Color Me Dead (Henry Park Book 1)

by Trent, Teresa

  “Same for me. We need to promise if anything happens we’ll call each other. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Gigi responded.

  After that, we continued to talk about Henry Park and the surrounding area. Jane and Gigi gave me a few ideas for Mitch and his job search. Jane said they were always looking for help at the grocery store. Jane had moved here from Colorado Springs and had been working as Gigi’s caregiver for only a year. She was single and complained about how few unattached men there were in Henry Park outside of tourist season.

  “I guess I’ll have to load up my e-reader with romances this winter. You can bet none of those six-pack-ab guys will be strolling around this mountain town.”

  “Great. All those books will make you late for work again,” Gigi joked.

  “Being on time has never been my forte.”

  We laughed, and as we finished up our coffee, Gigi typed out one final message. “Be careful. I feel danger. For you. I would like to text you.”

  “Sure.” I found a pen in my purse. Grabbing a napkin, I wrote down my number.

  “I should warn you, Gabby,” Jane said. “Gigi has an ulterior motive. She also sells candles. At least, that’s what it is this month. I try to limit her sales texting to once a day per customer when I’m with her. It’s her main sales tool besides the computer.”

  “Candles too?”

  I had to say I admired Gigi. She couldn’t move from her chair with a disease I couldn’t imagine. Still, though, she was a young woman who was finding a way to make a living. Heck yes, she could contact me and sell me a candle. “You bet.” I handed her the napkin.

  “Thanks!” Gigi answered. “I’m a top seller. Marketing whiz.”

  A top seller. That was pretty impressive. She must make a lot of phone calls. Calls I would now be getting. I started to rethink giving out my number.

  Chapter 13

  A few nights later, Clarence had another nocturnal work session planned for us. I was glad we weren’t doing this every night, especially now that I was teaching three days a week. The lights from Clarence’s study illuminated his driveway. Much to my dismay, Darla’s car was parked in front of the house. If she and Timothy were visiting tonight, hopefully the hullabaloo about Timothy’s newfound son was over. Clarence and I were on a roll and needed to work without distractions.

  The thick wooden door was open, so I tapped on the screen door, causing it to clatter against the frame. “Knock knock.” As I stepped into the house, I saw Darla was standing next to a large parcel covered in butcher paper. “Hi, Darla. I’m here to work with Clarence.”

  Darla gave me a frosty look.

  “What do you have there?”

  Darla’s red lacquered fingernails perched on the edge of the brown paper. “Clarence commissioned it from me. He wanted a painting done of the lake. Seems like a waste of my time. He can see it every day in that fishbowl of a study of his.” She waited for me to go and join Clarence, but when I didn’t move, she rolled her eyes and ripped the tan paper off of the painting. It was a large piece, possibly three by five feet tall. As the paper came away, the beauty of the lake shone in complete preciseness. Darla, for all of her negativity, was quite a talented artist.

  “That’s amazing. Beautiful, Darla.” I came closer and studied her technique, and then stepped back to take in her work.

  Darla’s maroon lips pursed together, and her head swayed to the side, showing a practiced indifference. “I don’t know. It’s not my best work, but Clarence ordered it six months ago and told me to finish it, ready or not.”

  “You’re too humble, my dear,” Clarence said, entering the room with a pencil behind his ear. “Your painting is exquisite. You captured not only the look of the lake but the essence of it.” Clarence’s gaze caught mine for a second opinion, even though I had already given my approval. “It’s outstanding, isn’t it? We’re hanging it over the fireplace. Don’t you think it’ll be perfect?”

  “Absolutely,” I answered.

  Darla tried to lift the painting to bring it closer to the fireplace. “Where’s Tim? Is he helping you?” It was an awfully big canvas for one person to hang alone.

  “No. He’s busy with something tonight, or someone. Don’t worry about me. I’ve hung paintings this size hundreds of times. I’m stronger than I look.”

  I gave a half shrug. “Are you sure? I could help you if you would like.”

  “I’m fine. I can hang it. Now get Clarence busy so I can be about my work and get back home.”

  The last thing Darla would ever want to acknowledge was she needed help from me, another artist. My assistance was not welcome.

  “We’ll leave you to it, then,” Clarence said. “Yell out if you need anything. We’ll just be in the next room.

  “I won’t need you. I’m fine,” she snapped.

  She couldn’t wait to get us out of the room. One thing about Darla was she seemed to be bothered by any act of human kindness made toward her. Most people would welcome a compliment or friendly word to show support. Not Darla. She was such a contrast to Tim, who was so outgoing and friendly to everyone. It was puzzling to me how they had found one another. Darla and Tim were a real-life example of opposites attracting.

  Once we were working, Clarence created another list of sketch ideas for me. I started making mental notes as I read through each description.

  “I’m going to make a sandwich. Can I get you anything?” Clarence asked.

  “No, I have some possible ideas for your list and don’t want to lose them. I need to get some things down on paper.”

  As I worked on sketching a hollow log with the two boys from the story, there was a crash from the living room. I ran in the direction of the sound to find Darla sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was trying to piece together a broken corner of the frame.

  “Unbelievable,” she mumbled.

  I sat next to her on the floor, watching her put the two pieces together, over and over again. We were what my art teachers would have called a study in contrast. She wore a black miniskirt and red blouse while I had on my favorite skinny jeans and a turquoise T-shirt.

  I touched the carved edge of the wooden frame. “Nothing you can do about it but have it re-framed. At least it didn’t hurt your canvas.” She let out an exasperated sigh, too upset to speak. I continued, hoping to make her feel better. “It’s a shame, though, because it was a beautiful frame.”

  I waited for Darla to start belittling my observation, but no words came. She just kept trying to put the broken pieces together. A teardrop slipped silently onto her hand.

  “Darla?” I whispered, barely breaking into her silence. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. Whatever she was crying about, I was pretty sure it wasn’t the broken frame. After what had happened with Tim and the baby drama, I could guess why she was upset.

  “Do you want me to call Tim?” I asked.

  “No!” Her response was sharp and staccato, like the clipped sounds of the heels she favored. “He said he’s busy tonight. Busy with what? I don’t know. Probably house hunting with that woman he hasn’t seen for five years. Whatever he’s doing, I don’t want to know.”

  “Oh, Darla, I’m so sorry.”

  She stiffened at my caring words. It might have been a strange reaction, but not for Darla. She needed a friend right now, but she didn’t want me.

  Even though it felt hopeless, I continued. “You don’t know if he’s out with someone else tonight. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s trying to sort out the fact he just became a father. You have to admit he has a lot on his mind right now.”

  Darla didn’t comment right away, making me think she was considering my words. She clenched her jaw, and her head rose defiantly. This was it. Girl power. Our friendship would begin right here.

  Darla turned her head to me, her eyes zeroing in on mine. “I wish you would just shut up. How dare you think you can help in a situation that’s none of yo
ur affair?”

  Cancel the bonding moment. Nothing was changing.

  “Found some ice cream,” Clarence said, coming in with a carton of peanut butter chocolate fudge. “What happened?”

  “The frame broke,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Oh my. Darla, are you hurt? Did it fall on top of you? I knew we should have stayed to help.”

  Darla rose and brushed off her black miniskirt. “I’m fine, Clarence, but I’ll have to have it back at the framers to fix it.”

  “No problem, as long as you’re all right.”

  “Like I said, I’m fine.”

  “Well, let me at least help you with it out to your car,” Clarence offered. They wrapped up the painting and together carried it down the steps. As I watched them go, I realized I’d seen a vulnerable side of Darla she rarely let out, and she wasn’t too happy about that.

  Darla still on my mind, I returned to work but found myself craving a cigarette. I fought off the urge through fidgeting until Clarence finally declared, “Oh for goodness sake, have a cigarette, Gabby. You’re not in school. I’m not the teacher.”

  My eyes widened. “You know? You know I’m a smoker?”

  “It’s written all over you.” He bent over and smelled my shoulder. “I can even smell it on you. If you think the fact you smoke is a secret, you’re not keeping it very well.”

  I sighed. “Would you mind?”

  “Just not in the house. Elise can’t stand the smell.”

  I grabbed my bag. “Not a problem. I’ll just step outside.”

  “Step at least ten feet from the house. She doesn’t even like to smell it through the bedroom window. You don’t want to incur the wrath of that woman.”

  I hated being found out, but I was incredibly thankful for the chance to smoke a cigarette.

  “Don’t be gone too long or I’ll have to come looking for you. It is the middle of the night, after all. And we do have burglars running around.”

  He was right, and I was going out in the best time of the night to steal something. “I won’t be long.”

  I left the house and dug into the wheel well of the spare tire in my car. There was no way Mitch would run across my cigarettes here in search of change. My mind was already escaping to nicotine acquisition. I pulled up the floorboard in the back of my car and slipped my hand into the spare storage hoping the only thing I would encounter would be the cigarettes. I was rewarded with the crunch of cellophane. It was as if I could smell it already. I pulled out a cigarette, walked into the woods, and attempted to strike a match. It was so dark I was having trouble making contact with the matchbook.

  As I tried to light the match, I heard a crunching sound somewhere behind me. Then I heard a scream and a thud. Someone else was out here. Instinctively, I kept quiet but then the match began to flame. I realized even in the dark of the night, the match was giving off enough light for whoever this was to see me. I needed to extinguish the tiny white flame, but I just couldn’t. I’d waited so long to get this smoke. I just couldn’t. The footsteps returned, and the dry leaves crackled. Whoever it was stood only about fifty feet from me.

  Chapter 14

  With great reluctance, I blew out the match and found a hiding place behind a tree. Who would be walking around in the middle of the night? Footsteps were now cutting across the brush below me almost halfway down the hill to the lake. I could just make out a man in a black sweatshirt with a hood. I tried to blend in with my surroundings and felt a flood of relief as he walked away from my hiding place.

  I was shaking now. An overwhelming feeling of dread consumed me. Everything that was happening on this night I had seen in my vision. The trees, the light, the sounds. I was here, in the vision. Listening to make sure the footsteps were gone, I ran down the hill to the lake. It was dangerous, but like a script playing out, I knew where I needed to go. The lake water lapped slightly at the shore with the evening breeze. I walked about ten feet along the edge of the lake before I saw it. A woman’s hand was floating up as if slapping at the shore. There was a black mark near the wrist I couldn’t make out. Most of the woman’s body was in the water and hard to distinguish. I bent to look at her wrist, but before I could make out what it was, I heard the footsteps again. They were moving toward me. I reluctantly let go of the woman’s hand and ran farther down the shore to the cover of trees opposite the footsteps.

  A figure emerged out of the woods and neared the woman in the water. The hooded jacket and black pants made the killer look like the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol. I waited for a long bony hand to emerge from a sleeve to point at me. Instead, the specter stood at the bank, looking at the woman of my visions. The sound of my breath going in and out of my body felt amplified as if I was breathing into a microphone. One wrong move and I could be joining the body in the water.

  The sound of bells cut through the air, emanating from my pocket. The killer’s head pivoted in my direction, showing just an edge of a cheekbone. There was actual flesh on the killer’s face, not the ragged bones of the fictional character. I scrambled to shut off my phone. Before I could, my mother’s voice cut through the night air.

  “Gabby, I can’t believe you’re still up. I was just working late doing an audit at the hospital and remembered Mitch mentioning your new employer liked to work nights. You artists—”

  I shut her off and jammed the phone into my pocket as I ran up the hill. The killer gave chase, but as I neared the lights of Clarence’s house, the footsteps behind me stopped. I halted my pace, just to make sure my stalker was no longer after me. The woods were quiet. Too quiet. I had a decision to make. If I walked out into the open, would this person, now able to see me, start to run after me? Feeling panicked, I started running again and was looking back when I stumbled into what felt like a brick wall. Bouncing away from the impact, I landed in the leaves in Clarence’s yard.

  “Gabby?” Ryan Bradford stood before me. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? And why are you running?”

  I gasped for breath. “A woman is dead. She’s down by the lake. She’s dead, and the killer is still out there.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” He thought I was crazy, and it did sound that way, even to me.

  I grabbed his hand to lead him back into the woods with me. “There’s a killer down there. A woman is in the water.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, pulling me back. “So you’re telling me there’s a killer in the woods, and you want me to go with you to meet him?”

  “Yes,” I said, pulling at him again. It was then I noticed what he was wearing. His jacket was black. It didn’t have a hood, but from the distance, it might have been the same one I had seen.

  He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the sheriff. I’m not going after a killer alone, and I’m certainly not letting you do it either.”

  He was right. Just because the guy resembled a fullback didn’t mean he wanted to go into the woods at night without a gun to look for a killer.

  “What about the woman in the water? I think she’s dead.”

  He pulled out his phone and punched in 911. “If she’s dead, she’ll still be dead when the sheriff gets here. If what you say has happened, you don’t need to be tromping all over a crime scene.” When the operator came on the line, he gave her his address and reported a body in the water. Then he turned back to me.

  “Okay, whoever has been here doesn’t seem to be making noise right now. Let’s go up to the house and check on Dad. Make sure he’s okay.”

  I held my ground. The footsteps had stopped. The killer was still down there. Waiting. Waiting for a chance to escape. I needed to be there for the woman in the water. She had been speaking to me for weeks, and I couldn’t just leave her. “No. I want to stay here to show the police the way.”

  “Come on, Gabby. It’s not safe.”

  “No. I’m staying. Check on Clarence.”

  Ryan shook his head in frustration. “Fine. Hide behind
this bush, and if you hear anyone, be quiet.”

  As I watched him walk away, I hoped I hadn’t made the biggest mistake of my life. I listened with the hyper-sensitive hearing one only gets with the feeling of impending doom. I had to think that because Ryan let me stay, he didn’t think what I was saying was true. Female hysterics. Too much crime channel.

  There was a crunching in the distance. The footsteps were back, but this time, the sound was fading. Whoever was out there was leaving, and from the sound of it, very quickly.

  Ten minutes later, I walked four police officers to the area where I had seen the woman. They began to search the woods for the killer. I was sure it was a life-or-death situation, but they labeled their investigation as a suspicious person in the woods. It was dark, and even with police backup, I was still nervous. But I had seen this part of the lake over and over again and then drawn it. I knew where to take them. When I returned to the spot from my dreams, there was no hand sticking out of the water. There was no body.

  I stared at the empty expanse of the shore. “She was here. I saw her. She was right here.” I pointed to the water.

  “How did you know it was a woman?” Bennett asked.

  “Her nails were painted. It was dark, but I would say a soft pink. It was definitely a woman’s hand.”

  The sheriff let out a breath and ran his hand over his forehead. He then placed both hands in his back pockets. I could tell he was going to give me the crazy lady speech he probably had in his flak jacket pocket.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Wolfe, but I just don’t see anything.”

  “But she was here. She was right here.” I put my hand in the water as if I could pull the woman up by her limb, now buried in the mud.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, putting his hand under my elbow and helping me up from the shore. “I’ll get a couple of my deputies out here tomorrow, and we’ll take another look by the light of day. Will that do?”

  I crossed my arms, feeling the chill coming off the water. Sheriff Bennett was pacifying me by compromising as you would a small child. Clarence came out of the woods and reached for my hand.