refused. Worried about someone cracking my head open for a bunch of bad memories, he almost pulled me from her care, until she agreed to back off on the psych eval. Even if she never got to the root of my problems, nor helped me remember what really happened all those years back, the hallucinations lessened over time.
But then Russ got laid off, and we lost insurance, so I had to stop seeing her.
That’s when they returned.
As if that isn’t bad enough, I also sleepwalk, which has made for some interesting mornings, when I’ve woken to the sound of birds while lying sprawled out beneath the trees in the middle of the woods.
I’ve had so many dreams, both sleeping and awake, that are so vivid, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s imagined.
16
Céleste
It’s well into the afternoon by the time I head back to the house. I’d like to do a little more searching around in daylight, to see if I can figure out to what this key, that my father felt so compelled to leave behind for me, belongs. As I turn down the path toward the house, I catch sight of a marked vehicle parked in front of the house, about a half mile up the drive.
Shit.
Heart in my throat, I slam on the breaks, and the worn truck tires skid across the loose gravel, pinging against the undercarriage. I turn the truck off the gravely drive and blaze an untrodden path down into the woods. Wheels bouncing over branches and uneven terrain, I must look like a runaway train car.
Once parked well out of sight, I hustle out of the vehicle and through the brush for a closer inspection.
The patrol car sits empty, its driver nowhere in sight. Padding even closer brings me pressed against the side of the house, and I duck behind an unruly shrub situated below a broken window. The sound of rustling stirs my curiosity, and one quick peek over the ledge shows a man in the typical tan shirt and dark slacks, with a tall-brimmed, brown hat and aviators that a sheriff would wear. Gray hair and his balding crown puts him somewhere in the neighborhood of late fifties.
Crouched by my sleeping bag, he pokes around the empty bags and Coke bottle that I left earlier, before pushing to his feet. He tugs a cellphone from his side and strides toward the window where I’ve hidden.
Flattened to the wall, I don’t move a muscle when the crunch of his boots feels like he’s right behind me, staring down at me.
“Yeah. I checked it out. Looks like some punks messing around again. Ain’t no half naked girl anywhere, like those kids said.” At the pause of his voice, I turn my head to focus on the muffled response through his phone, but can’t make out a single word. “Little shits been comin’ here for years, drinkin’ and gettin’ high, and scarin’ themselves wit’ ghost stories. Probably a couple teenagers foolin’ ’round, havin’ sex.”
Another pause.
“I don’ have the damn manpower to be babysittin’ this place all the galddamn time. We scoured the house with a fine-toothed comb all those months back. Whatever was here ain’t here no more. Just let it be.”
Whatever was here? What were they looking for?
The bumpy edges of the key pass beneath my fingertips as I brush my hand over where it’s tucked inside the V of my dress.
A renewed curiosity stirs inside of me, and now I’m determined to find whatever it is that my father left behind for me to find.
“Yeah. Yeah, I got ya. I’ll be in touch.” The Sheriff groans, and at the crunch of gravel and glass, I peek through the window to find myself staring at his back. Hands on his hips, he looks around the room and swipes up my sleeping bag from the floor, holding it to his face.
Frowning, I watch him sniff the fabric.
Ugh. What the hell is wrong with this guy?
It’s not until he exits the house and fires up his patrol car that I slip out of my hiding spot, watching him retreat back down the long drive.
Who the hell was he talking to that would be so interested in finding something here?
The sleeping bag lies in a heap when I go back inside, and I’m grateful I didn’t leave any clothes around, because I have a feeling he’d have taken them as a souvenir.
At the new sound of an engine, my muscles steel once more, and I