by Todd Ritter
Henry felt a slow burn of shame as Deana told him about her attempts to find him. Google searches that led her to Web sites written in Italian. Phone directories in other countries. She said she had even considered hiring Nick Donnelly to try to find him, but she feared he would then tell Kat. It was a risk she couldn’t take.
“So I gave up,” she said. “By disappearing entirely, you made it clear you didn’t want to be found. And I had come to terms with the fact that Adam would never know his father. But it still felt wrong. I felt guilty that—”
Deana’s voice cracked, caught on a wave of emotion. She swallowed hard, trying to suppress it, but the tears came anyway.
“I felt terrible that after all you had been through, you’d never get the chance to know that you were a dad.”
But now Henry knew. Now he was able to hold his child. Now his son—his son! He still couldn’t wrap his head around it—would grow up knowing who he was. Henry was going to make sure of that.
“I’ll support him,” he said. “Any way I can. You won’t have to raise this child alone. I’ll be there, too.”
“But how, Henry?” Deana asked. “You live in Italy now. That’s half a world away.”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”
He had to move back to the United States, that much was certain. Maybe try to get a reporting job somewhere nearby. If that didn’t work, then he’d try his hand at something else. He didn’t know what, nor did he know where.
All Henry knew as he cradled Adam in his arms was that his life had unexpectedly changed yet again.
*
“I was surprised to get your call. With all these fires going on, I think we both have better things to do than hang out here.”
Dutch Jansen looked around the lounge of Maison D’Avignon, rolling his eyes at the mahogany bartop decorated with tea lights and the bottles of wine hanging from wrought-iron racks.
“I bet you prefer the Sawmill,” Kat said, referring to the bar on the southern end of Main Street. Its scratched booths, squeaky barstools, and no-nonsense drinks seemed more Dutch’s speed.
“Yeah,” Dutch said. “I stick out like a sore thumb here.”
He was dressed in scuffed jeans and a sweat-stained T-shirt. And although the bar was practically empty, he shifted uncomfortably whenever someone better dressed walked by. Kat knew that would be the case, which is why she chose this place as their meeting spot. She didn’t want to confront Dutch on his home turf. She wanted to keep him off balance and vulnerable.
“You see Danny Batallas at all today?” she asked, sipping from a cup of coffee the size of her head.
Dutch took a swig of beer before answering. “Nope.”
“How much do you know about him?”
“He’s been on the squad a year or so,” Dutch said. “Good kid. Knows his stuff. Never reckless. Some of the newer guys tend to get reckless. They want to be a hero so bad that they end up doing some pretty stupid shit.”
“Like starting fires?”
Dutch, pint of beer in hand, contemplated Kat over the rim of the glass. “You might want to start watching what you say, Chief.”
His defensiveness was understandable. Kat would have been the same way if he had said something disparaging about Carl or Lou. But Dutch didn’t know what Kat knew. He hadn’t seen what she’d seen in Danny’s apartment.
“Before he came to Perry Hollow,” she said, “Danny lived in Scranton. In his early teens, he was arrested. Several times. Those arrests were for starting fires.”
Dutch slammed his beer on the table, livid. “You did a background check on him?”
“On all of the firefighters,” Kat said. “Including you. Now, I know you’re—”
“Pissed off? Damn right I am. While my boys and I were out there putting our lives on the line for this town, you were looking for skeletons in our closets. I thought you were better than that, Kat.”
“And I thought you were smart enough to do your own background checks when letting someone join the fire department.”
Dutch looked away, knowing she was right. “We’re a volunteer squad. My guys get squat for all the work they do. Kind of makes it hard to recruit people, don’t you think? So when a kid like Danny walks into the firehouse and says he wants to sign up, I’m not going to tell him no. Besides, what he did as a teenager is no concern of mine. We all do stupid shit at that age. God knows I did.”
He took a long sip of his beer, swallowing hard. He had nothing left to say.
That meant it was time for Kat to reach for the shopping bag at her feet. Inside was the stack of papers found at Danny’s place. She picked up the pages and wordlessly slid them across the bar toward Dutch Jansen.
“What are these?”
“We found these in Danny’s apartment.”
The fire chief grew mad again, almost instantly. “You searched his place?”
“Just look at them.”
Dutch picked up the stack and riffled through the pages. Kat watched him closely, gauging his reaction. She assumed it was the same way she had looked upon seeing the diagrams, the step-by-step instructions, the tips for buying dangerous items without looking suspicious. She noticed Dutch’s eyes widen when he got to the picture of a Coke bottle with a piece of cloth stuffed into the neck and secured with tape.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “A Molotov cocktail?”
“It gets worse,” Kat warned.
Dutch flipped to the next page. That one, Kat knew, contained a variation on the Molotov cocktail, only this time the bottle was replaced by a propane tank. The directions referred to it as a fire bomb. When Dutch groaned, Kat knew he had reached the last page. It was a photograph printed from the Internet, showing a block of C-4 stuck to a stripped-down digital clock with duct tape and placed on top of two bags of fertilizer.
“He’s learning how to make bombs,” Kat said. “And I need to know why. Did you notice him acting strangely the past couple of days? Like he was upset about something?”
“I did,” Dutch said. “And he was upset.”
“About what?”
“A lot, actually. He was sick of working as a lawn-mower salesman and getting paid on commission. You can imagine how the demand for lawn mowers declines once fall rolls around. He was worried about money. Couldn’t understand why I was the only squad member to pull in a salary. Kept complaining about tightwad local governments not caring about their towns.”
“Sounds like he had a lot on his mind,” Kat said.
“He’s just a hotheaded kid spouting off about shit,” Dutch replied. “It’s not like he’d actually go out and do anything about it.”
“Looks to me like he already has. So if you have any idea where he is, tell me now.”
Dutch, who looked like he was about to puke, shook his head. “Other than his apartment, I have no idea.”
“Would any of the other firefighters know?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll ask around.”
He stood, faltering slightly, as if burdened by a two-ton weight. Kat could relate. It’s how she had felt all day.
“I’m sorry, Dutch,” she said. “I wish it was someone else, too.”
Dutch’s gaze slid to the pages on the bar. Even though the picture of the fertilizer bomb was on top and in full view, he said, “It is someone else. Danny had nothing to do with this. I’m sure of it.”
He left the bar without saying another word. Kat gathered up the pages and dropped them back in the bag. She waited a minute or two, not wanting to go back outside into a town that was slowly but surely descending into chaos. Every muscle in her body was sore. Every joint ached. She wanted Gloria Ambrose to come to Perry Hollow and take this entire mess off her hands. She wanted Nick to wake up and tell her that he was perfectly fine. And she wanted sleep. More than anything, she wanted to collapse into bed and sleep for twenty-four hours straight.
Instead, she gulped down the rest of her coffee, its heat stinging the back of her throat. Th
en it was out of the restaurant and into the uncertain night.
Main Street was mostly deserted, as she knew it would be. Folks in Perry Hollow weren’t stupid. They knew enough to stay indoors when there was a madman on the loose. By now, they had more than enough experience in that regard.
The only person Kat saw was a tall man with blond hair slinking up the sidewalk a few yards ahead of her. He stopped when he spotted her, frozen in surprise. Kat paused, too, awaiting his next move. They stared at each other a moment, like a predator and his prey just before the kill.
Then, without warning, Connor Hawthorne started to run.
8 P.M.
“Connor, stop!”
He didn’t, of course. Instead, he darted into a narrow alley that ran alongside the restaurant. Kat followed, sprinting as fast as her tired and aching legs would allow. Deep in the alleyway, they passed a back entrance to Maison D’Avignon and skirted by a row of trash cans. Connor knocked one of the lids onto the ground as he passed. Kat hopped over it and kept on running.
They emerged behind the restaurant, feet crunching over a gravel parking lot, before racing into another, smaller alley. Kat’s shoulders brushed the damp concrete walls as she kept pace with Connor. Then they burst out of the alley and sprinted across the side street located just beyond it.
A house sat on the other side of the road. Rather than following the sidewalk, Connor ran up the driveway, around the house, and into the backyard.
It was dark back there. Darker than the alleyway, which contained at least a little bit of light from the street. The yard, on the other hand, was pitch-black, making it hard to keep sight of Connor and his black trench coat. Kat only managed by quickening her pace and focusing on his hair, which glowed faintly in the pale moonlight.
By now they had reached another backyard. This one had a swimming pool, which Connor almost ran right into. He caught himself and spent a few steps balanced like a tightrope walker on its edge. When he recovered, he swerved around it, heading into the yard of the house next door.
All of the yards on that street were separated by rows of hedges taller than Kat herself. When Connor vanished through one, she did, too, the branches smacking her face and clawing at her hands. By the time she emerged, Connor was on the other side of the yard, pushing through the next hedge.
Kat ran faster, sprinting over a back patio and tripping the motion sensor on the lights. Then it was through another hedge, into another yard. A dog was in that one. A German shepherd, chained next to his doghouse. It lunged at both Connor and Kat, chain taut, teeth bared.
They ignored him, diving through yet another hedge, where the tail of Connor’s coat got caught on one of the branches. Kat, right behind him now, saw him get jerked to a stop. Reaching out, she grabbed the coat, yanking it backward.
Connor continued to surge forward, arms spinning in an attempt to gain momentum. The move worked, making Kat lose her grip on the coat. She heard the tear of fabric as it also broke free of the branch. Then Connor was off again, running across the lawn. It was bordered by a patch of woods that he dove into without hesitation.
When Kat reached the trees, she saw that he had increased the distance between them. He was a good ten yards ahead of her, dodging around trees and ducking beneath branches. Kat did the same, managing to gain back some ground. When they burst from the woods, she was now only about five yards behind.
The trees gave way to another yard, with yet another one after that. Instead of a hedgerow, they were separated by a low wall of shrubs.
Connor hurdled over it.
Kat stormed through it.
Up ahead was a white picket fence that stood about waist high. Connor once again tried to hurdle it. A big mistake on his part. While his first leg cleared the top, the foot of his other leg caught the fence and sent him tumbling over.
Making his move even more stupid was the fact that the fence had a gate. Kat pushed through it and found Connor on the other side, struggling to get to his feet. She drew her Glock and leveled it at him.
“Do you want to stop like a good boy?” she asked. “Or do I have to shoot you?”
Connor raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He looked past her, chest deflating faster than a flat tire. Kat craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of what he was looking at. To her surprise, she saw the back of the museum. Connor Hawthorne had inadvertently led her there in a matter of minutes. And on the back wall, staring at them like a giant eye, was the pentagram he had painted there.
*
They were inside the museum, sitting at the conference table still covered with pictures of its inventory. Connor, cuffed and uncomfortable, was seated at one end. Kat sat across from him, staring him down.
“Why did you run when you saw me?”
“For the same reason you chased me,” Connor said. “You think I’m the one starting those fires.”
“And are you?”
He shook his head. “That would go against everything I believe in.”
“Then why are you here?”
Connor leaned back in his seat. When he tried to cross his arms, the cuffs stopped him, chain crunching. Instead, he rested his hands in his lap.
“I’m not saying anything else without my lawyer present.”
“And what’s his name?” Kat said sarcastically. “Severus Snape?”
Connor gave her a blank look. “Who?”
“Never mind.”
Kat sized up the man sitting across from her. His ponytail had come loose during the pursuit, and his straight blond hair now hung like curtains that framed the deliberately blank window of his face. Although he was undeniably tall and strong, the drooping locks made him look frail and more feminine.
“We can wait for a lawyer and waste a ton of time I don’t have,” Kat said. “Or you can just tell me why you’re in Perry Hollow. After all, you said you’ve done nothing wrong.”
Connor hesitated, thinking it over. Finally, he said, “I came here to see Constance Bishop.”
“And why did you do that?”
“Because she asked me to.”
“Why?” Kat asked. “Were the two of you friends?”
“Let’s just say we both shared a common interest.”
Kat nodded. “Rebecca Bradford.”
“So you know all about that?” Connor asked with a sly smile.
“Not everything. Care to fill in some of the details?”
To her surprise, Connor did. He talked about stumbling upon Rebecca’s story while doing research for his book. He mentioned being surprised to discover the incident, given that the persecution of witches was more of a New England phenomenon. And he talked about how, a year after the book’s publication, he received a letter from a historian in Pennsylvania saying she thought she knew where Rebecca’s death and burial had taken place.
“That was the first time I heard from Constance,” he said. “She mentioned finding a letter in a bunch of old documents in her history museum. She thought it might be an account of the Bradford family fire and that the incident could have occurred in her town. I replied, saying I was eager to see it. Constance wrote me back, including a rough translation of the letter.”
“And did you think, like Constance did, that the letter was referring to Rebecca Bradford?”
“I did,” Connor said. “I became convinced that Rebecca and her family had been executed right here in your quaint little town.”
“When did she ask you to come to Perry Hollow?”
“Yesterday,” Connor answered. “I received a phone call early in the morning. To my surprise, it was Constance. She told me she had found Rebecca’s remains.”
“Did she say where?”
Connor shook his head. “She only asked me to get here as soon as I could. She said she wanted to show me before it was too late.”
Kat sat up, suddenly intrigued. “Too late for what?”
“Before someone tried to bury her again.”
“So she showed you the remains of a woman executed for witchcraft,” Kat said. “How did that make you feel?”
“Are you asking me if I was angry?” Connor replied.
“Yes. Were you?”
“Of course. If Rebecca Bradford really was a witch, then she was killed for practicing something that’s completely harmless. If she wasn’t, then she was killed for no reason at all. So were the other women in her family. In my mind, five innocent women died. Considering that, yes, it made me extremely angry.”
“Angry enough to want to get revenge on the town where it happened?”
Connor, remaining cool in the face of the accusation, asked, “Do you consider yourself to be a Christian?”
Kat nodded, although she was more of a nonpracticing, take-everything-the-Bible-says-with-a-grain-of-salt one.
“So you’re familiar with the Ten Commandments then.”
“I am,” Kat said. “‘Thou shall not kill’ is a big one around these parts.”
“Witches have something similar to that. Our main commandment is ‘Do what you will, but harm none, for what you do comes back thrice.’”
“Sounds simple enough,” Kat replied. “What about the casting-spells part? Doesn’t that harm people?”
Connor sighed, his expression wavering between utter disdain and genuine sympathy that she could be so uninformed.
“You don’t know anything about witchcraft, do you?”
“I don’t.” Kat really didn’t mind that fact. She considered it to be on the same level as Scientology or the idiots who followed the Reverend Moon. It was a cult. Nothing more. “Is that the same thing as being a Wiccan?”
“It is,” Connor said. “Wiccan actually means ‘wise one.’ And those of us who are practicing witches believe in harmony with nature and all its living things. We don’t dance naked under a full moon. We don’t turn people into toads. And we certainly don’t worship the devil.”
