Page 11 of What Lies in the Woods

“I love you, too,” I told her, hanging the words on a smile she didn’t return. She pushed the door shut and walked to the gate, slinging herself over it in a few practiced movements. I watched after her until she rounded the bend and disappeared among the trees.

The truth could hold until tomorrow, I told myself. We could have the questionable comfort of our secrets for a few more hours.

Dad lived outside of town, in the house where I’d grown up and where he’d grown up before me. It’d always been a wreck. My grandfather’s sole talents had been cutting down trees, collecting crap, and ignoring his kids. Dad ended up with two out of the three and not the one that brought in a paycheck, so the place had only gotten worse over the years, especially after Mom took off—fed up with him and with me and with a town too stubborn to realize it was already dead.

A rusted-out Chevy Impala had joined the herd in the front yard. The piles of scrap metal, busted string trimmers, cracked bathtubs, and bent bicycles—all things he was going to get around to fixing up andselling any day now—had crept out another foot or so toward the property line, but otherwise it was the same old house.

The police car parked in the drive was new, though: a black SUV withCHESTER POLICE DEPARTMENTemblazoned on the side. The Chester Police weren’t infrequent visitors to our place—they’d show up every few weeks after Dad got drunk and drove into a mailbox, or I got busted for shoplifting or fighting or minor acts of vandalism.

I parked off to the side as the front door opened. A short Black woman in a Chester PD jacket stepped out. When she spotted me she stepped off the porch and lifted a hand in a wave. I made my way over with a sinking sensation.

“Are you Naomi Shaw?” she asked as I got close. She was even shorter than I’d expected, but she looked like she could bench-press three of me.

“Cunningham,” I corrected her.

“I see,” she said, eyes tracking to my scar. “I’ve just been talking to your father.”

“My sympathies,” I said. “What’s going on? Did he do something?”

“More like he didn’t do anything,” she said. “This is the third time I’ve been up here and the third time he’s promised me he’s working on clearing this place out so that it’s habitable. I haven’t seen any progress, and it’s past the point where I can turn a blind eye. Things have got to improve. Rapidly.”

“Good luck with that,” I said, rocking back on my heels with my hands in my back pockets. “That house has been a disaster for decades.”

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “There are no clear walkways. If emergency services needed to get in to help him, they wouldn’t be able to.”

It wasn’t that bad—was it? I hadn’t actually seen the inside of that house in what, five years? Last time I was here it was a junk heap, but you could get around.

“So, what? Is it going to get condemned? I only ask because whatever he tells me, it’s not going to be the whole truth, and I’d like toknow what I’m dealing with.” I kept my tone casual. I felt like a pumpkin getting its guts scooped out by hand, fingernails rasping against my insides. This was going to happen sooner or later. But as long as it had beenlater, we could both ignore it. Could get along, in our own way, each of us steadfastly ignoring the other’s sins.

“I haven’t done anything official yet, but it needs to be cleared out at least enough to make sure there isn’t any structural damage, and so that emergency response could get in if he got hurt or there was a fire. I told him I could give him thirty days before I had to report it.”

“That’s generous of you.” I had a month to deal with it, then.

“That was three weeks ago.”

“Of course it was.” I raked back my hair, looking up at the cloud-scabbed sky. I couldn’t deal with this. Not right now.

“Let me give you my card,” she said, more gently this time. “I can get you some numbers, people to call. You can still get the place fixed up, but he’ll need somewhere to stay in the meantime. With you, or—”

I laughed. She looked taken aback. “Trust me, no one wants that. I’ll figure something out.” It was more a statement of hope than fact. The idea of prying Dad out of this house wasn’t an appealing one.

“It’s not safe for him to stay here,” she said firmly, underlining the point, and there was that look I knew—theHow could you let this happen?look.

“It wasn’t always that bad,” I said, gripped by the need to explain. “It was always a disaster, but it was livable. I don’t come to Chester much. I didn’t know…”

“Can’t really blame you for not wanting to come back to the area too often,” she said.

“You didn’t live here back then, did you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m more of a city girl. My wife wanted to live in the woods, though, so here we are. I’ve heard all the stories, of course.”

“The ones where I get stabbed a bunch, or the ones where I’m an unrepentant delinquent?”

“Bit of both,” she confessed. “I’ll leave you be. You give me a call if there’s anything I can help you with here.”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said, checking her card, “Officer…”

“Chief,” she corrected. “Bishop.”

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