The Demon Signet (18 page)

Ian ignored her. “No, we were in the mountains for a few days. Supposed to leave yesterday, but the storm set us back. Someone at the hotel told us about this place, said they had good breakfast.”

She stood silent for a moment, not buying the story but unable to come up with a reason why they’d lie to her. Ian tried not to shift beneath her gaze.

“Yeah, well,” she started, “the owner is pinned to the ceiling at the moment.” She was still looking for something that would help explain their true interest in the place.

“What do you mean?” Marcus’ eyes widened.

“Never seen anything like it. Must’ve been a group of people come in here last night during the storm and fastened him to the ceiling. Chopped him up pretty good.” She got a reaction all right, though not one of guilt. One of the girls in the back swore in horror.

Staring past the officer and to the diner, Ian said, “Guess we’ll be going somewhere else for breakfast.” He put the vehicle in reverse, and the cop stepped back.

“You have anything you want to tell me?” she asked.

“What?”

“Just a question.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

She chewed the inside of her lip. “Okay then. Drive safe.”

“Will do.” He rolled the window up and backed the Rover far enough away from her so that she wouldn’t be able to make out the license plate when he turned around. He didn’t dare look back as he left her there staring after them.

“Why didn’t you tell her?” Heather asked as he continued on toward Interstate 81.

“I thought you wanted to get home as soon as possible.”

“I do, but—”

“If we told her what happened, there’s no way we’d be home for Christmas.”

“We’d be suspects,” Marcus agreed.

“Suspects?”

Ashley nodded to her sister, but then said, “We’re going to be suspects anyway. It would’ve just been better to tell her. Now it’s gonna look like we were hiding something.”

“What do you mean we’re going to be suspects anyway?” Heather was getting upset.

Marcus explained. “When they find the Taurus, they’ll trace it back to us. They’ll search the woods and find Charles, and then they’ll be looking for his missing Rover, which a bunch of suspicious people just happened to drive up to a crime scene in Watertown. If the cop puts in her two cents, they’ll wonder why we had his car and why we lied about what we were doing there. And if the kids in the diner are found and made to give a statement…” He turned and looked out the window. “Not to mention what’ll happen if they find my phone, or Ian’s prints on the gun that killed Charles.”

“That’s all true,” Ian said, applying more pressure to the gas pedal. “But really…I just wanna get the hell away from these mountains.”

They sat in silence, each one forced to agree in the privacy of their own minds.

Marcus unfolded the map from the gas station and began following their route with his finger. “81 south.
South
.”

“Got it.” Then he asked Ashley if she wanted to try calling Joyce again.

“Sure.” She got out her phone, and her face clouded. “It’s dead.”

“Your phone?”

“Yeah. But it had like forty-five percent left…”

“Guess that means you have the only working phone,” Marcus said to Ian.

They merged onto 81 south and were thankful that the roads had been salted and plowed.

“We’re on here for almost seventy miles,” Marcus said. “It’ll take us all the way to Syracuse. Maybe an hour and a half.”

Ashley leaned her head back. “Please be home, Joyce.”

They all echoed her sentiment.

****

It took two hours to find Joyce’s home. It sat like a Christmas ornament against the crest of a wooded park; candy cane poles, reindeer, elves, nutcrackers, and miles of dormant Christmas lights covered the property.

“Is that her car?” Ian asked, pulling up behind a black Saab parked in the driveway.

Ashley shrugged. “She drove a beat-up Volkswagen in college.”

Ian put the Rover in park, and even as the girls jumped from the car, he and Marcus sat, taking in the house as if it might be harboring a terrible secret.

“What do you think?” Marcus asked him.

It was a question loaded with all kinds of implications, none of which Ian felt like sorting out right now. “I think I want a hot shower.”

Marcus couldn’t argue with that prospect, and they joined the girls in following the snow-covered path that led to the brick house—electric candles glowing in the windows, a wreath on the door.

Ashley was just about to knock, her hand held poised in the air, when the door opened.

A young woman in dark jeans, designer boots, a puffy brown coat, and a scarf wrapped around her neck swore loudly, her hand going to her heart. She stood in the doorway trying to catch her breath and then started to laugh. “Ash?” She looked back and forth between the four people standing on her doorstep. “What the hell are you doing here?” She bent over and picked up the keys she’d dropped. “You scared the dickens out of me!” She stepped over the threshold and threw her arms around her old roommate.

“Sorry about that,” Ashley said, squeezing back.

Joyce stepped back and looked at them again, her face beaming with playful curiosity. “So what’s going on? You just show up out of the blue like—”

“You didn’t get my message?”

“No.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked it. “No messages.”

Ashley bit her lip. “Oh.”

“Come on, what the hell is going on? Who are these people?”

Ashley turned and looked at Heather. “This is Heather, my older sister.”

Joyce grinned. “I’ve heard a lot about you, girl!”

Heather forced a smile.

“And this is her fiancé, Ian,” Ashley continued.

“Hi, Ian. Joyce.”

“Nice to meet you, Joyce,” he answered.

“And this is my boyfriend, Marcus.”

“
Really…
” She said it mischievously, as if a secret wink would’ve followed if she knew no one else would notice.

“We were skiing up in Quebec, but on the way back, our plane had to make an emergency stop at a small regional airport in the Adirondacks. We’ve been driving for a while and were wondering, with another storm coming tonight, if you wouldn’t mind us staying over. I—”

“Of course!” Joyce interrupted. “Make yourself at home! Food, shower, whatever! My house is your house.” She beamed. “This is great! Wow!” She stood back and shook her head, unable to bring herself to believe that her old roommate was actually at her front door.

Ashley crossed her arms. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure? Of course I’m sure! It’s so good to see you again!”

“You, too.”

“Were you going somewhere?” Ian asked, observing the amount of makeup that colored her face. “I mean, we don’t want to impose…”

“Oh, yeah, I have this little family Christmas thing at my aunt’s house. Hey, you’re welcome to come.” She seemed genuinely amused by the unscheduled visit.

“We’d love to,” Ashley said, looking around to the others, “but we’re exhausted.”

Joyce put a hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “I understand, honey. No, go right on in and make yourselves at home. I mean it, please.”

“Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to us.”

She waved the gratitude away. “I’m not sure what time I’ll be back, hopefully before more of that snow comes in. Are you in a hurry to leave tomorrow? Can I make you all breakfast?”

“You surely can,” Marcus said.

“Okay then.” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands together, her hair bouncing in the cold. “I can’t believe you’re here!” Then her gaze settled on their attire.

“Don’t ask,” Ashley said, following her eyes to the clothes George—God rest his soul—had so generously given them.

“What? I didn’t say anything.” She leaned forward, planted a sticky kiss on Ashley’s cheek, then moved in and delivered hugs to the rest of them. “Go on, get inside. I’ll see you tonight.” She giggled. “I can’t
believe
you’re here! I wish I didn’t have to go, but I’m gonna be late as it is…”

“Don’t worry about us,” Ashley told her. “Enjoy yourself. Tell your mother I said hi.”

“Oh, she’s gonna want to see you…” She stopped herself. “Tomorrow maybe. You go in and rest. You guys look tired.” She hopped once and clapped her hands together again. “I can’t wait to hear all about it! Okay, I’ll see you later! You have my cell, and I’ll just call the house if I need to get in touch with you, okay?” Then she gave Ashley another hug and skipped through the snow to the Saab. She waved as she backed around the Rover, honked, and disappeared past some trees.

The four of them stood there for a second, processing what had just happened.

“Wow.” Ian ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

“She hasn’t changed at all.” Ashley led them inside.

The house was cozy and smelled like Christmas candles. The living room had a Christmas tree that touched the ceiling, its green needles hidden beneath a tremendous amount of ornaments, tinsel, and blinking lights. Boxes of wrapped presents were stacked around its base.

Ashley walked through the room, looking intently at the pictures hanging from the wall. There were wedding photos, and she wondered where her old friend’s husband was. She didn’t see any pictures of children, though a quick tour through the rest of the house would no doubt satisfy that curiosity.

“Place is nice,” Marcus said, coming up behind her. “Fridge is full.”

Ashley smiled. “Go easy, okay.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder, looking at the pictures with her.

“You girls close?”

“We were. She transferred my last semester, and we kind of lost track of each other.”

He kissed her neck.

She leaned back into him. “Where’s Heather and Ian?”

Christmas music started playing from somewhere else in the house.

“Guess they’re putting some music on.”

The steady beat of the “Drummer Boy’s”
bass drum floated through the house.

Ashley closed her eyes, relaxing for the first time in a long time. She could feel her nerves begin to unwind and her body loosen, all that had led them here evaporating into some past dream.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked. “There’s eggnog.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“There’s a fireplace, too.”

“Mmm… I’ll meet you there.”

He kissed her again and left the room, leaving her to study the pictures in private. A large portrait enclosed by a dark wooden frame hung beside the tree. Joyce was standing beside a bare-chested guy, both of them covered in mud. There was a football nestled in the crook of his arm, and their faces were frozen in mock toughness. Ashley smiled. She missed her friend. She wondered why she hadn’t heard anything about a marriage. There was a time, she was sure, that she would’ve been in the wedding. But life tended to change things like that pretty quickly, college life fading into some irrelevant past as everyone grew up, became responsible, and were forced to make new friends in new places.

“Hey.” It was Heather coming up beside her this time.

“Hey. More Christmas music?”

“It’s the only playlist on her iPod. Sorry.” Then she lowered her voice. “You wanna hop in the shower?”

She shrugged. “Maybe later.”

Heather smiled with some secret innuendo perched on her lips and shrugged. “I mean…”

“What?”

“Do you want to take a shower…with Marcus?”

Ashley turned to face her.

“I mean, I know you guys didn’t get to in Quebec, so if you wanted some privacy now…”

Ashley blushed and shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but we’re okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’re okay,’” she mocked. “You guys aren’t…you know…having trouble or anything?”

“No. It’s just that…” She looked up to the Christmas tree, averting her eyes. “Marcus wants to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Marriage.”

Heather couldn’t keep the shock off her face. “You mean you’ve
never
—”

“With Marc? No, never.”

“You’re kiddin’ me, right? Why? His faith?”

“Hey,” Ashley whispered, looking over Heather’s shoulder and making sure no one was within earshot, “I’m okay with it. It’s different, you know? I know he loves
me
, who I
am
. He’s not like the others who just wanted to hit the sheets for a while.”

Heather stared at her blankly. “You know how cheesy that sounds?”

Ashley shook her head, not wanting to argue about it. “Don’t you have your own relational issues to worry about?”

But Heather wasn’t put off by the counterstrike. “Seriously? He’s a
virgin
?”

“No,” she whispered. “There was one time. But he says it’s one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. He wanted
his
wife to be the only woman who would ever know him like that, and now there’s someone
else’s
wife walking around out there with that knowledge.”

“That’s a weird way of looking at it.”

“Why?” Ashley chuckled. “How many husbands out there know you like that?”

“Shut up.” She hit her on the arm. “Fine. If you ain’t gonna take advantage of it, I am.
We
will be in the shower.” She turned and began walking away, and then added, “We’ll try to keep it down. Wouldn’t wanna tempt anyone.”

“Yeah, well, before you go fornicating in my friend’s bathroom, can you see if she has a house phone we can call Mom and Dad on?”

She pursed her lips. “Uh…don’t think I can wait that long.” She ran out of the room, calling for Ian as if everything was back to normal.

Twenty

“You sure about this?” Ian asked as he undressed. His Oxfords and socks were on the tiled floor, buried beneath his jeans, T-shirt, new Malcolm X sweatshirt, and coat. His boxer-briefs joined the pile.

“What? You don’t want me?” Heather teased with a crooked grin. She pulled her dark, twill V-neck with the lace sleeves up over her head and tossed it on her white peacoat and old lady sweater.

“I mean with your sister and Marcus downstairs.” He stepped toward her. “It’s weird.”