Clare started the car and put it into gear. She couldn’t let herself go down that road, not yet. If it came to a dead end she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find her way back from it.
She drove without aim.
Sheen glided past in streets hemmed by low businesses, mostly tourist shops. She recalled a fifties film starlet had been born here, her golden-age movie still tugging at heartstrings and bringing baby boomers north to see her hometown whenever the weather was fair.
Relying again on instinct rather than memory, she guided the car to a northeast section of neighborhood, not poor, not rich, and coasted through two avenues before gliding to a stop in front of a quaint two-story painted a light blue. Grass grew long in the yard fenced in by waist-high chain link, and the porch sagged, but there was no mistaking this was the place she’d lived for the better part of a year after being released from the hospital, and subsequently, police custody.
Clare stepped from the car into the deserted street. Leaves gusted along gutters and a dog barked from two houses down. She moved to the sidewalk before her former home, the very first that had been a place of quiet recovery, of home-cooked meals, and an introduction to television and all its wonders. It had shielded her from rain, snow, and cutting looks from passersby, until it hadn’t. Until it, too, had crumbled under strain of her past and she’d fled once more beneath the wing of a man she came to call father.
A shrill creaking brought her free of her reverie and she noticed the “For Sale” sign tipped sideways near the far end of the fencing. And like a veil being lifted she saw the peeling paint and cracked window on the second floor, the darkness behind the glass speaking of emptiness and neglect. Up until then she’d been looking through a lens almost twenty years old. Now she saw it for what it was—a derelict shell. No more a home, just a house.
Clare turned away, unable to weather the sight for another second. But in the center of the street her steps slowed, then stopped. She rotated, eyes traveling across the neighborhood, taking everything in. No one stood in any front yards and there were no cars but for some light cross traffic four blocks down the hill. She stayed still for the better part of a minute—an animal standing in a clearing suddenly much too quiet. She swiveled again, looking up the street to where it branched off between two undeveloped lots.
Something moved swiftly out of view behind a stand of trees.
It hadn’t been anything she could put a name to, no features of a person or that of an animal standing out. Just the impression of movement sliding away through the trees.
Clare hesitated, then began striding up the street, shoes crushing bits of rock and leaves. At the intersecting avenue she paused before continuing on to where the sidewalk ended and the wooded section began. She peered through the foliage, searching for another hint of movement.
Nothing.
But she could’ve sworn she’d seen something. And beyond that, the feeling of being watched had been so intense it made her skin crawl. She rubbed her arms, trying to banish the sensation away.
“Hello?” she called into the trees. A squirrel chittered loudly, sending a jolt through her, and she shook her head. There was nothing but her frayed nerves on the quiet street. She turned to head back toward her car, and froze.
A wooden coin lay in the center of the sidewalk, its upraised cross in stark relief.
Clare stumbled sideways as if avoiding a poisonous snake and stepped into the grass, hand going to the gun she wore. She spun, scanning the trees and empty yards of the nearby homes.
Nothing. No one.
Hesitantly she bent and grasped the coin from the concrete, bringing it closer. It felt heavy, just like the first coin that she’d found. Clare squeezed her eyes shut, unsure if she wanted the coin to be something else or not when she opened them. When she looked again Charon’s obol was unchanged, its presence an offense in itself.
Clare backed down the sidewalk until she was to the cross avenue, then turned and jogged the rest of the way to her car.
The press of eyes on her skin didn’t leave until she was well out of her old neighborhood.
Clare stood at the corner of the second-floor hallway, trying to gather the courage to move toward the door where the sheriff’s deputy was stationed.
She’d taken a pill at a red light halfway across town, balancing on the edge of hyperventilating before having to pull over to get herself under control. She’d closed her eyes and reopened them three times while holding the wooden coin, half expecting its shape to change, for the carved cross to sink into itself and become the holes of another innocuous button. But it remained solid and unchanged. It was real, at least as real as she could fathom in her state of mind.
When the pill had started to do its work, she’d proceeded to the hospital and called Eric from the parking lot, filling him in on the events so far. His astonishment filtered through the silence after she’d stopped speaking. He’d asked if she wanted him to fly out that afternoon and she’d told him no. Not yet. If things changed or anything truly got confirmed, then maybe she would need him here. No use jumping the gun if it all turned out to be coincidence and her jangled nerves were making shadow puppets on the wall. Besides, the more she could keep him removed from the fray of her past, the better. She also couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the coins. Either her mind was coming apart at the seams, or someone was truly following her and leaving the talismans as some sort of message or warning. Either way she couldn’t say anything unless she wanted him to fly in.
After hanging up with Eric she’d texted Adam concerning the Free Spirit Disciples to see if the name or any other groups associated with them were on the FBI’s watchlist. Doing something proactive made her feel more in control, at least until this moment standing outside the hospital room and trying to get herself to go inside.
Wetting her lips, she stepped away from the corner and approached the deputy on duty. He didn’t have the friendly down-home look Travis Wilt had the night before and she hesitated before mentioning who she was and what she wanted. Deputy Orris, as she learned, was a stickler for protocol, and called in to the office before letting her into the room.
It seemed like a completely different room from the night before. Light from the uncovered windows filled every corner and the air smelled like fresh linen rather than harsh disinfectant.
The woman in the bed turned her head to look at her as soon as she stepped inside, this time not saying anything.
“Hi,” Clare said, not moving any closer.
“Hello.” When the silence stretched out to an uncomfortable length the woman motioned toward the nearest chair. “Sit?”
Clare made her way to the chair and settled into it. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. They kept moving from the chair’s arms to her lap, down to her knees, and back again.
“I’m sorry for last night,” she finally said. The woman in the bed looked at her, waiting, and the thought that she was sitting across from her sister was the equivalent to standing on the edge of a hundred-story drop. She could be looking at Shanna right now. Clare dropped her eyes, trying to regain an internal balance.
“I understand. It’s been . . . many years.” She spoke in a stilted fashion, like she was chiseling out the words one at a time from some unplumbed depth inside her.