Adermoor Cove: Donovan Road - 7. Chapter 7

Carlos couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Burn it down?"

"Yeah."

"Are you crazy?"

Lane shrugged. "Depends on who you ask?"

"We can't burn this house down. This is Ramona's home."

"I know," Lane said patiently. "But it's the best way to ensure it doesn't spread. Remember what I was telling you back at the lighthouse?"

“I don’t think bringing you along was such a good idea after all,” Carlos said before he could stop himself.

Lane’s eyes widened as if he’d been slapped; the hurt was visible. Then his eyes narrowed and the expression of hurt was gone. “Yeah, perhaps not.” Then he turned and brushed his way past Enzo, heading for the front door.

Enzo gave Carlos a disapproving look.

“What?” Carlos said indignantly. “He’s insane, suggesting we burn down the house.”

Enzo said nothing. He turned around and followed Lane out of the house. Muttering under his breath, Carlos felt he had no choice but to follow. Lane was leading them around the back of the house, towards the woods, following the tracks the bear had left in the dirt. Occasionally Carlos noticed droplets of blood not quite yet washed away by the rain.

Lane stopped at the edge where the grass and treeline met. “It dragged her into the woods. How far do these woods go on?”

“A good seven eight miles,” said Enzo.

“You realize there’s a good chance she’s dead, right?” Lane said.

“Yes,” said Enzo. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”

Carlos had to turn away to keep from saying something nasty. How could they give up on Ramona so easily? It had only been a few hours. In the back of his mind, beneath the fear and anger, he knew Lane was just being practical; he knew the first few hours of a missing case was the most important. But he’d be damned if he was going to admit defeat.

“I don’t like the idea of this thing getting ahold of a bear,” Lane said. “A human being is one thing but bears are huge. So far I think it’s lucky that it has stuck to isolated areas. But my thinking is if this infection can spread to a bear it can spread to anything alive. It needs to be stopped. Bottom line.”

To Carlos’s surprise, Enzo smiled. “I like the way you’re thinking. It’s the exact way I think. There’s quite a few people around here who like to go hunting during the fall season when there’s a lot of deer. I know a few who would like to take down a bear.”

Carlos felt a stab of childlike jealousy towards Lane. His own father had just given the little shit a compliment.

Again, on the way to taking Lane back to the lighthouse, no one spoke. Lane kept looking at Carlos through the rearview mirror but Carlos pretended not to notice. Lane looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t seem to bring himself to verbalize it. He knew he shouldn’t be pissed off with the younger man but he couldn’t help it. Carlos and Ramona had been friends for as long as he could remember, since they were both toddlers.

He watched scathingly as Lane got out of the car and made his way up the driveway. Eno didn’t speak again until they were driving back down Donovan Road. “You treated him pretty shittily back there...and all because he said what you already know but don’t want to admit.” He chuckled. “And they say I’m an asshole.”

“You are an asshole,” said Carlos. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be giving me any lectures.”

Enzo pulled off onto the side of the road and put the car in park.

“What are you doing?” Carlos looked around at the trees surrounding the car on both sides. “There’s a crazy ass bear running around.”

“I know that. Shut up and listen for a second, will you?” You came out sounding like yeugh.

Carlos forced himself to look his father in the eye. Rain continued to beat against the outside of the car. There were no other cars coming down Donovan Road. At the moment it seemed like they were the only two people on the island. Autumn was just over the horizon.

“I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now,” said Enzo. “The last few days have been quite the emotional roller coaster for you. And I know I haven’t helped by erasing the evidence you discovered at the lighthouse and making you think it’s all in your head. I feel like shit about that. But I did those things for a reason. I did those things because I didn’t want you getting involved. Now I have no choice but for you to get involved. You want to know the truth why I never came to your graduation, why I never visited you in Boston? Because I was afraid of leaving the island. I was afraid if I left this place something like this would happen. And this hasn’t been the first time. When I was a kid, the age you were when the thing with Misses Donovan happened and again when I was the age you are now. I’m not just talking one or two isolated events, but multiple events. Reach into the glove compartment will you?”

Carlos reached over and did as he was asked. Inside, sitting on top of the car’s manuel be found a silver flask. He rolled his eyes at his dad. “Bad sheriff, hiding your secret stash in the glove compartment of a cop car.”

Enzo waved a hand dismissively at him. “We all have our vices, don’t we?” He tipped the flask back, took a long swig, then handed it back to Carlos. “It’s tequila.”

The tequila pleasantly stung Carlos’s throat as it went down. The flask went back to Enzo. “I always thought you never came to see me because you were ashamed of me.”

Enzo looked taken aback. “Why would you ever think I’m ashamed of you?”

“Because your only son is gay and he’ll never be able to give you grandchildren.”

Enzo chuckled. “I remember when you told me you were gay. You were in your sophomore year at high school. I remember you started crying right after you told me. You were so scared I’d be angry. But the thing is I already knew...or at least suspected. I saw how you looked at some of the other boys. I’m not ashamed of you Carlos, there’s nothing you could ever do to make me feel ashamed of you. If anything I’m proud of you. You have no idea how proud I was to learn you became a cop. I just don’t understand why you returned to this place. I wish you hadn’t.”

“I was tired of watching the blood wash down the streets,” said Carlos. “That’s how it is in the big cities - always something going on. I thought it would be different here. I thought life would slow down a bit. But as it turns out Adermoor Cove isn’t different from anywhere else. The blood just happens to flow into the ocean not the sewers.”

                        …

Carlos was given permission to leave the department early. He promised his father he would meet him at his house to have a beer later that evening. So far getting along with his father again seemed to be the only good thing that had come of this mess. If nothing else the air had been cleared.

He decided to go to the hospital to visit Moira.

The hospital here was nothing compared to the huge monsters you'd find in a metropolitan area, where it was easy to get lost; where you could spend an hour wandering the hallways, which all looked the same, trying to find your way out.

In the shape of a cube, Adermoor Cove's hospital only stood two stories tall, a miniature version of the hospitals Carlos had seen in Boston. The hospital had a landing pad on top, which meant if there was a life threatening emergency, the person involved could be airlifted to mainland.

The double doors slid open for Carlos. Nikki Lamar, an elderly black nurse smiled, her dark eyes twinkling behind her horn rimmed glasses. "Hey there Deputy Santino. How are you? You look exhausted if you don't mind me saying. When's the last time you slept?"

"Oh, I'm due for some good sleep tonight."

"I hope so, lest you collapse. Are you here to see someone, shuga?"

"Moira Compton."

"Ah yes." With a few taps of the keyboard Nikki had Moira's information pulled up. "Second floor, room 253C." She leaned forward so only Carlos could hear. "What happened to her? She looked like hell when she was brought in. Nurse Cookie was telling me they had to sedate her. I guess she went to sleep and then woke up screaming. Something about a monster dragging Ramona off into the woods. Did something bad happen?"

"I really can't say," Carlos said. "It'll be in the paper tomorrow I'm sure."

Nurse Nikki pouted. "You're no fun. Something bad must have happened, and so soon after Vanessa Stanton's death. Must be something going around?"

You have no idea. Carlos had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing hysterically. "Have a good evening, Nikki." He dodged into the gift shop before anyone else could stop him to ask questions, long enough to buy a bouquet of flowers and a vase; he'd never known people to be as gossip-hungry as the people of Adermoor Cove.

It wasn't until he was on the elevator that he began to get nervous. How could he face Moira and tell her he didn't think the chances of finding Ramona alive were very promising? How would she react? Graphic images of finding Ramona's body parts scattered throughout the woods flashed through his mind. He was grateful when the elevator doors finally opened, letting him out on the hospital's second floor.

It took him a few steps along the square shaped floor before he found Moira’s room. While the hospital was smaller than the ones in Boston the layout was no less confusing. Moira’s door was cracked open. He pushed it open as quietly as he could, praying she was asleep. To his relief she was. She was half way sitting half way lying in the hospital bed. Her head was propped up on a big fluffy blue pillow. Her face was clean and a bandaid had been put on the spot where she had cut her cheek. For the moment while asleep she looked peaceful. A life monitor standing a foot and a half or so from the bed beeped in time with her heart.

Carlos filled the vase with water and set it on the counter. He thought the flowers added a nice touch to the all-white room. He settled down in the chair. It felt good to be sitting down, to not be on the move. I've been going nonstop, he thought. I can't wait for this day to end.

Waiting for Moira to wake up in the silence of the room gave him too much time to think about things. Especially what he'd said to Lane back at Ramona's house. I really was an asshole to him. I was the one who convinced him to help. Maybe before I go to Dad's I'll stop by the lighthouse and apologize.

Moira stirred and opened her eyes.

"Hey," he said gently, leaning forward in her chair.

At first she just looked at him, confused. Then recognition slid into place. "Hey."

"How are you?" He winced as soon as the question came out of his mouth. "I just wanted to stop by and check in on you. I got you those." He pointed at the vase of flowers sitting by the sink. "I figured they'd brighten up the room."

She muttered a thank you and shifted herself so she could sit up straighter. She'd barely given the flowers a cursory glance. "Have you found Ramona?"

Of course the first thing she would do when she woke up was ask about Ramona. Carlos looked down at his hands, unable to look her in the eye. "No. We're going to do everything we can to find her though."

She nodded and stared at the wall. For most of the next thirty minutes they mostly sat in silence. Occasionally Moira drifted off for a few minutes only to wake up a few minutes later. Once, with slow tears streaming down her face, Moira said, "Every time I close my eyes I see it now. It's dragging her out the window and it's reaching for me and I'm trying to reach for her, and no matter how hard I hold onto her, it rips Ramona away as if she were nothing."

Again Carlos assured her he would do everything he could to find her. Feeling like an idiot child who has no power it was the only thing he could think of to say.

"Then don't sit here wasting your time trying to see if I'm okay," Moira said. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. "Look for her and bring her home - even if she's in pieces."