"No idea," Emma shrugged. "Lindy's going to freak, though. She had it in her head that tonight was the night she was going to make her move on him."

"Where is Lindy?" Taryn peered around, trying to focus in on the shadowy people.

"In the farmhouse. Not getting busy or anything, just talking."

Emma eventually left Taryn and Matt alone, going off to play hostess and making sure n.o.body was getting into trouble. "You okay?" she asked Matt.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's not so bad, sitting here by the fire and eating. I don't mind the music. But how long do we have to stay?"

"Not long," she promised. "I just want to talk to Evan, maybe get a better feel for things. And then we'll go."

Several people approached them, introducing themselves. Apparently Emma had spread the word about Taryn and her "gift" and lots of kids wanted to ask her about ghosts or share their own ghost stories. She heard about dead grandmothers coming back for one last visit, demon screams from attics, red eyes peering into bathroom windows, and supposed possessions. Taryn listened to all the tales politely, making the right interested noises.

Finally, when the last one left, she excused herself from Matt. Evan was sitting down on the other side of the fire, fishing his guitar out of the case, and there was an empty seat on the other side of him. "I'll be right back," she pledged.

He was tuning it when she sat down and started talking to him. "Hey, I know this is going to sound like it's coming out of the blue but can I ask you a few questions about Cheyenne?"

Evan turned to face her, bright blue eyes set against a pale face. He smiled, revealing perfectly white, straightened teeth. "Yeah, sure, it's cool. If you don't mind me picking your brain about Nashville."

"I can tell you what I know," she promised.

"Same here."

"That last night, the party, do you remember it?"

Evan nodded, serious. "I remember. It was kind of a wild one, you know? Just kept getting louder and louder. I couldn't take it. Spent a lot of time sitting right here with Cheyenne, just talking."

"Were you drinking? Doing anything else?" she pressed lightly.

"A little beer, but that's all. I was driving," he explained, "and I had a curfew. Cheyenne had a drink or two. She was relaxed, you know, but not wasted."

"Were you guys dating or..." she let her voice trail off, hoping he'd take it up.

"No, not really. I mean I liked Cheyenne. She was cool, definitely hot, you know? But I'd just gotten out of a relationship. I'd had a crush on her since eighth grade, but she always seemed to be dating someone else. To tell you the truth, I'd hoped that night would be the night we hooked up."

"And did you?"

"Kind of. We made out a little," he admitted. "And then I offered to drive her home."

Taryn straightened up, her ears tuned in. "And what did she say?"

"She said yeah, she'd ride with me but that she had to go tell her friends. She walked away, and I played a little bit. I saw her a little while later, drinking again, and I tried to wave her over. She waved back, like she was coming. But when I turned back around later, she was gone. I had to be home by midnight and couldn't wait for her, so I left."

Taryn narrowed her eyes. "And you never saw her again?"

"Nope," he replied softly, staring at the ground. "Never again."

He changed the subject then and began asking her about Nashville, about the clubs he could try to get into. They talked for another fifteen minutes and then she excused herself, going back to Matt.

"Learn anything?" he asked.

"Maybe. Evan claims he offered to give her a ride but that she disappeared. He apparently had a curfew and couldn't wait for her."

"And you don't believe him?"

She shook her head. "Something's not adding up, that's for sure."

"Any vibes about the place yet? Anything coming to you?"

"No," Taryn confessed. "But it's about time to whip out Miss Dixie."

The drink in her hand was fresh, the second Taryn had had so far. The c.o.ke and whiskey was settling nicely in her stomach, giving her a warm, fuzzy feeling. She hadn't drank anything but wine in so long that the whiskey was working faster than it used to. She was already feeling a little lightheaded, but it was nice.

The warmth of the fire made her feel cozy, fluid. A group of young people had pulled their chairs in closer to her and Matt and even he was engaged in a conversation with a college-aged guy, an engineer major. They were deep in conversation, their heads bent together, while Taryn occasionally added to the conversation beside hersomething about the latest reality dating show. The drinks were making her looser, happier. It was the buzz she'd thought she'd get from the pain meds but didn't. The feeling of being part of a group, even a group she didn't belong in, was seductive.

Brantley Gilbert began playing on the speakers, "Bottoms Up" filling the air with its pulsating, steady rhythm. Several of the girls beside Taryn stood up and began dancing, moving their bodies back and forth and dipping low to the ground. One reached down and pulled Taryn up with them and suddenly she was with a flock of girls, dancing around the fire without a care in the world. Matt stopped talking and watched her, as did several of the other guys around the fire. She might have been thirty, but she could still move. After all, she was the MTV generation. Forgetting that anyone was watching, she let the alcohol give her false courage and danced, the heat of the fire urging her on, the music filling her and making her forget how much she despised most of the music on country radio. In this setting, it made sense. Then, breaking free of the other girls she turned to Matt and swayed in front of him before finally dropping into his lap, his arms immediately going around her and holding her steady. She laughed then and kissed him squarely on the mouth, expecting him to pull away in embarra.s.sment. He seemed to forget his avoidance of PDA and kissed her back, hard. They stayed entangled in one another until the song ended and the air grew quiet, peppered only by bits of conversation.

Taryn pulled back and started to get up, but Matt held onto her. Evan had picked up his guitar and began strumming, humming along with it. The Hank Williams Sr. song he went into was unexpected but his baritone voice filled the night with "Cold, Cold Heart" and everyone listened. He truly was good at what he did.

Taryn closed her eyes, feeling dizzy, and was glad for the comfort of Matt's arms and lap.

Then Amber was beside her, talking. "I guess they were afraid the house would burn down," she remarked.

Remembering Emma's earlier comment about the candles and kerosene lamps in the farmhouse, Taryn nodded without opening her eyes. "All it takes is for someone to knock one of those things over. Those floors are old and dry."

"Huh??" Amber's voice had Taryn peering at her.

"The farmhouse, right?"

"No," Amber laughed. "The fire. It's usually over there, where that wood pile is. But I guess they thought it was too close to the house."

Taryn straightened, slid out of Matt's lap, and stood up. A thought was slowly forming in her mind. "Amber, where was the fire the night Cheyenne disappeared?"

"Over there, where the wood is," she stated again, looking agitated.

Her photo of the front of the house, Taryn thought. She could see the flames reflected off the front door. That's what had been off with the picture. Where the fire was now, it would've been impossible. So the fire was moved but...

Slowly, Taryn reached down and picked up Miss Dixie. Evan had moved on to Dierks Bentley's "Tip it On Back" and several guys sang along with him, their voices rising. Taryn gazed into the viewfinder, ready to click, but found she didn't need to. The fire was now where it was meant to be, in front of the house. The flames burned brightly, the people gathered around some of the same ones who were there now, but in different clothes and in different places. Slowly, slowly, realization dawning on her, Taryn turned the camera to the fire glowing in front of her. Although she could still feel the heat, through the viewfinder it was gone. In its place was a regular patch of earth, unmarked by flames. The dirt was upturned, though, recently disturbed. And then, as she watched in horror, a long slender arm protruded from it, clawing at the earth and reaching for the sky.

Lowering Miss Dixie, Taryn gazed into the flames, sickness forming in her stomach. She stepped back once, twice, her mouth opened wide. People had stopped talking and were looking at her, although Evan continued to play on, possibly even louder than before.

The air around her became a cyclone then, she a lone vessel in the middle. It spun around and around, faster and faster, while she held on to her balance, her arms outstretched touching the wind. She felt a surge of energy, of power, she'd never felt power and although it frightened her, it also empowered her and she threw her head back, opening her mouth and trying to swallow as much of it as she could.

And then, she could see.

Cheyenne, taking one last drink before leaving with Evan, her crush.

Cheyenne, being led willingly into the farmhouse, urged by a promise.

Cheyenne, on the dirty mattress, unable to move, the candle flames glowing around her. The fairies have finally come to see me.

Cheyenne, being ravaged by not one, but two people, her eyes glazed and vacant while someone else stood off to the side, a crimson smile on their face.

Cheyenne, being tossed into a hole, dirt tossed on her like garbage, a spurt of breath still escaping her body.

She'd never left the farm.

The wind stopped, Taryn lowered her arms and shook her head. Lindy stood before her, her brown skin darkened even more by the angel costume that clung to her small hips and tight stomach. Her hair fell around her shoulders, the firelight dancing off it. There was a glazed look in her eyes, like she'd just woken up from a sweet dream. The polished steel of the handgun was pointed straight at Taryn.

Chapter 25.

"You set her up," Taryn accused, her voice steady. The people around her began to scatter, some screaming, some tripping over themselves. She could see somebody dialing on their cell phone out of the corner of her eye.

"Cheyenne was a wh.o.r.e," Lindy spat, her voice shaky. She'd been drinking. If Taryn hadn't been able to smell it rolling off her in waves, she'd have been able to hear it in her voice. Her red lipstick was smeared a little across her cheek, like she'd wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and forgotten. And yes, somehow, she'd never looked more attractive.

"How so?" Taryn asked conversationally, trying to keep her voice light, all the while thinking, how in h.e.l.l does this keep happening to me?

"She wanted everything that was mine. I made cheerleader, she made captain. I was nominated for homecoming court, she made queen."

The definition of "wh.o.r.e" has really changed since I was a teenager, Taryn thought to herself. But, aloud, she tried to reason. "Being jealous was no reason to kill her," she pointed out, not taking her eye off the gun. She didn't think Lindy would actually shoot her with half the town as a witness, but you could never really tell about people and it didn't make her want to stop shaking any more.

"Jealous!? You think I was jealous," Lindy snorted, the gun waving back and forth as she laughed. "Get real. I was better than her. That night was supposed to be my chance with Evan. But there she went, straight after him. She knew how I felt, she knew I liked him."

"No, she didn't, Lindy," Amber called, her voice high and brittle.

"Shut up, Amber," Lindy yelled, firing the gun into the sky. "You're as s.k.a.n.ky as she was. Shouldn't you have AIDS or something by now?" Lindy giggled then, amused by her own wit. The quietness in the air was broken only by the hiss and crackle of the fire.

"So what did you do, Lindy? Did you kill her? Where is Cheyenne now?" Keep her talking, keep her talking, Taryn chanted. Someone had called the police, she was sure of it. Others were stealthily taking pictures and videos with their phones. But that didn't mean Lindy wouldn't take someone down with herthat someone most likely being Taryn.

"Gawd! What kind of person do you think I am, b.i.t.c.h?" Lindy snarled at this, revealing lipstick stains on her teeth. "You think this is some kind of Lifetime movie? I didn't kill her. When she came to tell us she was leaving, we helped her out a little bit. Gave her some extra courage. You know, like friends."

"What did you give her?" Taryn asked reasonably.

"Does it matter?" she waved the gun around in the air again. For a second Taryn thought she was going to drop it and visibly cringed, expecting it to land and go off, but then Lindy appeared to regain control. "Really? She was too good for the rest of us. b.i.t.c.h needed to be brought down off her high horse. Right? Right!?"

At first Taryn thought she was speaking to the general crowd, a group that continue to watch her, a one-woman freak show, but then Brad and Mike appeared behind her, Emma at their side. The guys' expressions were hard to read in the shadows, but Emma's look of horror shone through clear as day. "Put down the d.a.m.n gun, Lindy. What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" Her voice cracked, full of bewilderment. Maybe she thought Lindy was playing, the gun a prop, but when the little blonde turned and faced her, the gun now pointed at her head, Emma shrank back.

"Oh, shut up," Lindy hissed. "You always took her side." She sounded hurt, wounded. For a second her shoulders slumped and, despite the weapon in her hand, looked less menacing then before.

"What did you do?" Emma wailed, grief outweighing the fear. "She was our friend! And now you're going to kill Taryn, too? Or blow somebody else's d.a.m.n head off?"

"You didn't know?" Taryn asked Emma, genuinely curious.

"No, II was outside the whole time. I never went into that house. I never trusted the things that went on in there. Lindy told me Cheyenne left, left with Travis," Emma sputtered.

"Yeah, well," Lindy shrugged. "He's a dumb f.u.c.k and has a temper. He'd tried to grope me earlier in the night. Other people saw it," she whined with a sniff. "And he cut me off. I had to crawl through his truck window just to score what I had that evening. And then wasted perfectly good s.h.i.t on Cheyenne."

Evan stood up, drew closer to Emma, but Matt urged him back with a single motion of his hand. Matt was standing now, just a few feet to Lindy's side. She hadn't noticed him, a lanky shadow that moved as softly as a whisper. Taryn could feel his eyes on her, never letting her go from his sight. Fear for Matt now crept into her heart, anxious Lindy would turn on him and fire, if for no reason than her s.p.a.ce was being intruded on. It was all Taryn could do not to hurl herself forward, tackling Lindy to the ground and ripping her hair out for what she was afraid she might do if she caught Matt too close. Her thin ray of hope held onto the fact that, since Lindy had never met Matt, she might not know who he wasand who he was to Taryn.

"Lindy," Taryn began with desperation, "let's just go someplace and talk. Just the two of us. Tell me what happened. I want to hear your side. There's no reason to bring these other people into it. We're friends, right?"

Tears streaming down her face, leaving deep rivets in her thick foundation, Lindy vehemently shook her head. "No! You don't know what it's like, to grow up with someone your whole life, to be unable to get away from them. Everywhere you go, everyone you know... there's never any escape. It's a trap! This whole place is a trap," she wailed wildly, the gun waving once more.

Emma sobbed a little, a sound that died in her throat. "What did you do to her Lindy?" she demanded again.

"Me? I just gave her a drink," Lindy retorted sweetly, the desperation still clinging to the edge of her voice. "Ask Brad and Eric what they did," she added harshly without looking back at them.

Taryn could feel the tightness in her chest, the pain, see the shadows around her once again. They'd raped her, both of them, while she was mostly unconscious. And then they'd thrown her in that hole, maybe while she was still alive.

"It wasn't anything she didn't want to do," Eric mumbled defensively, but they began slowly backing away from Lindy, panicked looks on their faces.

"Dumba.s.s there," Lindy momentarily took her eyes off Taryn and looked back at Eric, "buried her right there in the yard. Of course you could see the spot. Anyone could have. Any idiot who's watched a crime show knows the first thing they look for is disturbed ground."

"Jesus, Lindy," Brad whispered, his voice coa.r.s.e. "Shut the f.u.c.k up."

"So you covered up the original fire spot with the wood pile and built another one on top of the grave, burned it awhile," Taryn offered, some pieces falling resoundingly into place. "And n.o.body figured that out?"

"Why would they?" Lindy reasoned. "The police came out and looked and saw the fire pit. It was used. Cheyenne left the party. There were witnesses."

Yeah, some witnesses, Taryn thought. The ones who killed her!

"We didn't know she'd overdose," Eric shook his head with vigor. The crowd of people, who had been backing away, now appeared to collectively regain courage, seemingly forgetting the fact that Lindy still had the gun. The monstrosity of Lindy & Company's actions was dawning on them, each person wearing a sickened and horrified expression. They'd literally been walking around Cheyenne's grave all night, dancing, laughing, and singing atop her brittle bones.

"She got sick, she started shaking. I gave her mouth to mouth. It sucked a.s.s," Brad whimpered piteously, "but I tried." Eric nodded his head feverishly, begging those around them to understand. It was too late, of course.

"It's your fault," Lindy shouted now at Taryn, the steadier than it had been. "If you hadn't talked to Amber, to Evan, to Thelma. Why did you have to come here? Why were you taking Emma from me? Why do you have to take everything! Why couldn't you just have stayed away!"

Lindy let out a terrible wail then, or did it come from someplace else, someplace deep inside the flames that suddenly shot up into the sky? The sound was at once familiar, what'd she'd heard on the cabin's porch, and inhuman. Before either she or Lindy could react, the flash of movement took Taryn off guard and she was suddenly pushed away, to the side, where she hit the ground and landed on her back, her Catwoman costume ripping on a root.

Now Matt stood in front of Lindy, just inches away, his own gun raised in front of him. Whereas Lindy's hand was still wavering, however, his was rock-steady. "Put it down," he commanded softly, a mixture of steel and honey in his voice. "Put the gun down, or I'll shoot."

She opened her mouth, an ugly red slash, to protest but before she could speak he cut her off. "Do it," he barked, a tone Taryn had never heard him use.

Lindy cackled, her bright red lips black in the firelight. "If you shoot me you'll go to jail." Her voice was weak, though, uncertain. Taryn knew, then, that she was crumbling and fast. She'd lost and for an instant looked like the little girl she must've once been.

"No, I won't. Put it down now." Matt fired then, but at the ground near her feet. The noise caused her to panic, to jump. The gun fell from her hand and in one movement Matt caught it, put on the safety, kicked it out of the way, and grabbed onto her in a tight vise. She barely struggled against him as he placed his own gun in the waist band of his pants, her frame lost against his. She collapsed against him then, and clung to his chest. Matt being Matt, though he gripped her with all his strength, he gently stroked her hair in a tender gesture that caused her to sob.

Taryn picked up the gun and held it gingerly out in front of her. As the sounds of sirens began to fill the air, both Eric and Brad began to make a run for it. Evan was too quick for Eric, however, and threw to him to ground, just as someone else made a beeline for Brad. Neither put up much of a struggle.

Emma, pale and shaking, fell to the ground in a ragdoll heap.