Hannah Alexander - Hideaway

Cheyenne couldn’t believe she was actually considering it.

“You’re in a rut here,” Ardis continued. “And the rut keeps getting deeper, especially now. Down at our place, there’s a dock on the water just right for fishing. You could get involved in some of the community activities, or you could hole up and read, listen to audio books, take a trip or two into Branson. The drive’s about forty minutes over winding roads. You could be in Springfield in about an hour and a half, maybe less if they’ve got the new road completed.”

Cheyenne studied the faded green-and-yellow plastic key chain, turned it over in her hand. “This place is close to town?”

“If you want to call Hideaway a town. There’s a general store open all year long, and I heard they’ve got a nice new boat dock, which should bring in some tourist trade. There’s a mechanic and a café, a school and a beautiful little bed-and-breakfast down by the water.” Ardis paused, fingers linked around her knees. “What do you think?”

The thought appealed. Very much. Cheyenne had to admit that the name “Hideaway” drew her. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to hide away.

Dane found Blaze sitting on the front porch steps, tossing pebbles over the wooden railing.

Blaze looked up at him. “Somebody’s wicked around here.”

Dane sat beside him. “That kind of thing has happened before.”

“They killed an animal before?”

“No. They’ve broken into the general store, damaged a few vegetables, knocked some boxes off the shelves.”

“When did that happen?”

“Couple years ago.”

“Anything else?”

“A tire slashed on our pickup, a hole in the canoe, maybe a year ago.”

“You make somebody mad?”

“Maybe a few people,” Dane said.

“Just because you had this ranch with all us delinquents?”

“You aren’t delinquents.”

“The mayor thinks so.”

“How did you guess?”

“Not hard, once you learn to read the signs. You know, like trying to get your ranch hands in trouble.”

“Speaking of reading, has yours progressed lately?” Dane asked.

Blaze tossed another pebble, shaking his head. “We’re learning about the minerals and stuff in science right now. I can look at a rock across the room and tell the teacher all about its composition, but that don’t work. He wants me to write it down.”

Dane selected one of the pebbles Blaze had accumulated for tossing, held it up to the sunlight. “This one’s calcite.”

Blaze picked up two others. “This here’s dolomite, and this one’s chert.”

Dane nodded.

“You show me a globe of the world, and I’ll tell you pretty much every country.”

“Then why are you flunking geography?”

Blaze tossed another pebble and didn’t reply.

“I know a retired teacher over in Cape Fair who worked with children with learning disabilities.”

Silence again.

“I’d like you to meet with him,” Dane said.

“You don’t think my dad tried all that, over and over again?”

Dane leaned back against the railing, frustrated.

Blaze shook his head. “It’s like my brain puts up this invisible armor every time I try.”

“Then we need to find a way past that armor.”

“So the mayor thinks I blazed the boat and killed the cat?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You changed it first. We were talking about the fire, remember? About how the mayor thinks I did it. I think he called me the black kid with the stupid mop-head hairdo.”

Dane winced. There was nothing wrong with Blaze’s hearing. “I think you made a poor choice for a nickname.”

“You know what’s weird? Ramsay Barlow and I are buddies at school. I guess his daddy don’t like it.”

“You let me handle his daddy.”

Cheyenne wrote a final check, signed it, then slid it into the envelope addressed to the local rescue mission. It was her pet project—and the reason she still lived on the third floor of an apartment building without an elevator, still drove a four-year-old Lumina sedan.

All her bills were paid up for the next three months. The mission would be supplied with food. She had ample money in her debit card account.

Everything would be okay.

Then why did she feel so frightened?

She picked up the telephone and hit speed dial. She got a recording.

“Hello, Mom and Dad? It’s Chey. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be at my apartment for a few weeks.” Could she do this? Just take off? “I’ll call you later with a contact number, in case you need me for anything. I love you.”

As she hung up, she saw that her hand was shaking.

Maybe she did need this time off.

The nightmares had haunted her sleep for so long, she had trouble closing her eyes at night. She seldom even slept here anymore, preferring the cramped quarters of the call room, with the overhead speakers blaring every so often, just to remind her she wasn’t alone.

Strange that this apartment triggered the dreams more often than the actual place where Susan had died. But Susan’s signature was stamped all over this place—her special, decorative touches, her color schemes with those just right shades, the deep violet-blue of tanzanite, alexandrite, rose quartz. Susan’s favorite colors. And Susan had stenciled the wisteria around Cheyenne’s living room doorway.

Cheyenne pulled a suitcase from the closet in the spare bedroom. Ardis was right. It was time to escape the memories before they took over completely.

On Sunday night Dane Gideon wandered through the upstairs hallway of his sprawling house. He overheard Tyler and Jinx arguing about synonyms versus antonyms through the closed door of the bedroom they shared at the end of the hallway. Tyler had a test tomorrow, and Jinx was helping him study.

Dane knocked softly. “Keep it down in there, guys. Willy and Jason have to get up early to milk.”

He heard a boyish chuckle, then silence. Good, the atmosphere around here was calming a little. The boys had been upset all weekend about the vandalism Friday night, and especially about the fact that some of the townsfolk showed signs of blaming Blaze for the whole thing.

Dane saw light coming from beneath the door of the room Willy and Blaze shared. He knocked. No answer. He opened and peered inside. Willy lay sacked out on the top bunk with all his clothes on. Blaze’s bed was as pristine as when he’d made it this morning.

Dane switched off the light and closed the door, then went downstairs to check the kitchen.

Empty.

He peered out the window toward the barn. No lights glowed, but that didn’t mean much. Blaze could be sitting there in the dark, talking to a cow or a chicken. The kid had an interesting emotional link with the animals. It was as if humans had let him down, and now he preferred the company of other species.

Dane sometimes felt the same way. Not that he ever resorted to talking to the cows except when it pertained to their milk production. He would never sit in the barn and spill his guts to Gordy.

Blaze was different. The chaos that often seemed to reign in this house—with so many male teenagers clamoring for attention—obviously stressed the kid at times. Up until his father’s death, Gavin Farmer had lived quietly, assisting his dad in the veterinary practice, avoiding extracurricular activities at school. Dane knew he craved solitude.

Switching on the outside floods, Dane picked up a flashlight from the end of the cabinet. If Blaze was in the barn, fine, but he tended to wander from the property. Once, Dane had found him on the island in the middle of the lake, fishing from the cliffs with Red Meyer, an eighty-five-year-old neighbor across the lake who was like a grandfather to the boys. Another time he’d been out on the highway, trying to rescue a dog that had been hit by a car.