Harvest Moon (7 page)

“Bullshit!” Gabe argued. “If you want to question us,
I need a warrant, or an arrest, or something!”

“Gabe,” Dawn tried to cut in to stop the argument, but
it was no use. The agents and her coworker were too involved in their pissing
contest to notice her pleas for peace.

From beside her, a sharp whistle broke through the
ever-escalating argument and silenced everyone in the room.

“Hey!” Agent Nash bellowed once he took his fingers
from between his lips. “That’s enough!”

“Please,” Dawn tried again once everyone was looking
at them. “Everything’s fine, I swear. He didn’t interrogate me or anything. We
just talked.”

“You sure?” Jim asked as his eyes narrowed at Agent
Nash.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she insisted. “So stop arguing, please.”

“It’s getting late,” the senior agent said as he
shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “We should start seeing if
anyone else saw anything before people start going to bed.”

“Good,” Gabe said, but a look from Jim shut him up.

The agents made their way to the door as they offered
weak promises of letting the staff know if they heard anything. Dawn knew it
was a half-hearted lie, but she appreciated it anyway. The only one who seemed
genuine was Agent Nash, but there was just something about him that made Dawn
look twice. He wasn’t like any other cop she’d ever known, and that wasn’t
necessarily a bad thing.

“God, I wish they spent more time looking for the poor
girl instead of flapping their gums at us,” Jim sighed as he collapsed into a
chair.

“You okay?” Gabe asked Dawn as he grabbed her a refill
of her beer. “Was that cop telling the truth?”

“He’s FBI,” she corrected him. “But yeah, no lies. We
just talked. He helped talk me off the ledge, so to speak. He’s... he’s okay.”

“Well, I hope he’s as good as he seems to think he
is,” Jim said. “Because those other two are useless sons of bitches.”

“I hope so too,” Dawn nodded as she let the memory of
how Agent Nash looked at her wash over her. He saw her, he really did, and that
scared and excited her. No one else in the rinky-dink town seemed to really see
her except for him.

As she sipped her beer, her mind started to move into
more forbidden territory. For a flash, she was thinking about the agent’s lips
on her own, about his rough hands moving over her body, and pulling her close.
Then, as quickly as the fantasy had begun, she shook it from her mind. Courtney
was missing. This was no time for her to be fantasizing about being intimate
with an FBI agent.

“I’m going to get back to work,” Dawn said as she set
down her beer.

“There’s no one here,” Jim insisted. “The feds closed
the bar.”

Dawn didn’t hear him though. She wasn’t letting
herself think at all. Thinking was too painful, and she let herself slip into that
secret place where she used to hide so many years ago.

Dawn’s mind was on autopilot as she tidied up the
empty bar. She washed and put away the few mugs that had been used, cleaned the
beer taps for the night, shut the oven off, and mopped the floors. Still, Dawn
continued to tidy until Jim’s hand on her shoulder broke the spell.

“Go home, sweetie,” he told her. “That floor isn’t
getting any cleaner.”

She hadn’t realized it until then, but when she
glanced up at the old clock on the wall, Dawn saw she had been mopping the same
two square feet of floor for the last five or six minutes. Even knowing that,
she tried to keep going. If she stopped, Dawn knew she’d break down and she
might not be able to pick up the pieces again.

“What if she calls?” Dawn mumbled as Jim took the mop
from her hand. “What if she walks in the front door? I can’t go yet. She’ll
want me to be here.”

“If she calls,” Jim said, “I’ll send her to your
place.”

It was an entirely empty promise. Deep down, they both
knew that Courtney wouldn’t be calling. A tiny voice in Dawn’s mind was trying
to tell her that Courtney would never be calling again, but she refused to
listen. It was all a misunderstanding. It had to be.

“Go home,” Jim insisted again. “Gabe can walk you.”

“I’m fine,” Dawn told him. The idea of having to be
walked home just made everything seem worse and all too real. Her little house
wasn’t far, anyway, and she normally made the five-minute walk alone. Normalcy
was what she wanted, not having to be walked home like a child.

“Are you sure?” Jim asked as he raised a bushy gray
eyebrow. “You’re on his way.”

“I swear, I’m fine,” Dawn insisted. “I’ll call if
anything comes up or if I change my mind, okay?”

Jim didn’t look too happy about it, but Dawn wasn’t
going to change her mind, and they both seemed to understand that. She said she
wanted to be alone, and he respected that, even if he thought it was a bad
idea, given the circumstances.

“Call if you need anything at all,” Jim said. “Even if
it’s just to talk, okay?”

“Thanks, Jim,” Dawn said as she grabbed her old plaid
jacket and pulled it on. “I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“You better,” Jim said with a weak smile. “And take
tomorrow off.”

“I’ll think about it,” Dawn said, but they both knew
she wouldn’t. Not only did Dawn like the bar, but too much time without
something to do would be deadly for her psyche. She’d be there tomorrow, even
if it meant having to deal with more questions.

The late evening was colder than she’d expected as she
stepped out of the bar. The breeze tugged at her hair and she pulled the jacket
tighter around herself as she turned toward home.

Somewhere far in the distance, a coyote, maybe a wolf,
howled, its call echoing off mountains and trees alike. The sound sent a chill
down her spine, but she forced herself to think rationally. The sound, even
with the echoes, was far enough away that she knew she was safe.

But another idea was taking root in her mind.
What
if it’s not a bear
?
What if it was a wolf that attacked those hikers?

Though the howl had been far away, the idea that was
wiggling in her mind was enough to get her feet walking just a bit faster.

As she walked home, a familiar feeling started to
creep over her. It was late and the streets were empty, but just as the night before,
Dawn didn’t feel entirely alone. Something, someone, maybe, was watching her.
She could almost feel their eyes on her, and she glanced over her shoulder to
see who was there.

But it was no one. The streets were empty and her mind
was playing tricks on her again.

“Stop it,” she said as she made her way past the
yellow tape that was becoming all too familiar. Someone, or maybe it was just
the wind, had turned some of the tape to ribbons, and it fluttered like spider
webs in the breeze, but Dawn didn’t stop to look at it. Her mind was telling
her, no, ordering her, to get home and lock the doors.

Somewhere behind her, a loud clatter erupted in the
night, startling her enough to make her jump. She knew she should keep going,
but she spun just in time to see a raccoon come running out of the alley, its
prize of a piece of discarded pizza clenched in its jaws.

You’re being silly
, she told herself, but
another clatter from the alley sent her running for home. It was probably just
another raccoon, but she couldn’t chance it. It could be the bear, or the wolf,
or whatever animal was out there killing hikers. Dawn had no intention of
finding out for sure.

She leapt up the three steps of her porch like it was nothing
and jammed her key into the lock. No one in Goosemont ever locked their doors,
but she did, and for once, she regretted it. She had to fight with the old
tumblers, but once they clicked, she threw herself through the door and slammed
it behind herself.

The moment she was inside, Dawn couldn’t help but
laugh at her own paranoid behavior. What had to have been a family of raccoons
had sent her running scared. She laughed and laughed at herself until she was
sobbing and her whole world began to collapse around her.

“Goddamn it!” she let herself scream as she cried.
“Just... goddamn it.” Her second outburst paled in comparison to the first. Her
adrenaline was running overtime, and nothing was making sense. She just wanted
things to go back to how things were a few days ago, when life was quiet,
normal, and boring.

When her tears began to slow, she finally pulled
herself away from the door and moved to the kitchen. Her mind had begun to
race, debating her next move. She had already begun to agonize over whether she
should go looking for Courtney, how she really felt about the oddly-comforting
FBI agent, and she knew the only thing that would shut those thoughts up.

In a cupboard under her sink was a large bottle of
Johnnie Walker Red, a gift from Courtney on Dawn’s fake birthday. Though she’d
really been born on the twentieth of September, Dawn Garrett claimed the date
as August thirtieth. She grabbed it and poured herself a shot, and then another
before she put the bottle on the counter along with the glass.

The whiskey burned her throat even after she’d
finished her second shot, but at least the sensation took her mind off
everything else that was troubling her. It was pure alcohol, and it worked its
way through her veins at a rapid pace. The world around her was finally
starting to slow down some, and Dawn was beginning to think that she might just
be able to get some sleep.

Suddenly, from the porch, she heard something crash
against the creaky old wood. A startled scream rose up in her throat, but she
forced it back down as her body froze. Her porch creaked heavily under
footsteps, and there was no denying that there was something out there, and
that it wasn’t a raccoon.

In a moment of panic, Dawn grabbed an old butcher’s
knife out of the block that rested on her counter. She wasn’t sure what she was
going to do with the knife if she had to use it, but with the blade in hand,
she stalked her way toward the front door and waited to hear another sound.

At first, there was nothing. It seemed whatever had
been out there hadn’t found what it was looking for and left again. Still, Dawn
pressed her ear to the door and listened hard for a hint of what might be out
there.

A loud thud slammed against the door and sent Dawn
screaming as she tumbled backwards from the shock. On her porch, the footsteps
returned, and she swore she heard claws as they scrambled across the wooden
planks. It was an animal, it had to be, yet somehow she swore it knew she was
inside.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” she gasped as she crawled to the
center of her tiny cabin. She threw herself behind the couch before she
realized she’d dropped her knife somewhere along the way.

The footsteps were quiet again, and Dawn peered over
the sofa to see if she could spot her makeshift weapon, but instead her eyes
caught something else. On the kitchen counter sat her outdated rotary phone,
and she lunged for it.

“Please there, please be there,” she chanted to
herself as she dug her fingers into her jeans pocket. She didn’t know why she
was searching for the tattered business card that Agent Nash had given her, but
in that moment, he seemed like the only person in the world that she should
call.

At the bottom of her pocket, Dawn’s fingers found the
thin card and she fished it out. She stabbed the number into her old phone and
began to pray that he would pick up.

Agent Nash’s cool, deep voice answered her so casually
that it shocked her. “Yeah?”

“Um, Agent Nash?” she confirmed, terrified she’d
dialed the wrong number.

“You got him,” he said.

“It’s Dawn,” she said. “Dawn Garrett. You told me to
call if anything came up, and well...”

Another noise outside sent her jumping so hard that
she almost dropped the phone.

“Dawn?” Agent Nash’s voice brought her back to the
phone. “Dawn, is everything okay?”

“No!” she admitted. “No, something’s outside. Someone,
or something. I’m probably just panicking, but I’m scared.”

“I’ll be right there,” Agent Nash assured her, but
there was a touch of fear in his own voice that did nothing to calm Dawn’s
already frayed nerves.

After she’d given him her address, Dawn hung up the
phone and grabbed her knife off the floor. He was only a few blocks away at the
old motel in town, but he seemed to take an eternity to get there. All Dawn
could do while she waited was clutch the knife to her chest and pray he got
there before someone, or some
thing
, else did.

Dawn stood deadly still in the middle of her small
house while she strained to listen for the agent’s approach. The wind howled
outside, and she swore she heard footsteps, but nothing came of it. Soon, she
was straining so hard that she was giving herself a headache, and she almost
moved to call Agent Nash’s number again to find out what was taking him so
long.

Just as she was about to move back toward the kitchen,
a knock at her door made her yelp once more.

“Dawn?” Agent Nash’s voice called her door as he
knocked again. “Dawn, it’s me.”

“Oh my God,” she sighed as she opened the door for
him. “What took you so long?”

“I was only five minutes,” he told her, and when she
looked at the clock, she saw he was right. Still, it had felt like an eternity.

Once he was inside, Dawn realized he’d changed out of
his suit and was again wearing something a little more casual: dark, beat-up
jeans, a plaid shirt, and the same green jacket from the night before.

“I know I’m just being paranoid,” she said. “It was
probably just a raccoon looking for something to eat.”

“I said call for anything,” the agent said with a hint
of a smile. It only barely touched the corners of his full lips, but it was
enough to reassure her some. “I’ll take a look outside. You stay put, okay?”

“Okay,” she said as she watched him go. She knew he
was only a few feet away on the other side of the door, but once he was out
there, she was overcome with the need to lock him out.

What were you thinking?
her mind scolded her
.
He’s an FBI agent, you idiot. What if he finds out who Dawn Garrett really is?

“No,” she whispered to herself. “No, he’s different.”

She didn’t quite know how he was different, but there
some something about him that was. He made her feel strangely safe, and she
couldn’t deny she enjoyed his company, even under the circumstances.

“It’s all clear,” Agent Nash said as he stepped back
into her house. “You’re right, it might have just been a raccoon, but it’s
better that you played it safe.”

“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry if I pulled
you out of bed, or something.”

“Nah,” he shook his head. “Just doing some late night
reading. You going to be okay?”

“I think so,” Dawn said. “But I still feel bad about
calling you out here for nothing. Want a cup of coffee? I have decaf.”

“Sure,” the agent said as he pulled off his jacket and
hung it over the arm of the couch. Dawn realized then that his shirt was just a
little tight across his chest, and she could see the muscles hidden underneath
it. She wanted to stare, but she knew how that would look and she forced her
eyes away.

“Hey,” he said as she moved into the kitchen. “Mind if
we Irish up those drinks?”

“Huh?” she asked, but then she saw the bottle of
whiskey sitting on her counter. “Oh, yeah, I can get behind that.”

The coffee was instant and bland, but the Johnnie
Walker was enough to make it palatable. With two mismatched mugs in hand, Dawn
walked over to the couch where the agent now sat, his eyes trailing over her
home in a way that Dawn wasn’t sure she liked.

“Just move in?” he asked as she handed him his coffee.

“I guess.” She shrugged as she looked at her sparsely
furnished home. She moved around so much she’d never bothered to decorate, but
she decided against telling him that.

“Sorry,” he said as he sipped his drink, the wisps
steam raising over his face. “I just imagined you having pictures of friends
and family, maybe even a cat, or something.”

“You were picturing my place?” Dawn said with a laugh
as she took a big gulp of the hot coffee. If not for the whiskey, she would
have spit it right back in the cup.

“No,” Agent Nash protested, but his smile was growing
bigger.

“Well, what about you?” Dawn asked, working to take
his focus off her life. “The other two agents, Hart and...?”

“Connors,” Nash filled in for her.

“Yeah, Hart and Connors. They’re partners, right?” she
continued.

“That’s right,” he nodded, but there was a suspicion
growing in his eyes. He didn’t stop her from continuing her own line of
questioning, but she knew she’d need to tread carefully.