Bit looked equally bewildered. “Mom, why are you pointing a gun at Paul?”
“I thought you were supposed to be in Denver,” Laura hissed.
Paul shrugged. “So that’s it. Well, the flight got cancelled because of the storm. I arrived back here earlier this afternoon.”
Laura kept her eyes fixed on Paul. “Nice story.” She raised the gun. “I want you to get out of this house—now!” she shouted. For emphasis, she waved the Beretta at him menacingly.
Paul took a step backward. “Hey, I only came over here to check on you two. I brought an extra portable generator I thought you might be able to use. It's in the Jeep.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Laura said coldly. She cocked the gun. “Now, one last time: either get out of my house or I swear I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
“Laura…”
She raised the pistol. “What did you do to my husband?”
“Your husband?" An even more confused look flashed across Paul's face. "I haven’t seen your husband. What’s wrong with him? Is he missing or something?" He lowered his hands and took a step forward. "You’re not making sense to me…”
Laura tensed, leveled the gun. “Get back," she warned. "I won't tell you again.”
Paul stopped in his tracks and tried to force a reasoning smile. “Laura,” he implored, taking another step toward her. “If you tell me what this is all about, maybe I can help...”
He didn't finish the sentence.
Laura squeezed the trigger and the gun rocked back in her hands.
The blast of the Beretta reverberated around the room, leaving a ringing sound in the air. Paul gasped once, then toppled to the floor.
Bit screamed, “Mom, you’ve killed Paul!”
Laura dropped the gun and threw her hands around her mouth. What had she done?
“Why did you shoot him, Mom, why?”
Laura, still quaking, could provide no answer to her daughter.
She could only stare, horror-stricken, at Paul’s body as it lay crumpled in a heap by the door, the long black raincoat coiled around him like some kind of vampirish cocoon.
⸙
“SWEETHEART, REMEMBER WHAT I told you about Paul back in the woods? Well, I want you to know it was the truth."
“I don’t want to hear anything else, Mom. You just killed him.”
“I had to do it,” Laura retorted, struggling to control her own galloping train of emotions. “He was going to hurt you and me if I didn’t.”
“No he wasn’t.”
“Oh, sweetheart, if you only knew.”
⸙
LAURA FINALLY GOT Bit to calm down. Nursing a cup of hot chocolate, she listened while her mother reminded her of all the terrible things Paul had done, starting with the murder of poor Dr. Coleman, following up with how he had attacked her in the kitchen with a knife.
He had probably killed Brad as well and disposed of his body somewhere in the woods.
“None of this makes sense, Mom,” Bit sobbed. “Paul was a nice man. He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Laura regretted having to confess such horrors to her eight-year-old daughter but knew it was for the best. “It’s true, sweetheart, every word of it,” she said softly. “It’s all true.”
Still sobbing, Bit said, “But why? Why would he kill Brad?”
Laura shook her head. “I can’t answer that, honey. Maybe later we can figure it all out. Right now, will you help me do something, please?”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
TOGETHER, THEY HEAVED Paul’s body into a sitting position and dragged him into the pantry next to the kitchen. Laura wiped her hands and shut the door behind them.
“We’ll just keep him in there until we can find some help,” she told Bit.
When Bit didn’t respond, Laura asked.
“Are you alright?”
Bit nodded.
“Are you sure??
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’ve been through a lot, sweetheart. We both have. But I promise you, what I did was for the best.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They walked upstairs hand-in-hand, put on their nightclothes and went to bed.
They slept together in Bit’s room that night.
⸙
DAWN ROSE SOFTLY over the purple mountains, releasing a golden fire that warmed the deep waters of Bear Gap Lake and the dark pinewoods ringing its sandy shores. A light rain continued to fall, but soon the storm that had swept violently through the valley earlier in the week had finally spent most of its fury.
Laura sat by the window, watching the lingering mists burn away as the sun rose steadily higher. Golden patches of dappled light flooded the front yard, heralding, she hoped, the end of that awful winter storm.
Bit lay on the blanket next to her, sound asleep, Anastasia and Teddy curled against her stomach. The dreamcatcher was missing. Bit had finally thrown it away after realizing that her mother had been right about Paul.
At least she thought so.
Laura couldn’t resist reaching over and stroking her daughter’s hair. “You’re one brave little woman,” she whispered.
Laura got up slowly and dragged herself into the kitchen to fix a cup of tea. She got out a bag of Earl Gray, then dragged the kettle back over to the hearth and placed it on the hook. While waiting for the kettle to boil, she happened to glance out the window and spotted a lone, dark figure darting among the trees.
“No,” she moaned, then tore her eyes away. In all the excitement of the past twenty-four hours, she had forgotten about the bearded hunter in the woods.
She forced herself to lift her eyes toward the window for another look. This time she realized that her “bearded hunter” was not a hunter at all. Instead, it was a deer, a small brown deer, grazing at the edge of the forest. A pair of skinny fawns followed the deer, munching the leftovers that dribbled from their mother’s twitching mouth.
“Here’s to all mothers,” she said, hoisting a glass of water in a solitary toast.
The rattle of the wall phone spun her around. It was the first time the phone had rung since Danny's call the first day of their arrival. The tone was so loud and shrill it might as well have been from another galaxy. Trembling in disbelief, she reached for the phone.
“Hello?” she said into the receiver.
At first Laura thought she heard a woman’s voice, low and garbled, like someone trying to talk while gargling mouthwash. But then the voice went away, replaced by a strange clicking noise—like one of those old tin crickets she played with as a child. “Hello? She barked into the receiver, “Who is this? Is anybody there?”
Laura waited, listening to a rhapsody of clicking and hissing sounds that went on and on until there was a popping crash and the line went dead.
“Who was that?” Bit asked. She had got up when the phone rang and come into the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” Laura replied, slowly cradling the phone back on the hook.
“Maybe it was the Marines coming to rescue us,” Bit joked. “Or the police.”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” Laura replied. She stood staring at the phone, as if expecting it to ring again any second. She didn't understand it. Before the line went dead, she could have sworn she had heard a woman’s voice on the other end.
“Maybe it was space aliens," Bit joked after Laura told her about the strange call, "trying to communicate with us from their mothership.”
Laura didn't feel much like laughing, but she managed a funny smile.
The piercing hiss of the tea kettle almost made both of them jump out of their skin.
⸙
THE UNCANNY PHONE CALL had left Laura with another bad feeling. She tried to shake it off as she listened to Bit crack jokes. “What do you say we make breakfast,” she suggested.
“Can we have something besides French Toast?" Bit asked. "I'm tired of French Toast."
Laura pretended to faint. She never thought she'd ever hear her daughter co
mplain about French Toast.
“Let’s see if I can rustle something up.”
The pantry was the only place off limits.
⸙
AFTER A BREAKFAST of Corn Flakes and milk, Laura found her cell phone and tried—unsuccessfully—to raise a signal. She walked out on the deck and swung the phone around in ferocious circles, probing frantically for an air current that would link her Samsung Galaxy to some distant cell tower. “Damn,” she muttered, stuffing the phone inside her pocket.
What about Whit Anderson? If she could get through to him, surely he'd offer to take them down to Dahlonega in his big, reliable old Land Rover. From there she could call Brad. If she couldn't get Brad, than surely she could get Danny. Why hadn't she thought of that before?
She hurried back inside the kitchen, picked up the hand-held receiver and dialed Whit Anderson’s number.
She was surprised when she actually got a dial tone. She was even more surprised when she heard the phone actually ringing.
“Yes?” an old woman’s voice answered on the other end.
“Hello, this is Laura Drake, I was trying to reach Dr. Whit Anderson.”
“Who?” Laura could almost visualize the old woman leaning forward in her wheel chair, frayed cotton shawl around stooped shoulders, a fat cat on her lap.
“Dr. Whit Anderson. Is this his number? I found it in the book.”
“Honey, I don’t know no Dr. Whit Anderson. You must have the wrong number.”
“But I talked to him at this number just two days ago. Are you sure?”
The old woman hesitated. “Listen to me, Miss, whoever you say you are…” she said in a tone that was more astonished than angry. “If this is some kind of fool joke you’re trying to pull on me just because I’m an old widow-woman, I’m a good mind to call my grandson. He’s the chief of poh-lice down in Dahlonega. We’ve had way too many problems around here lately with this storm tearing everything down to pay attention to prank calls. Now I’m going to hang up this phone and…”
“No, wait, please don’t hang up,” Laura pleaded. She collected herself. “If you’ll give me just a second, I’ll explain everything.” She cleared her throat. “I promise you, Ma’am, this is no crank call. It’s just that, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. I’m sure I spoke to Dr. Anderson at this number. He…he even came here to my house two nights ago and treated my daughter for an injury.”
“Miss…” the old woman started.
“…Drake. My name is Laura Drake...”
Softening, the woman said, “Okay, I do recollect something now. There was a Dr. Anderson who lived here once. Right here in this house. But that was a long, long time ago.” The old woman paused, as if recalling some distant memory. “Gracious me, that's been seventy, eight years now, back when my grandma was just a little girl.” The old woman paused again, as if to make sure she had her facts straight. “But Dr. Whit—as they used to call him—has not been with us for many years.”
Laura's mouth went dry. She felt a churning sensation deep inside her stomach. Her throat tightened, so much she had to take a sip of water before sitting down in a chair at the kitchen table and resuming her conversation. “I...I don't understand," she stammered. "Are...are you trying to tell me that...that Dr. Whit is...is...”
“Honey, what I'm telling you is that Old Dr. Whitt is dead as a doornail. Why, that old man's been dead for well over a half a century. He’s buried up yonder in the old Greeley Cemetery, not more than half a mile from the house right here that he grew up in.”
Laura thanked the old woman and hung up the phone slowly. She leaned back and gazed out the window. A dark cloud puffed across the sky, and, for one brief moment, she thought she heard voices—the distant sound of laughter—coming from somewhere down on the beach.
⸙
NOBODY CAME. They spent the rest of the day hauling in more firewood. Laura had gone out to Danny’s storage shed earlier that afternoon and picked through the cases of food until she found enough goodies to last them the rest of the winter.
Using a backpack, she had loaded up canned hams and pineapples, more raisins and apricots, several cans of soup and a box of mixed English teas. She also threw in more matches and candles, a couple of flashlights and a box of batteries.
She had no idea when the power company would be out to check on the lines and didn’t want to take any chances of being stuck inside the house without plenty of food and batteries. With any luck, maybe the police in Greeley or Dahlonega would send a patrol car up sooner.
“Might as well make the best of it,” she concluded, zipping up the backpack and locking the shed door behind her.
After unloading the supplies, Laura found Bit huddled on the front deck, knees drawn up under her chin. She was bundled in a sweater and thick scarf, staring out over the shimmering green waters.
“The birds are all gone,” she said flatly.
Laura looked. "So they are," she agreed, gazing out across the lake. Bear Gap Lake looked empty, almost forlorn, without the sight of birds swooping and diving. “I guess they’ve gone to their winter homes,” Laura reckoned.
“Where’s that?”
Laura sighed. “I don’t know. Probably Florida or South America. Someplace warm, that’s for sure.”
“When do you think they’ll come back?”
Laura shook her head. “Probably not until next spring. Maybe March or April.”
“That must be nice," Bit said, "to have wings and be able to just fly away when you want to. If I had wings I’d fly away from this place right now. I’d fly back to Atlanta so I could be with all my friends."
Fifty-Eight
AFTER A SUPPER of canned beans, pink salmon and crackers, Laura decided to take advantage of what was left of the daylight and go try to find the keys to the Mercedes. Bit had begged to come along, but Laura thought it best she stay back at the house out of the bone-chilling wind.
"But, Mom, there's a dead body in the pantry," Bit protested.
Laura put her arms around her daughter's shoulders and looked her in the eye. "It's only Paul, remember? Not just some dead body. There's nothing for you to be afraid of."
⸙
AFTER LOCKING THE DOOR behind her, Laura started up the road in the direction of where they had seen the car last night.
The early evening air felt fresh and soothing on her face as she crunched through a light blanket of fresh-fallen snow. Even the forest smelled clean and clear from last night's storm, and, in the distance, she could see the lake's glaring shimmer in the fading purple twilight.
Any other time it would have been like on holiday. Laura had always loved the Georgia mountains, even in bleakest winter. She found the solitude and beauty of the wilderness comforting in a way difficult to explain to her country club friends in Atlanta.
Evidence of last night's storm was everywhere. Fallen limbs and uprooted trees littered the narrow road, while down below on the beach, twisted chunks of driftwood resembled broken pretzels frozen in the sand. Fortunately, the snow was melting, turning to slush. If she could somehow find the keys and get the Mercedes started, she and Bit could be back in Atlanta before midnight.
As she trudged through the snow, the thing that worried Laura most was another run-in with the bear. She tried to push the image of the huge beast out of her head, to just pretend the confrontation had been an anomaly, a freak occurrence. Perhaps her encounter with the creature had been only a vision anyway, much like the spectral doctor who had sprung from the woods to rescue her. What was it Whit had said to her—bears are really afraid of humans and would prefer to run rather than provoke a fight. Laura still wasn’t sure of that.
Besides, it was only the opinion of a doctor who had been dead for half a century!
Then she thought about Bit's knee, the tender way Whit Anderson had cared for her. No, Whit couldn't have been a ghost. She refused to accept the old woman's claim that the doctor from Miami was dead. Both she and Bit had seen him, spok
en to him. The pain pills he had given Bit were not figments of their imagination. The needle he had poked in Bit's arm was certainly no illusion.
Then again, she and Bit had both seen the spectral inhabitants of the lake.
Laura was not immune to the possibility that the old woman on the telephone might have had her facts mixed up and that Whit was very much alive and real. She sighed. If that were only true.
She soon found herself hurrying, anxious to get Brad's car started so they could get off the mountain. But what if she couldn't find the keys?
For the first time in her life, Laura wished she knew how to straight-wire an automobile. If she couldn’t get it started, maybe she could hike down the mountain to Greeley. It couldn't be more than seven or eight miles. She could do that, even in the snowy cold. There she'd be able to find help. A policeman, perhaps, anybody. After all, it was her civic duty to report the death of Dr. Phyllis Coleman.
But how would she explain Paul's body lying dead and cold in the pantry back at Danny’s house?
Or the fact that her husband was missing and presumed dead?
Or the remains of Dr. Phyllis Coleman?
What would local authorities say about all that? She could only imagine!
Laura concluded the best thing to do was to wait until she got back to Atlanta before telling anybody about everything that happened the past few days. There she could throw herself at the mercy of a civilized legal system. She had friends who were lawyers. Surely they would be able straighten this whole mess out.
The black Mercedes sat parked under the trees right where she had seen it the previous night. Taking a deep breath, she approached the car slowly, momentarily fearing that it, too, might be only a phantom and disappear before her eyes.
But the car didn't disappear, and seconds later she found herself opening the door and rummaging around inside for the keys. It felt strange prowling around her husband's car, almost like she was some kind of thief. The car was immaculate on the inside, the way Brad had always kept it. She sniffed. Even the scent of his cologne lingered.
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