If I told them I was out, they’d do whatever they had in mind anyhow. But if I played along, I could keep tabs on whatever plan they had, and I could protect Natalie.
“Fuck the inheritance,” I said. “But let’s give her a little scare.”
“Just a little scare,” Jared chuckled. “Or we scare the daylights out of her, turn a few of those pretty Florida blond hairs grey. When should we do it?”
“Big storm coming in tonight,” Bob said. “Even bigger than last night. So we’ll start tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” Jared answered.
“Where did she end up staying last night anyway after we cut her heat?”
“Who knows,” Jared shrugged. “Though I did notice her car was still in the parking lot when we left the bar. Weird. Maybe she went home with someone.”
“So what’s the plan, geniuses?” I asked.
“We keep the same plan,” Bob said. “We’ll bring her down into the mine. Give her a little taste of her daddy’s own medicine.”
Jared laughed maniacally as he took another puff of his joint, then tossed it into the snow.
“Hope she’s not afraid of tight, dark spaces. Like mine shafts.”
Bob crossed his arms and squinted at me. “What’s with you, Shane? You seem less than enthusiastic?”
“Yeah. The fuck has gotten into you? We’re just gonna give her a scare, anyway. Ain’t nobody gonna get hurt.” Jared grinned. “Besides, what’s she gonna do? Call the cops? They’re all McTeelys?”
“Let’s get on with our work, shall we?”
I could feel a psychological wall being put up between us. I wasn’t sincere about the plan anymore and they knew it.
I’d forgotten that although Mr. Toft might have been able to pay off enough judges to bury the dead coal miners law suit, Jared’s cousins had gradually worked their way into dominating the town’s law enforcement.
I needed to tell Natalie she had to get the fuck out of here.
I needed to come clean with her about this mess I’d made. As much as it pained me, it was the only way to make things right.
11
Natalie
“AIN’T NEVER SEEN something like this before,” the heating technician said, laying on his back and looking up at the heater with the flashlight. “Did you mess with this at all?”
I shook my head. “Mess with my own heater? Why would I do that?”
“Well, I don’t know, but a wire to the thermostat has been badly damaged. That usually doesn’t happen unless someone with no idea what they’re doing tries to make a repair and goes drastically wrong.”
“Well I changed the thermostat pretty drastically. But I never touched the wires down here.”
He rolled out from under the heater. “So I’m going to have to order a new part. Might take a few days. Especially with this blizzard coming through tonight.”
“A few days? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m afraid I’m quite serious. Do you have somewhere else you can stay? It’s probably not safe to be here in a snow storm.” He paused, cocking his head. “Are you staying here alone?”
Don’t remind me.
“I don’t like this one bit,” I said, not answering his question. He wasn’t at all creepy, and looked like a gentle giant type, but now I was getting paranoid about being here all alone.
“I’m sorry, Miss. I don’t know what to tell you. Your tube has either been overworked, or stripped.”
Stripped?
That didn’t sound good. But it wasn’t like anyone else had been in here, unless my dad really had a ghost. “Hmm. I guess that’s possible. For a full couple of days, the heater was running nonstop. It was like an oven in here.”
“Yeah, right. Well, I’ll order the part, and then I’ve got to come out and install it. Here’s what the total will be.”
He showed me, and I flinched a little but if it needed to be paid, so be it.
During the rest of the morning and early afternoon, I continued going through my father’s things, when I stumbled onto a box way inside my dad’s closet and to the right.
It was heavy, but I managed to push it out into the middle of his room. When I opened it, I saw stacks of notebooks.
My eyes narrowed as I pulled one out.
On the cover, it was labeled:
July through November 2010
I opened it, and turned to a random page:
September 29
We had our first freeze this morning. It came earlier than usual this year.
It made me think of Natalie (well I know, most things make you think of her) and the first time we saw snow.
I wonder what’s the equivalent of ‘first freeze’ in Florida, since the temperature is always so warm. First hurricane?
That’s mean. I wish she’d end up back here somehow, though. I know it would take a miracle at this point. I’ve been so distracted lately, and it’s affecting my work. My foreman asked me a question I thought I’d already answered yesterday, and I went off on him today. He didn’t deserve it--but that’s the truth.
Tears welled in my eyes reading his inked handwriting. I sifted through a whole bunch of his journals. Most of them were mundane stuff, really. Notes about the mine or people he wanted to call the next day. Stuff about getting together with old friends he’d grown up with a few towns over.
But as I read through a few of them--selecting for right around the divorce, when I was in seventh grade, I realized it wasn’t what he had written that was peculiar, but what he had left out.
While I’d come across a plethora of references to missing me, there wasn’t a single reference to my mother, good or bad.
Why was that?
I scanned through all of the journals to see the earliest year my father had begun to write them. They started the year when I would have been around seven years old. When I found the very earliest one, I opened it and read the first entry.
June 19
Our fancy therapist says I should start keeping a journal. But I’m going to use this to write about things I want to--to clear my head--not our relationship. I’m going to write about things I love. Like my beautiful daughter Natalie.
My eyes about bulged out of my head when I read that.
He wasn’t going to write about my mother--he was going to write about things he loved? Did that mean, when I was seven, my father and mother had already fallen out of love?
I scanned through the entire journal, looking for references to Edna, my mom’s first name, or mom or anything close.
Nothing. Nada. Zip.
I sat back on my father’s bed and let out a deep breath, which reminded me how cold it was when I could see it. It had been a little chilly at first, but I was starting to get accustomed to the cold. In the basement, I’d found an electric space heater which I would bring into whichever room I was going through.
Maybe I should just stay here tonight?
No. It would drop to well below freezing tonight and it wasn’t safe. Even if the heat turned on, I wanted to go back and stay with Shane. I had this sense he was hiding something from me. Not to mention, with how horrible I now felt about Louisa’s death, which I still didn’t know the cause of.
Guilt rode me for having become so distant, so quickly from my grade school friends.
My father’s journal’s, now strewn messily about the floor of his room, reminded me that I had my own grieving to do.
I wanted to read them all, or at least scan them all.
As I was boxing them back up, my phone buzzed.
“Hey honey!” It was my mom. “How are you?”
“Hey Mom, I’m good.”
“You sound hesitant.”
I had one of my father’s journals in my hands and I was reading it, distracted by the page that had fallen open. The word divorce stuck out prominently. Just then, a question sprung to mind that I’d never had the guts to ask my mom outright.
“Mom, why did we move to Florida?”
I could
sense her discomfort with the question as she hesitated. “Where is this coming from?”
“I mean, why did you pick Florida to get your master’s degree? You could have picked anywhere. Did you just want to get away from Dad?”
She cleared her throat. I could tell she was a little stunned. I was usually shy, and would tip-toe around these sorts of issues with her.
“What’s the matter honey? Everything okay?” I balled my fists, and unballed them.
My mom and Shane apparently had in common the fact that they loved answering a question with a question.
“No. Everything is not okay,” I said, struggling not to make my voice shake.
“Did something from your father’s surprise you?” I could feel a strange emotion welling in my chest. Adrenaline mixed with sadness topped off with anger that I would never get to see my father again. Never be able to talk to him. I was lucky he’d kept these journals so I could feel like I was hearing his voice, but something was off and I needed answers.
“Why did you and dad get divorced?” I asked her, point blank.
“Honey, I’m just on my lunch break,” she said. “That’s a very complex question.”
I didn’t say a word for a few moments, just letting the silence hang in the air. I took a deep breath shaking my head. “Well when you’re ready to talk about it, I would like to have a discussion. I’m going through Dad’s journals--”
“Oh my,” she interrupted.
“I’m going through Dad’s journals and there’s not a single reference to you in them. I don’t get it. And did you start going to therapy when I was seven? Is that what ‘date night’ was when you’d be home late every Tuesday night?”
I could see the logic in lying to your seven-year old, even though I suddenly felt irrationally bitter about everything. Looking back, I’d been babied, I’d been kept in the dark in so many ways throughout my childhood.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Yes,” she answered, breathing heavily. She was getting choked up.
While I wasn’t going to let her off the hook for answers, I realized that perhaps her lunch break wasn’t the best time for me to be grilling her.
“We can talk about this later,” I said, and a flashback went through me.
Suddenly I felt like more of a parent than a child.
“So have you heard about the storm coming through Black Mountain tonight?” she said.
“I think you mean last night.”
“I’m looking at the weather radar right now on the computer. It says you’re supposed to get twenty-nine inches.”
My eyes bulged. “Twenty-nine inches? That can’t be right.”
“I hope it’s not right, but that’s what the internet is saying. I worry about you all cooped up by yourself.”
“I told you, Mom, I’m fine.”
The last word came out harsh, and I instantly felt a little bad. She was a worrier, but that’s what moms did. They worried.
It was also why I hadn’t told her about the problem with the heater.
“Just let your mother be worried, for goodness’ sake.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to snap.”
“I need to get back to work. Text me later and let me know how the blizzard is. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
After I hung up, the deathly silence crept in again.
Until now, I’d been so content just to accept my life the way it was, I’d neglected to question certain things.
Ho hum, parents divorced so my mom could go to grad school in Florida.
Ho hum, lost touch with the town I grew up in and made some new friends in high school and college.
Ho hum, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen makes out with me on the kitchen counter of my father’s house and then tells me he’s got to go after putting his mouth on my nipple.
Said guy also answers all of my questions with questions, forbids me from going to a certain room in his house like it’s the West Wing from Beauty and the Beast. He tells me I have a big mouth, kisses it, and then says he’s going to bed.
I decided right then and there I was going to start getting answers.
Loading all of the journals back into a box, I slid them down the stairs.
Soon it was three o’clock and I was waiting outside for Shane to pick me up so he could take me to the bar, where my car was still parked. He’d been in a hurry this morning so he had promised to bring me there after work.
I had him load the box of journals into his trunk.
“Bricks?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Journals from my dad.”
“Why are you giving them to me?”
“I thought you liked reading,” I said. “Just kidding. I want to stay one more night. Can I? Please?”
“Get in the car and let’s talk about it.”
When we got in the car, I noticed he didn’t give me the usual stare-down.
“By your request, I’m guessing they didn’t get the heater all fixed?”
“They have to order another part to fix it. It’s going to be until like the end of the week, at least.”
“Did the motel have rooms open up?”
“No. I’d have to go two hours to find one.”
I flashed a big smile on my face. “Can I please stay at your place one more night? Come on.”
He flexed his jaw and he looked at me, not seeming amused.
“Pretty please?”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just…not.”
Jesus. Here we were—back to Shane being the most confusing man on earth.
“Was it something I said?”
“It’s not that.”
“Come on, Shane. Really? I’ve got nowhere else.”
He took a deep breath as we pulled into the bar parking lot and parked. He got out a brush and a shovel, and helped dig me out of my spot, letting the tension hang for a moment.
“Alright,” he finally said, through gritted teeth.
“Thank you!” I exclaimed, though his less than enthusiastic invitation gave me pause. “So what are you doing this afternoon? Do you want me to make you that sandwich?”
“Nah. I’m busy,” he said nonchalantly.
I cocked my head a little and blew out a frosty breath.
“Busy? With what?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I was taken a little aback. “Don’t worry about it? What could be better than one of my famous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
He shot me a smile. “Later tonight. I’m sure that will go great with the leftover chili from last night.”
“Will it?” I cringed a little. That didn’t seem like a combination that would taste good. But stranger things have happened.
“It will if you make it.”
“Okay.” I shrugged as he pushed the last of the snow off my windshield. “See you later tonight then?”
Something about his demeanor was putting me off.
“Yep.”
Curtly, he got in his car and drove off.
I took a deep breath once I got inside my car and gripped the steering wheel.
Why was he being so weird again? Hanging out with Shane was like a Katy Perry song. He was hot then cold, yes then no.
Shane was confusing me and I needed to satiate my curiosity.
I could see his car a few blocks down as I pulled out of the parking lot, so I decided I would follow him and see where he was going.
I reminded myself of my mantra from earlier today. Answers. I was going to start getting them, no matter what it took. I’d never followed anyone before like this, but I couldn’t take it anymore.
Staying back a safe distance, I kept him in my sights until he turned onto Old Copper Mine Road.
He pulled into a random driveway. I parked a safe distance away, then got out and peered at him between two evergreen trees. My heart pumped like crazy when I saw a blond
woman walk outside to greet him. I was too far away to make out her figure clearly, but she seemed quite attractive.
I knew it.
I felt so nervous I was shaking, and not from the cold. I was just nervous as hell, not believing what I was seeing.
Is this your booty call, Shane? Or a steady thing?
She wrapped her arms around him, and then they went behind a post on the porch, so I couldn’t make out what they were doing. I needed to get closer.
Luckily my coat was white, and in the snow it was like camouflage. The house was on its own block, and I managed to sneak around behind the fence, where I would still be within earshot of them. I could make out their figures through a crack.
“The kid’s still sleeping. I don’t want to wake him up just yet,” the woman said.
“Well you’d better.”
“Right. Well you know, you could just come inside and I’ll warm you up real quick. You know I don’t kiss and tell.”
Booty call confirmed.
Just then, I heard more footsteps join them on the porch. Little footsteps.
“Oh! My little angel is up. Well isn’t that perfect.” She let out a sigh.
I knew that sigh: it was the I was about to get laid but our kid cockblocked us sigh.
Was this her kid? Or their kid?
“How does this always happen?” she asked. “I’ll have him back by six, don’t you worry.”
I could hear the kid’s footsteps head back inside.
“And we can do a lot more than just have dinner,” she emphasized. “You know that.”
My blood pumped like crazy. I’d heard everything I needed to know.
Apparently, my M.O. was attracting ridiculously good looking, narcissistic, psychopathic men with a penchant for lying.
Just like my damn ex.
I wasn’t going to stand for it any more.
I got back in my car, and then watched as Shane got in the car with--was that his son? Or just the son of the woman he was screwing?
My blood boiled as I followed them for a few miles, until we came into a clearing and arrived at the Black Mountain Sportsplex, where I’d done some figure skating lessons when I was little.
Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 10