CHAPTER TEN
Yin studied the sword. “It is not as powerful as it was in the hands of the man who sold it to me. I’m sure you know what happens to magic each time it changes hands.” He pointed it at me. “I wonder how many of the spells on your body I could cut before it shattered?”
Now was the time. “I don’t have files,” I said, not bothering to hide my hatred of him or my fear of that damn blade. “I don’t have any authority to guarantee your safety or the safety of your children. I only have one thing to offer: I can give you a spell of your own.”
Yin’s eyes narrowed on me and the sword lowered. “A spell?”
Bingo. “It’s the only one I know. Give me a big sheet of paper and a pen and I’ll draw out both parts for you. Then you let me go and leave us alone. We pretend this meeting never happened. I can’t offer more than that.”
He smiled at me. He was terribly smug. “I agree. Understand, though, Mr. Lilly. If you betray me, I will make sure others hear about our deal. I know how your superiors respond to trading spells.”
Two of his guys pulled me upright and unlocked my cuffs.
“Remember,” Yin said, “do not—”
“Just give me the paper and pen so we can be done with it.”
Well-Spoken brought them to me. I laid the paper on the bottom of the tub and wrote “for the mind” in the upper left and “for the hand” in the upper right. I’d only cast a couple of spells in my life, including the ghost knife, and while I couldn’t have re-created them from memory, this was how they had been drawn in the spell book.
On the left side of the page, I drew a couple of squiggles that might have been a hole in the ground and maybe an eyeball. On the right, I drew a couple of short lines that suggested a campfire. I have never been much of an artist, but considering what real sigils look like, that worked in my favor.
I handed them the paper. They cuffed me again.
Yin laid his hand over the drawing on the left. He knew enough to recognize the danger in looking at that part of a spell before he’d learned the right-hand drawing.
“What does it do?” Well-Spoken hurried toward him and peered at it over his shoulder.
I glared at Yin. “Wait for it,” I said.
It took less than a minute, but eventually the fire alarm clanged. His gunmen looked nervous, but Yin was greedily delighted. “An arson spell?”
“I don’t recognize it, sir.” Well-Spoken had to shout over the alarm. “I don’t even recognize the style.”
“Is it …” He searched my expression. When he strained his voice, his pitch went quite high. “I have heard that the Book of Grooves is in this part of the world. Is this from the lost Book of Grooves?”
I looked him straight in the eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said truthfully.
He looked flustered for a moment, then his smug expression returned. “Of course. I forgot to bargain for its provenance. Have no fear, Mr. Lilly. My people are very good at their jobs. I’ll have my answers soon enough.” He waved his men out of the room and backed away.
“Of course, you forgot to bargain for the keys to those handcuffs!” It was his parting shot, and I let him have it. I kicked the door shut.
Bound was still kneeling on the floor. Yin had abandoned him, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I bent low, passing the cuffs under my feet so my hands were in front of me, then peeked into the living room. No one put a bullet in my head. They were gone. Through the front window I could see black smoke pouring from one of the units across the way.
I was suddenly very tired. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was dinnertime. I needed sleep, and while I wasn’t desperate enough to lie down here, it would have to be soon.
Bound was still crouching there. The fire across the lot was growing strong. I dragged him to his feet. Together, we hustled out the door.
We hurried toward the arched exit, keeping as far from the fire as possible. Glass shattered somewhere behind me. I shielded my face and dragged Bound past the office.
The fire engine screeched to a stop at the entrance to the motel, while the clerk waved at them with a windmilling arm. I pulled Bound through the arch and off to the side, but we’d been spotted. A firefighter jumped from the back of the engine and ran toward us.
“You two!” he shouted. “Get to a safe distance, but don’t leave the area. We’re going to have some questions …”
He noticed the handcuffs and stopped talking. Then he looked again at Bound’s torn clothes and hunched, face-to-the-ground body language. He didn’t know what to say.
“What?” I said. “We’re consenting adults.”
He frowned, then pointed to a place well away from the fire. “Go there. Stay.” Then he turned and ran through the arch.
“How did you get here so fast?” I called, but he was already gone.
I laid my hand against the stone arch and called my ghost knife. I held it close and said, “Come on.” Bound followed me.
We went farther than the fireman wanted, hurrying by the people filing out of the bar to watch the flames.
With the ghost knife, I cut the cuffs off—carefully. I didn’t know what effect the spell would have on me, and now was not the time to experiment.
I dropped the cuffs into a planter. People were coming out of the stores, and I didn’t want any more attention than necessary. Then I saw Yin step into the Maybach. His driver closed the door for him and got behind the wheel.
Movement off to my right caught my attention. It was Tattoo sitting on a Megamoto. I felt the sudden flush of fear that comes from finding myself too close to a guy who wants to kill me, but he was watching Yin. He hadn’t even noticed me.
As the trio of BMWs rolled out of the parking lot, Tattoo stuck a piece of toast in his mouth and pulled his helmet on. He didn’t have a cast over his thumb or ankle, and I was sure I’d broken both. Damn. All that work and nothing to show for it. He started his bike and followed Yin’s people.
Without thinking about it, I bolted away from Bound and ran toward Tattoo, ghost knife in hand. Yin was a bastard, but Tattoo was worse.
It was no use. The cars were out of the lot and Tattoo was only fifty feet behind them, too far away for me to use my ghost knife.
Bound was standing where I’d left him. I pushed him against the wall and patted him down. His gun was gone. He let me take his passport and billfold. He had credit cards, foreign cash, even a notepad and pen. None of it interested me, and none of it was worth taking.
“Hey,” I said. He wouldn’t look me in the face. “Hey. Where’s Catherine? Your boss said you had her, but she got away. Where did she escape? What did you do to her, you asshole?”
He said something I didn’t understand. He repeated it again, and I realized he was saying: “Help me.” Apparently, that was the only English he knew.
“Sure thing, buddy. Sure thing.” I smiled and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Yin’s ghost knife didn’t leave him enough vigor to smile in response, but he did look relieved.
I took the notepad and pen out of his billfold and wrote: I don’t speak English but I do like to start fires. Please arrest me. Then I tucked the billfold back into his pocket, gently put the note in his hand, and gestured toward the men by the bar. He started walking meekly toward them, note held in front of him.
I didn’t stick around to see how that would turn out.
As I approached the Neon, I passed a pair of old hippies watching the fire. It was still going strong. One of them turned toward me. “What happened, dude?” I couldn’t see his mouth moving underneath his wiry gray beard.
I shrugged. “I just got here. Is there another motel in town?”
“Naw, just the Sunset, but that’s a really nice place.”
I smiled while he gave me directions, then thanked him and climbed into the car. I couldn’t go back to the Sunset. Yin knew about it.
I pulled out of the lot and headed away from town. I would have to sneak a
round the roadblock and find a room at the next exit, whatever it was, and come back for my car when I’d gotten some sleep and food.
A green pickup drove toward me. Hadn’t the roadblock been put up yet? Had the mayor decided not to call it in because of the festival?
The car in front of me was a Volvo station wagon packed to the windows with loose laundry. It was about a hundred feet ahead when its brake lights came on. I slowed down, too. My iron gate twinged, but that seemed unimportant.
The Volvo stopped. I slowed to parking-lot speed, the twinge in my shoulder growing stronger. After a couple of seconds, the Volvo did a three-point turn and drove back toward me.
I braked and took out my ghost knife. The driver was a bird-faced old woman who didn’t glance at me once. She simply drove past me toward town with a pained expression on her face.
Weird. I took my foot off the brake and started toward the highway again. The first flare of a headache started, and I slowed again. I couldn’t remember why I was driving out of town. It didn’t make sense. Washaway was where I needed to be.
I stopped in the road. There was a reason I needed to leave, but I couldn’t remember what it was. A beer truck came up the road toward me, but it stopped about a hundred and fifty feet away and turned around. I watched it drive away.
I touched my iron gate. It was throbbing, but there was no one else around, not even other cars.
I saw a blue tarp on the side of the road. I got out of the car, leaving the engine running, and walked into the weeds. There were actually several tarps. The closest was the smallest, and I knelt beside it, my headache growing stronger. The edges were tucked underneath the object it was covering. I took out my ghost knife to slit open the top, then thought better of it and just pulled it back.
It was a little girl. I won’t describe her in detail, but she’d been beaten and strangled to death many hours before. She did not have a white mark on her face. I tucked the tarp under her again.
When I pulled back the tarp on the next one, I found Clara’s red-gold curls. I didn’t need to see more.
I stood and backed away, my head pounding. The other tarps were probably Isabelle and the rest of the Breakley family. I could have pulled them all back to see if Biker was there, or if the gunmen had been brought down from the Wilbur estate, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to look at more dead faces.
Sue and Big Bill had obviously brought the bodies out here and laid them by the side of the road. That seemed perfectly logical to me. The tarps would protect them from animals, and while it didn’t make sense to take them out of Washaway, they had to be put somewhere.
I headed back to the car, instinctively understanding that I would feel better if I went back to town. I did a three-point turn and drove back toward the fire and the trucks. My headache eased and my iron gate stopped aching.
But I still didn’t have anywhere to go. It wasn’t safe to stay at the B and B, and the motel was gone. There were empty houses I could break into, but they were all crime scenes. Besides, I didn’t really want to sleep in the Breakleys’ bedroom tonight, knowing what had happened there.
If I couldn’t sleep, I needed to find the predator quickly. I needed a plan.
I drove through town and pulled up in front of Penny’s house. The pickup was still against the tree, but her front door was closed. Both had been surrounded with yellow tape. At first I thought the mysterious sheriff had finally arrived, but when I got closer I saw it was caution tape, not police tape.
I went inside. The house was dark, but the entry to the kitchen was lit by a nightlight. The police scanner was still there. I turned it on to make sure it worked, then pulled the plug and tucked it under my arm.
Something rustled behind me. I took out my ghost knife and crept into the living room, hoping I was about to catch the sapphire dog by surprise and not Penny’s cats.
It was neither. Little Mark lay on the couch, sleeping peacefully. His head was covered in a big white bandage.
It looked like the same bandage the paramedics had put on him. Obviously, they hadn’t taken him to the hospital. I could have taken him myself, but that didn’t make sense; I couldn’t leave Washaway. I needed to stay, and Mark probably did, too.
I left by the front door without waking him.
I needed to find a place where I could work on the scanner and connect it to the Neon’s electrical system. Something private and well lit.
As I drove through town, Steve’s Crown Vic came toward me in the opposite lane. He pulled left, blocking the road but giving me enough room to brake. A second car, a rusted Forester, stopped beside his.
He climbed out and came toward me. I could see he was angry. “I thought I asked you to stay at the Sunset.”
God, I hated that whining voice. “I didn’t have a choice. Can we leave it at that?”
The Forester’s driver door opened and a short, plump woman climbed out. At first I thought it was Pippa, but as she stepped into my headlights, I saw that she was a black woman with Coke-bottle-thick glasses and a long, quilted yellow jacket. I guessed she was yet another member of the neighborhood watch. A man climbed out of the Forester behind her. He was a fat little cowboy with a Wilford Brimley mustache.
“No,” Steve said. “Things have been happening pretty fast around here. Look at this.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and held it up. It was already too dark to read it. “I’m the new chief of police in Washaway—temporary emergency position only. Pippa saw to it.”
“The sheriff hasn’t come yet?”
“No,” Steve said, “and I’ve called him eight times today. But I was a patrol officer in Wenatchee for a few years, so Pippa figured I’m the best candidate for the job. Now, tell me where you’ve been, or I’m going to arrest you.”
“At Penny’s. Did you know that Mark is there right now? Sleeping?”
“With a head wound? Is anyone with him?”
“Nope.”
He turned to the others. “We can’t leave that boy alone with a head injury. Sherisse, Ford, would you go and collect him, please?”
They hustled back to their car. Steve turned to me. “You haven’t been at Penny’s this whole time, though, right?”
“No.”
Steve sighed in irritation. “What about the other strangers in town? They’re looking for this thing too, right?”
“Yes, and we can’t talk about this here.”
“Well, we could have talked at the Sunset, if you’d done like I asked, but no—”
“Oh, for … They found me there, okay? They know I want to kill it, and I’m not safe there anymore. I need a new place to crash.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m pretty much running on fumes.”
“Okay.” Steve rubbed the faint stubble on his chin. “Let’s go.”
I followed him through town, turning off Littlemont Road onto a winding asphalt street barely wide enough for two cars. He stopped in front of a clapboard, two-story house with a long garage, walked up the front lawn, and opened the garage door. I pulled inside.
“This is my house, if you haven’t guessed.” The walls were covered with tools on pegboards. There was a thick layer of dust on them. If Steve had been handy at one point in his life, it was long ago.
I followed him through a mudroom into a little kitchen, then a living room. Everything was perfectly clean and neatly arranged, but it was a depressing little house. It seemed to absorb light, but every scuff of our feet echoed as if we were in a drum. He led me to a threadbare couch and offered me tea and sandwiches. I said yes, thank you, and he went into the kitchen.
A four-foot tree stood in the corner. It was undecorated.
Steve returned and set a foldout table in front of me. There were two little plates on it, each with a white-bread sandwich and a handful of corn chips. Beside them were thick white mugs with steaming tea.
I thanked him again and took a bite of the sandwich. It was yellow cheese with mayo and iceberg lettuce. I was hungry enough to enjoy it.
/> Steve took a bite of his sandwich, more out of politeness than hunger, I could see. When he swallowed, he set it down and settled back in his armchair. It looked too big for him. “I think it’s past time you give me the full rundown.”
“Okay,” I said. I set down my own sandwich and sipped some tea, just to buy time. “Regina Wilbur had this sapphire dog in the little cottage behind her house for decades. It was trapped in there, and she kept it all for herself.”
He nodded. We both remembered how the sapphire dog had made us feel. “You said it was a gift?”
“That’s what she told me. She was grateful for it, but I don’t think the gift giver was doing her any favors.”
Steve opened his mouth to respond, then paused. He knew the history of this town and the Wilbur family. “When she was younger, Regina Wilbur was a terror in this part of the county. She had very definite ideas about what had to be done and who should be allowed to do it. Then she simply stopped coming to planning meetings and became a hermit. Lots of folks were relieved.”
“But something changed recently, right?”
“Well, her niece had her declared incompetent. There was a videotape of Regina pitching a fit in her drawing room, claiming that they were keeping her dog from her. A dog that died twenty-five years ago.”
“Named Armand, right?” Steve nodded. “I thought so. She gave that name to the sapphire dog, too. You can imagine how she’d behave if they kept her from visiting it.”
“The niece … Does she know?”
“She held an auction last night. She sold the sapphire dog to a Chinese guy for nearly a hundred thirty million dollars.” It was hard to believe that all this trouble had taken place in less than twenty-four hours.
“Lord help us. I know about the men, of course. Washaway has been full of rumors that he was looking to invest nearby and had come to see the festival. But they were here for this auction?”
“Yeah, but the creature escaped. Now the Chinese guy—and the others who lost the auction—are looking for it. They all have guns, and they aren’t squeamish about using them.”
Game of Cages Page 16
