Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series)

MOVE

THE

SUN

The Signal Bend Series

Book One

By
Susan Fanetti

FREAK CIRCLE PRESS

Dedicated with tremendous love and great thanks to my Freaks,

especially
Lina Andersson, Jessica Brooks, Sarah Osbourne, and Dannii Pamaka.

And most especially to my infinitely patient and unfailingly encouraging daily writing partner, Shannon Flagg, without whom Signal Bend simply would not exist.

Women, I love you. You make me happy; you keep me sane.

We’re all still Freaks.

Yet my wings were not meant for such a flight—
Except that then my mind was struck by lightning
Through which my longing was at last fulfilled.
Here powers failed my high imagination:
But by now my desire and will were turned,
Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,
By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

Dante,
Paradiso
, Canto XXXIII

PROLOGUE, 1989

Mena’s car was in the driveway, but the house was dark. Not a light on anywhere, as far as Johnny could tell. He’d worked late, but it was only 8:30. They should be home. The family life was nothing if not routine. Routine was critically important to Mena. He’d expected to see the familiar glow of the TV through the living room picture window. He parked his sedan next to his wife’s station wagon and walked to the front door. He tried it; it was unlocked.

Johnny Accardo had been career Army, a Green Beret, in fact, and had done three long tours in ‘Nam. He was retired now, working a damn desk in a damn office building, but he still knew when a situation was wrong, and this one was. On high alert, he opened the door and walked into his own dark house.

Everything was quiet, and nothing seemed out of place, but he couldn’t shake his sense of foreboding. As he checked the living room and dining room, then the kitchen, he tried to think of harmless reasons his family could be gone on this school night, with the car still here. Maybe Mena had taken Lilli for a walk and lost track of time or even gotten lost—entirely possible if Mena was having an “up” day. She often got an itch to go “adventuring” on her “up” days, and on occasion he’d had to track her down miles and miles from home.

He’d check the rest of the house, but then he’d need to do a search through the neighborhood. He doubted they were with a neighbor. Mena didn’t much like people, and she wasn’t confident of her English, so she didn’t socialize. But they might be wandering the streets in the dark. He could imagine his little Lilli, already far too serious and grown up at ten years old, trying to cajole her mother into heading home or seeking help.

So far, everything in the house was still normal, but he couldn’t relax. He walked down the hallway and checked his office. Nothing. He started to call his wife’s name, but something, an instinct to be quiet, stopped him. He checked his daughter’s room. Her school blazer and bookbag were lying on her bed, so she’d come home from school. Otherwise, her room looked untouched. As always, she’d made her bed and tidied up before school, in accordance with house rules. Her favorite stuffed animals were arranged in a row across her pillows, staring blankly at him in the dim light coming through her windows.

He closed her door. He peeked quickly into her bathroom. Clean, quiet, empty.

As he approached the door to the master bedroom, his sense of doom nearly overwhelmed him, and with sudden clarity he understood exactly what he feared—and with the next thought, he knew what he would find.

Heart pounding, he strode straight through the master bedroom and turned the corner toward the en suite bath. He stopped in his tracks. The bathtub was directly across from the door, and he could see, even in the unlit room, that his wife was lying dead in their tub, naked, her wrists cut long and deep, her blood
tainting the water and caking on the edge of tub and on the tiled floor.

“Oh, Jesus. Mena,
dolcezza
—no!” He reeled into the bathroom and dropped to his knees at the tub, pulling his wife’s cold, stiff body into his arms and weeping. She’d been dead for hours, lying here in the frigid, bloody water. Hours.

He had no idea how long he knelt there, crying into Mena’s stiff, sticky hair, but his tears finally abated. As the first blast of grief moved past, he thought of Lilli. Did she know? Where was she? Had Mena sent her to a friend’s before she did this thing?

He kissed his wife, so lovely and fragile, so deeply loved, on the mouth and laid her body back in the tub. He had to call the authorities. He had to clean this room. He had to find his daughter and figure out what to tell her. He would have to make a new life for her. He had no more time for grief. He stood and turned.

And then, clear to him now even in the twilit room, he saw her. Lilli, curled tightly into herself and wedged between the toilet and the wall, her arms around her legs and her head on her knees. Her school uniform was blotchy with dark stains. Blood. She hadn’t made a peep.

Instantly, Johnny understood. Lilli had come home from school and found her mother like this. She’d wedged herself into that corner and sat there for hours, alone in the deepening dark with her mother’s bloody, bare, cold, dead body.

Mena had done a terrible thing. She had abandoned the husband and daughter who so loved her. But Mena was broken and lost, and Johnny could forgive her for that. But leaving her mess for their daughter to find? Innocent and alone? He would never forgive her for that. Never. He slammed and locked the door on his grief.

He squatted down near his little girl. “Lilli? Lillibell? It’s Papa. Come to me,
cara
. Come to me.”

He heard a tiny whimper, but she didn’t move. His heart lurched in his chest. “Oh,
bella
, let me take you out of here. Come to me.”

She looked up, and he could see how huge her eyes were. She was terrified, in shock. She whispered, “Papa? Papa, Mama’s hurt.” She sounded years younger than she was.

He reached out and tried to take her hand. She had her hands locked around her legs and wouldn’t, or couldn’t, release them. He’d seen this in villages in ‘Nam after the VC, or sometimes other US troops, plowed through—children hiding under beds and behind chests, or in holes in the fucking ground, too scared and shocked, too traumatized, to accept help when it arrived. “I know, Lilli. Let’s go into the kitchen and call for some help. Will you help me do that?”

She looked at him for several long moments, her eyes wide and frightened. Then she nodded and held out one small hand. He took it in his and pulled her into his arms. He gathered her up and carried her away from that godforsaken scene. He closed the bedroom door on his way out and took his daughter into the kitchen, turning lights on all the way.

It was just the two of them now.

CHAPTER ONE

Following the stilted British intonations of the GPS, Lilli turned off the interstate and made a left at the light at the bottom of the ramp. Another fifteen miles or so down a lazy, neglected stretch of macadam, nothing to either side of her but farmland, and she passed a wooden sign offering her a “Welcome to Signal Bend!” She figured the sign had once been quaint, brightly painted, with a vaguely Scandinavian aspect, but it had been some years since it seen any upkeep. The welcome it offered seemed weary.

She followed the GPS into Signal Bend, Missouri. The whole town seemed as weary as its welcome sign. Lilli supposed it was a typical Midwestern town, just far enough from the limits of a city to be rural, but just close enough that the suburban spans of superstores, megaplexes, and gallerias drained the life from the local economy. A geographical limbo that meant a long, slow, weary death for most towns.

She could see that it had once been bustling, and a few blocks of the main drag were making an attempt to capitalize on its quaint history, with antique shops, a couple of cafes, and an actual ice cream parlor lining the street on both sides. But there was a grimness under the pastel surface.

She pulled up in front of a small green bungalow with a large picture window dominating the front of the house. The door was mostly glass; a sign proclaiming “Come In, We’re OPEN!” hung from a suction cup in th
e middle. Painted in gilt on the picture window, the words “SIGNAL BEND REALTY, MAC EVANS, BROKER” told Lilli she’d arrived at her destination before the GPS figured it out and announced the same. She turned off the portable unit and slid it into the pocket of her leather jacket.

As she closed the door on her black 1968 Camaro SS, she was startled by a thunderous roar of engines behind her. Three men on huge black Harleys turned the nearest corner and headed down the main drag—which was
called, appropriately, Main Street. They wore basic black helmets, black sunglasses, and black leather kuttes. The rider in the lead—big and broad shouldered, with a dark full beard and a dark thick braid running down his back—noticed her ride, then noticed her, and nodded, giving the throttle a little goose, all in the span of time it took to roll past her.

Patches covering the backs of the three men’s
kuttes declared that they were the Night Horde Motorcycle Club, of Missouri. Their emblem was the bust of a horse—probably a stallion—with a flaming mane. Lilli smirked. Subtlety did not tend to run deep in the MC world.

She turned back and headed into the realtor’s office.

The office was obviously a converted house, with the living room apparently serving as the reception and main work area. It still had the air of a home, with floral wallpaper and a dark green, sculpted carpet that had been around awhile. There was a small desk right inside the door; Lilli assumed it was for the receptionist, or the secretary, or the assistant, or whatever they called the likely underpaid, likely young woman who usually sat there. It was empty now. She didn’t see anyone, in fact. There were two other desks deeper in, but neither was occupied.

“Hello?” she called out.

From even deeper in, she heard a man’s voice call, “Yeah—one sec!”

In more like 60 seconds, the owner of the voice trundled into view. “Hi—Lillian, right? I’m Mac.” He held out his hand.

Lilli shook it. “It’s Lilli. Hi.”

She had never met Mac Evans in person, so she took him in now. He was average in almost every respect: say, mid-40s, about her height, so five-nine or so. Slightly balding, light brown hair, cut in a classic, conservative style that had been around since at least the mid
dle part of the last century. Rimless glasses over brown eyes. Little beer gut forming. Wearing khaki Dockers and a pink oxford shirt. Lilli saw a navy blazer hanging on the back of the largest chair behind the largest desk in the room. The only feature by which Mac might leave any memorable impression at all on most observers was his nose—large, long, wide, and hooked, with nostrils probably an inch long. It drew one’s eye, to say the least.

“So, Lilli. Why don’t we sit. I’ve got a few papers for you to sign, and then I can hand over the keys to the rental. You’re sure you don’t want me to head over with you, do a walkthrough, make sure everything is as promised before you sign?”

She was sure. She was signing regardless, and she wanted to get the keys and get started. She sat in the chair facing his desk. “Nope, I’m good.” She smiled at him. “I trust you.”

He smiled back, charmed. Guys like Mac were easy to charm. “Well, that’s refreshing. The world needs a little more trust, if you ask me. And you won’t be sorry, I promise.” He passed the few papers she needed to sign to finalize her rental agreement, and, when she signed and passed them back, he handed her two keys on a ring with a glow-in-the-dark plastic fob. “The brass key is the house key, the silver the garage.”

Lilli took the keys and stood. Mac walked her to the door. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Actually, yes.” She smiled again. “I’d love a recommendation for a good place for breakfast. I didn’t even see a McDonald’s as I was coming into town.”

“Nope, no McDonald’s. Not a lot of those chain places here in Signal Bend. We have the A&W; that’s about it. Oh, and the 7 Eleven, for gas and sundries. Where you really want to go for breakfast or lunch is Marie’s. Good pies, fresh baked daily. And the fluffiest waffles you ever will eat. For dinner, there’s the Chop House. Those are my recommendations.” He gave her what Lilli figured was his best flirty smile. “In fact, I’d be happy to buy you dinner at the Chop House tonight, welcome you to town.”

“Wow, Mac, that’s really great. But I’ve been driving all day. What I really need is a quiet night. Rain check?”

He took the rejection in stride. “I’ll hold you to it. You have a good night, now.”

Thus released, she went back to her car and drove to her new home.

~oOo~

It was a prefab, a glorified double-wide trailer, elevated from trailer park status by the fact that it was attached to a foundation. She had rented it without seeing it in person, because the satellite photos she’d found online showed it was tucked back into woods, with the nearest neighbors a good half mile away. It was rented furnished. It had a large, detached garage. And it was in the right location.

She parked her Camaro in front of the garage doors. No remote opener. So she got out, unlocked the door, pushed it up, and drove in. She pulled her duffels out of the trunk and headed in to check out the digs.

It was clean, and smelled as if it had been recently aired out. Mac had had the place prepped for her. She was impressed, she had to admit. The place was sparsely but adequately furnished in a random style that Lilli immediately thought of as 1970s garage sale chic.  She took her duffels and dropped them in the largest bedroom. It had a small en suite ¾ bath. Mu
st be the “master suite.” Funny.

There were linens and blankets stacked at the foot of the bare queen-size mattress. But no. Lilli would not be using linens for which she didn’t know the history. Sheets she had packed, but she was blanket-poor. She’d pull her bedroll out of the car for tonight, and she’d find a place she could buy a couple of blankets, maybe a bedspread, tomorrow. She needed to stock the kitchen anyway.

Tonight, though, she meant to drive around a little, find a burger—not at the Chop House—and start getting to know the town. Maybe find a bar. Even the shittiest towns at least had a bar. The shittier the town, the livelier the bar, in her experience. People with shitty lives liked their beer on tap.

She went into the en suite bath and gave her face a quick splash, then checked her look. She’d do.

~oOo~

The GPS was no help to her finding local businesses. If it could have shrugged at her, it would have. So Lilli simply drove around, got to know her surroundings the old-fashioned way. It was better, gave her bearings much more quickly.

She found a couple of diners and cafes, but at 9:30 in the evening, they were already closed. She found the Chop House, but wanted to avoid that in case Mac Evans had kept his taste for steak even after she declined his invitation to dine with him.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads. This was the kind of town where the few traffic lights still swung from wires strung across the intersections. These people mostly kept farmers’ hours. 9:30 was the deep dark of the night. Even the streetlights seemed dim and sleepy.

Eventually, though, she came upon a brightly-lit building that screamed old-style honky-tonk. It had the clever name of “No Place.” The gravel lot was more than half full on this mid-week night, and there was a line of bikes, all big, black Harleys, arrayed near the front door. When Lilli stepped out of the Camaro, she could hear the music coming through the walls: high-steppin’ country. No surprise. Didn’t sound live—that was no surprise, either, on a weeknight in the sticks.

She ran her hand over her long, dark ponytail and strolled on in. Hopefully, they had a kitchen that stayed open to feed the hungry drunks, but at this point, Lilli would be content with a bowl of stale peanuts.

The music was coming from a jukebox, a huge Wurlitzer in the far corner. Lilli was sort of impressed by the sound quality, as if someone had figured out a way to juice it up. Garth Brooks was singing about his friends in low places.

The setup was pretty standard: wood floor, wood walls, country-style wood tables and chairs. Long, dark
, L-shaped bar, scratched and gouged from years of hard use, darkened by years of spilled booze. Big mirror on the wall behind it, the booze arrayed on glass shelves on the mirror. Straight off the Universal Studios lot. Add some swinging louvered doors and a spittoon, lose the Wurlitzer, and sit back and wait for Wyatt Earp to stroll through.

Well, except for the big, hand-lettered sign on the mirror that admonished: “This Is A CASH ONLY Establishment: Save Your Fucken Plastic For The Mall.”

The place was doing some brisk but not overwhelming business. Most of the tables were occupied, mostly with the typical farmland types—grungy John Deere caps, dark red, lined faces. Not a lot of women, Lilli noticed. Those around were, on average, fuller figured and dyed. Lots of plaid and denim. Lots of draught beer. This was definitely not a pick up joint. It was a place for hard-working men to get drunk. Lilli noticed sandwiches and baskets of fries on several tables. Score.

She went to the bar, which was crowded with the owners of the Harleys out front—a row of six men, all wearing
kuttes with the same patch: the Night Horde MC. Three of the men were leaning with their elbows on the bar; the other three were leaning back against it, keeping an eye on the room. One of those was the man she’d noticed riding down Main Street with a couple of his brothers earlier in the day.

He was watching her.

She made eye contact with him, and he nodded and lifted his beer bottle. No beer on tap for him, it seemed. She wasn’t sure whether he was acknowledging that he recognized her from earlier, or whether he was simply letting her know that he’d noticed her. She supposed she did stand out a bit in this crowd. She walked to the end of the bar, where there was an empty stool. The bartender, a curvy, very-not-natural redhead showing a huge rose tat on lots of cleavage, came right down and asked for her order.

“Any chance the kitchen’s still open?”

The bartender looked over at the old, animated beer sign on the wall. It would be “vintage,” except Lilli was pretty sure it had been hanging exactly there since it had been brand new. There was a clock embedded in it. “Fifteen more minutes. What can I get ya?”

“Just a cheeseburger and fries. And a bottle of Bud. Thanks.” The busty bartender offered an approving nod, popped the top on a Bud, and handed it to her before she went back to push the swinging door to the kitchen open and yell in her order.

Lilli took a long swallow of the cold, soothing brew. Bud might not be the smoothest or the fanciest beer around, but it was the King of Beers, after all. She felt a tingle up her back and turned quickly to find the Biker Man coming up on her. Despite his general mien of menace, he wasn’t casting an especially aggressive vibe, so she leaned back on the bar and watched him come. He stopped directly in front of her and took a pull of his beer. He was wearing black leather cuffs on his wrists and three big silver rings on each large hand: thumb, middle finger, ring finger.

He was tall—really tall, at least six-five, maybe more. Broad shoulders, with the firm swell that indicated real definition under his
kutte—a kutte with several patches on the front, one of which, on his right side, read “President.” Top of the food chain, then.