so a crowd of people will come to stare at me.”
“Awww, honey, I don’t think it will be like that. I mean, it’s an amateur historical pageant. It’s not like she’s reenacting your rescue or something like that.”
“It’s on the posters she had made up—Shelly ‘Baby Shelly’ Frazier.”
“So a few people might drop in out of curiosity. It’s not like they’ll drag you offstage or anything. They’ll see you and they’ll go on their way.”
“I don’t want to be Baby Shelly. Ever again. For any reason.” She flopped onto her back and crossed her arms over her chest. She’d hoped Charlie, of all people, would understand.
“I don’t get why you’re so upset.” He sat up, so that he was looking down at her. “Nobody’s asking yo
u to relive your past, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But you were Baby Shelly. It’s part of who you are, the way brown hair and blue eyes and a Texas accent are part of you. Why do you care if people know it?”
“How would you like it if the only reason people were interested in you was because you won the snowmobile races last winter?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t care. Because that kind of fame doesn’t last. People lose interest. They forget and move on.”
“I was pulled out of that cavern twenty-five years ago and people are still interested.”
“Only because your mother kept fanning the flames. But you don’t have to do that. If you just admit that yeah, you’re that girl and you don’t think it was that big a deal, the furor will die down. People will move on to the next big thing.”
“But what if it doesn’t die down? What if people won’t shut up about it? You don’t know what it’s like, Charlie. I couldn’t go to the grocery store when I was little without some old woman wanting to come up and give me a hug, or some kid wanting to pose for a picture with me. And there was my mom, giving some sob story about medical bills from all the trauma, or what a hard time the family had had getting back on our feet, until my ‘fans’ had coughed up a few bucks for her to tuck away. I never saw any of that money again, and every time she went into her begging act I wanted to crawl right back into that cavern and never come out.”
“There are a lot of reasons I don’t think any of that will happen.” He held up one hand and began to count off on his fingers. “One, you won’t be asking anybody for money. Two, this isn’t Texas. Three, a lot of people don’t even remember who Baby Shelly is. Four, if some old woman does want to hug you or take your picture, would that really be so bad? Give her her moment and move on.”
“So you think because of what happened to me, I don’t have a right to privacy?”
“We live in a small town, honey. How much privacy do you really have? And it’s not like Eureka is exactly close to anything. Anybody who comes here to see you is going to have to go to some trouble, and most people won’t do it.”