The Shimmering Road

A pulse-pounding mystery from the author of The Gates of Evangeline featuring Charlotte “Charlie” Cates, an unforgettable heroine whose dark visions bring to light secrets that will save or destroy those around her . . .
 
When soon-to-be mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to have recurring dreams about harm coming to her unborn daughter, she knows these are not the nightmares of an anxious mom-to-be. They are the result of her mysterious gift. But before she can decipher what these dreams might mean, Charlie learns that the mother who abandoned her when she was a toddler is the victim of a double murder in Arizona. The other victim—Jasmine, a half-sister Charlie never knew she had—has left behind a child, a little girl who speaks to Charlie in her dreams and was present on the night of the murders. Convinced that she must help her orphaned niece, Charlie travels to Tucson, Arizona, where she must confront her painful ties to her mother and delve into her sister’s shadowy past.

To untangle the web of secrets that will reveal the truth of her nightmares, Charlie can no longer avoid her family’s checkered history. Who is in the racy photos that turned up in Jasmine’s apartment? Where is her niece’s father, whom Jasmine was rumored to have been seeing again on the sly? Was her mother’s charity work in Mexico really as selfless as it seemed? And most important of all, what did her niece really witness on the night of the murders?

The search for answers leads Charlie across the Mexican border, from the resort town of Rocky Point to the border town of Nogales, and elucidates the meaning of her dreams in most unexpected ways. Ultimately, to protect her niece and her unborn child, Charlie must battle not just evil but the forces of nature, in one final terrifying encounter in the Tucson desert.

A thrilling mystery that combines literary suspense and romance with a mystical twist that is unputdownable. If you love Kate Atkinson and Alice Sebold, you should not miss Hester Young.“Whip-smart, adrenaline-fueled….Young deftly uses Charlie’s supernatural gift to create tension and dread without relying too heavily on it to advance the plot. And a story line involving Donna’s employer—a nonprofit that helps women living in Mexican border towns—both champions charity and gives poverty a human face.” –Publishers Weekly

“Hester Young can tell a ghost story in the blistering daylight and still raise the hair on the back of your neck, and that's what she's done with The Shimmering Road....Young has done much like what John Connolly has done with his Charie Parker series, and made the supernatural something much more tangible to the reader, much more believable to the skeptic, and most importantly, she's made the real world all that more beautiful for it.” --Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain

“Well crafted and captivating.” --Booklist (starred review)
 
“A beautifully crafted mystery combining literary suspense, romance, and a mystical element that lends a unique twist.” –Huffington Post

“Young incorporates a chillingly complex plot, evocative sense of place and mystically engaging characters to lure her audience into this captivating thriller steeped in spine-tingling action.” –Shelf Awareness


Praise for The Gates of Evangeline

“Haunting, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful . . . Young handles the spectral elements with restraint as her tremendously sympathetic heroine seeks to build a new life after death.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“In this spooky thriller, everyone’s a suspect, and the plot twists will keep you guessing.” —People
 
“The hothouse atmosphere of Evangeline and the tortuous and tangled motives of its denizens make for an enjoyable puzzle box of a mystery. An eerie but inviting debut.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“In Hester Young’s haunted Louisiana, the ghostly labyrinth of the past opens its great doors to deliver up a lush gothic thriller. The Gates of Evangeline is a darkly marvelous debut, a classic whodunit stitched with otherworldly chills.” —Jedediah Berry, author of the Hammett Prize–winning The Manual of Detection
 
“What a delicious book! Gripping and atmospheric—with a heart-stopping twist—The Gates of Evangeline is an imaginative blend of southern gothic, family epic, and spooky whodunit. Trust me: you won’t just read Hester Young’s debut, you will absorb this gorgeous novel using all ‘six’ senses.” —Jillian Medoff, author of I Couldn't Love You More and Hunger Point
 
“Not just a riveting story about the search for a long-missing child. It’s also a powerful and haunting examination of a mother’s grief and her long road to recovery. Hester Young’s protagonist, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Cates, is tough and vulnerable, wounded and fearless, and I simply could not stop reading this thrilling, beautifully written southern gothic mystery. I can’t wait for the next entry in this captivating new series.” —David Bell, author of Cemetery Girl and Somebody I Used to Know
 
“A stunning debut novel. A lyrical, haunting, heart-wrenching work of suspense with echoes of du Maurier, Hitchcock, and King.” —Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Robert B. Parker’s The Devil
Wins
 
“Step through The Gates of Evangeline with Charlotte Cates, a grief-stricken northerner tasked with uncovering a southern dynasty’s dark secrets. Hair-raising and heart-rending, Hester Young’s first novel is one of buried shame, of children taken too soon, and, ultimately, of immense true love that binds across the mortal divide.” —Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of BittersweetHester Young holds a master’s degree in English with a creative writing concentration from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and her work has been published in literary magazines such as The Hawai‘i Review. Before turning to writing full-time, she worked as a teacher in Arizona and New Hampshire. Young lives with her husband and two children in New Jersey.***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2017 Hester Young

 

The dream begins with water, always water.

            I'm awash in indistinct shapes and hues, anchored only by the feel of it: a warm and steady spray against my back, soothing in its measured patter. Then the colors sharpen, take form, like the lens of a camera adjusting its focus.

            Walls of concrete block, painted white, peeling. A metal rod from which a flimsy cloth curtain hangs. Exposed piping. A shower head.

            I'm standing on blue and yellow tile, naked, drenched. The floor dips beneath me towards a drain, but the gathering water can't escape quickly enough. It pools around my ankles, soothing my tired feet.

            I close my eyes. Roll my head gently from side to side, release the tension in my shoulders. Thoughts of the outside world buzz at the edge of my mind in an angry swarm, but I push them away. Allow myself to occupy only this moment, to be wholly present in my body, which is no longer mine alone. I run a hand over the swelling curve of my abdomen and smile at the answering kick.

            I'm going to be a mother, I think. Going to put the ugly past behind me, and build a future with this child.

            Despite my worn surroundings, I feel clean. My body is full of life and hope and promise. I stretch my arms luxuriously above my head, enjoying the weight of my growing baby, the sensation of running water against my face and heavy breasts.

            It never occurs to me that we’re not alone.

            The sound cuts through everything, the falling water, my sense of calm, my belly. A loud pop, like a firework going off behind me. And I can feel it.

I stumble backwards, clutching my stomach, suddenly struggling to breathe. I don’t fully grasp what’s happening until I see the blood swelling from beneath my hands.

A gunshot.

I’ve been hit. She’s been hit.

Two more pops. A pressure in my chest, a burning. Now I’m drowning in the dark, trying to break through, swimming, swimming, until the water becomes blankets and my lungs at last find air.

            When I awake, find myself in the safety of my own bedroom once more, there's a wave of relief, intense and fleeting. That dream again, I think. Still, I reach down and touch my belly, waiting for some movement, some sign that my baby's okay. Only after I've felt her lazy swish within me do I relax.

            She's fine, I reassure myself, and so are you. The dream hasn't come true.

            But another, darker part of me knows I can't rest easy. Not yet, it tells me. Not yet.

 

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part I

 

Sidalie, Texas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July

 

2012

 

 

 

 

 

ONE

 

I know, long before Noah parks in the newly paved, double car driveway, that this is not a house I want to own. The upscale brick exterior and sharp white trim, the springy green lawn, the sprawling garage—it’s so cookie-cutter cute, so ready for its spot on HGTV. So beautiful, if I were being fair, but I’m not.

 As they say in real estate, location, location, location.

After watching me shoot down a dozen other properties that looked exactly like this one, Noah can’t have high hopes, but he puts on a good face nevertheless. “This is one of Sidalie’s best neighborhoods,” he says, and then, noting my wrinkled nose, adds, “Would you at least keep an open mind?”

Our realtor, who has been waiting in her gleaming Grand Cherokee, now rushes over to meet us. “Hey there, honey!” Brandi exclaims, her eyes barely meeting mine before they settle on my pregnant belly. “Look at you! Must be getting close now, Charlotte!”

“She’s thirty-two weeks,” Noah beams, with that can-you-believe-it expression that older women so adore in an expectant father. 

Brandi is no exception. “Aw, now, isn’t he precious? You’ve got a proud daddy-to-be right here. I love it!”

Brandi Babcock may possess the name of a porn star, but she has the body of a butternut squash, a solid top that flares out into an epically large backside. In the past few months of house-hunting, I’ve grown rather fond of her. When not raving about architectural features, she’s dishing about the details of her daughter’s upcoming wedding, and if these extravagant nuptials aren’t my style, I admire how much she cares. I can only imagine what it would be like to have a mother so invested in my life.

 “I just can’t wait to show you this property,” Brandi gushes. “Light, airy, great yard, practically brand new. And plenty of room to expand the family!” She gives me a little wink, as if multiplying is the secret desire of every woman.

I grin. She must be seriously underestimating my age. At thirty-nine, I have no intention of “expanding the family.” In point of fact, Noah and I were blindsided by this pregnancy, and if our nascent relationship has thus far absorbed the shock and left us eager for our daughter’s arrival, it’s more a function of luck than careful planning.

Brandi’s tour goes over about as well as the last twelve. Noah likes the place, and I don't. At 3,500 square feet, the house is absurdly large—“Texas-sized!” as Brandi said with a laugh. It also possesses the same characteristics as every other property we’ve seen, which I can by now recite along with her: crown molding, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, master bath with his-and-her sinks, a pool, a two-car garage. I feel a twinge of homesickness. Flawless, voluminous real estate at ridiculously affordable prices? This is not my world. .

“And there’s an underground sprinkler system,” Brandi tells me, as if this is the item that I’ve been missing, the one that will close the deal.

I move through the house, nodding politely at the right intervals, but when she warns us that the bathroom attached to the garage “needs some work,” my body kicks into high alert. Could it be? The shower from my dream with the blue and yellow tile? Surely not in a house this nice.

Noah glances at me, one eyebrow raised. He knows exactly where my mind has gone, and he’s right there with me. Since my nightmare began a month ago, we’ve both kept an eye out for sketchy-looking showers, approached every unfamiliar restroom with caution.

My dreams are not like other people’s. They show me things.

“What kind of work does the bathroom need, exactly?” I ask Brandi.

“The sink is stained,” she admits. “I think the previous owner washed out some paintbrushes there. It’s just a half-bath, and I’m sure you’d never use it, but I know how particular you are.” 

Half-bath. That means no shower. Noah gives my hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Well?” Brandi asks me, when we’ve completed the walkthrough. “What did you think?”   

“It’s just so…big.”

“These New York City girls.” Noah shakes his head. “You finally give ‘em room to breathe, and they don’t know what to do with it.”

 Brandi laughs. “I can see that!” She puts a hand on my shoulder, preparing to dispense helpful advice. “It seems big now, Charlotte, but you’ll want all this space once your baby comes. Children have a way of shrinking a home, you’ll see.”

Her all-knowing smile gets to me. I can feel my hormones flaring up—it doesn’t take much these days. “Thanks for the tip, Brandi, but this isn’t my first house. Or my first child.”

“Oh no? I thought—”

“I had a son. He died last summer.”

I regret mentioning Keegan the moment the words pass my lips. Though pregnancy regularly brings his loss to the forefront of my mind, I recognize that he’s a delicate subject as far as others are concerned. People never know what to say about the death of a child. Even the perennially perky Brandi looks thrown off guard.

“I—had no idea,” she stammers. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Noah puts a hand on my waist and nudges me toward the door. He knows this house is a lost cause. “Thank you so much, Brandi, for showin’ us the place,” he says. “We’ll give it some thought.”

“Of course,” she agrees, ready to get me out of here. “Y’all just call if you’d like another showing.”

Back in the car, Noah makes no mention of the house or Brandi Babcock, but I can feel his disappointment. I stare out the window at all the shiny new houses of Sidalie, knowing how desperate Noah is to own one, wishing I could share in his enthusiasm.

“Maybe we should put house-hunting on the back burner for a while,” Noah suggests. “The baby’s coming soon. We don’t need the extra stress right now.”

 I grab my water bottle from the center console and take a long drink. “That’s probably a good idea. To table the search for a bit.”

He doesn’t address the thing we both know. That I don’t ever want to buy a house in Sidalie. That I’ll use every possible excuse to avoid putting down roots here.

Our living situation will remain in a holding pattern for now, the month-by-month lease on our apartment a tenuous compromise that can’t last forever. I see his plan, of course, as clearly as he sees mine. He’s hoping that, with patience, he can wear me down, that Sidalie will grow on me like a slow fungus, consuming my resistance bit by bit until I capitulate.

It’s a battle he may very well win. I know what having a baby does to a person. Odds are good I’ll be too tired to fight him once our daughter’s here. Sooner or later, I’ll stop struggling and submit. Resign myself to living someone else’s life, a life I had no hand in choosing.

On our way home, we stop at a Walgreens to pick up more pre-natal vitamins. What should be a three-minute errand quickly blows up when Noah is accosted in the parking lot by a plump brunette.

“Noah?!” She has platform sandals and a rock that could probably feed an African village for a year. “Oh my gosh, how are you?”

I know the drill by now. She’s either one of his landscaping clients, which would be fine, or someone he knows through his ex-wife, which would be awkward.

It’s Option B.

“I can’t believe I ran into you,” the brunette says. “I was just thinking of you guys the other day. I told Tim, we should invite Carmen and her husband over. It’s been way too long.”

One would think, given the number of times he’s been in this exact scenario, that Noah would have developed a more suave approach. That he’d learn to tell the truth straight off, mention his divorce directly instead of pussy-footing.

Nope.

True to form, he gets that deer-in-the-headlights look and begins rubbing the back of his neck.

“Wow,” he says. “Yeah. You and Tim—it’s been a while.”

“Right? But our son is finally sleeping through the night now, so we’re, like, trying to have a social life again. Where are you guys living now?” Somehow the brunette remains totally oblivious to the immensely pregnant woman at Noah’s side. She probably thinks I’m a relative. They always do. “You moved, right? I drove by your old house a few months ago, and the lawn was a mess. I knew that couldn’t be your place, haha.”

“Yeah, Carmen and I, uh, sold the house,” he says, still failing to introduce me. I feel like a giant piece of furniture, a poorly positioned piano or clumsy table that Noah’s always trying to get around. “I’m in an apartment right now. Not sure where I’ll go next.”

She misses his meaning entirely. “Knowing Carmen, you’ll probably end up in Houston living, like, a block from her office. What’s the big plan? Partner at the firm by thirty-five?”

Noah scratches his head. “That’s her plan,” he says. “And you’re right, actually. She did get a place in Houston. I think she’s…doin’ okay. From what I hear.”

At last, it dawns on the brunette. Her mouth drops open. Her eyes bug. Suddenly she sees me, really sees me, and I know she’s jumping to a number of unfavorable conclusions. “Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed. Did you and Carmen split up?”

“Yeah.” Noah looks apologetic, as if her bad manners and general cluelessness are somehow his fault. “We just reached a point…where it made sense.”

The woman stares at me, awaiting further explanation. She’s already decided that he was cheating, that I was his dirty little secret, that I probably leveraged my pregnancy to break up his marriage. All untrue, but how can one defend herself against unspoken accusations? 

“This is Charlie, by the way.” Noah makes no other attempt at introduction, and after some stilted conversation, the brunette drifts away, her smile pinched with tacit disapproval.

I try not to take it personally. The woman was Carmen’s friend, after all. Whatever story Noah tells, her loyalties will always lie with his ex-wife. I don’t begrudge her that, don’t even blame Noah for his ineptitude, although just once, I’d love for him to brag on me instead of freezing up like a kid caught day-dreaming in class. This is my girlfriend, Charlotte Cates, he could say. She’s a journalist from New York. Did you know she has a book coming out next month?

But that might read as insensitive. There’s no winning here—unless you’re Carmen.

Though I’ve never met the hot shot lawyer who once shared Noah’s bed, I feel like I know her, quite intimately, in fact. Because it’s not just her ex-husband I’ve taken on. Somehow, unwittingly, I’ve inherited her life.

 Sidalie isn’t a large town, and I can’t help but move in her shadow, fall into all of her and Noah’s old routines. I shop at her grocery store, dine at her favorite restaurants, receive her mail. Mrs. Noah Palmer, the envelopes say, and they’re not for me.

Carmen may have left Sidalie, but her family members remain tethered to Noah’s landscaping company. Two of her cousins work for Noah, and his lead landscape designer just happens to be Carmen’s little sister. Our uncomfortable encounter with the brunette is nothing compared to the stink-eye Cristina gives me on the rare occasion I stop by his office.

It’s not the life that I imagined when we left Louisiana together just a few months ago, ready to see where our relationship would take us. Things were easy then. I loved our time on the road: stopping to explore tiny towns, sleeping at whatever funky motel we might encounter, photographing every tacky roadside attraction. When we returned to Noah’s native Texas, I hoped that Sidalie would be another pit stop for us, a dot on the map where he tied up the loose ends of his business and then moved on, went somewhere new, built a life from nothing with me and our daughter.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

I don’t regret my choice to come here, exactly. After my son’s death, I needed a change of scene, and our day-to-day existence is, for the most part, a happy one. I only wish we had found a place for us, instead of trying to fit me into a place that is so clearly his. So clearly hers.

“Sorry about that, hon,” Noah mutters as we head into the store. “I don’t even remember that woman’s name. I think Carmen and I went bowlin’ with her once.”

I say nothing, just breeze through the aisles to the shelf of vitamins. Inside, though, I’m vindicated. That, I think, is why we’re not buying a house here. Ever.

Living in Sidalie means living with the ghost of Carmen, and if ghosts are not exactly an unfamiliar presence in my life, this is one phantom I can do without. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO

 

That night, as Noah refills my water, I hear a faint metallic clink against my glass.

            I look up from my carton of lo mein. Half-eaten containers of Chinese food, crumpled napkins, and a pair of stained chopsticks litter the table. The only thing out of place in this gluttonous scene is the glinting object at the bottom of my water glass.

            A ring. 

            Beside me, Noah awaits my reaction with a goofy, hopeful grin. I love this man deeply, but he should know better. I exhale. Massage my temples.

            “Oh, hon. I thought you finally stopped with the marriage stuff.”

            “Come on, Charlie,” he urges me, his twang sweet and coaxing. “Just try it on.”

I peer down at the ring. Twirl a strand of lo mein with my chopstick.

“You really gonna be like that?” He sits back, his thick, sun-browned arms folded across his undershirt.

            “I appreciate the gesture, I really do. But you know how I feel about marriage.”

            “I know, I know.” His voice rises as he does his best impression of Charlie Being Unreasonable. “Real commitment is about more than a piece of paper,” he mimics. “I get it, already.” He sighs. “Would you just wear the ring? We don't have to go through a whole ceremony.”

            “If it’s just for show, then what’s the point?”

“It’s not for show. It’s for our family. Our baby girl deserves a daddy who’s committed to her mama.”

            I give him an affectionate pat. “She already has one.”

            “Not accordin' to the rest of the world.” He rises from the table, thumbs hooked in the loops of his jeans. “People look at us, Charlie, they do. They look at you, they see we're not married, and then they look at me. And they wonder what kinda asshole I am.”

            “That's what this is about?” I pick up a dumpling and dip it in soy sauce, not bothering to finish chewing before I speak. “You want to get married so people will stop looking at you? Noah, my wearing a wedding ring is not going to make that woman in the parking lot judge us any less.”

            “Yeah.” He balls up a dirty napkin and tosses it into an empty container, defeated. “People have a long memory in this town.”  

            I reach into my glass with a chopstick and carefully fish out the ring. It's a simple solitaire diamond on a silvery band, probably platinum. Once upon a time, before my divorce, I would have loved this ring. But Eric cheated, and the divorce happened. My first marriage couldn't even make it to the four year mark. If I'm going to make mistakes in life, I'd at least like to make new ones.

            I set the ring on the table. “I could put it on a chain,” I offer, trying to placate him. “Wear it as a necklace.”

            “Doesn’t have quite the same meanin’ then, does it?”

            “What do you want it to mean? We’re together, aren’t we? I’m here.”

            “You’re here,” he says. “But sometimes I wonder how long.”

            I give a rueful laugh. “I wonder the same thing about you. ‘How long is this man in Sidalie? When can we leave?’ I wonder that all the time.”           

            He comes up behind my chair and places his hands on my shoulders, his chin resting on top of my head. “I don’t have any family left, Charlie, none that counts. Don’t even have my dog—he’s Carmen’s now. A person’s gotta have somethin’ to anchor ’em. For me, it’s this town.”

            How can one be mad at a guy who just wants to belong somewhere? As if sensing that he’s gaining ground, Noah sinks his thumbs into the tender muscles of my shoulders, slowly working out knots of tension. The man doesn’t play fair.

I wish I could provide him with the clan he feels he lacks, but the fact is I’ve never had much in the way of family myself. A drug-addicted mother who left when I was too young to remember, an alcoholic father who died when I was fourteen, an aunt and cousins I never see. And while Noah loves my grandmother, the formidable woman who stepped in to raise me, Grandma’s eighty-eight years old. She doesn’t have a lot of time left.

            Just one more way that Carmen outshines me. She had a tribe with Sunday dinners, nieces and nephews, an abuela who harassed them every weekend about their baby-making plans. I have no one.

I wipe my mouth and push away the rest of the food. “I know you’re attached to Sidalie,” I tell him. “I get it. Sometimes I miss New York like crazy. At the end of the day, though, there’s nothing really keeping us here.”

            “My company’s in Sidalie,” he reminds me. “I have forty guys dependin’ me for a salary. After all the years they’ve given me, you really think I can just walk away?”

“Yes, I do! You have millions of dollars lying around in a bank account you’ve never touched. You could pay those guys a lifetime of wages, and just go.” 

            His face clouds over at the mention of his inheritance. “I don’t want that money,” he says flatly. “I’d just as soon burn it. It won’t bring my father back.” These days, we don’t talk much about what happened in Louisiana, but in the battle for Most Dysfunctional Family History, I’d have to say he’s