In Strange Woods - Claire Cray Page 0,33

couldn’t see out through the leaves. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees and sat as still and silent as he could.

The engine seemed to be right by him now, and he bit his lips hard when it slowed down and stuttered to an idle. There was a brief flare of static, and a woman’s voice speaking. “Yeah, I’m all the way to the pile. And there’s no way it was Beau, ‘cause I just saw ‘im at the cabin. Tell Bud he’s on crack. Over.”

Shit.

A man’s voice came from a radio. “Wanda wants to know if you see any footprints. Over.”

There was a pause as the woman muttered to herself, then a rustling and the sound of boots landing in the mud. After a moment she spoke again. “All right, well this is fuckin’ weird. Yeah, we got some footprints comin’ in.”

For a second James believed he was fucked. Then he remembered that they’d have to find the point where he’d left the road before they could track him.

“All right,” the woman said. “I’m gonna backtrack, see where they go. Come out and meet me. Over.”

“Copy that. Out.”

The engine revved up again and went roaring back from where it had come. As soon as he felt like it was far enough away, he pulled himself out of the thorny bush and started running as fast as he could.

Chapter 14: Worries

After another cup of coffee and a warm goodbye at Deenie’s, Hunter headed into town and dialed up James.

What a trip to think their grandmothers and Deenie had been best friends. Maybe if he got James and Deenie together, she’d tell him the whole story—and how exactly he was related to Beau. It sure didn’t sound like they were twins. If Grace had run off as a teenager, James probably hadn’t been born in Woodstock. Deenie hadn’t mentioned her being a teen mom.

James didn’t answer his cell, and Hunter felt a twinge of unease. Don’t be paranoid, he ordered himself, and tried James’s room at the Sea Witch. Still no answer. Maybe it was just too early.

Setting aside his nagging, irrational worry, Hunter headed to the Cedar Crest house, where some closets were being prepped for new cedar paneling. But as the morning wore on and there was no response from James, it got harder and harder not to wonder if it was a mistake to leave him alone last night. Even though he knew he was probably overreacting, he couldn’t totally dismiss his instincts. Especially when he kept randomly thinking of his sister.

Back when Amy disappeared, he knew she was in trouble. She had left goodbye letters, which his parents took as proof that she’d run away. They wouldn’t listen to him when he said that wasn’t it. No one believed him. No one cared. And after they found her hanging in the woods behind the church, they never once acknowledged that they’d been warned, and hadn’t done a thing.

Hunter shook his head. Whether his concern for James was reasonable or just an echo of his own childhood trauma, the only cure for it was to make sure he was okay. At ten thirty he went to the Sea Witch and knocked on James’s door.

No one answered, and he didn’t like it. Frowning hard, he went back down to the lobby.

“Hey, man,” he said to the goth teen at the front desk. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Have you—”

“He’s not here,” the goth said—in a gloomy, monotone voice, naturally. “Left around nine.”

“All right. Thanks.” That was a slight relief. At least James hadn’t gone out and fallen off a bridge or something last night.

Back in his truck, he shot James a quick text: Hey dude give me a call. Then he headed back upriver. He had some accounting to deal with, plus a few pain-in-the-ass phone calls to make. The world didn’t stop just because he had a massive crush on somebody he’d known for two, three days.

Then he came up on Pike Creek.

“Fuck me.” Hunter hit the brakes too hard, bracing his hands on the steering wheel as the truck lurched to a stop. He reversed and backed up Pike Creek Road, parking bumper-to-bumper with the black hatchback sitting about ten feet shy of where it had just been hauled out of the mud the day before.

Goddammit. Hunter turned off the ignition, hopped out of the truck, and stalked up to James’s abandoned car, immediately seeing the footprints stamped in the mud. They led right