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  Chapter 4

  Heather James eased her utility van to the side of the rutted gravel road and flicked off the headlights, waiting while the dust settled before climbing out and sliding open the van’s side door. Late afternoon thunderstorms blasting through the county had left her with a work order list as long as her arm. However, once this final repair was complete, she’d be headed home with a hefty five hours of overtime under her belt.

  For a moment, she stood, head thrown back, admiring the millions of stars glinting in their fields of velvet. She loved it out here. Sure, the pay couldn’t compare to her AT&T job back in Alsuma, but people out here were nice if a bit odd. There were rarely nosey customers interrupting her work and the quiet out here in the country couldn’t be matched. It seemed the people around Button Creek were more private than most, a trait that meshed well with her own reticence, and the job provided the opportunity to savor this vast remoteness; far from cities, far from pollution, and far from abusive ex-husbands.

  She lifted her heavy D-Ring tool belt and strapped it around her ample hips then dug her climbers out and cinched the spiked stirrups to the bottom of her boots. After double checking her pockets and confirming her tools and lights were in place, her fingers made a confirming brush along the outline of the .38 revolver zipped in its black nylon case at her hip. She’d taken to carrying the firearm after an ugly encounter with gang bangers one night when she was a rookie lineman outside of Dallas. She’d carried the weapon ever since.

  Marching to the telephone pole indicated on her work order, Heather threw the climbing strap around its wide girth and seated her spikes into the wood. The night air was light and moist after the storms, the wind carrying the heady aroma of damp meadows and fertile soil. Hanging thirty feet in the air could be a beast in the winter; the north wind biting through insulated coveralls like a silk negligée. But scenes like this made those horrible, harsh nights worth it.

  A full moon shimmered on the gravel road like a ribbon of silver meandering through the fields. The low rolling hills created a forested valley which she shared with no one but the distant hooting owls and the whisper of wind through the trees.

  She set up her lights and unlocked the junction box, mentally running through the list of problems which might be the reason for her call. In the distance, a pair of coyotes howled their mournful song answered by several more, further up the road.

  For the thousandth time, she went through the reasons for her troubled marriage, the drinking, the gambling, the embarrassing middle of the night trips to the police station to bail him out.. Gary had been a good man when they met, a handsome marine with a boyish sense of humor and a contagious laugh.

  She pulled a line tester from her belt and flicked it on. A breeze kicked through the trees scattering dried leaves beneath her in a chittering swirl. The problems began when Gary came back from his deployment in Iraq. He just wasn’t the same after his return. He’d begun drinking soon after, or maybe he’d been drinking overseas and simply brought the habit home, an unwelcome parting gift from an unwanted war.

  Either way, the boyish, good-natured man she’d fallen in love with had died over there. A victim of war as surely as if he’d taken a bullet to the heart. Heather was shocked out of her reverie by the metallic clatter of something inside her van.

  Not a single vehicle had passed since she’d pulled up, the lights from the only houses in the area a twinkling in the distance. Hell, it was almost three a.m., nobody from any of those homes would have tramped all the way through the woods to mess with her. Would they?

  She shone her flashlight on the van. Nothing. An icy chill inched up her spine when she noticed the door on the opposite side of the van was open. Why in the world had she left that damn door open? She guessed it was possible someone was inside. But who? From where?

  She let her light bathe the van for several heartbeats before turning back to her work. She was being silly. There was no one there. The closest house was a quarter mile away. A tool slipped from the rack, nothing more.

  The problem with the phone lines ended up being quite simple. Heather didn’t even need to climb down to search the van for a spare part, it was a common fix and she had the piece in her tool belt. Then she heard the laugh; more of a giggle really, a child’s giggle. The sound floated up to her followed by the scrape of metal on metal, like a heavy tool dragged across the sheet metal of the van’s floor.

  She flicked on her flash light, spotting a shadow of movement beside the rear bumper. “Hello? What are you doing there?” Her thoughts drifted to the myriad tools inside the van. How a child might hurt themselves on any of dozen of them She kicked herself for not following protocol, not locking the van door. But hell, she was in the middle of nowhere. It was three in the morning.

  “Don’t get inside the van, honey. There’s tools in there that can hurt you.” She imagined the trouble that would follow if she had to drive the kid to the ER for stitches or a broken finger. Explain to the parents why she hadn’t locked the van door, an open invitation to an inquisitive child.

  There was no answer to her call. Her mind told her there was a child down there, someone messing with her equipment. Her instincts were sending a different sort of message, one gift wrapped in fear. The wind sighed lazily through the late spring foliage, the full moon hovering high above the tree line to the west. She sifted through her belt, her fingers shaking as she pulled the revolver from its case.

  “Hello?” She was being ridiculous. She’d heard a child laugh. Obviously, one of the children from a nearby farm had taken advantage of the full moon and snuck out. So, what was she going to do? Shoot a kid? If there was trouble because of a couple of stitches, what kind of trouble could she expect from a gunshot? Reluctantly, she slid the gun back in its case. She’d finish the repairs and drive the kid home, that’s what she would do; make sure the little brat got a real ass chewing too; scaring her like this.

  She snapped the junction box closed and locked it, then secured her tools. “I’m on my way down,” she called. “I can drive you home if you don’t want to walk.”

  A coyote howl shattered the silence, the ragged, sharp bark originating from the bushes below. Dark shapes rushed out of the shadow, flowing across the road like wraiths before disappearing into the tall grass on the far side of the road. Heather tracked their westerly progress by the waving heads of grass dancing in the silvery moonlight. Then they were gone. Her heart hammered in her throat and she let out a gasp of air, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath.

  She laughed for being so scared. Coyotes. Nothing more than coyotes. They’d obviously not seen her up on the pole and rushed past on their nightly business oblivious of her presence. It was an amazing interaction with nature she’d always…wait. What about the kid? Whoever it was, they were probably terrified.

  “Hey, everything’s fine,” she assured her unseen guest. “It was just coyotes. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  When she reached the ground, she unstrapped her climbers and stepped to the side of the van. There was no one there. Lying on the ground beside the door was a pair of her pliers. She picked them up and slid them back in their spot along the van’s peg board wall.

  She turned in a circle, examining the road and the open grassy fields to her left, the stand of trees on the right their trunks bathed in silvery luminance.

  “Hey. I can give you a ride.” She eyed the field where the coyotes had fled, suddenly aware of a great desire to leave. But the boy, she couldn’t leave him out here. Somehow, she knew the laugh she’d heard had come from a boy.

  “Hey! I can’t wait…all…night.” Her voice faltered, ending in a dry croak as the cold chill returned. A feeling of being watched crept over her, a feeling unlike any she’d experienced in her long years as a lineman. Crawling through the side door, Heather slid it closed and scrambled over the divider into the driver’s seat.

  As she started up the engine and pulled away, she had the distinct impression sh
e was leaving someone behind, but it wasn't a child.

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  NEVERLAND

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