by Abby Knox
“Fuck,” he howled as he released, filling her up with his seed.
“Yes, Ryan!” she cried, coming along with him, squeezing every last bit of him into her. She thrashed against him, clamped down hard while her legs hugged him so tight he thought he might lose control all over again.
“Are you going to let me do my thing, my way?” she said, gasping for breath.
He grunted as the last of him emptied into her. “Yeah.”
Which was a lie.
He had no intention of letting her have her way.
21
Misty
She was never one for a large gaggle of friends, but all of the people who had lent a hand during the festival had stayed and helped to close it up.
Elly would report back with the totals the next meeting, but it looked like it had been the most successful fall festival on the record books yet.
Hell, even Carla Phillips and her little clan of grown-up mean girls looked like they were having a good time. But they had probably spiked their pumpkin spice lattes.
As the last of the vendors picked up and left, and the last of the trash was recycled or thrown into the Clays’ burn pit, everyone exchanged hugs. Misty was not a hugger, but she got hugs from seven different people and from 12 different kids. And she didn’t necessarily hate it.
Ryan followed her home in his truck and stayed parked on the street, long after she went inside.
She was still sore as she walked up her steps and into her front door, but in a good way. She felt exhausted and giddy.
She put on her flannel pajamas, set the alarm codes, locked all the doors, checked all the windows. Placed her loaded gun in her nightstand drawer.
Suddenly her phone rang and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Hi, Misty. It’s me, Judge Diamond.”
Misty’s stomach churned up as both hope and dread gripped her. “I’m so sorry for calling so late, but I’ve been at the archives all evening. It’s interesting. We need to meet in the morning. I have some news. I don’t want to give it to you over the phone, though.”
This was torture. “Can you please just give me a hint?”
The judge hesitated. “It’s complicated. But to give you a preview, that baby didn’t die.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your aunt wasn’t pregnant. She actually had a baby. I found a birth certificate.”
“What? He murdered her baby? Fuck!”’
“God, no, Misty.”
“…So that baby is still alive?”
More hesitation. “Oh dear, I really don’t want to talk about this over the phone. Let’s meet first thing the morning.”
Misty was so churned up with emotions she knew she was never going to sleep.
“Come to my house, first thing. It’s…probably safer there.”
Misty hung up the phone after transcribing the address, and tried to shake off the jitters. Her aunt had a baby? And it was alive? She had a cousin somewhere? But where?
This was insane. She should have asked the judge for the name on the birth certificate. There was no way she was going to get to sleep tonight.
She felt like inviting Ryan inside.
But she held off and curled up in bed, eventually drifting off to sleep from exhaustion.
She was about halfway to sleep, in that weird place between waking and dreaming, when she felt someone in the house.
It was a dream. A man and a woman in the house, arguing. A baby was crying. There were things hitting the wall. There was a gunshot. And then another.
She felt like she was falling off a cliff, and then she jerked herself backward. And then, something warm. A hand on her hair. A small weight on the bed next to her.
She woke just barely. “Ryan, I told you not to sneak up behind me,” she muttered.
But the smell was not Ryan. It was the stench of mildew.
And then suddenly, Misty was fully awake. Her hand shot to her nightstand drawer, grasping her handgun. She cocked it before her eyes were even open.
As quickly as the presence had startled her, it was gone. There were no hands on her. There was no one on the bed next to her.
She sat up in bed, pointing the gun around in the dark, at her open bedroom doorway, but there was nobody there.
Footsteps, descending some stairs.
To the basement.
The shock and fear erupted in her throat like fire. And then all she could hear was her own panicked breathing.
22
Ryan
He burst through the screen door ready for battle.
“Misty! What the fuck is going on?”
He couldn’t see her at first, as she was surrounded by cops. “Misty!”
“Ryan!”
He had fallen asleep behind the wheel of his truck outside of her house and had been awakened suddenly by flashing lights and sirens. The seconds between him dashing out of his truck and kicking open the door were the worst seconds of his life. He felt like he was in a movie, outside of his body, watching himself react to the moment. God, it was unbearable.
And then, to hear her voice gave him the feeling that he was being put back into his own body.
The group of officers parted to let her through. Misty ran to Ryan and collapsed in his arms. She was shaking violently, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Baby, what happened?”
“Someone’s here,” she said, gripping his forearms. Her eyes searched his. She looked almost feral. Something had definitely happened.
“Misty, you’re hyperventilating. Sit down,” Ryan commanded.
She shook her head violently.
One of the officers spoke. “We searched the whole house, the perimeter, the basement. Nobody’s here. There was no evidence of a break-in. But we took her statement and we do believe she experienced…something.”
Her eyes pleaded with him. She looked utterly terrorized. This was not the same strong, resolute woman he knew.
“She has cameras at every entry point of the house and an alarm system. Have you checked the footage?” Ryan asked.
The officer nodded. “We’re looking at it right now and going over the entire house inch by inch.”
Just then, Misty started to drop. Ryan had been prepared for her knees to buckle, and he scooped her up in his arms.
“Let’s get you some water.” He somehow was able to get her a glass of water while holding her, and he watched her drink some. “Do you have any medication you need to take with you? Because you’re staying with me tonight.”
She shook her head no.
“Well, I think we found the culprit,” said another one of the officers, tromping up from the basement. When he came into view, he was carrying a black cat.
Misty looked from the cat to Ryan to the investigator, speechless and confused.
“Excuse me? If my girl says there was an intruder, there was an intruder.”
“All we found in the basement was this cat. Most likely scenario, the cat somehow found its way into the home and paid her a visit while she was sleeping. My wife’s cat likes to sleep on our bed. It’s not unusual.”
The officer approached with the cat, which nearly leaped straight into Misty’s arms.
This seemed to surprise her enough to get her to speak again. “I don’t get it. How did it get into my room from the basement? The door to the basement was closed.”
“Is it possible you went down there for any reason and left it ajar?”
Misty shrugged. “I don’t think so, but Ryan has been doing a lot of work around the house. But how would a cat get in here in the first place?”
The investigator shrugged. “It’s an old house full of entry points. It’s been empty for many years. Stray cats are very talented at hiding.”
Ryan didn’t like the way these cops were so ready to pin the whole incident on one stray cat. “If she says she heard footsteps and felt arms around her, there’s just no way it didn’t happen.”
&nbs
p; “Our minds certainly do play tricks on us,” one of the cops said.
Ryan looked down at her face, which looked drained and on the verge of despair. “Baby, look at me.”
She did, and he said, “I believe you. Whatever you say happened, I believe you. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
23
Misty
Ryan was being so good to her, and to her new feline friend.
“There’s an extra toothbrush in the ensuite. Help yourself to whatever you need,” he was saying as she sat on his massive king-size four-poster bed, petting the cat.
“I think I’ll name you Xena.” Xena purred and rubbed her face against Misty’s hands. There was a distinct scent of mildew coming off the cat, which told Misty that perhaps the police were right and the cat had somehow been living in her basement.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Misty said to the cat as Ryan rushed around, fussing over her, bringing her water, slippers and fluffing the pillows. “The foundation is just part basement, part slab. There’s no crawlspace at all and all the windows are sealed up.”
“Let’s try to get some rest and we’ll go back in the morning and try to figure this out.”
“No arguments here,” she said, yawning.
Ryan had opened a can of tuna for Xena, who had polished it off like she was starving.
“Listen, Xena, I don’t have a litter box, so you’ll have to go outside to do your business,” Ryan said.
Misty got up to brush her teeth and said, “She’s a warrior, she can handle it.”
After brushing her teeth, Misty returned to the bed and let Ryan baby her some more by covering her with a fluffy white duvet and an ultra-soft faux fur blanket.
“What fancy bedding my boyfriend has,” she said, yawning again. “I love him.”
She snuggled down into the deep, welcoming pillows and sighed as she felt Ryan hovering over her, gently stroking her hair.
There was nothing better in the world, she decided right then and there, than drifting off to sleep with a hard-ass man petting your hair and a black cat curled up behind your knees.
As she drifted off to sleep in his arms, she heard him say, “And I love you, Misty Moon.”
24
Misty
“So, you’re telling me you’re sure Eliza was not pregnant when she died?”
Misty and Ryan were sitting at Judge Diamond’s kitchen table, drinking coffee out of oversized mugs.
“I don’t think so. The birth certificate I found said the baby was just a few months old. So unless she had gotten really inadvisably pregnant right after giving birth…”
Misty shook her head. “Right, this has to be the baby my mom was talking about. So, let’s have it.”
The judge slipped the birth certificate across the table toward her. She picked it up and studied it. “A baby girl. But that’s…that’s my birthday.”
She looked up at the judge, who said, “I was afraid of this.”
“What is it?” Ryan asked, putting a hand on Misty’s back.
Misty’s gears were turning. No, this could not be real. She read the name. “Malia Misty Moon Winthrop? What is going on?”
“I think you know, dear. That baby is you.”
Misty looked from the judge, back to the certificate and back to the judge. “How? Who is the father?”
Ryan’s hand slid up to her shoulder and squeezed it as she looked at the certificate again. She definitely recognized the name that was listed as the baby’s father. Or rather, her biological father.
“This is a nightmare,” she said. “Why would my mom never tell me any of this?”
The judge offered this: “I don’t have any children of my own, but I do have a sister who I raised on my own after our parents died. It was hard. I tried to keep the memories of our mom and dad alive, but sometimes it just felt better to forget and move on. Maybe in your mom’s own way, she was trying to give you a happy life by not telling you the truth. I’m not saying it was the right choice, but before you condemn her for what she did, keep in mind she probably thought it was the right choice.”
Misty put her hand over her mouth, then to her chest, then to her mouth again.
Ryan leaned forward protectively and said, “Babe, are you OK?”
She nodded. “A lot has happened in the last 24 hours, I’m just overwhelmed.”
Ryan gestured at the manila folder, “Got any other bombshells in there?”
The judge shook her head. “I’m not sure. But these are all photocopies of everything you asked for. Just take it home and look through it. But please, be careful. And if I were you, I would definitely stay with your boyfriend until all your questions are answered.”
25
Ryan
As Misty slept again in his bed that night, Ryan rifled through the file folder. The property records showed the house was actually a rental property of Roy Winthrop, sheriff at the time.
Also the one who was named as the father on the birth certificate.
There was one piece of paper that looked like an application for a restraining order that was never granted, against Winthrop.
However, the most interesting piece of paper was one that predated everything else in the file. It was an eviction notice. It had been issued a full 18 months before Eliza’s death certificate, 12 months before the application for a restraining order, 11 months before the birth certificate. And then, after Eliza’s death was ruled a suicide, there was a building permit for the property. That’s when the weird dining room had been built. But why?
Ryan carefully placed everything out on his kitchen table in chronological order and pieced together the story in his mind. Suddenly, everything became clear.
Eliza Moon had rented the house at 666 Main Street from Sheriff Winthrop. She ran out of money, and the sheriff was threatening to kick her out of her house. But maybe they had come to some agreement. Maybe that asshole had agreed to let her stay in the house in return for special favors. She got pregnant by him. Maybe she thought it was the real deal and threatened to tell his wife. He did his best to keep her quiet, maybe gave her money, tried to convince her to terminate, and she didn’t. The baby was born, and when she put his name on the certificate as the father, he flew into a rage, knowing that this could be the end of his political career.
But did he pull the trigger? Or did someone else? Did Eliza really try to kill herself when she realized Roy wasn’t going to leave his wife for her, and did she miss the first time? Did he finish her off? Had he hired someone to kill her, and did he do a crappy job of making it look like a suicide?
Had he or someone else paid off the M.E. and just about every other powerful person in town to help him cover it up?
Whatever was the answer, Eliza’s sister had come to take the baby and hightailed it out of town. She’d spirited the baby away to Charleston and got herself a fake birth certificate somehow.
Most baffling was the building permit. Why in the hell would Roy add a dining room on this rental house? Maybe he was trying to fix it up to sell it?
And why had it never been sold in 30 years?
One piece missing was the dispatch logs. If the medical examiner was in the sheriff’s pocket, there was no use interviewing him. But call logs might be able to shed some light on who pulled the trigger that had ended Misty’s real mother’s life.
26
Misty
Xena was pawing at the basement door. Misty was back at the murder house, preparing for a fun Halloween night. Meanwhile, the cat had another agenda.
“Cat, you are freaking me out. No way I’m going down there.”
Misty was getting ready to start handing out candy. It was five p.m. on Halloween and the kids would start showing up at any minute.
But Xena was insistent.
Misty did not like this. Tonight was the thirtieth anniversary of her biological mother’s death. And she was certain that Ryan was spot on with the timeline he had pieced together while she was asleep.<
br />
Xena was almost as stubborn as Misty was, who had sent Ryan out to get more Reese’s to hand out.
“I can’t have Halloween without any Reese’s!” she’d said.
Ryan went, but not without a lot of grumbling and reassurances that she had her gun close by and loaded.
She had found herself needing time to process all of the new information before taking another step. She just wasn’t ready to confront her supposed biological father yet.
Sighing, Misty opened the door to the basement. Xena meowed at her and bounded down the stairs. When she reached the bottom stair, she turned, looked up at Misty and meowed again.
“What is it, Xena? You want me to follow you?”
The cat apparently had some kind of Lassie complex, because again she began meowing.
Misty did not like this idea one bit, but she followed the cat anyway.
The basement was dark, so she flipped on the single lightbulb that was installed in the floor joists.
Nothing seemed unusual. The breakers were all facing the right direction, not that a cat would know anything about circuits.
The furnace was running; there was nothing out of place. But then there was nothing to be out of place in a basement that was little more than a closet for the lower intestines of a tiny house.
Xena was meowing more insistently, though, and looking at the area where the slab foundation began.
Misty looked over and saw nothing but cinder blocks.
But then, the cat’s meowing changed tone. Misty had known from owning other cats throughout her life that a cat sounds like that when she is on the hunt, or something was not right in its world.
Misty’s stomach lurched as she approached the wall. Xena meowed loudly and jumped up, disappearing into nothing.
