by Mae Clair
His answer came slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Great.” She chose to overlook his uncertainty. “I’ll meet you at the house. Just give me time to order something from the café.”
Feeling slightly better she wouldn’t be walking into the mammoth two-story alone, and anxious to show him the note, Eve detoured toward the River Café and flagged down the cook. There were definitely perks to being the owner.
* * * *
Caden had to admit the batter-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans were far better fare than the standard fast food he’d planned on eating. The company was considerably better than the drone of his TV, far prettier, too.
Eve had arrived at the house as he was installing the double bolt lock he’d purchased for her new back door. She’d dumped a manila file folder and a bag marked River Café on the kitchen counter, then crossed to examine his handiwork. He’d expected her to complain he’d moved ahead with repairing the door but knew something had changed since they’d parted company that morning.
Now, seated at the dining room table eating fried chicken off Rosie’s casual china, Eve clearly had more on her mind than the remnants of the dinner still on her plate. Her conversation was casual and light, but her manner tense. He’d brought a cold six-pack along as his contribution to the meal, but she’d insisted on pouring the beer into a fancy glass. Hers anyway. He drank his from the can.
Taking a swig, he watched her across the table. It was hard equating her with the coltish girl who’d been his sister’s best friend. “So why the change?”
Absently, Eve poked her fork at the mound of mashed potatoes on her plate. “I was thinking about what you said. About Aunt Rosie and how the damage to the house didn’t seem like routine vandalism.”
He suspected there was more to it, but remained silent, biding his time.
“You seemed so sure.” She set the fork down, creased the napkin she’d folded over her lap, then met his gaze. “I wasn’t here for the last fifteen years, Caden. I saw Aunt Rosie on the occasional holiday when she drove to Pennsylvania. I wasn’t even here for her funeral.”
He wondered about that, but didn’t have the audacity to ask. If it had been his aunt… “You knew her better than I did,” she said, breaking his concentration. “When I saw her or we talked on the phone, it was trivial. How business was going at the hotel, whether or not I was seeing someone, or what was happening on Falcon Crest. I guess I lost touch with the important things in her life.”
He wouldn’t mind having the inside track on whether or not she was seeing someone. “What do you want to know?”
She wet her lips. “Earlier today you said whoever ransacked the house was either looking for something or did it in a fit of rage.”
“In my opinion.” Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut, but cop instincts died hard. There were times, infrequent as they were, that he almost missed the job.
She leaned forward, her gaze steady. In the amber light of the overhead chandelier her eyes were flecked with gold. “You said Aunt Rosie had enemies.”
“I said maybe she had enemies.” He shouldn’t have been so bold.
“Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt her or her memory?”
“No.” That was the downside of it. He took another swig of beer, set the can on the table, and rotated it in his hand. The Parrish name was deeply rooted in Point Pleasant history. How could he explain gut intuition? That ever since the bridge collapse, he wasn’t so quick to discount a prickle of misgiving when it played on his nerves. If he’d paid more attention to that feeling fifteen years ago, his sister would still be alive.
“People respected Rosie,” he said at last, “but she kept to herself. She was friendly, even generous, but there was something secretive about her.”
Eve frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“She wasn’t someone you could get close to.” It was a survival trait he’d adopted himself, a means to keep others at bay. When you carried a sin or secret in your past, it was a safety measure to stay sane. Perhaps he’d recognized the habit in Rosie because it was one he favored himself. He understood secrets, and he understood guilt. “Rosie was friendly on the surface, but she kept people at arm’s length when it came to anything personal.”
“She seemed pretty close to Katie Lynch. At least, that was the impression I got after talking to Katie.”
He thought he heard a hint of jealousy in Eve’s voice. Katie was a girl full of surprises, so different from her sister, Wendy. He was sorry he’d treated Wendy like most other guys who’d grown up with her, hoping to cop a feel beneath the railroad bridge or in the back of his car. He’d never gotten further than second base, but that was his hesitation more than hers.
“Katie told me Aunt Rosie was delirious toward the end and kept repeating how sorry she was for something she’d done,” Eve continued, unaware of his thoughts. “She prayed God would forgive her. She kept mumbling about gray vines.”
“Gray vines?” Caden shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Does it mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Probably the pain meds. People say all kinds of crazy things when they’re under the influence of narcotics.”
“So you don’t think she had anything to hide?”
He decided to turn the tables around. “You tell me. Why the sudden change of heart about the deadbolt on your door?”
“Oh…that.” Her gaze dropped to the table, and she fiddled with her fork. A slight flush tinged her cheeks and, for a moment, he was reminded of the twelve-year-old girl who used to grow awkward whenever he was around. “I, um….” She bit her lip. “Something happened today when I left the hotel.”
He didn’t say anything, but kept his gaze trained on her. It had to be freaking hard to walk into town fifteen years after your family set the bar. Difficult enough under normal circumstances, but Point Pleasant had changed drastically. Even he thought of Main Street as carrying the taint of a ghost town. If it weren’t for the Parrish Hotel and the few businesses that kept it afloat, Main would be as deserted as the TNT. Ironically, it was that region and the legendary monster rumored to haunt there that fed a steady trickle of tourists and curiosity-seekers into Point Pleasant.
Eve left the table briefly, crossing into the living room to retrieve her purse from the coffee table. Through the open arch between the two rooms, he watched her fish through the bag. She located a folded slip of paper, then returned to the dining room and extended it to him.
“Here.” Rather than resume her seat, she stayed at his side, arms hugged close to her chest as if to ward off a chill.
Caden polished off the remainder of his beer and set the can aside. Opening the paper, he read the typewritten words in the center aloud, “You should leave before you get hurt.”
Eve shivered. “At first, I thought it was a prank, but then I remembered the vandalism and the man I saw outside.”
“What man?”
She slid into the chair beside him, abandoning her earlier seat. Turning sideways to face him, she toyed with the thin silver links of her watch. “Last night I heard a banging that woke me from sleep. It turned out to be a loose shutter in Aunt Rosie’s room, but when I looked out the window, I saw a man standing at the edge of the trees in the backyard. He was staring up at the house, just standing there in the dark.”
“Could you tell who it was?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It was too dark, and he stepped back into the trees. Originally, I thought I imagined it, but after the vandalism and finding that note, the whole thing has me uneasy.” She shook her head, obviously embarrassed for bringing it up. “Maybe I’m just being silly.”
“No, you’re being careful.” His gaze dropped to the note. There was always the possibility someone could be playing a trick. Point Pleasant was a small town, and people had undoubtedly heard she’d returned. The name Parrish was news. Bored teenagers with little else to do but ha
unt the TNT and linger at the Crowne Theater might think it fun to rattle the new girl. He was intimately experienced with the pranks of teenagers and how horribly they could backfire. There were times at night he could still see Hank Jeffries’s face as he held the Kline kid cradled in his lap.
Scissoring the note between two fingers, Caden raised his hand in the air. “I want to show this to Ryan.”
“Then you do think it’s something I should take seriously?”
“I wouldn’t ignore it.” He stood and walked to the back door, then paused to double check the new lock. She trailed behind him, carrying their plates to the kitchen counter.
“Maybe I should get a dog.” She grinned slightly, but her voice sounded tight. Placing the dishes in the sink, she braced a hip against the counter and turned to face him. “You’re making me nervous, Caden.”
“I’m just inspecting my handiwork.” Damn, he hadn’t wanted to make her anxious, but it bothered him to think someone had been watching the house. He owed it to Maggie to look out for her friend. Eve’s vulnerability made him want to protect her. “You’ll be fine.”
Uncertain if he was convincing himself or her, he was more than a little troubled by the thought of her alone. Sunset was only an hour away, pleasant in early June, but not without its ghosts. Even something as simple as waning daylight resurrected unpleasant memories for him.
The glare of flood lights, the twisted mangle of bridge towers protruding in the dark like some obscene metal sculpture….the stench of fear, blood, and cold river water, the shouts of rescuers and the gut-wrenching sobs of victims.
“Caden?”
He blinked, abruptly wrenched back to the present. Eve stood at his side, one hand resting lightly on his arm, her gaze laced with concern. “Are you all right?”
Damn. He hated when he flashed back like that. Usually the occurrences were rare, but since Eve’s return, he’d been doing it more frequently. He nodded brusquely and examined the door.
“You’ll be fine. Just keep everything locked up. I can hang around if you’d like.” If he was honest, he wanted to hang around.
“No, that’s all right. I want to sort through more of Aunt Rosie’s belongings, anyway. I’m still straightening up her room. How soon do you think you can start work on the other items that need repaired?”
“Tomorrow morning if you like.” Earlier, during dinner, they’d gone over the estimate he’d provided, and she’d agreed to all of the work, deciding it was necessary to make the house sellable. She’d told him she was on a two-week vacation from her job and needed to wrap things up quickly so she could put the home on the market before leaving town.
“Tomorrow morning is great. Let me get you a key.” She headed back to the living room and her purse. “That way you can come and go throughout the day if I’m not here.”
Caden followed, still shaken by that unexpected flash of memory, but determined not to let it show.
“Mr. Barnett gave me several keys.” Eve passed him a spare. “Any time after eight is fine.” She hesitated. “Do you think I should talk to Ryan about the note?”
“I’ll take care of it for you.” He knew his brother. Ryan would brush it off as a prank, then try to make Eve believe the same. While Caden didn’t want to alarm her, he also wanted her to be cautious and safe. Heading for the door, he thought of his empty apartment overlooking the river. He’d go home, sit in the dark, and stare at that brooding expanse of water beyond the windows, imagining his sister’s body decaying in the muck.
If only they’d let him search for her that night. If only he’d made sure she was out of the car before he’d been pulled free. He’d only had a few seconds to react as the vehicle sank below the surface and that bony, gray hand had gripped his arm.
“Thanks for dinner.” He opened the front door, pausing on the threshold. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I want to see Ryan before I get started. Call me if you have any problems tonight. You have my card.”
He felt funny leaving, as though he was abandoning her, the same way he’d abandoned Maggie. Had there been a flash of ginger hair in the water? So cold…so dark.
He couldn’t remember. And that was his curse.
To never know if he could have saved her.
* * * *
“I knew you’d come back.” Maggie pulled her knees up to her chest and dug her bare toes into the grass.
The sun felt warm on Eve’s face, honeyed with the kiss of late summer. Aunt Rosie’s backyard was a favorite place to play, especially at the edge of the stream where they might find tadpoles or pebbles polished smooth by the water. A breeze raced through the grass, tossing the leaves on the tree branches overhead and sending ripples across the surface of the small creek.
“I didn’t want to leave.”
She was twelve years old, yet her thoughts were those of a much older person. The adult in her body looked at her youthful suntanned legs, the bright pink polish on her nails, chipped at the edges as it had often been, and the friendship bracelet around her wrist. “My mother took me away. She said she couldn’t live here anymore. Not after Daddy died. She said it hurt too much to be reminded of what happened.”
Maggie nodded somberly. “I was scared.”
“When the bridge collapsed?” Somehow Eve knew she was dreaming. The twelve-year-old girl dressed in shorts and flip-flops sitting on the bank of the stream was her way of connecting with Maggie. “Did it hurt?”
“I can’t talk about that part.” Maggie plucked a blade of grass. “You have to figure it out, Eve. That’s what your Aunt Rosie wants. It will help Caden, too. He shouldn’t blame himself.”
“Because he took you with him that night?”
“It’s more than that.”
Eve thought about it for a moment. “I always had a crush on him.”
“Caden?” Maggie giggled. “I knew that. I could tell by the way you looked at him. It’s part of the reason you have to stay.”
“In Point Pleasant?”
“It’s your home.”
“It was my home.” She tucked her knees close, mimicking Maggie’s posture. “I wish the bridge had never fallen.” She looked at her friend, feeling a long-ago sense of loss. For their childhood and laughter. Death had robbed them both in different ways. She smiled sadly. “I know this isn’t real, that it’s just a dream.”
“Then ask me a question. Ask something you’ve always wanted to know.”
“Did you really see the Mothman?”
“Your Aunt Rosie knows.”
* * * *
Eve jerked awake, Maggie’s words echoing in her head. The house was silent and dark, yet something felt wrong. She lay in bed unmoving, holding her breath, straining to hear. Moonlight streamed through the bedroom windows, carving strange shapes and shadows from the nightstand and the dresser. Her purse, discarded on a nearby chair, took on the form of a night beast reawakened from childhood. She remembered nights huddled under her blankets, listening to the wind moan outside. The year before the bridge collapsed, so many people had spread tales of the Mothman, claiming to have seen the creature.
It had left her afraid to be alone in the dark, fearful she would see the fiery red eyes or hear the awful flap of its enormous wings. People who saw the monster said it made them feel funny in the head, and Mr. Elderman insisted it had carried off his dog. The poor animal had been found hours later, dead on the side of a road, miles from his house.
Make believe. Stories.
Was the Mothman real?
Your Aunt Rosie knows.
She gasped at the unexpected brrrang of the phone. The shrill ringing shattered the silence and broke through the eerie reverie playing in her head. Fumbling for the lamp beside the bed, she caught a glimpse of the clock. Two in the morning. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she thought of her mother, home in Harrisburg. The only news delivered at two AM was bad news. Heart pounding, fingers shaking, she switched on the light and snatche
d up the receiver. “Hello?”
Silence. Oppressive and thick, like the silence of the house.
Hair prickled on the back of Eve’s neck. “Hello,” she repeated, louder this time.
A second, two seconds of prolonged silence, then the line clicked dead and a dial tone hummed in her ear. Her fingers tightened on the receiver. Quickly, she dropped the phone in its cradle as if it carried the taint of disease. If something had happened back home, the caller would try to reach her again. If everything was fine and she called her mom, she’d wake her from a sound sleep and likely set her to worrying. No, it was probably just a wrong number. A night owl looking for a kindred soul who’d inadvertently dialed her line.
Did you really see the Mothman?
Your Aunt Rosie knows.
There was no way she could fall asleep now, not after the strange dream and the unsettling phone call. Wrong numbers happened all time. It shouldn’t bother her, yet coming on the heels of the ominous note that ordered her to leave and the vandalism to the house, it left her shaken.
Sliding from bed, she found her slippers, then wrapped her robe around her and padded downstairs. Tea would help. She switched on each light as she went, flooding the house with brightness to chase away her fears. In the kitchen, she rummaged a kettle from the cupboard, then filled it with hot water and set it on the stove. As she waited for the water to boil, she replayed the dream through her mind.
“I knew you’d come back,” Maggie had said. It was silly to think she’d actually been talking to her friend, yet the exchange had felt so real. Maggie wanted her to figure something out…something that would help Aunt Rosie and Caden, if she believed the dream.
When the water boiled, she made herself a cup of chamomile tea and carried it to the living room where she curled up on the couch. It was hard to believe Aunt Rosie had lived in a house this big all alone. She sipped her tea, trying to imagine Aunt Rosie doing the same.
Caden had called her aunt secretive, and Katie had said Aunt Rosie believed her cancer was payment for something she’d done long ago. But that was impossible. Her aunt had nothing to hide. Certainly nothing so awful that she considered cancer a just punishment.