The more he thought about it, the more he recalled the hushed discussions and the rumors that ran rampant throughout Moriah’s Landing. Half the town blamed McFarland Leary, out of his grave and on a killing spree. But then the rumors had quickly changed to a vampire killer on the loose in the town green.
During his time at the FBI, Jonah had learned that some little thing usually got a rumor started—and that that thing often had a grain of truth. So what would have started talk of a killer vampire, especially when according to the news reports, Leslie Ridgemont had been strangled?
He reread the article, struck by how few details the press actually had. But one fact leaped out at him. The body had been discovered by Arabella Leigh. The crazy woman who’d accosted him and Kat on the street last night.
He read the rest of the stories, learning little more. Leslie Ridgemont had been strangled with a white silk scarf she’d been wearing earlier that evening. Her purse was full of change from the tips she’d made working that night at the diner, ruling out robbery. No sexual assault, but she had put up a struggle.
Reminding himself that this had nothing to do with him, Jonah found himself going through the list of possible suspects based on people who’d been seen on the town green at the time of the murder—or in close proximity.
It had been a stormy spring night, a night when the moon was full, but still the list was fairly long: his cousin, Brody Ries, high-school dropout, then age seventeen; Geoffrey Pierce, one of the town’s leading residents and a would-be scientist who never made the grade, then age twenty-five; Ernie McDougal, owner of the Bait & Tackle, forty-six; Marley Glasglow, high-school dropout, fifteen; and Arabella Leigh, seamstress, sixty-seven.
The last name on the list caught Jonah’s attention. Dr. Leland Manning, promising geneticist, then age thirty-five. Manning, at the time, had only recently moved back to the old Manning place due to his father’s death and was building a modern, high-tech lab on his property. He’d been driving by when he’d seen the commotion at the gazebo, according to the newspaper.
An odd mix of suspects. None really had alibis, since Leslie Ridgemont was killed just moments before Arabella found her. Arabella’s scream brought the others.
They’d all reported seeing each other—but no one else. The killer had never been caught, Jonah noted. Why did that worry him after all this time?
An instant-message box flashed on the screen with the words: “About time I heard from you.”
“I’ve been busy,” he typed, and hit send. He could see his boss dressed in one of her charcoal-gray pinstripe suits, sitting at her desk, ramrod straight, looking like an old-time schoolteacher. Or a nun.
“Everything fine?”
Jonah looked around the apartment. “Dandy.”
“Heard from our anonymous source. We’re looking for a boat called the Audrey Lynn.”
Jonah knew that their online transmissions were encrypted so no one could intercept them, but still he felt jumpy. Probably because the anonymous notes the FBI had received made him nervous. And damned suspicious.
“Still no idea what’s on the boat?” Jonah typed, convinced he was on a fool’s errand in a place that could get him killed. It had already possibly gotten another agent killed, Max Weathers. And now Jonah found himself interested in Leslie Ridgemont’s murder—and feeling things he didn’t want to feel about her daughter.
“No. Still having reservations?”
That was an understatement. Jonah cursed the vague anonymous tip that had him back in Moriah’s Landing. All he knew was that a boat was coming in sometime soon. It was suspected to be bringing in illegal medical supplies of some sort for someone in a secret society of scientists working out of Moriah’s Landing, a society as old as the town itself and its members all secret.
But this wasn’t the first boat to bring in such a shipment. Another boat had come in a month ago. Another agent had been on the case. Now that agent was missing, presumed dead, leaving Jonah to worry what had been on that boat.
“What about scientists at Heathrow College?” she wrote.
“I’ll rattle their cages tomorrow.” He wasn’t optimistic.
“Word is the Audrey Lynn won’t dock until end of the month,” she wrote.
He swore. End of the month? He’d planned to be long gone by the full moon and that was only days away.
“Seen Dr. Manning yet?” appeared on the screen.
“Might have way to meet him. Need some poker tips though.” He knew Dr. Manning played in a private weekly poker game put on by Jonah’s cousin Brody. Brody had already hinted that Jonah might get lucky and be invited. Brody knew a mark when he saw one.
“Tips how to win?” she typed.
“How to lose big.”
“Need more money?”
He smiled to himself. “Not yet.” He thought about his most imminent problem, one of many, but the one he’d called her about last night—former FBI agent Deke Turner. Deke had recognized him even in the fog last night just before Jonah ducked into Kat’s, and it seemed he was asking around town about him. Just what Jonah needed right now, a psycho like Deke Turner dogging his trail.
“Gotta have Deke out of my hair before boat comes in.” If the boat existed. He couldn’t help worrying that someone might have purposely gotten him back to Moriah’s Landing knowing full well just how dangerous it could be for him.
“Picked him up. Can only hold him forty-eight hours though. Sorry.”
“That will have to do.” In just over seventy-two hours the moon would be full and Jonah planned to be miles from this town by then. At least he’d better be.
“Remember. Officially, you have no net.”
“Or rules.” In order to cover his ass, the FBI had booted him—at least on paper.
“You’re there just to find out what happened to Max, not to avenge his death.”
That was assuming he was dead, which they all thought he was.
Jonah stared at the screen, feeling a wave of guilt. He should have taken the assignment when it was offered to him. He shouldn’t have let Max Weathers come to Moriah’s Landing without knowing just what he was up against. But even as he thought it, Jonah knew he couldn’t have warned Max about Moriah’s Landing and Jonah’s own history there. And even if he had, Max would never have believed him.
“Anything else?” she typed.
As a matter of fact…“Need copy of a local murder file.”
The screen stayed empty for a few moments.
“Connected to assignment?”
“Possibly.” It wasn’t really a lie.
“What name?”
“Leslie Ridgemont.”
UNFORTUNATELY FOR KAT, her online blind date turned out to be exactly what she’d originally expected—a computer nerd complete with Coke-bottle-thick glasses and a pocket protector.
Unlike her date from the night before, he talked about nothing else but himself, telling her a lot more about his abilities with computers and the Internet than she’d ever wanted to know. Too bad he wasn’t the man of few words he’d been online.
And, of course, he’d tried to kiss her as they left the Witch’s Brew. Just her luck.
After saying goodbye—for good—to Ross, Kat had called home. No answer. Restless and hoping she’d see her sister, Emily, she walked down Waterfront Avenue. Sometime over her third cup of coffee with the incredibly boring Ross, she’d decided she couldn’t go on being afraid. She had never run from Moriah’s Landing or her family’s history here and she wasn’t going to let some stranger in town intimidate her.
One way to do that was to find out everything there was to know about Jonah—including his last name. After all, she was an investigator. But she was also smart enough to know just how dangerous learning more about him might be—in more ways than one.
She couldn’t help but remember that her uneasiness had begun last night before she’d learned he wasn’t her real date.
At the same time, she couldn’t deny that he thr
illed her. She’d known last night that he was dangerous. Dangerous to her because he was just the kind of man she shouldn’t be attracted to.
But was that the only danger she had to fear from this man? She needed to know why he’d pretended to be her date. She also needed to know who had left the daisies. Not Ross, who denied sending them. That left her mystery date. And that other set of footsteps she’d heard following her last night.
At the end of the street, the hulking remains of the old abandoned cannery loomed up. Music drifted from the bars and shops, mixing in a cacophony of excited sounds as the first wave of tourists wandered the streets, picking up local color and curios, hoping to see a present-day witch or scare themselves with the stories of Leary’s ghost or a visit to the cemetery late at night.
Unlike the night before, the evening was clear, the almost full moon golden above the treetops. Out over the water, though, mist rose ghostlike among the boats moored there.
Kat had always loved this time of year in Moriah’s Landing. She didn’t even mind the tourists or all the witchcraft fanfare when shop owners dressed as witches and a hearse cruised the drag, offering cemetery tours. In the winter, the town seemed to hunker down against the nor’easters that moved up the coast bringing wind, rain and even snow.
She liked the feeling that anything could happen this time of year, and she’d never felt it more than she did tonight, a tingling mixture of excitement and fear as she neared the Wharf Rat.
“Why, hello.”
She turned, startled and yet ridiculously hopeful, as she followed the sound of the voice into the shadows at the edge of the building. But the voice was all wrong. So was the face.
Marley Glasglow stepped from the deep shadows into the light, a misanthropic sneer below the brim of his dirty straw hat. He was a big, burly, ill-tempered man who made no secret of his dislike of women.
“Oh? Did I disappoint you?” His lips curled. Not a smile. Nor was the sound he made a laugh. “What? You were expecting someone else? Maybe the new bartender? Sorry, Jonah already left.”
She realized that Glasglow must have seen her earlier today when she was talking to her mystery date in front of the Wharf Rat. Glasglow worked for the bait shop’s owner, Ernie McDougal.
She started to walk on past the bar—and Glasglow, too stubborn to let him think he intimidated her.
“Did he tell you he was kicked out of the FBI?”
Marley must have seen her surprise. He let out a snort. “You sure are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?”
The words stunned her as sharp and hurtful as a slap. Before she could respond, he was swallowed up again in shadow, the sound of his footfalls retreating between the buildings. Then a door opened at the back of the Wharf Rat and Marley disappeared inside.
Kat hugged herself from the chill the man had left behind. She wanted to yell after him that he was dead wrong about her. But she was too upset by what he’d said about her—and about her mystery blind date. Kicked out of the FBI? Maybe the man in the army coat hadn’t been lying after all. She could really pick ’em, that was for sure.
She stood for a moment, scrubbing her original plan to go into the Wharf Rat and try to find out more about Jonah. She didn’t want to see Marley again. Nor did she like the sound of raised voices inside the bar. And hadn’t she found out more than enough about Jonah already?
Behind her she could hear the sound of waves as a boat came into the cove. But it was something closer that drew her attention—the sound of paint coming out of an aerosol-spray can.
She crossed the street, working her way past the dark, empty bait shop to the corner of the building where she could see the wharf with its huge weathered dark pilings stark against the water and mist. She could hear the spray cans and the whisper of voices as she edged closer, deeper into the dark.
From across the street, the front door of the Wharf Rat banged open and a couple of men came out, both talking loudly. The sound of the spray cans stopped abruptly. Kat hurried around the corner of the building just in time to see three figures running away, headed north past the old cannery.
She knew she’d never be able to catch the vandals, not in the platform sandals she had on—even if she’d been able to move. Instead, she watched the three escape, too shocked to take even a step. One of the vandals was small and definitely female, her hair dark and shoulder-length. The girl was wearing a bright new red jacket, exactly like the one Kat had bought for Emily, the one she just had to have.
Chapter Five
Another sound made her spin around, jumpy now and suddenly aware how dark it was this close to the wharf and how alone she was. A fourth figure moved along the rocky shore of the cove, seemingly unable to move quickly. A fourth vandal?
Kat slipped along the back edge of the building, staying in the dark shadow of the wall until she was close enough to recognize him. Tommy Cavendish.
At first she thought the boy was hurt and that’s why he hadn’t been able to run with the others. Then she heard the clink of the glass bottle in his hand as he caught himself on the rocks. He raised the bottle to his lips, tilted his head back and took a long swig, then staggered forward. Tommy was drunk, falling-down plastered!
Before she could move, she saw a second person drop over the short seawall toward Tommy. Hanging back, she watched the all-too-familiar man as he approached the boy. She had a pretty good idea where Tommy had gotten the alcohol, which made her so angry she almost stormed down there to confront them both.
“Give me that,” Jonah ordered the boy, taking the bottle and pouring the remainder of the booze onto the rocks as he helped Tommy back up to the seawall. “Sit.”
Tommy sat, Jonah joining him, their backs to her, just feet away. It was clear the two knew each other, but she wasn’t so sure now that Jonah had supplied the boy the liquor.
“I don’t feel so good,” Tommy said, his head falling between his knees.
“I would imagine not,” Jonah said. “And just think, you’re going to feel even worse in the morning.” He put his hand on the boy’s back as Tommy heaved onto the rocks at his feet. “I suppose we all have to learn about alcohol the hard way. I know I did.” Kat had, too.
“Why does something that makes you feel so good make you feel so bad?” Tommy groaned in between fits of vomiting.
The older male chuckled. “A lot of things in life are that way until you come to understand the word moderation.” He handed the boy his handkerchief.
Kat felt sorry for Tommy and angry with him at the same time. She watched Jonah, surprised at the caring, sympathetic way he helped the boy.
“Thanks,” Tommy said, and wiped his mouth as he glanced sideways at the man next to him.
“That wasn’t you vandalizing the back side of Ernie’s bait shop, was it?” Jonah asked.
Tommy shook his head. The movement seemed to make the boy sick again. It was pretty obvious he was too drunk to do much damage—except to himself.
“But you know who they were,” Jonah said.
Tommy didn’t raise his head. “It was too dark to make them out.” It was an obvious lie.
“Then I guess there’s no chance I’ll see you running with them,” Jonah said.
“I heard you were looking for a boat,” Tommy said in an obvious change of subject.
Kat felt her heart rate kick up. She leaned against the wall, her interest piqued.
“A boat called the Audrey Lynn?”
“That’s right,” he said, looking at the boy. “You’ve seen it?”
Tommy shook his head.
“If you do, I’d appreciate if you’d let me know. I’d make it worth your while.”
“Are you thinking of hiring on?”
“You never know,” Jonah said.
Kat couldn’t see him hiring on to any boat and wondered what his interest was in it as she watched him help Tommy to his feet.
“Think you’re up to going home now?” he asked the boy.
“Are you going to
tell on me?” Tommy asked, sounding scared. “It’s just that my sister worries about me too much.” As if Claire had no reason to worry.
“I won’t say anything to your sister. But if I catch you drinking again or even near any vandals, I’m going to kick your butt myself and save your sister the effort.”
“I’m never drinking again,” Tommy groaned.
“Yeah, right. Now get out of here.”
As Tommy slipped off the seawall and stumbled up Waterfront Avenue toward home, Kat stepped back, watching Jonah as he got up and headed down the wharf.
She told herself there was no reason to follow him. She’d learned enough about him for one night. But of course she did follow him.
The mist on the water had grown thicker, the air colder and damp. She moved along the wharf toward the docks where boats rocked gently at their moorings. Where was he going? He moved as if he had some purpose in mind. Not like a man out for a walk, especially on a dock that specifically said Only Boat Owners Beyond This Point.
Maybe he owned a boat. Yeah, right.
She could hear the foghorn at the lighthouse. Closer, water lapped softly against the sides of the boats moored in the cove. She caught glimpses of boats through wisps of fog as she moved quietly along the dock. Where had Jonah gone? She couldn’t see him ahead of her anymore. It would be just her luck to come face-to-face with him in the thick mist. Or worse, crash into him and find herself in the water.
She froze as she heard a sound close by. The whoosh of something moving through water, then a dripping sound, followed by another whoosh, then dripping. It took her only a moment to recognize what was making the noise. Someone was rowing a boat away from the dock just yards ahead of her.
She stopped motionless to listen, staring into the shimmering fog, then moved down the dock past the quiet boats until she caught a glimpse through the mist.
Jonah was rowing a small dinghy out to one of the fishing boats moored in the cove, his back muscles bunching as he pulled on the oars.
What was he up to? He stopped rowing and started to turn. She ducked back behind the bow of the boat she’d been hiding behind just an instant before he saw her. Holding her breath, she listened for the sound of the oars cutting through the water again.
Moriah's Landing Bundle Page 24
