Marta Perry - Abandon the Dark

But now she was here, summoned by an abrupt phone call from her great-aunt’s lawyer. Rebecca had had a fall and suffered a stroke. She’d asked for Lainey. The attorney, one Jacob Evans, hadn’t sounded particularly approving. Well, Lainey would deal with him in the morning.

She’d planned to get a motel near the airport in Pittsburgh and drive up tomorrow morning, but once she’d picked up a rental car, worry and tension had impelled her onto the road to Deer Run. What difference did it make if she arrived after midnight? She knew where the house key was kept, though if she’d thought about the absence of electricity, she might have opted for a motel.

Aunt Rebecca would laugh at Lainey, coming to visit an Amish home equipped with her smartphone, her computer, her hair dryer, and all the other devices she thought she couldn’t do without.

But the laughter would be gentle. Aunt Rebecca never judged, never made a person feel stupid or guilty or unwanted. Her love had been a balm to a lost child whose familiar world had slipped from her grasp one too many times. Even when the details of that summer visit had slipped away, Lainey had still been aware of that solid sense of being loved without condition.

Now it was Lainey’s chance to repay that kindness. In the morning she’d touch base with the attorney and then head for the hospital to find out how bad Aunt Rebecca’s condition was and what needed to be done. Lainey’s mind ran up against a blank wall of ignorance when it came to helping someone who’d had a stroke, but she’d figure it out. She owed Aunt Rebecca far more than that.

If this trip had happened to coincide with an excellent time for her to leave St. Louis—well, no one here need ever know that, although if the task of helping her great-aunt was as difficult as the attorney’s tone had suggested, she might have jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

In any event, she was clearly not going to drift back to sleep. Lainey swung her legs out from under the covers. She’d go downstairs and brew a cup of Aunt Rebecca’s herbal tea. But first she’d pull on some sweats. The house had grown cold, and she hadn’t the faintest idea how the furnace worked.

Thanks to her aunt’s habit of leaving a flashlight on the nightstand, Lainey was able to light her way to the stairs. She started down, her heavy socks making no sound on the treads. The beam of the flashlight picked up the hooked rug in the living room, the rocker that had always been her aunt’s favorite chair, the—

She stopped, gripping the banister. A noise, faint and indefinable, came from the kitchen. Maybe the gas refrigerator made noises.

Another step, and Lainey froze again. This time there had been a soft but definite thud. Someone...or something...was in the kitchen.

She held her breath, afraid the intruder would hear the slightest sound. The whole town probably knew that the homeowner was hospitalized, making the house an easy target for a break-in. Could she get back to the bedroom and her cell phone without being heard?

She eased back a step. And heard a loud meow. Lainey’s tension dissolved into a shaky laugh. Not someone. A cat. She hadn’t known Aunt Rebecca had a cat.

Sweeping the flashlight beam ahead of her, Lainey went quickly to the kitchen, pushing open the swinging door. The flashlight beam reflected shining green eyes, eerily suspended in the air, it seemed. The large black cat sat on the counter next to the stove, looking at her accusingly.

“Well, so who are you?” She reached out a hand tentatively, having a respect for pointed teeth and sharp claws.

The cat sniffed at her hand, apparently found it acceptable, and rubbed its head against her fingers.

“You are a handsome creature.” She stroked the shining length of his back, and it arched under her hand. “What’s your name?”

He didn’t answer, of course, but he butted her hand again and then jumped lightly to the floor, where he pawed at the cabinet door.

“Is that where the cat food is kept?” Silly, to be talking to a cat, but the house was so deadly silent that it was a relief to make some noise. She opened the door and had a look.

No cat food, but there were several cans of tuna. Her visitor seemed to know what that was, because he hooked a paw over one can.

“All right, all right, I get the message. But I can’t believe that one of the neighbors isn’t feeding you while Aunt Rebecca is in the hospital.”

The hand can opener was in the top drawer, and in a few minutes she’d dumped the contents of the can into a bowl and set it down in front of the animal. The cat took one sniff and then began eating.

“I’m not sure what to do with you,” she muttered. “Are you supposed to stay inside or go out at night?” She searched the neat, sparsely furnished downstairs to the living room, finding no sign of a litter box. “Out, I guess.”

The front windows of the living room looked out on the main road that ran through the village, becoming Main Street on its way. Nothing moved outside. Even when she craned her neck to look down toward the center of town, the streets and sidewalks were empty. Apparently at 3:00 a.m. the citizens of Deer Run were safe in their beds.

A small town would undoubtedly seem even smaller and deader when seen through the eyes of a thirty-year-old, rather than the ten-year-old she’d been when last in Deer Run. But she was here to see to Aunt Rebecca’s care, not to socialize.

And afterward? Afterward would have to take care of itself for the moment.

A loud meow interrupted her reverie. She returned to the kitchen to find that the cat had polished the bowl and now stood at the back door, looking fixedly at the knob as if he could turn it with the force of his gaze.

“Okay, I get the message. You want out.” She opened the door. The cat spurted through it, disappearing into the shadows as if part of an illusionist’s trick.

Lainey stood for a moment in the doorway, looking out. Beyond a large shed, a stretch of weeds and brush led to the woods. There was a stream back that way someplace, as she recalled, and on the other side some Amish farms. That probably wouldn’t have changed since...

She lost her train of thought as she caught movement from the corner of her eye. Near the shed, was it? She stared, trying to make out what it was, but nothing stirred.

Her imagination? Lainey frowned. She had plenty of that, certainly. But this had been real enough, she felt sure. If it had been an animal, it was a large one.

A shiver went down her spine. It’s nothing, she told herself. An overactive imagination and an overtired body made a bad combination. But she locked the door carefully, just the same.

* * *

PUNCTUALITY HAD NEVER been Lainey’s strong suit, but she arrived at the attorney’s office a few minutes before nine the next morning, eager to get this meeting over with and go to the hospital. Why was it necessary, anyway? Jake Evans surely had fulfilled his duty by letting her know about her great-aunt’s condition, but he had insisted she stop by.

She wouldn’t find out without asking, she supposed. The lawyer’s office was in the ground floor of a square, solid brick building right on Main Street. Evans and Son, Attorneys-at-Law, the sign read.

Lainey pulled open the door and found herself in a wide entryway, bare except for a mounted moose head that stared down at her rather sourly. She hustled through a second door into a conventional receptionist’s space. Four or five padded chairs sat empty against the wall. Two identical doors apparently led to the offices of Evans Senior and Evans Junior.

The receptionist, a gray-haired female with an unrelentingly stern face, turned from watering the philodendron that overflowed from the corner of her desk.