“It’s what I call her. If you give a girl a nickname, it’s endearing and forges a bond between the two of you.” He glanced over at her. “I read that on the Internet.”
Connie melted. Howie was so desperately pathetic in so many ways that she could never stay angry or disgusted for long. She reached out to pat his shoulder, but he flinched and said, “Whoa! Careful.”
“I’m going to be gentle,” she assured him, and then stroked his shoulder so lightly that even his hemophiliac blood vessels didn’t rupture. “You’re a good guy, Howie.”
“Will you tell Sam that? I also read that women trust other women more than men.”
She sighed. “Help me out tonight and, yeah, I’ll put in a good word for you.” Not that it would help. She couldn’t imagine a woman Samantha’s age hooking up with Howie. Although stranger things had certainly happened in the world.
“Score!” Howie fist-pumped. “What did the text say again?”
“It said ‘go 2 where it all began.’ ”
Howie frowned. “Where is that? Where what began?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering. But it first said that this was about Jazz. So I’ve been thinking about Jazz’s past. Where it all began for him.”
“Hospital where he was born?” Howie asked.
“Too literal. I think it’s his house.”
“I just came from—ah. Oh, right.” Howie nodded grimly. “Got it.”
He flipped a uey and gunned the engine.
According to the dashboard clock in Howie’s car, it was three in the afternoon. Connie mentally subtracted the fourteen-plus hours by which the clock was always wrong (thirteen-plus during the summer) and decided that it was twenty of one in the morning when they pulled up to what had once been the Dent house. Not the house where Jazz lived now, the house Billy had grown up in—that was Jazz’s grandmother’s. The short gravel drive Howie’s wheels now crunched led to the house owned by Billy Dent himself.
“Don’t go chasing…”
Billy Dent, Connie mentally substituted. The rhythm still worked. Don’t go chasing Billy Dent. Please stick to the normal and the sane that you’re used to….
Denuded tree branches seemed to clutch at the car as they drove along, almost as though the spirit of William Cornelius Dent possessed them.
Stop thinking like that, Connie.
“How long do we have?” she asked Howie. Anything to break the silence.
Howie shrugged. “My parents think I’m spending the night at Jazz’s grandmother’s house.”
“Your parents? Your overprotective parents?”
“They know Jazz is out of town. They figure it’s safe.”
“Yeah, but… with his aunt?” Connie was shocked. Howie’s parents, letting their son (try to) shack up with an older woman?
“Oh, that. They think she’s an ugly old crone.” He shrugged. “This might be because I told them she was an ugly old crone. I’m not entirely sure. Man, it’s been a while since I’ve been here….”
The spot where Jazz’s childhood home used to be was marked out by a series of stakes with caution tape strung between them. A sign read NO TRESPASSING! Another read PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Finally, one read: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED.
Condemned. Yeah, in so many ways, really…
Where the house had once stood there was now a blank, a blighted sore on the face of the earth. A wealthy father of one of Billy Dent’s victims had bought the house at auction after Billy went to prison. Then, to great fanfare and with the press in attendance, he’d had the house bulldozed and the wreckage burned to ash in a controlled fire. Connie hadn’t lived in Lobo’s Nod at the time, but Jazz had told her about it. He’d watched his home go up in smoke on the evening news.
“It was like a party,” Howie said, his voice a mixture of memory and rage as he gazed through the windshield. “Watched it on TV with Jazz. People treated it like a Memorial Day barbecue. Brought hot dogs and marshmallows and roasted them over the flames. Kegs. It was nuts. Like burning the guy’s house brought any of them back.”
Connie reached for Howie again. This time he didn’t flinch and she briefly massaged the back of his neck, wary of his fragility. “You’re a good friend,” she said.
Howie snorted. “I know. Why do people keep telling me that?”
To that, she had nothing to say.
Howie parked with the headlights glaring at the bare, burned earth and the hole that had once been Jazz’s basement.
“What do you expect to find here?”
“I don’t know.” She got out of the car. In every direction, there were trees and hedges. To the east and west, she could just barely make out houses. Billy Dent’s neighbors.
They planted all that stuff to block off that lot after he went to jail, Connie remembered Jazz saying. Like they could erase what he’d done if they didn’t have to look at where he’d lived.
Howie joined her by the foundation of the house. A few broken, burned cinder blocks littered the hole. In the glow of the headlights, they could see empty beer and soda bottles, as well as snack-chip bags and what looked like used condoms.
“People come out here for privacy, I guess,” Howie said. “Figure no one else would, right?” He inhaled deeply. “Still smells kinda burny. Even three years later.”
Connie squatted down near the edge. Howie suddenly grabbed at her, but she brushed him away. “I’m okay. I’m not gonna fall.”
“I’m more worried about the ground giving way.”
“It’s pretty frozen.” Her breath painted the air misty white. “Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, right.” Howie shivered and hugged himself. “Picked the wrong place to say that. I don’t believe in ghosts or demons, but if they existed anywhere, it would be here.”
Connie grinned. “I’ll protect you, big guy.”
“Much appreciated. What’d the next text say?”
“Next text and last text.” She showed it to Howie.
cherry. sunrise. jasper. down
CHAPTER 30
“What the hell does that mean?” Howie’s earlier fear had been replaced with exasperation. He bit down on his lower lip—lightly—but even so, Connie saw a bruise begin there. He turned in circles, taking in the surroundings. “It was crazy to come here without telling anyone. I hate puzzles. And codes. And mysteries. And riddles. And—”
“It’s not tough,” Connie told him. She scanned her surroundings as best she could in the dark, with only the headlights to pierce the night. “I bet there’s a cherry tree around here. We go to it.”
“And then wait until sunrise? No way. I gotta get some beauty sleep.”
Ignoring Howie, Connie peered through the middle-of-the-night murk of the Dent property, searching out a cherry tree. With her luck, she realized, there would be more than one.
Wait a sec, she thought. Wait. What—
“What does a cherry tree even look like?” Howie whined, voicing her inner thought.
A look of sheepish guilt/stupidity passed between them and then they both went for their cell phones.
Connie’s Google-fu was better and faster than Howie’s. “Here,” she said, holding up a photo on her phone. “A cherry tree.” She scowled. “But it talks about the leaves and…” She gestured around the winter landscape, the frost-rimed ground, the trees with their naked branches.
“No worries,” Howie said, grinning. “I remember. Over there.” He pointed to a large, many-limbed tree not far from the hole in the ground that had once been the Dent house. “That’s it. Right there. I remember what it looked like back then. It used to be in the backyard. Y’know, when there was a house here to be in back of.”
Together they made their way to the cherry tree. Howie stared up into its branches, lost in thought and memory. “We wanted to build a fort up there,” he said, his voice quiet, as though he were murmuring in church. “We were like eleven, I guess. Right up there.” He pointed with a shaky hand. “And I remember his dad was all for it. He said…” Howie suddenly turned away, savagely. “Damn! I can’t believe… I can’t believe I was such—”