“What are you coloring, Miranda?” asked the girl, smiling brightly down to her.
“It’s you and me. You’re taking me for a walk.”
“That is such a beautiful picture! You are such a wonderful artist,” said the girl. “Would you like me to put your name on your picture?”
“Put your name on it, too! Because it’s you!” said Miranda excitedly, pointing to the blonde girl in the picture.
“Okay! I will put both our names on it!” said the girl.
Miranda stood looking at the names beneath the drawn characters on the paper. Beneath the little girl with the black hair was her name, Miranda. And the name beneath the stick picture of the blonde girl was 'Aimsley'.
A noise came from the hallway behind her, and she quickly folded the drawing and shoved it into her jacket pocket. Harry appeared in the doorway, stepping cautiously all the way.
“Everything all right in here? I heard some noises, and thought maybe the roof was coming down again,” he said.
“Just a renegade raccoon. Spooked me a little, but I'm fine,” said Miranda.
“Well, this is a little farther inside than I am comfortable with. I think it’s about time that we get moving along. Did you get everything that you needed?” asked Harry.
“I think I did,” she replied.
“Okay. Well, then I guess it’s mission accomplished,” he said.
Harry turned and started back in the other direction, and Miranda followed behind him. They said very little to each other on the way back to the main gate. Harry once again secured the large iron gate, and Miranda thanked him once more for allowing her the chance to see the house.
“Will you be staying here in Galestone much longer?” asked Harry.
“I haven’t decided yet if I will stay one more night or leave today still,” she told Harry.
“Well, if there is anything else I can help you with, you have my number on your phone, so you can give me a buzz,” said Harry.
“Thank you, again,” said Miranda. She paused for a second, and then turned to Harry again. “Have you spoken to anyone from the Gale family since they left here?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. Once they left, I believe they'd just as soon put this place behind them and leave it there. I can’t say that I blame them,” he said.
“Thanks,” she told him once more, and got into her car and drove down the road, back to the Wellman House.
Tom was sweeping the front porch of the house when Miranda returned just before he took his lunch break.
“Well, someone was up bright and early this morning. You missed a great breakfast Bev cooked up. You’re more than welcome to join. After all, that is what we do, bed AND breakfast,” Tom said, trying for some humorous small talk. It was well meant, but his delivery needed some work. Miranda just smiled and acted as if she hadn’t realized there was a breakfast that came with her room, and told him how great she thought that was. He nodded, and kept on sweeping up, so she headed up to her room and closed and locked the door behind her.
She pulled the picture out of her jacket again, and looked at the name, Aimsley. She knew that there hadn’t been an Aimsley mentioned in the articles that she had read online. Was there another relative not mentioned? While she pondered this, it came to her that perhaps Mary Ann at the tavern might know who this Aimsley was. Mary Ann seemed to be eager to help her out, so maybe she or her husband might be able to help her with one last thing.
Miranda decided to stay one more night, if Tom and Bev allowed it, and head back to the Buckshot for another meal that night and hopefully get some insight as to who Aimsley may have been to the Gale family. She was anxious, but knew that she had to be patient and not too pushy with the townspeople. They were helpful and friendly, but she knew all too well how small town people had a tendency to be suspicious of strangers asking a lot of questions. So for the time being until dinner, she decided to lay low in her room. She decided to send a short text message to Lydia to see how things went on her class test yesterday. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to share any of what had transpired in the last few days with anyone quite yet, but when she was, Lydia would most likely be the first person she knew she could talk with.
Miranda entered the Buckshot around 6:30 that evening. She had decided she would drive down to the tavern rather than walk this time. No more uncomfortable beastly encounters, with either a lone wolf or Dean lurking in the shadows with some unsavory appetite of his own. She did not notice the black Escalade parked up the road from the tavern, with Harry waiting nervously inside, watching Miranda’s every move since she left the Wellman House.
As soon as she was inside the door, Harry stepped out of the SUV and took a quick glance around. There was no one in sight, so he moved around the corner of the tavern and reached into his jacket pocket while standing near Miranda’s car. Harry pulled out a black object from his pocket that looked similar to a small flash drive. He knelt to the ground, slid a button forward on the object, and reached up under the front wheel well of the car. With a magnet that was built into the device, Harry secured it to the frame of the car. He stood back up, and after another quick glance around, hurried back to the Escalade. Harry then pulled his cell phone from the console of the Escalade and activated an application he had installed on the phone. The screen prompted for an access code, for which he typed six numbers onto the screen. A map appeared on the screen, then zoomed in to a smaller area, and then another even smaller area. Soon, it was identifying a location within 2.5 meters of the device on Miranda’s car.
Harry smiled with a sense of self satisfaction. The investigator that worked for Harry’s law firm had done a splendid job of acquiring the device and the information about Miranda so quickly. Harry had done exactly what he was instructed to do and stayed close to Miranda without her catching his scent through the whole day, working from the Escalade like a mobile office, on the phone and on the computer. A background check on Miranda, records of employment and address changes, and even transcripts from her classes returned unremarkable findings. She had had a few minor brushes with the law back in high school, but that wasn’t exciting either. The firm’s primary investigator, Clarence Stockman, had ways and methods of getting information that go far above and beyond what was generally considered public information, and he did it with much speed and efficiency. He didn’t ask questions about why the firm wanted specific information, and the firm didn’t ask how he acquired it. It was a working relationship that worked well. But even upon compiling everything he could come up with that afternoon, there was nothing in any of it that indicated she was anything more than a college journalism student and regular 22-year-old girl. Perhaps he had jumped the gun in contacting anyone about her arrival in Galestone? The voice on the phone didn’t seem to think that was the case. Not one little bit, actually. It mattered little to Harry. He had a job to do, and he was being paid well for the job. So much so that he paid Clarence $200 extra to bring him the GPS tracking device down from Arlo that he placed on the underside of Miranda’s car. He would stay on Miranda’s trail personally until the associates that his other employer was sending made contact with him. For the time being, it was just sitting and waiting.
Mary Ann waved and said hello across the dining room when Miranda entered the tavern. Miranda smiled and waved back at her, while Ken briefly glanced up from drying glasses behind the bar, only raising his eyes enough to see it was her and continuing like he hadn’t noticed she was even there. There were a few more people in the dining room that night, as well as Dean and another man, a different one from the night before, playing at the pool table once again. Dean paid no attention to her this time, which relieved her a bit. She crossed the dining room and took the seat near the corner where she sat the night before. Mary Ann came out and brought her a Diet Pepsi, and took a moment to sit down and visit with her. There was another younger girl helping out that night, which gave some relief to Mary Ann.
“Did you get everything
that you needed today? Harry stopped in earlier and said that he took you down to the house this morning. He’s such a sweet old guy, at least until you get Ken and him together with a few beers talking about the good old days. Get a few beers in that man, he can become an obnoxious and arrogant S-O-B, if you know what I mean,” said Mary Ann.
“He was very nice,” said Miranda. “It was a huge help to me and my story. I just wanted to come in and thank you and Ken again for contacting him for me.”
“It was our pleasure, sweetie. I just hope to get a chance to read your story when you are all through with it. Maybe you could mail us a copy when you are done with it?”
“I will, definitely. You know, I was wondering if there was one more thing that I could bother you with?” asked Miranda.
“Well sure, I can try,” Mary Ann told her, smiling. Miranda noticed that she was wearing far more make up than she had the night before, and wondered if it had anything to do with Harry’s arrival in town that day.
“When I was at the house, I came across a name on a piece of paper. It was a drawing, and it had the name Aimsley on it, along with the name of the little Gale girl. Do you know who Aimsley might be?” asked Miranda, carefully watching Mary Ann’s expression.
Mary Ann looked on like she was trying to recall something. “Aimsley. Yes…it would be Aimsley Carter. That was the little girl’s nanny. How could I forget that brave young girl? Aimsley was the one that saved the little girl’s life. That house was in flames, smoke coming from every window. Mrs. Gale and her son made it out the front door on their own, but it was Aimsley that got the little girl out.”
Miranda’s eyes widened at this revelation. She felt her heart drop for this person whom she had no memory of whatsoever, and felt a small amount of guilt for not remembering.
“Do you know what happened to her?” asked Miranda.
“You know, I was up in Arlo about six months ago, and I stopped by this bookstore in the old part of town. I'd never stopped there before, and I was curious what they might have for a good cookbook - I am always looking to try and cook up a new dish for the guys that come in all the time - and I would swear that the woman working at the store reminded me a lot of that girl. I think at one time I might have heard that she came from Arlo before she came to live with the Gales. She even looked at me like she might have recognized me, but it’s been so many years now, neither one of us said anything to each other besides talking about the books I was buying,” said Mary Ann.
Miranda sat silently for a couple moments, and then noticed that Mary Ann was looking at her differently than she had seen her look at her before. The smile that had been on her face slipped slowly into a flat, emotionless stare, and Mary Ann slowly slid her hands, which had been outstretched farther upon the table, back to the edge of the table. An unsettling feeling gripped Miranda, but she didn’t know why, or what had come over Mary Ann so suddenly. She looked at Mary Ann with concern, not knowing what she should say, wondering if she was alright. Mary Ann looked intently at her, and finally spoke, her voice lower and slower than it had been before.
“I remember that beautiful little girl…seeing her when her mother and Aimsley would bring her into town. Always dressed in the cutest little dresses, little bows in that jet black curly hair. She had hair like her mother,” said Mary Ann.
Miranda relaxed her shoulders some, not realizing how tense and twisted she had become. She waited for Mary Ann to continue.
“Aimsley came into town one day, pushing a stroller with the little girl in it. I had been on a walk up through town when I came upon them. I stopped, said hello, leaned down and smiled at the happy, beaming little angel. And when I said hello, Aimsley said to the little girl, ‘Miranda…can you tell the nice lady hello?’” Mary Ann said, now almost in a whisper.
Miranda wasn’t sure what to say to her. It wasn’t really a feeling of shame that possessed her at that point. She felt like the deception that she had been playing at had just been revealed, and she did not know what was going on behind Mary Ann's eyes now as they looked upon her.
“I’m sorry,” Miranda told her, as softly as Mary Ann had just spoken.
“It is you,” said Mary Ann. “You’re little Miranda, aren’t you?”
“I think so. This is all something I am trying to put together,” Miranda told her. “I am sorry that I didn’t say more to you before now. I needed to see the house to know for sure if it was true. Please forgive me.”
“You need to leave,” Mary Ann suddenly told her, in a low whisper. “Tonight.”
Miranda was taken aback by this. “I am really sorry. I will leave if you want me too…”
Mary Ann cut her short. “No, you don’t understand. You need to get away from this town and never come back...and never look back!”
“What are you talking about?" asked Miranda, puzzled by Mary Ann’s sudden change in presence. She seemed so much more serious and determined, a side that wasn’t at all apparent in the sweet, down to earth tavern hostess she met the day before.
“This town…that family…there is something just not right about things having to do with the Gales. It was the best thing your grandmother could do for you, getting you away from it all,” said Mary Ann.
“What do you mean? I thought the Gales were benefactors to the town? That they are the ones that breathed new life into it? The ‘lifeblood’ of the town. Isn’t that what you said?’ asked Miranda, more startled by the turn.
“They may have given this town business and prosperity for many years, but there were other things about that family. Strange things happened in and around those people and that house. The night of the fire…my God, please forgive me…when the town found out about the fire…we all didn’t run rushing to help. Not at first. Nobody said it, but we all knew everyone was thinking it. Let it burn…” she said, her eyes starting to tear with the shame of what she was saying.
“What could they have done that was so horrible that you would let an entire family die?” Miranda demanded, feeling the anger begin to reel within her.
“No one knew! I know that sounds horrible, but people would hear things…we could just feel there was something wrong with that family. Something dark,” Mary Ann said, hiding her eyes. Miranda looked around the room, but no one had noticed yet that their conversation took an unexpectedly ugly turn.
“So what was it then? What changed everyone’s mind into trying to save them?” asked Miranda bitterly. She felt deep contempt for this woman that she had seen so kindly and teeming with hospitality when she had met her the day before.
“I did. I pleaded to everyone that there were innocent people in that house. That there was a little girl that had never done anything to anyone, and that it wasn’t her fault who her family was. That she and her mother were good people and didn’t deserve to die,” Mary Ann told her through tears streaming down her cheeks. “Everyone seemed to snap out of whatever had come over them, and almost everyone in town marched out to the house to do whatever they could to help.”
“And maybe if everyone had acted a little sooner, my mother might still be alive!” Miranda said, her voice even louder now. The exchange between Mary Ann and Miranda had escalated to a minor commotion that had attracted the attention of Mary Ann’s husband Ken, standing alongside the bar. He came right over to the two of them and saw his wife in an inconsolable state, her head down on the table, sobbing.
“What the hell is going on over here?” Ken asked in his deep voice loud enough to catch the attention of the men playing pool across the room. Dean looked up from the shot he was about to take; his opponent looked over as well, a younger man swigging from his beer bottle as he peered across the room.
“I was just leaving,” stated Miranda. “I won’t be any more trouble.” She stood up and started to move past Ken toward the door.
“Not before you tell me what is going on here!” he said to her sternly.
He reached out and grabbed Miranda by the shoulder. His intent was t
o slow her down, still demanding an answer. Miranda turned her head towards him; her eyes pierced through him like daggers of ice. In that second it seemed that Ken’s hand was overtaken by a painful cramping, contorting his fingers and causing him to release her immediately. Miranda seemed not to even take notice of the pain he was in, only the fact that he had released her. She kept on for the door, looking back one last time at Ken consoling his wife at the table where she left them. She got into her car, and drove back to the Wellman House.
She felt herself calm more once she was away from the tavern. She couldn’t quite understand how that all came over her so quickly, and how the anger had such a hold on her. There was a lot of different emotions going on inside of her. Confusion, frustration, anger, resentment…sadness for those she never even got the chance to know.
First thing in the morning, she was leaving Galestone. She needed answers now more than ever, and she needed to know what would cause a whole town to almost allow an entire family to burn to death in their home; especially a family that brought prosperity to a dead little corner of the world. Hopefully, the answers would come with Aimsley Carter.
CHAPTER 4
Shortly after midnight that night, a twin engine Learjet 60 touched down at the Chippewa County International Airport. The airport was a small airfield converted from a closed United States Air Force base, with miniscule use compared to the mammoth metropolitan international airports in cities around the world. A skeleton staff worked the terminal at that hour, near the town of Kincheloe, whose population was primarily staff and guards from the three prisons in town, as well as relatives of several of the prisoners housed within the prison walls.
Besides the pilot and two crewmembers, the aircraft had only two passengers. As the door opened, a man stepped into sight wearing a dark colored suit jacket and dark trousers, with a white dress shirt and no tie. Standing about six-foot-two at about 230 pounds with a shaven head, he seemed an ominous presence. The only luggage he had were two black briefcases, one held in each hand. This man was followed by a slightly smaller, less intimidating figure of a man in his early thirties, wearing blue jeans and a light-gray colored sports jacket, again without a tie, with short light-brown hair and rectangular framed glasses. The second man carried a charcoal gray messenger bag over his shoulder, with leather trim on the cover flap.
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