Page 20 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Sixteen

I really don’t want Ben Vandergriff here.

Ever again, if I have the option. But apparently, I don’t even have the option of not summoning him to help search for my aunt, and when I realize that, I’m ashamed of my impulse.

Yes, Ben makes me uncomfortable. Not Ben himself, but his connection to Austin, the reminder of that, the fact that he thinks Austin and I were friends and I cannot set him straight.

I can’t set anyone straight, but especially Ben, who may be an ass but doesn’t deserve to have his good memories of his brother tainted.

Yet with Gail missing, I must be grateful for every bit of help. So I only raise that token protest and then shut up. Smits calls Josie, and tells her to notify the other deputy. He also leaves the Ben-summons to her, which is probably for the best.

After that, Smits and I walk up and down the beach. We don’t go far, and when we hear the car engines, Smits returns to the cottage while I keep looking.

Five minutes later, the sheriff ’s whistle brings me jogging to join them.

Josie watches me with obvious worry and offers a tentative hug, whispering, “We’ll find her.

” The other deputy—a middle-aged man introduced simply as Danny—nods sympathetically my way.

Ben just watches me, suspicion rolling off him.

“Okay, so we’re splitting up,” Smits says. “I do not expect trouble, so we don’t need the buddy system. Except for Sam. She’ll go with Ben.”

Ben and I squawk in almost perfect unison.

“I can take Sam,” Josie says.

Her father shakes his head. “I know you’ll search properly, and I know Sam will try. But if Ben’s by himself, he’ll just plunk his ass down and tell us he covered his quadrant.”

“Remind me why I’m here again?” Ben says.

“Because the daughter of your goddamn employer is missing. On the property where you are supposed to be taking care of things.”

I open my mouth to say that this isn’t Ben’s fault. But everyone knows that, and if I say so, it’ll sound as if he could be blamed.

Smits and Danny will take the beach, one heading west and one east. Josie will take the west side of the cottages. Ben and I get the east, including the shed. That’s where he heads first. I tell him it’s locked, but he just keeps walking. That’s fine—I want to check it anyway.

It’s only as he’s opening the shed that I remember the hatchet and bloody gloves, and I hurry inside to warn him. He’s going to see that. Then I’ll need to explain and—

There’s no hatchet. Both that and the gloves are gone.

Did Gail move them?

There’s no sign of Gail in the shed. Ben does a full round with his flashlight. Then he leaves and heads for the trail. He’s walking west, toward the road, and I’m about to stop him when I see my uncle’s cottage ahead.

Ben circles the cottage, hunting for signs of entry. He tests the boards and the doorknob and peers at the windows. He even hunkers down to check the base of the porch, in case there’s a hole or gap there. Then, without a word, he carries on.

We’re walking through the forest, along one of the trails, when I can’t take the silence anymore.

“I’m not sorry you were called in,” I say. “I’ll take all the help I can get. But I am sorry that Sheriff Smits is being an asshole.”

“He has to be. Otherwise, I’d die of shock and you’d be down one searcher.”

“I don’t understand what his problem is with you.”

“None of your business, Samantha.”

I let it go for five steps. Then I say, “It’s Sam. You know that. You’re being a jerk, and I’m asking you to stop.”

“In all correspondence with your grandfather, he refers to you as Samantha.”

“Because he was being a jerk. That’s the word for someone who insists on calling you by a name you don’t like, Benjamin.”

He shakes his head and keeps walking. Every few steps, he’ll stop and peer into the forest, and I really don’t know what Smits’s problem is, because I’m sure Ben would search just as thoroughly without me here.

We’ve walked another fifty feet, both of us scouring the sides of the path, when he says, “There’s no riptide. It’s a lake.”

“Don’t argue semantics. Undertow. Riptide. Giant wave.”

“Giant wave?” He turns so I can see his eye roll.

“My grandfather said the waves can get up to thirty feet high.”

“In a storm. Waves require wind, Sam.”

My cheeks heat, and I snap, “Fine. You’re right. So maybe Gail just walked into the water and drowned. Driven to it by the hell of being locked up here with me.”

He keeps walking. “My point is that I don’t think your aunt drowned. It makes no sense. And, yeah, I heard that shit about footprints and drag marks, but I can give you a dozen explanations for what would look like drag marks.”

“So she just left? That’s what you think?”

“I think you two should have damned well let me camp out when I asked.”

My face screws up. “You asked to camp here?”

He turns to study me. “Your aunt didn’t tell you?”

I shake my head.

“After you saw someone in the shed and got that rabbit on the front porch, I said I should stay on-site at night. Camp in front of the cottage. She refused. She said you both didn’t want that.”

So she made the decision without asking me.

The wrong decision?

While I do not want Ben Vandergriff living outside my door, if he had been there last night, would he have seen Gail? Heard her if she got into trouble? She might not even have ventured out knowing he was there.

“You think whoever I saw attacked my aunt,” I say. “Hurt her.”

“Nah. I’m sure she’s fine. Just fell and twisted her ankle. Or maybe sat down and drifted off.”

A chill runs down my neck, those words echoing something deep in my brain, memories I’d presumed long forgotten.

It’s the day Austin Vandergriff disappeared.

Mom and I are joining the search party in the woods behind the Vandergriff house.

Ben’s there, an acne-pocked teen standing by himself, staring down at his sneakers as Sheriff Smits explains the search procedure.

First, though, Smits reassures us that Austin was probably fine.

“Maybe he fell and twisted his ankle. Or sat down and drifted off.”

Does Ben know he’s parroting those old words? He could be mocking me. My aunt disappears just like his brother, so he says the same thing, while clearly meaning my aunt has met a similar fate—murdered and buried in a shallow grave.

But there’s no sign of mockery in his voice or expression. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s repeating Smits, the words bubbling up from his own subconscious.

Fell and twisted her ankle.

Sat down and drifted off.

Another memory bobs below the surface, one too deep for me to pull up. I’m maybe five or six, my hand stretching up to hold my father’s, and we’re …

I struggle to draw out the memory. We’re in town. Dad’s talking to someone. A woman? Discussing a tourist who’d gone missing. A camper? A hiker? The woman’s voice.

Oh, he’s fine, I’m sure. All this fuss over nothing. Fellow probably stumbled and broke his ankle. Or just drifted off and had a nice nap. That’s if he even disappeared from here. Could have been anywhere from here to the highway.

The email from my grandfather flashes back, that podcast link he sent me.

“Paynes Hollow: The Bermuda Triangle of Upstate New York?”

I give myself a thorough shake, glad that Ben has resumed walking, his back to me.

I’m inventing connections. My aunt, Austin Vandergriff, some random hiker. As for breaking an ankle or falling asleep, those are the most likely scenarios in any disappearance like this, where there’s plenty of countryside to wander but not enough to get lost in.

We’re walking on a smaller trail when a voice calls “Ho!” from somewhere to our left. It’s Danny, the deputy assigned to this side of the lake.

“Got something!” he shouts.

I start to run. I race full out, even as Ben shouts for me to slow down, watch where I’m going. I ignore him, dodging through trees, the path abandoned as I run on a direct course to Danny’s voice.

My foot catches a half-buried branch and I go flying face-first, sprawling onto the forest floor. I leap up and get two running steps before my ankle gives out.

Fell and twisted her ankle.

I vault back to my feet.

“Sam!” Ben snaps. “Stop!”

When I ignore him, he catches me around the waist. Maybe that should ignite a wild panic. Maybe it should remind me of all the times his brother grabbed me, threw me down, kicked me, slapped me. But I don’t have that visceral connection. That was Austin. This is Ben. I had never confused the two.

“Slow down,” Ben hisses at my ear, and his tone impatient but not unkind. “It’s okay. Just slow down before you hurt yourself.”

“I need—I need—” I can’t get the words out, and I angrily wipe at my tears.

“You need to see what Danny found. I get it. But you’re not getting there if you fall and impale yourself on a damn branch. Now you’ve done something to your ankle.”

I hiccup a half-hysterical laugh.

Fell and twisted her ankle.

“Take my arm, and we’ll keep moving. Just don’t expect me to carry you. I don’t do that shit.”

My laugh now is a wheezy snort. I take his arm, my own shaking, and I put a little weight on his so we can move faster.

In twenty steps, we’re at the shore. I spot Danny maybe fifty feet away, holding something out in the other direction, where Sheriff Smits is approaching.

My gaze drops to the beach, looking for my aunt. There’s no sign of her.

Smits reaches Danny first. He looks at something in Danny’s hand and then takes it and turns to us as we approach.

“Sam?” Smits says gently. “Do you recognize this?”

He holds it up. It’s a pink and blue flip-flop.

Twisted with weeds from the lake bottom.