Lineage (16 page)

“Coming!”
Lance yelled, as he placed his feet on the cool floor and searched for the sweats he wore the night before.

After dressing and descending from the bedroom, he examined the general vicinity where the moonlit stain had been in the night. The oak planks were smooth and unblemished.

The knocking resumed again and he hurried to the front door, throwing it open to the sunlit yard and the old caretaker that stood on the stoop. At the sight of John standing there, the same anger that had risen during the early-morning hours lit inside him once again. Lance felt his jaw tighten and his brow draw down.

“Where’s the fire?” Lance said before he could stop himself. John looked at him, and one end of his mouth rankled up as though he had tasted something sour.

“Just checking to see if you still want me to take care of the grounds, or if you’ll be doing it yourself.”

“I don’t know
,
did you happen to loan out your keys to anyone recently?” Lance looked for some sign of surprise or panic on the old man’s face, but his searching went unrewarded.

“What are you talking about?”

“I had a visitor last night. Someone was in the house, and all the doors and windows were locked when I checked them. If you have a problem with me buying the property, Mr.
Hanrahan
, just tell me.” John’s eyes squinted at Lance beneath the brim of his dirty baseball hat, and for the first time Lance noticed the faint smell of liquor.

“My keys are right where they’re supposed to be and I’ve never let anyone else use them. I’m not here to argue. You want the grass cut or not?”

Lance weighed his options as he stared at the caretaker. For some reason he didn’t think the other man was lying, but he couldn’t be sure. He looked over John’s shoulder at the swaying grass and thought about his computer waiting in the alcove behind him.

“Yeah, cut it. And the front windows need to be washed too. There’s some bird shit or something on the glass.” Lance swung the door shut harder than he intended to and leaned against the wall. He watched through the window beside the door as John walked across the lawn to a small storage shed tucked beneath the trees on the far side of the yard.

Lance turned and made his way to the kitchen, and grabbed an apple from the fridge. As he chewed at the fruit, he walked to the atrium and gazed out at the lake, which was a deep blue and as flat as the glass he looked through.

After chucking the apple core in a nearby trashcan, he sat at his computer and opened a new Word document. As he organized his thoughts, his fingers floated over the keys with an eagerness he had missed in the past two months. The opening words came to him and he began to type, just as the sound of a lawn mower chugging into life resounded through the house.

Lance stopped typing and turned his head toward the kitchen window. He could see John sitting astride a fairly new riding lawn mower as grass clippings flew in a torrent from beneath the deck. Lance turned back to the computer and tried to regain his focus. The words came in bits and spurts as he hacked them out onto the screen.
The sound of the mower running outside slid across his nerves like a cheese grater and kept throwing off his focus.
As the gaps in typing became longer and longer, he found himself glancing over his shoulder at the place on the floor where the stain had been and he pictured it, floating there in the darkness.

“Shit,” he said, as he pushed himself away from the table and exited out of the Word document without saving it. He pondered changing into different clothes, but instead, grabbed his wallet along with the Land Rover’s keys off the shelf in the entry and locked the front door behind him as he left the house.

The air had begun to heat into a balmy mixture of bright light and oppressive humidity as Lance climbed behind the wheel and started the vehicle. He looked in his rearview mirror as he pulled past the turnabout and headed down the drive.

John still sat hunched over in the seat of the lawn mower, his hat pulled down to shade his aging eyes. Lance didn’t see him look up as the SUV curved with the driveway, soon hidden from sight behind the thick growth of trees.

Lance’s mind crept back over the events of the past few weeks as he drove, trying to string them together into some semblance of reason. He had heard a voice speaking his name just after setting foot in the house. The door to the storage room seemed to be welded shut with God knew what inside, and someone had been there with him in the house last night, he was sure of it. The memory of the figure standing motionless in the dark outside his door washed over him, and he felt goose bumps follow in its wake.

“Get a grip,” he said quietly. He felt the urge to call Dr. Tyler and tell him about the happenings, but he was afraid the psychologist would be concerned about the stability of his mind and of the emotions that ruled it. If he called, it wouldn’t surprise him if the doctor drove straight here just to see him in person, and he didn’t need that. Not now. He needed to focus on his writing and stop worrying about kids playing pranks, or his own overactive imagination.

Lance curved the SUV around the last bend and
Stony
Bay
’s main drag came into view. Seeing the small town always lifted his spirits, and over the past weeks he had become attached to the friendliness of its inhabitants and the quaintness that permeated the streets and buildings.

Without bothering to signal, he pulled into an empty parking space outside the local grocery store and shut the car off. Several couples passed him on the sidewalk, offering smiles and nods as he made his way to the entrance.

Cool air pushed at his face as the doors slid open, and he began to walk unhurriedly toward the coffee aisle.

“
Musta
forgot something,” a thin voice to his left said as he passed the fresh vegetable stand. A white-haired woman wearing an immaculate red apron leaned against a pallet of assorted boxed fruits. Her lined face was lit with a warming smile that Lance assumed was reserved for anyone who happened to be within speaking distance. He recognized her from the day before when he’d stopped for supplies. 

“Yeah, coffee.
I can’t go a morning without it,” Lance said, smiling back. The woman strode closer to him in such a way that belied her apparent age. For just a second, He could see the young woman she used to be, and he figured in her heyday she had turned more than one head.

“Rotten stuff … I drink a pot every morning myself. Course it’s more sugar and
creme
than coffee.” The woman punctuated her smile with a cackle fit for a grandmother, which Lance was sure she must be. She held out her hand. “I’m Josie, I own the place. You must be the one that bought our local mansion.”

Lance laughed and nodded as he shook the old woman’s surprisingly strong hand. “Guilty. I’m Lance. You guys have a great town here.”

“It’s something, especially in the summer. Now stick around for January and you’ll have other things to say about it. You get settled in up there yet?”

“Yeah, slow but sure,” Lance said, as he noticed a woman with dark hair walking through a nearby aisle. She disappeared behind a display of cereal before he could catch a glimpse of her face.

“Anything specific bring you to our neck of the woods?” Josie continued.

Lance forced his eyes from searching for the woman and back to the business owner. “I’m actually writing a book.”

“Really?
Well, if you need any help with anything as far as history goes, just let my husband know; he’s the local director of the historical society. He could tell you anything about the area, as well as
Minnesota
in general.” Josie leaned in closer as she lowered her voice. “Just be forewarned: once you get him talking, you can’t shut him up.”

Lance laughed and glanced around the edge of the store, trying to spot where the woman had gone, but saw no one else except a stock boy idly straightening jars of peanut butter. “Thanks very much, I might just take him up on that,” Lance said, moving toward the smell of roasted coffee beans. Josie smiled and waved as she went back to examining a tray of bananas.

He walked closer to the coffee aisle, all the while watching the rest of the store for movement. A small deli counter and eating area were tucked at the rear of the store, and when he spotted the dark-haired woman sitting alone at one of the booths, his stomach felt as if he had hit an air pocket while on a plane.

Mary read from a book and was spooning what looked like clam chowder out of a Styrofoam bowl. Her hair was again tucked behind her ear, and for some reason Lance marveled at how small and delicate she looked sitting there by herself. He began to walk toward her but paused, wondering if she was waiting for someone. He hadn’t seen a ring on her finger in the bookstore, but she might be a woman who didn’t wear one regularly. In his mind he could see her husband or boyfriend, a tall man in a woolen shirt—a logger or a fishing guide perhaps. He’d come strolling in any minute, sit down across from her, and reach out to hold her hand, just like he wanted to do right now.

Mary glanced up from her book and noticed him staring at her. He smiled and raised a hand in what seemed like the most pathetic wave ever. Her face remained blank for a moment, and Lance’s mind began to tell him to duck behind the nearby coffee grinder and then belly-crawl the rest of the way out of the store. Recognition finally bloomed in her eyes and she waved back, allowing his legs to free themselves from the flight signals his brain continued to send. He walked as casually as he could to her booth and stopped, looking down at her.

“Ah, the famous author,” she said, revealing very straight teeth within a teasing smile.

“Yeah, sorry to bother you.
I just noticed you sitting here and thought I’d say hi since you’re pretty much the only person I know in town.”

Mary gestured at the opposite side of the booth. “Grab a coffee and sit down.”

“No, I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.”

“I’m just reading. It’s a great book, but sometimes it’s actually good to interact with another human being. I normally spend all my time with books anyway.”

Lance laughed, liking her smile more each time he saw it. “If you insist,” he said, sliding into the Formica seat across from her, mentally noting he was doing just what he had envisioned minutes before. He looked down at her left hand, which sat splayed on the table next to her soup. Her fingers were long and thin, and best of all, no ring adorned any of them.

“So, rumor has it that you’ve moved into the big place up north.”

Lance nodded.
“Yeah, just got unloaded yesterday.
I forgot how much work moving is; probably wouldn’t have done it if I remembered.”

“Well, it’s good someone’s using the place. It’s too nice of a location to sit empty year round.”

Lance leaned forward. “Do you know anything about the place? Like how long it’s been there, or why it’s been empty for so long?”

Mary smiled as she sat back in her seat, her eyes looking off in thought. “Well, my dad and I moved here when I was seven, after my mom died. He was a department-store manager in
St. Paul
, but his true love was books. His lifelong dream was to open a bookstore in a small town, and I think when he lost my mom he decided he shouldn’t wait any longer.

“Your place was always a topic among the kids in town. Sometimes I would hear about groups of older kids going up there to poke around or break into the old place—I’m guessing just to scare
themselves
silly. You know how there’s always a place that everyone knows about, that’s dubbed the haunted house? Well, your place was it for this town. Not that anything ever really happened there; the kids who went there for thrills or to make out never disappeared, nothing that exciting. It was just the local spook house.” Mary shrugged and laughed, as though the memory perhaps hadn’t only involved other kids her age. Lance realized that she had given him a small window to look through into her life, and at the moment she was infinitely more interesting than his curiosity about the estate.

“I’m sorry you lost your mom so young, that’s tough for anyone, and
it’s
worse when you’re a kid.” He smiled halfheartedly, pushing back dark thoughts that had begun to surface. When he looked at Mary, he saw her posture stiffen a little, but her voice remained steady when she spoke again.

“You lost one of your parents too, didn’t you?” Her question threw him off guard and she must have seen it, because she leaned forward with concern in her eyes. “I’m
sorry,
I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds. I can just tell sometimes.”

Lance shook his head in dismissal and smiled weakly. “My mom disappeared when I was young and my father wasn’t that nice to me. It’s not one of the things I put in my interviews or on my jacket covers.”

They sat silently for a few minutes, each wading through thoughts and absorbing what had been said. Finally, Mary broke the silence as she checked her watch and began to gather her things.

“I’ve got to get back to the store. The owner’s a real pain in the ass.” Lance considered asking if her father was still alive but thought better of it, considering that she had already mentioned the death of her mother. “Thanks for sitting with me, it was nice.”

“Yeah, thanks for letting me invade your lunch,” he said.