by Bush, Nancy
Boo really wanted to go up on the shelf now and look down at the town, but it was in the opposite direction of the playground, so he went south and walked and walked, across open fields and over fences toward the trees at the edge of the mountains, and walked some more, until he started crying.
He shouldn’t have come. Buddy was right. There was no playground.
Boo sank down on a stone and put his face in his hands and sobbed. He’d made a mistake again. Just like last time.
But then he heard Buddy’s voice in his ear. “You can’t keep coming back here.”
Boo shot to his feet, electrified. “Buddy!”
When there was no answer, he crashed through the deepening woods, half running, half stumbling upward until he was almost at a level with the shelf but much farther away from town. And suddenly, there it was—the playground—and Buddy was lying on the ground, next to the teeter-totter.
“Knew you couldn’t stay away,” he said sadly.
“I just want to be here.”
“Why?” Buddy asked.
Boo said, “It’s good here.”
“You came a damn long way,” Buddy said, and Boo shrank back a little, ’cause Buddy didn’t swear much.
“Am I in trouble?” Boo asked tearfully.
“Look around.”
Buddy had gotten to his feet and now he gazed across the playground, which wasn’t really all that good in the dark. Boo needed to be here in the daylight. “I’ll come back in the sun.”
“You can’t come back, Boo. You know you can’t come back.”
“Why not?”
“LOOK.”
So, Boo tore his gaze from Buddy’s stern face and gazed across his beloved playground. Except . . .
“What do you see?” Buddy demanded.
“Uh . . .”
“WHAT DO YOU SEE?”
“It’s not my playground,” he said in a small voice, fighting back another surge of tears.
“It’s a cemetery,” Buddy told him harshly.
“But we played in the playground . . .”
“It’s a cemetery, meathead. It’s where I have to put them. They’re not your friends. They’re not here waiting for you to play with them. You understand?”
Boo saw the faintly rounded mounds of dirt. Buddy had been lying beside one of them. A new one. “They’re dead?”
Buddy laid a hand on his shoulder and said in a sad voice, “I know you’ll forget again, but you have to try to remember. They’ve been cursed. Had to give ’em the devil’s mark.”
Boo fought hard not to reach a finger to where he knew his own mark was. “They’re like me,” he said.
“Not like you,” Buddy said sternly.
“They’re my friends.”
“They’re aberrations. Abominations. You stay away from them. You’re better than they are. You’ve been cured.”
Boo stared up at Buddy as a blast of rain poured down, half-blinding him. He wanted to believe him, he really did. But he knew deep in his soul that he was no better, and cold fear gripped him that Buddy would someday have to put him here, too.
Chapter Seven
Jordanna awoke early and checked her phone. 6:00 AM. She was cold. The blanket she’d thrown over herself hadn’t been able to completely dissipate the chill. Her bare feet hit the wood floor and a cold frisson ran up her leg. She was going to have to get the electricity back on one way or another.
She went upstairs to the bathroom and sluiced her face with cold water, then she fumbled for the hand towel she’d put up yesterday and buried her face in it. After that, she went into her old bedroom, the one she’d shared with Kara, and dug in her bag for a fresh pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Faint morning light was piercing the gloom.
Returning to the first floor, she went into the living room and stirred up the embers in the woodstove. She then added more kindling and chunks of fir and oak and worked to get the fire going. Once satisfied it was going to stay lit, she filled a kettle with water, then placed it on the stovetop. She’d brought some instant coffee and tea bags with her, and there was a little bit of cream left in the carton she’d put into a bucket with ice. She was half-proud of herself for bringing in the supplies she had, but she also knew she had to get into Rock Springs and replenish.
And face her father.
She grimaced as she held her hands over the stove, willing its heat to enter her frozen bones. It wasn’t that cold, but she couldn’t seem to scare up any body heat. Guilt? Fear? Dread?
“You always act too rashly,” her father had declared on more than one occasion, long before she’d actually taken out the .22 and proved him right in a spectacular way. “One day, you may pay a heavy price. I don’t want that for you.”
She snorted. Dayton Winters had never given a damn about any of his three daughters, nor had he cared about his wife. He was only interested in Dr. Dayton Winters, pillar of the community, healer to the sick and ailing, father to three undeserving girls. His marriage to one of the Treadwell women, whose genetic line was impure, had been either a moment of pure insanity, or just proof of his inherent goodness and need to care and help those who truly needed him . . . depending on whom you spoke to.
Jordanna believed her father had married her mother purely because she was so downright beautiful. Maybe he hadn’t believed the townspeople’s claims that Treadwells were “fucking crazy,” or maybe he’d just been young and horny enough to not care. From what Jordanna knew of her Treadwell grandparents, which wasn’t much, as they’d both died young, her grandfather had been pretty handy with a gun and had possibly caught young Dayton Winters in the backseat of a Camaro and said it was marriage or the family jewels. Jordanna didn’t have the whole truth of that; however, what she did know was that her father had never lacked for female companionship. Marrying Jennie Markum, the chief of police’s daughter and an RN who worked at the clinic her father had founded, had been a political move, but Jennie was, well, just what the doctor ordered: young, attractive, uncomplicated. And in one fell swoop, he’d ensured there would be no further speculation or investigation by the police about his certain proclivities.
Kara had apparently attended the wedding, but had again left for parts unknown shortly afterward; therefore Jordanna’s information about her father and Rock Springs always tended to be old news.
She dropped a spoonful of coffee crystals into a mug, then poured the tepid water over the top. Couldn’t get it to boiling. Had to get that electricity on, even if they were only here a few days. Of course, the bill would be sent to her father, she supposed, unless she could work out a way to pay online.
She tentatively sipped, making a face at the lukewarm coffee, then heard thumping coming from Dance’s bedroom. Setting the cup down on a side table, she walked down the short hall to the bedroom, surprised when the door banged open and Dance stood braced in the doorway, most of his weight on his right leg.
“I need crutches,” he said.
“Pharmacy is top of my list.”
“Do I smell coffee?”
“Sort of. Instant and not exactly hot.”
“Close enough,” he said.
Jordanna poured him a cup and was going to help him to the couch, but he managed to limp his way to it before sinking down into the cushions. He looked at the neat pile of blankets.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked.
“How’d you?”
Wiggling her hand in a so-so motion, she said, “I’m going to head into town and pick up everything we’re missing.” She pulled out her cell phone and checked the time. “But first I’m calling the electric company and getting us hooked up.”
“Good luck with that.”
She eyed him closely. “You think it’ll be a problem?”
“Well, who owns this house?”
She hesitated. “My father.”
“Yeah, the electric company will probably want him to call and okay it.”
“No.”
“I’m just warning
you.”
She eyed him speculatively. “You can call and say you’re him.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“Sure it will. I know his Social, birthdate, whatever. You can be him.”
“His name’s Dayton?”
“Dayton Winters,” she said.
“And what’s the power company?”
“Pacific Power.”
“Hand me your phone,” he ordered. “And write that stuff down, so I can just look at it.”
She held out the phone to him, then pulled out one of the small notebooks she used on the job. She flipped to the back pages, where she kept her father’s information, while Dance Googled the power company’s number. He made the call and answered questions easily enough, and without a squawk they accepted that he was Dayton Winters, though they said they would have to send someone out to the property to hook them up as there was apparently some problem with the line. The appointment was for the next morning.
He handed her back the phone and she said, “You’re a good liar.”
“Yeah?” he asked cautiously.
“No, don’t worry. I consider it an asset. I’m not as good at lying, although I’m working at it.”
She saw a flash of white from the brief smile he shot her and had to look away. Yep, the man was too damn attractive. . . too damn attractive.
“All right, I’m leaving for a while. I’ll bring you back breakfast.”
“I’m not all that hungry.”
“I’m still going to bring it back. And we’ve got tuna and peanut butter and bread for sandwiches later. I’ll pick up some more ice and we should be good until the power company gets here.”
Jordanna started to turn away, but he stopped her with, “How long you planning on being here?”
She glanced back at him. “How long are you?”
“Still working that out.”
“Okay.”
“What if . . . this takes longer than either one of us think?”
She paused. “Still working that out,” she responded, then headed for the door that led through the woodshed and the carport beyond.
Jordanna plugged the phone into the car charger as she drove into Rock Springs. It was a twenty-minute drive; the old homestead was out in the sticks, for sure. Jordanna had resented that, too, when she was growing up, but now she found herself feeling differently about its isolation. She’d been so hell-bent on getting out of Dodge when she was a teenager that she hadn’t been able to see one good thing about Rock Springs or the house. Now, she viewed it differently. Not only was it a great place to go to stop the world for a while, but also, she reluctantly allowed, it did have a beauty of its own, a somewhat untamed landscape and a quaint western-themed town that harked back to its Wild West roots. These charms had totally escaped her when she was younger. In her mind, Rock Springs had been backward, unsophisticated, and totally Nowheresville.
The sun was bright and beaming down warmly, expelling the spring chill, as she reached the outskirts of town. She was headed to the diner for a cup of coffee when she saw a blue neon sign that read in script: FOR THE LOVE OF JOE.
“A coffee shop,” she said in wonder. Well, it had been years since she’d been back. Even Rock Springs had apparently been touched by the coffee craze. All she could remember from when she’d lived here was the abundance of churches and taverns.
She stepped inside the coffee shop and was hit by the mouthwatering scents of maple, honey, and buttery pastries, and the rich, deep aroma of coffee. She ordered herself a steaming cup with room for cream, then purchased two maple-crusted scones. “Gonna eat both of those?” a male voice asked her, pointing to the small, white sack in her hands that held the scones.
She turned around to see a familiar face . . . though her brain took a few seconds to make the connection. “Ahh . . . Rusty Long,” she greeted him as he straightened from the table, where he’d been hunched over a cup of coffee and a couple of doughnuts. Another man sat across from him and he eyed Jordanna with interest, but just sipped on his coffee.
“Jordanna Winters. You look just the same,” Rusty said.
“So do you,” she lied.
Rusty Long had been a classmate at Rock Springs High, a freckled, strawberry-blond kid who now possessed a paunch and a stringy mustache to go with a receding hairline. But he still grinned like a jack-o’-lantern, his face an open book.
Slapping his growing belly, he fought back a belch. “Hell, no, I don’t, but you know . . . what’re we doin’ around here if we’re not drinkin’ somethin’?”
“Rusty closed down the Longhorn last night,” the other man at the table revealed.
Jordanna automatically looked across the street, where the town’s most notable and disreputable bar had stood, and saw it was now a discount furniture store. She tried to place the man who’d spoken. She was pretty sure she didn’t know him.
“Longhorn’s outta town a ways now,” Rusty said, following her gaze across the street. “Gives us all a chance to get home before Markum or Shitface come after us. Sorry. Mr. Shitface,” he added, then guffawed and ended up coughing wildly.
“Introduce us, Rusty,” the other man said. He was dark-haired and brown-eyed, about five to ten years older than Rusty, and he didn’t look nearly as dissolute.
“This here’s Todd Douglas,” Rusty said.
“Hi.” He leaned forward and shook her hand.
“Hi,” Jordanna responded.
“Rusty’s talkin’ about Peter Drummond. You know him?” Douglas asked.
Jordanna shook her head. She didn’t know Rusty’s companion, either.
“I’m Rusty’s better-looking cousin from over in Malone,” he said with a quick smile.
Since this was absolutely true, Jordanna didn’t know quite how to respond, but Rusty guffawed.
“How does Rusty know such a pretty gal?” Douglas asked.
Jordanna snorted. In jeans and a shirt that needed ironing, with no makeup and her hair scraped back into a ponytail, she knew just what she looked like . . . and “pretty” was a stretch. “We were classmates at Rock Springs High,” she said.
“That’s right,” Rusty agreed. He grinned at Todd and said, “We Bobcats beat your Malone Prairie Dogs every damn year.”
Todd shrugged and merely waved Rusty off, as if he were a bothersome gnat. Malone High were the Huskies, not the Prairie Dogs, and they all knew it. Having ribbed his cousin long enough apparently, Rusty turned to Jordanna and asked, “You know Drummond. A couple classes ahead of us. Maybe your sister’s? That . . . um . . . Emma . . . ?”
“Emily,” Jordanna corrected.
“Yep. That’s right. Emily . . . Well, Pete Drummond was an asshole in high school and he’s a bigger asshole now. Works for the chief.”
“Chief Markum?” Jordanna kept her voice as neutral as she could.
“He was chief of police then, too, wasn’t he?” Rusty realized, sounding half astonished. “Jesus. Nothing changes around this town, does it? So, how come you’re back?”
It was Jordanna’s turn to shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. . . .”
“You workin’ on a story?” He turned to Todd, said, “She’s a reporter.” Then his attention swiveled back to Jordanna. “I’ve read a thing or two of yours. Nice stuff.”
“Uh, thank you.”
“A reporter, huh?” Douglas sounded interested, but maybe a bit disbelieving.
“I’ve done a few local stories,” Jordanna said, moving toward the area of the counter that held the lids, napkins, and cream.
“You do investigations?” Douglas asked.
“I’d like to do investigative pieces, but I’m kind of working my way to that. Have to prove myself.” Because they were looking at her expectantly, she added the lie she’d worked on while she was driving into town, one that would explain what she was doing in Rock Springs. “I’m kind of looking for a place to bring my hiking group, and I thought of the foothills around here.”
Douglas straighte
ned up as if she’d goosed him, but it was Rusty who said, “Cuz, here, is a hiker himself. Maybe he can show you some of the trails.”
“I’ve been all over this section of the Cascades,” Douglas admitted. “Damn near know it like the back of my hand. There’s purity in the mountains.”
Rusty groaned. “Don’t go there, Todd.”
Jordanna immediately backtracked, seeing she’d made a huge mistake. “But work comes first. I’ve got to get back to the story I’m researching, so I may have to put the hiking on the back burner.”
“If you change your mind . . .” Douglas said, looking faintly disappointed. “What story is that?” he asked, then, as a thought struck him: “You here to write about the missing Fread girl?”
“The missing freed girl?” Jordanna queried. “What was she freed from?”
“Fread’s their last name,” Rusty said, then spelled it aloud. He cocked his head and closed one eye. “I bet you’re researching the dead guy who was practically found in your backyard.”
“He was found on government land,” Douglas argued a bit testily.
“Yeah, but by dead reckoning, the body was found almost straight east of the Winters property, just on the other side of Summit Ridge Road,” Rusty insisted.
“What dead guy is this?” Jordanna asked curiously, pausing after she poured cream into her cup. Absently, she reached for a plastic to-go top.
“The homeless guy,” Rusty said. “Hey, come on down to the Longhorn tonight and we’ll fill you in, right, Todd?”
“Sure,” his cousin replied.