Now
ONCE BETH MADE it out of the ravine, her cell phone had service again.
As she drove, she googled the lyrics of the weird lullaby she’d pulled from the bark of the moth-covered tree down by the tunnel. This one was a Nigerian lullaby called “Boju Boju,” translated to the English written on the back of the Beehive’s yellow flyer. She pulled to the side of the road long enough to read. The lullaby told children if they don’t stay in bed with their eyes closed, harm would come. In this case, a monster will eat them. “Boju Boju” apparently meant some sort of mask, or as someone else another link down mused, a version of the game peekaboo. The Oro appeared to be in reference to the god Oro from the Yoruba religion. Until the past twenty-four hours, she’d never paid attention to how dark lullabies were. Parents might have for centuries sung them in sweet innocent voices to get their babies to go to sleep, but how many really paid attention to the lyrics and dark undertones?
Lullabies were full of monsters. Full of dark, disguised by beautiful singsong rhythms. Or was it the sinister disguised by something beautiful? Much like the colorful ivy now bordering the stone of the tunnel’s southern entrance? The colorful moths on that tree down there. The colorful seashells and stark white leaves. The yellow squirrel she’d seen running loose inside Simple Simon’s cottage. The glimpses of the monsters she’d seen drawn inside Simon’s Lalaland book. And as large and eerily foreboding as that black, antlered deer that had been outside the tunnel moments ago; it too had carried an aura of fantastical beauty.
Don’t get lured into fool’s gold, Beth. Another favorite saying from Sheriff Meeks. Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t always assume a smile means somebody is nice. There’s evil out there, Beth, and it comes in all forms.
Beth pulled back out onto the road and picked up speed toward town. The lyrics on the yellow flyer followed her. Just by reading them she couldn’t tell exactly how those words might be sung, but she was doing her best to imagine it, and it made her skin crawl.
Three minutes later she turned onto Mallard Street and slowed outside the Smite House. There was a van she didn’t recognize parked on the driveway. As mind-bending as the last hour had been down inside the ravine and tunnel, she felt a sudden need to see Brody. To hug him. He was right there, a hundred yards away, inside the Smite House with the Duprees. She could run in and get a quick fix. Squeeze him and smell his hair and at least make herself feel better for having dumped him again while she worked. Always working, according to Jax, even when she was home, downstairs in her Murder Pit.
She’d told him not to blow things out of proportion. But after that quick exchange of words that boiled down to her not spending enough time with her son—it burned how he’d stressed the word her son—she’d thought, yes, maybe Jax was right, it was a murder pit, and she always had been obsessed with what she’d collected down there. But to her it was essential. Beth thought better of it and cruised past the Smite House toward the Beehive at the top of Mallard. She would have only riled Brody up, to hug and run.
Brody is in good hands. He’ll be there when your workday is done.
She pulled into the Beehive Hotel’s front parking lot, mostly vacant except for a few construction vehicles. Before she got out of the car, a text came through from Jax saying men and women were coming to the fire station to volunteer in droves. He knew they couldn’t all be deputized, but they were up to fifteen now, not only taking their turns at the barricades in and out of town but walking the streets and town squares, all eager to report the slightest unusual sighting or minor disturbance.
She sent back a quick thanks and then another, keep me posted.
Will do. Responded Jax. And then: Love you.
She did a double take at that, because it wasn’t typical. He did love her, she knew, but not in the way a husband normally would a wife. This told her he was scared. Maybe for himself, maybe for her, probably for them both.
Scared for the town.
She thought about ghosting him, but then typed back: Love you too.
And she did. Jax had always been a dear friend, despite being a complete dick to Gideon his entire life, but that’s what jealousy does, thought Beth. Early and often. Jealousy breeds contempt and Jax had always been full of both. If she didn’t love him, she never would have agreed so early on in their lives to do what she was doing. To live under such a façade.
She grabbed the yellow flyer and got out of the car. Holding it now reminded her how long it had been pinned to that weird tree. It was damp and weather soiled, and stained by whatever ashy moth residue those things left behind. Beth started toward the hotel when she realized the barricades across Mallard Street had been moved and there was no one guarding this entrance into town. This was Gideon’s beat.
She called him from the parking lot. Gideon sounding rushed when he answered. “Beth?”
“Gideon, where are you?”
“I’m home.”
“You’re supposed to—”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll explain it when I can, but … where are you?”
“I’m getting ready to knock on the door to the Beehive.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain that when I can,” she said. “But what pulled you from your post?”
“Someone arrived,” he said. “From Charleston. The other from Tulsa.”
The van she’d seen in the driveway, Beth thought. “Go on.”
“Maddy, she … she was a coma patient herself up until a few weeks ago.”
“Wait, Maddy? Maddy who?”
“Maddy Boyle,” he said.
“Jesus …” From Charleston …
“What? That name ring a bell?”
It does now, Beth thought, remembering the conversation she’d had in the middle of the night with the detective from Charleston. “Go on,” she said.
“She brought with her another little girl,” Gideon said. “She’s in a coma as well, and … you’re not going to believe this, Beth, but this little girl … her name is Amy Shimp.”
“That one doesn’t register.”
“She’s one of the names Jax wrote down last night when Sully started calling them out.”
Amy Shimp? It was one of the names Jax had left on her voice mail.
“She’s here,” Gideon said. “Maddy brought her. And as soon as we placed her on the bed next to Sully, they …” He sounded like he’d just choked up and couldn’t go on.
“They what, Gideon?”
“They held hands, Beth,” he said in a gush. “Like they somehow know each other.”
Beth saw a curtain move from a third-floor window at the Beehive. She said to Gideon, “I gotta go. We’ll talk about this in a bit. Hug Brody for me.”
“Yeah, okay. Sure.”
“Gideon?”
“Yeah?”
She paused, lost her train of thought, if she’d ever had one. “Nothing. Be careful.”
“You too,” he said. “And Beth, there’s a red bus parked in the woods behind that hotel.”
Beth noticed his voice had fallen away to a hushed whisper. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just that my mom walked back into the room. I didn’t want her overhearing me talk about the hotel.”
“Why?”
“I dunno, just can’t figure out her part in it all. You ever see her with Mickey French?”
“The owner? Yes. But they’re working together. She’s running the—”
“Marketing campaign, yeah, I got that.”
“Then what?”
“I dunno, maybe nothing. Just that I’ve been gone a while and she’s … changed.”
“We all have.”
“Maybe so, but … I can’t shake the feeling those two are more than just work partners, and Dad, he’s like a zombie. Depressed isn’t even the word for it.”
The curtain in another window moved, this time from the second floor. “I gotta go. We’ll discuss it later.”
“Look for the red bus,” Gideon said.
Beth ended the call, closed in on the hotel’s curved, brick walkway and stopped at the double front doors, one yellow, the other black, just like it had been in the 1920s. She knocked on yellow, waited a minute, knocked again, this time on black. “Open up. Sheriff’s office.” She peered through a side window. “Mickey, I know you’re in there.” She saw Gideon’s point about his mother. She was older than Mickey by ten years and the two could regularly be seen at the Dark Roast coffee shop having work meetings. Could there be more to it? She had lost weight. She had begun to dress younger, but that was nobody else’s business.
Beth was about to knock again when she heard footsteps on the other side. The yellow door opened wide enough for Mickey to show his battered face. His nose was bandaged. His lip was busted. His left eye bruised.
“Mickey? What the hell happened?”
“Nothing,” he said, looking past her, completely paranoid. “What do you want?”
“First, for you not to lie to me. Who beat the shit out of you?”
“N … nobody,” he stammered. “I fell. Down the stairs. I was tired, working too late. You know? Trying to get this place ready and I’m running out of time, so …”
“Can I come in?”
“No. Not right now.”
She held up the yellow flyer with the lullaby written on the back of it facing him. “This mean anything to you?”
“No, why would it?”
“It was written on your flyer?”
He hesitated, looked away. “So? Those were distributed all over town. Could have been anyone. Why are you really here?”
She folded the paper, slid it into her back pocket. Honestly, that was why she was here. Because of that flyer. But he was right. Anyone could have written it. “I saw someone in one of the rooms upstairs. Two, actually. One on the third floor and one on the second.”
Mickey closed his eyes for a beat, opened them annoyed. “What’d they look like?”
“Just saw curtains move.”
“We’ve been working on our air and heat system all day.”
“That’s not what I saw,” she said. “I thought you weren’t open yet.”
“I’m not.”
“Then who is upstairs in those rooms?”
“Workers. From out of town. They’re staying here while the construction is ongoing. Everyone knows this.”
“Mickey, we’ve had three murders—”
“I know about … the murders. Meeks questioned them two days ago.”
“But I haven’t,” she said. “How about you open the door and let me in so we can figure out who all we can cross off our list.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, not without a warrant.”
“Seriously, Mickey? You gonna go there?”
“If I have to,” he said. “Look, you give me a list of who all Meeks questioned, and then I’ll give you a list of all who are currently employed working on this hotel. Anybody you need to see, then I’ll send them to the station. I’ll escort them myself. Fair?”
She sighed, annoyed, but said, “Fine.”
“But nobody is getting inside this hotel until the grand opening.”
“I said fine.” Just when he looked relieved, she said, “You mind if I go take a look at that red bus behind your property?” He sighed, scratched his head. “Don’t even say what bus, Mickey. I know it’s back there.” Really, she didn’t. She hadn’t seen it with her own eyes but trusted Gideon.
“Again,” he said. “My property. You’re gonna need a warrant, Beth.”
She started down the hotel steps toward the walkway. “How about we shove the warrant up your ass, Mickey.”
“That’s professional.”
“So is that bathrobe in the middle of the day,” she said. “Is that silk?”
He closed the lapels. “Where you going?”
“Around back,” she said. “To see the bus.”
“I told you … not without a warrant. It’s on my property.”
She ignored him. It probably was. Unless it was far enough back into the trees not to be. He must have realized the same thing. He hurried down the steps after her, barefooted and rapidly tying his robe. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What really happened to your face?”
“I told you …”
“You fell, right.” She spotted the red school bus in the trees right away. Whoever had been driving it must have had a hell of a time getting it as far back into the tree line as they had, because it looked wedged in there. Desperately, almost. Like the bus had been there even before the trees had grown up around it.
Maybe at nighttime it was concealed in the shadows, but not during daylight. Of course, nobody had been looking for it, and work trucks and vans had been in and out of these front and back lots for over a year now. Other than the ribbon cutting when they broke ground on renovations, most the action at the Beehive had been ignored by the public. There was almost a we’ll believe it when we see it vibe. Plus, most in town knew the Beehive had always been the dream of Archie Dupree, and not this out-of-town young upstart realtor who’d seemingly stolen it out from beneath Archie’s feet.
“How’s Maxine Dupree working out?” Beth asked Mickey on her way to the back of the lot toward the tree line.
“What? Fine? Why?”
“Just curious.” Beth glanced toward the windows on the back side of the hotel, and damn if she didn’t see another curtain move. “Somebody’s watching me from inside that hotel, Mickey.”
“Nobody is—”
“I want that list at the station within the hour. You got it?”
“Fine.” He caught up to her. The slap of his bare feet on the asphalt made him appear even more pathetic. “But you’re not getting on that bus.”
“What bus?” She closed in on it, studied its positioning within the trees that hugged it. Expert driver, she thought, to get it nearly hidden like that.
“Warrant.”
“These trees aren’t your property, Mickey. Your property line ends at the pavement. It was a big sticking point when you bought this place, and we all know it.”
He pointed to the front left tire, turned slightly toward them and touching the parking lot, the only part of the bus technically on the hotel’s property. “See, the tire. Show me the warrant.”
“How about I just not search that tire?” She’d already rounded the front of the bus, realizing how much time and attention had been put into painting this monstrosity. And the door, painted black? “How long has this bus been here, Mickey?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you tell me a week or more then we’re gonna have some serious problems.”
“I said I don’t know.”
“Suit yourself.” She opened the door. A moth immediately flew out. She ducked aside, let it pass, and then stepped up into the bus. She instantly smelled ammonia, cleaning solvents. “Mickey?” she shouted, only to find him right on her heels. She pulled her gun, and that halted him for a beat. She said, “Somebody just clean this bus?”
“What?”
“Did the beating you took hurt your hearing? Did somebody clean this bus?”
“I don’t know … it belongs to … one of the workers.”
“Get me the—”
“I’ll get you the list,” he said so sharply she almost laughed. “Have you seen enough? It’s a clean bus. Nothing special here.”
Beth stared down the aisle and flanking benches. Nothing to see aside from the dozens of moths inside with them, some on the seat backs, others flying around like they were in a butterfly garden. Moths just like she’d seen smothering the bark of that tree down by the tunnel. She turned toward Mickey. “One of your workers, huh? Make sure he …”—she held up a finger—“or she, although I doubt a female would paint a bus this awful color, is the first person on that list.”
“Fine.”
“An hour, Mickey.”
He nodded, stepped aside as she brushed past. She removed her phone, snapped off a couple of quick pictures of the moths on the seats, hoping to catch some in midflight. To Mickey, she said, “Smile.”
He didn’t.
She took a photo of him anyway. She stopped behind the driver’s seat. Behind the massive steering wheel, a two-foot-long section of blue painter’s tape had been stuck to the dashboard. In black Sharpie someone had written: The Lullaby Express.
She looked at Mickey again, “Make that thirty minutes. At the station.”
He didn’t fight it.
Her cell phone rang. Eyes still on Mickey, Beth answered the call.
“Beth, it’s Natalie. Sheriff Meeks, he’s … he’s talking. He’s asking for you.”