The Bloodwind - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels)

by Charles L. Grant

  The questions came rapidly, and Pat answered them all as best she could, explaining that nothing other than the statuettes had been taken and there had been no one there when she'd returned, and she'd wondered if either she or Kelly had gone upstairs for some reason, perhaps to return the keys and leave them inside. "But if Kelly's not home yet, that's impossible. Damn!"

  She threw herself against the back of the couch and folded her arms over her stomach. Shook her head. Smiled quickly when Abbey leaned toward her, searching her face. "No, I didn't say anything. I'm just . . . well, I was scared at first, but now I'm furious. I mean, it doesn't make any sense, does it? Someone ignoring all your valuables for a couple of hunks of rock. It doesn't make sense, and if you weren't up there . . . hell. Oh, hell, I guess I'd better call the police."

  An art lover, Abbey said, grinning.

  Pat laughed, not so much at the joke as at the fact that the girl seemed to be coming out of whatever had taken her. She tried futilely to straighten her flaxen hair with her fingers, then blushed and excused herself. Pat had no choice but to nod, and wait, reach over and switch on another light so the room didn't remind her so much of a mausoleum. She also realized that with Kelly unthinkingly keeping the station wagon she had no way of getting back out to the quarry tonight, not unless she called Greg, or one of the trio. And that would be the absolute last resort. It would be bad enough to find nothing there if she were alone, worse if she did it with someone there.

  She jumped when Abbey returned, fluttered a hand mockingly over her heart.

  I've just read the time. Have you eaten anything?

  "No, but please don't go to any trouble, Abbey. I've—" But Abbey was already heading for the kitchen, and Pat had no choice but to follow. Was glad she hadn't protested too strongly when she sat down to a meal of thick Irish stew and homemade bread, a California wine Abbey refused to apologize for, and a chocolate cake heavy with fudge icing.

  And it would have been funny if Pat had allowed the thought to take hold. Two women, one deaf and one maybe crazy, both afraid to be alone; one worried about the absence of a friend, the other frightened of the absence of reason. Both of them eating as if it were their last meal, neither of them looking through the doorway to the front room, avoiding glances at the clock, talking as best they could around the food they were eating. About the weather. About school. About Abbey's job in the bank. About the troubles with Kelly's car and how it was barely worth holding on to until spring.

  Pat at one point talking so rapidly Abbey had to reach across the table and touch her wrist to slow her down; Abbey at one point so irritated about the car that one hand flicked a chunk of icing off the cake and splattered it against the wall.

  It would have been funny, if Pat hadn't kept thinking about someone in her home.

  And when they were done and there was nothing more to say, she helped wash the dishes, dry them, followed Abbey back to the couch where they sat at either end, staring at the far wall, at the door, at the floor.

  Finally, she slapped at a leg and rose, motioning for Abbey to keep her seat. "It's silly," she said, pulling on her coat. "It's obvious I'm not going to the police, right? In case it turns out to be one of my so-called friends trying to pull a gag on me. So I'd better check with them first, before I make a fool of myself. That, I think, is the best idea."

  Abbey looked doubtful. Maybe it was one of your students. That boy you told me about, Oliver? She grinned. Maybe he's a conservationist, and is trying to free the animals.

  "Oh, sure," she said as she opened the door. "Honey, Oliver, for all his talent, thinks of no one but himself." She hesitated. "Are you going to be all right? Alone, I mean, after what I told you."

  Abbey stood, her hands buried in the robe's deep pockets. Her attitude was sufficient to tell Pat she'd accidentally stepped on a raw nerve, that she'd probably been fussed over all her life as if her deafness were the same as having her bedridden. It was understandable, and for Pat, after all this time, it was inexcusable, and she left with a fleeting apologetic smile, stood staring at the door a moment before turning and leaving.

  Standing on the porch. Listening as St. Mary's down on High Street broke the early-evening cold with a peal of quiet bells. She had no idea what the service might be, but just the sound of the summons made her feel at once lonesome and comforted. It was a curious sensation, one she wasn't at all sure she understood. But it made her grip her upper arms and rub them through the coat as she climbed down to the walk, made her pause at the break in the hedge. Pause because she realized that what she was doing was all backward. In spite of her monologue upstairs, and to Abbey, it was without question necessary to contact the police. To go off like some fictional detective and track down the culprit herself was ridiculous. So what it if was a gag? It was one she certainly didn't appreciate, not now, not ever. And the more she thought about it the more annoyed she grew, especially when she recalled facing the Musketeers at Harriet's house, intending to dress them down for fetching Oliver's glove and finding herself distracted instead over a stupid telephone call to New York.

  Planned. It had all been planned to divert her attention.

  "How could you?" she muttered, glaring in the direction of Harriet's house. "God damn, how could you?"

  It would serve them right to get involved with Abe Stockton, a man definitely not renowned for enjoying a case where the police were called in for nothing more than a spiteful gag. It would serve them right. And it would make more sense. And after a glance to the night sky, she knew it made more sense, too, to examine the quarry in daylight, not now. If she'd been spooked before, she would turn her hair white with a visit by moonlight.

  Besides, she thought as she turned around, she didn't see how the illusion could work at night. The first time, when she thought about it objectively, she hadn't seen a thing. There'd only been a sudden wind, and a feeling, nothing more, that something was after her. And it may, in fact, have had no connection at all with what had happened in the hills. That night she'd been drinking; today she'd only been fighting with Greg. And, she admitted sourly, it hadn't really been a fight. More like a sudden dousing with jealous acid.

  Dumb, she told herself; sometimes, woman, you can be awfully damned dumb.

  She pulled at the door, stepped back a pace and pulled again. It was locked. Somehow, in leaving, she had yanked it too hard and the bolt had snapped to. She looked to her left, knowing it would be useless to rap on Abbey's bay window; the girl wouldn't be able to hear her. And there were no other lights in Linc's apartment; he was probably out with his cronies, chewing over the mistakes of whatever war he'd fought in, either military or marital. That left the little-used back entrance, what had once been for the original owners a way to get upstairs without traipsing through the parlor or the kitchen.

  Down the steps again, huddling against herself as the cold clawed its way down her neck and up her sleeves, cracking along the sidewalk to the driveway. It seemed long. The house next door was dark, the streetlamp spreading the hedge into a shadow that spilled at her feet. Behind the garage, beyond the houses facing the next street, a hazed bluish glow that made everything on this side seem faced with black.

  I don't want to go down there, she thought suddenly. I don't want to go down there.

  A snort of derision. She'd wavered often enough lately, too often, and what was wrong with using a driveway she'd known for thirteen years? There were no dogs to bite her, no rapists lurking in the yard, no beasts rising from the black hole of the quarry, glimpses of red, bellowing fury—

  "Stop it!"

  She moved forward, deliberately bringing her heels hard down on the blacktop, listening to the quick echo off the house as the garage grew. Widened. The four narrow windows across its building-wide door catching in brittle ebony shards of branches topped with frozen snow, nursing slowly the ghostly reflection of her face, then her shoulders, as she approached it, saw herself and ducked to one side.

  Silly. It was silly.

/>   And as she did every time she came into the yard from this direction, she glanced at the near window, walked a half-dozen paces further on before she stopped. Touched a finger to her jaw and looked over her shoulder. What she had seen—what she had thought she'd seen was a glint of metal. Not a tool hanging on the back wall. Something closer. Something part of something larger. Like an automobile. But that was wrong. Linc didn't own one, and Kelly's was at the mechanic's, and Kelly herself had the station wagon God knew where. But she did see it. She was positive she'd seen it, and she walked back to the door and cupped her hands around her eyes to peer in and check.

  And she was right. There was a car in there.

  It was hers.

  Chapter 17

  A minute passed; perhaps more. Pat wasn't sure. All she knew was the cold drilling into her forehead pressed against the small pane. When it began to ache she stirred, stepped back and looked helplessly around her. A laugh bubbled at her lips until she swallowed; a curtain husked closed over her mind until she drove it away with an impatient swipe of her arm. This was no time to retreat, she told herself, though there were plenty of reasons why she would want to, why her equilibrium was disturbed and she staggered back a step.

  Her car. Sitting in the garage all the time Abbey was feeding her dinner and worrying about Kelly.

  Unless, of course, the girl had known about it all along.

  She reached out and gripped the door's handle, strained a moment before flinging it up and back, wincing as it collided with the rear buffer and shot forward a few inches.

  The car sat alone, and when she reached out a hand to touch the hood, the metal was cold. Slowly, she moved around to the driver's side and stared in. The keys were not in the ignition, the window had been rolled down, and as far as she could tell in the dark no one was lying in back. It was empty. No sign of Kelly, no indication it had been driven in the last few hours. But she would not reach in, could not touch it again. Glints of highlight from the streetlamp winked at her; the grille glowed when she moved outside; the headlamps and reflectors tricked her for a moment into making her think they were on.

  She spun around and raced back to the porch, had her hand on the knob before she remembered it was locked. And gasped when the door swung inward, the hinges creaking, her shadow snapping across the foyer to the foot of the stairs. She blinked several times and shook her head in disbelief, grabbed the knob and pulled the door, opened it, closed it, then jumped inside and stared at it, bewildered. It could have been the frame. It might have been warped and she hadn't shoved it hard enough.

  It was possible.

  She didn't believe it.

  Instead of worrying it, however, she pounded on Abbey's door with the side of her fist. Once. Before it swung inward.

  Her first impulse was to turn and run outside, her second to take the stairs two at a time, lock her door behind her and call the police. Neither satisfied her. She called out for Abbey, stretched out a leg and toed the door around to the wall.

  The room was empty. The single lamp was still burning, but as she cautiously made her way in she could see nothing in the corners, no one on any of the chairs, no other light in the apartment save for one in the kitchen. She checked there immediately, checked the bath and the two bedrooms and returned to the door, where she buried a hand in her hair and tugged in frustration. It wasn't fair. She didn't know how to react, because there was literally nothing to react to—an empty apartment, no clue to a struggle . . . she didn't know if Abbey had left immediately after Pat had gone outside, or if the girl had been dragged out, or if Kelly had been hiding in one of the rooms because she'd done something horrid and was afraid of discovery.

  There was nothing to guide her, not even a hint.

  "Abbey!"

  The name sounded hollow in the deserted apartment. From one of the back rooms a clock ticked loudly.

  "Abbey? Abbey, it's Pat!"

  The chrome and the glass were as cold as the air swirling about her ankles, lifeless, a display in a store window rather than a place where people actually lived. She thought it again: lifeless. Nothing lived in here, and if she hadn't known the contrary she could easily have believed nothing ever had.

  "Abbey!"

  She backed into the foyer, confused now, jamming her hands in and out of her coat pocket, turning first to Goldsmith's door, then toward the porch, then back to Abbey's and the light that seemed so brittle under the white round globe. Again she called, but she no longer liked the sound of her voice, how it was beginning to climb the register to panic, how it retreated from the large rooms like something small and frightened.

  Her gaze wrenched toward the staircase. The wise thing would be to go up there and call the police. Up there. Familiar Territory, until she remembered that someone had been there, too.

  With an anguished cry, then, she bolted from the house, grabbed the hedge to keep her from swerving into the street, and ran down to Chancellor Avenue. Turned left. Ran again. Paying no attention to a car passing in the opposite direction, passing and slowing; to the handful of pedestrians apparently headed for the Inn, who parted quickly when they saw she wasn't about to slow down or try to go around them; to the dog that jumped from a driveway and snapped at her heels, barking, yowling, chasing her for a block before skidding to a halt at the curb and chasing her with its voice; to another car filled with teenagers who leaned out the window and whistled, made suggestions; to St. Mary's and the bells and the peace they tried to promise.

  Running until she reached the police station. Slipping on the top step and cracking her knee against the wall. She whimpered and grabbed for it, rubbed it, and pushed in. Stumbling now as a stinging wave rippled up to her thighs. Falling against the railing and holding on with both hands, closing her eyes against the pain and willing someone to appear.

  She knew it was less than half a minute, but it seemed like an hour alone there in the high-ceilinged room, hearing odd noises from the cell block, a kettle shrilling, a man singing drunkenly, a radio tuned to a news station rehashing the Super Bowl at virtually full volume.

  A shout opened her mouth, but it died the moment one of the back doors opened and Wes Martin stepped out. He was running a brush through his short hair, spinning a toothpick in his mouth, and he was almost at the desk before he noticed Pat waiting. His grin blossomed, held, wavered when he saw her sway. She tried to wave him off, to tell him she was all right and don't bother, but he was at the railing and holding her arms before the words came out, guiding her through the gate to a large club chair alongside the desk. Motioning her to be silent, then, he poured her a glass of water and ordered her with a jerk of his chin to drink it.

  She did, gratefully, as she sagged in the chair and allowed her eyes to close. The water was tepid, tasteless, but she didn't care; her lungs were so cold, her face feeling as if it could be peeled like fruit, she wouldn't have cared at all if the water had been boiling and scalded her tongue. And when she opened her eyes again Wes had a pad in hand and a pen, watching her patiently. The dimples in his cheeks were gone; there was only his full face, full lips, the solemn stare of his hazel eyes. A touch of angry red at his right temple, as if he'd been scratching there.

  "You okay now?"

  She nodded.

  "You talk. I'll ask questions later."

  She didn't know where to begin, how to phrase it so she wouldn't sound like a stereotypical woman scatterbrained from hysteria. The room ebbed, swelled, as she looked around to buy herself time, but when she saw the white globes hanging from their chains overhead she swallowed hard and cleared her throat.

  "All right," Wes said, laying down the pen and swiveling around to face her. He stared for a moment, though she knew he wasn't seeing her, then rose with a slap of his hand to the desk. "Be back in a minute."

  It was less than that, but enough time for Pat to wonder if she'd been right in holding back. Her immediate worry was Kelly and Abbey, yet she sensed that all she'd suffered over the past two weeks was so
mehow connected, up to and including the episode at the quarry. But she hadn't been able to bring herself to talk about it, or about the first occurrence, or about her conviction that for the longest time she was being watched. Mentioning any of that, she'd known before she spoke, would instantly dilute credence of what she had told him. And as it was, it was rather nebulous; someone had broken into her apartment (without really breaking in) and had stolen two pieces of worthless statuary; Kelly had borrowed her car overnight, Pat had found it in the garage, Abbey apparently knew nothing about it, and now the both of them were gone. Missing? She didn't know. But it was awfully damned strange, didn't he think?

  Wes returned just as she thought she would have to either burst into insane laughter and break down into tears, if only because either reaction made just as little sense as anything she'd said, much less done, today.

  "I've sent a car round to check," he told her as he took his seat and crossed his legs. "With all that snow, there's bound to be prints somewhere. You did say you hadn't actually gone into the backyard, right?"

  "Yes," she said.

  A silence. She shifted in the chair. Wes picked up the pen and drummed on the blotter.

  "You said you were going to ask me questions."

  He nodded. "Yeah, I said that. But I would bet I already know most of the answers. For instance," and he looked up to the ceiling, "your friends didn't fight much, no more than ordinary roommates. As far as you know they weren't rivals for the same man. The three of you got along just fine—which is obvious, otherwise you wouldn't have been so free with your car. You have no idea what man Kelly Hanson was staying with, and as far as you know Abbey Wagner wasn't seeing anyone here in town." He lowered his gaze and grinned at her. "Am I right, or am I right?"

  "You're . . ." She laughed, immediately covered her mouth with a hand, realized she was still wearing her gloves and pulled them off, stuffed them in her pockets. "It sounds so . . . so silly, Wes."