He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her again. Maybe even give her a comforting hug. She wiped the tears from her eyes and bladed her body to him, making it obvious that she did not want anything of the sort. She barely knew Riley, even if they had gone to the same high school. It just didn’t seem appropriate.
The silence grew between them until he cleared his throat. “Okay. Well, let’s keep going at this. Can I look inside the freezer? If it hasn’t been maintained properly and the temperature inside got up above freezing we could be looking at mold, or cracked pipes, or anything.”
Katie hadn’t thought of that. This freezer was so much a part of the house that she hardly ever gave it a thought. “That’s a good idea. Sure, let’s do it.”
She pulled on the sideways handle and it opened smoothly, even if there was a gust of air from inside that smelled heavily of freezer burn. It was cold in there, too. Colder than winter. Cold like...well, like a freezer.
The walls were lined with metal rack shelves. All of them were empty now. One of the first things Katie had done after the funeral was to give away all the foodstuff from the house.
The room was only ten feet by ten feet but that had been more than enough room to store all of the family’s frozen foods plus cookie dough mixes and ice cream and pre-made pies, among other things. Katie looked around, remembering it all. No windows and no way out except the drain on the floor, and the one door. The whole thing had been a little scary to her younger self until her mother had shown her how safe it was.
“So you can see,” she said to Riley, “this is going to be a huge draw for anyone looking to buy the house--”
Behind her, the door slammed shut with a muted whump.
Katie whirled around, shocked to find she was the only one in the freezer. Riley was still out in the kitchen.
Why would he close the door?
In front of her face, her shaky breath plumed into mist in the cold, cold air.
“Riley?” she called his name. “Are you testing the door or something?”
There was a noise, like someone knocking from the kitchen, but that was all.
Thump.
“Okay. It works just fine. That’s enough now.”
Thump. Thump.
“That’s enough. Open the door!”
She found the handle on this side. If he wouldn’t open it up then she’d do it herself. On this side it was just a simple plunger. Push the plunger in--like this--and the door opened.
Only this time, it didn’t.
Katie pushed the plunger in again and again. Each time it connected inside with a metallic click, and nothing happened. “Riley? Riley!”
Thump. Thump. THUMP.
Now she was starting to panic. This was the nightmare she had been thinking of earlier. Locked in this freezer. No way out.
“Riley!” She began banging on the door with her fists. He had to hear that. “Riley!”
She tried the plunger one more time, angrily ramming it hard with the flat of her hand.
The plunger sank in. The mechanism inside made its little noise.
And the door opened.
Riley stood there with that crooked smile on his lips. “That’s some door. I guess there won’t be any reason to lock it. Nobody will ever be able to get inside in the first place...hey, what’s wrong?”
She ran at him, striking her fists against his chest. “What were you doing? Why did you lock me in there like that!”
“Whoa, whoa,” he said, grabbing her wrists and holding on to keep himself from being beaten on nore. “I didn’t lock it. I was standing out here when you went in. I looked away for two seconds and then I heard it closing. That’s all.”
“Then why didn’t you open it!” Katie was yelling at him, and she knew it, but she didn’t care. This was her house and she was going to yell at whoever she wanted to. Including any guy who thought it would be funny to lock her in a freezer. “I could have suffocated in there, you know. There’s no air exchange!”
“Really?” He looked past her into the freezer, squinting his eyes. “That might be something we have to change to bring it up to code. Shouldn’t take too long, but it might be expensive depending on how many walls we need to run the vent through... Hey, you’re really upset, aren’t you?”
“Yes! Of course I’m upset!” She pulled her hands back from him and crossed her arms, careful to step out of the freezer instead of back into it. “You locked me in there. You really think that’s going to get you hired?”
He lifted his hands up in a gesture meant to calm her down. Instead it made her angrier. “Look, Katie, I promise you I did not lock you inside there. I would never do that. It’s not funny.”
“That door closed,” Katie insisted, “and I couldn’t get out.”
“Well I was knocking on the door and calling your name, why didn’t you say anything?”
Katie was about to call him a name that no proper lady should ever say out loud when she realized he was right--she had been calling for him from inside, and he couldn’t hear her. It made sense that she wouldn’t be able to hear him, too. The only thing she’d been able to hear was him banging on the door.
So he wasn’t ignoring her. He wasn’t playing a horrible trick on her. The door had just closed between them and stuck, or something. That’s all.
She made her hands relax. They had clenched up into fists without her realizing it. Now she took a deep breath, and looked away from him, down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Riley. I got scared, I guess. Being back here in Mom’s house has dredged up a lot of memories.”
Since she wasn’t watching him, she didn’t see it when he reached out for her and put his hand on her shoulder again. This time, she didn’t move away. “I understand,” he said to her.
It was the most perfect thing that anyone could have said to her in that moment.
Still, she was the woman who was going to hire him to do work on her house. She couldn’t let their interactions go past that in any way. The last time she had gotten personally involved with a contractor working on one of her houses...it hadn’t gone well. At all.
Not that she expected Riley to be as bad a person as that other man had turned out to be, but a girl couldn’t take too many chances.
“Come on,” she said to him. “I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
Chapter 4
It didn’t take very long for them to inspect the rest of the house, including the basement. There were no surprises there. No cracks. No noticeable water damage and after that storm last night Riley was certain that they would have seen something if there was a leak to worry about.
The estimate had come out very favorably and he said his crew was between jobs at the moment because of a quirk in his schedule so they could start this afternoon, if she wanted.
It was like God was smiling down on her so she wouldn’t have to stay in Fount Azure any longer than necessary. Her spirits were pretty high as she made her way out to the cemetery.
With nothing else to do but wait for Riley to come back this afternoon, Katie had decided to get the visit to her mother’s grave out of the way now. She knew the more she put it off, the more likely it would be that she wouldn’t go out there at all. Seeing her mother’s grave was one of Katie’s least favorite things. It reminded her how much things had changed.
In a lot of ways she would never come to terms with her mother’s death. She never had the chance to say goodbye. Standing over someone’s grave, where they couldn’t say anything back, just wasn’t the same.
“The least I can do now,” she said as she drove through town, “is visit your grave now and then, Mom. Next time I’ll bring flowers. Promise.”
The Fount Azure cemetery was on the far side of town, where people wouldn’t have to drive by it all the time and be reminded that life was so fleeting. People could know their loved ones were being taken care of by the cemetery association while they went about living their lives.
Which was what Katie
had done. She’d been off living her life when her mother passed away. She’d been off living her life ever since, with someone else to watch over her mother’s house. And that was the problem. What kind of daughter had she really been for her mother?
Those thoughts had brought tears to the corners of her eyes, and they threatened to spill over by the time Katie pulled into the half-circle drive of the cemetery. A narrower path led in among the gravestones themselves, but it was only big enough for the caretaker’s golf cart. No cars allowed past this point.
She parked close to the open gate in the wrought-iron fence that bordered the front of the graveyard and pulled her keys out of the ignition.
Just for a moment, her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
“Stop it, Katie.” She closed her eyes tightly and willed the tears away. “You didn’t abandon your mother. You met a guy and went off to live your life. That’s what daughters do.”
That guy had been the one to introduce her to the art of flipping houses. Their relationship hadn’t worked out, but the life of making money from renovating houses certainly had. She wanted to believe that her mother would be proud of her, but she just couldn’t shake those nagging little doubts that came from never being able to ask her.
“Wish you could see me now, Mom.”
The silence around her was the only answer. It was all she was going to hear, forever. It would have to be enough. When she was finally able to push the tears aside, she opened her eyes.
Standing right in front of her car was a man holding a shovel over his shoulder in a double-fisted grip.
Katie bit back the scream that had been bubbling up in her chest.
She knew this man.
Tall and lean, looking too frail to hold a shovel let alone dig graves by himself like Katie knew he did, Everson Millsap had taken care of the graveyard for more years than Katie had been alive. He had to be in his eighties now. His dark skin was weathered from years of working outdoors. Long wisps of thinning gray hair fell to his shoulder and stirred in the breeze. Deeply set wrinkles made his face look like it had cracked when he smiled at her and gave a little wave.
She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heart settle back down. “You scared me!” Realizing that he couldn’t hear her shouting at him from inside the car, she took her keys in hand again and stepped outside. “You scared me,” she repeated, slamming her door shut for emphasis.
“Sorry,” he told her good-naturedly. “Have to do some chores around the back section of the cemetery today. Saw your car and wanted to say hi. Didn’t realize you was back in town, Miss Pearson.”
“Just for a little while. I’m selling Mom’s old house.”
An odd look passed over his face. “Ah. I see. Sad thing to lose your roots. Person gives up where they came from then all they have is where they are.”
Katie wanted to ask him if he read that from a fortune cookie but she decided not to insult the eccentric old man with the shovel. “Well I’m pretty happy with where I am.”
“Are you really?” he asked.
She had no idea what sort of answer he was looking for from her, so she didn’t try. “Um. I just came out here to visit Mom’s grave. I figured it was time.”
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “I suppose it is.”
Did I say ‘eccentric’ old man? Katie wondered. I think I meant to say creepy...
Everson walked beside her as she went into the graveyard. It was a wide field with orderly rows of differently shaped stones marking the resting places of Fount Azure’s past residents. On both sides and far in the back, tall maple trees created privacy for visitors. It was a warm day for this time of year in Oregon, and the breeze made the leaves whisper things that no human ear could understand.
Up here near the front, the stones were thin and white and weathered. It was when you got further in and the gravesites were newer that the stones became different colors and shapes. Katie remembered the way to her mother’s plot. It was this way down the path.
When she turned that way, Everson followed right along with her.
“Gotta dig up some weeds over there,” he told her when he saw her expression. “I’m not following you. Promise.”
After a few more steps, Katie could see her mother’s gravestone peeking out from behind others. “Well, there she is. It was nice to see you again, Mister Millsap.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he told her suddenly. “Losing your mother was a blow to the whole town, I think.”
That stopped Katie in her tracks. “Um. Thank you. I didn’t realize you knew Mom.”
“Oh, sure I did. We were good friends, especially after you left town.” He chuckled to himself and leaned on the handle of his shovel. “Even thought there might be more between us, once, but I was twenty years older than Alayna. What could she possibly want with an old man like me, eh?”
Katie didn’t know how to respond to that. Her mother had dated over the years, but never seriously. Plus Everson was right about the age difference. Had he really tried to...? More likely, she thought, he had misinterpreted her mother’s kindness towards him. Her mother had always been kind, even when it got her in trouble. Katie used to tell her it would be the death of her someday--
She bit down on her lower lip as that thought eased out of her memory. Looking backward in time from the vantage point in this graveyard, that teasing little comment didn’t seem funny anymore.
“I’m going to go visit Mom now,” she said at last, desperately not wanting this conversation to go on. “Thanks for the company, Everson. I’ll see you later.”
“It’s just...” Everson didn’t seem to notice Katie’s brushoff. He shook his head, his eyes losing their focus. “I’ve been feeling your mother’s spirit so strongly of late. Almost like she’s right here with me. Almost like she’s trying to tell me something. You ever feel like that?”
Katie felt her mouth drop open as she studied him. Was he serious? There was no way he could know the things she’d been thinking recently, or the way her dream had made it seem her mother was trying to do exactly that--send her a message of some sort.
And then just like that, she didn’t want to be in this graveyard anymore.
“I should be going,” she told him.
“You do feel it, don’t you girl?” He picked his shovel up again, and stepped closer. “You feel it. What is your mom trying to tell you, Miss Pearson? What is Alayna trying to say to you?”
Katie felt trapped. Would Everson hurt her if he got worked up enough? Sure he was ancient but a lot of years spent working with his hands here in the cemetery had made him strong and she had no doubt that if he swung that shovel at her it might just leave a good sized dent in the side of her head.
She glanced over at her mother’s grave.
Then she looked back to the gate in the fence out front.
“I have to go,” she repeated, stepping sideways and away from Everson, speed walking to get back to her car. Her words began tumbling out over each other. “It was nice to see you again but I have an appointment that I totally forgot about and I’ll just have to come back later thanks again!”
She called that last bit over her shoulder and kept moving. No matter how sinewy his muscles might be there was no way that he could move faster than her. She was confident that she would be in her car and driving away long before he could catch up to her.
The door handle snapped back from her hand when she tried to open it, before she remembered that she’d locked it. Fumbling the keys out of her pocket she found the right one and added a few scratches to the paint on her door before she finally got it in the lock.
When she looked up to make sure she still had a lead on Everson, she saw him still standing back where she’d left him. He was watching her intently.
Opening the door and sliding in quickly she didn’t even bother putting her seatbelt on before she had the car in gear and was driving away.
She could always come back and visit her mother�
��s grave tomorrow.
Back in the driveway of her mother’s house Katie sat behind the wheel for several long moments, staring at the front door. What had she been so scared of? Everson had simply asked a question. He was an old man, and old men had a tendency to feel death more intensely than young people who still had decades of time in front of them. That was all it was. Everson was feeling his own mortality and thinking about it had made him ask a perfectly innocent question.
Almost like she’s trying to tell me something. You ever feel like that?
Yes. She did.
Shaking her head and calling herself all sorts of stupid, Katie got out of her car. On the way back here she’d stopped at the Over Easy Diner and picked up a cheeseburger and fries to go. She would have killed to have a glass of wine or two with her lunch but she’d had to settle for a large pop to go.
She wanted to eat and do some work on the house before Riley got back with his crew. Just prep work, but she’d learned from experience that getting little things out of the way made the bigger things go that much quicker. She knew her way around a pair of pliers.
When she unlocked the door and went inside, she found her gaze magnetically drawn to the photos on the wall. All those memories, just hanging there with no one to look at them. No one to talk about them. No one to even care that any of it had ever happened. Why hadn’t she spent more time talking to her mother? Even to just call her up once in a while and let her ramble about the good old days. Would that have killed her?
Poor choice of words.
With a heavy sigh, she ran her fingers over the photo of her dressed up for prom. What a night that had been. Her mom had waited up for her, until two in the morning, just to ask her how it had gone. They shared a bowl of ice cream and her mom had listened to every detail of the dance and the after party. The sun had been about to come up before she finally went to bed.
That was all her mother had ever wanted. A friend to talk to. Katie had been that friend for years, until a guy had turned her head with dreams of the future.
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 27
