The Dark Woods (Winchester, Tn. Book 2)

by Debra Webb

  He just hoped the truth turned out to be what she wanted to find.

  Chapter Four

  Sasha stood on the sidewalk surrounded by overgrown shrubs and knee-deep grass. It all seemed so small now or maybe it was only that the woods were swallowing up the yard and the house, ruthlessly invading all within its path. White paint once gleamed from the wood siding; now it was chipped and curled away like the skin slithering from a snake. Green moss had taken up residence on the gray roof. The house looked old and tired, broken-down.

  This was the first time Sasha had set foot on the property since she was nine years old. Her fingers tightened on the key she had dug from a drawer in the mudroom. After Branch had left she’d gone up to her old room and dug out a pair of boots to go with her jeans. She’d added a sweater over her blouse and buttoned it to the throat. She’d started to bring a flashlight but then she’d remembered that the electricity and the water remained on for insurance purposes. Her grandmother had arranged for any necessary expenses related to the property to be drafted directly from her bank account. Beyond that step, she had washed her hands of the property.

  Weeds poked through the cracks of the sidewalk and steps. Memories of drawing with chalk and playing hopscotch sifted through her mind. She climbed the steps and crossed the porch, boards gray with age creaking beneath her weight. Unlocking the door took some doing. The lock probably needed oiling. After a couple of minutes of frustrated twisting and turning, the tumblers gave way and the lock turned.

  Darkness and dust motes greeted her beyond the threshold. A memory of swiping the switch next to the door prodded her to slide her hand across the wall. An overhead light came on.

  For a long time Sasha stood staring at the narrow entry hall. It wasn’t very large, perhaps seven by nine. Dust was thick on the wood floor and the wool rug that might be blue or gray. Some sort of pattern attempted to emerge beyond the layer of dust but failed miserably. Cobwebs draped across the ceiling, making a path over the chandelier with its two bulbs out of six struggling to light the space. A table sat against the wall, a set of keys amid the layer of dust there. Above it a mirror hung on the wall, the glass like the windows, heavy with years of buildup.

  Deep in her chest, her heart hammered as if she’d run miles and miles.

  The worst was the smell. Decades of mustiness with an underlying hint of copper. The stillness gave the sense of a lack of air. It was hard to breathe. Sasha drew in a deep breath that seemed to dissipate before it reached her lungs. To the right was a small parlor that her mother had used as a home office and straight ahead was the living room, a hall, dining room and the kitchen and a bathroom. The bedrooms and another bathroom were upstairs.

  If she kept going, only a few more steps, she would enter the living room. Someone had cleaned up the bloody mess. She’d heard her grandmother discussing it a few weeks after that night. Friends or neighbors had rid the place of all indications of the bad thing that had happened.

  Bad thing.

  A very bad thing had happened in this house. Sasha forced one foot in front of the other. As she entered the parlor, voices vibrated in her mind. Her mother crying...her father pleading...the other voices growling with such menace. Sasha stood very still; she stared at the staircase and the door that was hidden until you walked beyond the newel post. She’d hidden there so many times.

  Her heart pounding harder and harder, she continued on, along the hall and into the kitchen, turning on lights as she went. It looked exactly the same save for the cobwebs and dust. The teakettle still sat on the stove, the red-and-white-checked mitt hung from a drawer pull nearby.

  You’ll be late for school.

  Her mother always worried that Sasha would be late for school. Or that she wouldn’t finish her homework or her breakfast.

  The newspaper from their final morning in the house lay on the kitchen table where her father had left it.

  She stared at the headlines from that date. Man Is Killed by Lightning Strike while Working on Barn Roof. New Hospital Construction Is Moving Forward.

  Sasha walked through the dining room on her way back to the living room. This time she forced herself to take a closer look. The spot on the floor in the center of the room where her mother had fallen. The rug that had once been there had been taken away. The sofa was gone, as well. Her father’s blood and brain matter had been sprayed over the upholstery. All that remained were two chairs with a table between them. The princess-style phone still sat on the table. Sasha had dragged its long cord over to the hearth that night to escape the reach of her mother’s blood flowing across the floor.

  Please don’t do this. Just let her go!

  Sasha blinked away the voices and moved toward the stairs. The runner was coated in dust. The steps creaked as she climbed upward. Her fingers trailed along the wooden banister the same way she’d done as a child. Her father had grown up in this house. His grandfather had built it. Her father had been a good man. Never raised his voice. Was always a gentleman with her or her mother. No one could understand what happened to his temperament. Surely losing his job had not turned him into a killer.

  No. Sasha shook off the notion. Someone else had been in the house. Her father had not done this and it was time she proved it and cleared his name. Both he and her mother deserved justice.

  Someone had murdered them. Sasha was certain of it.

  Two doors on the right were the guest room and a bathroom; on the left was her room and then that of her parents. She walked through her parents’ room first. The bed was made. Sasha crouched down and checked underneath the bed skirt on her father’s side. His old high school baseball bat was still there. He had called it his security system. Anyone broke into their house, the security system was going off.

  Sasha stood and moved to the other side of the bed. Her mother’s heels lay next to the closet door where she’d come home that evening and shed her work attire. She always stripped off the suit and pulled on jeans and a tee or a sweater. Her father wore jeans and work boots all the time. His work as a construction superintendent rarely required a shirt and tie. They had been so different and yet so suited for each other.

  At least until the last few weeks of their lives. Things had been tense. Very tense.

  Even as a child Sasha had sensed the extreme tension.

  Her mother’s pearls lay across a small mirror on the dresser. Sasha fingered the necklace. Alexandra Lenoir had worn those pearls every Monday and Friday. She had laughed and said she wanted to feel special on Mondays and she wanted to be ready to celebrate on Fridays. The pearls were a gift to her mother from her father, Sasha’s grandfather, when her mother was sixteen, the year before he died. They were the only piece of jewelry her grandmother hadn’t had the heart to remove from the house. She’d wanted the pearls to stay exactly where her daughter left them.

  Sasha stared at her reflection in the mirror standing above the dresser. Other than the lightness of her skin and the green eyes, she looked exactly like her mother. Same features and profile. Her mother had been a very beautiful woman.

  She turned away from her reflection and walked out of the room and into the one that had belonged to her as a child. Her white canopy bed with its pink lace and mound of stuffed animals was heavy with dust. Posters of cartoon characters and butterflies dotted the walls. Her favorite doll was at her grandmother’s. It was the only item Sasha had wanted to take with her.

  Her grandmother had bought her an entire new wardrobe so she wouldn’t have to be reminded of her former life if she didn’t want to be. Looking back, she and her grandmother had both been in denial. They had looked forward, never once looking back, and pretended the bad thing had not happened. It was easier that way. They became a family unit.

  No looking back. No looking back.

  Sasha sat down on her bed and allowed her surroundings to soak in. The lavender walls and the hair bows on the dresser. H
er mother had loved brushing and braiding Sasha’s hair. Giggles and the sound of the brush stroking through her hair whispered through her mind.

  Life had been good here all the way up until it wasn’t. She should have looked back, should have cherished the memories rather than trying to forget them.

  But her grandmother had wanted to protect her. How do you protect a child? You insulate her from danger, from harm.

  The denial, the memories that refused to stay buried had haunted her. It was time to unearth them and learn the truth.

  Sasha descended the stairs and rounded the newel post. She grasped the knob of the closet door and gave it a twist, opening the door. The closet looked even smaller now. Maybe two feet by three. The only thing inside the closet was dust. There had been raincoats as she recalled. She could only assume they had been moved during the processing of the house for evidence. After all, she’d been hiding in the closet.

  Sasha stepped into the closet and pulled the door closed, pitching the tiny space into darkness. She squatted down, hugged her knees and allowed her bottom to slide down to the floor. Then she closed her eyes.

  You had a chance to save yourself...

  Her eyes shot open as the voice echoed through her. It was the man’s voice—the one with the deep, menacing voice.

  Please don’t do this. Just let her go.

  Gunshots erupted in the darkness.

  Sasha bolted upward and pushed out of the cramped space.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  She ran out of the house and across the porch, down the steps. Deep breaths. Slow it down.

  Perspiration covered her skin.

  She focused on her breathing, told herself over and over to calm down.

  A panic attack had not managed to get the drop on her in ages. Not since she was a teenager.

  She braced her hands on her hips and breathed. Her heart rate began to slow. Still the dense woods seemed to close in on her.

  If you go down to the woods today...you’d better not go alone.

  The old nursery rhyme murmured through her. She’d loved exploring the woods around their home when she was a kid, but after that night she had been terrified of the woods. She’d gone camping once with a friend and her family and suffered her first panic attack that night in the woods.

  Pulling herself together, Sasha walked back into the house and turned out the lights and locked the door. She climbed into her car and backed away, the trees closing in on the place sticking in her mind as she drove back into town.

  She had a feeling if she didn’t find the truth soon it would vanish forever.

  * * *

  TAREK MARTIN STILL lived in the same house he’d bought when he and his wife married, the same summer Sasha’s mother and father had married. The two couples had their daughters within two years of each other and both men worked at Kimble & Douglas, K&D, the largest construction firm in a tri-county area. Sasha’s father, Brandon, had often joked that imitation was the purest form of flattery and that Tarek had been flattering him for years.

  Mr. Martin was one of the few people who had stood by her father during the investigation. He had insisted that Brandon Lenoir would never hurt his wife. His insistence hadn’t changed the coroner’s report.

  Burt Johnston, the same man who was county coroner now, had concluded murder-suicide, and the medical examiner’s autopsy, though inconclusive, had not disagreed.

  Sasha had almost called Mr. Martin before driving to his home, but she’d decided that surprise would be a handy element under the circumstances. Never allow one’s adversary an advantage. An announcement that the daughter of your former best friend was going to pay you a visit after more than two decades was turning over a fairly large advantage.

  She opened the screen door, it squeaked and she knocked on the door. A television blasted the laughter and cheers of a game show. When she knocked a second time a dog barked. Sounded like a small breed. Sasha allowed the screen door to close between her and the wood door just in case the dog made a dive for the stranger doing all the knocking.

  The knob twisted and the door opened. The voice of the talk show host blared out around the big man filling the door frame. Tarek Martin was considerably heavier than he’d been the last time Sasha saw him and his hair was gray through and through; his face looked significantly craggier but she easily recognized him.

  His breath caught and he hissed it out between his teeth. “Sassy Lenoir, as I live and breathe.”

  She opted not to call him on the use of her nickname. “Mr. Martin, how are you, sir?”

  “Well, I’m fine.” He reached to push the screen door open. “Come on in here, little girl.” He hollered over his shoulder, “Edie, come see who’s here.”

  The little white dog hopped around his feet, yapping madly.

  Sasha dared to step inside, expecting a snip at her heels. But the little dog just continued to bounce and bark.

  A woman, obviously his wife, wandered into the living room, drying her hands on her apron. “I swear, you look just like your mama, honey.”

  Sasha didn’t remember Edie Martin. Her voice was vaguely familiar but her face drew a blank. “Thank you.”

  The older woman’s mouth formed an O. “I am so sorry about your grandmother. We came to the funeral but we didn’t get a chance to talk to you. It was so crowded.”

  Sasha nodded. “G’ma had a lot of friends.”

  “She sure did,” Mr. Martin said. “Come on in here and sit down. Can we get you something to drink? Coffee or tea?”

  Sasha shook her head. “No, thank you. I just wanted to ask you a few questions if you have a moment.”

  “Course.” He gestured to the sofa as he and his wife claimed the chairs they obviously preferred.

  “I suppose you’re busy taking care of your grandmother’s affairs?” Mrs. Martin commented.

  “Yes, ma’am. There’s lots to do.”

  Mr. Martin grinned. “You sure enough pulled that pop star out of the fire last month.”

  Sasha smiled, her first real one of the day. “Yes, I did.” The pop star in question had really blown his image on social media recently. Sasha had turned the situation around for him and set him on a better track. It was up to him now to stay the course.

  “Your grandmother was so proud of you. She was always talking about you everywhere she went.”

  “I appreciate you sharing that with me.”

  Mr. Martin’s craggy face scrunched up. “You said you had some questions. You know we’re happy to help any way we can.”

  Sasha squared her shoulders. “When my parents died, Mr. Martin, you were the one person who stood up for my father. You insisted he would never have done such a thing.”

  Mr. Martin shook his head firmly from side to side. “I stand by those words still. There is no way Brandon would have hurt Alexandra. No way in the world.”

  “No way,” his wife echoed. “They were having some problems with him getting fired and all, but they loved each other. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly, much less his sweet wife.”

  Sasha blinked back the tears that threatened. “I tried to tell everyone that myself, but no one listened.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed on. “Can you think of any reason anyone would have wanted to hurt either of my parents?”

  “You see,” Mr. Martin said, “that’s the thing. Everybody loved those two. I mean you had your jerk who made some remark about the fact that your mama was black and your daddy was white, but that was rare. I honestly can’t remember more than one occasion that it happened and that was years before...that night.”

  “Why was my father fired? The reports say he was drinking on the job.”

  He scoffed. “That’s another thing that was stretched out of proportion. Yes, he’d had a couple of drinks, but he was not falling-down drunk. Your daddy wasn’t much
of a drinker in the first place. The real problem is he crossed the wrong person and that person was looking for a way to be rid of him.”

  “Who did he cross?”

  “Dennis Polk, the crew chief at our site. Dennis didn’t like your daddy. To tell you the truth, I think he had a thing for your mama and didn’t like the man she chose. I think I heard something about her dating Dennis back in high school but that’s pure hearsay.”

  “Whether she did or not—” Mrs. Martin took over from there “—your mama had no use for the man. He had it in for your daddy, and as soon as he got that promotion to crew chief, he found a way to get him in trouble.” She shook her head. “But they were working that situation out. Your mama had a good job that included a health insurance plan. They had the house they’d inherited. There were no real money issues. I think your daddy just felt like he wasn’t pulling his weight those last few weeks and that caused tension.”

  Words echoed through Sasha. Her parents arguing over his need to find work and to stop moping around. She pushed the memories away. “Is it possible Mr. Polk may have wanted to hurt my parents?”

  Mr. Martin moved his hands back and forth as if to erase the idea. “Oh, no, not in a million years. Polk was a weasel, rightly enough, but he didn’t have the guts to do anything like that. He was all talk.” Martin laughed. “Still is, as a matter of fact.”

  “There was that drug operation,” Mrs. Martin said. “Brandon came across it deep in the woods behind your house in that old shack. Remember?” She directed the question to her husband.

  “I sure do. We told the chief about it and he looked into it, but those knuckleheads were long gone. Drifters, I think.”

  “I didn’t read anything about that in the reports from the investigation.”

  “I know it was looked into,” Mr. Martin countered. “I took Chief Holcomb through those woods personally. Showed him the shack and told him the whole story same as Brandon told me.”