A Thousand Yesteryears (22 page)

Her aunt had taken that secret to her grave.

Reaper waded through a snarl of weeds and thistles, hoping for a glimpse of shiny metal. The sky was partially overcast, but there was enough sun that the damn money clip should cast a reflection. He hadn’t even realized he’d lost the thing until the morning after he’d dumped Amos’s body in the pond.

The loss stung, but he’d decided to write it off rather than risk returning to the TNT. Yeah, the clip had close to three hundred dollars folded inside, but he was a rich man. If he had to eat the loss, he could afford it. He’d contented himself knowing the odds of anyone finding it among nearly four thousand acres of ponds, trees, and briars were thin.

Then Duncan and Donnie Bradley had mouthed off about seeing the Mothman and suddenly people were crawling all over the place again. If the clip turned up and the cops connected it to him, he could always say he’d been poking around looking for the creature, too. But there was always the chance questions might arise. Most people knew he hated the TNT and the wacky craziness it encouraged. Mothman, UFO’s, ghosts. All bullshit in his opinion.

He’d probably lost the clip when he moved Amos’s body, transporting the battered corpse from his car to the pond. He’d been careful to line the back seat of his Buick with plastic so no trace of blood or fibers were left behind, but what if he’d dragged Amos across the clip and smeared the bills with blood?

He wasn’t dumb. He watched
Magnum, P.I.
and
Hill Street Blues.
A smartass cop like Ryan Flynn could trace those grisly stains back to Amos, then to him.

So for the last hour, he’d been scouring the TNT. First, in the area where he’d killed Amos, now near the pond where he’d dumped the body. Fortunately, he was alone, the area currently free of thrill-seekers and Mothman hunters. He didn’t buy the Bradley brothers bullshit about the monster, but he’d slid a snub-nosed .38 into his trouser pocket to be on the safe side. Especially with the wacky phone calls he kept getting—screeches and shrieks—as though someone was messing with his head. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by calling the phone company, so he let the occurrences ride. If he ever found out who was playing games, it wouldn’t go down well for the stupid sap on the other end. Just like it wouldn’t go down well for any mutated bird like the Mothman that threatened him in the TNT.

Aside from Amos, he’d racked up two other murders over the years. With a past like that, he had no qualms about blowing away a flying freak.

Swearing under his breath, Reaper used a hand-held scythe to hack away at the plants clustered near the south end of the pond. Duckweed and algae caked the surface of the water, snuggling up to cattails and clumps of bulrushes at the edge. The muggy heat of the day amplified the reek of plant decay and sun-heated soil. Swatting a bug from his neck, he took another swing, parting the weeds with the old scythe he’d rummaged from his shed. He’d found it buried behind a bag of grass seed. An antiquated tool that had once belonged to his father, a man who’d eked out a hand-to-mouth living for his family on the coal barges of the Ohio River. Not him. He’d known early on he was destined for greater things, carefully planned and plotted to ensure that path as soon as he was old enough to take control of his destiny. Damn Rosie Parrish for throwing a kink into his life this late in the game.

Leaning forward, Reaper peered around the opening he’d cleared.

Nothing.

He hadn’t been able to locate Rosie’s negative, and he couldn’t find the money clip. His wife would make an issue of the loss if she discovered the damn thing was missing. Especially since she’d given it to him as a gift on their last anniversary—only after making sure he knew it hadn’t come cheap.

She was like that, always reminding him it was
her
money that put them where they were today.
Her
family who had given him his break, allowing him to rise to his current position. Sometimes he got so pissed with her snotty attitude, he had to make something suffer. Yesterday, it had been a crow with a broken wing. He’d come across it when he was looking for the scythe and had taken sadistic delight in using the instrument on the helpless bird. He hadn’t killed it. That would have been too quick, negating the purpose. Knowing something suffered agony far greater than his helped him regain control of his volatile emotions.

As an afterthought, he’d driven to Rosie’s old home and dumped the butchered bird on the side lawn, hoping it would be serve as a distasteful reminder of life in Point Pleasant for the girl, Eve. According to his source, she was thinking of remaining in town and had changed her mind about selling the hotel.

Not what he’d wanted to hear. He would have been more than willing to add the property to his portfolio if only to get her out of Point Pleasant. At least she hadn’t found the negative yet. Maybe he was overreacting and there was nothing to worry about. Maybe Rosie had destroyed it, leaving his fate up to him as she’d suggested in her letter.

Stupid broad. As if he was going to confess to killing the girl.

The sound of muffled voices made him tense suddenly. Crouching, he concealed himself among the trees as footfalls joined the voices, alerting him of someone’s approach. Peering through the branches, he spied a man and woman moving in his direction, the woman walking delicately as she picked her way through a maze of protruding roots and rocks.

“I told you to wear different shoes,” the man complained, four steps ahead of her. “Those cork things aren’t for hiking through woods.”

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” the woman shot back, tiptoeing as if she was walking on hot coals. “How far do we have to go anyway, George?”

He swiveled to face her, walking backward. “Deeper. By that pond.” He motioned in Reaper’s direction. “Those people in town said a body was found out here. Maybe the Mothman got the guy. You bring the camera?”

“Yeah, I got it.” She held up a 35 millimeter as proof. “But I don’t want to end up on the menu.”

“Don’t worry, baby. We get a shot of that freaking bird-creature, we can buy our own restaurant and eat caviar.”

What idiots. Worse, they were headed in his direction, making enough noise to raise the dead. Looking around, he tried to decide if he could slip away without being seen. As an alternative, he weighed the odds of walking out and saying hello—doing the local yokel thing and sending them off someplace deeper into the TNT—when he heard the man swear abruptly. Not in anger, but excitement. Reaper watched the guy stoop and pluck something from the ground.

“Holy shit, Glenda, you’re not going to believe what I found!”

The woman pranced to his side. “What is it?”

Reaper couldn’t see the object in George’s hand, but the sick knot in his gut gave him a good idea what the man had discovered. Why the hell hadn’t he seen it when he’d trudged through that area a few minutes ago?

“A money clip.” George slipped the silver clamp from the bills and passed it to Glenda as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of it. Hurriedly, he rifled through the cash, his expression growing more animated with each swipe of his fingers. “Oh, baby! There’s close to three hundred dollars here.”

“Someone must have dropped it.” Glenda looked uneasy. “We should give it to the police.”

George balked as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you nuts?”

“What if it’s related to the man who was killed here? Maybe it was his, and it’s the reason he was murdered. It could be drug money or something.” She turned the clip over in her hand. “Look, George, there’s a name.”

Shit!

He was screwed. The woman was already thinking about giving the clip to the cops. Maybe he needed to play a bold card. Walk up and say he’d lost it. Problem was the guy would never believe him, and the woman would want proof. He had ID, but that opened a whole new can of worms. The two might head back to town and blab how they’d found the money clip near the pond. Ryan Flynn or Sheriff Weston would get wind and come sniffing around with questions.
Seems odd a man like you would be out in the TNT. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Amos Carter’s death?

No matter how he sliced it, he was screwed. Damn sloppy of him to lose that clip.

Reaching into his pocket, Reaper withdrew the .38. Things were getting messy. He couldn’t afford two more bodies, but was running out of options.

He watched as George stuffed the wad of cash into his pocket.

“Just leave the damn thing here,” he said. “I’m keeping the money.”

That’s it, George. Take the cash and get out of here. Make her leave the clip.

He could live with that scenario. He could even let
them
live with that scenario, as long as they kept their mouths shut. Odds were if George was keen on keeping the bills, he wouldn’t mouth off in town about finding the clip. That would be equivalent to shooting himself in the foot.

The woman seemed indecisive, biting her bottom lip as if weighing the correct thing to do.

Screw this. He couldn’t afford the risk.

Reaper tightened his hand on the revolver and moved from the trees. He’d only taken a single step when the woman looked up suddenly, blood draining from her face. He had the gun concealed behind his back, but she appeared terrified he was going to off her. Then he realized she wasn’t looking at him at all, but something that loomed behind him. Something that blocked the sun and sent a massive shadow scrolling over the ground.

Reaper felt the hair on his neck stand on end. He had only a second to dive into the brush, chased by the woman’s bone-chilling scream.

* * * *

Evening arrived and with it the planned excursion into the Witch Wood. Eve and Katie met Caden and Ryan at the Flynn house. While the men rooted for shovels in a storage shed, Eve and her friend said hello to Mrs. Flynn. They found Maggie’s mother in the living room, contentedly knitting in her usual spot, the TV playing an old black-and-white rerun of
I Love Lucy.

“You won’t find the girl by the tree,” she told them the moment they stepped into the room. The click-clack of her needles overrode any sputtered reply they may have offered at her bizarre greeting.

“I’m not sure what you mean, Mrs. Flynn,” Eve said uncertainly. While Doreen Sue was “Doreen Sue,” Mrs. Flynn was always “Mrs. Flynn,” rarely ever “Elizabeth.” There was something about this particular woman that made Eve feel like a child, uncertain of her place. Or maybe it was simply that Mrs. Flynn was Maggie’s mother.

“Maggie said you have to go deeper, ten feet past the tree,” Mrs. Flynn told them. “Look for the big rock you used to climb as kids. Dig there.”

Standing inside the doorway, Eve exchanged a glance with Katie. Neither Caden nor Ryan would have mentioned the plan to their mother, feeding her eccentric behavior. If only Eve could speak to Maggie as Mrs. Flynn did so often and so easily.

“Mrs. Flynn,” she prompted.

The woman looked up and smiled. “Oh, hello, you two. It’s a pleasant day for a visit. Can I offer you some lemonade?”

Clearly befuddled, Katie stammered her thanks and declined.

Eve smiled pleasantly. The woman had been in one of her trances. “No thank you, Mrs. Flynn. We just wanted to say hello. Caden and Ryan are waiting for us outside. They’re going to help Katie and me with a few things at the hotel.”

“That’s nice.” Mrs. Flynn turned her attention back to her knitting, humming softly. Eve nodded to Katie, and the two left the room, heading for the front porch.

“That was creepy,” Katie said as they’d stepped outside. “Does she do that a lot?”

“Frequently.”

“How do you think she knew what we have planned? Do you believe she can talk to Maggie?”

“She was right about the igloo.” Whatever force directed Mrs. Flynn—Maggie or something else—it wasn’t to be discounted. “Let’s tell the guys what she said.”

Ryan scowled when they relayed the story, and Caden appeared uncomfortable. Eve guessed he didn’t like the thought of his mother communicating with Maggie when he was denied the chance to tell his sister how sorry he was.

The drive to the Witch Wood wasn’t long, but the hike between the trees took time. It had been years since Eve had played in the thicket, back in the days when Nana Flynn lived in the old home that bordered its northern edge. The house was still there, but it had new occupants now. Ones who cared little about its state of repair, judging by the peeling paint on the shutters and flowerbeds rife with weeds. A ratty wire fence had been erected at the edge of the yard to separate the overgrown lawn from the dense thicket behind it. As a result, they were forced to park elsewhere and enter the woods at a diagonal from a bordering lane.

It took Eve a while to locate the giant sycamore that resembled a woman reaching to the sky. “I can’t believe it’s still here.” She traced her fingers lightly over the trunk, assaulted by a flood of memories. Maggie spinning in a circle, head thrown back and arms outstretched to the sky, her laughter giddy and bright like a flash of sunlight on water. Then months later, a different Maggie huddled beneath the blankets in her bedroom, whispering the Mothman wanted to kill her.

Eve sobered abruptly, appealing to Caden with a beseeching glance. “We’re close.” He had to feel his sister’s spirit in these woods as much as she did. Maggie was here, held captive in the past. Whatever occurred that day fifteen years ago was the crux of everything that followed. Twining her fingers with Caden’s, she tugged him past the tree. “Ten feet, your mother said. Near the big rock.”

They found it exactly as Mrs. Flynn said they would. By then the sun had sunk lower on the horizon, bloodying the trees with bands of vermillion and copper-streaked brass. Twilight was still several hours away but the air had grown slightly cooler, ripe with the musky scent of ferns and soil.

“Let’s get this over with.” Ryan sank the tip of a spade into the earth.

Not content to stand around while the men dug, Eve and Katie pitched in as well. The ground was soft, but buried roots and hidden stones made the chore tedious. Thankfully, Caden had added a digging iron and pick to the shovels, allowing the men to hack through the roots more swiftly. Eve packed several thermoses with cold water and they took breaks as needed, sweaty from the laborious work.