Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  She moved rapidly to unhook the cross ties and then mounted Buttermilk even as the horse began moving rapidly away from the approaching fire. By the time they reached the end of the barn aisle and hit the open, she was cantering, and Jenny slowed her to a walk next to Reading, who was struggling to restrain the stallion. “What about the other horses?” she asked.

  All his attention and efforts were apparently on handling his own mount, but she could have sworn she detected a note of sarcasm as he said, “Watch me.” He shot her an appraising glance, then said, “They’ll stay together if we can break them together, that’s their instinct, but we’ve got to force them onto the high trail. The fire road will lead them back down into the direction of the fire. You take the right.”

  Jenny had never done any wrangling, but the principle seemed relatively simple. Use your horse to block any routes you don’t want the other horses to take. Crossing the yard at a canter, she worked her way along the ring side of the jittery horses. She could hear the crackle of the flames behind her now, and the only way she could endure the heat was to ignore it, pretend that it would end in a minute. When she was positioned, she looked back to Reading.

  With a cowboy whoop and a kick, he released the stallion, which broke instantly into a full run straight toward the group of horses. For a terrifying minute, Jenny was sure they were going to scatter and stampede toward her, but just before colliding with the group, Reading pulled hard on the reins with his left hand while waving furiously with his right at the flank of the horses in back. The stallion turned sharply and bolted away from the other horses, toward the trail across the pasture and under the oaks. Remembering her role, Jenny kicked hard at Buttermilk. As one, the small herd started, and then began to run, away from Jenny, following the lead of the young stallion. Soon they were all in a full run across the crispy dry pasture and Jenny was muttering through forceful exhales, “Please don’t be any holes, please don’t be any holes.”

  As the trail narrowed under the oaks, Reading slowed the stallion and let the group of horses go on ahead of him.

  “They’re on their own now!” he shouted as Jenny came up near him. “Follow me, and stay as close as you can,” and then he took off under the trees. She followed, but just as she was about to make the curve that would block the view back to the ranch, she slowed up and glanced back.

  She could see nothing but angry, billowing waves of solid smoke. She cradled one hand under her baby’s cocoon, gave her willing horse free rein, and rode for all three of their lives.

  Chapter 57

  It was Susan who called the sheriff’s office to let them know that it was possible that Jenny had circumnavigated the roadblock up to the Cherry Canyon ranch. She knew someone in the office, and she told Greer that she hoped that might help keep the information from being lost in the confusing barrage of calls from worried home owners, concerned relatives, and reporters hoping for scoops.

  As they came near the turnoff, they could see that the roadblock had been moved even farther down the hill and the smoke was belching from behind the crest of the nearby hills. “Holy shit,” Susan swore openly. “We’re not getting anywhere close to there.” She pulled out and continued along the access road, saying, “Maybe we can find a route in behind it. At least we can find a police officer or someone who can tell us what’s happening.”

  Greer nodded dumbly as she watched the black smoke; it seemed to her to keep splitting and surging outward in two directions, like giant black wings that had stolen the sky. “We’ve got to try to find her,” she whispered. “She’s in terrible danger.”

  “So”—Susan sounded as though she were trying to distract Greer from her murky thoughts—“tell me more about these visions. You were going to tell me, before we started out on this little search and rescue, if you suspect anyone.”

  “I had a couple of notions, but nothing very solid.”

  “Really, nothing concrete. The key thing doesn’t connect it to anyone?”

  “Not that I know of.” Greer sighed and stared out the window at the ghoulish scene. Her cell phone ringing startled her, and she jumped in her seat so abruptly that Susan swore again and swerved slightly. Greer fumbled for the phone and managed to get it out of her pocket. Praying that it was news that Jenny was safe, she flipped it open. “Yes?”

  “Ms. Sands?” It was the gravelly voice of Detective Sheridan.

  “Yes?” Greer’s stomach felt flattened, as though she’d been punched from the front. She didn’t know what he wanted with her, but it couldn’t be good news.

  There was a pause, and she wondered if he was hesitating before giving bad news, or gathering himself to say something he found even more difficult. It was the latter.

  “We’ve found some evidence that the information we received from Simon Gomez is accurate. It appears that a friend of his, one Lamont Martinez, may have been setting the fires.” He paused, and Greer wondered, other than the fact that Joshua had been instrumental in getting Simon to talk to the detective, what this had to do with her. Sheridan went on, “The young man’s tagging ID was Loc. Like lock and key.”

  “Oh,” Greer breathed.

  Susan was watching Greer as much as the road and she mouthed, “What? Is it your friend?”

  Greer put one finger over the phone’s microphone and said softly, “No. They think they found out who’s starting the fires. It’s a kid who’s called Lock.” Susan’s face blanched and she shook her head disbelievingly as her eyes opened wide, as though seeing Greer in an entirely new light and with—yes, there it was—fear. Greer was not surprised by Susan’s reaction. She hadn’t expected Susan to believe her, and even if, as she suspected, Susan was busy writing this off mentally as a coincidence, it would take a minute to convince herself of that. To Sheridan she said, “And you think that’s why I was seeing the key?”

  Another pause, and then he said with a resigned, exasperated exhale, “Could be, I guess. But here’s the thing: We can’t find him, but we went to his residence and came up with a bundle of cash. He might have started the fires, but I’m willing to bet my badge that somebody paid him to do it. So . . .” His voice seemed to trickle off before he got enough force behind it to say the next words, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “No, not right now. But listen, I have a friend who I think might have driven around a roadblock to try to rescue her horse, and I’m with Susan Hughs right now, and we’re headed up to try to find her—”

  Detective Sheridan cut her off. “You’re with Susan Hughs?”

  “Yes, she’s been very kind. She’s driving me up toward there so that we can see if we can—”

  “Get out of the car,” Sheridan said sharply. He sounded as though he’d been struck in the face by a bright light of recognition. “Make up an excuse and get out of her car.”

  “What?” Greer’s eyes cut sharply to Susan, who seemed to be watching her without regard for the road. Susan’s eyes were narrowed and wary.

  “I was looking into the arson fire at Golden Door to see if there was any possibility the owners had set it for insurance purposes. That’s standard procedure, that was before you told me about your vision, and I just remembered a detail that didn’t seem important at the time. Something that didn’t register until right now.”

  Susan had reached behind her seat and pulled her purse into her lap. She had one hand inside of it as she said quietly to Greer, “Hang up the phone.” Her graceful, manicured hand emerged from her Prada bag and it was holding a gun. “Now,” she mouthed.

  As Greer jumped and started to slowly lower the phone from her ear, she heard Sheridan’s voice, small and unreachably distant, saying, “Susan Hughs’s maiden name is Keyes.”

  Chapter 58

  Joshua’s roommate was recovering from knee surgery and his leg had been hooked into a contraption that bent it slowly up and then back down again. He wasn’t yet conscious, so the only sound was the whoosh and click of the machine in its repetitive function.
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  Joshua stared at the wall and wondered what time his mom would come to get him today. The wall was white, devoid of interest or stimulation. Whoosh, click, white. Whoosh, click, white.

  The sound continued until it was softly reminiscent of a train on a track. Joshua listened to it and let his eyes slide out of focus. Between the sound, the lack of color or interest, and his fatigue, he almost didn’t notice when the scene around him began to fade until he was seeing another place altogether.

  He was seeing through his mother’s eyes: He could feel her presence; he could see her hands. She was in a car, one he did not recognize, and it was driving very near the fire. He could see the smoke filling the sky outside the windows, and then he could see a woman at the wheel, a dark-haired woman with Asian features, and he could feel his mother’s fear. And then he saw the gun.

  Joshua shot up in his bed, gasping, and fumbled for the side-rail supports. He forced himself to banish the vision so that he could struggle out of bed to stand and dress.

  He had to rest for a few seconds after he got his shoes on, and then shuffled determinedly to the door, cracking it and peering down the hall. The nurses’ station was empty, and he forced himself to stand upright and walk out of the hospital with every appearance of health and vigor. Just another visitor.

  When he got to his car, he collapsed into the driver’s seat and leaned his head against the steering wheel while he gathered his strength and his thoughts. “Sterling.” He reached into the glove compartment for his cell phone, but he had left it on the day before and its battery had run down. He punched a single number, and even as it rang, the phone beeped repeatedly, warning him that it was about to go dead. When the deep voice answered, Joshua spoke urgently. “Sterling, I’m about to lose my battery. Listen, Mom’s in danger. Can you meet me at home?”

  “What? Joshua, are you out of the hospital?”

  “Please, I need your help. I’m on my way home. Can you meet me there?”

  And then the phone went dead.

  Joshua’s impulse was to drive like a maniac, but he was still woozy and so he forced himself to concentrate on driving safely. It seemed an eternity before he pulled into his own street. He came around the corner of his small, unpaved road into the nook of homes in the forest and almost fainted with relief when he saw Sterling’s pickup truck.

  Sterling himself was on the front porch, and he came down the steps to Joshua’s car as he pulled up. Joshua opened his door and reached out to grasp Sterling by the shoulder. “She’s in danger. Mom’s in danger. She’s with a woman, an Asian woman. She’s got a gun, and she’s driving Mom toward the fire.”

  Sterling’s face was a mask of incredulity and surprise that morphed quickly into concern. His strong hand fastened firmly around Joshua’s wrist. “Do you know where?” he demanded.

  “No, God no, only near the fire. Maybe someone at the school will know where she went.”

  Joshua heard a screen door creak and slam, and in the back of his mind he knew that someone had come out of the Whitehorses’ house.

  Sterling didn’t even glance up. “The woman, did she look in her forties? Pretty, but in a very overly groomed way?”

  “Uh,” Joshua thought, trying to hang on to the image that had flown from his immediate vision as the hospital surroundings had come back into view. “Yes, that sounds right. She looked, uh, wealthy. Her hair was straight, black, and pulled back.”

  Whitney came up beside them. “What’s going on? Are you all right?” she asked Joshua.

  Sterling’s eyes had gone hard and mean. “Whitney, do you have any idea where Susan Hughs could be taking Greer?”

  “Yes, they went to try to stop that fool Jenny from driving around a roadblock on Cherry Canyon to save her horse.” Whitney was shaking her head. “Jenny. Damn Latino genes. She’s the toughest chick I know and I love her, but the woman is seven months pregnant, for God’s sake. I’ve been beside myself since Leah called.”

  Joshua was listening, but his eyes had just fallen on something in his car. He let go of Sterling and lunged for it. It was the map on which his mother had marked the locations of the fires with the miniature keys. The map that had led him to Simon. He held it up to his face and studied it furiously, checking dates and locations against the reports he had heard only this morning.

  And then he found it. Not a key, but a mark, a definite mark, penciled in very lightly. It looked almost like a bird—no, wings. “I found her,” Joshua said abruptly, cutting off Sterling’s explanation of Joshua’s call to him. “I think I know where she is—and it isn’t Cherry Canyon.”

  Both the others were looking at him with faces that held equal parts hope and horror.

  “Where?” Sterling demanded.

  Joshua pointed at the map, swayed slightly, and said, “Phase three.”

  Chapter 59

  Susan took the turn into the development so fast the Range Rover skidded sideways and Greer had to grasp at the armrest to remain upright. They sped past the charred remains of the phase-one houses, which looked like a dinosaur graveyard, their bones left blackening in long rows without tombstones. They flew through the desiccation that had been the intended building pad for phase two, passing the twisted frame of the mobile home as they went. Susan didn’t even slow down as they neared the end of the cleared area, and Greer’s body, already overloaded with adrenaline, tensed into a solid mass as Susan drove right off the edge of the flattened land, leaving the ground for a few feet before bouncing onto a rough-cut road that was nothing more than a track made by a bulldozer—and that dropped off steeply.

  “Susan, please. Think about what you’re doing!” Greer pleaded, trying to keep her voice calm. “You’re not a murderer. I know you’re not. If you were, you would have let that security guard die.”

  “Drunken bastard,” mumbled Susan through pursed lips as she negotiated the rough ruts at an unsafe speed. “That stupid punk kid was supposed to make that a small fire, just enough to make us look like the victims. If I hadn’t come up here to pay him off, he would have killed that useless alcoholic.”

  “He did kill somebody,” Greer said, trying to verbally slap Susan back to sanity.

  “Not on my dime, he didn’t,” Susan spat vehemently. “That had nothing to do with me.” She pulled up so abruptly that the seat belt cut painfully into the tender skin where Greer’s neck met her shoulder. She recovered and looked up into the barrel of the gun.

  It was a ladylike gun, if there was such a thing, carefully chosen for its style, no doubt, yet it still seemed to Greer so wrong in Susan’s hand, as though she had picked up a particularly slimy piece of trash, something rotted and putrid. Something deadly poisonous.

  “Get out,” Susan ordered.

  “What if I don’t?” Greer tested.

  “Then I’ll have to shoot you in the car and drag you out. It’ll be a little more trouble, but not much.”

  “Detective Sheridan knows I’m with you,” Greer said though a haze of panic. “If you hurt me, he’ll know it was you.”

  Susan smiled cruelly. “Are you having one of your psychic moments?”

  “No,” Greer said flatly, her anger beginning to mobilize her in spite of her fear, “just stating a fact.”

  “Because he’s going to be amazed to hear how your son and his gang buddy set all these fires and you tried to kill me when I found out and confronted you.”

  “But Simon already told the detective that his friend was responsible.” The thought of Joshua and the pain he would feel at her loss sent a ripple of rage through Greer. She could not, would not, allow it.

  Susan gestured with the gun. “Get out and walk away from the car.”

  “Susan, please.”

  “Get out!” Susan screamed. She was sweating and her eyes bulged. Greer moved slowly, opening the door when Susan hit the unlock button and moving a few yards away from the vehicle, scanning the bleak, burned-out landscape as she searched for an escape route. There didn’t seem to be any cov
er, or hope.

  Susan got out as well, and as she came around the front of the car, she said, “Do you imagine I didn’t think of this? Who do you think they’ll believe, an upstanding, philanthropic community leader or a couple of kids with juvenile rap sheets longer than the paperwork I had to file to get this fucking place started—” She stopped herself and waved a hand as though to dismiss this waste of time and breath. “Yes, if you need to know, I hired that kid to set the fires, and just my luck he turns out to be some psycho-pyromaniac who gets off on fire instead of just doing the job I paid him to do. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, which is why I put the poison in those people’s tank. They needed to move out, and they needed to go without anyone knowing why. I need the road there, and they have to go. I have been working on this deal for over three years; I earned this. It’s my turn. I thought of everything except . . .” Susan paused, threw her head back, and shouted at the sky, “Except that some ex-hippie psychic would come fuck things up for me! What is that about?”

  But the sky didn’t answer. Not Susan anyway, though Greer was sure she heard something, a soft whisper of huge, silent wings, and as she looked up, she was almost certain that, in the forming clouds mixing with the smoke, she could see the outline of gray wings, beating with a gigantic but utterly soundless force.

  When she looked down again, it was at the gun’s gaping muzzle and, behind it, the swelling blackness in Susan’s chest, and she was struck by the similarity of the two.

  “Now I know,” Greer said in a soft but steady voice.

  She could see Susan’s fingers tightening on the trigger, but she seemed to hesitate at Greer’s prophetic statement. “Now you know what?” she asked, confused.

  Greer was filled with an overwhelming sorrow that she had not had a chance to say good-bye to anyone, and yet there was something else, a calm—a relief really—that she was about to return to the place from which she had come. She smiled through her tears and said, “You’ll have to wait and see.”