The Mountain's Shadow

by Cecilia Dominic

  “This was after you’d heard your job was no longer there?”

  “You can say fired.” I took a sip of my wine. “It’s the reality of it. I was packing up my office when he called.”

  “Did you know what was coming?”

  “I could hear it in his voice. He asked me to sit down, and he got up and closed the door. I noticed he was limping a little.”

  “Serves him right.”

  “No kidding. So then he told me since we didn’t have any excuse to see each other on a daily basis, he didn’t know if he could deal with that level of deception.” I felt the all-too-familiar pressure of tears and my vision blurred. “He said he respected me too much to start using cheap motels and made-up business trips.”

  Lonna rolled her eyes. “Yet he didn’t mind the chair in his office.”

  I smiled a little, and a tear rolled down my cheek into the corner of my mouth. Its warm track turned cold after a second. “So no more boyfriend. That’s what I get for seeing a married man.”

  “You just had, what is it called? Where the mentee falls for the mentor.”

  “Maybe.”

  We both took a sip of our wine, and I wiped my eyes with the napkin.

  “Garcon.” Lonna signaled our waiter. “This woman needs chocolate mousse.”

  I looked down at my half-eaten Coq au Vin. “But what about this?”

  “Take it with you.” Lonna swirled the little bit of wine left in her glass. “You can put it in the fridge and have it for lunch.”

  That’s one of the things I liked about Lonna. She made up any excuse for dessert. It’s amazing she kept her model-like figure.

  The chocolate mousse came, and we talked about other things over coffee and dessert. Before we knew it, it was nine o’clock, and Lonna raced back to her apartment with me in tow so we could get up early to drive to Crystal Pines in time for her ten o’clock meeting with Matt.

  It bothered me a little I hadn’t told her the rest of my story. Later, it bothered me a lot. I don’t know if it might have saved her—and our friendship—but maybe she would have been more careful. Or maybe I would have.

  Chapter Two

  It was still dark when Lonna woke me with a shake.

  “Morning, sunshine.”

  “Gads!” I rolled over and turned on the light. We both squinted.

  “You were dreaming.”

  I ignored the invitation to tell her what. It was too frightening. The image of the large black wolf, its eyes blazing red in the reflection of the fire, snarled and cornered me behind some shrubbery. I woke up every morning just one step ahead. In my dreams, it never turned back like it had that night.

  “What time is it?”

  “Five thirty. We need to be out of here by six thirty, seven at the latest. It’s a good three-hour drive up there.”

  “Have mercy, woman, and make me some coffee.”

  “Coming right up.” Lonna laughed and left the spare room.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” I mumbled to myself. I walked into the bathroom and turned to see if I had dark circles under my eyes. I don’t know why I bothered. They had become a constant accessory since the dreams started.

  “You look gorgeous,” Lonna said from the door, and I jumped. She held two cups of steaming coffee.

  “God bless you, woman. And no, I don’t. You’re the only one I know who wakes up as beautiful as she was when she went to sleep.”

  “You’ve lost weight, though. And you didn’t have any to spare. Your collar bones are sticking out.”

  I pulled down the collar of my nightshirt. “If I have, I’m surprised. I’ve been a slug since I got fired.”

  “You look like you did when you started school. Take a shower, raccoon-eyes. It’ll wake you up.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her and inhaled the aroma of the coffee. Strong, but light and sweet. Perfect. Just how I liked my coffee…and my men.

  At seven, we were on the road, I-40 headed west. I followed her green Jeep Cherokee in my Geo. Luckily we were going against most of the traffic, the commuters from Conway, and other communities west of Little Rock. I popped U2’s All that You Can’t Leave Behind into the CD player. Once we left the interstate and headed north, it seemed like no time before we traversed narrow mountain roads with hairpin turns.

  Finally we pulled up to a gate, and I looked around. Crystal Pines, the planned community that had eaten the little town of Piney Mountain, was nestled at the base of a hill and surrounded by tall brick walls, or at least that’s how it appeared. I later found the walls only extended for about a half mile on each side of the gate to allow for expansion. Lonna pulled up to the gatehouse and spoke with the guard, and the gate swung inward to let us through. I followed her down a tree-lined road to the center of the cute little town, which certainly looked familiar, but not exactly how I remembered it. She parked in front of the diner.

  “This is weird. Everything looks smaller.” I got out, stretched, and took a deep breath. Summer in Memphis had been oppressive, and I was grateful I wouldn’t have to go back to the sludge that passed for August air. Maybe living up here in lower humidity wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  “The guard was more excited about you being here than me,” Lonna said. “Didn’t you see how he craned his neck to see the ‘old gentleman’s heiress’?”

  Only a few people, a waitress, cook and a couple of customers, were in the diner. At Lonna’s words, all activity stopped, and they turned to look at me.

  “Shhh,” I told her, but it was too late. Luckily the scrutiny didn’t last long.

  “Lonna, over here!” A tall gentleman waved us over to a booth. I guessed this was the social worker Lonna told me about. As she’d said, he was well into middle age with friendly eyes in a rugged face.

  “Matt, it’s great to see you.” She shook his hand. “This is my friend Joanie Fisher. Doctor Joanie Fisher, actually.”

  “Oh, a doctor?”

  We slid into the booth across from him.

  “PhD.” I looked at Lonna, who was eating up the attention. She even winked at the man in the next booth over, a tall blond with a narrow chiseled face whose briefcase contents were spread out in front of him. He curled one side of his mouth in a smile and turned his eyes back to his work. A shiver went down my spine.

  “A PhD? In what?” He held up his coffee cup for a refill. The waitress, who could have walked straight off some television show from the 50s, gave him the ”one moment” sign with her index finger.

  “Behavioral epidemiology.”

  “That’s impressive. You must be in research, then?”

  “I was.”

  “I guess you won’t have to worry much about working now.” There was no envy in his tone, only polite interest. Nothing to spark the resentment that rose in my stomach. It’s not like I’d asked to inherit my grandfather’s fortune.

  “Guess not.”

  “Mind if we have something to eat, Matt?” Lonna broke in. I hadn’t realized it, but I was hungry. The cup of coffee and peach had been a long time ago.

  “Please.” He gestured to the menu. “If I can get Louise over for some coffee, she’ll take your order.”

  “Now Math-yew,” the woman drawled as she walked over to the table, her white shoes squeaking on the floor. “You know I can’t move that fast with this Arthur-itis.”

  She refilled Matt’s coffee and plunked down a couple more cups, and Lonna and I ordered bacon and eggs with toast. This place seemed a world away from Bistro and chocolate mousse.

  Matt leaned in and lowered his voice as Louise shuffled away. “Her grandson is one of the children who’s missing.”

  “Oh,” breathed Lonna. “Poor woman.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I gazed out the window. The original town of Piney Mountain looked much the same as it had twenty years before when we’d drive through to visit my grandfather. The main differences were some of the shabby little buildings had been renovated, and expensive cars seemed to ha
ve replaced the pickup trucks. Someone had even straightened the leaning statue of General Lee in the middle of the square. There were also signs at the main intersection pointing to the pool, clubhouse and driving range.

  “Your thoughts, Joanie?”

  “I don’t understand how somebody can just swallow a whole little town. Wasn’t there a protest?”

  “Lee Franz, the mayor, convinced everyone it would be for the town’s best,” Matt replied. “He said it would help keep the children in the area if there was more opportunity for them.”

  Louise appeared with more creamers. “He didn’t count on them not being here for the opportunities.” She sighed, and her exhalation expressed more than a tirade could.

  I turned away to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that somehow this was my fault even though I had no idea what was going on.

  A movement outside the window caught my attention, and I spotted a familiar face. “Who’s that?” It was the distraught, handsome Leonard Bowman from Lawrence Galbraith’s office, walking out of the City Hall building across the square. I wanted to know more than his name. I wanted to know why he was up here. Had he followed me?

  “Leonard Bowman,” Matthew told me.

  “Very nice-looking.” Lonna followed him with her eyes.

  “He and his brother Peter, the blond man you winked at, Lonna, are like night and day in more than just coloring.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Peter Bowman is a lawyer and the one in charge of the legal aspects of the community planning. He lives in one of the cul-de-sacs with his wife and their son.”

  “And Leonard?”

  “He moved in with them about a year ago, right after the rest of the houses on their street were completed. He was a medical resident at the university and VA hospitals in Little Rock, but then he had some health problems and had to take a break.”

  “He’s a doctor?” He didn’t look like any I’d worked with.

  Lonna seemed to read my mind. “Research doctors are different, Joanie.”

  “I guess.”

  Leonard disappeared into another building—some sort of shop.

  “So, what is it, exactly, you wanted me to come up here for?” Lonna asked.

  Matt’s answer was forestalled by Louise’s arrival with our breakfasts. Bacon, cooked crisp but not too stiff, just the way I liked it, lay over a bed of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs beside two pieces of whole wheat toast. My stomach growled in appreciation.

  The food momentarily distracted me from the conversation, and when I tuned back in, Matt was saying something about when the strange disappearances had started.

  “It was about a year ago,” he told Lonna. “The first phase of Crystal Pines was underway, and some of the families were moving off of their homesteads into new apartments to make room for the larger estates.”

  “They were relocated?”

  Matt stirred more sugar into his coffee. “They were offered huge sums of money for their land that most were too poor to refuse, especially those who wanted better for their kids. Education is expensive.”

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered.

  Lonna elbowed me. “So what happened?”

  “One of them, a friend of Louise’s grandson, was taking a box through the woods on a shortcut the kids all knew from the farmsteads to the apartments. He just disappeared. The box was found on the trail, but he wasn’t.”

  Lonna took out her notepad and a pen. “How old was he?”

  Matt frowned as he tried to remember. Louise, who had come by with coffee refills, answered for him. “Eleven, just a year older than Johnny.” A tear trickled down her cheek as she poured.

  “That’s right. It was in August. Then, about every month after that, a new one would go. Well, not every month. People were real careful the next month, then relaxed their guard and let the kids out again. That’s when Johnny disappeared. There’ve been about six or seven in all.”

  “Any idea what time of the month?”

  “Every four weeks.”

  “What?” I asked. “Are you saying you’ve got some sort of PMS-ing ghoul out there snatching children?”

  The corners of Matt’s eyes crinkled when he laughed. “Not exactly, Doctor. I think it had more to do with the fact it was a full moon.”

  “Maybe easier to see them, then?” Lonna asked as she jotted down, full moon. I noticed she had hardly touched her food, which was disturbing because the only time the woman lost her appetite was when she’d fallen in love. Hard. I looked around, and my eyes met the pale blue ones of Peter Bowman, who was looking past me at Lonna. Oh, crap. Lonna’s “love at first sight” experiences never ended well. Plus, I didn’t know the man, but I felt an instant dislike for him. Maybe I unfairly associated him with his brother’s rude behavior, but something told me it was more.

  “Lonna, listen.” Matt’s voice had an edge to it, and he leaned in. “I called you because if it were just some crazy person, I could’ve handled it. But there’s something more going on. You’re the former private eye.”

  “Nope, I’m not doing that regularly anymore. And I never did kids.”

  “But your license is still current.”

  She looked down into her now-empty coffee cup. “I keep it current for money reasons.”

  “DFCS pays you more for it?” This was news to me.

  “No,” she said, the exasperation evident in her voice, “because DFCS doesn’t pay me much, and sometimes I need to take on an easy case on the side for some extra cash.”

  “Oh. Well, you could stay with me,” I offered. “You wouldn’t have to pay for lodging or try to get it reimbursed.”

  “C’mon, Lonna.” Matt gestured to Louise, who counted change by the register. The slump of the woman’s shoulders and the wet tracks down her cheeks told us she wasn’t concentrating on the bills that slipped through her fingers. “These people need us. They need you. There’s something big going on here.”

  “Well, I guess I have no choice then, do I? Fine,” she said. “I’ll call the office and transfer my cases until after Labor Day. Luckily none of them are urgent.”

  “So that gives us, what? Two weeks?” Matt counted it out on his hands. “I know you work fast, Lonna, but are you sure?”

  “As sure as I’ll ever be. When’s the next full moon?”

  Matt checked his watch. “Tomorrow night.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep. It’s something we’re all keeping track of nowadays.”

  “Then we should be able to catch whatever is happening in the act.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I looked out the window, where Leonard Bowman had reappeared in the square. Yet another problem to deal with.

  The front door to my grandfather’s house showed its age like he never had. Pitted and scarred from fifty summers and winters, it had nevertheless achieved the smoothness common to old wood and cotton. The gray granite walls also seemed untouched by time, and the manor still loomed over the wide lawn like a castle. The ornate knocker, a smiling lion who held the brass ring in a mouth full of rounded teeth, leered at me as I turned the key in the lock. I heard the bolt grind, and I shook the key as I’d always seen my grandfather do on the rare occasion we came in through the front door.

  “Is this place haunted?” Lonna asked in a hushed tone as the door creaked inward to reveal the gray marble-tiled foyer. The central staircase curved up into the gloom, its mahogany banister dusty. The door to the left was open, and I could see the fawn-colored leather loveseat and sofa that faced the granite fireplace on the opposite wall. The fireplace dominated the room and occupied most of the outer wall. Grandfather’s old sea chest served as a coffee table, and large wine barrels as end tables. Wan sunlight shone through the front windows and on to the dusty wooden floors.

  I realized I still hadn’t answered Lonna’s question.

  “I don’t know,” I told her.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “If it’s hau
nted. I still don’t know how or where he died.”

  “It certainly looks like this place hasn’t been occupied in a while.”

  “True.”

  “Was there a funeral? I would’ve gone with you.”

  I pondered. “Not that I know of. Not that there’s anyone to have gone besides my mother and myself, so you would’ve been welcome.”

  “A formal reading of the will?”

  “Nope. The lawyer just called me in.”

  “That’s a little suspicious, Joanie.”

  I also thought so, especially since it seemed Leonard Bowman had some grounds to challenge the will.

  Another glance up the staircase and the shadowed second-story hallway was enough to convince me I really needed to get my leftovers out of the cooler and into the fridge.

  “Let’s leave the suitcases here and go up later,” I suggested. We walked through the sitting room and into the breakfast nook. I stopped, dumbstruck.

  “What?” asked Lonna.

  “He completely redid this.” I gestured to the kitchen. It was not the old-fashioned kitchen I remembered from my childhood. Now all the appliances were new and stainless steel, there was a black marble island with a pot-and-pan rack hanging above it, and all the cabinets had been updated. I couldn’t remember my grandfather cooking a day in his life, and I really couldn’t imagine him giving his kitchen a makeover for some woman he paid from the village.

  “Since you’re a gourmet cook, this should be a welcome surprise,” Lonna said. “Wow, look at this. A full set of Le Creuset and All-Clad cookware.”

  I just shook my head and put the leftovers in the fridge, one of the super-modern types with the freezer in a drawer at the bottom. I turned to the island and saw an envelope with my name on it.

  “Looks like somebody left you something.”