Dark Hollow Road (Taryn's Camera Book 3) (24 page)

“Oh, she’s a stripper?” Taryn asked.

“Yes,” Thelma explained. “Hooters.”

Taryn smiled wryly.

“Why do you want me to talk to her now?”

“Welllll…” Thelma hemmed and hawed, “I don’t think anyone has. And given my history with her family, I don’t think I should. But she might know something.”

“Give me her name and I’ll check her out,” Taryn relented. “But I can’t promise much.”

“I know, I know. But it may give us more than we had.”

A
mber Lockley lived in a single-wide trailer that had seen better days. The plastic trim around the bottom was made to look like stones and appeared fairly new, but the siding was flapping in places and the steps to the front door were nothing but a few concrete blocks. The yard was littered with over-full trash cans and plastic children’s toys that had been outside for so long the sun had bleached them.

Taryn, with a renewed sense of enthusiasm, had found the girl on a social media site. Instead of blowing Taryn off, like she’d imagined, Amber had been more than willing to meet with her. Matt, of course, drove her. She was still woozy and on medication. She didn’t trust herself to drive. She barely trusted herself to walk down the hallway straight.

“Just look at it this way,” Matt teased her. “You’ll fit in with the majority of the population. Isn’t the news always talking about the drug problem of the rural south?”

Taryn shot him a dirty look.

So far, she still didn’t feel the euphoria of the medication, although once it kicked in she did sometimes find herself unreasonably chatty.

Matt waited in the car while Taryn precariously balanced herself on one of the concrete blocks and knocked on the flimsy door. It was opened by a heavyset girl with frizzy blonde hair and acne. Behind her, Taryn could hear the blare of the television and the rattling of pots and pans. “Hi, I’m Taryn,” she introduced herself.

“Hey,” she sniffed, sizing Taryn up. Her face was guarded and she nervously tapped her manicured nails against the doorframe.

“You wanna come in or something?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice. It’s a little cold out here.”

Amber peered at Matt in the car, but when she saw that he was reading she shrugged, her interest in him apparently fading.

Amber’s trailer was an oven. The small space was heated to high heaven, warm enough to walk around in short sleeves and shorts. The little living room was cramped and stuffy, filled with over-stuffed furniture that was too big for the space. Despite the trailer’s outside appearance, there was a fifty-inch television on a cheap console and the newest game console plugged into it. When Amber sat down on the couch she immediately pulled out her iPhone and began texting frantically.

Taryn wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do–interrupt her and start talking or wait until she was finished?

Amber broke the silence by muting the television and putting down her phone.

“So you want to talk about Cheyenne?”

A crash from the kitchen had Taryn startled. A tall thin woman with bleached-blonde hair and a deep tan was rooting around in a cabinet. She was attractive in a hard kind of way and looked way too young to be Amber’s mother.

“That’s my mom,” Amber explained anyway. “She’s trying to cook before she goes to work, but cooking always makes her nervous. She wouldn’t be doing it but she’s on this new diet and trying to be healthier.”

Amber’s mother ignored them and went on with her business, a cigarette perched precariously against her bottom lip.

“Were you friends with Cheyenne?” Taryn asked. “Close friends?”

“Yeah, we hung out. Some of Cheyenne’s friends were real bitches, you know? Thought their shit didn’t stink,” Amber spat.

Taryn wondered if she was talking about Emma and Lindy.

“Cheyenne, though, she was okay,” Amber shrugged. “I’d known her since she was a kid, you know? And we were friends then. Then she got to middle school, started running with a different crowd. Got to high school and was a cheerleader and all that shit. I dropped out after freshman year.”

“How did you get back up with her?”

“We went to the same party about three years ago. She got mad at somebody, I can’t remember who now, and was off sulking in a corner. It just wasn’t my scene, you know? But my ride wasn’t able to leave and I was too fucked up to drive. I knew that, thank God. Anyway, we ended up talking. She was cool.” Amber showed little emotion in her face when she talked, but her voice was animated.

“And after that?”

“Sometimes she would leave home for a few days. She’d come stay with me. I don’t think her mom ever knew who she was with. She’d text her, telling her she was fine, but that was it. She’d come stay here, hang out. Mama didn’t care and I kinda liked having her around,” Amber explained.

“What did you guys do when she was here?”

“Mostly just hung out here at the house. She’d usually get a ride with someone to drop her off. I didn’t drive. I was on some heavy shit at the time and out of it a lot. But with her here, it wasn’t too bad, you know? I didn’t feel like using as much. We’d goof off, staying up all night, watching TV, baking brownies and shit. She’d leave, I’d get messed up again. It was dumb.”

“What were you using, if you don’t mind my asking?” Taryn had never talked to anyone who was so frank about her drug use, and she wasn’t quite sure how to approach it.

“A lot of shit,” Amber laughed loudly, showing off several decayed teeth. “Started with prescription pills. You know, Lortabs and stuff. Then the doctors cracked down on that. Tried mary jane for a while but that smell just clung to you. I got arrested for possession of that. Didn’t do it again. Then I tried heroin. Scared out of my mind at first, but the high was so smooth and so pure. Coming down could be a bitch, but it was worth it.”

“But isn’t heroin really expensive?” Not to mention incredibly dangerous, Taryn added to herself. She could never imagine doing it.

“This ain’t the eighties anymore,” Amber snorted. “It’s been discounted.”

“What about Cheyenne? Did she do anything?”

“Oh, hell no,” Amber exclaimed emphatically. “Cheyenne didn’t touch nothing, except for the occasional smoke. She was clean as a whistle. Didn’t believe in that stuff. Tried to talk me out of it. And did, in a way, when she disappeared. I checked myself into the hospital detox program, let them bring me down. Haven’t had a damn thing since.”

“Well, that’s great,” Taryn said with real feeling.

“Yeah, well, not so great. Now I’m depressed as hell. Can’t find a job, never see anybody no more, don’t have a car,” Amber sniffed. “Thinking about getting my GED. At least that would be something.”

“Do you have any idea what might have happened to Cheyenne that last night?” Taryn pressed. She was afraid if she didn’t change the subject they might not get back round to it.

“No, not really. I was there, though. I was there all night. Drunk and high off my ass, but I remember it well enough. Cheyenne was dancing around the fire, standing on a stool or chair or something. Had a drink in her hand. I can remember that because I kept thinking how pretty she was, how she didn’t fit in with everyone else around her,” Amber sighed nostalgically.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. She had this thing for this guy named Evan. He was there. They talked, hung out a little. Maybe he gave her something to drink. She wasn’t drunk, but you could tell she’d had something. She was real friendly-like, you know? Happy. They didn’t go off anywhere together, far as I can remember. Just sat around the fire, drinking and talking. He plays guitar and sang a little bit. You know that song by Eric Paslay? ‘She Don’t Love You?’”

Taryn nodded, although she didn’t.

“He played that. Was real good, too. I remember it.”

“Do you remember when she left?”

“Naw,” Amber sighed. “Wish I did. I left before her. She was still there, talking to Evan. Maybe her other friends, too.”

“What about Travis Marcum?”

Amber’s face hardened a little and she pursed her lips. “I don’t know about that. It seems weird, you know? I mean, he was there. You couldn’t miss him with his loud mouth. Kept shouting weird shit and acting all tough.”

“Was it weird that, with him being older, he was there with you teenagers?”

“No, not really. We grew up with him, too. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s not much to do around here,” Amber laughed.

“Do you think she left with him?”

Amber studied Taryn for a moment before answering. “I can’t really say. I do know this, though. Before that night I’d never seen her talking to him or heard her even mention him. I don’t think Travis was ever even on Cheyenne’s radar.”

T
here was a heaviness on Taryn’s chest, an unyielding pressure that made her gasp. Struggling to sit up, she found that she was unable to move. The room around her was mostly dark, peppered by small rays of lights.
Fairy lights
, she giggled to herself, momentarily forgetting about the pressure.
The fairies have finally come to see me.

There were voices, too, but they were far away. She suddenly felt the need to vomit and turned her head, sour sickness spewing from her mouth and onto the surface beneath her. The pressure released, just a tiny bit, but was replaced by a horrible dizziness that made her body spin around and around in circles.

Then, she was being lifted up into the air. She could feel her soul separate from her physical body, a string from the center of her stomach pulling her upwards towards the ceiling and then out into the night air.
I can astral project
, she thought gleefully to herself as she flew through the trees, reaching out to tough the leaves.
It really is true, and I’ve mastered it!

But then, suddenly, she was abruptly lowered back to her body, the harshness and impact soul-crushing. There was no lightness now, only pain. The fairies were gone but there were shadows near her, even on her.

Trying to scream, she opened her mouth but nothing would come out. Then, closing her eyes, she was able to let herself go. Now, again, she was lifting herself out of her body, shooting for the sky. She wouldn’t let herself come back this time.

“
I
t was a dream, but it wasn’t,” Taryn explained to Matt.

He studied her over his tea, worry etched along his face. There was a lot of worry from him these days. “It could be medication-related,” he said slowly. “Between that beta blocker they put you on and the pain medication your brain chemistry could be doing some weird things.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Taryn conceded, “but I felt it. I think it was Cheyenne.”

“So what do you think it means? That you were reliving something that happened to her?” Matt asked.

But before Taryn could answer, the bedroom door slammed violently, shaking the walls.

“I would take that as a yes,” she smirked.

Matt’s eyes were wide, but he didn’t reply.

“Maybe it’s the way she died,” she mused. “Something happened to her. She was drugged or had a health problem that made her sick. Or someone attacked her.”

“Or maybe she took something, drank too much,” Matt put in gently.

“No, no, I don’t think so. Everyone I talked to said she wasn’t into that. And that she wasn’t drunk that night. Amber said she never touched dope,” Taryn argued.

“Yeah, but you’re taking the word from a girl who appeared to be enamored of Cheyenne, or at least what she represented. How do you know her memory isn’t tainted a little?” he suggested.

“I don’t,” she shook her head. “I don’t. What I do know is that we’re going to this party tonight, and I am going to get some answers if I have to grill everyone there.”

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” he asked.

Actually, she did. Pain-wise, she felt better than she had in years. She’d taken a walk around the property and even though she’d returned a little tired, there was no throbbing in her hips and legs. She only needed a catnap, too, instead of wasting away the whole afternoon on sleep.

“I feel fine. I’m not going to take anymore medicine today, though, because I’d like to have a drink tonight,” she smiled.

The worry was back on Matt’s face but he remained quiet, staring at his tea.

T
he night was mild, a welcomed relief from the frigid cold days they’d had scattered around them. Taryn dressed in her snug Catwoman costume, chosen because it covered everything and would provide some warmth. She applied heavy makeup, enjoying the chance to do something different. Her long hair hung freely down on her back so that the mask would fit securely.

Matt came in and whistled. Snatching her from around the waist, he nuzzled her neck, his hand sliding down the pleather. “What do you say we just stay in tonight and you keep wearing that?”

Taryn laughed. “I feel a little bloated. I’m not as svelte as I used to be.”

“You look great.”

And so did he, she reflected. His superhero costume reminded her a little bit of Thor, Matt’s longish black hair swept from his face revealing his dark eyes and strong facial features. When had he gotten so handsome? His mixed heritage of Mexican/Native American/Italian gave him the best of all the features and somehow he’d grown from an awkward, skinny kid into a gorgeous well-built man. Maybe they really
should
stay in!

“No, I have to go to this. It’s important.”

“Yeah, well, how about you just keep that on afterwards? That would be okay, too,” he smiled.

T
hey could hear the music before they were halfway through the woods. It was pumping something that sounded like the Allman Brothers or Charlie Daniels. It was hard to make out the lyrics, but it was loud.

Taryn knew Matt was nervous. He didn’t really “do” parties or big groups of people and was only coming to support her. She held onto his hand and gave it a little squeeze as they walked along the narrow path, her flashlight leading the way.

The music grew louder as they entered the field and had changed to Alabama, “Dixieland Delight.” This crowd apparently enjoyed the classics. There were at least twenty-five people there already, ranging from high schoolers to those in their early twenties. Taryn and Matt would be, by far, the oldest there. That made her feel awkward, but she tried to ignore it.

Emma was the first to spot them and came squealing over, throwing her arms around Taryn’s waist. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” she shrieked. “We were all worried.”

Emma was dressed like the devil with a small red, flouncy skirt that barely covered her behind, a red bikini top, horns, and fishnet stockings. Matt stared and Taryn poked him teasingly in the ribs.

“Here, we came bearing gifts,” she explained, pointing to the bundle in Matt’s arm.

Emma took the bag and led them to a table full of finger foods. The bottom end was nothing but booze. As she busied herself taking out the food and wine Matt brought, she chattered on about the people who were coming, her last exam, and the fight she’d had with Lindy. “She’s real moody,” she explained. “I don’t know what she has up her ass this time.”

Taryn noticed there were pale lights in the farmhouse and a few people trickled in and out of it, red plastic cups in their hands. “There’s no electricity in there, right?”

“No, just candles and kerosene lamps they take in,” Emma laughed. “It’s a wonder the whole place hasn’t burned to the ground yet.”

Taryn thought the same thing.

Once she and Matt had loaded up on food, Emma led them over to the fire where fold-up chairs had been gathered around in a circle surrounding it. The three of them sat down, safely away from the flames but close enough to feel the heat.

“By the way, Emma, I don’t think you’ve met Matt,” Taryn said. “Sorry about that.”

“I haven’t, no, but I’ve heard a lot about him. I’m Emma,” she smiled. “And she didn’t tell me how gorgeous you are.”

Matt’s blush was apparent even in the glow of the flames, and he fumbled with his plate. Still, he managed to flirt back. “And she didn’t tell me how beautiful you are.”

Something rancid and hot formed in Taryn’s stomach and then raced to her head. Jealousy? That was just Matt’s personality, she reasoned. But she couldn’t say she liked it.

People continued to arrive, most in costumes and some in jeans, heavy boots, and jackets. They arrived in pairs, or in groups, the girls either giggling or acting nonchalant, as though they’d been there and seen it all before. Once they got to the fireside, they clumped of in even smaller groups, sometimes pairing up with a guy or squeezing together and whispering, pointing, checking out others without trying to be obvious. Some of the guys stood to the side, drinking, gazing at the fire and the girls, pretending to be talking to their friends about sports, school, cars while all the time contemplating their next move on the girl of their choice.

Taryn felt like she was back in high school.

A few people looked at her and Matt questionably, be being with Emma seemed to give them some credibility and in their costumes they looked as young as anyone else. She figured most of them probably knew who she was anyway.

“Is Evan here?” Taryn asked, looking around.

“Well, that’s him walking across the field right now,” Emma shouted over the music.

Taryn turned around and saw a tall, thin young man sauntering through the grass. He had a guitar slung over his shoulder and a brunette by his side. She was wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume that dipped low in the front and revealed a long slither of leg on one side. He was classically good looking and built like a basketball player. As he drew nearer, others approached him and shook his hand, clasped him on the back in one-armed hugs. Girls waved.

“People like Evan,” Emma explained. “Hey!” she shouted. “Come here!”

Motioning him over, Evan came nearer, the girl at his side shyly hanging back a few feet. “Evan, this is Taryn. She’s my teacher,” Emma introduced them. “And she’s been looking into Cheyenne’s disappearance.”

“That part of your job, too?” he smiled.