by Jessa Archer
Mumbling a curse, I drove back down the driveway toward the Woodward Mills sign. Cassie kept her eyes on her phone to check for connectivity.
“Still nothing?” I asked when we reached the road.
She shook her head. I turned toward town and began driving slowly. About a tenth of a mile down, she motioned for me to pull over onto the narrow shoulder between the highway and the ditch. I checked my phone and saw that we’d gone from zero bars to three in a matter of yards.
“Gotta love living in the mountains,” Cassie said.
When the emergency operator answered, I gave her the location and said that we’d seen a dead body. She took my name and address, and then made me repeat the claim. A sports car whizzed by on the narrow road, fast enough that the Jeep vibrated in its wake. Once it passed, I did a three-point turn and headed back toward the factory. The operator couldn’t ask me a lot of pesky questions if my cell service dropped the call.
We pulled back into the parking lot, remaining in front of the building this time. I was troubled by the fact that we’d left the candles burning in our rush to get out of the building, and it seemed wrong to leave Tessa in there alone. I thought about going back inside, but the whole Ouija board and flickering candles vibe had been chilling, like something out of a cheesy horror movie. Knowing that another young person had died in that very building decades ago didn’t help matters.
If I’d been on my own, I would probably have sucked it up and gone back inside. But Cassie was clearly on edge, and I wouldn’t ask her to go back in there with me. Nor was I willing to leave her out here alone. Hopefully Blevins or a deputy would get here soon. And the night was so still that it seemed unlikely that we’d get a breeze strong enough to knock over those candles.
Thinking about the candles reminded me of what Cassie had said when she was telling me that we needed to get out of the building. “You said you heard something when we were inside?”
Cassie shrugged. “I was nervous. It was probably nothing. I just wanted to get out of there.”
“What did it sound like?”
She gave me an annoyed look, and I could tell that she really, really did not want to talk about it. But finally, she said, “It sounded like metal, okay? Like a small metal… something…hitting the floor. It was faint, but it echoed. Kind of like it bounced? And then I saw a flash of light on the floor, on the other side of the summoning circle.”
“The what?”
“The summoning circle. That’s what they call that circle of candles. If you go inside and count the candles, I’m guessing you’ll find it’s a number divisible by three. The larger candles will tell you how many people were participating. And the powder on the floor is salt.”
“Powder?” I hadn’t even noticed any powder on the floor. “How do you know this?”
“I worked at Nirvana for nearly three years. You work at a metaphysical bookstore long enough and you’re bound to pick a few things up.”
The bookstore where Cassie had worked in Nashville had specialized in crystals, tarot cards, and other new-age items. They’d even had a psychic who came in on weekends to do readings.
“Plus,” she said, “we have Netflix. I’ve seen every episode of Supernatural, and most of Charmed.”
“So what were they summoning?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say they were trying to contact the spirit of the guy who died here. The one from the picture you posted in the newspaper.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Cassie sounded a bit put out. “Maybe just to see if they could. Tessa’s grandmother worked here at the factory years ago. Maybe she told Tessa it was haunted. Or something. Okay?”
That sounded way too specific to be anything that Cassie was simply guessing at, but I didn’t press the point. As her mom, I could read her body language—crossed arms, slumped down in her seat, staring out the window—well enough to know that I was unlikely to get anything more out of her right now. And I was getting major flashbacks to her teenage years when that posture had been the norm.
“How long do you think it will take the police to get here?” she asked, clearly changing the subject. “You told them someone was dead, for heaven’s sake. You’d think they’d hurry.”
“True,” I said. “But to be fair, there’s less reason to rush when you’ve told them that the person in question is already a body.”
Cassie sighed, glancing down at her phone again, which of course was still displaying No Service. “I should have called Dean when we were out there. He’s going to be worried.” She pulled her headphones out of her purse and plugged them in.
I was jealous that I didn’t have my headphones with me. It would be nice to have something to pass the time.
And she was right that Dean would be worried. Their relationship had zoomed from zero to sixty fairly quickly, in part because they were together pretty much constantly. Getting The Buzz up and running had been a sixteen-hour-a-day effort for Cassie since she took the position. Dean still had his job with the post office, but he’d been there every moment he wasn’t working. Somewhere along the line, their professional relationship seemed to have shifted gears.
I wasn’t unhappy about that by any means. Dean Jacobs was a wonderful young man and they were well matched, with his easygoing nature balancing out Cassie’s somewhat edgier personality. I was, however, a little concerned, given that Dean was also her boss. Cassie had poured her entire heart and soul into making The Buzz a success over the past few months. If things went south on the romance, she’d be doubly crushed.
But Cassie was a smart enough girl to know all of that. And I was a smart enough mom to know that I needed to keep any worries or opinions on the issue entirely to myself until she broached the topic.
Headlights turned into the drive a few minutes later. I sent up a silent prayer that it would be Thorpe, the current head deputy, who had also worked for Ed when he was sheriff. Ed claims he’s ten times the law enforcement officer that Blevins is. There’s no love lost between Blevins and Ed. They worked together as deputies under the previous sheriff, and after Ed was elected to the position, he’d kept Blevins on somewhat against his better judgment. But then there was a disciplinary issue of some sort. Ed demoted him, putting Billy in as head deputy. Blevins quit, which was pretty much what Ed had expected him to do.
Six months later, Ed was hit during a New Year’s Eve traffic stop. He was certain the car belonged to Derrick Blevins, Steve’s son, who’d been sixteen at the time. The kid had a solid alibi, though, so he was never prosecuted. Blevins was appointed as acting sheriff, thanks to his father-in-law’s connections in county government, and he schmoozed well enough to win reelection. He had another election coming up, and that was one reason that Blevins had been flocking to TV cameras like a moth to a flame.
I’d known Steve Blevins back in high school. He was an obnoxious, self-satisfied jerk back then, and time had really not mellowed him much. The cherry-red Camaro he’d driven back in the day hadn’t been new—his parents weren’t that rich—but the car, along with his feathered blond hair, had pretty much summed up his personality. He was a showboat, and as an adult, he liked the status of being the county sheriff more than he liked the actual job. Ed said it had been the same back when they were deputies together. The guy had a penchant for taking credit for things he had nothing to do with.
My silent prayer went unanswered. The vehicle pulling into the lot had SHERIFF stenciled across the side. A charitable person who didn’t know Blevins might assume that he’d come out at ten fifteen on a Friday night because he wanted to be certain that everything was handled with proper care in any case involving a fatality. But I knew better. He’d simply told the dispatcher to call him anytime something came in that was in any way connected to me. He didn’t particularly care for the fact that my reporting in the months since my return to Thistlewood had solved several murders—two of them decades old. In one case, the story had attracted the attention of a
television reporter from Knoxville, who’d driven down to interview me. She hadn’t bothered to ask him any questions at all, and the man isn’t happy unless the cameras are on him.
Blevins pulled the car to a stop next to me and turned on the lights, which seemed a bit unnecessary. Blue and red beams lit up the clearing, reflecting off the side of the factory and the trees that lined the back of the property.
He sat in the driver’s seat and stared at me through the window for a moment, shaking his head. “Imagine my surprise,” he said as he got out of the car. “I’m at home with Jenny, watching TV, and I get a call about a dead body. Then lo and behold, I find Ruth Townsend at the scene of the crime. Again.”
I’d given my name to the dispatcher, so I knew this was just his usual bullpucky. “Glad you could make it,” I said. “Took you long enough.”
He gave me a withering look and didn’t even acknowledge Cassie. I suspected that was totally okay with her.
“So…why am I here?” he said.
“As I told the operator, there’s a body inside. Tessa Martin.”
Blevins’s eyes went wide. “Tessa Martin? She’s still in high school.”
“Yeah. Pretty sure she’s a senior…” I was about to say like Ed’s niece, but I decided it might be best to keep Kate out of it for the time being. “I’m not sure what she was doing out here, but I found her in there sprawled across a Ouija board.”
The sheriff whistled through his teeth. “You’re sure she’s dead?”
“Yes. I’ve seen a dead body before.”
He snorted. “Well, ain’t that the truth? I think you’ve seen more dead bodies than your buddy Wren over at the funeral home since you came back to town. We’re thinking about taking up a collection in town to buy you a grim reaper costume, just to give people a bit of warning.”
I stared at him coolly. “Do you want to stand here trading barbs all day or would you actually like to go inside and do your job?”
“By all means, Townsend. Lead the way.”
“Could you pull the Jeep around back?” I said to Cassie. “So we’ll have some light?”
She nodded and slid over into the driver’s seat. As much as she didn’t want to go back inside that factory, I think she also wanted to keep us within her sight. I couldn’t really blame her on that front.
Blevins cut his engine but left his blue and red mood lights on. Then he pulled a flashlight from under the seat and followed me around the side of the building. Cassie pulled the Jeep up behind us, aiming the headlights toward the open door.
“I suppose this was just…unlocked?” Blevins said, eyeing the padlock. “And the door was wide open?”
“Yep. Although Tessa was obviously here before us.”
We stepped through the doorway, and I said, “She’s just ahead. In the middle of that circle of candles.”
“What circle of candles?”
“Right freaking…there.” The ring of flickering candlelight had disappeared. But I could still smell the scent of melted wax and burnt wick.
Blevins frowned, targeting his flashlight on the spot I pointed toward.
The candles were still there. The Ouija board was there, too.
Tessa Martin’s body, however, was not.
✰ Chapter Five ✰
“She was right there. Lying on top of the Ouija board.”
He swept his flashlight in a wide arc around the factory. No sign of a body. Just the candles, now extinguished, and the spirit board. There was also some scattered debris on the floor, including an orange aluminum drink can just inside the circle, tipped over onto its side. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it might have been blocked from view by Tessa’s body.
I crouched down next to the circle to inspect the powder on the floor. One side of the ring was smudged, although that could have been my doing. Pinching a small bit between my fingers, I brought it to my nose. No odor. I brushed the crystals off, then touched my tongue to my fingertips. Cassie was right.
“It’s salt,” I said aloud.
“Licking things off the floor is kind of gross, Townsend. And if that had been fentanyl, you’d probably be dead.”
I ignored him and counted the candles. There were twelve small votives and four large pillar candles. So there were four people here, if Cassie was right about the setup.
“Of course,” Blevins continued, “if it had been something that killed you, that would mean the call to 911 was premature, but not entirely false, as appears to be the case at the moment.”
“She was right there,” I repeated. “Cassie saw her, too.”
Blevins snorted. “Well, the dead don’t just get up and walk away. Not unless we’ve entered the zombie apocalypse. And while we haven’t had any calls tonight about the walking dead, I’m not entirely discounting the possibility. Things just seem to get weirder and weirder since you came back to Thistlewood.”
“Or maybe they’ve been weird for a long time and you were just too obtuse to notice. Fifteen minutes ago, there was a girl lying dead in this exact spot, Steve. There was no pulse. Cassie identified her as Tessa Martin.”
“There’s no blood. No sign of a struggle.”
“I didn’t see a wound,” I finally said after a brief search of my brain’s mental image. “Not even a scratch. Which is odd at her age, but it does happen, right?”
“Sure,” he admitted. “Usually a hidden heart condition. Or an overdose. But again, there’s no body. All I see is evidence that someone has been trespassing. Kids have been known to use this place as a hangout, but the only people I know for certain were trespassing tonight would be you and your daughter. For all I know, you set this entire thing up so you could write a clickbait story—Satanic Cult Thrives in Sleepy Mountain Town.”
“Yeah, right. If that was the case, why would I call you?”
Something tapped against the side of my sandal-clad foot. I looked down to see the orange can I’d noticed before. The can that had been on the other side of the circle only a moment ago.
I bent down to pick it up. The can was cool and damp against my palm. Pacific Boost. It sounded like an energy drink, although I wasn’t familiar with the brand.
Blevins was staring at it, too, wide eyed. He held out his hand, and I gave it to him.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was over by the Ouija board, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe. The door is wide open, though, and old places like this are drafty. Why? Did you think it was a ghost?” Blevins laughed, but there was a slight tremor to it that made me suspect his comment about the wind was little more than false bravado.
“Well, someone was killed here, in case you’ve forgotten.” My own voice sounded firm and steady. That surprised me, since I could feel panic creeping up. The dark seemed to contract around me, pulling itself inward and squeezing the breath out of me. Suddenly, I was certain that when I went outside to the Jeep, Cassie wouldn’t be there.
She called it, Kate had said. Tessa called it and it came and got her.
Without another word, I turned on my heel and headed for the door. It was all I could do to keep from running.
I stepped into the moonlight and saw Cassie in the Jeep, eyes closed, her head moving slightly in time with whatever she was listening to. My lungs began to loosen up, and I sucked in a shaky breath.
“So, let me guess,” Blevins said.
I jumped, which probably delighted him to no end.
“Someone,” he continued, “called in a tip to your handy-dandy Thistlewood Star crime-stopper hotline, didn’t they? ‘There’s a body out at the old mill,’ they said. ‘Hurry, hurry, you might get a big scoop.’ And so you rush out here to find a body.” He put the word in air quotes. “If their phones didn’t work here, it would be a safe bet that yours wouldn’t either, and they knew you’d have to leave to call it in. And while you’re gone—poof. The body vanishes. You’ve been punked, Ruth.”
Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes twinkling.
The Star didn’t
have a crime-stopper hotline, but I’ll admit that I was feeling as though I’d been on the receiving end of someone’s really bad joke. But if so, was Kate in on it? Or had she been set up, too?
It had to be the latter. If not, someone needed to give that girl an Oscar.
But…I had checked the body.
“There was no pulse,” I repeated. “No pulse. I checked! The girl was dead.”
“No need to get angry,” he said amiably. “I have to hand it to those kids, though. They got you good. I wasn’t too happy about you interrupting the CSI: Miami marathon I was watching with Jenny, but you know what? I think this was worth it. Too bad you don’t take pictures of alleged murder victims. At least then you’d have enough evidence that I might call Tessa in to tell her she really shouldn’t play mean tricks like that.”
Cassie was getting out of the Jeep. I took a few steps toward her, planning to tell her to get back in the Jeep. But then a thought hit me, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Tessa’s body is gone.” I turned back to Blevins. “Like you said a minute ago, we had to drive out to the road so that we could get a cell signal. While we were gone, someone came and took the body. And…” I nodded toward the drink can that he was still holding. “I don’t think that can was there before. Cassie, did you see that on the floor when we were inside?”
She shook her head.
“It could have been behind, or maybe even under, Tessa’s body,” I admitted. “But I don’t think so. It was cool and damp, and it’s hot in there. Anything inside that building wouldn’t have felt like it had recently been on ice if it had been there very long. Someone dropped it while they were removing her body. That’s the only thing that makes sense. She didn’t simply pull a Lazarus and walk out on her own two legs.”
Blevins didn’t laugh like I’d thought he would. But I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t exactly taking me seriously, either. “Why would someone take her body?”
