by Mae Clair
She smiled up at him. “I know. But Jerome needs friends.”
“He’s not a stray cat or a dog you can take in.”
“But I can help him be a little more social.” She nudged him in the ribs. “You can too.”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t hard to temper his enthusiasm. “Looks like I’ve already got a date for tomorrow night.”
* * * *
Caden wasn’t certain why he hadn’t thought of it before. Three days before Halloween, he drove to the property Lyle Mason’s parents had farmed when Caden was in high school. He’d known of Jerry and Joan Mason the way people in small towns are sometimes aware of others. He’d gone to Lottie’s funeral, along with some other kids from school, when she’d died. Wanting to pay his respects to the shy girl he’d barely known, but unwilling to intrude on the family’s grief, he’d kept to the back of the church.
The Masons had moved years ago, and another family had taken over the farm. Caden thought their name was Gardner or Gander. He recognized the man to offer a nod when they passed on the street, but that was all. With a property nestled several miles out of town, they kept mostly to themselves. Weston had interviewed them personally after learning about Lyle from Lach Evening, but neither the husband nor wife had seen Mason snooping around.
Still, it was worth a try. Especially considering Lyle was growing reckless.
Caden drove past fields filled with brown cornstalks, others dotted with baled blocks of hay. A three-story house jutted in the distance, black against a twilight sky. Night fell fast, evident by the messy ebb of the sun into the horizon. Caden pulled off the road several hundred yards from the house and silenced the car’s motor.
Ever since Ryan had told him about Lyle’s grievance against him, he’d racked his brain, trying to unearth a source. He’d gone through his yearbook privately, studying faces of long ago friends, girls he’d dated, and notes written by people he thought he’d remember forever. Nothing jarred his memory.
Stepping from the car, he closed the door behind him. A short stretch of road and fields wound like a ribbon to the house in the distance. Would Lyle have come back? Was there a secret place tucked among the sprawling grounds and outbuildings surrounding the house? An area where he could hole up and remain hidden until he chose to be seen? He’d grown up on the farm. He’d know every inch of it.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Caden walked to the front of his car and leaned against the hood. He didn’t know how long he stayed watching the house, only that the air grew colder, the quiet of the night heavier. After a time, light footsteps sounded behind him, jarring him from the peaceful solitude.
“You won’t find him here.” Lach Evening strolled closer. No overcoat, no gloves, not even the black fedora to crown his platinum hair. Beneath an emerging moon, his white shirt gleamed with a spectral sheen, contrasting his midnight-dark suit.
Momentarily speechless, Caden glanced around trying to pinpoint where he’d come from. He couldn’t spy a car anywhere in sight, or a single trail that would have led to the road. Evening would have had to trek through the cornfields, clearly not the case given the impeccable condition of his clothing. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve already spoken to the family that owns the farm.” Evening stepped closer. “A charming, if reserved couple. They haven’t seen Mr. Mason, but I’ve advised them he might materialize at some point.” There was nothing haughty in the words, but they rolled from Evening’s tongue with a superior lilt regardless.
“That’s the sheriff’s job.”
Evening made a V of his index finger and thumb, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “Perhaps I have overstepped my boundaries. Surely, you took care of the matter yourself.”
Caden fought a scowl. “Not personally. Weston interviewed them.”
“And yet here you are, waiting for Lyle.”
He couldn’t deny the obvious. “It was worth a shot. What about you?” He eyed Evening critically. “What are you doing here?”
“Perhaps the same as you. In any event, I think it’s a pleasant hour for a stroll. Good evening, Sergeant.” He started past Caden, walking casually as if soaking up the pleasant surroundings of a balmy summer night.
Caden let him go several feet without challenge. “Mr. Evening,” he called at last.
The man stopped without turning.
“Do you know Indrid Cold?”
A pulse beat, then two. Slowly, deliberately, Evening twisted to face him. “Where did you hear that name?” Three brusque strides brought him face-to-face with Caden. His expression, frequently bordering on bland or disinterested, had turned icy with resolve. “How do you know Cold?”
The sudden crispness of his accent set off a red flag in Caden’s mind. The inflection wasn’t an exact match for the being in the igloo, but with an edge of anger coloring Evening’s voice, the nuance was close. He narrowed his eyes. “Who the hell are you? Really.”
Evening stiffened, then drew back slightly. “I asked you a question.”
“And I did the same. Do you want to talk about Parker Kline? Jerome Kelly? Deputy Brown? Do any of those names ring a bell?” The anger and frustration he’d harbored for weeks bulldozed to the surface. He was sick of games, sick of spitting out questions and getting nowhere. “What about the Mothman?” Fisting his hand in the pristine fabric of Evening’s shirt, he yanked him closer. “You aren’t getting shit out of me, until you deliver something in return.”
Evening’s gaze dropped.
The sleeve of Caden’s jacket had been wrenched backward by his aggression, exposing the brands on his forearm. Evening remained perfectly still, his face impassive. It took several seconds for him to find his voice. When he spoke, his tone had lost its terseness.
“Those are interesting marks you carry, Sergeant.” He glanced up, his dark eyes probing. “I believe it’s time you and I had a serious discussion.”
Chapter 15
Caden wished Evening would sit. It wasn’t that he paced. Rather, he walked a short distance, stopped to examine a knick-knack or photograph as if discovering a new peculiarity, then moved on to another trinket in Eve’s living room and repeated the procedure over again. Unsure where to hold a frank discussion, Caden ended up bringing him home. The sheriff’s office was out of the question with too many people on duty, and the River Café would only draw attention. Fortunately, Katie and Ryan had coerced Eve into joining them for dinner and drinks with Jerome so the guy wouldn’t feel like a third wheel. His fiancée’s absence gave Caden the opportunity to talk to Evening alone.
“You appear to like plants.” Evening fingered the browning leaves of Eve’s latest acquisition. Caden had no idea what the potted lump was called, only that it had been added to her growing collection near the end of summer. She’d fussed, watered, fed, and talked to it, but unlike the rest of the jungle scattered through the house, the sickly looking thing had withered to a few twigs with shrunken leaves. Caden wanted her to toss it, but she wouldn’t hear of parting with the plant.
“They belong to my fiancée. Eve.”
“Yes. I met her at the hotel.” Evening strolled to another plant, this one much healthier. He stroked a finger over the leaves in a light caress. The hint of a smile touched his lips.
Damn, the guy was strange.
“Look, I’ve had enough of the niceties.” Caden sat on the couch, his legs braced apart, hands locked between them. “We both know there’s a lot more to you than you’ve told us. Shit has hit the fan in Point Pleasant. Lyle’s running around with a screwed up head, I’ve got a kid who escaped from a mental institution, dead dogs and cows, UFOs, the Mothman wreaking havoc, and some disembodied oracle in a World War II bunker. If you know anything about anything, now’s the time to tell me.”
Evening straightened his cufflinks. “So, you’ve met Indrid Cold?”
“Huh?” Caden felt the floor shift beneath him.
“In the bunker.” Evening spoke as
if the connection should be obvious. “If you spoke to the being inside, then you spoke with Cold.”
“Are you telling me that Indrid Cold—an alien from Lanulos, according to Parker Kline—is the thing…the oracle, or whatever it is, inside that igloo? The legend of that thing is as old as the original Mothman sightings.”
Evening clasped his hands behind his back. “Cold has been here longer. Much longer, though not in the physical sense. Corporeal occurrences are structured for certain moments in time. You might say Indrid Cold is a Watchman, much as I, though his obligation is driven by regret more than duty. On that plane we are different.”
Caden stood, trying to follow the twisting logic of the conversation. It was absurd to put stock in mind-blowing revelations, yet difficult to scoff after all he’d experienced. “You have the same accent.” Did that mean Evening was from Lanulos too?
“Similar, but separated by a generation.” Evening tilted his head to acknowledge the observation. “My race doesn’t age in the same manner as yours. The names we take on your planet are a means of accommodating your native languages. You would be unable to pronounce my name or that of my father.”
“Father?”
Evening’s smile was sharp. “Indrid Cold.”
Caden was suddenly conscious of the quiet. A grandfather’s clock in the corner ticked the hour, but other than the steady tock-tock, a heavy pall settled over the room. Nothing looked out of place, Eve’s latest mystery novel resting on the coffee table, his guitar case standing upright in the corner by the TV. A collection of plants sprouted from containers on the floor and ceramic crocks positioned on end tables. It could have been any family living room, an average setting for an average home, yet he was talking to an alien.
Swearing softly, he dragged a hand over his face. “Cold is your father?” He needed a beer, would have sunk back to the sofa, but was too wired to sit.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Nothing surprises me anymore. Are you going to abduct me or something?”
Evening grinned. “I assure you, Sergeant, you are safe. So is your town. My purpose here isn’t one of hostility.”
“Thank God for that.” Caden started for the kitchen. “I need a Coors. Want one?”
“No, thank you.” Evening followed as far as the kitchen doorway, waiting patiently while Caden grabbed a can from the refrigerator and popped the top. “I don’t make a habit of revealing myself to most people, or discussing my intentions when I visit a town,” he said after a moment, “but in your case, Sergeant, I believe it would benefit us to pool our information.”
“Agreed.” Caden shouldered back into the dining room and waved him to a seat at the table. “Who starts?”
Evening eyed the red welts peeking from beneath the cuff of Caden’s shirt. “The Mothman made those.” It was not a question. “Perhaps you should start there.”
“Fair enough.” For the next few minutes, Caden dumped every bit of information he had. He started by sharing how he’d helped the Mothman when he was eighteen, then explained how the creature had saved his life when the Silver Bridge fell, and again when Roger Layton would have killed him and Eve. He talked about Hank Jeffries and Parker Kline, Jerome and the coded message Parker had given him, even the mysterious Deputy Brown and the UFO sightings plaguing Point Pleasant from one side to the other. When he was through, he took a long swig of beer to wet his throat. Evening had let him ramble without question or comment, the man’s expression unreadable through Caden’s longwinded speech.
A cool cucumber, but one who could be rattled when pushed. He’d already seen that.
Caden set his beer down. “Your turn.”
“So it would seem.” Evening tapped a slender hand against the table. “What would you like to know?”
The squat tips of Evening’s fingers recalled the suction-cup like grip that clutched Caden’s jaw in the igloo. What had Cold said? Parker is my mistake to fix.
“How is your father connected to Parker Kline?”
“I can’t answer that.”
A prickle of anger crept up Caden’s spine. He tightened his hand on the beer can, one step from crushing the pliable aluminum. “I thought the idea was to share information.”
“Information I have. If my father is connected to Mr. Kline, I am unaware of a personal relationship.”
“What about Deputy Brown and the Men in Black?”
“Those you term Men in Black are Watchmen like myself.” Evening appeared at ease, his voice as casually modulated as if he discussed the weather. If he lied about anything, then he did a remarkable job of masking the falsehoods. “You’ve mentioned the abundance of UFO sightings. Dimension activity is at a high right now. You’ve no doubt heard the rumors that your town and much of this county are intersected by ley lines, creating thin spots between worlds. Throughout your centuries, there have been numerous occasions when the veils that separate those realms are more easily breached than others. That produces an excess of UFO activity. It happened in Point Pleasant in nineteen sixty-six and sixty-seven.”
A flap.
The guy sounded exactly like Jerome.
“So you’re saying the Men in Black are aliens too?” Thank God Nurse Brenner wasn’t around to eavesdrop on their discussion or she’d want to lock them in West Central.
“Their intent is not to harm anyone, Sergeant. Call it a cover-up if you will. It’s best your world doesn’t become fixated on dimensional travel, at least not at your present rate of advancement. Perhaps in time.”
“So when there’s a flap, the Men in Black show up to warn everyone silent?” He could buy that. From what he’d heard, warnings were the extent of what they’d done.
With the exception of one.
“Brown did more than that. He had the wherewithal to duplicate a Mason County patrol car and uniform. He posed as an officer and accosted a citizen.” The anger slithered back, hotter this time. Point Pleasant was his town, Jerome one of the people he was sworn to protect. Evening and Cold might look down their alien noses, considering Earth an inferior planet, but the residents of his town were not specimens to be placed under a microscope or manipulated. “Brown messed with Jerome Kelly’s mind, then dumped him outside the hospital when he’d gotten all he could from him.”
“I’m aware of that. A regrettable circumstance.” Evening bowed his head, appearing momentarily contrite.
Maybe the guy really did have a conscience underneath that cool exterior.
Evening waited a moment, then drew a slow breath. “Water if you please, Sergeant.”
Caden pulled back. “Huh?”
“You offered me a beverage when I arrived. I’d like water.”
A stalling tactic? Frowning, Caden stood. “Sure, okay.” After retreating to the kitchen, he poured a glass of water and grabbed a second beer for himself. By the time he returned to the dining room, Evening was sitting comfortably at the table, Eve’s withered plant stationed in the center.
Caden passed the water to him before sitting. “What’s that for?” he nodded to the plant.
“It’s withering.”
Newsflash there. “Dying is more like it.”
“Exactly.” Evening didn’t touch the water. Crossing his legs, he laced his hands on his lap. “All things die eventually, but not all linger in a declining stage of death.”
Double talk. Evening was reverting to his head-shrink mode, and Caden had no intention of playing along. “We were talking about Deputy Brown and what he did to Jerome.”
“Deputy Brown is human.”
Caden tensed. “What?”
“Your government is every bit as interested in silencing rumors of UFOs as are my people. From what you’ve told me, Brown must have been assigned to monitor Parker Kline. The organization that employs him is no doubt clandestine, and would have been aware of Mr. Kline’s gift for interpreting radio static.”
“So they wanted the coded message?”
“Unquestionably. Even if Mr. Kelly wasn’t physically carrying the written text when apprehended, Brown would have been able to retrieve the sequence through hypnosis. A single glance is all it takes for information to root in the subconscious.”
Caden tripped over the logic, his mind doing cartwheels as he digested the facts. “If Brown already had the code, and learned through hypnosis that Jerome passed it to Katie, why stake out her house?”
“A precaution, perhaps.” Evening palmed the water glass, turning it slowly. “Likely to determine if she shared the information with someone else, or quite possibly to scare her. Intimidation often makes people rethink what they’ve seen.”
Caden clenched his jaw. No doubt Jerome would find Evening’s revelations exhilarating, but trying to stay on top of the twists and turns was giving him a headache.
“I believe Mr. Kline was able to decipher a precise time when my father would appear in physical form,” Evening continued. “That is the information he passed to Mr. Kelly.”
“Yeah, I know about that.” Caden rolled a hand, wanting to move the conversation along. “Cold is supposed to rendezvous with Parker on Halloween.”
“No.” Evening’s black eyes glinted. “My father intends to meet with someone he abandoned centuries ago. A creature, who like this plant”—he motioned to the spindly cluster of dried leaves in the center of the table—“is dying.”
Dying.
The word echoed in Caden’s head. Pushing his sleeve back, he dropped his gaze to the brand on his arm. He’d experienced the creature’s melancholy and fatigue, been battered by its crushing sense of depression. It wanted to die.
But like Eve’s plant, it was trapped in some agonizing state of limbo.
“The Mothman is the last of his kind.” Evening caressed the side of the water glass with a finger. “Eons ago, my father arrived on your planet with others from Lanulos. Our atmospheres are much the same, and our planet was undergoing volcanic changes that made the terrain unstable.”
“So you were looking for a new world to inhabit?” It sounded like the plot of a science-fiction movie.