“Just how far back were you wanting to look?”
Rance told her.
“Gracious. Why do you want to look that far back?”
Should he tell her? Rance had intended to keep his purpose a secret. At least until he was able to untangle the threads of the Hightower family’s tarnished past. Then he realized that he didn’t have to reveal everything to the waiting librarian. As the new owner of the old Hightower place, he had every right to be curious about what had happened there.
“I just bought the old Hightower place,” Rance told Mrs. Larson. “And I guess I’m just curious to know what happened back then.”
A series of emotions played across Mrs. Larson’s grandmotherly face and ended with indecision. She gnawed her lip. “Then you’ve heard it’s supposed to be...”
“Haunted?” Rance chuckled. “I’ve heard that rumor.”
“Have...have you had any...any manifestations?”
“No, ma’am. Everything’s just as ordinary as can be. The most unusual thing that’s happened is that I’ve been adopted by a stray dog.”
“I hope it stays that way. Several other families who’ve tried to live there left in an awful hurry.”
“So I’ve heard,” Rance agreed amiably. And he had heard. At the lumberyard, and the paint store, and the grocery store when he went in for groceries. The only place he hadn’t heard the rumors was the real estate office.
“You know, it’s odd, now that you mention the Hightowers. Somebody came in and told me about noticing flowers on Luther’s grave.” She shook her head. “Nobody’s tended that grave in thirty years, and now...”
Rance managed a shrug. It had never occurred to him that anyone would notice his simple gesture of respect. “Do you have the issues I need, Mrs. Larson?” He didn’t have time for gossip; he had work to do.
“Gracious me, I don’t rightly know. As I told you, there’s not much call for back copies of the Pittsville Partner .”
“I don’t imagine there is,” Rance commented blandly.
“We do have back issues stored, but it may be hard to locate what you want.”
“Well, ma’am, I have plenty of time today. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll start looking.”
“It’s not that.” Mrs. Larson wrung her hands and looked flustered. “Our filing system is not exactly scientific. It may not be real easy to lay our hands on the specific issues. You see, they’re not on microfiche, like you’d expect. We have the actual issues. In storage.”
She got a thoughtful look on her face, and Rance hoped it meant she was coming up with a solution to his problem. “Now that I think about it, there was one other time that flowers showed up on Luther Hightower’s grave, after Rose and the boy moved away. About thirty years ago...”
A woman approached Mrs. Larson, disrupting her rambling thoughts. “Excuse me, Mr. Montoya. I have to help Mae Ellen.” Mrs. Larson scurried away.
It was obvious that he wasn’t going to get anywhere here. Maybe if he tried the newspaper office. Then he stopped short.
Mrs. Larson was moving toward him, motioning to someone. And that someone was his red-haired neighbor.
Maggie responded to Mrs. Larson’s insistent beckoning by putting down the dust rag she’d been using on the shelves. Aware that Mrs. Larson’s urgent summonings usually meant some sort of wild-goose chase, she was in no hurry to see what the librarian wanted.
Until she saw who was standing beside her.
Curious to find out what her new neighbor had to do with Mrs. Larson’s frantic gestures, Maggie picked up her pace, pausing at a table to pick up several magazines that had not been returned to periodicals.
Clutching the magazines to her chest, Maggie drew to a halt beside the two people. She turned to her neighbor. “Hi. It’s nice to see you again,” she said before turning to the older woman.
“Oh, Maggie, you and Mr. Montoya know each other?”
“Yes. He’s my new neighbor. We met last Sunday.” Montoya, Maggie realized, would explain the dark skin and the unusually angular planes of his face.
“Oh, that’s right. I had forgotten that you live near the Hightower place.”
Maggie was too busy appreciating her new neighbor in his best clothes to listen to the librarian’s chattering. “Good morning. And how is the...?”
“Bitch?” Rance finished, and grinned. “She’s fine. She delivered four healthy pups around dark on the Fourth. Now that we’ve been through childbirth together, I guess I’ll keep her.”
Mrs. Larson interrupted. “I’m glad that you’re acquainted. Maggie, I have work to do. Please help Mr. Montoya with what he needs.” The older woman excused herself and walked away.
“Gladly,” Maggie replied to the woman as she left. “What can I help you with, Mr. Montoya?”
“It’s still Rance, like it was on Sunday. Mr. Montoya is my grandfather.” He smiled. “And your name is Maggie. We didn’t quite finish exchanging names the other day.”
Maggie extended her free hand. “Maggie Callahan. It’s nice to officially meet you, Rance.” A pleasant warm sensation worked its way up her arm as Rance’s strong, dark hand closed over hers.
“The pleasure’s mine,” Rance replied.
“Well, now that we’ve been properly introduced, what can I help you with?” Maggie marveled that she could talk coherently, considering the way her heart was beating.
“Mrs. Larson said you could help me with some back issues of the Pittsville Partner.”
“Sure. They’re in the storage room in the back. We have a deal with the Partner to archive their back issues. We keep their copies, and they give us a free subscription.”
“Sounds fair.”
Maggie turned away from Rance Montoya’s compelling black eyes. “The storage room is back this way. I hope you don’t have any allergies to dust. We don’t have much traffic in there, so it’s pretty dirty.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“What year were you interested in?”
Rance told her.
A groan escaped before Maggie could catch it.
“I got the same reaction from Mrs. Larson. Is the filing system that difficult?”
Maggie laughed. “If there were any sort of filing system, it would be an improvement. Basically, the papers are just stacked. If we’re lucky, they’ll still be in something that resembles chronological order.”
Maggie deposited the pile of magazines she had been holding on a cart and indicated a door at the back of the main room. “In there.” She produced a key from her pocket and unlocked the door.
Rance entered first and located the string that turned on the bare bulb above them. He gave it a yank, bathing the cluttered, dusty room in dim light.
“Ugh. Cobwebs,” Maggie muttered as she skirted an overloaded worktable and brushed the sticky strands from her hair. “I think I’ll force myself to come in here with the vacuum after work.” She wiped her hands on her skirt.
“Why don’t you get the cleaning crew to do it?” Rance asked as he scanned the stacked shelves.
“I am the crew. Or at least part of it. Our operating budget keeps shrinking, and luxuries like cleaning were among the first things to go. Now we all pitch in after work and do it.”
Rance nodded, seeming to accept the explanation. “These stacks of newspapers are unlabeled. How do we go about finding the issues I need?” He wore a definitely discouraged expression.
Maggie chuckled. “Trial and error mostly. There is some method in our madness, though. The stuff closest to the door is the most recent. We just have to work our way back.”
Maggie studied the shelves of stacked papers, then hurried to a section and tried to pull the stack down. “Let’s see this one.” He reached to help her, and his warm hands touched hers. Maggie jerked back as if he were fire.
“I’ll get it,” he grunted as he took down the papers and showed her the top one.
“This one’s 1976,” Maggie announced as they bo
th glanced at the date on the masthead.
“We’re not too far off.” Rance moved several feet farther down the row.
“Why do you care about ancient local history, anyway?”
“Curiosity about the haunted Hightower house,” Rance replied as he slid another pile of papers from the shelf.
“Oh. You’ve heard the stories.”
“From everybody but the real-estate agent.”
Maggie laughed. “Bill’s financed three kids’ college educations on the resale of that house.”
“Well,” Rance stated with surprising finality, “he’s made his last penny off my house. The buck stops here.” He glanced at the masthead of the paper he held. “Bull’s-eye!” He sorted through the dusty stack of yellowed newspapers. “I’ll start with the mid-sixties. Is there someplace I can spread this out?”
“We normally don’t let people bring the papers out of the room, but it’s too dark and dusty in here. I think it’ll be all right if you bring what you need out into the reading area. The light’s better.”
Rance picked up the stack of papers, and Maggie followed him out into the lit room. “I can handle the rest from here, Maggie.”
Rance Montoya’s sudden dismissal startled Maggie. She’d thought that they were getting along well, but the sudden chill was hard to ignore.
Maggie shrugged mentally. She didn’t have time for neighbors with split personalities, no matter how attractive they were. She still had plenty of other things to do. “Call me if you need any more help.” She turned and went back to work.
Rance supposed he’d been a little abrupt with Maggie, the woman who’d struck a feeling in him he never expected to experience. He turned and watched her walk away.
Why couldn’t he keep his mind on what he’d come here for? She was attractive and obviously intelligent, but he had to keep reminding himself that she was a married woman. God, she lives right across the road, Rance reminded himself. He hoped he would meet the missing husband soon. Maybe that would keep him from thinking about another man’s wife.
His mind returned to his work. He knew his father had killed himself in 1966, but reasoned that the answers he sought would be found in the years before and after that time. He probably could have learned all he needed to know by asking almost anyone in Pitt County about what had happened. But he couldn’t ask anyone about it without giving the secret of his identity away. He didn’t want anyone to know who he was until he had all the answers. And the only way to find out was to read these musty old papers.
Rance found a spot at a vacant table, as far away from Maggie as possible, and sat down. He dusted off the sheaves of yellowed newsprint and set the stack to the left of his elbow.
Carefully he unfolded the first issue from the stack and spread it out in front of him. The paper was old and brittle, but the print was easy enough to make out. Half-afraid of what he would discover, Rance began to read.
The morning passed quickly. Maggie had more than enough to do to keep her thoughts occupied and away from her enigmatic neighbor. By noon she had nearly forgotten Mr. Rance Montoya.
“Hey, isn’t that your new neighbor over there?” asked Tess as she shook the rain off her umbrella and propped it against the wall by the door. “He sure cleans up good.”
Maggie felt her face warm, and she looked away. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“In a pig’s eye. You’d have to be blind not to noticed,” Tess all but shouted. “Besides, you’re blushing to the roots of your hair. You never could lie.”
Maggie looked down and hissed, “Tess, lower your voice. This is the library.”
“Any resemblance our little collection of books has to a real library is strictly coincidental.” But Tess lowered her voice. “What’s he doing here?”
“He said he wanted to get the straight scoop about what happened at the Hightower place way back when.”
“So you did notice.” Tess presented Maggie with a know-it-all grin. “You sound skeptical,” she added, tucking her purse under her arm and walking around to the back of the circulation desk, where Maggie was seated.
Maggie shrugged and glanced over to where Rance Montoya was still engrossed in dusty back issues of the local paper. “I guess I believe him. He certainly has been at those old copies of the Partner for long enough. But something just doesn’t ring true.”
“Like how?”
“I don’t know. His explanation for wanting the information is certainly plausible. He said everybody in town has told him that the place is supposed to be haunted.” Maggie shook her head slowly.
“Can you blame him for being curious? Now that you mention it, I am.”
Maggie arched a brow. “Why? You’ve heard the stories all your life.”
“Yeah, but there’s one thing about it that has bothered me lately. I really didn’t think much about it until I helped Tom with a report on ghosts last fall.”
“It couldn’t have been too important. That was almost a year ago,” Maggie commented dryly.
Tess paused, a pensive look on her face. “I didn’t make the connection till now. Everyone says the so-called ghost of Hightower’s Haven is Luther Hightower. But it doesn’t make sense. Ghosts usually haunt the place where they died or have come to complete some unfinished business. And he didn’t die at home.”
“Nor is he buried on the property,” Maggie added. “But you have to admit that he could have some unfinished business, with that land-deal situation and all.”
“Maybe,” Tess acknowledged. “But what if it isn’t Luther there at all? What if it’s somebody else haunting the place?”
“Oh, really, Tess. We don’t know of any other unexplained deaths around here.” Maggie shrugged. “By the way, Mrs. Larson told me she asked him if he’d had any ‘manifestations.’” Maggie chuckled. “He said he hadn’t. And you know what else?”
Tess raised a questioning brow.
“He was pleasant enough until he’d located what he was looking for. Then he gave me the brush-off.”
“Gave you the old cold shoulder, did he?”
“Colder than a penguin on an iceberg,” Maggie replied dryly.
“Maybe he was just preoccupied,” Tess suggested. “I’m going over and say hey while you get ready.”
“Why do I need to get ready?” Maggie watched Tess go around the desk.
“We have a lunch date, remember?”
“Do we?”
“I can see that you definitely need a break. You never forget about lunch.” Tess crossed the distance between the circulation desk and the table where Rance Montoya was reading.
Maggie watched as her gregarious older sister chatted with him. He looked friendly enough, from a distance. He smiled at Tess and seemed to respond to her as he had earlier. Before he turned so cold. Was it something that Maggie said that had turned him off? Or just her?
Tess grinned at Montoya and turned to leave, then turned back. Maggie couldn’t hear what she said, but Rance smiled and shook his head. Tess waved and hurried back to Maggie. “Are you ready? I’m hungry enough to eat two lunches.”
Maggie chuckled, found her purse and umbrella and followed Tess to the door. What was not so funny was that tall, slim Tess probably could eat two lunches and not gain an ounce. At the same time, Maggie counted every calorie just to maintain her size ten. She and Tess actually weighed within a pound or two of each other, but on Tess’s five-foot-eight-inch frame, it looked better.
“I invited Rance to join us.”
Maggie stared at Tess. “You didn’t! Did he accept?”
“No. I think he’s shy.”
“He’s not shy, Tess. He just doesn’t want to get to know us.”
“Maybe if you’d show him some southern hospitality, he’d warm up.”
“Maybe you should mind your own business,” Maggie answered amiably as she unfurled her umbrella and prepared to duck out into the rain.
Tess pulled her back. “You are my business, little sister. Besides, h
e sounded plenty southern to me. Maybe not Alabama southern, but he’s from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. Maybe you could give him a refresher course.”
“I’ll think about it,” Maggie told Tess, just to divert her from the subject. Her stomach reminded her of the business at hand, and she dashed outside.
Rance relaxed the instant the Popwell sisters left the library. It had been difficult to concentrate with Maggie in the room, but he had forced himself to keep his eyes on the newspaper. He’d had to read everything twice to make any sense of it. Maybe now that she was gone, it would go faster.
So far, he’d been able to figure out that Luther Hightower’s troubles began when word got around that Interstate 65 was going to cut through a corner of Hightower land. From what he’d been able to piece together, Luther had speculated on more land surrounding the intersection of the proposed highway and the road that ran in front of his property. He’d taken on some partners, and they had bought the other three parcels around the intersection.
Rance still wasn’t any closer to finding all the details. Small-town papers being what they were, there was a lot missing, including the names of the other investors. Rance was certain that one of them had to be the mysterious Mr. Drake.
He read on.
The group composed of Luther Hightower and his investors had expected that a highway off-ramp would be placed at the intersection. They had planned to erect the usual off-ramp conveniences and make a fortune. That had been before the ramp was slated for Myrtle Ridge, about five miles closer to Pittsville. Luther and his partners had gambled and lost.
Rance sighed, long and deep. He rubbed his tired eyes and propped his head on his hands. He’d gleaned as much as he could from the stack of papers. He carefully restacked the pile and got up. He’d been sitting in the same spot for two hours, and his cramped legs protested. His stomach rumbled, telling him that he should have accepted the invitation to join Tess and Maggie for lunch. But his hunger for knowledge overrode his physical need.
Rance picked up the stack of brittle newspapers and carried them back to the shelf in the storage room. His stomach complained again, and he turned to go. But something made him turn back. The answer he sought was here in this room. All he had to do was find it. He couldn’t let a grumbling stomach get in his way.
Montoya's Heart Page 3