Jake is sitting on the couch, staring down at a page of the photo album. His fingers run around the edge of a picture, and I feel awkward approaching him like I'm intruding on an extremely private moment. I hover uncomfortably, the plate extended toward him, for a few seconds before he notices me. A faint smile crosses his face.
“Thank you.” He takes the plate from my hand and looks down at the cushion beside him in invitation. When I sit, he gestures at the picture. “That's my grandmother. She loved that dress.”
The simple pale purple and blue floral print is a quintessential grandmother pattern. It's the kind of dress that makes me think of the smell of cookies and long hugs. The close-up image only shows a sliver of wood beneath her feet and nothing else about her surroundings.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“That's her house. I remember when this picture was taken. It was Easter. She always made a huge lunch, and we spent the afternoon hunting for eggs around her yard. She didn't want any of us siblings or cousins to not get enough eggs or for one of the older ones to find all of them before the little ones could, so she used a different color egg for each of us. We could only keep our color, and we weren't allowed to open any of them until everyone had found all of them, so we helped each other.”
I try to decipher the caption, but the handwriting is too wispy, and I can't catch it before he turns the page and shows me a snap of a young girl. It's washed out with a flare of bright sunlight, but I can make out pale blonde hair. She squints and leans toward the head of a large dog she has in what could either be a hug or a headlock.
“Is this your sister?” I ask.
Jake nods as he takes a bite of the sandwich I brought him. “That's Mocha. She was obsessed with that dog.”
“He doesn't look so happy about it,” I point out.
“He didn't particularly like anyone. But he was best with her. My father found him as a puppy out in the woods, and I think he was just used to being on his own. He didn't really want anyone to mess with him and didn't necessarily want to be domesticated. One day he just ran off. I never saw him again.”
“I'm sorry.”
Jake shrugs. “Better to have your good memories than someone around who doesn't want to make any more of them.”
He closes the album and holds it on his lap as he finishes the biscuit. Early morning sunlight filters through the curtains, and there's an odd sense of anticipation sparking in the air around us. We're waiting for something to happen, but I'm not sure what. When he finishes eating, Jake leans back and rests his head on the couch. His eyes flutter closed, and I take his hand.
“Come on. Let's get you into bed for a little while. I know you haven't gotten enough sleep,” I say.
He shakes his head but doesn't lift it. “I'll wait right here. They might call me.”
“You'll be so much more comfortable in your bed, and you'll get better sleep. It's not going to make a difference if you're in there or in here if the police call.”
He finally relents and lets me guide him into the bedroom. I pull back the blankets, and he climbs under them, letting out a breath as his head sinks into the pillow. Tugging the blankets up over his shoulder, I lean down and kiss his forehead. As I turn to walk away, he reaches out and grabs onto my wrist.
“Stay,” he whispers. I look into his eyes and see more of the searching. “Please. I don't want to be alone right now.”
I nod. I was probably just going to go back to the cabin and go to sleep anyway. If it will comfort him, I might as well stay here.
The sheets are cold when I slip into them, and I tuck up close to Jake to find some of his warmth. He already seems more relaxed. The clean smell of him starts to soothe me. I wish I knew something to say to him. I can't even imagine what he's going through right now. Part of me can understand, but not fully. When my father disappeared, it was a shock and left me dangling. I'm still dangling. But I still have the hope of him being alive. I know what it's like to lose a parent, and I can't imagine what it would feel like to have someone disrespect my mother's grave and take her body away. It would feel like so much of an intrusion, a violation.
I try to will myself to fall asleep, but the situation hangs heavily over me, and I can't make my eyes close. I'm not sure how much time has passed when Jake rolls over and looks at me. He lets out a soft groan and runs his fingers through my hair.
“What's wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He cocks his head at me, and I let out a sigh.
“There's just something bothering me, but I don't want to talk about it. You don't need anything else on you.”
“What's going on? Tell me,” he says.
“When we were in the cemetery, and I went to talk to the officers, Nicolas said something to me,” I admit.
“What did he say?” Jake asks suspiciously, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at me.
I feel strange with him hovering over me, and I force myself to push away memories I haven't been able to shake, memories that make me suspicious any time someone comes too close.
“He said… about your father’s grave… that you shouldn't be surprised.”
Jake's expression falls, and he turns around to lie on his back again, staring up at the ceiling. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything to you.”
“No. I'm glad you did. Truth is, he's not the only person in this town to think that. There's some bad blood here. Grudges some of the old-timers haven't been able to let go of. There are families in this town who blame my father for things that happened a long time ago, things he didn't have anything to do with. It looks like with everything else that's going on; they want to bring it up again. I don't understand why they won't just leave well enough alone. It's hard enough that he's dead. They don't have to torture his ghost, too.”
Chapter Nine
“That's it?” Bellamy asks.
“What do you mean?”
I open the trunk at the foot of the bed and pull out one of the folded quilts. They smelled damp and musty when I first came, but I washed them all during my first week so I could use them if I needed them. The temperature has dropped significantly, and I can never seem to get warm enough. I sit down on the couch and sling the blanket around my shoulders.
“He tells you there's bad blood against his father in town, and you don't ask him about it? The man’s grave was desecrated, and his bones dug up. Don't you think that's worth poking into a bit?”
“What is it that I should have asked him? Like you just said, his father's grave was desecrated. He wasn't exactly in the best place. I didn't think that was a great opportunity for me to start prying into obviously sensitive things about his past,” I explain. “It just strikes me as so strange. Everything Jake has told me about his family has been idyllic. Almost perfect. He tells me these stories about things they did together and how much he looked up to his father. Now I find out there was enough bad feeling in town for people to not be surprised somebody dug him out of his grave? Doesn't that seem a little extreme to you?”
“I mean, it's not something I would do. I've had my fair share of disagreements with people, but it's never crossed my mind to dig them up out of the ground,” she notes.
“Me, neither. It's just so creepy. Somebody is keeping secrets in this town, and unless I start figuring out who and what, I have a feeling this is all just going to get worse.”