The lights in the trailer were off, so they sat in Riley’s car, smoking a joint.
“You gonna tell me what happened in there?” Riley asked, face full of concern. It was eerily similar to the way Nate had been looking at her lately. Helen kept her eyes fixed on the dark windows of the trailer, thought it was a damn good thing Nate hadn’t seen her big freak-out at Dicky’s.
“Nothing,” Helen said. “Just my fucked-up imagination. God, that place gave me the creeps. And those people, it’s like they’re feeding on other people’s needs and misfortune, you know?”
Riley said nothing, then at last said, “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have gone. I didn’t know it would be like that.”
“It’s not your fault. But doesn’t that Dicky guy give you the creeps? I mean, why does he carry a gun everywhere? Was he expecting civil unrest during the spirit circle?”
Riley smiled. “You’re right. He’s kind of a yahoo. We’re just used to it, I guess.”
They were quiet as they finished the joint. The windows in the car were down, and Helen could hear frogs calling in the bog, smell the dark rich scent. She looked at the trailer, thought of Nate sleeping obliviously inside, surrounded by his nature guides, his carefully rendered drawings of their dream house. She knew she should go in, crawl into bed beside him, find comfort in his warm familiarity.
But that’s not where she wanted to be.
She turned back to Riley. “I heard Hattie’s voice,” Helen said.
“At Dicky’s?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d she say?”
Danger. You are in danger.
“She said, ‘Save her.’ ”
“Save who?”
“This relative I’m supposed to find, I think. The one the old lady was talking about.”
Riley frowned at her, bit her bottom lip. “Anything else?”
“She said…I’m in danger.”
“Helen, maybe you should stop, you know?”
Stop? Helen couldn’t believe that Riley, of all people, might suggest such a thing.
“I can’t. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can’t. Hattie wants me—no, sheneedsme to do this.”
Riley was silent, staring at Helen. “But did you ever stop to think that maybe she doesn’t have your best intentions at heart? Or maybe she’s just fucking with you.”
“Why? Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know, Helen. Because it’s fun. Amusing. Because she can.”
“No.” Helen shook her head. “She’s not, Riley. I know it—she hasn’t led me astray yet. She needs me, I can feel it.”
Riley studied Helen for a moment.
“All right. Whatever you say. Just be careful, okay? Just remember that things aren’t always what they seem.”
. . .
Helen turned off the computer, rubbed her eyes, and closed her little notebook, the notebook she’d come to think of as the “Mystery of Hattie” notebook. She’d been searching online for nearly two hours, and all she had to show for it was a name for Ann’s daughter. Samuel Gray and Ann Whitcomb Gray had had two children: Jason, born in August 1968, and Gloria, born in April 1971. She found a copy of Gloria’s birth certificate—her middle name was Marie, and she was born at 3:40p.m.—but nothing beyond that. There were hundreds of hits for both Jason Gray and Gloria Gray, and she didn’t have any other information to narrow things.
Nate was still out cold in the bedroom and hadn’t so much as stirred when Helen had come in and turned on the lights in the trailer.
