Souls Lost (Appalachian Souls Book 1)

by Bonnie Elizabeth

  “All humans die,” Emrys said. “You will live a long life, but as is the natural way of things, your child will outlive you.”

  Dixie breathed easier, nodding. “When I feel death coming or when you warn me that it is imminent, then I will release you from your oath to not contact her. She’ll be an adult then and she’ll be prepared for disappointment.”

  And, Dixie thought, like her own mother, perhaps Kay would no longer believe in elves and fairies and gnomes about the garden, which would protect her for an even longer period of time.

  Emrys bowed to her. “Is there anything I can do today?”

  Dixie shook her head, watched him climb back over the fence, into the neighbor’s yard where she could no longer see him. The little dachshund that lived back there began to bark and howl like it was about to attack, but when Dixie opened her eyes it was barking from the safety of the porch near the little dog door the owners had put in.

  It met her eyes as if offended that she had let such a creature into his yard. As if she had had a choice, Dixie thought. But it was becoming clear to her now that her life was going to be dedicated to protecting her one child. That, and finding out how to use Emrys’ power against him. Because he might have been sorry, he might have said it wasn’t her fault, and while she’d believed him when looking at him, Dixie had her doubts about his sincerity.

  Part of her was certain that he was to blame for the miscarriage. Otherwise, how could anyone explain that timing?

  Her neighbors had taken to discussing the Bible given Dixie’s faith in having a girl despite what the doctors said, and at some point she’d learned about demons and how tricky they could be. The idea had taken root in her mind that Emrys was lying to her, offering her only enough information to trick her into being his slave, rather than he hers. Likely her soul was already damned, but she’d make sure that the soul of her child was safe and she’d do whatever she could to make the demon pay for the loss of her son.

  Chapter 27

  Zoe’s dad had insisted she run errands with him, which meant they’d gone to the grocery and then back home. He’d avoided going to his usual morning coffee meeting with his pals. By afternoon, he was driving Zoe insane and she said she was going into Hickory to do some shopping. In reality she just wanted some space.

  The rental car she was using was a small Ford Focus that got decent gas mileage and was comfortable enough, but it wasn’t the Subaru she was used to. The car smelled of harsh industrial cleansers and faintly of chicken, but Zoe wasn’t sure whether that chicken smell was from something she’d eaten in the car or from an earlier renter who had eaten so much that even the cleansers used to freshen the thing couldn’t get the smell out.

  She’d set the radio when she’d flown into Charlotte Douglas and started her drive home, but the station didn’t pick up in Corbin Meadow. Not many did. So the static had outdone the music and she’d turned it off. She’d forgotten to set her phone to stream music, leaving her with only road noise. At home, she had satellite radio to listen to.

  Sitting in the car in the driveway, Zoe had seen her dad looking out at her, worried. She wondered what he’d do if something did come after her. She was less worried about that now that she was in the car, alone, than she was when she’d gone out with him earlier. She’d jumped at every shadow and perhaps that was why he was being so over protective.

  Zoe made her way out of Corbin Meadow, feeling relieved only when she saw the sign that said she had reached Lenoir City limits and was driving past the Evans Funeral home. It wasn’t lost on her that she was relieved to pass a funeral home when she was worried about dying.

  Zoe felt like she could breathe easier once she was out of Corbin Meadow, but she still felt that pull, like she was forgetting something she needed to do back there. She felt, she realized, a bit like she was abandoning her dad to his fate. It niggled at her that he could be in danger if she didn’t return at all, though she couldn’t tell if the feeling was one of her Corbin Meadow feelings or if it was a worry born of her generalized anxiety, trying to find something upon which to hang its hat.

  She continued winding through Lenoir until she reached Highway 321 which would take her to Hickory. She was about halfway there, the land becoming flatter with every car length, when her phone rang. Zoe had it connected to her Bluetooth so the number showed up on the screen on her dash, but she didn’t recognize it. A name wasn’t attached.

  Zoe wondered about answering but decided to give it a try. She’d had radio since reaching Lenoir when she’d turned it back on, but she didn’t know the stations and had something on for company rather than enjoyment. It was, Zoe reflected, much like a lot of her life. She had things for company or for a safe place rather than because she really wanted them. She was a lab tech because it was a secure job, or reasonably so, more than because she loved the work. What she wanted to do, she wasn’t certain.

  She hit the answer button to keep her thoughts from going down that road. Who knew what she’d decide while she was running away from the monster under her bed, or, in her case, the one that inhabited her backyard?

  “Hello?” She didn’t bother with her name.

  “Zoe?” A woman’s voice that she didn’t recognize. Zoe’s heart fluttered.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Kay Pugh,” the other woman said.

  Zoe’s heart soared. Yes. Kay had gotten the message.

  “Hi. I was hoping to talk to you in town,” Zoe said.

  “I’m not sure I can get away,” Kay said. “I really don’t want to go back there. All the memories, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

  “I can,” Zoe said. Where was she going to go with this if Kay wasn’t even open to the possibility of coming back for a short time?

  “Good. Then I’m hoping we can do this by phone, just us girls.”

  “I think that anything you say, I’d have to report to Chief Rees,” Zoe said carefully, as if she wasn’t aware that that was who Kay didn’t want to talk to.

  “I’m sure he’ll want to know it all, in case he missed telling someone what to do,” Kay said. There was a mean edge to her voice that Zoe didn’t like.

  She came up to the driveway to a church and she pulled in so she could park and talk more freely. The road noise vanished when she pulled into a spot.

  “I just think it would be easier if you came here. I had the oddest experience in my mother’s backyard,” Zoe said.

  “That’s where it happened, wasn’t it?” Kay asked. “Your momma dying?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said.

  “Maybe you’re sensitive. You know, my momma was like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course, she was so caught up in the church that she was certain visions and stuff were a trap to unsuspecting souls. She made me promise to never talk to plants or anything!” Kay laughed a little.

  Well, this was not going the way Zoe hoped.

  “Actually, I thought of you when it happened and was hoping that you could maybe tell me more about the experience, but I think you need to be there,” Zoe said carefully.

  Kay sighed. “It’s just so hard. I mean, I was okay there in Corbin Meadow before Momma died, even with Taran, although God bless him, he’s a handful, always thinking he can boss everyone around. But when she died, it was like I was going to be consumed by the place. I was scared of the backyard, for heaven’s sake! I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “Sometimes I think that, too.” It was true, Zoe thought. That was the truest thing she’d said to Kay so far. And what was it about the yard? Had Kay seen something?

  Kay drew in a breath. “Do you feel it in the backyard, especially?”

  “Yeah.” Zoe wasn’t certain what Kay meant but suspected she was particularly susceptible to thinking she was losing her mind there.

  “I don’t know,” Kay said, her voice wavering, like she had started down a path to doing something and wasn’t sure she wanted to continue.

  “Please
. Who else can I talk to?” Zoe pleaded, hated herself for this game but knowing she had to play it out.

  There was a sigh on the other end. Zoe felt like she could see Kay thinking, wondering what to do. She wanted to know more about Zoe’s experience, there was something in her voice. She had a suspicion of what had happened but she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Zoe was certain of that. It was like one of her feelings.

  “I’m off tomorrow. I’ll ask for a few vacation days to come down. They owe me,” Kay said finally. “I’ll see you then, but you’ll definitely owe me, Zoe Mason-Hyer Parker.”

  “Oh, I know that,” Zoe replied, relieved.

  They hung up. Already Zoe felt lighter. She wondered what Kay expected from her when she said she’d owe her, but it wasn’t likely to be anything she couldn’t fulfill, at least she hoped not.

  Chapter 28

  Blake was still in the witness room. He’d asked for a better chair. Taran gave him one from the other office, an old office chair that was marginally better than the folding chairs with the upholstery. Taran had exited to his own office, which smelled of his own coffee and not the good stuff Blake had gotten and not shared. Taran knew if he were going into the county sheriff’s office, he’d have brought coffee for Blake. The air conditioning that was normally off at the end of October protested as it turned back on, attempting to keep the building cool again, long after it should have been taking its winter nap.

  They’d talked about the murders and the differences between them. The trowels all looked the same. In fact, holding two of them together, there weren’t even minor imperfections between them.

  “Must have been a real high-end thing,” Blake commented.

  Frank had used forensics from the county during the earlier murders, and the similarities between the trowels had been noted. They’d also tried tracing them. Nothing. The new one was just as perfect as the others.

  “You have to wonder how the killer kept them so pristine,” Blake commented, looking at the notes and the photos.

  Taran wondered, too, but then he was wondering a lot of things he couldn’t share with Blake.

  The timing was off as well. The last murders had been two years ago during a hot summer. This was October. True, it was as unseasonably warm as that summer had been, but this past May had been warmer than normal. In fact, the whole summer had been warmer than normal, again.

  A pattern might emerge, but how many others would be killed before they figured it out? Taran worried about Zoe, wanted to hit himself for worrying so particularly about Zoe. He had a feeling that after this she’d be going back to Portland, leaving him in Corbin Meadow. Corbin Meadow was home to him in a way it clearly wasn’t to her. He’d proven with Kay that home was important to him, too important to leave it to try and make a relationship work. After all, how could a relationship last if it required one person to rip the roots of his life up from the soil in which they were planted?

  Taran forced his thoughts back to the murders. Maybe the pattern was longer term. Maybe other things had gone on before he was born, especially if that creature he’d seen at Zoe’s had something to do with the murders. The newspaper morgue might be a help. There wasn’t much of a newspaper in Corbin Meadow, never had been, and now it was only online, which he hated because he could never quite navigate the site. But there was still an office. Someone, surely, would show him how to look through the old records.

  “I’m going to the newspaper,” Taran said, looking in at Blake who was sorting records in the witness room, re-reading statements, making notes of things he might want to clarify.

  “You can’t tell them what we discussed!” Blake started to stand.

  Taran shook his head, put his hands out. “The morgue there. To see if something similar has happened before my time. Maybe it’s a family thing. I was thinking about that when Zoe Mason-Hyer Parker seemed to be threatened. Maybe there’s a connection between the families that I’m too young to know about or most of the people in town have forgotten. Dolly Jean at the historical society wasn’t much help but maybe the newspaper…”

  Blake was beginning to nod. “Thinking it’s not just random?”

  Taran shook his head.

  “Serials, and likely this is one, tend to focus on something specific. We were thinking women in power. The guy has a problem with women he perceives as being in authority,” Blake said.

  “But Bethany was only a secretary. Never harmed anyone,” Taran said.

  “Maybe because she worked for the mayor. He couldn’t act on his hatred of that authority but he could take her out. The others though—Amanda was a police officer, can’t get much more of an authority than that,” Blake said.

  It made sense. Taran wondered about that.

  “Zoe isn’t an authority, not here,” Taran pressed. “Not that she’s been harmed, but I want to make sure nothing happens to her, or anyone else.”

  Blake drew in a breath. “We haven’t found anything in our research. I’ll be going back out to the crime scene later, take another look now that it’s not pouring, or threatening to. Probably nothing there. According to Frank’s notes, there wasn’t anything last time.”

  Taran remembered. Nothing really to help them at all. They’d run down that damned trowel six ways to Sunday, so nothing Blake had said surprised him.

  “Why didn’t Frank call us in last time? Or the Feds?” Blake said, leaning back far enough that the chair squeaked a little.

  “Just said it was a local thing,” Taran said.

  Blake was shaking his head.

  Taran waited, not saying anything.

  “I get that small towns are possessive about their folk. I grew up in one,” Blake began. “But this wasn’t just protecting his town. People died, possibly because he didn’t act. I want to know why he’d take that chance.”

  “We’d talked about going to the Feds if someone else died,” Taran said. “Other than that, I couldn’t tell you why Frank made the decision not to call the sheriffs in.”

  Blake nodded. “I guess he’ll be on my list of folks to chat with.”

  Taran left the other man to ruminate on whatever thin leads he could follow. He had a feeling Frank wasn’t going to be particularly forthcoming with Blake, but maybe he’d be more open with Taran. He might need to go visit him later on, but only after he made sure Blake had made his visit first. He didn’t want Frank letting something slip to the sheriff about him coming by. Who knew what could set off Blake Fellows? Taran wanted to stay in the loop on this investigation.

  Chapter 29

  It was late when Zoe returned home, so late, in fact, that the sun had long ago set and she had had to rely on the headlights of the car to navigate her way along the roads to her home. Main Street was well-lit with old-fashioned looking street lights resembling gas lamps, but the rest of the town had only a street light here and there, mostly on the corners so that the stop signs were illuminated. It wasn’t raining, so she didn’t have that to contend with, nor the shadows that made her fearful, wondering if she was safe anywhere in town at all.

  The car had gone silent somewhere outside Lenoir when she ran out of radio signal. She was breathing too hard when the oppressiveness of the town reached her. It was like being roped back into a cell jammed full of people all pressing against each other.

  Once home, Zoe waited, her car pulled forward in the double drive behind the empty side of the garage where her momma’s car no longer sat because she no longer had a momma. It must have been hard on her dad to go out there each day and see the empty space there, waiting for a car that would never again pull in. Zoe didn’t have a garage door opener so her car had to stay in the driveway.

  She hunched her shoulders, pulled open the door, and got out. She ran through the darkness to the glow of the porch light, keys out and ready to plug into the lock on the door. Someone was barbecuing, the smell too far away for it to be her dad. Besides, he didn’t like to eat that late. It was after eight. Not everyone shared his sensibiliti
es.

  A car rolled by on a cross street, the hush reaching her ears over the pounding of her heart as she fiddled with the lock. Her dad, clearly listening for her, opened the door before she figured it out, an act she had performed a hundred thousand times when she was a teenager, coming home to an empty house or coming home to a sleeping one, yet she couldn’t find the lock.

  “I was getting worried,” Ed said, standing back for her to come in. He was dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a short sleeved, button-down shirt. Zoe wondered when his clothing had gotten so loose, as if he was a man diminished since her momma was gone. It shocked her each time he walked into a room now, seeing him getting smaller and older.

  “I called before I left the mall,” Zoe said. Not that she was going to be angry with him. She was worried about herself, too.

  “I know, but there’s a lot of dark road out there.” Ed looked out the front door as if he’d see whatever it was that was after Zoe. It took her a minute to realize he didn’t know about the supernatural element of this murder, that he would probably laugh if she told him she was afraid of a garden gnome.

  Zoe smiled and set her purse on the table near the door. She pulled out her phone, carrying it with her. “I was fine, Daddy. Really. I just saw a shadow yesterday in the backyard. It’s not like someone is following me.”

  “You read about that though,” Ed said, walking into the family room where the television sat. “Serial killers stalking their victims for months before they act. If he was here, how do we know he hasn’t decided you’ll be next and he’s just looking for a chance? I should have gone with you to Hickory. We could have eaten out there together.”

  Zoe prevented herself from groaning. Just what she would have needed was her dad hanging out with her, smothering her even when she was out of town. She wasn’t certain she was safer down the mountain, but she’d felt a little safer as if the reach of the creature didn’t quite make it all the way to Hickory.