Dark Hollow Road (Taryn's Camera Book 3) (17 page)

“Okay,” he agreed, a light turning back on in his eyes. “And a bottle of wine?”

Or a box
, she muttered to herself.

“We don’t have to do too much, okay?” she repeated gently. “These are young adults who probably just want to listen to music and dance. Get into some trouble. We’re going to be the old fuddy duddies hanging out because they were too polite to not ask us.”

“Are you going to drink?” he asked with honest concern. “You know how alcohol has been affecting you recently. It might make your headaches and joint pain worse.”

“I don’t get that,” she mused. “That glass of wine I had the other night with dinner was nothing compared to what I’ve done in the past and, yet, I felt like I had a major hangover. Do you think that’s why I…”

“Passed out?” he offered. “Maybe. You said you were feeling a little dizzy earlier.”

“I was going to say see Cheyenne’s ghost but I guess passing out could have been because of the wine, too. Matt, do you think maybe there’s something wrong with my brain?” The idea had been troubling her but considering how she was feeling before Cheyenne’s spirit, or whatever it was, took a little stroll on all fours to her bed she couldn’t discount the notion.

“What do you mean?”

“My brain. The headaches? The dizziness? The tingling I’ve been feeling in my arms and my pain? Do you think there might be something wrong with my brain and that’s why I am the way I am?” Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes and she did her best to fight them back. Breaking down in the middle of the old Wal-Mart that had temporarily been converted into a seasonal Halloween store would not be cool.

“What do you mean ‘the way you are’?” he asked gently.

“The ghosts, the feelings. What I see through Miss Dixie. What if I am not sensitive or I’m not seeing or feeling things at all? At least nothing paranormal. What if I just have a brain tumor?”

“Oh, sweetie, my little love,’ he patted her affectionately on the cheek. “You do need to get yourself to the doctor. I think there might be something wrong that could easily be fixed. But what you’ve been going through with the spirits has nothing to do with your physical health. Unless you’re bringing me into it by some sort of weird mass hallucination deal.”

Taryn felt a wave of relief wash over her, followed by another nagging concern of finding a physician. “But, haven’t you noticed things are different here?”

“How so?”

“I’m seeing more, I guess you could say. Or hearing more. It’s not just in the photos anymore. I feel like Cheyenne has found me and is trying to talk to me. Or something. Why have things changed?”

“Didn’t you know?” he asked nonchalantly, picking at an invisible piece of lint on her black sweater.

“Know what?”

“It’s because I’m here.”

“Oh Matt,” Taryn giggled, giving him a slight push on the shoulder.

“I’m serious,” he vowed and she could see he was. Her smile faded. “I’ve always known we’re stronger together, that we can create our own energy. You’re my soulmate, Taryn; together, we’re a force. The other world knows it, too.”

T
helma, at the risk of sounding weird, I want to ask you something.”

Taryn was sitting with Cheyenne’s mother in her sunroom. The bright October sun offered warmth through the windows, although the day was deceivingly cold. The temperature was hovering around 35 degrees and the weather man had even called for snow flurries, although nobody thought it was cold enough to stick.

“What is it, dear?”

Taryn fumbled with her mug of hot chocolate and delicately wiped at the lipstick smudged she’d left behind. Elvis’ face from the 1968 comeback special smiled at her every time she took a drink. Thelma, on the other hand, was drinking from a chipped mug that boasted an image of two cartoon girls with the words “A Sister is a Forever Friend” inscribed on the side.

“Have you ever felt like Cheyenne was trying to communicate with you in some way?” It was a sensitive question because, no matter how Taryn phrased it, it alluded to the idea Thelma’s daughter was dead.

Rather than looking upset, however, Thelma cocked her head and studied her drink. Finally, she answered. “There are times when I feel like she is near me. I’ve prayed to God she would give me a sign, either way, and let me know she’s okay. I’ve seen her in my dreams, I’ve even heard her voice when I was almost asleep. But nothing concrete. I wish I could. Why, have you?”

She asked this last bit hurriedly, with a dash of hope Taryn found sad and pitiful. She couldn’t tell her about the vision in her bedroom; that wasn’t the Cheyenne Thelma would want to know about. But maybe she could offer her something.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I mean, I don’t know how much of it is Cheyenne and how much of it is just my over-active imagination because she’s on my mind. But in my first few days here I heard a woman scream. Before I even knew about your daughter. And I’ve heard it since then, too.”

“But Cheyenne’s not on the farm,” Thelma protested.

“I know. And that’s what I don’t understand. Maybe I am just picking up on her energy there. I’ve dreamed about her a lot, too. I can’t tell you what that means–if she’s trying to communicate with me or I’m just wrapped up in her story. I mean, in her life.” Taryn corrected herself since, to Thelma, this was not a story but her daughter’s life they were speaking about.

“It would make sense to get a feel for her in the cabin,” Thelma agreed. “She loved it there. Used to go with us and stay when it was hunting and fishing season. She’d take her books and read, play with the dogs, just kind of run ragged. Then, when she got older, she didn’t care for it as much. You know how teenagers are. She didn’t like staying out so far away from her friends. The last couple times we went she stayed with friends.”

“I’m enjoying being out there,” Taryn assured her. “The break-in excluded, of course.”

Thelma leaned forward and, in a conspirator’s whisper, confided in Taryn. “I haven’t been sleeping real good lately. Been staying up late, sometimes all night. I found this website, see, where they post pictures of people who have been found dead but they don’t know who they are? Well, they ain’t real pictures; they’re artists’ renderings of the bodies. I look every night, going over the images and ages and heights of all them girls. They’ve got ‘em from all over the country. I keep thinking I might see her. Maybe she went to another state and someone found her and she’s out there, laying in a morgue, and nobody knows who she is.”

The awfulness of it struck Taryn cold. The idea of Thelma, wrapped up in her housecoat, glued to her computer night after night, staring at images of dead bodies, hoping and not hoping one of them might be her daughter was horrible.

Taryn could hear the front door open and what sounded like the stomping of boots on the laminate floor. “My husband’s home,” Thelma explained. “Jeff. Excuse him. He works foundations and always comes home covered head to toe in mud and concrete.”

A few moments later, a middle-aged man with a stubby beard streaked with gray and a paunch belly walked out to the sunroom. He’d taken off his boots and his once-white socks were dingy and gray. A big toe poked out on the right side. Like Thelma had said, he was covered from top to bottom in muck, but he was a nice-looking man and had a friendly smile.

“How’s it going over there? Any more trouble?”

“No, it’s been quiet,” Taryn replied.

“Your man back there with you now?”

Taryn reddened at the question, embarrassed. “Yes, he’s there with me.”

“That’s good. You don’t need to be staying out there by yourself. Need yourself a gun, too,” he grunted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Taryn badly wanted to point out that she’d lived by herself for a long time, traveled alone, and had spent more time in the isolated countryside than in the city. And then there was the fact she was more masculine than Matt and could probably kick someone’s ass before he could. But that wasn’t the point. In his own way, he was showing concern.

“Taryn just asked me if I’d heard or seen Cheyenne’s ghost since she disappeared,” Thelma explained.

Taryn opened her mouth to protest, since that’s not exactly what she’d asked, but Jeff waved her off. “Naw, can’t say I have. Wish I did. When she up and left I ain’t seen hide nor hair since. Not a trace of her. Like she disappeared off the face of the earth. I still think she’s going to come back. I have to, you know.”

Taryn used her time to try and study the man whom, by some accounts, Cheyenne hadn’t particularly liked. He was friendly, likable, but what would it have been like to live with him? Was he really that tough on her? Was there something more? Had she really watched too many episodes of Law and Order?

“You know, some people didn’t like the way we handled things,” he continued.

“What do you mean?”

Jeff shrugged and a cloud of dust fell from his shoulder. “Some folks thought we ought to be more active, get on that Nancy Grace show or talk to Oprah.”

“We tried,” Thelma cut in. “We contacted all the big shows. Nobody cared about a girl from the middle of nowhere in Georgia. Never even got any replies.”

“We did some TV interviews, but I did the talking. Some folks thought it ought to have been Thelma here pleading for her little girl to come home.” He spat this out, disgusted. “Said if there was a kidnapper the mama would appeal to them more. But like hell I was going to put her in front of the TV like that. When we married I vowed to take care of her. And I meant it. She was in no shape to talk to reporters. I’m the closest thing that girl had to a daddy. It was my responsibility.”

“I wasn’t doing too good at the time,” Thelma confessed, gazing up at Jeff with veneration. “They gave me this medicine that was supposed to take the edge off. Made me feel like a zombie is what it did. Some people said I was on drugs. And I was! I had to be, just to get through the days. He was doing me a favor by taking over.”

“When it’s not happening to them, everybody’s got an opinion on how you should be handling things,” Jeff hissed. “Unless they’ve been through it themselves they can kiss my ass.”

“I know what you mean,” Taryn agreed, trying to break the tension. “When my husband died people kept telling me I needed to move on, get out more, do this and that. And that was just a few weeks after it happened. My real grief took months to kick in, almost a year. Before, I was just in shock, a zombie.”

Jeff nodded, relief on his face. “Yeah, well, you get it then. You never know how you’re gonna act until you’re in the situation. And we’d never knowed anyone to lose a child before, at least not like this. We didn’t know what to do or how to act.”

After he went off to get changed, Thelma turned back to Taryn. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “He gets worked up a little. Some people even think he had something to do with her missing. But I don’t believe it. They might not have seen eye to eye regularly but he loved her. He’d never hurt her.”

Taryn had no idea what to say. The more she thought about it, the more awful it sounded. There in the sunroom, she was surrounded by memories of Cheyenne. Pictures on the wall painted her life, from the row of school photos to the senior portraits of her standing in a field of daisies, her red cowboy boots gleaming in the morning sun. Cheyenne might not have been dead, but Taryn was in her tomb and everyone around her in a wake they hadn’t yet left.

A
lthough it was chilly, and growing colder by the minute, Taryn sat on the ground in the middle of the farmhouse’s front yard. The grass was dry, but the cold earth below it still managed to numb her bottom and legs. The wind whipped icy fingers around her face and down the back of her neck. Her feet, always cold regardless of temperature, ached from the walk over. Her hands, snug in gloves, were about the only things that still had feeling left.

The old house set stoically behind her, watching her. The air was still and quiet. In just two weeks the sounds of laughter, music, and clinking of glass and plastic would fill the air. It would be a whole lot like what Cheyenne had heard on her last night. Would Miss Dixie pick up on anything then? Would it feel like recreating that fateful party? Taryn didn’t know.

If I do have something, she thought to herself, then let me feel it now. She sat cross-legged, her hands on her legs, palms up. Willing herself to be open to any energy surrounding her, she took deep breaths, in and out, tried to clear her mind. Maybe it was true that being with Matt made her stronger but it didn’t negate the fact that whatever she saw and felt originated in her. If the trees or grass or house knew anything, they weren’t giving up their secrets. The fire pit was dry as a bone, lifeless. The last fire it had seen was a long time ago. The wood pile was stacked and ready to go, waiting for slaughter. There was nothing around her offering any clues for Cheyenne.

“I’m losing it,” she finally giggled when nothing happened. “I’m freezing my ass off and losing my damn mind.”

Nothing had ever happened to her by sheer will before; she didn’t know why she expected this time to be any different. Still, she’d tried.

As she was rising to her feet, the sound of the screen door behind her slapping against the frame with a “bang” startled her. She nearly lost her footing and tripped a little before catching her balance and straightening up. When she turned around, she half-expected to see someone standing on the front porch, watching her. But the porch and doorway were empty; the front door was closed, too. It was only the wind making the screen thrash back and forth.

But then it happened again, only this time, as she watched, the door opened slowly, deliberately. It held itself open for a few seconds before, once again, banging shut with a force. Maybe it was the wind, and maybe it wasn’t. Taryn couldn’t be sure something was trying to send her a message but since it was the only thing she had to go on, she turned Miss Dixie on and aimed her at the house.

A few clicks later and she was studying her LCD screen, hoping she might have caught something but not holding her breath. She’d taken dozens of pictures of the farmhouse and had so far been unlucky. This time, though, she’d found something.

While it was still daylight now, in the picture it was nighttime. Blaze from a fire cast shadows on the front of the house and she caught these pretty vividly with the camera. The house was dark, except for a faint light glowing from the downstairs left window. A candle, maybe? Flashlight? It wasn’t the shadows or the light she focused on, however. Standing in the doorway, peering out at her with the same pale eyes she’d seen at her bedside, was Cheyenne. Only this time she was very much alive.