by T. L. Haddix
“Those are huge brownies.” Ethan started laughing as he parked the truck, and turned to her in amazement. “Four or five? How high did you get?”
Pushing back a loose tendril of hair that had escaped the twist, she shrugged. “Oh, not that high, really. I just prank called my brothers into the wee hours, and Lauren and Annie. Once Annie figured out what was going on, though, she came over immediately and stayed with me until I was down again.” She let him get all his amusement out, feeling the tension in the truck ease as he laughed. “And I might have called you, too.”
“What? When was this?”
“About six months ago. You don’t remember that phone call? The ‘booty’ call?”
He covered his mouth, but in the light shining in from the newspaper building’s security lights, she could still see his mirth. “I vaguely remember that, yes, but I’d been drinking that night. I thought I’d imagined it.”
It was Beth’s turn to be surprised, and somewhat horrified. “I don’t even want to know how much you’d had to drink that you thought you’d imagined a booty call.”
Just like that, the tension was back. “More than I should. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Ethan…”
He opened his door. “Let’s get you changed. We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”
Beth closed her eyes as he moved around the truck to wait for her. She knew he’d been drinking more and more the last few months, but she hadn’t known how bad it had gotten. Resolving to talk to Chase and Jason as soon as she got a chance, she joined him and headed for the building to change.
By the time they got to the high school, most of the attendees were already there. Neither Beth nor Ethan had a lot to say as they walked down to the baseball field, which had a smattering of blankets spread out across it as people chatted and laughed, getting comfortable to watch the show.
“Mr. Dunfries, how are you?” Beth asked, approaching a tall man with gray hair.
The principal clasped her hand warmly. “Ms. Hudson, I’m well, and you? Glad you could join us here tonight. Ethan.”
Looking out over the well-lit field, Beth was surprised. “Light turnout. I figured there’d be more kids here.”
The principal shrugged. “Well, most of the science classes are here, at least. I guess staying up until the wee hours didn’t appeal to as many students and parents as we’d thought it would. Even if it was to watch a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
“That’s a shame,” Ethan said, glancing up at the clear sky. “It’s the perfect night for it.”
“True. Oh, well. Win some, lose some. Why don’t the two of you go ahead and get comfortable? I’ll find you in a little while to answer some questions, Beth.”
“Sounds good.”
As they made their way across the field to a spot a little distance away from the crowd, several people stopped them to say hello. “Between you and me, we have to know most of the people here,” Beth said.
Ethan sighed as he spread the blanket they’d brought on the ground and sat down. “Yeah, and by now, most of those people are speculating about us.”
“So? I didn’t realize it bothered you so much, the idea of having our names linked.”
Before he could respond, three giggling teenagers came up and plopped down at his feet. The boldest of the three spoke, twirling her hair around a finger flirtatiously. “Hey, Detective. Did you bring your gun?”
To Beth’s surprise, a flush spread across his cheeks. “Girls. Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Nope,” their leader, a statuesque blonde Beth thought was a cheerleader, said with a winsome smile. “We thought we’d come keep you company.” She moved a little closer to his feet, and he quickly drew his knees up to his chest, his scowl darkening.
“As you can see, I’m not alone. So you can toddle back over to your friends. I really don’t want to have to go hunt down your parents, girls.”
When the cheerleader looked at Beth, she appeared just a little uncertain. “I thought you were single, Detective.”
“Amber, even if I was single, I don’t waste my time on little girls,” he told her, not bothering to hide his displeasure.
The girl’s eyes widened and filled with tears. Standing, she gestured for her friends to follow her and they left, one of them shooting a dirty look back at Beth and Ethan as they walked.
“Ouch,” Beth said. He scowled at her and she held up a hand. “I know, you had to do it, but it still was painful to watch. How long has that been going on?”
He ran a hand over his hair. “A couple of weeks. I was with the group that broke up one of their little parties out at Amber’s house, and she’s tormented me every blessed time I’ve seen her since. I’ve tried to be nice, I’ve tried ignoring her, and nothing has worked.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Poor Ethan. It must be hard to be so attractive.”
“You think it’s funny. It’s not. If she gets a wild hair in her little perky brain, she can ruin me without even trying.”
Beth sobered. “I know. I’m just teasing. Have you talked to her parents?”
“I did. Her mother is just an older version of Amber.” He shuddered, and Beth wasn’t entirely sure it was faked.
Bumping his shoulder with hers, she leaned against him for a second before straightening. “Well, Detective, I’m going to hope for the best. Maybe seeing us here together will stop her, especially after you called her a child. Even if it does irk you to have share a blanket with me, something good should come out of this, right?”
Principal Dunfries moved to stand in front of the crowd just then, clapping his hands and calling for attention. “We’re going to turn the lights out now. Remember, no student couples on a blanket without an adult present, and if you have to leave, you check with the teachers at the gate. Let’s have fun, people.” He motioned, and just like that, the lights were turned off.
As the bulbs dimmed and the crowd’s eyes adjusted to the dark, an anticipatory murmur moved across the field. To Beth’s surprise, Ethan scooted closer to her and put his arm around her back, his hand resting on the ground next to her hip.
“It doesn’t irk me, sharing a blanket with you.” His voice was low, and he’d put his mouth near her ear so as to not be overheard. Beth couldn’t prevent a shiver as his warm breath washed over her skin.
Just like Saturday night, when they’d stood so close on the deck at the Lighthouse, she could feel the warmth radiating off his body, and just like that night, it pulled her in. She almost felt like she’d eaten one of the special brownies as she turned her face toward him in the darkness. She didn’t look away, not even when the first oohs and ahhhs starting going up from the crowd, and neither did Ethan. After a few seconds, though, he pulled back. She didn’t bother trying to hide her disappointment.
“Principal’s on his way over,” Ethan said. “We’ll continue this discussion later.”
Pulling herself together, Beth turned to greet Principal Dunfries. She was grateful she had her digital recorder, because she never would have remembered a word of what he’d said without it.
~ * * * ~
Ethan watched Beth closely the rest of the evening. Her reactions to his comments about them being looked at as a couple had surprised him. He had thought she would have been more bothered by the gossip than by his dismissal of it.
Watching her work the crowd after the initial awe from the meteor shower had worn off had been surprising, as well. Though he wouldn’t admit it to Beth, he had followed every word she’d written in the last few years. He knew she was an accomplished journalist, but he’d had no idea she had to work so hard at it. Several times during the evening, she had sat down next to shy teenagers and cajoled them into speaking with her about their impressions, exhibiting a patience Ethan would have been hard pressed to find.
By one thirty, the strongest part of the shower was over, and the crowd was starting to disperse. Walking to his truck, Ethan felt the tension between them like another
presence. When a particularly happy couple rushed by them, laughing and giggling, Beth stopped to watch them. He was surprised to see an envious expression cross her face.
“Brings back memories, huh?”
She shook her head. “No. Not memories. I don’t think I was ever that young. I didn’t even date in high school.”
“You’re kidding me,” he said. “You never had a boyfriend in high school?”
“Nope. Not kidding.” She got into the truck and looked back at him. “Why is that surprising?”
At a complete loss for words, Ethan just gently closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. “What about prom?” he asked as he slid behind the wheel.
“The one time I went, my senior year, I went with Annie. I did get asked one year, by your sister’s ex-boyfriend, no less,” she teased, “but he was just trying to make her jealous.”
“So if you never dated in high school, what else didn’t you do?”
Beth groaned. “Do we have to talk about this? It’s embarrassing.”
“I guess we don’t,” he conceded.
As they sat in his truck behind the other vehicles waiting to get out of the parking lot, the cab filled with silence and she sighed. “I never went to parties, and I never parked with a guy. Never got drunk, never got kissed. The first time I was kissed was in my first year at college. There, you can laugh now.”
“I’m not going to laugh. I may cry, though.”
She just rolled her eyes. “Okay. I’ll get the tissues ready.”
Ethan shook his head. “Seriously, you just keep surprising me. You’re not what I expected.”
“I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. What did you expect?”
He moved his shoulders restlessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect to see you put in sixteen, eighteen-hour days. I guess that’s an insult, but it’s more reflective of me than of you.”
“What did you expect my days were like? Get up late in the mornings, wander into the office, write a little, meet with some people and kiss cheeks, then come home and party all evening? Throw in a little ambulance chasing and law enforcement harassment?”
As that was a fair approximation of what he’d thought, Ethan flushed with guilt. “Since we’re being honest, yes.”
Shocked, Beth didn’t say anything until they pulled up to her apartment building ten minutes later. Her voice was very quiet when she spoke. “Is that the impression I give people?”
Ethan hastened to reassure her. “No. Not at all. It’s just my own misperception. And I’m sorry.”
She didn’t respond, just opened the door and got out. Ethan caught up to her at the entrance to the building, but she still didn’t speak. While they waited for the elevator, he stepped in front of her and tipped her chin up. Beth slapped his hand away and took two steps back.
“Don’t. Just don’t,” she said as the car arrived. “You can’t pretty this up.”
When she angrily wiped away tears, Ethan cursed under his breath and rubbed his forehead, following her onto the elevator.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you certainly are.” Upstairs, as she unlocked the apartment door, she stopped. Taking a deep breath, she spoke over her shoulder without looking at him. “I would really appreciate it if you would stay out of my way for the rest of the evening. And Jason’s going to have to make other arrangements for the rest of the week.” She left him to lock the front door and went into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
For an instant, he almost followed her, demanded they hash things out, but then common sense kicked in. “You’ve screwed things up badly enough already, stupid. Keep your mouth shut before you make it worse,” he told himself.
Going into the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator. Beth had stocked it back fully, including a few of the microbrews Chase liked. Grabbing one, he pulled the lid off with a vicious twist. He would have preferred whiskey, but since the beer was all that was available, he’d make do.
Chapter Ten
The noise of the printing press was deafening as the week’s Free Trader was being printed Monday afternoon. Beth was in the back with press foreman Saul Williams, sharing a bag of chips and two bottles of orange soda, a ritual they had established when she was a teenager. They would sit against the wall in scrappy but comfortable office chairs and demolish the salty snack while watching the presses, and by the time the bag was empty, any bad mood she had been in was usually gone.
It had been nine days since the break-in, a week since she’d had the falling out with Ethan. She had neither seen nor spoken to him since Tuesday morning. That he’d thought so little of her, of who she was, after having known her for so long, had really thrown her for a loop. It made her take a step back and look at herself, even though Ethan had sworn the problem was his.
Sitting there beside Saul, watching the paper roll through the large machines, she finally reached the mental place she needed to be to deal with the blow. Saluting him with her bottle, she stood and headed back to the newsroom. As she walked, she saw Alicia heading toward the pressroom and sped up her pace. Beth knew the noise of the press bothered the young woman. Once the door was closed, she took off her protective headphones, hanging them on one of the hooks beside the door.
“What’s up?”
Alicia’s eyes fairly sparkled with curiosity. “You have a phone call, a mysterious woman. She wouldn’t give her name.”
Eyebrows raised, Beth hurried toward her desk. She picked up the receiver as she sat, punching the one blinking light. “Beth Hudson. May I help you?”
For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line, and then a woman spoke. “Beth, this is Zora Mongiardo. I work at the pawn shop.”
A picture popped into Beth’s mind immediately of the eccentric young woman. “I remember you, Zora. What do you need?”
“Um, I need to talk to you. It’s about all these rumors, the devil worshipping stuff that’s been going around?” Zora sounded nervous, her voice tight and high. “Can we meet?”
Intrigued, Beth agreed. “Absolutely. When and where?”
Zora suggested the Brown Bag. “Are you free this afternoon?”
Beth checked her calendar. “As it happens, I am.” A meeting time set, she hung up and doodled on the calendar on her desk. She searched her memory for whatever facts she knew about Zora, and realized that she didn’t know a lot, just what she had heard around town.
She turned to her computer and ran a search using a popular search engine. The woman’s name came up several times in relation to social networking sites, and by following those links, Beth was able to learn quite a bit about her mysterious caller, including her age, hometown, and religious preferences. Shaking her head at how willing people were to put their most intimate personal information out on the Internet for all the world to see, she pondered what she had learned. Some of the links on Zora’s various websites had been to groups practicing Wicca or Wiccan-like beliefs.
A thrill of anticipation ran through Beth as she remembered the pictures Stacy Kirchner had shown her of the altars. She wondered if Zora would reveal another piece of the puzzle when they met.
~ * * * ~
Rain was falling steadily by the time Beth made her way to the Brown Bag. She deliberately arrived a few minutes early and, after ordering a large hot chocolate, she took a corner booth facing the door and watched for Zora’s arrival.
As she looked out over the park that formed the middle of the town square, she noted that several of the trees were starting to turn. An unseasonably cool snap had descended on the region, bringing the gloomy rain with it, and the first real hint of fall was in the air. Before long, all the trees would have their fall colors on, and the round of festivals and carnivals would be upon Olman County.
It was a busy time for the paper and probably her favorite season, Beth thought, smiling to herself. Her smile slipped a little as she thought about Ethan and the break-in, but as she saw Zora dashing acros
s the street, she put those concerns to the back of her mind. As the young woman came in, Beth raised her hand. Zora made her way over to the booth.
“Hey. Would you like something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine,” Zora told her, a little breathless. “Thanks.”
Beth took in the woman’s eclectic attire, wispy black blouse and skirt. The outfit put her in mind of something her sister, Joely, would wear. The memory caused a pang of loneliness for Joely, who had just started her third year of college in Louisville.
“I like your nail polish.” Beth said as she leaned in to look at the dark electric blue the woman had applied to her long nails, hoping the topic would help Zora relax. “I wish I could wear something like that at the paper, but I can’t. I also can’t seem to get my nails to grow out like yours. I keep breaking them off.”
“They’re like a decoration, almost. I do different colors and designs for different days of the week, seasons, holidays. I have some really wicked spider web stickers that I use for Halloween.” Zora cleared her throat and pulled herself back into the moment, and to the purpose of the meeting. “I don’t know what you know about me.” Her wariness was apparent as she waited for Beth’s answer.
“I know that you work for Vestra at the pawn shop, and that you purport to have some paranormal abilities.”
Zora nodded. “I do have abilities. I’m clairvoyant. I can sense things, feel things that most people can’t. I know when really good things are going to happen, and when really bad things are going to happen.” She stopped and studied Beth for a moment. “You aren’t laughing at me.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve seen too many things that couldn’t be explained. I had a friend in college who was precognitive to some degree. I try to keep an open mind about that sort of thing.”
When she saw that Beth wasn’t going to ridicule her, some of the woman’s tension eased. “I guess you’re wondering why I asked to meet.”
“I’m very curious, yes. You mentioned the possible devil worshipping?”