Who: Bailey and Jared When: Mid-afternoon. Sunday, December 31st Where: Out and about/Moxie's Status: Complete
Her second day back in Point Pleasant was also her first day on the job. Bailey didn’t mind it. Apparently she had missed some shit in town, and she was more than okay with that. Her apartment was littered with boxes and furniture but Bailey had no plans of entertaining anytime in the near future so she wasn’t concerned with getting shit unpacked and put away. She had time.
She had dug out her bottle of scotch out of one of the kitchen boxes that morning to help herself to a couple of shots before she got ready for her shift. Apparently one of the deputies had been injured and was relegated to desk duty so Bailey was getting thrown into patrol duty straight off. She didn’t mind that either. It was probably best to get herself re-acquainted with this town. The shithole.
An hour before her shift Bailey was ready to go and she stopped by her mom’s house on the way to the station to make sure she had everything she needed. Ellen had a nurse coming in a few hours, so Bailey didn’t linger too long. The gut punch of memories was still as sharp as it had been the day before when Bailey came by, and she wondered if that would ease up soon or if she was always going to feel the discomfort every time she walked through the door. Her childhood home hadn’t changed much over the years. The same smell of stale nicotine, the same faded blue walls and shag carpet. Bailey knew her mom had gotten a nice life insurance policy when Bailey’s dad died, but it was clear none of that money had gone into home repairs.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t Bailey’s home. Not anymore.
After making sure Ellen was all right until the nurse arrived, she left the house and reached over into her glove compartment to grab the small flash inside. She took one more drink, settled by the way the alcohol burned and then exploded warmly in her gut. Dropping the flask back into her glove compartment, Bailey tuck a piece of gum into her mouth, and drove to the station.
Once she was parked she spit out the gum and then took a swig from the small bottle of mouthwash she kept in her bag. She spit it onto the ground just outside her car and then locked up before heading inside the small brown building.
Given she had several years of law enforcement under her belt, Bailey hadn’t needed much beyond being introduced to everyone. She spent some time in the Sheriff’s office, discussing her time in Virginia before she was sent off with Deputy Gaines. It was mid-afternoon but celebrations were afoot with it being New Year’s Eve. Point Pleasant was just as she remembered it. Bullshit, bullshit, trauma and then a party of some kind. How quickly everyone wanted to forget.
Deputy Gaines - Jared - drove, which allowed Bailey to relax a bit and she opened up a breath mint to pop into her mouth to suck on. “It’s nice to see this place is still quick on the cleanup,” she said, looking out the window. “You can barely tell anything traumatic happened.”
She sounded like someone who Knew, capital K and all, and Jared glanced over at her with a wry little smile and a nod. "That's how it seems to go around here," he agreed. "When did you move away?" He was still forming an opinion on her and it might take a while, people didn't always show their true faces right away. His initial assessment was that she had spunk, she just had an energy about her like she'd grown up with a bunch of boys and learned early on not to take shit from anyone. She might prove him wrong later, an hour wasn't much time to get to know someone. He was just glad she hadn't started the day before because he would have made a terrible first impression then as grumpy as he'd been. At least today he felt more positive and that anger and helplessness he'd felt all Saturday had faded into mild worry and caution today.
"Oh... nineteen years ago?" Bailey continued to watch the town pass by as they drove. There was a lot she remembered, and a lot she didn't. But so much of this place looked the same to her, as if it had been frozen in time when she left and began to thaw again as soon as she returned. She knew Grady Barrett in a roundabout way, had known his dad when he was a cop here. But the other deputies were unfamiliar to her. "When'd you move here?" she asked Jared, because she supposed it was important in a sense to get to know who she was working with. There could come a point where her life would be in his hands or vice versa.
"Five years ago," Jared replied and he had to wonder if Bailey had known Sadie, if she knew she was dead, if they'd been friends back in the day or even ran in the same circles. "Nineteen years is a long time to stay away. I'm having a hard time picturing moving back to Texas already. What brought you back? If you don't mind me asking." He shot her a little smile before focusing back on the road, leisurely turning down on Main Street. It was a quiet day so far, might even stay that way until after dinner but by then it'd no doubt get a little dicier.
She did mind him asking, but Bailey didn't want to alienate her colleagues on her first day. That didn't necessarily mean she had to be an open book either. Diving deep into a discussion about her family was only going to piss her off and she was feeling okay, so she wanted to keep it that way. "Circumstances," she told him with a grin before she bit into her breath mint. "The real question is what could possibly make you want to leave Texas to move to a tiny, nothing town like Point Pleasant, Maine." Maybe he would tell her, maybe not. Bailey figured she would eventually find out all she needed to know about the other deputies in time. This place was terrible at keeping secrets.
"Circumstances," Jared replied, echoing her own words a little teasingly. But he knew she'd find out about it sooner than later so maybe it was best to get the pity party over with while he was in a decent mood. "I uh married one of the natives and she wanted to move back here," he told her and no matter how flippantly he tried to say it, it still made his chest tighten thinking about Sadie. "Sadie Gaines. Well, you might have known her as Sadie Ferris." He glanced over at Bailey again, wondered if she'd even heard what had happened or if he was about to deliver some gruesome news.
"Sadie Ferris." Bailey's brows rose in surprise and then she nodded in recognition. She continued to chew her breath mint until it dissolved completely on her tongue. Then she looked back out the window. Why couldn't her mom have held on until spring? Then Bailey could have come back when everything was green and the tourists were starting to pile in for the summer months. Winter made this place seem barren. "I was friends with her sister, Tatum, in high school. We got into a lot of trouble together. She was fun. Awful what happened to her parents, though." Bailey glanced at Jared. This big, bulky Texan having married Sadie Ferris. She could see it. She was betting they would have gorgeous kids, if they didn't already. "How's Sadie doing? Is she still teaching?"
Jared's heart sank a little when he realized he was going to have to be the bringer of bad news here. "She's no longer with us," he said, wincing a bit as he spoke. "We weren't married anymore, I sometimes wonder what could have been if I'd been there but she was- a couple of months ago on the full moon, she's one of the..." Why was it so hard to say? He wasn't even sure why he couldn't just blurt out that she was dead and leave it at that, maybe because Bailey was a fellow cop and the investigation was still open. She needed to know what they'd all been dealing with. "I don't know how much Barrett's told you already about the full moon killings but Sadie's- she got killed."
Bailey caught on fairly quickly that Sadie had died, and she probably should have stopped Jared as he stumbled his way through telling her. But she supposed she wanted to know how, and maybe why, if there was a why. He mentioned the full moon twice, though, and the realization of what that meant sunk in. Full moon killings. Logical thought was a werewolf. Well, logical for people like her. Insanity for normal people. "I'm sorry to hear that," Bailey said finally. And she meant it too. Tatum had always been good to her, even when Bailey was being difficult because of her home life. The girl had lost both of her parents, and now her sister. Tatum used to joke that her family was cursed, but Bailey had to wonder if maybe she was right. She was silent for a moment to let Jared get his bearings before she spoke again. "Full moon killings. There's a pattern? Or are they just coincidences."
Jared was once again faced with just how hard it was to tell people about the things that had happened if they hadn't been there to witness it all themselves. It just sounded crazy, like something out of a horror movie, and if he didn't have the police files and crime scene photos to back him up, he might have not wanted to tell her a damned thing. "There's a pattern," he said grimly. "Wild animal killings, something's out there and it's not afraid of humans. Nobody's caught it yet either, it's like it disappears for a few weeks. Started with a dead cow outside the church but now it's attacking people right in their yards or places of business. One lady got mauled right in her laundry room." He had a running theory but it honestly didn't sound that much less crazy than 'werewolf' did so he wasn't sure he should share it. It wasn't an official one anyway, they were all just trying to catch the creature before it hurt anyone else.
Bailey's lips twitched. "Wild animal killings. Point Pleasant PD is still using that one, huh?" Would she have to? Probably. It was one thing to know. It was another thing to tell people that she knew. But deep down, she felt like everyone who lived in this place knew what was really going on. The natives, or the long-timers. The newbies might be in for a shock and cling to the "logical explanations" that were fed to them, but everyone else? They were fucking lying to themselves if they tried to believe something other than the truth. "Full moon killings by an animal. Assuming it's not some serial killer with a pattern, it's probably a werewolf." Bailey looked at Jared then, studying his face. "You've lived here for, what did you say, five years? You're a cop. You know what's really going on."
Jared laughed. Not because it was funny but really, how else was he supposed to react? He'd never imagined he'd ever hear a cop say such a thing without being a hundred percent certain they were joking. Right now he had no idea if Bailey was joking or not because - and god help him - it was plausible. "Right," he murmured, quirking a brow at her. "Won't say the thought didn't occur to me." He left that vague, he could be kidding too. He wished he was. In a way it was weirdly preferable over his serial killer theory because a werewolf was a senseless beast and that meant there hadn't been some devilish human standing around and enjoying Sadie's suffering. Still... A fucking werewolf.
Bailey watched Jared as he laughed, a polite, small smile on her face. She couldn't blame him if he thought she was nuts, and he might turn around and go back to Barrett to tell him that Bailey was probably insane. That was okay too. But she was pretty sure the Sheriff knew more than anyone, including the two of them sitting in this patrol car. "Well, if the thought occurred to you, then you probably also realize that means it was someone who lives in town. Because werewolves tend to stick close to what they know as a human, even if they don't realize it." She was suddenly craving nicotine, and she wished she could have a smoke. Bailey reached into her pocket for another breath mint. "No one is going to drive out here on a full moon, shift and kill someone, or something, and then up and drive away the next morning. Point Pleasant is too far off the map for that."
"Well, maybe we're lucky and it's one of the many people who have gone missing lately," Jared said, his tone still just bordering on flippant because they could be joking around - and they could not. How was this his life now? 'Missing' reminded him of more tragedy and seeing as how Bailey had known Tatum, he felt inclined to ask. "Did you hear about Danny, Tatum and Sadie's cousin? He went missing too a while back." She'd see a list of people if she hadn't already, too many open cases, too little evidence. Danny wasn't even on the list of open cases, not really. No signs of foul play put him on the list of people who might have just left. There were too many of those too and Jared strongly suspected not a whole lot of them had left of their own accord.
Bailey was generally a pretty good read of people, and she didn't think Jared was humoring her. He was feeling her out, trying to figure out if she was fucking around. She couldn't blame him for it. It was crazy by normal standards, and she had been known to be rather dry in her sarcasm in the past, but Jared didn't know her, so he wouldn't know when she was really joking or not. She popped the mint into her mouth. "I guess if you consider it lucky when people go missing. But werewolves aren't always bad people. A lot of them don't know what they are at first... and when they figure it out, sometimes they try to fix it, or contain it. Sometimes they end it." Bailey shook her head when he mentioned Tatum's cousin. She had known Sadie because she hung out with Tatum a lot, but she didn't remember much of anything about anyone named Danny. "I haven't really heard about anyone here in a long time. I mostly kept in touch over the phone or emails. My mom's not much of a gossip, especially when it comes to the bad shit. Want one?" She offered him the roll of breath mints in her hand.
A tired and morbid part of Jared's brain questioned just what Bailey's mom had to tell her if she didn't tell her any of the bad things. They'd been so prominent for so long, but then he knew he didn't tell his mom a damn thing about the bad that happened in town. It didn't translate well to someone who didn't live there in the midst of the chaos and he didn't want her to worry about him. He'd had to tell her about Sadie, of course, but he still hadn't told her Ty had been hurt or anything about the fog at all. "Thanks," he muttered as he accepted the roll and slipped out a mint to eat. "There's a long list of people who've disappeared lately," he told her. "Might want to look it over, make sure it's nobody you know."
'Keeping in touch' with her mom was a rare thing. It happened, but not as often as it would have if they'd been close. It was the same with her brother. The occasional text to make sure the other was alive was generally good enough. Just thinking about her family had Bailey craving a drink and she sucked a bit harder at the breath mint in her mouth. She was going to go through the entire roll before this shift was over. "I don't remember a lot of people," Bailey said simply, ready to move on from the topic. "But I'll take a look. In the meantime, are there any spots in town that are particularly troublesome? I don't know how much things have changed in the last nineteen years, but I know the places cops used to hit almost every night. You still have those?"
"Oh yes," Jared sighed. "And a few we don't like going to at all, I'll fill you in on those too." There were definitely a few houses they had to visit too many times because of domestic disturbances, places of business were a little different. "The Black Porch Pub can get rowdy, that's where the old drunks end up even if it's a pretty mixed crowd. The Lucases tend to handle it themselves but that's not always a good thing." He smirked, shaking his head. A lot of the Lucas problems were just things he'd heard off second hand, things that happened before he moved there, but the oldest of the lot was nothing but trouble and his neighbors hated him. "Pretty much anything to do with a Lucas is bad news, I don't know if that was the case before you moved. The fallows can get troublesome in the summer when kids go there and get too drunk. Winter it's mostly private parties so if we don't get a call from the neighbors we don't really know about them. We had a lot of vandalism at the cemetery a few weeks back so we're keeping an eye on that. Still haven't figured out who was behind that." And those were just some of the places they had on their radar. Jared had a feeling the list of places to avoid was longer and harder to explain.
"I think... the oldest Lucas was a few years younger than me," Bailey said, trying to search her mind for some kind of memory. She had not been someone who paid a lot of attention to other people in school, unless someone pointed them out to her. "I do remember hearing one of them got their girlfriend knocked up and dropped out, but... my parents sometimes talked about the dad, and what an asshole he was." But her dad was an asshole too, so Bailey didn't think it was that abnormal. Her lips twitched at the mention of the Fallows. "What about the Sweetbriar bridge?" she asked, crunching into her mint again. "That still standing?" She had lost her virginity on that bridge, and it had been old and decrepit even then.
"By some miracle, yeah," Jared said with a little grin. "I don't know what's holding that dingy framework upright but I'm leaning toward some kind of spell by now." It was just a funny way of phrasing it but as soon as he said it, he found himself wondering if it was true. He wouldn't put it past this town. It was also where they'd found Amelia Lucas but he didn't bring that up, unsure how many people could safely know about that. "The Cooperdale Tunnel is still standing," he added with far less humor in his voice. "I don't know why that damn thing hasn't been torn down. You'd think it was cursed." In face he did really think it was cursed and just thinking of that damn place, the train sounds, the banner - all of it - made his chest feel tight. "I don't have the number on hand but we've lost a lot of people in there."
Bailey wasn't sure if it was a spell or just really strong wood. The outside might look like shit, but it was possible that cedar, or whatever it was, was strong stuff. She didn't make much of a face when Jared mentioned Cooperdale. Bailey might have forgotten a lot about this town, mostly the people, but she remembered Cooperdale. Bad shit went down there. A lot of bad shit. "This whole town is cursed, so that doesn't surprise me," Bailey said finally before she grinned. "Dun dun dun. This is a fucking morbid conversation. Did I bring all of this up? If so, I'm fucking sorry for that. Jesus. Tell me something good. What's left in this town that's worth checking out?"
Now that was a better question and didn't require Jared to go into details of the places they avoided. She'd need to know about them at some point, certainly, but she was right, this conversation had taken a sharp dip into depressive. "There are some good places," he said with a little grin as he thought about just how weirdly good some of them could be. The karaoke bar alone had gotten him so high with happiness he had completely forgotten to hide his feelings for Ty so he should feel weird about the place but he didn't. "A few new places opened up this winter alone. The Empty Orchestra is one, if you like singing. Even if you don't like singing, it's a blast. Moxie's is still standing but I'm willing to bet you already knew that. There's a new arcade if you want to let off some steam and the marina is always a joy."
Bailey couldn't help the snort that escaped her. "The only place I sing is my car. With the windows up, as well as the radio. Nobody needs to hear that mess but me." It was amusing to think of Point Pleasant with a karaoke bar. Not so much an arcade. There had been a bowling alley about a mile out of town near Cherries that had a pretty cool arcade when she was younger, but the bowling alley had shut down shortly after Bailey ditched town, according to a friend of hers who kept in touch. It was a little surprising that it took this town so long to get something like that here. All those kids in the Fallows might have avoided getting drunk or high out there if there had been more to do in town. Then again, was playing Pac Man more fun than getting high? Bailey didn't think so. "Noted," Bailey said, crunching her mint until it was completely dissolved on her tongue. "You know, if being a cop doesn't pan out for you, you could always get a job at the Juniper as the concierge."
Jared chuckled at that. "I can't even imagine not being a cop," he admitted. "It's a family thing and I'd be so bored if I had to stay in one place all day." He headed for Moxie's parking lot, wishing for the nth time that they had a drive-through. Some coffee to go was always a good start to the day. "What about you? If you weren't a cop, where'd you see yourself?" A lot of cops just fell into the role, it paid okay and the benefits were good. Jared had gone on patrol with a few guys who really should have been working in an office somewhere - nowhere near other people.
Coffee sounded fine to Bailey. Trading one vice for another was a good way to keep the day rolling. "If I wasn't a cop? I'd probably be whoring myself out in Vegas," she said. "I'm not really built for much else." That probably sounded self-deprecating, but it was the truth. Bailey hadn't had much in the way of guidance growing up, and when she had run off to get married at eighteen, she'd had no real ambition. But now she was where she was supposed to be. Or at least doing what she was supposed to be doing. "How many generations of cops are in your family?"
Jared arched his brows at her reply because it really was a terrible one. But he could roll with the punches. "I'm pretty sure you don't have to go all the way to Vegas to do that," he muttered with a wry smile. "But I hear you. I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't a cop. Only third generation but feels like more. Granddad and dad were cops and my brother's FBI so it starts to feel like it's in the blood. You got a big family?" He parked out front as he spoke and turned off the engine, looking at Bailey again trying not to imagine her all strung out on some street corner.
"No, but Vegas would be pretty ideal for hitting up the high rollers. Or the drunk assholes that don't think twice about throwing their money around. If I'm going to make money, might as well do it in a big city known for spending." Bailey looked at Moxie's through the windshield as they spoke and she glanced at Jared with a small smile. "Nope. No cops in my family tree either, that I know of." She pushed open the door to slip out, the cold air biting immediately at her face. "Okay, so, you've got the blue in your blood... but have you ever given any thought to what you might have done if you weren't going to be a cop?"
Jared thought about it as he got out of the car. It wouldn't be the first time he thought about it but like always before, he couldn't really think of anything else. "Private security?" he said with a shrug and a grin. "I honestly have no idea. I sometimes get these outlandish ideas like being a farmer or something but then the logistics of it kick in and as much as I love the outdoors I wouldn't be cut out for that." The warm air rushed out to meet them as they entered Moxie's and it wasn't terribly tempting to go back out there so what he'd said about having a desk job rang a little false to his ears for the moment. He knew that urge to stay inside would pass within an hour or so and he'd be itching to move again. "Being a cop isn't always a sweet deal so I don't know why I'm so attached to it," he admitted with a wry smile. "The stacks of open cases right now? Sheesh."
Bailey didn't know Jared beyond the last twenty minutes together, but she could see him on a ranch in the south somewhere, raising horses. It was an amusing thought, one that caused her lips to twitch as they headed inside. He was built for it. But he was built for law enforcement too. Bailey noticed that a few pairs of eyes looked their way when they entered and the woman behind the counter waved at Jared, but eyed her with curiosity. Bailey had been gone nineteen years so she didn't expect anyone to recognize her. She looked up at Jared when he mentioned the open cases. "Sounds about right. Missing people right and left. Sometimes the unknown just wants to remain unknown. What kind of coffee do you want? My treat."
It was such a breezy change of topics from something so heavy to something so light it was almost amusing and Jared gave their waitress a little grin as he greeted her back. "Lisa knows how I like it," he said and it was always an easy habit to fall into, casually flirting a little with the Moxie's girls. "You hungry?" he then asked Bailey. "You've been chowing down on those mints like you need some food in your stomach. We can get something to go." He started surveying the menu, even if he wasn't particularly hungry. He could always eat if she didn't want to do so alone.
Bailey arched a brow at the flirtation and smirked slightly when Lisa went pink with pleasure. The woman was already pouring Jared's coffee into a cup and it was then she seemed to remember Bailey was even there. "Black," she said before glancing at the covered pastry tray. "And a banana nut muffin, please." She wasn't terribly hungry, but she would eat something. Going through her entire pack of mints in her first shift would be a bad idea. Bailey dug into her back pocket for her wallet to pull some cash out. "You want one?" Bailey asked Jared, motioning to the pastries. "Lisa know which of those you like too?"
"Depends on my mood," Jared chuckled. "So it depends on how perceptive she is." He knocked lightly against the glass where the apple muffins were, a not so subtle hint that Lisa gleefully took advantage of. "Still on your tap, Jansen?" he asked and it was a little weird riding with a new cop because they still hadn't found their rhythm. Jared hoped she'd be easy to work with, not everyone was. A muffin would at least ease the way, nobody was nice on an empty stomach.
"You betcha," Bailey said with a grin. Lisa bagged up their muffins and Bailey handed over some cash before shoving her wallet into her back pocket again. She took the bag and her coffee Lisa passed over to her. "Thanks, Lisa." Bailey sipped the coffee, liking how it burnt her tongue. It would keep her warm in the patrol car for a bit. Bailey headed for the door, assuming Jared would follow with his own coffee. "So what'd you think?" she asked him. "Check out the shitty places in town until we get a call in?" Bailey had to think there were days when the PPPD got bored as hell. And days when they wished they were. It was New Year's Eve and Bailey knew shit would get weird once the sun set, but they had plenty of time before that happened.
"Grady might want us patrolling the marina tonight but yeah, sounds good," Jared murmured, sipping his coffee as he went. "I'll show you the bad places, you can see how much has changed - or not changed, depending." He wasn't thrilled at the thought of driving past the Rogan house - even if they didn't have to go in. That house gave him the chills now and he still didn't know who lived there which made it even worse. He remembered - almost fondly - when the only house that gave him the creeps was the Zinneman house, it seemed like such an innocent time.
"Sounds good to me." Bailey found she was looking forward to it. A quick re-tour of her hometown might be nice, and beneficial. She could see if anything stood out to her, if any of her old haunts were still standing. Maybe she could even have a smoke later, if Jared didn't mind the break. Until then, she would get comfortable where she was, enjoy her coffee and muffin, and try not to let the past fuck up her first day on the job.