Page 56 of A Curse On Black Lake
“I messed up on a case before I left. It was bad. I accused the wrong man, Jacob Abernathy. I thought all the evidence pointedto him. It’s funny now that I’m thinking about it; the irony is not lost on me. But the town hated me. They were all convinced the guy didn’t do it. I thought they we’re wrong.”
“If only they afforded you that same amount of conviction,” Eliana mumbles, fiddling with my shirt.
“I left shortly after that, and then I made it worse when I fired our ranch hands and staff. They really got mad at me because people lost their jobs, and you know there aren’t many in this town.”
“Why did you do it?” she asks.
I puff out a breath and rub my chin. “I don’t know, maybe the impending grief? I wanted to be alone. I felt alone already. My dad wasn’t even dead then. Maybe it was a little self- punishment. I messed up the case, and I knew I would have to take over the ranch when Dad died. Doing it alone made my assumptions all true.”
Her hand presses against my heart. “You really do understand what it’s like.”
I shrug. “Maybe not the way you do, but close.”
We sit there for a moment. I want to gather her into my chest and keep her there. Part of me feels like she can heal me from that alone. Not that she needs to do any of that, but being around her is starting to feel that way. It’s starting to … wake me up.
“Have you thought about what they asked us?” she asks quietly.
“The Spirits?”
Eliana nods, tracing circles around each button on my shirt.
“I don’t know who it could be. I don’t have friends, just Wyatt,” I mumble.
“Hmm, that’s weird…”
“Maybe the bigger question iswhy?”
Eliana stares at me as if she see’s something I don’t in the mirror. Then she slips off my lap and saunters into the kitchen.“Do you want some tea? I’m going to make some tea,” she says, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling.
My mind starts whirring again. “Yeah,” I grunt. What are the pieces that make up the why? Based on the evidence I have, is thewhyin there?
The opening from the living room into the kitchen is wide enough I can see her walking back and forth between cabinets for cups and tea. My eyes trail up from her bare feet to her legs, to the hem of her dress, over the idea of her torturous hips to where her waist nips in.
What if this isn’t simply about me? If the Spirits are right, if Eliana and I have to become a team to defeat a serial killing foe, then it’s not too far out of bounds to assume that Eliana also has something to do with this on a deeper level.
My mind goes back to what my father said, and I can’t help but wonder if his words have to do with what’s happening now.
A servant of Satan is lurking in the shadows, and it has come to take everything you know and love. It will steal it in the night, consuming it like a sweet, always hungry for more. It will come for you! It comes for us all, hunting its prey, stalking in the night.
Beware!
Beware!
Beware!
Maybe I should tell her about what he said. The Spirits might understand it more than I do. Or maybe I need to accept that there are things in this world I may never have a grasp on and trying to figure them out is a dead end and a waste of precious time.
“Here,” Eliana says, handing me a cup of tea.
“Thanks.”
She sits down next to me on the couch, tucking her legs under her.
“Don’t you need to get back to the front?”
She shrugs and takes a small sip. “I don’t think anyone else will be coming in today.”
“I’m sorry, Eliana,” I mutter.
