by Laura Childs
“No, Toni. I think somebody’s really back there,” Suzanne whispered. Her spider sense was kicking in big-time.
“Another kid in a stupid costume?”
“I don’t know. I . . .” A dark shadow wavered just at the edge of Suzanne’s vision, then slowly lumbered into view. Gradually, as if forming pixel by pixel, the shadow took shape. It was a man wearing a heavy, dark padded jacket. With something—she wasn’t sure what—covering his face. He stood motionless as a statue, legs spread apart, head cocked to one side, as if listening. Or waiting for them to make a move.
Toni saw him, too. “Hello?” Toni said, her voice a dry whis- per.
The man just stood there, his breath coming in long, hollow gasps.
“If you’re lost,” Suzanne said, in what she hoped was an authoritative voice, “the trail is right behind you.”
Her words had no effect. The man continued to hover there.
“What’s that thing on his face?” Toni asked under her breath.
“Don’t know,” Suzanne said.
Toni bent forward. “It looks like a . . .”
The man chose that moment to make his move. He stretched both arms out in front of him, let out an ungodly roar, and charged at them.
“Gas mask!” Toni finished as she and Suzanne took off running.
They sprinted down the narrow trail, dodging roots, jumping over fallen logs. Still the strange man careened after them, his breathing making a strange ptu ptu sound inside his rubber mask.
“Faster!” Suzanne cried. She put the flat of her hand against Toni’s back and gave her a hard shove, willing her to pick up the pace. Her shoulder bag slipped off her shoulder and banged against her hip, branches whipped at her cheeks. Still she kept going.
“Who is that guy?” Toni cried as she pounded down the trail.
“No idea,” Suzanne gasped. “But I can feel his hot doggy breath on the back of my neck.”
“Ho boy!”
Suzanne’s mind was in a turmoil. Was this some rogue performer from the Haunted Trail who’d decided to have some sick fun with them? Maybe. But this character looked to her like a full-grown man. A man who wasn’t just out to scare them, but intended to do serious harm!
“Watch out,” Toni called back over her shoulder. “It’s muddy here.”
Suzanne felt ooze suck at her shoes and then her right foot slipped out from under her. She crashed down onto one knee, tried to ignore the flash of stabbing pain, and stumbled on. Behind her, she heard the man getting all bogged down in the mud, too. Should she risk a glance? She couldn’t help herself. She looked back, saw the dark man groping crazily for tree branches on either side of him as he slipped and slid through the mud. The gas mask still covered his face like some kind of reptilian Darth Vader. A hose swung down from the bottom of his mask like rubberized turkey wattle.
“I think we’re almost there,” Toni choked out. “Oh jeez, watch it!” Then she was clambering up and over another fallen log, Suzanne right behind her.
Ten seconds later, they popped out into the field where all the cars were parked.
“Keep going,” Suzanne cried. “Don’t let up until we get to the car.” She fumbled for her electronic key fob, ready to punch it and unlock her doors.
“Hurry,” Toni called as she slipped between a pickup truck and an SUV. “Oh thank God, there it is, there’s your car!”
They tumbled into the car, punched down the door locks, and sat there, breathing like a pair of overwrought teakettles.
“I ask you,” Toni said when she finally caught her breath. “Was that seriously part of the Haunted Forest?”
Suzanne shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“That jackhole meant to hurt us,” Toni said, slamming a fist down hard against the dashboard. “He was coming after us. Why would he do that?”
Suzanne folded her arms across her chest, trying to quiet herself as she gulped for air. “Why do you think, Toni? Why do you think?”
“Is it because of the murder? Because you’ve been investigating?”
“Has to be,” Suzanne said.
“But you don’t know anything! You haven’t figured out who Mike’s killer is.”
Suzanne stared out into the darkness with anxious, searching eyes. “I guess whoever chased us didn’t take that into account.”
* * *
SUZANNE dropped Toni off at her apartment, admonishing her to lock the doors and turn on every light. Then she drove home.
Walking into her own house, Suzanne felt not one bit of apprehension. Probably because Baxter and Scruff, her trusty guard dogs, were there to greet her.
“Hey, guys.” Suzanne got down on her hands and knees, accepted a few slobbery kisses (that was the love pact you made with dogs, after all), shook their outstretched paws, and scratched behind floppy ears.
The dogs followed her as she turned on lights all the way from the front hallway, through the living room, and into the kitchen.
“Want to go outside, pups?”
They all went outside, Baxter and Scruff immediately running for Suzanne’s herb garden to sniff around. A small bunny—one Suzanne had secretly named Hazel—often hung out there. But there were no itinerant bunnies roaming around tonight. Just a silent backyard where cool winds whipped up leaves and tossed clouds across the sky.
Back inside with the dogs, Suzanne took a Motrin, since her knee was throbbing, and turned out all the lights except for the small light over the stove. She opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of milk, and poured herself half a glass.
She knew she was going to have to tell Sheriff Doogie about tonight and dreaded doing so. He’d scold and tell her to mind her own business. Something she really wasn’t good at doing.
As Suzanne stood in the dark kitchen, gazing out into the backyard, she could hardly believe what a bizarre day it had been. Junior in the hospital, Noah hauled away in handcuffs, she and Toni getting chased by who-knows-what at the Haunted Forest.
Time for this day to be over. Time to pack it in.
Suzanne drained the last of her milk, turned toward the window, and blinked.
Had she just seen something moving outside?
No, it couldn’t have been. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. Weren’t they?
She dropped to her knees in the dimly lit kitchen and rested her chin on the window ledge. Watching. Waiting.
It took a few minutes to register, but there it was again. A shadow moving against the trees.
Suzanne clenched her jaw tightly. What was that? She waited some more, her heart doing little flip-flops inside her chest, her eyes feeling hot and dry from straining to see.
Maybe a critter come to call?
No. Just beyond a faint yellow crescent cast by a streetlamp, she could make out the shape of a man peering out from behind her crab apple tree.
Holy shit, was it the gas mask guy? The same guy who’d chased her and Toni like some hideous bogeyman from a childhood dream? Who’d made her heart race so wildly when she’d felt his breath on the back of her neck?
He followed her here to do what?
Spy on her? Break into her house? Do physical harm?
What to do? Call Sam? Dial 911?
Before Suzanne’s jangled mind could make a decision, she saw the man move again. Right there. In her backyard. On her very own property.
Anger suddenly ripped through her like a stab of lightning. Someone had come to threaten her at home? How dare they!
Suzanne rose to her feet even as her hand crept across the counter and grabbed the biggest, sharpest butcher knife from the wooden block. It was a boning knife, ten inches of tempered steel, flexible enough for slicing right between bone and gristle. And for defending the home front.
But Suzanne was no foolhardy one-woman crusader. She was well aware she had oth
er fine weapons in her arsenal. Actually, two weapons.
“Baxter, Scruff,” she hissed.
Toenails clicked against kitchen tile as they came to see what their dear doggy mom wanted.
“Guard,” Suzanne said.
The dogs wagged their tails. They knew the word “guard,” knew that it tasked them with safeguarding the house. Which also involved thwarting unwanted intruders.
“Guard outside,” she said.
Suzanne grasped the door handle, turned it, and kicked open the screen door, all in one fluid motion. Baxter and Scruff exploded out the door like circus performers shot from a cannon. Two furry bodies bounded across the yard, seeking, scenting, and quickly closing in on the man who was now cowering behind an arborvitae bush.
“Get him!” Suzanne screamed as Baxter rushed toward the man, teeth bared, tail down, hackles raised.
Then the man was kicking and whirling his way across the yard as the two dogs darted in to nip his legs, his hands, his butt. The dogs double-teamed him as he ran, attacking at will and yapping their heads off. The man—whoever he was—was scared witless, stumbling badly and falling down.
Suzanne was practically gleeful. The awful holes that Baxter had dug had tripped up her intruder!
Now the man was sprawled on the ground, kicking and struggling, making angry grunts, as Baxter dashed in to harass him, backpedaled away, and then rushed in again with snapping jaws.
“Get him!” Suzanne yelled again. But the man, kicking furiously, wiggled out of Baxter’s reach. He clambered to his feet and, with a burst of speed, sprinted for the back gate. Zigzagging like crazy, he slipped through the gate and pulled it shut behind him with a loud thwack. In a split second, Baxter and Scruff were on their hind legs, paws draped over the top of the gate, barking furiously.
Suzanne walked out, looked around the yard, and went over to the gate.
“Good dogs,” she praised. “Good guard dogs.” The dogs jumped down and grinned at her. “You’ve earned your cookies tonight.”
* * *
WHILE the dogs happily munched dog cookies, Suzanne called Doogie at home.
When he answered, she said, “Guess what?”
“Who is this?” he barked.
“It’s Suzanne. I’ll have you know that Toni and I got chased by a crazy man through the woods tonight. And then that same guy—at least I think it was the same guy—was just prowling in my backyard.”
“Are you serious?” Doogie’s voice rose in a squawk.
“I wouldn’t interrupt your Sunday-night football if I wasn’t serious.”
“You want me to send somebody over there?” Doogie asked, as his To Protect and to Serve instincts kicked in. “Are you okay?”
“No. But I’m mad as hell,” Suzanne said. “Somebody doesn’t want me investigating. Somebody thinks I’m getting way too close to the truth.”
“Huh,” Doogie said. And this time he sounded almost thoughtful. “Maybe you are.”
“I never thought I’d hear that coming from you.” Suzanne hesitated for a few moments and then said, “We need to figure this out before somebody else gets killed.”
“I hear you.”
“Go over all the suspects again.”
“Interviews, background checks, the whole ball of wax,” Doogie said. “I’ll get on it. And dang it, Suzanne, I am gonna send a car over to sit outside your house tonight. Just in case.”
“Thank you.”
“Your tax dollars at work,” Doogie said.
“Noah didn’t kill Mike Mullen, you know.”
“I know the boy’s innocent,” Doogie said. “That’s why I let him go home.”
“You did, really?” The wire that had been stretched tightly around Suzanne’s heart suddenly loosened a little. “Why?”
“Aww . . . I’m not a complete jerk, Suzanne. Besides, I saw those horses. I saw how skinny they were. That kid was just trying to help.”
Tears suddenly oozed from Suzanne’s eyes. “Thank you, Doogie. God bless you.”
“Just doin’ my job.” There was a pause and then Doogie said, “You know John Casey?”
“The principal at the senior high?”
“Junior high, too,” Doogie said. “Yeah, I called him at home and asked him about Noah.”
“What’d he say?”
“That when the kids took the MMPI test, Noah scored in the upper percentile. He may have a touch of Asperger’s, which can get in the way of his social skills, but the kid’s plenty smart.”
“Well,” Suzanne said. “I think we already knew that.”
CHAPTER 28
THE big Halloween party wasn’t the only thing on everyone’s mind this Monday morning. Toni had given Petra a blow-by-blow description of their chase through the Haunted Forest, and then Suzanne popped into the kitchen and scared the pants off both of them by relating her backyard intruder story.
“This is terrifying,” Petra said from her post at the stove. She was dressed in a green Gumby costume, cooking up sausages and red peppers on the grill, keeping a watchful eye on a batch of eggs in purgatory, her special poached eggs in red sauce. “I hope you had the sense to alert Sheriff Doogie.”
“I called him right away,” Suzanne said. “Roused him out of his cozy armchair.”
“What was his take on the gas mask guy?” Toni asked.
“Doogie says he’s going to go over all the suspects again. Bring people in for questioning, get a lot tougher.”
“If last night’s story gets out,” Petra said, “people are going to be quaking in their boots. It means a stone-cold killer is still roaming free and . . .” She pointed a wooden spoon directly at Suzanne. “And it sounds like he was trying to tie up loose ends.”
“Gulp,” Suzanne said.
“You’ve got to stand down,” Toni said to Suzanne. “Stay safe, let Doogie and his deputies do their job.”
“Except they haven’t done their job yet,” Suzanne said. “It’s been . . . what? Almost six days with not a whole lot of progress?”
“That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to stick your neck out,” Petra said.
“We love you, Suzanne, you’re our fearless leader,” Toni said. “That’s why I think you should listen to Petra.”
“I honestly don’t know why she would,” Petra muttered. “She never has before.” She leaned forward and glanced through the pass-through. “Now, if we can move on, it looks like some folks in the café would like to put in their orders.” She did a double-take. “Holy buckets, there’s a fairy princess and a goblin sitting at table four.”
* * *
SUZANNE and Toni breezed into the café to wait on customers. Suzanne looking witchy in her long dress and pointed hat, Toni gussied up in a leopard-print leotard and jeans. About half a dozen customers were wearing costumes as well.
“Looks like the customers at Millennium Bank will be encountering a few interesting characters today,” Suzanne said.
Janet Riesgraff, the fairy princess, smiled and said, “We’re going all out at the bank today. Everyone’s wearing costumes, we’re doling out donuts and cider, and inviting the kids to stop by for trick-or-treating.”
“Banker’s hours trick-or-treating?” Toni asked.
Marlys, the goblin, ducked her head. “Well . . . sure. You don’t think Don Morley, our manager, is going to stay one minute after four, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Suzanne said. Morley had once turned her late husband, Walter, down for a loan and she knew him to be a stickler. A prickly stickler at that.
Suzanne poured coffee, brewed tea, and served up caramel rolls, rashers of bacon, and cheese omelets. When she wasn’t hustling between the kitchen and the café, she slid behind the brass cash register whenever a customer wanted to pay his bill. It felt to her like the morning was flying by. So much so that she’d ba
rely given more thought to last night’s craziness.
Until Byron Wolf sauntered in.
Toni immediately greeted Wolf with a puckish smile and led him to a small table by the window. At which point Suzanne came by with a fresh pot of coffee, ready to take over.
“I got this,” Toni said.
“That’s okay,” Suzanne said. “I’ll take care of Mr. Wolf. I’m happy to, in fact.”
A grin creased Wolf’s handsome face. “Two gorgeous women fighting over me? What more could a guy ask for?”
How about rolling up your pants leg? Suzanne thought. So I can see if my dog took a chunk out of your stupid leg.
Instead, Suzanne poured Wolf a cup of coffee and said, “Our breakfast special today is eggs in purgatory, which is basically eggs in hot sauce.”
“Sounds kind of wicked,” Wolf said. “I’ll take it.”
Suzanne hurried off to put the order in and when she turned around, saw that another interesting customer had drifted in.
Julian Elder stood in the doorway, a scowl on his long, angular face. When he caught sight of Suzanne, he curled a lip and headed for a seat at the counter.
What to do? Suzanne wondered. But she knew there was only one thing she could do. Deal with Elder head-on.
“Mr. Elder,” Suzanne said. She stood behind the marble counter, facing him directly. “May I offer you a cup of coffee?”
Elder gave a barely discernible nod.
Suzanne placed a ceramic cup on a paper napkin and poured his coffee. His hard eyes followed her every move.
“I think you and I have something to talk about,” she said.
“You’ve been sticking your nose in my business,” Elder said. But he didn’t sound angry. In fact, he was actually quite conversational.
Suzanne drew a deep breath. “When a beloved member of our community is murdered, when horses are mistreated, when a young boy is traumatized, then it becomes all of our business.”
Elder took a sip of coffee as he stared across the top of his cup. “Seems to me you’re making some nasty accusations there, lady.”
