by Jeannie Watt
Callie backed away a few steps, but the woman wasn’t done. “The last thing I’d ever do is to let them stay with someone who’s been watching them! If I…” Her mouth worked for a moment, but words failed her in her rage. Finally she simply slammed the door shut. Callie could hear her heels on the hardwood floor, followed by muffled shouts of “Lily! Lucas! I want to talk to you!”
Callie walked back to her own house, numb and embarrassed and…damn, she didn’t know what she was feeling, but it was bad. And if there was a grandmother in that house, she loved the dark.
The next morning, the dream came as it usually did, when Callie wasn’t quite fully awake. There was the sharp burning in her nostrils, the images and sensations that she was on the edge of recognizing before fear took over and blurred everything except her need to escape. Hands. Once again she had the impression of hands.
After the first surge of fright brought her to sit up in bed, Callie took slow, steady breaths through her nose until the sensations faded.
Who had triggered the dream this time? Nate or the neighbor? Both encounters had been unsettling, but Nate had hurt her, while the other had merely put her on the defensive. Her bet was on Nate again.
She pushed the covers back and got out of bed.
She’d hoped to write that day, since there’d been no sub call, but the dream always made her writing suffer. She could put words on paper, but there was no flair. It was as if she was afraid to let her mind go, in case it stumbled on a dark secret behind the nightmare. If there was a secret, the original trigger, it had happened before her father’s disappearance, because she’d had the dream before she came to live with Grace.
Callie had considered hypnosis at one point, but ultimately decided against it. The dream came and went. If she was dealing with an actual memory, though…well…once recalled, she’d have it forever. Nope. She was going with head in the sand. If her mind was protecting her, she was going to let it do its job.
Half an hour later the landline rang. She assumed it was the real estate agent, and hoped it wasn’t Mitch Michaels again. He hadn’t called after she’d shut him down, but he had hung around her room at school the last time she’d subbed, had tried to walk her to her car. He didn’t get the concept of no means no.
She picked up the phone and said hello, ready to put the receiver back down again if it was Mitch. Thankfully, the voice on the other end of the phone was deeper and vaguely familiar.
“Hi, Callie. It’s Dane Gerard.”
“Oh. Hi, Dane.” Relieved, she wondered why the heck he was calling. Mrs. Serrano handled the sub calls.
“So, did you enjoy calculus class?”
Callie laughed. “Oh, yes. Tons of fun.”
“The kids said you did a great job watching them suffer through their test.”
“I’m an educational sadist. What can I say?”
“I was wondering…the Lions Club crab dinner is coming up in a few days and we have an extra chair at our table. An educational sadist would be a wonderful addition.”
“Uh…” Did she want to go out with the Great Dane? A picture of Nate walking away from her at the river popped into her head. “Sure. Sounds good.”
“Pick you up at, say, six-thirty?”
“How about I meet you there?”
After the briefest of hesitations, Dane said, “That works for me.” Callie had a feeling it didn’t. He’d been friendly at school and, unlike Mitch, he seemed to understand when to back off. He must have sensed this was one of those times.
That afternoon Callie saw Mrs. Hobart get into her Mustang wearing her casino dealer outfit. The kids continued to play outside after she’d left. Callie kept checking on and off as it grew dark, and eventually the kids disappeared. She didn’t see them go inside because her view of the back porch was blocked, but about the time the kids disappeared from the backyard, the television came on inside the dark house. Deduction? Kids were inside watching TV. Another deduction? There was no adult home, regardless of what the mom had said, because there’d been no lights on until the kids had gone inside. The kids were on their own until their mother got off shift at about 1:30 A.M.
This was wrong.
Callie rebooted her computer, which cast an eerie blue glow as it came to life in the dim room. It only took a moment to find the phone number and address for Child Protective Services in Wesley, and a form to download.
If Denise hadn’t mentioned seeing the kids at several fires, and if Callie wasn’t going to leave soon, then maybe she would have waited. Or if the mom hadn’t lied. But Callie knew from asking at school that it could take weeks for a nonemergency home visit, since there were only two social workers in the county. She wanted the kids to have someone looking out for them after she was gone.
It didn’t take long to fill out the form and print it for delivery the next day. She felt crummy, because she honestly didn’t want to cause the family trouble. She simply wanted to make sure a couple of kids were not being left uncared for.
CALLIE SPENT MOST of her life in casual clothing, but she could dress up if the occasion called for it. The Crab Feed was a major Wesley social event, ranking right up there with the high school’s annual community harvest dance fundraiser. She’d waitressed at the Crab Feed twice during high school as part of her Honor Society community service, and recalled that people had dressed up. So she would.
She slipped into a black knit shift, one of her classiest travel-proof garments. It wasn’t clingy, but it did hug her body, skimming over her curves and ending a couple inches above the knee. The wide boatneck gave the dress an Audrey Hepburn look. Callie put on the same string of freshwater pearls she’d worn to Grace’s memorial, and slipped her bare feet into black ballet shoes. She wished she had her red ones with her, but they were in storage in California.
Hair. Up? Down? Did it really matter? She wasn’t trying to entice the guy. She just didn’t want to disgrace herself. Down.
Callie took one last look in the mirror before heading out to the Neon. She forced the corners of her mouth up. Oh, yeah, that looked real.
She tried again. Better. The smile disappeared.
Okay, so she wasn’t wild about going to a social event right now, but Dane was a nice guy and he wasn’t asking for a commitment. It was just a night out.
The parking lot was full when she arrived at the community center, but she managed to squeeze the Neon into a space between a sedan and the grass at the edge of the lot. She was legal. Almost.
Now all she needed to do was find her date, which proved to be no problem at all, since Dane was the tallest guy in the room. He was standing with a small crowd just inside the door, a drink in his hand, wearing a corduroy blazer and khaki slacks, his sandy hair combed to the side. He looked exactly like an ex-jock. Comfortable in his skin, yet ready for a challenge. She really hoped she wasn’t that challenge. He spotted her as soon as she walked in, excused himself from the man he was talking to, a local lawyer she couldn’t remember the name of, and went to meet her.
“I paid for your ticket,” he said with a half smile.
Callie bit back the “that wasn’t necessary.” He had asked her, after all, and the tickets were outrageously priced. The money went to charity, though, so Callie had been ready to fork it over. “Thank you,” she said.
Dane’s gaze traveled over her, but he offered no compliment—aloud, anyway. He let the smile in his eyes do the talking. He approved.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why don’t we go sit down? I think you know most of the people at our table,” he said, putting a light hand at her waist and directing her past the portable bar, where two guys in the Lions’ yellow vests were mixing drinks. “Just a few spousal introductions and you’re set.”
“Great.”
They stopped to talk to several people as they traveled to the table, and Dane’s hand settled permanently at her waist.
The microphone whistled and the
group turned to see Pete Domingo, the high school principal, adjusting the height of the stand. He cleared his throat, then invited them all to be seated. Dinner would be served by lottery and the last table served would receive a bottle of pricey wine.
“Which means we’ll be the second-to-last table served,” Dane murmured with a touch of humor as he again put his hand on Callie’s waist and guided her through the maze of chairs and large round tables to the center of the room, near the dance floor.
As he said, Callie was already familiar with the three high school teachers there—Mr. Lightfoot, the king of chaos, Mrs. Simms and Mr. Carstensen, aka Phillip, Susan and Rick. They would always be Mr. and Mrs. to her. She smiled and said hello as Dane introduced their respective spouses, then took her seat. Dane pushed in her chair, made certain she was comfortable, his fingers brushing along the bare skin of her shoulders more often than necessary.
The first numbers for the buffet line were announced over the loudspeaker and the people at the table next to Callie stood, laughing and congratulating themselves on choosing the correct seats. Callie moved her chair to give them room to file past, and as she did so her gaze zeroed in on Seth Marcenek two tables away, laughing uproariously. And across the table from him, very preoccupied with a rather beautiful brunette, was Nate. Oh, good.
Callie quickly looked away. She should have known he’d be here. The crab dinner was a community-wide social event. She brought her attention firmly back to Mr. Lightfoot, who was telling the story of his recent illness, and feigned rapt interest in blood test screwups.
Did she know the woman sitting with Nate? Was this one of their classmates who had blossomed? If so, she’d done a good job of it. When Callie casually glanced over while arranging her purse on the back of her chair, she saw Nate’s dark head tilted toward the woman. When she finished speaking, he laughed, his eyes never leaving hers.
At one time Callie had made Nate laugh and had been on the receiving end of that particular intimate gaze. A long while ago.
A decidedly unwelcome thought came to her. Maybe this woman was the reason he’d backed off at the river. Maybe he was getting involved with someone.
And maybe Callie’s stomach shouldn’t be tied up in a knot.
Nathan said something to the brunette then, and she smiled and touched his hand. Callie clenched her teeth.
“Wine?”
Dane—her date, she reminded herself sternly—was holding the carafe. “Please.” She smiled gamely, took a sip and then, as he poured wine into his own glass, she took a larger, more bracing drink.
“So, Callie,” Susan Simms said, and all eyes turned to her. Dane’s hand slid along the back of her chair and this time his fingers settled lightly on her shoulder. “You’re selling the house? Mrs. Serrano said something to that effect today.”
“I just called the Realtor.”
“Will you be buying another place here?”
Callie almost laughed, but didn’t. “No,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be leaving.” Dane’s fingers were now firmly gripping her shoulder, his arm around her as if she was his girlfriend. Which she wasn’t.
“I’d hate to see you go,” he said with an I’m-as-good-off-the-court-as-I-am-on-the-court confidence that made Callie’s hackles rise. Dane was different when he was off school property.
“Oh, I’m kind of looking forward to new vistas,” she said as she twisted her chair toward him, making it impossible for him to keep his arm around her shoulders.
“And just when I found a dependable sub,” Mr. Lightfoot said as the microphone squeaked behind him, calling another table to the buffet line. Dane met Callie’s eyes and once again she saw good-humored laughter, as if he thought she was playing hard to get.
What was it with the guys in this town? Couldn’t hook up with the one she wanted, and the others were creeping her out.
NATE HATED TO ADMIT that Seth had chosen his blind date well, but he had. Gina Flores was indeed an attractive, intelligent woman whose company he enjoyed, so it seemed unfair that his attention kept wandering over to where Callie sat with that tall teacher/basketball coach. Nathan therefore made certain that his focus was solely on Gina and their tablemates as they waited for their buffet number to be called. He couldn’t say that sparks were flying between him and his date, but she was comfortable to talk to and had a great laugh, soft yet throaty.
She explained what she did in human resources, occasionally looking across the table at Seth, who was doing really bad impersonations, as if wondering how he and Nathan could possibly be related. Sometimes Nathan wondered, too, as his brother butchered his attempt at Jack Nicholson. Everyone could do Jack Nicholson.
The time passed pleasantly enough as they waited forever for their food, except once when he gave in and looked at Callie—and saw the basketball coach sliding his hand possessively along the back of her chair. Nate had never particularly liked Dane Gerard and wondered what the hell Callie was doing here with him.
Okay…maybe he wasn’t totally over Callie, but he could fake it until she left town, which according to Joy would be soon, since her cousin, the real estate agent, had just been asked to sell the house.
Their table number got called second to last. Nathan kept his attention on Gina as they went through the line, resisting the urge to watch Dane and Callie. When they sat back down with their plates and started cracking crab, Gina asked why he’d chosen journalism when his brothers were both involved in “less cerebral” occupations. Nathan appreciated the way she phrased the question, making it seem for once as if he was the sane one in the family. Definitely the one with brains. He glanced over at Seth, wearing his beat-up Aerosmith T-shirt under a corduroy blazer, and understood why his brother was getting nowhere with Gina.
“My mom wrote,” Nate said, surprising himself with the answer.
“Was she published?”
“Oh, no. Journals. Lots and lots of journals.” He’d often sat with her and doodled in his own notebooks as a child, and later, after her death, had started journals of his own. Living in terror that his brothers would find them and blackmail him. Or worse.
Gina smiled and worked the last bits of meat out of a claw. “It’s funny how our parents’ interests shape our lives. Did you ever consciously decide to be like her and write?”
“Uh…no.” He hadn’t really thought about the connection before, but yeah, writing did make him feel closer to her.
“She must be proud of you.”
“She would have been.” He supposed. More so than his father, though, who was raucously entertaining the troops on the other side of the room. “She passed away when I was twelve.”
“I’m sorry.” Gina focused her soft brown eyes on him. “That might be even more of a reason you pursued it.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Again, he’d never thought about that before.
“SO HOW’VE YOU LIKED substitute teaching?” Mr. Lightfoot asked. Callie wondered if he was aware of what a chaotic mess his room was and how a simple seating chart would make a sub’s life so much easier. She’d found out from the students that he didn’t bother with seating charts. They sat where they wanted, and when they had a sub, they also took on whatever identity they wanted. Juvenile, but apparently amusing to sophomores.
“There’s more to it than I’d first anticipated.”
Dane laughed. “Well phrased. It’s more than babysitting.”
“So tell us about being a journalist,” Mrs. Lightfoot said, leaning closer. “I hear you’ve traveled all over the world.”
“I’ve been a few places.”
“You’ve written for some well-known magazines. I’m surprised the newspaper isn’t taking more advantage of your presence than just those few piddling articles.”
“Damned good piddling articles,” Dane said.
“Is there some reason you aren’t writing more for them?” Mrs. Lightfoot pressed, looking first at Callie, then over Callie’s head to where Nathan sat.
Someone ha
d been listening to gossip.
“I have other things to fill my time,” she answered, carefully wiping dripping butter off her wrist.
“Like subbing.” Mr. Lightfoot chortled as if he’d just told a joke.
Callie smiled weakly, reaching for her water glass, wishing it was gin, when the fire siren sounded, cutting off Mrs. Lightfoot just as she was about to speak. About a dozen pagers went off a split second later. The room erupted into activity as members of the volunteer firefighters sprang into action. Wives and girlfriends exchanged looks. Yet another evening shot.
“A field near the old feed plant,” John Marcenek called to the men sitting at another table, before flipping a cell phone shut. Chairs scraped back. One fell over as the guy struggled with it.
Callie abruptly set down her waterglass. The feed plant wasn’t that far from her house, just on the other side of the river. Was her little white-haired neighbor going to be there? She pushed her chair back, too, without conscious thought. She didn’t know if the social workers had investigated yet, but just in case, she wanted to make sure the little kids weren’t at this fire. If they were, she was turning them over to Garrett.
“I’ll go with you,” Dane said. Callie realized he probably thought she was looking for a story. “We’ll take my car,” he added.
“No.” Callie cut a sideways glance his way as they followed a group of men out the front door. “I like to have my own transportation.” But Dane wasn’t put off.
“Suit yourself,” he said easily, once again pressing his hand to her waist, but she sidestepped and then walked faster so he couldn’t do it again. Hint, buddy. Take the hint. You’re too pushy for me.
The air smelled of burning sagebrush when they walked out to the dark lot, where pickup trucks and cars with volunteer fire department license plates were pulling out of parking spots. There was an orange glow on the edge of town, across the river from Callie’s house.
She got into the Neon and followed several cars across the river, where she parked on the highway above the feed plant. She’d have an excellent view of the action and still be far enough from the fire that the authorities probably wouldn’t send her on her way. Other cars parked along the highway, some driven by firefighters, some by people who simply stopped to watch.