by Jenna Ryan
When he stretched out for the gun, she managed to buck him sideways and get an elbow up into his jaw. The impact knocked him back far enough for her to free a foot. Unable to kick him in the crotch, she brought her heel down on his calf and at the same time sank her teeth into his wrist.
Swearing, he snatched his arm away and squared up for a punch. His knuckles clipped her cheekbone, but when he groped for the gun again, she worked her knee loose and shoved it between his legs.
That he didn’t crumple had ripples of fresh fear racing along her nerve ends. She didn’t know if she tasted blood or only imagined it. Whatever the case, the gun remained in her possession, and that was key.
She used her heel again, but this time he slammed a forearm across her windpipe and pressed until her vision went spotty. She was endeavoring to bite his hand when suddenly his weight and the spots were gone, and she was skidding downhill.
“What the...?” Startled, with her lungs screaming for air, she dug in and scrambled to her knees. By the time she whipped the gun into position, however, all she saw was her captor and Eli disappearing into the underbrush below.
Pushing the hair from her face, Sadie tracked their movements. It was easy enough to do. Fists slammed repeatedly into bone and flesh, and the growls were growing feral.
She could help, she thought, and found a rock. Curling her fingers around it, she slid awkwardly down the slope.
Maybe Eli could take the guy—probably could, in fact—but his opponent was big, strong and likely hadn’t been grazed by two bullets. So...
Using her senses, she pushed through the bushes. When she spotted them, she didn’t aim—no time for that—merely trusted her instincts and brought the rock down hard on the man’s neck. A second later, Eli kicked him up against a tree. Sadie saw part of a beard, heard a whoosh of breath and watched the man slide bonelessly into the mud.
Regaining his feet, Eli took a single unsteady step. He wiped at a trickle of blood on his mouth as he angled his gun down. “Twitch a muscle, and you’ll be leaving these woods in a box. Did he hurt you?” he asked Sadie in the same breath.
“No more than I hurt him.” Curious, she eased forward and gave the black hood a tug.
Stringy gray-brown hair, no longer confined, lay in rats’ tails across a pair of sallow cheeks. His eyes remained shut while his mouth opened and closed like a woozy codfish’s.
She straightened with a sigh. “Cal Kilgore, two decades later. Now I remember the face.”
“Who are you?” he slurred from the ground. “And what’re you doing on my land?”
She would have answered, but it seemed he wasn’t as woozy as he looked. A leg snaked out in Eli’s direction.
“I’ve met smarter,” she murmured, and wisely backed off.
A few seconds later, with Cal spread-eagled in a mound of lichens, his eyes wheeling from a punch to the face, she smiled at Eli, who stood shaking out a fist. “Impressive, Lieutenant. However, if you and Laura’s former stud are done here, we should probably think about heading down to the cabin. It’s getting awfully close to dinnertime.”
Stashing his gun, Eli bent to one knee and hauled his prisoner to a sitting position. “I’ve been inside that cabin, sweetheart. Pretty sure you won’t want to eat there.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant.” She helped him lever Cal to his feet. “Unless I’m hallucinating, that black thing heading down the hill from the trees is a very large, probably very hungry bear.”
* * *
“YOU’RE WAY OUT of your jurisdiction, Eli,” Cal accused thirty minutes later. “You also didn’t identify yourself as a cop. Not to me or to my uncle. You press charges, we’ll press charges.”
“Then I’ll press charges,” Sadie added. “And we’ll turn the courtroom into a three-ring circus.”
She spoke from the far side of the room where she sat cross-legged on the floor, observing Cal’s uncle while he snored, jerked and shuddered in his—she supposed you could call it sleep. Judging from the empty prescription bottle on the kitchen counter, he’d taken more than a few tranquilizers that afternoon.
She indicated the older man’s military tattoos. “Post-traumatic stress syndrome?”
“Used to be called shell shock.” Cal fixed his left eye on her. “He spent four years in Nam and every year after that paying for the pleasure.” His other eye glared at Eli. “You’ve got no business showing up here unannounced.”
“We announced ourselves loud and clear to your uncle.” Eli flexed the shoulder Sadie had done her best to clean and bandage. “His response was to open fire on us.”
“Shell shock,” Cal repeated.
Sadie regarded the grizzled man who looked like a hermit and snored like a buzz saw. “He needs more help than you can give him, Cal.”
“Don’t we all, Sadie Bellam? Me, I could use a double shot of the whiskey my uncle polished off two days ago, but life’s always been a kick in the crotch that way. Oh, no, wait. That was you who kicked me.”
“After you jumped me,” she reminded. “Come on, Cal, you and Eli are distantly related. Help us out just a bit here.”
“Why should I?”
Eli stared him down. “Because odds are that whiskey your uncle polished off came from a storehouse I noticed that’s sitting on your land. And helping us is a good start toward helping me forget that once we’re back in the Hollow.”
Cal started to boil up, but reconsidered when he looked at his sleeping uncle. “Aw, hell, go on, then, fire away, Sadie.”
“Were you upset when Laura ended your relationship?”
“Not upset enough to do her.”
“You didn’t come to the funeral.”
He showed his teeth in a nonsmile. “Ex-boyfriend. Think that one’s been established.”
“It has, yes. A month after Laura was buried, someone left a bouquet of wildflowers on her grave.”
“Good for someone.”
“On the anniversary of your first date with her.” She sent Eli a blithe smile. “I went into the Chronicle’s archives on my computer last night after the break-in at the manor and found an article. One of the reporters interviewed your grandmother, Cal. And please don’t tell me the flowers were a coincidence, because somebody’s doing to me what he did to Laura, and it’s freaking me out.”
“It’s pissing me off.” Moving to an unbroken window, Eli made a thorough scan of the clearing.
“If you’re looking for Mr. Bear, Eli, he only comes around when the urge strikes. I let him raid my trash cans, he lets me pass when we accidentally bump. I gave the police everything I had way back when, Sadie. Nothing more I can tell you now.”
But she sensed from the way neither of his eyes met hers that there was in fact something more. Something he hadn’t told the police, or possibly anyone.
She studied his body language. Irritable with traces of resentment around the edges.
“If it makes a difference, Cal, I don’t think you’re involved in Laura’s death or in any of the threats I’ve received.”
“Haven’t heard the lieutenant say that yet.”
“Storehouse,” Eli reminded him from the window.
Cal paced in stiff strides around the room. “I saw my life going differently back then. Figured Laura and me’d get married, but I guess the bad-boy thing wore thin. I said some stuff after she broke it off. Not that I wanted to kill her, but that I thought maybe she was seeing another guy. She said she wasn’t and wouldn’t be for a long time, because she was going off to college, then down to Ecuador. She wanted to be a nurse and work where there was a need.”
“Was that the last time you talked to her?” Sadie asked.
“Last time I called her, yeah. I went into a funk for a few weeks afterward. Didn’t work or wash, just watched TV and drank beer.” One eye roll
ed, the other remained on her face. “She phoned me two nights before she died, mad as a hornet. She wanted to know if I had put a big, folded piece of paper in her gym bag, because what was on it was sick and low, and it wasn’t going to change anything between us.”
Sadie’s stomach muscles tightened. “Do you know what the paper said?”
“All she told me was that it was sick and like something she figured I might do if I was drunk and feeling ornery. Fact is, I was drunk, but truth is, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. That’s when she got all pissy and said I might as well have signed my name to it.”
Sadie ran the thought through her head. “That’s—really interesting, actually.”
“Not to mention incriminating,” Eli put in. “Keep talking, Cal. What did you say back to her?”
A shoulder jerked. “Stuff she didn’t like, nothing that came out like a threat. It wasn’t until right before she slammed the phone down that she finally told me what she meant.” He raised and wiggled all ten fingers. “I’m what you call ambidextrous. Means I can write with either hand. But the writing looks different, depending on what hand I use. That’s why she thought I’d given her the paper. Because partway through the message, the writing changed. Those were the last words she spoke to me, and every one came out clear as a bell. She said, ‘The writing changed.’”
* * *
LATE AFTERNOON BLED far too quickly into early evening. They had to leave because no way did Sadie want to be on foot in the north woods after dark. Lions and tigers and bears, she could handle, but not a crazed killer who shot ravens and, twenty years after the fact, saw her as his next victim.
They made it to Eli’s truck less than ten minutes before the last shimmer of daylight faded to black.
While the headlights provided a measure of comfort, they also turned the drizzle into thin white needles and revealed vague movements that gave the shadows life and fed the fearful chill that had been making Sadie’s teeth want to chatter since Cal had talked about his final conversation with her cousin.
Not for the first time, she wished she could push her fingers directly into her brain. Anything to blot out the monstrous images that played and replayed like a carousel of horror.
“I’ve got this Jekyll and Hyde film clip running through my head,” she confessed as they drove. “Except in my case, Jekyll’s as dangerous as Hyde. And just as mad. Apparently.”
A smile ghosted around Eli’s lips. “With Ezekiel Blume in the starring dual role?”
“It would have to be Ezekiel, wouldn’t it? He wanted his brother’s wife dead. It turned out Nola was able to cheat death, but initially, everyone involved believed she’d gone to hell where she belonged. Laura wasn’t a witch, though, Eli, and all teasing aside, neither am I.”
“I don’t think this is a witch-hunt, Sadie.”
“What, then? Obsession?”
“Mine forever,” he repeated.
She sighed. “I guess in a weird sort of way, death could be construed as forever. Someone wanted Laura. Couldn’t have her. Killed her. It’s straightforward enough from a psychological standpoint in that obsessed people frequently turn on the person after whom they lust. But when you factor in what Cal told us about the writing changing, straightforward becomes a wobbly line to nowhere.”
“Unless Cal’s the murderer and, as Laura believed, he simply changed hands while writing a message that only she saw.”
“Obsessed with Laura, I get. Obsessed with me, not at all. Except for our red hair, Laura and I look—looked—nothing alike. Also, the last time Cal and I met face-to-face before today, I was a kid. I really think you can scratch him from the suspect list.”
“Move him farther down anyway. Another possibility is that we’re dealing with a split personality. It would account for the fact that the writing changed and obsession ultimately descended into death. Not to mention this morning’s reference to an inner monster.”
Sadie swore her brain was going to explode. “That’s not much of a comfort, is it? Go left at the next fork. The road improves, and my great-grandfather’s place is only a mile farther on.”
Eli glanced at her, then gave her hair a light tug. “Ninety-nine years old, huh? And living alone in the middle of haunted nowhere.”
His deliberately humorous tone eased a portion of her tension. “I know what you’re thinking. Major neglect on our part. But there’s a twelve-member family who make canoes and live in a collection of cabins half a mile west of Great-grandfather’s place. One or another of them checks on him faithfully morning, noon and night. He wasn’t happy in the Hollow, Eli. He’s very happy here.” She smiled. “He also loves to play chess.”
“How do you know I...ah, right. Rooney.”
“Man’s a font.” She relaxed more as the road leveled off. “I only wish he was clairvoyant. Or I was.”
“Are you completely convinced that Molly isn’t?”
“Yes, but you can decide for yourself. Before we left the Hollow today, she told me not to make any plans for Monday night.”
“Do I want to know why?”
“Probably not. She’s arranging a séance.”
Chapter Twelve
“You played a game of chess with that old buzzard?”
An outraged Rooney brought his cane down on the front desk of the Raven’s Hollow Police Station and made the deputy jump. Eli merely raised an eyebrow.
“That old buzzard beat the crap out of me in under three hours without a drop of alcohol in his system.”
“Probably smokes funny cigarettes instead.” Rapping his cane on the floor now, Rooney raised his voice. “Where’s the damn dog, Ty? My former grandson here says he’s a winner. He’s gonna get Brady to give him a once-over. Then he’s going to fetch Sadie from the Chronicle. I want her down at Joe’s bar to cover the fights.”
Ty came in with a brown and white bulldog on a leash. “I hope we’re talking televised fights.”
“Nope, live action. Cove versus Hollow. And no, I’m not naming names, because you always take it upon your chiefly self to lecture the participants until their morale is lower than Chopper’s jowls.” Rooney pushed the leash into Eli’s hands. “Take the dog to Brady, stranger, while I remind your spoilsport cousin who in this room is sixty-seven years older than whom.”
“Sixty-five.” Ty grimaced. “I wasn’t a model grade school student.”
The old man cackled. “I thought the pair of you would be forty before you graduated.” When Eli’s eyes narrowed, he waved his cane. “I meant Ty and Brady. You just trot Chopper over to the v-e-t for that exam while I lay a little guilt trip on your cousin.”
“It’s Sunday,” Eli reminded him. “Brady’s day o-f-f.”
“Then go up to his apartment and n-a-g him into doing an old man a favor.”
More than done with the spelling bee, Eli headed for the door. He turned up his collar against a whippy north wind and jogged with the bulldog down Main Street to the edge of the square.
Bad weather notwithstanding, it was good to be outdoors. He’d spent the better part of the day on his computer, studying Sadie’s Facebook and Twitter pages and poring over all the files he could access about the investigation into Laura’s death. He’d talked to several people at the Chronicle and others who’d known both Laura and Sadie since they were children. Although he’d come up empty in the clue department, he’d enjoyed looking at the vacation pictures Sadie had posted online.
It surprised him to see Orley through the clinic window, counting bags of dog food. Farther in, Brady tapped away on his laptop.
“No more favors,” Orley warned when the door swung shut behind him.
“This one’s on Brady.” Eli unzipped his jacket. “Why’s it so hot in here?”
“Molly brought Solomon in an hour ago. Emergency ingro
wn claw. The dog freaked, we sedated, then had to up the temperature to the high side of unbearable because Molly and Solomon want what they want and Molly doesn’t go away until they get it. I woke up with a screaming headache, and listening to Cousin McStrange bitch wasn’t something I wanted to add to an already poopy Sunday. We’re doing inventory,” she said heavily, and made another tick with her marker. “A little help would be nice.”
“Sorry. I’m picking Sadie up at the Chronicle after Brady checks out Chopper. She’s determined to talk to Ben Leamer, and I gather Ben’s equally determined to talk to her.”
“Meaning you’re gonna tag.”
“You got it.”
Brady came out, took the leash. “We’ll make this quick, in that case. Exam would go faster if you’d take Chopper’s temperature for me.”
“What, did hell freeze over and no one told me?”
“Coward.” Orley snickered over her shoulder. Then she made a sound of disgust as she stared out the window. “Seriously? Break bottles on your own sidewalk, Molly, not ours.”
“Perfect.” Brady appealed to his cousin. “If you won’t help with the dog, at least keep Orley from scratching Molly’s eyes out for whatever disaster just occurred.”
He’d do it, Eli reflected, if only to escape the cloying heat.
Outside, Orley scowled at the sidewalk. “I am not getting down on my hands and knees to clean up a mess you made because you decided to wobble around on six-inch heels so Ty would notice your legs.”
Molly shrank into herself. “It’s only ink. It can be eradicated.”
“Oh, now, there’s a word. What do you think, Eli? Can indelible ink be eradicated?”
He didn’t know or care. And he didn’t listen to the rest of the barbed exchange. What he did do was look at Molly’s unrevealing face. Then down at the bright red ink that seeped like blood across the sidewalk.
* * *
“GIVE ME FORTY minutes, Ben.” Sadie glanced at the clock on the typesetter’s desk. “Maybe an hour. We’ll get it done today, I promise. I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Disconnecting, she raised her voice to her assistant. “Make sure those photos of Rooney’s first wedding don’t blur when they’re enlarged. And don’t remove the red from the eyes of the background ravens. It’s a cool effect.”
