Return to Red Creek by Nathan Hystad (free ebooks romance novels .txt) 📕

on the steps of his split-level. Ruby was already beside him with a leash, a beautiful old German shepherd. She gave a solitary bark but wagged her tail as Tom approached.

“Bob?” he asked, getting a solemn nod.

“I’ll show you where I found it,” he said, walking past Tom with unexpected speed for his age. “You must be new to the department. Never seen you before.”

Tom introduced himself as they walked. “Are we close?” he asked.

“Yepper. See this path?” Bob stopped and pointed at a break in the block. It was the width of a lot, and two older houses were fenced in on either side, creating an opening to the field behind the street.

Tom nodded.

“Been here as long as I have. Kids always use it. God knows what they’re doing in the forest, but they like to play back there. Ride bikes. Go to the creek. Lots of memories of this path myself, seeing how Ruby makes me walk her for a good solid hour most days.” Bob was moving again, and Tom tried to keep up.

The path was mostly dirt, and with the melt-off, it was more mud than anything now. The light rain continued to fall, and Tom suddenly wished he’d brought an umbrella.

“It’s up here. See how the path continues past the field?”

Tom did see that. The field was cut to stubble. It was hard, dried grass now, bleach-blond spikes poking through the mud and last remnants of snow. A hundred yards beyond was a forest. Leaves were starting to grow on the bare mixture of birch and oak trees, spruce mingled in like uninvited guests at a party.

“The shoe is just around the bend,” Bob said, and Ruby was tugging at her leash now, as if she were an on-duty drug-sniffing dog. Her tail wagged excitedly in perfect time, a metronome. Bob stopped abruptly and pointed.

Tom pulled gloves from his blazer pocket and grinned his thanks. The mud was deep here, and he could see how someone would be able to lose a shoe in it. There it was, mostly brown from the mud, but definitely a shoe. He jerked it free, splotches of brown mess splattering on his pants. It was a size five girl’s sneaker.

Tom spent the next few minutes searching for any more signs of distress. He found no clothing or footprints that alerted him to foul play, but it had been two days, and the rainstorms were powerful. Bob was gone now, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

He wished Gilden had budgeted for a full forensic team, but this was what he got for moving to a small town. His mind drifted to his days in the big city, going home to a meal and a wife. He shook his head. “Don’t do this to yourself. Focus,” he told himself.

It was time to search the parents’ house. He glanced back at the forest, momentarily feeling like eyes were on him. He wished he hadn’t heard all the rumors of this town, because he couldn’t afford to let them influence him in any way. There was no fictitious monster in Red Creek, just the same kind there was everywhere. Flesh and blood.

_______________

“Ready to go?” Brent asked, running up the stairs to grab her suitcase. Always the gentleman.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Taylor said, slipping on her sunglasses. It was actually sunny for the first time all week, and she took that as a good omen for the morning she was heading to Red Creek.

“Won’t your dad be pissed when he hears you went back?” Brent asked.

They walked down the sidewalk, the suitcase rollers rattling off the cobblestones the entire way. “He won’t find out, now will he? He thinks I’m staying here for the break, and Aunt Beth swears she won’t tell him. She thinks he’s too over-protective, too worried about nothing.”

Taylor wasn’t as sure about that as her aunt was. Beth hadn’t been there that night. She hadn’t seen the black vapor, its long tendrils wrapping around Taylor’s tiny wrist, burning on contact.

“Good. I don’t want your dad finding us there together. That’s not how I want the first time I meet your family to go,” Brent said, stopping at the street where her car was parked.

Dread settled into Taylor’s stomach at Brent’s words. She couldn’t imagine her parents and little brother being in Red Creek. Why was she going? A missing girl had nothing to do with her. Still, she needed closure on it. She’d spent her whole life being scared of dark corners, fearful at every tiny noise at night. It wasn’t a way to live, and she knew it.

Going to Red Creek would help her understand. She would do what she was being trained to do in her journalism classes, and get to the bottom of the missing children. She was going to do what none of the shoddy sheriffs’ departments had done over the years. Taylor was going to solve the mystery of this shadow man.

Taylor also knew there was a chance it wasn’t real: that her mind may have compensated for the horrifying experience, like that old psychiatrist had suggested her dad’s may have done from his own kidnapping.

Taylor watched Brent toss her bag into the trunk, along with his satchel, and he moved for the driver’s seat. “Mind if I drive?” he asked, and she smiled for the first time that day.

They met at the side of the car, her hands finding his hips as she leaned in and kissed him. He tasted like coffee.

“You drive, I pick the music,” Taylor said.

Red Creek was only an hour from Bellton, and she wondered the same thing as she did every night before going to sleep. How far did the reach of the shadow stretch? If it was real, and they were dealing with an unworldly demon, could it find her at school?

So far, she’d seen no signs of it, but now, with another kid missing, maybe it was awake again. How long would