Cheryl watched as the two started toward the front door, her panic growing.
This was completely out of control.
All because she had taken him up the mountain rather than letting him wander around town blindly.
All because that stupid girl had sent a stupid video to that other stupid girl, who had then tried to sell it.
But how?
She had watched the video several times on the phone, and unless Margaret had gotten away from Brendon, retrieved her phone, and found an area where she could send the video, there was simply no way for it to have been sent. It just didn't make sense.
Something was missing.
The gentle ring of her wind chimes echoed down the hallway as the front door was opened.
Tell them to wait.
Explain to them what was going on.
Explain how Beverly had discovered that Brendon had killed the girl, but she covered it up because of what the girl had discovered on the mountain and how they could profit from it if they found the source themselves rather than letting the authorities take everything. Dead was dead, so what was the difference if her body was never found? It wouldn't change anything.
"Brian, wait," she called.
He stopped and turned, as did his wife.
"Yeah?" he asked.
Cheryl hesitated and then thought better of it, her mind replaying the moment when Beverly explained why they couldn't tell anyone about the gems, and how they deserved the spoils of the discovery after how many times the town and its residents had fucked them over.
Finding the rest of the buried treasure would be their ticket out, their ticket toward starting fresh.
It would be their only chance.
If they lost it…
She shuddered to think what the rest of her life would be like, first with the paper crumbling, then the town, and then losing her parents’ house because she simply couldn't afford the taxes on it.
No.
Best to stick with the plan Beverly had laid out.
"Be careful out there," she said.
Brian eyed her for a moment and then turned to Alice. "Can you give us a moment?"
"What?" Alice demanded.
"Please."
Alice looked at him and then glared at Cheryl, confusion present upon her face before she spun around and stepped out the door.
Brian allowed a few seconds to pass and then said, "Why don't you tell me what's going on?"
"Nothing's going on."
"Cheryl, I don't know you very well, and I don't have any idea what is going on here in town, but that doesn't mean I can't tell from the look on your face that you're in a total panic."
Cheryl didn't reply to that.
"It's obvious that you know more than you're telling us."
She shook her head. "I'm just exhausted from yesterday and didn't sleep very well, and am still startled by what happened yesterday."
He sighed.
"And you're reading too much into it."
He nodded. "I hope so."
He wasn't buying it.
Just tell him.
No!
She needed to talk to Beverly.
"Do me a favor," he said. "If you change your mind and want to talk, don't hesitate to get in touch."
"Somehow I don't think your wife would be okay with that."
"It's your call," he said and turned toward the door.
Indecision gripped her.
He knew something was up, and now that his wife had just arrived, it seemed unlikely that he was going to be leaving that afternoon like he had originally planned, and if they kept digging and digging, they would likely start to uncover things.
You need to talk to Beverly.
This was the only thing her mind could really decide upon.
She needed to talk to Beverly and have her figure out what their next step would be.
Brian paused, hand on the knob.
Tell him!
She stayed silent.
He left.
14
"What the fuck was that about?" Alice asked. She was leaning against the car, where she had been waiting ever since she had left the house, mind going over their little “good cop, bad cop” act.
"Don't know," Brian said. "I think she was about to tell me something, but then decided against it."
"So, what do you make of all this?"
Brian waited until they were both in the car and then said, "I'm not really sure, but I think she's conflicted about something. And the look on her face when she realized there was no blood by the body, I get the feeling it was genuine and that it triggered something."
"Me too," Alice said. "Now the question is, who is she going to turn to? Because it is pretty obvious that she isn't alone in this, and likely isn't the one who is controlling things."
"And that leads to the question of what is being controlled and why."
Alice nodded.
"And why was she surprised by the blood?" Brian added.
"Yeah, that kind of caught me off guard."
"Same here."
"So now what?"
"I really want to speak with Chief Parker," he said while backing up toward the trees. "Find out what he thinks of all this because I get the feeling that he may have more insight into what is going on and why."
"Did he see the body yesterday?" Alice asked.
"No, it was gone by the time we got back up there."
"That's interesting. Why let you see it, but then take it away?"
"That's a good question."
"I have another."
"Okay?"
"What are we doing here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you really still trying to get video of that attack and obtain evidence of Bigfoot, or has that gone by the wayside?" She looked back while asking this, his foot having brought the car to a halt just as they entered the trees between the house and road.
He studied their positioning for a moment before answering. "Isn't it all the same?"
"It depends on whether or not you really think there is a Bigfoot creature in this area," she said.
The car began moving again, Brian completely twisted around as he tried to guide them along a slight bend.
Alice waited.
Brian stayed focused on the task at hand, a tree looming ever closer to the driver-side rear fender.
Alice wondered if he could see it, and then wondered whether or not he had gotten the insurance. She had not.
The car kept moving, the tree getting closer and closer.
"You see the tree, right?" Alice asked.
"I see it," Brian said, voice on edge.
Are we talking about the same tree?
It was only inches away.
"Brian, you're going to hit it," she said.
"No, I'm not," he said.
"I don't think you see it."
"I do!"
He continued moving, car inching along, his hand slowly turning the wheel.
Alice pressed her lips together, waiting for the scrape of bark against metal, but it never happened.
They twisted around the tree without incident, and before she knew it, he was turning out onto the road.
She sighed.
Brian seemed to let out a small sound of relief as well.
She waited several seconds and then asked, "Well?"
"What?"
"Do you really think Bigfoot is out here, or are they just jerking you around?"
"I don't know."
She waited for more, but he didn't continue, so she asked, "Yesterday, you said you saw Bigfoot run across the road in front of you before attacking the chief and Cheryl. Could that have been a person in a costume?"
"I didn't get a chance to really study him, so I can't say for certain that it wasn't."
"So, let's say it was a person in a costume. Cheryl would have to know that was the case because it literally dragged her into the woods."
"And dribbled on her."
"I forgot to tell you that. Last night, after everything had happened, she told me that she had felt its penis when it tried to have its way with her in the woods and that it dripped on her."
"My God." Just the thought of such an experience, especially if it truly had been a Bigfoot creature, made her want to gag.
"Yeah, she was pretty disgusted by it."
"I bet. Of course, you know what that means."
"She didn't have any on her that could be sampled for DNA. She checked."
"What? Oh. Well, what I was going to say was, if she felt its penis and saw it, she would know if it was a real Bigfoot creature or just someone in a costume." She paused, an image appearing. "Though that would mean that the person had either unzipped his costume or had a costume where it could hang out, or…shit, I don't really know."
"You know what else it would mean? If it is just a person wearing a costume, they were wearing it at the time that Margaret Jones was attacked because the screenshots Annie sent clearly showed a creature coming toward her through the brush."
"Yeah, good point, I didn't think of that."
"And maybe the reason Marlon Gibbs was killed was because he had encountered this person before and knew who it was."
"But why kill Margaret Jones?"
"Because the person is a psycho who gets off on attacking people while wearing the costume?"
"Okay, but then why would others like Cheryl and the girl at the motel be involved?"
"Um…" he started but didn't finish.
Her own mind couldn't get much further than that either.
Up ahead a stop sign loomed.
Once at it, Brian waited, indecision obviously getting the better of him.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I just don't know what to do."
"I think we take a right."
"No, not that," he said. "I don't know what to do with all this, the situation, Cheryl and Beverly and Annie. I mean, I came here to simply get the video because I thought it would be great on my site, and to poke around a bit, but now, well, it's seeming more and more likely that there is no Bigfoot and this is something more, something involving young women disappearing and people being killed."
Alice sensed there would be more, so she waited.
"I'm not an investigator—we're not investigators—so honestly, we really have no business investigating any of this."
"But?" she asked.
"We put a shit-ton of debt onto our credit cards to get out here, which we can't really afford, and I'd hate for it to all go to waste."
"Me too."
"And there really isn't any reason why we can't investigate this and try to figure out what is going on, and if we do learn something, why I can't write about it. I mean, honestly, just because my book was about the paranormal doesn't mean I can't try to break a legit story about a conspiracy up here involving someone who dresses like Bigfoot, right?"
Alice considered this, realizing that he was actually asking for her input into the decision rather than simply voicing his own justification for a decision he had already made.
"And we've already learned quite a bit, especially about how Annie really was planning on coming here and how Beverly and Cheryl lied about it, and how Marlon Gibbs likely wasn't killed on that rock because of the blood issue."
I'm the one who pointed that out, she wanted to say, but bit her tongue. Instead, she said, "People have died and one has gone missing. Are you sure you really want to continue poking around into this?"
He didn't reply.
"I'm not saying we can't stay here and keep looking into it. I just want to make sure you acknowledge the danger involved and think about that."
"I am."
"And you honestly think it is a good idea to stay?"
"I don't know if it's good or bad, but I do think that if we can figure this out and write about it, that it might open doors and present opportunities that wouldn't be available if we simply went home and continued with our lives."
Alice considered this. One of the reasons their marriage had been so rocky was because of the unhappiness they each carried. Brian's stemmed from how poorly his book had done and how it had forced him into taking a day job at the call center. Her unhappiness was a product of his unhappiness, because it was difficult to live with someone who was perpetually unhappy. This investigation could change all that. If they could figure out what was going on, and if he could write a piece about it that got attention from the media, then it might give a much-needed jump start to his career and, in turn, their marriage.
Maybe even spark interest in his book, which he could resell the rights to or upload himself onto Amazon as an ebook.
It was worth a shot.
"Let's do it," she said.
"You sure?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Okay."
She waited, but he didn't take his foot off the brake.
"Now what?" she asked.
"I have no idea."
15
According to the Vicodin bottle, Quinn wasn't supposed to be operating heavy machinery while under the influence of the painkiller, but despite the warning, he decided that talking to Cheryl and seeing for himself if she was hiding something was too important for him to wait on. He also didn't want to assign the task to Jeanne or get the county involved just yet. No. It was something he needed to do, and he needed to do it today. Plus, was the Jeep really considered “heavy machinery”? He didn't think so. And even if it was, who would be there to pull him over should he swerve a bit on one of the curves during the fifteen-minute drive to Cheryl's place? Jeanne? Not likely. The county? They never patrolled this far into the valley. Nope. The only concern he had was running the Jeep off the side of the road and into the river—after falling a couple hundred feet or so, and truth was, he felt okay enough behind the wheel to keep himself from doing that.
Could Cheryl really be behind all this?
Could she really be holding Brendon's leash and siccing him on people?
On me?
Admittedly, Quinn didn't know Cheryl all that well. Had the town experienced more crime that could make the papers, or if they had social gatherings like in the days of old where all the townsfolk got together on Main Street for Founding Day or the Fourth of July, then maybe he would have, but such was not the case. In fact, the first time he had really heard of Cheryl had been following an encounter she had with Brendon back when the two were in high school, one where she had slapped him after he had grabbed her breasts. No police involvement had been required, but Chief Cavanaugh had instructed him to keep an eye on things in case they started to escalate. Ironically, it had been the last command Chief Cavanaugh had ever given him, due to a heart attack two days later.
Could I have done more?
Honestly, he didn't think he could have. Whatever might have happened between Cheryl and Brendon, it never resulted in the police being called, so really there wasn't anything he could do.
Plus, in those early days, before the lumber company finally pulled stakes and moved to Clearwater, he had had his hands full whenever the lumberjacks came down into town to hit up the local bars and willing females, of which there were always plenty to choose from.
And now there were none of the former and few of the latter.
It was amazing how quickly things could change.
Up ahead, a sharp bend loomed.
He shifted his focus to the road, a dull ache in his head telling him that most of the Vicodin was probably out of his system.
He rounded the bend without a problem.
Five minutes later, he was turning into Cheryl's driveway.
Her Jeep was not there.
Where would she be on a Sunday?
The office?
Why?
There was nothing Cheryl did at the office that couldn't be done at her home, the paper having long since gotten to the point where having a central office location in town was pointless.
It had no staff, no issues were ever printed, and from what he gathered, there were no subscriptions or profits of any kind. Cheryl had done her best to create a bit of a website for the paper once she took ownership of it, but it was a half-assed attempt that looked more like a high school project for a computer class than a professional paper.
Thinking about this, he considered the statement Beverly had made about how Cheryl had enjoyed the attention that her story on the Margaret Jones disappearance had received.
How far would she go to have that attention return?
He pulled his Jeep to a stop alongside her house while considering things, the answer being he had no idea.
Wind chimes greeted him as he stepped onto the gravel driveway, his body wavering for a moment as the world did a little twirl.
What am I doing? he asked himself, one hand on the Jeep, one on his head.
Should be at home in bed.
Duty calls.
He was the chief of police, and sometimes that meant having to act when others would be allowed to rest and recover.
Everything stilled.
He took a deep breath and took a few cautious steps.
Nothing happened.
He took a few more steps.
All was good.
He walked up the porch steps and rang the doorbell.
Nothing.
No surprise there.
Still, he rang the bell again just to be sure no one was there, and then tried the door.
It was locked.
He peeked into a window next to the door but couldn't see much beyond the front room.
The same was true with the next window, and the next one.
He went to the back.
Like the front door, the back was locked.
Once again, he peeked into the windows he could get at, and once again, there was nothing beyond but normal-looking rooms.
Now what? he asked himself.
On any other day, he would have simply made plans to return later in the day, but given his head injury and the sense that he had made quite the effort to get over to her place, he felt he was entitled to some answers—especially if Beverly was correct and Cheryl was up to something.
He tried the door again, jiggling it more firmly than would be typical of someone who didn't reside within.
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