Chapter 31 Alcohol, My Therapist
Alcohol, My Therapist
Everything smashed around in my head.
Two families that would have opposed the development were dead. I didn’t know what Katrina’s views were. She would welcome the jobs and the influx of people, but would she welcome a development?
The last time I saw her she was striding across the room. Striding in tight, sharp movements—the actions of someone annoyed. Perhaps her annoyance was unrelated to the development? Maybe bear man got back in her face? Or Mike?
Why would someone murder over a development? And why choose that specific location? Why not choose another area with less owners to deal with and less missing hikers?
I had to find out more about the location. There wasn’t a town library, and while Bob’s bookstore had history books, if the few I put away were any indication, most of it was fiction.
I needed facts. The council might hold archives—maybe there would be something in there. I was irritated with myself for not looking into it earlier. A whole week had passed, and I’d done nothing. I sighed, took the wedge of lime out, sat it on the bar, and gulped down a few mouthfuls.
“Rough day?” Matt slipped down onto the bar stool beside me. He removed his hat and sat it on the empty stool beside him, running a hand through his flattened hair.
“You could say that.”
“How’s your leg?” He glanced down at my wrapped thigh. I wore a long-sleeved navy shift-style dress the girls had chosen for me. It was a little shorter than I’d normally wear, but it was cute.
“Good. It’s healing fast.” I twirled the glass in my hands, watching the clear liquid rise and fall around the inside of it. Dahlia stared at a point in front of the bar, pretending, I thought, not to listen.
“No doubt the Henderson family helped there.” He maneuvered the position of his body to face mine as Grace slid a beer in front of him.
“They did.” I took another large gulp of vodka.
I leaned my head on my hand, elbow resting on the bar.
“How’s the investigation going into the fire?
We both know it was deliberately lit,” I said with barely contained annoyance.
He was sitting in a bar drinking when people around him were getting murdered.
He placed his glass on the counter and met my face with a steady, solemn look. “Is there anyone who might want you dead?”
Shock dropped my jaw. “You can’t be serious?!”
He was, very.
“A young girl moves to a town in the middle of nowhere, a place where the only people who live here are born here, and then a forest where she lives that has stood for hundreds of years burns down a few weeks after. People are killed. You have to ask yourself why? Are you running from anything?”
I barked a brittle laugh. “Nothing that wants to kill me.”
“You certain?”
“Have you considered the possibility that the developer, who seems awfully keen to build in a particular spot, has run off? And a man who told him ‘over his dead body,’ is now dead. Could it be the developer might have something to do with it? I know it’s a stretch.”
Behind us the men at the table burst into hooting laughter. One of them slammed his palm down so hard on the table my shoulders twitched.
Matt rubbed at his brow. “Just covering all bases, Amy.”
“Yeah, well that’s one base no home runs will be scored from.”
He nodded slowly, scanning the bar, his eyes falling on Dahlia as he took a sip of beer.
“Surely proving the fires were deliberately lit is the first thing you should turn your attention to. Those poor kids, they . . .” I shook my head and trailed off.
He sighed like the weight of it pressed down on him, sagging his shoulders. He fidgeted with the glass, watching a trickle of condensation slide down the side.
“It’s hard to prove. I’ve been working on it, but investigators concluded it was caused by a lightning strike. You can’t argue with the experts.”
I regretted my harsh tone. It was a tough job, and he was friends with the Millers. He would have known the kids, and Cindy and Luke. I looked closely at him. Large bags sat under his eyes—he obviously hadn’t had much sleep lately.
“If it wasn’t an accident, we will find out, one way or another. That’s a promise,” he said bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Matt. I know you’re doing all you can. Let me know if I can help in any way.” I reached out to touch his arm in a show of compassion.
Suddenly, inexplicably, I was transported to a timber-clad bedroom.
There was a woman in front of me with sleek black hair. She was lovely, with tanned skin, warm brown eyes, and she was crying. She had a paisley print overnight bag on the edge of a dusty-pink quilted bed, and she was pulling clothes from drawers and putting them neatly inside.
“I can’t take it anymore, Matt. You’re never home.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “And when you are home, you’re not with me.”
Matt hovered in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Maya, please don’t go.” Matt’s voice quaked, and his eyes glistened. “We can fix this, please just stay.”
“You can help by staying out of fires,” he said. I snapped back to the bar as he took a large sip of his beer.
“You should go home to Maya, Matt. She needs you,” I blurted out.
He stared at me like I’d just sprouted a second head. I stared back equally shocked at what had flown from my mouth. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “How do you know my wife’s name?”
“Um . . . I’m not sure. Someone must have told me,” I stammered. Grace, it was Grace—she’d told me. Maya had been in the bar on my second shift looking for Matt. The rest was just my crazy-ass head.
He polished off his beer. We sat in awkward silence. I rubbed my forehead and avoided eye contact.
“Another beer?” Grace asked.
“No thanks, Grace. I’d better get back to it.” He stood, collecting his hat, then gave me a tentative look. “Stay safe, Amy.”
I didn’t respond. I was still bewildered as I played the delusion like a movie in my head. I couldn’t even blame the drugs this time. Am I going insane? My chest squeezed tight, and I drained the last of my glass.
Dahlia was watching from the other end of the bar with interest. Irritated, I held her stare. She smirked, as if my wordless challenge was laughable, drained the last of her drink, and left.
“Another vodka, please.”
“Sure. Is everything alright?”
I wanted to say, “No. Beautiful people, including two small children, are dead. The man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with slept with my best friend.
My dad told me to get the fuck out. My mother’s ghost woke me, saving me from a fire.
The man I am deeply attracted to might be a killer.
The man I’m living with has a magical allure I struggle to resist, and I’m going crazy. ” But I said, “Yes, everything’s fine.”
She raised a brow as she poured the drink and slipped it in front of me.
“It’s alright if you’re struggling, it’s natural to after what you’ve been through.
Staring at your wounds doesn’t make them worse.
Just don’t spend too long looking at them.
Heal them and move on. Happiness is found when you place your attention on the beauty the world has to offer.
” She placed her hand on my forearm. “I’m here if you want to talk. ”
Her words made sense, but I was scared if I tried to peek past the armor I’d built to hide the broken pieces, my past would come gushing out and shatter my defenses. Shatter me.
“Thanks, Grace. I’m okay, though.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she said, and then headed to serve Patty.
I picked up my phone and group texted: Drinks at The Hollow now?
BJ responded immediately: I will be there in 10.
A few seconds later came Georgie’s reply: Does a prostitute have herpes?
And a minute after that from Jodie: Hell yes.
BJ arrived first, and the two girls arrived shortly after.
A while later, we were seated around a table, drinking our fourth drink. The weight of everything had slowly dispersed from my shoulders, and the haze of alcohol fogged my mind and relaxed my muscles.
“What do you guys know about Rutherford’s Estate?”
Jodie giggled and set her glass of red on the table. “Why don’t you tell her, Georgie?”
Georgie blushed and looked away, pretending that the two reedy-looking guys playing pool suddenly held interest.
“Come on,” Jodie chided. BJ sat back and draped his arm across the chair with a big grin.
“Stop it.” Georgie gave a nervous laugh, glancing at her two friends. There was a brief quiet. “Promise you won’t laugh?” she asked, her eyes peppered with an odd anxiety.
“Pinkie promise,” I said, holding my little finger up as proof.
She placed her drink on the table, sat up straight, and interlocked her fingers.
“A bunch of us nurses went camping up there last year. I didn’t want to go, but they talked me into it.
So, we walked for what felt like a damn lifetime through the forest, mosquitoes eating us alive, bugs the size of small cars flapping around.
” I grinned as her face pinched in disgust. “Until we found a spot to set up camp. We lit a fire and pitched our tents, ate, drank, the usual stuff. It got dark, and I was sitting around the campfire when I felt this . . .” A gulp rolled down her throat.
“Energy. I don’t know. I know it sounds weird. But it was like I was being watched.”
“That’s not weird,” I said with a steady look. “Go on.”
“Anyway, I looked up, and standing just in the tree line was a man. Or the black shape of a man. It was dark, and I couldn’t make out any detail but his eyes.
” She shuddered. “His eyes were black, like really black, and shiny like water. But they were somehow”—she leaned in and lowered her voice—“empty.” Goosebumps dotted her arms, and she rubbed them vigorously.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing. I blinked, and he was gone. He just . . .” She threw her hand out. “Vanished. It was a ghost—I know it. All those people go missing up there, and I know what I saw. I will never, ever, go up there again.”