Every hidden thing, p.11
Every Hidden Thing, page 11
“Should be about ten minutes.” He hoped Gatorade would get the hint and go back up front. But he just hung there watching Harley do his thing—like the whole filling station was fascinating. Which, of course, it was. In a way, it was kind of nice knowing the guy watching you seemed totally impressed.
Scorza, on the other hand, couldn’t have looked less interested in the mechanics of the fill. He inspected the laces on his football, placing each finger carefully in its designated spot.
It was too quiet—which felt weird. “Where you diving this time, Gatorade?”
“Folly’s Cove.”
“With your dad?”
Gatorade nodded. “How about you, Harley. Dive much?”
What, was he looking for a new dive buddy? Dream on. Some people had to work. Besides, if God in heaven wanted people to swim underwater, He’d have given them gills, right? “I don’t have much use for scuba gear.”
Scorza snickered. “I’m surrounded by idiots. One works for no pay, and the other works a dive shop but doesn’t dive. Great advertisement you are for your uncle’s dive shop.”
Gatorade looked to Scorza and back—like he wasn’t sure he should believe it. “You don’t like diving?”
Right now he’d seriously like to slug Scorza in the other arm. “Not unless there’s nitrous oxide in the tank.”
Gatorade grinned. “Laughing gas?”
Okay, the guy was smarter than he looked.
“But seriously, you don’t like diving?”
“I’d rather wear cleats than fins. Big deal.”
Scorza snickered again. “Harley avoids water like the Wicked Witch of the West.”
Harley flashed the quarterback a glare—and there was no way Scorza didn’t know exactly what he meant by it.
“Gatorade.” Scorza made sure he had the guy’s attention. “That’s how Harley’s dad died, you know—underwater—so don’t give him a hard time about it.”
Scorza talked like Harley wasn’t there. And making like he was sticking up for Harley? That was an act. It was a way of putting Harley down. Reminding Harley that Scorza had something he didn’t. In this case, a dad. And that wasn’t the first time. Scorza was all about having more than anyone else. Harley wished he’d never told Scorza a word about how it all happened. He had no right to—
“Drunk driver slammed into him.” Scorza held the football up high. “Pushed his beater right off the bridge into the water.” He dropped the ball to his other hand. “Harley made it out of the car—and his dad didn’t.”
“Shut. Up.” Dad had pushed him out of the car. Forced him out—even though Harley wanted to keep trying to get Dad’s belt unbuckled. But it was dark and water was pouring in—and he couldn’t find the stinkin’ buckle. His dad was hurt bad. Blood everywhere.
“Won’t do any good.” Harley could still hear his dad’s voice. Strong. Desperate. Yet somehow calm. “I’m pinned, Harley. My legs. I’m not getting out—but you have to. I love you, son. I’m proud of you.”
Somehow Dad still had enough strength to shove Harley through the missing window before the car disappeared into the black waters.
Harley shook his head as if that could shake the memory right out of his head.
“The way Harley told me—”
“Stop.” Harley would hit him. He’d do it. “One more word and you won’t have enough teeth left to hold your mouth guard in place.”
“What?” Scorza stepped back out of easy reach. “Gatorade would probably be afraid of water, too, if that happened to him.”
Harley wasn’t afraid of water—or anything—except maybe how he was going to explain why he knocked the stuffing out of the star quarterback.
“I am so sorry,” Gatorade said. He actually looked like he cared. “That had to be incredibly hard. I can’t imagine.”
No. He couldn’t. Nobody could. Especially not some scuba-diving, gator-wrestling, Ella-monopolizing outsider with a dad who was there for him all the time. A mom, too. What would he know about “hard” things?
The whole room got kind of quiet—like Gatorade didn’t know what to say—and maybe Scorza knew he’d pushed things too far and didn’t want to risk another slug to the arm.
“Great view from here.” Gatorade looked out over the bay. “Nice spot to work.”
Yeah, until Gatorade walked into the place. And Harley didn’t need any more small talk right now. “Pay up front. We still have a few minutes.”
Gatorade got the hint this time.
The tanks were filled and standing in a row with others by the time Gatorade stepped back into the fill room. Harley had Gatorade sign off on the log sheet, reminded him it was a Nitrox 32 fill, then pointed to the cluster of tanks. “All set for you to grab and go.”
Gatorade squatted down to check which tanks were his. “You ever get mixed on whose is whose? I mean, without the BCD vest, they all pretty much look the same.”
“I can recognize any tank I’ve filled,” Harley said, “and can tell you who it belongs to.” Okay, that was a little bit of a stretch. But not much.
“Really. What is it about my tank—or my dad’s?”
Harley smiled. “Last two numbers on your tank serial number? Forty-two. Same as my jersey number. And both of you have Wooten’s Airboat Tours stickers down by the boot. Nobody else has those.”
Gatorade turned the tanks to reveal the stickers. “Nicely done.” A minute later he had the tanks packed up, and he disappeared out the door.
Right now all Harley wanted to do was get out himself. Go to the shed—or maybe the breakwater. He’d be closing the store in minutes. But with Scorza hanging around, they’d probably just go to Front Beach or someplace and run pass patterns. He resisted the urge to check if Ella was still working on her painting.
“You should have seen your face when Gatorade walked in,” Scorza said—like he hadn’t just betrayed Harley by spilling all that information. “Absolutely green.”
“You’re delusional. Why would I be jealous of him?”
Scorza grinned—like he saw right through him. “I say we do something about the guy.”
Harley casually hung the clipboard on the side of the fill station—like he wasn’t taking Scorza seriously. Like Gatorade didn’t really bother him.
“You and me. We run ourselves a play that will take him out.”
Harley gave him the side-eye. “Take him out?”
“Get him to know he shouldn’t stay in Rockport. Get him to convince his park ranger dad to get another transfer.”
“Or at least get him to back away from Ella?” Harley immediately regretted saying it. Clearly Scorza wasn’t one to trust with secrets.
“Exactly! You’ve wanted this for weeks—but you never do anything about it.” He was at the window now. He held out the ball, pointing to the jetty. “Got your binoculars?”
Harley looked where Scorza was pointing the ball. He didn’t need binoculars to see what was going on. Gatorade was on the breakwater, running from granite block to block toward Ella. He must have stashed the tanks somewhere, because the suitcase was gone.
Ella waved—no—she was motioning him over. She’d never called Harley over like that. Whenever Harley got close, everything about Ella said she wanted him to back off.
“You’re never going to get her attention with him around,” Scorza said. “That’s the weird thing about you. You’re a madman on the field. Off it? You’re a total marshmallow.”
Harley felt his face grow hot.
“So let’s make a game out of this.” Scorza acted like he didn’t give all his blabbing about Harley’s dad a second thought. Probably he didn’t. “I’m going to work out a couple plays in my special little playbook. And by the time we’re done with Gatorade?” Scorza winked in his totally cocky way. “There won’t be anybody motioning him anywhere—but away.”
CHAPTER 21
PARKER SLOWED AS HE NEARED ELLA. She sat on a folding camp stool, facing town. She must have been there a couple of hours before he got there, based on how the scene on the canvas was taking shape. The tip of granite rocks in the foreground. Then the harbor, with the town watching over it from behind.
“Another one to sell at the Farmer’s Market?”
“That’s the plan.” She looked at her canvas, then surveyed the view in front of her. “They’ve all sold so far—which is a miracle. There’s others at the market whose work is better than mine.”
“Maybe you’ve got a fan out there.”
Ella Laughed. “Not likely.”
She’d picked a gorgeous view. As great as the harbor looked on the surface, Parker would love to strap on his tank and explore the bottom. To see things that many people totally miss. “I’d like to dive the harbor sometime.”
Ella shook her head. “Can’t see the appeal in that.”
“Exploring, for one. Finding lost things. And gliding around weightless . . . the freedom of it. There’s no gravity . . . it’s almost like being on the moon.”
“You can’t breathe on the moon, Parker.”
“That’s why you need an air tank when you dive.”
Ella rinsed her brush in a cup of water at her feet. “I have an aunt in Connecticut who drags an oxygen tank everywhere she goes. Not my idea of freedom.”
Parker laughed. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk about diving. What would you like to talk about instead?”
“So exactly what do you believe about ghosts?”
“Not this again.”
She didn’t look away from her canvas. “You don’t believe they exist?”
“The guy I saw was flesh and blood.” Parker saw Shadow-man in his mind again. “He didn’t pass through the door. He opened it—just like you or I would.”
“Okay, forget about what you saw at Steadman’s place. Just answer the question,” she said. “Ghosts. Real—or not?”
The funeral for Devin had been, what, a month ago? “Tell me this isn’t about Devin Catsakis.” Other kids claimed to have “felt his presence” since he’d been buried. The only thing Parker had felt? His death wasn’t an accident.
She shook her head. “Forget it.”
“Now you’re not even going to give me a chance to answer?”
Ella rinsed her brush and flicked off the excess water at Parker. “You already told me everything I need to know when you dodged the question. So let’s drop it.”
One thing he’d learned about Ella Houston was that when she made up her mind, there was no sense trying to change it. She looked out over the harbor and reached for the silver cross necklace. She tucked it in her palm, closed her fingers over it, and just held it over her heart.
For an instant he thought about Wilson, still living down in the Everglades, and all his Miccosukee superstitions. Like the alligator tooth necklace he’d given Parker just before the move north. The thing was hanging over the bedpost in Parker’s room. He’d said it was for luck or something. Parker wasn’t a believer in luck, but sometimes he wore the thing just to feel a connection to a friend who’d always had his back.
“Something’s going on in Rockport,” Ella said—but more like she was talking to the canvas than to Parker.
“There’s always something going on.” Parker grinned. “Farmer’s markets. Craft fairs. All the kinds of stuff that I avoid. That’s why tourists like it here so much.”
“You know what I mean.” Her eyes got wide and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m being serious here.”
Parker had learned not to tease El about her crazy superstitions—most of the time. “Is this about that thing you were talking about earlier but you couldn’t tell me?”
“Something is going on with this Shadow-man thing—and it’s bigger than you know. But what if Shadow-man is really a spirit-being?”
An icy flash zinged up his back and down his arms. “A ghost?”
“Just don’t be so quick to rule it out, okay? Ghost or no ghost, this much I do know.” She looked across the narrow harbor inlet channel separating them from the rocky outcroppings of the Headlands. “If something doesn’t change—really soon—I’m going to lose the place I love more than anyplace in the world.”
Suddenly some pieces of their other conversation dropped into place. “Wait, I know you haven’t had renters in a while. How bad is it . . . I mean, are you and your Grams going to be okay?”
If she heard him, she didn’t act like it.
“So.” Ella turned and looked directly at him. “Ghosts?”
Hey, he was going to be honest. “No such thing.” But he did believe in demons—which was exponentially worse. Probably not what she’d want to hear.
She looked at him for a long moment. “Well, that’s your opinion.” She rinsed her brush again. “But you’re still kind of new here.”
“New?” Honestly, if one more person hit him with that newbie thing he was going to—
“Your family has been here what, seven months?”
“Eight,” Parker said. “Since last October—and don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”
She gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “All I’m saying is that you haven’t lived here long enough to know if something feels”— she stroked the air with her brush—“different. You’re like a baby.”
Parker smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “So that’s why I’ve been sucking my thumb at night.”
“You can be annoying, you know that?” Ella stared toward the heart of town just past the harbor, “Seriously, though. Shadow-man at Bayport wasn’t the only otherworldly thing that’s happened. Strange things have been going on—especially since the funeral.”
So this was about Devin. “Define strange.” The last year of Parker’s life—everything that led up to his park ranger dad getting transferred out of the Glades could be summed up with the word “strange.”
Ella stood and brushed off her dress. Slid her bare feet into her cowgirl boots. “I forgot. You don’t believe. And I’ve got to head back.” She collapsed her easel and stool and tucked them inside a duffle.
Was she baiting him? “El, come on. What kind of strange things?”
Ella emptied the water container and packed her brushes away. “You don’t believe in ghosts—so what’s the point of talking about it?”
Oh, yeah. She was definitely baiting him.
Without another word, she handed Parker her bag with the watercolor gear. She picked her way across the massive rocks toward the paved turnaround of Bearskin Neck where he’d left the luggage with the two tanks inside.
Parker fell in step beside her, long-stepping from rock to rock. “You want to tell me. You know you do. So what’s this all about?”
“The day you admit that ghosts could be real,” she said, “is the day I’ll tell you everything.”
Which meant, like, never. “I told you, I don’t—”
Ella put a finger to her lips. “I heard you the first time. You don’t believe.”
Right. But that didn’t mean Parker wasn’t up for a good ghost story. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“So you can discount what I believe?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Look,” Parker said. “I’ll listen—and I promise not to downplay or criticize or make fun of anything you tell me.”
She skirted around the north side of the turnaround at the end of Bearskin Neck, keeping to the rocks just above the waterline. She was taking the long way back. That meant deep down she was hoping to talk, right?
He eyed the piece of luggage—right where he’d parked it. And nobody was likely to bother it there until he got back. People would think a tourist left it so they could climb down closer to the water for pictures. He’d hustle back for it later—but right now he needed to find out what El was talking about. Especially that earlier bit about losing the place she loved most. She had to be talking about her and her grandma’s place. Were they thinking of moving?
The tide was creeping in—and along with it a wall of fog that silently moved shoreward from the sea. Parker slowed his pace to match hers. “So, you going to tell me or what?”
Ella stopped and scanned the shoreline north of Bearskin Neck. Parker wasn’t sure if she was looking at Front Beach—or at the old graveyard on the hill directly behind it.
“At first I passed it off as random weirdness,” Ella said. “But now I know better.”
He fought the urge to interrupt. Sometimes not asking a question was the way to learn more.
“It’s not just Steadman’s place. And those other rentals in town that have been hit. Bad things have been happening at our rental home.”
The small, barn-shaped building on the south end of their lot. Back in the day when a for-real sea captain owned the place, that had been his sail-making shop. It had been nothing more than a great storage garage for all those years until El’s grandma turned it into a rental cottage that made even Steadman’s rentals seem drab.
“Three times in the last month.” Suddenly she clammed up—and just by the look on her face Parker figured she’d already said more than she wanted to.
“What happened?”
She gave him a long look, like she was making a decision of whether or not to trust him. “Things I can’t explain any other way—other than to say something paranormal is going on. Patio chairs and table upside down in the morning—more times than I can count. Three different renters were terrified by some “presence” in their room. No, they didn’t see the green light, but everything else they described? It was Shadow-man. Grams said I can’t say more right now . . . but it’s bad.”
Again, that zing up his back and down his arms. But there was always an explanation, wasn’t there? Even for Shadow-man. “Ever watch Scooby-Doo as a kid?” He wouldn’t trade the hours he’d spent watching those episodes with his grandpa for anything.
She gave him a sideways glance. “Don’t you dare compare what’s going on here with that mindless cartoon.”
“Mindless?” Parker shook his head. “Hey, they were solving mysteries—you had to use your brain when you watched that show.”
“Yeah, about this much of my brain.” Ella held up her thumb and forefinger with barely enough space to squeeze a paintbrush between them. “And even that was overkill. What’s going on here has nothing to do with some stupid old TV show.”
