Chapter 12
Heidi

When she was a kid, she’d had a pet frog. Heidi remembered her father bringing home crickets from the pet store, and she’d dropped a few into the aquarium only to flinch as the long, sticky tongue of the amphibian shot out and snatched the insect. Legs kicked as it lodged in the frog’s mouth. The worst part, besides the gruesome sight, was the small container of crickets beside the tank. Unsuspecting little creatures, rubbing their hind legs together in a spring chorus of conversation as a vicious predator loomed beside them, separated by a plate of glass—and Heidi’s mercy. She’d released the crickets the next day and insisted her father take the frog to a nearby pond and release it too. Circle of life aside, Heidi had no intention of committing such offenses against living creatures.

It was how she felt all too often.

Not that her parents had intentions of eating her, but more so, that they were always there, and Heidi never knew when they would pounce if she spoke, or sang, or danced just wrong. There were legalities of the faith to follow. To them, the lines were clearly drawn. To Heidi, they’d been the plastic container she was trapped in. A container she’d escaped shortly after high school. College had been her playground, but even there, Heidi felt as if she had a tiny parent perched on each shoulder, both censuring her actions. So, for the most part, she’d been a good girl. But along with that came the very real drifting away from her family, until her career took over, life became easier alone, and distance made family more tolerable.

Heidi jerked her head up as Vicki accidentally dropped a stainless-steel pan into the sink. Her sister’s face almost reflected how Heidi felt. For a moment, she wondered if Vicki had ever felt trapped too? She always assumed Vicki aligned herself with their parents out of personal choice. But what if—?

“The dishwasher is broken,” Vicki muttered. Maybe to her, but Heidi didn’t respond. Vicki retrieved the pan, turned on the water, and grabbed a scouring pad.

Heidi sat on a stool at the kitchen bar, her elbows propped on the granite countertop, hands splayed on both sides of her head. She hadn’t slept last night—at all. The couch was hard, and she certainly wasn’t going to sleep in her bedroom. Vicki might have scoured the mirror and removed the lipstick message with Windex, but she couldn’t scour the vision of the dead doppelgänger, or worse, the resurrected doppelgänger staring at her through her bedroom window.

Legend, ghost, or real, Heidi was not a fan of this Misty Wayfair woman. Or people who broke into houses and didn’t bother to do anything but completely scare the occupants.

She studied Vicki, who applied as much elbow grease to cleaning the pan as she had to cleaning the mirror last night.

“Thanks for getting that message off the glass,” Heidi ventured.

Vicki paused, her head coming up to give her sister a surprised look. A slight smile touched her lips. Heidi realized she probably hadn’t offered much in the way of gratitude to her sister. That was something she did need to take personal responsibility for. As people said, when you point your finger, there’s still three pointing back at you. Heidi preferred not to dwell on what she may have contributed to the family dysfunction.

Vicki returned to scrubbing. “Well, I just think it’s ridiculous the police can’t do anything.” Her words were a mix of irritation and worry.

“Yeah.” Heidi’s response was absent. She ran a finger over a marble pattern on the counter. “So . . . this asylum . . .”

“What?” Vicki put the pot on the drainboard and submerged her hand to unplug the drain for the dishwater.

Heidi infused more assertiveness into her voice. Images of the photo album with the dead woman replaying in her mind. “This asylum the police mentioned last night? The Misty Wayfair character. What do you know about it?”

Vicki wiped down the sink. “As Mom would say, it’s ‘stuff and nonsense.’ You know there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

One of the few things Heidi was prone to agree with her sister on. And still . . .

“But, there was a woman looking in my window. Was it a guest maybe? Of the lodge?”

Vicki dried her hands on a towel. Her blond hair was pulled back in its typically low ponytail, a few strands framing her face. Her eyes weren’t as hard and bitter this morning. Heidi wished she looked like this more often. She was more approachable, more—human.

“Doubtful. It’s only May, so school hasn’t ended in most places. Our guests right now are all older, not young enough to match your description.”

Heidi nodded. So much for that idea. She debated showing the photo album to Vicki, but then Vicki continued.

“As for the asylum, it’s abandoned. It’s out in the woods down Briar Road about a half mile after you cross the bridge over the river. I don’t think it’s even safe to explore, from what I’ve heard. The foundation is a mess. But, I’ve never actually been out there.”

“When did it shut down?” Heidi folded her hands in front of her, and her gaze trailed the green of her tattoos. Fly Free.

She’d been trying to her entire life.

Vicki leaned against the sink and crossed her arms. “I don’t know. I don’t know much about it or this Misty Wayfair story. She’s just folklore really, again from what I’ve heard.”

Vicki wasn’t going to be much help. At least not with local history. Still . . . family history? Maybe. After all, Heidi did find that photo album with her look-alike dead woman in the local antique shop run by Connie Crawford. If she was related to the woman in the picture—the woman looking in her window—then how did it end up in Pleasant Valley when they hailed from Minnesota originally?

“So, how much do you know about our ancestry?” Heidi asked.

Vicki shifted and crossed her ankles, then leaned back against the sink again. “I don’t know what you mean.”

It really wasn’t that hard to understand. Heidi tried again. “Grandparents, great-grandparents, where our family comes from. Germans, Vikings, Celts?”

“Oh.” Vicki’s face turned expressionless, and Heidi couldn’t tell if it was because she knew something and didn’t want to say, or because she had no interest and had never entertained the question before.

“You’d have to ask Mom. I don’t know anything,” she answered, her words a bit clipped.

“You think Mom will even remember?” Mom. The woman had thought she was dead, for goodness’ sake. How would she even have an ounce of memory for ancestral history?

Vicki shrugged and pushed off the counter. “I doubt it. Why do you want to know anyway? I’d rather find out who broke into this house. I’ve got damage control to do with the guests. They’re all unnerved, and rightfully so. It won’t surprise me if some of them check out early.” Her armor was back on, and Heidi squelched a sigh. Vicki grabbed a pile of used dish towels to take them to the laundry room. She paused and gave Heidi a poignant look. “If they do check out, we’ll lose money having to refund the days they didn’t stay.”

Heidi tilted her head and gave Vicki a raised brow. “And that’s my fault?”

Vicki shrugged. “Not necessarily. But it was your room, your mirror. I don’t know what you’ve been doing the last several years, but . . .”

The dropped sentence was rife with implications.

Heidi owed her sister no explanation, but old instincts to defend her decisions still ran thick through her. “I’ve been waitressing, okay? That’s it. And working some administrative temp jobs.”

Vicki gave her a look that indicated she either didn’t believe her or that it was no shocking surprise Heidi had developed into nothing much worth talking about.

And that was the look Heidi had lived with all her life, in this cricket-container world that some people called a family.

Connie Crawford opened the front door. Her smile stretched across her face and reached her warm, brown eyes.

“Heidi!”

Heidi stalled for a moment and then responded with an equally friendly smile. Gosh, she could really enjoy Connie’s company! It was a breath of fresh air over Vicki’s, and there was an instantaneous nurturing air about the woman that made Heidi wonder, briefly, if she’d been lucky enough to have been Connie’s daughter, would the woman be proud of her—for being her?

Heidi glanced over Connie’s shoulder. “I was wanting to check on Emma, and the dog.”

And appease her own conscience for slamming into the canine with her car that was, interestingly enough, no longer in the ditch and also nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, you’re so kind! And you walked all the way here? That’s at least three miles!”

The walk had done her good. Cleared her head, her thoughts from the mind-numbing depths of all things dark and suspicious. Circumstances might not have changed, but she was rising from the quagmire of last night’s desperation.

It’d also given her time to relive her conversation with her mom. To reconsider the letter she’d received and maybe even reason it away as her mother losing her mental faculties rather than a sincere cry for help, cloaked with strange statements that made no sense.

Connie opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

She led the way through the kitchen. “I have a part-timer running the store today,” she explained over her shoulder, even though Heidi hadn’t asked. “Both dog and owner are fine, but Emma needs a bit more assistance at the moment.”

Heidi winced. That was for certain her fault.

Connie led her through a doorway into the family room. She paused and smiled at Heidi with a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “It’s really all right, Heidi. Emma is a trooper, and she’ll adjust. It might be slow, though. The finding of that new routine can cause much anxiety. She’s not used to not having Ducie at her beck and call.”

Emma looked up and smiled a quick flash of a smile as they approached.

“Hi.” She lifted a hand in a wave. Far more relaxed than the previous night, Emma sat intent at a table with a board game of Risk. She was setting it up.

“Risk!” Heidi grinned. “Now that is my type of game!”

Emma didn’t respond. Her hand went to the infinity scarf around her neck.

Connie chuckled. “Emma always wins, and I find it quite disheartening.”

“It’s strategy.” There wasn’t much emotion in Emma’s tone, and she tugged at her scarf again. Heidi realized it was probably a gesture of comfort for Emma.

The young woman was dividing armies.

“Forty armies for two players, right?” Heidi welcomed the sense of pleasure that coursed through her at the sight of the game. It was a beginner question, but it broke the ice between her and the woman whose dog she’d almost killed.

“Yes.” Emma nodded but stayed hunched over the board.

“I’d like to play,” Heidi ventured. She really would. Get her mind off everything even more than the walk had.

“Sure.” Emma pushed a pile of cards in Heidi’s direction. “We need neutral territories.”

“For two players, that’s how it’s done,” Connie explained, watching.

“I remember.” Heidi sat in a chair opposite Emma. A thumping sound grabbed her attention, and she looked down at the floor by Emma’s feet. Ducie lay there on a dog bed, his hind leg in a cast. She’d not seen him there when she’d come in, but now Heidi could tell that although the dog might be incapacitated, he had no intention of leaving his mistress’s side.

No wonder Emma was calm.

Heidi smiled. This might be the first moment since she’d arrived in Pleasant Valley that she could draw a deep breath and feel at peace. At least for a second or two.

“Rhett had your vehicle towed to the shop,” Connie broke into Heidi’s thoughts.

“That was kind.” She watched Emma arranging the cards. It was also presuming of him.

“Your brother-in-law, Brad, called this morning to make sure it was taken care of. Rhett was on it right away.”

Oh. Brad. Heidi had eventually explained her own evening’s accident, which somehow seemed to pale in comparison to squad cars, cryptic lipstick messages, and rumors of ghosts.

“That’s why you came, isn’t it?” Connie’s inquiry caused Heidi to snap from her mental picture of Vicki’s heavy sigh from the night before as Heidi had admitted to almost killing Emma Crawford’s service dog.

“Huh?” Heidi blinked.

Even Emma paused to watch her.

“Your car? That’s why you stopped by?” Connie pressed.

“Oh!” Pull it together, Lane. Heidi nodded her head, pushing strands of blue-tipped hair behind her ear. “Well, yes, but I also wanted to check in on Emma here, and of course the dog.”

“Ducie,” Emma supplied.

“Yes, Ducie.” Heidi accepted the correction.

“It was a bit of a traumatic night,” Connie admitted. She reached out and pushed on Emma’s shoulder. A firm grip and an applied pressure. Emma smiled at her mother, a quiet expulsion of breath that seemed to squeeze any uninvited anxiety from Emma’s body.

Heidi could comprehend a little of how Emma felt. Pent-up anxiety was awful, sometimes paralyzing. “I really am sorry. I didn’t realize how fast I was going, and I was distracted.”

“You should concentrate harder.” Emma lifted large brown eyes set in a fine-boned face to Heidi. There was kindness in her expression, in spite of the abrupt correction. As though it were obvious, and Heidi should know this naturally.

Heidi swallowed and choked. “Yes. I probably should.”

A smile quirked Connie’s lips. The older woman pushed back a strand of graying blond hair. “Emma is very honest.”

“Honesty is wise.” Heidi affirmed Emma.

Connie redirected her attention to her daughter. “Emma, are you fine if I go call Dad?”

Emma nodded and leaned over to scratch Ducie behind the ear.

“He was supposed to be home today to be with Emma, but he was called in.” Connie’s voice lowered. “Murphy works at Kramer’s, and sometimes they can’t do without him.”

“Kramer’s?” Heidi inquired, sidestepping the emotional twinge of guilt that Emma’s routine had been so obviously disrupted, and it was all Heidi’s fault.

“The logging and lumber company,” Connie explained.

“They were founded in 1838.” Emma’s insertion was matter-of-fact. “By Lewis Kramer. His parents were immigrants from Stuttgart, Germany, when he was five years old. He came to Pleasant Valley in the summer of 1831, and seven years later, Kramer Logging was formed.”

Heidi couldn’t help but allow a small, impressed laugh to escape her lips. “Emma Crawford, that’s phenomenal date retention.”

Emma smiled. A thin, wan smile that communicated she appreciated Heidi’s words but wasn’t sure why she was impressed.

Connie left the room to go place her call. Heidi sat down opposite of Emma and began to prepare for a game of Risk. It wasn’t what she should be doing, yet she couldn’t shake her uneasy and aimless feeling. One that could almost drift away sitting opposite of Emma and in the presence of Connie Crawford.

“I used to play Risk on Friday nights when I lived in Minnesota and I was in high school. But that was a long time ago.” Heidi picked up the instructions. Emma seemed to ignore her, and Ducie released a heavy dog sigh from his place on the bed.

Heidi kept rambling.

“My friends and I would conquer the world. We split into teams of two since there were several of us. We’d make hot cocoa, have popcorn, and make a real game of it. And I”—Heidi tossed an infantryman into the air, then caught it in her palm—“usually dominated the board.”

Emma reached for the infantryman.

Heidi drew her hand back and gave her counterpart a teasing grin. “Ah ah ah! You’ll have to seize India to get this guy!” She made a flourish of stationing the piece on India.

“No.” Emma shook her head, drawing in a shaky breath. “No. There are rules.” She slid her chair back and cast a nervous glance at Ducie. It was as if she wanted to leave the room but hadn’t the heart to leave Ducie with Heidi. She began to tug at her scarf.

Something had just gone dreadfully wrong. Heidi stood and reached toward Emma. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You don’t throw the infantryman!” Emma jerked away and gave Heidi an offended glare, emphasized by a yank on her scarf.

“Emma, I—”

“You can leave now.” A definitive male voice sliced through the air.

Heidi’s eyes collided with the commanding expression of a very protective older brother. There was nothing else to do but agree.