Page 16 of Dark Shadows
The town might not, but Savanah would.
A different waitress returned with a plate of toast and a small cup filled with pats of butter and a variety of jellies. Savanah doctored hers up and took a bite. How long had it been since she'd had a piece of toast?
The taste brought back a happy memory.
She was a kid again, padding into the kitchen in the middle of the night to find her dad at the table with a plate of toast. He always had an extra slice ready, like he knew she'd show up.
He'd been a good detective. Honest. One of the few.
The town had never felt the same without him.
Mason was watching her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Must be some good toast.”
She smiled without elaborating. “Why am I really here? You didn't need me for this. I told the police everything I saw back then. I'm sure it's in some report somewhere.”
“Your name was pinned to a dead man's chest and painted on the walls in red paint.”
“You're sure that wasn't blood from the bucket?” she asked.
“Our technicians tested it.” There was a flicker of something in Mason's eyes as if he were holding something back.
“I'm not sure if that makes it more creepy or not.” Savanah shivered.
“Creepy or not, we might be able to track the sale of red paint, especially in a town this size.”
That was true. Maybe it was a break. “I'd hope the hardware store has installed some kind of security cameras in the last decade.”
“And about those old police reports. You said it yourself. No one believed you back then. I'm sure they weren't as thorough as they should've been. I'm here to catch a killer. One who's clearly taunting you now.”
“Yeah, but why do you care?”
“One day, I'll introduce you to my best friend. Then you'll understand. I used to be like everyone else in this diner. I didn't believe. She saved my life, and now I trust her without question. She said I needed to be here with you, so here we are.”
“So, what? Are you supposed to be like my guardian angel or something?”
“There is nothing angelic about me,” he assured her with a teasing smile. “Why don't you finish your toast, and then you can tell me how you work.”
“What do you mean, 'how I work'?” she asked.
“Explain how you pick up things with your abilities. I need to know what to look out for. My best friend would get an absent look on her face and blurt out whatever she was seeing and thinking.”
“I'm not like your friend or my boss, Ryley, who chases ghosts through the forest. I'm much more reserved than that, for the most part.”
“Elaborate.”
Savanah glanced out the window to find her ex-stepdad gone. “Spirits are all around us. I can see them. I can hear them, and they talk to me. But with a newly departed, I have some type of connection. It's hard to explain. It's as if I'm being pulled, as if I were a fish on a hook being reeled in for the kill. I get visions, and I feel what the victim feels.”
“Even those that die from natural causes?”
“Sometimes, but not often. Mostly the ones I’m sucked into are the traumatic deaths.”
He leaned forward with his brows pulled into a frown. “Did you feel how the dead guy died at the barn? Do you know what happened to him?”
“Not the guy hanging from the rafters, but the guy on the tarp, yes. I experienced his death while I was walking home on that trail. Took me to my knees and stole my breath.”
He leaned forward and laced his fingers together. “Did you see him get killed?”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat and took a deep breath. “I physically experienced it and saw bits and pieces in my vision. It wasn't until I came out of it and heard a tree snap in the woods that I ran toward the barn. When I looked through the slats, the man was already dead, lying on a piece of plastic with his throat cut and his eyes cut out.”
