Chapter 15
Stress Cooking
Shane led Maria into his dad's home and felt downright giddy. He never thought he would explain his gift to someone that wasn't family, and telling Maria was one of the most terrifying moments of his life. The fact that she hadn't run for the hills was enough to make him want to skip.
The smell of biscuits and grease hit them as soon as the door opened. He turned to Maria and warned her, "My dad is stress cooking. We’re all a little out of our depth."
The kitchen had turned into a gourmand hoarder's paradise in the hour he and Maria were gone. Every surface held either a dirty bowl, a dish, or a tray full of pastries. Smoke billowed around his dad's large frame at the stove, and pans covered all four burners. Stacks of pancakes, sausages, and toast filled the countertops, and the table had enough juice varieties to rival a Vegas buffet.
Brandon Bolles shouted something to Emily in the other room, not hearing them enter.
"Dad!" Shane tried, but the man didn't respond, instead he continued to furiously stir eggs in a large blue bowl and leaned over to shift the pan of bacon.
Emily walked in from the other room holding plates and the cloth napkins his mother loved most. Shane let go of Maria's hand, not realizing until then that he still had it in a death grip, to meet her. Emily's wide, welcome smile at Maria chipped away at how mad he was at her for sneaking out the night before.
Brandon pivoted then from the stove, seeing them finally and almost spilled the bowl of scrambled eggs. His Chunk of Hinnewatcha apron had the C marked out with sharpie, and he rubbed his massive hands over it to clean some of the flour still stuck to them. Brandon gave Maria an all-tooth grin that only highlighted his nervousness, and told them to grab a plate.
Shane glanced over at Maria, wondering if this is when she'd bolt. But instead she took a plate from Emily and started asking animated questions to Brandon about what he'd prepared.
Emily hugged him. "I'm sorry again about last night. I didn't really think about the murder scene. I just wanted to find out if it was the Protector’s voice that night."
“I get it. I’m curious too, but I don’t think the dead are going to help us solve this one. But,” he said, nodding in Maria’s direction. “I did get more help." He ruffled her hair so she knew he wasn't as mad as he was the night before.
She glanced back at Maria, and Shane nodded his head. "I gave her the two-second elevator pitch outside. She knows."
"Dude!" Emily said, playfully shoving him out of the way to get a piece of banana bread. "You didn't even tell Mom, right?"
Shane ignored every piece of dieting advice he'd heard in LA and spooned the sausage gravy over his biscuit. "So?"
"Soooo," Emily continued, glancing again at Maria who was still peppering his dad with questions. "You told Maria. That's serious."
He rolled his eyes at her. "She needed to know. She thought, because of your little escapade last night by the way, that Dave Fever's ghost was haunting the town."
"Uh-huh. Right." Emily said, smirking.
"I'm serious!" Shane said, attempting to not blush in front of his 14-year-old. "Now shut up and give me that muffin."
After properly loading up, Shane grabbed the coffee pot off the burner and followed the other three into the dining room. Emily set the table with the white runner embroidered with lemons, the same one that matched the napkins. "My mom loved these," Shane told Emily, holding up a cloth napkin. "She had at least thirty different place settings, but the lemons were always saved for her favorite meals."
His dad caught Shane's eye and smiled. "And she never let us use anything but these ridiculous teacups with it." He held up the offensive sky blue china in between meaty fingers as if it were something alive and ready to run.
"Dad, I told you Maria was coming over maybe an hour ago. How on earth do you have this much food?"
"He has a freezer!" Emily interjected. "In the back. It's literally nothing but pastries and muffins. He came barreling up this morning before you even left the driveway and told me to pull out everything on the top shelves."
"I like having options," he sniffed. He nodded once in Maria's direction, "And it can't hurt to have something good to eat when we're having, uh, difficult discussions."
Maria chimed in merrily around a biscuit, "Like telling someone you guys are necromancers?"
His dad nearly choked on a scone, and Emily patted his back hard until he raised his hand for her to stop.
"The term 'necromancers' sounds a little dark," Shane said. "We prefer to call it a Raising."
Brandon waved his fork in the air, "For the record, I am not one of them. I just married one."
"So, how does it work?" Maria asked, and Shane laughed when Emily shot her hand up in the air.
"Oooh let me, Dad! I've always wanted to try to explain this. And you were terrible when you told me."
"I don't think he's improved his explanation," Maria said, winking at Shane.
He sat back, smiling, and watched as Maria folded into their weird, bizarre life as if there was nothing more natural.
***
"So let me get this straight," Maria said after they'd gone round after round of her questions. "The spirit that shut Dave up mid-sentence—" she wagged her eyebrows at Shane. "That's my favorite part by the way. This spirit said there was going to be another murder here when we get a Moon Dog?"
"We're paraphrasing," Shane replied, topping off her coffee before refilling his own. "But yea, essentially. If you agree that the line ' Darkened moon meets the canine' means a Moon Dog."
Maria shivered. Everything about this conversation made her want to grab one of her mother's rosaries off her wall. She asked, "When is the next Moon Dog supposed to happen?"
Shane leaned back in his chair. "That's just it. There isn't a specific day it's supposed to occur, but it's almost always just before a full moon wanes, which is two nights from now."
"On Halloween," Emily added. She stabbed another stack of pancakes and Maria wondered where she hid all the calories on her toothpick frame.
She gestured to Emily with her mug. "Remind me what Danny said again about the land sale?"
"He said Clarissa Baker had grown more aggressive about buying his family's land lately. She got mad at Danny's grandfather a few weeks ago because apparently she already spent a good chunk of money on plans and permitting fees. Said he verbally told her he approved the contract, and would sue him if he didn't sign."
"But why kill the trucker?" Maria asked, reaching for another banana nut muffin despite her jeans digging in her waist. "And other than us seeing her car at Greg Fever's farm today, what would tie the two of them together?"
Shane jumped up and hustled into the other room while Maria explained to Emily and Brandon that they'd seen her SUV pull out earlier that morning. When Shane came back, he pulled a small black box from his coat pocket that looked like a speaker. He pushed a button and heavy breathing sounds reverberated off the wallpapered walls. Emily's mouth dropped open.
"Ohmygod that's it! That's exactly what it sounded like at Burial Rock!"
He nodded at Maria. "I forgot to tell you about this until Emily mentioned the breathing sounds. I found this in Greg's RV just before I ran into you there."
"You did what?" Brandon asked, fist curling around his fork on the table.
Maria interjected before the father and son could start arguing again, which seemed to be a regular occurrence if the breakfast was any indication. "He helped me at Greg's farm. Had I not pushed him about accusing me of murdering Dave, he wouldn't have gone at all. If you get mad, get mad at me."
"I could never get mad at you," Brandon said, softening and patting her hand. He pointed back to Shane, "Now this idiot on the other hand—"
"OK, Dad, chill. We're fine. But we did figure out that Tat Face is staying on Greg's property."
"Wait! Don't say another word," Brandon said, pushing back from the table. "Emily, you clear off these plates. I'll get the whiteboard."
Shane reached over once the other two Bolles left the room. "You sure you're OK? I know this is a lot to take in."
Maria laughed. "That's certainly an understatement. But yes, surprisingly, I'm OK. It still makes zero sense and I think I'd die if I ever had to watch you Raise, but I'm fine.” She refilled her water from the milkglass white pitcher on the table. "I'm just happy that Mama is taking Isa to Albany to see her sister for the weekend. I don't know how I'd be able to parent if I didn't have a little more time to digest all of this."
Regardless of the creepiness and unbelievable aspects of Shane's story, she was grateful. The prospect of a secret cult bringing Dave back to life was shaving years off her life. Plus I'd never be able to get gas at Dan's Diesel again if Dave's ghost was lingering in the woods behind it. Maria almost dropped her glass at the realization.
"Shane!" She said as Emily walked back in. "I know what Greg is doing with Clarissa. She hired him to set up those speakers around the woods, and now they're pushing the cult rumor ever since your fiasco with Dave's body. They're doing it to scare the Jones family into selling the land."
Emily nodded in agreement, "That would make sense why Greg would have the speakers hidden under his bed. He has nothing to gain by just scaring a bunch of teenagers."
"And," Shane added. "She's been talking about the cult to any and all of the wannabe sleuths in town. But why stage the backpack?" He turned to his daughter, "Did it really have all the same items?"
She nodded. "It looked like it. Red powder for the sumac, a black salt rock. All the same things we left at Memorial when Dave's Raising got hijacked."
"Greg told me the night of the first town hall meeting that he had an old girlfriend that worked at Memorial," Maria said. "She could have told him everything they found and he could have staged it at Burial Rock." Maria added, "Danny and his friends almost always camp there around Halloween. Everyone knows that. Greg could have guessed he or someone in his family would see it. But I don't know how that links to Tat Face."
"Not yet at least. But we can find out from Chief Madison if they've figured out who he is," Shane said. "Maybe he really is just an old prison buddy looking for extra cash."
Emily rubbed her hands together and smiled. "So how are we going to confront Clarissa?"
"I could corner Greg?" Maria offered.
Shane shook his head. "Hard pass. He's too volatile, you've said so yourself. I am never putting you at risk. We'll find another way."
Maria's chest warmed at that, so she felt a smidge guilty about her Plan B. "I think I know a way to get it out of Clarissa then, but it'll require you to take her out on a date."
Brandon wheeled the whiteboard in the room then. "I found the other dry erase markers! What did I miss?"