Lasting Shadows Read online

  To the former loves in our lives we’d rather forget, and to my mother who makes windows to magical worlds out of tiny things.

  LASTING SHADOWS

  Bonnie Phillips Gardiner

  Copyright © Bonnie Phillips Gardiner

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

  “The rain obscured their view to the veranda, leaving the stone path soaked in slippery mud. Christina lost her footing and fell against Reginald.

  “Damn it, woman, he said, can’t you even walk by yourself? He pushed her away and she stumbled behind him, glaring up at the back of his head.

  “It was only an instant. A second. He felt the darkest, deepest thought enter the back of his mind and slowly grow from a whisper to a scream. He spun around. She gasped and stumbled backward, gripping the wine bottle high over her head. He reached out and snatched it from her as she tried to swing it at him, clutching her wrist.

  “Don’t you ever do that again, he said. His voice came out low and harsh. Just as mine is now. Damn it.”

  Quinn Tilman pressed pause on the voice recorder as he stared at the road ahead, peering through the splats of rain on the windshield. The wipers tried, but another sudden hard downpour was too much for them. He slowed the car to a crawl and tried to find the marks on the road.

  “Damn it,” he said. He banged a palm on the steering wheel. “Why the fuck does it do this today?”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. Distant headlights behind him proved everyone else was having as much trouble as he was. He sighed and squinted through the windshield to find the side of the road. He pulled off and switched on his flashers, shutting off the ignition and hitting the stop button on the voice recorder. He dropped it on the passenger seat, then stared ahead at the rain. He could just see the tops of the trees moving in the wind.

  The car shivered as someone zoomed past him on the highway, cruising as if there was nothing to lose, no storm to drive through, nothing to slow down whoever was in it.

  “Nothing to keep them from being reckless.”

  Quinn frowned and stared at his face in the rearview mirror.

  That’s what she’d called him. Reckless and stupid.

  He studied the lines at the corner of his eyes. His red hair was slowly turning more yellow, white at the temples. His eyes were dark with the cloudy day, making them appear even browner. Freckles dusted his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. His goatee was already looking scraggly and unkempt.

  “A mid-life crisis.” He huffed. “It’s not a mid-life crisis. It’s the final embarrassing end of two decades of boring, dull marriage.”

  He looked into his own eyes. The memory flashed in his mind.

  ***

  “I saw you, Quinn,” Virginia said. “What do you think I am? Stupid?”

  Just as beautiful as the day he met her, his wife Virginia, usually called Gin, stomped around, her hands on her curving hips. Her skin was dark chestnut with an undertone of copper, her hair black, though a little golden red shined in places. Her eyes were so dark the pupils could barely be seen. Her figure met that classic image of beauty, protruding in all the right places.

  When he met her she was his goddess, but they married too fast. She on the rebound from a failed relationship, and Quinn on the tails of about five. She got over hers. Quinn never really got over any of his, including the dozen or so he managed to become involved with after the wedding.

  “I saw you kiss her. I saw you touch her. What can you possibly be thinking? I’ll forget that? Forgive it? My god, Quinn, your daughter was in the very next room. What if she had seen you?”

  She marched around as he packed his suitcase and two duffel bags.

  “Gin, I can’t talk about this now. I know you’re upset. I know I should explain, but I’m late already. I’ll have to talk about it when I get back.”

  “Explain…” She laughed mockingly. “You have nothing to explain. All you ever do is chase them around. This is what? The fifteenth time? The twentieth? I’ve lost count Quinn. The point is you can’t keep your hands to yourself. Or anything else for that matter.”

  He tensed as he packed, waiting for the words he knew must be coming.

  “I wonder if she’s planning on visiting you at your little annual retreat,” she said. “Since she usually is the one who makes all your reservations anyway.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him.

  “Don’t even,” she said, waving a hand at him. “Honestly, Quinn, I’ve had enough. Make arrangements with your little girlfriend, or girlfriends, for somewhere to live when you get back. You will not be allowed in this house.”

  “Angela-”

  “We’ll do some shared custody thing,” she said, again waving him off. “Thank god she’s almost grown-up.”

  He took a deep breath and turned to her, staring right into her eyes.

  “Gin, seriously, give me a little time,” he said. “I’ll be away for three months to work on the books and then I’ll come back and make it all up to you, I swear.”

  Virginia shook her head, a disbelieving, pained expression on her face. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “No, Quinn,” she said, her voice breaking. “I need a far better man in my life. You need to go. You need to stay far away from me for the rest of your life.”

  She broke down, sobbing. He put down the suitcase and took a step closer to her, reaching out to her, but she backed away, holding up her hands, pushing at his chest.

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered, choking out the words. “Please go. Now.”

  “I love you, Gin, baby.”

  She shook her head and walked to the front door, opening it. She patted her eyes with a tissue as she waited.

  He glanced at her in the mirror by the door as he hefted up the last of his things and saw his own face gray and lined. He walked out the front door and did not look back until he pulled out of the driveway. The front door was closed. She shut him out.

  ***

  Quinn jerked his head away from the mirror and leaned back in the driver’s seat. The rain crashed on the roof of the car like tiny missiles.

  Quinn shook his head and squeezed his eyes tight.

  Part of him meant the words he said to her. Part of him loved her deeply, more than he loved any other woman he had ever known. How could she not understand? All the others are just a release. An escape. Excitement.

  A crack of lightning flashed through his closed eyelids and thunder roared over him. He opened his eyes again and glanced in the rearview mirror. The same moody face with deep lines gazed back at him.

  “And here you are.” He snarled at himself. “Stuck on the highway during a rainstorm while dictating yet another romantic fantasy for lonely ladies bored with their dull men.”

  He sighed.

  The books paid well, in spite of being no better than the tabloids at the checkout counter. Just as dirty, just as trashy, just as captivating to lonely hearts. It all seemed to flow right through him, all the raunchy adultery, stolen kisses, broken and mended hearts. A little too true to life at times.

  “But it pays the bills,” he said to himself. “No denying that.”

  The clouds broke apart at just that moment and sunlight splashed down on the car, lighting every drop of water. The hood sparkled with miniature flames scattered everywhere. The rain slowed to a drizzle, and Quinn pushed on his sunglasses and cranked up the engine. Behind him, he noticed a few other cars along the road also cranking up and heading back out onto the highway.

  He let them all pass before he followed.

  “All right,” he said as he joined in the growing traffic. “I’ve had my moment of reflection. Now I’m here to do a job.”


  He fumbled around for the dictation recorder, found his place again and pushed record.

  “Don’t you ever do that again, Reginald said. He felt her glaring at him, daring him.”

  ***

  Quinn reached up and clicked off the recorder. He finished dictating most of the second chapter just as he passed the sign. The tiny town of Nock was the next turn just ahead.

  “Here we go.”

  He merged right onto a narrow road that led directly into the trees up a small hill. An old wooden sign with handmade letters read: Nock, two miles. Below that was a smaller painted sign with bright rainbow colors on a dark blue background.

  ‘Come kNock Gas and Grocery.’

  Quinn smiled and sped up into the enfolding shade of twisted oak trees. He relaxed and tried to enjoy the nearly secluded winding road. The champagne-colored car zipped through the cover of arced branches like a bolt of lightning.

  He was tempted to open the sunroof and the windows and drink in the clean moist air, but a dark threat hung on the horizon through the trees.

  He turned a curve and came out into a clear patch where the trees were cut further back from the road. It was a dangerous curve, a hard bend, narrow and twisting almost back on itself, and there, at the foot of a huge oak tree, a memorial wreath and several bouquets of flowers had been propped. Quinn shivered but his eyes were distracted by the flash of something large moving through the trees. He turned the curve and ahead of him just parallel to the road a train barreled down the tracks.

  His mind flashed the image of the wreath at the foot of the tree.

  Racing the train?

  He frowned as his thoughts turned to his daughter. He was supposed to see her in concert on Tuesday night. He had forgotten. Another blow against him Virginia would say. Another strike. More proof he wasn’t fit to be in Angela’s life anymore. Lines formed between Quinn’s eyes.

  Teenagers do crazy things. Especially the ones whose parents fail.

  The train whistle blew and called him back to the real world.

  Work to do. Think of the books.

  Quinn frowned again.

  Fuck the damned books.

  The whistle blew again. Ahead the trees thinned and vanished. The train still stormed down the tracks to his right. He stayed parallel with one of the huge brown cargo cars.

  Quinn squinted even with his sunglasses on. The sun blared through the break in the clouds as if gasping its last breath, but just as he glanced up at its friendly warm face, the clouds drifted in. The shadow stretched over the hills and fields around him. Eerily it crept and engulfed his car and the speeding train.

  He passed a reduce speed sign.

  City limits. I’m here.

  There were no welcome signs, no fancy frills. Not a courthouse or a police station. All Quinn found in the tiny town of Nock was a combination general store and gas station, a small restaurant, five churches of various denominations, a firehouse with a single police car parked out front, and a post office inside a metal storage building. Quinn smirked.

  “Hello, Nock.”

  In the back of his mind, he felt a pull toward home, a little tug begging him to turn around and leave.

  A chill passed through the air in the car. Quinn shook his head and pushed the nagging thoughts away. He found the first road and turned right as the old man had explained to him over the phone.

  “Past the tracks,” Quinn read aloud, glancing at the envelope he’d scribbled the directions on. “The first house on the right. Big tree out front.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. Look for a big tree.”

  He stopped at the tracks and glanced one last time at the map and the directions.

  A blast from a car horn startled him. A school bus stopped in the opposite lane across from him. The kids all leered at him and shouted. Quinn glanced in his rearview mirror to see if anyone was behind him and turned back to his map.

  This is it. I’m here. Just one last turn.

  He pulled across the tracks and turned the last corner. At the very bend in the road ahead the house squatted, dark brown, nearly black with a huge sprawling twisted tree by the front porch.

  The voice in the back of Quinn’s head spoke again, just as the thunder rumbled overhead.

  Go home. Beg Gin to take you back.

  He took a deep breath and pulled in the parking space in front of the house, stopping directly under the tree. He glanced one last time in the mirror at himself. The dark glasses hid his eyes. He opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel. Heat burst at him. It was a hot June despite the wet weather.

  The gravel drive was large enough for several cars to park. There was a clearing in the trees to the left of the house, where tall grass almost completely concealed a dirt road. Just beyond that was another larger clearing behind a thin row of pine trees where the other set of railroad tracks had to be.

  The road itself curved to the left just before the tracks. In the curve and across the street from Quinn was a small house almost completely hidden by trees and vines growing along a tall wire fence that wrapped around the whole front of the yard. A horse nodded and snorted inside the enclosure as if welcoming him.

  Quinn caught himself almost waving to the animal. Instead, his eyes caught a glimmer of something blue sparkling in the vines in front of the beast. He squinted.

  A break in the clouds revealed more than a hundred blue, brown and clear bottles poking from the fence and the vines and along an overhanging branch that curved over the dirt driveway. Most were stuck on pegs, nails, and broken branches, but a third of them hung by chains and little bits of twine and rope. A breeze swept through as the clouds hid them again and they tinkled like wind chimes in the quiet.

  The quiet.

  It was suddenly eerily quiet. Even the horse had stopped snorting. Its head was raised, listening.

  The train.

  A low roar filled the silence. Quinn turned and looked back down the road he had come from and saw the train barrel across, it’s whistle blasting. He waited and watched as it passed at a tremendous speed and listened as it rumbled off in the distance.

  “Must be a bend in the tracks somewhere back there,” he said.

  A distinct ‘harumph’ came from the horse's pen. Quinn turned and looked but the horse was nowhere to be seen.

  “You won’t be here long.”

  “What?”

  Quinn shivered and pulled off his sunglasses.

  The bottles were wet and sparkling at him even in the shadows of the clouds. Tiny flashes of light reflected back.

  “Is someone there?”

  “You won’t stay long, I say,” the voice said again. “No one ever does.”

  Quinn glanced back at the house.

  “You mean here? This house?”

  “Yes, I mean here, you dumb boy. She’s still there. I see her.”

  Gravel spat and pelted Quinn’s knees and ankles as a dusty old red pickup truck pulled in the driveway just beside him. Quinn had to take a step backward to avoid being hit. He dusted off his pants legs and looked up. His eyes met the old man’s as he poked his head through the open window.

  “You Quinn Tilman?” The man looked a hundred and six years old. He wore an old, very dirty white t-shirt and a green John Deere baseball cap.

  Quinn nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Good,” the old man said. “Come around here and sign these forms and I’ll hand over the keys.”

  The man looked down at something in the truck. No smiles, no nods, no friendliness at all. Quinn shivered again and felt a chill as he walked around the truck. He glanced across the street as he stopped by the door.

  “Won’t last . . . Won’t stay.” He saw her. An old woman peering through the vines at him and scowling. Her words were like chanting, over and over.

  “Don’t pay her no mind,” the old man said, without looking up. “She’s a crazy old bat. Been living there with her husband for years and years. She never leaves the house. G
ot some mental something or other wrong with her. No cure. Pretty harmless.” He looked up at Quinn with one eye squinted shut. “Crazy, but harmless.”

  Quinn nodded, not sure what to say.

  “All right. Here’s the rental agreement,” the man said. “Just sign right there.”

  For an instant, Quinn thought the old woman might be a decoy to something odd in the contract, but he read it over and found nothing wrong at all. The man waited patiently but tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as Quinn read. His eyes were on the house. Quinn signed the paper and handed it back.

  “So you write as a woman, Anni Que something or other?”

  “Litmun,” Quinn said. “Yes.”

  “I ain’t read your books, but my wife has,” he said. “I was told not to leak out that you’re here to anyone so you can get your work done but it would be a kick if I could bring her around to meet you at least once while you’re here.”

  Quinn smiled.

  “Of course.”

  “I usually come around the first Monday of every month to pick up the check, but seeing as you’re paid up for three months…”

  “You can bring her around any time,” Quinn said. “Just give me a call.”

  He gave Quinn a nod.

  “Thank you kindly, Tilman.”

  The old man handed him the keys and pulled out of the driveway as quickly as he pulled in.

  Quinn nodded and watched as the truck bounced along the road and disappeared around the corner.

  “You won’t stay long. She’ll know you. She’ll see your ways.”

  Quinn turned his back on the woman and walked straight to the front steps. The keys seemed heavier than the keys to his own house. He glanced down and looked at them, jingling them gently between his fingers. They were knurled looking and black with age. They felt dirty and gritty like old car parts.

  “Probably everything that old man owns feels like this.”

  Quinn smiled to himself and climbed the five creaky steps to the porch. To his left, a porch swing swayed just a little in the breeze. The largest key fit the hole in the front door and it creaked open with some effort.