Lasting Shadows Page 8

  “I made it home baby,” she said. “Was a wonderful night.”

  A short while later she sent a second one.

  “Quinn, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  He sighed, shaking his head. He texted Kate.

  “I’m better, back at work. I took a nap. Not sure if I’ll sleep or not tonight. I know you’re probably already sleeping by now, so do NOT reply until morning, babe. You need sleep too.”

  He stared at Tamara’s text a moment, trying to think of the best thing to say. In the end, he just said as little as possible.

  “I had a good time too, angel. Goodnight.”

  Chapter 6

  LILY

  The distant rumble and whistle of the morning train woke him. He squinted at his phone, checking the time.

  Overslept.

  He sighed and checked his messages. The number twenty-six flashed at him. His brows crushed together as he blinked at it a moment. He yawned and rolled on his side, propping up his phone with the other pillow.

  Tamara sent eighteen, mostly short, one-word texts or emoji, all cutesy and sweet. The sort of thing a young smitten woman with limited experience would send. Her naivety turned him on in so many ways. He laid there imagining a bit before checking the rest.

  Kate sent the others, one after the next, mostly relaying information about the wifi hotspot, the last book sales, a book signing coming up close to Christmas, blended with the occasional hopeful ‘I hope you’re okay’.

  He let the phone drop and rolled on his back, staring at the ceiling. Briefly, Gin fluttered by in his thoughts. He frowned.

  How could she do this to me? Kick me out? After so many years… I’m the best thing that ever happened to her. And what about Angela? Putting herself ahead of our child? That is so incredibly selfish.

  He sneered at the thoughts.

  I just cannot believe she turned out to be that self-centered.

  The little jingle played on his phone again. He peeked at it: another kissy-face emoji from Tamara. He smirked and sent her a suggestive group of them, wondering if she knew what they meant. She sent him a shocked face. He laughed.

  “I guess she does,” he said.

  He texted back.

  “Would you do that for me, angel?”

  He watched the screen, wondering what she would say.

  She used a thinking emoji, the little face tapping its finger on its lips.

  “I’ll teach you,” he said back to her. He followed it up with a kissy face and a message saying he had to get back to work. She sent him a frown face but sent a heart right after that.

  He sighed and let the phone drop again.

  “Gotta get up and get to work.”

  He crawled off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.

  ***

  In the shower, he decided to do some more fieldwork and explore more of the town for research. He dressed up in something formal and presentable for interviewing and the like and gathered up his recorder, phone and a bottle of water, stuffing a bagel in his mouth as he left the house.

  ***

  He unfolded the map in the car and peered at it in the bright sunlight.

  “So many little dirt roads.”

  He picked a path that curved through several back roads taking in as much of the local population as he could.

  ***

  “Six trailers, seventeen houses, four farms, and three abandoned buildings,” he said as he finally curved back out onto the main drive. He parked at the gas pump outside of the store. Stephen stood outside sweeping the walkway.

  Quinn used his card at the pump, filling up as he glanced over at the man.

  “Been driving around checking out the locals,” he said.

  Stephen chuckled.

  “Not a whole lot to see.”

  “Yeah, left the house about a half-hour ago.”

  “Took you that long?”

  “Ah, well a couple of goats blocked Blue road.”

  Stephen grinned.

  “Maggie and Molly.”

  “Local celebrities then.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why is that road called Blue anyway? None of the other streets are named after colors.”

  The big man shrugged.

  “Ma would know the story best,” he said. “Something about a horse or a car or something.”

  Quinn grinned at him, squinting in the sun.

  “Let me guess, a Ford Mustang. A blue one.”

  Stephen laughed.

  “Something like that.”

  Quinn shook his head and chuckled a little as he put the nozzle back in the cradle.

  “Going in to see Tamara?”

  Quinn squinted at him.

  “Nah, doing research for the books today, so technically I’m working right now.”

  “Ah. She’ll hate she missed you.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “You’ve got her worked up something fierce.”

  Quinn sighed.

  “I never meant for that to happen,” he said. “They all fall too easy.”

  Stephen laughed out loud.

  “Now if only that was the case for all of us.”

  Quinn grinned at him.

  “You just gotta go for it, Christmas. Just gotta win ‘em over.”

  Stephen shook his head, still smiling, though his jolly demeanor had faded.

  “Seems marriage was just never in the cards for me,” he said. “Too old now to give a damn. Anyway, I’ll make your excuses. You have a good day.”

  “Yep, and thanks.”

  Quinn waved and slid into the driver’s seat, the bulletin board filling his rearview mirror. After Stephen entered the store, he got out and walked around to look at it. He took a couple of pictures but stood there reading all the newer things placed there since the other day.

  One of the church bulletins caught his eye.

  “Biggest shadow box Collection in the County.” He mumbled the words to himself and took a picture of the information before sitting in the car and locating the church in the GPS.

  ***

  Nock Fellowship of Faith nestled in the middle of tall pines on the top of a rolling hill of green, golf course style grass. The winding drive seemed newer and better maintained than the entire town. The parking lot was carefully swept and perfectly marked. The church itself was a nondescript and very plain red brick warehouse looking structure with a white wooden steeple appearing almost stuck on, like an afterthought.

  Or a tall dunce cap.

  Quinn half laughed when he saw it.

  The parking lot seemed oddly full for a weekday, but he assumed some service must be going on. He parked a bit away from the entrance so he could walk and take in the locals without drawing too much attention.

  He watched a swarm of middle-aged ladies flood in, trickling toward the doors, gabbing to each other, hugging with plastered on fake smiles. A balding priest stood at the doors, taking their hands as they entered, smiling and chatting with each one. Quinn walked up to the man and smiled, offering his hand. The minister took it and shook, squinting at him.

  “Quinn Tilman,” Quinn said.

  “Dan Briggs. What can I help you with today, Mister Tilman?”

  “I wanted to take a look at the shadow box collection.” He waved a hand toward the woman waiting in line behind him. “But I get the impression this might not be the best time.”

  The man laughed.

  “The Nock book club meets here once a month,” he said. “But you are certainly welcome to have a look at the collection. If you’ll just step inside and give me time to greet everyone I’ll get right to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Quinn stepped in the cool air conditioning of the lobby. Thirty or so ladies stood around, sipping lemonade and talking to each other, all of them carrying either the same book in paperback or hardcover or an electronic tablet. The minister ushered the last of them inside and shut the doors behind him. The mass of females crowded into the m
ain part of the church.

  Quinn listened until the noise died down, noticing footsteps approaching. The minister smiled as he entered the room, a woman close to Quinn’s age behind him.

  “If you’re certain, Lily,” Dan said. “I’ll be glad to handle it.”

  “No, it’s alright, Dan. To be perfectly honest, this month’s book bored me to tears.”

  He turned to Quinn.

  “Mister Tilman, this is Lillian Barnett. She probably knows more about the infamous shadow boxes than anyone else in town.”

  Quinn quickly looked her over. Her dark hair had just the beginning streaks of silver, her eyes deep brown and sorrowful, her skin light olive, her figure thin but curvy enough. She wore a finely made dress suit and low heels in black with pale pink accents, a very conservative necklace and a wedding band on the wrong hand. Two tiny pearl earrings were just visible behind her long waves.

  He held out his hand. She took it, her skin soft but her grip firm.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Barnett.”

  “Please, just call me Lily.”

  “Lily.” He bowed his head.

  “Follow me, Mister Tilman.”

  “Quinn,” he said. He fell in step behind her, looking at the faint swell of her hips, the little slit in the back of the skirt revealing more of her perfect thighs. He licked his lips.

  She launched into a speech so well-rehearsed he assumed she must have given it a hundred times before. She led him into a room lined with very high, small windows, and flipped a switch. Spotlights shined at four rows of shadow boxes, circling the room from waist to head height. He stared in awe at them, each one depicting a little rough scene with crudely drawn and painted figures. Some were happy, some were frightening and some were vague and odd.

  “We have some fakes here,” she said. “They stand out the most, I’m afraid, but in the end, we included them because they too tell part of the story.”

  “Fakes?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Some were used as warnings, some as threats, and some just, well, we have a few odd members in our community.”

  “I believe one of them lives across the street from the house I’m renting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cutter Road,” he said. “Between the tracks.”

  Her eyes widened. She covered her open mouth with her fingers and sucked in a gasp.

  “Miranda’s house.”

  Her whisper brought a shroud of silence to the room. As if choreographed, clouds shifted enough outside to drop the room into moody darkness.

  “Yes,” he said, squinting a little as he studied her face. “I understand from Rosie Christmas-”

  “Of course,” she said. “Rosie has a number of them as well.” She motioned to the collection. “Then you know the story.”

  He turned from her to the shelves, eyeing each box. Many were from her teaching days, but some were far darker, portraying car accidents, headstones, missing people, and blood. She pointed to his right.

  “This row is all fakes,” she said. “Miranda didn’t make these. But below them is how we know.”

  Quinn studied the first of the shadow boxes on the top row. Inside was a kitchen, complete with small dishes and pots and pans. A man sat at the table, his head resting there, his arm hanging loose, a cup fallen to the floor, a red puddle beside it. It was far more detailed, a bit larger, and the figure wasn’t drawn or painted but roughly sculpted with clay and dressed in male doll clothes.

  Below it, he saw a box made by Miranda. Inside was a similar kitchen with far less properly scaled objects. In this one there were two cut-out drawings lightly painted, the same man and a woman. She seemed small and weak, her hands clasped together and her head bowed down. Glued to his side, hidden from her, was a bottle of prescription pills.

  “His name was Henry Blaten,” she said. “He wanted to pin an attempted murder on his quiet little wife, Molly. He worked in a job in manufacturing in the city. Meticulous work. Detailed. And of course, his perfectionism made him go a bit too far in the shadow box. He wanted to get a divorce, but if he did he would’ve lost all her family’s money. So he came up with a stupid plan,” she said, walking up to Quinn’s right, looking down at the lower box. “Pin an attempted murder on her, get her put in jail, take as much of her money as he could and run. Instead, his badly done counterfeit shadow box only drew the attention of the local law enforcement. They went to check on her. She let them in. They found where he had stashed the drug he was going to use.” She sighed. “She was heartbroken. Somehow the kind ones never seem to see the danger they’re in until it’s too late.”

  “So it never happened?”

  “No,” she said. “Miranda left her box in Dean’s office, right by his gun and badge.”

  “Convoluted plan,” Quinn said.

  Lily nodded.

  “For the ones who get caught, it usually is.” She frowned. “The ones who don’t plan though, don’t think it through…” She wandered over to the other side of the room as she spoke, her fingers touching a box on the second shelf there. “They’re the ones who succeed.”

  “Crimes of passion.”

  She nodded, turning to her shoulder toward him. He watched her a moment and as he did, the sunlight slowly returned, shining in the high windows. The entire room was painted in a pale blue, even the carpet matched the light shade. A few prayers of protection hung on the wall around the door, a horseshoe even hung above it. He blinked.

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s superstition even in the house of the Lord. They painted the room with a special paint color called Haint blue to confuse spirits. You find it on porches and around windows and doors, usually, but they weren’t taking any chances in this room. Hung charms and prayers and a horseshoe, all ‘just in case’.” She made quotations with her fingers as she spoke. “People fear these things as omens, good or bad. Dan allows it because he’s a kind soul, but he’s new to the area and really doesn’t know very much.” Her voice dropped lower, quieter. “Has yet to experience it for himself.”

  “I take it you have?” Quinn watched her face as she sighed and looked down at her hands, wringing them together. She licked her lips and walked to a shelf he had not noticed on the other side of the room. She reached out and touched the middle box there, her hands shaking.

  “No matter how many times I talk about it, I still feel it like it happened yesterday.”

  He walked to her side, standing just behind her, and looked down at the box her fingers touched. It was a little smaller than the others, and very simply a coffin with a cut out of a man inside. Lilly herself stood there looking down at him, surrounded by dozens of white lilies and lily of the valley.

  “What happened?”

  She shook her head.

  “He just didn’t wake up,” she whispered, her voice choked. “I saw the box in the shadows over the course of a few weeks. We hoped it was good news.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Our daughter is living overseas. She got married a good ten years ago. We’ve been hoping for a grandchild and honestly were both excited. We thought Miranda was bringing us news about her.” She shook her head, touching the box again. “I didn’t make the connection. White lilies. They started appearing in the box first. I should’ve known.”

  “How long ago?”

  She smiled a little with a weak laugh.

  “Almost five years now,” she said. “I think I’m okay and then, I come back in here and relive it again.”

  “I greatly apologize for bringing you so much pain then, Lily.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded, taking a deep breath. Tentatively, he reached out and took her hand, giving her a slight squeeze and letting go. She turned to him and smiled weakly.

  “But enough of that,” she said. “Over here let me explain one of the better stories, a rescue.”

  She walked over, pointing at one of the shadow boxes and launched into a speech as he gazed at her hair, the line of her neck, her thin hands, and her perfect le
gs. He asked questions and took notes, electing to try to remember rather than record the conversation.

  After another hour of chatting, the door opened.

  “My, the two of you talked through the entire book club meeting,” Dan said. “I hope you got the information you needed, Mister Tilman.”

  “I certainly did,” he said. He touched Lily’s arm. “Lily was a lovely guide through history.”

  She smiled politely to him and turned to Dan.

  “The meeting went alright?”

  “It certainly did.”

  “Good. I suppose we have another wonderful selection to read next?”

  Dan smirked and nodded at Quinn.

  “Well, I’m afraid our present company was somewhat of a catalyst.”

  Quinn smiled and looked away a few seconds as Lily glanced between him and Dan, confusion making her squint a little.

  “They’ve decided to read one of your less risqué works, ‘Chocolate Sun’.”

  “Ah.”

  “’Chocolate Sun’? But that’s Anni Litman isn’t it?”

  Dan bowed to Quinn opening his palm. Quinn took a deep breath.

  “It was brought to my attention by Grace and Janet that this gentleman writes books, using a pen name,” Dan said.

  Lily’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. She covered her mouth with her hands.

  “You’re Anni Que?”

  Quinn felt himself blush and finally nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m here to work on my next three books, getting ideas for color and background.”

  “Oh my…”

  “I was trying to keep it a secret, but um…”

  “In a small town, Mister Tilman, there are no secrets,” she said.