Rites of Spring

Chapter 1-2

Reid smiled, bland and believable. “That’s right. They asked us to come and investigate some unusual occurrences.”

“Did this tenant give you a name?” Cameron fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow, even though now that he wasn’t moving it both chilled him and made him itch. Instead he stared at both of the intruders.

“Um, yeah. Cameron Teixeira.” Reid gazed at him with open, trustworthy eyes.

“Cameron Teixeira didn’t call you.” Cameron shoved past both men to walk up the stairs.

The taller man—Jason, if the names that the “investigators” had given were real—grabbed Cameron’s shoulder and turned him around. His grip was strong enough to leave a bruise if Cameron was any judge. “Are you calling us liars?” he growled. This close, Cameron could see into Jason’s eyes. They were beautiful, a kind of deep forest green, with little rings of gold around the pupil.

Cameron had never been the type to get turned around by a pretty face. A guy could be as beautiful as a Michelangelo sculpture; that didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. He put both hands on Jason’s solid chest and shoved as hard as he could. Jason went sprawling onto the pavement. Red-hot fury burned through Cameron’s veins, but he kept his voice cold and vicious. “Since I am Cameron Teixeira, I suppose I have to call you liars. I never called any paranormal investigators. I never would. And neither would the tenants on the other side. I’m not a tenant, I’m the property owner, so don’t try that tactic either.”

Reid stood between Jason and Cameron as the former sprang to his feet, teeth bared in a snarl of hate. “Maybe it was a previous tenant.”

“Not likely. The people next door have been here for years and my unit’s been family occupied since the 1920s. Get off the property. Don’t come back. I’m calling the police and warning them about whatever scam you’re trying to pull on renters, just so you know. It might work in Fall River or New Bedford, but you’re not going to pull it off in Plymouth.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Reid tilted his head to the side. “Can you honestly tell me that you’ve never noticed any paranormal phenomena in that house?”

Cameron pursed his lips and dialed 911. He didn’t bother answering Reid’s question. He didn’t need to be polite or show these clowns anything like respect. They’d shown up uninvited, tried to lie their way into his home using Cameron’s own name, and refused to leave when ordered to do so.

When the dispatcher answered, he gave his name and location in a calm, clear tone. “I’m calling to report two prowlers,” he told the faceless woman on the other end. “They’re trying use a scam to get into the house, they’ve been warned to leave the property several times and refuse to do so. There are several vulnerable children on the property and I’m fearful for their safety as well as for my own.” Cameron chose his words carefully, without moving his eyes from Reid’s. He hated involving the police, but he needed these men gone. He needed them to understand they weren’t welcome.

“You know what?” Jason said, thin pink lips twisted into a sneer. “I should just let whatever’s in there have you. You deserve it. Can’t listen to people who know more than you do, can’t do what you’re f*****g told-”

“Shut up, Jason.” Reid didn’t bother turning to look at his friend. “Look, Cameron, this is a bad idea. We can help you.”

“Sir? Officers are on their way.” The dispatcher’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Thank you, ma’am. I hope they get here quickly.” Cameron hung up. “The police are on their way.”

“Damn it.” Reid turned to Jason and grabbed his arm. “Come on. We’ll figure something out.” He dragged the taller man up the street toward a van, parked just far enough away that Cameron couldn’t make out the license plates.

Cameron retreated to the house and waited for the police. A pair of uniformed officers arrived thirty seconds later.

Cameron described the incident. It was hard to gauge the officers’ reactions; he saw them glance at him and at the rainbow sticker on his car and noticed that their questions turned back to his relationship status a little too often for his comfort. He guessed he should have known better than to involve the police, but he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do. It wasn’t like he had a gun to chase the freaks off his property. Not that a Native guy waving a gun around in public was going to end well for him.

He didn’t really expect the police to do anything anyway. He’d only ever called the police to get Reid and Jason to leave, and to create some kind of paper trail in case those two clowns tried to run that same scam on other residents. Plymouth was an old town. Plenty of people believed in ghosts and might fall for that kind of crap. Cameron didn’t have a lot of valuables, but he didn’t want his neighbors to get victimized. He sat back and tried to hold his temper while he waited for the cops to finish asking about his most recent boyfriend.

Once he’d gotten rid of the cops, he decided to clean up a bit and fix some dinner. The whole incident with those two clowns had put a real damper on his day. If he sat down to work right now he’d get nothing done. Mundane chores would soothe his mind and help him to focus later.

He broiled up some steak while fixing a salad and brought them into the living room to eat. Why would those guys have come by and tried that particular scam with him, anyway? He had to give them points for creativity, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around what would make them think that a pretext of “paranormal investigators” would have gotten them far.

On the one hand, Plymouth was an old town. It was the oldest English town in New England, with plenty of grisly history to it. If anyplace was going to lend itself to ghost stories, he guessed that Plymouth would be it, right behind places like Salem, Lexington, and Concord. If you believe in ghosts, it wasn’t all that far-fetched to think that ghosts would be in the area.

Plenty of people did believe in ghosts, too. There wouldn’t be so many ghost hunting “reality” shows on television if they didn’t. Sometimes Cameron watched that kind of stuff if it was late at night and he needed to turn his mind off, but he knew that most of the people watching them weren’t like him. Lots of people believed.

But…his house? Sure, it was old, but it wasn’t one of the oldest places in town. It might have dated to the eighteen fifties, no earlier. If Cameron were planning to scam a bunch of people out of their money with a paranormal investigator con, he’d go after the people with the truly ancient houses. He’d go after the people with the houses that went back to the earliest days of the colony. He’d go after people with plaques on their homes, plaques that had important names and the word “Mayflower” on them. Not places that were going up when the Dred Scott decision was handed down. In Plymouth, houses like Cameron’s were considered new construction.

He shook his head. They’d done enough research to find his name, but not enough to know that Cameron was the property owner. That would have taken all of ten seconds down at the town clerk’s office, so the guys were lazy. Was it the house they were targeting or Cameron specifically? And who had sent them? Had it been someone Cameron knew from his days in the system or had those two clowns been sent by someone else, by family?

The cops should be working this angle, but Cameron knew better than to think that they would do so. They’d write it off as a neighborly dispute, or possibly as a lovers’ quarrel gone too far. Cameron had seen it happen before. They might mean well, but Plymouth was an actual city if a small city and Reid and Jason hadn’t gotten violent. Not yet. Those two cops probably wouldn’t have the time to even write up a real report. If the duo struck again, hopefully Cameron’s report would jog someone’s memory.

Cameron was more than capable of thinking things through on his own. He didn’t think that anyone he knew from his days in the system would have it in for him like this. There weren’t many people he’d kept in touch with, for starters. He hadn’t had the kind of bad experiences that kids tell one another, or that make the papers on a regular basis. He’d expected to, when he went into state care, but his experiences there had been fairly positive. He just hadn’t connected with very many people. The group home therapist tried to claim he had trouble connecting because of his “difficult” upbringing, but Cameron knew that was mostly crap. He had trouble connecting because the part of the system he experienced was transitory, for almost everyone going through it. Very few people were in his life for more than a few weeks at a stretch. Those that were, he connected with. It was simple.

And those connections stayed with him. He was still friends with Tyler, all these years later. He still hung out with Liam and Ben and Chloe, when they could make it work. They all got along well and did what they could to help the others get ahead. None of them would have set con artists after him.

Cameron’s family was another matter. He got up and grabbed the picture that had fallen from the wall. He’d visited David only a week ago. If David had beef with him, he hadn’t said anything. David wouldn’t have held anything back, either; he didn’t see the point in it. He was going to stay in the maximum security prison up in Shirley until the sun burned itself out. His case might still be going through appeals but he knew what he’d done, and so did Cameron. David wasn’t a big fan of Cameron’s “lifestyle,” but when Cameron had come out to him back before Ashley died, David had punched him once and then shrugged. “I don’t like it. I think it’s gross. But I guess I ain’t gotta like it. I ain’t the one that’s gotta live it.”

No. If he had some kind of grievance against Cameron, he’d have taken more direct action. Even locked away as he was, he’d have sent hit men, not con men.

Their mother was a different story.

The last time that Cameron had heard from Catherine she’d called collect, from prison. He’d been surprised to get a call from MCI-Framingham, but he’d known exactly who was calling. He didn’t know any other incarcerated women and his grandfather had only passed on a week before. Tyler, who had been with him at the time, advised him not to pick up the phone, but something had moved him to be charitable. After all, her father had just died. Maybe she wanted to reach out, after all this time.

The call lasted ten seconds. She screeched into the phone that the house would never be Cameron’s, until guards took the phone away from her. His grandfather’s will was read three days later. Cameron, much to his surprise, was the sole beneficiary. Sure, there wasn’t anyone else in the family for Grandpa to leave things to, but he could have left his estate to the church or something. People did that all the time.

So maybe Catherine had set this whole thing up. She certainly wasn’t above this kind of sneaky, underhanded behavior. She could have found contacts in prison who could have arranged to find con men like Jason and Reid, and since MCI-Framingham was a medium security institution it would probably have been easier for her to plot and scheme with people on the outside. It wouldn’t have been a big problem for her, and she’d hated Cameron enough to try to mess with him like this even before her father died.

Still, that didn’t explain the whole ghost hunter angle. Why would she have thought that would work? He’d never been into the occult, not even as a little kid. It would have made Catherine too happy.

Maybe she’d chosen them based on looks. Jason would have been hot if he weren’t so obviously a rabid ball of hate. Cameron closed his eyes and shook his head. It must have been a long time if he was letting himself think about that jerk, even for a moment.