Into the Woods (Anomaly Hunters, Book One)

by J. S. Volpe

  There was a long silence that was finally broken when Calvin said, “What?” Krezchek chuckled. Mark shifted in his seat, a nervous smile stretched across his face.

  “I should tell you up front,” Krezchek said, “there are certain stipulations—”

  “He left me everything?” Calvin said.

  Krezchek laughed. “Oh, no! No no no. Mr. May possessed quite an impressive list of property and investments. The man knew how to make his money work for him, I’ll say that much. I cannot, of course, give you any specifics, but what you’re receiving is maybe only half of the full fortune.”

  “Hold on,” Mark said. “You said earlier that he’d receive the contents of the house ‘with a few exceptions.’ What are these exceptions?”

  “Oh, nothing substantial. Mostly single items earmarked for various individuals. Old friends, I guess. Let’s see…” He flipped through the binder again. “An antique chest, a pair of cufflinks, an old May-Crow Brewing Company sign—that one’s going to the May Historical Society. Things like that.”

  “But no Collection, or, like, a batch of items or anything like that?” Calvin asked.

  Krezchek shook his head. “No…” He frowned then peered at a page in the binder. “Well, there’s a complete set of Dickens going to a lady in England. Is that what you mean?”

  “No. It’s…no. Nothing like that. It’s okay.”

  Krezchek settled back in his chair again, eyes on Calvin. “Of course, there remain various formalities to go through. And as I was about to say earlier, the trust stipulates that you complete college before receiving the full inheritance. You do plan on continuing your education, right?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  “Couldn’t this be contested?” Mark asked.

  Krezchek shook his head. “As far as I know, there are no surviving relatives. And I’m sure Mr. May’s friends will have no cause for complaint.”

  “Even so, if he was ill when he made the changes…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when he added Calvin yesterday. If he had a stroke right afterward, couldn’t people claim that, um…” He trailed off, noticing that Krezchek suddenly seemed reluctant to look him in the eye. Mark frowned. “Isn’t that when he left all this to Calvin? You said he made some changes.”

  Krezchek flashed something halfway between a smile and a wince. “That, uh, that wasn’t exactly what he changed. Calvin has been named as a beneficiary for several years now.”

  Mark looked at Calvin. “I thought you said you just met him a few days ago.”

  “I did!” Calvin said.

  Nobody spoke for a moment.

  “I…I don’t understand,” Calvin said.

  Krezchek spread his hands apologetically. “I can’t help you. He never explained it to me.”

  Mark glared at him. “But you knew about it all this time! I thought we were friends. I thought—”

  “Damn in, Mark! It’s confidential information. You know that.”

  Mark opened his mouth to deliver some no-doubt profane retort. Then he glanced at Calvin and muttered, “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Fine,” Krezchek said.

  Calvin barely paid attention to the rest of the meeting. His father and Krezchek babbled at great length about property appraisals and homeowner’s insurance and value-oriented funds and a million other things, but he barely heard a word of it. He just sat there in a daze while conflicting emotions tore at his mind.

  On the one hand, he felt as if he had just won the lottery. The house, the woods, the money, the Collection—it was a dream come true.

  But the price he had paid to get it was too high. How could he be happy about any of this when it meant Mr. May was dead and gone? Calvin felt as if he had finally found his real father only to have him cruelly snatched away before they could really get to know each other.

  And he had so many questions. Surely Mr. May had a lifetime of acquaintances, many of them older and with decades of experience dealing with anomalies. So why leave the Collection to a teenage boy? And maybe not even that: If Mr. May had added him to the trust several years ago, Calvin might not have even been a teenager yet. And how could Mr. May have known him at all back then? Had they met at some point when Calvin was too young to remember?

  If Calvin was going to have a future as an anomaly investigator, this would have to be one of the anomalies he investigated. It was almost as if Mr. May had lain it in his path as a challenge.

  It would be a few hours before Calvin learned that he wasn’t the only one faced with such a challenge.

  Chapter 28

  Closed Doors

  1

  Anna’s heart was racing as she dialed John’s number. They had barely spoken since the Miss Dryer incident on Monday, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on Anna’s part. She had called him after school that day, but he was glum and unresponsive and told her he didn’t feel like talking. Nothing she said would change his mind. She tried again after school yesterday, with the same disheartening results.

  She felt sure that things would be different today. She felt sure that he would want to meet up once he learned the big news she had to tell him.

  His phone rang once, twice, three times.

  “Yeah?” John said. His voice was terse, remote, just like yesterday and the day before.

  “Hey, John,” she said, making her voice as bright and chipper as she could.

  “Hey.”

  “Guess what?” she said.

  “What?”

  “You’ll never believe it.”

  “What?”

  “Old Mr. May, that guy next door to Emily? He just died the other day, and it turns out he left me a hundred thousand dollars in his will! Can you believe it?”

  John was silent for a moment. Then he grunted.

  “You too, huh?” he said.

  “What, he left you money too?”

  “Yeah. A hundred thousand, just like you. But I have to go to college and stuff before I can get most of it.”

  “Yeah, same here.” She was smiling. This was the most John had said to her since Monday morning. She felt more certain than ever that he would want to get together. “That’s so weird. Why do you think he did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, I don’t think I ever even spoke to him. I only ever saw him a few times when I was out with Emily in the woods.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “My dad said that maybe he did it because he felt bad about what happened to Emily and he wanted to do something for the people who cared about her.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I guess that makes sense.”

  “So have you thought about what you want to do with your money? When you get it, I mean?”

  “Not really.”

  “I was thinking about using some of mine to set up some kind of fund for missing kids like Emily. I mean, even if it turns out she’s okay, it’s still a good thing to do. Don’t you think?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, um, I was wondering, would you like to get together and talk and stuff? It sounds like we have a lot we could talk about.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I’m not really in the mood.”

  “But, John—”

  “Look, not right now, okay? I’ll talk to you…later.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that avoiding things wasn’t going to help. But then she shut it. She knew it wouldn’t make a difference.

  “Okay,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level. “Take care. Bye.”

  2

  Anna’s tears had stopped by the time her mom poked her head into Anna’s bedroom. Karen West was wearing the khaki pants and white polo shirt that constituted her dispatcher’s uniform.

  “I’m off to work, honey,” she said. She peered at Anna’s face. “Is everything okay?”

  “Mom, what do you do if someone you care about is hurting really bad, but they’re not talking about it and they’r
e not letting anybody help?”

  Karen walked over and squatted down next to where Anna sat on the bed.

  “Is this about John?”

  Anna merely nodded. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to speak. She might start crying again.

  “Some people just react to things differently,” Karen said. “They handle bad things differently. Some folks are more social about it, and others need to deal with things more privately.”

  “But what if they can’t deal with it by themselves? What happens then?”

  “Then I guess it would be time for someone else to help.”

  “How do you know when that time is?”

  Karen glanced at the clock on Anna’s wall.

  “I hate to say it, but I really need to go to work. I’m off tomorrow, though. Why don’t we talk about this then? Remind me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t worry.” She smiled and placed a hand atop Anna’s head. “We’ll sort this out. You wait and see.”

  Anna smiled back. Inside, though, she couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that she had already lost both of her best friends.

  Chapter 29

  House of Secrets

  After dinner Calvin told his parents he was going to take a walk because he wanted some time alone to think about everything that had happened. Calvin’s dad was cool with Calvin going out. Calvin’s being grounded was ancient history now, his trespasses forgiven and forgotten. Mark Beckerman was even acting unwontedly chummy with his son, all bluster and bear hugs and manly advice. Calvin told himself he should be pleased with his father’s about-face, but instead it only depressed him. His dad was acting like this only because of Calvin was now richer than he was. If it hadn’t been for that, Calvin would still be consigned to his room every night. He found himself wishing more than ever that Mr. May were still alive.

  Technically he did take a walk, but instead of aimlessly roving about as he had implied to his parents, he headed straight to Mr. May’s house. Or rather, Calvin’s house. Or, well, not really that either. Stephen Krezchek had explained that it would be quite a while before Calvin could officially take possession of it.

  Officially, perhaps. But unofficially, Calvin had other ideas.

  When he reached the house, he tried the front door. As expected, someone—probably the cop from yesterday—had locked it.

  Calvin descended the porch and scanned the ground on either side of the front steps, hoping Mr. May hadn’t been kidding when he mentioned keeping a spare key inside a fake rock.

  In no time, Calvin found a rock that looked real but was actually made of plastic. When he picked it up he heard something small and hard shift inside it. A few seconds of fiddling with the pseudo-rock revealed that the top half popped up and swung open like the lid of a box. Inside was a house key.

  Calvin felt a chill. When Mr. May had made the comment about the key, Calvin had thought it an odd and graceless thing to say, either a bad case of too much information, or too far to go for a lame joke. Now, he couldn’t help wondering if Mr. May had made the comment solely to tell Calvin there was a key available if he needed it. He remembered Steve Krezchek wondering aloud if Mr. May had known he was going to die, and he felt that chill again.

  After confirming that the key did indeed unlock the front door, he got out his phone and called Cynthia. He hadn’t had a chance to call her earlier, and he was eager to tell her about the inheritance.

  He was shocked when she said she had already heard about it.

  “How?” he asked.

  “Stephen Krezchek met with my parents earlier. You’re not the only one to get something from Mr. May. He left everybody in my family a hundred thousand dollars each. Even Emily.”

  “Holy crap.”

  “I know. Trouble is, none of us kids are allowed to touch anything more than the interest until we graduate from college.”

  “Yeah, I got stuck with a similar stipulation. So, um, are you free right now? I’m at the house right now. If you can get away, I was thinking we could explore the place and then maybe discuss our next move.”

  “Yeah, I think so. It’ll take me a little time to get away, though.”

  “See you then.”

  He hung up, then went inside. He felt strange and criminal entering the house alone, but also excited. And guilty for feeling excited. The emotional corkscrew kept twisting.

  The dark stain on the hallway carpet was still there, and the stench of urine was still strong. Mr. May’s broken cane still lay there, too. It didn’t look like anyone had done anything except remove Mr. May’s body and then lock the door.

  Calvin snatched up the two halves of the cane and set them on the coffee table in the parlor. Then he went in search of something to clean up the stain. He wasn’t sure he should—though Mr. May’s cause of death had already been labeled a stroke, there was still a chance there might be some kind of an investigation—but he couldn’t leave the stain and the stench in the hallway like that. It was sickening. And it was insulting to Mr. May’s memory.

  He doubted there would be any cleaning products in the room across the hall from the parlor, but he figured he should check anyway. The room turned out to be a library. Every wall was lined with shelves, and every shelf was packed solid with books. Most of them were hardbacks, and few of them looked like they were less than fifty years old. Calvin wished he could linger and browse, but he needed to clean up that stain.

  He moved on. There was a bathroom at the end of the hallway, right before the center circle, but a search of it turned up no cleaning products suitable for carpets. He went out and stood in the circle and looked down the west, north, and east wings in turn, wondering which of them to search first.

  North, he decided.

  Halfway down the north wing he came to two doors that faced each other across the hallway. The one on the right led to a large, ornate dining room dominated by a long mahogany table. A dozen matching high-backed chairs surrounded the table, and a crystal chandelier hung above it. Spaced around the walls were paintings, vases on pedestals, cabinets with leaded glass doors, and a mahogany sideboard that looked like it would give the guys on Antiques Roadshow week-long orgasms.

  Calvin felt a little queasy at the thought that all of this was now his. His to take care of. His to insure and protect and clean (and how the hell were you supposed to clean a crystal chandelier anyway?). Part of him balked at the responsibility. It meant he had to grow up fast. It meant he could no longer maintain his safe adolescent sense of separation from the “real” world.

  He decided he didn’t want to think about it anymore, so he resumed his search.

  Opposite the dining room was a kitchen four times the size of his mom and dad’s. There was a squat black iron stove that looked at least as old as the house. Next to it sat a modern electric stove. There were shelves full of more herbs and spices than Calvin knew existed. Pots and pans hung from hooks. Cabinets and drawers lined the walls and the spaces beneath the counters. Various appliances had been installed wherever there was room.

  A quick check of the shelves and cabinets revealed plates and cookware and cutlery and nonperishable food. No cleaning products.

  Calvin moved on. Farther down the hallway was another pair of doors. The one on the left led to a pantry, most of whose shelves were bare and dusty, which wasn’t surprising given that Mr. May had been the house’s sole occupant for most of the last half-century.

  Across the hall was the laundry room he and Cynthia had peeped into when they suspected Mr. May of Emily’s disappearance and were looking for clues. Calvin smiled a little at the memory. It was hard to believe how much had changed in only five days.

  There was a cabinet in the wall between the washing machine and a stainless steel sink, and when Calvin opened it he discovered a plethora of cleaning supplies. Bleach. Detergents. Sponges. Rags. Towels. Buckets. Brushes. Gloves.

  And Formula 409 Carpet Cleaning Solution. Bingo.

  He got out a bucket
and filled it a third of the way with warm soapy water, then tossed a soft-bristled brush into the water. After putting on a pair of rubber gloves, he carried the bucket, the Formula 409, and a couple of towels back to the stain beside the front door. He sprayed the carpet with the carpet cleaner until it was saturated, then drew the brush from the bucket and scrubbed at the stain for a few minutes. When he was done, he laid the towels over the wet area and pressed them against the carpet to soak up the moisture.

  Footsteps thumped on the porch stairs. Calvin looked up just in time to see a figure appear on the other side of the front door, a figure made ghostly and hazy through the thin white curtain that covered the window in the door’s upper half. Despite the figure’s ghostliness, he immediately recognized the slender physique. And the curtain couldn’t fully block out the fiery color of the figure’s hair.

  Ugh. He had hoped to be able to clean up a little before she got here, to wash the stink of labor and Formula 409 off him. Oh, well. Maybe she would appreciate his manly sweat, or at least his dutifulness.

  Cynthia knocked.

  “Hold on,” Calvin called out.

  He moved the bucket out of the path of the door, then tugged off the gloves and tossed them into the bucket. After wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, he opened the door.

  His heart swelled at the sight of her. She was lit up by the light spilling out from the hallway, and her red hair and green eyes and smooth, pale skin stood out starkly against the dark wall of trees behind her and the darkening twilight sky above. He thought she had never looked half as beautiful as she did at that moment. He had never wanted to kiss her so badly. The feelings were intensified somehow by their new circumstances: This was his house now, and her visiting him, standing there on his threshold, held all kinds of subtle significances.

  “Hey,” he said. He stepped aside and waved her in. As she entered, she took in the bucket and the damp towels with a small, approving nod. He felt pleased.