Ashlyn's Radio (9 page)

Except he was working for one of them, wasn’t he? Of course, maybe it was okay to take their money as long as you didn’t socialize with them.

“I could bring some over next time I work,” he offered. “I’ve got one of those photo viewers. It’s like a pocket-sized photo album.”

“Sure,” she said, hating how tight her voice sounded. “That’d be great.”

Yeah, frickin’ great. Just peachy.

“Ashlyn?”

The female voice came from beside the barn. Ashlyn turned to see Rachel standing in the doorway. Or rather, a figure who had to be Rachel. Looking from bright sunlight into darkness, she couldn’t make out her face, but no one else wore long skirts and long sleeved black tunics on a warm September day.

“Hey, Rachel,” she called. “Come on out.”

As the other girl stepped into the fenced exercise yard, she was mobbed by four Airedales. Clearly — and fortunately — she wasn’t scared of dogs, because she laughed as they surged around her.

“I’ll take care of this,” Caden said, scooping up some tennis balls from the nearby bucket. “Here, dogs!” he called. “Come get a ball.”

The dogs abandoned Rachel to race over to him.

Smiling, Ashlyn walked over to Rachel, but as she drew closer, her smile froze. Holy crap! Rachel looked awful, like she hadn’t slept. And omigod, was that a bruise on her cheek?

“God, Rachel, are you okay?”

“Hell, yeah. Fine. Don’t I look it?” She laughed, but it was a harsh sound.

“No, you don’t.” Ashlyn’s brows drew together. “You look like crap and you know it, so why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

She shrugged, tugging the sleeves of her tunic down and holding them there with her fingers. “I stayed out most of the night and missed my beauty sleep. No biggie.”

Ashlyn’s stomach clenched. Knowing what she knew now about the weirdness afoot in Podunk, the idea of Rachel being out there on her own was terrifying.

“By yourself?”

“Well, duh. Of course by myself. Remember who you’re talking to here. Besides, like I told you, everyone else just pulls the covers tighter when they hear the train. They don’t venture outside.”

“Wait … the train … the whistle…. You heard it last night?”

“Yup. Didn’t you?”

“No, I must have slept right through it.”

Or maybe you couldn’t hear it over the radio. Or the gunfire.

Or maybe her ear just wasn’t tuned to it. Maybe it would never waken her. Except that might be too much to hope for.

“Huh. That’s weird,” Rachel said. “I wonder why you didn’t hear it?”

“I must have fallen asleep listening to my iPod,” she lied, reluctant to mention the radio. “So if you went out last night alone, then how’d you get that?” Ashlyn gestured to her face. “What happened to your cheek?”

“Oh, that.” Rachel touched the flesh, which was slightly swollen and had to be painful. “Just a love tap from my father. A little welcome home when I crept in at three o’clock.”

“Your
father
did that?”

“Hey, no big thang.” Rachel shifted her weight from one red canvass Ked to the other. “I’ve had worse experiences in the schoolyard.” She frowned. “Actually, a lot worse.” Her expression cleared, as though she’d pushed the schoolyard unpleasantness right out. “So don’t sweat it. Really, Ash.”

Ash
already? They’d only known each other a few days. But it felt good.
Right
.

“Hey, I’ll worry about you if I want to,” she said. “But, I can take a hint, Rach. I’ll shut up about it already. I just hope I never run into your father,” she muttered darkly.

Rachel snorted. “Me too. You wouldn’t like him. Now, can you call your hottie back here and introduce him?”

“He’s not
mine
,” she protested. “I just met him a minute ago. And he barely looked at me.”

Rachel’s gaze swept Ashlyn from head to toe. “Not from lack of trying, I see.”

Ashlyn blushed. “Hey, just trying to level the playing field. Do you
see
the threads that boy is rocking?”

Rachel shrugged. “It’s jeans and a shirt.”

“
Jeans and a shirt?
Rach, those are Citizens of Humanity jeans. And that shirt…. I don’t know who makes it, but it’s
very
nice.”

“Omigod, how do you know this stuff? How do you even
notice
?”

“Dude, there were 1100 people at my high school. It’s not easy to stand out.”

Rachel grinned. “Betcha I would.”

Ashlyn snorted. “More likely you’d have created your own following. Then you’d have the Goth girls cornering you after school to give you a beat down.”

“Ah, but I’d have my long-skirted minions to protect me.”

“You have minions?” A smiling Caden pulled up beside them. “You sound like someone I should meet.”

Rachel smiled, suddenly not looking the least bit tired or awful.

“Absolutely. Unfortunately, that’s in an alternate universe.” She stuck out her hand and Caden took it. “Rachel Riley.”

“Caden Williams. Pleased to meet you, Rachel.”

“Likewise.”

Caden’s gaze sharpened as he took in the bruise on Rachel’s face, but he said nothing. Rachel also noticed that he noticed. Ashlyn could practically feel the other girl’s gratitude when he didn’t remark on it.

Rachel jumped in, obviously to steer the conversation in another direction. “So, did
you
hear the train last night?” she asked. “Sleeping Beauty here was dead to the world and didn’t hear a thing.”

“The ghost train, you mean?” Caden said.

Rachel lifted an eyebrow. A pretty subtle reaction for her, Ashlyn thought. And there was no doubt the other girl was surprised. For good reason. The locals didn’t talk to outsiders about the ghost train, or so Maudette had said. They didn’t want to bring down on their heads a scourge of idiot “ghostbusters”, nor did they want their little village to become a stop on a freak show tour.

“Wow, you’re pretty well informed,” Rachel said. “I’d have thought it would have taken longer to get plugged in to the gossip pipeline, what with your family being such homebodies.”

Ashlyn winced, waiting for Caden to stiffen, given the defensiveness she’d sensed in him when she’d forced him into saying his parents didn’t enjoy company. But to her surprise, he just laughed.

“You seem pretty plugged in yourself, Rachel Riley, if you’ve got us all figured out already.”

“Plugged in? Me?” Rachel snorted. “Not quite. But I
do
get around a lot, and I see what I see.”

“Me too,” Caden said. “With my camera.” He glanced at Ashlyn, and she imagined he was thinking about their earlier discussion. He turned back to Rachel. “But that’s not how I know about the ghost train, from talking to folks. I heard the legend from my dad. That’s what he’s here researching.”

Ashlyn’s eyes widened. “He’s researching the
ghost train
?” Holy crap. If he’d come here to delve into paranormal phenomena, would he wind up on the Caverhill doorstep, asking about the damned radio?

Caden shook his head. “No, not that, specifically. He’s researching the broader history of troop trains in the New England area. But the legend does keep coming up.”

“So, did you hear it? The whistle last night?” Rachel asked again.

“I heard a steam whistle like the old trains used to have, yes.”

“But you don’t think it was the ghost train?”

Caden grinned. “I think it’s someone who wants you all to believe there’s a ghost train.”

“Well you old skeptic, you,” said Rachel. “You think it’s a hoax!”

Caden shrugged. “Be easy enough to do. If I had a proper P.A. system, I could do it myself with my computer and my father’s software. I could emulate an old steam whistle such as we heard last night. Or I can simulate the sound of a locomotive approaching and then fading away. And I can do it convincingly. I mean, I can give you rail clack to simulate wheels rolling over rail joints. Of course, I could ruin the effect just as quickly with the flip of a switch, turning that steam whistle into a diesel horn.”

As Caden spoke, Ashlyn felt hope rising in her chest. Maybe he was right! Maybe some misguided resident of Prescott Junction was trying to keep the legend alive, or somehow preserve the railroad town’s history, by creeping out at night with a laptop and a portable sound system and playing eerie train sounds. God, if that were the case, all she’d have to worry about was the stupid radio. And
that
she could ignore, surely. Like Maudette had.

“Dude! That’s
good
!” Rachel said. “
Wrong
, but good. Very plausible.”

Caden’s smile dimmed. “What makes you think it’s wrong?”

“Because I’ve seen it.” Rachel’s face looked serene. “I’ve seen the ghost train.”

“No way!” Ashlyn exclaimed.

“Way. Dozens of times. Last night being the most recent occasion.”

Ashlyn and Caden traded glances.

“Hey, I’m not crazy,” Rachel said. “Well, okay, probably a little crazy, but anyone who lives here for any length of time qualifies for that status. But I’m not deluded.” She turned to Ashlyn. “And I can prove it.”

Ashlyn felt an icy finger of fear glide down her spine.

“How?”

The question came from Caden, and Rachel shifted her gaze back to him.

“I can show it to you,” she said. “If you come out with me. I’ve got the perfect vantage point. There’s an outcropping, a big slab of rock that juts out into the river slightly, about a hundred yards below the train bridge. You can’t see the train coming because there’s a big bend in the tracks before the bridge. But you can hear it. And then it comes into sight!” Rachel’s eyes sparkled, and her face was aglow with the memory. “Sometimes, if it’s really dark, you can’t see much more than a dim shape, but you can sure as hell hear it. And feel it, too. The vibration under your feet as you stand on that rock….”

Caden frowned. “So you haven’t actually seen it? Just a dark shape?”

“That’s just on the really black nights. On a bright moonlit night, you can see every detail. It’s amazing! I know it’s supposed to be evil, but … I don’t know … it’s….”

“It’s what?” Ashlyn prompted.

“It’s beautiful, Ash. Maybe it’s the angle, being down at river level and looking up, but when I see it thundering across that bridge, it’s so incredibly horrible and beautiful all at the same time.”

No one spoke for a few moments. Finally, Rachel seemed to pull herself from that place in her mind.

“Sorry.” She grimaced. “I get a little carried away. But it is exciting to see.”

Ashlyn couldn’t quite suppress a shudder. “Not the kind of excitement I need,” she said.

“I’d like to see it,” Caden said. “Can you take me to it, Rachel?”

Ashlyn sucked in a breath. Take
me
to it? As in Caden going with Rachel, just the two of them all alone?

“Hey, I didn’t say I wouldn’t go,” she said. “I’m just not into scaring myself with ghost stories and stuff. But if the two of you were there, I wouldn’t be scared.”

Yeah, right.
She’d be petrified. But no way did she want Caden going off without her.

“Great.” His smile was like the sun coming out. “So when can we go? Tonight?”

Rachel shook her head. “No point. It never goes through on consecutive nights.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“How about next Friday night?” Rachel suggested.

“Is that when you think it’ll come through again?”

“Hell if I know. But we can’t go out
every
night until it comes. We’d get caught. Plus we’d sleep through school. Since there’s no knowing when it’ll come, we just have to go out when it’s convenient and hope we guessed right. And if we go on Friday and Saturday nights, we can sleep in a little the next morning.”

Ashlyn brightened. That didn’t sound so bad. They might go out dozens of times and never see it. But she’d see Caden each of those nights….

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

“Where should we meet?” Caden asked.

They fixed a time — 11:00 p.m. next Friday — and chose a rendezvous point down by the river, on that outcropping of rock Rachel had told them about. Then Caden excused himself to go feed the dogs.

“I gotta go, too,” Rachel said. “I’m supposed to be picking up bread and milk.”

Ashlyn and Rachel went back through the barn to Maudette’s front yard, where Ashlyn’s gaze immediately flew to a huge Crown Victoria parked behind Maudette’s SUV (or the Dogmobile, as Ashlyn called it).

“You drive?” she asked. Mentally she added,
THAT?

Rachel dug car keys out of her pocket. “Sweetie, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s no transit system out here.
Everybody
drives.”

“
I
don’t.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to, I suppose. You’re going back to Toronto and the subway as soon as you graduate, right?”

Damn right,
Ashlyn thought.
Maybe sooner.
“That’s right,” she said.

“Yeah.” Rachel sketched a salute. “Okay, catch you later, then.”

Ashlyn returned the salute. “Later.”

Rachel started toward the giant boat of a car, then stopped and turned around. “He likes you, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Caden. He likes you.”

Ashlyn’s heart leapt, but she reined it in. “Don’t see how you figure that. He spent more time talking to you than to me. More time
looking
at you, too,” she groused.

Rachel grinned. “Exactly.”

Then — damn her cryptic ass! — she got in her car and drove away.