“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else you needed. I’m leaving Saturday morning, taking my time. Pog and I will stay somewhere Saturday night…”
Ten minutes later they said good-bye, and she stared at the cell. It was a mixed bag, emotionally. How would she handle having Matt around on top of all of this? He’d help her make sense of everything.
Or maybe it would make things worse, having him around.
I need a ride.
Mutt was eager. It took her longer than usual to groom and saddle him with her sore hand. A few bikes whined through the park, but Thursday afternoons were generally quiet. She took a small backpack to hold the mail and a bottle of water and turned the gelding south. She wanted to take her time getting to the front gate, needing the time alone to clear her head.
She spotted the path to the graveyard. Despite the horse’s wishes, Sami took a moment to study George Simpson’s gravestone.
“What kind of monster were you?”
The wind picked up, rattling pine needles and oak leaves. Mutt blew a nervous snort.
“Easy, boy.” She patted the gelding on the neck and examined the stone cairns, most likely the Spanish explorers massacred by the local tribe. Sami knew there was more to that story, too, considering the Spaniards wrote the history.
She wondered what precipitated the attack. Yes, it was possible they were simply hostile natives resisting intrusions to their land. But the tribes in this area were relatively peaceful, and it wasn’t beyond the realm of imagination to think the invaders had done something to deserve their fate.
Sami closed her eyes and listened to the distant sound of traffic on the interstate and a couple of bikes on the main road…
And a girl’s terrified shriek.
Her eyes snapped open. Mutt was pulling on a tuft of grass at the base of a sapling and froze in mid-bite, his radar ears swiveling to the west where the sound originated. It wasn’t her imagination.
Brush rustling, and another scream.
Mutt’s head shot up and Sami urged him forward, toward a faint path through the palmettos at the edge of the clearing.
She leaned forward against the gelding’s neck, dodging limbs threatening to sweep her from the saddle.
Now she heard men’s laughter, coarse and taunting.
“Puta…”
That was Spanish, she knew, and not very nice either.
The girl sounded terrified, babbling in an unrecognizable tongue. They sounded closer, but Sami couldn’t quite pinpoint where.
She pushed the horse through a stand of slash pine saplings, wondering for the first time what she would do when she found the girl. She had no weapons, not even a riding crop, and she’d stupidly left her cell phone at home.
The girl sobbed. Now Sami heard animal grunts, unmistakable rutting noises, and more coarse laughter. They were right in front of her.
She rounded the corner in full gallop, pulling up short at the overgrown clearing. The sound faded into the wind. Mutt’s ears swiveled like airport radar.
Wheeling him around, she listened but couldn’t hear them. There were no tracks in the clearing, the weeds undisturbed except where Mutt stomped them down.
“Hello?” she yelled.
Her heart raced. She listened for any noise, any trace of sound.
She was alone.
Shivering, she dug her heels into Mutt’s side. He bounded for the south side of the clearing and she let him find a path. Minutes later they burst into the day-use campground near the front gate. With no traffic in front of her, she galloped to the gatehouse where Tom Jenkins’s truck was parked.
He greeted her with a smile then saw her face. “What’s wrong?”
She leapt off Mutt’s back, stumbling over her words, trying to get it all out. Finally, “We have to call the sheriff!”
He studied his feet. Sami nearly yelled at him when he shook his head. “They won’t find anything,” he whispered.
The blood drained from her face. “What?”
He looked at her. “They called her a ‘puta’ didn’t they?”
Sami nodded. She hadn’t specifically told the ranger what they’d said, too anxious to get the story out.
“That’s the Indian girl. The conquistadores kidnapped her, raped her, and her family got their revenge that night when they rescued her.”
“What?”
He looked around, even though they were alone. “My grandfather reported it, years ago, when he was the ranger. He was out on horseback and heard the same thing. They spent days combing the woods on foot with dogs and on horseback. They found nothing. Three weeks later, a group of hunters reported nearly the same thing. Again searchers found nothing.
“We haven’t had any reports in about fifteen years. During the weekend, people can’t hear anything with all the traffic going through here. If they’re on a bike, forget it.”
Sami tried to digest this. “You’re saying they’re ghosts?”
“You said it, not me.” He handed her the mail. “You might want to ride home along the main road. You can’t do that girl any good, and it’s creepy listening to it.”
She shoved the mail into her backpack with numb fingers and trembling hands. “Have you heard it?”
Jenkins looked like he didn’t want to answer. “I saw them one night, but not that. I saw what happened to the Spaniards. It happened not too far from your house.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Upon her return she found Steve in the living room. He was unusually quiet and took the mail from her without comment.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked.
He shook his head as he looked through everything before handing it back. “I’m not hungry. I need to work.”
He seemed more than tired. He seemed…distant. “Are you okay?”
“I have a lot of work to do.” He returned to his study and closed the door behind him.
“Great.” She considered telling him about the strange experience in the woods, but the closer she got to home, the sillier she felt. Tom Jenkins had to be yanking her chain. Shit like that didn’t happen in real life. He was probably having a great laugh with his fellow rangers at her expense.
That didn’t explain the things she’d heard and seen for herself.
Or Jenkins’s serious demeanor when he told the story. How he seemed to not just believe her, but anticipate what she was going to tell him.
I am not seeing ghosts. I am not.
If she said it enough times, maybe she’d believe it.
Work was out of the question. After her shower she channel surfed for a few minutes before finding a movie. Steve stayed in his office until almost nine. He looked drawn and tired when he walked into the living room.
“Are you hungry?” It had been hours since he’d last eaten.
“Dammit, if I’m hungry, I’ll fucking tell you to fix me something.”
“Excuse me?” She’d be damned if she’d put up with this bullshit.
The shock and anger on her face must have startled him. “Sami, I’m sorry.” His face softened. “I didn’t mean it like that—”
It wasn’t even what he said, but how he said it, like he spoke with someone else’s voice. She shut the TV off. “No, I’m sure you didn’t.” So much for Steve being in a better mood. Mentally kicking herself for softening her heart to him yet again just to get hurt—again—she stormed through the kitchen to the basement to run a load of laundry.
If he was back to this old self, she wasn’t hanging around long enough to put up with it.
The basement door opened. “Do you need any help?”
“No, Steven, I don’t need any help. It’s all under control. You need to go to bed and wake up on the right side of it. Sick or not, I won’t tolerate that shit from you any longer.” She slammed the washer lid and wrenched the dials before smacking the knob to turn it on. The dryer fared no better, and she saw the sliver of light from the kitchen disappear as he closed the door.
/> * * * *
Dammit, what’s wrong with me? She called me Steven? She is really pissed.
He slowly climbed the stairs, aware of his sutures every step. Why had he snapped at her like that? He was so tired, his nap full of bad dreams, and his mouth tasted foul when he woke up.
Like whiskey.
When he left his study, he realized he’d lost three hours of time. That wasn’t like him. Yes, he zoned out occasionally when in a good rhythm, but he couldn’t remember what he did from the time he went in there and coming back out and taking poor Sami’s head off.
POISONIN’ WHORE!
He clamped a hand to his head and stopped halfway up the stairs. That voice again. The same one he heard the other night.
The one from his dreams.
His side hurt. Probably from sitting too long in one position and then climbing stairs. He should have let Sami make him a bed on the couch again tonight.
Too late now. He’d be lucky if she even spoke to him.
Maybe he should tell Dr. Raymond about the voice, but he’d probably recommend locking him up in a psych ward for a few weeks. Maybe he should try writing it down. That might help him make sense of it. Hell, maybe it would make a good scene for his next book.
He fell into bed and was asleep minutes later.
* * * *
Sami felt far too angry to go upstairs to bed. She snagged a glass of iced tea from the kitchen and returned to the basement. There were several dozen boxes of who knew what to sort through, and then there were the books. There were quite a few tomes from the early part of the century—classics like Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer. Old Dick and Jane books. A few math and reading primers.
The esoteric books caught her eye. Books about the Golden Dawn, Masonry, even black magic. A few dozen books of that kind.
The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books brought back childhood memories. The Bibles ranged in age from 1891, most likely left by the Simpsons, to 1975.
Who would go off and leave all this? And why didn’t later residents clear it out?
It was after midnight when she finally went upstairs. Steve was asleep. She quietly changed clothes and took her pillows and a blanket to the couch. She didn’t want to be in the same house with him, much less the same floor.
With the TV barely loud enough to hear, she curled up and fell asleep with Scooby-Doo distracting her.
She awoke before dawn and changed clothes. Coffee in hand, she walked out to the barn. It wasn’t quite false dawn yet, and the moon had already dropped beyond the trees. Unnaturally quiet for that time of day. She caught Jeff and hooked his halter to the crossties. Mutt reached over the corral fence to get his head scratched. “You’ll get your turn, too, greedy. Don’t worry.”
Suddenly, both horses stood at attention, their focus on the west pasture fence. Jeff, with his halter tethered, swung his hind end around, nearly stepping on Sami in his attempts to see.
Mutt let out a loud, frightened whinny and pawed the ground, crowding close to the fence by the barn.
“What is it?” A chilly wave enveloped her despite the morning’s warmth. There was something out there.
Then she heard it—leaves rustling, slow, steady footsteps, something moving through the brush.
Something large.
Looking around for a weapon, she grabbed the pitchfork from the hook on the wall. Mutt backed closer to the barn, and Jeff let out an anxious whinny.
“Who’s out there? Show yourself!”
The noise stopped for a moment, then started again.
Coming closer.
Never before had Sami wished she had a gun. In that moment, she realized why people carried them.
“Who’s out there? I’m warning you, if you don’t show yourself, I’m calling the police!” She calculated the distance from the barn to the house. They would have to climb through the barbed wire fence first to get to her. She could make it. She didn’t have the car keys with her or she’d lock herself in the truck.
The noise drew closer. A palmetto bush on the edge of the clearing rustled. The white-tailed doe had twin fawns with her.
Sami laughed, and while the geldings watched, her laughter turned to tears as she let out her stress and anxiety, leaning against Jeff’s rump.
“What’s going on?”
She screamed. Whirling around, she nearly impaled Steve with the pitchfork.
He threw up his hands defensively, dropping his full coffee mug. It shattered on the concrete floor.
“Jesus Christ, Steve!” she screamed. “I could have killed you!”
And this was why she didn’t need a gun.
Or, maybe it’s why she did.
He slowly reached out and carefully pushed the tines aside and took the pitchfork from her trembling hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
That’s when she collapsed, sobbing, first pulling away from him, then letting him hold her until she calmed down and finally relaxed, sniffling against his shoulder.
She turned Jeff loose and helped Steve pick up the shards of his shattered mug. Daylight made its way to their property as they walked silently back to the house. Her nerves were shot.
He tried to make small talk and she kept her answers short, trying to avoid him. He wanted to talk. The more he tried to draw her out of her protective shell, the more she withdrew.
He couldn’t blame her.
“I’ll be in my office.” Retreating with a fresh cup of coffee, he closed the door behind him.
It was a relief when he left. She ran a sink full of hot water and washed the dishes. The doe and fawns still grazed in the pasture while Mutt and Jeff warily eyed them.
Twenty minutes later she heard a loud crash and Steve swearing in his office.
“Oh, criminy, what now?” She shut off the water and wiped her hands. She found Steve on his knees on the floor by his desk, his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” She knelt beside him.
He didn’t respond at first. She was about to go for the phone when he finally gasped and reached for the edge of the desk. “I’m—I’m okay. I had a…”
* * * *
A what? Blackout? Psychotic episode? It reminded him of his early drinking days, except with a difference.
Then, there weren’t voices in his head screaming obscenities and other horrible things.
“Why don’t I call Dr. Smith?” Sami suggested.
“No, I’m okay,” he lied. “I think I pulled a stitch or something.” He sat in his chair and lifted his shirt. The incision looked okay. No blood around the bandage. “I’ll be okay.” He forced a smile.
“You were holding your head.”
“The drawer was open. I cracked my skull on it when I sat up.” That was, at least, a partial truth. He hated lying to her, but the truth would only scare her.
It scared him.
He didn’t know how he got on the floor. Or why his mouth tasted so foul.
“I’m okay.” He smiled again, doing a little better that time.
She studied him. “Do you want me to make you something to eat, or will you bite my head off for asking?”
“Yes, please. I mean, please make me something. I really appreciate it. Thank you.”
She returned to the kitchen. Steve took a deep breath, holding it and letting it out again. A few minutes later, Sami brought him a bagel and some juice. She left without a speaking a word, closing his office door behind her.
Maybe Matt will know what to do. Steve looked forward to his friend’s arrival. It would be good for Sami to have someone to lean on.
Steve knew it wasn’t easy on her being alone with him in the middle of nowhere. She was used to being around people, volunteering, being active. He’d encouraged her to go to Tampa to visit friends and family, but she didn’t want to leave him alone without a car that long. Except for her trips to Brooksville and one afternoon when they drove to Tampa for dinner with some of Sami’s cousins, she’d been stuck here with him.
&nb
sp; Matt could get a rental and Sami would have her car back. That would allow her the freedom to get out of the house and away from him.
Steve turned his attention to his computer. It was nearly eight and time to get back to work. He reread the last few pages of his last work and let his mind drift.
How long had he known Matt? Since before he met Sami. Matt introduced them at a party. Steve knew he wanted to marry her from the moment they met. He supposed he was lucky Matt didn’t date his clients. Sami and Matt were as close as brother and sister, with so much in common.
Then again, Steve didn’t know much about Matt’s love life. That was one area Matt kept private from everyone, even him.
Matt was his best man at their wedding, and the one who helped Sami with the intervention, worried he would drink himself to death. He’d known Matt since signing on with him at a writer’s conference in college. Had it been that long, nearly twenty years? Good grief.
Steve looked at the screen. He’d blanked out for a moment, long enough for the computer to drop into hibernate mode. He tapped the touchpad to wake the laptop, saved his file, and started a fresh document. He closed his eyes and let his fingers rest on the keyboard, felt for the ridges on the keys under each index finger, then started typing.
A moment later when he opened his eyes, the clock on his desktop read 12:15. That couldn’t be right!
He grabbed his cell from its charger. 12:16.
According to the computer, he was on page one eighty-two, but he’d started with a new, blank document file.
He was a fast typist, but not that fast. And he couldn’t remember what he’d written. He’d only closed his eyes for a minute, just to think. He didn’t even remember typing.
Jerking his hands from the keyboard, he looked at the last sentence. It was total garbage. Nonsensical jumbles of letters and numbers.
Tentatively tapping the PgUp button, he scrolled through the manuscript. It was mostly garbage until he reached page twenty.
He scrolled to the beginning of the section, everything before it also a jumble of meaningless nothing. As he started reading, his eyes widened in disbelief.