Deadly Harvest

by Heather Graham

  Harold groaned, and they all winced.

  Spotlights went on, because the light was starting to fade, and the third set was scattered.

  The police kept searching, and in the end, parts of a fourth victim were found. She was going to be hard to identify, because her skull was missing….

  “Who owns this field?” Jeremy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “We’ll have to check the county records. I know Ginny’s land stretches pretty far, and the Rolfes owned land out this way once, too, but I’m pretty sure Eric’s mother sold everything but the house when she moved to Florida.”

  One of his men cleared his throat. “Sir, this is MacElroy land now. They picked it up, since it bordered Ginny’s land.”

  “Makes sense,” Joe muttered, shaking his head. “Ginny hires people to work it, and folks who are hired aren’t as thorough as folks who own.”

  Dr. MacElroy deserved some scrutiny, Jeremy thought. Could the kindly pediatrician be a killer?

  He’d heard of stranger things.

  Jeremy looked up to the sky. The last of the day’s light was going. He turned to look out across the nearby stretch of bracken. The last rays of sunlight must be playing, because he saw the boy again. Standing there, just looking at him, looking like a real live boy, with his tousled hair and T-shirt, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans.

  Jeremy shook his head, as if to clear his vision, and told himself that the obvious explanation was almost always the right one. No doubt there really was a boy out there. There were houses around here. Somewhere. Farmhouses. And farmers had sons.

  But then the boy moved, pointing toward the sky, as if to draw Jeremy’s attention to the fading light. Then he pointed again, toward Jeremy’s car.

  He was a good distance away, but Jeremy could swear that the boy mouthed a word.

  “Hurry.”

  And then he vanished.

  It was almost dark.

  Rowenna. He had to get Rowenna.

  He knocked Brad in the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Joe looked at him. “You’re not hanging around?”

  “I’ve got to pick up Rowenna,” he explained.

  “Something else may turn up here,” Joe said. “I’ll call you later if we find anything. You get going.”

  His stride long as he hurried, heedless of the rough ground, Jeremy tripped over something as he passed close to where they had found the first body. When he looked down as he caught his balance, he noticed something sticking out from under the rock that had nearly brought him facedown in the field. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and carefully picked it up.

  He frowned. It looked like a business card, but it, like the body, was the worse for the elements. It would probably have dissolved already if it had been paper, but it had been laminated.

  In the fading light, he could just make out the curlicue writing, the pentagram in the upper left and the fairy on the right.

  It read Magick Mercantile, Adam and Eve Llewellyn, Proprietors, followed by the store’s address and phone number.

  Anyone could have dropped a card, he reasoned. But there was something stuck to the back of the card.

  It looked like gum. Old, dried-up gum.

  And Adam Llewellyn was always chewing gum.

  It would have to be tested, to see if his guess as to its identity was correct.

  But even though he didn’t know for sure, Jeremy’s blood chilled in his veins.

  “Joe!” he shouted.

  “Hi, there, Ro. You working for the Llewellyns now?”

  She felt frozen where she stood. She’d been just about to reach for the doorknob when the door had opened, and she’d jumped back to avoid being hit by it. But now she couldn’t move.

  It was Eric Rolfe. He had looked like a menacing giant seen through the glass of the door, but up close he was merely a fairly tall man in a big Windbreaker.

  “Ro? You look upset. Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “I…I can’t find Adam or Eve,” she said.

  Eric frowned and looked at his watch. “I had an appointment to meet Eve here. She was going to give me a reading. I can’t believe she would just stand me up.”

  “I can’t believe she would, either,” Rowenna said, and started behind the counter.

  “What are you doing?” Eric asked.

  “Something’s wrong. I’m going to call 911,” she said.

  “Ro, wait. I don’t think you should do that,” Eric said.

  “Eric, a woman is dead, another one is missing…and now Eve!” She couldn’t bring herself to say that Eve thought her husband might be a killer and point out that her husband wasn’t there, either.

  Eric shook his head. “Rowenna, what if you get the police all stirred up and then it turns out they just ran out for coffee? Or a quickie? You could cause all kinds of trouble for them. When did you last see Eve?” he asked.

  “About twenty minutes ago,” she said.

  He arched a brow. “Twenty minutes?” he said.

  “Yes, she was here. Twenty minutes ago.”

  “You’re going to try and tell the cops that a woman is missing because you haven’t seen her in twenty minutes?”

  Eric was coming closer to the counter, and she suddenly found that whether she had known him all her life or not, she was nervous.

  He had made those horrible scarecrows when she was a kid, and now he made movie monsters and devil masks. Why couldn’t Eric be the killer?

  He hadn’t fit in as a kid, so he had created creepy scarecrows to win prizes and look cool.

  She stared at him, praying that her fear didn’t show in her face.

  First Adam, now Eric. They couldn’t both be killers. Could they?

  “She didn’t lock the door, Eric. She always locks the door.”

  “Which probably means she’s right nearby, maybe getting coffee or something.”

  “We need the police.” She reached for the phone and nearly screamed when his hand settled over hers.

  “Ro, I’m telling you, do not call the police.”

  In the car, Jeremy tried calling Rowenna. Her phone rang once before his cut out and the “Searching for service” message filled the screen. He swore in aggravation.

  “Mary is going to be okay,” Brad said, as if trying to reassure himself. “Joe has men out looking for Adam. They’ll pick him up right away, and they’ll get him to tell them where Mary is.”

  Brad was like a ball of electricity, Jeremy thought.

  “We don’t know that it was Adam,” he pointed out. “Anyone could have picked up that card at the shop.” He had been discreet in telling Joe about the possible gum, hoping not to give Brad reason to go flying off the handle, but it looked like it had been wasted effort.

  “That card means he was out there,” Brad said flatly. “I wish you hadn’t shown that card to Joe. I wish I could have gotten to him first. I could have made him tell me where Mary is.”

  “We’re going to find her,” Jeremy promised, wishing he felt as certain as he managed to sound. Undoubtedly they would find her. But in what condition?

  Dead or alive?

  Why had the dead boy in his dreams begun to haunt his waking moments? Why had he pointed to the sky, and then to the car?

  And why had he told him to hurry?

  It was that last question that worried him most of all, because he’d promised to pick up Rowenna—and what if he was too late?

  “He’s a wacko, that’s what he is. A homicidal wacko,” Brad said. “I bet that bastard left his own shop, ran to that tent, put on a costume and waited for us to show up. He’s a hypnotist or something. And he buys all that weird shit for his shop. Maybe their incense is drugged. I should have seen it. Oh, God, this is all my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Jeremy said, but he was distracted, replying by rote.

  There was a tractor in front of him. He gritted his teeth, praying for patience. He beeped, hoping it would move to the side
of the road, but it just lumbered on.

  Hell, he couldn’t see around the guy, but there was never anybody on this road. He floored the gas pedal, and they veered around it.

  Luckily the truck coming from the opposite direction was still a good distance away. Jeremy just managed to pass and swerve back into his own lane.

  “Fuck!” Brad said, staring at him.

  “Sorry.”

  “Hell, no, they should put you in control more often,” Brad said.

  Jeremy reached for his phone, which finally had service, and hit Redial. Rowenna didn’t pick up. His sense of panic increased.

  “Gun it,” Brad told him.

  He did.

  “Rowenna,” Eric said. He was staring at her, and suddenly, his tone turned pleading. “Don’t go causing trouble for them. They’re a nice couple. I know they’ve been having a few problems, but they’ll work things out. If you get the police involved, it will just make everything harder for them.”

  He lifted his hand from hers.

  She stared at him. “Eric, I think something is really wrong.”

  “But…the police?”

  There was a killer out there. And even though he had taken his hand off hers and was looking so sincere…

  She still didn’t feel secure.

  “All right, you stay here. I’ll go look and see if I can find them somewhere nearby,” she said.

  To her relief, he agreed. “Okay, and if they don’t show up in an hour…well, I don’t know. We’ll worry about that if we have to.”

  She headed for the door, trying not to run. She realized that she had left her purse somewhere in the store, but she wasn’t going back for it. She was going to get out to the street—where there were people.

  But once again, as she neared the door, it burst open.

  And this time, three uniformed police officers poured in.

  “Officer O’Reilly?” Rowenna gasped, recognizing the first man through the door.

  “Rowenna, are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “Where’s Adam Llewellyn?”

  “We don’t know,” she told him. “Why?”

  “He’s wanted for questioning in the murders of Dinah Green and four unknown women, and the disappearance of Mary Johnstone,” O’Reilly said.

  18

  They were nearly at the museum. Jeremy could read the banners out front that advertised the upcoming Harvest Festival, promising music, munchies and mayhem.

  Jeremy jerked his car to a stop in front of the museum and leaped. Brad followed, but Jeremy didn’t even notice as headed straight for the door.

  His heart sank. It was locked.

  He looked at his watch. It was five-thirty. An hour after he’d promised to meet Rowenna.

  He kicked the door in frustration.

  He pulled out his phone again, afraid that it was futile, but he hit Redial anyway.

  This time, to his amazement, she answered.

  “Jeremy?” She said his name in a strangely tremulous voice.

  “Rowenna, where are you? Why didn’t you answer before?”

  A second’s silence made him think he had lost service again. His heart plummeted.

  Then she spoke, and her voice was stronger. Defensive, maybe.

  Or just indignant.

  “I tried calling you,” she informed him. Anger. It was anger. But that was okay; she was all right.

  “Where are you?”

  “Looking at you,” she informed him dryly.

  He turned, and there she was, coming down the street. She wasn’t alone, either. To his vast relief, he saw that Zach was at her side.

  He closed and pocketed his phone as Rowenna ran the last few feet to him, and then he took her in his arms. He saw the amusement in Zach’s eyes, but he didn’t care. He just offered his brother a shrug and went back to hugging Rowenna. When she finally eased away from him, he greeted his brother with a hug just as heartfelt as the one he’d given Rowenna, though substantially less intimate.

  Brad stepped up then, and he and Zach exchanged hellos, shaking hands.

  “This is one active place,” Zach said.

  “What are you talking about?” Jeremy asked, looking from his brother to Rowenna.

  “I came walking down the street just when Rowenna was coming out of a place the police were raiding,” Zachary explained. “They told us you’d found four more bodies.”

  Jeremy nodded grimly.

  “Did they get Adam Llewellyn?” Brad asked anxiously.

  “Not that we know about, not yet,” Zach said.

  “Joe will let us know,” Jeremy told him.

  “Eve is missing, too,” Rowenna said worriedly. She shook her head. “It’s all my fault,” she said miserably.

  “Your fault?” Jeremy said.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be having this discussion out in the street,” Zach suggested. “My bags are still in my rental car. I wouldn’t mind a chance to wash my face, sit down and get the rundown on everything. And I think that Rowenna has a few things to tell you.” He looked over his shoulder, then looked back at Rowenna. “Where did your other friend go? I thought he was right behind us.”

  “When the police let us go and you arrived, he said he was going to go get a drink,” she answered.

  “What other friend?” Jeremy asked sharply.

  “Eric. He was at the shop, too.”

  “Wait a minute. You were at the shop? And Adam and Eve weren’t?” Jeremy demanded. He knew he sounded overbearing, but he didn’t care.

  “I could hardly wait at a museum that had closed,” she replied sharply.

  “Let’s get to that house of yours,” Zach suggested.

  “Go on,” Brad said. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Wait,” Jeremy told him. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to look for Adam Llewellyn. I have to find Mary, and he knows where she is.”

  “Brad, no. If you lay a hand on him, you’ll go to jail and possibly ruin the cops’ case, as well,” Jeremy said. “You have to let the local police find him. Dammit, Brad, you’re coming with us.”

  Brad stared at him, his eyes narrowing. “If Rowenna were missing, you’d be out looking for Adam, and don’t lie to me and say you wouldn’t.”

  Jeremy stared at his friend, then turned to his brother, a question in his eyes.

  “Rowenna, will you take me to the house?” Zach asked. “They can come along in a while.”

  She offered them all an icy smile, then met Jeremy’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere until I tell you what I know.”

  “Okay, go on,” Jeremy said.

  They all listened as she told them about everything Adam had confided about his blackouts, the book he was reading, and everything Eve had told her. Jeremy knew he was frowning when she told him about going to the shop, seeing Eve and then going back to find it empty.

  “So even his wife thinks he’s a killer?” Brad said when she was done.

  “That doesn’t mean she’s right!” Rowenna insisted. “But…” Her voice trailed off, and her brow was furrowed in a frown. Her eyes were a deep amber as she turned to Jeremy. “You say that…you found four more corpses? You’re sure it was four?”

  “Yes, four. Why?”

  “So with Dinah Green, that’s five.”

  “Yes, why? There may be more somewhere, God knows.”

  “He needs seven,” Rowenna said.

  “Seven?”

  She reminded them of what she had read in Adam’s book, then explained that she had gone back to the museum and found the reference to the fact that the Harvest Man needed to sacrifice seven women to take on the powers of the Devil.

  “Mary,” Brad said weakly. “My God, we have to find her.”

  With nothing to do but wait for word from the police, they took Zach’s things to Jeremy’s house, then went to have dinner, though none of them managed to eat much of anything as they brought Zach—and each othe
r—up to speed on everything they knew to date.

  At ten, when they were all sitting over drinks with no idea what to do next, Rowenna suddenly said, “The cemetery.”

  “What?” Jeremy asked.

  “He’s gone to the cemetery.”

  “It’s closed at night,” he pointed out.

  She gave him an incredulous stare. “Jeremy, a Pekingese could get into that place!”

  He sighed. He didn’t want her anywhere near the cemetery. Mary had disappeared from the cemetery.

  But he was there, and Brad and Zach were there. “All right, we’ll try the cemetery.”

  As they approached it a few minutes later, Jeremy was stunned to see a figure seated cross-legged on top of a tomb just inside the wall.

  “Son of a bitch!” Brad roared from behind him.

  “Brad!” Jeremy tore after Brad, leaping the wall right behind him. He managed to grab Brad two seconds after he had all but crushed Adam to the ground and taken a swing at his jaw.

  “You son of a bitch!” Brad roared. “Where is she? Where’s my wife?”

  Jeremy had Brad, but Brad was strong and powerful and running on adrenaline. Jeremy struggled to hold him, while Zach tried to get Adam up and protect him.

  Adam didn’t seem to give a damn. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know. I wish I did. I’d help you. I swear I’d help you!”

  Jeremy, on the ground and still trying to control Brad, was dimly aware that Rowenna was on the phone. In seconds, he heard the screech of sirens. Adam didn’t run; he just stood there, looking bleak and broken. Jeremy rolled on Brad, finally pinning him.

  Then the police filed into the cemetery and Adam was taken away.

  Only then did Jeremy dare get up. Brad just lay there, panting as Jeremy stumbled to his feet. Zachary watched both of them warily.

  Another police car, lights blazing, drove up. Joe Brentwood jumped out, and as soon as he was introduced to Zach and apprised of what had just happened, he pointed a stern finger at Brad. “I know what you’re going through, son. But we don’t have a lick of proof against that man. If he took your wife, we’ll find out and then we’ll find her. Tonight, you get off the streets. If any of my men see you out, you’ll be under arrest, and I’ll find a way to keep you under lock and key until this is over. You understand me?”