The Curse Оf Hollister House

Friday

By the time my volunteer session with Naomi had rolled around again, Buck had been released from jail, and the manhunt was on for the person the sheriff was assuring everyone was responsible for both Tracy and Patricia’s deaths. Cass and I were both convinced we were looking for two separate killers, but for the time being, we decided to keep that opinion to ourselves. Well, at least mostly to ourselves. I’d discussed the situation with Gracie and Tom over dinner the night before, and when I ran into Hope at the farmers market, the two of us had discussed the various possibilities as well.

“It won’t be long now,” I said to Alastair. Neither of us could sleep, so we’d snuck up into the attic to sit in the window and watch the sun rise over the distant mountain peak. I could still remember sitting in this same window as a child, watching the sun rise and wondering what the day would bring.

“I received an email from the music studio that had offered me a teaching position after the accident. I thanked them for the offer but turned them down. I’ve enjoyed working with Paisley, but I don’t think I want to teach piano for a living. I think it would feel too much like I was living on the outskirts of my old life. What I need,” I picked up the cat and hugged him to my chest, “is to totally remake my life.” I leaned against the wall behind me. Alastair purred loudly as I spoke to him. “I’m considering moving back to Foxtail Lake permanently. I wasn’t sure I’d want to stay here when I first came schlepping home, but I do think I could be happy here. In New York, all I really have are the ashes of my old life, but here I have you and Gracie, and Tom too, of course. I have Paisley and the animal shelter, and then there’s Cass. We were close once, and I feel like we can be close again.”

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back over the years. Cass and me building a fort, which Stella thought was dumb until it was finished and she could see how totally cool it actually was. Cass and me fishing and hiking, making plans for the future, and creating music in his garage while his parents were at work. Stella had been my best friend, but in reality, Cass and I were more alike. The bond between us had always been strong, but after Stella died, our friendship seemed to mature into something that was much more.

Why on earth had I ever let us lose touch?

I opened my eyes and set the cat down beside me. The first rays of light brightened the horizon. “It looks like we are in for a red sky. Given all the clouds, I’m not surprised.”

“Meow.”

“Yes, I do enjoy a moody sky. Skies that are bright and sunny are nice now and then, but a sky filled with clouds is so much more interesting.”

As the sun made its first appearance over the horizon, I let my thoughts drift to the two murder cases Cass was tackling. Going against the grain and looking for two killers when the sheriff had already assured the community there was only one was not going to be easy. Not if he wanted to keep his job at least.

There were two other deputies assigned to the Foxtail Lake office. Rafe Conaway was just a few years away from retirement. I was sort of surprised they hadn’t made him lead deputy when Quinby retired because he’d been with the department for a lot longer than Cass, but perhaps he hadn’t wanted the extra responsibility. I remembered Conaway as being an okay guy, but I suspected that by this time he was just putting in his time and wouldn’t want to make any waves.

Trent Vinton was the second deputy assigned to work with Cass. I’d never met him, but Cass had told me that he was a young officer on his first assignment who was just putting in his time until he was offered a chance to move on to a better position.

In a way, I felt bad for Cass. It didn’t seem as if either of his crew was looking to put in the effort necessary to be much help. Short-timers generally didn’t commit the time and energy needed to find the answers to solve cases as complex as the ones Cass was dealing with.

Uncrossing my legs and setting my feet on the floor, I looked around for the cat, who’d jumped down while I was mulling over the clues Cass had come up with in my mind.

“Alastair?”

“Meow.”

I got up and crossed the room to find the cat with his head in a box.

I smiled. “What did you find, you silly cat?”

“Meow.” He pulled his head out of the box and looked at me.

“I hope we don’t have mice. Aunt Gracie loves all things big and small, but mice indoors are not her favorite combination.”

“Meow.” Alastair stuck his head in the small opening he’d worked on creating, which would allow his head but not his body inside.

I slit the tape and opened the box the rest of the way. It was filled with old books. Paperbacks, hardbacks, yearbooks, even handwritten journals. I picked up the journal on the top of the pile and opened it slowly. I’d forgotten all about this. After Stella was murdered, Aunt Gracie had taken me to see a counselor who’d asked me to write down my thoughts in a journal every night before I went to bed. At the time, I thought the chore silly and unhelpful, but looking back, writing down the fear, sadness, and hopelessness I’d felt had really helped.

“‘Day one,’” I read aloud. “‘My stupid shrink told me to write in this stupid book every stupid day, and Aunt Gracie asked me to please cooperate, but this whole thing is really dumb. Stella is dead. Puking out my thoughts is not going to bring her back. Everyone seems to think I am sad, but what I am is angry. I’m angry that Stella is gone. I’m angry that Stella was stupid enough to walk home alone just because she was mad at me. I’m angry there is a monster out there who killed my best friend and might kill me. And I’m angry everyone keeps asking me whether or not I’m okay. Of course, I’m not okay. How could I be?’”

I looked at the cat. “I remember the anger. I remember the fear and guilt that fueled that anger.”

“Meow.”

Alastair rubbed his body against mine, purring loudly as if to offer comfort. I skipped through the journal until I’d reached the middle. I read the page I’d landed on. “‘I heard Aunt Gracie talking. She was telling Tom that the deputies had found blood in an old deserted barn. They think the blood is Stella’s blood. They think the site they found is the actual location where Stella was murdered.’”

I looked up from the journal and tried to remember back. I remembered that the deputy in charge had determined that the location where Stella had been buried had not been the place where she’d been murdered. It seemed to me that she’d gone missing from the school, or somewhere between the school and her home, but she’d been murdered more than a mile from there and buried clear across the lake. I hadn’t stopped to think about the logistics of the whole thing. If the killer had moved her twice, he must have had a vehicle with him when he grabbed her. Could she have known him? Could someone have offered her a ride and she’d accepted?

Deciding to retrace the path taken by the killer, I stood up, taking the journal with me, and headed to my room to dress. The plan that was forming in my mind was to walk the path between the school and Stella’s home and try to identify probable locations where she might have been taken by someone in a car without anyone seeing what had happened. I then thought I’d drive out to the deserted farm where it was determined Stella most likely had been killed, and finally, I’d drive out to the place where her remains had been found. It had been twenty years, and I was under no illusion that there would be any clues to find at any of these places, but maybe by retracing the path of the killer, I’d be able to gain some insight into exactly what had gone through the guy’s mind. At least I was assuming it was a guy. I somehow couldn’t picture a woman doing to Stella what had been done to her. Perhaps once I’d gone through all that, I’d call Cass to see if he’d found the location where Tracy had been murdered. If he had, perhaps I’d try the same exercise, retracing the steps her killer might have taken on the day she died. Again, I didn’t necessarily think I’d find anything, but somehow it seemed like an important step to take.