Dark Corner (18 page)

Wednesday night, David slept fitfully. He was plagued by
a nightmare of his father.

In the dream, he stood over his father's grave, paying his
respects. The ground began to tremble and heave, like the
deck of a boat caught in a sea storm. Then the grave burst
open, spewing raw earth in pungent clumps, and his father
climbed out of the ragged hole. He wore a dark suit and did
not appear to have decomposed at all. He looked robust and
healthy. He sprang to his feet and seized David by his shirt,
and said, "Death is invigorating, son. You should try it sometime ... "

David jumped awake with a scream trapped in his throat.

"Only a dream," David muttered. He was panting. "It's over."

Silent darkness draped the master bedroom. The digital
clock on the nightstand read 3:06. He had climbed in bed
only three hours ago, after talking on the phone with Nia.
They were going to see each other again on Friday. He had
invited her to dinner at his house.

He wished she were with him tonight.

He was too shaken up to immediately go back to sleep.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and his feet
brushed across King's flank. The dog snored softly. King
was a deep sleeper.

"Lot of good you are, mutt," David said. "Someone could've
been choking me and you'd be snoring."

He stepped around the canine, grabbed his house robe
from the hook on the door, and shuffled out of the bedroom.

He decided to surf the Web until he became too exhausted
to keep his eyes open. But first, he went downstairs to the
kitchen to get a drink. His mouth was as dry as if he had
been chewing cotton balls.

Standing beside the counter, he gulped an entire bottle of
cold water. Better.

He was walking across the hallway, back toward the staircase, when he heard a creaking sound coming from the living room, just ahead.

He thought of dismissing it as one of those ordinary settling noises that old houses tended to make. But this noise
did not fade away. It continued, rhythmically.

It sounded like someone was sitting in the rocking chair.

Cool sweat beaded on the nape of his neck. The darkness
in the hallway, relieved only by the dim range light in the
kitchen at the end of the hall, pressed in on him like thick
walls.

He sucked in a deep breath.

Although he didn't want to go near the living room, he
had to look. He had to pass by the room to reach the staircase, anyway.

But most important, he had to see who was in the rocking
chair.

What if it was his father?

In the blackness of night, the thought did not seem farfetched at all.

Lifting his feet to walk required a herculean effort; it was
as though he wore lead weights strapped to each foot. He
trudged to the living room doorway. He looked inside.

Moonbeams coming through the window cast a pale glow
across the room, and in that milky luminescence, David saw
a man sitting in the rocking chair. An older man. The man
wore a crisp white shirt, bow tie, suspenders, and dark slacks.
Wire-rim glasses gleamed on his face, and David made out a
pipe nestled between the man's lips.

It looked exactly like his grandfather, John Hunter, or
"Big Daddy" as everyone called him.

But Big Daddy had been dead for twenty years.

Big Daddy rocked, rocked, and rocked in the chair. He
faced David.

David felt the weight of his dead grandfather's gaze on
him, like a slight pressure on his forehead.

The apparition removed the pipe from his lips and spoke,
the mellow voice unmistakeably clear.

"The time is coming, son. "

"What?" David broke his paralysis and stepped into the
room. Fear had been replaced by intense curiosity. "What do
you mean, Granddad?"

"You've got to fu fill your responsibility to the family. The
Hunters' legacy. "

"I ... I don't understand," David said. "What responsibility?"

"Stay strong, son ... stay stong.. .

The apparition began to fade.

"Wait!" David rushed forward. "Don't go!"

Big Daddy vanished. David's hands grasped empty air.

With a cry of frustration, he collapsed into the chair. He
pounded the armrest with his fist.

Big Daddy had been telling him something important,
something absolutely critical, and he could not figure out
what he meant. The time was coming for him to fulfill his responsibility to his family? The Hunters' legacy? None of it
meant anything to him.

But it meant everything to his grandfather.

He had no doubt that he had seen a genuine ghost. A few
days ago, when Nia had related her own story of spirits she'd
seen at the Mason place, he had been skeptical. Not anymore.

Indeed, the rocking chair itself was cold; touching the
wood sent a chill through his fingers.

David believed, fully. There was nothing like seeing a
specter with your own eyes, and feeling the remnants of its
presence with your own hands, to erase every figment of disbelief.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway. David's head snapped
up.

King's familiar canine figure regarded him from the doorway. The dog chuffed, tentatively.

"Come here, boy," David said. The dog trotted inside and
pressed against him. David stroked King's furry neck, and
the dog licked his fingers. Ordinarily David hated for King
to lick his hands, but he didn't rebuke the dog this time.
King's presence reassured him.

David looked out the window, at the crescent moon in the
deep night sky.

Something major was about to happen in his life. Only a
fool would choose to ignore the obvious signs.

But what was going to happen, and what was he supposed
to do about it?

He would have to discover answers. Soon. He had the
feeling that his life depended on it.

Thursday, Nia was on the floor of her bedroom, working
through her last set of abdominal crunches, when the telephone rang.

She squeezed out another rep, then hopped to her feet and
answered the phone.

"Hello?" she said, breathing hard, trying to catch her
breath.

Flat silence came from the earpiece.

"Hello?" she said again.

More silence ... then, husky breathing. Like a man who
was sexually aroused.

A blade of ice lanced Nia's spine.

The beguiling, handsome face of Colin Morgan, the teacher who had stalked her in Houston, flashed like a red siren in
her mind. She didn't know for sure whether he had called;
the Caller ID display said "Unavailable." But her bone-deep
intuition told her that he was the culprit.

Had he been paroled from prison already? If so, how had
he gotten her phone number?

"Who is this?" she said, one final time.

The caller responded with heavy breathing.

Nia slammed down the phone. She stared at the telephone, as though willing it not to ring again.

But it rang. Again, the Caller ID display stated, "Unavailable."

She picked it up. "Hello?"

Quick, excited panting. Like a hungry wolf on the prowl.

She smashed the handset into the cradle with enough
force to rock the table.

Hugging herself to ward off the numbing chill that had
seeped into her body, she glared at the phone.

It did not ring again.

But her relief was short-lived. What if the caller really
had been Mr. Morgan? What if he had been released from
jail?

What if he was coming to get her?

"Don't get carried away," she cautioned herself.

She ordered herself to put it out of mind. The caller was
surely some harmless loser with nothing better to do than
randomly dial numbers and hope that a woman answered. It
wasn't worth worrying about. She should relax.

But she suddenly had so much nervous energy that she
worked through an extra two hundred reps of crunches.

David spent Friday at home, determined to learn more
about his family.

His encounter with the ghost and the growing mystery of
his father's death convinced him that vital clues lay within the house. The challenge was to sort through everything,
separate the items that seemed important, and figure out
how they fit into the overall puzzle.

Nevertheless, he felt that he was slowly being drawn into
something that went deeper than anything he had seen so far.
He had only traced the surface. Intuition told him that more
awaited him.

He only had to be patient. And alert.

While he was in the living room, flipping through the
magazines spread across the coffee table, the doorbell rang.

It was Franklin Bennett. David had spoken with Franklin a
couple of times in passing since they'd met last week, but he
hadn't gotten the opportunity to sit down and have a prolonged
discussion with the man.

"You look quite busy," Franklin said. "I'm sorry to have
disturbed you"

"I can chat for a few," David said. "Want to have a seat on
the porch, there? I can bring you some ice water, or a soda.
Which would you like?"

"Water would be fine, thank you" Franklin settled into a
lawn chair.

David was glad that Franklin had visited. Perhaps the retired professor could share some insights that would help
him figure out some things about his family.

David got tall glasses of ice water for both of them. When
he came back to the veranda, he found King pressed against
Franklin's legs, demanding attention. Franklin stroked the
dog's back, but King was eager for more.

"Chill out, King," David said. "Let Mr. Bennett relax,
will you?"

King appeared to stick out his tongue at David. Franklin
chuckled.

"Sorry, the mutt has no manners," David said. He sat next
to Franklin and put the water on the table between them.

"How are you adjusting to life in our fine town?" Franklin
said.

"To be honest, I like it," David said. "It's a lot slower than
Atlanta, but I like the change of pace. The people I've met
have been nice, too"

"I'm pleased to hear that, David. Your father was private,
but highly esteemed. In a town like Dark Corner your family's reputation precedes you"

"No kidding. Dad knew everyone"

"How is the Richard Hunter exploration going, if you don't
mind me asking?" Franklin casually took a sip of water, but
his eyes were keen.

David rubbed his hands together. "So far, I have more
questions than answers. But I've just gotten started. I'm not
giving up anytime soon, not until I'm satisfied."

Franklin frowned. "Can I be frank for a moment, David?"

"Sure"

"You seem to be a stable, successful young man. You've
built a business on your own, you're well-spoken, and intelligent. I'm certain that your family is very proud of you.
However, I sense that you aren't completely happy with the
life you've built for yourself."

"I don't know, maybe," David said. He looked into the depths
of his glass. "I feel kind of ... incomplete. Like there's this
emptiness in me that I have to fill."

"Because you grew up without your father?"

David nodded. "Maybe, yeah. I tried not to think about it
too much when I was a kid. But you know, the older I got, I
really started paying attention to some of my buddies who
were close to their dads, and they had something special.
Don't get me wrong, I love my mother and she raised me
well, gave me just about everything I could ask for. Still ...
something was missing. That father-son connection."

"It's important," Franklin agreed. "I'm close to my son,
and I was close to my father as well. Both relationships have
deeply enriched my life."

"You know what I mean, then," David said. "For example,
a few days before I moved here, I went to the barbershop. I was sitting in the chair, getting my hair trimmed, and in
walks this guy and his son, the kid's maybe five years old.
You see this all the time at the barbershop, a father and son
going together. But that day, it hit me: my father had never
taken me to get a haircut. My mother always took me.

"I almost broke down and cried, right there in the chair. It
was a small thing ... but I missed it. All that father-son
stuff. I never had it, and I guess I never will, now. But it eats
at me. I feel like half a man or something."

"Half a man? Come now, you shouldn't feel that way,
David. Don't be so hard on yourself. You did the best you
can given your circumstances. You've been blessed."

"I know, you're right," David said. "I tell myself the same
things all the time. But it doesn't change how I feel."

Almost savagely, David tipped the glass and downed
most of the water in a few gulps, the rush of iciness punishing his throat. Then he set the glass back on the table so
loudly that King jumped.

"Let's change the subject," David said.

"Of course," Franklin said. "I shouldn't have pried. I apologize."

"No, it's no problem," David said. His hands were clammy.
He blotted his palms on his shorts. "But I have a question
for you. I'm hoping you can help me out since you have a
background in history."

"Proceed"

"Okay, if I want to learn more about my family's history,
what should I look for?"

Franklin's eyes brightened. "I'm pleased that you've
asked. I suggest beginning with photographs. Find as many
as you can, gather them together, and review them, to piece
together the family story."

"Okay, pictures. Got it."

"But that is only a start. Every family has heirlooms and
items that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Jewelry, artwork, antiques, journals, letters, legal documents. And books, yes, including Bibles."

"Bibles?"

"Indeed," Franklin said. "Bibles were sometimes used to
record information about the family. They may include genealogical data, and in some cases, accounts of which relative married, died, did this or that and when, that sort of
thing."

"Okay, you're right. I think I've heard of that before"