The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  Lee smiled at Drake. “How I dream of the day when the last of the turquoise buildings are gone. The turquoise color scheme was part of an earlier ‘beautify River Valley’ project. Mike and I are on a mission to get rid of every last one of those paint jobs.” She handed Ellie-Rose a bag of crackers from the purse at her feet.

  “You all hush now,” said Ellen. “Leave the poor man alone. He hardly knows us.” She turned to Drake. “We need to learn some manners, clearly.”

  “Ellen’s right,” said Tommy. “Poor Drake doesn’t know us from Adam. He’s not interested in our dreams for this town.” He looked over at Drake, grinning. “Sorry, man. We get a little worked up about this subject. There are a lot of people here who could use good jobs and we have so many plans. We’re not rational when it comes to River Valley. But we don’t expect you to jump in without even knowing us or anything.”

  “Of course not,” said Lee. “But I’ll warn you. Something about this place, this town, sucks you in. I found it hard to resist. Especially because the place you call home is always the place where your people are. I didn’t even know I needed people but here they are.”

  Drake smiled, gently, but his eyes were sad. “I built a company out of nothing. I know what it’s like to dream big. And what you’re all doing here is extraordinary. But I’m not really up for becoming involved in a community.”

  “Of course. We understand,” said Annie, quickly. “No reason for you to think twice about all this. We’re all a little crazy here.” She smiled in a way she hoped was reassuring.

  “However,” said Drake, running a hand through his hair, “I could certainly be convinced to donate to the ‘beautify River Valley’ fund.”

  “No effing way?” Cindi let out a squeal.

  Mike slapped his hand on the table. “We surely would appreciate it. Whatever you can give to the project would make a huge difference to us.”

  Drake glanced at the ceiling, as if thinking through an idea. “I know a woman in Seattle. She used to be a city planner, although retired now. Her husband worked for me and unfortunately passed away several years ago. I bet I could talk her into coming down here and putting some plans together. Whatever you all come up with, I’ll pay for. As long as I don’t have to actually be involved.”

  “Holy crap,” said Alder, practically shouting. “Now that’s badass.”

  “And legit,” said Drake.

  “Alder, where in the world do you get these sayings?” asked Ellen, sniffing with disapproval. “Honestly.”

  Linus’s face had changed from disapproval to disbelief. “Why would you do this?”

  Drake eyes darted about the room before coming back to rest on Linus. “Because the chance to do something meaningful for other people is the only reason to keep living. And I certainly can’t take my money with me when I go, anyway.”

  Again with this talk of death. Annie went cold, goose bumps springing up on her arms.

  Mike, for once, was speechless. He shook his head back and forth, staring at Drake. Finally, he looked over at Tommy. “It’s just like in my dream. This here is one of the missing pieces.” He addressed Drake now, standing. “I’ve despaired some lately, I won’t lie. The enormity of what we’re trying to do here has me down a lot of days because we just can’t figure out how to make it work. But this.” His eyes glistened. “This would make all the difference to us.” He walked toward Drake, holding out his hand.

  Drake took steps back, his eyes meeting Annie’s, pleading for help. Don’t let him touch me.

  Annie moved towards Mike, taking his arm. Mike, understanding without her needing to say anything, took a few steps backwards. “Anyway, thank you,” said Mike.

  “I’ve a few quirks,” said Drake. “But I know how to sign a check.” This last part sounded like the utterance of a bitter man.

  Tommy rose from the table, Ellie-Rose perched on his hip. “We’re all a little quirky in this group. You won’t get any judgment from us. And we’re grateful for what you just agreed to do. But we’re here for you, as friends, if you ever decide that’s something you want or need. That offer stands regardless of your check signing ability or not.” Tommy’s brown eyes were soft and so kind it twisted Annie’s heart. Love is all there is, she thought. And all there will ever be.

  After Drake left with Alder, Annie joined the others at the table. “You guys didn’t have to all come here,” she said.

  “We most certainly did, little miss,” said Mike. “We need to approach this thing as a team.”

  Lee reached over and took her hand. “Annie, can you tell us what he looks like?”

  Annie hesitated. How could she describe someone she hadn’t seen in ten years? “He looks like an older version of Alder.”

  She saw the surprised expressions on the faces around the table before they settled into this new information.

  “He was twenty-four years old the last time I saw him.” The image of Marco in handcuffs came to her mind, like a photograph she wanted to burn but couldn’t bring herself to. “Which makes him thirty-four now. He’s a big man. Six feet tall and, if he’s the same, muscular like a guy you might see working out at a Gold’s Gym in California. And he has a tattoo of a cross on his left arm.”

  “Typical,” said Cindi. “The bat shit crazy ones always hide behind religion.”

  Tommy leaned forward. “Here’s the plan, in my mind. Annie is never alone here and obviously one of us will take her home after her shift.”

  “That should be me,” said Billy. “I’m always here the same times she is.” He paused, puffing his chest out. “Plus it’s my job to look after her.”

  “You do a good job of it, too,” said Annie.

  Billy blushed. “I try.”

  “We need to spread it around town, too,” said Tommy. “Make sure everyone knows this guy is looking for Annie and not to give him any information.”

  “He’ll come here first,” said Lee, shivering.

  Again, the table was quiet.

  Finally Linus spoke, his face worried. “We just take this one day at a time.”

  “And pray,” added Tommy.

  An hour later, the entire staff of servers, cooks, a dishwasher, two busboys, and the new hostess, Amanda, gathered at the long table in the back of the restaurant to eat together before the dinner shift began. Several nights a week Lee joined them but more often than not she was home with Tommy and Ellie-Rose. Where she should be, Annie always encouraged her when Lee fretted over it. The wait staff was seasoned at this point, two years after they first opened the doors on that warm summer night in August, and the front of the house practically ran itself. But the tradition of eating together remained, the tone set by Linus in the early days. It was a time to bond, to go over the specials, and to get them nice and full before a busy evening.

  The table was lively, everyone talking at once. Usually Annie let everyone have a few minutes of social time before she went over the specials. But tonight she just wanted to get it over with. “I have something hard to tell you,” she said, to no one in particular, twirling her angel hair pasta into a ball around her fork. “I have a little situation.”

  Lee, from the other end of the table, caught her gaze. You tell them, Annie begged her silently.

  Lee picked up her water glass, speaking casually, as if it were just another announcement about the dinner protocol. “Annie’s been threatened by a man from her past. We know he’s dangerous. We believe strongly that he’ll come here looking for her.”

  The table was silent, everyone staring in her direction. One of the busboys spoke first. “What does he look like?”

  For the second time that night she told them the ugly truth. “He looks like my son.”

  Chapter 10

  A week passed uneventfully. At Drake’s home, a routine of sorts was established. When Annie first awakened in the morning, she went to his gym and exercised, having received instruction from Tommy via text message on her phone. He could torture her from afar, she mu
sed one morning as sweat dripped into her eyes. During this time, Drake and Alder roamed the woods together or sat companionably in the front room reading. After a shower, she made their breakfast.

  And, every morning after breakfast, Drake, clippers in hand, went to his rose garden.

  Today Annie stood at the kitchen window watching him. He stood for several minutes at each rosebush, the water from the hose a crystal streak in the morning sun. Then he plucked old buds and placed them in a sack he carried around his shoulders. When this was done, he took the shearing clippers and cut six buds, gathering them into a bouquet of various pinks and yellows. Next, he cut from the two red rosebushes, one the color of blood, the other more the hue of burgundy wine. These he gathered into a separate bouquet. The white bush he did not cut from, this day or any of the others. Not once. Those buds opened, staying on their mother bush until they wilted and withered and he put them to rest in the bag at his side.

  He headed towards the house, the two bouquets in his hand, coming into the kitchen moments later. “For you,” he said, setting the pink and yellow blossoms on the counter. The buds were tightly closed. By this time tomorrow, they would have opened, just as the bouquet currently displayed on the kitchen table had.

  “Thank you,” she said, reaching for one of the many vases stored in the cabinet.

  The other bouquet he kept in his arms. “Same time today?”

  “Yes, three,” she said. “Do you mind terribly?”

  “What’s that?” he asked, looking blank.

  “Going off the mountain every day to take me to work. You know, because of your thing.”

  “It’s important.”

  “You know how much I appreciate it, right?”

  “Yes.” His voice and gaze were gentle. “You don’t have to thank me anymore. I know.”

  “I won’t stop thanking you until this is over.” Her voice caught.

  “I’ll see you at three,” he said. With that, he headed towards the other end of the house, holding the roses in his arms. She would not see them again. Where he put them, she could not know. His bedroom? Or one of the secret rooms?

  Otis was in his usual place by the backdoor steps when Drake dropped her at the restaurant that afternoon.

  “Staying cool?” she asked him. He wore his overcoat, despite the heat.

  “Sure am, Miss Annie.”

  “You hungry?”

  “A little peckish, I must say.”

  “I’ll bring something as soon as I get settled in,” she said, unlocking the door of the restaurant and waving to Drake and Alder, who watched from the car.

  “Be mighty fine,” he said.

  Billy and Cindi were at the bar waiting for her with the cup of espresso, on ice today because of the heat. After they finished but before she began her prep work for the daily specials, she fixed Otis a steaming plate of spaghetti and icy lemonade. “You shouldn’t be dressed in that coat,” she said, handing him the bowl of pasta. After setting the lemonade next to him, she sat on the steps with her arms around her knees. “It’s at ninety degrees today.”

  He attacked the bowl of pasta while shaking his head. After swallowing, he looked over at her. “Can’t take off my coat. It’s my shield against them.”

  “Them?”

  His eyes darted around the parking lot. “You know, them.”

  “Is there someone after you?”

  “They’re always watching. They know everything I think.” A bit of stray tomato hung in his beard.

  “How do they do that?” She handed him a napkin from her apron pocket.

  He pointed at his head. “They put a bug in here.”

  “Who did?”

  “The aliens. When they came for me.”

  “Did they take you somewhere?”

  He shook his head, wiping his mouth with the napkin. “No. People think that’s how it happens but it isn’t. They came to my house in the middle of the night when I was sleeping.”

  “When was this?”

  “When I was in college. I had to leave after that because the voices were so loud. They’re quieter here. They like me to live in quiet places.”

  Poor Otis. He was schizophrenic. It had to be. At culinary school she had a friend with a brother diagnosed when he was a young adult. It was a common age to discover it, she remembered her friend telling her.

  “Otis, where do you stay at night?”

  “Miss Annie, no need to worry about me. I have a place out by the river. It’s nice. Very quiet at night. No one knows where it is.” He paused, looking about once more. “And they can’t hear my thoughts when I’m there. It’s the only place I’m safe.” He finished the rest of his pasta and then gulped the lemonade in one continuous swallow. Smacking his lips, he handed her the bowl. “Thanks for supper. I was hungry today.”

  “You just knock on the back door anytime you’re hungry. Okay? We always have something for you.”

  “Appreciate that.” He peered at her, his eyes burning bright in a dirt-smeared face.

  “Take care, Otis. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Will do.”

  That night she awakened, screaming, from another nightmare. She brought her hand to her mouth, heart still pounding. Her pajamas were soaked through. She turned on the bedside lamp and changed into fresh pajamas before going to the window and drawing back the curtain. She was met by glowing eyes. The coyote. He did not howl tonight but merely moved his head to one side, looking at her. “What do you need?” she whispered.

  He raised his head and howled once, long and almost sweet, as if in greeting. And in the notes from this beautiful creature came a sense of serenity. She was safe here, for now, as was Alder. Nothing could penetrate the fence except for this beautiful animal that roamed the mountain as no man could. This friend, with his shining eyes, looked back at her for one brief, brilliant moment, before loping towards the forest and disappearing once again into the night.

  The thought came then. The coyote was stuck inside the fence. He wouldn’t be able to get in or out, just as humans couldn’t. He was trapped. Just like her. Was this why he howled?

  What time was it? Three a.m. Wide awake now, she knew it might be hours before she fell asleep again. Her mouth was dry. She’d forgotten to bring a glass of water to bed and would have to go to the kitchen. She padded across the room and out into the hallway. Perhaps she should choose a book—something thick and boring. Then, she heard a strange noise. What was it? It sounded like two pieces of hard plastic hitting together. Where was it coming from? One of the forbidden rooms? She turned to look. Yes, indeed, there was light under the door. The other secret room. The noise came again. And then it occurred to her. It was the sound of two billiard balls hitting one another. It was a game of pool.

  She made her way to the kitchen, her mind reeling. Was he playing pool by himself? And if so, why would that room be forbidden?

  After she grabbed a glass of water, she scanned the bookshelf in the dining room for something that might interest her. Jane Eyre. She’d read it in high school English class, she was fairly certain. But she couldn’t remember a thing about it. She grabbed it, tucking it under her arm, and turned to go back to her bedroom.

  She gasped. There, at the edge of the table, watching her, was Drake Webber, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. His hair was disheveled, sticking up in several places.

  He put his hands up, almost like one might if they expected to catch someone in their arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Well, you did.” She felt angry—the kind of anger that comes after a scare. “What’re you doing?”

  “I heard footsteps. I came to investigate. To make sure everything was all right, I guess.” He cocked his head to the side. “Is it?”

  She shivered, pulling her pajama top tighter with her free hand. “I had a nightmare. And I was thirsty. Then I thought I might try a book to help take my mind off it.”

  “Jane Eyre?”

  “What? Oh, yes
. Right. Jane Eyre.”

  He continued to watch her. She couldn’t think what to do next. Moving towards him and subsequently passing him seemed impossible just then. So she simply returned his gaze, trying desperately to think of something to say. A dance of sorts, she thought. Neither could move without the other.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, finally. “It’s just I don’t sleep much.”

  “I know.”

  He flinched, his eyes registering understanding. He knew she knew of his wanderings in the dark night.

  “Your nightmares are bad, aren’t they?” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. “I hear you scream out. Every night now for a week.”

  She flushed, feeling miserable. How could he hear her from all the way down in his room? Unless he was up every night in the rooms close to her own. “Yes. Since the phone call.”

  “I have them, too.”

  Shocked, she stared at him. A piece of personal information?

  “It gets to where I almost hate to go to sleep for fear of having one,” he continued.

  “Yes. Exactly. Do you always have the same nightmare?”

  “No.” He said it without expression, staring at his hands. “When I wake from one it takes me hours to recover.”

  As if he asked the question, she said, “Mine are mostly the same. Just a replay of the night he almost killed me.”

  “How do they let a piece of shit like that out of jail?”

  “He served his time, I guess.” She glanced towards the window, thinking of the coyote. “If I wasn’t here I don’t know what I’d do. Honestly. I’m scared out of my mind but at least I know he can’t get us while we’re here.”

  “You’ll stay until this thing gets solved. End of story.”

  “Thank you. It’s all I can think to say.”

  “You’re welcome.” He gestured towards the couches. “Do you want to stay here, in the front room and read? I’ll stay with you. Maybe you’ll fall asleep.”