by Неизвестный
“I guess so,” Toni said glumly. She abruptly crumpled down into a sitting position on the dirt ground and began tugging at her boots. She was very flexible, possibly double-jointed, and in her lack of concern for getting her white dress dirty on the ground, she reminded Samantha of a small child—just a kid, trying to make sense of a confusing world.
Toni yanked off her boots and the knee-high socks, which she stretched out on the ground next to her. She lay back on the dirt and grass and pulled her straw hat over her face. Her voice muffled by the hat, she said, “You can head back any time if you don't want to wait for me.”
“There's no rush,” Samantha said.
“You're an angel.”
“Well, I'll be here. Take as long as you need.”
Toni thanked her, but the words barely registered over the ones echoing in Samantha's head. I'll be here. Take as long as you need. Who said that? She tried to remember, but found the memory had been painted over, hidden.
I'll be here.
Take as long as you need.
She left Toni to her contemplation, or grieving, or whatever it was. More words echoed in her head. You can get high, or you can get low. I'll be here. Take as long as you need.
She explored the area, kneeling in the grass to take some photos of wildflowers using the camera on her phone. The area where Warren Jameson had spent his last earthly moments looked like most of what she'd seen on her walks—daisies and black-eyed susans dotting the ground between blue spruce, cottonwood, juniper, maple, and aspen. She took more photos, including a few surreptitious shots of Toni, still flat on the ground. Then she tiptoed to the edge and looked down at where Warren might have drawn his final breath.
A dark patch on the ground below caused her to gasp. Blood, her mind screamed. But it was only a shadow, cast by a nearby bush. The cliff face itself formed a boundary at the back of someone's property. To the far left and right were fences. Away from the cliff, the ground was green, lush looking, and kept short by two goats who were currently patrolling the premises. A dog caught her eye as it let out a curious bark. The softness of the bark in the distance startled her—not the noise, but how far away it sounded. The ground was a long way down. Samantha stumbled back, away from the edge.
“What are you doing?” asked Toni. She was standing again, already wearing her socks and boots, and dusting off her ruffled skirt.
“That was the dog who found him,” Samantha said. “It's a collie, or maybe an Australian sheepdog. Hard to tell from here. It's the one who barked and let the property owner know... about the accident.” She wanted to stop talking, but she couldn't keep herself from stating the obvious. “That's the dog who found Warren. It was barking and barking, and finally they came outside, and first they thought it was just upset because of the storm and the lightning, but then they found him.”
Toni had her sunglasses on, but Samantha could feel the weight of her stare behind the lenses.
“Yeah,” Toni said flatly. “I heard about that. You seem really fixated on these details. Care to share anything with me?”
Such as how she'd been dating the woman's boyfriend before he died? No, not really. “Just curious,” she said, and, “Sorry for your loss.”
Toni tugged both of her socks up another inch and started walking down the trail. “We've all got plenty to be sorry about,” she said.
Samantha was sure the woman meant something by it, but didn't inquire, pretending instead to be fascinated with some tiny pink flowers next to the trail.
A moment later, Toni stopped and pointed to a blackened tree stump. “That's new,” she said, and she rubbed her fingertips on the charcoal, staining them. “Must have happened on the fifth of May, because it hasn't rained since, and I haven't seen this before.”
Samantha's mind raced ahead, drawing conclusions before she'd even formulated the questions. “Do you think... lightning?” She swallowed and forced the idea into words. “I mean, it could have hit Warren, right?”
Toni shrugged, took a step back, and kicked at the charred stump with the toe of her red cowboy boot. “Wouldn't he have been burned?”
Samantha struggled for words. Yes, he would have been burned. Had he been? Robichaud hadn't told her much, and she hadn't gone to the funeral. Had it been an open casket? She looked at Toni but couldn't ask.
Toni pulled off her sunglasses and looked at her. Toni's smaller eye looked even tinier than the other, squinting in the afternoon sun. The small eye was higher, too. Like a woman in a cubist painting. Had Warren loved her? How could he have expected to get away with cheating on her in such a small town? Every question tugged out more questions, like a chain of scarves coming from a magician's pocket.
“You look like you've got something to say,” Toni said. “Spit it out.”
Samantha shrugged and looked around. “I knew Warren,” she said. “Well, I didn't know him. But we met when I was taking some photos in town, and he stopped to ask me about my camera.”
Toni's eyes narrowed to slits. “He could be friendly like that,” she said. “Especially to girls like you.” The like you seemed to be dripping with something. “What's your point?”
Samantha's shoulders were already raised quite high, but she lifted them even more. Her voice came out in a squeak. “Just that he seemed really nice.” She let her shoulders drop.
Toni took off her hat, leaned forward to fluff her red waves, then whipped her head back and tossed the hat on like a professional. Exactly like a professional. And in that gesture, Samantha saw it. Toni was, or had been, a stripper.
Toni made a clucking sound as though telling a horse to speed up, and continued walking down the trail toward the cabin.
“He didn't kill himself,” Toni called over her shoulder.
Samantha rushed to catch up, and fell in stride. “Are there rumors it was a suicide?”
“Probably. You hear all sorts of things in a town like this.” They kept walking, their strides still matched. They were the same height, the same in many ways, except Samantha, with her brown skin and black hair, was the dark molasses gingersnap to Toni's sugar cookie. She wondered if Warren had also been dating a blonde, just to make it a varied trio. When she'd asked the ghost about other women the night before, he'd feigned innocence.
Toni continued, “Warren was a good man. Even if he'd been suicidal—and he wasn't—he wouldn't have left himself as a mess for someone else to clean up, you know? Maybe the accident did have something to do with the lightning strike that burned that tree. Maybe I'll come back here again with a hatchet and take vengeance on what's left of its stump.” She let out a semi-joking maniacal laugh.
Samantha coughed and forced out a chuckle in agreement.
They walked in step for a mile before Toni spoke again, asking, “Why are you staying here, anyway? I can think of more exciting places to be.”
Samantha rubbed the fingers of her left hand. “A person's got to be somewhere,” she said vaguely. She kept rubbing her fingers. There was an itch beneath the skin she couldn't get to, and she had the bizarre idea of biting her fingers off, choking on them. Too much talk of death. She shook her head to change the channel.
“What's the deal with Caitlyn?” she asked. “Why didn't she come up here with you today?”
“We aren't that good of friends.” Toni broke her stride and plucked a tall stalk of wild grass to chew on. “And she's probably busy with work, or busy freaking out about her so-called stalker.”
“Stalker?” Samantha thought about it for a minute, remembering the small man at the bar the night before. “Oh, you mean that Charles guy who bought us the sangria she wouldn't drink.”
“Charles?” Toni stopped walking, leaned over, and slapped her knees, laughing. “Charles DeWitt is no stalker, just a standard-issue weirdo. Did you get a good look at him? He's the human equivalent of a pug, with his bulgy little eyes.”
Samantha thought of her diminutive cousin, who had a similar appearance due to a thyroid condition, and ref
rained from making fun of Charles. Toni, however, didn't take a hint. She went on at great length comparing him to creatures of both land and sea.
When they finally got back to the cabin, Toni offered her a ride into town. When Samantha couldn't figure out why, Toni explained, “Don't you want to pick up your car? You left it at the bar last night.”
Samantha smacked herself on the forehead dramatically. “They say the mind is the first to go.”
“Join the club,” Toni said as she opened the door of her car.
Samantha popped into the cabin and rushed around, getting her car keys and grabbing a light jacket in case the weather changed within the next ten minutes—in Colorado, it could happen—and joined her new friend in the car.
As she slid into the seat, she felt the compulsion to admit to Toni that she'd been on a date with Warren, that she'd even kissed him. But Toni's driving skills were cause for concern even without the emotional bombshells flying. She crossed her hands in her lap and vowed to let the secret remain buried with Warren.
Ten minutes later, they were in the heart of downtown Owl Bend, and the sun continued to shine. They said goodbye, and Samantha located her car parked up the street. The sandwich board for a coffee shop caught her eye, and since she hated to come home from a trip into town empty-handed, she walked in and ordered an iced coffee.
On her way out, she bumped into a familiar-looking man in dark, nondescript clothes. It was Deputy Sheriff Robichaud, whom she hadn't seen since the night of Warren's accident. As she looked up into his eyes, which were a muddy green, memories of that night came back to her, and emotions rushed forth like water through a busted dam. The words had blurred, but his kindness was indelible—how he'd stayed on the phone with her until they were face to face, and then, at the sheriff's office, how he'd tried to make her a cup of tea at least three times.
He looked down at the iced coffee in her hand. It had been topped with whipped cream and a clear, domed plastic cap.
“Are those any good?” he asked.
She was handing the cup to him already. “Try some, Deputy. Uh, Officer?”
“You can call me Dan,” he said.
“Try some, Dan.”
They locked eyes, and the rest of the world disappeared.
Chapter 6
Deputy Sheriff Daniel Robichaud and Samantha Torres stood face to face within the door frame of the cafe, the air around them charged with tension.
A woman with four kids in tow huffed at them for blocking the entrance. Samantha felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. After the intensity of their first meeting, she felt familiar with Deputy Sheriff Robichaud, and was treating him the way she would any friend, offering him a sip of her frosty coffee.
But through the judging eyes of this huffy-puffy mother of four, Samantha saw herself as a flirt. She was a raven-haired vixen, twisting her body in the doorway to show off her angles the way the prostitutes in Amsterdam shift their poses in windows, all Barbie dolls waiting to be taken from their plastic coffins. What right did she have to be happy, to be flirtatious, when she should be in mourning?
She stepped out onto the sidewalk, then to the side, into the shade cast by the striped awning. In that moment, she wished the dark shadows would swallow her up.
But Daniel Robichaud had her coffee in his hand, and he was smiling—as though everything was going to be okay, forever. He stood on the opposite side of the front door and took a long, slow sip, making eye contact the entire time.
“That's nice,” he said, licking his lips. “I'll keep this and buy you a new one.”
She leaned across the space between then, arm extended. “That's fine. You hardly had a sip.”
He took a step back and another sip through the straw, emptying it below the ice cube line, his green eyes teasing the whole time. His cheeks hollowed above his square jaw as he sucked through the straw, emptying the drink. She nodded in admiration of his moves. Now she had to wait while he bought her a coffee. He hadn't initiated the maneuver, but he was an excellent improviser.
“And I'd better get another one for myself,” he said. “For your own protection, so I don't take your fresh one.”
“You're smooth,” she said with a smile.
Ten minutes later, they were enjoying a stroll on a cobblestone path next to the river that ran through the small town.
“Thanks again for getting me hooked on this stuff,” he said of the iced coffee. “With the whipped cream on top, it's surprisingly addictive. We may have to set up a treatment program, once we deal with the meth and booze.”
“Don't forget the gambling,” Samantha suggested. “And murder.”
He was quiet, slowing to kick a loose stone off the cobbled path and into the slow-moving river. “What makes you think we have a murder problem here in Owl Bend?”
She felt her cheeks flush again. “Just a terrible joke,” she said. “I don't have any friends who are cops.”
“We're even. I don't have any friends who are magazine reporters from the big city.”
“Who said I was a reporter?”
“You're not?”
“I take photos of food and superficial girlie stuff, like shoes and handmade ornaments, for a lifestyle blog.”
“So, you're not here to investigate a scandal involving local law enforcement and coffee theft?”
Samantha laughed and reached up to sweep her dark hair off her hot neck and shoulders. She immediately dropped her arm when she caught a whiff of her own sweat. She didn't smell awful, but she hadn't freshened up since the multihour hike with Toni. She'd only dropped into town to pick up her car, not to have a late-afternoon stroll with a handsome young cop who was in civilian clothes but still carried himself with the stiffness of authority.
“Explain your job to me again,” he said. “And talk slow, like I'm simple.”
She thought again of people claiming to be the opposite of what they were. Deputy Sheriff Daniel Robichaud was anything but simple. Every gesture and word betrayed him as a man who let little slip past unnoticed. She didn't dare ask, but she guessed that his arrival at the cafe, which had to be visible from his office window up the street, was anything but a coincidence.
While they walked, she explained about the business side of blogging for profit—everything from website traffic reports and search engine optimization of content, to affiliate fee revenue and browser cookies. He said he knew all about cookies and IP addresses, thanks to some experience investigating cyber crimes.
The conversation shifted to his work, the highs and lows, the heartbreak of seeing the victim of abuse take the worst route out of a bad situation, and the thrill of seeing at-risk kids grow beyond their circumstances and “pay it forward“ within the community, helping others. He explained how he had once been one of those at-risk youths. When his father lost his job at the steel mill, he'd been fifteen and just as angry as his old man. While his father had crumpled in on himself, young Danny Robichaud lashed out at anything resembling authority. He was headed for an early grave and wouldn't be walking God's green earth now, except for a fortunate drowning.
Samantha asked, “Since when is a drowning fortunate?”
They'd reached a standstill, unconsciously walking slower and slower as his story got more dramatic. He glanced around as though worried about someone overhearing him.
He looked her straight in the eye and said, “Since I saw something that night.”
“Something?” She gave him a sidelong look as a chill ran up her spine.
“This isn't something I want repeated.” He bit his lower lip and looked pensive. “I probably shouldn't be blabbing to you, but I can't resist your nosy reporter ways.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes, pretending to be less interested in the secret than she was. “If you want this off the record, it's off the record.” She knew enough about real journalism to say the phrase with some authority.
“Off the record,” he said, both of them at a standstill and staring directly into eac
h other's eyes. Three people on funky-colored single-speed bicycles whizzed by. “Samantha, I died that night. I was dead for several minutes before the paramedics revived me.”
“That's not too scandalous,” she said dismissively. “You were in icy water. It's not something I'd sign up for, but young people have lasted longer.”
He nodded his head forward and gave her an eyebrow raise, as if to say the good part was yet to come.
“I saw angels,” he said. “And I know what you're going to say next. You'll say people report seeing a guardian angel all the time after near-death experiences. That it's a hallucination brought on by changes in the brain.” He blinked and glanced at the river momentarily, then back to her. The muddiness in his green eyes was gone, and they were bright and vivid, emerald, like the eyes of a dragon. He continued, “But I saw multiple glowing figures. I was floating above the water, and I saw two of them, leading the paramedics right to my body.”
Samantha sensed it was the appropriate moment to say something, and not that she was currently dating a ghost boyfriend. She simply said, “Wow.”
“Wow is right.” He nodded. “After, I compared notes with the paramedics, and I knew things I couldn't have known. My body was under the water, but I repeated back to them the exact words they'd called out to each other when they were searching for me.”
“You were a ghost,” she said.
He frowned, creasing his unlined forehead in a manner it didn't seem accustomed to. “I don't think of it that way, because I'm alive now, and ghosts belong to the realm of the dead.”
She stepped back, smiling, and looked him up and down. “You seem very much alive to me. No body parts falling off or anything.”
He swished his mouth and looked across the river. He took three steps away, off the path, and started collecting pebbles. He turned his back to her, and threw the stones at the water. Each one skipped farther than the previous.
Samantha sidled up next to him. She could sense a raw emotion radiating from him like heat. He'd opened himself up to her, and now he regretted it. Her flippant remark about rotting body parts hadn't helped.