“IT’S NOT like this is a prime location for luxury hotels and five-star restaurants,” Jesse muttered darkly, though more to himself than to Doug on the other end of the cell phone connection. He should have known Doug would be calling to check up on him now that he was sure Jesse was really in Miller’s Creek. Just as he knew the reminder of the limits of his expense card was merely a preface to the real question Doug wanted answered. He just hadn’t expected Doug to call at 8:00 a.m. sharp.
How soon until his first story hit his desk in Attingwood? Jesse had barely been here long enough to unpack.
Sawdust sprinkled the thin brown carpet as Jesse pulled out the top drawer of the single chest in the room. More of it was scattered on the inside of the drawer, though Jesse only made a cursory sweep of his hand before he dropped the socks he held on top of it. The washed-out morning filtering through the stained window curtains hadn’t made the room at the Hometown Inn any more cheerful, but at least Jesse could now see the dirt and accumulated dust he was temporarily living in. And he had felt his stomach turn when he saw what he had slept in. Only his lingering fatigue kept him from recoiling in disgust.
It seemed Doug couldn’t care less.
“Well, I guess it should be expected to be a little more locally oriented that far out,” Doug told him airily. “No use for big cities and all of the nonsense that goes with them, which may not be a bad idea when you think about it.”
“Yeah, they just keep their own nonsense to themselves,” Jesse muttered. He straightened in front of the chest to take a good look at himself in the mirror attached to the wall above it. The effects of a too late night and too little sleep were showing, and he could only imagine what the stranger at the gas station had seen in the early hours of the morning. His hair might not have been quite as disheveled at it appeared in the mirror, but he doubted his eyes had been any less bloodshot. No wonder the man had wanted him to stop for the night.
God only knew how the man had found it in himself to flirt. Jesse would look warily at the reflection he saw in the mirror.
“But listen, Doug, it’s still early and I haven’t had a shower, so unless your deadline has changed, I need to get moving.” He turned away from the mirror to stare at the disarray of his suitcase. How it had turned into such a mess when he had been careful with his packing he’d never know, but he was glad he wasn’t expected to look too sharp in Miller’s Creek. At least his underwear was still clean. “I’ll grab some breakfast and coffee and see what I can find to write about, then get back to you tonight. All right?” It wasn’t so much a promise as simply a desire to get off the phone, and the sharpness of his voice seemed to ring with it.
If Doug noticed, he let it go.
“Yeah, all right, you’re up and moving, so I’ll take it as a given you’ll be functional once you get your blood pumping.” Doug’s tone was teasing, though he couldn’t see through the phone how much his teasing fell flat. “And look, I know the deadline is tight, but I don’t doubt for a second that you can make it. All we need is something to break the ice by Monday, and then you can put your real talent to work. So don’t let the pressure get to you, all right?”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I know the routine,” Jesse assured him dully, turning his gaze away from the suitcase to stare at the doorway to the bathroom instead. He wasn’t lying in his display of confidence in giving Doug something to print by the end of the weekend. He could have written an introduction to Miller’s Creek from Attingwood, and probably made a solid reference to Jacob Palmer from there as well. As far as what came after that…. “I’ll work up something for the big story and have it in time for the anniversary and just concentrate on keeping the interest going until then. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” Doug confirmed with a laugh that Jesse was sure he had meant to be kind. “And I’ll take that as a hint that you’ve got better things to do than chat. So let me let you get off here and get to work, and I’ll warn the printers to keep an eye out for your work. Call me if you need anything, all right?”
Jesse rolled his eyes at the standard offer and nearly offered his equally standard promise to do so, but left it unsaid as he heard Doug’s sigh on the other end. Jesse had heard it before.
“And Jesse….”
It had never failed to sink into his skin. Jesse turned his gaze up to water stains on the ceiling.
“Thanks.”
He closed his eyes at the sincerity he heard in Doug’s voice, and exhaled a long, slow breath through his nose before he answered softly, “Yeah, don’t mention it.” Times like this Jesse could see how Doug’s handsome exterior had overcome every one of his less attractive interior attributes. He hated the fact that he still wasn’t immune to the unexpected charm of real honesty in Doug. He opened his eyes and blew out his breath, then said, with a weariness that wasn’t entirely due to lack of sleep, “I’ll call you later, all right?”
“Yeah, all right. Talk to you later, Jess.”
Thumbing off the connection didn’t bring the sense of relief Jesse was sure he would feel when he had first answered the phone. He couldn’t help the reaction of his body when the warmth of the last seconds of the call brought back memories of basking in that warmth while his hand worked relentlessly in the privacy of his apartment. The sweats he had dug out and donned before collapsing on the bed last night were a flimsy barrier against the thought of taking Doug up on the offer he had made in Attingwood… Until the memory of the circumstances around the offer stalled his erection cold. Doug’s sudden bursts of charm had always captivated Jesse in the office in Attingwood, and it wasn’t surprising his latest show of it had nearly made Jesse forget his offer was nothing more than a bribe.
Accepting it, however, would still make Jesse a whore.
A curse hissed through his lips as he threw his phone on the bed, and his eyes turned with distaste to the open suitcase beside it. The label had never bothered him in the past. God only knew how many men he had taken—and been taken by—in his apartment or theirs in the years since he had graduated college. Certainly enough to warrant the title, though never had any sort of payment been required for the service. And the sex had never been for the purpose of getting something he wanted beyond the physical pleasure of the act.
Maybe that was the difference.
Or maybe it was simply because it was Doug who was implying it.
Or maybe he should get his head out of his ass and get his job done so he could put Jacob Palmer and Miller’s Creek behind him once and for all. The shower would take an act of will to complete if what he had seen when he first stepped into the bathroom that morning was any indication, but at least he had thought to bring his own towels. And soap.
He dug both out of his suitcase, then steeled his nerves as he stepped into the bathroom.
SPEAKING TO Mr. Mosely had been an act of futility. The man may have been older than dirt, but his mind—or more tellingly, his memories—hadn’t endured the time well. He remembered Jacob Palmer but didn’t remember he used to be a teacher. He remembered the massacre but thought someone else had committed it. And he remembered the man Geoff had killed in the cemetery, though he swore it had been summer when it happened. Jesse had left the old man to his disordered memories after less than thirty minutes, though with thanks that had been wholly sincere. Nothing Mr. Mosely said had been accurate, but he had given the account without reservation. Jesse could only hope the rest of the town opened up so willingly.
The one thing he knew for sure was that the drive into Miller’s Creek was almost surreal.
The houses that lined the road between the motel and the town were just as Jesse remembered them, growing closer together as the city limits neared, until they stood side by side as the road slowly changed into Main Street. They were the same houses that had lined the road fifteen years ago, with most of them bearing the same markings and chipping paint they had worn when Jesse left Miller’s Creek in the backseat of his parents’ Ford. Even the yards were the same mix of mown grass and overgrown weeds, with only one or two showing any signs of diligent care. And the battered Cadillac taking up the entire driveway next to the brick house on the left, showing rust on the trunk and a low tire on the asphalt—
The blare of a horn jerked his attention back to the road, and only the instinctive slamming on his brakes stopped the nose of his Corolla from contacting the fender of the old Chevy Blazer crossing the intersection in front of him. He could see the line of shops that made up the Miller’s Creek business district just on the other side, with the ragged wood and brick buildings standing in place of houses, and the faded yellow lines separating the street from the parking spaces, making the road feel narrower and the town itself more oppressive.
Jesse had thought that when he still lived here, but even if he had never been old enough to drive the length of Main Street himself, he knew there hadn’t been a stop sign at this intersection fifteen years ago. But there was one now, and he had nearly caused an accident by running it. The faces in the Blazer—a man and woman, he driving and she in the passenger seat, both old enough to have grandkids and neither looking pleased—glared at him through their driver’s side window, then slowly maneuvered around him to finish making their turn. They were heading back the way Jesse had come, toward the convenience store and Bartlesberg, and they continued muttering between themselves as they passed beside him and then moved out of sight.
Jesse let out his breath. The couple could have been anyone past or present in Miller’s Creek, and he was sure they would be gossiping as much about him as his driving skills as they went where they were going. Even as a kid, strangers had always been remarked upon in Miller’s Creek, not that there had ever been many. He shook his head at how some things never changed, then looked both ways despite being almost halfway into the intersection, and only then took his foot off the brake. Seconds later he was in downtown proper.
The mix of open stores and vacant, dilapidated buildings said the old couple wasn’t the only part of Miller’s Creek stuck in the past, even if the businesses themselves had changed over time. The dark, dusty windows of the old flower shop looked just as they always had, save for the “For Sale” sign taped to the inside, while the lit, dusty windows of the store next to it displayed a haphazard arrangement of tables and chairs instead of the rakes and shovels that had been stuck there when it had been the town’s hardware store. The old department store was on the other side of the street, although the sign naming it the “Wickman Five and Dime” was gone. It looked like an antiques flea market of sorts now.
The windows of the Miller’s Creek Sentinel, however, looked exactly the same as Jesse remembered them, and he couldn’t help staring at the smoked glass bearing the painted name as he passed. His interest in journalism hadn’t come about until after he left Miller’s Creek, but he had considered taking on a paper route for the Sentinel once upon a time. He might have actually done it if he had stayed here one more summer.
But staying hadn’t happened, and the Sentinel passed behind him as he turned his gaze back to the other side of the street. It was then that the lit windows of the building on the corner brought a real smile to his face.
The sign that read “Margie’s Eatery” had been taken down, but a new sign naming it the “Miller’s Creek Café” had been painted on the brickwork above the door, and the curtains were pulled back from the windows to reveal the booths and stools in the familiar arrangement Jesse remembered. He doubted the restaurant still offered the homemade pies that old Ms. Pearl used to make in the kitchen, but he was sure it still offered breakfast, and having eaten nothing since Attingwood beyond convenience store candy bars and prepackaged snack cakes, his stomach rumbled at the thought of real food. Turning at the intersection brought him to the same angled parking along the sides of the buildings that had always lined the side street this close to Main, and this late in the morning, he wasn’t surprised to find the closest ones empty.
He was just surprised at how hard it was to keep his gaze from straying even farther down the street.
Three more blocks and a single turn to the right would have taken him to the house he had grown up in, but the thought of seeing it again brought a sudden queasiness to his stomach that nearly squashed his hunger. He knew going by his old home at some point was as inevitable as visiting the cemetery—simple curiosity about the house and the people who lived there wouldn’t let him leave town without seeing it at least once—but doing it now, even seeing the street he used to live on…. That was something not even nostalgia could make him do.
Because his house wasn’t the only house he would see on that block. Geoffrey Meyers had lived there too.
Jesse pushed away the dread he felt returning at the reemergence of Geoff’s name as he eased into the parking space closest to the diner, then forced his thoughts back to the heavy smell of grease and the promise of food as he killed the ignition and got out. His gaze went immediately to the larger, more ornate sign for the Miller’s Creek Café painted on the brick side of the building. Margie’s had never had a sign painted there, but Jesse had to admit whoever had done this was talented. Rather than camouflaging the old, chipped brickwork stretching the length of the building, the painting enhanced it, making it somehow more attractive, more historic, and less merely old. More of the town could benefit from that kind of talent, Jesse mused. Then the rumbling of his stomach reminded him of why he was here. He crossed the road to the diner with only a last lingering gaze at the artwork.
The dull ring of a cowbell sounded as he pushed the heavy glass door open, and the welcoming smells of frying bacon and coffee made him realize this was one thing he had truly missed about Miller’s Creek. The diner hadn’t changed enough he couldn’t recognize the place he had come after school and for the occasional lunch or dinner with his parents. The booths were in better shape than they had been when this had been Margie’s, of course, and they were green instead of red, while the counter stretching the length of the room to his right had also been replaced with a new version of itself. But the stools that lined it were set exactly as they had been fifteen years ago, with the register still next to the door and the window at the back between the dining area and kitchen still sporting the same kind of round ticket holder hanging down the center.
Even the old men in the center booth were the same old men that had been planted at the same table on any given day for as long as Jesse could remember; the only difference now was that the size of the group had shrunk by two. Only three of them were left, and they were old farmers, Jesse knew, all of them grouchy and irritable enough that each other’s company was probably the only company any of them could stand. And every one of them had been in Miller’s Creek long enough to remember Jesse Ellis and his love of vanilla cream soda. Jesse didn’t remember their names, but he recognized their faces, and the urge to avoid them now was just as strong as it had been as a kid.
He turned away from the group and saw a red-haired waitress wearing a sleeveless, open-fronted smock over her plaid shirt smile as she walked behind the counter toward him, with an order pad in hand and a pen stuck behind her ear. Nostalgia hit Jesse again when she stopped halfway between the register and kitchen. That was where the under-counter icemaker was, with the ice itself filling a bin below the sliding silver door that served as additional counter space when it was closed. Jesse couldn’t count the times he had seen Dorothy, the waitress he remembered most from the times he had come here as a kid, fill his glass from that bin. Though Dorothy was gone, the waitress pushing the door open now looked just enough like her that Jesse would bet she was related. The slight graying in her hair and the beginnings of deep-set lines around her eyes also said she was old enough to remember the younger Jesse Ellis too, though she apparently didn’t recognize him any more than he did her.
Her smile was big and warm as she reached for a plastic glass on the shelf above the ice bin, and it stayed that way when she turned toward Jesse and called out, “Sit anywhere you like, hon, and I’ll be with you in a just a minute.”
“Thanks,” Jesse called back. Then he swept his gaze over the room again and selected a stool almost directly in front of where the waitress was filling his glass with ice water. It put him one seat away from the opening that split the counter in the middle and put his back to the center booth. More importantly, it put him within earshot of the old farmers sitting around it. Jesse remembered them and may have never particularly liked that group, but he knew that if anyone was going to start muttering about the good old days and the things that had happened way back when, it was going to be them. And it was close enough to the anniversary of the Jacob Palmer massacre that Jesse wouldn’t put it past them to bring the subject up sooner or later.
It would also give Jesse time to settle his stomach before he approached the table with questions of his own about it. Like them or not, Doug hadn’t been wrong when he’d suggested the old-timers would be the best source of unknown tidbits about the town and its history. He could only hope the subject came up on its own where these old-timers were concerned. Mr. Mosely wasn’t the only cranky old man in town.
The waitress set a plastic glass filled with ice water on the counter by his elbow, and Jesse looked up to find her still smiling at him. Her name tag read “Kim,” and up this close Jesse was even more certain she was related to Dorothy by blood.
“Can I get you some coffee to start with, hon?” Her voice was a little lower and a little thicker now that she wasn’t shouting halfway across the diner, but the friendliness of her tone brought a smile to Jesse’s face in return.
“Yeah, regular, please,” Jesse told her, waving off the menu Kim had started to retrieve from between the napkin holders. “And I don’t need a menu. Just scrambled eggs and bacon and a side of hashbrowns. And orange juice, if you have it.”
“Coming right up, hon. Did you want toast or biscuits with that?” Kim had already turned to retrieve a smaller plastic glass from the same shelf that held the water glasses, and Jesse watched her pull a carton of juice from the refrigerator under the counter as he requested toast. The glass was nearly full when she called his order to the kitchen, and Jesse could imagine the cook slapping butter on the grill even before the shouting had ended. It wasn’t the more refined behavior he was used to in Attingwood, but it was efficient, and the small-town air seemed to make the need for quiet service unnecessary. It put Jesse more at ease instantly.
Kim set the juice in front of him, and then turned to tend to the coffee. “So, are you new in town? I haven’t seen you in here before, and I’m pretty sure I’d remember a face as handsome as yours.” She placed the full cup on the counter moments later, complete with two sealed tubs of half-and-half and the spoon on the side that Jesse expected. Jesse wasn’t surprised when Kim leaned one hand on the counter and placed the other on her hip as she waited for an answer, smile still in place. Friendliness had always been mixed with nosiness in Miller’s Creek.
Jesse smiled again as he added the creamer to his coffee.
“Actually, I’m only here for a few days,” Jesse told her. “I work for the Journal over in Attingwood, and they’re interested in doing some stories on Jacob Palmer. I was hoping to—”
“That bastard can rot in hell, as far I’m concerned.”
The gruff voice behind him made both Jesse and Kim turn to the table of old men, and Jesse had no trouble picking out the weathered, scowling face of the man who had spoken. He still didn’t remember the man’s name but knew he had always been the loudest of the group.
“Anyone that murders their own kin deserves everything the devil hands them when they’re dead,” the man went on, nearly spitting the words as he glared at the others at his table. As if they had brought up the subject of Jacob Palmer instead of him. “The only thing Earl did right was not let him be buried in the cemetery. I’d have fed him to the pigs if I had anything to say about it.”
“The old mayor,” Kim said quietly, drawing Jesse’s gaze back and filling him in on the Earl the man had mentioned. Then she raised her voice to the table. “Earl’s long gone, Artie, so don’t start in on him. And so is Jacob Palmer, so you can give him a rest too.” She gave Jesse a wink as she added quietly, “Get them started and they’ll go on forever. So, you’re from Attingwood—”
“Well, I remember when he came to the house to try to beg for money!” the old man—Artie—went on viciously. “Said he needed it to buy books for the school. School already had enough books. It didn’t need no more—”
“Oh, Artie!” Kim said again, sounding more exasperated than angry as she shook her head in apology to Jesse.
“Had the damn nerve to blame the townspeople for not paying him enough to teach their kids to read and write. What he needed to teach them was to pull a plow! You don’t need to know reading and writing to plant a crop. He created a damn rebellion, is what he did!”
“There wasn’t a rebellion, Artie!” Kim called back at him, but it was the other words Artie said that made Jesse turn back to the table. Artie was an old farmer; that much Jesse knew. But he had to be even older than Jesse thought he was if he remembered when Jacob Palmer was alive and well.
“I told that bastard to get the hell off my land and stop trying to teach them kids things they don’t need. And took a stick to him when he didn’t move fast enough!”
Artie’s face was a picture of righteous anger as Kim shouted back, “Oh, you did not!”
But Artie’s shouting continued. “He didn’t have no business being around kids to begin with!”
“Order up!”
The shout from the kitchen snatched Jesse’s attention from the match going on between Artie and Kim to the order window, though he didn’t see more of the cook than a thick hand sliding the plate under the ticket wheel. Kim immediately moved to retrieve the steaming breakfast of bacon and eggs, but it wasn’t the food Jesse was thinking about as he turned back to the table, and it wasn’t hunger that turned in his stomach as the smells reached him.
His own grandpa had used the word “shady” to describe Jacob Palmer when he had told the story to Jesse as a kid, but Jesse had never thought to ask him for specific details of the man. He hadn’t wanted to know the details once his grandpa had showed him the picture of Jacob Palmer in the tattered old newspaper clipping, but the chill that spread through him at the mention of kids—
“Don’t pay any attention to Artie, honey,” Kim said suddenly, drawing Jesse’s gaze away from the old man as she slid the plate onto the counter in front of him. “He gets fired up sometimes, but he’ll simmer down after a while. He just needs to show his age from time to time.”
“No, it’s okay,” Jesse answered, forcing a smile. “I already knew Jacob Palmer had been a schoolteacher. My grandpa told me that. But I never heard him say anything about the kids he taught—”
“He’d take them to his house and touch them where they shouldn’t be touched!” Artie shouted suddenly, making Jesse whirl to face him again.
“Oh, Artie, he did not!” Kim nearly shouted in Jesse’s ear, and Jesse turned his head back in time to see her wave her arms in exasperation.
“I got a cousin who caught him grabbing kids off the street—!”
“Oh, you don’t either, Artie!” Kim shouted again. “And that cousin of yours is as far off his rocker as you are! Jacob Palmer would have never been allowed to teach school at all if that was true! Miller’s Creek may be just a wide spot in the road, but even our school board was better than that!”
“Bunch of hooligans is what they are! Don’t care who they get to preach to their kids as long they don’t have to pay more than a dollar—”
“Artie!” Kim shouted again, actually sounding angry for the first time. “They teach kids in school, don’t preach at them, and you can’t blame them for teaching them to do more than milk a cow! Now will you just pipe down and drink your coffee and let this young man enjoy his breakfast in peace?”
Jesse heard more than saw Artie subside in the disgruntled muttering in the booth behind him and knew the old man would continue the argument with himself, if no one else. He could still hear the mumbling as Kim turned to him with an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry about that, honey. When the old coot gets a thorn in his toe, he makes sure the whole town knows about it. Sometimes you just have to answer in kind to get him to quiet down. Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I’m fine,” Jesse told her with a laugh. “And it’s not the first time I’ve seen people get carried away with their opinion, so it’s all right. But you know, as much as I’ve heard about Jacob Palmer, I’ve never heard anyone say anything about the kids—”
“Someone should have shot the bastard before—”
“Artie.”
“Damn city folk sticking their noses in….”
Artie’s words trailed back into the mumbling as Kim shook her head, and Jesse decided that, curiosity or not, it would definitely be better to let his questions go unanswered for now. He could come back and talk to Kim later, when Artie wasn’t occupying a booth within hearing distance. He reached for the pepper as Kim picked up a towel from behind her.
“I bet this is a big change from Attingwood, isn’t it, honey?” Kim said then, her smile returning as she joined Jesse in ignoring the old men in the booth. “Have you been here before?”
Jesse’s own smile came back as he sprinkled the pepper on his eggs. Strangers were probably rare enough in Miller’s Creek that any and all of them would be the subject of gossip the moment they were spotted, but at least Kim seemed more intent on idle conversation than actual prying. The question was a natural one after all.
“Yeah, a long time ago,” Jesse answered vaguely. “And not much has changed as far as I can tell.”
“Oh, it never does in places like this,” Kim answered with a laugh. “Which is good or bad, depending on who you ask.” Her gaze flicked to Artie, bringing another smile to Jesse’s face. “But I guess some people are meant for small towns and some people aren’t. So, you’re a writer for a paper, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said again. “The Attingwood Journal. And I’m still just an associate writer, which is a fancy way of saying I haven’t got my big break yet.” He held out his hand. “I’m Jesse, by the way. Jesse Ellis.”
Artie’s voice cut in even before Kim could take his hand. “That’s the name of that boy from the cemetery.”
Ice filled Jesse’s veins.
“Used to hang out with that Meyers boy. Punk if I ever saw one. Neither one of them was worth two cents, and they just got worse once they got together.”
“Oh Lord, here we go again,” Kim muttered through a sigh as she took Jesse’s hand and held it. “I swear that old goat would drive a nun to drink. Artie—!”
“Worst thing they did was not take that Ellis boy away with the Meyers brat. Both of them needed to be put away, as much trouble as they caused in this town. And the Ellis boy’s momma and daddy weren’t much better, letting him get by with killing a man. Should have locked the whole bunch of them away and threw away the key, not raising their boy any better than that!”
Jesse had turned and was halfway to his feet before the pressure of Kim’s hand on his arm stopped him. He hadn’t even realized he had moved, but the surge of anger at hearing the old man tearing down his parents in the same breath he ripped into Jesse with—
Jesse’s parents hadn’t “let” him get by with killing that old man in the cemetery. They had done everything they could to help Jesse come to grips with the fact that Geoff had inadvertently done it. And they had raised him just fine. He had a college education, a job, his own apartment, and at any time other than now a lot more tact and a lot less venom than Artie Bennet was showing. Yeah, that was the old fucker’s full name. Arthur Elijah Bennet. It was amazing how blinding anger brought that memory into full focus.
“Artie, will you shut the hell up and drink your damn coffee?” Kim shouted, her own anger giving her words a razor-sharp edge. “You’re causing more trouble than those boys ever did by running your mouth without your brain engaged enough to stop your tongue!”
Kim’s words snapped Jesse out of the rage that was building, and he could feel her hand on his arm now. He turned back in time to see her own anger slip into embarrassment as she urged him back to his seat. Jesse suddenly felt bad for her for having to be the buffer between Artie and the world in general. It wasn’t Kim’s fault that Artie Bennet was a bitter old man, though not even her genial presence could make Jesse want to stay here any longer. He resisted the tug of her hand and instead reached for his wallet.
“No, it’s all right. I need to be going anyway,” Jesse told her when it looked like she would apologize. He slipped a ten-dollar bill under his cup, then smiled at Kim tightly. “The breakfast was great, but I do have work to do. Any chance I could get a coffee to go?”
“You bet, sweetie,” Kim answered quickly, though with both a smile and an air of defeat. “And you can have your breakfast on the house. Anyone having to listen to that old goat deserves at least that. And let me get you a cinnamon roll to take with you, since you didn’t eat enough to feed a bird.”
Jesse almost told her that none of her offers was necessary, but he had the feeling Kim would feel better if he accepted rather than refused. It was her way of making amends. And something his mother would have done in her place.
“Thank you. I appreciate it,” he said instead, and accepted the foam cup and the container holding the cinnamon roll the moment Kim presented them with a smile much more genuine before promising to come back. And Kim’s smile as she told him, “See that you do,” made Jesse determined to make sure his promise was one he kept.
The cowbell rang again as he opened the door to leave,
But the sound of Artie’s voice reached him one last time before he stepped outside.
“Running that Ellis bunch out of town was one of the best things this town ever did!”
Jesse let the door close without looking back.
THE WATER of the actual Miller’s Creek looked cold and gray from Jesse’s view from the bank, while the trees stretching away in both directions looked black and lifeless against the thick, overcast sky. The sand and gravel parking area was larger than it had been the last time he was here, but his car was the only one at the river today. He was the only person here today, though the creek was easily within walking distance from any area of the town. But it was too cold for the kids to use the creek as a swimming hole and too early in the day for the oldest of them to come to the creek to drink and make out. Jesse may have never done either while still living in Miller’s Creek, but he knew what went on here. Everyone in town did.
He let out a heavy sigh as he leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. Artie’s words may have been all vitriol and judgment, but Jesse had still been shocked to hear them. He remembered exactly how he and his parents had been shunned after that night in the cemetery fifteen years ago, and how it had grown worse once news of Geoff’s suicide had made it to the ramshackle town that had been both of their homes.
Yet he had never given thought to what people were saying behind their backs once their heads had turned away, and learning it had been both bitter and painful.
He opened his eyes to the bleakness of the creek as another heavy breath escaped, then reached for the cup in his cup holder and the cooling coffee it contained.
He had been only blocks from the house he’d grown up in when he left the diner but couldn’t make himself turn toward it when he pulled out of the parking space. He hadn’t wanted to come back to Miller’s Creek at all and didn’t want to be anywhere inside it while Artie Bennet’s words were still so fresh in his mind. But he couldn’t leave until his job here was done, so he had turned toward the creek instead. A little bit of peace and quiet would do him more good than anything he could learn about Jacob Palmer, for a little while at least.
He returned his cup to the cup holder as he let his gaze drift over his barren surroundings, taking in the stripped trees and gray water with a sense of detachment for what was once familiar territory—
Until his gaze moved to the one place that snapped his detachment into shreds under a wave of recognition. It was off to his left, where the trees hadn’t been cut back and trunks grew close together. Where the bank lifted sharply over the creek and the sand and gravel gave way to rock. And then a little farther down, where the trees thinned enough to allow access to the shelf of limestone that followed the path of the creek. The shelf would barely be wide enough to allow a grown man to walk along it safely…but it had been more than wide enough for two teenage boys to walk fifteen years ago.
What little breakfast Jesse had eaten turned sour in his stomach. He was staring at the path to the cave and remembered every footstep he had taken as he followed Geoff Meyers to reach it.