Chapter 2
FINN
Monday, nine days before the festival
The very pretty, but very young, stranger, who was apparently named Drake—and who saddles their kid with Drake ?—frowned down at his phone. I felt bad about all but accusing him of kidnapping Charlie for sex, but I still didn’t want to have to invite him for dinner. Charlie and I needed to talk.
But Charlie—Charles—was determined to get his way. “Well? Will you have dinner with us, Drake?”
The guy had been trying to get out of it earlier; I’d seen it in his face. But his current expression was more confused than regretful.
“Um, that was Zeke—Zeke Knight. He wants you to come out to the compound and look at his tortoise?” He turned to me for confirmation.
Well, fuck. I sighed and nodded. “Dolores.” She was a 90-plus year-old giant tortoise who tended to get shell rot when we had a lot of rain. Though it’d been dry lately. But Drake knew Uncle Zeke? I frowned at Nova, who’d been busying herself at the reception desk shutting everything down.
Drake blinked. “Um, okay. He says he’ll feed you dinner. Er, both of you.” He glanced at Charles, who almost exploded in his excitement.
“Really? We get to have dinner together?”
“Seems so. Out at Zeke’s place. And he mentioned his niece?”
“That’s me. I’m Nova.” She waved. “Sorry, I told Uncle Zeke you were here.”
Drake’s earlier dig about not needing to be introduced to anyone came back to me, and I cringed. “Um, sorry. I’m Finn. These are my parents, Janet and Brad.” I gestured for them to come over.
Mom headed right for Drake. “Thank you again, sweetie, for rescuing our Charlie.” She enveloped him in a hug, and he patted her awkwardly on the back with one hand, holding his Indiana Jones-style hat with the other.
“It’s Charles, Janet.” The put-upon teenager rolled his eyes.
She released Drake and blew Charles a kiss. “Yes, hon. I’ll try harder to remember.”
I put my hand on Charles’ shoulder. “Let me look at your elbow. Um, Drake, if you want to go on ahead, I’ll let Zeke know if I have to take Charles to urgent care. If that happens, I’ll stop by tomorrow to see Dolores.”
“What? No! I don’t need to go to urgent care.” He dropped the hand he’d been using to cradle his injured elbow. Nice try.
Drake nodded solemnly. “If it needs to be checked out, you don’t have a choice, Charles. But if I don’t see you tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Charles grumbled but walked Drake to the door so he could leave. Nova took off too, wishing Charles good luck.
After I sent a quick text to everyone who’d been searching to make sure they knew Charles was found, the four of us walked to the back of the clinic.
Charles carefully took his dad’s leather jacket off, and I noticed it had a lot more scratches and scrapes on it than when I’d seen it this morning. Had he been running through the woods?
His elbow was swollen, but nothing seemed broken. “Okay, we’ll ice it down when we get home tonight, but unless the swelling is worse in the morning, you don’t need an x-ray.”
Charles cheered and put his jacket back on.
Mom and Dad opted out of going to Uncle Zeke’s.
They preferred to go to bed at a reasonable time.
So did I, for that matter, but Charles hadn’t met Uncle Zeke yet, and he was certainly keen to spend more time with Drake.
If I were a better parent, I would probably keep Charles home to punish him for leaving Mom and Dad’s place this afternoon without telling anyone.
But he was stuck with me, a poor substitute for the real thing.
So instead, his punishment would be an unpleasant conversation in the car on the way to Uncle Zeke’s compound.
I’d been ready to leave but Charles informed me that, even though Zeke wanted me to look at his tortoise, it would be “cringe” for me to wear my scrubs to dinner.
Fine. I ran to the house—conveniently located behind the clinic—and changed into jeans and a t-shirt with a flannel over it.
At least I could remove the flannel if Dolores got it dirty.
Eventually, just as the sun was setting, Charles and I were in my SUV heading to the east side of town. I cleared my throat and ignored the sweat suddenly springing up under my arms. “Tell me about this afternoon.” That was neutral and non-accusatory, right?
He froze, his phone clutched tightly in one hand, water bottle in the other. “You won’t believe me.” His voice was low, his tone defeated.
Fucking hell. Was there a teenager how-to book? “You don’t know that. Try me.”
He darted a glance at me then stared out the windshield. After a minute he cleared his throat. “Um, what do you want to know?”
“Well, can you start with why you left Mom and Dad’s house?”
He blew out a breath. “I didn’t mean to go beyond the backyard, I promise .
I was feeling... antsy. I’d finished helping Brad clean out the garage, and he was napping in his chair in front of the TV.
Your mom went in the bedroom to lie down for a few minutes.
You know, next time maybe I could borrow your car? Then I could come home if I wanted to.”
“We can discuss that later. Go on.”
He huffed, but it was mostly under his breath, so I ignored it. “I went out to the backyard, but you know how it’s open to the woods?”
I nodded. I’d grown up in that house, after all.
“Yeah. I thought I saw something moving in the trees, so I went to check it out.”
I stared at him for a little too long, given I was driving. “You... you know there are bears and other dangerous animals in those woods, right?”
He waved this away. “It wasn’t a bear. It was too tall. Lonnie at school told me about Mabel, the tree creature that’s supposed to live around here, and I thought it’d be cool if I could say I saw it.”
I bit back the urge to tell him popularity wasn’t worth putting himself in danger. He was a teenager, and he wouldn’t listen. Instead I breathed in and out, then I said, “Okay, so you went into the woods. What happened?”
He squeezed the water bottle, making the plastic click as it crumpled. “Um, I—I think I actually did see it.”
I glanced over at him, my eyebrows high on my forehead. “You did?” I’d lived in Maplewood my entire life, and even though dozens of people swore they’d had close encounters with Mabel, I’d never seen any sign of it.
He nodded but kept his eyes on the passing scenery.
“It was, uh, tall, and looked like it was made of leaves mostly. Or like branches covered in leaves I guess. But with eyes?” He shivered.
“It, uh, moved. Like, it walked toward me. So I ran.” He put the water bottle in the cup holder and wrapped his arms around himself.
Whether this was teenage histrionics or not, he seemed legitimately freaked out. Maybe I should have Nate take a walk around the woods behind my parents’ house. I put a hand on his shoulder. “That sounds pretty scary. Did you get away from it?”
He shook his head. “It followed me for a while. I’m not sure how long I ran, but I ended up at the highway. You know where it curves for a few miles before the exit to Maplewood?”
I gaped, glancing between Charles and the road ahead.
“I’m sorry, what ? You ran from Mom and Dad’s house to the fucking highway?
Through the woods?” It was easily four or five miles if he’d run in a straight line.
No wonder his jacket was all scraped up.
Wait a minute. “And then what happened? You said Drake rescued you?”
He shivered. “I didn’t really realize I’d left the woods, but suddenly I was at the road, and I tried to jump the guardrail, but I tripped and fell.”
My heart seized up. “At the road? You mean you fell down on the highway ?” We were about to pass the feed store, so I pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car.
I turned to Charles and grabbed his hand.
I barely restrained myself from running my hands over his head and chest to check for injuries.
“I’m fine.” His tone was dismissive, but he didn’t pull his hand out of mine.
“Tell me what happened after you fell.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t hit my head or anything, just my elbow.” He frowned down at himself. “And I fucked up Dad’s jacket pretty bad.”
I ignored his language, but this time I didn’t stop myself from running a hand over his head. “I know your dad would be pretty damn happy the jacket kept you from getting more severely injured.”
He chewed on his bottom lip as he regarded the leather. “Probably.”
“So, you fell...?” Teenagers were incredibly frustrating, I’d been learning over the past couple of months.
“Yeah. Drake saw me fall, and he pulled over and got out of the car.”
I closed my eyes against the lightheaded feeling coming over me. What if Drake hadn’t seen Charles fall? What if he’d hit Charles? I shuddered. “He helped you up?”
“Yeah, and he made me show him my elbow. He was worried I’d have to go to urgent care.”
I swallowed. “I have to point out that you shouldn’t get into cars with strangers.”
He didn’t roll his eyes, but I got a strong feeling that he wanted to. “I’ll try to remember that the next time I need a ride from the side of the highway.”
I stifled a sigh. “You were lucky he was driving by.”
“No joke. We didn’t see another car til we got off the exit to town.”
I took a moment to get my breathing under control before I put the car back in gear and returned to the road. “I’ll have to apologize to Drake for yelling at him earlier.”
“Yeah. That wasn’t cool, Finn.”
I nodded. Dammit, Noelle, why’d you have to die and leave me with this kind of responsibility? This wasn’t the fucking plan!
When we turned onto the driveway to Zeke’s property, the gate opened for us. He must’ve been watching his security cameras. I pulled around behind the house to park.
“That’s Drake’s car.” Charles pointed at the first cabin, which had a Porsche SUV parked beside it.
I squinted at it. “Is Drake some sort of rock star?” He couldn’t be more than twenty-five at most. That wasn’t a car most people that young could afford, but if he was staying with Zeke, he probably worked in the music industry.
Charles shook his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t ask though.”
We got out of the car. Zeke’s back door banged open, and he stomped out onto the porch. “Took you long enough! Dolores is on the verge of expiring.” He pointed at the tortoise, who was crouched in her pen next to the house, chewing contentedly on a pile of spinach leaves.
“Oh, cool!” Charles trotted over to the pen. “Can I pet her? I mean, sorry. Hi, I’m Charles.”
I sighed. “Zeke, this is Charles. Charles, this is Zeke.” I got my medical bag out of the back seat.
“Call me Uncle Zeke, kid. And, yeah, you can pet her. She likes to be scratched on her neck.” He clomped down the steps as Charles reached over the low fence and stroked Dolores gently.
I opened the small gate and went into the enclosure. “What symptoms are you observing?” I couldn’t see a thing wrong with Dolores. Her shell appeared uniform, with no discolored areas. Her eyes were clear, she was holding her head up to be petted, and she’d been eating when we arrived.
Zeke didn’t answer, so I looked around for him. He’d walked over to Drake’s cabin, where he proceeded to go around to the far side, which was where the door was, facing away from Zeke’s house. We heard him bang his fist against it. “Hey, Derry! We got company, so get your ass out here.”
He came back around the side of the cabin and stomped toward Dolores’ pen.
“Young ’uns these days.” He shook his head.
Then he caught me staring at him, and his expression became almost panicked.
“Not that he isn’t an adult.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the cabin. “Wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Um, what? I opened my mouth, but the sound of the cabin door opening stopped me from asking.
Drake came around the cabin. He’d exchanged his Indiana Jones hat for a black beanie, but he was otherwise dressed the same as earlier.
He scanned the parking area before sauntering over to Dolores’ pen.
“You bellowed, Zeke?” I blinked. I’d gotten the impression Drake hadn’t met Zeke before today.
He gave me an up-nod. “Hey, Finn. Charles.”
“Drake, get in the house and help Nova with dinner. Finn here’s gonna make sure Dolores doesn’t die on me tonight, then we’ll be right in.”
Drake saluted. “Sir, yes, sir.” He gazed down at Dolores as he walked past her pen. “I’m not a tortoise expert, Finn, but she looks a little depressed to me. Have you considered pet massage therapy?” He didn’t wait for a reply, just jogged up the steps to the porch and breezed inside.
My gaze was drawn to his ass, and I jumped as the door shut behind him. Shit. I jerked my eyes back to Zeke, who had an oddly smug expression on his face.
Dolores was still allowing Charles to pet her. I stared Zeke down. “What symptoms is she having?”
He rubbed his chin. “You know, Drake might be on to something. What if she’s depressed?”
We both looked at the tortoise.
I gritted my teeth. “What behavior have you observed to make you think she’s depressed? She seems to be eating.”
Charles took his hand away, and Dolores nudged him to get him to pet her again. He scrunched his eyebrows. “Maybe she’s lonely. Have you thought about getting her a friend?”
Zeke grinned and walked over to clap Charles on the shoulder—fortunately it wasn’t the arm he’d injured.
Charles made an oomph sound and stumbled forward.
“Good idea, kid. You ever thought about going into animal medicine like Finn here?” He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Think I’ll get Drake on finding Dolores a companion.
” He spun around and headed for the house.
“Y’all come on in when you’re ready.” In seconds he was inside the house.
I shook my head. “He never said what was wrong with her.”
Charles furrowed his brow. “Did he think he needed an excuse to invite us for dinner?”
I sighed and picked up my medical bag. “We’ll probably never know. I’ll put this in the car, then we can go in.”