“I told you, my name is Alan Chance. I was a friend of Bernard’s.”
“So fucking what? You’re just a guy in my yard. I don’t know you.”
I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. They came back damp with perspiration. “I’m sure Bernard mentioned me.”
“Yeah,” she said, “he did. But you were his friend. Not mine. He kept things—people—separate. If he hadn’t we would’ve met a long time ago, right?”
“I take it you’ve heard what’s been happening in Potter’s Cove?”
“I’ve been away for a while. Just got back yesterday, but yeah, I heard.” She nodded. “What’s any of that got to do with me?”
“You tell me.”
The broom came down from behind her neck and she held it by her side. “You accusing me of something?”
“Are you guilty of something?”
She turned toward the house. “Get the fuck out of here.”
I reached out for her arm. “Claudia, wait, I—”
She spun around, bringing the broom with her, and in a split-second the handle was less than an inch from my eye. “You put your hands on me again, asshole, and I’ll drive this thing right through your fucking brain, you hear me?”
I believed her. “I’m sorry.” I raised my hands but otherwise stood perfectly still. “I’m not looking to hurt you. I only need your help.”
Claudia lowered the broom and relaxed her stance a bit. After a beat she said, “I told you, I just got back into town. I’m here a few hours and already I got a call from some old friends downtown—friends who aren’t friends anymore, who I don’t want to hear from no more—telling me there were people looking for me, causing all kinds of trouble. That crazy old bitch Toots giving me warnings and throwing her hexes around, as if anybody besides greenhorns and marks give a shit, and then I got you sniffing around like some dog with his nose up my butt. I don’t want any of this, OK? I just want to be left the fuck alone.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this, either,” I said quietly.
She looked at the sun and drew the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away some sweat. “I don’t expect you to understand this, and I don’t give a shit if you do or not, but I want to make a clean break of things this time. I’m starting over. I don’t want no part of whatever problems you got. I got enough of my own.”
“I’m not expecting you to get involved. All I ask is that you tell me what you know.”
She let go a brief, ironic smile. “Oh, is that all?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help.”
Claudia leaned the broom against the back of the house. “I don’t know anything.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
She threw me a defiant shrug.
I sighed. “Like I said, strange things have been going on since Bernard’s death.”
“Oh yeah?” As she dug a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of her shirt, I noticed an oddly benign flash in her otherwise apathetic expression. She slid an unfiltered Lucky Strike between her lips then patted herself down for a lighter, which she eventually found in her jeans. “Like what?”
“You mean besides bodies turning up in Potter’s Cove?”
Claudia drew a deep initial drag on her cigarette, held the smoke a bit longer than normal then released it in a slow steady stream from her nostrils. She gave me a stern look that made it apparent my question didn’t warrant an answer.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but—”
“We’re all crazy. The world’s crazy.”
“Since Bernard’s death,” I began again, “we’ve all had the same dream, we—”
“We?”
“My friends—Bernard’s other friends—Rick and Donald.”
She waited a moment before responding, as if what I’d said was slowly solidifying in her mind. “He used to talk about you three a lot.”
I flicked a bead of sweat from my temple. “We all started having nightmares not long after Bernard’s death. Identical nightmares. And I’ve been–” I forced myself to say it, “I’ve been having hallucinations or visions or waking dreams, I—I don’t know for sure exactly what they are. Then the other night, that woman—Toots—she told me—”
“I know what she told you,” she said. “The fat bitch thinks you’re possessed, said she saw your demons and they attacked her, drew her blood.”
“Do you believe her?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised what I believe.”
“I know it’s all tied together. I know Bernard was involved in—”
“Why are you so sure I know anything?”
I stared at her without answering.
“Even if I do,” she said, “why would I tell you?”
“To help me.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about because it’s the right thing to do?”
“What the hell universe you living in?”
“Thought you said you wanted a fresh start.”
She left the cigarette perched between her lips as tendrils of smoke crept past her face. “That gun on your belt loaded?”
I was stunned, unsure of how she had seen it since she’d been in front of me the entire time. “Yes.”
“Planning on shooting somebody?”
“It’s strictly for protection.”
Apparently she found my answer amusing because her face hinted at a smile, but it left her quickly. Slowly, she turned her attention to the trees behind us, as if searching for something hidden there, watching. “Come on,” she said softly, cocking her head toward the house. “Let’s get out of the sun.”
CHAPTER 25
The interior of the cottage was the disaster area I’d anticipated it to be. There was an undersized kitchen; an equally small living room and a dark jog of a hallway I assumed led to a bathroom and bedroom. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust after crossing from bright sunshine into this cave of sorts. What little light existed seeped through the two open windows in the living room, but in the kitchen area, which we had walked into through the back door, the windows were closed and covered with cheap green canvas pull-shades. A musty smell hung in the air, and everything was covered in a thin film of dust. I stood awkwardly near the door, watched Claudia cross to an ancient refrigerator. The door opened with a clang and light from within punctured the room. She reached in, pulled out an unlabeled brown bottle and held it up. “Want one?”
“No,” I said. “But thanks.”
She closed the door, leaned back against it. Her throat was slick with perspiration. “It’s only root beer.” She twisted off the cap and casually tossed it into the nearby sink, which was brimming with filthy dishes and hundreds of swarming ants.
I moved closer to a table in the center of the room, noticed a suitcase sitting in the doorway to the living room.
Claudia saw me looking at it and said, “I just got back last night, haven’t had a chance to unpack. Or clean up, obviously.” She drank from the bottle, gulped loudly.
“I came by a little while ago but—”
“Yeah, you woke me up with all that knocking.”
“Sorry.” I smiled uncomfortably and pulled one of the chairs out from the table. “Mind if I sit down?”
Claudia motioned to the chair with the bottle. “Been in rehab for a while. Had a meth problem. It was fucked up but, man, so is this. No more drugs, no more booze. All I got left is nicotine, sugar and caffeine. Figure one of these days I’ll kick butts too, but one step at a time, that’s what they say. I beat heroin and coke a few years back—so I figure I can do this. Least that’s what I keep telling myself. You got to play these little head games with yourself, it’s fucking sick but it works. This one counselor told me I had what’s called an addictive personality. I was like: Yeah, no fucking shit, Kreskin.” She let slip a genuine, very pretty smile. Her teeth were a bit too large for her mouth, and there was a noticeable gap between the two in front, but like the rest, they were straight and bright and lit up her entire face.