The Family Plot (19 page)

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Cute. Real cute.” He collected the rolls of cord like oversized bangles on his forearm. “You two are
real
mature.”

She did her best not to snap, to be a grown-up and the boss instead. “I love you, Gabe, but you've gotta leave it alone. He can call me a bitch if he wants, so long as he does what I tell him.”

“You didn't have to ride him so hard. He's done all right, so far,” he protested.

She carried the Sawzalls out of the barn and to the back of her truck, which was parked much closer. “You mean except for now? And last night, when he ran off drinking?”

“He was here working this morning, while you were hanging out with that old lady.”

“He was here arguing with you all about what you found. I could hear you, you know, the whole time. Inside that house, with that window broken on the second floor … you can hear everything, all over the property. He wasn't even breaking a sweat.”

“He was working before that. We all were, except you.”

“Gabe,
seriously
.”

“I'm just saying, you should cut him some slack,” he said, stubbornly. He followed behind her with the cords, and loaded them up.

She left him there, and went back for the rest of the equipment. Over her shoulder, she said, “He's had nothing
but
slack, his entire life. Always needing a break, always needing money, always needing another chance, and this time, things will be different. Now, at his age…” She seized the last of the power-tool cases; they knocked together in her arms as she walked back to the truck yet again. “He doesn't know how to behave like a goddamn adult, because nobody's ever made him.”

“When did it become
your
job to make him?”

“When Daddy hired him, and put me in charge—
that's
when.” She flung the cases into the truck and yanked the rolling door down. She locked it in accordance with Gabe's preference, even though she was starting to get a little pissed with him, too. “Now, aren't you hungry? Go get yourself some lunch.”

Out by the front entrance, she heard the sound of Bobby's tires peeling out through the grass and gravel. Well, at least he hadn't started drinking yet. Maybe he wouldn't have half a dozen beers at lunch, and he'd make it back in one piece. Unless two days of decent behavior in a row was too much to hope for. “He'd better drive careful in that thing. Every time he takes it out, it's carrying more loot, and we can't afford for him to crash it or get it stolen. Now, where the hell did Brad go?”

Gabe paused and looked around. “I don't see him. He could've left with Dad…? They get along okay.”

“I admit, it kind of surprises me.”

“Why? Because Dad doesn't have any friends?”

“He doesn't have any friends like Brad. Gabe, honey, come on. You know what I was trying to say.”

The boy relented. “Brad
is
kind of fancy for this line of work. But he's doing all right, too. Maybe he went back inside. There's plenty of sandwich stuff, if you don't want to walk or drive all the way to Saint Elmo.”

“Do you want a sandwich?” she asked him.

“Not the kind we got in here. I want something hot. There's a barbecue place down the hill, isn't there?”

“Yeah, I saw that.” It was a good excuse to cool down. She didn't need Gabe thinking she was angry with him, because he wasn't the problem. “Hop into the cab, kid. Let's go find some real food. We'll bill it to your Uncle Chuck.”

“Will he be okay with that?”

“As long as we don't expense any booze, I doubt he'll care.” She paused, and said, “Let me look in the house. We'll see if Brad wants to come, if we can find him.”

But when she rounded the truck, she spied him right away. He wasn't in the house; he was standing in the cemetery that wasn't a cemetery. “Brad!” she called. If he heard her, he ignored her. Maybe he was listening for the rustle of fabric, or the whispering rush of nonexistent ghosts clamoring for his attention.

They could get in line. She wanted his attention first.

She tagged him on the shoulder. He didn't jump like he was surprised when she asked, “Dude, are you all right?”

“It's bullshit…,” he whispered, looking down at the graves that weren't graves. “I
know
there's something buried here.”

“Honey, I wish you were right—believe me. I halfway thought, maybe, if there was a cemetery here, then we'd get lucky. I thought there was a chance the demo crew wouldn't be able to take down the house if this was in the way. I thought it might buy the place some time.”

He looked at her, confused. “You want to save the house?”

“I
always
want to save the house.” She sighed. “Except for the one time when I bought the place myself, it's never worked out. But this one, this Withrow house … it's a hot mess, but I really love it. It speaks to me.”

“Yeah? What does it say?”

Because he sounded honestly interested, she answered him. “It's unhappy. It's angry.”

“The house, or you?”

“Can't it be both of us? Look, I'm sorry, but I don't know what to tell you except … I'm going to look up the Withrow graves—the
real
ones—and if I find where they're buried, I'll let you know. I'll … I'll call the county, too. If there was ever a cemetery opened on this property, even if it was just a family plot, there'd be some record. I might be able to buy the place a stay of execution.”

Brad nodded, and kicked gently at the nearest stone. “Okay. But I know what I saw, Dahlia. There's somebody here, trying to tell us something. And it isn't the house.”

From the other side of the truck, Gabe cried out, “Dahlia? Brad? Where the hell are you?”

“Over here!” she shouted back. “We're coming.”

Brad frowned. “We are?”

“Yeah. Aren't you hungry?”

He shook off whatever spell had held him there, and said, “You know what? I
am.
What's on the menu?”

 

8

L
UNCH WENT AS
planned, and so did the afternoon's truck loading—even though Bobby came back to work smelling like beer. He didn't act any drunker than usual, and at least he was on time. He also kept his mouth shut, and he did his part to hoist the lumber up, over, and into the back of the truck right alongside Gabe, while Dahlia and Brad stayed inside the truck.

The trucks always held more than it looked like they ought to.

The day had warmed up to seventy-five degrees, and it was downright hot inside that truck; but the sun went behind the mountain around six, right about the time the last of the timbers were jammed into place.

It was as good a stopping point as any.

They packed up their equipment and locked the trucks, then headed inside for a cold supper—as penance for the money they'd spent on lunch. While the guys made sandwiches and cracked open cans of Chef Boyardee, Dahlia checked her messages and plugged in her phone at an outlet in the dining room. She set it on one of the built-in cabinet shelves and checked its display. The signal was good, but her battery was dying, and she didn't want to drag her laptop all the way back down to the coffeehouse for Internet … but she
did
want to look around online, to see if she could find those Withrow graves. But first, a bite to eat.

She turned around to join the kitchen crew, and Bobby was there. Right behind her, like he'd snuck up and was about ready to yell, “Boo!” … only he looked just as surprised as she felt. He held up his hands and took a step back.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I said your name about a dozen times and you didn't answer.” He cocked his head. “I wasn't trying to scare you.”

She exhaled. She was jumpy, and while plenty of things might be described as Entirely Bobby's Fault, this wasn't one of them. “I was … distracted. What's up?”

He scrunched up the side of his mouth like he used to when they were kids, when he had a question he didn't want answered—but one he needed to ask. He checked back over his shoulder and either saw Gabe in the kitchen, or heard him chatting with Brad. “I wanted to say something, about this house. About ghosts. I want to ask you real serious-like, if you've seen anything weird.”

“Bobby, you're just … you're talking up nothing.”

“You haven't seen anything? For real?”

She leaned back against the cabinet—half sitting on it, beside her phone. “No.”

“You're a liar, Dahl. But I don't know who you're lying to: yourself, or just me. This whole place is weird as hell, and it isn't empty. Maybe the cemetery is empty, I don't know; but there's something dead hanging around this place all the same, and it don't want us here. It doesn't want the house torn down.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,
stop it.
You can't fall in love with every place you scrap. It's not healthy.”

He was half a head taller than she was, but she glared him down. “You think you know something about me?”

“You're practically my sister.”

“But I'm
not,
because that kind of blood would be thicker than water, wouldn't it?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Dolly…”

“We had a deal, Robert.”

“Okay, then I want to make another deal, a new one: No bullshit. Not between us grown-ups.” Fast on the heels of that, he clarified, “Not between you and me.”

There was a fight to be picked, and she wrestled with the juvenile itch to run with it. But it wouldn't do her any good. It wouldn't do anyone any good, and it'd give him ammo if he went back to Chuck and complained about her management skills.

She relented, more or less. “All right, fine. But you tell me first: What's got you so spooked?”

He stunned her by answering honestly and quickly. With details, like he'd been taking notes. “I saw a girl. She was eighteen, twenty years old, and she had blood and dirt all over her.” He checked the kitchen again, with one eye and one ear. He lowered his voice. “She did something bad, Dahl. I don't know what, and I don't know who she did it to—but she wants to keep doing bad things, and she can't. Not once the house is gone.”

Dahlia couldn't think of a good response, so she just said, “Jesus, Bobby.”

“You ain't seen nothing like that?”

She whispered, “No! Nothing like
that.
If it makes you feel any better, I thought I saw a girl, but she didn't look dead, or messed up. She was wearing a yellow dress.” Suddenly she remembered the wedding dress in the trunk, and she was seized with a desire to find and inspect it, even though she knew that it wasn't the dress in question. Where had the trunk gone? Was it packed into one of the trucks? Had they brought it inside?

“You still have that old photo album, right?”

“Right.”

“Can I see it?” he asked, with a plaintive note at the end that was almost as good as a “please.” “I want to see if she's in there.”

“Sure,” she nodded. “Yeah, I'll go get it for you in a bit. But let's eat first, okay? You're getting all wound up.”

“I've
been
wound up, since this morning. The only thing that
un
wound me was a beer at lunch.”

She remembered seeing him on the stairs that morning, wet and still soapy in his clothes. “What did all the winding?” Then, before he could answer, she blurted another question: “Was it something in the bathroom?”

His eyes widened, and he might've responded with something more concrete than a shocked expression—but Gabe picked that moment to lean around the corner and ask, “What are you two gossiping about?”

“You,” Dahlia said fast, and with a smile. Bobby was crowding her. She nudged him away: one step. Two steps. Until it didn't look like a conspiracy.

“Aw, come on…”

“I'm just yanking your chain,” she promised. “We're talking business, hon. What's gonna go in which truck tomorrow, that kind of thing. So did you leave us any turkey, or are we stuck with the salami and cheese?”

Bobby wasn't quite so slick, but he gave it a shaky try. “You'd
best
have left me a can of SpaghettiOs.”

“I counted four of them, still in the bag. You want me to warm one up?”

“Nah, I'll eat it cold. I like it that way.”

“Yuck,” Gabe declared, and returned to the kitchen.

Dahlia took Bobby's arm. “We can talk about it later,” she told him. “There's no need to scare him, or Brad either. Brad's already worked up in his own weird way.”

“Weird how?” he asked, but she was already drawing him into the kitchen.

“Later.”

*   *   *

Later came, and darkness settled across the mountain.

Dahlia picked at the red, green, and cream swirled tiles on the dining room fireplace. It wasn't an impressive piece, not like the ones with the marble surrounds, but it had a nice splash of arts-and-crafts tiles to recommend it. One or two were missing. Three or four were loose, and twice that many were broken beyond saving—crushed by a cast-iron summer cover that'd fallen down one time too many.

“Whatcha doing?” Gabe asked.

Without looking up, she said, “I'm wondering how big a pain in the ass it'll be, pulling these little bastards off. We'll probably break a few in the process, but someone, somewhere, will be happy to have the rest.”

He crouched down beside her. His breath smelled like PBR and baloney on white bread. “Are they worth a lot?”

“Maybe a few hundred bucks. It depends. Most likely, we'll sell them by weight. Scrap them out, you know—to people with old houses, looking to match broken pieces for repairs and restoration.”