Under the Cheaters Table

by Etta Faire

  I turned my flashlight on even though it was day time and scanned over the rocks and grass with it, trying not to think about the disappointment sighs, the Dead Forest looming to my left, or the fact I was a 30-year-old with so much time on her hands, she hung out at search parties with senior citizens.

  I should’ve been at home writing the novel I told people I was writing, not helping ghosts or looking for people I didn’t think were really missing. None of these seniors knew the truth about Bobby, that he’d taken thousands of dollars in cash before he left a month ago.

  My breath hung in front of me in a cold puff that seemed to be mocking me. This was pointless. He was nowhere near here.

  The walkie-talkie in George’s hand crackled. A woman’s voice came over it along with some static-like feedback because she was not that far away.

  “It’s Meg here. I saw something,” the older woman’s voice said.

  My heart jumped into my throat. I was ready to run.

  “Roger that,” Lila said through the radio from the warmth of her car. I was pretty sure she had no idea what “Roger that” meant. I didn’t. She continued. “Please confirm, Meg. Is it a piece of evidence?”

  The woman talking on the walkie-talkie was near the front of the group, and she pointed into the forest, her oversized dark golfing jacket fell oddly along her wrist, covering everything except the very tip of her finger. “Negative,” she said. “I see eyes and I hear breathing.”

  “Do not approach. Come back up here and we’ll call it a day,” Lila said.

  I squinted into the forest. The foggy mist obscured my vision. Anything could have been lurking around those bone-looking trees and weird shadows.

  “It looks human,” Meg said. She handed the walkie-talkie to her buddy, a man who looked about 75. Reaching into her oversized, “Cat Mom,” cloth bag, she pulled out a revolver. Her hand shook as she approached the forest, revolver out and at the ready.

  I screamed as the woman shouted, “I’m going in.”

  Her partner spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Meg’s going in. But don’t worry, she’s armed.”

  “Meg, for God sakes, put that gun away before you kill someone,” another voice said through the radio.

  I tugged on old George’s jacket, surprised by how light and easy he was to pull. “We’re leaving,” I said, pulling him up the hill to our car again as Parker opened the passenger’s door of Lila’s SUV and yelled, “No.”

  “We just got here,” George replied.

  The growling behind me was louder than anything I’d heard before. Animal, mixed with human, but mostly animal. I turned around to see it, a humungous black bear already straddling the woman who used to have a gun. Her gun was off to the side now. And there was no way she could reach it.

  Two of the men charged the bear and it easily hopped off the woman to scurry after them. That’s when everyone took off, including me.

  Those seniors darted up the hill like their medicare depended on it. The bear was just at their heels, close but not too close to do actual harm, even though the thing could easily have overtaken them, or eaten Meg. Everyone made it to their vehicles safely.

  “And we’re done for today,” Lila said through the radio over the sounds of group two’s ignitions starting. “Meet at the park and rec to regroup.”

  “What about my gun?” Meg answered with the black bear not but thirty feet away from us.

  Once I was safe in my car, I looked back at the bear who was scurrying away into the forest again. He seemed way too familiar. I’d definitely seen that bear before, and I knew where.

  I shoved the door to the police department open as hard as I could when I got there later that afternoon. It was one of those doors that barely moved, so my anger wasn’t noticed.

  “Hey Carly Mae,” Christine, the brunette who worked the front desk, said when she saw me come in. She was a woman around 50 with a smile you couldn’t be angry around. She stopped typing and looked up to see my face. “You okay?”

  I shook my head. “Boyfriend trouble.”

  “Justin!” she yelled into the back room. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Just let me know if you want me to give him extra paperwork. They all hate that worse than losing reception on Super Bowl Sunday.” She winked. “Paperwork’ll take care of him.”

  Justin came out just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation.

  “Uh-oh. What’d I do to deserve paperwork?” he asked.

  “They always pretend not to know,” Christine said from her computer as my bear of a boyfriend pulled me outside so we could talk without anyone else hearing. He looked good in his dark police uniform, mostly because it fit him like a glove. I pretended not to notice.

  “Whatever, Justin. I know that was you out at the old Bear Rock Drive-In.”

  “What was me? And why were you out at the old drive-in?”

  My heart raced and I took a deep breath. “You could’ve been shot and killed. What were you thinking?”

  He hunched down so he was the same height as me and leaned in. “Now I’m worried. What are you talking about?”

  I looked around. The police department was located on the corner of two of the busiest streets in town, but still everyone avoided it. Not a soul in sight. I lowered my voice as I told him about the task force meeting I went to, the bear, and how Meg brought out a gun.

  He sighed heavily. “Look, Carly. I don’t think you should go to those anymore,” he said. “This isn’t a game. This is serious, and if the town wants to form search parties, they should come to the police. And they shouldn’t have weapons. Especially not guns. What was Meg thinking? You are so lucky. So lucky someone did not get hurt…”

  My usual “doesn’t say much” boyfriend was letting me have an earful.

  He wasn’t finished. “They should also have given us the wallet chain evidence, and Shelby should have given us the grouse foot and told us about the mattress money. Doesn’t anyone trust the police around here?”

  I looked down at my feet. I wasn’t sure what to think anymore. “The bear out there today didn’t hurt anyone. Not even the woman with the gun. It was almost like he wanted to scare us away from doing any more task forces.” I realized my voice was raising, so I lowered it again. “That bear looked a lot like you, and you told me once that you sometimes follow me around to protect me.”

  “Not this time. That wasn’t me.”

  “I don’t know. You keep a lot of secrets.” My voice was a whisper but it was still cracking as I talked. “Just so you know, we’re all getting bear spray before we reconvene this Saturday at the Dead Forest,” I said. “So watch your eyes.”

  The wind blew his thick dark hair as he talked. “Think about it, Carly. Why would Meg bring a gun to a search party? Why are they putting together this task force to find Bobby in the first place? Are they really so concerned for Shelby? Or, are they doing a little bear hunting?”

  I felt my face lose its color. “I…I… didn’t think about that.”

  “Really? Because from my perspective, it looks like you sure took a blind’s eye to some obvious things. Maybe you’ve got some secrets too,” he said, turning on his heel to go inside. He paused at the door. “That wasn’t me out there. But it does sound like a shifter, which means this is serious, and that was a warning.”

  Walking out to my car, I was more certain than ever that the members of group two had been the ones in the back of George’s barbershop the afternoon he got pecked.

  Why had they practically insisted on me being a part of their group, though?

  Whatever “serious” stuff was going on between the shifters, I didn’t want any part of it. I needed to take back control of my life, in more ways than one.

  And I was about to start at my house.

  Chapter 25

  Power

  Rex greeted me as soon as I got home, whimpering and pushing his nose into my hand. I cuddled my face into his golden fur and stroked his chin. He seemed different. Depress
ed, maybe.

  I gave him an extra dollop of his favorite food, and warmed it in the microwave, but he didn’t even stare at me longingly like he usually does as he holds in his drool. He looked off around the room, like he didn’t care or even notice there was an extra dollop.

  “It’s okay, buddy. I know you miss Jackson. We’re going to get our problems solved today.”

  He threw me a hopeful, but doubtful, glance.

  I could tell things were changing for him too. Jackson wasn’t here, and I had no idea how my “guest” was treating him.

  This fueled my fire more than getting my ex back. Nobody messes with my dog. I kept my breathing calm, though, and my thoughts neutral, mostly because I was pretty sure my own hatred toward Feldman was somehow feeding him an extra dollop of undue power around here.

  I turned my phone off and gently placed it on the settee with the bike helmet I was almost certain I was never going to need again.

  This was it. I was taking back control. And I didn’t need alarms or protection to do it.

  It was evening, but the room seemed darker than usual, the air thick with the seething ghost I’d been channeling with. I could almost smell a faint tinge of sulphur coming from off the walls.

  I pictured it lighter, airier, earthier. And I pictured myself indifferent to the fact he was making my house his home. He was merely a pest that I needed to get rid of.

  “Feldman,” I said. My voice was stern but even-keeled and powerful.

  I was definitely going for powerful.

  He didn’t show himself. But it didn’t matter. I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes, drawing the force I knew was here into me.

  This was my new way of channeling. This was me, in control. It didn’t take long, which I refused to see as either a good sign or a bad one. I was going to curtail my usual anxious thoughts. I was in control.

  But I also wasn’t the least bit surprised when the sound of my clock clicking rhythmically in the background morphed into the clinking glasses and the smell of alcohol and burnt chicken, the exact spot we’d left off at.

  I opened my eyes. The dark-haired, gorgeous man I knew as Chance stood by the bar, pouring a beer from the tap. “Are we playing cards or what?” he asked.

  Jazz music played in the background. Doc, the ashen-colored “physician” who looked about 60 but I knew was really in his early 40s, staggered to the poker table, his glasses still askew from when Terry pushed him in the hallway. With a shaky hand, he poured himself a whiskey from the bottle by his stack of chips. He teetered as he poured, swaying with what looked like the kind of rational mind that knew it was time to stop drinking, but also wanted “just one more” to maintain the high. And why not? He owned the place now. He could drink all he wanted.

  Even though he seemed too drunk to murder someone and get away with it successfully, I couldn’t count anyone out of this equation. Plus, the murderer hadn’t gotten away with it. It was just that no one at the speakeasy had reported it, or mentioned it ever again.

  What could’ve motivated the witnesses to do that? To wipe up fingerprints and blood, and hide something so awful to someone they supposedly loved? I quickly ran the scenarios in my head.

  Maybe when everyone woke up, they found Feldman dead under the table. And each person knew it had to be one of them who’d done it. That sense of being snowed in, trapped in an old pharmacy with a murderer, not knowing which one of them it was, must’ve been terrifying. Straight out of a horror movie. Or, maybe they’d all done it, Julius Caesar style. Feldman’s ghost probably would have remembered that last one.

  Snow had completely covered the only window in the basement, making it unusually dim in the room despite all the lamps.

  Fortunately, Feldman glanced by the clock on the back wall and I slowed the memory down enough to read it. 12:15. It wouldn’t be long before this was over.

  “I think we should call it a night,” Feldman said. “We’ve got all weekend to lose our money. We’re snowed in.” He turned to Drew and pointed toward the hall. “Do you want to make up the extra beds, babe? The cots upstairs too?”

  “Sure,” she said, leaving down the hall to do it.

  “I’ll help you, Drewsie,” Richie said, and Feldman eyed him suspiciously.

  “I bet you will,” Doc replied.

  “Shut-up, Doc,” Richie yelled back, leaving with Drew who was busy telling Richie to never call her that again.

  “That name stayed in the orphanage,” she said, curtly.

  I listened to the thoughts going on in Feldman’s head at the time of the memory.

  Richie thinks I don’t know. Everybody knows he’s got a thing for Drew and always has. A thing for Doc’s wife too. It’s cause he can’t get his own girl. That’s why. They’d all rather shrivel and die than be with him.

  Chance paced at the back of the room, spilling his beer as he did. “You all cheat and take my money then you want to quit and go to sleep.” His speech was slurred.

  “Nobody cheats,” Feldman said.

  Chance’s face was red now. He looked all around the bar, but stopped his attention on Flo, pointing at her. “You. You especially. You can’t go to sleep. You have everyone’s money and I felt it. Right before we took that stupid break, I was on an upswing. You just want to kill my good luck.”

  “It only felt like your luck was changing because you bought back in,” she replied, crossing her legs and blowing smoke high above her face. “But I’ll stay up as long as you want, darling.” She looked him in the eye then glanced down at the stack of chips sitting in front of his seat. “I might like that stack too.”

  “Cheating sack of…”

  Terry stumbled his way over to Chance and, on tiptoes, got right up in his face. “Don’t talk to her like that. In fact, don’t talk to her at all. Don’t look at her. Don’t think about her.” Chance was a lot bigger and thicker than Terry, but something told me Terry could hold his own in a fight.

  “Have another drink on Doc, why dontcha?” Chance said. “Drunk piece of crap.”

  Terry turned toward Doc. “What’s he talking about?”

  Feldman gulped down the shot in front of him and shook his head at Doc. “You told your handyman about our deal?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, I thought we agreed I’d make a formal announcement this weekend.”

  “What deal?” Terry said to his brother. “What’s everyone talking about, Feld? Am I the last to know something?”

  No one said a word, so Terry rushed over to Doc, who was sitting at the table, and curled his hand into the front of the small man’s shirt. He yanked him to his feet, practically choking him. “Tell me or I’m beating the crap out of you.”

  “The hell you will,” Chance replied, knocking over a chair to get to the men.

  Flo leaned back and watched as her boyfriend raised his fist to an inch of Doc’s face.

  “Just give me a reason to beat the crap out of you both,” Terry said. “Is Chance your goon? Your bodyguard? I can take him.”

  Doc coughed from beside him. His face turned a different shade of ashen blue.

  Pouring another shot, Feldman added, “Let him go, Ter. I sold the bar to Doc.”

  “You what?”

  “For you. I did it for you.”

  “You sold the bar for me?” Terry let go of Doc’s shirt and Doc fell over, relieved, gasping for air.

  Terry strolled over to Feldman, smiling. As soon as he got to us, he punched us right in the nose. No warning, no words. A stinging sensation rang through my face, and I felt a little drip fall from my nostril and onto my upper lip, probably blood.

  Terry raised his fist like he was going to do it again, but this time Feldman was prepared.

  He blocked his brother’s punch and sent one swinging himself. The side of our fist landed squarely along Terry’s jaw, making my hand sting. It was the kind of hit you knew was going to hurt both of you for a while.

  Terry landed on the side of the table fi
rst, toppling it over, sending chips and drinks falling. A glass broke and Doc got up and moved away from Terry’s limp body laying on the floor in front of him.

  “I think we’ve all had enough for tonight,” Doc said, finally adjusting his glasses. “We need to talk, Feldman.”

  Chance laughed. “How we gonna settle up? Because the chips are down, and I think I was up.”

  “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” Feldman’s fist still stung. He shook it out then pointed to the floor where his brother lay unconscious. “Take him to one of the back rooms, will ya?” he said to Boyd and Chance, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his nose.

  Boyd shook his head. “I can’t believe you did that.” He grabbed Terry’s arms while Chance took his legs. “And not this. Terry had it coming. I mean I can’t believe you sold the bar.”

  “Ah, you’ll get over it or you won’t,” Feldman replied. “Either way, my days here are done. I am the proud owner of an art studio now. I’m investing in a great local artist.”

  Chance looked down at the lifeless man he was helping to carry. “Who, this guy? What a great investment.”

  Drew and Richie raced into the bar area. “What in the world was that noise?” she asked. “Sounded like the roof caved in.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Feldman said. “Mr. Hyde reared his ugly head again.”

  Drew nodded as she and Richie walked over to him, but her eyes lingered on Feldman’s nose, making him feel self-conscious. “Put Terry in the green room,” she said to Boyd and Chance, her eyes still on Feldman’s nose. “Blanche is sleeping in the blue one.”

  Flo followed the men out with her boyfriend. The side of Terry’s face was already forming a black-and-purple swollen bruise.

  “Like I said before, everything has its price,” Flo said as she sashayed past us and over to the hall. “Sometimes, you pay with your face.”

  Drew and Richie stared at Feldman for a full thirty seconds before he said anything.

  “Okay, I’m selling the bar,” he finally admitted, lifting the table and setting it upright again. His nose still stung and he dabbed at it with his handkerchief. “Terry found out and we got into it…”