Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (9 page)

"We’re going home. Where the hell should we be going?"

"We have a birthday party to go to."

"What?! Why is this the first time I'm hearing this?!”

"It's not, the invitation has been on the fridge for a month," explained Liam. Jack scratched his head in confusion.

“You can’t go without a present,” quipped Jack.

“We have a present,” Tristan injected as she pulled a colorfully decorated box from her school bag, holding it high in the air for her father to see in his rearview mirror.

“Can we go now?”

“Wait a second. Where is the party?” demanded Jack.

“Elkhart” said three voices in unison, “At the Piedmonte's,” interjected Blake. With a huff, Jack turned the car around and headed towards Mountain road.

During the ride, the volume from the backseat rose as Jacked weaved through traffic on the interstate. Jack looked towards Adam with a question on his face. Adam seeing his father’s puzzled look raised his left eyebrow, and asked “What?”

“I’m not so fond of the idea of Tristan hanging out with Cole.”

Adam gave his father a perplexed look. “Why? He’s a good kid. They've been hanging out since they were babies... so what if he's got a little crush on her?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

“Besides, weren't you once the googly-eyed boy, hoping to spend some time with the raven haired girl?” Adam asked with a devilish smirk; he loved throwing the past in his father's face.

Clearly Jack was not going to get a consoling ear from his son. He worried that this boy would try to push his beloved daughter into something she is not ready for. She was quite young and, in his mind, a boyfriend was the last thing she needed.

Roughly a half hour later, Jack pulled his gray SUV onto Caribou Road and came to a halt outside a picturesque two-story house with red bricks, a green wooden door and shutters, and a beautifully maintained rose garden out front. Quickly, Jack’s car emptied, leaving just Liam and Adam as company for the evening. Jack yelled out the window, “Call me when you’re ready! I guess we’ll go food shopping.”

Tristan entered the crowded house with Blake, Tommy and Shane behind her. The house was filled to the brim with people, all laughing and in the mood for celebrating. Kids ran through the house, as women dressed in their best cocktail dresses gathered in circles by the stairs. Mr. Piedmonte was standing by the fireplace with one elbow resting on the mantel while smoking a cigar as he talked shop with his brothers, Johnny and Ted. As they entered the foyer, Cole and his sister Natalie came running towards them. The pair's faces were nearly identical, with brown eyes and chestnut locks. Natalie hugged Tristan tightly and squealed in delight. Her olive skin had just a flash of rose as her eyes danced excitedly around the room. Cole looked happy to see them as well, but managed to compose himself. He greeted the Morrows with a simple smile and a wave. Natalie glowed, as family and friends greeted her, excited to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Cole ushered his friends into the dining room where the gifts were, and Shane added the colorfully decorated present to the mountain of gifts on the dining room table.

Escaping the party after a raucous rendition of “Happy Birthday”, Tristan followed Cole upstairs to the den.

“Your brothers are kind of crazy,” said Cole.

“You should know, you’ve known them longer than I have,” quipped Tristan.

Tristan flopped onto the plaid couch in the den as Cole flipped through TV channels. Tristan’s eyes danced across the wall of family photographs, many frames of varying sizes were scattered across the wall, but one caught her eye more than the others. In the center of the wall hung a frame that was larger than the rest. A dated family photograph from what appeared to be the early ‘80s that was clearly a picture of the Piedmonte’s.

"Is that your mother?" Tristan asked as she pointed up to the woman in the center of the portrait. Cole peered up at the photograph.

"Yes, that was taken a month before she died. I was just a baby.”

In the portrait a blond haired woman with straight locks and beautiful brown eyes glowed, surrounded by her family. Above her was a stout man with thick brown hair and mustache and a friendly face.  Surrounding them were their four children: eldest daughter Joanna, age eight, Joe, Jr. age four, Cole fifteen months and Natalie who was sitting on her mother's lap was just two months old.

Cole sat down next to Tristan on the faded couch as she glanced over at him.

“This might be really out of line, but can you tell me what happened to your Mom?” asked Tristan. Cole laughed at Tristan’s question.

“You know you can ask me whatever you want,” said Cole.

“Wait here, I’ll be right back.” Cole jumped from his seat as he went into the next room. A moment later he returned with a cracked leather book that was filled with newspaper clippings and photographs.

“It’s easier to show you,” explained Cole.

He opened the worn cover of the scrap book and began to flip through the pages, his expression quite unreadable. Years of memories, achievements and milestones flashed before Tristan’s eyes as Cole looked for the right page.

“Here it is,” said Cole as he thumped the page. “Read this.”

Tristan grabbed the book carefully with both hands, and stared down at the page, an old age-stained newspaper clipping dated December 26, 1981 with the title “Covered Bridge Collapses in Elkhart during Devastating Blizzard Kills 3.” Tristan’s heart raced as she read the words on the page.

She touched the page and unclasped the edges of the clipping from the book. She unfolded the article as a gasp escaped from her lips. Along with several other stories, including an article about a woman’s body being found on the bank of Croft Lake, was a black and white photograph of the Elkhart Bridge in shambles. The roof of the covered bridge had completely caved in. Snow and ice covered the scene and amidst the calamity, a pair of glaring headlights shone out. Too shocked to read on, Tristan closed her eyes with a glint of hysteria on her face. Tristan looked somberly into Cole’s eyes and quietly said, “I see what you mean. Your mom died on my birthday, you know…” A knowing look grew across Cole’s face and he appeared to want to say something but looked away instead. It wasn’t his place.

Out of sheer curiosity, Tristan lifted the worn tape that was securing the newspaper clipping in the scrapbook and began to unfold it. Whoever had saved the newspaper article didn't bother clipping it out, but instead folded the entire news paper page. Tristan smoothed the edges of the page, only to find something even more disturbing. She thought it was her face at first; a smiling family photo of her mother plastered in the center of page two of the
Elkhart Bugle
. The title over the picture read “Fox Hollow Woman Found Dead at Croft Lake, Foul Play Suspected.”

Tristan felt dizzy.

All this time she thought that her mother had left... When in reality, she was dead. Dead on the same day she gave birth to Tristan.

"Are you okay?" asked Cole, deep concern present in his voice. "I didn't realize that was on the other side!"

Ignoring Cole's question, Tristan spoke, shocked and breathlessly, "He's being lying to me all this time. He's been lying to everyone!" Her eyes wide, her mouth gaping; rage quaked inside her like never before.

From downstairs, a booming voice yelled up, “Tristan! Let’s go!” Jack had arrived. Blake had probably called him, ready to get back to his video games. The call startled Tristan, unsure of what she would say to her father when she saw him. As Cole prepared to close the book and run downstairs, he grabbed Tristan’s hand.

“Hey, before you go,” he reached into his pant pockets. “I wrote you back. Try to relax. I'll call you later.”

Cole handed Tristan a small folded up note. Tristan took the note as a small smile formed on her face. As Cole turned to head downstairs, Tristan sneakily tore the piece of newspaper from the book and stuffed it into her school sweater's front pocket. Cole offered to walk Tristan to the door. As the pair walked down the stairs, they were greeted by a set of angry eyes. Jack’s face was a ruddy shade of red as he saw his daughter walking down the stairs with the boy. Jack didn’t care if he knew the boy as well as his own son. His daughter was only fifteen. Entirely too young to have a boyfriend in his eyes. Jack decided that he would need to keep a close eye on the youngest Piedmonte boy.

"Hello Father," greeted Tristan coolly, as she followed her older brothers out the front door. Meanwhile, Jack waved goodbye to the members of the Piedmonte family, expressing a firm goodbye to Cole.

* * *

The heavy oak door of the Morrow residence burst open and Tristan walked in with purpose clear in her step. Her face showed no emotion, but her posture gave her anger away. No one said anything to her in the car, they have all come to the realization that a conversation with Tristan when she is angry will do them no good. It is always best to just let her cool down. In the car, as everyone talked loudly over the radio, Tristan just looked out her window, ignoring the laughter, jokes, and conversation. Occasionally she would get a worried glance from Adam, but she ignored that too.

As she walked in the foyer, Liam and Blake followed close behind her and watched as she walked up the steps. Liam turned to his brother, irritation clear in his face.

"What the hell happened?!" Liam demanded.

Blake looked cross with his older brother."How the hell am I supposed to know? She went up to the den with Cole and came down furious!"

"And the thought never occurred to check on your fifteen-year-old sister with your buddy?"

"No. It's Cole. Why would I?"

Tommy brushed by them, as he came through the door.

"It's not Cole that she's pissed at. Didn't you see how they parted? She smiled at him, but gave Dad a nasty look."

Jack entered the house with bags of groceries that he had purchased
while the kids were at the birthday party. Seeing the boys huddled together, he snapped.

"Knock it off! Don't you have homework to do?!" Jack yelled at Tommy, Blake and Shane as he angrily passed the grocery bags to Liam. Liam placed the heavy bags in the kitchen and Adam put them away to escape his father’s wrath. Jack walked to the foot of the steps, looking expectantly up to the second floor landing.

"Tristan!"

No answer. He called again, "Tristan! Come down here! I want to talk to you." A door slammed hard on the second floor followed by a series of footsteps. Tristan appeared at top of the stairs with a murderous look present on her face.

"What, Dad?"  asked Tristan impatiently.

"Don't ‘what’ me! Get down here! What the hell is going on with you?!"

Tristan stomped down the steps towards her father. They were
alone, and both of them were upset. This was not going to go well. Tristan approached her father until they were just a few feet from one another.

"I do not like being lied to," explained Tristan, looking her father dead in the eye.

"Baby, who has lied to you?" asked Jack, with a worried look on his face.

"As if you don't know," replied Tristan.

Tristan reached into her scarlet Steeplechase sweater and pulled out the folded up news page. "When were you planning on tell me about this?"

Jack's face scrunched into a perplexed expression, he honestly did not know what his daughter was handing him, nor what she was upset about. Jack took the paper from Tristan and slowly unfolded
it. The look on his face slowly evolved from confusion to anger, and finally gave way to fear.

"Where did you get this?" Jack asked, anger clear in his voice.

"I stumbled upon it in a scrapbook at Cole's house. You've been lying to me… to us… for years! How could you?!" Tristan told Jack in an escalated voice, with each word her anger intensified. Jack took a deep breath, almost on the verge of tears. Slowly he passed the newspaper clipping back to Tristan.