Page 32 of The Whisper Place
Silas edged further back into his house, his face almost purple now. I braced for him to start yelling, but he turned and reached for something behind the door. Before I fully registered what it was, I lunged inside the house, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, twisted it to the side, and used it to shove the old man to the floor.
He went down with a crash, bouncing off some furniture before landing on the floor. Adrenaline flooded my body as the walls tried to close in around me. The room, already dark, went almost black in front of my eyes, but I didn’t run. I stood in the doorway, letting the sunshine heat my back and the breeze cool the sweat on my skin. I held the shotgun like a talisman against the dark place where moans and vicious cursing garbled together.
“Tell Charlie you’re done. You’re not going to extort any more money from him. If you don’t, I’ll be back. And believe me when I say no one will miss a piece of shit like you.”
I walked out into the morning air, feeling every pulse of blood beating against my veins. The sun was higher now, illuminating the giant rolling fields, green with new life. I could run for miles.I could bake a hundred loaves of bread. Tossing the shotgun in the ditch at the end of Silas’s driveway, I turned to the west and started jogging home to the rhythm of the words in my head.
I love you, Darcy. Love you, Darcy. Love. You. Darcy.
It was going to be a gorgeous day.
Max
As Charlie Ashlock and I walked up Silas Hepworth’s driveway, a shotgun blast ripped through the morning air. I ducked, shoving Charlie behind me, and reached for the nonexistent holster at my side. Neither of us had been hit. There was no sign of life in the front yard and all the windows in the house and trailer were dark, no faces or barrels aimed our way.
“What the—” Charlie muttered behind me.
Another blast rang out, echoing off the buildings on Hepworth’s property. Charlie pointed to the barn and I nodded. The shots were coming from somewhere behind it. We glanced at each other and moved in that direction, following the weeds that grew at the base of the faded building. When we got to the edge, there was another blast—this one even closer—followed by a wheezy laugh.
“You can’t let the butt jump around like that. You’ve got to brace it.”
“I am.” This voice was higher, younger.
“Those cans over there say otherwise.”
I motioned for Charlie to stay behind me and moved carefully around the edge of the barn. An old man and a young woman leanedover the hood of a rusted pickup with no tires on it. On the other side, about twenty yards across a bald dirt yard, two Campbell’s soup cans sat on top of a fence. It was just shooting practice. I took a deep breath and ignored the flood of panic and adrenaline of being on an unfamiliar farm with armed strangers. Sometimes PTSD was an insistent bitch.
“Howdy.” I walked forward slowly, hands in sight. The man and young woman whirled around. They didn’t aim their guns at us, but they didn’t put them down either.
“The hell are you doing here?” The old man—clearly Hepworth—spoke directly to Charlie.
“We need to ask you some questions.”
Hepworth straightened with some effort, never losing his grip on the gun. “And I need you to get off my property.”
“We’ll be happy to, I promise, if we could just have a couple minutes of your time first. You spoke to my partner yesterday.” I stopped well short of the truck and extended the business card, which never felt anywhere near as official as a badge. Neither of them looked interested enough to want to read it. “The two of us are trying to help Charlie here track down his girlfriend.”
“Already told the other one I don’t know anything.”
“Grandpa,” the young woman turned to Hepworth, “are they talking about the woman who was here the other day?”
The old man flushed red and looked constipated as hell. He grabbed the shotgun out of her hand and told her to be quiet. Ignoring Hepworth, I pulled up Kate’s picture and walked close enough for her to see it clearly. “This woman?”
She nodded, shoving long, greasy hair out of her face. “She took grandpa’s shotgun. Told him she’d come back and kill him. That’s why we’re—”
“That’s why nothin’.” Hepworth cuffed the young woman on her shoulder until she dropped her head and fell silent.
“She threatened you?” I asked Hepworth directly. Charlie stepped up, making a tense box out of the four of us.
“Get in the house.”
The young woman hesitated, glancing between all of us. She looked a few years older than Garrett, probably late high school or just graduated. Her eyes were red-rimmed and nervous, and her clothes were as ill-fitting and grimy as her grandfather’s. Clearly, hygiene wasn’t a big priority on the Hepworth farm.
“Is she . . . ?” the young woman started to ask.
“You heard me,” her grandfather repeated. “I said get.”
She listened this time, disappearing around the barn in the direction of the house. Hepworth waited until he heard the screen door slam before he focused on me and Charlie.
