Every hidden thing, p.4
Every Hidden Thing, page 4
Ella stared at him. “Have you ever been by that quarry at night? It’s as dark as a basement closet. And at that icy temperature? You’d go into shock—or get some kind of brain-freeze and wouldn’t be able to pull yourself out of there. Once he hit those black waters, he was gone.”
Until his body floated to the surface.
“That whole green light thing,” Parker said. “Sometimes I think he was making it all up—just to get me to buy in. But what if . . .”
“What if what?”
“What if Devin actually saw something he shouldn’t have—”
“Aliens? Parallel universe bunk?” Ella shook her head.
“You think he was making it up?”
“No. I think he saw something even more terrifying. I believe that with all my heart. Something otherworldly. Paranormal. Something from the spirit world.”
Parker studied her face for a moment. “You’re saying Shadow-man is a ghost?”
Ella didn’t answer for a moment. “I’m not ruling it out. And if that’s what Devin was chasing?” She hugged herself. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
Exactly what happened to Devin that night was a mystery that would probably never get solved—but it cost him his life. “All he wanted to do was get close enough to film that thing.”
“Following that Shadow-man—or whatever he saw—was stupid,” Ella said. “And sometimes doing stupid things gets people killed.”
Parker motioned for her to keep her voice down. “We’re at his funeral, for Pete’s sake.”
“Exactly.”
But she had a point. How many stupid things had Parker done—especially when his dad had been posted in the Florida Everglades? He should have been dead and buried months ago. If not for God, he would have been.
“I need to know what happened to Devin.”
“It won’t change anything,” Ella said. “Life is full of mysteries, right? Things that happen in the dark—when nobody is around—stay hidden, like, forever.”
“God sees. God knows. Nothing is hidden to Him.” Why he said that aloud, he wasn’t sure. Except maybe Devin’s death had Parker thinking about that kind of stuff a whole lot more than he ever would normally. He’d even called his grandpa about it. Wondering why God would allow the truth to stay hidden.
Ella snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Get this in your head. Devin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was following some mysterious being. He would have walked right past the Old First Parish Burying Ground—at night. Totally a bad idea. It was bad karma. Which is why you need to get in that line so something freaky doesn’t happen to you.”
Okay, her superstitions were way out there. “Do you think his death was an accident?”
“What did that big cop say?”
“Rankin. His name is Officer Rankin.”
“And he said . . .” She motioned, like she was coaxing him to tell more.
Rankin had found Devin’s phone—and Parker’s text. Do what you promised—or I’ll do what I warned you I’d do. No more stalling. Do it now. He’d had more than a few questions about that. He seemed to think Parker had dared—or bullied—Devin to go to the quarry that night to do something dangerous.
It took some fast talking to convince Rankin the truth about the text. And even in the end, Parker wasn’t sure Rankin fully bought it. But he finally seemed to come around. “He said there are drownings in the quarry every year.”
“So he thinks it was a freak accident,” Ella said.
“But I asked what you think.” It didn’t feel like this was an accident. “What if . . .” Did he even want to go here?
“What if what?”
Parker took her arm and led her around the corner to the drinking fountain. “What if he saw something he shouldn’t have seen—and it got him killed?” That was it, wasn’t it? The question he absolutely needed to answer. But how was he going to find out what really happened to Devin?
Ella stared at him. “You’re talking about murder?” Her eyes searched his to see if he was serious. “Okay. You really want my opinion? Something evil happened at that quarry. Something unspeakable. I think at the very least something scared the living daylights out of him—which may have caused him to slip and fall into the quarry. And at worst . . . Shadow-man ambushed him.”
Pretty much what Parker was feeling. “Maybe I could have helped him fight off whoever—or whatever—attacked him.”
Ella looked like she was processing that one. “Stop blaming yourself, Parker. If Shadow-man is what I think it is, what makes you think you could have done anything to help?”
Parker shrugged. “I just can’t help but feel today would have been different if I’d gone with him.”
“Yeah,” Ella said. “A lot different. This would have been a double funeral.”
CHAPTER 6
HARLEY COULDN’T GET THE IMAGE OF THE CASKET out of his head. That stinkin’ body box was a dead ringer for the one they’d buried his dad in. If he’d known the funeral home was going to trigger all these dark memories, he’d have skipped the thing completely. He could have come up with some excuse—and Scorza would have bought it. There were always things Uncle Ray was grousing for him to do at the dive shop.
He made his way down the hall to the narrow staircase. He didn’t bother tiptoeing. Uncle Ray would never hear him—not after the number of beers he put down before he went to bed. He paused at the top of the stairs leading to the dive shop on the first floor. Even with the bedroom door shut tight, his uncle’s snoring could raise the dead.
If only it was that easy to bring his dad back.
His dad would have loved Rockport. The two-lane roads that hugged the coastline of Cape Ann were perfect for riding. Dad would be tooling around in his ’96 Harley Dyna Wide Glide motorcycle. Harley wouldn’t be slaving for Uncle Ray at the Rockport Dive Company. He’d be cruising with his dad—straddling the seat right behind him. He’d never ride on the back with anyone else. It would be terrifying not to see the road ahead—unless you had absolute trust in the guy holding the handlebars. And there’d only been one man he could trust like that.
He imagined cruising Cape Ann for a moment. Remembering the tug and power as Dad ran through the gears. The smell of his dad’s leather jacket. Yeah, if Dad were here, they’d go out cruising every night.
And maybe Dad would have biker friends along and Harley would get to ride in a pack again. He missed the sound coming out of those straight pipes at 70 miles per hour. Loud. Throaty. Riding in a mob of Harleys was like being surrounded by an orchestra. He didn’t hear the wind. Nothing. Just the music from those pipes . . . every bike a slightly different tone. Some would call it noise. Obnoxious. But to Harley? It was like beautiful music. Soothing. Strong. A sweet sound.
His dad might have been just about the smartest parent in the world. That’s what Harley thought when Dad trailered home a 1999 XL 1200 Sportster for Harley’s tenth birthday. Used, but in great shape in all the places that really counted. Who else had a dad who bought a used Harley to restore as a father-son project? When they weren’t out riding on Dad’s bike, they were getting Harley’s ready for the day he’d have a license. Just two years after Dad wheeled it into the garage, they’d finished the complete refurbish job. Spring of his seventh-grade year . . . months before the accident.
“If only you were here, Dad,” Harley whispered. “I’d ride behind you until I was old enough to ride the 1200. Then we’d cruise side by side.” If only.
They’d have their own place in town, too. Somewhere near Ella’s home would be nice. Not that he needed more space than his little room above the shop, but he didn’t belong here. Uncle Ray reminded him of that little fact every time he had a bellyful of beers in him—which was pretty much every night.
Harley shook off his thoughts and headed down the stairs to the dive shop. The smell of neoprene wet suits hit him before he got to the bottom. New suits up front. Rentals in the back. The smell was familiar—and comforting in its own way.
Harley knew the layout of the dive shop well enough to get around with just the light drifting in through the windows—and the neon. Uncle Ray left the illuminated signs on all night. Aqua Lung. Mares. The vintage Dacor neon was Harley’s favorite, even though the dive equipment company had gone out of business a zillion years ago. The first time Harley had stepped close to check it out, Uncle Ray warned him not to touch it. “It’s a collector’s item.” And it had collected a lot of dust, too. Harley only cleaned it when Uncle Ray wasn’t around.
Right above it was a sign with the Rockport Dive Company logo and the brain-dead slogan Uncle Ray had come up with. Don’t Drink and Dive. In small print just below that? First Stow Your Gear—Then Hit the Beer! He’d paid big bucks to have the logo and slogan professionally designed. A pirate skeleton—decked out with mask, fins, and scuba tank—sat on a treasure chest, holding up a bottle of rum. His uncle thought it was hilarious.
Harley hated it.
The stupid slogan constantly reminded Harley of the drunk who’d stolen his dad from him. Uncle Ray never seemed to put that one together. How this guy could for real be his dad’s brother was a total mystery. Maybe there’d been a mix-up at the hospital or something.
Harley scooted around the register counter and displays of masks, fins, snorkels, and wet suits. A small assortment of tanks lined up along one wall, with regulator sets hanging above them. A wall rack showcasing dive knives was just to one side of that, then a select group of buoyancy compensating devices—or BCDs. The shop was no wider than a typical one-car garage—but definitely deeper. The things that really clogged up the floor space were the T-shirt displays. Each one jammed with Rockport Dive Company T-shirts—every size and color—and all of them with the stupid logo. Tourists loved them—and the shop probably sold fifty T’s for every empty dive tank that came in for a refill.
Harley rarely wore a company shirt—not even when he was working the shop. He snagged up every Harley T-shirt that came into the Rockport thrift store—and wore one pretty much every day. Uncle Ray accused him of living in the past. That wasn’t it at all. It was about making sure he never forgot where he came from—and whose son he was.
Harley worked his way to the back room where the tanks were filled. The actual door had been removed long before Harley’s time. This was where he spent most of his time when he was manning the shop—which would be more and more once school was out in another month.
Four things dominated this room. The fill station. Rows of scuba tanks—rentals and customer cylinders that had been filled. Uncle Ray’s beer can collection. And a sixteen-pane window that gave a killer view of Rockport Harbor.
The fill station was a massive unit as big as an oversized vending machine. Uncle Ray’s name for it? The Blast Chamber. The thing was built like a battleship—and in the unlikely event a tank exploded while getting filled, the fill chamber could handle the force of its impact. The quarter-inch hardened steel surrounding the filling bays made sure of that. The unit weighed some eight hundred pounds . . . probably as much as a decked-out Harley touring bike. Uncle Ray rarely filled tanks anymore. He left that to Harley. But Harley didn’t mind.
The station had parallel bays so he could fill three tanks at a time. Oxygen and nitrogen were fed to the unit from a small concrete shed attached to the side of the building through aluminum piping. Honestly, the shed was like a mini bomb shelter. Overall it was a sweet setup, and definitely one thing Uncle Ray had done right—except for the fact that he hadn’t used his own money to do it.
The money came from his dad’s accounts when Uncle Ray took over everything after the accident. Uncle Ray said he was entitled to the cash for all the trouble it would be to take Harley in—which was no trouble at all. The state of Massachusetts gave nearly a thousand bucks to foster parents every month—along with a quarterly clothing allowance and even money for birthday and Christmas presents. Harley had looked it up online, and he saw the envelopes from the state come in the mail. But he never saw the money—and never once a present for Christmas or birthday.
Harley kept the rental and customer tanks lined up in neat rows. He even had the valves all facing the same direction. He was proud of that.
Uncle Ray’s empty beer can collection? Not so proud of that. It was the one thing Harley wished he could haul out of the store and deep-six somewhere. Uncle Ray called it his “Wasted Wall.” It was Uncle Ray’s treasure—and he’d been building the collection for years. No two cans were alike. Whenever Uncle Ray found a new beer company, he made a spot on the already overcrowded shelves to squeeze it in. The whole Don’t Drink and Dive slogan was a total joke. Back when he’d had a decent boat, Uncle Ray did plenty of drinking on the dive tours he led. He claimed a few beers kept him more steady.
A sign hung over the beer can collection—hand-painted by Uncle Ray, of course. “If you want something done right—do it yourself.” His motto when it came to drinking beer—and building his collection. Definitely a do-it-yourselfer. The motto didn’t apply when it came to cleaning up the place. Pretty much all the real work around the shop he left to Harley.
Harley’s dad had been a boozer at one time, but that all changed when Harley was just a kid. When his mom left. His dad finally “found his way out of the keg,” as he called it. And he’d expressed over and over how much he wanted his boy to stay clear. “Don’t worry, Dad,” Harley had promised. “I’ll never touch the stuff.” And after what happened to his dad? Uncle Ray could have his treasure. Harley wanted no part of it.
The window was the real treasure in the room—because of the view. This was Harley’s spot, especially after the shop was closed and Uncle Ray was asleep. Harley opened the canvas deck chair he kept stashed in the corner and sat back. There wasn’t a smudge on the windows—inside or out. It was as if there was no glass in the panes at all. Harley was proud of that, too. Uncle Ray didn’t notice the effort, but that was okay. Good, really. Next thing Harley would know, Uncle Ray would be sitting here at night, adding cans to his collection. Then Harley would have to find a new spot.
Rockport Harbor was bordered on the north by Bearskin Neck, a peninsula loaded with tourist shops. A huge breakwater of massive granite blocks jutted from the end of the Neck, protecting Rockport Harbor from behemoth waves that rolled in with the storms. A signal light was at the end of the breakwater to guide fisherman into the safety of the harbor.
Dozens of huge sailboats moored in the outer harbor, with only the breakwater separating them from the fury of the ocean. A large wharf divided the south harbor—with its floating docks, the yacht club, and the harbormaster’s office—from the north harbor, where mostly lobster boats were moored. Shielded on four sides, this northern section was the most protected spot in Rockport Harbor.
The famed fishing shack, Motif Number 1, stood on the granite dock. Dark and strong. And to Harley, a friendly sight. Close enough that Harley could step out the back door and punt a football over it if he wanted to.
But the best sight out this window was something nobody else would notice. A plain wooden shed. It didn’t look like much, but it was all his. Paid for by money Dad had left him. Money Uncle Ray hadn’t gotten his hands on, anyway. He bought the heavy-duty padlock he’d slapped on the door. Harley bought the extension cord running to the shed—and the trickle charger plugged into it. Uncle Ray could have his beer can collection, but Harley’s treasure was in that shed—and someday that Sportster would be his ticket to freedom. Dad named it Kemosabe—a nickname he’d sometimes called Harley.
“We’ll get this thing looking absolutely killer before we’re done, Kemosabe.” And Dad made good on his promise. They replaced a million parts. Added pounds of custom chrome to give it a streamlined look. Yeah, the bike totally did look killer.
Harley felt his T-shirt for the keys hanging around his neck. One for the shed lock. One for Kemosabe. They were there—like always. And in a way, it was like his dad was always with him, too. Part of him anyway. Even when Harley had a game, the keys always hung under his jersey.
Did Uncle Ray ever look for the shed keys? Harley would bet money on it. Did he guess that Harley didn’t trust him? Harley didn’t really care. The truth was, Uncle Ray would sell Kemosabe if he was drunk enough and needed the beer money. That was the real reason why Harley didn’t keep the title in his room upstairs. He’d made a great hiding spot for that in the shed.
He stared at the harbor. The more he tried not to think about that funeral home tonight . . . and that coffin, the more he couldn’t stop himself. He saw the thing silhouetted in the piles of lobster traps stacked by the Motif fishing shack. Saw it plain as day on the back of one of the lobster boats. It was amazing how many things resembled a coffin in the dark dead of night.
Devin Catsakis was gone. He was a weird bird, for sure. But still, it was creepy to think of him as dead. Gatorade had been “cleared.” At least that’s what he’d heard. He wasn’t guilty of anything more than not letting himself get sucked into Devin’s crazy scheme. Kind of a shame, really. When Gatorade got hauled out of the cafeteria the other day, for one glorious moment Harley hoped the guy might get shipped back to the Everglades or something.
The guy bugged him. Why was Ella always hanging around him? The guy didn’t have a jersey—and he sure as shootin’ didn’t score touchdowns in full view of bleachers packed with fans.
Devin had shadowed Ella all the time, but that was different—and it never bothered Harley. Devin was no threat. And not really Ella’s friend. Catsakis was kind of a leech-friend. Hanging too close. Clinging too tight. Draining everyone he latched onto with all his talk of theories and sci-fi things that didn’t even make sense. Harley was pretty sure Ella only put up with the guy because she was nice that way. Actually, it was one of the things he really liked about her.
She acted different with Gatorade. There was a light in her eyes—and it flicked on whenever she talked to that Everglades outsider. But when Harley said hi to Ella? It was a total blackout. Would she even come to the games once the season started? Did she even care about football? Sometimes when he stretched for the catch, he’d imagine her watching. Jumping to her feet like most of the fans on the home bleachers.
