by B. T. Alive
“That leaves Fiona,” he said. Again his brow clouded, but now his enormous eyebrows drew so low that his eyes were in shadow. When he spoke, he was nearly whispering. “If Fiona were going to kill someone, she wouldn’t strike from the back.”
In a low voice, I said, “It’s not like she never does anything in secret.”
Yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’d had to tell him all about Fiona cutting the vines. I mean, she was clearly in danger now too.
But the sheriff covered his face, and he sagged in his little kitchen chair.
We sat together in silence.
Which was shattered by three hard knocks.
The sheriff perked up, his nostrils flaring. In a swift, smooth motion of surprising grace, he crossed the kitchen and living room and swept the front door wide.
“Fiona,” he said.
In the doorway stood his daughter, drenched and defiant. Her arms were crossed tight, and her eyes were blazing in the dark night.
Her father tensed, and he spoke in a soft, low growl.
“I think you have something to tell me,” said Sheriff Jake.
Chapter 35
“I do,” said Fiona. “It’s raining. And I’m cold.”
The sheriff scowled. But with a controlled breath, he said, “There’s coffee.”
“Thanks, Pops,” she said. She moved to come in, but then saw me on the couch and froze.
“Problem?” said the sheriff.
“Not for me,” she said, and she breezed into the kitchen with an elaborate lack of care. She clattered around in the ugly fake-wood cabinets, took out an astonishing tall, carved old beerstein that looked like all those sprouting little faces might be enchanted, and filled it with the rest of the coffee and half a pint of cream. Then she slouched on the opposite end of the couch in her flannel and jeans, like some overgrown teenager from the ’90s.
The sheriff let the silence fester, while she loudly sipped. Finally he said, “You’re really not going to tell me?”
“Dad, trust me,” she said, staring straight ahead over her stein. “If I knew who it was, I wouldn’t be sitting here shooting the breeze. We trusted her. Adora trusted her.”
I looked past her to the sheriff. “You told her about Adora and the vines?”
Fiona scoffed. “Please. Adora was a rebel under all that glam, but she couldn’t wear a disguise to save her life. Literally.”
“I’m sorry you trusted a vandal and a murderer,” the sheriff said coldly.
“Don’t you?” Fiona said softly.
The sheriff didn’t speak.
Right about when the silence got unbearable, at least for me, a tinny little ring saved us. It was the sheriff’s phone, of course—even his ringtone sounded like it belonged on some ’70s cop show. He clapped his pocket, eyed the phone, and frowned with surprise.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and he padded down the hall and closed himself in his back room.
Fiona and I sat marinating on opposite sides of the couch, prim and silent as two Austen heroines with laryngitis.
Except for Fiona’s slurping. It seemed to get louder with each sip. Finally, when she was practically snoring, I said, “Well, in case you hadn’t heard, Cade officially dumped me.”
“I heard,” she said evenly, still staring straight over her stein.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, that was quick,” I said. “Now that you totally won, if you don’t mind me asking, what the hell was your deal? What did you care how soon your little brother could make out with his girlfriend?”
“I didn’t,” she said.
“Then what?” I demanded. “I was making progress, working on my training—”
“That,” she snapped, her voice harsh. “That’s what I couldn’t deal with. Denial. I’ve only got one brother. Life’s too short for him to spend it lying to himself. He’s bad enough as it is.”
“You think everyone’s fake if they’re not clinically spontaneous,” I said. “Did you ever think that maybe he has a point? Maybe he kind of likes not walking around all the time as a mutant Parrot-Bush-Man?”
Fiona’s full lips twitched into a half smile. “He didn’t tell me that part.”
“He’s different from you,” I said. “I know you’re both shifters, but—”
“Please, enlighten me,” she said. “Bestow your great Disruptor wisdom.”
“Oh, and you get to be the expert on me?” I said. “How does that work? Maybe Disruptors thrive as lying, conniving, delusional fiends! Maybe all your little trusting, authentic, spontaneous nieces and nephews are going to get their noble shifter butts kicked out in the real world if they don’t have a devious Disruptor spider mama watching their back! You ever think of that?”
Fiona slurped her coffee. “I never said I didn’t like you.”
“What?” I said.
She smiled. “Never said I did, though, either.”
I struggled to formulate a coherent reply.
Before I could, the sheriff burst back into the living room, and the stunned look on his face made me forget even Fiona.
“That was the detective who worked the Henriksson case,” he said, so excited he was almost breathless. “The guy finally called me back.”
“Henriksson?” I said.
“No idea who you’re talking about,” Fiona said.
“Mathilda Henriksson!” the sheriff said. “She was a young Norwegian woman in her thirties when she was working for Gary Lannon.”
“Lannon?” I said, and then it all finally clicked. “Oh! Lee’s husband who died! You actually followed that up?”
“Of course!” he snapped. “Gary’s death was an ordinary heart attack. The medical examiner confirmed that for sure. But the detective confirmed that he had in fact been having an affair with his secretary, Henriksson.”
“And?” I said.
“And the week after he died, Mathilda Henriksson was attacked in the office parking garage,” the sheriff said. “She was attacked from behind… and nearly strangled.”
No one spoke.
“The attacker was masked and silent,” the sheriff said, “and the perpetrator fled when Mathilda defended herself. No one was ever charged. But the detective assured me that he, at least, was convinced that if it hadn’t been for some technical glitches with the evidence, he would have gotten Lee behind bars.”
I felt sick. “So we’ve had it all backwards.”
The sheriff nodded. “Adora wasn’t executed by your masked vandal. She was strangled by a grieving widow with a history of attacking her husband’s partners.”
“But why Adora?” I said. “Out of all those women?”
“It’s that damn proposal,” Fiona said. “He proposed the night before, to another woman. Remember? He even bragged about it at the funeral, with Lee sitting right there.”
“But how do you know Lee cared so much?” I said.
“Because she asked me about it,” Fiona said. “She came by the orchard yesterday to invite me to her stupid tea, and she tried to be all nicey-nice but she kept dropping hints, asking who I thought he might have proposed to. It must be driving her crazy.”
“And you told her it was Adora?” I said. “Why would you say that?”
“I didn’t say anything!” Fiona said. “I played dumb and told her I’d come to her party, just to get her out of my hair.”
“So why would Lee think it was Adora?” I said. “He proposed to Tina!”
Fiona stared. Finally, she muttered, “You’re kidding me.”
“Why do you think she went missing?” I said. “She was all churned up, feeling guilty, afraid to wreck his wedding… oh God, and now she’s at Lee’s house?”
The sheriff was already dialing his phone. “I don’t think Lee could have overpowered Adora without taking her by surprise,” he said. He pressed the phone to his ear. “My guess is, she took her opportunity, but she didn’t talk to her victim. After the fact, she may have started to doubt her guess.”
�
�What opportunity?” I said. “I thought she was playing whist with Kelvin.”
“She was,” said the sheriff. “But that was hours. I’m sure she slipped out to the ‘bathroom’. She even said so when I talked to her.”
I shivered. Of course. Kelvin would have been all chatty, mentioned that Adora was back in the room, asleep…
“Tina’s not picking up,” said the sheriff, grim. “Or it could be the call’s getting dropped. The service out here can be wretched in a storm.”
“Try the house,” I said. “Glynis. Any of them, they all have phones.”
The sheriff mashed the buttons on his old cordless. On the third failed call, I jumped up off the couch.
“Don’t panic,” the sheriff said. “I can’t imagine Lee would strike now, with her house full of witnesses.”
“She tries to kill people,” I said. “She’s crazy.”
Fiona said, “That house is right on the river. And the river’s near flood speeds. Invite her out on the deck, one little push—”
“Oh my God!” I shrieked. “Grandma’s dream!”
“What dream?” the sheriff snapped.
But I was already running for the door.
As I clattered down the stairs, the cold rain driving sideways into my face, the dark night sky exploded with lightning. Two seconds later, the thunder smashed. The storm had come.
The sheriff and Fiona had run after me, and when I shouted over my shoulder how Grandma had dreamed a drowning, the sheriff insisted we drive. We raced across town in his police car, the rain pummeling the windshield, but when we hit the concrete bridge to Haven Island, he screeched to a stop. The river was wild and high in the storm, and the water was spilling across the bridge.
“Go! You can make it,” Fiona snapped.
“Not a chance,” he said. “It only takes an inch or two under the tires—”
I shoved out the car door into the storm.
“Summer!” the sheriff called. “Wait! If you slip—”
A crack of thunder drowned his warning. I sloshed out onto the bridge, the cold water churning against me hard. From the car it had only looked like a few inches, and I’d thought I would run across, but I was pushing through water well up to my shins. The pull was even stronger than it looked, and whenever the lightning flashed, I could see the whole enraged stretch of river barreling toward me, like I had dared to trespass and I was going to pay. Another bright flash left me blinking and blind, and then my foot caught a deeper patch of water and all at once I was off-balance, panic spiking as I fought the pull to topple…
A strong hand gripped my soaked, sleeved arm.
Fiona.
“Thanks,” I said.
She just nodded, and then she yanked me forward.
We made it across, the sheriff splashing close behind, and firm land had never felt so good. Together we pounded down the grassy, slippery path that led around the island. As we ran, I looked up the slope of the wrecked vineyard. In the dark night and the blazing flashes of light, the huge mound of grapes rose like some ancient monolith.
“But she didn’t kill Dante, right?” I panted as we ran. “You said her first husband’s death was natural?”
“That’s what they said,” the sheriff grunted.
“Then we still don’t know who killed Dante!” I panted. “Tina’s over there with two killers. One’s crazy jealous, and the other, whoever she is, is a crazy telempath!”
“I’ve been to worse parties,” Fiona said. But her face was grim.
“We’ve got get her out of there!” I yelled.
“We will,” the sheriff panted. “Nearly there.”
We tumbled into a clearing, and there, across fifty feet or more of raging water, was the tiny little island with the Respite. The strange old clapboard mansion loomed distant in the storm, its few lit windows as baleful as bloodshot eyes.
Then I saw.
The wretched old wooden footbridge had totally collapsed. Gone. The support pillars had toppled, and even as we watched, the last old boards were cracking and dragging away in the flood.
There was no way across. Tina was trapped.
Part V
Chapter 36
“We’ve got to get across!” I shouted over the wind.
“Stay back,” the sheriff boomed. “That river’s in flood right now, it’s a death trap.” He hesitated for one breath, staring down at the torrent, and then he started unbuttoning his shirt.
When shifters start stripping, take cover.
“You stay back,” snapped Fiona. “Give me a break, you’re going to get yourself killed.” She flipped off her flannel shirt, revealing a grungy, stained tank top with a low back, flicked a glance around the bank, and then ran to the nearest tree and slammed back against the bark with her bare shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
But she clenched her eyes shut and groaned, and the tree behind her shattered into a mist of separate cells.
Not all of it. At first, I had no idea what was happening; branches started crashing down around her, and what was left of the tree trunk groaned and cracked crazily to one side. With a stab of horror, I thought that maybe the tree had been struck by lightning and would crush her, but there hadn’t been a flash. In the darkness and shadows, all I could make out behind her was the pale exposed throat of the ruined tree trunk, obscured by some dark mist buzzing around her shoulders.
Then lightning did flash, and I saw that the mist had formed into wings.
They were enormous and astonishing and awful. They were closest to bat wings, but the bare, dark surface was pitted and rough, like no skin I’d ever seen, and the exposed bones were more like… branches…
She gasped, panting and leaning forward with her hands on her knees. Then she stood, and the wings flared wide, and she ran toward the water.
“No, wait! Take me!” I yelled. I lunged towards her, and she reared up to avoid me like a startled horse. The wings beat behind her as she lifted and then landed again to steady herself, and the force of their wind blasted my face. I grabbed her soaked flannel up from the ground and slipped it backwards over my arms, covering my hands. “See! I won’t touch you!”
“You’d better not,” she said, and her voice was strange, as if her lungs had expanded to twice their size inside her chest. “Or this’ll be a short trip.”
She turned and offered me her back, and I flung myself on and wrapped my double-sleeved arms around her shoulders. Her thick hair blew in my face, and I had to crane my head wide to avoid touching hers, and the strange rough bark of her woodwings chafed me through my clothes.
“No!” shouted the sheriff. “Noooo-woooooh…” and the word trailed off into a howl.
As we lifted off, I looked back to see a massive bloodhound plow forward into the black river, then yelp with fury and splash back onto the land. He raced up and down the bank, howling.
Whatever power the sheriff had to shift into a bloodhound, apparently he didn’t share his daughter’s ability to make wings.
Then I looked ahead, and we soared into the sky.
I had always thought I knew how much I wanted to fly. But now that I was actually doing it… even just the memory is a sweet and mortal ache. I seemed to literally rise to a higher plane of being, one with the wide night and the space and the stars, and saluted by the tops of the trees.
It was timeless, and it was over in an instant. I felt the plunge before I saw it, the vast roof of the Respite rushing toward us and the gray-black grass. “Let go! Jump and roll!” Fiona panted, but I didn’t understand fast enough, and then a bitter gust of wind hurled us horribly sideways and I fell, slamming into the hard ground as I heard wood crack and shatter, and moist muscles puncture and slice.
I hadn’t fallen far, but the wind had knocked out of me, and I struggled to breathe. “Fiona!” I gasped, when I could stagger to my feet. “Are you hurt?”
We had crashed in a side yard, and the windows of the house were dark in this wall. In
the shadows, I could barely make Fiona out, writhing in a mass of dark and broken bits of wing.
“This is why I fly solo,” she moaned.
“Fiona!” I crouched at her side to see better, then recoiled. “Oh my gosh, there’s a piece sticking out of your—”
“I’ll be fine,” she snapped, through clenched teeth. “I just need a few minutes. Go!”
“You sure? God, that’s a lot of blood—”
“Go!” she hissed. “Before Lee hurts Tina!”
Around the house, a porch light flicked on, searing into the darkness.
“Hello?” called a woman’s voice. “Is someone out there?”
“Fine,” I muttered down at Fiona. “Don’t die on me, you jerk.”
“I’m a shifter,” she bit out, with a crooked smile. “I would have fixed everything fine by now if you’d just fricking let me be.”
I covered her with the flannel, as if an extra wet shirt was going to be much help with miraculously healing internal injuries. Then I ran around to the wide front porch. The light blinded me for a beat, and then, blinking, I made out the woman who was standing in the doorway. Wait, what…
“Elaine?” I panted. “What are you doing here?”
Elaine cocked her head, her coarse gray hair slopping over her shoulders as she gave me a quizzical look. “Lee asked me to the tea,” she said, in her flat voice. “She thought we might play whist. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I did read some articles I downloaded from the Internet—”
“Fine, great,” I said. She was so bland and irritating and normal that I faltered. Was this all in my head? Was I crashing some ordinary ladies’ night? Then I thought of Fiona bleeding out in the side yard and pushed through Elaine’s Field of Clueless to the doorway.
She stood gaping as I approached, only moving aside at the last second. I realized I had to look slightly bedraggled.
“What about you?” she managed to say. “Do you play whist?”
But I pushed past her and rushed into the living room.
Unlike the house’s fading exterior, the living room was bright and warm and aggressively cozy, crammed with lamps and overstuffed sofas and doilies and dolls on display. Lee probably called it her “parlor”. And the women on the couches were the crowning parlor touch, looking up from their tea cups with startled cries of dismay. Glynis the British governess, Rhonda the anxious romantic… but that was all, just them…