by Deirdre Dore
Tavey sipped her coffee; the appetite she’d had earlier had disappeared when Tyler left. “Girls, Tyler mentioned that you wanted to ask me for something?”
Yarrow nodded. “Oh, yeah, we wanted to know if we could adopt one of the rescue dogs, and if you’d help us learn to track?”
Tavey set her cup down—she hadn’t expected that. “I thought Jane—Circe—hated dogs.” She was referring to the girls’ Aunt Jane, who was their main caretaker since their mother was the town mayor and didn’t seem to have much time for it. Jane had apparently named herself Circe several years before, when she’d opened the little shop dedicated to unique gifts, natural remedies, and witchcraft.
“She does,” Yarrow agreed cheerfully, “but she’ll let us now.”
“Why’s that?” Tavey inquired politely, though she wasn’t certain she wanted to know.
Yarrow shrugged. “Her husband is back. She won’t notice.”
Tavey blinked, stunned. Mark Arrowdale had left Jane about a year after Summer disappeared. He’d been investigated by police, mostly because he wasn’t a local, but they hadn’t had any reason to think he was involved in Summer’s disappearance. He’d been a successful real estate entrepreneur and had worked with both Tavey’s grandfather and Chris’s father on several land acquisitions before Chris’s father had been arrested for tax evasion.
“Mr. Arrowdale came back?” Tavey was astonished. She barely remembered the man.
Yarrow nodded, scowling.
“Who’s this?” Ryan asked, buttering a piece of toast.
Chris had her mouth full, so Raquel filled him in. “Jane—the crazy witch lady—she was married to a man named Mark Arrowdale. He left her right after Chris’s father got into trouble.”
“Jane is more than crazy,” Yarrow said, looking at her sisters, who nodded in agreement.
Tavey frowned. “How can you be more than crazy?”
“She’s like a split personality, so she’s double-crazy. And Mark is evil.”
Tavey didn’t know if she was listening to teenage drama or a real problem. The girls didn’t seem afraid, but then they had been kidnapped by a serial killer last year, so maybe after that nothing seemed too scary.
Tavey glanced around the table, remembering that Burns was there and listening intently to everything that was said. He noticed her watching him and smiled. Tavey looked away, lips pursed, and caught a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Bessie had just shaken her head at Atohi, her dark face gray. Tavey froze, her head slightly to the side, as she tried to watch her longtime servants with her peripheral vision.
Atohi had a white-knuckled grip on his fork, but he nodded grimly and stood up.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to see to the dogs.”
Tavey nodded, desperately curious to know what he and Bessie knew about Mark and Jane, but wise enough to realize that they wouldn’t say anything now, not in front of Burns and the girls.
“So, Ms. Collins, can we have a dog?”
Tavey turned her attention back to the three sisters. “Of course, but call me Tavey, please. Your aunt Summer was one of our best friends.”
Raquel and Chris nodded, their gazes solemn.
“Tavey,” Yarrow said slowly, as if tasting it. “Octavia Rose Burgett Collins.”
Laughing a little in surprise, Tavey sat up straighter. “How did you know my full name?”
Yarrow looked pleased with herself, her chubby cheeks dimpling, but her sisters were frowning at her. “It’s on the gravestone in your cemetery. It’s your great-grandmother’s name.”
Tavey knew that, but she hadn’t known the girls were that familiar with her property. The graveyard was over a mile north, on the old Collins homestead in the hills near her grandfather’s hunting cabin. She hadn’t visited in months, but it was only a few miles from the property she’d just purchased, the property where Chris and the girls had been taken by a serial killer. She met Raquel’s and Chris’s eyes; they both looked unsettled.
“When did you see the graveyard?” Tavey tried to sound unconcerned, but her voice sounded hoarse instead.
“Aunt Summer showed us.”
Tavey felt the coffee cup in her hand tremble. “What?”
“In a dream,” Yarrow finished. Her sisters, their faces pale, each put a chubby hand on Yarrow’s forearm as if to physically restrain her.
“All right, girls.” Chris stood. “You’re freaking Tavey out. She’s not used to this brand of crazy. She sticks to overpaying for shoes.” Chris clapped her hands. “Come on, Ryan. Ladies, we’ll take you home. Tavey can help you pick out a dog later; we’ve got stuff to do.”
Chris urged the girls out of their seats while Tavey sat, suddenly exhausted and more than a little flummoxed by the events of the day. Brent Burns took it all in with the air of a man who was enjoying himself immensely. Thomas began clearing the dishes, his face curious. Bessie looked far away, like she was lost in her thoughts.
Chris came around to Tavey’s chair after shooing the girls from the room. “We’ll call you later, Tav.” She dropped a kiss on Tavey’s hair and moved away so Ryan could give Tavey a hug. He smelled like the woods.
“We’ll come by later if you want,” he offered when he released her.
Tavey smiled at him. “What Chris did to deserve you, I will never understand.”
“Hey,” Chris protested, “I’m charming.”
Tavey raised an eyebrow and tried to shake off the lingering chill left by the girls’ strange behavior, by the secrets her family seemed to be keeping, by the ribbon the dogs had found stained with blood, by Tyler wrapping his arms around her. “Charming and weird are not the same thing.”
Ryan laughed, and the two of them left. Tavey heard their car start a few minutes later.
She looked at Raquel and Burns. Raquel had half turned in her seat to confront him, one slender brown arm braced on the table.
“You happy now?” Raquel asked him, her dark eyes venomous and cold.
“Oh, enormously,” Burns agreed cheerfully, and leaned back, putting his arms behind his head and stretching out his long legs under the table. “This is going to be so much fun.”
17
ABRAHAM’S HOUSE WAS only a mile or two east of Tavey’s, but to get there, Tyler had to drive all the way down Tavey’s drive, up the road a small stretch, and back up his uncle’s drive. Abraham was waiting for him on the porch when Tyler pulled up for the second time that morning, his rifle held across his lap.
Tyler sighed as he shoved open the door to his truck and stepped down onto the gravel. Abraham’s face was gray and drawn, paler and thinner than Tyler had ever seen it before.
“Well?” Abraham asked.
Tyler wasn’t exactly sure what his uncle meant, so he sighed and took a seat in the rocker beside the old man. Together they looked down the winding road that disappeared into woods at the first sharp bend. The trees swayed in the spring breeze and wildflowers bloomed in the grass. It was a pretty spot. Tyler had always thought so.
“Uncle, why is Tavey Collins convinced that you had something to do with Summer’s disappearance?”
Tyler didn’t remember ever asking his uncle before; he’d been so busy defending him for all these years that he’d never actually talked to him about it. But now that he’d seen pictures of that book with Summer’s name in it, he couldn’t help but think that his uncle knew something more than he was telling.
Abraham sighed. “Those girls were always running through the woods, all four of ’em. Never did have a lick o’ sense.”
Tyler nodded, waiting to hear what else his uncle would say.
“That little blind girl, seemed like she didn’t like to be at home. She was always in the woods. Don’t know how she’d find her way.”
Tyler wondered why Summer’s family hadn’t been watching over her better
. Thinking about what he’d learned this morning, about the return of Jane’s husband, Arrowdale, he wondered if Summer had maybe been afraid of the man.
“Did you ever talk to Summer?”
His uncle ducked his head, seeming ashamed. “Yelled at her some. I’d see her, moving in the woods, and suddenly I’d feel like I was back there, you know, back in the war.”
Tyler nodded, watching his uncle’s face carefully.
The old man looked flushed. “I didn’t like everybody using my property like a damn pass-through, didn’t like all that drinking and shouting.”
Tyler blinked, straightening. “Drinking and shouting? Who was drinking and shouting?”
His uncle looked confused again. “She was following ’em, I think. She knew them.”
“Who? Following who?”
His uncle didn’t answer.
“During the day? People would pass through during the day and she followed them?”
“Day and night.” His uncle’s attention wandered. He seemed to be looking at something else entirely, as if the birds and the trees and the sky had been overlaid with a thin film of scenes from the past.
“Where were they heading when they passed through? Can you tell me where they went?”
“North,” his uncle responded promptly, though his attention seemed elsewhere. “They crossed a few miles north of the house and onto Collins land.”
“Collins land.” Tyler stood and walked off the porch and onto the gravel drive, turning to face the house so he could look north at the trees that rose some ways into the distance. The land grew steadily hillier to the north, leading to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
“Tavey’s grandpa never mentioned anything to you?”
Abraham snorted. “Collins didn’t know about it. Man was already sick when all this was going on.”
Tyler nodded. Tavey’s grandpa had died about a year after Summer disappeared.
“So a group of people would cross from the Havens’ land over to the Collinses’ property in the north?” Tyler repeated to himself.
His uncle nodded. “That blind girl would come over here sometimes, I think. Sometimes she’d come over and tell me stories. Sometimes I’d read to her, try to explain . . .” He trailed off.
Tyler walked back onto the porch and took a seat next to his uncle. “What kinds of stories?”
The old man laughed and leaned back a little. “She’d tell me stories about the string-makers.”
Tyler felt his gut clench. He’d had enough of goddamn strings last year when that fucking psycho had taken Chris and the Triplets. The freak had been obsessed with some kind of “strings” that only he could see.
“What did she say about them?”
His uncle sighed, a sigh that seemed to deflate him. He struggled for a moment, coughing. Tyler rushed to get his oxygen.
He handed his uncle the tube and helped him fit the prongs into his nostrils, securing the strap while his uncle took in the lifesaving air.
He rubbed his uncle’s back beneath the flannel while he waited, thanking God he’d never started smoking.
When Abraham had relaxed a little and no longer seemed to be struggling for air, Tyler repeated his question. “Uncle, what did she say about the string-makers?”
“What did who say?” his uncle asked, glaring.
Tyler sighed, looking out at the trees. Next to him, his uncle began rocking slowly. The ancient wood creaked, reminding Tyler of the times when he’d stayed with his uncle when his father was on a bender.
“You know what’s true, Tyler, my boy?”
Tyler eyed him. He knew that tone. His uncle was about to tell him something “true about life.” “What’s that?”
“We all know the future.”
Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah?”
His uncle patted his arm consolingly even as he smiled, revealing a few severely yellowed teeth. “Yep. We all know the one thing”—he held up one gnarled finger—“that’s going to happen.”
“Yeah,” Tyler agreed, “we’re all going to die.”
His uncle settled back. “Yep. That’s right.” There was a small silence as his uncle seemed to consider it, sucking on his lower lip. “Some of us die more than once, though.”
18
THE THREE GIRLS sat shoulder to shoulder in the back of Ryan’s truck, their identical faces freaking Chris out a little whenever she looked over her shoulder at them.
“So, why don’t you introduce us to your aunt’s husband?” Chris suggested, trying to sound casual. She didn’t remember Mark Arrowdale very well, but he’d been around when Summer disappeared; he hadn’t left town until a year later. She thought she remembered that Summer hadn’t liked him, actually.
“We’ve never met him.” Ro shrugged. “We just heard he’d returned.”
“Really?” Chris murmured. “When did he get back?”
“A few days ago. Maybe a week.”
“Where’s he now?” Ryan threw in, looking at them in the rearview mirror.
The three girls looked at each other. Tira sighed. “Probably with our aunt, if she’s not at the store.”
“Do you have a cell phone? Can you call her?” Chris urged.
“Schisandra does,” Ro answered.
Schisandra struggled to dig the cell phone out of the front pocket of her shorts, which were a little tight. Entering the code to unlock it with one thumb, she quickly tapped the icon next to her aunt’s picture in her contact list.
Chris could hear the faint ring on the other side of the line.
“She won’t answer,” Ro commented indifferently, looking out the window.
Chris would have believed she didn’t care at all if her chubby hands weren’t curled into fists.
A minute later, Schisandra pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call, cutting off Jane’s voice asking her to leave a message.
She looked up at Chris, her big blue eyes and small mouth almost obscured by the red flush of her cheeks. Sandra didn’t like being the center of attention.
“She didn’t answer,” she said in her soft, flutelike voice.
“Yeah.” Chris sighed. “I get that. She always opens the store on Sundays. Maybe she’s with a customer?”
The girls didn’t answer. Chris cast a sidelong glance at Ryan. She hadn’t exactly told Ryan about the girls’ seeming ability to know things other people didn’t.
She pursed her lips. “So . . . if you had to guess where she might be, you would say . . . ?”
Ro shook her head at Chris. “We can’t see our own, Ms. Pascal. You know that.”
Chris pouted, ignoring the look Ryan shot her. She would explain later—maybe. “Well, you knew she wouldn’t answer.”
Ro rolled her eyes. “She never answers our calls. She thinks we’re annoying.”
Chris didn’t want to agree with Jane about anything on principle, but she thought the crazy woman might have a point about these three.
“What about playing in Tavey’s graveyard? What were you doing there?”
“Exploring,” Ro answered shortly.
Chris frowned. “I don’t know why you don’t trust me. Didn’t I save your life?”
Tira smiled, secretly, quickly, like she couldn’t help herself. “You did,” she confirmed, glancing at Ro for her agreement.
Ro nodded. “It’s not that, Ms. Pascal. We trust you.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
“We did,” Ro insisted stubbornly. “We like exploring.”
“You like getting into trouble,” Chris argued.
Ryan choked on a laugh and muttered, “Sounds familiar,” under his breath.
Chris gave him a narrow-eyed glance.
They turned onto the drive for the Havens’ property. Ryan had been there before wit
h Chris last fall, when the girls had been involved in the serial killer investigation at the mill.
They drove by the Victorian cottage–like structure that looked like it had been designed by committee, and were about to pass by the one that looked like a cabin when Ro asked Ryan to stop.
“We should go to Old Ninny’s.” Ro looked at her sisters, and all three nodded in unison.
“Why?” Chris challenged them. “And don’t give me that you-can’t-see-your-own B.S. I know you know something.”
Ryan put a hand on her arm. “Girls, are you sure we can’t help you with something?”
The girls, their faces set and still, shook their heads. “Thank you, Agent Helmer. We’ll be fine. We’ll get out here at the end of the drive. Ninny’s dogs aren’t that friendly.”
Chris looked down the drive at two enormous German shepherds who were walking back and forth at the top of the drive.
“They look superfriendly,” Chris offered sarcastically.
Ro smiled. “Thanks, Ms. P. Thanks, Agent Helmer.”
“Call me Ryan,” he ordered for the hundredth time.
“Okay,” Ro agreed. She opened the door to the truck and stepped out onto the dirt road. On the opposite side, Tira and Sandra climbed out and stood next to the narrow drive that led to Ninny’s cabin. Ro walked over to Chris’s window. “We’ll see you soon.”
“When?” Chris pressed, trying to get them to admit to knowing something, anything.
Ro blinked at her innocently. “At yoga. Six on Tuesday.”
Chris scowled. “Smart-ass.”
19
BESSIE WEAVER made sure Tavey was safely ensconced in her office before leaving through the back door. She’d always been fond of the girl, especially since she was so close with Bessie’s granddaughter, Raquel. She checked on the sheets she’d hung outside on the line, enjoying the sight of them snapping in the spring breeze.
The sound of dogs barking carried over from the kennels. She didn’t visit them often, for no other reason than not wanting to see Atohi. He felt the same. The two of them carried a burden too great for words.
