At the end of the story, he sighs animatedly. The message is received and the feeling is mutual: Let’s not worry about anything tonight. Hours ago, I couldn’t have imagined a force great enough to pull my attention from Willa Frye. Now, the idea of wrapping it up only persists in my mind, by the shallowest of roots, due to my compulsive need to finish everything I ever start.
So we call it a night. We’re both in desperate need of a shower, so we take one (at a normal temperature, for Todd’s sake) and change into comfortable clothes for sleeping.
It almost feels like we’re back in Wometzia, or even Riverdell, retiring after a busy day. Almost. That ‘almost’ turns in my mind, though, the sole inhibitor of my full appreciation for the night. The rogue pebble stuck in my shoe as I try to appreciate the Grand Canyon. The ‘almost’ is the essential difference between now and Wometzia.
Wometzia was, for a time, safe. But our safety was compromised by yours truly, in the name of having something to do. And now here I am, doing the same thing. Do I get bored like this? Bored enough to risk my life (and, by extension, those of my loved ones) for the cheap, temporary rush of the hunt?
Apparently.
No, this isn’t like Wometzia. Wometzia was where were escaped to for safety—and we found it, at first. But here in Ghost Fork, we’re in the middle of a hunt. I have a target on my back, and with Todd at this proximity, he’s got a good chance of getting caught in the blast, should my adversary manage to fix their sight on me for long enough to pull the trigger.
The thought makes me wary of growing too attached to the situation, but at the same time, this is the singular thing, the sole desire, I’ve had ever since I settled back down. I’ve been dying for Todd to find me somehow and move in, and now here he is. But now that the fantasy is reality, I’m obligated to consider the potential consequences of it.
This stream of preoccupation comes as we fall into our old sleeping position. I want to revel in the movement, to invite the repose of the night, but I’m sure that neither of us will be able to sleep all night anyway.
My intense need to be the custodian of Todd’s safety is at odds with my tenuous willingness to rock the boat now that I’m finally at a comfortable float. I don’t want Todd to leave—unless he’s not safe here. But there’s a chance that that’s the case.
But feeling Todd’s steady breath against my neck, these worries float away as easily as if his exhalation carried them away. Maybe I can allow us this night of rest after all. We deserve it, for fuck’s sake.
After I make that concession, I do in fact fall into a sleep more restful than I’ve had in…well, a little over a month.
In that descent into unconsciousness, the stage of my mind opens on a horribly familiar scene: a dream I had on my way out of New Mexico, in which I was ravenously consuming Todd’s hand. Relief sweeps over me this time, though, as my plate has none of his limbs on it. Instead, it’s a heaping pile of pretzel rolls, which we enjoyed on his birthday a couple of months ago. He’s laughing at a joke or the general silliness of that night or something. I’m not concerned with what’s funny. Only that he’s laughing.
The curtains close on that stage and I emerge into the light of morning. Late morning, judging by the amount of sunlight marking the seams of my blackout curtains. Todd’s breath is steady and smooth as ever, and his thumb gently moves back and forth in the center of my chest.
“Are you safe here?” I say. I fear the answer more than I care to admit, but for the sake of allowing myself to enjoy his presence, I must know.
“As safe as you are,” he says. I believe him, but it doesn’t make me feel any better; I’m not entirely confident in my own safety.
“I guess we need to talk about that, huh?”
I roll over to look at him. To my surprise, his look is not one of melancholy but one of joy.
“Your mom is a badass, remember?” he says.
I give him my not following so far, but continue look.
“She’s tapped into the communication systems of the bad guys. She knows what they know. So, just like she warned you about those guys in Los Angeles, she can warn us about any impending fuckery. If they get so much as a whiff of where we are, she’ll know, and she can let us know in turn. We’re safe.”
At that, my prior worries flutter away in a cloud of euphoric bliss; I’m entirely free to enjoy Todd’s presence. And in this realization, I bury my face in his chest and pull him with force just shy of breaking my nose on him. He pulls on me, too, but with a merciful gentleness.
“So, what now?” I say.
“Whatever we want, m’dear,” he says.
In an instant, my mind goes to the old days: eating our snacks and reading books, watching movies, and cooking together. However, my apartment is sparsely equipped in regard to entertainment or cooking equipment, so our options are quite limited.
“Let’s do nothing,” I say.
So we do.
Many people belong to the school of thought that doing something is a requisite to quality time, that the time in those transitions—driving to a restaurant, sitting through the previews of a movie—don’t count. But Todd and I have our own lowkey versions of quality time. Sure, we do the regular things, but something as simple as sitting in each other’s company while we read our separate books is quite enough for us. In this case, we simply hold each other and listen to each other’s breaths and heartbeats, a luxury we’ve been without for too long. And that’s enough.
While I enjoy our little bout of nothingness, I’m left to wonder where things are set to go from here. To remain in this state of hidden bliss together forever sounds wonderful, but the more realistic faculties of my brain respect that that won’t be happening. This confusing yet satisfying limbo is a small, effective pocket of comfort, but as much as the passage of time brought Todd to me, the same threatens to whisk him away, and I’m left to guess at what the catalyst might be.
Even if the universe permits us to stay here with each other, will our natures allow us to sit tight and wait for things to right themselves? Already I’ve shown myself how easy it is to lure me out of hiding with the appropriate bait.
Todd is more patient than I am in the long-term, content to busy himself at home with cooking or reading or home improvement projects. Last month, he built a bookshelf. Who knows what endeavors he might undertake in my currently far less accommodating apartment? He might take up crochet or knitting, or writing, art, or film. Todd’s capacity for appreciation of these things—both creating and observing—is one of my many draws to him. Try as I might, however, this is not a trait we share—at least not on the same level. It’s true that I can become engrossed in a book or a television series, but the process of creating things was always more frustrating than gratifying to me. I’d commit to drawing a bird, but let myself get distracted after detailing only a couple of feathers. As a child, I tried to write stories now and then, but if my damsel was still in distress after two pages, the poor bitch would either have to save herself or stay in her distressed state forever, because I was not going to write out a proper ending for her.
As if Todd were just strolling in my mind, he says, “So, what of that Willa Frye case? You still haven’t really looked through that envelope yet.”
I know it will only keep us occupied for so long, but my excitement balloons at the prospect of working a case with Todd again, even if the case is technically closed and colder than week-old penguin shit. Given his peerless ability to enjoy obscure, irrelevant stuff, I figure he’ll be just as into this case as I am.
I’ve told him a handful of details from my past couple of days, but I didn’t get into the details of the case, so I do that now.
Twelve
I always enjoy watching Todd puzzle over things. He gets this serious, concentrating look on his face, and you can almost see the image of his mental workings through his eyes. The pieces form, with their unique and specific edges, and he flicks them around in his head until they come together
, all at once in a coalescent mesh.
So I lay the pieces out in front of him. But as soon as I’m finished, I can tell that he has reached the same conclusion as I did.
“We need more. Evidence, testimonies, whatever. It’s incomplete.”
“Well, shall we see if there’s anything useful in the folder?” I say.
“We shall.”
Once more, the headline slides out of the envelope, naturally followed by the article itself, which offers no new information. Todd and I agree that the article is included as a sort of cover page for the contents of the folder; our mystery helper is organized and thorough, as I’ve seen.
The next item in the folder is an interview with Ginger Garrity, who apparently shared a room with Willa at the time. Most of the interview, conducted by a reporter for Thunder Rumble Press, runs in labored circles around information we already know, but one small exchange is highlighted, a series of bright yellow bars on the otherwise black and white print.
“You said she was acting strange?” said the reporter.
“Oh, yes. She was all giddy the day it happened, but she wouldn’t tell anyone why. She had this little box, too, she always had it with her, and that day especially she clutched it to her chest like her heart would stop if she let go.”
Todd looks at me. “Didn’t you—?”
“Yeah,” I say. I pull the tiny box out of my backpack, carefully removing its protective layers of paper towels. The key, I recall, is still in my pants pocket. I retrieve that, too, and fit it into the lock.
The same satisfying click as before marks its opening, and I pull the note out and unfold it for Todd to see.
“Dubz,” he says. “Like ‘W?’ Like for Willa?”
“That’s what I assume,” I say.
“What else is there?” he asks. I smile; he’s like a child sorting the contents of his stocking on Christmas morning.
There’s only one more piece, tucked behind that interview. It’s yet another interview with Ginger Garrity. Again, most of the interview presents no new information, but a few yellow stripes tell a bit more of the story.
“Oh yeah, Thad was weird to her. I can’t really put it into words, but he just treated her different. Not like he was favoring her. Just…different. But I guess we know why now. I wish I could tell you I’m surprised, but I’m just not. We kind of suspected maybe something was going on, but maybe a little more tame.”
I look to Todd, but he seems just as stumped as me.
“We still need more,” he says. I can tell he’s getting just a touch agitated. This delights me, as it means he’s been drawn into the old case with me.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” I say in my best old-timey salesman voice. I fish the remaining contents from my backpack and slap them onto the counter with a heavy thwap.
“Done some homework, have we?” he says.
“Well, I picked it up. I haven’t really looked into any of it yet.”
“Can we dig in?” His child-on-Christmas-morning resemblance deepens.
“Well, I think it may be time to meet my secret admirer.”
“The stalker guy who gave you the key?”
“And probably this folder, yes. I feel like he’s the one with the most solid insight into the case. And if nothing else, I can show you the creepy room where he put a bunch of this together.”
“All right,” says Todd after a second’s consideration.
I put the heap of papers back into my bag and sling it around onto my back.
It’s still early in the day, but I’m not as worried about being seen in daylight with Todd at my side. One person walking around on his own may be conspicuous, but two people just look like a couple of friends out for a hike. I’ll really only need to worry about visibility when we arrive.
“So, where are we going to meet this guy?” Todd asks. “We don’t have much of a way to contact him, do we?”
“No,” I admit, “but I figure he’ll probably be at the cottage, and if he’s not, we can look through the stuff he has there until he shows up.”
“Perfect. Ready to roll when you are.”
The morning air has a nip in it just like last night, but to a lesser, more friendly degree.
If my freshly bolstered confidence last night made me feel good about tackling this, Todd’s arrival has accomplished that tenfold. The pair of us stroll through the town, heads held high, straight on out toward the western boundary. The sun warms our backs and provides a pleasant contrast to the slight but noticeable chill in the air.
I suppress the mighty urge to grab Todd’s hand—that would draw attention. Instead, I content myself with glancing at him every few seconds. The minute we’re out of the general town’s line of sight, he pulls my hand into his and squeezes tight.
Conversation flows freely and easily between us, and unless I’m actively thinking about the case, I accidentally convince myself that we really are just going on a hike, like we used to do back in Oregon.
The weather certainly accommodates it; as the sun rises, a warm breeze plays at our hair and faces as it whispers by, now with just the slightest dampness.
These woods are more charming than I would have believed during my journey the other night. I was hopped up on adrenaline and the thrill of exploration, augmented by the adventurous rush of leaving my apartment for the first time in the while. The moon cutting through the darkness at night cast a sense of mystery and enigma over the vegetation, and every tree and bush was rife with the potential of critters or other people hiding behind them. But now, bathed in the fullness of the late morning sun, the intoxicating sense of obscurity is all but banished along with the darkness. It lacks the artistic melancholy of the night, to be sure, but it fills that gap with brilliance of the senses. Where before I appreciated the nothingness of it, now I can appreciate the opposite.
The colors themselves seem to come alive, leaping and shouting and bouncing and singing. Various hues manifest on flowers and even weeds, all wild and in the final leg of their cycle before winter returns to claim them. The sky is a magnificent blue, a concept almost foreign to me as I grew up in rainy, cloudy Oregon, but which I now enjoy. Birds’ songs fill the air with the same abundance as the colors—fast, timid chirps as well as contented little melodies. In the few intermittent gaps during which the birds are quiet, the wind—even the wind!—seems to take on life. The long grass sways and brushes in sweeping whshhhh noises. This sensation is familiar to me, as I heard it many times in Riverdell, but after the flat desert of New Mexico, I surprise myself at how excited I am to hear this again.
The higher we climb, the more of the waterfall’s mist we get, and the dampness in the air takes on a chill as we approach our destination, but we still have a way to go yet.
Before I know it, we’re outside the old, abandoned cottage. In an almost mocking contrast with the surrounding environment, the abundant light does nothing to lend the cottage beauty. The awkward angles at which the joints have worn and sagged look even more dilapidated, the broken boards and planks seem even more jagged, and the darkness inside is at a much opaquer contrast with the light outside. In that contrast, the shadows fold and stretch and bend.
“This is the place?” Todd says.
“Home sweet home,” I say.
“To whom?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“Hello?” I call as I step through the empty window frame. My call is largely muffled by the dust and elicits no reply.
Todd climbs in after me with slightly less grace and looks around. I can almost hear his brain at work, committing everything he sees to memory.
Todd has the best memory of anyone I’ve ever met. Not that there are regularly held ‘Memory and Retention’ competitions, but his ability to recall and pinpoint is astounding and I’m confident that, were such a competition to exist, Todd would be second only to Kim Peek, the man who inspired the story for Rain Man. That man is simply superhuman.
In addition
to his memory, Todd’s company and assistance on cases is invaluable thanks to his fully efficient ‘what-if’ machine, useful in creating and dismissing scenarios rapidly. In most partnerships, to achieve the same result requires much back-and-forth.
Though I can feel Todd’s curiosity pulling in every direction, I lead him away from the living room and toward the stairs.
“You came here alone at night?” Todd asks.
“Yes, sir.”
“Jesus. It’s creepy as hell.”
“We’ve done worse. Remember that creepy-ass barn where we found Stan?”
“Well yeah, but we were together for that. No way I would have gone in alone.”
“As I recall, you were the one to suggest splitting up in that house.”
“I bluffed. Thought it would make me seem tough. Did it work?”
“Totally.”
I take Todd upstairs and toward the bedroom dedicated to Willa Frye. For a wild second, I worry that I’ll open the door upon an empty room, but as I enter, all of the stuff that was there before remains so, exactly as it was that night.
I step to the side to let Todd in. He reads each piece with enthralled and concentrated intensity. I could have shown him the photos on my phone, which is now freshly charged. However, this trip has a more prevalent, pressing purpose: to meet my mysterious companion. He’s not here in this room, but according to the mental feelers beyond my immediate, conscious understanding, he’ll be here soon. And, even if that sense is incorrect, Todd and I can busy ourselves with this small treasure trove of information.
As Todd becomes engaged in the articles on the wall, I cross to the open window and pull it closed. This, I think, will signal our presence to the man.
We’re here. Come, new friend, and we can indulge our mutual interests.
“Most of these are all the same exact thing,” says Todd, “and he doesn’t even have anything highlighted like he did on the stuff in the envelope. Also, they used the wrong ‘its’ in this headline. Hopefully there’s some good stuff in that backpack or this might come to a sputtering halt before it even gets going. And since you got me into this case, I'll hold you accountable for blue-balling me after such a dry spell.”
Thunder Falls Page 12
