My Kind Of Crazy (5 page)

“Are you hurt? The EMT never checked you out.” I pull him
down onto the step and try to figure out what I should be doing right now. I
never realized he m
ight
have hurt himself coming down the slope or suffered
smoke inhalation.

“I’m not hurt. I’m pissed!” I take a step back from him, and
he looks at me apologetically. His fingernails are digging into the fabric of
his jeans on his thighs. Then he seems to notice, and it looks as if it takes
every ounce of effort in his body to get his fingers to release. What if that
were my neck he was grabbing?

“I-I’m sorry.” I tell him as I take another step back, and
watch in the darkness of early morning as his eyes flicker from slightly darker
to lighter. This time the lighter wins, but what if it hadn’t? I remind myself
that the darker side was the one that helped me down the driveway, even if it
wasn’t in a very gentle manner.

“I’m not pissed at you! Anastasia, someone could have
killed
you tonight! I don’t know what they’re after, but they obviously don’t want you
here as much as they didn’t want your father here. So what is it about this
place that is worth killing for?” I’m staring at him with an open mouth. He may
have psychotic issues, but he’s not all that slow in the head. I haven’t
entirely ruled out the fact that he may have killed my father, but it’s
starting to look as though I might be wrong about that. I sincerely
hope
I’m wrong about it.

“I don’t know.” I tell him honestly, trying to wrack my brain
for something that might be worth all this trouble on this property. My father
never told me whether or not there were any oil deposits or if the mineral
rights were worth anything. As far as I know, he’s never even looked for
anything like that on this property.

“We’re going to have to figure it out.” Jonah looks as
though he’s determined to go tromping around the woods right now, but I put a
hand on his shoulder before he can get off the steps.

“Right now, you have to take your medication, and I have to
go hear my father’s Will and Testament.” It takes him a few seconds, but the
calmer, rational side of Jonah wins and he nods. “I have another six hours or
so before I need to be at the attorney’s office, will you help me look for
May?” My worst nightmare is that the dog doubled back and ran into the barn,
but I highly doubt that. She was getting out of there whether or not I was. So
much for being loyal, but I guess if I was her with that thick fur I may have
run too.

“Yeah, she’s probably at the cabin. It’s where she always
showed up if she ran off, even before I lived there.” Another pang of jealousy
and regret hits me when I realize that
I
am the one who should be
telling
him
where to look. But the past is the past, and I have to move
on.

As soon as I find my father’s killer and watch him die.

“Then let’s get to the cabin before she tries to roll in any
more deer shit tonight. I’m sure she found a few fresh piles along the way.”
Jonah snorts at my sour tone, and I give him a narrow eyed glare. I’m past
being afraid of the man in front of me for the time being. This one I can
trust.

I stomp through the house and find another flashlight under
the kitchen sink, and then I head right back out to the front porch. He’s
pulled off his shirt in the suppressing night air, and I see the muscles ripple
under his flesh. My mouth goes dry, and for a second I don’t realize what is
happening to me. When it finally clicks that I’m having an ‘I’m attracted to
this guy’ moment, my brain immediately wipes away that thought, and I try to
behave normally. There is
no way
someone could date Jonah Quinton
because she’d never know if she were in bed with Jonah or the other guy.

Although I guess the other guy is Jonah.
Great, now I
get to ponder that thought while we’re tromping through the woods. I keep a
hold of the flashlight, and I try to tell myself it’s because I’m a control
freak. It’s not because I’m afraid that Jonah will switch it off and attack me,
no, not at all. I’m back to that fear again.

We set off in silence. I’m not sure why he’s not saying a
word, but I’m pretty sure as to why I’m not. First and foremost, I do not want
to attract the attention of any wild animals about. Second, I have no clue what
conversation would be proper to have out in the woods in the very, very early
morning with a man who is practically a stranger. Well, Jonah’s starting to
become an acquaintance, but Tom’s a stranger. I giggle at that thought and
immediately blush when I realize that the man beside me heard me.

“What’s so funny?”
Of course,  he couldn’t just let it go
.
I shrug one shoulder and focus on looking for the path we’re supposed to be
following to get to his cabin. Maybe we should have waited until the sun was
actually up.

I know that we’re nearing the cabin when I hear persistent
whining ahead of me, and I pick up the pace. I’m pretty sure that May wasn’t
hurt when she jumped from the window, but there’s no telling what might have
attacked her on her way up here. My heart is stammering in my chest as I
clamber through the brush and catch my sleeve on a bush. It rips right off, but
I keep going.

May’s waiting for us on the steps of the cabin with her side
pressed to the door. Her eyes are wild, and her breathing is heavy, so I advance
on her slowly. An injured dog can be a dangerous dog, and I haven’t known May
for very long. In fact, before I came here I had very few dealings with dogs,
cats, or anything else for that matter. I’m not much of a pet person. When
they’re outside it’s fine, but when they’re inside it becomes my responsibility
to feed them, care for them, and wash the deer shit out of their fur when they
decide to be childish.

I hear a crunch behind me and turn to tell Jonah to stay
back, but it’s not Jonah making the noise. He’s turned around to, and I slowly inch
the flashlight over to the left a bit so that he’s not blocking my line of
sight. In the gray of dawn, my eyes try to adjust as I sweep the flashlight
over the area where there was the sound. For a few seconds, I think that I
might have imagined it, and Jonah turned because I did. And then a possum comes
lumbering out of the bushes with singed hair.
At least the poor thing made
it out alive
, I think to myself.

Then I turn my attention back to the dog and slowly advance.
She’s quivering all over, but I don’t find any singe marks or bloody spots in
her fur. “You’re just a big baby.” I whisper to her as I open up the cabin door
to let her inside.

I don’t feel right waltzing right into Jonah’s home, so I
stay out at the bottom of the steps. He walks past me and turns on an interior
light, and then he turns around to look at me. I can’t see his eyes, so I have
no idea who I’m dealing with right now. Whoever it is, he motions for me to
come inside, so I do. I don’t want to walk down that hill by myself even though
the sun is starting to rise.

“Let me just gather a few things and then we’ll head back
down to the house. I think I have a leash for May somewhere.” It has to be
Jonah because Tom’s voice is gruffer. I never thought I’d be trying to discern
which person was talking to me at the time when only one body is in front of
me.

“Alright.” I make myself comfortable and wait for him to
gather up his belongings. I’m not sure if he’s planning on leaving, or if he’s
actually planning on staying in my home. Right now I don’t want to ask him. I
just want to go back to my father’s old house, and take a long, hot shower.
Then I want to get in the car and have the reading of his Will done and over
with. I don’t think my father had much to leave me. It doesn’t matter though.

I never cared about the money. The entire reason I came down
here to take care of everything consisted of pure guilt. I just wanted to see
my father’s belongings for the last time, and I wanted to remember him as he
was. Whatever he left behind that might be valuable of is no concern to me. But
apparently it’s a concern of someone.

“I’m going to stay with you in the farmhouse if that’s
alright. I think it’ll be best if we’re together. That way if someone tries to
break in it’ll be two against one.” There is a lot wrong with that statement.
Jonah could be the one who killed my father, and apparently he wasn’t much of a
help to him either in his time of need. Suddenly I’m angry, but that’s
irrational. Jonah might not have been there at the time of my father’s murder.
Maybe he was in the cabin?

“Fine, but if I catch you upstairs near my room I’ll-” my
insult is cut short by the gleam in Jonah’s eyes, and I realize that I’m not
speaking with that side of him anymore. This is the most frustrating thing I’ve
ever gone through in my life. “Look, I get it.
You
come out when he’s
stressed. But this seems like a split personality disorder. How can he actually
see
you when you’re
inside
of him?” It all comes out in one
breath, and I have to inhale afterwards. A confused and strange look comes over
Jonah’s face.

“What did you say?” I blink a few times, and shake my head.

“Never mind.” I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that
he has no idea that Tom is showing through the surface. I really wish I could
be inside his head right now so I could understand this better, but I guess I
ought to talk to a shrink about it. That is if I want to get some actual
answers and not just a few odd looks.

Our way back down to the house is pretty uneventful, and as
soon as May sees that the flames are gone she seems a little more relaxed. I
let her into the house first, and deem it safe when she doesn’t bark or growl.
Then I head up the stairs to my own room and grab my clothes from a duffle bag.
It’s not until I’m tearing off my shirt in the bathroom that I realize my entire
arm is on display. Each reminder of how abnormal I used to be is staring me
right in the face.

I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

My shower is not as warm as I had hoped for, but it does the
trick. I’m clean and relaxed by the time I get out. I’ve also had a lot of time
to think in there. I run over the facts in my mind. Jonah Quinton, aka Tom, has
been here for a while. If he’s the farmhand my father told me about, over the
phone, two and a half years ago, he has been here that long. If he is a prime
suspect, I’m sure that the police would have arrested him by now. But sometimes
the police are wrong.

Then again, I can be wrong a lot too. There’s just not
enough evidence that this guy did it, and I don’t see why he would kill the
only man in this town who allowed him to stay. What doesn’t make sense is why
he would want me gone, too. Unless he’s afraid that I’ll kick him out. I mull
over that thought as I blow dry my hair and tease it into some curls around my
face.

While I’m applying my makeup, I run over what the police
told me about my father’s murder. Someone broke into the home, but they’re not
sure when. That person then proceeded to tie my father up like a pig and put
him on his own bed. He, or she, had a twelve gauge shot gun. I don’t know much
about guns, but I know that a shot gun is hard to trace when it’s full of shot
and not an actual bullet.

Then they shot him in the face, leaving me with a corpse
that has to be cremated when the investigation is over. His body has not been
released to me, and that all in itself makes me want to find out who did this.
But first, I have to go hear his Will.

I pull on my shoes as I descend the stairs and almost run
into Jonah with a glass of tea in his hands. May is by his side again. She’s
abandoned me for the crazy man. That’s not very comforting at all. “I’m going
into town now, do you need anything?”

“I don’t think so. Do you want me to come with you?” I
narrow my eyes at the dark look on his face and shake my head. It’s not as if
someone’s going to shoot me in broad daylight. Someone who burns down another
person’s barn is pretty cowardly.

Without another word to one another, I slide behind the
wheel of my silver rental. I can’t help it. I glance in the rearview mirror.
Unsure of what I expected to see, my eyes return to the dirt drive in front of
me, and I push the car into third when I get out onto the pavement. It’s a
twenty minute drive into town.

I pull up to the attorney’s office, and take in a deep
breath as I open up the car door. It’s a quaint, red brick building that has a
mahogany colored door. It’s even equipped with a brass door knocker, which must
be for decoration considering there’s a doorbell to my left. I glance down at
my clear coated fingernails and wonder if I should have put a little more
effort into looking presentable. It’s too late now because the door opens.

“Mr. Nickel, I’m Anastasia D’Salvatore. I’m here for the
reading of my father’s Will.” I stick out my hand like any normal person, and
Mr. Nickel, the gray haired old man, just stares at it. I’m not sure if he’s
stuck in the eighteen hundred where women don’t shake hands, or if my nail
polish offends him. Either way, he’s just lost my vote of cute old man of the
year.

“Right this way, Ana.” Okay, he’s really lost my vote. Why
is it that everyone in this town calls me Ana? I follow the short old man
inside anyway and close the door behind me. My short heels clink on the
hardwood floor as I walk through a short foyer to a set of stairs. Mr. Nickel
leads me up the stairs, and suddenly I feel like I’m in some sort of horror
movie as I pass very old pictures hanging on the wall. Not one of the people in
these pictures is smiling.

“I appreciate you taking the time to lay this all out for
me, Mr. Nickel.” I’m
really
trying to be polite here. But the way he
raises his nose in the air as if he’s smelled something disgusting makes my
entire body rigid. I sit down in a small leather chair facing a desk and Mr.
Nickel settles himself behind it. Then he proceeds to tell me the worst news of
my life.