Down

by Kirsten Weiss

  I’d found Doyle.

  I began reading and winced. No wonder this book hadn’t got much traction. The Brothers Grimm had kept their stories simple, but the prose in Ichabod’s tome was impossibly dense. The author had loved his own writing style more than the stories he’d collected. I plodded through the text. Mike had hidden this book. It was important, and it—

  I swayed on the bed. It was all there. Everything.

  How could I have been so stupid? The key to defeating the fairy was here, but it wasn’t unique. I moaned. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have done more research. I should have known.

  Returning the Hardy Boys cover to the book, I walked into the hallway and slipped it into my purse. Was this book the cause of the murders rather than the Blake? My God, had the doctor killed the men? She’d been on the scene right after I’d found Mike. And she’d been nearby when Alba had died – Alba, who’d seemed to know more about the doctor than was good for her.

  I raced down the winding stairs. The doctor had never killed before – not like this. Or had she? Fingers fumbling, I locked the front door and hurried to my Volvo.

  Inside the car, doors locked, I dug my cell phone from my purse and called Jayce.

  “Karin’s still okay,” she said without preamble.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the hospital. I know Karin told us to leave, but I don’t trust that doctor, and–”

  “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave her alone. I’m coming to you. Is Nick there?”

  “Yes, but–”

  “I found a book in Mike’s house.” One-handed, I clicked my seatbelt into place. “The missing book on folktales Van Oss was looking for. The doctor’s in it.”

  “What?!”

  “Well, the fairy. It’s her name. The key to beating her is her name!”

  “Doctor Toeller?”

  “No. That can’t be her real name, can it?” I asked, giddy. “But... I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

  “No. Stay with Karin. Or make sure Nick does. I’ll see you in twenty.” I hung up and started the Volvo, pulled away from the curve.

  I drove through Doyle and onto the highway. The pavement was shiny from the earlier rain, and I drove slowly.

  An SUV sped behind me, tailgating, its headlights blinding. It passed, too close, too quick on the winding highway.

  I adjusted my mirror and braked, giving it more space. Pines flashed past, monochrome in my headlights.

  I pounded my palm on the steering wheel. It was so obvious! Everything about our fairy problem had been in the classical literature – the falling walls, the moving trails, the missing persons. How had we missed this?

  Another SUV roared up behind me, flooding my car with sulfur-colored light. A double line made a twisted ribbon in the center of the road.

  The SUV couldn’t pass me here, though it obviously wanted to. But I wasn’t about to speed up for it, not on this slick road.

  I clenched my jaw. There was a pullout about a mile ahead. “You’ll just have to be patient.”

  The SUV dropped back, and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

  Amber light flooded my Volvo’s interior. I glanced in my rearview mirror.

  The SUV hurtled toward me, no doubt angling to pass.

  I tapped my brakes and edged closer to the shoulder. If the idiot was determined to pass, I’d make it easier–

  The car slammed into my bumper.

  I rocked forward. The rear of the Volvo fishtailed, tires screeching.

  The SUV struck me again.

  The Volvo pinwheeled, the pines a dizzying, unyielding, unavoidable obstacle. My father had died in a car wreck on the way to visit my mother. My ending would be like his.

  The Volvo skidded down a short embankment, and I was spinning again, vertically. My head slammed into something hard, and–

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I awoke upside down. Something hard pressed into my shoulder and hips. Uncomprehending, I stared, my only illumination the greenish glow of the dashboard. The airbag hung limp from the center of my steering wheel.

  My head and neck felt like they had been beaten between the two jawbones I’d found, and a sharp ache pierced the front of my skull. The back of my arms brushed the soft, unyielding roof of the Volvo.

  Unthinking, I reached for the seatbelt release, and I tumbled downward. I landed in an awkward heap, mostly on my shoulders and upper back. In an ungainly somersault, I twisted and sprawled along the Volvo’s roof.

  Broken glass scraped my hands, and I gasped. The car wasn’t just upside down, it was at a sickening, fun house angle. The roof had compressed, breaking the windows, impossibly narrowing any path to escape.

  I slithered to the door and grasped the handle, pushed.

  It didn’t budge.

  Maybe I could crawl through a broken window and escape this coffin. The space had been made narrow when the top of the car had crumpled downward, but–

  Footsteps sounded outside, the sound of someone sliding, trotting down a slope.

  I drew breath to scream for help, then fear arced through my bones, and I clamped my mouth shut. There was something stealthy in those footsteps, crunching across the pine needles.

  Someone had intentionally run me off the road. I’d no idea how long I’d been unconscious, but the Volvo’s metal ticked and groaned. I imagined I could hear its wheels still spinning above me.

  I froze, my heart rabbiting. If the police discovered me in the Volvo, my neck broken, would they chalk it up to an accident?

  Connor wouldn’t. But he was a patrolman, not a detective, and–

  The person tugged on the car handle, the latch clicking.

  Gulping down breaths to keep quiet, I pulled my arms and legs inward, crouching like a bug. If only I really could disappear into the other world.

  My eyes blinked open. The crystal. I’d brought the crystal back. Did that mean... Had I physically been there, in the passage between worlds? This would make the third time one of us had physically traveled by magic, but it was the first time I’d left this world. The passageway was neither here nor there, but it was somewhere else.

  Cowering, helpless, I let my mind run wild. The bruises on my ankle... I rubbed it now. Toeller had grabbed me. I’d assumed she’d seized my physical self in this world, but what if she hadn’t?

  A flashlight beam shone through the narrow remains of the smashed, driver’s side window. Stomach granite hard, I winced at the glare and edged away. Safety glass dug into my knees leaving a trail of fire. The light traveled to the what was left of the other windows, the footsteps moving around the car.

  I scooted sideways, avoiding its beam.

  Whoever was out there wasn’t Toeller. She wouldn’t be afraid to call out my name. We knew each other as adversaries.

  A stinging bead of sweat dripped into my eye. Gretel or Peter? If either was a killer, I’d put money on Gretel, filled with resentment and a sense of entitlement. But was she capable of snapping the necks of two grown men?

  The dashboard light flickered and went out.

  Peter could. He’d been nearby when I’d found Mike. He could have easily killed Mike, then walked outside and waited for me to find his body.

  But why kill Heath Van Oss? He was looking for a book, most likely on someone else’s behalf. Someone who wanted...?

  I turned my head, frantic. A bolt of pain shot up my neck. The book. Where was it? And then I saw the Hardy Boys cover, the book lying beside my left foot. Bare foot. I was barefoot. Shaking off that mystery, I grabbed the book of folktales and clutched it to my chest.

  Was this what my attacker wanted?

  Outside, the flashlight flicked off, bathing me in pitch.

  I blinked, trying to regain my night vision, and held my breath.

  The person outside tried the other doors. They remained shut fast. What if the person was trying to help me? What if he or she left, assuming the
car was empty? What if my silence was destroying my only hope for rescue?

  I almost cried out then, but some instinct stopped the noise in my throat. There was something... wrong, about those footsteps, about the rattling of door handles.

  Don’t think about that. Think about the murders. If the book in my arms was the cause of these murders, why? It wasn’t that valuable. The only reason it could be worth killing over was because of the information inside it, information Mike had read...

  My head gave another throb. He’d hidden it inside a Hardy Boys cover. He’d known it was valuable. And he’d been studying it.

  While I was willing to believe Doc Toeller could make an entire bar full of people disappear, I didn’t believe she was the killer. Breaking necks wasn’t her style.

  The person outside was moving again, the flashlight beam angling inside the windows. Had the top of the roof not crumpled, narrowing the windows, whoever was outside would have had an easier time seeing me. But the angle of the car, the smashed glass, was working in my favor. Lucky me.

  I shook my head. Pain rocketed through my skull. Think!

  Alba. Alba in her madness had seen through the doctor’s facade. Alba had lived next door to Mike. She’d caused a diversion at the hotel the night Van Oss was killed. Had she seen too much that night? While the hotel staff was trying to quiet her, had she seen someone creep up the steps to Van Oss’s hotel room? If Alba had seen something, she wouldn’t have remained silent. But would anyone have understood what she was talking about, or even listened?

  And once again, there had been Toeller, conveniently at the scene of Alba’s death. But others had been there as well – Gretel, Steve Woodley. I’d been right there too.

  I thought back to Alba’s death now. The shouting, the silence, and then...

  Outside, the footsteps paused.

  I stilled, imagining the person listening, and I gripped the book to my chest more tightly.

  Silence.

  There’d been a long silence before Alba had gone through the window. The fight had ended before she’d taken that fatal dive. The killer must have broken her neck and then flung her out to make it appear she’d jumped.

  And then the pieces fit together, locking into place. I knew who’d done it, and I knew why. And they were outside, and I was helpless.

  Running footsteps. Whoever had been outside, was running away.

  I was alone.

  For the first time in my life, I didn’t like it.

  My eyes readjusted to the dim light. White smoke drifted lazily above me, from the cavity near the pedals, and my heart jumped. Oh, God, was the car on fire? Was that why the person had run? But I didn’t smell smoke or gasoline, and I blinked. Was I imagining the strange mist?

  Out, I had to get out. I twisted, searching for the largest window opening. The front windshield was crushed. The back window was intact – wide enough for me to get through but impossible to open. My best chance seemed the broken, rear passenger side window. I wriggled between the seats and tossed the book out the window. It landed with a dull thump.

  The bottom (top?) of the window was jagged with glass, but it was safety glass. I’d survive any scratches.

  I stuck my hands out the window, as if I were a diver readying to take the plunge. I could get through it. The opening was narrow, would be close, but I could–

  Two hands, rough as pine bark, grasped my wrists, and I shrieked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I screamed, a dry, cracking sound, and the grip around my wrists released.

  “Lenore!” Connor peered through the narrow window, and I almost cried with relief. His swarthy face creased with worry.

  “Someone ran me off the road.” My voice trembled. “Someone was here.”

  “It’s all right. We’ll get you out.”

  “I can get through the window.” The car was a tomb, and suddenly I had to get out, out, out. Heedless of the broken glass, I wriggled forward.

  “Lenore, wait–”

  But I wouldn’t, couldn’t wait. Sparks of agony nipped my palms, glass scraped against my back and stomach. I slithered through the Volvo’s broken window.

  Connor grasped my arms and helped me stand. His muscular form towered over me.

  I swayed, dizzy, and scanned the tilting earth. Where was the book? I hadn’t thrown it far.

  “Come and sit down,” he said, curling one arm around me, steadying.

  “No.” I tried to pull away, but his arms were unyielding. “The book! It’s here somewhere.”

  “A book?” He scanned the uneven slope with his flashlight. Pine needles carpeted the ground. A manzanita bush, branches crushed where my car had slid or rolled through them. A snapped, baby pine, and the book beside it.

  I gasped with relief and hurried forward, but my legs felt disconnected, and I sank to the ground instead. “The book.”

  “I’ll get it.” In two, long strides he swooped and picked it up, then returned it to me. “An old Hardy Boys. Cool. Not sure they’re worth all the fuss though.”

  I reached for it.

  He hesitated. “Your hands are bleeding. You sure you want this now?”

  Surprised, I studied my stinging palms. Right. Blood plus old book, equals not good.

  “Come on. Let me help you.” He looped one muscular arm around my waist and hauled me to my feet, walked me up the slope to his patrol car. He sat me in the front passenger seat, leaving the door open so my feet brushed the ground. Reaching across the seat, he set the book beside me, and I could smell the piney scent of his cologne.

  He cradled my head in his hand. “Here, look at me.” He gazed into my eyes, and even though he was only checking for blurred vision, my breath caught.

  Connor stilled, then seemed to shake himself. He pulled away. “Wait here.”

  He walked to the back of the squad car.

  I turned my head to follow his progress. Nausea twisted my stomach. I leaned forward, grasping the handle of the open door, and willed myself not to vomit.

  The patrol car’s headlights turned the ground the color of whiskey. Shadows twisted unevenly along the earth, and my stomach wrenched again.

  “You all right?” He stood over me and shook his head, his smile wry. “Dumb question.” One-handed, he draped a beige blanket over my shoulders.

  Kneeling in front of me, he popped open a first aid kit. “You might have a concussion,” he said. “Your head looks pretty banged up. I’ll let the paramedics make that call, but we can clean up your hands.”

  He dabbed at them with cotton soaked in antiseptic, and I winced. “What’s so important about the book?” he asked.

  A car’s headlights swept the highway. The car slowed, passed.

  The book. If I told him, he might confiscate it. And we needed that book. But I didn’t want to hide things from him any longer. “I need to take it to my sisters. It’s important,” I said, acutely conscious he was still cradling my open hand.

  “A Hardy Boys,” he said, bemused. “Okay, I’m going with concussed. You said a car ran you off the road. Did you get a look at it?”

  “No. It was an SUV or a truck, but it was behind me and too dark to see much more. All I saw were headlights. They were high. But someone was here, before you arrived, walking around. I think... I think it was the driver.” And I thought I knew who it had been, but I had no proof, and so I said nothing.

  It would be a deadly mistake.

  He nodded. “We’ll treat this as a crime scene. Just in case.”

  I touched his wrist, and my skin burned at the contact. “I’m sorry. You were right. About everything.”

  His mercurial eyes looked at me for a long moment. “For the rest of our lives,” he said, “I’m going to keep reminding you of that apology, because I know I’m never getting another.” He grinned broadly, and I laughed.

  He didn’t hate me. Maybe there was even a chance for something more?

  “Now tell me about this book,” he said. “Is it valuable,
like the others you found?”

  “Not monetarily,” I hedged.

  “But you say it’s important. Why?”

  And here it was, the make or break moment when he’d either think I was a lunatic or join the team. I hesitated. “Have you ever noticed anything... strange about Doyle?”

  He paused, the bloody cotton hovering above my open palm. There was a beat. Two. “I’d say a disappearing pub is strange.”

  “But that’s not the only thing, is it?” I said, intent, hoping he’d understand.

  He got back to work on my palm. “The Bell and Thistle isn’t the first disappearance.” Connor didn’t meet my gaze. “Someone vanishes every seven years. For a while I was convinced Doyle had a serial killer.” He laughed, a short, mirthless bark. “Before I became a cop, I figured I’d catch him. But serial killers don’t make pubs vanish into thin air. And I don’t believe in UFOs.”

  “It’s not a UFO,” I said, my hand warm in his.

  He looked up at me and said nothing.

  A wind stirred the pines. They bent, soughing.

  “And then there’s the bell,” he said.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “People say it’s the old bell from the Bell and Thistle.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “I’ve hunted up and down, and I can never find that damn ringing bell.”

  I sighed. He’d never admit it.

  “They say you and your sisters are witches,” he said.

  My face fell. “Witches didn’t make the pub disappear.”

  “No. I’d never believe you would. Or your sisters.” He released my hand and tore a fresh piece of cotton from the wad, soaked it in alcohol. “My grandmother was a curandera, a traditional healer.”

  “I didn’t know that.” His grandmother was a witch? There was so much about him I still didn’t know. How I wanted to find out, to study him like one of Mike’s old books.

  “It wasn’t something we publicized,” he said dryly. “She practically raised me, told me stories about... other things. Older things. They scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.”