by Jenna Ryan
Staring at her iPhone, Amara felt her brain go cold. What she had was a text message from a man who’d sworn he would only contact her in an emergency.
“Beat it, Samson.”
Giving the mug to the bartender, McVey turned her hand with the iPhone and read the name on the screen. A name Amara’s terrified mind didn’t want to see or to acknowledge. Willy Sparks.
* * *
SHE PACED THE back office of the Raven’s Hollow police station like a caged tiger, dialing and redialing her cell. At the front desk Jake muttered about the Harden brothers being allowed to go home while he had to ride herd on a bunch of drunks in a town that wasn’t his and didn’t even supply its officers with a decent coffeemaker.
On his side of things, McVey was seriously wishing he’d never made any kind of deathbed promise to his father. Raising his eyes, he watched Amara pace. Okay, maybe not so much wishing as wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with this mess.
“Come on, McVey, give me one good reason why I can’t haul these boozers to the Cove. Cells there are way more comfortable than here.”
McVey scrolled through a list of New Orleans police officers. “Paperwork, Jake. Triple the usual amount if we start shuffling prisoners around. And you’ll be doing every last bit of it.”
The deputy gave his rifle a resentful pump. “I could get me a job in Bangor, you know.”
“Any time you want that to happen...” A raven-shaped wall clock told McVey he’d been on his iPhone for more than forty minutes. Out of patience, he took a procedural shortcut to a friend of a friend on the New Orleans force. “Samson’s texted me three times since we left the Red Eye,” he said absently. “Wants me to pay for the beer he didn’t get to drink.”
Amara kept pacing. “Sounds as though Samson’s spent some time around Uncle Lazarus.... There’s still no answer at the lieutenant’s apartment, McVey. I’ve tried his BlackBerry and his landline a dozen times each.”
McVey flicked her a look but said nothing. Didn’t need to; she knew the score as well as he did.
It took the better part of an hour to connect with someone in a position of sufficient authority to have Michaels’s apartment checked out. Another hour and a blistering headache later, the captain from the lieutenant’s parish contacted him personally.
“Michaels is dead.” The man’s tone was lifeless, a condition McVey understood all too well. “Officers found him on his back, staring at the ceiling. He had both hands clamped around his BlackBerry.”
“Cause of death?”
“Given the situation, I’d go with some kind of off-the-radar toxin that simulates a stroke. Forensic team’s scouring the apartment as we speak. I’ll let you know what they turn up.”
Amara rubbed her forehead with her own phone after the captain signed off. “Michaels is dead because he helped me get out of New Orleans. This is my fault.”
Figuring sympathy wasn’t the way to go here, McVey countered with a bland, “You know that’s a load of bull, right? And if we all just went with it, Willy Sparks would go on killing cops and civilians ad infinitum.”
She shot him a vexed look. “Thanks for the shoulder.”
“You don’t want a shoulder, Amara. You want to pound your fists. If I tell you it’s not your fault, you’ll get angry and say it should’ve been you, because that’s who Jimmy Sparks was gunning for.”
“He was. He is. And as emotional releases go, angry words are better than furious fists.”
“Not always. Back on point, what if Sparks’s nephew, godson, second cousin—whatever—had killed you instead of Michaels. Then what? True, he’d get paid, maybe bask on a tropical island for a while, but what he’d really be doing is waiting for Uncle Jimmy to crook his finger again and point it at a new target. The way things stand, this job’s not done. In fact, it’s a good bet Willy Sparks is either en route to or has already arrived in whatever Raven town the lieutenant entered into his BlackBerry.”
Amara frowned at her cell, then at him. “He said he buried the destination and phone number.”
“There’s buried, and there’s buried, Red. The phone wasn’t taken, therefore there was no need to take it.”
“As in the killer got what he wanted from it before he left.” She closed her eyes. “My ex is a geek. He could hack into just about any device.”
“Geeks can murder as effectively as anyone, Amara.”
“So it seems.” She looked around the office. “I need to leave before he gets here.”
McVey regarded his iPhone screen, shook his head and pushed off from the windowsill where he’d been leaning. “You’re not getting this, are you? Skip past the beating-yourself-up part, Amara, and think.”
“I’m not beating myself...well, yes, I am, but that’s because I feel responsible.”
“Did you kill him?”
“You’re joking, right? I’m a doctor, McVey. Psychology doesn’t work on me.”
“Fine. Here’s the reality. You leave town, Willy arrives. He’s pissed off to start with. Then he stops and thinks. And being a pro, sees a golden opportunity to draw you back.”
“By hurting members of my family.”
“Wouldn’t you, in his position?”
“Let me think. Uh—no.”
“Put your mind in his. We’re talking about a killer here.” When she didn’t respond, McVey held his arms out to the sides. “Look, if it’ll help get you past the guilt and make you see reason, you’re welcome to take your best physical shot. All I want in return is a handful of Tylenols, a couple hours of sleep and no argument from you about where you’ll be spending the night. You have two options. Come with me to your grandmother’s place or hang with Jake on a cot in the back room.”
“That’s quite a choice. Seeing as I know all the hidey-holes at Nana’s house and wouldn’t trust Jake not to sell me out for cab fare, I’ll go with the lesser evil and take you. As for the gut punch, I’ll take a rain check.”
“Excellent choices,” McVey returned.
Although it felt like a betrayal of sorts, he deliberately neglected to tell her about the text message Michaels’s captain had sent him less than a minute ago. But it continued to play in his head like a stuck audio disk.
In the captain’s opinion, if one of his most experienced detectives could be taken out as easily as Michaels apparently had been, then it was only a matter of time—likely short—before the fourth person on Jimmy Sparks’s hit list followed him to the grave.
Chapter Six
If you believed local lore, the wind on Hollow Road was an echo of Sarah Bellam’s dying wail. A final protest, Amara supposed, against the unfair hand she believed she’d been dealt.
As a child, Amara had loved hearing stories about Sarah. As an adult—well, suffice it to say the last place she wanted to be was on a twisty, turny, extremely narrow strip of pavement that wound an impossible path to the edge of the north woods, listening to the wind howl like a raging witch.
She glanced out and up as the road forked. The left side made a steep and treacherous climb to the imposing structure that was Bellam Manor. The first time she’d seen it at four years of age, all the Gothic points, tall gables and arrow-slatted windows had struck her as extremely castle-like. Bad castle, not good. This was where Sarah had been born, raised and, most agreed, confined for the final years of her life. The locals of the day had branded her evil, and the description had stuck.
The same description could be applied to Jimmy Sparks. Unfortunately, even in prison, Sparks wielded sufficient power to have people murdered.
The picture of Lieutenant Michaels’s face that swam into Amara’s head caused pain to spike and spread. Had he died because of her, or had Jimmy Sparks wanted him gone in any case? Would she ever know? Would it make a difference if she did?
“So, Red, is it the wind, Michaels’s death or me that’s bothering you?”
McVey’s question shattered the beginnings of a dreadful memory. Amara pressed on a nerve at the sid
e of her neck. “The death’s the worst. But as we get farther and farther from so-called civilization, I am starting to wonder why you’ve taken such an active interest in my welfare.”
A smile grazed his lips. “It’s my job to be interested, isn’t it?”
“It’s not your job to play personal watchdog. You could have fobbed me off to any number of relatives, including Yolanda and her extremely strange brother, Larry.”
“The sleepwalking streaker who spends his winters working at a Colorado ski resort?”
“He’s part of an avalanche control team. Helps bring the snow down before it gets too deep and dangerous. Nana said he wound up in the hospital with frostbite after one of his naked nighttime walks. I guess he knows his way around plastic explosives. Have you met him?”
“Several times. Four of them at night.”
“That’s unfortunate. But it doesn’t answer my earlier question.”
“Yeah, it does. I don’t fob people off. And I’m definitely not a sadist.”
“You’re something, though, aren’t you?” Tucking a leg up, Amara turned to study him. “Something not what or who people think you are.”
His smile widened and caused a shiver of excitement to dance along her spine. “You’re fishing, Red. I’m not biting.”
“You don’t have to. You gave it away when you told me there was only a fifty-fifty chance the shots we heard at Nana’s were fired by someone in Jimmy Sparks’s family. What’s the flip side, McVey? What or who represents the other fifty percent?”
“Could be I have an angry ex.”
“Could also be Yolanda and I will develop a sisterly affection for each other. But back in the real world, what aren’t you telling me about those shots? We heard nine of them, in three groups of three. Is the number significant? Is it connected to the fact that you think my face has been in your head for fifteen years—which, by the way, is exactly how long it’s been since the last time I was in the Hollow.”
“Yeah?” He glanced at her again.
“Fifteen years this June.”
“Huh.”
She sighed. “Please don’t go all dark and mysterious on me.”
He regarded the towering trees through the upper portion of the windshield. “I asked a simple question, Red. Right now I’m just trying to keep my truck on the road.”
“And I’m trying to figure out if I’m riding with a man or someone who was hatched from an alien pod. Call me anal, but informing me I have the same face as some woman in your head isn’t your usual ‘first time we’ve met’ remark. Assuming, of course, this is the first time we’ve met.”
“I did meet a beautiful redhead at the tail end of a wedding reception a few years back. Her features are a bit of a blur at this point, but I remember thinking she was gorgeous. The reception was in Albany. I was the guy playing the air guitar—with a little help from Keith Richards.”
She fought back a laugh. “Don’t do this, McVey. It’s been a very long, very weird night, to say nothing of sad.” A picture of Yolanda popped in. “And irritating.”
He looked at her for a thoughtful moment. “You’re part of a dream, Amara. A nightmare, actually. One I’ve had off and on since I was nineteen.”
“Ah, well, that clears things right up, doesn’t it—seeing as we’re total strangers.” Her expression grew wary. “You’re not a Bellam somewhere in that dark and mysterious past of yours, are you?”
“If I am, it’ll be a hard thing to prove. I’m what’s called a foundling. Or close enough that the term applies.”
Sympathy softened everything inside her. “I’m so sorry, McVey. Were you adopted?”
“In a sense.”
“You know that answer’s a form of avoidance, don’t you?”
“I know it’s the best you’re going to get right now. As for me seeing your face, I dream what I dream, and believe me when I tell you, I don’t enjoy the experience.”
“Well, that’s me flattered.”
“You’re a hag in the opening act.”
“Better and better.”
“You come into my head chanting over a fire in a room filled with smoke. Next thing I know, you’ve sent a man God knows where and you’re telling me you intend to take my memories away. And, hell, maybe you pulled it off, because the dream ends there every damn time I have it.”
A pinecone bounced off the windshield, catching Amara’s gaze. “I’m sliding very quickly across the line to freaked, McVey. I’m not responsible for your dreams. I don’t chant over fires or zap memories from men’s minds or—”
“I’m not a man in the dream.”
“Boys’ minds, then... Whoa!” She braced herself with both hands as a blast of wind punched the truck like a giant fist.
McVey glanced skyward. “If there’s anything in your background that can affect the elements, Red, now would be a really good time to call on it.”
“I’ve never actually... Oh, my God, is that the yellow-ribbon tree?” Shocked, she stared at the huge, uprooted oak that currently lay between her grandmother’s house and one of the outbuildings. “It was a hundred and twenty years old.”
“It missed the roof by less than five feet.” McVey pulled into the driveway. “It also flattened the old well.” With his eyes on the exposed roots, he reached for his beeping cell. “What is it, Jake?”
Amara slid from the truck while he talked to his deputy. Some of the branches had scraped the outer wall of the house. Thank God her grandmother hadn’t been inside at the time.
Still on his phone, McVey headed over to survey the damage. Amara left him to it and turned for her rental car. She needed at least one of her suitcases and she wanted her medical kit. It might not be smart for her to touch McVey given their earlier wow of a kiss, but as she’d put the scratches on his cheek, she felt she owed it to him to clean them up.
Score settled. Or as settled as it could be with lust doing its best to tie her in knots.
She scooped the hair from her face as she approached the vehicle. “Dozens of so-called witches in Raven’s Hollow, yet no one’s moved this stupid wind along.” She shot a vexed look at the night sky. “I’m sure Bangor could use a good airing out.”
The wind shrieked in response and almost caused her to stumble into the driver’s-side door.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Releasing her hair, Amara reached for the handle. And froze with her fingers mere inches away.
Her throat dried up. “Uh, McVey?”
Of course he couldn’t hear her. She could barely hear herself. But she could see. And what she saw was a man. He was slumped over the steering wheel of her rental car. Long blond hair obscured his features, but he wore a sleeveless shirt and, most significant to Amara, he wasn’t moving.
“McVey?” She inched closer. Was he breathing?
“McVey!” she called again. When the man failed to stir, she took a bolstering breath and opened the door.
His head came up lightning-fast. His eyes glinted. “Hello, gorgeous.” He offered a freakish smile, whipped his right hand around and gave his wrist a double flick. Amara saw the gleam of a knife a split second before she turned and bolted.
Thoughts scrambled in her head. Had there been blood on the blade? On him? Pretty sure she’d seen red streaks on his arms.
Trees and bushes rushed past in a blur. There it was, the lit porch of her grandmother’s house, less than fifty feet away. “McVey!”
Suddenly the porch light winked out. Everything around her went dark. Amara stepped on a fallen branch and had to slow down. “Ouch! McVey!”
A man’s hands descended on her shoulders from behind.
She didn’t think or hesitate. She simply spun, knocked the hands away and brought her knee up hard.
She heard a cursed reaction.
“Are you insane? Amara, it’s me.”
McVey swung her around so they were back to front, holding her in place with a forearm pressed lightly across her throat. “Have you los
t your mind?”
She pointed straight ahead. “Man. In my car. With a knife.” Her fingernails sank into his wrist. “There might be blood.”
McVey released her. “Stay here.”
“What? No. Now who’s insane? He could be anywhere.”
“Fine. Stay behind me.”
She did. Unfortunately she was so close behind that she collided with his back when he halted.
He said nothing, just passed her a penlight from his pocket and pressed a hand to her stomach to keep her in place. He had his gun out, but as it was aimed at the ground, she understood even before she angled the light at the car.
The man inside had vanished.
* * *
“I AM SO done with this night,” Amara declared.
McVey followed her around the fallen tree and across the yard to the porch. Thankfully, the generator had kicked in.
“I want to believe the guy I saw was your resident nutball taking refuge from the falling sky, but the Crocodile Dundee knife suggests...well...not.” He saw her shoulders hunch. “Do you have any theories?”
“None worth mentioning.”
“Figures.” When she turned for a last look behind them, he felt her eyes on his cheek. “And then there’s this.” A sigh escaped. “They’re not deep scratches, but I bet they sting.” Lifting a hand, she used her index finger to draw a circle. “They should heal fast enough.”
“They always do.”
Smiling a little, she drew another circle. “Meaning you’ve been scratched before?”
“I worked in vice in Chicago. Cops get scratched, punched, kicked and shot at on a regular basis.”
“I guess the Hollow’s a cakewalk by comparison.”
“Depends on your definition of the term. I’ve been scratched, kicked and shot at within the space of five hours tonight.”
“Pretty sure Samson was thinking about punching you at the Red Eye.” Her eyes danced. “You’re four for four, Chief, and the Night of the Raven hasn’t even begun.”
“Maybe I should have gone to Florida with Tyler and Molly.”
“You still can.”
He dropped his gaze briefly to her mouth. “No, I really can’t.” Wouldn’t if he could. And, God help him, he had no desire to explore that scary-as-hell thought.
