Haunted (Fairhaven #1)

1. Lance

Chapter one

Lance

I take the narrow road at speed. The wind shifts.

The smoke thickens, then breaks, and there are deer in the road.

Six, eight of them, coming down the mountain at a dead run.

I swerve and take the hairpin turn too fast. My dad’s CB radio swings off its cradle and clatters into the footwell, spitting static.

The deer split on either side of my truck, ignoring me in their panic.

I hit Parker’s number again and jam the cell under my ear. Three years, and I’ve never once been brave enough to actually call him.

“Lance!” His voice pitches up when he finally picks up. “Elliott’s having a meltdown.” His voice quietens; he’s not talking to me anymore. “Elliott, honey, I found Mr. Snail. Look, he missed you. Why don’t we have something to eat now?”

“What the fuck, Parker!” I yell into the phone. “Why are you still home? Why aren’t you out yet? I texted you an hour ago!”

“The news says that the fire’s been contained. We’re so far away from it.”

“Morris Mountain is already gone at 514. The winds are shifting. It’s in the trees, Parker. It’s not going to stop at the yards. You have to get out now.” In the rearview mirror, the last deer vanishes into the haze.

“What the–” He catches himself. “Mom! The wildfire’s broken through to Morris Mountain at the highway!” There is a gasp in the background. “Right. Thanks for letting me know, Lance. I’ll text you when I’m out.”

“I’m on my way,” I say, but the line’s already dead. I chuck my phone onto the dash.

There’s a cop car at the intersection of Hemingway and Morris Mountain Road with its lights blazing. There’s a sign across Hemingway that says, “Road Closed. Local Traffic Only.” The cop comes over. He looks anxiously over my shoulder. “How bad is it, kid?” he asks without preamble.

“Top of the road’s already gone. I don’t think it’ll be passable anymore.”

“Shit.” The cop is young, square-jawed, and already sweating through his uniform. He leans toward my window. “Where you headed?”

“Denning Court. It’s down toward the underpass,” I say.

“They’ve already closed the underpass. It’s too dangerous. You live out there?”

“I’m evacuating somebody who can’t get out.”

He compresses his lips into a hard line that says he’s making a judgment call. “How old are you?”

“Twenty,” I lie. He gives me a suspicious look, like he’s about to call me out for being seventeen, but there’s a sound like an explosion from somewhere.

The cop looks up toward the noise. “Bet it’s another propane tank,” he says. He breathes sharply through his nose and looks behind me up Morris Mountain Road. I turn. The sun is blotted out. Burning leaves swirl toward the intersection. The cop shakes his head. “Go home,” he says.

“You gonna chase after me?” I ask.

“Don’t be a dumb-ass,” he warns.

I hit the gas and lurch past him, rolling up the window. I can hear him screaming at me to stop as I come within inches of clipping his car. By the time I pass the speed limit 45 sign, I’m doing at least 90 as churches and abandoned houses flash by me.

I take the turn onto Denning Court and plow through someone’s front yard, narrowly missing his mailbox. I slam on the brake and yank the emergency. The truck slides sideways, tires digging into the grass. Sod flies behind the camper shell before it finally screeches to a stop.

Parker’s house is a modest blue ranch, set on a slope a little below the road. The front door is open, and I can see straight into the house because of the angle. There are two cars parked in the driveway with their trunks open. Mrs. Bishop is on the front porch, pacing and smoking.

I race down the driveway and take the two steps up to the wooden front porch in one stride.

“Don’t tell me what’s reasonable.” She turns her back on the open door. “I know exactly where you were Thursday. And who with.” She listens for a moment. “Then find more. I’m not the one who has something to lose here.”

“Where’s Parker?” I interrupt.

“You’re paying to have that lawn resodded, young man,” she says, glaring at me, then waves me inside.

I am completely dumbfounded. I thought adults were supposed to be smarter than me. I step back so I can see over her roofline and gesture pointedly at the oaks standing dead-still behind her back fence and the orange boiling up through them.

“Oh, it’s just some kid,” she says into the phone. “He’s come around saying we need to evacuate just to scare people. Now I’ve got Elliott worked up on top of everything else.” She turns away from me.

I don’t know what to say. I pull open the screen door and go inside without knocking.

“No! Elliott! We do not throw things. Ow! Elliott, remember our calm words!” Parker is sing-songing from somewhere deep in the house.

Lunch is still on the dining table, half-eaten.

Both times I’ve been in this house, Elliott has ended up screaming—the first time because I sat in his chair at that table.

His chunky fourteen-year-old body has outgrown a mind that hasn’t moved on from early childhood.

The electricity blinks once and is gone.

“Parker?” I shout into the living room. The fug of cigarette smoke hits me hard. A soft breeze brings in the smell of burning wood and that alarms me even more.

Parker opens the door at the end of the hall. His face is white from tension, his blue eyes wide.

“Lance? Oh, thank God. Please, can you help me with my grandmother? I just need to pacify Elliott enough so I can grab his things.” The words come out rapidly, and for once he forgets his habitual shyness around me.

He puts his hand on my forearm and looks at me like I’ve thrown him a rope.

I instantly feel about six inches taller and five times stronger.

He turns back to the room. “Grandma?” He’s made his voice gentle, like you do with a small child, but I can hear the exasperation ringing through.

“This is my friend, Lance. He’s going to help get us out of here. ”

The old woman peers at me dimly and then gives me a bright smile. Every time I’ve been here before, she has had to be reintroduced and reminded why I was there. “Charmed, I’m sure,” she says. She’s the picture of gracious Southern manners. “And what class are you in together?”

“English,” I say, because we’ve been in classes together since the ninth grade now and this is just the first one I can think of. “Parker, they’re closing the roads. I don’t think we can go back the way I came. The fire’s moving too fast.”

Parker turns to his grandmother. “Let’s get you into the car, Grandma, okay?”

She looks puzzled. “Oh, but I can’t go out without fixing my hair first.”

“You look wonderful,” Parker says, taking her by the elbow.

Parker’s grandmother regards me with gentle confusion. She keeps glancing at the doorway to the next room, where I can hear the rhythmic creak of bedsprings.

“Come with me, ma’am,” I say. “Let’s get you settled in the car.”

I guide her toward the door, but as we pass Elliott’s room I see him on his bed, rocking hard, arms wrapped around a stuffed snail. He looks at me mistrustfully.

“Hey Elliott,” I say carefully. “Tell you what. If you can get into the car before I get your grandma there, you get pizza.”

He stops rocking. “Pizza?”

“Whatever you want on it.”

“Sardines?”

Yuck. “Even sardines.”

“I’ll be super-fast,” he promises, grabs his stuffed snail, and bolts past me.

“Oh!” his grandmother says, looking at me as if for the first time. “What a nice young man. Who are your people, dear?”

“The Broussards, ma’am. Clear across town. Let’s get you to the car.”

I guide her out to the driveway. Elliott is already in the back seat of his mother’s sedan, seatbelt on, telling no one in particular about his pizza toppings.

I get his grandmother settled next to him.

She pats his hand and says, “That sounds lovely, dear,” even though I’m pretty sure she has no idea what he’s talking about.

Two down. I head back inside for Parker.

Mrs. Bishop is in the kitchen, off the phone now, opening cupboards. There’s a goddamned silver teapot in her hand and she pulls down a tarnished serving platter onto the counter.

“Mrs. Bishop, we need to leave. Right now. There’s no more time.”

“Parker!” she shouts, ignoring me completely. “Grandma’s wedding china!” It comes out like an order. “It’s in the bottom of my closet.”

Parker pulls up short. “I still need to get Grandma’s clothes packed up.”

He’s been dumping drawers full of his grandmother’s underwear into a garbage bag.

I stop him. Fuck her wedding china. Jesus Christ, this must have been what Pompeii was like.

I point to the first door in the hallway.

“Parker, this is your room, right? I’m going to pack for you.

You have two minutes to finish whatever you’re doing in there.

After that I swear to Christ I’m dragging you out by the hair if you’re not ready to go. What do you need?”

“Laptop, charger, phone, backpack, everything in the top drawer.”

I go into his bedroom. It’s tiny. The bed is on stilts with a dresser and a child-sized table underneath. There’s one single bookcase that looks like it’s double- or even triple-stacked with books.

There’s no room for anything else—even the closet door doesn’t open completely without banging into the loft bed, and there is a deep groove on the wood from years of Parker opening that door only to realize too late that it didn’t open.

I grab his things and an armful of clothes to take out to my truck.

We come into the hallway at the same time, and he won’t meet my eye.

For a second, he looks like he’s going to say something, but then his mother calls his name sharply.

“Yes, Mom!” he says, straightening, like he’s been trained to respond immediately to that tone of voice.

“In your car,” she directs him. She narrows her eyes at me as we leave.