The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) (4 page)

A
lone pick-up truck negotiated its way down the tiny road. Eddie looked away from the teary twenty-two year old in the VW and eyed his car on the other side of the parking lot. The music coming from the jukebox in the bar suddenly quit, giving them quiet.

“Yes, she was my sister,” Ana said.

Eddie knew he should just shut up and go. He needed to get out now.

Ana left the car running and got out. She put her forearms on the roof of the VW and looked over at him. Her tears glistened in the weak light coming from the bar.

“I want to know what happened to her, Eddie. Or whatever it is she’s trying to tell me. I want to know. I have to know.”

“Your sister,” Eddie said again.

Ana nodded.

He looked off into the middle distance, remembering the day Tim had been killed. He could still feel the sticky wetness of Tim’s blood as it pumped from the wound, the knife buried in his brother’s chest. The look of pain on his brother’s face.

His mouth twitched at the memory. “Knowing what happened won’t make it any easier.”

“I don’t care. I need to know and so would you if it was your sister.”

Eddie slowly shook his head, but she was right. He turned to look at her.

He’d always thought of her as cute in a pixieish sort of way, looking closer to seventeen than twenty-two. She’d get carded for the next eight years, easy. But in this moment she looked different. Resolute and unafraid, even noble. Her chin was a little prouder. Her eyes a little sharper. Eddie admired her for that.

“If you’ve studied hauntings, then you know that most are just recordings. No intelligence there.” The one bag was getting heavy in his hand so he put it on the ground. “Even if it is Tessa, she’s probably not saying anything.”

He let that sink in and added, “That is, if anything is actually occurring.”

She rose to her full height.

“Things are definitely happening. Most everyone in town has seen or heard something.”

Arguing with her was fruitless he knew. She had the passion of a born-again and the belief of the innocent. 

She came around the front of the car and stood close to him. She put her tiny hand on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry about your brother, Eddie.”

Her touch made him go still.

She surprised him by wrapping her arms around him and crying. He struggled to keep his resolve.

He clamped his jaw shut. She was way too close to the deceased to maintain any sort of objectivity. A bias would taint the entire investigation.

“And I’m sorry about what happened to Tessa. I hope you find something.”

He broke the hug and moved away from the VW. She didn’t follow. The night was cold, the wind bitter. It was highway time. He headed for his car.

Got about halfway.

“Please,” she said.

“
I
don’t know about you,” she said once they were back in her car. “But I could use a drink.”

He didn’t want a drink. He wanted a hundred drinks.

“Yeah, but only one,” he lied.

She smiled over at him.

She pulled out of the lot back onto the same road. Steered them away from his apartment, farther from town.

They drove another stretch in silence but he could sense the shift in her mood. It was stronger than the moon’s pull on the tides.

“Thank you, Eddie.”

“Don’t ...”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m so excited. With you on board—”

“Listen, Ana, we do this my way.”

“That’s what I meant. Totally. I’ll try to ratchet it down.” She beamed him a smile he could feel all the way down in his toes. “I just want to learn. Teach me everything you know.”

“First you’re going to teach me. Tell me about Tessa.”

“Well, for one thing we were stepsisters and she was a lot older than me.”

Ana came to a stop at a lonely red light. No cars in sight in any direction. “I was only eight when she drowned.”

The light changed to green. Ana accelerated.

“After Tessa died, my mom left. Tessa’s dad and mine weren’t even on speaking terms, so you can imagine how much worse it got after. One dad blamed the other, and it actually came to blows. It was terrible.”

Eddie inventoried the mess of a situation. Divorce. Death of a child. Followed by another divorce. He was surprised Ana wasn’t selling her body or riding a pole or addict-deep in drugs.

“Tessa’s pop rolled my dad real bad. He ended up in the hospital a couple days. The Sheriff wanted to arrest Tessa’s father but dad wouldn’t press charges. All he would say is that it takes two to tango. I think he just felt sorry for the guy after the fight. Tessa was all he had.”

Eddie was amazed Ana had turned out so normal with her family history.

Ana continued. “She was pretty and popular. And hot. I think she, uh, got around. Everybody tells me she was nice, but I think that’s them blowing smoke.”

“Why?”

She looked over at him. “I’m her sister, what else are they going to tell me. What’s the Latin,
nil nisi boner
?”

Eddie laughed. “
Bonum
.”

She took her eyes off the dark road for the briefest of moments to give him a knowing look. “It was a joke.”

“Got it.” He was surprised by her bawdy sense of humor. “So why don’t you think she was nice?”

Ana slowed and put her signal on. Eddie spotted the six-pack store that tripled as a deli and the post office ahead. One old plastic sign lit up the naked trees surrounding the parking lot.

“One of the prereqs to running with the popular crowd is you have to be either a prick or a see-you-next-Tuesday.”

“See-you-next Tuesday ...?”

“God, you’re an old head, Eddie.”

“I’m not that old. What does it mean?”

She looked over at him slyly. “A cunt.”

Eddie laughed.

An
a
had read the book but still Eddie was a puzzle to her. Okay, The Unearthed wasn’t entirely about him. Still she couldn’t find his center. The author had missed some fundamental part of him. She thought after reading the book she would have a handle on him, perhaps even a lever to her shame.

He was still a mystery.

He was nice-looking when he wasn’t angry and he had a killer sense of humor when he wanted to. When he was angry there was a danger to him that admittedly turned her on. He hadn’t hit on her … yet, and even that surprised her. She knew she wasn’t a raving beauty but men of all shapes and sizes gave her the Don Juan leer. She’d fantasized about Eddie one night …

Her boyfriend was … he just was. He floated along with the many other young guys in town going nowhere and more often than not arriving there.

She made a left out of the parking lot and headed back to Eddie’s place. Eddie stared straight ahead, the brown bag containing the two six-packs cradled in his arms.

“Mind if I use your phone again?” he asked.

She handed him her purse while keeping her eyes on the road. “It’s in the little compartment on the front of the bag.”

Eddie removed the phone and stared at it.

“You’re completely helpless, aren’t you?” She winked at him. “If you’re calling Victor, just hit SEND twice. It’ll redial.”

Eddie did so and parked the phone on his ear. She wondered what he’d say this time.

“Hey, Vic, it’s Eddie … Change of plans here. I’m sticking it out … I’ll see you in the morning.”

Eddie put the phone away. “Your friend Tony, he ever been in trouble with the law before?”

She wondered why he was so fixated on Tony. “I think so but nothing major. Typical adolescent crap.”

Eddie didn’t respond and kept looking out the window.

She snuck a sidelong glance at him. He was in a brood mood which she found irresistibly cute. Strange to think of someone in their thirties as cute. Thirty sounded so old to her and yet here was this guy with his mischievous eyes and world-weary grin that made him seem a bad boy. The book hinted at his womanizing but she didn’t see that in him. He looked … wounded somehow and vulnerable and tough and she was thinking too much about him when she should be focusing on the happenings. She wanted to impress him for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom. She wasn’t just a small-town bimbo, she was smart and ambitious and if the phenomena turned out to be something extraordinary, well, they’d see where the chips ...

“Let’s do this in reverse,” he said, breaking her train of thought. “How did Tessa die?”

“She drowned,” Ana said. “You know how they say hypothermia keeps drowning victims alive? It’s bullshit. It rarely works.”

Ana steered them around the long curve in the road. Ahead, George’s bar was dark, the solo floodlight on in the parking lot. They zipped by. Eddie’s car was still there.

“She was eighteen, right?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. It happened December 8th.”

The eighth was three days away, but Eddie said nothing.

“Don’t you think that means something, with all this activity and the eighth only ...?”

“Why didn’t something happen last year or the year before or five years ago? Why now, fourteen years later? Why not after ten years, or fifteen?”

“I understand, Eddie.” She was taken aback by the edge in his voice. “I want something to be there so I attach significance to every event. That’s why I need you to keep me grounded and objective.”

“Tell me how it happened.”

His place was just ahead. She maneuvered into a parking spot and put it in PARK.

“They were being stupid. That’s why she’s dead.”

Stupid
?
That was how Eddie felt for getting involved in this mess. Did he really want to help, or was he just thinking with the wrong head again? Pretty girl, emotionally vulnerable, late night with a snootful of alcohol and more to come, hero worship in her eyes. It would be easy, he thought, and hated himself for thinking it.

Eddie led her up the stairs into his apartment and tried to keep thinking with his head instead of his dick.

He dumped the contents of the duffel bag onto the couch and placed the dog-eared copy of
The Unearthed
on the kitchen counter.

He heard Ana pop the top of a beer can and turned in time to see her take a healthy swig. He didn’t want another beer but he took the offered can from her and took a small sip more to be polite than anything else.

Ana walked to the window and looked out. The electric blue light from the street lamp made her appear almost ghost-like.

Ana said, “Tessa and her friends were messing around on a frozen lake. She … went under and nobody could get to her.”

Eddie sipped and the cold light beer tasted like ice water. The image of the eighteen-year-old Tessa trapped under the frozen lake invaded his mind. He imagined the dull thuds of her futile pounding against the ice above, the panic and fear she must have felt. How her long hair streamed around her head, Medusa-like. Her skin pale in the water, almost translucent. Her eyes wide. The pupils dilated. Then, the first spasm of the lungs, sucking in water. The gulp-cough. The lungs trying to expel water and breathe at the same time. The pain of that icy water filling her lungs ...

He shuddered because he knew exactly how she’d felt.

He’d almost died the same way.

In his infinite, nine-year-old wisdom, he’d decided to play on the ice contrary to his brother’s instructions. The ice cracked, and he was sucked in, but luckily he was close to shore and his brother had been able to pull him out. The rescue was eerily prescient—Tim would continue to save Eddie from his bad decisions for the next two decades, until he was murdered.

During the occasional nightmare, Eddie found himself under that sheet of ice again and felt that water choking him. He’d wake in a sweat, hands shooting up to his throat. The summer following the near-drowning he’d forced himself to learn to swim really well, not wanting to live in fear of the water.

But ice still scared the hell out of him, and he’d never gone skating since. He’d survived going under the ice once. He wouldn’t tempt fate and try it again.

Eddie folded his arms. “They were ice skating?”

Ana took another big gulp. “No.”

“Then what were they doing?”

An
a
didn’t answer right away. She moved to the middle of the living room.

Eddie said, “Who was with Tessa?”

“It was Tessa and her boyfriend, Mike Hollis, and the Three Musketeers or whatever they called themselves: Marty, Bernard, and Colin.”

“Marty as in Marty Kindler?”

“Yeah. And Bernie and Colin, the same two guys who’ve experienced a lot of activity in their houses.”

“You called those three guys the musketeers … I’m guessing Tessa’s boyfriend, Mike Hollis, wasn’t part of the crew.”

“Not really. Mike was the guy they brought along to make fun of, so he tells it. He was on the basketball team because he was big. They let him hang out because he’d do whatever they told him.”

Eddie could see Ana’s silhouetted figure in the darkened room by the meager light coming from the kitchen. He could sense rather than see her tenseness as she collected her thoughts.

Ana said, “They were playing a stupid game. You had to walk to the middle of the ice, jump as high you could, then run back to shore.”

Eddie pictured the five of them standing on the edge of that frozen lake, teasing each other, all the guys wanting to look tough in front of Tessa.

Recipe for disaster.

Ana continued. “All the guys except for Mike took a turn. Like I said, he was a big guy. He didn’t want to do it because he was the heaviest.

“They teased him. He says Tessa got in on it and really humiliated him. Called him a vi-jay-jay and all kinds of things. He claimed that Tessa said she was going to blow the other guys in front of him because she preferred men to boys. The other guys denied this.”

Ana grew so quiet Eddie could hear himself breathing.

Gently, he said, “Go on.”

“She went out onto the ice. He said she embarrassed him so much that he went out too. Before he got halfway to her, the ice under them cracked. They both went in. Mike was able to hold on, but Tessa wasn’t. She went under and that was that.”

The vent in the wall banged as the heat kicked on and it startled both of them. Ana laughed nervously.

“She went right under?” Eddie asked.

“No.” Ana shook her head. “She didn’t.”

Eddie moved into the darkness of the living room and leaned against the wall.

“Is Mike Hollis still around?” Eddie asked.

“No. He dropped out of school shortly after and moved away. His crazy Dad’s still here, though.”

“His Dad stayed here?”

“Yeah. Mike went to live with relatives or somebody in Ohio.”

Eddie thought that strange and decided to look into it. Having lost his parents at an early age, he was always amazed by families that willingly parted ways. He would have given his left arm to see his parents and Tim again.

“What is it?” Ana went to the fridge for another cold one.

“Nothing. So let me guess. Weird things are happening at the lake. Where else?”

Ana cracked another beer and seemed to stumble a little when she took that first step away from the fridge. She was holding two beers and handed him one.

“There’s been activity reported at the lake ever since Tessa died. But the activity at Kindler’s and the other two guys’s houses is recent.”

Eddie gave her room to get by then slid down the wall till he was crouched. He took a long pull. He was starting to enjoy the beer again. The buzz from earlier was coming back. It was like running into an old friend from childhood. You just slipped into conversation easily, naturally, like it was only yesterday you had been jumping ramps on your ten-speeds.

“Kindler says the whole town’s haunted,” Eddie said. “You know how unlikely that is?”

“Everything’s unlikely until it happens for the first time.” She wobbled as she sat down on the carpet.

“You okay there?”

“I’m good … Dad.”

“We’re going to work tomorrow, you’ve gotta be sharp. That’s why I’m asking.”

“You’re right.” She sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly full of energy again. “This is going to be wicked. You know they’ll write a book about this if we find something. This’ll be a big story.” She deposited her half empty beer can on the table.

Eddie held out his palm in a stopping motion. “Slow down there, rock star. I’ll do what I can but you gotta have reasonable expectations. I’m no miracle worker and chances are we’ll find rational explanations for everything. That’s the mindset we take going in. Better to be cynical about this than to talk yourself into believing things because you want them to be true.”

“Then who’s leaving wet footprints in Kindler’s locked house overnight while he’s sleeping?” she asked.

“Probably Kindler. He’s an addict and under the circumstances not the most reliable of witnesses.”

“He’s an addict?”

“I think that’s enough for tonight.” Eddie stood and put his half-finished beer next to his other empty can. “You okay to drive?”

She looked at him like he’d grown another head. “Of course I’m okay to drive. It’s only eleven-thirty and I’ve only had two and a half. I can go all night.”

Eddie tried not to picture her in his bed, going all night.

Ana said, “On the other hand, maybe you’re right … If you want to keep working, I could just crash here. No big. My boyfriend won’t care.”

Eddie didn’t buy that for a second. It took all his will power to say no. “Sorry, I’m running on empty here. I got a shift in the morning then you and I are going to work. You sure you can drive?”

Ana folded her arms and jutted a hip playfully. “You are L-A-M-E, Eddie. And don’t worry. I’ll be alright getting home, I’m not some over-the-hill thirty year old.”

She stopped next to him on her way to the door and touched his hand.

“Thanks, Eddie.”

He nodded, already regretting his chivalry.

“See ya.”

She walked out and left the door open behind her. He wanted desperately to call after her, to feel the warmth of her in his arms, to smell her hair, but he let her go. He was tired, and she was too young. Last thing she needed was to get mixed up with him when she already had a boyfriend.

So he didn’t chase after her. That was what the old Eddie would have done.