by Lisa Harris
Chapter Five
James stared at this apparition from his past.
That very morning, he’d held close the idea that Cassidy was innocent. Even as Vince and Reid and the rest of the town accused her, he’d believed in her.
But now, looking at the last person to see his sister alive, the only person who could have answered all the questions and given his parents peace… How could he trust a word she said?
If she did do it, if she was responsible for the death of the girl last month, and if she knew where Reid’s daughter was now, the best course of action would be to call the police immediately. They could get the truth out of her better than James could.
But what if Cassidy was telling the truth?
He tried to read her gaze, but it seemed so unfamiliar, he wasn’t sure what to think of what he saw there.
Her hair had been dyed black in high school, and she’d always worn caked-on makeup, along with too much black eyeliner and black lipstick. She’d hidden behind Nirvana T-shirts and torn jeans and black sweatshirts and ugly hiking boots.
Today, she wore no makeup, and her cheeks and nose were dotted with freckles. Her lips were pink, her teeth… she must’ve invested in braces, because the ones that had been crooked were now straight.
The only thing that hadn’t changed were her eyes.
The irises were rimmed in dark green, but inside were flecks of blue and gold and other colors that seemed to change with her mood. Right now, he saw reddish-orange, the color of glowing coals.
Even with all the goth foolishness she’d worn in high school, he’d thought her pretty. Now, she was downright gorgeous.
And, based on the fire in her gaze, furious.
She had a lot of nerve being mad at him.
“Why are you here, Cassidy?”
“I told you, I’m here to find—”
“No.” He swept his arm across his yard. “Here. On my property?”
Her gaze flicked behind her, and a flash of something new entered her expression. He couldn’t have named it, but his heart pounded. “What?”
“I’m probably being paranoid. I thought…” She flicked a gaze at the mountain.
“Thought what?”
She swallowed. “I thought somebody was following me. It creeped me out.”
“It’s a hiking trail,” he said. “Lots of hikers in the summer.”
“I know that.” Did he catch defensiveness in her tone? “This felt different. It felt…”
Was anybody there? The trail was a quarter mile up the mountain from the house. Nobody should be there.
“Explain what you saw.”
She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” After a long breath, she said, “I’m here now. I’m going to have to trust that God knows what He’s doing.”
God? Did she mean that, or was she playing him? Back in high school, he’d told her about his faith, taken her to church. But after Hallie’s death, then his parents’, God felt about as close as Antarctica, and just as cozy.
“If you need to turn me in,” she said, “I understand. I’ll tell the cops everything I know. Not that they’ll listen to me this time.”
“They’d have listened to you last time if you hadn’t taken off.”
She took the baseball cap from her head, yanked out a ponytail holder, and ran her hand through her hair. Not black as it had been in school. Light brown. After she returned the cap, she sighed. “I panicked. I shouldn’t have…”
He was about to demand she finish her sentence when movement caught his eyes. A flash of red in the woods, there and gone too fast to define.
Branches rustled.
Somebody was there.
The kidnapper? A cop on her trail?
He grabbed her arm. “Come on.”
“What?” She whipped her head around to look at the mountain, but he pulled her toward his house.
“What are you doing?” She tried to yank away.
But she was tiny, and he maneuvered her easily. At the foot of his porch steps, he said, “Go inside, lock the doors, and don’t open them for anybody but me.”
Before she could argue, he bolted across his yard.
He reached the edge of the forest and stepped in. There was no trail here, and he hadn’t trimmed back or yanked out any of the underbrush on purpose, a good way to keep strangers from wandering onto his land. He fought his way through and made it to the place where he thought he’d seen the flash of color. Nobody there, of course, but bent twigs told him somebody had been. Cassidy could have done that. Was paranoia contagious?
Or had somebody recognized her? Was that somebody calling the cops right now to report a Cassidy Leblanc sighting?
If so, would the cops show up to take her into custody?
He turned back toward his property, wondering if Cassidy was still there or if she’d run off again, returning to wherever she’d come from even now. That would make his decision for him. He’d call Vince, report that Cassidy was in town, and be done with it.
That feeling in the pit of his stomach, grief and fury, would fade to a gentle ache. It always did.
The real problem was that the emotions he’d experienced when he’d first seen Cassidy hadn’t been grief. And the thought of her disappearing again didn’t bring fury. He’d missed her. Everyone else thought she was a murderer, but what James had felt for her in high school lingered.
He took the key he kept hidden beneath the potted plant on his patio and unlocked the door. She was probably gone, but no matter how many times he’d tried to plug it up, hope was a bubbling brook that wouldn’t be contained.
He closed the door behind him. The house felt unnaturally quiet.
He glanced in the living room. Empty, of course.
But when he peeked into the dining room, he saw her standing in front of the sideboard, staring at his family’s last portrait.
Tears streamed from her eyes.
They looked… authentic.
She must have heard him because she wiped her cheeks. “Being back here. It’s…”
Again, she didn’t finish the thought. Maddening.
“Was anybody there?” she asked.
“Somebody had been.”
“It’s weird, right? That somebody would follow me off the trail?”
“Were you recognized?”
She looked out the window that faced the forest. “I didn’t get close to anyone, at least not that I saw. Even if I had”—she flipped off her baseball cap and stepped closer to him—“do you think anybody would recognize me?”
He turned on the dining room light and took in her features once more. She looked like a different person. Fresh and young and innocent, though she was a decade older than the last time he’d seen her. “Your eyes are distinctive.”
She put the cap back on. “I wore my sunglasses until it got too dark to see.”
After a moment, he broke eye contact, walking into the kitchen.
She followed. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know.” He sat at the old round table that his mother had bought a million years ago. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
She pulled out the chair beside him and sat. “You sorry I am?”
“Why are you?”
“Obviously, I wasn’t going to tell you I was in town. I know it puts you in a terrible position.” She traced a scratch on the table with her fingernail. Even her nails were different. Back in school, they’d always been short, bitten to the quick, and painted black. These were manicured and pale pink.
Pink. This girl who’d eschewed all color ten years prior wore pink nail polish.
“Even though I hoped you knew I would never hurt your sister, I couldn’t count on it.”
“If you hadn’t run—”
“I wasn’t going to tell you I was here, but now that you know, I need help. I’ve been trying for days to find that cave, but they’re far, and… and I pretty much stink at this hiking thin
g. And…” She focused again on the scratch on the table. “To be honest, I don’t even like going up there in the bright daylight. I’m terrified to camp. I want to save Ella, but I fear…”
Fear. He understood that too well.
“Will you help me?”
“No.” He tried to think through his options, but there weren’t many. “I don’t know.”
She pushed back from the table and stood. They watched each other for a moment and, as much as he told himself he should, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from her.
“Okay, then.” Walking through the dining room, she snatched her backpack from the floor and slid it on. At the front door, she turned. “I’m searching again tomorrow morning. I’ll leave at seven.”
“Don’t do that.” A strand of his long hair covered his eyes, and he pushed it back, wishing he’d put it in a ponytail. “Look, I need to think. If we’re going to do this, let’s not do it blindly. Let’s try to figure out where we’re going.”
“How?”
“There are people who know the mountain better than I do.” He needed more information—about Mt. Ayasha, about the investigation, and about Cassidy.
“We don’t have time to wait,” she said. “Ella doesn’t have time—”
“We can’t save her if we don’t know where she is. You said yourself you have no idea where the cave is. It’s a big mountain, Cassidy. There’s no sense wandering around aimlessly.”
“Then when?”
“Do you have a phone number? I’ll do some digging, call you tomorrow night. We’ll make a plan then.”
“It’s a mistake to wait.”
“It’s a mistake to go without a plan.”
Her lips pursed, but she rattled off a New Hampshire number. Did that mean she lived nearby? Or had she bought the phone recently? He snatched his from the table near the door and punched in the numbers.
A phone rang from her backpack.
He ended the call, satisfied he could reach her.
She opened the door and stepped into the dark night.
“Where’s your car? I’ll walk you—”
“I’m okay.”
“I thought somebody was following you. I thought you were afraid.”
The slight lift of her shoulders didn’t tell him anything. “It’s at the lot on the far side of the campground. I should be safe.”
He wasn’t sure about that. “Do you remember Eugene Cage?”
“That learning disabled kid? Barely. Wasn’t he a few years older than us? Always got picked on?”
“Yeah. His dad, Wilson, owns the campground. They were both questioned… back then.”
Her eyebrows hiked. “Really? I never met Mr. Cage. I don’t think I ever spoke to Eugene, though he seemed like a sweet enough guy.”
“It’s possible it was one of them. Back then or following you today.” He snatched his keys from the table near the doorway. “Whoever it was, you’re not walking by yourself.”
He’d trekked the trail enough as a kid that he had no trouble getting to the walkway that circled the campground. Voices and laughter carried in the darkness, along with the scents of grilling burgers and steaks. The sand volleyball court was empty. Most folks congregated outside their campers and tents, though a few people splashed in the lake.
Cassidy kept her head down and said nothing.
Finally, they reached the parking area. A black compact sedan was the only one in the lot. She tossed her backpack onto the passenger seat and turned to face him. “You’ll call tomorrow?”
“Yeah. And you call me if anything happens. Meanwhile, stay out of sight. Everybody’s looking for you. And stay away from the trails. Okay?”
“For one day,” she said. “After that, whether you go with me or not, I’m resuming the search.”
She seemed determined. Was she innocent, as he hoped? Or guilty, as everybody else believed?
Was he a fool to consider going with her onto the mountain? Probably.
He could always turn her in instead. Either way, he needed more information.
Later that evening, James threw the new tire into the trunk of his car and backed out of the parking spot at his mechanic’s, turning away from his home. He wasn’t ready to face the ghosts, not yet.
Five minutes later, he parked in front of Teresa’s. The owner, a sixty-something guy named Ernie, had chosen the name because he thought it sounded exotic. The name was common enough to fit the fare he offered—Mexican food. And Italian food. And a bit of American food to round out the menu.
Odd as the place was, it drew a crowd. At nine-thirty on a Monday night, all the booths along the walls were taken, as were the rectangular tables in the center of the large room. Many of the seats at the bar were filled as well. People munched appetizers and sipped drinks and laughed. The mood was subdued, though, the laughter forced. The news that hovered, the recent murder, the current kidnapping—true joy was gone from the tourist town.
A few heads turned when James walked in, some friendly faces, most just curious about the guy whose sister had been the first victim.
Ten years had passed, but in a small town, nobody forgot.
He weaved among the tables and found a seat near the end of the bar.
Ernie wiped the surface in front of him. “Drinking tonight?”
“Just a Sprite and potato skins.”
James caught the eye roll as Ernie turned to fill his glass. He’d been known to have a drink or two on occasion, but those occasions were rare. Celebrations. Parties he couldn’t get out of. Some said they drank to forget, but for him, drinking only fed the memories and revived the ghosts.
He sipped his soda, ate potato skins, and tried not to think about Cassidy. But she might as well have been seated beside him for all the good that did.
Her presence felt so real that, when someone did sit beside him, he half expected it to be her. Instead, a twenty-something brunette smiled at him. He didn’t recognize her, and she was too dressed up for a Monday night at the local bar. Skinny jeans, tank top with skinnier straps. She propped her stilettos on his barstool. “Wanna buy me a drink?”
He nodded to the margarita glass in her hand. “You’ve already got one.”
She giggled and hiccuped. “Another one, silly.”
“Not interested.”
She leaned closer, not getting the hint. “What are you interested in?”
“Being alone.”
Her eyes brightened, and a smile tipped her too-red lips.
“Alone alone,” he clarified, “not… with someone else alone.”
She got the message and sauntered to a table in the far corner where four other women had watched the scene. When she sat, they all leaned toward her, shooting him furtive glances.
“You know what your problem is?”
James turned to the other side, where Vince had slipped in without him noticing. “Please, enlighten me.”
“With that beard, you look like Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movie.”
“Whatever,” James said.
“Not my words. Lorelai said that. I think you look more like Gimli.”
Across the bar, Ernie’d been pretending not to listen, but his laugh gave him away.
“No clue who that is,” James said.
“The dwarf. The little one who wasn’t a hobbit. You know who I mean.”
He did, but he wouldn’t give his friend the satisfaction.
Vince sipped his drink, said nothing for a minute. Then, “You work today?”
James worked every day. He owned a restaurant in town, but the manager made most of the day-to-day decisions. He traded rare coins and bullion in his spare time because it had been a hobby of his father’s, one he’d come to love. But in the summertime, most of his time was spent in his third business, private backpacking tours.
“I cancelled the tour I had booked for this week when Ella went missing. In case Reid needs me for something.”
“You’re a good friend.”
James shrugged. Wasn’t much he could do, but he’d be there for Reid. “Where’s your girlfriend tonight?”
“Away on business.”
Lorelai worked in sales for Hamilton, the clothing manufacturer that kept Coventry and the surrounding communities afloat. Her work took her out of town often.
“Just as well,” Vince said. “It’s not as if I could spend much time with her with everything going on.”
“Right. And your need to hang out at townie bars and drink.”
Vince sipped his beer and lowered his voice. “You’d be amazed at the tidbits I can pick up just by listening. People know more than they realize. They see things, hear things.”
“You pick up anything good today?”
“Nothing but a lot of speculation. Guy at the far table’s trying to resurrect the theory that Eugene Cage was involved.” Vince helped himself to one of James’s potato skins. “Everybody wants to pin it on the weird kid.”
Eugene’s disability had always set him apart. In a small town where everybody knew everybody, sometimes the worst thing was to be set apart. His disability was severe enough that he’d never had a job except maintenance at his father’s campground.
Once upon a time, the campground had belonged to James’s family, but his father had sold it to Wilson Cage when James was in elementary school. They’d never had any trouble with Wilson as neighbors or as owners of the campground that abutted their property, but both Eugene and Wilson had been questioned in Hallie’s disappearance. The news media had reported Eugene was a “prime suspect,” but their information was faulty. The only suspect the authorities had ever seriously considered was Cassidy.
“Any reason why they suspect Eugene now?”
Vince finished off the potato skin and reached for another.
James moved the plate away. “Get your own, man.”
Vince chuckled and ordered another plate. “Aside from the fact that he’s different? No.”
“You talk to him?”
Vince leveled James with a look. “Not you, too. The guy’s slow. That doesn’t make him a killer.”
“It doesn’t make him not a killer, either.”
