Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (3 page)

Liam, who normally
stays out of such matters, piped up, “You know he’s just trying to get information on the well to do families…”
"Too bad this family is not well to do anymore," said Tommy.

“Not like he knows that...” piped up Adam.

“He knows more than you think…” grumbled Jack under his breath.

Adam eyed his father suspiciously, his temper starting to boil over the surface.
Jack sat at the head of the table, pensive and quiet for a moment as the gears in his head spun round and round, processing various thoughts at once.

"D
on't hand it in. I'll handle it," said Jack abruptly, shocking the children at the table, but none more so than Tristan. While Tristan looked displeased, Tommy, Shane and Blake applauded.
"Yeah, Uncle J! You tell him!" blurted out Shane, while Tommy and Blake cheered along.
Jack laughed at his excitable nephew and delivered a swift undesired response, “I am not getting you off the hook, kid. Sorry. Or you, or you,” Jack said, as he pointed at Blake and Tommy. Seeing that Tristan still appeared to be upset he asked, “Why did he assign you your mother when he knows that she is not around?” Tristan braced herself to speak, her chest searing with pain.
"I asked him that and he said that is where my inner investigator would need to come into play. I confronted him after class to ask why I couldn’t select someone else, and he told me to ask my father. Dad… What is he talking about?”

The surprise was apparent on Jack’s face, and under his breath he began muttering profanities.

“That son of a bitch…” Jack whispered, just loud enough for Adam and Liam to hear.

“Our mother left when I was born, and I am supposed to write about a person whom I don’t know? You do realize that he is setting me up for failure, right?”
"Don't speak poorly about your mother in front of me. I know he's an intolerable, insufferable pain, but please have respect."
Looking defeated, Tristan crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at her father, feeling massively misunderstood.
"You three,” continued Jack as he pointed at his nephew and two youngest sons, "Will do the assignment. I will talk to that teacher of yours, and see if maybe Tristan can write her essay on a different family member.”

The trio stared at their father with a look of sheer confusion. Jack then put his most dashing smile and said, "Like me... I'm handsome, rugged, and loveable."
All the members of the table showed their disagreement in some form, between groans and eye rolling, to a boisterous declaration of, "You wish!" "Someone is already doing their report on you, so it would have to be someone else," explained Tristan. “I wouldn’t mind interviewing Gus,” Tristan said, referring to her cranky but lovable grandfather.

“Oh, please let it be someone other than Tommy... I cannot handle another year of interviews.”

Tommy smirked, “You better get ready, I have lots of questions lined up, and since I
must
hand it in, I'll be sure that it will be extra special.”
Jack began to roll his eyes as a loud crash came from the kitchen followed by an outburst of swears.

A woman cried out, “God damn it! I hate this oven it burns everything!”

Jack whispered to the teenagers that surrounded the table with a sarcastic voice, “It’s not the oven’s fault that she can’t cook…”

“I heard that!” Bridgette yelled out of the kitchen without opening the door.

In an attempt to diffuse the negative energy and confusion in the room, Jack blurted out with a smile, “Aunt Bridgette is cooking so naturally, we’re having pizza again.”

Shane blurted out to his buddy Cole, “Yeah, my mom can’t cook.”

Cole laughed and agreed with the consensus of the crowd, “Pizza sounds great.”

The kitchen door swung open and a
pretty red-haired woman with long, frizzy curls and a perturbed look appeared. Abruptly, she yelled out, “Pizza’s on its way! Uncle Frank offered to bring it home.”

As quickly as she appeared, she disappeared, as she began to clean up the destroyed pot roast that lay charred in the oven. As the rest of his siblings celebrated over the news of pizza, Adam stared into his father’s green eyes and didn’t mince his words.

"You tell them the truth or I will. You know what he is trying to do and I don’t like it one bit. It’s about damn time they know what happened to our mother."

Jack swallowed nervously as he broke eye contact with his eldest son. Swiftly, Adam rose from his chair
, grabbing his leather jacket off the back of Shane’s chair and hastily departed the dining room, leaving his father looking nervous and dumbfounded. The smell of pepperoni filled the foyer, as Frank Kilpatrick strolled into the house with five large pizza boxes from Monte’s restaurant. A faint Scottish brogue boomed from his lungs.

“Oy! Who wants pizza?!”

Frank’s work boots tromped heavily across the hardwood floor as he trudged into the dining room. He was greeted by a room of smiling faces; the kids were always happy to see him. As far as uncles went, Frank Kilpatrick was a great one to have. He was quick with a joke, always up for a board game and whenever Aunt Bridgette fouled up dinner, he would bring home take-out. Jack tipped his hat to his brother-in-law, and oldest friend.

Frank dropped the pizza
boxes on the massive dining room table and he began passing out paper plates, tossing them like Frisbees across the table. As everyone began grabbing slices of pizza, Frank swung the kitchen door open to get a peek at his wife. Leaning over the trash can, Bridgette scraped what appeared to be a completely burnt pot roast and lumpy mashed potatoes into the rubbish that lay below. His young wife looked utterly disgusted.

“Now you’ve done it. Destroyed the pot roast…” Frank said in amusement.

“Just admit it. I’m a horrible cook!” Bridgette said, admitting defeat.

Frank smirked, “I’ll keep the pizza place on speed dial.” Bridgette jabbed her husband playfully as a smile crossed her face, against her will. As he leaned in for a kiss, the kitchen door swung open as Tommy yelled out, “Uncle Frank, play a board game with us!” Still smiling, Frank said he would
once he finished his dinner.

After dinner as Bridgette cleared the paper plates and empty pizza boxes from the table and Frank began taking board games down from the closet, Tristan escaped outside with Cole. Capturing the perfect moment, when her brothers were preoccupied and Jack was focused on
the evening news, Tristan hoped to catch up with her oldest friend. Living atop Cavegat Pass, there were no other children other than her brothers and cousin, so it wasn't easy to make lasting friendships. When Cole and Tristan were children, Bridgette would babysit many of the children in Elkhart, and Cole and his siblings just happened to be among them. Jack did not approve of Tristan hanging out with Cole alone. Tristan recalls the last time Jack addressed the so-called issue. Jack berated them from the other side of the dining room table as his face turned a putrid shade of red. He was pissed that the pair were found sitting together in her bedroom playing a game of chess on the floor with the door ajar as requested by Aunt Bridgette. Jack often overlooks the fact that the pair have been friends since they were both in diapers, been in every class together since nursery school, and share many of the same friends. Tristan wondered how Jack would react when he found out that Cole has been her boyfriend for the last month. It wasn’t Cole’s fault that Jack was so protective, and Tristan, at age fifteen, understandably had an interest in dating. Jack liked Cole as a person. He thought he was a respectful young man. He just wasn’t savvy on the idea of him dating his daughter.

Now when Cole wants to come over, he has to play it cool; act like Tommy, Shane or Blake invited
him. Then when dinner was over, Tristan and Cole would sneak off to the lake to hang out without being watched like a hawk. If Jack could read the contents of Cole's mind, or knew the extent of his feelings for his daughter, Cole was sure that Jack would never allow him within fifty feet of his Tristan.

Tristan ran briskly across the valley, as Cole chased behind her, unable to quite catch her. Her
dark brown curls flew behind her, as she ran through the fall breeze, the vivid scenery whipping past her. Cole smiled as he watched her, as her soft hair flowed gracefully down her back, the color of her cheek flushing rose from the autumn chill. Finally, she slowed, finding a tree - her tree, in the apple orchard. An aging wooden ladder sat by the tree. She climbed up to the top step and sat, while she laughed at Cole who was still catching up, clearly out of breath as he clutched his side.

"Come on, old man!" yelled Tristan at Cole, teasing him because of his slower speed.

"You're too damn fast!" retorted Cole, winded but finally at the foot of Tristan's apple tree.

"You better get back in shape before hockey season starts..."

"Totally different experience, skating. I'll be ready."

Tristan settled onto her tree branch, as the smile washed from her face.
"What is it?" asked Cole, with worry clear in his voice. Tristan trying to hide what it was that was bothering her, attempted to play it off like it was nothing. This often happened between the pair; something was bothering Tristan, but she didn't want to trouble Cole with her complaints.
"It's nothing..."
"Can we skip the part where you pretend nothing is wrong and you just tell me?" asked Cole with a charming smirk on his face. Tristan rolled her eyes, and prepared to give up what was irritating her.
"Do you ever go onto Mountain Road with your dad?"

"
All the time... Why?"

"Tommy and I went into town with my father today and we had a really weird experience. So we arrive and right away we see Joey Binns getting the snot beat out of him by his father, right in the middle of Elk Road. My father ran over to stop the guy, and Joey's dad, no lie, took one look at my
father and looked like he had seen a ghost."
"That guy is a jerk. My father always tells me to stay away from that house,” said Cole.

Tristan continued, “That’s not all, though. Then when we were passing through Harrow’s, the General Store, I noticed that we were being watched. Edna and Peggy were watching us from inside the store. I elbowed Tommy, and he pointed out that they weren’t the only ones who were staring. It was weird.”
"You know people in town have nothing better to do than get in other people's business. Especially Edna Harrow and Peggy Dresher. My grandmother used to belong to the same bridge club as them, and she said all they do is talk crap about other people. Sad...”
"Edna is one of the ladies who insulted me. She said I am just like my mother - sullen and weird."

"From what I hear, you are nothing like your mother aside from looks."
"It made me really uncomfortable. It was as if they knew something about us that we didn't."
“
I think you have enough on your plate, with researching this ridiculous project. Don’t worry about what stupid people think, especially gossiping old ladies with nothing better to do.”

* * *

Edna Harrow slammed the cash register drawer shut with a bang inside Harrow’s General Store, her father’s operation, as she reclaimed her seat next to her long-time friend and fellow Harrow’s employee, Peggy Dresher. Peggy was sitting on her metal folding chair, her thunderous saddlebags draping over the edges on either side of her seat with a miserable scowl permanently planted on her once attractive face. She opened up her mouth to speak, showing nothing but empty space; she had failed to wear her dentures again, and as a result she was difficult to understand as she rambled on about lord knows what. Peggy routinely left her dentures at home, and insisted that they were only for special occasions, like weddings and funerals. As Edna, who actually had no trouble understanding Peggy, lowered her skeletal figure onto the chair beside Peggy, the morning conversation opened with the usual topics: health complaints, husband complaints, and a hearty round of malicious gossip about their fellow community members.

“How ya feeling today, Peggy?”

“Just grand, isn’t this the life?” Peggy said facetiously as she waved to the tiny, cluttered General Store.

“One of these days, we’re just going to pack up and head to somewhere warm and this town ain’t gonna know what hit them…”

“Where’ll we go? And should we bring Hank and Arnie?”

“I thought we were running away! Why the hell would we bring the husbands?!”

“It’d be much less stressful without them. But what if we get lonely?”

“Edna, we are youthful, vivacious, and full of spunk! We’ll find a pair of cabana boys, and live our days without worry!”

“Why, young men do love older women these days!”

As Peggy contemplated her daydreams out loud with her longest living friend, Jack Morrow had walked up to the front counter and rung the rusty bell that was sitting on the countertop, with a sign next to it that said “Ring for Service.” Edna and Peggy argued silently, debating who would be assisting Jack today. Neither of them wanted to take on the task. They didn’t like Jack much.

“Good Morning, Jack,” said Edna lifting herself gingerly off of her seat, fluffing up her red dye job in the process. “What can I do you for this fine morning?”