by Jenna Ryan
“He does that, he’ll be dead right along with us.” Lazarus searched his pockets. “I need a pink pill. R.J. knows where all my medications are. Where is he?”
“I sent him up to the roof.” McVey watched the fog. “He won’t see anything coming, but he might hear it.”
“He’s a good man.” Lazarus patted his inside pockets. “Ex-army. I was sure I brought them with me.”
“You take two kinds of heart medication?” Amara asked.
“I take antacid, the pink kind, when I eat shellfish for dinner.” His shoulders slumped. “I was fond of Hannah in my way. She amused me with tales about Hezekiah and his transformation when I was young. When I got a little older, she taught me to play chess on the raven board her grandfather carved by hand and passed down to her.”
Amara rubbed his arm. “I’ll check the medicine cabinet for that antacid.”
Unable to see through the fog, McVey followed her to the bathroom.
“Who lives in a motel?” She yanked the mirrored cabinet door over the sink open and almost off its hinges. “Before you answer, McVey, I know his home electrical panel shorted out.”
He rested a shoulder on the door frame. “Good electricians are hard to find, Red.”
The quick play of emotions on her face fascinated him. It also made him hungry for another taste of her. He bridged the gap between them in half a stride, cupped the back of her head and brought her gaze up to his. “This isn’t your fault, Amara.”
A hollow smile grazed her lips. “Of course it is. I ran and hid, or tried to, in a place where people I love live. It wouldn’t have been much of a brain strain for Jimmy Sparks to have considered the possibly and send his—whatever Willy is—to Maine to check it out. And wonder of wonders, here I am.”
“That’s Yolanda talking. And Jake. Yes, word does spread quickly in small towns, but from what I’ve heard about your day, no one who came to the clinic was worried that he or she would be taking a bullet on your behalf. Story I got was that you were swamped.”
“That’s just people in need weighing risk against discomfort and deciding that a few minutes of the first are worth a lessening of the second.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Are you sure nobody was killed tonight?”
“Firefighters went through the wreckage, Amara. There were no bodies. You and the paramedics patched up eleven people who were cut by flying glass and three who suffered minor burns. No one showed any serious signs of smoke inhalation, and I’ve seen more scrapes and bruises after a weekend bar brawl than I did tonight.”
“Hmm.” Taking his hand from her face, she hunted through the medicine cabinet for antacid tablets. She found them behind two large vials and an old-fashioned shaving brush. Staring at the bristles, she said, “Why would Willy blow up an entire bar, McVey? It’s out of character—if he has a character.” A breath shuddered out. “I want him to stop.”
“I know.”
“Do you think that’s the point? He’s pissed off because he wants the job done and it’s not getting done?”
“Maybe.” McVey prevented her from leaving by trapping her arms as she tried to pass him. “You’re forgetting something, Amara.”
“Pretty sure I’m not.”
“Hannah.” He said it simply and had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes snap to his. “Willy Sparks didn’t kill her. The time frame’s off and, like the bar fire tonight, so’s the M.O.”
She let her forehead fall against his shoulder. He thought she probably wanted to bang it there. “I’m so confused. It’s as if there’s this huge disco ball in my brain where thoughts, ideas, facts, you name it, bounce off the mirrored pieces into the dark. How am I supposed to collect and process all of them?”
He kissed her hair. “Collecting and processing is my job, Red. You treat cuts and burns and make the world a prettier place.”
“Is that a crack about the surgeries I perform?”
“Nope, it’s an observation.” He tipped her head up and kissed her just long enough to make himself hard. Not the brightest thing he could have done. Stepping back, he kissed her one more time and said, “It’s way past late. I have a lot of rubble to dig through in the morning and a mountain to scale in the afternoon.”
She regarded him through her lashes. “What aren’t you telling me, McVey?”
“I can’t answer that until I find out what Westor didn’t tell me. I’m not holding my breath it’ll be worth anything, but you never know. In the meantime, you know the drill.”
A reluctant smile appeared. “Bet you wish you’d stayed in New York.”
“Trust me, Amara. An unarmed midnight stroll through Central Park would be a piece of cake compared to this mess.” He nodded at the bottle in her hand. “Take those to your uncle. It’s time we headed back to your grandmother’s place. Instincts I’ve learned to trust, but don’t necessarily like, are telling me tomorrow could be a day worse than anything either of your ancestral families ever faced.”
* * *
IF HIS INSTINCTS were even half-correct, Amara wanted no part of the coming day. Not the postdawn tromp around the blackened shell of her uncle’s bar, and definitely not the trip up Bellam Mountain to fetch Hannah Blume’s body down to Raven’s Cove.
It relieved her that the morning promised good weather. Somewhere between the time they’d left the motel and that lovely moment when she’d toppled facedown onto her bed, the fog had rolled out to sea. It said a great deal about her state of exhaustion, Amara reflected, that she hadn’t performed her habitual when-in-Grandma’s-house spider check before she fell.
Not trusting the sunny weather to hold, she dressed in snug jeans, comfortable hiking boots, a white tank and a scarlet jacket. Birds and deer got shot in the woods. She didn’t intend to.
McVey wisely suggested they buy their morning coffee at a nearby filling station en route to the Hollow. Until they’d taken their first sips, neither of them spoke beyond a grunt. Then reality slithered in.
Pulling herself onto the running board, Amara regarded McVey over the top of his truck. “Am I right in thinking that you’re thinking the same person who killed Hannah might have planted those explosives at the Red Eye?”
McVey set his coffee cup on the roof to shrug out of his jacket. “I’m thinking lots of things, Red. That’s one of them.”
“Score one for the noncop.” She waited a beat before asking, “Why?”
“Because, as you said last night, murdering a room full of innocent people isn’t Jimmy Sparks’s M.O. He’s all about family. His own first and foremost, but word has it, he’s very discriminating when it comes to murder. Choose a target, hit a target. Deviate when necessary, but order Willy to blow up a bar filled with people who might or might not be related to you? Not his style.”
“Plus, Willy couldn’t have been sure I’d be there, and several of those devices must have been planted either before or shortly after the Red Eye opened. Bringing me full circle to totally confused.”
“You’re not alone.” He flipped his sunglasses down, climbed in. “Let’s go find some answers.”
Amara was fastening her seat belt when she heard the distant report of a rifle.
Hunters was her first thought. But two more blasts followed by a pause, followed by three more blasts and another pause had prickly knots forming in her stomach.
Before the final three shots sounded, McVey had the truck started and the front end pointed back toward her grandmother’s house.
When he braked at the edge of the woods, Amara turned to face him. “Don’t even think about telling me to stay here.”
“Not planning to. I’m guessing those shots came from the tortured oaks. Gun.” He pointed to the glove box, then climbed out and, with his Glock shoved in his waistband, removed an AK-47 rifle from the locked box in the back.
Fear skated along Amara’s spine. “Okay, so...not taking any chances.”
“Not anymore. Stay right on my heels, Amara. Anyone comes up behind you, spin and shoot. Can you do that
?”
“It goes against the Hippocratic oath, but yes, I can.”
“You’ve got balls, Red.” He used the rifle to gesture. “This way.”
They left the main trail almost immediately and forged their own faster path through the trees. At one point, Amara found herself knee-deep in brush on terrain only a goat would deem traversable.
The shots were much closer when they repeated—less than fifty yards to her left.
The tortured oaks, the personification of agonized death, came into sight behind a clump of pines. Nothing and no one stirred in the small clearing. Stray beams of sunlight sliced through the pointed rocks like crossed swords.
McVey went down on one knee. Amara knelt beside him and strained to hear what she couldn’t see.
“There’s a lot of birdsong,” she noted. “Animals scrabbling. Insects chirping.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and held it.
She caught a rustle and under it, a barely audible moan. “There.” Opening her eyes, she touched McVey’s arm. “In the scrub behind the second oak.”
He didn’t question, merely reached for his Glock and used it to draw an invisible arc from their current position to the tree.
Birds tweeting for mates masked their footsteps. Amara willed her heart to stop its frantic thudding. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help the situation.
The scrub shifted. She heard a cough. Gurgly, she thought, and kept her gun angled skyward.
“I don’t think he’s baiting us,” she whispered. “He has fluid in his lungs.”
With the tip of his rifle, McVey parted the bushes. She spied a gleam of metal before he blocked her from sight with his body.
“Drop it, Westor,” he warned, “or you’re a dead man.”
Propped against the base of a chestnut tree, Westor let out a wet laugh and lowered his arms.
“Not a problem, old friend.” Blood glistened on his teeth when he smiled. “I’m a dead man already.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I need my medical bag.”
But even as Amara started to stand, McVey slung the rifle over his shoulder and prevented her from leaving. “It’s too late.”
Helplessness clawed at her. “There must be something we can do.” She tore at the bloody front of Westor’s shirt—and knew the moment she saw the wound that McVey was right. The hole, less than an inch below the man’s heart, oozed blood every time he coughed.
McVey stopped his head from lolling. “Talk to me, Westor.” A firm shake kept him from slipping under. “Come on, old friend, don’t let whoever did this to you get away with it.”
Westor’s eyes rolled. “The alley...it was... Oh, man. Hurts like a bitch. Hot knives, you know?” He clutched McVey’s arm. “Bury me with mine,” he said clearly.
“Try not to move,” Amara told him gently. He slumped back, smiled again and set his half-open eyes on her face. “Never be a witness...” The words slurred and overlapped. He trailed off, still smiling.
“He’s dead.” Amara double-checked the pulse in his neck. “I’m sorry, McVey.”
“I imagine he is, too.”
“He mentioned an alley. If he meant the alley behind or beside the Red Eye, it would have taken him hours to get here from there. I mean, he obviously did it, but...”
“Yeah. But.” McVey closed Westor’s eyes. “Do you have a signal on your cell?”
She checked. “No.”
“We’ll have to leave him. I’ll contact the sheriff from my truck, tell him to bring extra men. The Hardens are on duty in the Hollow today. Dean, my junior deputy, can handle the Cove.”
Amara stood. “Do you think this is Willy Sparks’s or our mysterious other killer’s doing?”
“I’m leaning toward the mysterious other myself.”
“He’s starting to terrify me more than Willy.” She stared down at Westor. “How is that possible?”
McVey set a hand on the back of her neck and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “There’s a reason for everything that’s happening, Amara. It’s a matter of connecting one dot to the next and seeing if we’re looking at a single large picture or two smaller ones.”
Amara said nothing, just watched in thoughtful silence as a raven swooped down to perch on a broken branch.
In Raven’s Cove, three raven’s feathers placed on a door meant the person to whom the door belonged was destined to die. She didn’t know what a staring raven might mean. She only knew this was the second time she’d noticed one watching her.
And her Blume blood recognized the potential significance of this one doing so from a point directly above a dead man’s head.
* * *
LESS THAN AN hour later McVey was wading through the scorched debris that had once been the Red Eye. Little remained of the bar except the walls, and the chief inspector had declared them to be highly unstable. No one would be allowed near the burn area.
Businesses on both sides had suffered major smoke and water damage. That meant there’d be no barber service or Chinese takeout in the foreseeable future.
After a long chat with the inspector, McVey posted guards in shifts and went in search of Amara at the clinic. She’d gone there when seven-months-pregnant Megan Bellam—undoubtedly a cousin—had asked her for more detailed medical advice than the midwife could supply.
Amara was drying her hands on a towel as he came in. “If you’ve got a crappy mood going, McVey, listen to a baby’s heartbeat and all’s well with the world. Megan’s having a girl.”
“Nola’s line or Sarah’s?”
“Nola’s. In an ode to Edgar Allan, plus the fact that her daddy’s got Blume blood, they’re going to call her Lenore.”
“Excellent news on all fronts. Now, at the risk of bursting your baby-heartbeat bubble, it’s time for us to gear up and head out.”
“From death to life to death.” She hoisted her medical bag onto her shoulder. “Will we be spending the night on Bellam Mountain?”
He let her precede him through the clinic door and into the brilliant May sunshine. “Depends how the investigation unfolds. If it’s down to you and me, we can stay at Hannah’s. There are some fairly cool rooms in her wing.”
“I’m told she was a fairly cool woman. Sort of Katherine Hepburn-esque in her prime.”
“More Mother Goose-ish in her later years.”
“I think the Mother Goose comparison came from the fact that she made up kiddie rhymes about the local legends. I only remember one—
‘Red eyes, black feathers. Once a man,
But now a raven. Evil can
No longer feed on wretched soul,
And yet shall ever take its toll
On Hezekiah Blume. And all
Who share his blood, will share his fall....’”
“I wouldn’t call that especially kiddie-like.”
“It is if you live in the Cove or the Hollow. Did you talk to the sheriff about Westor?”
McVey nodded. “He’s sending some people to retrieve the body. We didn’t kill him, Amara. Remember that. And whoever did will pay.” When his phone beeped, he reached into his jeans, pulled it out and hit Speaker. “What is it, Jake?”
“It’s a pair of frigging feet’s what it is. I was moving a nosy Parker along and he tripped. Fell on some trash bags. He started flailing because they smelled bad. When he got clear’s when I saw the feet.” Jake’s voice tightened. “They ain’t moving, McVey, and they ain’t the right color, either. I’m thinking we got us a corpse.”
* * *
SHE’D BEEN UP since 6:00 a.m., Amara reflected. Barely four hours. And already two people were dead.
She spotted Jake squatting in a sea of green trash bags and carefully made her way with McVey into the side alley.
“Report, Deputy,” McVey said as they got closer.
Her cousin looked up. “She’s dead.”
Amara skirted him, hoping for a clearer view.
“Her face is familiar.” Jake screwed his own up. “I just can’t pl
ace it.”
“Mina.” Amara knelt beside the body. “That’s her name. Mina Shell. She was in the pharmacy the day Westor grabbed me. He grabbed her, too....” She bent closer. “What’s that in her hand?”
McVey shifted the green bag that partially covered the woman’s right arm. “A rag stuffed in a bottle. It’s a Molotov cocktail. The one that started the fire was tossed through the window at the street end of the alley.”
Puffing hard, the sheriff, a short, potbellied man, joined them. “Is this the firebomber, then?”
Because she was closest, Amara sniffed the rag. Over the odor of rotting trash, she caught the distinct smell of gasoline. “I am so lost.” She sighed. “Mina said she came here for the Night of the Raven, but what she really intended to do was blow up the Red Eye? Why?”
“Gonna have to leave that one for now, Red.” McVey moved more of the bags. “She’s wearing a watch on her right wrist. And her left thumbnail’s shorter than the right, possibly for texting purposes. She could be left-handed.”
“What difference does that make?” Jake frowned when McVey didn’t answer. “Does it make a difference?”
Amara sat back. “She’s holding the bottle in her right hand, Jake. If she planned to throw it, shouldn’t it be in her left?”
“You saying it was put there after she was dead?” Jake’s frown deepened. “By who?”
“Whoever firebombed the Red Eye.” McVey shrugged. “Theoretically.”
Amara thought back to the pharmacy. “I think—I’m not sure, but I think—Mina reached for the lipstick with her left hand. Having said that, of course, she might have been holding the bomb in one hand with the intention of switching it to and throwing it with the other.”
McVey ran his gaze over the body. “I only see one entry wound. One shot, middle of her throat. Someone knows how to kill quickly and efficiently.”
“Someone like Willy Sparks.” Amara assumed. She rubbed a sudden chill from her arms. “Westor said, ‘Never be a witness.’ He must have seen this happen, or certainly something that happened here last night.”
Jake slashed a hand in front of him. “Wait a minute. Are we saying this woman did or didn’t throw the first Molotov cocktail through the window?”
