Page 50 of Last Seen

Chapter Thirty-Four

Halley has the same sense of dislocation that she had when she arrived in town last night.

It is bustling. Cheery. Happy. The day is sunny, clear, azure spring skies with only the faintest hint of chill still left in the mountain air.

People in golf carts buzz past, waving and smiling.

Many stop to chat with one another or with someone on a porch or in a driveway.

Almost all of them wave at her as she passes.

As she makes the turn toward the writers’ retreat cabin, a six-seater golf cart full of people approaches. She can hear them chatting, laughing, pointing. Almost as if they’re on a tour.

Behind the wheel, she sees a man who looks like an older version of Noah and the sheriff.

His shoulders are broad, his thick hair more salt than pepper but still hanging in there.

His eyes are dark and have that bottomless edge to them, and his handsome face is lined by years in the sun.

He looks like an actor playing the part of town leader. He is almost too perfect in the role.

He sees her and immediately stops the cart with a tiny screech. The people with him peer at her curiously.

“Hallo!” he calls to her, waving. “Are you lost? You look lost.”

“Um, no, I’m heading right in there.” She points at the sign, and he excuses himself from his group and gets out of the cart. He comes to her, hand extended. Though she assumes he’s in his late seventies, he’s strong and moves quickly, with no hint of age.

“I’m Miles Brockton. Founder of Brockville. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to our humble town.” His hand is huge and envelops hers like a baseball mitt. He smells like marijuana and patchouli and something else, dark and ineffable, like fresh mulch. Is he high? Maybe. But his eyes are clear.

“Halley James,” she says. “I have a meeting at the retreat.”

“You do? It’s not in session right now. You’re a writer?”

“I’m talking about writing with Tammy Boone.”

“Ah, Tammy. Wonderful lady. Well, if you know where you are, I won’t keep you.

But please, make sure you stop in at one of the wellness centers when you’re done.

” He eyes her critically. “You need a realignment. Fatigue is hard to combat on a trip, and you will feel like a million dollars afterward.”

“Oh, I don’t think I need a chiropractor.”

His smile is bright white and avuncular.

“Not a physical realignment. Your energy is all off. I have a fabulous machine that gives off the exact kind of vibes you need to reset yourself. It’s a Tesla coil biocharger, and trust me, you won’t recognize yourself afterward.

” He looks at his watch. She notices it is a simple black face with a single silver hand.

It looks ridiculously expensive. “I’ll tell you what.

Meet me there at ten, that’s an hour from now, and I will change your life.

” He grins, looking even more like a Hollywood movie star, and she understands in that instant how Miles Brockton manages to get so many people to buy into his idea of how life should be led.

The problem is his enthusiasm is contagious; she can’t help but smile back. If there’s anything she needs right now, it’s a life change. And whatever a biocharger is sounds insane, but who cares. She’s a scientist. She’s naturally curious.

And she is intrigued by this man whom everyone speaks of as a guru.

Noah didn’t seem to be as enamored of him, but even she can’t deny the man has a magnetism.

Who has that sort of power over people? Is it power?

Is it charm? Is he an emotional vampire, draining the people around him of their essence while growing stronger and more in control?

She envisions him in a laboratory cooking up some special sauce to feed to all the people in town so they are happy and compliant, then reminds herself she’s gotten very little rest and had a trauma and maybe her imagination is in overdrive.

“All right. I’ll see you there.”

His smile is even bigger now, and he smacks his big hands together. “Groovy. See you there.”

He turns back to his cart and the crowd of people inside. “Now, this is the infamous Brockville Writers’ Retreat, and what a treat for you to have just met one of our talented students!” He’s off, the cart whirring away, and she feels like a hurricane has just passed through.

She drives up the hill to the cabin. It looks more like a Swiss ski chalet, a beautiful cedar A-frame with smoked glass and a stacked stone chimney, wispy smoke from an already-lit fire rising in the mountain air.

It’s not that chilly—she is wearing her sweater and jeans from the road yesterday and is comfortable—but she is entranced by the idea of a bunch of creatives sitting around a fire, talking about their work.

Then she realizes her sister stood here once, looking at the same view, waiting her turn to go inside, and chills spread across her body.

She mounts the flagstone stairs and knocks on the door. It swings open, and at first glance, the interior is as cozy and elegant as she was expecting.

“Tammy?”

Something smells off, like meat left too long in the sun. She takes three steps in and slips on something red.

Blood. Blood, everywhere.

“Run, Halley Bear. Run!”

“Tammy! Tammy Boone? Are you here?”

Grabbing onto a chair, Halley rights herself, realizing what’s happening.

She moves carefully around the puddle of blood.

It streaks and whorls and eddies over the hardwoods, a dying crimson river.

She can easily envision someone staggering from the door to the living space.

Ahead there are couches and chairs in an approximation of a circle, and in the largest one, in the head of the circle facing the fire, is the outline of a body.

Sensory overload. There is so much red.

A white rug, and finger paint everywhere.

Her mother is going to be so angry. She has to clean it up.

But she can’t reach the paper towels on the counter.

She drags a stool and climbs up. Rips them off.

Hurries back to the living room. There is something big lying on the floor.

She can’t look. She must clean up the paint.

She wipes and wipes and wipes and it smears, going deeper into the rug’s pile. She whimpers in frustration. Fear. Tears. It smells strange. Her head hurts so bad.

Voices. There are voices. The female voice shrieks. She can’t make out the words.

She looks at the mantel. The photo of the family has paint on it. The fireplace is red.

The doorbell rings, and rings, and rings again ...

Her head hurts so badly. She needs to answer the door. Needs to make the ringing stop.

But hands hold her down. A woman’s voice, soft and urgent in her ear. “Stay down. Don’t move. Make him think you’re dead.”

Halley shakes away the memory. Something new there, that voice she recognizes and yet doesn’t. The pressure of hands on her shoulders, a gasp of surprise, or was it relief? This is confusing, too much to interpret. She is on sensory overload, and she must focus.

She turns carefully, eyes trained for anything she might be trampling or otherwise ruining at what is clearly a crime scene. Her worst suspicions are confirmed.

Tammy Boone has collapsed in the leather chair facing the fire as if she sat down to rest for a moment. But she will never be rising again. Her head lolls against the cracked brown leather, and her entire torso is covered in life’s blood. Her eyes are slitted, her legs splayed apart.

Halley feels her neck for a pulse, knowing she will find none.

She is surprised by the lingering warmth on the woman’s skin.

Is she being warmed by the fire, or has she expired so recently that the body hasn’t even cooled yet?

The state of the blood, the laxity of her flesh, tells her this murder is recent.

If she had arrived sooner, could she have prevented it?

Stay calm. Focus. Call for help.

Help. The note. Did it come from Tammy? Did she know she was in the killer’s sights?

“Stay down. Don’t move. Make him think you’re dead.”

Her hands are shaking, her fingers clumsy as she dials.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“Please send the sheriff. I’m at the writers’ retreat cabin, and there’s been a murder.”

Cameron Brockton has never seen a murder victim up close and in person, of this Halley is certain.

He takes one look at Tammy and bolts for the door.

She hears him vomiting off the front step.

Interesting. She hasn’t moved since she made the phone call, afraid to contaminate the scene more than she already has.

She and the woman were alone together, and it gave her a few minutes to think.

Time that was wasted, because Halley’s adrenaline is surging, and she spent it all forcing herself not to run away.

Avoiding the footprints she tracked to the center of the cabin, she makes her way carefully to the front door and looks out.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” he says gruffly, wiping his mouth. His skin is the shade of curdled milk. “Are you?”

“I can’t say I’m thrilled at the moment, but yes, as far as my stomach, I’m okay. I don’t know what the hell is going on, though.”

“Let me get some people here.” He’s stumbling over his words, and Halley takes pity on him.

“Hey. Look at me.”

He does, and she looks him straight in the eye. “It’s going to be okay. We need to freeze this scene, and I need to be processed. I stepped in her blood when I came in and grabbed onto that chair for support, before I realized what was happening. Do you have any crime scene training?”

“Of course I do,” he snaps. “She’s a friend. I have a heart, you know.”

“I understand how hard this is. Believe me.”

“I doubt that,” he mutters. “Murder weapon?”

“I didn’t see anything. Though that much blood ... A knife, I’d guess. In keeping with the other murders.” Who has these conversations? What has her life become? A fucking horror show, that’s what.

“Why is it every person you talk to dies?”

“I am wondering the same thing. You’re still alive. So is your brother. You both know the truth. And whoever did it ... Well, the note in Marchburg said I was next, but I wasn’t, was I?”

“How are you so calm?”

Calm? Oh, Sheriff. If you had any idea what a mess the inside of my head is right now.

“I’m not. I haven’t been. I’m scared to death right now, but giving in to that invites in whoever this is.

It’s what they want. They’re trying to scare me.

It’s working, but getting hysterical is not going to solve anything.

As for Tammy, I’ve seen crime scenes before, obviously, for work.

I’m trained how to react. I’ve just never been at the center of it.

Maybe that’s why? Now, do you have a crime scene tech, or do you need my help?

This is a mess, and we’re wasting time.”

He studies her. “Or you know more than you’re letting on.”

She holds out her bloody hands. “If you honestly believe I am capable of this, put your cuffs on me again and take me to jail.”

Cameron’s face goes through an array of emotions, stopping on anger. Tammy’s final words about him come back to her. “ The oldest is trouble, if you ask me. Charms the larks from the trees, but only to eat them. He’s sly. Be careful if you ever come across him. ”

“I didn’t do this. But I do need to ask you why you didn’t mention that another woman went missing from the Brockville Writers’ Retreat and you didn’t bother mentioning that my sister created a pattern.”

“Where in the hell did you hear that?”

She nods toward Boone. “She told me. And now she’s dead, like all the others.”

He looks over her shoulder at the body again and runs a hand over his face. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“How? Am I under surveillance?”

Something moves in his dark eyes, something disturbing. Of course she is.

“If you have eyes on me, surely you have eyes on the cabin.”

“I don’t. And I’m not watching you, either. It’s a small town. People are vigilant.”

“Yeah, so vigilant no one’s talking about the women who go missing from your small town.”

“Quit attacking me. I don’t have answers, okay?”

“Well, I met your father a few minutes before I stumbled onto this scene. Maybe he can educate us both. Why don’t we go have a chat—” Her words are cut off by the sound of an electric golf cart crunching to a halt in the gravel. Speak of the devil.

“Cameron?” Miles Brockton is furious. That handsome charm is gone, replaced by a black rage. He sees Halley, and his face changes, smoothing out, losing the irate edge, but not before she recognizes something.

In that split second, he looked like the stranger who approached her.

“You really don’t remember me.”

But it’s Miles’s voice instead, saying “Oh, no. Oh, no” over and over again, until the sheriff takes his father by the shoulder and leads him away. They talk quietly, and Halley tries not to panic.

The stranger is tied more deeply to Marchburg than she realized.