Sean rubbed his fingers together absently, probably craving a cigarette. "I didn"t know you were back here until Mr. Fisher came over yesterday," Sean said. "He brought Dad"s basket. There"s a dog missing or something?"
"Yes. My friend Naomi"s dog disappeared overnight. I"m still looking for him."
"That dog"s history."
The certainty in his voice chilled her. If she were a police officer, she would have been sure Sean had something to do with Onyx"s disappearance. But it wasn"t that, not exactly. It was something else. "Why do you say that?"
Sean shook his head, but didn"t speak.
"You have something you want to tell me, Sean."
"You"re not safe over there. If I"d known you were thinking about coming back, I would have called you and told you no way. Everything about that land you have is f.u.c.ked up. I told Dad, too, but he didn"t listen."
"Well, I"m listening."
Sean leaned back on the mattress, propping himself on his elbows. He thought, then sighed. "Dad rode over there a couple of weeks ago, early on a Sat.u.r.day morning. He came back all shaken up, and he didn"t have his basket with him, but he wouldn"t say why. He said he didn"t feel good, a stomachache or something. I said, "I told you so, didn"t I?" He was out of it for a couple of days, then he seemed all right. A week later, he was dead."
"I know. It"s horrible, Sean. But why do you think that has something to do with my land?"
His eyes swept up to hers again, searing. "Because I know."
"Buthow do you know, Sean?"
"Corey and I both knew it. We were gonna try to fix it, but we ran out of time."
"I don"t understand. What were you going to try to fix?"
For the first time, Sean looked near tears. Years melted from his face.
"What we did."
Angela felt a cold breeze bathe her as she remembered the words WE HAVE f.u.c.kED UPBIG. Her brain suddenly flickered with a macabre image of Sean and her son burying a body in the woods, their shovels chomping into the soil.
"What did you do, Sean?"
He pursed his lips, not answering.
"I"m not going to get you in trouble. I just need to know," she said.
"We p.i.s.sed it off."
"You p.i.s.sed what off?"
He blinked, and dropped his head. "Your land." It was a whisper.
Angela struggled to make connections, and it was like trying to see in a blizzard. "You...think you did something to the land?" Sean didn"t affirm what she"d said, but he didn"t deny it either, so she went on. "And what you did had something to do with the symbols on the cards?"
"We were just playing around. Corey found some stuff about spells, and he figured out how to get you your ring back. Then it got way out of hand."
Spells. The image of a secret burial forgotten, Angela felt herself hiding Gramma Marie"s ring from sight beneath her palm, feeling protective. "My grandmother"s ring? The one he wrote the girl in California to get back?"
Sean glanced at her sidelong, grinning weakly. "Is that what he told you?"
"What really happened, then?"
"He lost your ring a long time ago, when he was a little kid. With the spells, we figured out how to bring back lost things. There"s a way to do it, you know. You use this saint"s medal, St. Anthony. Anyway, that was how it started. Like I said, we were just playing around, no big deal, but it got out of hand. Now it"s all pretty well f.u.c.ked, and we didn"t have a chance toun -f.u.c.k it. So, yeah, that dog"s gone. And Corey is gone. And my dad is gone. And you"ll be gone, too, if you don"t go back to California the first chance you get." He peered at her hard, almostthrough her. "Stay away from that house, Mrs. Toussaint. And especially The Spot. Leave and don"t come back."
Jesus, this child was certifiably delusional, Angela thought, despite his echoes of Naomi"s identical warning. Had Corey fallen into a similar delusion? She"d seen what looked like a saint"s medal beneath the window seat, in the cavity, so Sean wasn"t making this up. Not all of it, anyway. He sounded like someone who"d fallen victim to a cult. What hadhappened to these boys in the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks, a single summer?
"Sean, did someone tell you something is wrong with my land?"
"n.o.body had to tell us s.h.i.t. We weren"t blind. You"re the one who"s blind, Mrs. Toussaint." He was mumbling, not looking at her again.
The first chance she got, Angela decided, she was going to talk to Myles about convincing Sean Leahy to see a psychiatrist. The other two kids probably needed serious therapy, too. Something had been ruptured in this household, and whatever had happened here might have crept into her house, too. Into Corey. Why hadn"t she seen it before?
Angela"s heart slammed her chest. "Sean, did Corey ever talk about killing himself?"
Sean shook his head.
"Did he ever show you that gun or tell you where he got it?"
Again, the answer was no, a.s.suming he was telling the truth, and Angela felt relieved at the small comfort. At least this boy hadn"t had any part in helping Corey carry out his death. It was a horrid thought, but in the bizarre turn of their conversation, that scenario had occurred to her, too.
"But you both believed you carried out acts of magic using spells. Corey believed this?"
"We did."Sean"s teeth were gritted.
"And you both believed you had done something bad. And the land was tainted as a result."
Sean suddenly clapped his hands to his cheeks, shaking his head. Tears streaked his face. "Man, you"re just like him!" he said, his voice stripped. "Just like my dad. You think this is bulls.h.i.t."
Angela brought herself to her feet. The woman staying with the children, the aunt, would not like her upsetting her nephew. "Calm down, Sean. I think I"d better go."
"You"ll get it soon, Mrs. Toussaint. It"s all gonna be clear, in living color."
"I really hope so, Sean."
"That"s what you think," Sean said grimly. Angela was eager for her exit, but as she neared the door, Sean called after her in a much softer voice: "Hey...one thing before you go?"
She faced him again, and his eyes were glazed. "What is it, sweetheart?"
"Before Corey died, did he seem normal to you?"
Angela felt a ripple of pain. "No," she said. "He didn"t, especially right before. I knew something was wrong. He was anxious one second, happy and smiling the next. It was strange, and I was worried. He wasn"t himself at all."
"Neither was my dad," Sean said. "Not unless it"s normal to grin like a fool and then jump in front of a truck when you went to town to get some subs for your kids to eat for lunch. Your kids you f.u.c.kingadored . So if you think I"m talking crazy, maybe you should ask yourself about that. Ask yourself what Corey and my dad had in common."
In some ways, it was the most reasonable thing Sean had said yet. This family was definitely connected to Corey"s death, Angela decided, and she had more than a slight feeling that once she solved this puzzle, it would be worse than two dead people. Much worse, maybe.
"I will," Angela said. "I promise you, Sean, I"m already asking."
"Wow," Myles said over the telephone once he"d heard about her conversation with Sean.
"Wow is right."
"That"s strange. I don"t know what to make of that."
"I"m going to get more out of that kid, too, even if I have to bring the sheriff next time."
Myles sighed. "Wow," he said again. "I hate to make reckless statements, but..."
"You might as well go on and say what you"re thinking, Myles."
The rain that had threatened for days was finally falling with a steady, persistent drumming across the rooftop, sounding like it wasn"t going anywhere soon. Rain in southwestern Washington was stealthy, without thunder or lightning, but this was a full-fledged storm. Angela lay across her bed, stripped down to her T-shirt and panties. She"d planned to take a nap, but her mind had been racing, making sleep impossible. With the sky darkening through her window, she"d decided to call Myles, as if it were a long-standing habit. His voice on the phone calmed her.
"I"m thinking what you"re thinking," Myles said. "The deaths of Corey and Rick Leahy may be connected somehow. Sean"s always adamant about me never going near your property. I wrote it off as superst.i.tion because he"d lost his friend there, and his father and I talked about it once. But Sean never said anything about magic or spells, and neither did Rick. That"s the part that has me stumped. I don"t know what to think. I"m at a loss over it, just like we all felt last year after June McEwan."
June McEwan, the Sacajawea High School princ.i.p.al, had been Angela"s home economics teacher long ago. She still had blazing red hair, and Angela remembered seeing her at the Fourth of July party, even though she hadn"t had a chance to talk to her.
"What happened with June? Is she dead, too?"
"No, no. I forget, you"ve been completely out of touch, haven"t you? Last summer, June invited her brother over for Sunday dinner, their tradition, then she got up from the table, walked behind his chair, and started choking the h.e.l.l out of him. She almost killed him, Angie. His neck was black and blue. He literally had to fight her off with her steak knife."
Angela sat up, cradling the phone close to her ear. "June McEwan tried to killRandy?" Randy McEwan, closer to Angela"s age, was one of the gentlest men she had ever known. He and his sister were inseparable.
"But you already have enough on your mind," Myles said. "Let me drop it."
"Don"t you dare. What the h.e.l.l happened? Were they arguing?"
"Nope. He insists everything was fine between them. She"d been in a good mood right before it happened, he said. Then she started screaming about how she had to kill him. He was forced to commit her for a while, then she moved away. I thought about June after Rick died because of the suddenness of it, how uncharacteristic it was. There"s just been a lot of it lately. Corey"s death was the first thing, because everyone was devastated about that. They really were, Angie, the whole town. A year later, June bowled everyone over again. Now, this thing with Rick."
What little light had been left through the cloud cover was disappearing rapidly with nightfall, and Angela didn"t like the new darkness enveloping her bedroom. Quickly, she switched on the lantern-style lamp at her bedside. In the light, she felt less jittery. But just a little. This would be her first night sleeping alone in Gramma Marie"s house, and already she was dreading the darkness.
"Any new word on the dog?" Myles said.
"No, unfortunately," Angela sighed. "That was something else that bugged me about Sean. He wa.s.so sure the dog won"t be found."
"Have you talked to Naomi?"
"Yeah, I caught her at home about an hour ago. She"s still a wreck, but she told me to thank you for everything, by the way."
"My pleasure. She"s a sweet lady. I"m glad to have met her."
Angela paused, feeling the uncomfortable stirrings that had visited her when she"d watched Naomi huddling in prayer with Myles. "I could put in a good word for you with Naomi, you know. She"s single, and you"re exactly her type."
Myles laughed, although the laugh sounded forced. "Don"t bother. She lives in Hollywood and I live in Sacajawea. That wouldn"t be much of a relationship, would it?"
Touche. That sounded like it might have been directed at her more than Naomi, and Angela was sorry she"d brought it up. "Myles, I want to talk to you about why I disappeared on you," she said. "Is there any chance you could come over?"
"You mean now?"
Angela almost lost her nerve, but didn"t. "Yes. Tonight."
"No, sorry, Angie. It"s dinnertime and it"s pouring outside. And to tell you G.o.d"s honest truth, I"m sure that wouldn"t be a good idea."
Sitting alone in her bedroom in Gramma Marie"s house, the twenty-two years since high school felt only imaginary. Here she was trying to ask Myles"s forgiveness after an emotional pothole, probably trying to lure him into her bed for a man"s touch after an eternity, and he was politely keeping his distance. Just like old times, when she messed up and fell from his grace.
"I"m not angry," Myles said, filling the silence. "Your son died, Angie. Besides that, we hardly knew each other anymore. You had no responsibilities to me. You have your own life."
Ouch, ouch, and ouch. Two left jabs and a right cross. At The Spot, making love, she and Myles had sworn to each other that they were soul mates. They might have been kids, but it had felt real as could be at the time. It d.a.m.n near felt real now.
"That"s not true," she said. "We"ve never stopped knowing each other."
He didn"t answer right away, but when he did his voice was full of closure. "Well, I have a chicken on for Ma, so let"s consider this a rain check. Thanks for the update on Sean. The magic angle is disturbing, I agree. You shouldn"t ignore this."
He sounded eager to go, but Angela wasn"t ready to hang up and surrender to the empty house. Not so soon. "Yeah, that kidbelieves in the magic, too," Angela said, fishing for a less p.r.i.c.kly subject. "You should have seen the way he jumped when I pulled out the index cards with Gramma Marie"svodou symbols."
Myles took the bait. "Is that what those symbols on the ring signify?"
"That"s what I"m a.s.suming. Gramma Marie believed invodou, like a lot of people. You remember."
"Sure do. Theloas and all that. You showed me her bedroom shrine."
"It"s a shame, but I don"t know anything about her ring or those symbols."
"Then that"s your first step," Myles said. "You need to learn whatever Corey knew. You need to find out what he and Sean were so afraid of. Why there would be a curse."
His matter-of-fact tone made Angela"s scalp itch. "You think Sean"s story might be true?"
"No. But if there"s any possibility your son killed himself because of his beliefs, you should know what those beliefs were. That ring keeps coming up, so it"s a good start, doll-baby. I really have to run, though. Are you all right?"
No, Angela realized. She was not all right.
"I"m fine. Have a good dinner," she said.
They said their good-byes, and the line clicked dead. Angela immediately became aware of all the sounds around her. Rain battering the house in torrents. Three hard thumps on the rooftop in quick succession, more walnuts. The rain collecting in the gutter outside her window, rattling as loudly as a rickety engine trying to come to life. She remembered Mr. Everly"s warning about the tree, but she whisked her mind clean, her old, useful trick. She was not going to sit in a dark house pondering the loss of her tree or Naomi"s missing dog. And she especially was not going to sit here worrying about Sean"s belief in curses and spells. If all of those unpleasant thoughts were going to a.s.sail her at bedtime anyway, she might as well put them off as long as she could.
She needed a hot bath. In the commotion, she hadn"t had a single soak since she"d been here.
After pulling off her T-shirt, Angela went to the bathroom and turned on the light, examining the sloping fullness of her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s in the bathroom mirror. Not bad for forty, she decided. Her chest had tightened since she had started running, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were still alert; not an eighteen-year-old"s, but not drooping toward Mama Earth as much as she"d feared. Myles"s lips had sucked on these b.r.e.a.s.t.s at The Spot, so sweetly and gently that she"d barely felt him except in moist brushes. How much more a.s.sured would his mouth feel on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s now? She would probably never know, and that only made her curiosity more keen.
Jesus, was she falling for Myles again? Or was she just h.o.r.n.y?
When Angela bent over the bathtub, she instantly forgot Myles and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
The floor of the white tub was coated with streaked, gritty brown dirt that had not been there two hours ago. Two wet brown leaves with dark, rotting spots lay beside the drain, like the leaf in the toilet she"d seen her first day back. The mess in the tub didn"t smell like raw sewage, and it looked more like plain old mud, but Angela slapped her bare heel angrily into the tile floor when she saw it. On top of everything else, she was having plumbing problems, too? One more thing to look forward to, she thought.
"s.h.i.ton me," she said, turning the light off. This was tomorrow"s problem, not tonight"s.