Behind The Veil

“Do you want a bear?” Jonah asked Kat. “I pitch a mean fastball.”

“Let’s see. A bear or a beer? I’ll take a beer.”

“Aw,” the hawker groaned. “She’s only kidding. Every woman wants a teddy bear. Or how about one of these cute pink cats? Come on, ladies. Help me out here.”

A large drop of rain plopped on the tip of Becca’s nose, the first of the evening. “Looks like our luck is running out,” she said, quickly forgetting the hawker, who was already rescuing his best prizes from the unprotected edge of his booth.

“Head for Wheels,” Jonah said, indicating the biker bar down by the wharf. “It’s the closest cover.”

The four of them took off running, leaving the lit area of the carnival behind and heading toward the wharf as the rain grew harder. They cut over to Waterfront Avenue by dashing down the street between the ice cream parlor and the fortune-telling stand, both of which had closed for the evening.

A gust of wind coming off of Raven’s Cove blew rain into Becca’s face and whipped her clothes against her body before they finally reached the overhang in front of Wheels. They stomped the mud from their shoes and pushed through the door of the bar to a loud twanging of guitar music from the aging jukebox.

“Tables are all taken,” a buxom blond waitress said as she sashayed by them, “but there’s room at the bar.”

“The bar’s fine with me,” Jonah said, “as long as the beer’s cold. How about you ladies?”

“I can handle that,” Becca said.

“I’ve been known to straddle a stool,” Kat agreed, slipping out of her wet jacket and tossing it over a hook by the door. The others followed suit as a couple of guys moved over to give them four seats together. Becca and Kat took the inside seats so they could talk to each other over the music and loud voices.

The middle-aged bartender wiped his hands on a stained apron and leaned over the counter. “Looks like you got caught in the rain. You must have been at the carnival.”

“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “Poor planning on our part, Jake. If we’d started at the far end and worked our way back, we’d have been at the car by the time the rain hit. As it was, we were at the end by the wharf.”

“Well, at least you got to see it all. Not that it changes much from year to year. What’ll it be?”

They gave him their orders, and Becca and Larry showed their IDs. Jonah and Kat didn’t bother. Jonah’s cousin had owned the bar across the street before he died, and both Jonah and Kat had been in Wheels often enough that the bartender knew they were legal age.

Becca propped her booted feet on the foot rail and let her gaze scan the dim bar while Larry excused himself to go to the men’s room.

The wharf area always intrigued her. The environment stripped away pretense and social niceties. What you saw was what you got, and no one bothered to mince words just to spare someone’s feelings. Like the two men who were sitting a few seats down from them. She wasn’t eavesdropping, but their gruff voices carried easily.

“I’m not afraid of no damn ghost. Not after what I face day in and day out. I say if that Leary fellow rises from his grave, put him on a fishing boat and send him out into a raging storm. One giant wave, and the man will go running back to his safe spot six feet under.”

“Well, someone killed that girl. Matt Jackson was the first cop on the scene and his old lady told mine it was as gory a sight he’d ever seen. Blood everywhere. Hardly had a drop left in her.”

A guy in faded jeans and a worn leather jacket banged his fork on the table. “Would you guys keep it down? Some people are trying to eat in here.”

Kat waited until the bartender set the beers in front of them. “What is this about a murder?”

He leaned in close. “A young woman, late teens or early twenties. Some boys out on their mud bikes found the body in the bushes off of Old Mountain Road just before dark. The police are trying to keep a lid on it until they find out more about it, but you can’t keep anything quiet around this town. You know that.”

“Did they identify her?”

“Not as far as I know. She’d been dead awhile. That’s all I heard.”

Becca felt herself getting sick and wished she hadn’t eaten the chili-soaked hot dog at the carnival.

The man two seats down from Becca broke into the conversation. “It’s that Bryson fellow that done it.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that when you have no proof,” Kat warned.

“I got all the proof I need. The man sits up there in his castle all day, supposedly brooding over some lost lover. Then he comes snooping around town at night. I’ve seen him plenty of times. If he wasn’t up to no good, he’d show himself in the daytime like a real man. He did it. I’d bet my Harley on it.”

Jake slid a foamy beer toward him. “Your Harley? Put up a night with your woman, and I’ll take your bet.”

“Marie wouldn’t have you, you beer-splattered buzzard.” He took a long drag on his beer. “So are you on the side of the beast?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Jake answered, “but I don’t think the man’s dangerous. He’s just a little addled, that’s all. You’d be, too, if you lost your fiancée the way he did.”

“Humph!” The second man slapped a beefy hand on the counter. “I say he was the one who murdered Tasha Pierce. She went up to that haunted house of his to break up with him, and he killed her. Almost killed himself in the process.”

“He’s crazy, all right,” the first man added. “Should be locked up in that same hospital where they put that poor Cavendish girl when she was kidnapped from the graveyard.”

The words ground into Becca’s mind, and David Bryson’s face appeared in front of her, so real she felt she could reach out and touch it. The beer almost slipped from her hands as she set it back on the bar.

“This talk is getting to you, isn’t it?” Kat said, turning her attention to Becca. “You’re shaking, and perspiration is popping out on your forehead.”

“It’s the smoke and the stale air,” she lied. “I think I’ll step out the door and get a breath of air.”

“You’ll get wet.”

“I’ll stay under the overhang,” Becca assured her, already climbing down from the barstool.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. Please. Stay and visit with Jonah. I’ll be just outside the door.”

Kat touched her arm. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She walked away, yanked her jacket from the hook and pushed through the door. Once outside, she leaned against the side of the building for support. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind howled around the corners and cut through her light windbreaker.

Only the real chill came from somewhere deep inside her. She’d had the crazy feeling all day that something terrible was going to happen. Now she found out a young woman’s body had been found off the road leading up to the Bluffs.

But how did she know? Why? She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket.

“Rebecca Smith.”

Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound of her name. She spun around and stared at a figure, half hidden in the shadows of the old clapboard building. He stepped toward her. Her knees grew weak and rubbery and she stood frozen to the cement beneath her feet.

Escape would probably be impossible, anyway. The beast from the Bluffs had come for her.

Chapter Two

The voice was hypnotic, almost haunting and emotions thick as chowder churned inside Becca. “What do you want?” she whispered, her throat so dry, she could barely form the words.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, stepping closer.