Page 26 of The Souls of Lost Lake
Ava’s hand clapped over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
“I’ll tell them you fell and hurt yourself. That you need looking after.” Noah’s reasoning made sense. Ava nodded, even though no one was there to see her.
“So you’ll lie?” Hanny retorted.
“I’ll stretch the truth,” Noah snapped.
“It’s a lie,” Hanny concluded. “I’d think you’d not want to add breaking a commandment to your list of regrets. Although it seems a mite too late for that.”
They fell silent, and Ava snuck to the door. She peeked around it, past the small dining table with its lace runner down the middle, and through the kitchen doorway at the far end of the room. Noah sagged against the doorframe. Hanny, beyond him, was pouring tea into a china cup. She set the kettle back on the stove with another clatter.
“I won’t stay. My house is right next door if you need me. But you’ve put yourself in a pickle, and whether you like it or not, my staying is going to create another batch of pickles.”
Her statement brought an even lower sag to Noah’s shoulders.
“You know as well as I do that there isn’t one person in Tempter’s Creek who will think it’s normal for me to stay here after the girl has supposedly run off!” Hanny took a sip of her tea. She slurped it through her lips and it made a bubbling, sucking noise as the fiery liquid cooled before entering her mouth. “It’s safer for you both if I go home and things go back to what everyone thinks is normal.”
“I’m not convinced Ava will even play along with this,” Noah muttered. “That she’ll even stay put here like I’ve told her to.”
“Well, lies have a way of creating deeper predicaments, don’tthey—Preacher? She isn’t your prisoner any more than she was Larson’s. You’re supposed to look out for her, not create more problems for the girl.” Hanny looked rather pleased with herself for besting the reverend. “The truth of things doesn’t frighten me like it does you.”
Now he colored. Ava wondered why.
“It’s not my responsibility to smooth over your mishaps, Noah Pritchard, and I certainly will not add to further suspicion that might end up harming Ava.”
“It will harm Ava if you leave!” Noah gritted through his teeth. He pointed behind him, toward the room where he thought Ava was quietly composed and sitting properly until she was bidden. Instead, she hid around the door, eavesdropping with absolutely no shame or regret. “If they catch wind that Ava is staying here with me, a single man...”
Hanny slapped her palms on the table. “Well then, for your sake they better not catch wind of it, because I highly doubt Ava Coons is concerned about that over everything else that haunts that poor child.” The old woman pushed herself up from the table. “There’s a thing calledwisdom, Noah, and it may be time you used some of it. Seems to me that Bible you preach from has outlined it pretty clear. A lie is a lie, and you pay for it in the end.”
“What was I supposed to do?” His voice rose in distress. “Tell the town Ava hadn’t run off? That she’s still here? They would have stormed the parsonage! They’re in a mad frenzy, Hanny, and they think Ava is to blame for two very violent murders.” Noah spit out the last words without censure.
He was met with silence.
Ava ached to peek around the corner to see the look on Hanny’s face.
Instead, they all three seemed to pause to listen to the clock tick. Ten seconds ... eighteen ... twenty-two...
“You’ve made life messier, Preacher Pritchard,” Hanny stated. “I suggest you start cleaning it up.”
11
Wren
Campfire stories werenotsupposed to be real! Wren charged into the Markham home with the familiarity of someone who had earned the right to, after spending more hours here growing up than in her own home.
Eddie followed her but with far less dramatic flair. They had left Troy behind at the camp, and with night having fallen, it was easier to walk the half-mile trail through the woods to the Markham house than ... well, Wren really had no excuse except that she felt more at home here. Safer. Not that she had any reason to feel unsafe. It was Jasmine Riviera who’d gone missing, not her. And she’d Web-searched her name, and Arwenwasan older name than she’d thought, and not proprietary to Tolkien. So maybe—maybe—there was nothing to their finding that creepy ogle-eyed doll with her name on its foot.
Wren shuddered and flopped onto a recliner in the living room set just off the Markham kitchen. Eddie followed her into the room, and darn it if he wasn’t cradling the evil doll in the crook of his arm.
“It’s not a baby that needs loved,” Wren tossed at him.
Eddie’s mouth tilted in a sideways smile. “She needs some TLC.”
“She needs to be installed in a house of horrors somewhere in Las Vegas and be put on show for being the creepiest thing to be found. Ever. She’s probably possessed.”
“I think opening Jeffrey Dahmer’s freezer would be creepier,” Eddie retorted.
Wren leveled him with a glare. “You need to stop watching stuff about serial killers. It’s sick.”
