Dark Hollow Road (Taryn's Camera Book 3) Read online

  Now Matt stood in front of Lindy, just inches away, his own gun raised in front of him. Whereas Lindy’s hand was still wavering, however, his was rock-steady. “Put it down,” he commanded softly, a mixture of steel and honey in his voice. “Put the gun down, or I’ll shoot.”

  She opened her mouth, an ugly red slash, to protest but before she could speak he cut her off. “Do it,” he barked, a tone Taryn had never heard him use.

  Lindy cackled, her bright red lips black in the firelight. “If you shoot me you’ll go to jail.” Her voice was weak, though, uncertain. Taryn knew, then, that she was crumbling and fast. She’d lost and for an instant looked like the little girl she must’ve once been.

  “No, I won’t. Put it down now.” Matt fired then, but at the ground near her feet. The noise caused her to panic, to jump. The gun fell from her hand and in one movement Matt caught it, put on the safety, kicked it out of the way, and grabbed onto her in a tight vise. She barely struggled against him as he placed his own gun in the waist band of his pants, her frame lost against his. She collapsed against him then, and clung to his chest. Matt being Matt, though he gripped her with all his strength, he gently stroked her hair in a tender gesture that caused her to sob.

  Taryn picked up the gun and held it gingerly out in front of her. As the sounds of sirens began to fill the air, both Eric and Brad began to make a run for it. Evan was too quick for Eric, however, and threw to him to ground, just as someone else made a beeline for Brad. Neither put up much of a struggle.

  Emma, pale and shaking, fell to the ground in a ragdoll heap.

  Epilogue

  “You still want to finish out the semester?” Matt asked.

  Taryn looked up from her laptop and smiled. “Yes, yes I do. I feel better now. Cheyenne is at rest. Everyone who should be in jail is. Emma’s at home with her parents. And I keep getting emails from students begging me not to leave. I have no idea why, because I think I’m a pretty crappy teacher, but oh well.”

  “You were worried that the EDS was what was causing your visions,” Matt reminded her. He sat in the corner of the bedroom in the rocking chair, his feet propped up on the footstool. They’d barely touched since the party, both of them for different reasons.

  “Yeah?”

  “It can’t be. I saw what you saw. I felt that energy around you. So did others. You’re sick, but you’re not crazy.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Taryn chuckled.

  “I’m sorry about your costume,” he apologized again. “I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly.”

  “Oh, please. I like it a little rough, remember?” she tried to joke but it fell flat. Matt hadn’t laughed a lot since that night. His unshakable world had been rocked, and he was still having difficulty acclimating himself to a world where someone admitted to setting up a rape and death and held a gun on Taryn. “And anyway, where the hell did you get a gun?”

  “After your job at Windwood Farm. I promised myself I’d protect you, however I could. And I will. I don’t like guns, but if that’s what it takes then I’ll do it. I took lessons and everything.”

  Of course Matt would.

  “The club they formed, the one to supposedly solve Cheyenne’s disappearance? It was Lindy’s idea. A way to keep up with the investigation, to know what was going on. Maybe throw people off track. Emma and Mike didn’t know,” Taryn shook her head sadly.

  “And the guy who supposedly drove her home?”

  “Innocent bystander,” Taryn said. “Well, maybe not so innocent. He was supplying the party favors. Jesus, Matt. These kids, and they were kids, were into hard stuff. This isn’t the marijuana and beer of our youth. Okay, the beer and marijuana of my youth,” she added when he scowled, “this was heroin, cocaine, meth. When the hell did that happen? When did the country kids give up skinny-dipping, horseback riding, and Alan Jackson and trade it in for needles and gang rape? I mean, my God!”

  “It’s an interstate town. Easy access for these kids. Bad people looking to make a profit. Times have changed, Taryn,” he said sadly and both nodded their heads in bewilderment.

  “I have felt like I was born into the wrong time period for a long time. I just didn’t realize how out of touch I am,” Taryn said.

  “I was always a future-looking kind of guy,” he agreed. “But I think I’m starting to fall over onto your side of the line. Are we getting that old? I feel a little sorry for all of them.”

  “Yeah, well, I feel a little sorry for the house,” she admitted.

  Matt laughed and then realized she was serious. “How? Why?”

  Taryn shrugged, feeling self-conscious. “I don’t know. I guess because it was built in a more innocent time, probably had happy memories of seeing a family live there, kids grow up there. And now it’s a crime scene, a witness to something horrible it doesn’t understand. That’s just as much a part of its memory now as the sad stuff.”

  “Yeah, well, look on the bright side,” he snorted. “Maybe something just as bad happened in it fifty years ago. You don’t know!”

  She laughed then, the first good laugh she’d had in a week.

  “I don’t get it,” Matt confided at last. “I mean, they were graduating. High school was over. They could move on with their lives. Go in different directions. It sounds like this girl just got jealous and offed her competition in some petty-girl drama.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Taryn conceded, “but I think there’s more to it. Lindy said she was trapped. This town has held her in for so long–all her life. She was even enrolled in college in the same place. Cheyenne represented that sameness, that entrapment. Everything she hated about here.”

  “Then why not just leave?” Matt suggested. “Go to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville? There are other places.”

  “I don’t think some people can,” Taryn said slowly. “When a place is all you know you get comfortable, feel safe. Leaving is hard. You hate it, but it’s got its arms wrapped around you so tightly you don’t know how to wriggle out. It’s hard to admit that the things that are holding you back are in your mind. Sometimes you need to something to blame, something external. And everyone talks about getting out, moving on, seeing the world. But actually loading up on the bus, that’s a different story.”

  “Well, and then there’s the fact that everyone involved had to have a few loose screws,” Matt sighed.

  “And then there’s that.”

  They were quiet now, and Taryn leaned back on the bed, her legs stretched out in front of her. She’d made an appointment with her doctor in Nashville. She’d see him around the first of December. She’d signed up on a few online support groups and was shocked to find that little things she’d dismissed for years were actually a part of the EDS. But not the ghosts. Those were not in her head. Those were real.

  It was no wonder Cheyenne’s spirit had been so agitated, so hell-bent on scaring the wits out of Taryn. She’d been a teenage girl, raging with hormones, killed in a violent act. Hopefully, though, her spirit was at rest now. Taryn hadn’t seen anything since the burial.

  Something had changed in Thelma’s and Jeff’s faces. There had been an almost transparent veil of grayness covering them before; now they were brighter, more vibrant. Taryn herself recognize that veil as one she’d worn herself, a veil of grief, of yearning, of torture. “We can try to move forward now,” Thelma whispered at the funeral. “I don’t know how, but at least we know now. At least we know.”

  The town was shocked, rocked to the core. They’d been prepared to accept Travis as a kidnapper, or a killer. But never Lindy, and never the boys. Eric had been in ROTC, Brad a football player who had taken the team to regionals. Travis had kept quiet during the storm that followed. As far as Taryn knew, nobody had reached out to him. She doubted they would. If she knew how things worked, she’d bet that the people in the community would carry on and pretend like nothing happened, slowly bringing him back into the fold until it was all just a bad memory.

  “Did you decide a
nything about that job?” Matt asked, breaking her thoughts.

  “The one back in Kentucky?” She shook her head to clear her mind. She felt herself drifting a lot these days, getting lost in her own mind. “I think I’m going to take it. They said I can start after Christmas. Should take about two months. I’m doing all the buildings they’re wanting to rebuild and renovate.”

  “I’ll have to go back to work soon,” Matt said carefully.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Something passed between them then, something indescribable. Matt walked over to her and knelt down at her side. He smelled of Ivory soap and mint-scented shaving cream.

  “She didn’t have to do what she did,” he said softly. “She had a way out. She could’ve left.”

  Then he reached out and touched her cheek, a feather against her skin. And somewhere in the whirring of the dehumidifier, she heard music, the saddest song she’d ever heard. She could almost sing along with the words.

  Acknowledgements

  Although I did quite a bit of research on missing persons’ cases for Dark Hollow Road, the story is from my own imagination. Still, there are several stories that stuck with me, especially the cases of Brookelyn Farthing and Brittanee Drexel–two young women who are still missing.

  My own young son passed away in 2010 so I felt a connection with these parents who are still hanging in limbo, not knowing for sure what happened to their children. And I can say, in all honesty, some of their stories have kept me up at night.

  Special thanks to my husband for reading over the first drafts and listening to me talk incessantly about the story; to my beta readers for their feedback, and to the Ehlers-Danlos community for their continued support. For more information, visit:

  Help Find Brittannee Drexel: http://helpfindbrittaneedrexel.com/

  Missing: Brookelyn Farthing: https://www.facebook.com/MissingBrookelynFarthing

  The Charley Project: Rachel Cooke: http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/cooke_rachel.html

  The Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation:

  http://www.ednf.org/

  Sneak Peek at Shaker Town, Book 4 in Taryn’s Camera

  Prologue

  The water below was brown and muddy, swollen from the rain the night before. It rose above the creek bank and lapped at the poplar and spruce trees, threatening to drag them down to its murky depths. Off in the distance the bees buzzed furiously, awake and busy after a long winter. Clusters of daffodils grew in the sunny spots, their bright, yellow faces peeping up from the brown, neglected clumps of dirt.

  The sobs that escaped from parched lips were dry now, beaten. Most of the tears were long gone and what were left were raspy and slid down tender cheeks, red and chapped from the salt and wind. It was difficult to believe a person could have anything left, after spending most of the night in sorrow.

  Loose branches had torn at clothes, leaving then hanging from the body in shreds in some places. A small puddle of blood pooled on the ground and dried, staining the earth with its vulgar shade of red.

  They would be coming soon; someone would be there to coax the lost soul back. There would be murmuring, praying, but very little nurturing. What happened when the person was beyond redemption? Beyond saving?

  There, caught in the spring breeze, was the light trickle of voices–mostly men. They would be irritated to leave their work, to search for someone who didn’t want to be found. But it was their duty and they’d see to it.

  There wasn’t much time now.

  The rocks in hand were heavy and caused tired hands to ache. But they weren’t as heavy as the stones in the pocket. Those were the important ones.

  Up on the ridge, in the tree line, the voices grew closer. Now the outline of bodies were visible. They’d be there soon, just as soon as they caught the quick flash of fabric in the naked tree branches.

  Before another voice could call out, the world disappeared in a flurry and there was nothing but the feeling of soaring through the air, like the bird who sought a taste of freedom. And then, the pull of the water–sweet, dark, and cold.

  Coming Summer 2015

  About the Author

  Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the author of several books including the first book in her paranormal mystery trilogy Windwood Farm. She lives in eastern Kentucky with her husband and two children.

  Rebecca’s other books include:

  Windwood Farm (Book 1 in Taryn’s Camera)

  Griffith Tavern (Book 2 in Taryn’s Camera)

  A Summer of Fear

  Four Months of Terror

  Haunted Estill County

  More Tales from Haunted Estill County

  Coping with Grief: The Anti-Guide to Infant Loss

  Visit her website at www.rebeccaphoward.net and sign up for her newsletter to receive free books, special offers, and news. Those subscribed to the newsletter always receive the news first and often get asked to be beta readers!