by Nora Roberts
held the group together. And always would. “The Master demands blood.”
“Not human blood.”
“We will see.”
Mick wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “It's just that before Biff, we never killed one of our own.”
Atherton steepled his hands. “You're forgetting Jack Kimball.”
“Jack Kimball was an accident.” Mick lit one cigarette from the butt of another. “Parker and me just went up to talk to him, maybe scare him a little so he wouldn't mouth off about the shopping center deal. We didn't mean for anything to happen to him. It was an accident.”
“Nothing is an accident. The Master punishes the weak.”
Mick only nodded. He believed it, deeply. “Jack should've toughened up, we all knew it. I guess I figured when he died, we'd cut out our weak link. But he could still be a problem.”
“How do you mean?”
“That's why I asked for this meeting. Cam's looking into the land deal.”
There was a sudden, terrible silence broken only by Mick's uneven breathing and the patient gnawing of a field mouse. “Why?”
“I figure because of Clare. The other day she came into the office, tight as a spring. Right after, I find out he's making calls to the county courthouse, asking for access to the records.”
A moment's pause. The faint drumming of fingers on wood. “There's nothing for him to find.”
“Well, I know we covered our tracks real good, but I figured you ought to know. If he ties any of that business to us—”
“He won't. In your position as deputy, you should be able to steer him in another direction. Perhaps what we need is some new evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Leave it to me.”
“I was thinking …” Mick tried to choose his words carefully. “With Cam poking around like he is, and the town so edgy, we might postpone the next couple of ceremonies. Maybe until Lammas Night. By then—”
“Postpone?” Atherton's voice was no longer hushed, but sharp as a scalpel. “Postpone our rites because of fools and weaklings? We postpone nothing. We yield nothing. We fear nothing.” Gracefully, he rose to tower over the other men. “We will have our messe noir on schedule. And we will demand that His wrath fall on those who would persecute us.”
It was after four when Clare dragged herself into the house. She went straight to the refrigerator, popped open a beer, and chugged half of it. It helped wash the taste of cranberry parfait punch out of her mouth.
She stepped out of her shoes as she walked from the kitchen to the living room. “Blair? Blair, are you home? Guess not,” she muttered into her beer when there was no answer. She shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it in the direction of a chair. She started upstairs, tilting the beer with one hand and unbuttoning her blouse with the other.
When she heard the movement above her head, she swallowed slowly. A creak, the sound of something heavy being dragged. Silent in her stocking feet, she moved to the top of the steps.
The attic door was open. Her heart sank a little at the idea of Blair going through those boxes of memories as she had.
But when she stood in the doorway, it was Cam she saw, not her brother.
“What are you doing?”
Cam looked up from the box he was emptying. “I didn't hear you come in.”
“Obviously.” She stepped inside the room. Her father—those pieces of his life—had been uncovered and stacked on the floor. “I asked what you were doing.”
“Looking for something that might help.” He sat back on his heels. One look at her face warned him he'd better go carefully. “Your father might have had something else. A notebook. Some papers.”
“I see.” She set the half-finished beer aside to pick up the gardening shirt. “Got a search warrant, Sheriff?”
He struggled for patience and at least found understanding. “No. Blair gave the go-ahead. Clare, are we going to cover the same ground again?”
She shook her head and turned away. Slowly, with infinite care, she refolded the shirt and set it down. “No. No, go through every scrap if it'll help put this aside once and for all.”
“I can take the boxes home, if it would be more comfortable for you.”
“I'd rather you did it here.” She turned back. “Sorry for the bitch routine.” But she didn't look at the boxes. “This is the best way, and it helps that you're the one doing it. Do you want some help?”
It was a nice feeling to be able to admire as well as love her. “Maybe. I haven't found anything.” He rose to go to her. “What did you do to your hair?”
She reached a hand to it automatically. “I cut it a little.”
“I like it.”
“Thanks. So, where is Blair?”
“He was with me earlier. We ran into Trudy Wilson. She was in her nurse's uniform.”
“Oh?”
“Well, Blair's tongue was hanging out. Guess he goes for crepe-soled shoes, so I left him in Trudy's capable hands.” Cam glanced down to where Clare's blouse gaped open. “Have you got anything on under that?”
She looked down. “Probably not. I got dressed in a hurry.”
“Jesus, Slim, it makes me crazy always wondering whether or not you're wearing underwear.”
She smiled, toying with the last two fastened buttons. “Why don't you find out for yourself?”
He picked her up and had just carried her down the attic steps when Blair met them on the landing. Oops.
Cam gave him a narrowed look. “There's that way with words again.”
“Sorry. I, ah, just came by to tell you I have a date.”
“Good for you.” Clare tossed the hair out of her eyes. “Want me to wait up?”
“No. I'm going to take a shower.” He started down the hall. “By the way, you're on in about fifteen minutes.”
“On what?”
“TV. Alice told me. And if you two could wait to play Rhett and Scarlett until after I'm done, I'd appreciate it.” He closed the bathroom door.
“TV?”
“Oh, it's nothing.” Clare went back to nuzzling Cam's neck. “That Ladies Club thing.”
“I forgot. How'd it go?”
“It went. I stopped feeling nauseated when I saw the white reclining plaster lions.”
“Excuse me?”
“The white reclining plaster lions. Where are we going?”
“Downstairs, to the TV.”
“You don't want to watch, Cam. It's silly.”
“Of course I want to watch. Tell me about the lions.”
“These incredibly ugly statues in front of the Ather-tons′.”
“There are a lot of incredibly ugly statues in front of the Athertons′.”
“You're telling me. I'm talking about the guard lions, at their ease. I kept imagining them springing off the stoop and devouring all the plastic ducks and wooden sheep, and chasing that poor stable boy up a tree. It was hard to take the whole business too seriously after that. Cam, I really hate to watch myself on television.”
“Okay.” He set her down. “Then you can get me something to drink while I watch. Did you wear that blouse?”
“Yes.”
“Like that?”
She wrinkled her nose and began doing up buttons. “Of course not. I unbuttoned it completely for TV.”
“Good thinking. Why were you feeling sick before the lions?”
“I hate public speaking.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I'm a spineless wimp.”
“You've got a spine. I know, because you go crazy when I nibble on it. Make it a Coke or something, okay? I'm on duty.”
“Sure, I live to serve.” She slunk off to the kitchen while he fiddled with the TV dial. When she came back, he was settled on the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table. “Sorry, I didn't make popcorn.”
“That's okay.” He pulled her down with him.
“I really don't want to watch.”
; “Then close your eyes. I bet you knocked ′em dead, Slim.”
“There was polite applause.” She propped her feet beside his. “Mrs. Atherton made me come all the way back here for a sample of a work in progress. Which—shit—I just remembered. I left it there.”
“What was it?”
“A wood carving. Arms and shoulders. Yours, by the way.”
“Oh, God.”
His very genuine distress made her grin. “I think some of the ladies recognized you, too. There was some definite snickering. But mostly they wanted to know if I ever carved flowers or children. I think the arms and shoulders made them uncomfortable because without a head it made them think of decapitation, when what I was trying to express was male strength and elegance.”
“Now I'm nauseated.”
“You haven't even seen it yet.” She hesitated briefly, knowing how upset he would be, then decided to confess. “Cam, someone stole one of my sculptures. The nightmare work.”
He didn't move, but she sensed him go on alert. “When?”
“Had to be between last evening and midmorning. I think kids—”
“Bullshit.”
“All right, I don't know what I think. All I know is that it's gone.”
“Did they break in?”
“No.” She stuck out her chin. “Yell if you want. I forgot to lock the garage.”
“Damn it, Clare, if I can't trust you to lock a door, I'm going to have to put you in a cell.”
“I'll lock the damn thing.” It was easier to be annoyed with him than to dwell on having her work taken. On having someone close enough to steal it away. “I'll put in an alarm system if it'll make you happy.”
“Move in with me.” He cupped a gentle hand on her cheek. “Make me happy.”
The little hitch in her stomach forced her to look away. “I don't need protective custody.”
“That's not what I'm talking about, Slim.”
“I know.” She let out a shaky breath. “Just be a cop on this one, Rafferty Go find my statue.” After a moment she forced herself to look back at him. “Don't push, please. And don't be mad.”
“I'm not mad. I'm worried.”
“It's going to be okay.” She snuggled back against him and was sure of it. “Let's take a little time off and watch me make a fool of myself for the viewing public. Oh, God, here it comes. Cam, why don't we—”
He put a hand over her mouth.
“A star of the art world comes to the county,” the anchorwoman announced. “Clare Kimball, renowned sculptress …”
“Ugh. Sculptress!” she managed behind Cam's palm.
“Shut up.”
“… today at the home of Emmitsboro's mayor. Miss Kimball is a native of Emmitsboro who made her mark in the Big Apple.”
“Any art is an expression of emotion.” As Clare's face filled the screen, she moved Cam's hand from her mouth to her eyes. “Sculpture is often more personal, as the artist is directly linked to the work through touch and texture.”
“You look great.”
“I sound like a geek. Once a nerd, always a nerd.”
“No, you sound great, too. I'm impressed. Is that me?”
She peeked out between his fingers and saw the wood carving. “Yeah.”
“It's not so bad,” he said, pleased.
“It's brilliant.” She widened the space of his fingers to get a better look.
“A sculpture,” her television image went on, “is often a tangible piece of the artist's feelings, memories, hopes, disappointments, dreams. It's away of liberating reality, expanding it, or duplicating it, with a live model or your own imagination.”
“Can we at least turn off the sound?”
“Shh!”
“Whether the mood is violent or romanticized or stark depends on the artist's mood and the medium employed. My work is a part of me, sometimes the best part, sometimes the darkest. But it always reflects what I see or feel or believe.”
They switched back to the studio.
“Happy now? I sounded so frigging pompous.”
“No, you sounded honest. Do you sculpt from dreams, Slim?”
“Sure, sometimes. Look, I've already done one interview today.” She slid her arms around him, danced her fingers up the nape of his neck. “I thought we were going to make out.”
“In a minute. The nightmare piece that was stolen, did it come out of the dream about your father?”
“Maybe. I don't know.”
“You could sketch what you saw that night, couldn't you?”
“God, Cam.”
“You could.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes, I could.”
Chapter 26
CHIP DOPPER WOULD RATHER have been working under a tractor than riding on one. He'd never cared for haying, even his own fields. And here he was, at six-goddamn-thirty in the morning, cutting hay for Mrs. Stokey But his ma had laid down the law—the one about good neighbors and Samaritans. And when Ma laid down the law, everyone jumped.
The worst part, as far as Chip was concerned, was that it was boring. Acre after acre, cutting and baling, with that half-wit July Crampton riding behind him on the big baler.
July was third or fourth cousin to Alice, the result of some fevered inbreeding. He was somewhere near thirty, irritating as hell, from Chip's viewpoint, but harmless, with a solid bantam rooster body and a slack, permanently sunburned face. Right now he was happy as a frog with a bellyful of flies, riding and stacking and singing. He sang dumb songs from the fifties, before either of them had been born. Chip figured he might have handled the whole thing better if July had picked up some Roy Clark, but there he was, grinning like an asshole and singing about taking out the papers and the trash.
Jesus.
“Christ Almighty, July, what the hell kind of song is that?”
“ 'Yakety-Yak,′ ” July sang, grinning.
“You always was a dick,” Chip muttered.
It wouldn't be so bad, Chip thought, riding along with the baler humming under him—'cept the engine could use some work. It was warm and sunny, and the hay smelled sweet. July might've been three bricks shy of a load, but he was doing the dirty work, hauling and stacking. He'd be the one with hay splinters.
The idea gave Chip some satisfaction.
No, it wouldn't be so bad, he mused, circling back to his