When Darkness Falls

by Chanda Stafford

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2017

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Thanks for reading When Darkness Falls. I hope you enjoyed it!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Thanks for helping me close tonight, Austen.” My mom flashes me a grateful smile, dimly lit by the dashboard lights. She coaxes our rusted blue hatchback around a bend in the road. “When Dominic called in and quit this morning, I thought I was screwed.”

  “No problem.” I gaze out the side window and watch the twinkling stars overhead. “I can always use the extra money. But if you want me to come more often, I really should get a car.”

  She chuckles and flexes her hands on the steering wheel. “You know I’d help if I could. I was going to talk to your dad about it, but . . .” She sighs.

  “He’s been working a lot, I know.” Even to me, the words sound hollow.

  “Just keep saving your money. I’m sure it won’t be too long before you can afford one.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be nice to have a car before I graduate,” I grumble. It’s the same line she’s given me since I got my license. At least when I turn eighteen in a few months, she can’t tell me what to do. She chuckles, and I sit back with a huff, blowing a lock of long red hair out of my face in the process.

  At the bottom of a hill, a pair of hazard lights blinks rhythmically in the darkness. “Did someone break down?”

  My mom’s brow furrows. “Looks like it. They probably got a flat tire or ran out of gas. Let’s see if they need any help.” She slows down and pulls over behind the other car.

  “Is that Dad’s car?” I lean forward, our previous conversation forgotten. “It is! Look at the bumper sticker.” I jab my finger toward the “My daughter will stop the zombie apocalypse” bumper sticker I got him last Christmas.

  She glances at her phone. “That’s strange. He didn’t call or text to let me know he was having car trouble.”

  “Why is the passenger door open?” Unease slithers up my spine.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he stepped out to look for something.” She flicks our own hazard lights on and turns off the car. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  She’s nuts if she thinks I’m going to stay inside the car if Dad’s in trouble.

  Mom sighs when I hop out after her. “Why do I even bother?” she mutters.

  I tap my phone’s flashlight icon. “I have no idea.”

  She ignores my comment and approaches the passenger side of the car to avoid walking in the road. “Greg?” She peers into the car and then stumbles back, her high-pitched shriek echoing through the night. She spins around, eyes wild, and tries to push me away. “Get back to the car!”

  I skirt around her, ignoring her command. An icy breeze snakes through the warm summer air. The narrow beam from my phone illuminates a dark puddle soaking the gravel shoulder like an oil spill.

  My mom fumbles in her pocket for her cell phone.

  “Maybe he got an oil leak or something.”

  She doesn’t answer me.

  It’s not until I’m at the door that I realize it’s blood, and it’s everywhere. Coating the door, the shattered window, the dashboard, and the woman slumped over, her face obscured by matted, blood-soaked hair gleaming in the car’s interior lights. Even then, my foggy mind, so used to video games and movies, refuses to process what I’m seeing until Mom’s hand clamps down on my shoulder and she drags me away.

  “Get in the car,” she says, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I’ll call the cops from there. They’ll figure this out.”

  “But . . .” The words die in my throat. There’s a woman, covered in blood, in my father’s car. “Maybe he went for help . . .” Panic sets in. He’s got to be around here somewhere. People don’t just vanish.

  “That must be it.” Fear paints my mom’s face a stark white. After shoving me into the car, she climbs inside and slams the lock down.

  “What happened?” My thoughts race. Dad was supposed to be working late. That’s why he didn’t pick up my brother and sister. He shouldn’t have been in his car, in the middle of the night, with a dead woman. Fear rises from the pit of my stomach.

  “I don’t know.” She pulls out her phone and punches several buttons.

  “Nine one one, please state your emergency.”

  I can barely hear the tinny voice echoing over the line.

  “My—my name is Maria Gillet, and I found my husband’s car on the side of US 23. He’s gone, but there’s a woman in the car, and I think something’s happened to her.”

  The 911 operator asks for more information before telling her there’s a unit in the vicinity, and the police will be here as soon as they can.

  “As soon as they can” feels like hours before red-and-blue lights flash into our rearview mirror.

  My mom’s hand creeps across the seat to grip mine tightly. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  I’m too numb to respond. Worry over my dad clouds everything else. I want to yell, scream, and shout that things aren’t okay. There’s a dead woman in Dad’s car. It isn’t a nightmare, where we can wake up and forget it ever happened.

  Moments later, one of Misery Bay’s three police officers parks behind us, Mom reluctantly removes her hand from mine and gives me a stern look. “Stay here and lock the doors. I’m serious, Austen. Do not test me this time.”

  I close my eyes, and an image of the dead woman flashes behind them. Dad would never have done that. No, he’s the kind of guy who takes spiders outside and live traps the mice that sneak into our house every fall. Maybe he was kidnapped; that would explain it. I lean forward, letting my hair fall like a curtain in front of my face, as if that could hide me from all the ugliness outside. A single thought courses through my brain. Where are you, Dad?

  My mom slams the door and waits until I engage the locks before she follows the police officer over to my dad’s car. I can tell the moment he sees the bloody body because his back stiffens, and his hand hovers over his gun. It isn’t any wonder he’s surprised; things like this don’t happen in our small town.

  Two other police officers show up, followed quickly by several Michigan state troopers. I roll the window down and listen to them ask the same questions over and over again. I tune out, worry for my father eating at the back of my mind.

  After talking to Mom, one of the state cops walks up to me and opens the door. “Hey there, Austen. I’m Officer Pete Martin. Do you mind it if I talk to you for a minute?” He flips open a little pad of paper and plucks a pen from his pocket.


  “It’s okay, honey,” Mom calls out, craning her head around the other police officer’s shoulders. “They said they can talk to us here, that way we don’t have to go down to the station so late. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  “Okay.” I don’t know what help I’ll be able to give, but if I know something that’ll help them find my dad, I’ll do what I can.

  “Tell me about tonight, specifically what led up to finding your father’s car?”

  As I stumble through the story, my mom joins us and squeezes my shoulder. Officer Martin then asks us some questions about Dad, his work schedule, and what he might have been doing out here this late at night.

  “That’s all I have for tonight,” the police officer says. “We’ll touch base in the morning.”

  As we pull back onto the road, Mom calls Grandma and asks her to keep Molly and Brett for the rest of the night. She glosses over the situation, saying she’ll talk more in the morning but that everything’s okay.

  “I don’t want to go into it,” she snaps. “Can we please talk about it later?”

  Since Grandma has the tenacity of a terrier, she’s probably demanding answers. My mom mumbles something about the crappy reception and hangs up.

  “Sorry.” Mom starts the car. “You know how your grandma gets.” A tow truck crests the hill behind us, lights flashing.

  A couple of coroners from Alpena wrestle a rolling stretcher off the side of the road and steer it toward the car.

  “What do you think happened to Dad?”

  “I have no idea. I wish I did.” Her voice is soft, and concerned.

  “Why was he with that woman?”

  Mom bites her lip, a trait so reminiscent of my own that I almost catch myself doing the same thing. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  As she guides our car onto the highway, a news van from our local station pulls in. It’s a good thing we’re on our way out. I don’t think I could deal with the anyone else, right now. Mom swears under her breath, but doesn’t say another word until she pulls onto the driveway leading to our four-bedroom house.

  “There has to be a reasonable explanation for this. There must be.” She puts the car into park and rests her head on the steering wheel. “Oh God, Greg, where are you? What happened?”

  After my mom goes to bed, I sit next to the window and watch tiny sparkling lights dance through the trees. Fireflies. Faint, airy music drifts in from somewhere outside. It’s a haunting melody, lyrical and otherworldly. My body sways with the sound, and my mind drifts away.

  “Daddy, why can’t I go out to play?”

  He ruffles my hair and pulls me close. I curl my six-year-old body into his warmth. “It’s not safe, my love.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “There are dangerous monsters out there in the forest. Creatures that eat beautiful little girls like you.”

  “But they’re my friends. We like to sing and dance. They always want to play and have fun.”

  “If you keep going out there, they’ll want to steal you away, and I won’t let you go.”

  I wrap my arms around him. “It’s okay, Daddy. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good.” He smiles down at me. “Your mommy and I love you very much and don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Chapter 2

  The morning illuminates the dark shadows under our eyes. Mom calls the police station while hot coffee percolates on the counter. I hover around her, eager for the least bit of news. The cops have to know something by now.

  “Greg Gillet. Yes, I’m his wife. I wanted to check and see if you’d found anything.” She pauses, and I get up and pour her some coffee.

  “No,” she murmurs, her expression crestfallen. “I haven’t heard from him, either. Yes, of course I’ll let you know if I do. Where will I be? The diner, of course. Austen and I—” She glances at me, and I hand her the white Number One Mom cup. “We’re opening up, and we’ll be there most of the day.” She listens for a couple of seconds more and takes a sip. “Thank you. I understand.” She sighs and ends the call.

  “Nothing?”

  She shakes her head, and my heart plummets.

  Defeat hunches my mom’s shoulders and deepens the lines around her mouth. “Sorry, kiddo.” She stares at the blank screen on her phone. “I’ve called him a dozen times, texted him even more, and nothing. I have no idea what’s going on, but there has to be a logical explanation for this.” Her words are hollow; she doesn’t believe them, either.

  Pain wells up within me, but I push myself to my feet anyway. “What logical explanation could there be? We found a dead woman in his car, and he was gone. Do you think he’s dead, too?”

  She winces. “No, of course not. Your dad, he . . . he wouldn’t hurt anyone. I know he wouldn’t.”

  I chew on my lip. She’s right. There has to be a reason behind what happened. If Dad wasn’t responsible for that woman’s death, then why did he run? “Do you think he’s in trouble?”

  She pours the rest of her coffee down the drain and rinses her cup, her movements stilted. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Tears burn my eyes. Dad’s got to be okay. He has to be.

  “I wish I knew more, but I don’t.”

  “What about Molly and Brett? What are we going to tell them?”

  “I think we should keep it quiet for now. I don’t want them to panic.”

  I nod, imagining my seven-year-old sister freaking out about the dead woman, even though my ten-year-old brother would never show anything as childish as fear. “They’ll hear it from someone, though. Small town, remember?”

  She leans against the kitchen counter. “True, but it’s summer break, so we’ll just keep them either at our house or at Grandma and Grandpa’s. I’m sure the cops will figure out what happened pretty quickly.”

  Fear for my father creeps into my consciousness. There’s more to the story, I know it. Dad ran away for a reason. What if he didn’t leave on his own? What if someone made him? I strangle the doubtful voice in my head. Dad will be fine. I’m sure of it. “So what exactly do you want to tell them?”

  She ponders this for a moment. “I thought about telling them he went camping and leave out the rest.”

  “They won’t buy that. We haven’t gone camping in years, and we’ll have to keep them away from the TV and Internet, or they’ll find out for sure.”

  “If they go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house every day, I think we can pull it off. They don’t have the Internet, and Grandma only watches soap operas.”

  Mom walks over to the big bay window overlooking our backyard. Her eyes lose focus as she stares at the grass that always needs mowing and the bushes growing wild. “I told Grandma what happened.”

  I grimace, imagining my grandma’s tirade. At four foot nothing, she packs a Polish punch worse than someone twice her size. “What did she say?”

  She waves her hands dismissively. “She agrees that your father would never hurt anyone, and she’ll do her best to keep your brother and sister from finding out what happened.” She gives me a watery smile. “I think that’s all we can hope for.”

  She brushes her hands off on her jeans and gives me a determined look. “So, are you ready to go? The diner isn’t going to open itself. Besides, it’ll be good for us. I don’t know about you, but I can’t sit around the house all day waiting for the phone to ring.”

  After dropping off Brett and Molly at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, we head to Rosie’s Home Run Diner, which sits about a mile between our house and theirs. As we pull into the little gravel parking lot, I notice a couple of the regulars are already waiting for us.

  “Good morning, Mr. Harland.” I hold the door open for him.

  “Morning, Ms. Austen.” He hobbles in, brandishing a cane topped with a brass eagle’s head in one hand. “How are you this fine day?”

  He must not have heard the news. I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Fine, fine.”

  He winks at me and joins his partner-in-crime, Mr. Fi
tzgerald, at the counter. When the newspaper boy, Tory Carpenter, a blond-haired menace to society, tosses the paper at our front door, I race out to grab it and scan the headline: “Local Woman Found Dead under Mysterious Circumstances.”

  The air whooshes out of my lungs. Crap. They must have really rushed that through to get it in the paper today.

  I take off the front page, fold it, and stuff it in my pocket before handing the rest over to our customers.

  “Thank you.” Mr. Fitzgerald opens the paper and lays it flat on the crossword section.

  All of the tension running through my body disappears. He didn’t notice.

  “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” After they agree, I head behind the counter and finish helping Mom get the diner ready for the day.

  The busywork soothes me and takes my mind off the panic crouching in the back of my head. Chopping vegetables doesn’t leave much room for any other thoughts, unless I want to slice off a finger. Staying busy is a blessing, otherwise I keep flashing back to the blood-spattered dashboard and the reporter whose death no one except my dad and the killer can explain.

  My hand hovers over the dry-erase board, frozen. Today’s special was supposed to be tuna melt with sweet potato fries. Dad’s favorite. I close my eyes as they start to burn. Stop it. After giving myself a mental shake, I force my fingers to scribble down the words before stowing the marker in my pocket. It’s a stupid tuna sandwich. It doesn’t mean anything.

  “Austen,” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Can you flip the sign around?”

  “Yeah, sure.” The front door chimes, and I paste a smile on my face. “Good morning, Mr. . . .” My voice drops when I notice it’s not one of the half dozen or so elderly men who usually drift in every day.

  The guy who walks in the door is maybe a year older than me and about a foot taller, which puts him at around six feet. His golden-brown hair is longer on top and trimmed shorter on the sides. He has chocolate-brown eyes and an easy grin with dimples that make my heart beat double time. We don’t have guys like this in Misery Bay. He approaches me, one hand stuffed in his pocket, and the other clutching a piece of paper.