by Mae Clair
“Some of the wiring has been exposed in the dark room. If I’m ripping out walls, that should be reworked and brought up to code. And the chemical spills have eaten through the finish on the hardwood floor by the closet. If your intent is to sell, you can market ‘as is’ or fix the items I’m suggesting and hope for a boost in resale value. I’ll have to subcontract the electrical.”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
He shrugged and stretched in the chair. “I’ve got a Realtor who calls me frequently when he needs repair work done on a client listing.”
Another connection that would save time. “Can I get his name?”
“Sure thing. I thought you might be interested and brought a card just in case.” He slipped it from the front pocket of his jeans and passed it across the table.
Eve glanced at the embossed gold letters: James Dixon, River Real Estate. “I’ll call him.” She wanted the house sold as quickly as possible. “Can you give me an idea what the repairs are going to set me back?”
“I’ll work up an estimate and drop it off tomorrow. I’ll break it out by item. That way if you don’t want to do everything I suggest, you don’t have to.”
“That sounds fair. When do you think you can start?”
“Depending on what you decide, I’ll probably have to pick up supplies, possibly order some lumber, but there are a number of things I can get started on right away.” He shook his head. “Odd how most of the damage was to the dark room and your aunt’s bedroom.”
She’d thought the same. “Almost as if the rest was an afterthought.”
Caden narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Oh…nothing.” She was likely being silly, but now that she’d had a chance to scrutinize each room thoroughly, she couldn’t help notice the dissimilarities. Aside from the kitchen, which had been the point of entry through the screened porch, most of the other rooms had sustained minimal damage. It was almost as if the vandals had targeted the dark room and her aunt’s bedroom, then hit the others so the damage wouldn’t seem selective. “Ryan thinks it was kids having fun, but I’m not so sure.” She bit her lip, thinking of the man she’d spied from her bedroom window.
Caden shifted uneasily, his posture relaying a hesitant thought.
She pounced on his silence immediately. “What aren’t you saying?”
He frowned, tapping his pen against the table. Judging from the look in his eyes, he was uncertain how forthcoming he should be. At last he cleared his throat and dropped the pen as if reaching a decision. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I’ve seen my share of damage before. Whoever trashed the rooms upstairs was either looking for something or did it in a fit of rage.” He held up a hand as disclaimer. “Just my opinion.”
Her heartrate increased. “Wouldn’t your brother have told me that? He’s a cop. He would have recognized—”
“Ryan might be in law enforcement, but he tends to see the best in every situation.”
“Unlike you?” She wasn’t sure why she’d said it, but staring at him across the table, she knew the observation was true. There was a hardness to his face that hadn’t been there in his youth, a jaded coldness to his eyes that made him seem aloof.
He grimaced but inclined his head, acknowledging the comment. “I’ve learned to see things for what they are. Life rarely disappoints me.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”
He held up a hand to forestall her apology. “I’m just making an observation based on experience.”
“But Aunt Rosie didn’t have any enemies.” The idea was unthinkable.
“That you know of.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“That’s not my intention. Look, Eve, if I were a kid on a vandalizing spree, I’d do a lot more damage with a can of spray paint than tossing the place.”
She thought of the black squiggle she’d seen upstairs. “There was only one wall marked with spray paint.”
“To make it seem like vandalism.” Caden leaned forward. “Kids like to make a statement. They spray paint words and symbols, not a simple line.”
She swallowed hard. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because even if you don’t want me to do any of the work on this list”—he tapped the paper in front of her—”let me go to the hardware store and buy a deadbolt for the back door. I can shore it up far better than that piece of wood in place now.”
“You’re serious about this?
He sat back in the chair. “Enough to share my thoughts with Ryan. This is the first time I’ve seen the damage.”
“But you’re suggesting someone did this deliberately.”
“I know you want to believe your aunt didn’t have enemies, but you’ve been away for fifteen years. A lot has changed. People change. Point Pleasant has changed.”
“You’ve changed.”
He balked as if she’d caught him off guard.
“You used to be so easy-going,” she continued, venturing further. “I remember how Maggie said you—”
“Maggie’s dead.” He looked away. “That damn bridge.”
“I lost my father on that bridge.”
“You didn’t kill your father.”
“What?” Certainly, he didn’t mean he was responsible for Maggie’s death?
“Nothing.” He shoved his chair back and stood. “I’ll be back later today with an estimate for time and materials and to repair the back door.”
“I didn’t agree to that work.” She was suddenly angry with him for cutting her off, for refusing to talk about Maggie. He couldn’t just saunter into her home, work her nerves into a knot with theories about personal vendettas against her aunt, then close down and refuse to talk.
“I’m doing it, anyway.” Without waiting for a response, he started for the front door.
“Caden.” She trailed on his heels, the heat of anger warming her cheeks. “I’m not twelve-years old any longer, and I’m not your sister. That attitude may have worked on Maggie, but it doesn’t on me.”
He paused, his hand on the doorknob, and turned to stare down at her. “It only worked once with Maggie. And I wish to God it hadn’t.”
* * * *
Caden should have headed to his shop and started on the estimate he promised Eve, but guilt drove him next door. It had been at least two weeks since he’d visited his mother. The sight of Ryan’s personal vehicle parked in the driveway told him his brother was working a later shift. Having his younger brother act as buffer between Caden and his mother would help if she spiraled into the past. Although she was fine on her own and went about her business as usual most days, there were times they worried about her driving or heading into town.
Oddly, she never talked to other people about Maggie, only them. It was as if their presence, especially his, triggered something that made her retreat into the past. To the rest of the world, she behaved as usual, a pleasant woman with a friendly smile and a soft-spoken demeanor.
“Ryan?” Caden stepped inside, setting his clipboard on a foyer table. There’d been a time he would have set his badge and pistol there, but his days in law enforcement had ended in a nightmare of blood and drunken screams. Even now, there were times his gut curdled thinking about Hank Jeffries and the Kline kid. The best thing he’d ever done was walk away from the police force.
“Back here.” His brother’s voice and the smell of coffee led him to the kitchen. The sight of Ryan seated at the breakfast table with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon while his mother flitted around the stove resurrected memories of easy family mornings.
“You’re just in time for breakfast, Caden.” His mother smiled in his direction. Dressed in a rose-colored bathrobe, her blond hair secured in a low bun, she looked the picture of domestic bliss.
He bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll just grab some coffee.”
“Nonsense. I made far too many eggs.
Someone has to eat them.”
As he poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, she served up a plateful of eggs and added a few strips of bacon. “There.” She shooed him toward the table and set the plate in front of him. “Having both of my boys for breakfast. What a treat. I’ll get you some silverware.”
“Mom, sit down. I’ll take care of it.”
She seemed in good spirits, often a rarity. Caden steered her toward the table and got her settled with a cup of coffee. He located silverware in a drawer, then returned to his seat. “Did you already eat?”
She waved a hand over her coffee. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not hungry.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan give a slight nod, indicating she’d had breakfast earlier. Sometimes, she truly didn’t remember; other times her protests were a bid for attention. Favoring him with a bright smile, she leaned across the table and patted his hand. “It’s so nice of you to drop by, Caden. I haven’t seen you in over a month.”
Time for her to apply the guilt trip. She’d set a new record for speed. “It’s only been a few weeks, Mom.”
“Posh. I’m sure it’s been longer.”
“It just seems that way.” He swallowed a forkful of eggs and exchanged a glance with Ryan. His brother was far more accustomed to their mother’s flighty nature and her nosedives into fantasy. Guilt was something she rarely ladled on Ryan, a specialty reserved for her eldest son. As much as she claimed to love him, she’d never forgiven him for Maggie’s death. It was a truth he’d carried in his heart for the last fifteen years.
The river had taken his sister’s life, surrendering her body only after destroying her flesh. So each morning he woke in his small rented apartment overlooking the site where the Silver Bridge had stood, reminding himself he was at fault. Each night he closed his eyes on the view of that cold water, knowing Maggie’s bones had lain trapped in the silt for six long months.
If only he hadn’t convinced her to go out that night.
His mother nursed her coffee, eying him over the brim of the cup. “However long it’s been, you look tired. Don’t you ever sleep?”
Not well.
“Sometimes I have dreams,” she continued, as if uninterested in his answer. “I had one last night.”
Ryan cleared his throat, interrupting. Both brothers knew any mention of dreams would likely lead her down the murky corridors of the past. “I take it you saw Eve.”
Thankful for the intervention, Caden nodded. “I told her I’d get an estimate to her this afternoon. There’s a lot of damage upstairs. More than accountable by random vandalism.”
“I always thought she was a sweet girl.” His mother swirled a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. Turned toward the ceiling, her eyes held a faraway look. “It’s so nice she came back to visit.”
“I think she’s just here to settle Rosie’s estate, Mom,” Ryan interjected. He returned his attention to Caden. “You didn’t tell her that…about the vandalism?”
“She deserves to know.”
Ryan gave a snort of disgust. “No one wants to scare her, Caden. It was probably nothing. Rosie didn’t have enemies.”
“But she had secrets.”
Both brothers glanced to their mother at her strange pronouncement.
“What does that mean?” Caden asked.
His mother began to hum softly. Raising her cup to her lips, she took another sip of coffee. “Did you know Mrs. Aldridge is going to visit with me today when Ryan leaves for work? It’s so I won’t be lonely.” She turned clear gray eyes on Caden. “Mrs. Aldridge says her husband still goes to the TNT to look for the Mothman.”
“Mom.” He didn’t want to think about the Mothman. The creature had impacted his life in too many ways. “What did you mean about Rosie having secrets?”
“Mrs. Aldridge told me there’s something in one of the igloos. You can’t see it, but it’s there and, if you ask it a question, it might answer.” She blinked and set the cup down with a thunk as if a monumental realization had washed over her. “Do you think we should ask it why Maggie’s body wasn’t found with the others? It would have to be you, Caden.”
His fork slipped from his fingers and clattered against his plate. “I was talking about Rosalind Parrish.”
“She had secrets. Maggie told me last night.”
“Mom, that’s enough,” Ryan snapped.
“Oh, dear, now I’ve upset you both.” Her lips quivered.
Caden was amazed at how swiftly her face had crumpled in sadness. Fishing a tissue from her bathrobe, she sniffled and dabbed it against her eyes. “It’s all so complicated. We should have listened to Maggie when she said she saw the Mothman. I think the creature was trying to warn us about the bridge collapse. Don’t you remember how many people claimed to have seen it during the year leading up to the tragedy? It used them as messengers, and we were just too close-minded to see it.” She shook her head remorsefully. “All those carloads of people in the TNT riding around with guns. I think we scared it off. Maggie might still be here if we’d only realized it was trying to help.”
He wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t stay. “I have to go.”
Her gaze speared him as he rose from his seat. “Why did you have to take her out that night? Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”
“Ryan, I’ll talk to you later.” He was halfway to the door before he realized his brother was on his heels. Ryan wrenched him to a halt as he stepped outside.
“She’s not in her right mind. You know it. She hasn’t been since Maggie died. Don’t let her get to you.”
He grunted and laced a hand through his hair. Don’t let her get to him? The woman had an uncanny knack of reminding him he’d been the one to coerce his sister out that night. All she’d wanted to do was stay inside, huddled in her bedroom, terrified after stumbling over the Mothman while visiting their grandmother.
“It isn’t real,” he’d told Maggie. “You only thought you saw something.” He’d grinned, cocky and sure of himself, the one person his little sister had never been able to refuse. After three days of being cooped up inside, he’d wanted to shake the scare from her. She might have seen something, but not the creature. Of that he was sure. “Come Christmas shopping with me, and I’ll protect you. I promise.”
Only he hadn’t protected her. No wonder his mother blamed him.
He wouldn’t tell Ryan she was right. “Yeah, okay.” Better to concede and let it go. “Look, I’ve gotta run. I’ve got some other estimates I need to work on, not just Eve’s.”
“Sure.” Ryan clapped a friendly hand on his back. They were nearly the same height. Five years younger, Ryan was only an inch shorter.
His brother grinned in a clear effort to lighten the mood. “So, what did you think of Eve? She’s really grown up, huh?”
He’d noticed. A little more than he wanted to admit. She’d been all arms and legs as a kid, coltish like Maggie, but the woman who’d greeted him at the house was shapely and trim. Her hair seemed lighter, still a rich chestnut that flowed around her shoulders, but threaded with gold. Had he been asked as a kid, he wouldn’t have been able to say her eyes were green, but there’d been no mistaking that vibrant color as she’d sat across from him at the dining room table. It made him wonder what Maggie would have looked like grown up.
“Yeah. A marked change from pigtails.” He started to turn away, then stopped, a niggling thought surfacing in the back of his mind. “I know most of what Mom says doesn’t mean anything, but…” He hedged, uncertain how far to push his doubts. “Do you think she could know something about Rosie?”
Ryan closed the door behind him and stepped onto the porch despite the fact he was dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, wearing slippers instead of shoes. He’d probably been on late shift and had only recently crawled from bed.
“You’re still hung up on that damage at the house, aren’t you?” Ryan asked.
“I’m not a c
op—not any longer—but I’ve seen enough vandalized properties to recognize one, and Rosie’s house wasn’t vandalized. Not in the normal sense of the word.”
“You could be a cop if you wanted to.” Ryan leaned against the railing. “Sheriff Weston would take his best sergeant back in a heartbeat.”
“Ryan.” He didn’t want to go there, not down a path they’d trodden countless times before.
“All right.” His brother backed away from the discussion. “What are you suggesting?”
“Maybe Rosalind Parrish did have enemies.” Caden paused, thinking about what their mother had said. “Or secrets.”
Ryan exhaled. “Okay, I’ll buy it wasn’t typical vandalism, but there’s not a hell of a lot to be done. There was no one to report anything stolen, and the estate was in probate. We didn’t even dust for prints.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m more inclined to think someone was looking for money, couldn’t find any, and made a mess to cover their tracks. Everyone in town knew Rosie was a wealthy woman.”
Caden considered that. “When she died, an empty house became fair game.”
Ryan nodded. “That doesn’t mean you can’t make things extra secure for Eve while she’s here.”
“I’m way ahead of you brother. I’m taking care of that back door later today whether she likes it or not.”
Ryan grinned. “Looking out for little sister’s friend?”
Caden shook his head. “Looking out for Eve.”
Chapter 3
Amos Carter swatted a mosquito from his arm and took a drag off his Marlboro. Still early in the morning, the hush hanging over the TNT was heavier than usual. He didn’t buy the legend of the Mothman, but sometimes the remote location gave him the creeps, even in daylight. It wasn’t that he believed a giant winged humanoid haunted the place, but the vastness of the region didn’t sit well with someone who liked noise. With over 3600 acres of nothing but overgrown trees, ponds, and old World War II ammunition igloos, it was too damn quiet, the silence broken only by the trill of a bird or the chattering of leaves.
Shifting, he settled against his car, bracing his back against the driver’s door. The old ’72 T-Bird was a hell of a gas hog, but it got him where he needed to go. Most of the time. This morning, the Ford had sputtered and coughed even on the straight flat of Potters Creek Road. He’d pressed deeper into the TNT, eventually pulling off the narrow road at the mouth of an overgrown trail cut into the woods. Hidden behind a rusted guardrail installed by the Army decades past, a tapered rut sliced between the trees—a footpath for anyone willing to brave chiggers, ticks, and the domain of the Mothman.
