Undone: The Complete Duology, page 2
3
MAC
If Grace epitomized the people of this town, I had a long investigation ahead.
Still, she had looked strangely appealing despite the rumpled shirt, loose pants, and the freshly-fucked hair-do. I could imagine weaving my fingers in her hair, yanking her head back, and towering over her as I claimed her mouth.
I would never do such a thing, of course; at least, not without her permission. But with that much cheekiness, she had to be a wildfire in bed.
Perhaps I was just trying to distract myself from the insurmountable task that had fallen at my feet. I had come to town to find out what happened to Robert, but despite the fact this town was barely a blip on the map, it wasn’t going to give up answers so easily. I didn’t have any hard evidence that he’d even arrived in Thorn Tree, but his mother insisted. It was as good of a lead as any in his disappearance.
Roberta had given me a list of people, Robert’s peers in town, to interview for clues as to his whereabouts. Grace had been first on the list, and I kept that bit of information tucked in my mind. Few things people did were entirely random.
Did Roberta suspect Grace’s involvement more than the others? She hadn’t said. She hadn’t said much of anything.
Despite Grace’s sour demeanor, I didn’t really believe she knew anything. Most people who acted like that simply had walls up to protect a fragile ego. I didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that Grace was putting up a front. Chances were, she was harmless.
More than anything, I found her entertaining.
From the moment I’d stepped foot into this town, the townspeople had mostly ignored my presence. No friendly waving me through the intersection or asking if I’d tried the local diner’s special. Nothing like my small town would have treated a stranger. Here, when someone did look my way, it was with a scowl and a hint of disdain.
A man with lesser resolve might take it personally.
I’d been around these parts most of my life, so I knew that small towns weren’t always as friendly as they appeared on TV. It was looking like Thorn Tree could be counted among those.
No matter. I wouldn’t be here forever, just long even to figure out what had happened to Robert. The case was still fresh, but the townspeople seemed uninterested in his whereabouts. It was no wonder that Roberta had asked me to come look for him. No one in this town was going to take it upon themselves to find him, for some reason. I didn’t have any clues to go on yet, but the day was young.
I had Roberta’s list. It seemed fitting. I had only met Roberta once before, when I was thirteen. She’d come to Thanksgiving with my parents, and the entire visit had been about lists.
Lists of what was wrong with dinner.
Lists of what was wrong with the house.
Lists of what was wrong with my dad.
Lists of what was wrong with me.
Her visit had left a lasting impression, and she’d never been invited back. That was the first time I had met Robert, despite knowing of his existence for nearly a decade at that point.
We hadn’t met again for almost another decade.
The next person on my list to interview was Amelia Young. She was the same age as Robert, and Grace. According to Roberta, they had all gone to school together, which, as Grace had so politely pointed out, was a given.
Amelia lived in town in a house set back on a couple of acres. A few goats and chickens meandered around behind a chain link fence, and a little garden butted up against the side of the house.
I parked on the side of the road, next to her property, and strode up the walk laid with pavers. Before I reached the front door, barking erupted from inside.
The front door opened revealing a woman wearing a black tunic and tight jeans. Her dark hair was blocked in the front with burgundy dye. She smiled, her eyes sparkling.
She was the first person here not to seem disgusted that I dare exist in their little realm.
“I’m Office Brewer,” I said, remembering the lecture Grace had given me about my order of operation. She’d been right, after all. “I’m looking for Amelia Young.”
“That’s me,” she said brightly as a fat black lab poked from behind her, assessing me. “Come on in, officer.”
The tension in my shoulders relaxed, as much as possible given the current dumpster fire of my life. At least Amelia wasn’t adding more fuel and gleefully watching it burn.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said with a practiced tip of my hat.
I didn’t really get into the hat, but it worked well with the ladies, at least at home. I wasn’t sure if anything impressed the women around here, and after meeting Grace, I was a little afraid to ask.
“He’s good with it?” I gestured to the dog.
She laughed, scratching the dog’s head. “He’s a good ol’ boy. You just woke him from his twelve-hour nap.”
The dog seemed to determine I wasn’t worth any more energy and disappeared back into the house.
I followed Amelia inside. The walls were painted bright colors: yellow in the front of the house, and light blue in the living room. The décor was an assortment of thrift store finds, which she had clearly gotten from somewhere outside of town, perhaps online. The population here wouldn’t support much of a thrift market.
Framed palmistry guides, metal moon phases, and botanical prints lined the way to the living room, which was filled to the brim with a jungle of potted plants and several pieces of furniture that were far too big for the room.
The dog hefted herself onto a plush couch and flopped down into sleep.
“Anything to drink?” Amelia asked.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said. “I just have a few questions for you, if you have a moment.”
“Sure,” she said, picking up a water can off a heavy vintage end table. She began watering the nearest plants with care, right at their roots. “What’s going on?”
“Do you know Robert Bruno?”
She checked the leaves of a small plant in a llama-shaped planter. “Bobby? Of course. We spent pretty much our whole childhood together, but you know, he moved away to New York City and we fell out of touch. Did something happen?”
“He came to visit his mother and never contacted her. No one has seen or heard from him since he departed the city.”
Amelia moved onto the monstera towering over a papasan chair in the corner. “No one saw him at a gas station or anything?”
“We haven’t got all the evidence back yet,” I said. That was true, but missing a few details, like I was working without the blessing of a precinct, or the local sheriff. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to normal tools of investigation, which is a given in these parts anyway. We didn’t often get involved in missing person cases, or worse. I would have to do this the hard way.
Since my options were limited, Roberta’s list was my only chance at uncovering what had happened to Robert. I could only hope someone had heard from him, or he’d at least been seen entering town.
It wasn’t like he had to cross the Bermuda Triangle to visit from New York.
Amelia traded the water can for a spray bottle and spritzed plant leaves. “Hopefully he didn’t blow a tire or something. You know the cell signal can get spotty in some areas.”
The thought had crossed my mind, but without a force behind me, I was just one man. I’d kept an eye out on the way in for any signs of him: his car on the side of the road, personal belongings deposited in the trees.
A body.
I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, and I couldn’t believe he would venture into the woods for any reason. If his vehicle had broken down, he would have stuck to the road and at least attempted to walk into town. But that still left a lot of road for me to scout.
“There haven’t been any signs of that yet,” I said. “All our current information points to him making it to town, though we aren’t sure where he would have gone if not to his mother’s. Did he have any old flames here? Someone he would have stopped by to see first?”
Amelia curled her lips up in thought, then set down the spray bottle onto the coffee table and turned to me. “My coven sister, Bethany.”
Coven? I was a bit surprised Thorn Tree allowed such blasphemy.
“She and Bobby had an on and off again thing all through high school. He was like a puppy, following her around, had the biggest crush. She rejected him for years but then he showed interest in another girl and—”
I chuckled. “She didn’t like that, I guess?”
“No, not at all.” Amelia adjusted a curtain to let in soft morning light over the plants. “They were together until graduation, then he got big plans to move to New York. City life didn’t appeal to Bethany whatsoever. There’s so much nature out here, you know? We can open our back door and step into the trees, be among the moss and the flowers. Who would want to trade that for asphalt and buildings?”
Perhaps I wasn’t the nature lover that Amelia and her—coven?—sister was, but I could appreciate the sentiment. I didn’t find the idea of being stacked up with people in close quarters all that appealing, either.
I liked my personal space.
“So, he left Bethany behind?” I prodded.
“Physically.” Amelia gave a sad little smile. “I called him once, a few years ago. He had nonstop questions about Bethany. How she was, if she was married yet. As far as I know, she didn’t want to talk to him, but I didn’t really get involved past that. She didn’t want to discuss it.”
“Do you know if she’s around? Perhaps I could catch up with her and ask a few questions, see if Bobby contacted her about this trip.”
Amelia brushed her hands together then stroked the back of her dog as she snoozed on the couch. “I’m sure she’ll tell you everything she knows.”
“That’s more promising than my visit with Grace Miller,” I said, lighthearted.
Amelia’s hand froze on her dog, and her face darkened. “You spoke to Gracie?”
My senses went on alert. “Roberta suggested I question her as well. Given she knows Bobby and all.”
“She doesn’t know Bobby,” Amelia spat. “There’s nothing good about Grace Miller. I would suggest staying far away from her.”
Everything I’d liked about Amelia drained away.
Grace hadn’t been hospitable, but didn’t Amelia see that was just a façade? Her venom over Grace was unwarranted.
I bit down on the urge to snap at her. As far as I was concerned, this whole town had a lot to answer for, and I was here to get those from them, even if it cost me my career.
No one messed with my brother.
“I see,” I said, brisk. “Where can I find Bethany?”
“She’ll be at work at the diner tomorrow morning. It’s a few blocks away.”
“I saw it when I came in,” I said. “Assuming there’s only one.”
“We’re lucky to have that,” she said, all her earlier friendliness flattened. “Anything else I can do for you, officer?”
“I think that’s enough. Thank you for your cooperation.”
I returned like for like. With a curt tip of my hat, I let myself out.
Back in my truck, I gripped the steering wheel. I should have been more interested in the lead I’d uncovered. Bethany and Bobby’s dramatic romance opened avenues to explore, but I was more concerned with the way Amelia had spoken about Grace.
I had no reason to be so protective of Grace Miller, but I didn’t care for people who spoke in absolutes, especially about others.
There was nothing good about Grace? Only a few people warranted such an assessment, and I had a difficult time believing Grace Miller deserved such wrath.
Perhaps that explained her attitude when I had unexpectedly showed up at her door. I knew all too well how out of hand small town bullying could get, and if any place would pack up like wolves against someone, it would be Thorn Tree. I’d sensed trouble the moment I’d entered the town.
But I couldn’t turn back now. Something had happened to Robert. He wasn’t much for being spontaneous. With a mother like Roberta, he was destined to be a neurotic perfectionist. That first Thanksgiving together, I’d found him almost as insufferable as his mother. He’d whined about everything.
The older I’d become, though, the more I’d resented our parents keeping us apart. Roberta and my father’s nasty divorce shouldn’t have influenced my chances to get to know my weird little half-brother. I’d felt denied.
When we became adults, I reached out to him. He’d been receptive to my interest in reconnecting, if a bit lackluster. But that was Robert, lost in his own world of making sure the towels were straight in the bathroom and no dust collected on the few framed artwork on the walls of his little apartment in New York. I couldn’t imagine how a person like Robert survived in a city like that, but he’d enjoyed it; some days, I wondered if he preferred being invisible to being seen.
I’d lost my brother once, all those years ago, and I’d only recently gotten him back. Only recently developed a relationship with him. After an entire lifetime of feeling like my family was missing a piece—my brother—I was finally whole.
Now, he’d been ripped away again.
I would find him, even if it cost me everything.
And if anyone had hurt him, I would make them pay.
4
GRACE
When night fell, I headed out with an empty backpack down the dirt road leading into town. It was a twenty-minute walk by flashlight, but I didn’t want to bring my jeep. I couldn’t risk anyone seeing the vehicle parked around town. Everyone knew it belonged to me, and they would wonder what I was up to.
Which was exactly what I didn’t want.
They wouldn’t get it. No one in this town understood, which was, in a poetic twist, the reason that I had to go through with my plan.
The road met with asphalt as I entered town. I flipped off the flashlight.
The dimly lit streets were empty, everyone tucked into their homes. Thorn Tree didn’t exactly have a booming nightlife.
I headed towards Lou’s Restore and More. Lou had made quite a business for himself by salvaging original fixtures and vintage furniture from the old houses along the east coast and into the south. There wasn’t a big appetite for his finds in Thorn Tree, but he sold online and even had visitors from out of state just to see his store in person. The last time I had been there, he’d had an antique clawfoot roll top tub from 1908, as well as an old damchiya that he’d picked up at an estate sale in Alabama, from a priest who had been on a mission in India in the 1950s.
But none of that was what had caught my attention.
On the night of the new moon, the Goddess had sent me a list of ingredients for my spell, and at first, it hadn’t made much sense: The Moon, Bones of Wisdom, and Ashes of God. The longer I’d meditated and fasted, the more I was certain the answers would be found around Thorn Tree. It was only fitting.
I’d decided to tackle the list one at a time, starting with The Moon. Clearly she had meant something symbolic, but what? I’d scoured the land for a rock that resembled the moon; kept an eye out for an appropriate painting; even subtly checked the locals for any moon tattoos that might have led me to the answer.
Then, while browsing at Lou’s, I’d noticed a Victorian era man-in-the-moon ring he kept in a display case at the check-out counter. I was certain this was the first ingredient on my list.
It felt right.
I’d overhead Lou talking to an out-of-town customer who had inquired about the two-thousand-dollar ring. He’d told her that the ring had belonged to a Voodoo Priestess in New Orleans, and he’d been lucky to come across it while he was there to pick up a set of antique French chairs with angels carved into the arms.
That was all I needed to know. I’d found my moon.
Except, there was no way I could buy it off Lou, and even if I could, the idea made me uncomfortable. He would know I had the ring. Something about that unsettled me, like he would be able to put together what I was up to. It was an outlandish purchase coming from the outcast on the outskirts of town.
In this town, people talked.
I had to do this in the shadows. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out until it was too late to stop me.
I’d never robbed anyone before, but there was a first time for everything, as the saying went. Luckily, Thorn Tree wasn’t big on security. I didn’t have to be an expert. In and out, and I’d have my ring.
As I headed down the street, a silhouette came into view, sitting on the sidewalk, back pressed against the wall of the darkened post office.
Rose.
She used to say she did her best songwriting under the night sky. Often, that meant sitting in a field with a bottle of wine. Other times, she chose a location that didn’t require a short hike.
Like right here.
I halted in my step, before she noticed me, and held my breath. Panic fluttered through my chest, until I felt dizzy.
Memories flashed through my mind, blanking my vision. Rose, at the campfire party at the end of senior year. I was there. So was Bobby.
I snapped back to reality. Rose was still busy scratching in her notebook, the miles of fabric of her skirt like a cloud on which she sat.
I scurried around the corner, then pressed tight against the wall, breathing hard. Lou’s was at the end of the block, but I could come around from the other side. I would just have to cut through the cemetery.
Lungs burning, I headed down the side street until reaching the iron gates to Eternal Sun Cemetery. Nothing was ever locked in this place, so I eased open the gates, cringing as they squeaked, and then slipped through.
The cemetery stretched out at the base of a hill. At the top, like an all-seeing eye, stood Eternal Sun Church. The church claimed to have been built in 1730, right before the influx of settlers to West Virginia, and was quite possibly one of the oldest buildings in the state. It was the oldest in town, for sure.
I used to go to that church; everyone in town did at one point or another. Most still did. The steeply sloped roof, long narrow windows, and squat bell tower were as familiar as any of our own living rooms. The Reverend was the leader of this town, sometimes to the chagrin of the sheriff and mayor. Usually, though, they all agreed.
