Four
Evie Darker heard of the rumors circulating about
town while shopping at the dingy little grocery store along the main
highway. Ella May owned the store. She was an older woman by Evie’s
standards, thirty or thirty-five maybe, but still very pretty. Abraham
had never dated anyone else.
“The Trevors are back in the mansion on the hill,”
Ella May had told her.
The possibility imbued Evie with renewed fear that
Billy had indeed abandoned her, or that he had been hurt and she would
never find out how badly, because why hadn’t he tried to get in touch with
her if he was back? And yet the news startled her, because she hadn’t
thought to connect the twinkling ruby lights with the remote-controlled
cars and airplanes Billy used to build and play with. How could there not
be a connection? If Billy had returned, was he just watching her, wanting
nothing to do with her otherwise? Had Lazarus ruined her chances of ever
escaping Silver Ridge?
“Maybe it’s just those people who cut the grass and
things,” Evie ventured. “They’re always up here in the summer.”
“Lights were on last night,” Ella May said. “And old
man Fender and his boys had a run-in with a man and a woman dressed in
fancy clothes and driving a big black car. They were older people,
though. Still…”
Evie was too distraught to speculate. She paid for
her groceries and kept her eyes to the ground on the way out, but she
looked back at the ominous castle on the hill on the walk back down the
highway. She paused for a time, watching for movement, but seeing
nothing.
She returned home and put the groceries away in the
kitchen of the grimy shack with tears flooding her eyes. Maybe Billy had
been toying with her as Abraham claimed. Why would any of the Trevors
want anything to do with her or her drunken brothers? The Trevors had
ventured down from their hill only once in an entire century, and look
what had happened? How could they not regret their foolishness?
She stood at the sink washing dishes and feeling
claustrophobic and doomed. Her brothers returned home after work, and
Lazarus stopped in the doorway behind her and stared at her. She pretended to be too busy to notice. Noah
muttered and poked at Lazarus once or twice, but Lazarus ignored him. She
didn’t hear Abe at all until his voice startled her badly.
“Evie, what the hell’s going on?”
Abraham’s voice was deep, the growl of the devil
himself. A massive hand closed about her wrist when she ignored him
out of spite. Her hand quivered in its steady grip. She dropped the soapy
pot she had been washing back into the dishwater.
“Lazarus, Noah, get your asses in here! Now!”
Evie waited in total resignation. Behind her, her
brothers, who had fled, shuffled reluctantly back into the kitchen.
“What’s Evie upset about? What are you three trying
to keep from me?”
Her brothers’ silence grimly amused her. Lazarus was
terrified. She could hear it in his breathing.
“Noah?” Abe’s voice dropped an ominous tone. Noah
was always the first to break, always the first to try to do right by his
older brother.
“Evie was outside last night,” Noah said softly. “I
caught Lazarus with her on the back porch with her nightie half tore off.”
Lazarus bellowed protest. Abe’s grip on Evie’s arm
tightened, cutting off the circulation in her hand. Abe pointed a warning
finger at Lazarus, cutting the man off in mid-sentence.
Noah continued. “I don’t think Lazarus did
anything. I just told him to lay off giving Evie a rough time. The
situation didn’t amount to much, so I just let it slide. Evie said she
saw those glowing things again.”
Abe relaxed by slow degrees. “Let me judge what a
situation amounts to. Lazarus, I’ve warned you.”
“I know that!” Lazarus shrieked. “I’ll never do it
again! I told you a thousand times, I’ll never do it again! Jesus, Abe,
we were only kids when it happened!”
Abe caressed the back of Evie’s wrist with his
thumb. “She’s your sister, Lazarus. Ma and Pa would have disowned you.
I’ll do worse if it happens again. You’ll not dishonor the Darkers.
We’re all that’s left, you, me, Noah. And Evie.”
Lazarus fought to catch his breath. Evie felt mildly
vindicated.
“You two git,” Abe said. “I want to talk with Evie
alone.”
The two tripped over themselves escaping the
kitchen. Abe let go of her arm. Evie rubbed life back into it without
turning to face the man.
“Look at me, Evie.”
She turned against her will and looked up. Abe was a
monster of a man with shoulder length, stringy hair like Lazarus’, but
with a face less angular, more like Noah’s. His eyes, though, were even
blacker and more menacing than either of his younger brothers. He was
older, and more mature, and a lot smarter.
“What happened?” he demanded of her.
“I saw one of them red lights again. I tried to
follow it out back. I tripped over the old fence by the well and tore my
nightie.”
“And probably almost got yourself killed.”
“Close to it, I suppose. It used to be covered up.”
“I’ll tell Sheriff Krueger to see to it before some
kids fall in.” He was silent for a moment. “I don’t believe your story
about the lights.”
“I know you don’t.” Evie didn’t like the quavering
in her voice. Neither could she keep a note of defiance out of it. “But
it’s the truth.”
“You got a suitor, Evie?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I got no suitor.”
“If you do, he’s got guts. I’d give him credit for
that.”
“You’d hurt him!” she spat. “If I knew anybody at
all, you and Lazarus and Abe would run him off!”
Abe contemplated the accusation. “I’d hurt anyone
sneaking about our property in the middle of the night. So what was it, a
suitor trying to get at you, or were you dreaming again?”
Evie clenched a fist. “I wasn’t dreaming! I told
you what I saw! I tried to catch it! I tripped over that old fence out
back and tore my nightie, and that’s all!”
Abe couldn’t accept her story at face value. What
would they be, little things in the night that glowed and smelled like
burning metal? Even if Abe had smelled the odors, as Evie suspected he
had, what could they be? And if Abe’s imagination failed him, then Evie’s
demons could not possibly exist.
“If you have a suitor, Evie,” he said, “I want to see
him in the daylight. I want to judge him man to man. Maybe it is time
for you to find yourself a man and get hitched. You’re a pretty little
thing. You deserve better than me and Noah and that bastard Lazarus and
what he done to you. But if you need a man, I’ll pick you one, someone to
care for you properly. It won’t be no one who would risk life and limb
sneaking about on Darker property at night.”
Evie burst into tears, knowing she was going to die
in the house that was rotting away beneath all of them. She couldn’t keep
it clean. She’d never be able to escape. She didn’t know where she would
go, or what she would do if she could escape. Lazarus would get her, or
some other man who would do far worse than what Lazarus had done to her,
and to Billy Trevor the night of the accident those three long years ago.
“Evie?”
She looked around, surprised that he was still
standing behind her so quietly.
“We had some excitement around town last night. Old
man Fender and his boys said a dead deer tried to get up and attack them.”
Evie curled her nose in disdain. Abe chuckled at her
reaction. “Don’t worry. I’d never consider scum that like as suitable
marriage material, but they told the sheriff a crazy story that’s been
getting about town. What did you hear?”
“I heard the Trevors are back on the hill,” she said,
still defiant.
Abe sighed and paced restlessly. “Fender said he hit
a deer that all but wrecked their truck. They got out to look, and this
big black car come tearing down the highway silent as a ghost and clipped
their fender. There was a man and a woman in the car, but he wasn’t young
enough to be Billy, so don’t get your dandruff up. Odd thing is, they
said they bickered with the strangers, and the tires on their truck blew
up, one by one, then this gutted deer with a broken neck started moving
and making funny sounds. It scared the shit out of them. They made no
bones about that.”
Evie stared at the man, slowly gleaning the nature of
his concern. “Funny things are happening around town.”
Abe’s eyes widened in anger. “Funny things have been
happening about town ever since they lit up the Trevor mansion. Damn
right funny things are happening. So I’m not being so harsh with you
because of what you said you saw. In fact, if you see those lights again,
I want to know.”
Tears filled her eyes. “What if Billy’s back?”
She could see Abe harden to the notion. “Don’t go
running up there on your own. Maybe Billy had the hots for you, but I
wouldn’t count on the rest of them giving you a very friendly reception
after what we did to the boy.”
Evie was shaking with suppressed rage. “Then what?”
“Then nothing. If he’s back, he’ll be a bit more
discreet calling on you. He damned well better be. You know how Lazarus
and Noah feel about those people. I can’t always be around to keep them
out of trouble. Evie, it’s going to be a real sticky situation until they
leave.”
The mansion was always dark during the winter. If
Billy was back, she’d hear from him within the next few weeks, or not at
all. “If he calls on me,” she said, “he’ll want me to go away with him.”
Abe took a deep breath, trying to stay mellow with
her. “I’m right in the middle of some touchy business here in town,
Evie. I can’t afford trouble.”
“Illegal business,” she muttered at him. “Drug
business with men from Miami. I hear you and Noah and Lazarus talking at
night.”
“Dangerous business, Evie. You’re more likely than
anyone to give me trouble, so I’ll make a deal with you. If you hear from
Billy, you let me know and we’ll try to work something out. I don’t want
trouble with the Trevors again. They won’t let us off the hook so lightly
the second time around, not after what Lazarus done.”
Evie didn’t dare say more.
Abe glared at her, daring her to defy him. “You
haven’t heard from the boy in three years, but that don’t make Lazarus any
less dangerous the second time around. Don’t you forget that.”
Abraham turned away and left the kitchen. Evie let
out a shuddering breath of air, feeling shaky with excitement and dread.
Had Abraham forgotten about the radio-controlled airplanes Billy used to
fly about town, or was it just too far-fetched to think that red lights in
the night might be the same thing? The next time it came to visit, she
would have to be more careful of the fallen fence and the well, but she
would have to investigate. Abraham was right about Lazarus. Being sober
never made him any less dangerous. But she had to know what was happening
before any of her brothers found out for themselves.
