The Chosen One Read online

  “And you’re still as handsome as ever, Mr. Buck.” She winked at him just before he took her into a familiar bear hug.

  “I’m old, Child.” He gave her a good squeeze before he eased out of the embrace, then shook his head, his short gray hair thinner than Marissa remembered. Despite a few more lines of time feathering from each eye, he hadn’t changed all that much.

  “You look just the same to me, Mr. Buck. Haven’t aged a day.”

  He looked her up and down. “What’d ya do with all that long hair?” The last time Buck saw Marissa she had dark brown hair almost to her waist.

  “Too much trouble. I chopped it all off . . .” She paused swallowing hard, when she realized again how long it had been since her last visit. “Almost a year ago.” She recalled the tough decision to get rid of her long brown waves and go with a more conservative, shoulder length cut.

  “Ya look all grown up.” He smiled wearily.

  “Still just me.” Marissa shrugged as more regret tugged at her heart about not visiting sooner.

  “I been trying to keep the place real nice since your momma died. Got them fields all plowed down and all, but it ain’t the same without them pretty flowers she used to have all around the house this time of year. She loved the springtime. Your momma had a real knack with them pretty flowers. She’d spend hours out here nurturing them things. Sure paid off. They were a sight.”

  Marissa smiled as she glanced around at the flowerbeds filled with weeds, envisioning her mother’s green thumb in her mind, visualizing the way things used to look.

  “Momma couldn’t have made it all these years without you, Mr. Buck. She missed Daddy so much at first. Paul and I were glad you were able to stay on and come out here every day. We felt good knowing you were checking on things. You’re family to us, you know that don’t you?” They both sat on the steps of the front porch.

  Buck looked a million miles away, presumably with thoughts of Momma. “Well, you folks are just real special.”

  They both sat quietly for a few moments, then Buck asked, “How’s them kids of Paul’s? Them youngens’ must be in school bout’ now, huh?”

  “Nathan is in pre-school now and Jeremy is in the first grade. Kelly really has her hands full with Paul in Europe, but they’re good kids. Jeremy looks more like Paul every day.”

  “That Paul is a good lookin' fellow.” Buck grinned as he nodded.

  “Yeah, I just wish he could keep his butt in the states more. I actually miss him sometimes, despite the bully he was to me when we were kids.” She laughed. Paul had actually told her that if she got on the roof and flapped her arms hard enough, that she could fly. Marissa didn’t remember how old she was, but she did remember the broken arm and Paul screaming when her father took a belt to him.

  “He was a mean kid sometimes, wasn’t he now?” Buck laughed.

  “How are Ms. Gracie and Ms. Ilene?” Marissa asked of Momma and Buck’s long time friends, knowing that Buck had an enormous crush on Ms. Gracie.

  He smiled real big, eyebrows raised. “Them old widows are still just a kicking. Silly old women don’t know when to settle down and act like old folks.”

  “And neither should you, Mr. Buck.”

  “Not this old man, Child. Are you kiddin'? I got to try and split myself equally at the square dance hall. They try to wear me out. Especially that Ms. Gracie.”

  After they’d reminisced for a while, Marissa told him about the daisies and the glowing light she’d seen the night before.

  “I’ve seen the daisies in there, in a coffee can, for weeks. But I didn’t think much about it. Figured it was kids using it as a clubhouse or something.” He scratched his stubbled chin. “But if you saw a grown man, I reckon you might outta call the sheriff.” He turned toward her, frowning. “You might not want to stay out here by yourself tonight.”

  Marissa had already thought about that. She’d tossed and turned most of last night. Yawning, maybe she could get a nap in, then go see the sheriff.

  But even as she was saying bye to Buck, she couldn’t stop thinking about the man in the barn. And that odd glowing light.

  Chapter 3

  The sun shone through the sheer white curtains in Momma’s bedroom when Marissa woke up from a nap. On the antique hutch were pictures of the family. Standing out among the rest, in an eight by ten frame, were she and Paul, as children. Him in his burr haircut and she in that awful pixie cut. She wished Paul were here now. Being in the house again made her miss her brother more than ever. With Momma and Daddy both gone now, Paul was all the family she had left.

  Marissa’s room when she was growing up had been in the attic. Converted into a frilly little girl’s room, she remembered she and her mother hanging the first curtains. She always loved that room. It was mainly used for storage now, so Marissa had slept in Momma’s bed since she arrived. She picked up her cell phone from where she’d set it on the nightstand. She’d slept almost two hours.

  She got dressed, then looked out Momma’s bedroom window towards the barn. All was quiet. As she remembered how scared she was last night, everything seemed so safe and quiet this afternoon in the daylight. She slipped her shoes on and walked to the barn, the sunlight bright and not a cloud in the sky.

  The barn door was open. She must have left it open as she ran out of the barn last night. There in the coffee can were the daisies the man had left. She picked up the flowers and looked towards the bales of hay that had seemed to glow the previous night. Again, she looked around for used matches or some sort of explanation. She didn’t see the man light a match, nor did he have a flashlight.

  Marissa looked around the barn to see if anything was missing, not really knowing what had been in there. It didn’t look like anything had been moved, as best she could tell. But whoever came out there last night knew that she was there, and what if he was dangerous?

  She ate a quick cinnamon roll, grabbed her purse, and walked to the car. As she pulled out of the dirt driveway, the livestock only momentarily glanced up at the car driving past. Buck still kept cows on the property, although not as many as in years past.

  New spring growth was all around and it was truly a beautiful day. The dirt road that went to the main highway was long and winding, shielded from the sun by groves of trees every few feet. She remembered when her father planted those trees. She must have been about five. Daddy had worked so hard to make the farm special, a place where he and Momma could spend the rest of their lives. They both did. Daddy had bought the farm when Momma was pregnant with Paul. They had always lived in Houston. Marissa’s mother said she didn’t want to raise her children in the city. She used to love to tell Marissa and Paul about the first time Daddy brought her to see the farm, how she cried and cried happy tears.

  It was a short drive to the sheriff’s department, and Marissa recognized Sheriff Carter standing outside the station as she drove up. She rolled down her window as he walked toward the car. “Sheriff Carter, do you remember me?”

  “Uh . . . can’t say that I do, ma’am.” He squinted from the sun's glare.

  “Marissa Dow. Patsy’s daughter.”

  “Well, it has sure been a long time, Marissa. How are you?”

  “Fine, just fine. I was hoping you were still the sheriff around here.” She smiled at him from inside the car, her elbow resting on the open window.

  “You know it. Grove Hill can’t get rid of me.” He leaned down and put his hands on his knees, putting him at eye level with Marissa.

  Ben Carter had been around for about as long as Buck. He had a full head of gray hair, and beneath his thick bushy brows, his eyes still twitched as he talked. A nervous habit he couldn’t seem to control. A ‘tick’, her mother had called it.

  “Sheriff Carter, I think I might have a problem at the farm. I came home for a couple of weeks to settle Momma’s estate. I’ve been cleaning the place up, getting ready for the realtor to show it, and uh, last night I caught this guy out in the barn.”

  “
Caught him?” He raised an eyebrow as he scowled.

  “Yeah, sort of. I waited for him out in the barn. I knew someone had been going out to the barn every night since I got here, at about the same time. So, I went out there and waited. I kind of figured it was kids playing or something. And I thought that maybe they were playing with matches too. Buck thought maybe it was kids, also, so that’s why I was caught off guard when I saw a man. Well, sort of a man, maybe eighteen or nineteen. It was dark. I’m not sure.”

  With twitching eyes, Sheriff Carter asked, “Did he see you? Were you hurt or, uh, did he threaten you in any way?”

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “He just ran off. But the weird thing is that he leaves daisies in a coffee can every night in the middle of the barn. I know it sounds strange. Could it be some kind of ritual, maybe a gang or something?”

  Sheriff Carter grimaced even more as he straightened his stance, crossed his arms, and paced beside Marissa’s car.

  “Me and the boys had better come have a look. What time does he usually show up?” He spoke with an authority than almost sounded excited to have some action in Grove Hill.

  “Oh, he’s consistent. Seven o’clock. For three nights now.” She paused. “I can’t be sure it was the same person the other nights. Probably. Even though it was dark, I could tell the man was big. Muscular, I mean. And he’s got kind of long hair, down to his shoulders. That’s about all I could see.”

  “Nothing missing from the barn or the house?” He wrote notes on a small pad he had retrieved from inside his coat pocket. Marissa stifled a grin at the serious tone in the sheriff’s voice, as if he’d just landed a murder investigation or something equally as serious.

  “Not that I can tell. But there is one thing . . .” Marissa paused as the glowing orb formed in her mind again, or was it fire? It couldn’t have been since it just vanished. The more she recalled what she saw, the more she didn’t understand what it was. “Each night, I saw a light coming from the barn. Did I mention that? Not like a flashlight. More like a glow, like maybe a fire, but it wasn’t a fire. But last night I saw the glow again when this guy came into the barn. It was coming from a stack of hay. The weird thing is, he didn’t have a flashlight, and I didn’t see him light any matches. What do you think that light could have been?” She tipped her head to one side, daring him to speculate.

  “Hmm. Could it have been a reflection from the lamp in the yard shining in?”

  “No. It was weird.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, how about we come out there about six-thirty? We’ll see if this guy shows up again. Now that you caught him, he might not be back.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff. I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

  Marissa put the car in reverse and started to drive off, waving . Sheriff Carter was probably right. Now that she saw the guy, he probably wouldn’t be back.

  After a brief trip to the grocery store, she headed back to the farm. She wanted to finish cleaning the house since the real estate agent would be out tomorrow.

  It felt good to be at the farm, but Marissa missed Houston a little. She missed the people contact. Even though she hated to admit it, she wasn’t fond of being alone. Three days had been about enough. Maybe after the realtor came out tomorrow, she could wrap things up and leave sooner than she had planned. Her workload would be backing up at the office. She didn’t have internet here, and her cell service was sketchy, making it hard to even keep up with her emails. And sleeping at the farm hadn’t been too good either. But maybe her nerves would calm if the mysterious man didn’t show up this evening.

  As she dusted and straightened her mother’s room, she noticed Momma’s journals on the nightstand. From the time Marissa was a little girl, her mother had always kept a journal. They were boring accounts of the days’ events, usually consisting of one paragraph for each day. A typical example would have been—went shopping with Gracie. Buck came for lunch, had chicken and dumplings. Planted flowers—and so on.

  As a teenager, Marissa remembered sneaking into her mother’s room and reading the journals. That lasted only a week since they were just brief mentions centering around the days’ activities. There were boxes of journals in the closet. Momma never threw anything out. This year’s journal was still on the nightstand. Feeling almost guilty, as if she were a teenager again, she picked it up and flipped through it. No entries had been made the last few days before she died. Marissa’s chest tightened as she placed the journal back on the nightstand. Had her mother been in pain those few days that led up to her death?

  Marissa found herself making a lot of trips to the window the rest of the afternoon, the window facing the barn. But all was quiet except for the cows mooing, birds chirping, and the sound of a tractor in the far distance.

  That’s all she’d heard all day, but as darkness neared, the crickets began to chime in, and Marissa’s stomach churned. Partly because she was hungry, but she was also nervous about seven o’clock approaching. She sat down on the couch and put her cell phone close to the window, hoping for one bar, enough to make a call. She wanted to talk to her BFF. Becka was her first friend when she moved to Houston. They met at the gym. Marissa hadn’t gone to college. She’d been anxious to get married and start a family. But when that didn’t happen right away, she hung out with Becka, who thought life was one big party. Marissa had snagged a good job, even without a college degree, and when she met Scott, she cut out all the partying with Becka. But they’d always stayed in touch and made a point not to let their friendship slip away.

  Becka had never been married, and after Marissa got divorced ,they saw a lot more of each other, minus the partying. They took in movies, acted silly together and talked like boy-crazed teenagers. Maybe Marissa would ask Becka to come out for the weekend. Her friend would probably enjoy getting away, unless she had dates lined up for the weekend.

  Marissa took a quick shower and found herself opening the shower curtain and looking out a lot. It was silly, but she was still unnerved about the guy in the barn. It was nearing six-thirty and she wondered if the mystery man would show himself tonight.

  She heated a frozen dinner in the microwave and had just choked down her last bite when she heard a truck coming down the road. Sheriff Carter. This must be exciting for him. Traffic violations were probably the highlight of his career. There just isn’t much crime in Grove Hill, population five hundred and forty-two.

  “Hi Sheriff Carter,” she said after she opened the front door.

  “Hello Marissa. This is Joe Thompson and Will Samuels, my deputies. This is Marissa Dow.” He pointed to Marissa, eyes twitching.

  After exchanging greetings, Sheriff Carter took the men out to the barn. Marissa sat at the kitchen table and waited, strumming her fingers and wondering if this was a waste of time. After a few minutes, Sheriff Carter and his posse returned. She met them in the living room.

  “We did see anything out of the ordinary. Which direction did the perpetrator come from?” Sheriff Carter glowed with the thrill of a crime to solve.

  “From the woods, the north side of the barn.” Marissa stuffed her hands in the pockets of her blue jeans.

  After taking a few notes, the Sheriff said, “Joe, why don’t you stay in here with Marissa since it’s nearing dark, and me and Will can have another look.”

  Marissa was an adult and unafraid of the dark, so it seemed like an odd thing to leave a bodyguard with her. But when she took a closer look at Joe, she realized he was the one who needed looking after. Joe didn’t move very fast. None of them did. But Joe was red in the face and wheezed with every breath.

  “The guy might not show himself with our car out front, but if he’s sneaking into the barn from the woods, we might have a shot at catching him. Might hear him rustling around.” Sheriff Carter tipped his hat before he and Will headed back to the barn.

  Marissa missed the small town ways, like men tipping their hat. Gentlemen. And everyone waved when on the roads, whether the
y knew the other driver or not. And women never opened a door if a man was nearby.

  After a few minutes of awkward silence, Marissa asked Joe if he wanted something to drink. It was a little after seven, and as darkness settled in on them, Marissa was glad for the company after all.

  “No, Ma’am. I’m just fine.” The older man eased onto the couch, groaning slightly. Marissa sat down in her mother’s rocking chair and crossed one leg over the other before she kicked the chair into action.

  Joe was probably the youngest of the three, and Marissa imagined he was pushing eighty. How much help would these three kind old men be anyway? They had hearts of gold and the best of intentions, but helpful in a crisis? She didn’t think so.

  “Joe, maybe while we’re sitting here, you could give me a quick lesson on how to use a shotgun? One of Daddy’s old shotguns is in the closet and I think I saw some shells in a box on the floor. Maybe I should have some protection out here all by myself.” She had shot a gun before, but it had been a long time.

  “I reckon that’s a good idea.” Joe nodded as he straightened his posture on the couch, smiling and seemingly glad to be of some use. “But I’m surprised you don’t know how to shoot since you grew up out here in the country.”

  “Daddy and Paul used to shoot a lot. I never did, just a little target practice every now and then. It hurt my ears.”

  “Well, let’s give you a quick lesson. Hopefully, you’ll never need to point it at anyone. But, it can’t hurt to be ready if ya’ need to.”

  Marissa retrieved the gun and shells from the closet. “There’s only three shells in the box,” she yelled from the bedroom.

  “That’s all right. Bring it on over here.”

  She crossed through the living room where Joe was still sitting on the couch and handed him the gun.

  As he began showing her how to load the shells, she looked at her watch. Seven-thirty. She wondered if they had seen anything yet. Or what if they didn’t come back inside? Would she and Joe have to go check on them? She pretended to be engulfed in her shotgun lesson, sneaking peeks out the living room window that faced the barn. There wasn’t a flashlight on and no movement outside. A chill ran the length of her spine.