Chapter 8
Hadley Dawkins
Hadley knocked twice on the door of the house she’d grown up in, ignoring the ball of nausea tightening in her stomach.
She’d eaten most of her dinner on the drive over, and she’d recognized the cowardly motive behind the timing even as she’d been working through her burger.
She hadn’t wanted to commit Mason to sitting through an entire meal with her, and she now carried a Blue Plate takeout bag in her right hand with only one burger and two orders of fries.
Her shrink had mentioned in her last video session that the cycle she had constructed for these Monday visits was a piece of guilt management.
The eating ahead, the bringing food, the never sitting across a table from him.
The therapist had said it without judgment, which she had appreciated, before ruining the moment.
He had followed up with some nonsense about when she finally decided to drop by on a Tuesday or a Saturday for some random reason, that would be the sign her guilt was beginning to loosen its grip.
The man was being paid to be optimistic about her emotional journey through this shitty life of hers. She hadn’t bothered to correct him. She couldn’t imagine a single day in her future when the guilt would loosen its grip on anything about her relationship with her brother.
Pushing her personal demons aside, she knocked again after the count of twenty she had taught herself to give him.
When there was still no answer, she let the screen door slap shut behind her.
Mason had probably lost track of time, which seemed to be a common occurrence these past few weeks.
She walked around the side of the house, through the long golden light from the setting sun, toward the backyard.
Sure enough, she found him in the middle of the yard, about ten feet from the open door of the shed.
He held a bottle of beer in his right hand and his back to her, looking out across the field that ran from the property line toward the woods that bordered the next lot.
He didn’t turn when she came around the corner.
She crossed the grass slowly and stopped beside him about a foot to his left, close enough that he would know she was there without her having to announce herself.
She had never quite gotten used to his appearance.
If she were honest with herself, it hurt to view him differently from the brother with whom she’d shared her childhood.
As a teenager, he had been a lean boy still growing into the six-foot frame he’d inherited from their father.
He’d been all elbows and energy and restless in his own skin even when he was sitting down.
There had been an innocence about him, shining even brighter through his laugh.
The man standing beside her now didn’t resemble that boy at all.
Varner Unit prison made her brother wiry and lean.
His hair was cropped close to his skull, and there were scars on his arms that she hadn’t had the courage to ask about since he’d been home.
He also had one on the side of his face, but he’d since grown out a beard to camouflage it.
It had taken close to eight months, but the gaunt cheekbones were slowly filling out now that he wasn’t on such a structured meal plan.
And unlike the boy, who had been incapable of standing still, he now had been standing in the same spot for some unknown number of minutes without moving, without adjusting his weight, without lifting the beer.
She cleared the constriction of her throat to break the silence.
“Is that a new piece of furniture in the shed?” Hadley asked, inadvertently keeping her voice low enough not to disturb whatever he had been thinking. “It’s beautiful, Mason.”
He turned his head toward her then, and he stared at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. She wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but he clearly hadn’t found it from the dismissive shrug. He lifted the beer and took a swig.
“I decided to replace the furniture in the house.” Mason continued to stare across the field. “Going to burn it all, one piece at a time. Do you want any of it before I do?”
“No,” Hadley replied, wondering if the thought of burning the entire house down had entered his thoughts. It certainly had for her. “Not a thing.”
He nodded once, as if he’d expected such a response.
He then turned and walked back toward the shed without saying anything more. She gave herself a minute before following suit, the takeout bag cooling in her hands. The food was fast losing its warmth, which was what had prompted her to turn and trail after him to the shed.
The structure sat about thirty feet behind the house.
He’d sided it with raw pine that had darkened over the summer to the warm brown of cured wood and roofed with corrugated metal that had taken on a copper-bronze patina in the same months.
The smell of fresh-cut wood and sawdust hit her immediately, with an undertone of beer that suggested he had not been emptying his bottles on a regular basis.
The walls were lined with workbenches Mason had built himself, and the pegboards above them held an array of hand tools.
Each saw, plane, chisel, and hand drill was in the place he’d assigned to it.
A table saw on a rolling cart sat in the middle of the floor.
Lumber leaned against the back wall in stacks organized by species, with the oak in one place, the walnut in another, and the cherry in a third.
On one of the benches sat several coffee cans full of screws and hardware sorted by size, and on a shelf above it, a small radio played something country, an older song she half-recognized at a volume low enough for more comfort than anything else.
Mason had already taken a seat on one of the two stools near the benches.
Hadley set the takeout bag on the surface across from him.
“Thanks,” Mason said, as if they hadn’t just discussed burning the family furniture. He reached for the food without quite meeting her gaze. “Smells good.”
“I would have been here earlier,” Hadley explained, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe because she had not been invited to sit.
“I had a wreck out on Highway 9 that took the better part of three hours, and then a fence break on the Sanderson place that put a handful of dairy cows on County 12 for about ninety minutes.”
“Cows on the road?” The corner of his mouth curled in what had become his version of a smile in the last year.
“Cows on the road,” Hadley confirmed. “It’s a perk of living in the country, haven’t you heard?”
He opened the bag and pulled out the top Styrofoam container.
“Those are extra fries that came with my order,” Hadley explained, which prompted him to pull out the other container. “You can have them.”
He flipped open the lid on what was left of her dinner. Grabbing two fries, he chowed down on them while keeping his gaze steady on her. She did her best not to shift with unease.
“You know that you don’t have to make a career of corralling dairy cows, Nugget,” Mason said, the childhood nickname physically causing a sharp pain in her chest. “You could go back to the state.”
“And miss out on all the fun?” Hadley replied dismissively. Mason was usually the one who never wanted to talk about their past, but she won the prize for this evening. “I love dairy cows. I almost brought one home with me.”
He didn’t return her smile. Instead, he ate a couple more fries while she turned her attention to what she assumed would be a kitchen table.
The base was a trestle, two broad oak verticals at the ends joined down the center by a single long stretcher, the kind of construction that would outlast the person who made it.
“How was your weekend?”
“Typical.” Hadley pulled her focus from the table. “I cleaned the apartment. I’m still sorting through the old files in the basement and scanning them into the system.”
He nodded, eating another fry while she explained how Sheriff Turner had been granted new equipment for his department, and by extension…her. The package she was set to receive would allow an entire traffic stop to take less than three minutes.
“I was thinking,” Hadley said, picking her moment carefully, “maybe you could make me something for the station. I cleared out a desk, and it’s a perfect spot to add a small sitting area. There are two chairs stored in the back, but I think a small table to go between them would be nice.”
“Sure.” Mason made it difficult to read his expression. She wasn’t sure how he’d taken her request until he followed up with an offer that pleased her. “I’ll stop by the station this week and take a look at the space. Get the dimensions right.”
“It was Reed’s desk.” Hadley hadn’t allowed herself to think about what she was about to say until she had already said it. “The one I cleaned out.”
He lifted his gaze, the fry halfway to his mouth. He then slowly set it back inside the container. Reaching inside the bag, he pulled out one of the napkins and began to wipe his fingers.
“I found a folder stuck behind one of the drawers,” Hadley explained as she glanced down at a small piece of wood.
She bent to pick it up, wanting something to do with her hands.
“It was a trespassing citation that was never filed. Someone from Holloway was caught walking Earl Vinton’s east field last October.
A folklore professor by the name of Roland Mercer. ”
“A folklore professor,” Mason repeated, the caution in his voice evident.
“From my understanding, he’s writing a book on our local legend,” Hadley explained, monitoring her brother’s expression for any reaction. He didn’t respond to the additional information. “I guess he’s been at it for years, which tells me that it’s probably just a hobby.”
Mason picked up his beer, his appetite clearly gone.
“Warren asked Reed at the time not to issue the citation,” Hadley continued when it was obvious Mason wasn’t going to ask her to elaborate.
“Warren didn’t want the press finding a fresh Threshing Man angle three weeks before the anniversary of Missy Claymont’s disappearance.
So, Reed wrote the citation, but he never filed it. ”
“Is there a reason you’re telling me this, Hadley?”
She wasn’t sure which was harder to hear, her nickname or her given name.
“One of the local teens spotted someone in Earl’s east field again this weekend.”
“And?”
“And Warren isn’t the chief of police. I am.
And it’s my job to uphold the law, which means I’m going to speak with Roland Mercer tomorrow at the Emberwood campus.
I would have gone today, but the afternoon got away from me.
” Hadley stared down at the chunk of wood, turning it over and over in her fingers.
“There was a sticky note on the folder, Mason, with my name on it. Reed wanted me to see it, and since it was around the time of his death, I think it’s best I check it out for myself. ”
When she glanced back up, the tables had turned. Mason was now studying her expressions, and she honestly had no idea what he perceived from her.
“Be careful, Nugget,” Mason finally warned before tossing the empty bottle in a bucket.
The sharp sound of glass hitting glass resonated throughout the shed.
“In case it slipped your mind, Reed was a former Marine. He didn’t go down easy on that back road.
Whoever killed him knew what they were doing, and they got the better of him. ”
Hadley tightened her grip on the piece of wood, wincing when a sliver made its way underneath the pad of her index finger.
He still worried about her, even after she’d destroyed his life.
It took a few attempts to swallow in order to clear her throat.
She often wondered if it was instinctual, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
As a matter of fact, it was probably time for her to leave.
“I should get going.” Hadley tossed the small chunk of lumber into a trash bin just inside the corner of the entrance. She’d take care of the splinter when she got home. “I have an early morning, and you should probably head into the house to heat up that burger. I’ll see you later this week?”
Before she could turn and walk through the backyard, Mason spoke in a tone that had her go completely still. There was something in his voice that she’d only ever heard when revisiting the past, and she braced herself to be dragged back there.
“Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” Hadley responded, doing her best not to display concern.
“I know Emanuel Telfort is to blame for most of the disappearances over the past five decades or so, along with Kalen being responsible for Missy’s abduction, but…
” Mason let his voice trail off, as if he were second-guessing his decision to bring up Emily’s death.
“I still need to know the answer to something, Hadley.”
She nodded her consent, because she was currently at a loss for words.
“Did you ever recover a trench coat from the Telfort property?”