Shadow in the Pines

by PJ Nunn

“What details?” Dani suppressed a smile. “We went to dinner, then we went home.” Ever since Noah stopped by the lab last week, Beth had been smitten. He was, in Beth’s words, infinitesimally dreamy.

  “Come on! Give it up!” Beth looked up from her scrubbing with an impish grin and mischief sparkling in her clear green eyes. “Your home or his?”

  “Mine,” Dani smiled, putting her supplies away. “He came over for coffee after,” she admitted.

  “Oh, my God, it’s so romantic!” Beth pretended to swoon. “Why couldn’t I have bought the old Bailey house and moved in next door to Prince Charming? No wonder you’re not afraid of ghosts!”

  “Girl, you’re nuts,” Dani laughed, helping Beth put away her supplies so they could lock up the lab and get out of there. She didn’t dare say so, but Noah was coming over for dinner again tonight and she still needed to stop at the store. “And what do you mean ‘old Bailey house’?”

  “You don’t know?” Beth turned wide eyes toward her as they locked the door and headed for the parking lot. “I thought everybody knew about the old Bailey house! It’s haunted!”

  “Yeah, right,” Dani laughed. She should have known Beth would be thinking like that.

  The scorching summer heat had been replaced with cool, fall breezes. With Halloween only a few weeks away, the campus was ablaze with the colorful riot of changing leaves while the building interiors had been invaded by witches on broomsticks chasing ghosts and avoiding cobwebs.

  “I’ve lived there for over a month. It’s not haunted.”

  “No, I’m serious,” Beth insisted. “Why do you think it was empty for so long before you bought it?”

  Dani shrugged. “Cause nobody wanted to live way out there?” She’d wondered the same thing, especially since the price was so low, but it never occurred to her to ask.

  Beth’s voice took on a confidential tone as she launched into an explanation while they walked toward the parking lot. “You know the snake farm?”

  “You mean Ophidian?” The Ophidian Research facility was the pride and joy of the science department and apparently responsible for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money for the University.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, Dr. Atkinson used to own that house when he worked there and sometimes he’d take a bunch of kids out there and they’d go all out in the woods looking for snakes.” Beth’s eyes were wide as saucers and Dani suppressed a shiver at the thought of snakes slithering around her house.

  “I suppose there are always snakes in the woods,” Dani shuddered. “That’s not haunted.”

  “No,” Beth said, stopping beside Dani’s car. “Wait! Two of the students that went out there to find snakes disappeared!” Her voice shrank to a stage whisper. “They went out to your house and they never came back!”

  Dani tugged her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the car, then turned to face Beth. “Where did you hear that?” Surely she was just repeating some old East Texas folklore, but Dani felt an unexpected cold chill remembering the times she’d been working outside and looked up suddenly with the feeling that someone was watching her.

  “Dano,” Beth said, using her own preferred nickname for Dani, “I am serious as a heart attack! Ask anyone. It was five or six years ago…no, six… I was a senior in high school. There was a big deal in the paper about how they were bringing in more kinds of snakes to make the lab bigger. Anyway, if I remember right, just a handful of kids went out there that day, then a girl and a guy disappeared in the woods. Some people said they probably eloped or something. But, they never found them anywhere, Dano! After Dr. Atkinson moved away, some of the kids would still go out there to look for snakes, but they said someone was watching them in the woods. It’s really creepy.”

  “Yeah. It is,” Dani agreed, rolling her eyes. Beth’s gullibility made her feel ancient. “Thanks for sharing.”

  “Oh, you!” Beth nudged her arm. “I gotta run, big date tonight! Talk to you later!”

  “Later,” Dani echoed, smiling. Beth could shift gears faster than anyone she knew. Maybe she was getting old, she thought, putting the car in drive and heading for the store. Still, what Beth had said made her think again about the feeling she’d had that someone was lurking in the woods across the road, watching her house. It had only happened a couple of times, and each time she managed to convince herself she was imagining things. But now, the idea might be a little harder to dismiss.

  Chapter Three

  Fortunately, traffic to the store was light, so she got in and out in record time, but found herself looking around cautiously when she got out of the car at the house. Great. Now Beth had her spooked. She didn’t know whether to worry more about watchers in the woods or snakes slithering around on the ground. The whole thing made her even more glad she had Noah for her closest neighbor. Even if he wasn’t as handsome as any man she’d ever known, it was comforting to think there was an armed police officer living next door, just in case she might need him.

  Turning the music up loud once she got inside, she busied herself cutting up veggies for salad and stir-frying chicken strips for fajitas. She wasn’t much of a cook, really. The coconut pie on the counter, fresh from Kroger’s bakery, was testament to that. But Noah loved Mexican food and would eat almost anything as long as it was accompanied by a huge helping of salsa.

  The thought of him brought a smile to her lips as she worked. He’d scared her to death the first time they met, striding into her yard with a big gun strapped to his thigh. She hadn’t learned he was a detective until later that night. Noah didn’t look like any police officer she’d ever seen, except maybe in the movies. He was big enough, that’s for sure, and she suspected he could be mean enough if someone provoked him, but he sported a perpetual three day growth of beard and his shaggy brown hair was longer than hers and always looked like he’d just been in a big wind. As the weather turned cooler, it seemed appropriate to see him wearing plaid flannel shirts.

  They’d seen each other a couple of times a week at first, and Dani was leery of falling into a deep relationship too soon, but she was older than most of the guys she knew from the school and it was nice to be with someone who didn’t make her feel like an old maid. Lately they’d fallen into a pattern of seeing each other almost every day.

  At first she told herself it was just practical. She hated to cook for just herself and he didn’t cook at all. Since they lived out here with no one else nearby, why wouldn’t they trade off? But it was more than that. The way she responded when he kissed her good night last night was proof of that. For the first time since she’d moved here, she would have traded her warm bath for a cold shower.

  “Anybody home?” Noah called through the screen door.

  “Come on in,” Dani called. “I’m in the kitchen.”

  “There you go,” he joined her, dropping a package of flour tortillas on the counter, then helping himself to a beer from the fridge.

  “Hungry?” she smiled as he sat down at the table. Whatever the reason, her house seemed cozier when he was around.

  “Starved! I worked through lunch,” he took a big swig of beer from the bottle.

  “Well, here then,” she handed him the tortillas and reached for the grated cheese, which he accepted with a smile. “What’d you do today?” she asked, gathering the salad and croutons and placing them on the table.

  His comparisons of life in a small town PD as opposed to the force in Austin were hysterical sometimes. It didn’t take long to figure out that his perspective on people’s motivations and life in general was significantly different from anyone else she knew, but she was learning to appreciate his insight and ability to read people.

  “Oh, the usual, you know,” he popped some cheese in his mouth. “Sweeping the scum off the street, shit like that,” he joked.

  “Right,” she laughed, “we all know Tyler’s full of scum.” The daily paper was filled with high school and college events and news about the endless flower shows. After
a few more trips to the kitchen, she had everything they needed on the table and he was already filling his plate.

  “Hey, you’d be surprised,” he winked at her as she sat down beside him. “Scum capital of Texas, I’ll bet.”

  “Maybe I would,” she agreed, stuffing a tortilla with chicken and onions. “Beth told me today this house is supposed to be haunted.”

  “Oh, really?” he looked mildly curious. “She’s full of good information, isn’t she?” His dry wit had escaped her at first, but she was getting used to that, too. It reminded her of the early days with Shelly, her first roommate at college. A time when she liked herself a lot more than she had lately. It was a comfortable feeling, like finally coming home after a long absence.

  “Have you heard anything about students disappearing out here?” she asked, trying to sound casual. The whole thing bothered her more than she cared to admit.

  “No-o,” he said around a mouthful of chicken. “She was serious?”

  “I think so,” Dani said. “Something about the guy who ran the Ophidian Colony. She said he brought students out here to catch snakes and two of them disappeared… …about six years ago.”

  “You know, I did hear something about that when I first moved here,” he shook his head. “Pretty weird shit, as I recall. They don’t get much of that around here.”

  “I think it’s pretty creepy,” she said, concentrating on her food. When she looked up, he was watching her intently.

  “Does it bother you?” he asked quietly, shifting into his cop mode.

  Shrugging, she said, “A little, I guess. I never lived alone before…”

  That wasn’t exactly true. She’d lived at home until she went to college. Then she’d married Mark right out of the dorm. The time she’d spent alone in Austin after they separated, she didn’t really feel alone. Surrounded by Mark’s things and the neighbors, it didn’t seem the same. He was hardly ever home even before he moved out and she could always hear the neighbors thumping around behind a common wall. But out here, the quiet at night seemed to take on a presence of its own.

  “I’ll look into it if you want,” he offered.

  Dani was quiet for a moment and Noah waited. Finally, she asked, “Have you ever seen anyone out here? Walking around in the woods, I mean?”

  Noah’s eyes narrowed. “No. Why?”

  She shrugged. “A couple of times, I’ve thought I did…across the road. Then I thought it was probably just a shadow or something. But after I talked to Beth about it, I started to wonder. It’s probably nothing.”

  “There’s not another house for miles,” he said, like she didn’t already know that.

  “I know. I’m sure it’s my imagination.”

  “I guess maybe hunters might wander this way sometimes,” he offered. “I haven’t lived here during deer season before.”

  “Whatever,” she shrugged again, wishing she hadn’t brought it up. She didn’t really want to think about it. “Wanna watch a movie tonight?”

  “I guess ‘Silence of the Lambs’ is out of the question,” he teased, relaxing a little.

  Dani rolled her eyes and got up to clear the table.

  They ended up watching a rerun of “Face Off” on TV, sitting together on the couch while he gave a running commentary of why things weren’t done right in the movie. A big fan of Nicolas Cage, she’d seen it several times before, but it was fun to hear Noah’s take on the whole thing. Still, she sighed softly when it ended, knowing he’d leave soon and she’d be alone again. Maybe it was his police training, but he had an uncanny knack for knowing just what she was thinking.

  “I better go,” he said, contradicting his words by pulling her close and kissing her soundly. The touch of his lips sent a jolt of electricity coursing through her body. Mark never kissed her like this. “You okay?” he asked, so close to her face she could smell the remnants of the cologne he’d probably splashed on in a hurry this morning. Aramis, she thought, smiling as she mentally compared him to the pretty-boy Aramis man in the commercials.

  “Yeah,” she said, wondering if it was possible to fall into the warm brown eyes that stared back at her. This man was trouble.

  “You know I’m right here if you need me,” he whispered, caressing her with his voice.

  “I know,” she said softly, reveling in the feel of his strong arms around her. “Thank you for that.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, exploring her lips gently with his tongue. “I really better go,” he groaned, pulling away.

  It took all of her willpower to resist the impulse to pull him back and beg him to stay. She followed him to the front door, holding fast to the shirtsleeve near his elbow and wondering if it would be too forward to ask him to leave his shirt. Maybe if she had something that smelled like him to keep close at night, the dreams and the dreaded feeling of loneliness wouldn’t plague her when she awoke.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, jerking her back to reality.

  “Night, Noah,” she smiled as he touched her face gently with one finger before going.

  It only took a few minutes to tidy up the kitchen and she ran a hot bath, hoping it would still some of the restless feeling stirring inside of her. The bath felt good, but the feelings were still there when she turned off the light and climbed into bed. Sometime, she’d have to sort through all the emotions, but right now she just wanted to enjoy the feeling of being wanted by someone like Noah.

  He couldn’t be more different than Mark, and that surprised her at first. If she stood the two of them side by side, Mark would look like a pasty faced, insignificant wuss. He’d never been muscular and he detested working outdoors with his hands. That was one of the reasons he’d bought a townhouse. He didn’t want to mow a yard. On the other hand, Noah was physical labor personified. She’d seen him heft huge logs and fifty pound bags of potting soil without straining. Although she’d never seen him at work, she doubted there were many criminals who’d resist arrest when he was involved. And it wasn’t just the gun he carried either, he looked pretty intimidating without it.

  He had his own issues though, everybody did. He hadn’t said much about it, but she knew he’d been shot several times in the line of duty. In fact, that was the main reason he was here now. He’d been shot in the knee during a bank robbery in Austin. Recovering after surgery, he’d decided to move to a small town where he’d have less to deal with that way. He told her seeing all the violent crime tended to change people after a while. She knew he’d been married once, a long time ago, and that he was nearing forty. Maybe he was really ready to settle down now. Maybe…no, she better not start thinking that way.

  Punching her pillow, she tried to get comfortable, then jumped when the phone rang. It was almost midnight! “Hello,” she said tentatively.

  “Not asleep yet?” Noah’s voice spilled through the phone like a drink of brandy, warming her all the way to the core.

  “No,” she smiled. In those few seconds, the darkness that seemed cold and lonely was transformed into a warm and cozy place.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “You seemed a little nervous tonight.” He was smiling too, she could hear it.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” she said, wishing like hell he was close enough to touch.

  “You’ve got my number, right?” he asked.

  “Yes, it’s right here,” she assured him.

  “Good. Sweet dreams then,” he said.

  “Night.”

  ***

  For some reason, Dani couldn’t get the thought of the missing students out of her mind. Every chance she had, she asked coworkers and fellow students what they knew about the story. Most of them had no idea what she was talking about, but occasionally she got lucky and mentioned it to someone who lived in town at the time. The general consensus was vague. Some thought Dr. Atkinson had something to do with it. Others thought it was Dr. Crane. Still others thought it was some wandering serial killer passing through on his way to
who knows where. When she started getting strange looks in response to her questions, Dani tried to exercise more caution about bringing the subject up. She didn’t want it to seem like she was obsessing, but it was never far from her thoughts.

  Plagued with a vague sense of uneasiness, Dani broke down and went shopping at the local animal shelter, arriving home with an adorable mutt that hung on her every word. He was probably worthless for protection, but his spotted hair and happy brown eyes made her feel less alone immediately. He welcomed any and all attention with a happy bark and a quick doggie kiss if she wasn’t careful. She named him Bandit because of the mask of gray hair around his sparkling eyes, and he promptly made himself at home by her feet wherever she might be. Noah teased her about her big, bad, watchdog, but she caught him wrestling with the dog and enjoying his company too when he didn’t know she was watching.

  ***

  Finally, darkness closed in, surrounding him, bringing with it the comfort of anonymity. He’d waited, impatiently, for Dani to arrive then watched in hidden silence as she unloaded her car. The woods offered no threat to him, they were his home. He could navigate them easily in the dark, even without the help of the full moon that shone down on him now. If he’d known about the sale of the house sooner, he could have taken care of everything before she arrived, but no matter. It had been six years and the Tyler police had bumbled the case from the beginning. They’d never pin anything on him after all this time.

  Just to be sure, though, he wanted one last look at the cellar. Biding his time as he caught occasional glimpses of Dani through the windows, he waited until the house was dark, then slowly, cautiously made his way across the road and behind the house, ignoring the subtle crunch of gravel beneath his feet.

  Internally, his anger coiled and uncoiled, striking out like the reptiles in his beloved lab. Who did this woman think she was asking all those questions and bringing his name up again when he’d worked so hard? Obviously, the hope that he’d had about the passage of time was in vain. Somehow, he had to stop her before she got the whole thing stirred up again. All he had to do was pick the right time. But he was still undecided. If he killed her, there’d be another investigation and the location was just too coincidental. Especially after she’d asked so many questions. No, maybe all he needed to do was scare her. Scare her bad enough that she’d pack up and get the hell out of town without looking back!