Page 38 of You'll Be Sorry

Now she started with the most current overview of the property, a 1970s site map that had been part of the permitting process for tearing down the old family home and replacing it with this current post-and-beam structure. Raquel eyed the activities happening in real time out the window, then oriented the drawing until the positioning aligned with the scene before her.

Wells were universally indicated with a circle, an obvious reference to their shape. Hence the round dot for the current drilled well to the left of the driveway on the most recent map. But behind the house, where the real-time gathering was taking place…She searched for an open circle. Found nothing.

Meaning the young firefighter was gearing up and preparing to descend into a landmark that according to current records didn’t exist.

Flipping her way backward, in leaps of twenty, thirty, fifty years through the pile of documents. If the Dixons’ primary residence hadalways occupied roughly the same footprint, the land surrounding it had been in a constant state of change. Pockets of green farmland steadily expanded as sons had grown, cleared their own acreage, married into the tight-knit community, Dixons joining with Shepherds and MacAllisters and Karlssons. More children led to even more farms and a myriad of stone walls—most still standing—to delineate the rapidly multiplying number of homesteads.

Until the inevitable reverse. Sons and daughters growing up but now moving away, driven by wanderlust and lured by city life or the promise of new opportunities. By the mid-twentieth century, the bright green pastures were once again dark with trees as descendants retreated and the forest reclaimed its own.

Land had been sold, acreages whittled down as various branches of the family had moved on, until the once expansive whole became smaller patches of kinfolk, dotting the community with a multitude of second, third, and fourth cousins. Of them, the original Dixon clan had held on the longest, and this property had remained the largest, though from what Raquel could tell, it was only a fraction of the size it’d been in its heyday as it had transitioned from working farm to idyllic summer home.

Time progressed. Families evolved. And even something as durable and hardy as the mountains changed with them.

Raquel once more fingered the locket tucked between her breasts, the brass warm from the heat of her body.

She worked her way back to the original 1765 document, eyes peeled for any markings to indicate the hand-dug well. Still nothing.

Which made no sense. From the very beginning, reliable access to water had been crucial. It would’ve been the determining factor for where to place the barn, fenced corral, human abode, everything.

And yet, historic map after map, sketch after sketch, no record of a well appeared for the first hundred fifty years of the property’s life.

Raquel took a break, glancing out the window. The firefighter had disappeared from sight. Up top, she spotted a giant ginger-haired man, legs planted for balance as he slowly unspooled the rope controlling his buddy’s descent.

Chief Grady and the other woman were peering down intently from the lip of the pit, monitoring the action.

Raquel returned to the original map. Stared and stared. There!

Maybe wishful thinking. She’d have to return to the original to be sure, but on the photocopy of the oldest record, she could now determine a slight smudge. Maybe uneven shading on the crude drawing or a blemish from two hundred–plus years of handling.

Or…

Signs of erasure. Of what could’ve once been a charcoal circle.

She quickly moved on to the next map in time, then the next. In each and every case, now that she was looking…

A shadow of a shadow.

As if the original water source hadn’t just been boarded over in real life, but had been completely and meticulously deleted from historic record.

Raquel sat back on her heels.

This property had secrets. That much Raquel understood. And tragedy, as the entire world had witnessed.

But maybe neither was as new as anyone thought.

Maybe the evil had been here all along.

14

Oh, oh, oh, you guys already got started. Sweet!”

Mandy looked up just in time to see a petite woman with red-and-blue-streaked brown hair jog across the meadow, a duffel bag nearly as big as she was slung over one shoulder. She careened to a halt in front of Mandy, hopping slightly on one foot, then dropping her gear to the ground with a definitive thunk.

“Where’ya at?” The woman eyed ADME Schwartz, then Mandy with bright-eyed enthusiasm. “Debs Mahone,” she said by way of introduction. “From the FAIR lab. State calls the ME’s office about bones, the ME’s office calls me. And ta-da, let the fun begin. Though I rarely get to visit the site in person, making this super cool! So, skeleton’s at the bottom of the well?”

Debs was already dancing around the sunken opening. “Hi down there. I’m the bio anthropologist. Or bio archaeologist if you prefer. Your name?”

“Uh, Caleb Hunter. Shereford Town Fire Department.”