He’d returned to his parents' house to find Jake, Eleanor, and the new baby. Jake had not been pleased to see him.
Maria stepped into the hall. “Stop arguing this instant,” she scolded her adult sons. “Look at the beautiful baby boy in there. Do you want Matthew to hear his daddy and uncle fighting?”
“Mom,” Jake muttered.
“Mom, nothing,” she interrupted. “I’m grateful your brother brought Joan to us. He saw a woman in need, and he helped her. And he trusted us to help her too. I hope you will be so lucky to have such a compassionate son, Jake. Now both of you go play with that baby.”
Max tried to engage with his new nephew, but his frustration at Jake’s comments got the best of him. After an hour, he excused himself with a fake appointment and slipped from his parents’ house.
Halfway across town, he spotted Ashley Shepherd ducking beneath a large weeping willow in Denmore Park.
He pulled his bike over and hopped off, following the path she’d taken.
He found Ashley, Sid, and Shane Savage sitting at a picnic table tucked within the willow branches, as if they’d pulled the table into the tree canopy for cover.
Something lay on the table between them, a doll of some sort, though it looked like something Miss. Cutler would have the kids make in home economics with its crude stitching and weird misshapen arms and legs.
Shane glanced up and spotted Max.
He grabbed his backpack and dropped it on top of the doll, his eyes sending a silent warning to his friends as he nodded toward where Max stood.
Sid looked up and blanched.
Ashley, ever the stealthy one, turned slowly and gazed at Max. Her expression revealed nothing. “Hi, Mr. Wolf,” she said.
He watched her slide the bag from the table, and when she removed the bag, the doll disappeared with it.
“What are you guys doing out here?”
Ashley shrugged. “Hiding from Travis Barron.”
Max nodded.
He knew enough about Travis Barron to find the story believable, though he doubted its truth in that moment.
“DO YOU THINK HE SAW IT?” Ashley asked after Mr. Wolf left.
“Even if he did, he doesn’t know what it is,” Shane offered.
“Neither do we,” Sid said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking irritated.
“True,” Shane agreed, though his confirmation didn’t mollify Sid, who looked grumpily toward the branches Mr. Wolf had slipped through moments before.
“Maybe it’s a voodoo doll,” Sid interrupted excitedly. “Like in Trilogy of Terror. What if someone made a voodoo doll of Vern to kill him!”
Ashley cocked her head to the side. “Possible, but even so, figuring out the doll isn’t the priority.”
“What’s Trilogy of Terror?” Shane asked.
“I think the only way we can trap it,” Ashley continued, ignoring Shane’s question, is with bait.”
Sid wrinkled his forehead.
“Like earthworms?” Sid asked. “I don’t see how-”
Ashley cut him off. “Not fish bait! Monster bait. With kids. With me.”
Both boys stared at her with mingled confusion and horror.
“No, no way,” Sid said. He uncrossed his arms. “You’re mental, Ash.”
“There’s no other way,” Ashley insisted.
“Okay, let’s say we try it. How would we use you as bait?” Shane asked.
Sid glared at Shane, but Shane ignored him.
“We find the birds,” Ashley explained. “That’s the key. Once we find the birds, I go into the woods, make a lot of noise, and ride like hell to The Crawford House. We rig it so I can run through the front door and jump out a window in the back of the house. As soon as I’m in, you guys secure the openings so he can’t get out. We call the police and say one of us fell and got hurt at The Crawford House. The police come and they find him inside.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Sid said.
“It could work,” Shane mused.
“And it could also not work. The monster could catch you and rip your throat out like Simon Frank’s.”
Ashley frowned, but refused to imagine Simon dead in the woods.
“He won’t catch me. I’m getting my bike in two days.”
“You saved enough money?” Shane asked, face brightening. “That’s so awesome.”
Sid cast him an incredulous look. “Are you both insane? This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard!”
“You’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with a better one,” Ashley challenged him. “In the meantime, we’ve got to board up the other windows and doors at The Crawford house. Sid, you’ll have to steal more nails from your dad.”
27
“Max?”
Max looked up from the bench where he sat watching two other guys stick fighting on the padded blue mats.
Joan stood just inside the glass door, smiling hesitantly.
“Hi,” he said, standing and striding over to her. “How are you?”
He hadn’t seen Joan since he’d left her at the women’s shelter three days before. He’d spoken to her once on the phone to ensure she’d settled in, and she reassured him they were treating her well.
“I hope you don’t mind my showing up like this. The shelter comes into town on Fridays, and I saw your motorcycle.” She pointed toward the window where his bike was parked near the curb.
“No, it’s great. I’m happy you stopped in.”
“Is this where you learned to use your stick things?”
“Tonfa,” he told her. “That’s the name of the stick things. This my dōjō. I’ve been practicing martial arts here since I was a kid. My parents wanted to minimize how frequently I was getting beat up.”
“You got beat up?” she asked, genuine concern in her eyes.
“Not anymore,” he promised.
Joan looked beyond him to the men on the mat. One circled the stick around his head and brought it to rest against the other man’s neck. They laughed and bowed to one another.
“Seems like very peaceful fighting,” she said.
“It’s less about fighting than mastering self-control. Though the sticks can come in handy when fighting is necessary.”
“I remember,” she murmured, and her hand lifted to the yellowing bruise on her cheek.
She looked different from the first day he’d met her. She had replaced her thinning blue dress with form fitting jeans and a purple t-shirt that read Go Bobcats in large yellow letters. She glanced down at her shirt and smiled.
“Martha, the director at Ellie’s House gave me some clothes.”
“You look nice,” he told her, and he meant it.
She did look nice. She’d brushed out her long auburn hair, and it fell in a wave down her back. Her blue eyes looked brighter, the red mostly gone now.
“I’m finished here for the day. Can I take you to lunch?” he asked.
Across the street, several women left the Village Market, grocery bags clutched in their hands. They walked toward a blue conversion van.
Joan saw them and she took a step toward the door.
“I can drop you off at Ellie’s House,” he assured her.
She watched the woman and seemed to consider his offer for another minute. “Okay, yeah. Let me tell Martha.”
As Max gathered his gym bag, he watched Joan jog across the street, her hair blowing out behind her. A strand caught on the branch of a flowering magnolia tree and she laughed, batting at the branch as another woman joined her. The older woman smiled and helped Joan disentangle her hair. She plucked a pink blossom and pushed it behind one of Joan’s ears.