Chapter 11
Of Strange Moon Rising
Previously: Riley has a deeper death-dreaming. A flashback while on a welfare check shakes her. Andy’s caught in an odd lie.
Riley typed her simple report for Harrison’s welfare check while sipping a cappuccino courtesy of Anne, who had read the manual for Old Mooney’s machine front to back, and who gleefully carried tiny cups of espresso to the front desk too frequently.
Her phone buzzed with a message. Riley scrolled past the picture of her two cousins in her old, empty apartment, to the text, Your stuff was delivered. She replied with a quick Thanks! and gathered her things.
“I’m heading out for lunch,” she told Andy.
“Hot date?”
“With the mailman.”
“Tell Gene he still owes me money!” he yelled after her.
Gene gave a sly, toothless grin when Riley relayed the message. He rolled his wheelchair over to a pyramid of nine boxes—all the stuff she hadn’t fit in her car on the drive over. Too many for her SUV to schlep across a few states, too few to justify renting a truck or trailer. Riley sighed, set her purse on the counter, and rolled up her sleeves. By box four, she was cursing herself for not thinking to ask Andy for help. She squeezed eight boxes into the back, leaving the ninth to sit shotgun. Riley retrieved her bag, said a few parting words to the postman, and hauled the last box out the double doors. She had to stop short to avoid a collision with a wall of plywood exiting the neighboring General Store.
The man who peered around the sheets carefully stepped off the high curb, heading for an old red Ford three spaces down from Riley’s car. Were all the men between mid-twenty and forty in Woodrun gorgeous? She’d yet to see evidence to the contrary. Maybe that’s what had drawn Old Mooney. Riley huffed a quiet laugh to herself as she fought to get her passenger side door open. She tried to seat-belt the box in, but her purse slipped off her shoulder as she overextended, spilling half the contents onto the pavement. Riley crouched to recover the chapstick that had bounced under the car. She stretched as far as she could, turning her head to the left to gain an extra inch of reach. As she nabbed the small tube between her pointer and middle fingers, she caught sight of her favorite pen rolling to a stop against a tan steel-toed boot. Riley scooped up the rest of her belongings, tracking plywood guy as he picked up her pen and approached. He used the corner of his green jacket to wipe the dirt away before presenting it to her.
She plucked it from his calloused palm. “Thank you.”
“Sure.”
He reminded her of the Logan brothers—deep voice, bearded, muscled—but where the Logans’ were broad-featured, he had a square jaw and high cheekbones, like Ross. Probably another one of their cousins. Riley waited for whatever question she could see forming in his frown and furrowed brow.
“Luke!” A boy, maybe eight or nine, dashed out of the General Store’s doors. He stopped in front of them, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Riley eyed plywood guy. Luke, huh? Could this be the scary, reclusive, ‘Wolfrun’ neighbor?
Rapid fire, the kid said, “Jay told me you were just here. I was gonna’ call to ask if you could fix Maia’s paddock door. But ‘since you’re here now, I thought I’d ask now. Could you? Please?”
Luke raked hair away from his face, lightening some dark brown strands with sawdust. “How about Sunday, around two?”
“Yes! Thanks. Oh,” the kid paused, “mom said I should ask if you want to stay for dinner.”
Luke shook his head. “Sorry Beau, I’ll only have a couple hours.”
“Okay. See ya’ Sunday!”
When Beau ran back to the store, Riley took the opportunity to ask, “Would you happen to be Luke Singer?” Tension crept through his frame—the first hint at the reclusive nature she’d been warned about, and enough of an answer. “Shauna mentioned you.”
Luke cocked his head. “You’ve met—“ His eyes dipped to the badge on her hip, half hidden by her jacket, the suspicion behind his eyes morphing into slow realization. “You’re a cop.”
“Got a badge and everything,” she quipped.
“You’re Ross’s new hire.” He squinted at her funny. “They call you Red. I should have realized.”
Riley shrugged. “I think I’m also your new neighbor.”
Luke took that in, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. “You’re Old Mooney’s granddaughter.”
“Greg and Andy didn’t mention that?”
The muscle in the corner of his jaw twitched. “Neither did Ross.”
Riley frowned. “Huh, weird.”
“I’m sure it just slipped their minds.” He held out his hand. “Luke Singer.”
They shook perfunctorily. “Riley MacIntyre.” If the ringing in her ears hadn’t been there to tell her he’d lied, she would’ve assumed it from his gravely tone. It was the kind of white lie she didn’t usually poke at, said to cap a conversation rather than mislead, but the context was too strange for her to ignore with the odd fibs she’d collected from Greg, Andy, and Shauna. She filed it away with the rest. “I’ve got to get back to the station, but it was nice meeting you.”
Luke’s tail-lights were shrinking in her rearview mirror by the time she’d turned her engine over. He’d had that look again, like he had a list of questions he was biting back, before he’d nodded farewell and retreated to his truck. She knew how he felt, but Riley’d bet her left boot if she’d brought up Wolfrun, she would’ve never seen hide nor hair of Luke again.
Obligatory Legal Stuff:
This chapter is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidences are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, locals, and events are coincidental.
No generative AI used. No AI training or scraping allowed.
All rights reserved.
Chapter Title Image created in Canva. Background image from Canva Pro.