AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Finally, the car, which Harley can’t identify since he’s not that kind of guy, makes a wide circle, and heads back down the drive. No license plate. That’s weird. Tomorrow he’ll call the police. The township wants him here. They fancy themselves a tourist attraction and they’re looking forward to the publicity that his social media, podcast, and eventual book will bring them. He hasn’t disabused them of this notion, though he’s not sure that the reopening of a decade-old murder and missing-persons case will do anything for their reputation.
He watches as the car winds down the drive. The road is too far to see from his vantage point what direction it heads, toward town or away.
He doesn’t think about it for much longer because a FaceTime call comes in from Mirabelle. Her almond-shaped hazel eyes and platinum blonde hair fill the screen. He wishes he could crawl through the screen and—
“You didn’t answer my emails,” she says.
“Sorry, just getting in from trying to talk to Madeline Martin.”
She frowns. “Doesn’t sound like it went well.”
“We’ll see, I guess.”
She looks past him, and he knows that she’s seeing the ruin of the Wallace house, his house.
“Are you safe there, Harley?” she asks, biting at her bottom lip.
“Yeah, sure.”
He won’t tell her about the mysterious car in the drive.
“I’m worried about you.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. All he wants to do is kiss her again.
“So come up here,” he says. “I have Wi-Fi. You can work from up here.”
He expects her to shoot him down, but she doesn’t. She looks away, off camera. “About the other night.”
Uh-oh.
“Don’t worry about it,” he rushes in. “No strings attached.”
Something on her face tells him that he said the wrong thing. Why didn’t he just let her say what she wanted to say? Because he is a coward, terrified of rejection. That has been well established in therapy.
“Okay, yeah,” she says, her face going a little cold. “Sure.”
He wants to say a hundred things, but they all jam up in his throat.
“Just, you know,” she says, giving him a sad smile. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
She ends the call, and he sits for five solid minutes wondering if he should call her back, then he just doesn’t.
After a while, he goes back to his cot. And as he lies there, he starts to think of the opening lines of episode one. Rog wants to get started tomorrow. He can hear it in his head, envision how the script will look on the page:
After a blistering late fall heat wave, the winter of 2014 was the coldest on record for Little Valley. When school let out for the Christmas holiday, temperatures were dipping below zero. Roads were icy. Pipes were bursting. And it was only going to get colder. A blizzard was forecast for Christmas Eve into Christmas Day.
The season was always a big deal for Little Valley. The picture-postcard town was a popular destination for tourists from the city. They started arriving as the leaves began their autumn color show, filling up its B&Bs, visiting the Little Valley pumpkin patch, and gathering at its Cider Mill. They continued coming all season, visits culminating at The Christmas Market, where local artisans sold their wares beginning on the second weekend in December, ending the following Sunday.
We never gave the safety of our girls a second thought. Little Valley was a wonderful place, a family of neighbors and friends. And Christmas was always a culmination of that good will.
But the Christmas of 2014 would be different. After the holiday market closed down, and the tourist season wound to a close, a darkness fell.
