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Updated: Aug 7th, 2008 - 14:13:11 |
Beneath A Stalker's Moon
Chapter One
Crisp October air settled on Katherine Shelby as she climbed from behind the wheel of her aunt’s silver Saturn. Brown leaves drenched in late afternoon sunshine crackled beneath her boots until an inexplicable chill of fear incited her beeline for the wide porch. She threw a look toward the autumn-hued mountains surrounding Sugar Cove, Tennessee, pulled a key from her jeans, unlocked the door, rushed through and closed it. Fear failed to dissipate when the door was again bolted. It had deepened when a glance at color-splashed peaks and foothills, part of her since childhood, didn’t reassure her that all was well.
Instead, agitation, or her silent alarm as she called it, grew.
The ride home from town had been spent with furtive looks to the rearview mirror and side roads, watching for anything out of the ordinary. All she saw look back was her own brown eyes, in a pale face framed by long chestnut hair.
But she knew.
He was out there. He was near and he was watching.
Waiting.
Two women had turned up dead in the past three months and she didn't intend to be next. Living almost a mile outside town with her brother and sixty-three-year-old aunt didn't go far to ease her fears. Like everyone else in the Cove, those two believed the women fell victim to accidents. In August, the first woman’s loss of footing on Hawk Ridge sent her plummeting to her death, or so authorities claimed. In September, when the second woman was found in Sugar Branch Creek, Katherine got her initial jolt of uneasiness. Unidentifiable uneasiness that grew into wariness, which evolved into constantly watching over her shoulder. Her return to the quiet mountains after six years in metropolitan Chicago hadn’t brought the peace she’d expected.
Jack, the dear comfort her younger brother had always proved to be, simply rolled his eyes and told her she was paranoid. Aunt Hooch patted her hand and muttered unintelligible words Katherine suspected were agreement with Jack.
Katherine leaned back against the windowed door and briefly closed her eyes. Her brother, ever the hustler, had even offered to protect her from her bogeyman for a fee. He'd had the nerve to smile when he suggested, "A cut-rate family fee. I'll keep your imaginary fiend at bay at the same time I find out whether someone really is stealing Aunt Hooch's happy juice or she's just so happy she forgets how much she polished off."
But this was no imagined fiend or booze thief. Katherine felt his presence, his evil, knew it was now aimed at her and that he wouldn’t stop until she became victim three.
She screamed when someone banged on the door, then whirled to do...she didn’t know what.
Her brother glared through the window. “I don’t have my key.”
With one hand clenched against her thundering heart she unlocked the door to allow Jack, his dark hair windblown and his cheeks slightly red, to enter.
Blue eyes showed his irritation and he raised one eyebrow while he closed the door. "I see you made it home all right."
Her heart still thudding in her chest, Katherine headed down the hall for the living room, irritated that a small thing like Jack knocking could give her a very large fright. She stripped off her denim jacket and tossed it into Hooch’s old rocker, threw her keys on top of it and continued on to the kitchen, noting with surprise that Jack was right behind her.
She took a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator and two glasses from an oak cabinet. She shot Jack a withering look while she poured herself tea. "Like you care. Like you believe what I've been saying."
"I do care," he stated, but shook his head when she indicated did he want tea. "That you got home okay," he qualified after she put away the pitcher and extra glass. "Which is almost more than I can say for myself. I'll have a beer, and if you're smart you’ll pass up the tea, too."
"What are you talking about?" she asked sourly as Jack pulled a can of beer from the refrigerator's bottom drawer. "Oh, no!" she cried, smacking her forehead.
"Oh, yes," he responded. "You were supposed to pick me up on your way home. But when I saw the silver speed blur pass the auto shop I bummed a ride with Andy. I need to talk to you about a double date I set up for tonight with another guide.”
"Jack, I'm sorry,” she offered, silently chastising herself for forgetting him. “But, well, when I left town hall I got this odd feeling and wanted to get home to make sure everything was okay. And," she added, “when I got out of the car I got a strong feeling that something bad was close.” She straightened. “Wait a minute,” she said sharply. “I told you before that I have zero interest in dating a whitewater guide; double date, blind date or otherwise. I prefer adults.”
He ignored her pointed barbs and snorted in derision. "You and Hooch and those odd feelings. Didn't your odd feeling remind you that Hoochie’s giving a lesson this afternoon? Isn’t that why the two of you swapped cars, so her Saturn didn’t ride the back road bumps?” He sipped his beer, and then nodded at Katherine’s untouched tea. "She made that last night. To soothe her soul after the lesson."
Katherine snickered. "Sammy Otis?" When Jack grinned his acknowledgement Katherine laughed. Aunt Hooch gave the sixteen-year-old lessons on the five-string banjo whenever his family could scrape up the money. Hooch considered Sammy the worst picker she'd ever heard and she needed a “soul-soothing” amount of "calming tea" after every lesson with him.
Katherine quelled her laughter and dumped her tea down the drain, but waved away the beer Jack offered. “I’m taking a fast drive to Sammy’s, just to make sure Hoochie’s okay.” Her shrug answered his sigh. “Think whatever you want. I can’t shake this feeling—“
A screech of tires cut her short but before either of them could react the front door opened and slammed.
“Cripes a’mighty,” announced Aunt Hooch. She walked into the living room and propped the black leather banjo case against the side of the long stone fireplace, then strode into the kitchen. One strap of her faded denim coveralls hung from her shoulder and the sleeves of her red jersey pullover were pushed to her elbows. At sixty-three, Katherine considered her aunt still a very handsome woman, one whose youthful beauty had brought every male running for decades. Deep blue eyes frowned at Katherine and Jack from an unlined face while long lean fingers pushed wisps of salt-and-pepper hair back into a long brunette braid.
“What a moron,” Hooch pronounced.
Both Jack and Katherine took a hasty step out of the way when their aunt reached for the refrigerator door. They remained silent while Hooch poured tea into a tall glass, her frowning eyes darkening above a scowl. A ladderback chair scraped the plank floor when Hooch pulled it out. She plopped her butt into the chair and her glass onto the table, retrieving with her index finger what sloshed from the glass.
“Who’s that, Aunt Hooch?” Katherine asked politely, trying not to laugh at the diatribe she knew was imminent. “Sammy?”
Hooch sucked the spilled tea from her finger, glaring first at Katherine, then at Jack. “No. Sammy’s just a musical idiot. Nice kid, but a musical idiot. I’m talking about the moron that almost ran me off of Elk Gap curve.” When Katherine and Jack gasped, she took a long draw on the tea. “Do you know what that would have done to Grandpa’s banjo? Moron,” she said with finality before draining her glass.
Jack sighed and sat at the table across from his aunt. “Not to mention to you and to Katherine’s car. You didn’t have any calming tea before your lesson, did you, Hoochie?”
Hooch skewered him with a look. “No. This moron came out of nowhere and tried to pass me right on the curve. More like tried to push me off the edge.”
Alarmed, Katherine hugged her aunt, but kept her nose clear of the tea. “Thank God you’re okay,” she exclaimed, at the same time sending Jack a See? I told you! look. “Traffic is nearly as bad now as in the summer, what with the spectacular mountain foliage and dozens of advertised harvest festivals.”
Hooch sniffed in disdain. “You mean all the last minute money grubbing.” She smiled at Jack but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I hear the river’s running.”
He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Where did you hear that?”
“Doesn’t matter where. Is it true?”
“A couple of other guides and I are planning some whitewater runs down the Big Pigeon around Halloween, that’s all. There’s supposed to be a full moon and—“
Hooch jumped from her seat and her hands shook so badly she gripped the back of the chair. “Don’t do it, Jack. I’ve asked you, now I’m ordering you. Don’t do it.”
Jack rose and embraced his aunt. Katherine was startled to see Hooch, always in control, tremble. Jack avoided Katherine’s gaze when he cradled Hooch’s head and stroked her hair.
“What’s going on?” Katherine asked. “Why don’t you want Jack on the river?”
Jack inhaled, then blew out in visible exasperation. “It isn’t me she doesn’t want on the river, Katherine. It’s you.”
Bewildered, Katherine asked, “What in the world are you two talking about?”
Jack let go of Hooch and raised both his hands. “Why don’t we get this out into the open once and for all?”
For a second, time stood still and from the anger on her aunt’s face, Katherine thought her aunt would slap her brother. “You’ve never been a believer in the Sight, Jack, but at this point I don’t give a flying—“
“Aunt Hooch,” Katherine interjected, knowing her aunt’s word choice. “What’s this about?”
Jack folded his arms and his voiced edged sarcasm. “Hooch believes I’ll take you out on a whitewater run and you’ll die.”
Incredulous, Katherine stared at her brother. “What?”
Jack shrugged, but irritation flashed across his face. “Kind of the same way you think someone started stalking you out of thin air. Hooch thinks you’ll die soon in the river. By my hand, no less. As if anyone could drag you near any river.”
“Is this true?” Katherine directed to her aunt, who watched Jack with obvious annoyance.
“Not quite,” Hooch said. “I don’t believe anyone is after you,” she stated bluntly, “and I won’t indulge your over-active imagination. But my vision was quite clear.”
Flabbergasted, Katherine yelled, “Now wait a minute. Both of you.” She took turns glaring at one to the other, then settled on her aunt. “You won’t...how did you put it...indulge my feeling that I’m being watched by unseen eyes. But we should accept your vision that Jack will kill me on the river?” She turned to Jack. “And you...you’re annoyed because someone is concerned for my life?”
“Of course not!” he scoffed. “But I don’t intend to not run the river based on what Hoochie claims she ‘saw’ after three pitchers of her special brew. Give me a break, here, Katherine. And because you have nothing to offer about your so-called stalker other than a feeling, the only one who thinks there’s someone watching you is...well...you.”
Crossing her arms, Katherine fought to keep anger in check. “It wasn’t more than twenty minutes ago I told you I raced home because I thought something happened to Aunt Hooch. And something nearly had. Explain that.”
“Oh, come on,” he started. “That’s not even close to what you said. Besides, the number one cause of death in the Smokies is traffic accidents and you know it. A person almost run off a mountain road happens a dozen times a day. Every day.”
“She was in my car, Jack. And I think that’s why I got the feeling. It may have been intended as an attack on me.”
Jack threw his hands in the air. “You two are nuts. End of story.” He grabbed his beer and headed to the other end of the kitchen, for the back steps to the second floor corridor. “Let me know whether the vision or the feeling wins. In the meantime, there’s tonight’s double date I tried to tell you about. Caroline Rayburn invited me...um...the four of us, to dinner and our ride will be here shortly. You can have the shower as soon as I’m finished.”
“Forget it,” Katherine called to him as he disappeared to the second floor. She faced her aunt. “How does he get so many girls chasing him?” she demanded. “He’s always broke, his car never runs and yet he has an endless supply of female admirers.”
Hooch’s face softened as she gazed toward the now empty staircase. “He’s just like the whitewater he loves, that’s how. Wild. Untamable. A challenge.”
Katherine sniffed. “Immature is the more accurate word for Jack. I can’t believe he thinks I’d actually go out with one of his guide buddies again. Remember the date I let him talk me into? Well, let’s just say that one had a frat party mentality and a wardrobe to match it. Never again.”
Katherine flipped on the kitchen light switch against the growing twilight. Twin lamps came to life on opposite walls.
“Your brother loves you, Katherine. No matter how young and wild he seems, he’s really not. His heart and his head are both in the right place, believe me.”
“His heart, maybe.” Katherine made a face. “His head is a different story. He’s got to get a real job, Aunt Hooch. He can’t run whitewater until he’s old and gray, no matter what he thinks. Why did he bother going to college? His degree sits idle while he plays river guide. He’s twenty-six pushing fourteen, with women eagerly falling all over him from every direction. You and I did everything right and we end up alone.”
Hooch bridled. “Just whoa right there. You forget I turned down three proposals, so I’m alone by choice. You were pretty much married to running that Chicago restaurant the last six years.”
“Either way it works out the same,” Katherine stated. As the sound of the shower reached the kitchen, she sighed and raised her gaze to the ceiling. “Jack gets picked up at his door and taken to dinner and we have leftover tuna on toast. Go figure.”
Without warning the hair on the back of her neck rose and ice seeped its way up her spine. She spun toward the kitchen window but all she saw was the sun’s final slide behind red and gold hills, leaving shadows of night that thickened by the second. The autumn wind had gone eerily still.
But in her mind Katherine heard his call: Come out, come out, wherever you are. Hawk Ridge. Sugar Branch Creek. You.
Katherine screamed, “Jack”, but was unable to move, unable to tear her gaze from the deepening night beyond the window. She screamed again and Hooch grabbed her just as Jack raced down the staircase holding a towel around his dripping body.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded.
Katherine could only maintain her terrified stare out the window so Hooch offered a terse, “I think someone’s outside.”
Jack’s gaze followed hers to the window, then he ran to the kitchen door and flung it open.
“Do you greet all visitors like this?” asked a deep voice.
“Tracker!” Jack exclaimed in annoyed relief. “You're early. What the hell were you doing? Looking in the window?”
“What?” came the puzzled response.
“Come on in,” Jack said, and still holding the towel with one hand, stepped back to allow the visitor entrance around the water puddled at his feet. “Next time just knock so my sister doesn’t screech me out of the shower.”
“What are you talking about?” the man asked as Jack shut the door behind him.
At six-foot-one, Jack was tall, but the green-eyed blonde man he’d called Tracker had him by two inches. Both men were muscular and just over two hundred pounds.
Katherine gasped when the man turned toward her and not just because he was gorgeous, tanned and well-muscled. “You were at town hall this afternoon. Did you follow me home?”
The man raised his hands in protest and threw Jack a startled look before he answered Katherine. “Now wait a minute. I was at town hall, yes, at the same Municipal Alliance meeting where you were. But I didn’t follow you or anyone else home. I’m driving on this double date. And I did not look in any window,” he stated emphatically.
“Then she saw you go by it,” Jack answered as he tied the towel at the side of his waist. “Scared the hell out of her.”
“I didn’t pass this window. I came around back from the other side, but you opened the door before I could knock.”
Letting go of the tight knot he’d tied, Jack raised an eyebrow, then used both hands to wipe water back to his hair from his forehead. “Katherine?”
“I didn’t say I saw anyone,” she said defensively. “I heard someone...call me.” She kept her gaze on the man Jack called Tracker. “And you were by the woods from where it came.”
“Call you?” Jack asked her, then addressed his friend. “Who else is outside?”
“I didn’t see anyone,” Tracker answered. “Or hear anything.”
Jack’s irritation was plain on his face, though his voice was calm. “Hooch? Hear anything? See anyone?”
Hooch held his gaze. “I believe her, Jack. I saw it on her face. I thought she saw someone, but it was his voice. And I’d say she heard it clearly.”
“Heard what?” he yelled.
Katherine didn’t feel as composed as she sounded. “He called to me, Jack. From nearby. The killer is taunting me. He recited part of a child’s rhyme, then said ‘Hawk Ridge. Sugar Branch Creek. You.’” She held Tracker’s gaze with an accusing look, one that Jack didn’t miss.
There was flat silence in the kitchen as Jack stared, in turn, from Katherine to Hooch. Finally, he grinned at Tracker. “Welcome to the nut house.” He put his hand on Katherine’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, his voice light. “Katherine, if you’re willing, this is your date, Tracker Landry.”
Katherine ’s jaw tightened that Jack still ignored her refusal, but her unwillingness to date guides slightly ebbed. Couldn’t have anything to do with the hunk in front of her.
But Tracker was giving Katherine a strange look. “Actually, Katherine, I’d like to know more about what you think you heard outside just now. Becky Landry was my sister and I don’t believe she fell from Hawk Ridge. I think she was pushed.”
Instantly on her guard, Katherine matched gazes with Tracker and her upraised hand silenced a visibly startled Jack before he could speak. “What makes you think I’d be interested in your sister’s...let's say accident?”
When Tracker took a step toward her, without warning his rugged face, blonde hair and green eyes were jerked from her vision, replaced by vivid images and sounds that suddenly slammed into her mind.
The pleasant voice of an unseen male sang so softly Katherine couldn’t understand the words, then she recognized it as constant repetition of a children’s rhyme.
The lyrical, cooling sound of a cascading waterfall accompanied the pretty young brunette high on a mountain trail, her backpack, tan shorts and top and climbing boots sharp contrast to the dense, lush green forest that paralleled the trail. She was climbing...climbing...climbing, while a hawk glided gracefully, wings spread, in the cloudless blue sky above her. Pebbles loosened beneath her hurried steps and tumbled down the steep gravel trail. No, she wasn’t climbing; she was running from whoever continued to chant. The girl halted, then made her way onto a small, narrow ledge of a walkway, half a mile above jagged rocks and a lazy silver ribbon of river. It was a dangerous walkway crossed safely only at a snail’s pace. With a cry of fright, the girl turned and Katherine fully saw her tear-streaked face, dirtied and bloodied from rock scrapes when she’d stumbled trying to escape her pursuer. Her dark eyes were terrified; she knew her desperate flight had been futile. The chanting became louder until it stopped and the unseen male stated: “You knew I’d find you again.” The girl recoiled and viciously fought a long, smooth stick that tried to force her off balance while she took precarious backward steps, slow deliberate steps toward the other side and safety. Seconds later her foot slipped, but before she could regain balance the stick thrust out and jostled her toward the edge. A frantic stumble sideways ended with her wild attempt to reclaim a foothold. Seconds later she clawed empty air.
Her scream echoed through the wooded trails and blue skies of Hawk Ridge even as she fell to the rocks far below. And a pleasant male voice faded into the background as he walked away chanting ‘come out, come out, wherever you are’.
Strong arms caught Katherine when she collided with darkness.
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