Thrill Squeaker Read online

  “Feel free to take the ATV.”

  Nate had brought the vehicle this morning to help us get around. But I decided to walk.

  I wandered up the path, past the creepy Bermuda Triangle, and found a crew of four workers removing random pieces of wood and siding and any other litter in the area. Another three people worked on cutting back the branches and underbrush from around the buildings.

  I had to admit that in just the short amount of time we’d been here, the differences were pretty dramatic. A lot of the rubble was gone. Random vegetation had been wacked. It was amazing what teamwork could do.

  One of the crew members looked up as I approached. The man was tall, thin, and had a brittle-looking, brown-and-gray beard that came all the way down to his chest.

  “I’m Gabby. Are you in charge of this crew?”

  He nodded. “I’m Bill, part owner of the Brilliant Brunke Brothers Landscaping.”

  “The Brilliant Brunke Brothers?” I repeated, intrigued by the name.

  He nodded, all business. “That’s right. I’m Bill, and these are my brothers Phil, Will, Gill, Hill, Dill, and Quill.”

  There was so much I wanted to say about their names. Like, so, so much. But I remained quiet.

  “My mom had quite the sense of humor,” Bill said, resting his hand on the hammer at his tool belt. “Or she wanted to make us miserable for the rest of our lives.”

  I chuckled. “It sounds like it.”

  I surveyed the group quickly, and it hit me that this merry unit was a little like the seven dwarfs—only they weren’t all short and instead appeared to be in various shapes and sizes. However, they did whistle as they worked, and they each had beards.

  I decided that Bill must have taken on the roll of Doc, the fearless leader of the group. I wondered which ones were Grumpy, Happy, and Sleepy. Sneezy, however, had always been my favorite.

  As if right on cue, one of the brothers sneezed—a loud, juicy-sounding sneeze.

  Another brother scowled. “Turn your head. Didn’t Mama teach you anything?”

  That brother was Grumpy, I decided.

  “He just made my job easier,” another brother said. “He blew half of my leaves right into the pile.”

  Happy, I realized.

  This crew was going to be a lot of fun. And I needed some fun.

  “Chad sent me here to check on your progress,” I said. “How are things going?”

  “Can’t complain. We’re making good time, and things weren’t in as bad of shape as I thought they might be. Really, it’s mostly surface stuff that we’re working on here. I think we can finish up by the end of the week.”

  “Great news. Anything you need?”

  “I think we’re good, as long as Nate agrees to stick with only a few areas of the park,” Bill said. “I had to convince him not to touch the Pharaoh’s Tomb area yet. It’s just too much for our skeleton crew here. It’s best to focus on one section at a time.”

  “I’m prone to agree.” Thank goodness, Nate was listening to someone.

  He stepped back and rubbed his beard. “It’s hard to believe this place is opening again.”

  I bobbed my head up and down, trying to get my mind to slow down. It churned with everything that needed to be done, telling me I didn’t have time to talk or chat. However, how would I ever get any answers to the questions that haunted me if I didn’t ask any questions? “You’re not the first person who’s said that.”

  He continued rubbing his beard. “I can imagine. I’m glad it’s opening, though. This area needs something like this. I think it will be good for morale.”

  “You’re one of the first people I’ve heard say that. Did you come here as a child also? It seems like everyone in this area did.”

  He nodded. “Yup. As a matter of fact I did. My wife was actually here on the day they found the dead body. The one that closed the park down.”

  I frowned. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”

  “She said it was pandemonium, that’s for sure. It started as a whisper among the crowds about another possible death. But when the police came, everyone knew that something had happened. Something bad. Eventually rumors began to surface. Everyone was too scared to come back after that.”

  I licked my lips, the questions charging out of my mouth like they had a mind of their own. “Were there ever any theories about what happened? Who the so-called Bigfoot Strangler was?”

  He shrugged before picking up a stray brick at his feet and tossing it into a wheelbarrow. “There were all kinds of theories and ideas that were thrown out. Most of them didn’t make any sense. Some people honestly believed that Bigfoot had gotten them. Lots of locals think he’s real. Some people even claim to have seen him here in these woods.”

  I studied the man carefully. He seemed like he was down-to-earth enough to give a reasonable answer. “What did you think?”

  He kicked his feet through the thick weeds, trying to find more trash. “I think someone got revenge on Henry.”

  “Henry? Was that the name of the man who was strangled?”

  He nodded, pausing from his search. “Yes. Henry McClain. This is a small town. Most of the locals know each other. But yeah, I went to church with Henry.”

  Henry McClain. I stored the name in the back of my mind.

  “What a tragic loss.”

  “Yup. It really was. Henry was a super-nice guy. I don’t think he had any enemies, for that matter. The thought that someone would do something like this to him . . .” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it twenty years later.

  I shifted, not ready to get back to work yet. “Certainly people around town talk. They had to have ideas about what happened—theories that didn’t involve a Sasquatch.”

  He shrugged, grabbed the hammer from his tool belt, and began pounding away at a large, rosebush-sized weed from a crack in the sidewalk. His brothers did the same around him, all working together with ease.

  “I suppose they did,” he said, his breathing coming heavier. “Some people thought it was Scotty Stephens.”

  Scotty Stephens. That was the second time the man’s name had come up.

  “I thought Mr. Stephens only surfaced over the past couple of years,” I mused aloud.

  Bill shook his head. “No. He’s been around these here parts for a long time, wanting to buy this property. He’s a powerful man, though. Not many people want to ruffle his feathers. He funds a lot of things in this town.”

  “Why would he have killed Henry, though?”

  His eyes darkened. “Well, there was this other rumor too . . .”

  My ears perked. “What kind of rumor?”

  “Some people believe that Scotty hired Henry to sabotage the park and close it down. He thought the owner would sell if the park had enough problems.”

  “So people believe that Henry sabotaged the Ferris wheel and perhaps did other things around the park. That he was paid to do the job, but then something went terribly wrong?”

  Bill nodded. “That’s the rumor. Some people think that Henry started feeling guilty and threatened to talk. That’s why Scotty Stephens had to kill him.”

  “Was there any evidence to back any of this up?”

  “I can’t confirm this, but I heard that ten thousand dollars showed up in Henry’s account two weeks before he died. Sounds like motive to me.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I need you to start working on the old shops across from our cabins,” Chad told me after lunch.

  “I thought they were a part of the long-range plan,” I said.

  “They were, but Nate changed his mind. He thinks they could be a safety hazard since their location is so close to the rentals. He wants them cleared out.”

  I stared at Chad, not saying anything but wanting to argue the merits against this.

  Chad raised his hands, obviously reading my thoughts. “I know. I think the same thing—we don’t have time for this. But Nate is the one paying us to get
the job done, so I have to let him call the shots. Clarice is going to help you.”

  The task would be much more pleasant if I had a good attitude, so I needed to suck it up. With that thought, I nodded like a good, little employee. “Great. I’ll get to work then.”

  “I’ll send Clarice over.” Chad gave me a rundown on everything that needed to be done.

  I tried to focus on his instructions instead of dwelling on the bombshell that the Brunke brothers had dropped on me. Why wasn’t Nate telling me any of this? About Henry? About the mysterious money he’d come into? About Scotty Stephens’ million-dollar offer?

  Those were my questions. This seemed like information he might want to share, but he had a knack for leaving out important details.

  Was that because Nate was somehow guilty?

  I doubted it. He probably just didn’t want to scare us off. But I stored that information in the back of my mind, just in case it was useful later.

  The mystery and intrigue around this whole situation deepened.

  After Chad left, I stared at the old ghost town and frowned. I remembered what Nate said about raccoons. And mice.

  I’d seen worse. I’d cleaned worse. But that didn’t mean I was looking forward to this.

  I grabbed the supplies I needed from Chad’s van—formerly my van—and started across the street. I opened a lopsided wooden door and stepped into what probably used to be an arcade. Old video games were turned sideways on the floor, like defeated toy soldiers after a battle. Abandoned prizes—stuffed animals and dolls mostly—lay in piles like a mass grave.

  A chill ran up my spine.

  Thankfully, huge windows at the front of the place allowed plenty of sunlight to get in. That was my only comfort at the moment.

  I pulled on my safety gear—the place was full of dust and probably animal waste, so I needed to protect my lungs and eyes. Then I grabbed my work gloves and a whole box of industrial strength garbage bags. I had a feeling I’d fill all of them.

  “I’m here!” Clarice announced, entering the room with a flair. She raised one hand above her head and held the other one down low, like an ice skater might do at the end of a sequence.

  “Don’t you look cheerful,” I muttered.

  She bounced toward me. “I am. I just had the best morning. Nate is incredible, isn’t he?”

  I thought about everything he’d neglected to tell me and had trouble agreeing. Instead, I said, “I’m glad you like him.”

  “And he’s so handsome also,” she continued, pulling on her own gloves with a dreamy look in her eyes.

  I picked up a pile of stuffed animals, stifling a scream as a spider darted across the floor. “It sounds like you’re hitting it off.”

  “I just can’t believe he’s single.”

  I did my best not to roll my eyes. Just because I thought Nate was a sexist pig didn’t mean that some women wouldn’t find that attractive. Clarice had bad taste in men. That had been clear since I first met her.

  But I had no room to talk. At one time, I’d also had terrible taste in men. Thankfully I’d come to my senses.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Clarice pulled her goggles down over her perfectly painted eyelids. If you wanted your makeup done, Clarice was just the person to go to. Ms. Priss. That’s what I’d thought of her as at one time.

  I stared at the carnage before me. “We’ve got to dispose of all these prizes. Once all of this is cleared, I’ll find out what Nate wants to do with these games. He could probably sell them at auction for a pretty penny.”

  She stopped by Pac-Man and jiggled one of the controls. “This is so rad. I mean, can you imagine the fun that people had here at one time?”

  I’d actually imagined that several times. “I’m sure it was quite the place to be.”

  “I think restoring things is so cool. I mean, not only is it good for the environment, but to see something that was dead come back to life? That’s awesome!”

  Her words struck a chord with me. Seeing something dead come back to life. There was something beautiful about that, and I wasn’t just referring to old amusement parks, but also relationships and . . . lives. I’d gone through a period of feeling dead, but God had worked me through it.

  Now I just needed to work through my fears about my future with Riley, and maybe I’d be back on track.

  As if Clarice could read my thoughts, she asked, “So when are you and Riley going to set a date? We’re all anxiously waiting for the announcement. I’m trying to be patient, but it’s not one of my strong suits.”

  She billowed open a black bag and began shoving old balls into it.

  That was the question of the hour. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “What’s the hold up?”

  She’d never been shy about asking questions. “It’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t love always?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it? Or is it supposed to be easy?”

  “Most things in life are complicated. They can seem simple at first, but—it’s like Nate said—things have layers to them. Kind of like an onion.” Her voice sounded airy and dramatic, like she was sharing an ancient secret of the earth that no one else knew.

  Nate had been waxing philosophical with Clarice? Interesting. “You’re right. Life has layers. This place has layers. Layers of dust, dolls, mouse poop, and rotting wood.”

  “You’re changing the subject. So, really—what’s holding you back?”

  I narrowed my eyes, though she probably couldn’t see them beneath my glasses. Instead, I stuffed some dolls into the bag with more force than necessary. “I don’t know. Life has been busy.”

  “Not that busy.”

  She didn’t give up, did she? “Good things in my life have a tendency to get taken away,” I finally said, surprised at my honesty. “Every time I get my hopes up, that seems to signal to something in the cosmos that it’s time for another tragedy in my life. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “You’re superstitious? I never took you for the type.”

  I grunted before realizing I was squeezing a doll’s neck as if recreating the Bigfoot Strangler’s first murder. “I’m not superstitious.”

  “You sure sound like it. What happened to all that trust in God you’re always talking about?”

  Ouch! “I do trust in God.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it to me. Doesn’t trust mean having faith that, whatever happens, God is in control?”

  “Well . . . yes.” Was Clarice doing a Bible lesson with me? What was the world coming to? She didn’t even go to church except when I begged her to come with me. And this morning when I’d invited her to read Scripture with Riley and me . . . she’d looked at me like one of those clowns in the Bermuda Triangle.

  “Then you have to trust God that He’s not out to get you.”

  “I never said that.” However, I had thought it. Was Clarice way more insightful than I’d given her credit for?

  Clarice frowned at the ratty teddy bear in her hands. “It’s an easy assumption to make, especially when things have happened to you . . . like things have happened to us.”

  Both Clarice and I had been abducted by Scum, a notorious serial killer. Nothing bonded two people like facing death together. We’d always have that connection.

  “Enough about Riley and me. I want to hear more about you and Nate.”

  “You’re changing the subject,” Clarice said in a singsongy voice.

  I shrugged. “Maybe I am.”

  “Gabby, I know you love Riley. That was obvious when Scum . . .”

  I grimaced as memories of the ordeal came back to me. At that time, I wasn’t sure I would ever have Riley back or if he’d ever wake up from the coma he was in after being shot in the head. He had woken up, but that had only been the beginning of a very long journey that included us breaking up. I’d briefly dated someone else. I’d gotten a new job and given up control of my company. Riley had moved away. He’d come back. We’d accidental
ly gotten married.

  Life was a rollercoaster sometimes.

  “Of course, I love Riley,” I finally said.

  “Well, isn’t that all that matters?”

  She spoke with more wisdom than I’d given her credit for. “When it comes down to it, then, I suppose, yes. But it’s like being burned when you’re cooking. It happens once—you say oops. It happens twice—it seems like bad luck. It happens three times—you expect it the next time.”

  “I get what you’re saying.” She nodded, moving on to picking up some plastic army figures. “I just want to see you happy.”

  “I’m happy—and I just don’t want to ruin that happiness.”

  She frowned at me from beneath her mask. I didn’t have to see her lips. I knew Clarice well enough. “You’re confusing.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, I’m glad Riley has been patient.”

  I couldn’t argue that point. I was sure it would be easy for him to walk away. We’d had about three weeks of bliss after we’d gotten back together. What had triggered these feelings of fear since then?

  I thought back on it. Was it the fact that he was settling in at another law office? His practice was where he’d been shot, after all.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe it was because two of my friends from church—friends I’d thought were solid—had ended up announcing they were getting divorced.

  If divorce and breakups could happen to them, they could happen to anyone, right? Who was I to think I was above all of it.

  We stuffed the last of the prizes into the bags, carried them to a dumpster outside, and then stepped back into the building. The change was remarkable, and I could actually see the room as it used to be.

  There was a desk in the corner where a clerk had worked at one time. I walked over and stood behind it. With some work, this could be a great cabin one day or maybe an activity center, depending on how Nate wanted to proceed with things.

  “I can totally see myself coming here.” Clarice pulled her mask down and did a little twirl. “It would be so much fun with my college girlfriends.”