North on Drummond

by K. C. Burn

  Cliff frowned. What reservation could she be talking about? She, Brett, and the crew were all holed up at the hotel in town. The weird niggle that Brett was behind his eviction returned, but he carefully paid it no mind. He’d have plenty of time to talk to Brett, see if anything in his manner set off any alarms.

  Time was wasting. He still had to drop Scott back at his car before seeing his mother. He wanted to leave plenty of time to get to Drew’s and maybe catch a few fucking hours of sleep before he had to deal with Brett again tonight. After last night’s incident, there was no way he could be left alone for a second, if only to protect the town from Hurricane Brett.

  Chapter Nine

  Cliff pulled up beside a shiny black Town Car. Unless his mother’s tastes had changed substantially in the intervening years, it wasn’t hers. She’d never liked driving a black car in Florida, because of the heat, insisting on white or silver cars. It was the reason he’d opted for the bright blue hybrid when he’d bought his first brand-new car out in California.

  He turned off the car and opened the door but didn’t make a move to get out. Humid heat swirled into the car, and a faint sheen of sweat popped up on his forehead. The miasma of soggy decay, the cat-pee scent of boxwoods, and the faintest hint of the nearby orange groves assailed his nostrils. The smell of home was a comfort but also a painful reminder of his failure.

  Better get it over with. At least he’d had the foresight to make sure he had someplace to be, and soon. He’d only be obligated to remain for a finite period of time.

  The house he’d grown up in was old, built in plantation period and style—his family’s wealth was tied up in the citrus groves. Not overwhelmingly large or ostentatious, thankfully, but the house sprawled large enough that he and his parents had rattled around a bit while he was growing up. His mother’s people had been the wealthiest in the area for a long time, and previous generations had had many more family members to accommodate.

  Fresh white paint coated the exterior of the house and the wraparound porch. Although there were plenty of windows to let in the light, there was so much dark wood paneling inside that the breezy appearance of the exterior always seemed rather misleading. Inside, the staircases and doorways were narrower than modern standards, and as soon as Cliff had gotten his own place, he’d gone for everything modern, with clean, airy lines. The rebellion had only left him feeling oddly out of place and edgy, but it hadn’t mattered. If there was anyplace like the Somerset estate in Los Angeles, only a movie star could have afforded to live there, not a cop.

  That didn’t mean he had any interest in moving back in with his mother.

  With a huge sigh, he stepped out of the car. He needed to get this done, and sitting in the driveway wasn’t going to make it happen.

  At the door, he hesitated. Should he knock? He still had all his keys on his key ring, which should have told him something, despite his determination never to return to Sandy Bottom Bay. But it felt weird just walking into the house he hadn’t stepped foot in for eight years.

  Knocking at the door seemed a bit weird too. Was there a protocol for this type of social situation? If there was, his mother would know it, but he’d stopped listening to most of her etiquette rules a long time ago—it had all seemed so archaic. His mother’s superstitions and genteel manner always made her seem to be a woman out of time.

  Cliff fingered his keys for a moment before he shook his head and rang the bell. He no longer lived here, and he had no idea what his mother’s schedule was like and hadn’t for years. Better to be safe than sorry.

  It took a few minutes before the door opened. Cliff had a moment where the world swam and realigned while he tried to make sense of Mr. Morales, his high school principal, opening the door to his mother’s house.

  This was still his mother’s house, wasn’t it?

  “Cliff Garcia. ’Bout time you showed up. Your mother is in the living room.”

  Whoa. Mr. Morales hadn’t lost that disapproving tone, at all. Cliff almost expected to be sent to detention, except he’d never gotten into trouble in school and never gotten detention. Which only made this doubly weird.

  “William dear, who is it?”

  Cliff gritted his teeth. William dear? What the hell was going on?

  Neither of them bothered answering her, since it was only seconds before Cliff stepped into the living room behind William dear Morales.

  One glimpse of his mother had Cliff wondering if she’d changed at all, but then her image resolved. She looked a little older, yes, but still as beautiful and serene as ever. And entirely unsurprised by his appearance in her living room.

  He cleared his throat. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Northcliff.” His mom smiled, and he did his best not to cringe at his full name.

  “Cliff, Mom, please.”

  His mother let out a little sigh and wrinkled her nose. “I’m glad you were able to stop by.” She stood up. “Come in. Sit down. I’ll get you some sweet tea.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  William ostentatiously checked an expensive watch. “Helen, I should get going anyway. Think about what I said.” He strode over to her while Cliff sank into one of the upholstered armchairs.

  His mother’s jaw tightened just a bit, but Cliff knew her well enough to know that William wouldn’t be getting whatever it is he wanted her to think about. Good.

  By sheer force of will, Cliff kept from slumping down into the chair, arms crossed in front of his chest, like a sulky teenager.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  William brushed a kiss across Cliff’s mother’s cheek, making Cliff’s lip curl for some inexplicable reason. It wasn’t like his parents hadn’t been divorced for years, and he never imagined them getting back together. His dad had been a fucking saint to put up with all his mother’s woo-woo shit for so many years. Nevertheless, it curdled something in his gut to see another man kiss his mom, even if it was only on the cheek. Perhaps it was the possessive arm about her waist as he did so that made the gesture less than innocent.

  Or it was just the shock of opening the door to his childhood home to find a man not his father there. Logically, there wasn’t a good reason for his pique, but logic apparently didn’t enter into it.

  The door closed behind William dear, and Cliff’s mother went into the kitchen while Cliff tried to talk himself out of his ire. Already this wasn’t going well, and he’d only been here a few minutes.

  A swift check of his watch had him groaning. By rights, he could easily manage an hour’s visit, but not if that hour was going to feel like purgatory. Or detention. Cliff snorted at the wayward thought, and the vise around his chest eased.

  His mother returned with a glass of cold sweet tea and set it down with a small plate of cookies. Cliff was a little too unsettled to try the cookies, but he gulped gratefully at the tea while his mother sat across from him.

  “You look tired, Northcliff. Have you been sleeping?”

  The concern grated, and it shouldn’t. Cliff knew he was tired. Moving across the country would do that, with or without your best friend dying, with or without your boyfriend cheating on you. Any one of those things would be cause for sleepless nights, although he didn’t really miss Brett. He’d missed having the support of a boyfriend at the funeral and could have used help packing up his apartment. He missed regular orgasms with another person, but Brett himself? Not so much. Losing Pete left a much bigger hole in his life, one he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fill again.

  “Been a long couple of weeks.” Spending the night in the hospital watching over Drew hadn’t done much to alleviate his exhaustion. “What was Mr. Morales doing here?”

  Cliff congratulated himself on keeping his voice even, but his mother raised one perfectly shaped blonde eyebrow, and he knew he hadn’t hidden his feelings well enough.

  “Men!”

  Cliff blinked. His mother rarely lost her composure like that. “Are you dating him or something?”

  “Willia
m is courting me, yes.”

  Courting. The old-fashioned word bothered him, but his mother had always been this way.

  “You never told me that.” Their phone calls hadn’t been frequent, but they spoke on a fairly regular basis. Sure, it had been easy to make excuses not to visit, but despite his resentment of his mother’s beliefs, he still loved her.

  “And you never told me you were moving back home.”

  Cliff squirmed in his seat. First his principal’s and now his mother’s disapproval had him feeling like he was a kid again. A kid in a shitload of trouble. As if he didn’t have enough shit to deal with.

  “No, it was…a rather sudden decision, and…” Cliff pushed out of the chair to go look out the window. “I don’t know. I guess I’m still not sure if I’m here to stay.”

  “So why come back at all?” His mother’s question was genuinely curious, with a thread of concern. For all her faults, she rarely held a grudge. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell her he was home because he thought she was losing her marbles. Especially when that was only part of the equation and not the biggest part. It was, however, the easiest way he’d justified fleeing from Los Angeles. He hoped that one day his failure to make a life there wouldn’t cut so deeply.

  “Because I’m done with LA. And I didn’t know where else to go. There was nowhere else I wanted to go, so the opening on the police force was…”

  “Destiny?”

  If not for a teasing hint in his mother’s voice, Cliff would have lost the grip on his temper, but at least she knew just how much Cliff hated to call anything destiny or fate or kismet.

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He flicked at the curtain before turned back to his mother. He’d moved on from Brett and was hoping to get to know one of the Drummonds intimately and biblically. Surely he could accept his mother had moved on, years after his parents’ divorce.

  He sat back down. “So what has…William done to piss you off?” Cliff couldn’t resist the improper word, and just as expected, his mother gave him a reproving look.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware, but William is mayor now.”

  Cliff nodded. It had been a hell of shock to come back home and find out Mr. Morales had moved on from the high school, where Cliff had assumed he would be a steady feature until he was no longer able to function.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “One of those paranormal television shows is filming at various locations over the next several days.”

  “Phantoms, yes.” Cliff nearly snorted. At least his mother wasn’t aware of his babysitting job and his connection with Phantoms’ star.

  “William is hoping this will be a big boost for the Sandy Bottom Bay economy.”

  “Mom. I can’t believe you’re letting them film here.” It was bad enough he’d had to live with his mother’s delusions of sharing their property with various dead relatives and a whole slew of massacred people who might or might not have been in his family tree, and he really hadn’t believed Brett when he’d said his mother had already given permission.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Northcliff. Of course I offered to let them film several places on the property, when the idea was first broached. Naturally that sort of coverage would be beneficial to the town, and you know how strong the spirits are around the estate. They’ve been getting stronger too, like they want to tell their story.”

  Stronger. She thought the ghosts were becoming more noticeable. Which was the main reason he’d been worried enough to return home. Had his mother been sliding glacially into dementia during his youth, only to have the speed of descent increase recently?

  This time, Cliff did cross his arms petulantly. “Well, it sounds like you and William are totally on the same page. I don’t see what the problem is.” Besides believing in ghosts. Or believing in them enough for filthy lucre. He’d never pegged Mr. Morales as that type, but he knew damn well his mother believed wholeheartedly in the supernatural.

  “Don’t be snide, Northcliff. It’s not becoming. And straighten up. No, the issue is that the…star? Producer? I don’t know. Someone associated with the show wants to film me doing an interview. Answering questions about the various hauntings around the estate.”

  “So?” Great. Brett and William Morales teaming up. The thought gave Cliff the chills. The Morales estate, smaller and less acreage, bordered the Somersets’, so Cliff had always had more interaction with the high school principal than he’d ever wanted.

  “Ridiculous. I can understand how those California types might not understand my objection to doing something so crass, but I cannot believe William keeps trying to talk me into it. Men!”

  Cliff pursed his lips. He wasn’t even going to dive in, because the conflict was absurd on so many levels that he’d never be able to dignify it with the gravity his mother would expect. And if she was resorting to gender arguments, he probably wouldn’t be able to pick the right side of this argument even if he agreed with every one of her statements. He took a deep breath.

  “Never mind William. I’m sure he’ll come around to your way of thinking.” Or he’d be sent packing. “Are you doing okay? After the, uh, incident?”

  A shadow crossed her face, sending a pang of guilt through Cliff. His mother was pretending to be fine, but she was upset, and Cliff was an ass for not coming out to see her as soon as he’d heard about the death.

  “He was quite nice. Drank too much, perhaps, but he was a good handyman. Poor Andy.”

  “Did you find him?” Cliff should have asked about that sooner; it made him a horrible son that he hadn’t even considered how awful that would have been for her. But she hadn’t had full-time staff for years, so odds were against anyone else having found Andy.

  “Oh no, dear. One of his friends was meeting him for lunch. One of the Drummond twins. He was quite shook up, poor thing.”

  Poor thing. Christ. Which of the evil twins had been tramping around his mother’s place? Then again, it didn’t matter—whichever Drummond it was, they were undoubtedly looking for a way to make a quick buck.

  * * * *

  By the time Kyle got him home, Drew was sweaty, light-headed, and in more pain. The heat in his tiny house had never seemed so oppressive before, and he slumped at the kitchen table, slick with the clammy sweat that only popped up during illness.

  “I don’t…” He closed his eyes and stopped talking. The heat and humidity had never affected him like they were doing right this second. Unbelievably, he was longing for the hospital bed he’d just left, with its temperature and environmental controls. He wasn’t much looking forward to having Cliff see him like this either.

  “Let me get you another pain pill. Then I’m going to call your brothers and have them bring over some fans. Or a window A/C unit for your bedroom. This heat can’t be good for your head.”

  Kyle spoke God’s honest truth. The heat was not doing wonders for Drew’s head. Sweat formed on his scalp, and he dreaded the moment it battled past his bandage and got into his stitches.

  Without another word, Kyle bustled him into the bathroom. He wasn’t sure if it was because he looked pukey or if it was because the bathroom was the coolest part of the house. Drew slid gently down to the ground and turned his face to rest against the tile.

  He must have fallen asleep there, because when he opened his eyes again, he was stretched out on the bathroom floor—as much as one could stretch out in a cramped five-by-seven space that already held a toilet, sink, and tub. His face was mashed up against the side of the tub, and his head rested on a pillow. The temperature had dropped a degree or two below the surface of the sun, and he pushed himself upright. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to stand.

  “Kyle.” His voice was feeble and pathetic, but if nothing else, the house was too tiny for Kyle not to have heard him.

  A few seconds later, Drew was proved right as Kyle bounded into the doorway.

  “Oh good, you’re awake. I can’t get you into bed without some help from you
.”

  “What the hell have I been doing, except resting? I shouldn’t still be so exhausted.”

  “Not so. You’re healing. You’re supposed to rest and recuperate. But unfortunately, I can’t lift you with my knee.” Kyle looked away as he ran water over a cloth. “You ready to stand up?”

  Drew considered it. “In a minute.”

  “Okay, we’ll do this here.” Kyle squatted, then wiped down Drew’s face, the damp chill so good Drew could cry. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a friend as good as Kyle, and he was selfishly glad that Kyle hadn’t been able to move to New York as he’d planned.

  “Can’t you cancel your plans this weekend? Surely whoever they’re with will understand.” Drew tried not to sound too pathetic, but was sure he’d failed. Had to be a hookup; there wasn’t anyone else Kyle spent any time with besides Drew.

  “Ahem. Well. That was a bit of a white lie, really.” Kyle continued to pat at his face and neck while Drew pieced together the implications.

  “You lied?” Betrayal, bitter and cold, swept through him. “I thought you were my friend. How could you do this? How could you put me through this?”

  “Look, everything I said at the hospital was true. This will be a good way to get to know him. Without having to worry about sex.”

  Drew rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to have to worry about sex with Cliff—ever. Puking on a guy wasn’t exactly enticing.

  “And that makes it okay to lie? Jesus, Kyle.”

  Kyle shrugged. “I’m going to make myself scarce. If things are really terrible, I’m only a phone call away, but did you ever think that we’re doing him a favor? He hasn’t told his mom he’s back in town. It’s, like, his first day…or maybe second by now, on the job. I don’t know why the motel kicked him out, but he may not have anywhere to go, not with Haunt Fest starting next week. He sure wasn’t going to admit that to us, but doing this ‘favor’ for us and keeping an eye on you might make it easier for him to accept. Not like I got his whole life story while we were waiting for you to wake up or anything, but he seems a little private. Last thing he’d do would be to tell anyone he had to sleep in his car because he had nowhere else to go.”