Page 19 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Fifteen

It’s nearly eight o’clock now. I’ve walked to the beach. I’ve taken one of the trails. And I’ve called. That’s where I start and where I end, with constant calls. Gail’s phone goes straight to voicemail. I’ve texted. I’ve left messages. Nothing.

I’m sitting on the front porch when my brain finally calms enough to think beyond the last hour, and I bolt upright.

The lights.

Last night, she came to my door and said she saw my lights on the water. I’d withdrawn under the covers and presumed she’d go to bed. But what if she didn’t? What if she’d gone out?

And didn’t come back in.

That would explain the open door far better than thinking she’d gone for a predawn walk and forgot to close it. What if, last night, she’d seen the lights and stepped out, thinking it was just for a moment, and then …

I race toward the beach. Earlier, when I’d searched it, I’d come from the road. Now, going straight from the cottage, I stop short.

My aunt’s flip-flop prints are right there, in the dew-damp sand. She’s walking toward the beach. Unhurried. In two spots, she seems to stop, the prints scuffed as if she’d stood there and peered around before continuing on.

Like me the night before. Seeing lights on the water and drawing closer until—

Until I saw that head pop up, seal-sleek.

I shake it off. Of all the things I saw, that was the one I definitely imagined. Dreamed in my sleepwalking state. But I’d spotted the lights several times, so Gail could have seen those.

She wasn’t lying to lure me out of my room. She actually saw something.

Her footprints get closer and closer to the water’s edge. Then they stop and—

My breath catches. I’m staring down at my aunt’s prints, multiple sets, as if she’d paced and then headed to the west. She got about ten steps and—

And I don’t know what I’m seeing. It’s a mess of marks in the sand. My aunt’s prints veer left, as if she’d been heading back to the cottage. They’re deeper, farther apart, only the balls of her feet sinking in.

Like my own footprints from the night before. When I’d been running.

Her prints only go a few feet, though, before they’re ground into a mess of disturbed sand. Two more of her prints to the west, running leaps in that direction and then—

And then the ground is chewed up, a roiling mass of sand, dirt, and ripped-out grasses. I stand there, staring down. Then I see more marks, heading toward the water.

Drag marks.

I recoil fast. No, this is not what it looks like.

My paranoia is interpreting them in the most disturbing way.

Yes, they’re my aunt’s footprints as she investigated the lights.

Then she heard the door banging, realized she hadn’t shut it and ran back.

Her footprints seem to end, but that’s only because the ground is harder here.

As for that scuffle, it had nothing to do with Gail.

Just some animals fighting in the same spot.

Maybe an eagle swooping down on some small critter.

What did Ben say? That if an eagle attacked, we’d only see blood and fur, if that much.

On sand, we’d see signs of a struggle. The drag marks are an eagle landing. Or maybe an osprey.

I justify. I justify madly. And yet I cannot look at these marks without seeing my aunt being hauled out into the lake by—

By what?

The drowned body of Austin Vandergriff?

I did not see Austin. I am not seeing my aunt’s final moments, dragged into the water by a dead boy.

So where is she?

I head inside and look for her phone. She keeps it in a wallet case and carries it shoved into a pocket, like I do. She has a laptop bag, and that’s still in her room, along with her laptop. There’s no sign of her phone.

I try calling it again and still get voicemail. That had panicked me earlier, but now that I’m thinking it through, I remember seeing her scrolling through her phone late last night. She probably didn’t charge it. She goes out, pocketing it, but not realizing it’s almost dead.

A thought hits, and I lift my own phone, hitting buttons as I check her last known location. It’s from a few hours ago, and it’s nearby. I zoom in and walk in the direction of the dot. That takes me out the door and down toward the beach and—

I stand on the water’s edge, looking at the dot out somewhere in front of me.

In the lake.

I swallow and back up fast, shaking my head.

The GPS isn’t precise, especially not out here. Still, I wade into the water, phone lifted, trying to gauge where it’s showing me.

I’m in to my knees, and on the screen, my blue dot has barely moved. Her last-known indicator is far out in the lake. Which means it’s wrong.

Unless—

No, it’s wrong. Like the time I was fourteen, and Mom and I had a big fight, and I’d stormed off. When she checked my location, it apparently showed me walking in the middle of a highway, and she’d suspected the worst.

Of course I hadn’t been walking down the highway. I’d been a half mile away on a hiking trail.

Gail’s last known location is somewhere on the property. That’s all I can really say.

I check the time of that last ping. Seven hours ago. So just past one in the morning.

Did that mean she went out to see the lights? Maybe. That’d been closer to midnight, but her phone could have died around one, maybe even after she’d gone back inside.

Except she’s not inside.

I retreat to the porch, sit on the step and bury my face in my hands. I keep hearing Gail from yesterday, seeing the way she looked at me, that combination of fear and pity. Thinking I’d mutilated those animals and—

I swallow.

I’m trying very hard not to panic because I don’t want her strolling back from a walk, finding Sheriff Smits in our yard and me in hysterics, babbling about footprints and drag marks and her phone signal in the lake.

I don’t want to prove she’s right and I’m losing it.

But in stifling the whirling fear, am I also doing what she accused me of? Reacting too calmly?

She thought I cut up those animals and “hid” the hatchet—

My head snaps up. The shed! Yes! Where might Gail go this morning? To the shed, for another look, to think this through while I’m sleeping.

I’m halfway there before I remember the keys. I pause, ready to run back. But if she’s there, she’ll have opened it with her keys.

Except her keys are on the counter.

No, I’m actually not sure she put the cottage and shed keys on that ring. After my overheated brain spends much too long deciding, I continue running for the shed. I reach it to find the door shut, and yet I still check the padlock, as if she could somehow be in there with it latched. It’s locked.

“Gail?” I back up and look around. “Gail!”

Tires crunch on the road, and my heart sings. Even as my brain says this can’t be Gail—her car is beside the cottage—it also comes up with explanations. Her car wouldn’t start, and she walked to Paynes Hollow for help because her phone was dead.

Does this make sense? Of course not, but I cling to it as I run back to the cottage. I’m halfway there when a much more plausible explanation hits, and I skid to a stop.

What if those tires were the sounds of Gail leaving? If she’d been outside, thinking things through, and then saw me running about like a madwoman and realized she should leave. She waited until I was gone and now she’s fleeing.

Fleeing me.

No, she wouldn’t do that.

She thinks I carved up—

She thinks I’m traumatized. She’s not afraid of me.

Am I sure?

I break into a slow jog, and soon I see Gail’s car where she left it. On the other side is a familiar pickup.

I race around the cottage just as Sheriff Smits is climbing from his truck. The morning sun is in his eyes, and he shades them as he looks my way.

“Morning,” he says. “Sorry for the early visit, but I wanted to check on you girls. See if anyone left any more grisly presents this morning.”

I shake my head. “Nothing, but my aunt’s gone.”

“Oh?” He’s still shading his eyes, trying to see me. “Left early for…” He trails off as he turns toward her car.

“No, she’s missing. Gone. I don’t know where.”

He’s walked into the shade of the cottage, where he can see my expression, and he stops walking. “Missing?”

The words tumble out. “I was up at dawn. The screen door was banging. She was gone, and at first, I thought someone kidnapped her, but her sandals are missing. I can’t find her.

Her phone’s dead. There’s been no signal for hours.

There are footprints on the beach, and her last signal was from the lake and—” My breath catches so hard it nearly doubles me over.

“The water. An undertow. A riptide. I never thought about—”

“Sam?” His hands land on my shoulders. “Take a deep breath.”

I pull back. “No, you don’t understand. There are footprints. Hers. Then drag marks.” I turn and run toward the beach. “I can show you.”

He follows, and I run until I reach the first prints, and then put out a hand to stop him.

“They start here,” I say. “She’s wearing her flip-flops. You can see how she’s walking, just strolling along.”

“Okay…”

I’m well aware of how I sound, like a kid playing detective, but I can’t stop myself. I need him to understand.

“Then here.” I point. “She stops and seems to start running toward the cottage, but something happens. See it there? The scuffle of footprints?”

“Okay…”

“Then over here. These lines in the sand. They’re like drag marks, right?”

He walks alongside them and says nothing, just crouches for a better look.

“Here’s her last known location.” I hold out the phone. “Around one in the morning. It’s—it’s out on the water. I think she was walking along the beach and the undercurrent grabbed her. Or she saw a rogue wave and tried to run.”

“Rogue wave…”

My jaw sets. “They happen. My grandfather told us about one.”

“I’m not arguing, Sam. I’m working it through.”

I look out at the lake. A hand squeezes my shoulder, and I glance up through teary eyes to see Sheriff Smits. He seems ready to pull me into a hug, but then settles for another awkward shoulder squeeze.

“You don’t think that’s what happened,” I say.

“I’m really hoping it’s not. Can I see that locator again?”

I pass him my cell. “The blue dot is my phone. The icon is Gail’s. It shows the time and location of the last ping.”

He examines it. Turns toward her icon, holding the phone up and walking toward the water.

“GPS isn’t very accurate out here,” he says.

“I know, and I could be misinterpreting everything, but that doesn’t explain where she is.

” I wave at the forest. “She hasn’t come out to even stroll along the beach since we arrived.

She never walked the trails alone when we were young.

Gail isn’t outdoorsy. At all. I can’t imagine her being struck by the urge for a moonlit stroll. ”

“You said she has a gun.”

I pause, taking a moment to process the segue.

He continues, “What if she saw your trespasser and took the gun outside to talk to him? I certainly hope not—for her sake—but do you know where she keeps it?”

I take him inside. As I do, I point out the empty mat where she keeps her flip-flops and then I show him her keys on the counter, which I now see do include the cottage and shed keys.

We go into her room, and I pull the gun case from under her bed.

It’s closed and locked. I have the combination, so I use it and open the box to reveal the gun.

Smits looks around the room. Then he heads into the main area and looks around some more. “You said the screen door was banging?”

I nod as I join him. “In the wind this morning.”

“So she went out, expecting she wouldn’t be gone for long. Probably around midnight. Any idea why?”

“I…” I swallow. “We had a bit of a fight last night.”

His eyes narrow. “A bit of a fight?”

“An argument.”

“Did it come to blows?”

“What? No.”

“There’s a bruise on your leg, Sam. A fresh one.”

“She caught my arm to talk to me, and I yanked away and fell. That’s all. Afterward, I retreated to my room. She came to the door, probably around midnight, saying she saw lights in the water. I’d been seeing them.”

“Lights on the water?”

“Under it. Something bioluminescent, I presume. Anyway, she hadn’t seen them, and last night, she said she did. I figured she was humoring me.”

“Because you’d argued. Over what?”

I shrug, hoping my face isn’t reddening. “Just being here.”

“She wanted to leave?”

“She thought I did. I don’t. Like I said, it was just a little tiff.

” Liar. “I headed to bed early partly to stop fighting, but mostly just because I was tired.” Liar.

“But yes, I figured she was humoring me about the lights so I went to sleep. I didn’t hear her leave, but I also wasn’t listening for it. ”

He nods, thoughtful, and then says, “Getting a closer look at the lights would explain why she’d be out at the lake.”

I swallow, fighting to control my racing heart. “Yes.”

He leans back, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. “I’m really hoping there’s a simple explanation here, Sam. Maybe she went for a walk after looking at your lights. Maybe she fell and twisted her ankle.”

I need to force out the words. “But you don’t think that’s what happened.”

“I don’t know,” he says firmly. “Even if she was pulled into the lake by an undertow, she very well may have come up on shore somewhere else. Exhausted by the fight, having lost her cell phone, she passes out.”

“Okay. That makes sense. So now…?”

“Now we search. Let me get Josie and my other deputy here.” He starts walking away, taking out his phone. “I’ll call in that lazy-ass caretaker, too.”

I step toward his retreating back. “Don’t bother Ben with this.”

Smits snorts and lifts the phone to his ear. “Ben should be bothered a little more often, if you want my opinion. He’s coming. Doing some work for once.”