Chapter 21 #2
“Yes,” Nora said tentatively. She’d wanted to know the real reason why Oliver had separated himself from the rest of the town, but the more she was in his unpleasant company, the more apparent the answer seemed.
“We were just wondering…” She looked to Charlie for assistance, but he seemed as mystified by the interaction as she was.
Whatever fear she’d had upon entering the house had been promptly replaced by puzzlement tinged with a steadily growing seed of annoyance.
She’d spent days trying to keep her brother alive while on limited sleep and more adrenaline than a skydiver after ten cups of coffee, and now, after facing the terror of returning to this place in the woods, she was being childishly ignored by someone who should have been buried a good decade before she was born. It was frankly absurd.
“We just wanted to find out who in Virgo Bay might be capable of taking a life,” said Nora.
This forced both men’s attention in her direction.
“What did you just say?” Oliver wheezed, laying his book open on his lap.
“You’ve lived here, in this town, on this planet, longer than anyone. You must know everything about everyone around here. It’s a straightforward question. Who can we trust?”
“Why would you ask such a thing?”
“I just told you why,” said Nora.
“No, you told me why you’d ask me, not why you’d ask it at all.”
Nora chewed the inside of her cheek, contemplating the repercussions of telling Oliver the whole truth.
If he was in league with Patty or Phil, who apparently were both frequent visitors, or with whoever else Charlie’s would-be murderer might be, it would only be a matter of time before they came back out here and Oliver tipped them off that the twins were onto them.
But as the person most removed from town, there was also a chance that he was the least involved of anyone in this whole murdery mess.
“Well,” she said, carefully scanning each word before it left her mouth, “someone has been very unsubtly trying to cause us harm since we got here. If you have any idea who that might be, then I’d like to know too.”
Oliver stared through her for a moment, dark eyes like bottomless wells pulling her into their depths. “You expect me to know the answer to that?”
“You do share DNA with three-quarters of the town,” Nora tried.
“So do you,” he said, his wispy voice somehow adding an unreadable weight to his words. “What are you doing all the way out here in Virgo Bay anyway?”
“Our dad—”
“Your father left,” said Oliver. “Perhaps you ought to hurry up and do the same.”
“I don’t understand.” Exasperation forced its way from Nora’s throat. “Why won’t you help us?”
Something in those dark eyes shifted. The apathy Nora had seen in them seemed to ebb into an out-of-place softness that unnerved her even more.
Then he picked up his book with a shake of his head, burying his eyes in its pages.
“You’re mistaken. There’s no one here who would wish to do you harm.
The sooner you stop thinking as much, the better. ”
“I’m pretty sure I—”
“You’re wrong,” Oliver said, with the kind of finality that made Nora wonder for a very brief moment if she was. “And I can’t help you.”
“But—”
“I can’t help you.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Nora said, but the words hung unanswered in the air, joined only by the crackling fire.
At this point Nora’s seed of annoyance had fully bloomed.
He must have at the very least had some thoughts on the subject, some hints or information or suspicions about the people he knew best. And yet, he was content to sit there dismissing Nora’s fears, a feeling she knew all too well.
But this time those fears had something very real to back them up, and yet she was still being patted on the head and told to calm down.
Not only was her investigation being actively stymied by this crotchety old guy, but she couldn’t help but be a little offended by his utter lack of interest in his long-lost great-grandchildren.
This could have been a touching introduction if nothing else, but instead he’d chosen to be an unapologetic ass.
Just for that, Nora decided he was just as likely to be a murderer as the rest of this dysfunctional town, or at least that he made for a criminally bad host. She stomped up to her feet.
“Fine. We’re leaving. Sorry to take up some of your endless time, you’re clearly busy. Hope we get to have a proper family reunion one of these days, but if not, it’s probably because we’re dead and you could have prevented it.” With that she marched indignantly out the door.
Back in the woods, the sky was doing something.
There may have been rain, though it was just as likely sunny.
Nora was too frustrated to notice. She had been so sure, so convinced that that sinister house in the woods held the answers to her brother’s case, but instead all it held was a crabby old man with poor housekeeping skills and a complete unwillingness to help.
“So…wow,” Charlie said as they shuffled across the muddy path, pulling Nora from her thoughts.
“What?”
“You really hated that guy, huh?”
“No,” said Nora. “Well, yes. Maybe. It doesn’t matter. We’re no closer to figuring out who’s trying to kill you, are we? That was a waste of time, and I don’t know how much of that we have.”
“Still,” said Charlie. “It was pretty badass.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, a bit weird and intense too, don’t get me wrong, but you didn’t take his cranky bullshit, so that was cool. And did you see his eyes?”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you dropped the bomb,” said Charlie. “You know, ‘who here could be a killer’ or whatever. His eyes did this weird thing where they went all wide for a second and flicked off to the side. He definitely knows something.”
Nora stopped walking for a moment. In truth she hadn’t noticed.
She had been too fired up, her fuel a steadily burning frustration, to catch the nuances of her great-grandfather’s facial expressions.
Which wasn’t like her. But Charlie had caught them.
Which wasn’t like him. She would have plenty of time to overanalyze that later.
But if Charlie was right in what he saw and his interpretation of it, then there was something Oliver knew that Nora needed to know too.
She could have kicked herself if her hamstrings were more flexible and she wasn’t worried about slipping in the mud.
She had spent so much effort imagining the man in the hidden house was up to something almost otherworldly in her head.
When she’d finally managed to work up the nerve to face him, she had quickly written Oliver off as a cranky old guy who had grown so derisive towards the world that he’d decided to shun it as soon as he could.
To her he was now capable of nothing more than biting comments.
But if he was hiding something, then that put him in the same category as everyone else in town: suspicious as fuck.
She wasn’t done with Oliver, Nora decided.
She would just have to be smarter about it next time.
She was still half lost in the M. C. Escher drawing of her mind when the forest around her changed.
It was a subtle shift at first, the air holding an almost-hollow quality, a small flock of birds fleeing a patch of the woods just visible from the path.
Nothing that should have raised alarm, and nothing that likely would have raised alarm to anyone who wasn’t already in a constant state of alarm.
Then came the sound that a part of Nora had somehow known was coming.
The blast tore out of the same patch of woods the birds had flown from.
Nora’s mind’s eye flooded with visions of a bloody Charlie crumpled beside her.
It all happened so quickly, she barely knew she was moving.
Like her race to the cliff’s edge, Nora was mostly a fast-moving body at this point, her thoughts somewhere a few seconds behind.
They caught up just as she and Charlie hit the ground in a painful heap of sharp elbows and knees.
Above them, the bark of a tree exploded, shards of sawdust raining down.
“Gun?” Charlie asked as soon as he’d regained the capacity to speak.
“Gun,” Nora confirmed. Based on the destruction to the tree above them, very likely a hunting rifle built to take down prey.
Which was exactly what the twins were now.
But Nora didn’t say any of that. Instead she dragged herself across the mud and fallen leaves on her elbows, leading them in an army crawl away from the shooter.
Though, of course, that was of little use.
Bullets, it turned out, were harder to avoid than falling tree limbs.
And Nora hated the fact that she had the personal experience to make that comparison.
The torrent of shots kept coming, each closer than the last, until one fired from right beside the twins.
Without thinking, Nora dove to cover her brother with her body and buried her head in her hands, waiting for the final bullet to strike, but the shot never came.
She removed her ineffective hand shield and looked up to find Patty standing over them, rifle in hand, its smoking barrel pointed skyward.
“You kids okay?” She lowered a hand, offering it to Nora, who regarded it with the same level of disgust she’d view a rotting trout.
“The fuck?” was all Nora could manage.
“Sorry. Someone must’ve been out hunting and not realized there was anyone else out here.”
“Someone, but not you,” Nora said pointedly.
“I’m not much of a hunter,” said Patty.
Nora pulled herself to her feet without the assistance of her aunt’s hand.
She wobbled, her legs weak with fear, and leaned on the shattered tree for support.
When she looked over and spotted the bullet lodged in the bark, she weakened further and found herself caught under one arm by Charlie, who was somehow less affected by his tenure as a bull’s-eye than Nora was.
She eyed Patty with a knot in her stomach.
Neither she nor Charlie had been particularly focused on anything but not dying during the barrage of gunshots.
There was nothing to say Patty hadn’t been the one doing the shooting, moving closer as they fled.
Though that didn’t explain why she didn’t shoot them now, or when they were still on the ground. Nothing made sense. Again.
“Why do you have a gun if you don’t hunt?” Nora said, voice trembling.
“You never know what you’re going to run into when you live out in the middle of nowhere,” Patty said simply. “Now, are either of you hurt?”
Nora scanned her body from top to bottom, finding none but the usual holes. She shook her head. Charlie, still propping her up, mimicked the gesture.
“Good,” said Patty. “Good. Why don’t you come back home with me and we’ll get you cleaned up?”
Nora shook her head again.
“At least let me walk you back to Mom and Dad’s,” Patty tried again. She indicated her gun. “Like I said, you never know what you’re going to run into out here.”
Nora looked down at the weapon. It seemed to look back at her, regarding her with a smugness that said it knew exactly what it was capable of.
Nora wasn’t sure she or Charlie had much of a choice in the matter in regard to Patty’s offer.
She wasn’t willing to risk what could happen if she said no.
Instead she pressed herself firmly between Patty and Charlie as they resumed their walk back to the little red house.
“Phil said he saw you coming out here,” Patty said, answering a question that hadn’t been asked. Her voice was tight, almost defensive. “That’s how I knew where to find you.”
“You were trying to find us?” Nora said.
Patty didn’t answer this. Instead she said, “Phil says he’s likely got another few days to go on your car repairs, then you can get on your way.”
“You suddenly seem to be in a hurry for us to leave,” said Nora, a list of all the ways someone could fatally sabotage a car running through her mind.
“I’m sure you have things you want to get back to.”
Nora realized Patty hadn’t made eye contact with either of them once since she’d arrived.
“I’m glad I found you out here,” Patty continued, still focused straight ahead.
“Charlie, I’ve been meaning to ask if I could borrow you for some help with a few things around the house.
Nora mentioned you’ve done some odd jobs over the years.
Not sure if any of those were particularly handy, but I’m sure you’ve got the knack. ”
“No,” said Nora in Charlie’s stead. The thought of Charlie alone in Patty’s house—Patty, who was now confirmed to own a gun, and to be keeping tabs on their movement—made Nora feel like collapsing all over again. “Phil’s handy,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him, since you two are so close?”
“Phil’s helping out at the farm with his dad today,” said Patty.
“The farm,” Nora repeated. “Where you were bringing the rope?”
“That’s right.”
They emerged from the trees, the gloomy day brightening slightly without the cover of a foliage ceiling.
“You seem skeptical,” Patty continued. “I know that incident in the woods must have been quite rattling. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Nora didn’t say anything. In truth there was nothing worth saying. Of course she wasn’t okay, but there was no use explaining that to one of the main reasons for it.
“I’m actually heading back there now,” said Patty. “Why don’t you two come with me? You haven’t been out there yet, have you? It might be a nice change of scenery after all of this, and I’m sure Vic could use some extra hands.”
A farm was unappealing at the best of times: the smell, the rusty equipment, the animals who had no right being as big or trample-capable as they were.
But the alternative was returning to the little red house to spend the rest of the day with Richard and Ruby who were, at minimum, accomplices in the attempts on Charlie’s life.
At least the farm offered witnesses. Witnesses who might also be involved, to be sure, but there was still a sliver of ever-unreliable hope that they would be on the twins’ side.
“Okay,” said Nora, surprising everyone, not least herself.
“Okay,” said Patty. “Right this way.”
And just like that, Nora and Charlie walked voluntarily into what was very likely a trap.