Page 66 of Red Flagged

“I’m headed out with Cooper to do a drive around,” he said softly.

André nodded, holding his phone’s handset against his ear as he listened to the mayor and jotted some notes down. Or maybe he was doodling. Dante resisted the urge to kiss him on the neck, but he wanted to. André must have read the expression on his face because the corners of his lips turned up and he nodded again before waving him away.

Lani was waiting for him in the lot behind the building. Dante slid into the passenger seat.

“Vest on, got my Glock too.” He patted his holster. “I’m good to go.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

Dante had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no other way to describe it. The calm before the storm, tranquility before chaos. Something had to give. Something was going to happen, and soon. Whoever was gunning for him and Dani, or him and Dani and André, wasn’t going to wait around while they recircled the wagons. They’d proven that last night.

“What’s up with that house?” Dante found himself asking as Deputy Cooper took a right onto the street. “Was that a test to see if we’d stay in a haunted house? Not that I believe in ghosts or anything.”

The corner of Lani’s mouth quirked upward. “Oh, it’s haunted all right. Or maybe possessed. I have my theories and Forrest has his. But it wasn’t a test, I just thought you might hide out there, for a night anyway.”

She’d known they wouldn’t, but that was beside the point.

“Well, what’s your theory?” Dante wanted to know.

“It belonged to our maternal grandparents. Jerry and Norma Paulson. My grandfather died very young, and Norma never remarried.”

She took another turn, taking them along meandering streets that would eventually end up close to Dante’s rental.

“It was just Norma and our mother in the house. Norma fancied herself a healer, a witch of sorts. She’d take Dina into the woods for days at a time, collecting the things she needed. Dina pretty much grew up in the forest. I learned all this from my paternal grandfather, mind you, so there’s probably some bias. He and Norma didn’t get along.”

“That could be a good thing, growing up in the woods,” Dante said tentatively. There was obviously a story here and he wanted to hear it.

“Well, yes, itcouldbe. Who knows? Was Norma mentally ill? Was it something else? Did she accidentally ingest something fatal? Anyway, Norma died in that house, possibly by her own hand. The town mythos is that she couldn’t live without her husband any longer. I don’t know about that. It’d been something like fifteen years by that point.” They turned another corner.

“Dina couldn’t stand to live in the house without her mother, and supposedly her mother came to her in a dream and told her to get out. She convinced her boyfriend, Witt Cooper, to get married and go live in the woods. From there, it’s all very tragic. I’m sure you’ll hear the story if you stick around town.

“They ‘homesteaded’ somewhere up there.” Lani pointed her chin toward the thick stand of fir, pine, and cedar trees creeping toward the edge of the continent, taking back what was once theirs. Cooper Springs worked hard to keep from being swallowed by the forest, but it wouldn’t take much to lose the battle. “Forrest and I were both born up there. He doesn’t talk about it.”

“And? What happened?”

Her mouth quirked again.

“They lived in the Deep. Do you know that term?”

“No.”

It sounded fucking creepy though.

“It’s the central-most part of the forest that’s basically untouched by humans. Obviously, my parents touched it, but you get what I mean. Legend has it that the true Deep is silent, that birds don’t even live there. There’s no one else.”

Light rain began to mist over the windshield, and Lani flicked on the wipers. The repetitive thunk and swish was somehow comforting. Dante spotted a young mom piling her children into a minivan. One of them stood defiantly on the sidewalk with his face raised to the sky and a big smile on his face. At least one person in town enjoyed the weather.

“An especially adventurous hiker stumbled upon their outpost. I guess that’s the right word. I imagine he, or she, was shocked to find a White couple and two children living up there. The hiker came back into town and reported the situation to the CSPD. Because we’re a small town, the police talked to our grandfather before taking action. Like I said, I don’t remember much of that time, but Forrest does. He was seven or so when our grandfather brought us to live with him.”

“What happened to your parents?”

Lani shrugged. “Maybe they’re still up there? I think they’re dead though. Something tells me they had a suicide pact or something dramatic like that. I’m not trying to gloss over anything that happened up there—I just really don’t remember it. I’ve been told we were undernourished, and Forrest says his first memory here in town was the heat in Grandpa’s house. Of being warm and taking his first bath in a tub filled with hot water.”

“You’ve never been curious? Never tried to find where you’d lived?”

Lani shook her head. The car slowed and she pulled to the curb in front of Dante’s rental. They both looked toward the shabby house.

“The Deep isn’t something to mess with. This was the mid-1980s, and there were few resources for families, especially out here in the boonies.” She put the car in Park. “Shall we look around now that it’s light? Maybe we’ll find a carelessly forgotten business card or the perfect fingerprint.”

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