Cold Dark Places (Cady Maddix Mystery Book 1)

by Kylie Brant

  “Yes, of course, you’re correct.” The ticking of the antique clock on the table between them sounded unnaturally loud in the short silence. “Are you experiencing any changes in your thoughts or behavior? Depression? Manic states?”

  She shook her head. None of that described how she’d been feeling for the last couple of days. She had some trouble sleeping, but Eryn chalked it up to the recent changes she’d undergone.

  “Remember your past history with tachyphylaxis. If you have any indications your medications aren’t working, or aren’t working as well, you need to let me know.”

  “I will.” It was Dr. Glassman who had diagnosed her with the condition and attributed it to her less-than-successful transition to the group home a couple of years ago.

  “Are there any other stressors you’ve faced since returning home?”

  Her gaze flicked to Ashland’s. The woman knew. Eryn didn’t know how, but she did. “A small group of individuals has been bothering us.” At least she assumed the persons responsible for the effigy were linked to the protestors at the gates on her first day home. The sheriff mentioned they might be related. She was unwilling to go into more detail, although the mental image of the fiery effigy was branded on her brain. The flames chasing down the pole and skipping across the dry-as-tinder weeds in the ditch. A little preview of the hellfire the protestors had said she was doomed to.

  The doctor gave a nod of satisfaction. “Your uncle called and informed me yesterday. He worries you’ll find the events disturbing, which would certainly be understandable. He said there have been crude sayings on other signs as well. We need to discuss that, and your reaction to them, Eryn. If the situation escalates, it might serve as an emotional trigger for you. How did you feel when you read the sayings on the signs they were wielding on your first day home?” She picked up a small notebook with scrawled notes on it. Read aloud. “Matricide is murder. Murderers go to hell.” Then she lowered the notebook and gazed at Eryn expectantly.

  The tightness in her chest seemed to spread, like the eddy of ripples in water. “I can understand on some level why my release would anger people,” she said carefully. “But they’re strangers, and they don’t know me. They don’t understand mental illness. So, I’m really not bothered by it.”

  Dr. Ashland simply nodded approvingly, as if she’d given the correct answer to a trick test question. Eryn knew better than to tell her the truth she hid away, deep and secret in the recesses of her mind. If she told her, it’d bring a frown to the woman’s face. She might scribble on her pad, and in future sessions they’d discuss it ad nauseam.

  It wouldn’t be helpful to share that on some level Eryn thought those screeching strangers with their wild eyes and red faces were probably right.

  “And what about if I bought four of them at this sale price?” Mary Jane demanded, thrusting one of the soup cans she was holding closer to Eryn’s face. “How much would I save then?”

  “A dollar fifty,” she said, without much interest. “And right now, without the soup, you have items totaling fifty-eight dollars and nine, no,” she corrected herself, “ten cents in the cart.”

  Mary Jane reared back a little and sent her a considering look. “Hmmph. Didn’t get that math sense from your mama. Nothing she hated more than working with numbers.” She put the cans in the cart and continued pushing it down the aisle. “She never cared much about any subject outside her beloved art. I always told her if she ended up selling a painting, she’d be mighty interested in math then.”

  For some reason, Mary Jane’s words brought a pang. They reminded her the older woman had decades of memories of Eryn’s mother compared to the handful Eryn had had time to form. Alone in her room in Rolling Acres, sometimes she’d take out each and every recollection she had, reexamining it with an objectivity tinged with longing. If things had been different . . . would they still be living in the home they’d shared with Uncle Bill? Had her mama been happy? There had always been a subtle air of . . . discontentment layered beneath even her happiest moods. But it was impossible to be sure, because her memories were those of a child.

  Eryn had once read that every time we recall a memory, it is altered in some way. The recollection couldn’t be analyzed without considering it through the lens of new experiences and situations. The memories were cast with the child and now reevaluated as an adult. She doubted she’d ever be able to view them dispassionately.

  The grocery store was more crowded than she’d expected for a weekday. Eryn had taken part in regular outings at Rolling Acres. Concerts in the park. Trips to the mountains. Library readings. Movies. It had always felt like the residents in her group were on display. The transit van they’d used had no logo on the side. Their supervisors wore no identifying clothing. But people couldn’t help but notice their group and wonder about them.

  She was enjoying herself right now more than she’d expected to. The sheer normalcy of walking beside Mary Jane, two women engaged in the most mundane of activities. Not so very different from the other customers inside the store. There was nothing to make them stand out. Nothing to make people stare. She could understand the appeal of big cities, she mused, as Mary Jane stopped the cart again to compare the price savings between two brands of crackers. The thought of drifting anonymously among a sea of people held more than a bit of allure. No preconceived ideas to confront. A comforting blanket of obscurity, where no one was aware of her past.

  “Henry always loves my fried chicken,” Mary Jane was saying. They stopped in front of the meat counter so she could peer at the display there. “Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy made from the drippings.” Eryn scanned the aisle around them as Mary Jane spoke with the man behind the counter before making her selection.

  There was a pretty woman with sleek auburn hair several yards away staring at them. Eryn realized she’d noticed her before, sneaking looks over her shoulder as she’d passed them in an aisle. Eryn turned away, pretending an interest in the wrapping of Mary Jane’s chicken. Asheville wasn’t the major anonymous city she’d been thinking about minutes earlier, but it may as well have been because Eryn didn’t know a soul in it.

  She trailed Mary Jane down the next aisle. “I won’t have time to make a pie from scratch for dinner, but I could probably manage a pan of brownies.” The older woman glanced at her. “Wouldn’t hurt you none to know a bit about cooking, neither. You could help out in the kitchen and learn how to make some basic meals.”

  “Did you teach Mama to cook?”

  The other woman snorted. “Your mama wasn’t interested in household—”

  “Excuse me.”

  Eryn looked up at the interruption. Saw the red-haired woman stop her cart beside them, raking them with her avid gaze. But it was Mary Jane she directed her question to. “Is this your daughter?”

  “No.” Mary Jane followed up her abrupt response by moving her cart farther down the aisle.

  But the other woman kept pace with them. This time she addressed Eryn. “I’m not usually so rude. I must seem like some crazy stalker lady! But you’re the spitting image of an old friend of mine. I just can’t get over the likeness. Aurora Pullman. You wouldn’t happen to be a relative, would you?”

  Nonplussed, Eryn looked from the stranger to Mary Jane. There was a warning in the older woman’s eyes. In her pinched tight mouth. “I . . . yes.”

  “I just knew it!” the other woman crowed. She smiled then and edged her cart closer so nearby shoppers could get around her. “The resemblance is just too strong. I remember Aurora had a brother . . .” Her words tapered off as comprehension filtered in. “You’re not . . . Eryn?”

  Was it paranoia to believe the stranger’s tone was tinged with horror? Eryn had a sudden violent urge to turn and sprint out of the store. To race across the parking lot and dive into the car to cower there until Mary Jane caught up with her and they could race back to the house. It’d never occurred to her that her past could ambush her this way, that a random meeting in a
grocery store could drag her back to face the most devastating of truths.

  “Yes.” Now it was she who was moving down the aisle. Not running. She refused to allow it. But . . . she needed escape. Her lungs were on fire, strangling the breath there. There was an anvil on her chest, crushing her lungs.

  But the other woman stuck to her like a burr. “I’m sorry, I thought you were still . . .” She swallowed the rest of the statement and tried again. “I just didn’t expect . . . it to be you. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it, but I’m a good Christian woman.” Her smile made something inside Eryn wither. “It’s God’s place to judge and my place to accept. I’m Madeline Grayson, by the way. I mean, Madeline Grayson Carson. Mad Dog Maddy, Aurora used to call me.” A wistful smile danced at one corner of her mouth before it disappeared. “I was your mama’s roommate in college. A few of us used to get together every month or so, even after she moved home.” She considered Eryn. “It’s just so uncanny. Her hair was different, of course, when she was your age, but the color, your features . . .” She shook her head. “It’s like looking at a ghost.”

  She seemed to realize what she’d said a moment later. Or maybe it was the expression on Eryn’s face. “Oh, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Eryn,” Mary Jane hissed. And this time she heeded the older woman’s veiled message and moved away, walking blindly down the aisle, aware of nothing but the pounding of her heart. The roaring in her ears.

  She turned a corner, not even waiting to see if Mary Jane was following. And a stray thought occurred then, drifting across her mind like a thread of gossamer on a playful breeze. Maybe Madeline could give her details about her mother. She could help fill in the nearly empty tapestry of Eryn’s memories of her.

  But as anxious as Eryn was to acquire the independence to grapple with her future, she suspected she still didn’t possess the courage to confront her past.

  Eryn excused herself from dinner as soon as she was able. She felt off-kilter, a result, no doubt, of the day’s events. Even after the awkward meeting in the grocery store, Mary Jane had been determined to proceed with her other plans for their day. There’d been a trip to the local mall, where Eryn had finally bought a purse and a pair of jeans, if only to placate the woman. Then they’d moved on to a department store. Mary Jane had a list for it, too, and Eryn had found a paint-by-numbers book of video game characters. She’d bought it for Jaxson, with paints and brushes, despite the sniff her purchase elicited from the older woman. “Boy’s got more toys and games already than he knows what to do with.”

  But her selection was neither, and when she’d given them to the boy, he’d seemed generally enthusiastic. She’d been reminded again how dissimilar her cousins were.

  There was a knock on her bedroom door. Somehow Eryn already knew who’d be standing on the other side of it even before she opened it to find Henry framed in the doorway.

  He took her lack of response as an invitation and brushed by her, looking around. “Must be safe, since they let you out. I guess you can be trusted with scissors now, right?” After a moment, he gave her a twisted smile. “Okay, bad joke. It’s good you’re home. But you didn’t have more than two words to say at dinner. What’s the matter? Not excited about the prodigal’s return?”

  “Not especially.” The stress of the day had stripped away any vestige of politeness.

  He looked at her over his shoulder from his stance at her window. “Well, you’re honest, at least. Probably the only one in this house with the trait.” He leaned against the window frame. “Not that I gave you much of a reason to miss me. I was a bit of an arrogant asshole back in the day.”

  “I don’t know about the arrogant part.”

  After a moment, he let out a bark of laughter. “Still have a bite, don’t you? In my defense, I was dealing—not well, I admit—with an alcoholic mother who had a habit of bringing her drinking buddies home to spend the night in her bed. Best thing my dad ever did for me was to fight for custody. Life in this place was never any prize, but considering the alternative . . .”

  She’d had no idea of his history. How could she? Eryn had been a kid at the time. Henry looked much like he had as a teen. Still good-looking. His hair had darkened in the intervening years. He’d put on weight, and the jaded look in his eyes was new. The vague air of disgruntlement was not.

  “Let me guess.” He gestured to the room. “Rosalyn’s doing?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I recognize the insipid look. She did mine, too, when I got out of college. I honestly think it drove me to join the army.” His smile was twisted. “Learned there are a helluva lot worse things in the world than insipid.”

  “So.” Her mind scrambled for a topic of conversation. Hopefully one that would lead to him leaving her room. “What are you going to do now?”

  He took a few steps to sit on the corner of her bed. “Haven’t you heard? Dear ol’ dad hasn’t exactly approved of the way I’ve been spending my time—and his money—since I got out of the army. He closed the purse strings, so I ended up back home, exactly where he wants me.” It would be difficult to miss the bitterness in his tone.

  “You’re going to live here?” Bat wings of panic fluttered in her chest.

  “God, no.” He looked as appalled as she felt. “I have a place in Asheville. I’m being put to work at Pullman Industries, learning the lumber business from the bottom up. My life’s ambition.”

  His sarcasm was difficult to miss. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. There are jobs around. In Asheville. Charlotte.”

  “But they wouldn’t be close to the money, Eryn. In this family, it’s always about the money.”

  Finally, a subject that interested her. “Do you know about the trust?”

  “The one keeping us all chained to this archaic estate? Of course. And little ol’ you is the only thing standing between a trust set up fifty years ago and freedom for all of us.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Bet you never knew you had so much power.”

  Her mind raced, but she simply didn’t have enough facts to comprehend his meaning. “I don’t understand.”

  Henry’s expression went sly. “You don’t know anything about the family finances, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.” It was the only reason she was prolonging this conversation. Despite the passing years, her cousin still made her uncomfortable.

  “Our grandparents set it up long before they were killed in a small plane crash. Nothing on this property changes—ever—except for modernization and upkeep. The boathouse you burned down? It had to be rebuilt because of the trust, despite the fact it was rarely used. The trustee has to approve all changes. And nothing can be sold.” His expression now was amused. “At least not until after our grandparents had been dead ten years and then only with joint permission of both beneficiaries.”

  “Sold?” For a moment, the thought filled her with alarm. The family property might be dated and secluded, but it was at least familiar. She couldn’t imagine where she would have gone when she’d left Rolling Acres if this place didn’t exist.

  “Plenty of people have been sniffing around here in the last half a dozen years or so.” Apparently growing bored with the conversation, he rose again. “There are developers who have this grandiose idea for turning the property into one of those fancy golf club developments, ringed with overpriced homes. Dad doesn’t have the power to sell even if he wants to. He was just the guardian of your share of the trust until you turned twenty-one. Now, if you manage to stay out of the nuthouse, you have equal say.”

  Something about the expression of barely restrained glee in his voice reminded her of when they were younger. “It’s going to be damned entertaining to see how this plays out.”

  Ryder

  The unincorporated town of Crabtree was an unlikely location for Frederick Bancroft’s Life’s Hope Church. North of Lake Junaluska on the Pigeon River, there wasn’t muc
h there to draw the fifty congregation members Bancroft had boasted when he’d been arrested at Pullman’s.

  Ryder got out of the car he’d parked on the street in front of the church and the small white house next to it and surveyed both properties. There were a couple of places in town on the historic registry, but neither of these properties would make the list. The tiny brick building with the church sign out front didn’t look large enough to hold even thirty people, so he figured Bancroft had embellished his numbers. The man had to be drawing church members from outside the area. The town, such as it was, wasn’t big enough to supply them.

  Ryder had made sure to get here at first light, before Bancroft would be leaving for his shift at a Waynesville molding shop. He got close enough to the church to read the framed sidewalk sign next to the front walk. In black plastic letters it proclaimed, “God hates Jews, fags and freaks.” Beneath the words, smaller letters said, “Worship with us Wed. nights and Sun. at 8.”

  He looked up when he heard the door close at the house. Saw Bancroft coming down the front steps. The man’s step faltered when he saw the sheriff’s car out front, and his gaze quickly found Ryder.

  “This is private property, Sheriff.” The stout man marched across the patchy lawn to confront him. “And you’re trespassing.”

  The irony in the words wasn’t lost on Ryder. “It’s not trespassing when I’m here on official business.”

  “And what might that be?” Bancroft was bundled up in a black parka and a red stocking hat. “I already talked to the dumb-ass deputy you sent out here. Told him I didn’t know nothing about the fire at the Pullman place. It didn’t stop him from hassling several of my church members, though. This kind of harassment won’t be tolerated.”