Page 13 of The Spider & the Storm

I didn’t know what to say, if I should say anything at all, and before I knew it, we were nearing the lamppost at the end of our walkway.

“So, um …” Luke cleared his throat awkwardly.

That was when I looked up at him, acutely aware now of just how much taller he was than me, and I wondered if I’d ever stand eye to eye with him again.

“Do me a favor, okay?”

“Sure,” I replied, finally speaking after a long ten minutes of silence.

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad you drank beer. They’ll kill me. Like, literally.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I wasn’t gonna say anything. They’d kill me too.”

“No, they wouldn’t. You’re their favorite, and you know it.” He slugged my shoulder, and I was so painfully aware of how much I missed him, even as he stood beside me. “Thanks, Charlie.”

He turned and walked up the path, and I waited a couple of seconds, reflecting on the things he’d said as I watched him climb the porch steps. Thinking that maybe there was a chance we weren’t so far apart after all.

And then I followed.

CHAPTER FOUR

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

I wasn’t sure I’d slept at all, but that wasn’t anything new. Sleep hadn’t mattered much to me in years—the nightmares rarely allowed for it. So, hours before my alarm was set to go off, I jumped out of bed, ready to start my day without any desire to force myself back to sleep.

Besides, it would only be time wasted on lying there, doing nothing but battling against my mind and the things—and people—it kept insisting on bringing back from the dead. So, I made a pot of black coffee instead. Because sometimes, our memories were crueler than the ghosts that haunted us, and the only thing you could do to chase them away was to caffeinate and wake the hell up.

What the hell was wrong with me anyway?

Of course, I had thought about Luke over the years. Of course, I had occasionally relived the experiences of our shared and often colorful past. But I was skilled at tamping them down once they emerged from the cellar I’d locked them in. It did me no good to remember, so why couldn’t I stop myself now?

I sipped my coffee, wishing I could just administer the stuff via an IV line directly to my bloodstream. Doing much more than blinking and breathing felt like too much of an effort when I’d only gotten an hour or two of sleep, fractured by memories, but I managed to down the first cup in less than ten minutes while staring at the blank kitchen wall.

Then, I poured another cup and made my breakfast. I put on my black jeans, black T-shirt, black leather jacket, and black boots. Then, I grabbed the keys from the simple hook beside the heavy wooden door. The same routine I’d been keeping every day since I’d accepted the job of caretaker five years ago. Routine was good. It kept me grounded, kept the mind quiet and functioning like a well-oiled machine.

I rounded the stone cottage to Luke’s motorcycle, keeping my eyes down and on the dew-dusted grass on either side of the stone path. It was too early to open the cemetery gate, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t head over to the maintenance shed and grab the mower.

With the keys dangling from my tattooed fingers, I grabbed the helmet from the seat and went to place it on top of the old tree stump behind the house. Never saw a reason to wear the thing when I was only driving a few miles per hour and just around the corner from the cottage with no one else on the grounds. Hell, normally, I would walk the distance if I wasn’t being so lazy.

Then, with the helmet sitting on the stump, I turned to face the bike and immediately clutched at my chest because there, on the seat, was the butt of a cigarette.

I didn’t spook easily. I had faced my share of torment throughout my thirty-eight years of life, and I had experienced more tragedy than any person deserved to be dealt with. I’d accepted the spiritual world for what it was and resigned myself to coexistence at a fairly early age. But what did have the ability to crawl under my skin was the idea of being followed, known, and watched when all I wanted was to be left alone.

With my hand still gripping the fabric of my T-shirt, I looked around the cemetery, surveying what I could see of theland from where I stood. The sun had begun to rise, casting a hazy light through the morning mist over the trees and headstones, but nowhere did I see the form of a person, lurking somewhere in the distance.

My fingers shook as I pinched the cigarette and dropped it in the garbage can against the back of the cottage.

It was probably some stupid, snot-nosed kid.

But when? How?

The alarm would’ve gone off if someone had come in after closing. I would’ve seen someone outside. Max, the night security guard, would’ve known, and the trespasser would’ve been caught.

No, maybe not. It gets dark out here. They could’ve been hiding somewhere when I locked the gates. Kids do shit like that.

I blew out a breath, calming my frantic heart, and rolled my eyes at my paranoia. It wouldn’t have been the first time local kids had spent the night in the graveyard on a dare or a date. I’d caught them countless times before, but there was no telling how many times they’d gotten away with it under my nose. I did what I could, and so did the security guard, but some incidents fell through the cracks sometimes. Surely, that was what had happened.

Hey, maybe it was even that piece of shit who had dropped his tissue on Ellen’s grave.

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