Page 44 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

I get home to Sam working on Halloween decorations in the front yard. I feel like we are getting a later start this year than we ever have. But maybe, in a way, it compensates for the Christmas decorations I left up in the yard well on into spring a couple of years ago. I’m not positive about the exchange ratio of holiday decor time periods, but it feels right.

“Hey, babe, hand me that bag of spider webs,” he calls down as I walk up to the porch.

“The words every little girl dreams of growing up to hear,” I say.

I look around on the ground and finally locate a bag of glow-in-the-dark spider web. It looks like the cotton candy you get at the smaller stands at the fair rather than the big fresh cones. That thought brings my mind to Mindy. I need to reach out to her and see when she might be ready to talk.

“Thanks,” Sam says, taking the bag and ripping it open so he can fluff the webs and attach them to the house. “What do you think? How does it look?”

“Like you’re going to try to keep it up through Thanksgiving dinner,” I say.

“You know damn good and well I would never be allowed to do that,” he says. “But, yes.”

He adjusts the web a bit and gestures to it.

“Looks good,” I say.

He points to another bag and I get it for him.

“Did you find out anything interesting when you went to talk to the landowners?” he asks.

I don’t tell him that every second I was speaking to them I was thinking about him and the fact that he still hasn’t made a decision about his parents’ house. Or that talking with them about selling the land that meant so much to them and seeing the regret in their eyes only made my heart hurt more for him. I want to make this easier for him. I wish I could just make the decision, know it’s the right one, and take that burden away from my husband. But I can’t. Like I told him when we first talked about it, this is a decision only he can make.

“I wasn’t able to talk to all of them today, just a couple of them,” I tell him. “I thought it was interesting. The first one I spoke to actually didn’t have a problem with the situation at all. The complete opposite of everything we’ve heard. But they only sold a small part of their land and they say they barely used it, anyway. It was an old grazing field that they’d only used a few times in the last couple of years since they thinned their herd, so they didn’t need the additional field.”

“Where is it?” Sam asks.He tosses one end of the spiderweb to me and we lift it up together, draping it across the porch as I continue talking.

“It’s the front left area as you drive in. One of the parking lots and some of the landscaping to the side. I asked about the amount they bought the land for and they said it was an acceptable amount, again because they were barely using the land. They figured anything they got from it was better than what they were getting from it just sitting there.”

“No bizarre promises in the contract or anything?” he asks.

“No. Apparently it was clean-cut and to the point. Nothing unusual because they just wanted the deal to go through and get the money. But then the next people I spoke with were a totally different story. They told me they were completely manipulated by the people who came to talk to them about selling their land. At first, they were really nice to them and tried to make them feel like they were a part of this wonderful project for the community. And that was something that appealed to them. They love Sherwood and liked the thought of contributing to it in a meaningful way and benefitting everybody living in it. But they also love their land. It’s been in their family for generations, like a lot of the other people. They talked about it a lot and came to the decision that they weren’t going to sell. As much as they liked the idea of something being built that would create a legacy for Sherwood and benefit future generations, they decided they needed to think about their own family’s legacy and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that were to come.

“But as soon as they expressed this to the people they had been talking to, the entire mood shifted. They described the developers becoming aggressive and forceful. They suggested it didn’t really matter what the family said about selling their property, they had the power to take it over regardless and that them coming to the family with an offer to buy it was a courtesy. They ended up getting guilted and scared into selling for a fraction of what the land was actually worth,” I tell him. “The next people had a similar story.”

“I can understand why they would be angry,” Sam says. “That’s horrible.”

“It is. But I just don’t see any of them channeling anger into murdering twenty strangers.”

“They might not look at them as strangers. Remember, they had to sell their land to build the mall. So people shopping at the mall would have contributed to what caused them pain. Maybe it was retaliation.”

“I don’t know,” I demur. “That sounds like it makes sense, but it’s so extreme. And why punish the shoppers, but not the developers? They are already planning on going ahead with the grand opening. When I talked to Rainey, the only thing that really seemed to be bothering him was that they had lost a few days already. It’s not that I think he’s completely cold and isn’t comprehending the deaths. He’s just able to compartmentalize it to such an incredible degree that he can put the continued well-being of his mall project ahead of that reality.”

“Do you actually think that the mall is going to open?” Sam asks.

“I honestly don’t know. The more I find out about this company, the less I’d put past them,” I say.

I help Sam add a few more decorations before we head inside. As I’m walking back through the living room, I notice a stack of mail on the side table. Picking it up, I shift through the envelopes.

“Anything interesting?” Sam asks.

“Not particularly,” I say. “You know what it makes me think about, though?”

“What?”

“That invitation I was supposedly sent for the open house. Keilan Smith was adamant I was on the list. I was supposed to get a specific invitation to go to the open house and see the mall so I could spread the good word about it. But I didn’t get it. And nobody can figure out why,” I say.

“Do you think he made that up on the fly to try to flatter you?” Sam asks.

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