by Jenna Ryan
“Oh, pfft.” She flapped him away. “Don’t you go getting sloppy on me. I got nothing that lily-livered Leshad could want.”
“Neither did Madeleine’s sister,” Rosemary reminded her. “Please be careful, Desdemona. If Leshad’s afraid of people with psychic ability, whether you have it or not, he could decide to come after you.”
“No doubt about it, the voodoo spooks him.” Desdemona cupped Rosemary’s face in her hands. “But, child, what that one fears most is what you got, not me.” She lifted her gaze to Tanner. “You take her someplace he won’t think to look.”
“Do my best.” Tanner loaded his own pack into the box. “And not that I believe, but lock the damn doll up in one of your storerooms, will you? I’ve got enough problems without Rosemary thinking she sees his face everywhere we go.”
Rosemary regarded him benignly over the roof of the truck. “You are so lucky not to be a toad right now.”
Pointing at the angry cloud cover, Desdemona said, “Mud road ain’t gonna get any less muddy you don’t leave here double-quick. I’ll have a word with Billy, but I can’t make any promises as regards to his intentions. You ride easy now.”
“She’s an amazing woman,” Rosemary said when they were back on the road. She glanced over. “Tell me, would you recognize hellebore if you saw it?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. I do. And several other flowers and herbs used by witches.”
Tanner chuckled. “Is that what she said? That you’re a witch?”
“Not out loud. She didn’t say I was an avoider either, but I am.”
“You’re not alone, Rosemary. Lots of us avoid what we don’t want to accept or deal with.”
“You don’t.” She cocked her head at him. “Do you? Oh, hell,” she interrupted herself. “I forgot to ask her about Flora. I knew there was something else.”
Tanner smiled. “There always is with Desdemona.” Reaching toward the dash, he located his iPhone, currently shrieking “Hells Bells”—how appropriate was that, Rosemary thought—at top volume. He put it on speaker, stuck it to the steering wheel. “Something for me, Hobby?”
A crusty voice came back. “Yeah. Ethan Grimes doesn’t exist. In fact, so far I can’t put any name to the face you sent me. If he’s on the payroll of someone your ex-boss Crucible’s hunting for, chances are piss-poor he’ll be easily ID’d. My advice? Consider him a hostile and stay out of his way.”
“I rented one of my properties to him.”
“Then lock your door and keep a rifle handy.” His tone turned gruff and cranky. “For your sake, I’ll keep digging. I might get lucky. Ben’s step giving you any trouble?”
Tanner grinned at her. “She’s threatened to turn me into a toad a couple times. So far, I’m bipedal. I’ll stay in touch, Hobby, let you know where we are when we get there.”
A grunt was the other man’s only response.
Gusting wind drove rain and mud into the windshield as Tanner ended the call. “Who’s Traynor?” Rosemary asked without thinking.
Tanner braked so abruptly, she almost shot through the dash. Catching her nape in his hand, he forced her to look at him. “Where did you get that name?”
She wanted to slap his arm away, but since she was as puzzled as he was outraged, she held her position and searched her mind. “I don’t know,” she said at length. “Not from you yesterday, I don’t think. It was just there. Just now, there.”
“I wasn’t thinking it. Did Ben ever mention him?”
“No.”
“Then where did the name come from?”
She met his eyes. “I don’t know. From your friend maybe.”
“I thought you had distance issues.”
“I usually do. This thing in my head isn’t scientific, you know. I wasn’t reading you, or even trying to. It’s not what I do, Tanner. I’m an avoider, remember? The butterfly who wants to stay in her cocoon.”
“More like a tiger who wants to stay in familiar territory, but I take your meaning.”
“Good. Now let go of me.”
His expression altered, went from anger to speculation and finally to mild amusement.
“Don’t you dare—” she began, but got no further than that as his mouth covered hers and chased every thought, fair and foul, from her head.
His grip on her neck loosened, but the power of his kiss didn’t. It swirled, and so did her mind. Swirled and spun and made her hungry for more, of it and him.
Sensation flooded in as wisdom drained away. He tasted like sex on the dark side. How could any female be expected to resist that? His tongue circled and dipped and challenged her to do the same.
She didn’t want this, Rosemary reminded herself. Men like him left indelible scars on women like her. Women who didn’t want to rock-and-roll all night and repeat the process every day.
She wanted to help people, help kids, not have sex with a man who seldom noticed women above the breasts.
A soft breath slipped out as he released her mouth to graze his lips along the side of her throat. Her head fell back, her eyes closed. “Is there something about mud that affects your libido?” she managed to ask. “Every time we’re on this road, we take the same side trip. I don’t want to want you, Tanner.”
“Back at you in spades, angel.” He worked his way to the hollow spot below her ear. “Push me away.”
She would, she thought, just as soon as the dizziness subsided.
Rain bounced off the metal roof, echoed dimly in her brain. He caged her ribs, then let his hands slide upward to her breasts.
Like a quick trigger, her body reacted. Snapping her head up, she trapped and held his wrists.
The knowing smile on his lips struck simultaneous chords of humor and resentment, so much so that she gave him a harder than necessary shove. “I’m not interested in having sex with you.”
The smile lingered. “I think you’re lying, but I won’t argue the point. This storm that’s not supposed to be happening is making a mud pond out of the road, and my truck doesn’t float worth a damn.”
“Neither does your excuse.” She knew the humor was winning when her lips quirked while she reached behind her for a cotton shirt. “In college, we had a name for guys like you.”
“Bastards?”
“Sex zombies.”
“So, what—I’m a mindless reanimated corpse with an insatiable hunger for sex?” His eyes glinted. “Works as well as any other name, I guess. Hold on to something. It gets rough here.”
She braced her hands and feet. “I hope the road to Mad Mama’s is better coming from the other direction.”
“It’s some better.” Tanner leaned forward and at the same time skirted an enormous puddle. “Ten o’clock, Rosemary. Look and tell me what you see.”
She squinted through the dense foliage. “Wet trees, Spanish moss blowing like shredded gauze and something big and gray sitting behind it.” She squinted harder. “Is that a truck or a tank?”
“Some of both.” Halting, Tanner reached onto the floor.
“Is the driver in trouble? Why do you need your gun? Why do I bother asking?” she muttered when he kicked the door open and jumped out.
“Lock up and keep the engine running, Rosemary. Take off if someone comes back who’s not me.” He was gone before she could object.
“Really, really hating this,” she said through gritted teeth.
She was digging in her pack for her gun when the passenger side window shattered.
CHAPTER NINE
Shocked, Rosemary scrambled over the seat and into the cramped rear space, still tugging on the flap of her backpack. The rifle blasts, a sudden barrage of them, came from every direction. She got her fingers on her gun and whipped it up just as the narrow rear door flew open.
Scanning the area, with his Glock angled skyward, Tanner reached for her. “Bring your stuff,” he said, and motioning her out, grabbed his own. “Stay low and head for the Hummer. I’ll cover you.”
Sh
e didn’t question or argue, simply ran through the mud and wet brush, under the tattered moss, down a small ravine and through a series of shallow pools to where the truck, a rough and ready Hummer, stood unmoving and unoccupied.
“Tanner.” She twisted around. And realized he was several yards behind her.
“Needed things from the dash.” Gripping her arm, he opened the passenger door. “Get in, stay down, see what you can psyche.”
“You’re joking.” She ducked instinctively as more shots rang out. “This is chaos. How do you expect me to block chaos and concentrate?”
“Same way I think and shoot. Do it, Rosemary. Who’s out there?”
She went to her knees on the floor, closed her eyes and, in as much as she could, relaxed her mind. “I don’t see a face, only the outline of one. No.” She zoomed in. “Not one, two. I see two people. Men. They’re shooting at us from different angles.”
“So far, so bad.” Tanner pumped a rifle she hadn’t seen him arrive with and fired. “Anything else?”
Closing her eyes again, she forced the visual to steady. “The bullets are flying every which way, but I’m pretty sure both weapons are scoped.”
“Assault rifles.”
She pushed her fingers into her temples. “I still can’t see their faces, but there’s a name. It’s Traynor.”
“Traynor’s here?” Tanner lined up and fired into the underbrush.
“I don’t know, but I assume it’s worse than bad if he is. Could be someone thinking his name. It’s gone through my head a few times now. Wait…”
“What?” Tossing his weapon aside, Tanner started the big truck’s engine. “Stay on it, Rosemary. Wait for what?”
“I see gray hair, with a sort of widow’s peak.” She pushed everything she had into the hazed image. “It’s… gone. But I saw piercing eyes, Tanner.” A breath stuttered out. “One of the men is Ethan Grimes. I can’t do more than that right now.”
“It’s enough.” He grabbed the rifle, fired off three more rounds, and then slapped it across her chest as she was settling in her seat. “Strap in.”
Rosemary thought she probably snapped the seatbelt lock in place, but to be honest, she wasn’t sure what her hands were doing. A strong sense of brutality from outside streamed through her as they bumped over terrain they couldn’t possibly have traversed in either of Tanner’s vehicles.
“Is this what you call off-roading?” she demanded at length, more afraid to close her eyes than keep them open. “It’s quite the thrill ride if you like having your brain scrambled and rescrambled. This is Grimes’s Hummer, isn’t it? You knew it was when you saw it.”
“I knew he drove it to Deadman’s Swamp, but it could have been appropriated by someone else.”
Her lips curved into a grim smile. “It has been appropriated. By us.”
“Watch for a sign that says Copperhead Bend.”
“Another swamp?”
“Town.”
She massaged the kinks from her screaming neck muscles. “Okay, well, that’s something.”
“In the swamp.”
A sigh escaped. “I hate you, Sean Tanner. You, Grimes and whoever Traynor is.” She peered through the mud-spattered windshield. They were crawling over weedy mounds and splashing through slimy green pools of stagnant water in what had to be the heart of Snake Scream Swamp. Rosemary glanced behind them. “At least tell me you don’t think we were followed. And no, I’m not going to use my mind. It’s busy at the moment not giving in to the temptation to try to turn you into something that croaks.”
Rather than respond directly, Tanner rolled through a much deeper pond, one large enough for two huge water moccasins to twine lazily past her window.
“Traynor was a friend, Rosemary. Mine and Ben’s.” He spoke without inflection. “Hobby taught the three of us how to survive and more. Too much more it seems. Now Ben’s dead and Traynor’s working for Leshad.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she simply said, “Is Traynor the Reaper?”
Tanner’s short chuckle contained no humor. “If he is, angel, and he gets us in his sights, we’re both of us as good as dead.”
* * *
Missing and even losing a primary target were things that occasionally happened. A good hit man always had a contingency plan. But not only had Tanner gotten away with Rosemary Sayer, the little roadside rendezvous the Reaper had just endured had revealed another player. An unanticipated and as yet unidentified odd man in. Here for a reason, undoubtedly. But by whose design?
Since it wasn’t in his nature to waste time or energy on useless speculation, the Reaper let the questions hang and moved on to Plan B. He backtracked along the barely navigable mud road to Mad Mama’s Antiques.
The building was a pitiful excuse for a shop, and yet…A chill feathered along his spine as he passed the rickety sign.
An ugly wooden doll with puppet-like features sat propped against the porch rail post. He told himself firmly that the thing’s eyes were not watching him climb the outer stairs. It only felt as if they were.
Setting aside his perfectly understandable swamp jitters, the Reaper shouldered the door open, gun drawn, senses tuned.
Everything in the place creaked—hinges, floorboards, wall joists, even the dim, overhead light that swung at the end of a frayed brown cord.
He considered for a moment, then tucked his gun under his shirt and used the creaks to try to draw the old woman out.
When she didn’t appear, he called, “Hello, is anyone here? I’m looking for a pair of end tables.”
Still nothing.
“Mama, you’ve got a customer.” He skimmed his gaze over what appeared to be a cash desk and would have shouted again if his eyes hadn’t landed on the same doll he’d seen outside. Or one enough like it to be its twin. Except that this one had a ferocious expression on its ugly-as-hell face.
The chill he’d experienced earlier spread to his limbs and prickled his suddenly clammy skin. Pissed off and out of patience, he yanked his gun out and started down a random aisle.
He didn’t expect to walk right into the woman, and he hissed in a quick breath when her shadowy form materialized directly in front of him.
“You’re not a customer,” she declared calmly. “Not for anything I can sell you.”
The Reaper straight-armed his gun. “Where did he take her, old woman? No lies. Answer me straight, or I’ll shoot.”
She moved a plump shoulder. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Some things in life work best that way.” He saw her teeth flash in a smile. “Did you meet Billy coming in?”
He hesitated. Hated that he did it, that she could cause him to do it. Hated even more the sweat that beaded on his upper lip. “I saw the dolls, if that’s what you mean. I’d guess Billy’s the meaner of the pair.”
“Oh, that Billy, he can be downright wicked when the mood strikes. Course it depends on who he’s dealing with what his mood’ll be.”
“Talk to me, old woman,” the Reaper warned. “Or I’ll be putting a silhouette calling card on your corpse.”
She shook her head. “Can’t tell you what I don’t know, and I’ve lived a long life already. You can kill me and tear this place apart looking for what you want, but ain’t nothing written down, not even phone numbers. You’ll be wasting a perfectly good bullet.”
His mouth turned up in a cruel smile. “It’s mine to waste. Time to die, old woman.”
Yet even as he squeezed the trigger, he heard the sound of distant drums. A low, tribal beat, understated and vaguely terrifying.
A second later, his left shoulder burst into flames.
* * *
It was dark by the time they made their way through Copperhead Bend. Twenty swampy minutes later, Tanner was maneuvering down a long, gravel road to the Hotel Marie.
The sign out front hung by a single rusty chain. The paint on it had begun to peel, weedy creepers climbed the post, and not a single light burned in the building that stood in
eerie silhouette behind it.
The rain might have stopped, but to Rosemary’s mind that didn’t improve the scenery one bit. She stared at the peaks and columns of the nineteenth-century hotel, and couldn’t think of a thing to say. Except…
“This is the Overlook, Tanner, swamp side.” Pushing her door open, she hopped out into ankle-high weeds. “At the very least, this is where voodoo practitioners come to die.”
Tanner joined her, a rifle slung over his right shoulder. “The hotel was viable until just over two years ago, Rosemary. Owners ran out of money for upkeep, couldn’t find a buyer, so now it sits empty.” He leaned closer to whisper, “Almost.”
She couldn’t stop staring at the brooding structure, illuminated only by the headlights of their borrowed truck. “Almost? As in there’s a caretaker who lives here?”
“You could say that.”
“I could say a lot of things. Not many of them would be flattering.” She ran her gaze over the roofline. Had to be haunted, she reflected, if not possessed. “One thing’s certain. If Leshad fears the occult, he won’t be coming here.”
“It’s not Leshad who’s after you, Rosemary. It’s the Reaper, and we don’t know what, if anything, he’s afraid of.”
“I take it you know the resident caretaker.”
“We’ve crossed paths once or twice.”
She played with a silver chain around her neck. “Please tell me he doesn’t have a wife and a little boy.”
“He had a wife. She died. And his son’s a little—odd.”
“That does it.” She turned for the truck. “I’m going back to Boston.”
“So dying’s on your agenda, is it?” Blocking her with his body, Tanner caught her hand. And, damn him, he stared at her with those mesmerizing eyes of his. “Not everything that looks evil is evil, angel.”
Rosemary planted a palm on his chest. She felt the heat of his body beneath his T-shirt but wouldn’t let herself be deterred. “I saw The Shining for the first time when I was six. It gave me nightmares that lasted until I went to college. Don’t ask me to live my childhood nightmare.”
