When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(57)

“What happens after dark?” Keith asks.

“The hills come alive,” Walt whispers. “It ain’t safe. T’ain’t safe at all.” He stares at me so hard I have to resist the urge to fidget. Slowly, he reaches out an age-spotted hand, as if to brush my cheek. Or assure himself that I’m real and not some ghost from his past. I recoil automatically, hitting the box behind me and sending half the room’s contents tumbling to the floor like a chain of dominoes.

Keith belatedly tries to right whatever he can reach. I’m still staring at Walt Davies, who I swear has tears in his eyes.

“It don’t matter,” he says, as Keith tries to pick up. “I’ll get to it later. Gives me something to do at night.”

“How long have you lived here?” I ask.

“My whole life.”

“You have any family?”

“Had a sister. Gone now. Had a woman. Son. Gone, too. These woods aren’t safe.”

“Is that why you have all the new spotlights?”

“Can’t be too careful.”

“When was the last time you saw Them?” I venture now. “They approached your property?”

Walt narrows his eyes at me. There’s a particular kind of cunning there. Once more: a dreadful feeling of déjà vu.

“Why should I tell you?”

“I’m dead?”

Now there’s no denying it: Walt Davies’s rheumy eyes fill with tears. Two track down his bristly cheeks. “I came back for you,” he says hoarsely. “I swear it!”

Before I can even think it through, I say: “I know.” I don’t understand what he’s telling me, but his agitation pains me. “I should’ve waited for you.”

“I made a promise. I meant to keep it.”

“Mr. Davies,” Keith speaks up, “what’s in the barn? I couldn’t help noticing . . . that’s quite some lock.”

“Why? What’d ya hear?” That fast, the cunning is gone, replaced by rampant paranoia.

“I, um, I’m wondering if that might be a safer place to, uh, you know, hide. From Them.”

“You know, don’tcha? Someone talked, someone told. You want what I have.” Before either of us can blink, the shotgun is pointed at Keith’s chest. “You can’t have it!”

“Please, Walt, please!” I place my hand on his arm without thinking, making my voice as high and feminine as possible. It works, his attention pinging back to me. I am someone to him. I’m not sure who. Sister, wife, girlfriend? But I am someone important, maybe even someone he loved, now back from the dead.

The most basic tenet of survival: Use what you’ve got.

“I’m scared . . .” I whisper. I feel like the scantily clad heroine in a slasher film. Walt focuses entirely on me, while Keith draws a ragged breath.

“It’s so dark in here,” I continue. “I don’t like the dark.”

Walt hesitates, shotgun still pointed at Keith, but his attention on my face. I can’t read any of the thoughts running through his sad eyes, across his hollow cheeks. I wonder how long ago his woman and child left. How long he’s been alone on this giant property, stringing barbed wire, hanging floodlights, and waiting for the mountains to attack.

I don’t feel afraid of him anymore. We are kindred spirits. Two people lost in the shadows, preparing for the worst and never feeling safe again.

“They all want it,” he says seriously. “If I show you . . . you can’t tell. Can’t share what you see. Everyone wants my secrets. What makes it grow so fast. So green.”

Grow? I finally get it. What had brought us here in the first place. Walt is the local dope farmer. Chances are, that’s what is in the barn. His growing operation. Which would also explain all the roads exiting the property—for middle of the night shipments.

Walt leads us out the front door. Glance here, glance there, then he hustles us across the open yard to the massive barn. We press against the side of the building, staying out of sight of . . . Them? Drones? The ghosts of the mountains? He undoes the padlock with a key he wears on a long chain around his neck.

He has to set down his shotgun to push back the heavy sliding door. Neither Keith nor I make a move. We are holding our breaths, preparing to encounter a jungle of dope plants that will only add to the surrealness of our day.

Which makes it all the crazier when Walt steps inside the warm, humid space, flips on a bank of overhead lights, and proudly declares, “Yes, sir. I grow the purest crop in all of Georgia. Behold. Davies’s Microgreens.”



* * *



—

“THE TRICK IS COCO MATS,” Walt explains proudly. “No soil, no pesticides. Just plenty of love and water. I got four different crops, from micro mustard plants to pea shoots. I harvest every ten to fifteen days. Just me. Load it up, head to Atlanta. Gotta real following among the swanky chefs at high-end restaurants. Microgreens are very healthy, you know. High in vitamins, some even fight cancer.”

I honestly have no idea what to say. Standing beside me, I can tell Keith is equally stunned. We are staring at row after row of metal shelving units. Each holds eight shallow trays of densely packed, tiny green shoots, like a parade of Chia Pets escaped from the 1980s.

I walk closer, inspecting the setup. There are tubes running from each tray.