Page 17 of One Night Years Ago

His expression closed down.

“What do you want, Sheriff?”

“I want to search your things.”

He sighed. “You’re looking in the wrong place, Sheriff. I didn’t do anything to that young woman.”

She looked up at the house. “Then you won’t have a problem with me looking at your things. Humor me,” she said. “I can come up with an excuse for your mother. I don’t want to hurt her.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he did so.

Finally, he nodded. “Okay. But I don’t live in the house. I just came over for coffee. I live in the barn.” He pointed at the decrepit building.

“You live in the barn?”

Way to go, Natalie, repeat everything he says.

“I wanted to be alone.”

A rapist would want to be alone.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. Feel free to look at my things. I just … didn’t want to live with anybody else.”

“Sign this paper, so it’s clear you agree to the search.” She brought out a pen and pointed him at the bottom of the statement.

Hunter read it quickly and signed at the bottom.

“Take me to the barn, then,” she said, waiting for him to take the lead.

No way am I turning my back on you for an instant.

He nodded, his expression sad. He placed the coffee mug down on a rickety table on the porch and headed towards the barn. She was about to go in when a noise behind the barn caught her attention. It was a hard whacking sound, of somebody hitting something hard. Her hand went to her gun immediately, and she trained it, first on Hunter, then on the noise.

She walked to the side of the barn.

A man was standing there, an enormous axe in his arms.

“Stop!” Her gun pointed at the man’s chest. “Drop that!”

The axe continued its inexorable movement. Her heart beat a hundred miles a minute until she realized it was headed towards a log.

“No!” Hunter stepped between her and the man. “It’s just my brother, Jesse. He’s chopping wood for the winter.”

The man chopping up wood was a carbon copy of Hunter, though thinner and with longer hair. He was shirtless. The younger brother. She’d known the younger brother existed. She’d just forgotten.

I’m losing my cool, if I get scared by a man chopping wood.

“Did we do something wrong, Hunter?” he asked softly, sounding confused.

“No, we’re okay, Jesse, just do as she says,” Hunter said softly.

She lowered her gun, almost turned around to head back to the barn with Hunter, when, suddenly, her mind realized what she’d just seen. She stepped from around Hunter to look at his brother. Hunter tried to stand in between them again and she raised her gun again.

“Stand against the wall, Hunter,” she ordered. “I’ll shoot you if you move an inch.”

She squinted in the sun to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. But no, there, in full black ink, a bit faded by time but still as real as ever, was the bird from her nightmares. It was a Bald Eagle. She felt her eyes might pop out as the man dropped the axe onto the ground. His pectoral muscles shook as he did so, and the eagle on the left side of his chest flapped its wings at her.

It’s flapping its fucking wings.