by Deirdre Dore
“The right.” Her voice was equally low.
The covers were already turned down, no doubt courtesy of Sylvia, so it would be easy to slide her beneath them.
Tavey frowned. “I should change. I’m filthy.”
“Who cares?”
“I care,” she said, scowling.
“Fine. Change,” he ordered, then turned away from her. She could hear him breathing. His shoulders were tense.
Tavey removed her filthy clothes slowly, aware that he was probably watching her from the corner of his eye. When she was naked, she turned away and opened one of her dresser drawers, pulling out a cotton nightgown.
She glanced behind her, not surprised to see that he’d craned his neck to look at her and his gaze was fixed on her rear end.
Tavey swallowed, her cheeks heating, and carefully pulled her nightgown over her head, crying out just a little when she accidentally brushed the bruise on her head.
He was behind her quickly, helping her, his big, warm body surrounding her. He eased her arms into the sleeves and brushed the cloth downward, tugging it so that it covered her even as his hands lingered, smoothing the fabric over her soft, warm flesh.
They stayed where they were for a moment, his body so close that she could feel the heat of him. Her head hurt, her ankle throbbed, but it felt so good to be near him, to feel his hands on her. He slowly moved his hands back up, gently rubbing her spine, her shoulders.
“You smell good,” he murmured, and she felt his fingers brush her hair. “You always smelled good. Even when we were kids.”
“I did?” she breathed.
“Yeah.” His hands continued to rub lightly at the sore muscles of her back. “When I was here, and you would come into the room to see me, you would sit right next to me on the bed. You always smelled like roses and sunshine and whatever food the servants had given you. You would straighten the skirt of your dress over your knees and open the book in your lap . . .” He trailed off.
Tavey felt a small smile curve her lip. “At first you told me to go away. You’d close your eyes, but you weren’t sleeping.”
“How did you know?”
“You’d be scowling.” Her smile widened.
He brushed his hands down her arms and she shivered. “I was an ass.”
She turned slowly, careful of her head, and met his eyes. “You were mine. I wanted to keep you.”
“Yeah?” He swallowed. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Did I?” She seemed pleased by that idea.
His eyes dropped to the plump curve of her lip. “You did.”
“Do I scare you now?”
Her eyes were dark, fathomless, as deep as the woods. He took a deep breath and ran a thumb over her bottom lip.
“Come on. Let me help you to bed.” He urged her around.
She let him help her, wishing she felt well enough to tug him in beside her, to explore the strange tingling joy she felt being near him.
She settled herself, letting out a gasp of pain and relief as her body settled into the soft sheets.
He hovered for a moment, then sat next to her hip, turning and bracing his hands.
“Just like old times,” she quipped, even though then it had been reversed. He’d been the one bruised and beaten. She’d hated seeing him that way. Hated his father.
He was sweating a little, his eyes bright as he looked down at her.
“I talked to my uncle today,” he said finally, watching her face.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.
Tyler swallowed. “I think he did talk to Summer. He probably saw her that day.”
Tavey tried to sit up, but Tyler pressed her back down.
“I’m not saying he was the one that hurt her, or that he knows where she is. I’m saying that they did talk on occasion. He said there were other people in the woods around the time that Summer went missing, that there was drinking and shouting on a regular basis. I don’t know how he knew about the drinking. Maybe he found bottles.” He paused. “He said Summer would follow these people.”
A frown gathered between her eyes, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I don’t know what it means. I found out today that Circe’s husband, Mark, and Chris’s father were friends. Raquel’s mom, too. Apparently they would party together at your grandpa’s cabin out in the woods. Maybe something . . . sinister happened. I don’t know.”
He put one hand over hers.
Her lips parted on a gasp.
“But I’m going to find out. Raquel and Ryan will help me. We may need your dogs to search, but if there’s something to find, we’ll find it. That cabin is in good shape, even after all these years. Promise me you won’t go off on your own again.”
Tavey looked up at the sharp lines of his face, wishing she could see beneath the surface, figure out what he was thinking. It seemed to her that he kept himself separate, walled off. She’d seen the desire and anger warring in him every time he came near her, but he never actually tried to talk to her.
She wanted to reach up and touch the stubble on his cheek, wanted to promise him that she’d do anything for him, but she couldn’t promise that, wouldn’t promise that to someone who always kept himself from her, always rejected her. He hadn’t listened to her. If his uncle was truly innocent of what happened to Summer, then she felt horrible for accusing him all these years, but he had known something. He’d known something for over twenty-five years and hadn’t said anything. If Tyler had talked to him sooner, asked him sooner, maybe Summer would already be found.
“My head hurts,” she said finally, and rolled on her side away from him. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”
Tyler didn’t say anything for a moment, but then she felt the bed shift as he stood.
“All right, Tavey. We’ll talk tomorrow,” he agreed.
Tavey heard the click of her bedroom door being shut and let out a long, shaking sigh. She couldn’t help but remember her dream in the graveyard. Summer had told her to tell Tyler how she felt. How she wanted him, how fantasies of him had played in her head all these years.
Well, Summer should have known better, ghost or not. Tavey hadn’t been brought up to spill her feelings out at the drop of a hat. It would take more than one day for her to overcome the habits of a lifetime.
26
THE NEXT MORNING, just past dawn, Circe and Mark stopped hiking at the edge of the dense forest that surrounded the abandoned Cherokee Paper Mill. New growth had started to fill in much of the open space that had once been the grounds and parking areas of the mill, and trees rose like phantoms among the old brick and concrete. Circe bent over and put her hands on her knees, breathing in and out in relief. She was cold, tired, hungry, and scratched from tree limbs and brambles. The faint light was enough to see the bright yellow crime scene tape that surrounded the crumbling collection of buildings where workers had once processed the trees harvested from nearby forests. Closed in the early seventies, it had been left to the woods, which was slowly, steadily taking back the land.
Circe rubbed her arms to get warm. The spring air was slightly too cool, but that wasn’t why she shivered. She’d never liked it here, never liked the dark, watchful feel of the place. She sniffed, smelling pine, ragweed, and something she couldn’t quite place, something rotten. Clenching her teeth, she straightened. No, she’d never liked this place. There were old spirits here. They wanted everyone gone. She’d felt it even back then when Mark and Rob had brought her and Gloria Belle to the mill for the first time in the spring of 1980.
Mark had driven while Rob sat in the passenger seat, his hair carefully groomed, his face tanned even in early spring. Mark had looked rougher, but he was clean cut as well, his powerful chest covered in a blue shirt with an alligator on one side. Circe remembered feeling giddy, overwhelmed
by the luxury of the Mercedes-Benz they were riding in, rubbing her fingers against the leather and smiling for no reason. Next to her, Gloria Belle had hummed a little tune, her eyes slightly out of focus as she sat cross-legged in a beaded silk dress.
Circe remembered being curious where they were going; the first few times Mark had taken her out, they’d gone to Atlanta and eaten at fancy restaurants and danced in the nightclubs. Gloria Belle had even sung at a few, her low smoky voice making all the men’s eyes glint with a dangerous light. Circe had loved every moment of it; the sweet taste of a sugary pink drink in her mouth, the rhythmic beat of the music, the feel of admiring eyes on her beautiful face.
So when Mark had turned away from Atlanta and headed down a quiet highway traveling northeast, Circe had asked where they were going.
Mark had glanced at her in the rearview. “We’re going to meet some new friends,” he’d explained vaguely.
Gloria Belle had snorted, turning her head toward Circe.
“Don’t know why you don’t just tell her. She’ll know soon enough, won’t she?”
“Shut up, Belle,” Mark had muttered.
Gloria Belle had straightened, her lean shoulders jerking forward in the seat. “Don’t tell me to shut up. I’ll tell Charlie.”
“Charlie can blow it out his ass.”
Circe had known only one Charlie, Charlie Collins, but he’d died in a car accident months earlier. Or at least, everyone thought he’d died. His body had never been found, but they’d had a funeral anyway. She’d taken Summer and stood with her behind Tavey Collins and her grandparents as both Charlie’s empty casket and Tavey’s mother’s were slowly lowered into their graves.
“Charlie Collins?” she asked, hesitant.
Rob had glanced back, a small frown between his eyes. “Yeah. He’s alive. Surprise.”
He hadn’t sounded that happy about it.
“But why—”
Gloria Belle interrupted her. “He got tired of answering to his daddy. Found himself a new way to get rich.” Belle sounded admiring and a little avid, as if the thought of Charlie Collins or something he had was as addictive as the drugs she liked to inject in her arms.
When Mark turned down a narrow service lane in the middle of a dense, wooded area, Circe’s trepidation had grown. They hadn’t driven that far outside of Fate, but the area was nothing but woods. Woods and railroad tracks. She’d forgotten there had ever been a mill on the property; they’d closed it down when she was young.
The service road led through the woods away from the highway before opening up into a clearing. Back then the building hadn’t looked quite as bad, though graffiti covered the concrete side of the main building, and weeds had grown up waist high. Charlie Collins—looking good for a dead man—had been waiting for them near another Mercedes, his hands in his pockets.
Two large, bearded men had straddled their motorcycles next to him, their narrowed eyes watching the approaching car without expression. Circe hadn’t known what was going on, but she’d gotten out of the car when they’d parked, and when the two men had gotten off their motorcycles and headed away from the large mill buildings, Circe had followed with the rest of them.
There was a house on the property, on the other side of the mill, closer to the railroad tracks. When the mill was up and running, the caretaker or manager would drive down the service road from the main highway, and down a long drive that led away from the mill farther into the trees. The house had been perfect for cooking, for bagging the supply for distribution, being isolated and sturdy enough back then to be reasonably safe and comfortable. There had even been electricity for a time, stolen from the power lines that had once run to the building.
It was also perfect for the other things they’d done, the women the men had kidnapped. Circe had heard them crying even after they were killed, heard them crying even as their abused bodies were dumped in the millpond.
Circe looked sideways at Mark, wondering if he’d ever been part of that, if he’d ever come here without her and enjoyed those young women. He met her eyes and his eyes darkened as if he knew what she was thinking.
He jerked his head in the direction of the old house.
“Stay inside the tree line,” he whispered. “Let’s make sure no one else is here.”
The snap of a twig caught both their attention. A man, dressed in a suit, was ducking under the crime scene tape around the perimeter of the building, a length of blue rope over one shoulder, a shovel in one hand, a flashlight in the other, as he walked past the old concrete buildings in the direction of the drive that led to the caretaker’s house. Robbie.
“Who the fuck is that?” Mark whispered, edging a little closer to the trees.
“Robbie,” Jane informed him, picking her way over some brush to come abreast of him. “He came by the store last week.” She frowned. “Or was it the day before?” She was tired. She’d lost track.
She wasn’t expecting him to grab her hair and yank her back.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me that, Jane?”
Circe felt tears come to her eyes. She’d forgotten. “I’m sorry. I wanted to see you. I forgot to tell you.”
He continued to tighten his grip on her hair for a moment, then released her.
“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “I needed to visit with old Rob anyway.”
Circe blinked back the tears and brushed her hands nervously down her filthy clothes.
He’d carried the rifle through the woods, but now he set it down against a tree and pulled a black handgun out of his waistband on the back of his pants.
From the tree line, the land descended a little before flattening out. The mill was actually made up of one main building and several smaller outbuildings.
She followed Mark as he stalked Rob past the buildings and down the weedy drive to the caretaker’s house. He kept his gun out as he followed Rob, his steps sure and quiet. Circe stayed back a little, following, but not wanting to follow too closely for fear of stumbling or tripping over something and making Rob aware of them. The dim dawn light made the scene even more surreal than it would have been otherwise. Her husband was a dark shape up ahead; the gun in his hand as black as the pupil of an eye.
The house was nearly five hundred yards away from the mill, embedded in the forest so that the caretaker wouldn’t have to listen to the noise of the mill day and night. The farther they walked, the more clogged with weeds the drive became, until it was completely covered by brush and small trees. Rob cursed ahead as he tripped over something and Mark paused, waiting.
He continued after a second, pushing carefully through the vines and saplings that blocked their path. She followed after him, wishing she didn’t feel like an explorer about to venture into an unknown world.
They crept slowly closer, and it became more and more apparent that the FBI hadn’t included the building in their search; they either hadn’t realized it was there or had determined that it was unsafe. Looking at it, Circe couldn’t help but be afraid. It was nearly swallowed by vines and was folding in on itself like a damp rag. She could hear a faint crashing sound, vaguely high-pitched and scratchy, like the sound of bricks hitting each other.
They made their way around the house, and Circe saw the blue rope Rob had been carrying tied to a thick tree. It disappeared into the back of the house, through the curtain of vines that hung over it.
Mark followed the rope, pushing up the vines and ducking under.
Circe hesitated; she didn’t want to go in. Didn’t want to remember.
“Well, good morning, Rob. What brings you here?” Mark asked sarcastically. His voice sounded far away, as though he’d walked into a cave.
Rob’s reply was a lower murmur, like he was farther away. Circe leaned closer, to try to hear but couldn’t make out what he said.
“I think you’re trying to take it for you
rself,” Mark said in that deadly, dangerous voice. The one that made the voice in her head retreat and hide. “Jane, get in here,” he yelled back at her.
Circe winced and stepped forward, gingerly lifting the drape of thick, smelly leaves. She eased her way under, blinking as the dim light she’d grown accustomed to disappeared behind the foliage. She was actually pressed up against the old, rotting wall of the house. She’d missed the doorway by several feet. Trying not to touch the wall, she kept pushing the leaves away as she slid along the wall.
She nearly ran into Mark’s back as she stepped inside the dark room that had once been a small living area, a fireplace on the far end. Mark was standing at the edge of a huge hole, where the fireplace had caved in, collapsing the floor underneath and sending a cascade of bricks into what had been the basement.
Rob had used the rope to lower himself down into the hole and was throwing bricks into one corner, trying to uncover the place where they’d hidden it.
“Jane.” Mark’s voice was low and dangerous. He waved the gun at her. “Come closer.”
Circe walked forward until she was standing at Mark’s side, looking down into the dark hole at Rob. He’d taken off his suit jacket, a light sweat covered him. He hadn’t been throwing bricks for that long, so Circe figured he was either excited or terrified. She was terrified, her clothes were soaked in dirt and sweat. She had never felt less like Circe.
Mark grabbed her arm and squeezed, never taking his eyes off Rob, the hand holding the gun shaking a little.
“Jane, get down there and help Rob remove the bricks.”
Circe swallowed and looked into the hole. She didn’t like dark holes in the ground, but she didn’t think it was wise to disobey Mark, either, not with the gun in his hand. She squatted and took the slippery nylon rope in her hands. Lowering herself down as best she could, her fingers slipping as she tried to control her descent, she whimpered low in her throat. The voice laughed at her. Look at him, look up at him, Circe.
Circe looked up at her husband, who was watching her clumsy progress with what seemed to be satisfaction.