Deadly Harvest

by Heather Graham

  The steps were old, just like the rest of the place, and creaked when she walked up them. She searched through her large, over-the-shoulder travel handbag, found her key and opened the door, then fumbled for the light switch. She was relieved when the simple iron chandelier in the mudroom came right on.

  “Come on in,” she said to Jeremy, who was standing right behind her, carrying her suitcases.

  She walked through the mudroom, hitting the lights for the foyer. It wasn’t a grand entry by any means, but rather a glorified hall that opened to the oldest section on the left and the newer wing—the section added on in the 1850s—to the right. The stairway ran along the right wall and led to a picture-perfect landing above, complete with cast-iron balustrade. On the second floor she had her bedroom, guest room, office and a room she mostly used for storage. The stairs to the attic were in the storage room, and the attic was filled with all kinds of wonders that she meant to go through at some point.

  “Where would you like these?” Jeremy asked, hefting her suitcases. There were two of them, and they were heavy, just missing the cutoff, after which she would have been charged extra by the airline.

  “Right there is fine,” she told him quickly.

  He set them down, and she watched him as he surveyed the house. He met her eyes and grinned at her. “This is one big place to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere, huh?”

  “It’s not that big, and I do have neighbors—we passed their place,” she said.

  “But you live here—alone—and have for years, right?”

  “Yes. I’ve lived here all my life, really, except for college and a lot of traveling,” she said. “It’s good to have somewhere that’s home.”

  “Do you have an alarm system?”

  “No.”

  “And no big dog, either.”

  She laughed. “I’d love a big dog, but he’d starve to death, since I’m gone half the time.”

  “Want me to walk around, check things out?” he asked.

  Yes!

  She managed a casual shrug. “Sure. If you’d like.”

  She walked him through, telling him the architectural history of the place as she did so.

  “You’ve never been afraid out here, huh?” he asked.

  “What? Are you trying to scare me?” she asked him.

  At least he had the grace to look apologetic. “No, sorry. I’m not trying to scare you. I guess…” He paused, frowning.

  “You guess…what?”

  “Oddly enough, when I didn’t see you in the graveyard, I found that far more frightening than knowing you live out in the boondocks.”

  “This is hardly the boondocks,” she protested. And it wasn’t. On a quiet night, she could probably scream loud enough for her neighbors to hear her. She was twenty minutes from the city. She wanted to live out in the country, but she didn’t want to be alone.

  “Want some coffee or something before you drive back?” she asked, starting toward the kitchen, which had once been a large pantry, in the rear of the house. She assumed he would follow.

  She hoped he would follow.

  He did.

  “Hmm, no milk for the coffee,” she said, rummaging in the refrigerator.

  “I don’t want coffee,” he told her, then walked over to her, drawing her into his arms and looking down into her eyes. “Do you want me to stay?”

  Her heart quickened. She wanted to say yes, and she didn’t want to say yes. She didn’t want him staying because she was afraid. She wanted him staying because he wanted to stay, and she wasn’t sure that he would believe her if she said so. But she had to ask.

  “Do you want to stay?” she asked seriously.

  There was a tenderness in his eyes that seemed to take away all the darkness of the night. Being held by him, feeling the warm, hard strength of his body and his arms around her, seemed so sweet and foreign that she felt a rush of dizziness.

  “You know I do,” he said huskily.

  “Then I definitely want you to stay,” she whispered in return.

  The next hours passed in a glorious haze. In the morning, she would put the memories in order by where she found her clothing. Sweater in the kitchen, one shoe at the foot of the stairs, another halfway up. Shirt at the door to her bedroom, skirt halfway across the room.

  Her underwear, at least, made it to the side of the bed.

  It had been late. Time to slip naturally into bed, to enjoy the darkness, fumbling to touch one another in the shadows, even to laugh a bit at the urgency that brought them together. In his arms, she didn’t mind the darkness.

  She didn’t even think of shadows.

  There was just him, his body long and smoothly muscled, vibrant and hot against her own. There was touching him and marveling again at the feel of his skin beneath her palms, knowing that first night they had shared was not a fleeting moment to be cherished forever, relived in memory but never to be repeated. She loved the way he stroked her face, as if learning the structure of it, and she loved the way his lips felt on her skin, as if he were branding her with kisses of fire and ice. She loved the pressure of his body against hers, the intimacy, the electricity. The hunger and the longing, and the sense of climbing, escalating, being so desperate for something and yet savoring every tiny, anguished step to reach that goal. Then there was the exultation of climax, like a scorching blaze that lit up the sky within her own mind again, and then again….

  The simple beauty of being held, the slick warmth of passion and even the chill of aftermath, the slowing beat of pulse and heart, and still being together.

  Maybe, for a while, she could live the dream. He would leave eventually, of course, and then all the wonder would indeed be confined to memory.

  But it was foolish to envision the future. It would come soon enough. Somehow, she had to teach herself to be glad for the moment. Guard her heart, but live fully in the moment.

  Easy enough to say, but almost impossibly hard to do. She was so tired, though, so on that note, she slept.

  She heard the cawing of a crow.

  It was coming from the darkness, except that the darkness was easing. Morning was coming. An overcast, cold morning, a forerunner of the winter that would so quickly follow the fall. But she was home, standing on the balcony just outside her bedroom window, and she was watching as the light of day struggled to pierce the mist and the night. She could hear the crow screeching again and again.

  From her vantage point, she could see the cornfields.

  And she could watch the crows.

  They were circling over the cornfield.

  She knew that she had to go out, that the crows were calling to her, showing her where to go. She tried to turn, to go back into the house, but she couldn’t. A crow had landed on the railing and looked at her, cocking its head as it let out another terrible scream.

  It lifted off from the railing and joined the flock circling…something in the middle of the cornfield. She knew what it was.

  And she didn’t want to see.

  “Rowenna!”

  She woke with a jerk and instantly winced. The dream had been dispelled by the sound of his voice, but she was still afraid to open her eyes.

  One nightmare was easy enough to explain.

  But two?

  He was at her side. And it was the crack of dawn, the light as misty as it had been in her dream. They hadn’t bothered to draw the drapes before tumbling into bed, and now the thin light was creeping into the bedroom.

  His face was beautiful, she decided, though a man wouldn’t want to hear such a compliment. Jawline strong, nose straight and perfect, mouth generous and wide, shock of dark auburn hair a perfect complement to the gray, wide-set eyes and ruggedly arched brows. His forehead was furrowed now with concern. He had risen earlier, she thought, because he was already dressed.

  But he was back on the bed now, seated at her side, holding her.

  “Um…good morning,” she whispered.

  “You were dreaming again. Anothe
r nightmare.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t do it all the time—honest,” she said.

  “What was it about?”

  “What?”

  “Your dream. What were you dreaming about? I hope you’re not having nightmares about me,” he teased.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Then maybe you are having nightmares about me,” he said. “Seriously, you really don’t remember?”

  He sounded concerned, she thought, but when she shook her head, he just rose, looking down at her.

  “I made coffee,” he told her. “I found some little packets of that powdered cream stuff.”

  She noticed that his hair was clean and damp. Apparently he’d also found the shower. He’d obviously been up for a while, and she wondered how long he’d watched her dream before he’d awakened her. She didn’t understand why it bothered him that she didn’t remember what the dream had been about.

  Because she was a lousy liar, and he didn’t like being lied to? Maybe.

  But she had the strange feeling that it was more.

  “Coffee,” she said, “sounds divine.”

  He nodded briefly and headed downstairs. She found herself wondering if she had done something to disturb him. Didn’t new lovers find it almost impossible to resist one another?

  She headed for the shower herself, then found him getting ready to leave when she went downstairs a little while later. “I have to pick up Brad at nine. We’re going to retrace his every step that day, see if there isn’t something, somewhere, anywhere, that we’ve missed so far.”

  “Good idea,” she said, wondering why she suddenly felt uneasy. The daylight was coming, and this was her home, for God’s sake. She was going to be fine. She was going to unpack.

  And then, as she had promised Joe when he had dropped her off at the Hawthorne last night, she was going to go into his office and talk with him. Alone.

  “Want to meet us for lunch?” Jeremy asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Sure, if you don’t mind a late lunch. I have a few odds and ends to take care of here,” she told him.

  He kissed her on the lips, stared into her eyes and smiled. “See you then. Um, you have a car, right?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I have a car. It’s in the garage out back,” she told him.

  He hugged her, and as she held him, she felt the gun in his waistband. For some odd reason, it gave her a little jolt. He was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, she knew. It shouldn’t have been a shock.

  But it was.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “How about two?” she asked.

  “Sounds good. Where?”

  She chose a restaurant down by the water. If she was going to meet Brad, she didn’t really want to be too close to the cemetery. Let the guy have lunch without staring at the place where he’d last seen his wife.

  “I’ll see you there,” Jeremy told her, and left.

  She listened to the sound of his car as he drove away. Then she looked at her suitcases and decided that she would unpack, then run over to the MacElroy place and let them know she was back and they might be seeing a strange car in her drive. Then she could head in to see Joe.

  When they left Brad’s B and B, Jeremy told Brad again that he wanted to retrace the day of Mary’s disappearance step-by-step.

  “We were all over town,” Brad told him.

  “So we’ll go all over town,” Jeremy said, and started walking.

  They stopped at the Salem Witch Museum first. Brad nearly broke down as he told Jeremy that it had been Mary’s favorite museum, in large part because she’d thought they’d done an excellent job accurately recreating history with few theatrics. They stayed for the twenty-minute presentation, and Jeremy decided that he agreed with Mary. Since none of the people working in the shop or welcoming visitors had been there the day Mary went missing, they left as soon as the presentation ended.

  Brad explained that they had skipped the Peabody Essex Museum, planning to spend the next day there, and had instead gone on to visit a number of the mall’s haunted houses, which were gone now, having been set up specifically for Halloween. Jeremy and Brad boarded the tram and went to the pirate museum, a wax museum and a monster museum. Then they went to one that advertised History! Just History, and Nothing More!

  No sooner had they entered than a man came over to greet them. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He had brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, and was tall and slim. He walked right up to Brad, who clearly recognized him. From the conversation, Jeremy realized the man, a museum employee who introduced himself as Daniel Mie, had struck up a conversation with Brad and Mary that day, and that he’d been hoping to get a chance to tell Brad how sorry he felt about what had happened.

  “Jeremy and I used to be partners,” Brad explained, after Jeremy introduced himself. “He’s a private investigator now, and he’s here to see what he can find out.”

  Daniel smiled at Jeremy. “Glad to hear it.”

  “So what about you?” Jeremy asked. “Did you notice anyone suspicious, maybe someone paying more attention to Mary than he should have been?”

  The man looked thoughtful for a long moment, then shook his head slowly. “I wish I could. Thing is, you can’t imagine how crazy this town gets for Halloween. The crowds are huge. I only remember Brad and…and Mary because we got talking.”

  “Well, thanks,” Jeremy told him. “If you happen to remember anything, though…” He handed Daniel his card. “Just give me a call on my cell.”

  “Will do. And if you have time, come back and take a real look at the museum. We’ve got a section on the pagan practices that are the basis for today’s wiccans’ practice and another exhibit on what the Puritans thought witches were back then….”

  “Thanks,” Jeremy told him, and turned to leave.

  But Brad stayed put and said to Daniel, “It was that fortune-teller, the one you sent us to.”

  Daniel looked confused. “What was? What are you—”

  “You recommended that guy?” Jeremy interrupted, wondering why Brad hadn’t thought to mention that earlier. “How well do you know him? Is he a friend of yours? Do you know where we could find him?”

  “No, sorry. I just went to him for a reading and was impressed, so I recommended him. I wish I could help you, but…”

  When they left, Brad actually seemed determined, rather than disheartened. “That guy is out there somewhere. And when we find him, we’ll find Mary. I know it.”

  Jeremy was silent.

  “We’ll find her alive. I know I must sound crazy, but I know she’s alive.”

  “We’re working from that belief, Brad,” Jeremy assured him. “Where to next?”

  “That shop right there,” he said, pointing. “The owners are named Adam and Eve Llewellyn, if you can believe it. Mary liked them a lot. I even liked them, even though I thought they’d be pretty loopy. They’re witches,” he said with a dry laugh.

  “I met them last night,” Jeremy said. “But I’d like to see their place, and I wouldn’t mind talking to them again, either.”

  Ginny opened the door at the MacElroy house, let out a little cry of joy when she saw Rowenna and gave her a big hug.

  Ginny was the perfect great-aunt. Sixty-year-old widower Dr. Nick MacElroy was a pediatrician. His kids were grown, but Ginny remained with him, looking after the grandchildren when they came. Rowenna had gone to school with his two sons, who had also gone into medicine but practiced in Boston. They came out often enough with their wives and kids, and Ginny was always thrilled to see them.

  Rowenna had loved Ginny when she’d been growing up. Ginny always had hot cocoa and oatmeal cookies for whoever stopped in. She had the look of Mrs. Claus, with a bun of snow-white hair, spectacles that slipped down her nose all the time, cheery, bright blue eyes, and she barely stood five feet.

  “Thanks so much for
looking after the place.”

  “It’s my pleasure, dear,” Ginny said. “Now, what will you have? Coffee, tea or cocoa? And I have blueberry scones, pumpkin muffins or—if you’re ready for lunch—acorn squash and sliced turkey breast.”

  Rowenna laughed. “It isn’t Thanksgiving yet, Ginny.”

  “I have ham, too, if you’d prefer.”

  “Oh, Ginny, thank you so much. But I have to go into town to meet a friend for lunch.”

  “A friend?” Ginny’s eyes brightened. “Would that be a male friend?”

  “Yes, Ginny, that would be a male friend. His name is Jeremy Flynn. He’s renting a place in town, but I wanted to let you know about him so you won’t worry if you see a strange man around my place….”

  “Is he cute?”

  “More like…rugged,” she said with a smile.

  Ginny smiled back. “Well it’s about time. I keep telling Joe that he can’t hang on to you the way he does or you’ll never feel as if you can date anyone else.”

  “Joe is a good friend, Ginny, and he’s never stopped me from doing anything.” She looked at her watch. “Anyway, I need to get going.” She hesitated, then asked curiously, “Ginny, why did you leave the place dark last night?”

  “What are you talking about? I left a light on. Nick even went over with me the other day to change the front hall lightbulbs. I know the light was on when I left,” Ginny said, troubled.

  Ginny was closer to eighty than seventy, Rowenna thought. Usually, her mind was as sharp as a tack. But maybe…

  Rowenna knew that she forgot plenty of things herself.

  “Thanks, Ginny,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you later.”

  “I can’t wait to meet your young man.”

  Rowenna was already heading back out to her car. “He’s not my young man, Ginny. He’s just a friend.”

  “Then I can’t wait to meet your friend,” Ginny called, grinning.

  A few minutes later, Rowenna found herself driving past the cornfields. Even though it was full daylight, she tried not to look at them.