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“Fine. But if you step foot on my property, I have security and I will press charges,” I tell him. “The will is airtight and he left it to me.”
The cursing that follows us out the door has my hands shaking and heart racing. Wherever I saw that conversation going, this was not it.
“So, that neighbor won’t be sending us a welcome casserole,” Jayce jokes as he helps me in the car and rushes around to get in as well.
Neither of us speak as we start to back out, but as soon as I look up, I see Pandora in the window. Her form flickers in and out before she stands between the two men now arguing just inside the door.
A single word echoes in the car and I know that we’ve just gotten our next lead.
Raven
“She said, Earl?” Lucien clarifies as we finish telling him about our not so fun adventure today. We’ve got takeout pasta in front of us but no one is really touching their food.
“I checked the camera feeds—to be safe—when we got home and made sure all the motion sensors are functioning,” Jayce says. “You should have seen him. The man is unhinged and he’s desperate for this land.”
“I wonder what has him so desperate,” Eli says pointedly. “Maybe because he’s hiding something out here?”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Lucien admits. “There’s something out here that we aren’t finding. I just have no idea where to start.”
“We’ve looked at the old blueprints of the farm and property lines. There’s nothing,” Jayce says in frustration. “All dead ends. That’s all we’ve found.”
“Anything on Earl himself?” Lucien asks Jayce who has now abandoned his food completely and starts pacing back and forth.
“Not yet. He’s cut and dry on paper. Though he has two DUIs and at least three public disturbances on record,” Jayce says. “He’s as pleasant to the rest of the town as he is to us, apparently.”
“How does he sell a damn thing?” Lucien wonders.
“If you have good sales and you’re the only gun and ammo shop around, then you don’t have to be nice,” I point out before standing up and looking around. “Pandora, if you want us to end this, we need answers. I know you’re trying. But help us.” The desperation in my tone has me ready to scream. I can’t force her to help us and I know from Lucien, it can take years to gain control as a ghost.
But we can’t wait forever.
Something clatters outside and we all look at Jayce. He glances at his laptop screen that’s still open and shakes his head.
“There’s nothing out there.”
That’s enough for me to rush outside. The entire toolbox and garden tools that were stacked near the house were knocked over and spread out on the ground.
“I asked for answers, not a mess,” I sigh in frustration.
“Wait. Look. It’s an arrow,” Lucien points out. When he traces it out in the air I can see it. And it points straight toward the old house.
Fuck.
Another loud clang has Eli running back inside, coming out a second later, with four flashlights and handing them out. The moment the beam flickers to life, I start rushing toward the sound.
Outside of the new house, the old wood bin is knocked over, the logs making another arrow. If I wasn’t looking for it, I’d have missed it. It was crude and messy, but my poor cousin is trying to lead us in the right direction.
“You’re doing great, Pandora,” I whisper into the night as we wind around the house and back into the woods. There’s a well-worn path with tire tracks embedded in the mud. We hadn't explored much past the area we found the cave on the land. This was definitely a new lead.
But where was she taking us? And were we ready for what we’d find there?
“Are you sure we can’t wait till daylight?” Jayce asks, his voice small but next to me.
“No, we need to follow any clue Pandora can give us now. We don’t know how much longer she will guide us,” I remind him.
He just sighs and takes my free hand.
“You can wait in the house if you don’t want to go,” I say to him.
