Page 5 of Blackwood

“Up near Tupelo?”

“That’s right.” I pressed my hands against my cup so hard I feared it would break. Revealing too much about myself wasn’t an option, but lying to the sheriff wasn’t high up on my list of priorities, either.

“And getting a degree in something?”

“Ph.D. in archaeology.” I nodded.

“Makes me wish I’d gone to get some actual schooling.” He gave me a wistful look.

“And leave us here with old Sheriff Pennington?” Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest. “God forbid.”

“He wasn’t so bad.” The sheriff shrugged.

“Yeah, back when he was a younger man, he was fine. But when he got the fits those last few years.” She shuddered. “That was a mess. We were lucky you were here to carry on his duties, even though you were just a deputy.”

He grinned. “You’re just trying to flatter me into a bigger tip.”

She fought a smile and lost. “If you say so.”

He turned back to me. “Be careful out in the woods. The snakes will be hibernating, but there are other nasties out there. It’s turkey season, first of all. So there will be hunters out and about. Then wild boars that could skewer you clean through. I’ve heard about panthers from hunters here and there. Never seen one though. And don’t wear white. We don’t want someone mistaking you for a white-tail deer and taking a shot. You have a cell phone, right?” He took a drink as Bonnie put in his order.

“Yes.” I studied him as he spoke, the clean line of his jaw, the slight salt mixed into the dark pepper of his hair. He was handsome, and the allure of men in uniform wasn’t lost on me. Early forties, but still had the verve of a younger man, the same sort of twinkle in his eye and easy smile. I knew from scouring newspapers that he’d become sheriff two years prior, after the then-sheriff died.

“Good service?” He glanced to the cell phone I drew from my pocket.

“So far, but I haven’t been off the main road much.”

“It might get dicey if you get deep into the woods. Here.” He snagged a napkin and wrote down a phone number. “This is my direct line. If you get into anything you can’t handle, give me a call. If you lose service, I suggest you go back the way you came. There’s no need to take risks.”

“Are you going to Blackwood?” Bonnie slid my plate in front of me, the yellow egg yolks jiggling as the plate came to rest.

“Yes.” I didn’t want to share too much of my plans. There was no way to know who to trust. “There and a few surrounding homesteads.”

“Any spots in particular?” Bonnie took her usual spot against the counter, her eyes on the road. “Those woods are haunted, you know?”

“Bonnie.” Sheriff Crow shook his head and laughed lightly. “Nothing’s haunted. Don’t try to scare her.”

Bonnie drew her expertly arched brows together and put her hands on her hips. “Then how do you explain the screams? People all over say they hear screams in those woods at night. If you see that Garrett Blackwood, run. Understand?”

“Why?”

She crossed herself, her neon pink fingernail scratching across her starched top.

“Bonnie, you aren’t Catholic.” The sheriff quirked his lip up in amusement.

“Doesn’t matter. That man is bad news. Steer clear of him. Him and that Blackwood are cursed, if you ask me.”

I conjured the limited image of Garrett Blackwood in my mind—the wild eyes through the window and the dirty fingernails on the door. Other than our brief run-in, I knew nothing about him other than what I’d found out in my research, which was enough to place a shroud of suspicion over him.

He’d gone to my university, graduating with top marks in history and ancient cultures. I found a picture of him in the school yearbook. Deep blue eyes and dark brown hair—he smiled at someone off camera when the photo was snapped. I couldn’t reconcile that smiling face with the glimpse of the man I’d gotten at the Blackwood estate.

After graduation, he’d taught for a few years at a university in Alabama on a tenure-track position. Something happened in his sixth year, though, and he abruptly left school. Rumors were that he’d been embroiled in a scandal with a married female professor, but other than hazy rumors, I had nothing to go on. What did interest me was that he’d returned to Blackwood at around the same time as my father’s disappearance.

“What makes you think Blackwood’s cursed?” I leaned forward, desperate for more of the urban legends that might shed some light on my father’s fate. Bonnie wasn’t the first person who mentioned screams in the woods near the Blackwood Estate.

Sheriff Crow huffed out a breath. “Superstitious nonsense. Wind in the trees or some kind of animal. There aren’t any ghosts, Bonnie. And Garrett is just a quiet guy who likes his space. That’s all.”

She leveled her gaze at me. “I wouldn’t be caught in Blackwood after dark, and neither should you.”

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