Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(29)

“But will I? Now I’m gonna have to scrub those images out of my brain. I liked it better when he was sweet and innocent.”

“You’re a little late boarding that train. He hasn’t been innocent for years. He’s had his hands in his pants since kindergarten.”

“Stop!” I protested, covering my ears.

Lon laughed heartily and tugged me against his side. “Parenting sucks in all kinds of ways.” He followed Jupe’s movements with his eyes, shaking his head at his son’s obvious discomfort. Then I noticed someone from Dare’s brunch party walking past the ride queue.

I elbowed Lon. “Look. Isn’t that Dare’s son, Mark?”

At the sound of his name, the blond man looked up and spotted Lon, then me. The wince was barely perceptible, but it was pretty clear that we were the last two people he wanted to see. He pasted on a polite grin and stopped outside the rail near us. “Lon . . . Arcadia. Twice in one week. Imagine that.”

“Small world,” Lon agreed.

“I’m here with the family,” Mark said, lifting up the collar on his jacket to shield his neck from the wind. “My wife is waiting with my son to get a pumpkin carved. I’m surprised the crowds are so large tonight. A pretty big turnout for a town fighting against Halloween right now. Did you see that civil action group on the news this morning?”

“Yep.”

“Maybe they’ll have better luck in Morella.”

“Maybe.”

“Can’t keep down the Halloween spirit here. Too much money to be made.” He laughed, rubbing his hands together, then blew into them to keep warm.

Lon nodded absently, as if he couldn’t possibly care less.

“Hey . . . I was wondering about why you two were visiting my father the other day. Everything okay?”

Dare hadn’t told Mark that we were trying to track down Bishop? Guess he really wasn’t lying about all the animosity between them.

“Everything’s fine,” Lon said, avoiding Mark’s original question.

Mark waited for more, then tried another tactic. “No one from the club sees you much anymore.” He paused, then added, “Though I did hear you brought Arcadia to the last Hellfire event at the caves . . .”

“Mmm-hmm,” Lon answered. Blank, cool. No emotion whatsoever.

“You two coming again for Samhain?”

“Not if my life depended on it.”

Mark’s chuckle was dry and awkward. He cleared his throat. “Don’t see you around the Village these days either, but I’ve been busy working long hours and I hear you’re always out of town on those photo shoots of yours. Still the big celebrity, I guess. Life in the fast lane, all that. Speaking of celebrity, how’s Yvonne? Heard from her lately?”

“She’s fine.” Lon wrapped an arm around my waist and herded me forward to catch up with the now-moving line. “Nice to see you again, Mark. Take care.”

Mark’s jaw flexed. He wasn’t happy about being dismissed. He mumbled a good-bye, adjusted his jacket collar, and continued on his way.

Half an hour after our encounter with Mark, we finally made it through the queue. A park employee dressed in a black-and-white striped chain-gang-prisoner costume herded the three of us into a staging area. Groups of people ahead of us entered the four-person boats on one side of a small canal filled with blood-red dyed water.

“Huh. I could swear that this thing used to go faster,” Jupe said to the man as we watched a seashell boat emerge from the indoor ride and glide to a slow stop.

“It’s an older ride. We had some minor track problems at the higher speed, so we switched to a slower setting about a month ago,” the park employee explained in a professional voice, straightening his name tag. It read Henry above chipped gold stars and what seemed like an afterthought, 20 Years of Service. “You may not know this, but this attraction originally started out as the popular Beach Fun Party ride in the 1970s. Back then, they operated the ride at an even higher speed so that the two waterfall drops would splash the riders. It was changed to Mermaid Cove in 1980s, and then Spirit Cove ten years ago.”

“Yeah, I know all that,” Jupe said with breezy immodesty. “My dad rode it when he was a kid. He said it was better because the animatronic mermaids used to be girls in tiny bikinis.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively to underscore his words.

Both Lon and Henry looked simultaneously embarrassed about this factoid.

“Uh, yes, I suppose,” Henry said before composing himself to continue the history lesson. “It was fast enough to require belted lap restraints, which they later removed when they revamped to the Halloween theme and slowed the ride down. As for the ride’s speed this season, it does make the wait longer, and we apologize for that. But the tradeoff is that you can enjoy the Spirit Cove experience for a full nine minutes instead of the normal four and a half.” He smiled encouragingly at Jupe, then called for the next group of people.

“Damn,” Jupe muttered under his breath. “That’s almost twice as slow.”

“That’s exactly twice as slow,” Lon said.

“Whatever. It might as well be It’s a Small World. This blows.”

“Is it scary?” I asked. “I’m not a fan of people jumping out at me.”