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Hugh, electrocuted in the barn.
Andrew, sick with some mystery ailment.
Roddy, partying too hard and going over the side of a boat.
It all made sense when she laid it out, a series of unrelated incidents, bizarre, sure, but nowhere near as sinister as it had been made out.
I believed her.
Then, at least.
Ben pulls his truck into a parking place just in front of one of the few stores still open along this stretch, a sign readingHENDERSON’S HARDWARE AND SUNDRY GOODESswinging faintly in the breeze.
There are two men at the counter when we step in, one behind, one in front, and they’re smiling as they chat, the familiar accents sliding over my ears and into my heart in a way that makes me feel homesick even as I stand in my hometown.
They stop talking as we come in, and I watch something in both their faces change when they see Ben standing there.
He smiles brightly at them, lifting a hand. “Steve, Hank. How’s it going?”
The guy behind the counter—Steve Henderson, I recognize him now despite the paunch and the gray hair—nods at us. “Mr. McTavish,” he says, and then his eyes slide over to me.
The tightness fades from his expression and his eyes widen slightly. “Holy shit, Camden,” he says, and then he’s coming around the counter, pumping my hand and slapping my back. “How the hell are you, boy? Hank, you remember Ruby’s son, don’t you? Camden? Lord, what’s it been? Ten years now?”
“Something close to that,” I reply, smiling back at him asHank leans on the counter and takes off his cap, running a hand over his thinning hair.
“Tell you what, son, we still miss your mama something fierce around here,” he says, and I can tell he means it. Ruby was a celebrity in this town, their magnanimous benefactor. If people in Tavistock ever whispered about all those husbands, they did it behind firmly closed doors.
No wonder she never wanted to leave.
“I miss her, too,” I tell him, and I am surprised to realize that’s true. I’ve spent the past ten years trying not to think about Ruby, and when I have, I’ve remembered only the bad things.
There was a lot of bad to remember, after all.
But there had also been good. The meals at the Jay. The standing account at the local bookstore, how Ruby encouraged my love of reading and always let me buy any book I wanted. The way she would ruffle my hair and say,You and me against the world,whenever Nelle or Howell or Ben was being a dick.
Ben emerges from the shelves with an armload of supplies. A crowbar, tarp, some respirators, and a putty knife. He’s still smiling at Hank and Steve, but there are those hard eyes again, and once again, the other men’s smiles fade as they study him warily.
“What are you working on today?” Hank asks, nodding toward the supplies Ben’s holding, and Ben gives him a broad wink.
“Found those hikers, decided to take care of the cleanup ourselves.”
Hank blanches, and, at my side, I feel Steve stiffen slightly even as Ben laughs, loud and long, shaking his head.
“Fucking with you,” he says, then turns to me, gesturing behind the counter where, for the first time, I notice a faded flyer bearing the wordMISSING. Underneath, there are twoblurry, photocopied pictures of a couple of young men in hiking gear, forested mountains rising up behind them.
“It’s been a whole thing,” Ben explains. “Over the summer, these two dumbasses decided to hike the trail on the east side of Ashby House.”
The mountain the house sits on actually has a name—Mount Trossach, after some place in Scotland—but no one in the family ever uses it. Everything up there is discussed in terms of the house, like it’s the only landmark that matters.
I know the trail Ben is talking about. It’s steep and tough, narrow enough in places that you can barely keep both feet on the mountain, and I have a sudden memory of me and Ben on that trail, years ago, his hands gripping my shoulders, his braying laugh in my ear as pebbles skittered from underneath my boots, and the sky and trees swung dizzily around me, my stomach lurching.
Fucking with you.
He’d said that then, too.
“They found one of their packs, but nothing else, and man, we had people crawling all over the mountain forweeks. Nana Nelle nearly had a fit because she could see them from her bedroom window. You were up there, weren’t you, Steve? Were you one of the ones Nana called the cops on?”
Steve’s face is granite now, and I see him clench and release a fist against his thigh. “Nope, can’t say I was. Think they talked to my cousin, though. It was his son that went missing. Tyler.”
