Chapter 56

Diane's bike skidded to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk, and she stared at the boardwalk. "Oh no!"

Richie skittered to a stop next to her, almost overshooting her as his front wheel slipped on a patch of ice. He frowned as his eyes swept the boardwalk from one end to the other. "What?"

Crown Drive had been named such because its looping shape right at the northernmost point of Haven was somewhat reminiscent of a crown. It followed the river to the east and the canal to the west. The boardwalk was intended to be the jewel of the crown.

The "jewel" had become lackluster to say the least. The short stairway leading up to the boardwalk was missing every other step. Upon the boardwalk itself, rotted timbers lay warped and bleached by snow, rain, sun, and neglect. The railing separating it from the canal was broken in a few places. Rampant graffiti covered every inch of available surface.

None of this mattered to Diane. All that mattered to her was the chain across the entrance with the sign which blared "CLOSED - STRUCTURE CONDEMNED - DO NOT ENTER"

"What do you mean 'what?'" Diane demanded.

Richie again scanned the boardwalk and shrugged.

"It's closed!" Diane cried.

"Yeah, so?"

"We can't go on it! You said we have to be right at the place where it happened."

"Who the hell says we can't?" Richie declared. He leaned his bike against a nearby aspen. He stepped up to the stairway, over the chain, and onto the boardwalk, the remaining steps creaking. He turned to face Diane. "See? Nothing to it."

Diane stared for a few moments before she shook her head and leaned her bike against the same tree. "My mother would have a fit if she knew I was doing this."

"It's not that bad."

"Richie, the thing is condemned!" Diane shouted from behind the chain. She sighed and gingerly stepped over it. "They don't do that unless it's for a good reason."

"Big fucking deal. They have the same thing on the bridge heading towards the old rail yard. I've gone across that fucker a million times by now."

Diane now realized it was little wonder why other parents saw him as a bad influence. If she had not had this duty to fulfill for Heather, she would have seriously considered abandoning her task. She spent the better part of a minute trying to come up with an alternate approach to the stairs and failed.

The last step cracked under her heel. She uttered an alarmed cry as it gave way when she tried to leap off the ailing timber. Her fall was arrested when Richie grabbed her arms and hauled her onto the boardwalk. She stumbled into him, briefly squeezing her bosom against his chest. "Sorry," she said in a sheepish voice.

Richie glanced briefly at her breasts and gave her a tiny smirk before he caught himself. "Yeah, okay, we're here. So where do we stand?"

Diane looked towards the canal. On the other side was a large field buried under an expanse of white which glistened in the sun, untouched save for animal footprints. Even they were muted as well, and as she stepped forward, she understood why. A sudden gust of wind whipped over her, channeled between a stand of aspens near the river to the left and a thicket of pines to the right. Fine powder peppered her face and sweep across the field in waves.

Richie frowned and wiped his face. "Yeah, now I know why they closed it. Let's do this thing before I freeze my face off."

Diane stared at the field. She saw the occasional dead stem poking up through the snow and understood why this place bloomed so well. The river came down from the north and veered east, the canal branching to the west. With water on two sides and snow blanketing it most of the winter, she imagined this to be a bright spot even when the rest of the area was brown with drought.

"No, something else caused this to be neglected," Diane said. She placed her hands on the railing but snatched them away when the wood began to splinter at once. "The whole town is like this, Richie. It's been going on for some time."

Richie plunged his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He turned his body away from the field as another gust raised a fog of powdery snow around them. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Look at the abandoned church. It was that way even back in 1985. And how much longer was it before the cemetery fell into disrepair?"

"Beats me."

"It couldn't have been long. The fact that Penny found the comb months after Stephanie was buried means no one was really maintaining it even back then. But that's not all of it. I've been doing some research on Haven. There's lots of other places like that, places that used to be important and started falling into disuse."

"So what's that supposed to mean? Don't that happen to other towns?"

"Yes, but that's because people move away," Diane said. "Haven is just the opposite. It's grown in the last few decades, yet all these places keep getting abandoned." Diane shivered. "It kinda scares me, I have to admit."

Richie rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I know," Diane said in a glum voice. "Just more silliness from Diane, who's afraid of her own shadow."

"Hey, I didn't mean ... look, never mind," Richie said. "Let's just get this done. We came here to see Heather's mother tell Jo to fuck off."

Diane reached into her pocket and pulled out the pendant. A puff of wind sent it swinging back and forth like a tiny pendulum. "I hope so," she said as she brought it to Richie's outstretched hand. "Or at least to get a clue as to where to go next."

Her hand clasped his, the pendant squeezed between them, and reality shifted.

The snow was gone. The wind was light and fragrant, and birds sang in the branches of the bright green tops of the aspens. She heard the wood creak -- a healthy creak of full and straight timbers rubbing against one another -- and turned her head towards the sound. Penny Donovan -- no, Sovert, now, from the glint of gold on one hand -- stood leaning against a freshly-stained railing, clad in a summer dress which rose only to her knees, looking out over the field.

Diane followed her gaze and gasped. The field exploded with color. Delicate hues of blue, red, and purple swayed in the gentle breeze. Tall grasses rose along the fringes, their seed-stalks rustling as they bent gently towards the boardwalk. The midmorning sun glinted from the river, sparkling like a jewel against indigo velvet.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" Diane whispered.

"I told you, you don't have to whisper," Richie said.

Diane did not try to explain it to him. Places like this, she thought, deserved a sort of reverence. Her heart ached as she saw herself standing in Penny's place, but with Heather at her side.

"Thought I would find you here," came a voice from behind.

"Beautiful, huh?" Richie growled, his free hand curling into a fist. "It's about to get uglier now."

Jo stepped onto the boardwalk, Penny affording her only an abbreviated turn of the head. Jo's outfit was far less conservative. Tight, high-riding denim shorts hugged her hips and ass, her legs smooth and bare down to her sandals. Her midriff-bearing top was pulled taut over breasts held by a bra at least one size too small.

"Look at how she's dressed!" Diane remarked as Jo passed in front of them.

Richie snorted. "Yeah, who the fuck if she kidding? Her thighs are way too thick for freakin' Daisy-Dukes."

"I don't mean that, I--"

"I needed some time to think about all this," Penny said in a low and troubled voice.

Jo swung around and leaned against the railing, facing away from the flower field. "You already had that. You thought about it all through the engagement, all through the wedding planning, all through--"

"Stop it, Jo," Penny said.

"Yeah, put that bitch in her place," Richie growled.

Jo fell silent for only a moment. "I'm sorry," she said in a more contrite voice. "You used to like it when I was blunt. It helped prevent you from missing things."

"It hasn't been much help recently," Penny muttered. She turned to face Jo when her sister raised an eyebrow with a face somewhere between curiosity and admonishment. "I didn't quite mean it that way."

"You're really that obsessed with it. Still."

Penny frowned and thumped her fist on the railing, then turned away. "I keep feeling like I'm so close. Like I'm just a step away from finding the truth."

"And yet it's been like that for the last, hmm, how many months has it been since you made those accusations against Charles Remmer?"

"I didn't accuse him of anything! Jo, if you had been there, you would have seen for yourself he was doing his best to hide something from me."

Jo gave her sister a level look. "How many months, Penny?"

Penny uttered a frustrated sigh and folded her arms. "Eight," she said in a low voice.

"This is 1987, then," Diane said. "Probably about June."

"And what have you found in that time?"

"Enough to convince me that Victor Mann is tied up in all of it."

Jo sighed. "I investigated him for you three times now. He's nothing more than he seems, a highly-trained psychologist and behaviorist with a strong philanthropic bent."

Richie pointed into the sky. "Hey, look, some flying pigs! Not."

"You've investigated him when you wouldn't believe me," Jo said. "And did you find anything more?"

Penny let out a slow breath through her nose. "No, nothing that would stand up to intense scrutiny. It's just ... I can see patterns, Jo, you knew I always could. I could see them in what people do, in how they speak. I think it's how I've, well, managed to get my way with our parents a lot when I was a teenager."

Diane heard an intake of breath from Jo, and turned her head in time to see the brief look of incredulity in Jo's face. Her heart thumping, Diane thrust out her hand and plunged it through Jo's shoulder as if it were only mist.

... crock of shit. She really has the fucking gall to claim that's all it is? What a little snot-nosed bitch. Who the fuck is she trying to fool? Yeah you just want it all, just like you always did, just like you always GOT. Not anymore. You can't even hold a candle to...

Diane blinked and swayed. Her trembling hand now lay in open air, Jo having taken a step away. Her eyes widened.

"What did you pick up?" Richie said. "What--"

"Not now, " Diane hissed.

"--can't have it all, Penny," Jo said in a far softer voice than suggested by the feelings Diane had sensed. "You have to decide what's important to you. Or did you forget you've been married for the past two months?"

Penny looked down and cradled the hand which bore the ring. She turned it into the sunlight, admiring the shiny and untarnished gold. She uttered a soft sigh. "How could I, Jo? It's what I've wanted for the past year."

"And you still want children with him as well."

Penny looked up and nodded. She smiled slightly. "David is partial to boys, but I'd rather have a girl. Two girls, actually."

Diane could not help but smile as well. She was suddenly very glad that these were windows only into the past. She would have dreaded doing anything which could possibly lead to Heather not being born.

"And how can you do that and still pursue this when he can't move from Denver?" Jo asked.

"Yes, Jo, the commute is horrid, you're not telling me something I don't already know."

"Denver?" Richie said. "But he works from home now."

"This was way before anyone could do that, Richie," Diane said.

"--you expect to do this, and be with him, and raise a family?" Jo asked.

Penny stared at her sister for a moment, then turned away in a huff, stepping up to the railing. "I can't," she said in a low voice. She lowered her gaze. "Dammit."

"What?" Diane said in confusion. "She almost sounds like she's going to--"

Jo stepped up and placed her hand on her sister's shoulder. "Penny, I know we haven't seen eye to eye on a lot of things. I hope you don't think I've been trying to work against you."

Richie snorted. "No, where the fuck would we get that idea from, you conniving cunt."

"--course not, Jo," Penny said in a sincere voice. "I mean, yes, I think your skepticism can edge over into downright debunking, but--"

"But that's not the issue here."

"So what is the issue, Jo?" Penny said in irritation. "Use that bluntness you're so found of wielding and tell me."

"The issue is that you don't know how to let go."

Penny stared at her sister with shimmering eyes.

"Fuck, she must be using some sort of power over Heather's mother!" Richie cried.

"No, nothing," Diane said. "If she has any sort of power like Victor, I would have felt it by now."

"Stephanie Fowler is gone," Jo said. "Nothing you do is going to bring her back."

"She's using emotional manipulation, that's all," Diane said.

She balked at her own words. That same manipulation was often enough to get Diane to do things she did not want to do. She always traveled with the crowd. It was how her relationship with Heather had been at first. Heather was a leader, she was a follower. She toed the line and ensured she remained interested in everything which interested Heather.

Penny shook her head. "This isn't about just her, it's bigger than that. It's--"

"And yet you're haunted by this one thing. Penny, I've seen how many times you've gone back to that grave. Maybe you are seeing something bigger, but your life still revolves around her, and it's dragging you down."

Penny uttered another sigh. She looked back down at her ring.

"You haven't even given up your old apartment, have you?"

Penny shook her head without looking up.

"You need to get away from this," Jo said in an earnest voice. "You need to let it go."

Penny looked up. "But ... but other girls are in danger."

To Diane's surprise and Richie's incredulous snort, Jo nodded. "Yes. If all of what you found is really connected. If Victor is really more than he says he is. If Charles really was hiding something from you. If the discrepancy in the coroner's report really wasn't just a minor clerical error."

"And if some of the more recent things I've found point to something even bigger centered around the Li'l Missy Inn." Penny threw up her hands. "Yes, more if's, I know!"

Diane gasped. "The Inn? She found out about it way back in 1987?"

"Fuck, they both wanted her out," Richie muttered. "Victor and the Dark bitch."

"But why? What threat was she to the Darkness?"

"--some if's you want to consider now," Jo said. "If you want to remain close to your husband. If you don't want him to resent your career. If you want to raise a family."

Penny nodded halfway through her sister's last sentence. "Yes, I know. God, I hate this. I hate having to choose."

"Nothing says you have to give it up entirely," Jo said with a small smile. "I'm going to maintain the business."

"Yeah, nothing like recruiting the foxes to guard the fucking hen-house," Richie said.

"Then you're going to have to make me a promise, Jo," Penny said. "You're going to have to promise me you'll keep pursuing this. I know, not to the exclusion of all else, but I don't want to abandon it. Maybe ... maybe I am haunted by Stephanie more than I want to admit. Maybe your fresh eye on it--"

Richie wrinkled his nose. "There's something fresh around here, all right. Fresh and steaming."

"--find something I didn't."

Jo slowly nodded and smiled. "All right, Penny, I promise. Anything if it means you and David can have a happy life together."

"Fuck, am I the only one who feels like I just fell into a vat of manure?" Richie growled.

Penny embraced Jo. "Thank you, I knew I could count on you," Penny drew back and smiled. "I'll call David soon as I get back to the apartment." She looked wistfully out over the field. "I have to admit, I will miss this town."

"Then don't be a stranger," Jo said. "If you're going to continue in some sort of consultant role, you need to come down every now and then."

Penny nodded and smiled. She and Jo turned towards the stairs and vanished into the past.

Diane withdrew the pendant from Richie's hand. "Fuck, she did leave," Richie said. "What the hell's up with that?"

"I-I don't know." Diane said, shivering as she looked out over the snow-covered field. "Well, she must have come back, of course. Or she changed her mind later ... dammit, I don't know what to do next! If she left town, then we can't get any more visions of her in Haven."

"If she really left Haven."

Diane's eyes widened. She looked towards the street. "Wait, I got an idea." She rushed towards the stairs, remembered the broken step, and eased off the edge of the boardwalk instead in a short drop. She turned to face Richie as he followed. "Whether she stayed or left and came back, she had to have moved into her house at some point. We could see that happening if we go stand in front of it."

"Yeah, maybe," Richie said. "And maybe we'll see any of a thousand other times she's come and gone."

"But you said yourself that these things seem to follow a pattern. I mean, what do we have to lose?"

"You really want to stand in front of that house? When Heather's Mom tried to fuck you over?"

Diane realized how crazy it sounded coming from her own mouth as well. She also realized that if she stopped to think about it for too long, she would lose her nerve. "Penny is likely still at the Inn. Jo is probably ... um, engaged ... with Melinda."

Richie frowned. "I don't like this. I'm supposed to fucking protect you, not let you walk right into danger. Fuck, I wish Ned was here."

"Yes, I know, but Cassie ... well ... needed him."

Richie frowned and shifted his weight. "She ain't the only one that fucking needs something," he muttered.

"It's only a few minutes from here," Diane said. "This shouldn't take long. I have to know one way or the other."

After Jason had followed Richie and Diane along the Ridge Road loop around the northwest corner of town and saw where they were going, he realized the timing was going to be slim. While he had the advantage of dashing down Main Street, where all the traffic lights would favor that thoroughfare on a late weekday afternoon, they may see that advantage as well and take that route back to Diane's.

Then again, Richie was not prone to strategic thinking, and Diane always preferred the "prettiest" route, which meant another long loop around Ridge Road.

As soon as he had confirmed their destination was the boardwalk, he had retreated around the bend and hid himself among some pine trees off the side of the road. He would see them approach as they headed back to Diane's, then he would take off the moment they were gone.

He had calculated the likely time it would take Richie's vision to play itself out. It was generally never more than five minutes, yet by the ten minute mark, no one had appeared.

He pedaled cautiously around Crown Drive, but the old boardwalk was empty. He raced past it, taking the looping road around until it turned south and met with Green Avenue at a T-intersection. He paused and thought over his options.

They may have gone to the right, to the west, if they had spotted him and wanted to frustrate his ability to follow. Or they had gleaned something from Richie's vision and were going somewhere else to see if they could get another, which would mean they went left.

Jason deduced that, if they had gone right, his opportunity was lost anyway, for they surely had so much of a head start that he would never be able to set Stacy's plan in motion. Thus his best option was to go left and hope.

A few minutes later, his chance of success went from slim to assured. He caught up with them just as they stopped in front of Heather and Melinda's house.

Jason did not waste any time. If they remained there for at least five minutes, Jason would have all the time he needed to get back to the Inn.

Diane began having second thoughts as the Sovert house loomed. She gazed up at it as if expecting it to exude an Aura of its own. She thought about suggesting they try this from across the street, but that was likely too far away, especially if she wanted to peek into Penny's thoughts.

It still felt like a violation, an intrusion on someone's privacy. It was one thing to look into the past, but quite another to look into someone's head.