Free A Thousand Yesteryears by Mae Clair Page B

gaze steady. In the amber light of the overhead chandelier her eyes were flecked with gold. “You said Aunt Rosie had enemies.”
    “I said maybe she had enemies.” He shouldn’t have been so bold.
    “Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt her or her memory?”
    “No.” That was the downside of it. He took another swig of beer, set the can on the table, and rotated it in his hand. The Parrish name was deeply rooted in Point Pleasant history. How could he explain gut intuition? That ever since the bridge collapse, he wasn’t so quick to discount a prickle of misgiving when it played on his nerves. If he’d paid more attention to that feeling fifteen years ago, his sister would still be alive.
    “People respected Rosie,” he said at last, “but she kept to herself. She was friendly, even generous, but there was something secretive about her.”
    Eve frowned. “I don’t follow.”
    “She wasn’t someone you could get close to.” It was a survival trait he’d adopted himself, a means to keep others at bay. When you carried a sin or secret in your past, it was a safety measure to stay sane. Perhaps he’d recognized the habit in Rosie because it was one he favored himself. He understood secrets, and he understood guilt. “Rosie was friendly on the surface, but she kept people at arm’s length when it came to anything personal.”
    “She seemed pretty close to Katie Lynch. At least, that was the impression I got after talking to Katie.”
    He thought he heard a hint of jealousy in Eve’s voice. Katie was a girl full of surprises, so different from her sister, Wendy. He was sorry he’d treated Wendy like most other guys who’d grown up with her, hoping to cop a feel beneath the railroad bridge or in the back of his car. He’d never gotten further than second base, but that was his hesitation more than hers.
    “Katie told me Aunt Rosie was delirious toward the end and kept repeating how sorry she was for something she’d done,” Eve continued, unaware of his thoughts. “She prayed God would forgive her. She kept mumbling about gray vines.”
    “Gray vines?” Caden shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Does it mean anything to you?”
    “No.”
    “Probably the pain meds. People say all kinds of crazy things when they’re under the influence of narcotics.”
    “So you don’t think she had anything to hide?”
    He decided to turn the tables around. “You tell me. Why the sudden change of heart about the deadbolt on your door?”
    “Oh…that.” Her gaze dropped to the table, and she fiddled with her fork. A slight flush tinged her cheeks and, for a moment, he was reminded of the twelve-year-old girl who used to grow awkward whenever he was around. “I, um….” She bit her lip. “Something happened today when I left the hotel.”
    He didn’t say anything, but kept his gaze trained on her. It had to be freaking hard to walk into town fifteen years after your family set the bar. Difficult enough under normal circumstances, but Point Pleasant had changed drastically. Even he thought of Main Street as carrying the taint of a ghost town. If it weren’t for the Parrish Hotel and the few businesses that kept it afloat, Main would be as deserted as the TNT. Ironically, it was that region and the legendary monster rumored to haunt there that fed a steady trickle of tourists and curiosity-seekers into Point Pleasant.
    Eve left the table briefly, crossing into the living room to retrieve her purse from the coffee table. Through the open arch between the two rooms, he watched her fish through the bag. She located a folded slip of paper, then returned to the dining room and extended it to him.
    “Here.” Rather than resume her seat, she stayed at his side, arms hugged close to her chest as if to ward off a chill.
    Caden polished off the remainder of his beer and set the can aside. Opening the paper, he read the typewritten words in the center aloud, “You should leave before you get