by Meg Muldoon
He didn’t answer. He slid a few dollars to the cabbie and told him he wouldn’t be needing that ride.
A feeling of excitement fluttered in my stomach.
For better or for worse, I always had been the impulsive type.
Chapter 51
“Poor woman,” he said, digging his hands deep into his jean pockets and letting out a sigh.
I couldn’t help but sigh, too.
Zerelda Richmond’s story always had a way of getting to me. Of striking some sort of chord.
I could tell that it struck a chord with Fletcher, too.
We were walking along The Crooked River on the same hiking trail that the stranger had been walking on when he’d surprised me during my liquid picnic earlier that week. Some people might have done crazier and wilder things if they thought they were going to be arrested for murder in a matter of hours. But going for a walk along the river, soaking in the high desert sunshine, and breathing in the fresh air suited me just fine.
And it seemed to suit Fletcher too.
I’d just gotten done telling him about how the town got its name. About Zerelda Richmond and how she’d drowned herself in these waters over 150 years ago after her husband was swept away.
“Kids around here say you can see her ghost sometimes on the banks,” I said. “Still looking down at those waters.”
I stopped walking and went over to the bank. I stood looking down at the fast flowing river, running like it had places to go and people to see.
I took off my jacket.
“You ever see the ghost of Zerelda?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to answer exactly.
Sometimes, in my deepest, darkest moments of sadness, when I missed Jacob the worst, when I’d found myself at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, I thought I’d seen Zerelda’s ghost looking back at me in the mirror.
The stranger came up and stood next to me, and we both looked out at the water, at the bluffs in the distance, at the cottonwoods on the other side of the river. Their dead leaves shuddering in the light breeze.
Standing there like that with him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I turned toward him.
“Okay, that’s enough stalling,” I said. “Tell me what you’re doing here in Broken Hearts Junction, Fletcher. Tell me why they think you might have killed Dale.”
I realized that I was nervous about his response.
The thought crossed my mind, but I pushed it away as soon as it arrived.
What if Raymond was right about him?
Fletcher rubbed the stubble of his chin, like he was contemplating how to tell me that he was a drug dealer all along. Or a bag man for one of the gambling establishments that Dale owed money to.
Or that he was a hit man.
Another thought crossed my mind.
What if he told me, expecting me to keep his secret?
I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do that. I wasn’t a pillar of morality, but keeping quiet about a murder just wasn’t something I—
“I’m here to buy The Cupid,” he said, looking out at the river. “Or, at least I was ready to before the owner turned up dead.”
My mouth dropped open.
Chapter 52
“Why didn’t you just come out and say that in the first place?”
All this mystery about who he was and what he was doing here, and his secret was as simple and innocent as wanting to buy real estate.
He shrugged.
“I didn’t want to say anything until it went through,” he said. “Which it hasn’t, and probably won’t now that Dale’s dead.”
I was still in shock that all along, this had been his big secret.
“How come you want to buy The Cupid?” I asked.
He got a faraway look in his eyes.
“I played there once,” he said. “When I was just a kid. Made a big impression on me.”
“You played there?” I asked.
It was just one shock after another.
“I played in a band, once upon a time,” he said. “We were up and coming for a time. We toured the country and then some.”
Something went off in my head.
And then I saw it.
A flash of a guy up on stage. A young guy, couldn’t have been older than 21, playing his heart out. Playing the guitar like the sun wasn’t going to rise the next day. Playing like it was his last night on earth.
It hit me.
Not only had Fletcher Hart played at The Cupid. I had seen him play.
A long, long time ago.
“My God,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “You’re Henry Antrim. That’s you, isn’t it? You… you were the lead guitarist for The Rusted Spurs.”
It all came rushing back to me like a tidal wave, the memory of him playing the guitar up on stage in the smoky bar suddenly became as clear as the sky after a rain storm.
He smiled.
“Henry Antrim was my stage name,” he said. “I used to have a bit of an obsession with Billy the Kid. Took one of The Kid’s aliases when I was part of the band.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I saw you play that night. Your music… it changed…”
I trailed off as his smile fell a little, sadness creeping across his face like a shadow.
“That night…” he echoed.
I couldn’t believe it.
I must have been going senile to have not recognized him.
But it wasn’t just me. Fletcher Hart looked nothing like the boy who had been up on stage that night. Today, he had a busted nose and a beard, and was no longer a boy.
And he had a sadness about him that the boy onstage never knew.
Fletcher left the bank and started walking along the path again.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, again.
“Sometimes I can’t believe it myself,” he said. “Feels like a different life. I wake up some nights wondering if it really was me at all who lived it. If my memories don’t belong to some stranger. Some kid, stupid enough to think he could be a country star.”
I caught up with him on the path, and we started climbing up along one of the bluffs. I felt like I was floating along, not even conscious that I was putting one foot in front of the other.
His music had changed my life, was all I kept thinking.
“But what happened?” I asked, my voice cracking a little. “I mean, how come you don’t play anymore?”
He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans and sucked in wind.
“I told you about that bad woman?” he said. “But even before her, things had started going downhill for me. It’s a hard business. After the band broke up, I went at it alone. A decade of playing dive bars on the south side of hell with no light at the end of the tunnel, you start to get tired. Real, real tired.”
A couple of deer showed up on the other side of the river, lapping at the waters. We paused for a moment to watch them.
“Hell, maybe falling for her was some sort of self-sabotage, I don’t know. I met her during a bar gig in Memphis. She was staring up at me from the crowd with these big bright pretty green eyes. I knew, right then and there, I was done for.
“I’d only felt that way one other time before, a long, long time ago,” he said. “But uh, I never did find that other girl in the crowd.”
He went silent again, and I waited for him to continue.
He shook his head.
“I would have done anything for Christina,” he said. “And I just about did.”
He let those words linger in the air for a while, before continuing on, his voice heavy and defeated.
“She was mixed up with this guy. This drug dealer who she’d been with since high school. I tried to get her out, away from it all. But it was too late for her. And when he found out that she was seeing me, well…”
He trailed off.
“That explains the nose,” he said.
He stretched his mangled left hand out in front of him.
“This too,” he said. “He had a crew of his guys do this. He knew it was my livelihood. Can barely feel anything it anymore.”
I touched his hand. He flinched at first, but then let me lightly hold it. It was rough and scarred and his fingers were twisted in places, in ways they shouldn’t have been.
A deep spring of sorrow welled up in my chest as I remembered the way these fingers played once.
“I was in the hospital for a week,” he said. “She didn’t visit me. Wouldn’t return any of my calls. When I got out, I went looking for her, thinking he’d hurt her. That I had to save her.
“I showed up at this dingy joint he owned. And I… I saw her there. With him. And I saw that she was there with him because she wanted to be there with him. You know?
“That’s when I figured out what a fool I’d been. You see, she used me. She wanted to make him jealous. She used me to do it.”
I closed my eyes, like it would somehow help.
“She took everything I had,” he said.
Those last words echoed for a long time in my mind.
I soon realized that Fletcher’s story made my own heartache look like a stroll through the park. That she hadn’t just taken his heart, but she’d taken his livelihood too.
She had ruined him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
The word felt so insignificant and useless. But it was all I could think to say.
Because there was nothing that could be said to make any of it better.
Fletcher shook his head.
“Don’t be,” he said. “I felt sorry for myself a long while. Tried to drink myself into the ground. Almost did. But it got boring. I figured I needed to make a choice—start living again, or stop.”
He sucked in some air sharply.
“So I used every last dime I had to buy a small little hole-in-the-wall place in Nashville. I realized that working was the only thing that helped take my mind off her.”
We reached a large tree trunk that had fallen across the trail. He reached out a hand to me, and helped me cross it.
“The place did real well,” he continued. “I still thought about her, but I found something to do at least. A couple of months ago, I sold it for a good price. Thought I’d come out West and start over.”
He sighed.
“And that right there is just about everything there is to know about me, Bluebird,” he said.
We came to the end of the path. We stopped, watching the water flow down around a bend and disappear in the distance.
“I bet you regret asking now,” he said, looking over at me.
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I’m glad you told me. I mean, I’m glad you trust me enough to…”
I trailed off, realizing I’d been holding onto his mangled hand all this time.
I thought about letting go, but I didn’t really want to, so I didn’t.
“I hope you buy The Cupid,” I said.
And I meant it.
I really, really did.
He was just the right person to take over the place. It needed someone like him.
I liked Fletcher Hart.
And it wasn’t just because his playing that night had had a hand in changing my life, or because I liked the way he talked, or because I liked that broken nose of his.
Or because he brought me expensive bottles of whiskey.
We were kindred spirits, Fletcher and I.
Both hopeless romantics who kept their hearts on their sleeves, taking literal and figurative beatings because of it.
The difference between us was that he’d been able to move on with his life, past his heartache, past losing absolutely everything.
Meanwhile, I still kept that picture up on the wall and kept my heart closed up tighter than a safe.
But hearing his story and seeing the way he was now, still optimistic about life even after all he’d been through, gave me a feeling of hope.
I squeezed his hand.
“Thank you, Fletcher,” I said.
He glanced over.
“What for?”
“For telling me.”
I smiled, and our eyes met. I knew he understood what I meant.
He brushed away a strand of hair from my face.
“It feels good out here, doesn’t it?” he said. “Like winter’s lifted, and spring’s just around the corner.”
He looked out at the river and I followed his gaze. Down at the sparkling water, bending away in the distance through the canyon.
And then, just like a semi plowing into a highway meridian, the migraine hit.
And the entire world turned a fluorescent hue of burning white.
Chapter 53
It’s the 1980s.
I know this because all the girls in the stands have fluffy, teased hair and wear bulky shoulder pads and tight neon leggings. The boys are wearing their own fashions of the era. Tapered jeans and converse shoes and more shoulder pads.
Most everybody’s got a cowboy hat on.
The place has the vague aroma of manure and livestock.
The announcer’s voice cracks over the speakers. Something inaudible. A wave of cheers erupts all around me.
The dusty ring below the stands almost shines under the stadium lights.
It’s a rodeo, I realize. I’m at a rodeo.
I make my way through the stands. It smells of stale butter popcorn, mustard and body odor.
I get down to the railing, and turn around. I scan the crowd, looking for faces, the way I try to do in visions, looking for whatever I’m supposed to be seeing.
And that’s when I see her.
She’s mousy, but there’s a quiet beauty about her. The kind that most people might miss. She’s wearing dark lipstick and a black shirt that makes her look different then everyone else in the stands.
She’s by herself. I can tell by the nervous way she’s fidgeting and looking around.
I follow her gaze to someone in the pen. He’s got hazelnut brown hair, and a look of determination on his face reminiscent of thunderclouds right before they let loose. He gets on the horse.
A moment later, the pen door opens, and the horse starts bucking out into the ring. The boy holds on as the bronco thrashes and kicks under his weight.
The crowd goes wild as the cowboy holds on, the horse’s movements becoming more and more desperate.
I look back at the girl in the stands. She’s jumping up and down with excitement.
I can almost hear her heart pounding like a jackhammer in her chest as she watches the boy.
After what feels like an eternity, the horse finally throws the boy off. He lands nearly on his feet, not so much as a scratch on him.
A bright smile comes over his face as the crowd erupts in more cheers.
She watches him as he comes over to the stands.
Her voice echoes in my ears.
“I love you,” she whispers as she watches him. “I’ll love you, always. Until the day I die. You’re the one.”
Her thoughts aren’t anything special. The same as every teenage girl in love.
But I can feel the connection between them.
It’s not just a crush.
The boy she’s looking at is her soulmate.
But it’s not her he’s coming over to the stands to see.
He wraps his arms around another girl, a girl with a small waist, red hair, pink lips, and “popularity” written all over her good looks. The boy kisses her, and the crowd bursts into a low cooing of “Aww.”
The boy glances up at the girl in black for a second, but quickly averts his eyes.
The sound of her heart breaking could rip the stands in half.
Chapter 54
I woke up in my bed with the feeling that I’d just been hit by a train.
It could have had a little something to do with the fact that Hank had draped himself over my midsection like a 130-pound hairy electric blanket, causing my breaths to be shallow and shor
t all night.
The shades were all drawn and the room had a peaceful darkness that made is hard to tell what time it was.
My head, which all night had felt like someone had taken an ax to it and split it right down the middle, now felt much better. The migraine had come swiftly and mercilessly, and had just about knocked me off my feet when it hit.
I didn’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for the stranger.
The stranger. I would have to stop calling him that soon, now that I knew who he was.
The rich aroma of dark roast coffee drifted into the room, and I realized that I wasn’t alone in the house.
I moved, squirming under Hank’s heavy body, trying to signal him that I was ready to get up. He finally got the message, and rolled over on his side, grumbling and then slipping into heavy dog snores again.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood. I steadied myself as a rush of blood caused my eye sight to black out for a few seconds.
That vision…
It had the same feel as the one I’d had about the boy watching the girl walk across the parking lot. The same thoughts and feelings.
The same darkness.
I’d had plenty of these visions in my time. But rarely were they about people who were dead.
I knew the boy in the vision.
At least, I had known him, 30 years older with thinning hair, a beer belly and a gambling addiction.
That had been Dale in my dream. The rodeo rider. I knew it in my gut, even if the teenager in the vision hardly looked like the man he’d become.
And that girl, that misfit, the outcast up in the stands, was Dale’s soulmate.
And while I could have been wrong, she didn’t seem like Courtney to me. In fact, I had a pretty good sense that Courtney was the other girl, the red head that Dale had embraced in the vision.
I remembered the way Dale averted his eyes from the girl in black.
I rubbed my face, trying to make sense of the dream. Trying to think through what it could possibly mean.
And why I was suddenly having visions of the dead.
I started walking slowly toward the closed door when a thought crossed my mind.
What if there was some relevance to the vision? What if… if there was some sort of clue I was missing?
