Page 3 of Girl, Lured

And current status: out of business.

Ella checked the time. Nine-thirty in the morning. She’d usually be at work now but the director had told her to stay at home until she was needed. Apparently she still had unhealed wounds. Also, Ripley was still finishing up some things in the office before her retirement and the two hadn’t parted on good terms last time they were together.

Staring back at the circular void on the wall, Ella knew she couldn’t just sit here all day contemplating what might be. She envisioned the next hour and couldn’t imagine herselfnotgoing to check this place out. The second she learned the address, it was a foregone conclusion.

She tried checking the address online but it was in a place accessible only by a dirt road. Some backwoods tavern. Exactly the kind her dad would have frequented.

Out of business.

But what if there was something there? Something that could tell her where these items came from?

Ella grabbed the matchbox and her car keys then hesitated a second. Going there meant goingback.She hadn’t stepped foot in that town for God knew how long. Every time she saw a road sign for Abingdon, she went the long way around. Every inch of that place held a memory.

Could it be a good thing? Maybe she could see it as an exorcism. Go back to the scene of the crime and visualize it all again in the vain hope of jogging a repressed memory.

Maybe. She’d see where the journey took her. All she knew was that she had to see this place with her own eyes, even if it led nowhere.

CHAPTER TWO

Ella parked her car a quarter of a mile away from the Black Horse Tavern and made the rest of the journey on foot. She hadn’t been able to face her old house, not yet. Besides, what was she supposed to say to the current owners?Hey, my dad was killed in here. Mind if I take a look around?

No, that would come at another time, if ever.

Through the backwaters of Abingdon, Ella learned that the Black Horse Tavern was indeed off the beaten path, and here at the end of her winding trail, she found that it wasn’t a tavern at all, and it hadn’t truly gone out of business. It was a small coffee shop, tucked out of the way along a forest pathway, dangling on the edge of the Clinch River.

How anyone found this place was beyond her, but she guessed it was one of those hidden gems that drew the locals. Might have been a place where fishermen and kayakers congregated and swapped stories, although the modern exterior suggested it was more a hipster den than a place for hardened adventurers to grab respite. The place seemed to have dropped theTavernsuffix, now simply known as the Black Horse. The little stick-horse stenciled on the window was reminiscent of a franchise place, so she very much doubted her dad would have ever stepped foot in here in its current incarnation.

A disappointing discovery, but she’d expected no less.

Ella peered through the window and saw the place was deserted save for a waitress mopping up a table. Instinct told her to head inside, if only to be in the airspace her old man must have occupied at least once in his life. The furnishings might have changed but maybe his spirit would still be lingering here, perhaps playing poker over a stout with some old-timers. She headed in, not sure what to do or say. She could have just ordered something and sat in silence but as she tapped her pocket she realized she’d left her wallet back in the car. Rookie move.

“Morning, honey,” said the waitress as she scrubbed a table with the fury of a soldier on the battlefield. “Take a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute.” There was a southern twang to her voice and she couldn’t have been any older than twenty-one.

“Sorry, I just wanted to ask something if that’s alright.”

The waitress dropped her cloth down and stood upright, perhaps excited by the unexpected request. A break from routine, maybe.

“Sure. What is it?”

“Did this place used to be the Black Horse Tavern?”

“Before my time, sweetheart. I’ve only been here nine months. It’s always been the Black Horse as far I know.”

Ella reached for the matchbox to inquire if the woman had seen them before, but thought that such an action would be futile. As if anyone under the age of thirty had ever seen a box of matches.

“But the big man might be able to help you,” the woman said. “Dennis, are you back there?”

Ella glanced around but couldn’t see another soul in the confined little coffee shop. “The manager?” she asked.

“Owner,” the woman said. “He’s run this place since God was a boy.” She sauntered over to the counter, disappeared into a back room, then summoned Ella over. “Head out the back. Don’t mind the mess.”

Ella complied. She crossed over the threshold into the staff area, a little shocked that these workers were so willing to let strangers into their working quarters. Must have been that small -charm. The city had corrupted her that all strangers had ulterior motives.

“Go on through. He’s on the balcony.”

Ella walked through the kitchen, avoiding sacks of coffee piled on top of each other like dragon’s gold. At the rear, a door led out onto the bank of the river. A man was sitting in a green camping chair, a fishing line running from his wrinkly hands to the crystalline waters down below.

“Don’t be shy,” the man said. “This weather’s too good to waste.”

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