by Teresa Hill
On the porch, he hesitated. "Will you be all right here by yourself?"
"I'm a grown woman, Stephen. I can take care of myself."
He smiled at her once again, took a business card out of his pocket, and scribbled something on the back of it, then handed it to her.
"I'm right next door. Here's the number. Home, work, cell phone. Call me if you need anything."
"I will." She took the card, then stood there watching until he disappeared into the rain.
* * *
Allie bedded down on the sofa in the family room because she wasn't ready to face the bedrooms on the second floor. There would be time for that later.
She lay there thinking that she liked Stephen Whittaker, certainly more than was prudent after what amounted to one brief meeting, and a few fifteen-year-old memories. Mostly memories of Megan watching him and talking about him with the kind of awe only a sixteen-year-old girl could have. Particularly for a boy who seemed utterly out of reach and not the least bit interested in her as anything more than a friend.
But Stephen had been a good friend, and Megan had always been sure he would grow to be an absolutely perfect man. Allie remembered Megan's litany of his attributes. Strength, a sense of purpose, of determination, a feeling that he was someone who knew what he wanted and how to get it. All of those qualities had been there inside of him, even at nineteen.
Allie thought she saw those same things in him now, and it worried her. She wasn't sixteen, but she was at a very vulnerable point in her life. Mourning her mother, her father, maybe even still mourning her sister. She had absolutely no one in her life now. She supposed it would be too easy to find anyone, simply to avoid feeling so alone. She'd seen women make terrible mistakes that way—by latching onto the first available man they saw, no matter how unsuitable, how undesirable.
Trouble was, she hadn't discovered anything at all undesirable about Stephen Whittaker. She couldn't imagine she ever would.
Still, she'd come here for one reason—to find out what happened to her family all those years ago, including what anyone might know about her sister's accident. She hadn't come here to find a man. No matter how appealing he might be.
That decided, Allie lay there, tired and restless and still too keyed up for sleep, feeling more edgy the later it got. Old houses spoke a language all their own, it seemed. Flooring creaked. Tree branches scratched against the side of the house. Wind whistled and moaned. For a while she could swear she heard all sorts of faint thumping and bumping sounds from overhead. The second floor? The third? What in the world could be up there?
She listened for a long time, hearing nothing now, telling herself it was nothing and that she desperately needed sleep.
Uneasy about sleeping with a burning candle, she blew it out. Darkness settled around her, smothering her. Suddenly, she had to remind herself that she could breathe freely and easily. There was nothing closing in around her except her own foolish fears, nothing at all sinister about this house. Still, at times she'd swear it wasn't the random creaking and settling she heard but...
Footsteps?
Overhead?
Allie caught her breath. She had the urge to go to the windows and look outside, to see if someone was watching her, had a fear at times that the next instant, if she turned her head, she'd catch a glimpse of someone.
She remembered being afraid of the dark when she was little, remembered the way she tried to make herself stay absolutely still, as if the illusion of sleep would somehow save her from whatever monsters lurked in the dark.
But she wasn't a little girl anymore. There were no real monsters, she reminded herself, merely things that had little girls curling up in tight balls in their beds at night. Still, the house seemed heartbreakingly empty now, hollow and sad, as she lay there, absolutely still, waiting to see if someone was going to jump out of the shadows and get her.
Chapter 3
Allie woke to sunlight shining in her eyes, stiff muscles in her neck, and a faint chill in the air. She glanced at her watch, saw that it was shortly after six, and felt as if she had barely closed her eyes all night.
She touched her bare feet to the cold floor and walked to the windows. The world outside was wet, the surfaces glistening with water. The birds were up, making all sorts of racket. Light was making a halo at the treetops. Soon the sun would come over the top of the hill behind the stream. It seemed foolish now to have sat here late into the night afraid of the dark and a bit of noise.
Allie headed for town. Now that she didn't have to fight to see through the rain, she found the area lushly green, especially near the river. Trees towered overhead, aglow with staggeringly vivid colors—burnt oranges, bloodreds, golden yellows. There were large, rolling, open fields on one side, houses old and far apart on the other, the lots heavily treed, covered with vines, bushes, and pretty, little flowers. The sky was finally clearing. It was a soft, lazy blue, the sun beaming down on the wet world, everything smelling fresh and new.
The road was narrow and winding, gently rising from the river, taking her past farms, past horses galloping playfully through the open fields, white wooden fences, fancy barns with spires and trim work painted in colors to match the big, fancy houses. This was horse country, after all, even if a good bit of it had been lost to subdivisions.
Looking at the land now, recognition tugged at her heart in a way she simply didn't understand. Suddenly, it felt like home, as if it had been wrong of her to stay away so long.
Town was just as tiny as she remembered—not much more than four square blocks, old three and four-story buildings with wide sidewalks and pretty black wrought-iron lampposts and trees planted within neat squares of grass cut out of the sidewalk. There were still only a few cars on the road, the downtown area filled with neat, well-tended shops, restaurants, and offices. She wondered if anything would be open for business at this hour, then saw from the looks of the grocery store parking lot that it was not.
Allie drove into the center of town, coming upon a little drugstore on the corner with a cluster of cars around it. It seemed odd to find so many people there at that hour until she saw a sign for a coffee shop in back. Obviously, she'd found a local gathering place.
She followed the aroma of bacon and no doubt homemade biscuits, the chatter of lively conversation, to the rear of the store, where red-topped stools encircled a counter, behind which three women were working frantically. The waitresses not only took the orders and served the food, they cooked it, as well. There were eggs sizzling on the grill, an old-fashioned soda fountain to the right, and a standing-room only crowd. It was a comfortable place, a familiar one. She suspected people came here as much to sit and talk as to satisfy their hunger.
Two men paid their bill and left. Allie slid onto one of their stools next to a little girl and a woman with a baby. A heavyset waitress in her forties, wearing street clothes largely covered by her plain white apron, breezed by, plopping down a coffee cup as she went.
"Decaf or regular?" she said, a pot of each in either of her hands.
"Decaf, please." Allie had already downed half a pot with caffeine at home.
The woman had dark hair with just a hint of gray, dark reddish lipstick, and a heavily lined face that spoke of a difficult life, but a kind smile. She was doing three things at once, and doing them quite well. She hardly looked at Allie's cup, but managed to fill it to the rim without spilling a drop.
"Cream?" the woman asked.
"Yes, please."
"Sugar's there next to the napkin holder." A tiny ceramic pitcher was deposited in front of her. "What'll you have?"
Someone at the other end of the counter called out to the woman to have a nice day. She turned to wave good-bye, then finally looked at Allie. Allie tried to work up a smile, because people seemed to smile at strangers and friends alike here, and she watched as the waitress's face went from open and friendly if a bit hurried, to cautious, to disbelief.
The woman opened her mouth to say something and brought
the coffeepot in her hand crashing into the side of the counter. It shattered. The liquid pooled on the counter, then slid in Allie's direction.
She jumped up just in time. A little girl seated beside her squealed and jumped as well. The waitress cried out in pain, and every eye in the room turned toward the commotion.
For a second no one moved. Allie just stood there with all of them staring at her, hating that feeling, and then someone gasped. The whispers started, the looks growing more intense, openly curious.
Two other waitresses came rushing to help clean up the mess. "Good Lord, Martha," one of them said. "You never break anything."
Martha looked as if she still couldn't believe her eyes. She still gaped at Allie, as if she were looking at a ghost. Maybe she thought she had.
"It's all right." She tried to reassure the woman. "I'm Allie. Her sister."
"Good grief, child," she replied. "You just about gave me heart failure."
"I'm sorry." Allie sat back down. "I didn't realize the resemblance was so strong."
Stephen had thought so at first, but Allie had attributed that to the fact that he'd seen her for the first time in the dark standing inside the house where Megan once lived. This was morning, in a well-lit store in downtown. For Martha to react so strongly, Allie must indeed look very much like her sister.
She wondered now if that was one of the reasons her relationship with her mother had always been so difficult. If her mother had looked at her and seen Megan.
"Are you somebody famous?" the little girl next to her asked, wide-eyed.
"Missy," warned the woman beside the girl. She flashed Allie an apologetic look, then turned back to the fussy baby in her arms.
"No," Allie told the girl. "I'm not famous. I used to live here a long time ago, when I was your age."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Dija like it here?"
"I... uhh," Allie sighed, ready to give a polite lie.
"You did," the woman next to the little girl said.
Allie looked at her more carefully, a woman in her mid-twenties, with long, blondish hair in a simple ponytail and wearing a fancy warm-up suit, the baby snuggled against her chest sucking his thumb and looking sleepy.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
"I'm sorry," Allie said. "There are a lot of things I don't remember."
"I'm Carolyn Simms. My maiden name was Grayson. My parents lived about a half mile from yours. You and your sister and I used to play together."
"Oh." Allie remembered. "Of course."
"Welcome back." Carolyn smiled, introducing her daughter. Missy, and her son, Andrew. "Are you here to stay, Allie?"
"Just to take care of my parents' house."
"Oh. Is your mother with you?"
"No. She died two months ago."
"Oh. I'm so sorry. With your father gone and your sister..." Carolyn broke off abruptly, her face flushed, her eyes averted.
You're all alone in the world now, Allie.
"I'd love to sit and talk to you sometime," Allie said, wondering what Carolyn might be able to tell her. "Maybe the next time you take Missy to her grandparents, you could stop by? I'll be here for the next few weeks, at least."
"All right," Carolyn said. "I'll do that."
Allie got to her feet, still able to feel people watching her, and said her good-byes to Carolyn and her daughter. She put two dollar bills on the counter for Martha, who could barely look at her, and left.
Why, she wondered, after all this time would Martha react so strongly to seeing her? Had she known Megan? Or their mother? Allie didn't remember anyone named Martha.
She sat in her car thinking she should have been here when her father was still alive to explain things to her, to tell her whether he still loved her, and if he did, why he'd stayed away for so long. She could have asked him why her sister ran away, and whether it had been a simple car accident or something else entirely. If she'd come then to find her answers, surely she wouldn't have felt so absolutely alone.
* * *
Martha had a pack-a-day habit, and normally she knew better than to sneak out the back door for a cigarette in the middle of the morning rush. But this morning was different. She was rattled, and Mary Lou McMahon, her boss, knew it. Mary Lou merely nodded when, with the counter still three-quarters full with customers, Martha said she was going outside for a smoke break.
Her hand trembled as she pulled out a pack of Camel Lights. She took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, which didn't steady her in the least, then headed for the pay phone on the corner. Tucker would be leaving any minute for work, and she wanted to catch him first. She wanted to be the one to tell him. She'd rather do it in person, so she could see his face and try to figure out how it made him feel, but she'd have to settle for calling. With the crowd at the diner this morning and the spectacle she'd made of herself over the girl, there was no way Tucker would make it home tonight without knowing.
Tucker answered with a gruff, impatient "hello." He didn't like to talk on the phone, didn't talk much at all. But he was a good man, the best she had ever had, and she didn't want anything to mess that up.
"It's me, Tuck," she said.
"What's wrong?"
He knew something was. Otherwise, she wouldn't have called him.
"I saw her," Martha said. "She walked right into the diner this morning."
They'd heard the first rumors of one of the Bennett's return three days ago, when Bill Webster's secretary called the power company to have the utilities turned on.
It had always been one of the great mysteries of Dublin, Kentucky—the house that stood empty year after year. Some people said it was haunted. Others said no one knew where Janet Bennett and her daughter were. But Martha heard at the diner—eventually she heard everything at the diner—that Webster knew all along, that they flat-out refused to come back. And no one had. Not for two and a half years.
"You sure it was her?" Tucker said finally.
"She said her name—Allie. Even if she hadn't, I would have known. When I turned around and saw her, I thought I was seeing things. She looks just like Megan," Martha said. "She's a pretty little thing, Tuck."
"And her mother?"
"She was by herself. But I told you yesterday, I heard her mother died. She said something to Carolyn Simms about her mother, but I wasn't close enough to hear."
Tucker waited a long time before he said, "Find out. Find out about her mother."
* * *
On her way to the grocery story, Allie passed the public library housed in what had obviously once been a church. She remembered that now. As a girl, she loved combing through the shelves for something new to read and looking up and seeing the pretty stained-glass windows, the sun shining through them.
Now she looked at the building and thought about old newspapers. Libraries kept old newspapers on file, and there had been newspaper stories about her sister's disappearance, copies of which were probably on their way to her in Connecticut right now.
Allie had hired a private detective, to investigate that mysterious letter from Georgia. After Greg Malone had checked out the letter writer, she'd decided to have him dig a little deeper, into the accident itself. One of the first things he mentioned was copies of the police reports and newspaper accounts of Megan's disappearance and death. He was supposed to be sending her copies of those things, but she'd impulsively flown to Kentucky before they arrived.
Allie knew the bare bones of it. Her sister, driving down a rain-slicked road, skidded off the pavement into a swollen creek and drowned. Glancing back at the library, she told herself there was no reason to wait for the rest of the details. She was capable of digging through back issues of the newspaper herself, and she was right here.
She turned around and parked her car. The librarian, who looked to be her mother's age, couldn't stop staring at her. Allie looked the woman right in the eye and asked to see newspapers from September of 1985 through March of 1986, from a few weeks
before her sister ran away to a few weeks after her death. She found several stories and the obituary, made copies, and left.
Sitting in her car in the parking lot, she picked up the first article. It was small, but on the front page and included a photograph of Megan, sitting at the piano after a recital, Allie thought.
LOCAL GIRL MISSING
The Sheriff's Department is asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of sixteen-year-old Megan Bennett, of 307 Willow Lane, to please contact them immediately.
Megan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Bennett, has been missing since Sunday morning. Deputy Lance Jacobs said Mrs. Bennett went to wake her daughter that morning and found her room empty.
There were no signs of forced entry into the house, Jacobs said, and bulletins were sent to sheriff departments all over Kentucky and in seven surrounding states asking people to be on the lookout for Megan.
"So far, every indication leads us to believe the girl is a runaway," Jacobs said.
Megan is 5'3", weighs approximately 100 pounds, has long brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen Saturday evening at her home wearing a pair of jeans and a blue University of Kentucky sweatshirt. She is a sophomore at Dublin County High School and a member of the First Baptist Church.
The family requests prayers for their daughter's safe return.
The second article repeated much of the same information, adding that her father had offered a reward for information leading to the location of his daughter. The sheriff's department said it had traced Megan's whereabouts to a small town in Tennessee, near Nashville, the day of her disappearance, but had lost her trail there. The final two clippings were about Megan's death. Allie quickly skimmed the obituary, amazed at how anyone could sum up a life in so few words. It made Allie's stomach turn to read it. Then she turned to the last article.
LOCAL TEENAGER, MISSING SINCE SEPTEMBER, FOUND DEAD FOLLOWING ACCIDENT IN GEORGIA
Sixteen-year-old Megan Bennett, missing from her home in Dublin since last September, was found dead last week following a car accident during torrential rains in Georgia.