Chapter 8 #2
The closer I got to Phoebe’s place, the more color sprouted from the endless blanket of snow.
Gnomes in rainbow colors lined the stone stairs that led to her house.
The basket swing on her porch swung with the wind off the water.
It wasn’t nearly as bone chilling as the day before thanks to the late morning sun.
I got halfway up the walkway when I heard music coming from the other building.
I just needed to leave the dishes on her porch. The dog would be safe with her while I left. He was her problem, not mine.
Mouse happily trotted over to me, his tongue lolling out of his mouth with ice crystals on his whiskers. “Go on, find Phoebe.”
His ears drooped as he came closer to me.
“Don’t give me that look. You have it good with her.”
He sat in front of me, resting his head on my thigh as he leaned hard on me.
“Go on.”
He leaned harder against me until I stumbled back a step and lost my balance. I spun so I landed in the mounds of snow. The weight of the box pushing me deeper into the snow.
“Dammit, Mouse!”
He barked and raced around me thinking it was a game.
“Dog?” Phoebe’s voice came from the building.
“Shit,” I muttered. I did not need her to haul me off the ground again. My ego was in the basement of hell, but I still had a sliver of one.
Mouse came over to me, licking my face before he settled himself right next to me in the snow.
“You’re not helping.”
“Dog?”
Mouse climbed on top of me, his white fur full of snow and ice. I tried to push him off, but he was in full-on play mode. His foot nailed me in the thigh, then smashed me in the balls. I curled on my side, swearing.
“What’s going on—” Her voice cut off as husky laughter floated on the cold air. “Dog, what are you doing to him?”
“Trying to unman me,” I growled.
She clomped over in boots that were undone. She wore a green...was that a jumpsuit? It looked like a mechanic’s style overalls, but was definitely made for her body. And then some.
Sweet hell.
She hauled the box off me and set it on the stairs. “Are you okay?”
Mouse wanted to get her in on the fun and pranced over to her, pushing her closer to me. She absently patted his head. “Not helping, Dog.”
He turned around and came back to me. I curled into my side so I didn’t get another drive-by kick. My fingers burned thanks to the icy cold snow up my sleeves as I tried to push myself up.
“Mouse, get off me.”
“Mouse?” She narrowed her gaze on Mouse with her hands on her hips. “That’s the name you’re good with? Do you know how many cool names I offered?” She leaned down and ruffled his ears and kissed his nose. “Mouse? Really?”
I groaned. “He was acting like one. All meek and afraid, but it was all a lie.”
She snickered. “I like the name. Even if you’re about fifty times the size of one.” She draped herself over the dog linking her arms around his middle. Even with my balls throbbing, I couldn’t help but notice the way the buttons gaped showing off a whole lot of skin.
I tried to avert my eyes.
She yelped as snow must have gone down the jumpsuit. She ripped them open and turned slightly away to dig the snow out.
So much paint splattered golden skin.
Fuck me.
I collapsed back into the snowbank and stared at the sky.
“Relax, Dutch it’s just boobs. I’m covered again.”
Only she would make me feel like an ass for being a damn gentleman. I opened my eyes and she was looming over me, her blond hair in two messy twists on either side of her head. Her bangs were streaked with purple along with another stripe along her neck.
Maybe the drawings on my walls weren’t just random doodles.
Was she an artist?
Not that I should be surprised, her illustrations were far too incredible to be an offhand sketch.
“Do you need help?”
I grunted. “Maybe just keep the dog over there so I can get up.”
She sunk her fingers into his fur. “Stay with me, Mouse.”
The dog wagged his tail and sat on her foot. She didn’t bother to nudge him away, instead her fingers sunk into his fur giving him a good rub.
I struggled to my feet, but got there on my own. “Your dog was on my porch again.”
“He’s his own dog. Pretty sure he likes you better.” She glanced down at him. “Traitor.”
“I don’t want a dog.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes they adopt you, instead of the other way around.”
“He’s yours.”
She shrugged. “You say so. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.”
“Keep him in your house.”
“Good luck with that.” She snorted. “He’s already Houdini’d his way out of my house three times now, but he mostly sticks around.”
“It’s dangerous outside.”
Her eyebrow quirked. “Says who? You’re in one of the safest towns in New York.”
“That’s what all small towns say right before there’s a murder.”
She chuckled. “You sound like you’ve been listening to my best friend’s favorite podcast.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and the burning cold changed into pins and needles. “And what would that be?”
“No Small Murders.”
Something inside of me tingled—and it wasn’t from the snow-stung extremities. As quickly as it surfaced, it flitted away. “Murder podcasts are a dime a dozen.”
“They aren’t my favorite, but I did listen to one episode about our own Providence Lake. A series of kids drowned in the lake back in the fifties.”
“A series?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her arms. “C’mon back to my studio. I’ll make you some coffee.”
“I was just stopping to give you the dishes. Sorry for yesterday.”
She cupped her ear. “What was that?”
“Sorry about yesterday. I’m touchy about people around my work.” I cleared my throat. Touchy had been an understatement.
“I shouldn’t have gone in there. So, I’m sorry too.”
“I need to go into town to drop off some stuff.”
“Well, you can go after coffee. The only one who makes better coffee than me is Jenna at the Haven Café.” She hefted the box. “Oh, these dishes!”
“Yeah, I was going to toss them. You said you wanted them.”
“I do.” She grinned over her shoulder, her dimple denting her cheek. “I love them. Are you sure you want to get rid of them?”
“Positive. Here, let me carry them.”
“I got it.” She strode away toward the other building. “More stuff from your boyfriend?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I guess ex-boyfriend. My condolences.”
Dumbfounded, I blurted out, “I’m not gay.”
“Oh.”
I frowned. “Because I’m from San Francisco?”
She laughed. “No, from the ribbons of sports stuff I found in the box in the hall. Seemed like two different guy sizes.”
Christopher was definitely shorter and slighter than I was. I darted ahead to open the door for her. Mouse shot in first going right to a water dish. “Nosy, much?”
Unrepentant, she breezed through the doorway with a laugh. “Guilty. Though I guess it could have been for a woman or nonbinary. Sorry about that. I have a very active imagination.”
“Evidently.”
I followed her into the building and froze in the doorway.
The massive room was nearly all windows showing off brilliant natural light.
It was part atrium, part studio with two massive tables in the center of the room.
One was littered with art supplies and papers, the other was a drafting desk tilted up with a large piece of paper taped to the surface.
Watercolor and pastels slashed over the cream paper, and puddles of water were drawn on top as if someone was looking through a window at the view.
It was of the lake with snow coming down.
Neither of our houses were in the picture.
Instead, trees dominated the landscape. Tendrils of smoke came off the water possibly from the difference in temperature or early morning mist.
The lake was a mix of ice and rushing water as it flowed over the rocks.
The whole thing reminded me of the sounds from my previous night’s dreams.
Uncannily so.
When I got closer, I noticed something in the water.
“What’s that?”
She set the box down and met me at the table.
“Oh, I didn’t even realize I did that. The car shows up in my drawings sometimes.
” Her shoulder brushed my arm. “There’s an old car at the bottom of the lake.
A few people have tried to bring it up over the years, but something always happens to prevent it from making it to the surface. ”
The information tickled at something at the back of my brain.
Being a horror writer, I saw the worst case scenarios as fodder for the monsters in my book. Sometimes they were supernatural monsters, but more often than not people were the real evil.
I knew that all too well.
My fingers fisted at my side. A wet nose nudged my hand. I unclenched and absently pet Mouse. “Does the car have to do with the missing kids?”
She wandered over to the coffee maker in the kitchenette of the wide open space.
“That’s a good question. I’m not exactly sure, nor am I the scuba kind of girl to go looking.
Every time someone tries to take underwater photos they don’t come out.
The stories vary from an old Chevy to a Honda Civic. ”
My system fairly vibrated at the new information.
“Since the podcast came out, a lot more people have snooped around. Everyone loves an unsolved mystery. Now it’s just another part of Haven’s lore.”
“Lore?”
She laughed as she turned on the kettle and poured beans into a grinder.
“There’re a few stories about the history of Haven,” she said over the noise.
“Some more benign ones about the town being a safe place for people who want to start over.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Kind of like you, California boy.”
I didn’t say anything.
She turned off the grinder then set a filter into a Chemex glass pour-over coffee maker.
The sharp scent of coffee and brown sugar filled the air a few moments later.
“A lot of people settled here for farming until that started to dry up when I was a teenager. We won’t talk about the government overreach there and why farms fail, I have an appointment. ”
My eyebrows shot up.