Harvest Moon (9 page)

“How can you possibly know that?” Dawn asked as she
took a nacho and popped it in her mouth. The cheese was gooey and warm and went
all too well with the beer she was working on.

“Simple,” Gabe said. “It’s been a few days already,
and word has probably gotten out. Give some guys a few days to schedule off
work, travel time, you know the drill. They’ll be drinking here tomorrow
night.”

“Sure they will,” Jim laughed, his belly shaking as he
did.

“Hell,” Gabe went on as he pulled off a stringy glob
of cheese and gobbled it up, “just you watch, I bet some of them walk through
those doors any minute now!”

No one expected him to be right, least of all Dawn,
but all three of the slightly buzzed staff members of Jim’s bar jumped when the
double doors swung open and someone stepped inside, bringing the cold November
air in with them.

For a fleeting moment, Dawn thought it Agent Nash. The
broad shoulders and confident gait nearly had her fooled. But as her eyes
trailed up, her excitement turned to disappointment, and then blinding anger.

“What are you doing here?” she spat at Gavin Mosley.
The only thing that kept her from leaping to kick him out was Jim’s hand coming
to rest on her shoulder.

“Please,” Gavin said, his big brown eyes pleading with
them. “I came here to talk to you.”

“About what?” Dawn shot at him. “Unless you’ve come to
tell us what you did to Courtney, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Hush,” Jim tried to silence her, but she could see
the anger in his eyes too. Mosley had walked into a snake pit, and she could
only hope that Jim would give in to his own anger.

“That’s why I came here,” Mosley said as he ran his
fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I know you guys think I was involved,
the cops did too, but I promise you, I had nothing to do with it.”

Dawn was about to call him out on his lies. Her
accusations were fresh on her tongue and she was ready to unleash them, but it
was Jim who spoke first.

“Okay,” the big man said. “Have a seat.”

“Jim?” Dawn questioned him, but her boss only shook
his head and turned his attention to Mosley.

“I don’t really know where to start,” Gavin said as he
awkwardly fidgeted while his eyes stayed focused on his lap.

“How about with you leaving the bar that night?” Jim said,
his voice smooth, but Dawn knew an angry Jim when she saw it. His cheeks were
flushed red and he was breathing hard enough that wisps of his beard moved with
each exhale.

“Okay,” Gavin said as he took a nervous breath. “I
admit, leaving with Courtney that night looks mighty suspicious. I don’t really
know what I was thinking, asking to take her home like I did. I guess it’s
because I’m new in town and I don’t really know anyone. Courtney seemed sweet,
and she laughed at my stupid jokes. The bar was empty, and I thought it would
be cool if she took off early.”

Dawn seethed as she listened to his lies. There was a
sadness that surrounded his big doe eyes and his voice lingered with a touch of
country drawl, but she saw through it. She wouldn’t let herself be blinded by
his act.

“We were there,” Dawn shot at him, but Jim’s hand
found hers and silenced her once more.

“I know, I know,” Mosley said as he nodded. “I won’t
lie to you guys, and I’ll tell you what I told the cops. There’s no sense in me
denying that I thought that maybe Miss Frey and I might… well… you know. But
the moment I got in the car, I realized I was just a tad lonely and that I
might be taking advantage of the girl. So I drove her home.”

“She never got home,” Gabe reminded him.

“And that’s my biggest regret,” Mosley said as he hung
his head. “I dropped her off and drove away without making sure she got inside
her house. I didn’t know about the animal attacks or the missing hikers. If I
had, damn it,” he said as his fist met the table, “I would have made sure she’d
gotten inside. So yeah, I guess it’s my fault she’s missing, but I didn’t kill
her.”

With that, his shoulders slumped and he rubbed at the
corner of his eye with his thumb. Dawn was about to call him out on his
ludicrous display, but Gabe opened his mouth first.

“Damn,” Gabe sighed. “That’s a lot to have sitting on
your shoulders.”

“It can be,” Mosley nodded, his brown eyes glassy with
the threat of tears. “I don’t mind the cops’ questions, or the feds poking
around my house. I didn’t do anything, and I’m happy to prove that, but I know
in my heart that I’m responsible because of my inaction.”

“Please,” Dawn rolled her eyes at the melodrama.

“I know you might not believe me,” Mosley said. “But I
figured I should at least man up and come talk to you folks.”

“Aw, now Dawnie just misses Courtney,” Jim said. “We
all do. That was quite the convincing story you told, and I think it wise for
the three of us to ruminate on it before we give you a pardon.”

“That’s fair,” Mosley said with a nod. “I, uh, guess
I’ll get going, then.”

Jim, ever the gentleman at heart, rose to show him
out. He put a burly arm around the baseball player as they walked and
whispered, “Don’t worry about Dawn there, she’ll come around. She’s got a good
heart.”

Dawn knew that Jim thought she couldn’t hear him. Most
people never thought she was listening, but she always was, and now she was
fuming. It didn’t matter how convincing Gavin Mosley’s little show was. In the
end, the man was still responsible for Courtney’s disappearance.

And, as Dawn was starting to accept, her death.

As hard as it was to swallow, Courtney had been
missing for days. One day was one thing. Maybe she really had run off with a
guy or back to Chuck or something, but she would have called. It wasn’t like
her not to call. In the back of her mind, that sour thought was digging a
little hole and it wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she struggled to shut
it up.

She might not have been the only one feeling that
unwelcome dread. Gabe refused to meet her eyes once Mosley left, and Jim, well…
Jim looked like a mess.

“Goddamn it,” Jim sighed after he finished his beer.
“Goosemont is supposed to be a safe town, a quiet town. Now, all this.”

“You can’t possibly believe him,” Dawn said, fighting
her own frustrated tears. She was frustrated with her boss, frustrated at no
one agreeing with her that Gavin Mosley was a killer, and frustrated that even
she had to admit his tears might not have been entirely crocodilian in nature.

“He looked so sincere,” Jim mumbled. “Damn it all to
hell, why did this happen here?”

For a second, Dawn wanted to tell them it was her
fault. Bad luck seemed to follow her, but usually it had more to do with the
wrong kind of cops, the crooked kind, looking for her, not her friends getting
mauled by bears.

“Luck of the draw,” Gabe answered for her. “Sometimes
nature likes to remind us who’s the boss.”

“That may be,” Jim sighed. “But this Sunday, I think
I’m going to head to church. Ain’t been in twenty years, but I think a little
prayin’ might do my old soul some good.”

“I think I’ll join you,” Gabe said. “Bring the wife
and kids. Any little bit helps.”

That was when they both turned their heads toward
Dawn, but she skirted their gaze. Church wasn’t for her. Praying wasn’t for
her. She lived in the here and now, and with all she’d seen, it was too hard to
believe that there was someone up there looking out for people. She’d also seen
enough bad that she didn’t need to believe in a hell below, either. People were
capable of enough hell on their own.

“Well, kids,” Jim said as he pushed himself up from
the table. “It’s getting late, and I think we’re all just making ourselves
blue. I think it’s best we pack it in and try again tomorrow.”

“I’m on board with that,” Gabe said. “I turned the oven
off after I pulled out the nachos.”

“You two head on out, then,” Jim said as he stroked
his beard. “Maybe tomorrow your prediction will come true and we’ll see those
hunters we’ve been waiting on.”

Gabe smiled at that. “You’ll see. Come noon, this place
will be full of men in camo with guns slung over their backs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dawn said, unable to hide the roll of
her eyes at his insistence. “How about we make the walk home together? After
everything, I think I could use the backup.”

“I was going to suggest the same thing,” Jim agreed.
“I couldn’t stand to see you go, too.”

“Thanks, Jim,” Dawn said as she gave him a hug. “And
I’ll think about church.” Not for herself, but she knew being there would help
Jim. The way his eyes lit up when she said it was enough proof that she was
right.

The temperature was hovering near freezing when Dawn
and Gabe left the bar. The wind had mercifully slowed, but it was cold enough
that the beginnings of frost were starting to form on the grass edging through
the sidewalk, and Dawn let herself shiver.

“Cold night,” Gabe said, more to say something than to
actually make note of the temperature.

“Yeah,” Dawn nodded. “Listen, you didn’t really
believe that Mosley guy, did you?”

“Come on,” Gabe groaned. “Let it rest. The guy was
beating himself up over it. He looked a wreck. Besides, I’ve watched enough
baseball to have heard of the kid. He’s a good guy, did lots of charity work in
his day, too. No one ever had a bad thing to say about him, and with his career
ending shoulder injury, everyone said it was terrible for something like that
to happen to such a nice guy.”

“I guess,” Dawn relented. “I just... something doesn’t
seem right.”

“It’s an easy answer,” Gabe said as they walked down
the main street of Goosemont. “But that doesn’t make it the right answer. He’s
a good guy. Maybe you should talk to him, one-on-one, and see what I mean. Hate
does nothing but hurt yourself.”

Dawn didn’t know about that. Hate and anger had kept
her alive, along with a good dose of fear and precaution. She wasn’t about to
go changing that over a few tears from a grown man.

“Think about it,” Gabe said as they stopped in front
of Dawn’s tiny house. “Give the guy a chance before you judge him. Innocent
until proven guilty, and all that.”

“Fine.” She eased up a little. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask,” Gabe said with a smile. “Try to
get a good night’s sleep.”

“Thanks,” she said as she let herself into the house.

From her kitchen window, Dawn watched as Gabe made the
final twenty or so feet to his own house. Once he was safely inside, she
finally let herself relax some, but the moment she did, the dreadful thoughts
returned, and she found herself reaching for the whiskey to quiet them down.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered as the second shot burned
down her throat. All she wanted was to settle her mind, but the alcohol only
seemed to be making things worse. The only thing she could say to its benefit
was that at least it was making her sleepy.

Before she made her way to her bed, Dawn pulled out a
butcher knife from the block on the counter. It wasn’t much, but at least it
could provide some much-needed piece of mind and she carried it with her into
her bedroom.

Sun poured into the windows of Dawn’s little house,
but it betrayed the cold that was outside her door. Even with the noon sun
shining bright, the November wind was crisp and could cut to the bone if one
didn’t dress accordingly.

Despite it being her first day off in a week, Dawn was
getting ready to head to Jim’s. She tried to occupy herself with things to do
around the house, but nothing was working. Every moment her mind was left
unoccupied was a chance for it to remember that her best friend was missing,
that the only suspect seemed like a total dead end, and there was a murderer,
or a bear, or something, that had been prowling around her house at night.

The streets of Goosemont were dead, even at noon. It
wasn’t the cold that was keeping the residents indoors, but rather the same
threats that loomed over Dawn. Parents escorted their kids to school. If people
did go out, they drove, and no woman felt safe while alone on the street.

It seemed that Dawn was the only one who realized
that, chances were, nothing would happen in the center of town during the
middle of the day. Still, anxiety touched her gut as she locked up her house
and let the cold air sting her cheeks and chill her still-damp hair.

Nothing will attack you in broad daylight
, her
mind assured her as she made her way toward Jim’s.
No person will, either.

Still, the streets were so eerily quiet that she
picked up her pace as she walked the few blocks to Jim’s. She was hoping to see
truck after truck parked outside the bar on her way in. Her eyes searched for
gun racks and boastful bumper stickers to indicate that hunters had finally
arrived, but there was nothing. The place was as deserted as ever, and Dawn
sighed as she stepped inside.

“Dawn, honey,” Jim said as he rose from the table he
was reading the paper at. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, though it was only a half truth.
“Just didn’t feel like being alone at home. My mind was getting away from me.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to my company,” Jim said
with a weak smile. “Don’t know how much good that’ll do ya today.”

“It’ll be plenty good,” she told him as she sat down
at his table. “Any sign of anyone coming in?”

“Nothing yet,” Jim said as he sat back down.

“Just you wait,” Gabe said as he stepped out of the
kitchen, beer in hand. “Tonight, they’ll show. It’s been enough time. I’ll bet
any one of you fifty bucks that we’re swamped tonight.”

“You’re on,” Dawn said. Not because she really wanted
to bet, but at least it was something to get their minds off what was happening
in town.

“Well, I hope they show up soon,” Jim said as he
tucked his thumbs in his belt. “I can’t afford many more nights like last
night. You two are going to drink the bar dry without anything to do.”

It was a weak attempt at a joke, but Dawn made herself
laugh to appease the man. They were all running on stress, adrenaline, and
beer, and ignoring his quip would have only hurt him more.

“I hope they kill that bear,” Gabe said. “Mary had to
drive the girls to school today. Not that she didn’t want to, but the bus isn’t
even running. Parents don’t want to let their kids out of their sight, and no
one else was using the damn thing, so they cancelled it.”

“I’d just like to see someone trying to take an
attempt at it,” Jim said. “No one seems to be even looking. Fish and Wildlife
haven’t been looking around much, and do we really think some FBI grunts are
out in the woods hunting for it?”

“Well, let’s hope they come for a beer before they go
out in the woods,” Gabe laughed. “Just not too many, of course. We need them
shooting bears, not each other.”

“That’s just what we need,” Jim said as he cracked a
smile behind his bushy beard. “A bear on the loose and a bunch of drunk hunters
shooting each other and blaming me. Then we’ll know this town’s really gone to
hell.”

As much as Dawn wanted to join in with their weird
jokes that were more a product of lack of sleep and an excess of stress than
they were humor, she found herself only worrying. She wanted whatever, or
whoever had taken Courtney dead just as much as anyone, but if a hunter shot
another hunter, well, that was just more attention that would be brought down
on the little town she’d gotten used to calling home.

“Hey, Jim,” Dawn said as she pushed her chair back
from the table. “Mind if I use the computer in your office for a minute?”

“Go for it,” Jim said as he took another gulp of his
beer.

“Wait, still no computer?” Gabe asked as he followed
the boss in drinking. “How does a girl your age get through life without
Facebook and Google and what-have-you?”

“What can I say?” Dawn shrugged as she forced herself
to laugh off his question. “I guess I’m a Luddite.”

“Huh?” Gabe scratched his head at the term, but Dawn
didn’t feel like explaining. Instead, she made her way into the kitchen and
then opened the door to Jim’s closet-turned-office.

Jim’s computer was achingly old and still ran on
dial-up internet, but it provided Dawn a safe place to do the occasional
browsing when the need arose. There was a time when she’d been addicted to
being online. It was a refuge from her daily life, and logging on and chatting
with strangers who became her friends was how she preferred to spend her time.
Anonymous screen names were more real than the people she called friends when
she was in school, but that was long ago.

It wasn’t aimless chatting she was after. Though her
resolve was beginning to soften, she had to know more about Gavin Mosley. Her
instincts, no matter how paranoid, were insisting that she not trust his story,
and maybe something online was the key to figuring out just what kind of person
the man was.

Normally, searching for a person online didn’t always
end up with a ton of hits. One might find a link to a Facebook page, maybe a
mention in their local paper, but looking up someone as famous as Gavin Mosley
meant that Dawn had a lot of stuff to wade through if it meant finding out who
Gavin Mosley was in his day to day life.

Even on Jim’s old computer, she had no trouble finding
page after page of stats: his batting average when he was in the minors;
getting scouted to the Marlins; his batting average his last year with the
team; it was all cut and dry stuff that gave her no clue as to who the man was
as a human being.

After some digging, she found out why he’d left the
team in the first place. About a year ago, as most reports seemed to agree on,
he’d slid into third base, and due to a total freak accident, he’d torn the
ligaments in his shoulder. It was something called a
Glenoid Labrum Tear
,
though that didn’t mean much to Dawn.

Then things got a little more interesting. With the
right surgeon, it seemed that the injury wasn’t one that could end a career. It
would put an end to a player’s season, but not his future in the majors. Even
knowing that, Gavin had decided to step back and apparently return to his
roots, though he was originally from Kentucky, not West Virginia.

“Why not just get it fixed?” Dawn asked herself, but
it seemed Mosley hadn’t done much in the way of interviews post-retirement.
He’d all but disappeared from the public view, and most reports on that said
only that he was a small town boy who preferred a private life.

His pre-retirement interviews weren’t what Dawn was
hoping to find. She so wanted to pin everything on him, but it was getting
harder and harder the deeper she dug. Outside of the game, it seemed that
Mosley was mostly involved in charity work. Personal pictures never showed him
at a bar, on dates, or anything of the like. Instead, he was seen with children
at charity events, always smiling and never looking anything close to upset,
angry, or even annoyed. There was always the same warm smile on his face. It never
faltered.

“Come on,” Dawn groaned as she started to lose hope.
She keyed in phrases like “Gavin Mosley Assault” and “Gavin Mosley Violent,”
but most of what came back was how badly he seemed to have injured his
shoulder.

Her last attempt was “Gavin Mosley Fight,” and
finally, something came up. The article was old, so old that the site it was
archived on looked no better than a Geocities page, but it was something—a
report from a college paper about Mosley and another player getting into a
fistfight outside a bar in Louisville where Mosley played college ball. It was
a lead, it was something.

But as Dawn read the article, she knew it was nothing.
It was worse than nothing. The charges against Mosley were dropped entirely. It
appeared that the other player was seen harassing female patrons of the bar by
several witnesses. When he wouldn’t stop, Mosley stepped in to tell him to lay
off. His drunk teammate threw a punch at him, and Mosley defended not only
himself, but a group of young women.

“Damn it,” Dawn sighed. As much as she wanted to
believe that Mosley was secretly some horrible monster, there was nothing to
indicate he was anything but a perfect gentleman. He was sweet, generous, and
totally, one hundred percent innocent.

Maybe you
are
being paranoid
, Dawn’s
inner voice suggested.
Two years on the run will do that to a person.

Dawn never wanted to be that person, the one who could
never trust anyone. Yet here she was, arguing with herself, trying to fight the
realization that she had been wrong about Mosley only because she wanted so
much to be right. She wanted to believe he was a bad person just so that she
wasn’t paranoid, not just because she wanted to find out who had taken
Courtney.

“Maybe,” she sighed to herself. “Maybe he’s actually a
good guy, after all.”

It hurt her to admit it, but it made more sense than
anything else had lately. Maybe he was just a victim in all this too. Maybe
Dawn would never know for sure.

She was about to log off Jim’s computer when she stopped
herself. She navigated back to Google and began to type once more. J-E-N-N-I...
but she forced herself to stop. There was a part of her locked deep inside that
sometimes dug its way out and longed to find out if she was still being looked
for. Her only hints were her own suspicions and she had avoided the name
Jennifer Waters for well over a year.

Dawn had never been a computer expert, but she’d spent
enough time online to know that certain terms and keywords could be tracked by
the right person. If she typed in “Jennifer Waters” and hit enter, there was no
telling who might see it and track it back to Jim’s IP address.

No, she had to be safe, even if the curiosity gnawed
at her brain.

With a click, Dawn closed the browser and pushed
herself back from the tiny makeshift desk. Even if there was nothing to do at
the bar, she couldn’t hide in Jim’s office all day long. The temptation of the
computer screen was too much, any wrong search or click could be led back to
her and that could spell disaster.

Just as she was about to stand up, she could hear
Jim’s heavy footsteps as he raced into the kitchen. She was standing before he
opened the door, dread knotting her insides, but there was only excitement on
his face.

“Dawn, oh, sweetie,” the big, burly man said. “They’re
here. They’re finally here. Oh, thank God you came to work today. We’re going
to need ya.”

He didn’t need to explain. His red face and excited
rambling was enough to let her know that finally, mercifully, some hunters had
arrived in town to take down whatever it was that had killed those poor women.

As Dawn excited the office, she could hear the din of
the crowd. Even from behind the doors, she could hear the rabble and Gabe was
behind the flat-top, preparing to make as many burgers as the hunters could
stuff down their throats.

“I’ve got to get to pouring,” Jim said with an elated
smile. “Those boys look thirsty!”

The crowd of men was a godsend. Not only was the bar
finally going to make some money after days of throwing it away, but running
from table to table kept Dawn from being able to think about anything at all.
Every time a thought would bubble up, every time she would begin to debate with
herself whether Mosley was a good guy, every time she feared the worse for
Courtney, one of the hunters would holler at her and send her running for more
food or beer.

The bar was packed to bursting, and she had to wonder
if the crowd had all come together, or if their timing was just that good.
There were only a few empty chairs, and Dawn found herself hoping that she
would return from the kitchen with a platter of greasy food to find Agent Nash
sitting in one of them.

The longer the night wore on, the less likely that
seemed. Even with everything else going on, it was hard for Dawn to hide her
disappointment. There was a part of her that wanted to see him, and that part
was growing every day.

Stop it,
her mind ordered her as she took
another order for a round of beers for one of the tables. Three men in matching
green camouflage jackets and Carhartt hats were on their fourth round and had
started to get a little rowdy. She knew she needed to keep her focus on making
them happy, not on some FBI agent who she shouldn’t be getting too close to.

The diners and drinkers were her only priorities, and
she had to keep that in mind. One hunter given the wrong beer or the wrong
burger could result in some ugly business, and Dawn didn’t want that on her
head. They were already riled up over hunting some man-eater, and now they were
all several drinks in. It wouldn’t take much for any of the more colorful folks
to start a ruckus.

Not only that, but most of the drinkers hadn’t thought
to leave their guns in their trucks. Half the chairs in the place had rifles
slung over the backs of them, but as Dawn brought out another tray of nachos,
she realized that she’d seen some of the guns before.