The Night a Barefoot Girl Ran Into Hell's Lantern

CHAPTER 2 - THE NAME HE HAD BURIED

Wade hadn't heard a child say those words in twenty-two years.

The raven on his hand suddenly felt heavier than ink.

Maggie saw his face change. "Wade?"

But he was already focused on the girl.

"Your mom told you that?" he asked.

Lila nodded. "She said if anything bad happened, I had to run to the bar with the lantern sign and ask for the raven man."

The men around him exchanged looks.

Nobody in this county knew that old joke anymore. The lantern sign had been there since before Wade bought the place. But "the raven man" had belonged to another life. A life before sobriety. Before he buried his brother. Before he learned how one bad choice could echo for decades.

He rose and grabbed his keys.

"Rex, Tommy, with me. Maggie, stay with her."

"No." Lila grabbed his leather vest with both hands. "I have to show you."

Wade wanted to argue. One look at her face told him not to. This child had already seen too much tonight.

So they wrapped her in one of Maggie's old bar towels, put her in the truck between Wade and Rex, and drove through the sheets of rain toward Miller Creek.

The blue house sat half-hidden behind overgrown hedges. One kitchen light burned.

Wade killed the engine.

From inside came the dull crash of something breaking.

Lila whimpered.

Wade turned to her. "You stay here until I come get you."

But before he opened the door, she reached into the front pocket of her oversized hoodie and pulled out a folded photograph, blurred by water and time.

"My mom said if you didn't believe me, show you this."

Wade took it.

In the picture, a much younger woman stood beside a motorcycle, laughing into the sun. Her hair was longer then. Her face thinner.

But he knew her.

"Helen," he said, almost to himself.

Maggie had once asked him if he'd ever loved anyone enough to ruin his own life.

He had.

And the woman trapped in that blue house was Helen Doyle, the one he had not seen since the summer she disappeared without a word.

Then the front window shattered from the inside, and a woman's scream tore through the storm.