Tymber Dalton (12 page)

And found Steve sound asleep in their bed.

It wasn’t possible.

How had he circled around her so fast? She saw him walk across the yard. And she never heard the screen door open—she would have heard him get back to the house.

She turned on the overhead light and ripped the covers off him. He started protesting, and she backed away from the bed.

His feet were clean and dry. Judging from his response, he had been sound asleep.

“What the hell, Sami? What’s going on?”

“You tell me! I just followed your ass out the back door and across the yard. You disappeared into the woods and my flashlight went out, so I came back to the house.” She left out the part about thinking she saw something. What had she seen anyway? Probably nothing. Trick of the moonlight.

He propped himself up on his elbows. “Sami, I came up to bed a little after midnight.”

“No, you didn’t. I heard and saw you walk outside. You were not up here in bed with me.”

“Sami, I—”

“No! Dammit, I know what I heard, and I know what I saw!”

She snatched her pillow from the bed, now not quite sure what she heard and saw. She started to leave, determined to sleep in the guest room.

He caught her by the arm, firmly but not painfully. He was so damn fast on his feet.

“Sami, please—”

She yanked free. “Don’t you
ever
grab me like that again, do you hear me!”

She saw confusion, hurt, and something else she couldn’t name in his eyes. She didn’t care at this point.

“Sami, please wait, there has to be an explanation.”

“Yes, the explanation is you’re getting off playing some sort of mind game with me, and I do not appreciate it. You were supposedly ‘sleepwalking’ again. I know what I saw. I didn’t imagine it. I don’t know how you got back here before I did and without me seeing you. Frankly, I don’t care.” She slammed the bedroom door behind her, blood pounding in her temples.

How
had
he circled around her so quickly?

She rinsed her feet off in the guest bath when it hit her. She stepped out of the tub and opened the bedroom door. “Get up. Come downstairs. Now.”

He did, recognizing conversation with her was pointless. He followed her downstairs to his study, where she sat in front of his computer and touched the power button.

“Sami, what—”

“Shut up. What’s the password?”

He gave it up without protest. She located the folder where he stored his manuscript files and switched it to detailed view. “What file were you working on?”

“The new one. It’s called ‘dante2.’”

She found it and didn’t know if she felt relief or horror. “There—what does that say?” She pointed.

He leaned over her shoulder. It showed the last time the file was saved—2:50 a.m.

She looked at him. “
Now
do you believe me?” She pushed back from the computer and walked to the door while he stood there, confused. “I
didn’t
imagine this, Steve. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you’d better cut it out, or you’ll find yourself playing alone. While we’re at it, why the hell are you using a password all of a sudden?”

He still stared at the screen. “Matt said I should. I meant to tell you.”

There were a lot of things he “meant to tell her” lately, and didn’t until after she found out.

She would make sure she asked Matt about it.

“I…I don’t understand. I know I shut down and went to bed earlier than that.” He stared at the screen.

Sami went upstairs and lay down in the guest room and tried to sleep. Eventually she heard Steve come upstairs and go to bed.

Was it possible he’d come to bed and gotten back up? Maybe he was sleepwriting?

That didn’t make any sense. She understood sleepwalking, but writing? And that didn’t explain how he got his feet cleaned so fast. He’d been barefoot, she’d seen for herself. Plus, the few tracks she saw in the dirt were barefoot.

Around five she gave up, went downstairs, and made coffee. She considered calling Matt, but he wouldn’t be awake yet.

She toasted a bagel and ate at the picnic table next to the pasture. The horses walked over to the fence and stood, stretching their necks, trying to smell what she had. She handed them each a slice of apple and rubbed their noses.

“At least you guys are predictable.”

Dawn painted the sky, but it took longer for darkness to lift from their property due to shadows cast by the tall pines. Around six thirty she changed into work clothes and took care of the horses.

Steve was sound asleep. Part of her resented his ability to be so profoundly out of it. Part of her felt relieved she wouldn’t have to deal with him yet. She quietly retrieved her clothes and dressed in the guest room. No use showering when she would get dirty again.

The horses didn’t seem any worse for wear from their early-morning wake up. She brushed them and saddled Mutt for a ride. In the middle of the week, few bikers haunted the park. Especially this time of morning, and she wanted to take her time.

She followed the driveway to the main road. Once there she turned north, away from the main entrance. She let the gelding have his head, and he picked up speed until he settled into an easy canter. She didn’t let the horses run on the back trails because it was too easy for her to get slapped off their backs by a low limb, or end up with a face full of spiderwebs. But on the main road, when there was no traffic, she let them stretch their legs in the soft clay loam. In minutes, they approached the first campground area. She reined him in to a walk, mindful of traffic.

She hadn’t spent much time exploring the north end of the park. A large, wide trail beckoned, and she turned the horse toward it. In less than an hour she reached the north fence line and turned west to follow it. Eventually, they would reach the east-west access road leading home.

They meandered for quite a while, turning south with the fence line when they reached the western park boundary. Sami enjoyed the quiet morning. Every so often she heard a bike in the distance but none close enough to worry about.

The fence made a ninety-degree turn to the west and ran through some trees. She rounded the corner and came upon a forestry truck parked by a gate. Tom Jenkins was bent over a chain that looked like a maniac had gone padlock crazy. At least twenty different locks had been attached.

“Hi, Tom.”

He looked up, startled by her silent approach, then smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Corey. Beautiful morning for a ride.”

She nodded. “I like midweek the best. I don’t have to worry about the horses spooking.”

“It is quiet, that’s for sure.” A new length of sturdy chain lay at his feet. He worked on the one on the gate with a pair of bolt cutters, but had trouble maneuvering the cutters with all the padlocks in the way.

“Hold on a sec. I’ll help you.” She dismounted and looped Mutt’s reins around the truck’s side mirror. She grabbed the chain and held it up and away from the fence post, allowing Tom to gain purchase with the bolt cutters and cut it loose.

“Thanks.” He removed a heavy-duty combination lock from the old chain and used it to attach the new chain to the post. The new chain was much thicker and heavier than the old one, and looked like it would take more than a pair of bolt cutters to break through.

“We used to allow people to put locks on the gate. This is the legal access for park residents and the utility companies, but as you can see, too many people have taken advantage of it. This lock is like the one on the front gate. We can change the combination on a regular basis.” He held up a pair of signs she hadn’t noticed before.

This gate for utilities, official use, and residents ONLY. Unauthorized access will be prosecuted. No lock placement allowed. For access, call park ranger 24/7 at (352)555-0808.

He used sturdy zip ties to attach one sign to each side of the gate.

“I didn’t realize this gate was even here,” Sami said.

“It’s not a publicly used road. Mostly it’s used by the volunteers who live here and work in Brooksville. Those who don’t want to drive all the way around to the main gate. It’s also the legal right-of-way access for your property.”

He pointed toward another clay road that intersected the one they were on. “The ranger compound is a few hundred yards down there. The main road’s not so bad on a day like today, but if it’s sloppy, or a while since it was graded, or on the weekend with a lot of traffic, people use this gate. That road’s a lime rock road. It does get rough, but it’s never as bad as the main road on its worst day.”

She nodded. “I guess that would be a time-saver.”

He picked up the old chain and started to sling it into the bed when he remembered the horse. He carefully lowered it into the truck so as not to spook him. “How are you getting along in the house?”

There was more to his question. She knew it from his tone of voice.

“It’s been…interesting.”

“See anything?”

“Like what?”

He looked around, as if to make sure no one could overhear him. “You know your house has a history, right?”

She thought about her encounter with the librarian and picked her words carefully. “I know it’s had an unusual past, if that’s what you mean.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. If you repeat this conversation, I’ll deny it. My dad and grandfather both worked here, even before the state set this area aside as its own park. It used to be part of the Withlacoochee Forest.

“My grandfather said since the Prescott family, no one’s lived there longer than a year since it was built and George Simpson’s family disappeared. I personally think he killed them, so do a lot of folks, but they never found any proof. Most residents only last a month or two, if that long. People have died in the house and around the property. You’ve been the longest residents there in over ten years. It usually sits vacant at least a year or two between tenants.”

Killed his family?
She hadn’t read that. Then again, she got sidetracked. Maybe that’s what Jane McCartyle wanted to tell her. “What about the owner? I saw it keeps getting deeded back to them.”

He nodded. “Shelly Johnson. Sweet woman. Her and her husband only owned it for a little while, then she got upset one night. She was pregnant. Made her husband drive her, in the middle of the night, to her sister’s house. The next day, the brother-in-law checked on him and found him dead in the basement.”

“What happened?”

“Coroner ruled it an accident. Looks like he tripped on something in the basement. Hit his head. Mrs. Johnson never got over his death and blamed it on the house. She always sells it with the stipulation the house goes back to her if the people decide not to live there.”

“Why would she hold on to the house if it has such bad memories for her?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Rumor is, she saw something, and even though she thinks the house is haunted, can’t let go. Maybe she thinks her husband’s ghost is there or something. She never remarried after Jim Johnson died there. Her son’s an attorney in Tampa. She still lives with her sister, here in town.”

Sami wasn’t sure she wanted to get into the details of what she thought she saw early that morning. “Everything’s fine so far. Except my husband’s an asshole, which isn’t anything new.” She tried to laugh.

Tom looked serious. “What’s wrong?”

She realized how it sounded. “Oh, no—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean like that.” Sami blew out a deep breath. Why was she even talking to him? “If you repeat any of this,
I’ll
deny it, but we’ve had issues for a while. I think he thought the change of scenery would help his writing and our relationship. I’m not sure it’s done any good for either.”

She unwrapped Mutt’s reins from the mirror, relieved to have said it out loud to someone else, and also wishing she hadn’t. “It’ll work out, or it won’t. Either way, it’s nothing the house has or hasn’t done.” She swung up on the gelding’s back. “But thanks for the information, Tom. If I see anything strange, I’ll let you know.” She really wanted to end this conversation.

“Let me know if anything strange happens, seriously. You stay safe, all right?”

Her heart racing, she nudged Mutt into a trot down the fence line toward home. Maybe she did see something last night. She was not a staunch believer in the supernatural. She wrote about paranormal happenings, but didn’t believe those things happened in real life.

Did she?

It wouldn’t hurt to do more research.

Jeff met them at the pasture fence, his neck stretched, sniffing them. She pushed him out of the way and opened the gate.

She couldn’t delay any longer, but she didn’t want to face Steve yet. She quietly opened the kitchen door. From the level in the coffeepot, he’d been up at some point. His study door was closed, and she stealthily made her way upstairs.

He’d made their bed and the one in the guest bedroom. His way of partial atonement, she supposed.

The hot shower felt good. She tried to think about her work and not how angry she still felt. She shouldn’t have to beg Steve to change. If he wasn’t willing to change, why was she even trying? Was she a horrible wife for wanting a husband who would fight for their marriage? She was tired of doing all the work. Damn tired. A lot of women wouldn’t have put up with his drinking, and she’d stood by him through that. She sure as hell shouldn’t have to put up with him acting like an asshole, or now freaking the hell out of her in the middle of the night.