Cry Baby Hollow

by Love, Aimee

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Joe left the next morning for Knoxville, and as soon as she saw him pull away Aubrey climbed up into the loft, lay down on the bed, and cried for two solid hours. She cried for Noah and because Joe was leaving right when she’d started to want him to stay, but mostly she cried for herself and the collection of circumstances that had conspired to strand her in the middle of a madman infested forest all alone. After she had cried herself out, she dozed off and slept for fourteen hours str

  aight.

  It was ten o’clock at night when she sat bolt upright in bed, cursing herself for a fool. She took a quick shower, slapped together a sandwich, and sat down at her computer. It was late, but it wasn’t too late to get something done. She looked up the number she wanted, but it was too much to hope that anyone would still be at their desk this time of night. Unable to bear the idea of waiting until morning, she picked up the phone and dialed Jason instead.

  “Hello?” He answered on the second ring, sounding wide awake.

  “Hi Jason, how are you doing?”

  “I didn’t recognize your number on my caller ID,” he told her, as if he wouldn’t have answered if he knew it was her.

  “I finally got it changed to a local number,” she told him, trying to keep her tone cool and even.

  “Are you going to tell me where local is now, or is it still a secret?”

  “It was never a secret, Jason. I’m down in Tennessee with Vina.”

  “You’re getting her settled in an assisted living facility, I hope,” he told her. “It isn’t safe for someone that old to live out in the country alone.”

  “I’m staying with her, actually,” Aubrey said. “So she doesn’t have to. That’s actually why I called. Her step-kids are giving her a hard time and I think we’ve exhausted the skill of her local lawyer. I’m heading into the city tomorrow to try to hire a shark and I was hoping you could give me Matt’s number. I’d completely forgotten he was down here until tonight, and surely he’ll be able to recommend someone.”

  There was silence.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” Jason said. “I just can’t believe you called me in the middle of the night to get another man’s phone number. What’s the matter, having trouble getting dates?”

  “Actually,” she told him with more than a little satisfaction, “I’m seeing someone. I really just need to talk to Matt about a lawyer.”

  “Sure,” Jason said petulantly, obviously not believing her, but he gave her Matt’s cell phone number, so Aubrey didn’t really care.

  She dialed it as soon as he hung up. It was answered on the first ring.

  “Heck.”

  “Heck yes or Heck no?” She asked him.

  “Aubrey!?!”

  “Hi Matt, how have you been?”

  “Oh my god, what was Jason thinking? I talked to him a month ago and told him what a moron he is.”

  “Well, I talked to him two minutes ago and was on the verge of telling him the exact same thing. What a coincidence.”

  “I wanted to get your number when I talked to him, but when a guy tells you he just got divorced, I think there’s a waiting period before you’re allowed to hit on his ex, no matter how hot she it.”

  “And is the waiting period up now?” She asked with a grin.

  “Oh, it doesn’t apply to the ex hitting on you, then she’s fair game,” he assured her.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m afraid it’s not why I called.”

  “Has someone already snapped you up? I thought we had agreed that if you and Jason ever called it quits, I had dibs.”

  “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

  “Why don’t we discuss it over dinner? I get up to DC pretty often, you know.”

  “I tell you what, if we can talk about the favor I need over dinner, I’m perfectly willing to talk about dibs over desert.”

  “I forgot you called for a reason. You can tell me now, you don’t need to wait. You know I’m completely at your disposal.”

  “It can wait until tomorrow night, if you’re free, that is.”

  “I’m always free for you. I’ll need to check and see if I can hop a commuter flight…”

  “Matt,” she interrupted him. “Look at your caller ID.”

  “Holy shit! You’re local!”

  “And everyone said you’d never make it as a spy. I’m actually about an hour away in Cocke County, if you can believe it. I moved here a couple of months ago.”

  “And you’re just now calling me? That stings.”

  “So dinner?”

  “Definitely.”

  Aubrey pulled into Cozumel’s parking lot almost an hour early. It was a chain Mexican place, but Matt had assured her that the salsa was excellent and the Margaritas were huge. She had miss-guessed her drive time, and then made an unexpected series of correct turns. She thought about going to the bookstore across the street to kill the extra hour, but decided to get a drink at the bar instead.

  She went in, took a seat at the bar, and ordered a margarita. A moment later, a man sat down beside her. He was wearing jeans and a light linen sports coat, and although he took a seat beside her when the entire bar was empty, he didn’t try to make small talk, which Aubrey appreciated. The bartender brought her drink in a ridiculously large glass and the man put his credit card on top of the check.

  “Same for me,” he said.

  Aubrey rolled her eyes and prepared to do battle.

  “Look, I’m flattered, but I’m meeting someone so I think it’s better if I just buy my own.”

  She slid his card off her check and replaced it with her own.

  “Should I be jealous?” He asked.

  She looked over at him. Button down shirt open at the neck, tortoise shell glasses, expensive watch, and loafers that must have cost a hundred dollars. His normally unruly hair was jelled back carefully, but his smile was exactly the same.

  “Is it okay if we take our drinks to a table?” She asked the bartender.

  “Sure,” he put down the second margarita and pointed to a booth by the bar.

  Aubrey took her drink over and slid down onto the cold vinyl bench. She watched as the man sat down across from her, unable to decide whether she should laugh or cry. “So what’s your PhD in, Joe?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Joe gave her his best grin and took a drink of his margarita. A smudge of salt stuck to the corner of his mouth and Aubrey fought down the urge to reach over and wipe it off.

  “I did my undergrad in microbiology with a minor in anthropology, but my doctorate is in genetics. I’m part of an international group that’s tryin’ to track and date patterns of human migration.”

  “Of course you are,” she said with an inward groan.

  “Who are you meetin’?” He asked casually, removing his glasses and placing them in his breast pocket.

  “An old friend.”

  Joe gave her a skeptical look. Her hair was down and curled into a wavy mass that fell down her back, her makeup was perfect, she was wearing a light cotton dress that ended several inches above the knee, and had on high-heeled strappy sandals and a tiny gold chain that held a diamond pendant at the base of her throat. Clearly he wasn’t buying it, but he didn’t say anything, just smiled his slow, easy smile and leaned back in the booth.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked him.

  “I was headin’ home from the bookstore and I saw you drive past, so I pulled a U-ey and came after you. There are a couple a Mini’s in Knoxville, but I’m guessin’ yours is the only one with DC plates. You should really get those changed out, what with the sheriff havin’ it in for you now and all.”

  “Yeah,” Aubrey agreed, but traffic citations were the least of h
er worries at the moment. She finished her margarita in silence, looking across at Joe as if he were a complete stranger. She glanced longingly at her empty glass.

  A tall, lean man in a dark suit walked in the front door and looked around. Even with the mop of dark, curly hair replacing his high and tight, she would have known him anywhere. Aubrey smiled and waved him over, standing to meet him.

  He pulled her out of the booth and wrapped her in a bear hug, holding her just a little longer than was strictly proper.

  “God, you look great,” he told her. “Jason is a complete idiot.”

  Aubrey pulled away and smiled up at him, straightening his lapel where the hug had mussed it.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she told him.

  Joe scooted out of the booth and swallowed the last of his margarita.

  “I’ll leave you two to do your catchin’ up,” he told Aubrey, a touch of worry in his eyes.

  “No,” Aubrey grabbed his arm and pushed him back down. “You should stay for this, too. This is Agent Heck, with the FBI field office here in Knoxville. He and Jason were in the Marines together and I thought maybe he could give us some advice.”

  She slid back into the booth and motioned Matt in across from her, next to Joe.

  “Joe is a neighbor of mine,” she told Matt. “He was witness to the incident I called you about.”

  Matt and Joe shook hands and Matt sat down in the booth beside him.

  “Tell me your name is Oliver,” Joe said with a grin.

  Matt shook his head.

  “Oscar?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Owen?”

  “No.”

  “Otis?”

  “It’s Matthew.”

  “Damn. You could a been O. Heck,” Joe said wistfully. He saw Aubrey looking at her empty glass. “Go ahead and order another round,” he told her. “I don’t have class in the morning. I can bring you back here for your car.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

  So that’s how it’s going to be, Aubrey thought, and waved the waitress over.

  “Class? Are you a student?” Matt asked.

  “I teach at UT,” Joe told him.

  “Really? I never would have guessed that.”

  The waitress came and Aubrey ordered a margarita, Matt got a draft beer, and Joe asked for sweet tea.

  “I get that a lot,” Joe admitted after the girl was gone. “I got a grad student on my staff who goes through all my scholarly papers and takes out the ya’lls and ain’ts.”

  Aubrey had to press her lips together to keep from laughing. She wondered suddenly how many of the stupid things Joe said were really just jokes she’d missed.

  “So what’s this incident you wanted help with?” Matt asked Aubrey, eager to change the subject.

  She wanted to start with the deer, since in her mind all of the strange events in the hollow were linked and that was the first, but she stuck to the man on the dock, the finding of Noah’s body, and the sheriff’s possible cover-up. Matt pulled a small pad from his inside pocket and took notes. She told him about the state of the body and Joe’s idea that it had been there longer than they were told, and how Noah had vanished several days before.

  “Was the family very religious?” Matt asked.

  Joe shrugged.

  “His ma’s a widow, raised her two boys alone. She goes to New Star, which I always found a might odd, but I don’t know that the boys ever went.”

  “New Star?”

  “That’s the Mosley church, back in their cove. Not many outsiders go there,” Joe told him.

  “I thought you said that the boy’s name was Mosley?”

  Joe explained about the two branches of the family.

  “Well, if the mother was religious that would at least explain why finding a stash of pornography would cause such a big fight. You said he was seventeen?”

  Aubrey nodded.

  “Most mothers would just look the other way at that age,” Matt told them. “What did his shoes look like?” He asked Aubrey. “Did you see them? Running shoes, hiking boots?”

  Aubrey closed her eyes and summoned up the picture of Noah’s body that had been haunting her. She saw his t-shirt, shredded. His jeans, torn at the knees. His shoes… Her eyes flew open.

  “White tennis shoes,” she told Matt. “Clean.”

  She looked from Matt to Joe.

  “Then he couldn’t have gone up there the night before, in the rain,” Matt said.

  Aubrey and Joe both shook their heads.

  “It had been raining all day. I was muddy up to my knees by the time we got there,” Aubrey assured him. Joe nodded in agreement.

  “You guys go ahead and order,” Matt told them, standing up. “I need to go out to my car and get a map and make a few phone calls.”

  “You want us to get you somethin’?” Joe asked.

  “Aubrey can order for me,” Matt said, already pulling out his cell phone. “She knows what I like.” He winked at her and walked outside.

  “So how good a friend is this guy?” Joe asked as soon as Matt was gone. Aubrey was spared answering immediately by the waitress who came over to take their order.

  “I finished high school early,” she told Joe after the girl was gone, “and started college at sixteen. After two years I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. None of the things I wanted to study led to very good jobs and my mother said if I didn’t pick something practical she wouldn’t pay for it. I enlisted in the navy mostly to piss her off, but I ended up liking it so I finished school online and became an officer. I met Matt and Jason when we were all stationed together. They’d been roommates at OCS and the three of us were all close…”

  Aubrey sighed.

  “It really wasn’t as sordid as it sounds. Later, I was stationed in Japan and Jason was in Okinawa. We saw a lot of each other.”

  “So he only won by default,” Joe put in.

  Aubrey shrugged.

  “I know Jason always felt that way. He was never happy when a new duty station put me closer to Matt than to him.”

  Joe didn’t look upset exactly, just thoughtful. He sipped his tea and looked around at the slightly cheesy Mexican décor.

  Aubrey pulled out her phone, more to have something to do than because she actually wanted to call anyone. She dialed Vina and it was answered on the third ring.

  “Hi, this is Vina. I’m not at home tonight. Germaine and I are taking Paloma over to Bybee for a church supper at the Baptist church on account of we heard there are some Mexicans in the congregation and thought she might want somebody to talk to, even if they aren’t Catholic. We tried taking her to Good Shepherd in town, but she seemed real upset that the Mass was in English and everybody looked at Germaine and me real funny on account of we didn’t know when to kneel and stuff and probably crossed ourselves wrong. I was hopin’ they’d let us in to the confessionals cause that always looks kinda fun in the movies, but apparently those things keep worse hours than that Chinese take-out place in Morristown that’s always closed when we go. BEEP!”

  Aubrey informed the machine that she was staying in Knoxville overnight, but could still be reached on her cell phone. She hung up, knowing Vina would make all sorts of assumptions about her and Joe based on those few words and not really caring.

  Joe smiled across at her. “You know, sometimes when I can’t make it up to the lake for a while, I call her machine just to get the local news.”

  Their food came and Matt returned with an iPad in a thick rubberized skin that looked like it could survive a drop off a three story building. He made space for it amid all the plates and casually slid in beside Aubrey.

  Joe, content in the knowledge that she’d already agreed to go home wi
th him, didn’t rise to the unspoken challenge. He just shifted a few of the glasses out of the way so he could see and went to work on his enchiladas.

  Aubrey rewarded him for his good behavior by playing footsie with him for a moment, then snapped to attention as Matt pulled up a topographical map of Tennessee and zoomed in until Cocke County consumed the screen.

  “I need you to show me exactly where this happened,” he told her.

  Aubrey used the little touchpad to center the map and then zoomed it in even further until the lake was large in the center.

  “You need the trails displayed?” Matt asked.

  Aubrey nodded and Matt touched a few icons at the edge of the image. The roads vanished and the National Forest was suddenly colored green, with the trails overlaid in dark brown. Aubrey traced her trail from Murder Creek up to where it split off, surprised to find it on this map, even though it wasn’t on the one she’d downloaded. She centered and zoomed again until the little triangle that said ‘Three Caves’ above it was all they could see.

  “The body was in those caves?” Matt asked.

  Aubrey nodded.

  “You’re sure it was those?”

  “Positive,” Aubrey assured him. “They’re the only caves I’ve seen up there, and there are three of them right next to each other.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Matt told her, “because that’s well within the border of the National Forest. I called my boss and he called around to confirm, the death was never reported to the forest service or our office, which means the sheriff is at least in violation of protocol. That’s federal land. The locals are usually left to investigate, since they have the resources at hand, but they’re required to inform us. It gives me a good excuse to stick my nose in without mentioning you. We just say we saw it in the paper and wondered why we hadn’t been told.”

  “Well, that is good news,” Joe agreed around a mouthful of enchilada.