Susan shaded her eyes and pointed to the thin ribbon of highway that connected Titusville and Barkersville. “What’s that patch of raw dirt down there?”
Heather groaned. “They’re breaking ground for an AutoZone.”
“Doesn’t Titusville already have two parts stores?”
“I guess not all spark plugs are created equal.”
“You sound annoyed. Queen Heather not getting her way?”
“If I had my way, it would be off with all their heads.”
Susan had started the “Queen Heather” bit when Heather had been elected to the Pickett County Board of Commissioners two years ago. She had never sought out a political life and still considered herself a one-issue candidate. The Titusville Town Council had proposed a new water intake system well outside its borders, and Heather had viewed it as such a moral affront—stark proof of not being able to live within one’s means and resources, whether environmental or economic—that she had led the successful fight to block the necessary state permits.
At the urging of other environmentalists, she had run on the Democratic ticket during one of those rare times when the conservative mountains were in a wild mood swing, and now she was the outsider on a board composed of native Good Old Boys.
“I don’t know why the lady doth protest so much,” Susan said, mangling a Shakespeare quote. Like Heather, Susan was a professor at Westridge University. They often carpooled for the half-hour commute. Heather taught anthropology, and Susan was a chemistry instructor; this led to many debates about hard versus soft sciences.
“I would just hate to see all this ruined in the course of a single generation,” Heather said.
“It’s being changed, not ruined. Trust me, once we wipe ourselves out with global warming, this view will restore itself in the blink of an eye. Of course, no human will be around to see it, but maybe that’s the point.”
“I hope I never get as a cynical as you.”
“They say if you scratch a cynic, you’ll find a frustrated idealist, so you’re halfway there.” Susan began high-stepping in place so her legs wouldn’t cramp. Her snug gray leggings rippled against her calf muscles. She bent from side to side like a ballerina to keep her back loose.
“I’m going to fight for as long as I can,” Heather said, swiveling her hips to work out the stiffness that was already starting to settle there. “The voters will probably kick me off the board in the next election, so I only have a couple of years to make a difference.”
Susan stopped her stretching. “What the heck is that?”
Heather turned in the direction her friend was pointing. The forest flattened out to a stretch of meadow below them, and from where they were standing, she could make out a driveway, an old cemetery, and a rectangular heap of gray and black. “Oh, you didn’t hear about that? The fire department burned down that old church, and they found a body inside. Big mystery.”
“Pretty creepy.”
“No foul play is suspected. But it’s just another sad sign of change. The property owner is going to develop that whole side of the mountain.”
“Sad?” The male voice startled both of them. Although the trail was a fairly popular destination, they’d never encountered anyone else on the ridge.
Heather turned to see a man sitting on a boulder behind them, dressed in athletic wear bearing the Picket High Pioneers logo. He was flushed and sweating, but he appeared to be in good shape, as if he’d hiked with a brisk pace while reserving a little fuel in the tank. She was surprised they hadn’t heard his approach. This far from civilization, the primary sounds were bird calls, the occasional jet plane, and the muted tinkle of water that squeezed out between the rocks to form springs.
“Change is sad,” Heather said. “Nobody will pray in that church anymore. Some rich person will buy the lot from the owner, since it overlooks the river and has road frontage. Probably an outsider.”
“We’re all tourists,” the man said. He smiled, revealing white, evenly spaced teeth.
It suddenly occurred to Heather that they were a mile from civilization, and if this man was some sort of creep or molester, they had no way to call for help. Neither she nor Susan had packed a cell phone, pepper spray, or any of the usual modern precautions. The forest was so peaceful that it seemed impossible for human violence to enter into its dominion.
Susan edged away from the man. While she was in some ways a thrill seeker, this brand of potential danger held no appeal. But Heather detected no threat from the newcomer. He seemed relaxed, a fellow reveler in the fresh air and sunshine.
The stereotype of the handsome, charming serial killer was way overblown anyway. Most of them were uneducated drifters with a degree of brain damage, not cunning masterminds who seduced victims and outfoxed the cops. They usually avoided arrest through a combination of luck, jurisdictional battles among law enforcement agencies, and the sheer random nature of their impulsive crimes.
“Some say tourists are good for the mountains,” Heather ventured. “They drive by and drop their money out the window, then turn around and go home.”
“What do you think?” The man challenged her, but his tone was friendly. He brushed his brown hair from his forehead, and it stood up in a sweaty, boyish sweep that put her at ease. She couldn’t stop her eyes from flicking to the golden wedding band on his left hand and was annoyed at herself for noticing.
“I support the promotion of outdoor activities and recreation,” she said. “We can turn Pickett County into one of the most desirable outdoor-adventure destinations on the East Coast. We have trails, camping, bicycle routes, fishing, rafting, rock climbing, and—”
The man chuckled and held up his hand. “I’m sold. I’m already a satisfied customer.”
“You’re a tourist? I mean … a visitor?”
“Well, if you take the long view, we’re all just passing through. But my family is native to the area, if indeed a Scottish tourist from two centuries ago can be considered a native. I’d imagine the Catawba and Cherokee tribes would have a different interpretation.”
“We’d better get going,” Susan said to Heather. “Alan’s meeting me at the bottom of the trail. If I’m late, he’ll shoot off flares and send in the rescue teams. You know how he gets.”
Susan folded her arms across her chest, and Heather remembered she was wearing only a sports bra above the waist. She was probably revealing a lot of her own female attributes, but it would just draw attention to that fact if she slid into her sweatshirt. She decided to brave it out without revealing any sign of intimidation or self-consciousness.
“A local family, huh?” Heather said to the man. “I’m an import. I’m Heather Fowler and this is Susan Barinowski.”
The man’s eyebrows lifted. “Heather Fowler? Aren’t you a county commissioner?”
Heather couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride. “First term.”
His eyes narrowed and his tone grew serious. “So imports should move in and decide what’s best for people who have lived here for generations?”
“Come on,” Susan said, tugging Heather’s arm. “Unless you want to be the one to calm Alan down.”
Susan was so edgy that she was full-on lying. She had dated an accountant named Alan, but she’d dropped him after he was charged with tax evasion. She was invoking the image of an overprotective psycho boyfriend to scare off the stranger. Nice ploy, but the man didn’t seem the least bit worried about Alan, fiction or fact.
Heather put her hands on her hips and couldn’t help thrusting out her chest in defiance, remembering Mother’s advice to exploit all her assets. “I was elected by the people of this county, so they must be okay with it.”
His expression subtly shifted and he laughed. “Just kidding. I’m sure you do a great job. If I’m still here next time you run, you have my vote.”
The tension drained from her just a little. A certain segment of the population held her in deep contempt, so she was always happy to find a supporter, even in the mos
t unlikely of settings.
“Thank you, Mister.…”
His smile became even warmer—it seemed to mirror the sun peeking through the bright May clouds. “McFall. Larkin McFall.”
“You … you’re the one who owns that land where the church was,” Heather said. “I read about that in the paper. How awful.”
“Shocking, to be sure,” McFall said, nonplussed. “My lawyer advises me not to comment, but the authorities think he was a vagrant who died there before the fire.”
“Are you still going to develop it all?” Heather said.
He nodded. “All the way to the top. All the way to here.”
Both Heather’s and Susan’s jaws dropped. “Wait,” Heather said. “I thought this was national forest. There’s a sign down by the road—”
“Only a narrow strip is publicly owned,” McFall said. “The rest of it is family land. And it belongs to me now.”
Heather looked down at the black dirt beneath her running shoes. She’d been trespassing all these years. As had so many others.
We’re all tourists.
“Come on,” Susan said, hurrying down the trail. Heather followed, pausing once to gaze back at Larkin McFall, who sat perched on the boulder like the king of all he surveyed.
And he was surveying everything, including her.
Especially her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What a crappy shift,” Melanie said. “Another minute and I would have turned into a greasy strip of fatback.”
“Slippery,” Ronnie said. “I like it.”
Melanie swatted him with her tiny beaded purse. “Pervert.”
“No, just a guy with a pulse.”
“Same thing.”
Downtown Titusville was dead for a Saturday afternoon, and they took the sidewalk side by side. Ronnie wanted to hold her hand, but that felt like such a grade-school move. Dex would have just slapped her butt and wriggled his hips against her. That wouldn’t work on a girl like Melanie, though. Bobby would know how to play it just right. He’d do something cool like toss an arm over her shoulder and fall right into groove.
Brilliant. Everything you do seems to be driving you deeper and deeper into the Friend Zone, even offering her a ride home.
“Good day for tips,” Melanie said, stopping in front of a boutique clothing store that neither of them had ever entered. “Another forty dollars. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a car this summer.”
“I thought you were saving for college.”
“Look at that. Eighty dollars for that cute little crochet hat? If I wanted to be Taylor Swift, I’d just go the easy route and break up with movie stars.”
“This is serious,” Ronnie said, feeling stupid, because Bobby would never be serious in a situation like this one. No wonder she likes him better than me.
He studied Melanie’s reflection in the storefront glass. She’d dyed bronze highlights into her auburn hair. Subtle enough not to offend the conservative crowd at 24/7 Waffle, they were still a tangible sign that she was breaking away, getting ready for whatever the next phase of her life had to offer. Even coated with sweat and grease from her shift, her skin was bright and healthy, and her white button-up shirt gave her a strangely classy look. Her eyes could shift from sky blue to glacial gray depending on her mood, sometimes in a single blink. Of course, she did smell like bacon, and Ronnie wondered why some enterprising celebrity hadn’t bottled the scent into a perfume. Perhaps that all-American buffoon Larry the Cable Guy was tinkering with a formula in a woodshop somewhere at this very moment.
“Don’t worry. I’ll probably go to college,” Melanie said. “But that’s months away. Right now I’m just looking forward to finishing high school.”
“But you need to plan now.”
She turned away from the window, waved to someone she recognized down the street, and said, “Community college isn’t like Westridge. All I have to do is show up at the door with a check and I’m in.”
“If you skip a year, it gets way harder to go back. Look what happened to your mom.”
“She got pregnant at eighteen by choice. I wasn’t an accident.”
Ronnie wasn’t so sure, but he kept his trap shut. If God truly did have a plan for everything and everyone, why bother trying to convince Melanie to go college?
After everything that had happened, though—the red church, the dead people, his mom freaking out—Ronnie couldn’t fully believe in predestination. He was pretty sure God had an absurd sense of humor and was making things up as He went along, and they were all discovering it together, God included.
He had a hunch, though, that in the end God always had the last laugh.
“Your grades are good,” Ronnie said. “It would be a waste if you were stuck waiting tables the rest of your life.”
Her nostrils pinched in a sneer. “Thanks for the lecture, Mr. Gladstone. Jeez.”
Bad move.
“Okay, forget it.”
Ronnie ushered her down to the record store, which had once sold records and CDs before the digital revolution. Pickett County had been among the last holdouts—it still had a mom-and-pop video rental store, Lights, Camera, Action—but the future had finally arrived, and the record store had gone out of business. In an ironic twist, a new owner had opened the shop as a nostalgia center, selling vinyl albums, paperbacks, a few kitschy newtiques, and oddball collectables like sports cards, magazines, and Matchbox cars.
“Do you ever wish we could go back?” Melanie asked, studying a copy of a Jimi Hendrix album with scuffed corners and psychedelic art.
“I don’t know,” Ronnie said. “People talk about ‘the good old days’ and ‘simpler times,’ but I wonder when that was, exactly. Back when your biggest worry was starving to death or catching the bubonic plague? Getting eaten by a saber-tooth tiger? Or life before antibiotics? Or maybe back when mannequins had heads?”
Melanie shook her head wistfully, and Ronnie knew he’d blown it again. Why did he have to say whatever popped into his skull? The thoughts bubbled up from some stinky wizard’s cauldron of nonsense that was probably simmering away even when he wasn’t paying attention. What a freaking dork.
“I meant back when we were kids,” Melanie said. “When Willard’s Drugs was right down there and you could go in and order an ice cream.”
Ronnie thought it was corny how the drugstore had tried to cash in on ‘50s nostalgia, much like this place. But he kept his mouth shut, instead saying something Bobby would say. “Yeah. I’d like to buy you an ice cream right now, because you’re so hot.”
She shook her head again, but smiled a little. Actually, that was more like something Dex would say. Why did this have to be so hard?
“I’d better be getting home,” Melanie said. “I need to shower off this layer of scuzz.”
Ronnie passed up the chance to make another naughty remark, because he wasn’t sure whether Bobby or Dex would come out of his mouth. “Okay. I’d better get home and start studying anyway.”
Ronnie was embarrassed by the grungy Dodge van, but at least he’d been able to borrow it from his mom. As Melanie climbed in and pushed aside the green plastic soda bottles and magazines on the floor, Ronnie found himself worrying the engine wouldn’t start. It whined a little like it needed fluid of some kind, but it rumbled to life and he carefully backed out into the street. He was grateful that traffic was light, because he wasn’t a very experienced driver, and he didn’t need to look any lamer than he already did.
“Got any tunes?” Melanie asked as they hit the town limits.
Ronnie, his attention fixed on the road, said, “All we have is a radio. This car rolled off the lot back when Detroit was covered in dinosaur dookie.”
Melanie fiddled with the dials, but the only thing coming in was the local AM station. Thirty seconds of static-filled Barry Manilow was enough for her to opt for silence.
“See?” Ronnie said. “We’re already back in simpler times.”
Melanie laughed, and Ronnie be
amed with inner joy. Bobby was usually the one who made her laugh. Maybe he just needed to work on his material.
He wondered what it would be like if she asked him to pull down one of the side roads that led to old barns, algae-choked ponds, and knee-high hayfields. There was room in the back of the van to lie down. They could.…
He thought of that old song the AM station played once in a while when it wanted to be racy. He could almost hear the crusty old deejay introducing it now: “The song that Rolling Stone magazine called the song of the Seventies, ‘Chevy Vannnnnnn…’” When he’d first heard it, he’d thought it was romantic. Then he’d figured out that the characters ended up doing it. After that, every time he heard it, he found himself wondering if the strangers had practiced safe sex. A beautiful woman hitchhiking around the country doing every guy who picked her up was a little reckless, even before the AIDS epidemic.
And he also knew that thinking stuff like that was exactly why he never got any. Besides, he was driving a Dodge, not a Chevy. He tried to think of another joke to tell Melanie while they wound along Highway 321, which followed the undulating curves of the river.
He realized they were coming up on the bridge where he’d found Darnell Absher’s body. His pulse was erratic.
Melanie broke the silence by saying, “Pull over.”
At first he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly, but when he looked at her, she had a “pull over” face, and his heart accelerated so that it was pounding as fast as the pistons in the six-cylinder engine block. He almost slammed on the brakes, but that would have totally blown whatever mood was developing.
“Here?” he asked, his tongue thick. He looked around for an exit, a dirt road maybe. All he saw was the Riverview development dotting the hill. Maybe if he went through the gate and…
“By the bridge,” she said.
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