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“I got bad vibes, Fi Fi McGee,” Ty said.
“I hate it when you call me that.”
“I know,” he said as brotherly love laced with playfulness radiated in his light blue eyes. Their team was tight-knit, but Violet chose to hover on the outer edges. Until she knew for sure she wasn’t like her father in all the ways she suspected she was, everyone was safer at a distance.
She was safer.
Fiona glanced at Ty. “You think those numbers carry a religious connotation?”
He shrugged. “Can’t say yet.”
Typically, the crimes that landed in their laps had religious or ritualistic undertones, though they weren’t always easy to detect at first in some cases, and if Violent Crimes had a full plate, regardless of if there were odd religious undertones, they’d take a case off their hands.
“If we could figure out the meaning behind the carved numbers, it might give us a leaping head start,” Fiona said.
Ty huffed. “Fiona, I don’t like working under pressure.”
She threw him an are-you-kidding-me expression. “All we do is work under pressure.”
He splayed his hands. “Now you know why I repeatedly say I hate my job.”
It won him an eye roll.
They turned off on KY 15. North Fork Kentucky River rolled to their left, and to the right, ridges of limestone, shale and sandstone rocks painted an earthy landscape; above the crags, the Appalachian Mountains rose to the sun and the increasing altitude clogged Violet’s ears. She swallowed, forcing them to pop and adjust.
“Shouldn’t be too far up.”
Little roads branched out with signs revealing several hollows, which were nothing more than unincorporated communities of people. Violet had done a little digging, and the only hollow she found interesting was Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle’s old homeplace in Butcher Hollow. Once home to miners and their families until the mines closed. Many moved out, but there were those who remained. Living off the land. Doing life their way.
She wondered how the folk in the hollow would take to outsiders coming in and disrupting that way of life. Asa said in the briefing earlier that an anonymous call came in to the State Police at two in the morning from a bar in Crow’s Creek called the Black Feather. The man informed them that bodies had been found, but they better come out because the local law enforcement wasn’t going to properly investigate. Not sure if that was true or not. But locals probably weren’t going to roll out a welcome mat for any other agency, including the SCU.
They continued to wind up and around, Violet’s stomach turning at the curves. She should have taken a Dramamine. A small green sign reading Night Hollow signaled them to the mouth of the hollow. It hungrily opened, swallowing them up, its tongue a narrow dirt road carpeted with colorful leaves, potholes and puddles from an earlier rain.
Ty perked up, his golden-brown hair in disarray and his eyes vexatious as he pocketed his phone.
Asa shot him a sharp glare through the rearview. “Don’t even start it.” But his warning fell on deaf ears as Ty was already picking an air banjo and humming the music to the movie Deliverance. A movie Violet was only familiar with because she was a secret film buff.
Fiona pivoted in her seat and turned her nose up. “Really?”
But at first glance, Ty wasn’t that far off base. The atmosphere seemed to morph. Inkier. Ominous. Something malevolent hovered, and Violet shifted in her seat, the vehicle heavy with silence as they entered the great yawn. Would this place swallow them whole? It had devoured three women already.
The road wound sharply, providing only one car width of room. Unpaved driveways led to small double-wides, trailers and cabins with sagging roofs. Nothing about this place gave off welcoming vibes, so she hoped they wouldn’t need to turn around in one of those driveways or pull over to let another vehicle pass.
A black lab and a dirt-crusted mutt moseyed along the tall strands of grass edging the road, their tongues lolling. Violet cracked her window, the SUV too stifling. The rush of water wending the path of the road slicked over stones and sloshed along the creek bank.
As they continued their ascent, the lush woods thickened like a fortress and the air outside cooled as they plunged deeper into the belly of the hollow. Violet massaged the area behind her earlobe and stretched her mouth to relieve the pressure in her ears once more.
Outside a rusty aluminum trailer on their right, a rail-thin woman hung clothes on a droopy line, her hair blowing in the breeze as three little girls with the same blond locks ran and screeched barefoot through the overgrown lawn, rustling up the free-range chickens. Their clucks echoed, and they paused as the team veered past.
Asa growled and slapped the steering wheel. “There went the GPS.”
“You know what happens to those who get lost in the backwoods?” Ty started in on the air banjo again.
“Knock it off.” Owen’s tone was sharp and somber as he sat ramrod, his eyes warily surveying their environment. Men with guns stood on porches, stony-eyed. Children gathered behind them, their little heads poking out from between their legs to get a look at the newcomers.
With local police coming through since midnight last night then State Police and feds, it had been a circus up here. Owen removed his AirPods and kept a hand on his holster. His dark eyes were trained on the man who stood at the foot of his gravel drive, his beard touching his belt and his gun in an aimed position. “I do not like this place. And I got a feeling none of these good ole boys are gonna like me.”
Fiona turned in her seat again, adjusting her seat belt. “We all need to tread lightly. I suspect nobody is happy about any of us being here. But I hear you, O. And we got ya.”
