Jolon called me again, an hour later, an hour I spent pacing the widow’s walk, then going out to feed the horses. The girls were helping Nathan get our late supper ready.
“Jolon. Did you find him? Voss?”
He hesitated, then told me, “It didn’t check out. He couldn’t be your Fetch.”
I wasn’t expecting that. “Why?”
“Rigel Voss died twenty-four years ago. He might have had something to do with your friend’s disappearance. As a matter of fact, it’s almost certain he did. You were right. He was in the FBI, heading up the investigation at Bay State. He resigned from the bureau just before your friend, Maggie, left school and vanished. They never got to question him, though, because he disappeared, too. Then in the fall of ’90, a body was found, washed up on the coast of Nova Scotia. It was him.”
“I don’t believe it.” Jolon was silent. I could tell he wasn’t used to being challenged about his police work, but I didn’t care. “How did they know?”
He huffed, “Still stubborn, I can see. I guess it doesn’t hurt that you should know. The body was decomposed. No discernible fingerprints. But the dental records were a match.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
“He’s dead, Reve. And if you won’t tell me how you know his name, or something tangible like where exactly he might be, I can’t do much. The fact remains that for nearly twenty-five years, there’s been no trace of a man named Rigel Voss. If you’re right, and he did manage to fake his death, for whatever reason, he’s someone else now. It’s damned difficult to fake your death, though. Not like on TV. I’d let that one go.”
“Thanks for checking it out, anyway.” I had no intention of letting it go; I just didn’t know what to do about it yet. No matter what Jolon told me, I knew Rigel Voss was my soul stealer, my Fetch.
Poverty Road—October 26, 2013
1
It began in such an ordinary way. Nathan called my cell phone that morning. He had a fever and a sore throat that made him feel like he was swallowing knives. I told him to stay in his ell, go back to bed. We’d probably all end up sick, but I could hope. I nearly tripped over Falcon Eddy when I stepped out of my room. I had no idea if or when he slept, but he must have showered. Instead of falcons, he smelled of Old Spice and wet grass.
“Come down for some coffee, Eddy.”
I wasn’t sure what I could say. Ask him to be extra vigilant because of something I saw in a magic Book? I made it simple.
“I have reason to believe that the man who killed my husband is on his way here. I know Nan told you the circumstances. Jolon … Chief Adair, is working on it. The girls don’t know, and I want it to stay that way as long as possible. I don’t want them to be afraid in their own home, ever again. I need you to help me with that.”
He nodded and said, “Fair enough. You’ve done a good job making this place secure, now it’s on my watch. I’ve activated the outdoor security cameras, and I’ll be monitoring them at night, as well as doing spot checks on entrances and exits. During the day, I’ll be in the house, near the girls, and still be watching the cameras outside on the grounds from my phone. You’ll need to let me know when you’ll have any guests besides Mrs. Pike. Don’t want to be surprised, like we were by the Reverend.”
Eddy had suddenly switched from his usual hokey, homespun self, to all business. Maybe Nan had been right about him. Strange as he was, he seemed to know what he was doing. “Where exactly do you come from, Eddy?”
“Here and there. Been years in the desert. But that doesn’t mean I’ve my head in the sand, now.” And his laugh echoed through the house. We heard Caleigh’s pounding feet hit the floor a moment later. “Now we’re for it. But one last thing, before we’re descended on. Leaving the property will be more complicated. You should let me know well beforehand, so I can be prepared for eventualities.”
Suddenly it seemed real, when he said that. I hated that we’d need to be “prepared for eventualities” just to take a ride to my parents’ house. But the alternative was much worse. The alternative was what had happened to Jeremy. I took a deep breath. “All right. That sounds fine.”
I waited for Caleigh, and she came with me to the barn to feed. When we returned to the house, she sat at the kitchen table, engrossed in her string, weaving a pattern I didn’t know the name of. “What’s that one?”
“It’s ‘Get Well Soon.’ It’s for Nathan. Hey, can we have the day off from lessons?” Falcon Eddy melted away.
“Not this time, sweetheart. You’ve had a lot of time off in the past few weeks.”
“But I could go to Grand’s.”
“I’m sorry, honey. You need to do your schoolwork. Grand can’t be entertaining you every minute.” I kissed the top of her head as I set down her granola. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the protocols a drive to Grand’s would now require.
She wriggled away. “Yeah, well, what about you? I’m really mad at you. You spent all Sunday riding with Grace and Fai. You always do fun things with them, not just boring schoolwork. You never have time for me!” She stuck out her tongue and stormed off, trailing her string.
I poured more coffee, not too worried about Caleigh’s tantrum. As soon as I got them all going on some task, she’d come around, Caleigh of the naturally sunny temperament. The twins were still in bed. I thought I’d better rouse them and get everyone settled before Mrs. Pike arrived.
The twins have always had their own rooms, but they migrate together to sleep. Each room has two beds to accommodate this habit. I checked Grace’s room and saw only the usual clutter she produced and empty beds. Fai’s room, next to Grace’s, held them.
The shades were drawn, but the bright autumn sun made its way around them and fell in slabs and strips of light on the gleaming wood floor, illuminating the walls covered with horse posters. Fai’s room, unlike her sister’s, was neat; the books stayed on the shelves and the clothes in the closet, rather than heaped in piles on the floor. Fai was curled up on one bed, Grace spread-eagled and openmouthed on the other. Their sleeping faces were uncannily alike, with the same sprawl of red-gold curls on white pillows, the delicate spread of nutmeg freckles across each straight nose, their eyebrows bending at the same angle like birds’ wings. My heart melted at the sight of the two perfect creatures that had somehow come from Jeremy and me. The translucence of their skin, as if they were formed from porcelain, nearly fractured me with pride and love. And with fear, for they were vulnerable as foals with a coyote in the pasture.
All the same, I had to get them up, and they never woke easily. I wished Caleigh wasn’t having a snit, for her attacks on the sleeping pair always got them moving. I sat on Fai’s bed, touched her arm. “Rise and shine, honey.” She moaned and flopped over. I went to Grace’s bed. “Gracie, time to wake up.” She sat straight up, said, “No!” and fell back again, still apparently asleep. I decided it was time for more drastic measures, went over to Fai’s stereo, pushed the power button, pushed CD 1, and turned up the volume. Bruce Springsteen’s voice blasted out of the speakers, advising us that there was a “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Grace woke with a roar. Fai sat up and clapped her hands over her ears. Clarence Clemons and Roy Bittan were having a sax and keyboard duel when I hit the stop button. “Sorry, but Nathan’s sick. Mrs. Pike will be here soon, and I need you all in the study so you’re not in her way.”
Fai got up mechanically and plodded to her dresser, tugged a sweatshirt over her panda pajamas. Grace rubbed her eyes. “How long will he be sick? It’s no fun having to teach our own selves.”
“I suppose he’ll be as sick as he needs to be for as long as it takes him to get better. That’s usually the way it works. And what am I, chopped liver?”
“You aren’t as good a teacher as our coz. He makes stuff fun.”
“Thanks. But since you think so highly of him, you might be just a little more concerned about his well-being than your own at the moment.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s he sick w
ith? Nothing bad, I hope.”
“Since you ask, it’s probably just a cold. He should be better in a few days.”
“Days?”
“Days. So until he’s recovered, I’ll get you going, but you both have to be a little proactive about your work, and Caleigh’s. You’d better run down and get breakfast.”
She scowled at me. “At least you could blast something more mellow to wake us up. Like Enya or something, if it has to be music from your generation.”
“You’re the one stole my Springsteen collection, honey. Now suffer.”
Fai giggled, and started out to the hall. Grace sprang out of bed, “Hey, wait for me.” I snagged the back of her skimpy baby dolls. “Go put something on over that, at least. You’ll freeze.”
“And the falcon guy might be shocked, I know. But he lives with us now. He’s just supposed to protect us, not oogle us.”
“It’s still no reason to have your business hanging out in front of him. And it’s ‘ogle.’ And he’s not just ‘the falcon guy,’ he has a name.”
She threw a robe over her shoulders, and as she whisked her hair from the collar, a faint whiff of perfume rose from her. I grabbed her arm. “Do you smell that?”
“Huh? Smell what?”
I sniffed again, and it was gone. “Nothing. I hope it’s nothing.”
But I knew what I’d smelled. Not as strong as the lilac scent on the day Jeremy died. It was like the ghost of lilacs, if there could be such a thing. Which there probably couldn’t.
2
Nathan had written out a schedule for the girls, some reading assignments, math problems, and a game of Dead Presidents, a board game he had assembled with question cards and dice, a little like Trivial Pursuit with questions about the Civil War, the robber barons, and of course, dead presidents. I tried to work a little on my script while the girls did their reading, but their shufflings and foot tappings and pencil chewing were distracting. We worked on the math problems after lunch. I am not at my finest when doing anything beyond adding and subtracting, and soon we were all frustrated. It was clear that math was a no-go until Nathan was back. At that point I thought it might be safe to go up to my office for a check on The Hawley Book of the Dead. Maybe I’d have another Rigel Voss vision and discover exactly where he was. Then I’d call Jolon, they’d pick up Voss, and the nightmare would be over. If only it could be so easy. I left Falcon Eddy in the study with the girls. After a quick check on the sleeping Nathan, I went upstairs.
The Book was still there under the desk, where I’d left it after my Voss vision. It still felt as warm as a summer meadow. When I opened it, though, it wasn’t the usual meadow scent that hit me. It was the warning smell of lilacs. I closed it up again, almost ran down the stairs to check on the girls. Then remembered Falcon Eddy’s cell, and punched in the number. He told me all was well.
“Everything is fine,” I told myself. “Everything is normal.” I sat at the desk and opened the Book again. This time the scent of lilacs was so strong that I was dizzy from it. I tried to close the Book, but couldn’t. I started falling into it. I reached out both hands to steady myself, grabbed not the smooth wood of the desk, but twining green tendrils, with thorns that were ripping my hands. I looked and the windows were choked with growing vines, climbing past the widow’s walk railing, through the French doors, into my office. They surrounded me, until all I could see were depths of green, then …
Rigel Voss drove the green-tunneled roads of the forest, a forged hunting license pinned to his jacket, a bow for deer hunting in the back. He’d stopped a number of times, climbed out of the SUV he’d rented earlier that day with a fake ID, threw the bow and a backpack over his shoulder, and slunk through the brush. Once to explore an old mill near a bog. Once to travel along a high wall, recently constructed. The last time to follow two girls on horseback, in the late afternoon light, at the corner of South and Poverty roads. One girl rode a gray horse, the other black. The girls both had red hair, looked alike. Even from a distance (and Voss maintained a goodly distance, even in his excitement not wanting to be betrayed by crackling brush), he could tell they were twins. The girls he was looking for. When they veered from the road, up a bank and onto a smaller trail, Rigel Voss followed. It didn’t matter so much if they heard him once they were off the road. It would take only a few seconds to aim and shoot the small darts from one of the two tranquilizer guns he also carried in a belt holster. He’d shoot the horses first, with big doses of fast-acting tranquilizer, then he’d have a moment to switch guns for the girls, who would be confused by their horses’ strange behavior. They wouldn’t realize what had happened right away, because of the silencer. The camouflage he wore assured him that even if he was heard, he wouldn’t be seen. If all went well, and he planned that it would, horses and girls would be in the land of nod before they knew what had happened. He would walk back to his rented SUV, drive a short distance to the deserted stretch of road, drag the girls out of the woods and place them in the back, gently bound, for their long ride.
Then he would finally have a way to bargain with the woman who had ruined his life. Now that she had red-haired daughters who would be at his mercy. He would have what he wanted, and what he wanted was knowledge. After he got it, he’d kill the girls as quickly and painlessly as he could. But their mother wouldn’t know that. He would send her doctored photographs, and she would think they’d gone tortured, bleeding. Those images would stay with her forever. Her life would be as dead as his own, finally. She’d have to live on after everything that mattered to her was destroyed.
He walked quickly along the road, then headed down the trail. He could see the girls on the narrow path, booted legs gently thumping their horses’ sides, reins slack. He could hear their merry voices, catch the words.
“Dale said …”
“Was that his name, was it Dale or Cale?”
“Kale’s a vegetable, you moron.”
“Cale with a C. It’s a name, too. Anyway, it should be near here.”
Then silence, but for birdsong and the muffled sound of horse hooves on the sandy path. Voss padded along the edge of the trail, where the pine needles were thickest. He lost sight of them as the trail wound through dense trees, and his heart quickened. Then he heard one say, “Is that where it was?” The other replied, “Sweet.” Then a little laughing shriek, and a thick roar like a distant plane, or like thunder. Tree branches tossed in a big gust of wind, whipping Voss’s face. He looked up, a shiver going through him. The sky was deep blue, cloudless, without stain. His cheek stung from the lashing branches, but he barely noticed.
He continued creeping up the path, at each turn expecting to see the horses, hear the girls. He saw nothing but scarlet and golden-green leaves lighting the dusk of the path, heard nothing at all. Even the birds were silent. Nothing stirred.
He palmed the gun in his left holster, stroked its cold grip. The one loaded for the horses. His breathing grew shallow.
3
I came up from the vision gasping, struggling against the deep green wall of vines and thorns. But there were no vines, only my office, bathed in dusky light. “Shit!” I must have fallen asleep. I must have slept for hours. My hands were throbbing. When I examined them, they were scabby, the blood congealed as if I had done battle with real thorns. Something had happened in the time I slept or had my delusions. I leapt up and ran downstairs. I found Caleigh asleep on the couch with a book tucked under her chin. Falcon Eddy was gone, and there was no sign of the twins. No twins in the kitchen making snacks. No twins in their rooms. I called Nathan’s cell, but he told me in a headachy voice that they hadn’t been to visit him.
My heart was pounding in my chest. One key card for the gate was missing from the hook by the door. I ran outside: Their horses were gone. I ran back to the house and woke Caleigh. Nathan came out of his apartment in his bathrobe, clutching a tissue box.
“They weren’t in the barn?”
“No. Neither were their horses.”
>
“And where’s Falcon Eddy?” I grilled Caleigh. “Did he go with them?”
“I don’t know where they all went,” Caleigh protested.
“Why didn’t you call me when they left you? You know I don’t want them to ride alone.”
“Oh, Mom,” Caleigh sighed, “I fell asleep. Anyway, they’d kill me if I told on them all the time.”
“They wouldn’t kill you. They’d just make life unpleasant for a day or two.” I strode to the mudroom. “Don’t you have any idea where they might have gone?”
She popped her head around the door. “You don’t have to yell.” I gave her the mad mother glare. “They’ll kill me anyway. But. When they went into the kitchen to get us snacks, they were talking about that old tavern. They were whispering. So I wouldn’t hear. But I did. The tavern where that boy they met at the fair said there were ghosts.”
“Thank you for telling me. Thank you for having sonar.” It was one of the few times I was glad of Caleigh’s unnerving superhuman hearing.
I yanked orange vests out of the closet. The girls hadn’t bothered to take theirs. Horses could sometimes look like deer in the gloaming. Which it was getting to be. The girls hadn’t bothered with the walkie-talkies, either. They probably had their cell phones, which wouldn’t work a quarter mile into the hollow. I punched in their numbers, and heard their phones ringing from the study. Tried Falcon Eddy’s phone, which rang and rang. What did I really know about him? He could be Voss’s partner in crime, for all I knew.
I reached for my riding boots, pulled them on. I grabbed my saddle pack, which contained horse treats, a map and a flashlight, a hoof pick, and vet wrap. Again, I noticed the girls had left theirs. They would never have been so careless in Nevada. What they had taken was their water packs. The one thing they probably wouldn’t need, but no one riding the desert around Las Vegas would be without water for even fifteen minutes. Old habits die hard, but I resisted the pull to take mine. I’d probably be gone less than an hour. I hoped. I gave Caleigh a quick kiss on her round cheek, said, “I’m going to find them. I’ll be home soon. Here, take this.” I gave her the other walkie-talkie. “And listen to Nathan,” who looked on, his face gray with illness and worry.
The Hawley Book of the Dead Page 22
