by Anne Bishop
I pictured myself grabbing the wheel like a plucky young woman in a TV show and sending the car out of control and off the road, rolling a couple of times. Of course, the villain would be trapped and Ms. Plucky would crawl out of the wreck with a couple of dramatic cuts but would still be able to show everyone why she had been a high school track star as she ran to warn the good guys that they were walking into a trap.
Since I wasn’t plucky and, at thirty, I wasn’t considered young, and my experience with track-and-field events did not make me any kind of star, I was more likely to end up looking like bug goo on the windshield while Swinn walked away from the wreck.
Cross off grabbing the steering wheel from my save-the-day list.
Then Swinn turned onto the farm track that ran between the Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble.
“Where are we going?” I asked, feeling numb.
“Back to the beginning. You should have just rolled over like you were supposed to, fireplug. All this trouble happened because of you.”
Actually, all of it happened because Yorick tried to renege on the divorce settlement, but I was pretty sure Swinn didn’t want to hear that.
“What the . . . ?” Swinn said.
A chubby brown pony with a storm-gray mane and tail stood in the middle of the farm track, blocking our way. When he stomped one foot, dirt swirled around his legs.
“Oh no,” I breathed, recognizing Twister.
Instead of stopping because, hey, there was a pony in the way, Swinn floored the gas pedal. Instead of running away from a speeding car, the pony charged—and disappeared in the center of a mini tornado.
Have you ever been on one of those stomach-churning spinny rides at a country fair? Well, spinning in a car is so much worse.
I screamed. Swinn screamed. And no matter what he might say later, it was not a manly yell.
The car stopped spinning—and flames erupted from under the hood.
Aiden?
I clawed at the door and tumbled out of the car, feeling Swinn’s fingers slide over my butt as he tried to grab me. Since he had a gun and I didn’t have so much as a nail file, I ran, figuring that having things like trees in the way would make it harder for him to shoot me.
“Come back here!” Swinn shouted.
Like that was going to happen.
Was this the trail I’d taken when I’d led Grimshaw to the first body? Didn’t know and couldn’t afford to care. I’d either end up at one set of cabins, or at the main house, or at the road. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up back on the farm track and run into Swinn.
I didn’t run into Swinn. But as I caught a glimpse through the trees of what I thought was the main house, I did run straight into a man wearing a business suit—and thin black gloves. I’d come around a blind curve in the trail and bounced off him, stumbling back a couple of steps. I didn’t recognize him, but I saw the tie clip—one of those weird moments when time slows down and you fixate on one detail. So even though I didn’t know him, I knew he wasn’t a friend. Not to me.
I dodged him when he lunged at me. Don’t ask me how. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. I was already puffing, so he wouldn’t have to work hard to catch me. And I was sure that him catching me would be bad for my health.
Not having any sensible ideas of how to evade the man, I waved a hand over my head as if I was holding a ticket and wheezed, “I have the ‘Elder Helps You’ card!” Which shows you that, while adrenaline is an amazing thing, it can produce wonky thoughts in the brain, showing me a flashback of the Murder game we had all played that one evening.
Except . . .
I saw nothing, but I swear I felt fur brush the bare skin on my arm as something big rushed past me. As it passed, it gave me a negligible swat/shove/toss/take your pick that had me airborne. Reminded me of when I used to do the running long jump when we had the track-and-field segment in gym class. Not that my long jump was long. But this? I was flying. I had plenty of time to remember there was a safe way to fall and roll when I landed. I didn’t remember how, just that there was a safe way and then there was the tumble the rest of us took.
At the moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a hideous scream—a terrified, mind-breaking sound. With my concentration shattered, I landed in a heap. Couldn’t think about what had just happened. Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t.
As I pushed to my feet, I felt a sting in both knees, a sharp pain in my left wrist, and a queer feeling of sticky air along my right side. Couldn’t think about that either.
I needed to be out in the open. The main house was probably stuffed with Yorick’s friends, so I couldn’t shelter there. But the beach? If I got to the beach and yelled for help, the Crowgard would hear me. Maybe even Conan and Cougar if they were hunting nearby. Someone would see me, would know what happened to me.
I ran and made rash promises to exercise more if I lived. Of course, if I died, exercising would be a moot point.
As I ran past the main house, following the path to the lakeside cabins and the beach beyond them, several things happened. A voice that sounded like Julian’s yelled “Vicki!”; tittering female screams, not the I’m-being-eaten kind of screams, came from the screened porch; and Swinn, waving a gun, fought his way between a couple of bushes and came at me.
I was in sight of the lakeside cabins, sure that Swinn was going to shoot me at any moment, when fog suddenly started playing hide-and-seek with the ground, with objects, with people.
“Caw!”
“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”
Aggie and her friends? I hoped so.
The fog thinned, revealing the sand.
“Bitch!” Swinn’s voice, too close.
Sand would slow me down. So would the water unless I could get far enough out to be safe from bullets.
I changed course and ran for the dock. Was that sensible? Who knows? It’s what I did. Behind me, I heard Swinn yell; I heard a big splash. A gun went off. And someone started screaming.
I was almost at the dock when Yorick ran toward me, waving something shiny and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”
I didn’t know what he was holding. I just knew I couldn’t let him get his hands on me.
Men with guns and other weapons behind me. Ahead of me? Something else.
The fog might have messed with my sense of distance, but it wasn’t the reason I ran to the end of the dock and kept running until I hit the water.
CHAPTER 74
Grimshaw
Watersday, Sumor 8
Spotting the smoke, Grimshaw slowed the cruiser. “I need to call this in.”
“I’ll call it in,” Julian said, plucking Grimshaw’s mobile phone out of the console. “We need to reach The Jumble.”
He glanced at Julian’s pale face and stepped on the gas. They weren’t more than a couple of minutes away, but a couple of minutes could make a difference in saving a victim or standing over a corpse.
“I don’t know what’s burning, but it’s on the farm track between Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble,” Julian said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “If the wind picks up, the whole area could be in trouble.” He ended the call. “Volunteer fire department is on its way.”
The mobile phone rang. Julian answered. “Officer Grimshaw’s phone. Wait. I’ll put you on speaker.”
“Sir?” Osgood.
“We’ve already called the fire department to handle whatever is burning on the farm track, in case that’s what you wanted to tell me.”
A beat of silence. “No, sir. I called to tell you Captain Hargreaves is boiling mad. Seems two of the officers who came with him as backup let a fellow officer borrow their patrol car. The captain was mad enough about that since they didn’t tell him about it, but when he threatened them with disciplinary action, they admitted they loaned the
car to Detective Swinn. That’s when he really got mad. He’s on his way back with, and I quote, reliable officers.”
“Tell Captain Hargreaves it’s likely that those officers owe the Bristol station a car,” Julian said.
“Why?” Osgood asked.
Grimshaw pulled to the shoulder near the game trail that they’d been using to reach the main house at The Jumble. “Because that’s probably what’s burning on the farm track.”
“Do I have to tell him?”
“I’m heading up to the main house with Julian Farrow. You can tell him that.”
Another beat of silence. “You should have backup. I’m on my way.”
Grimshaw hesitated, then thought, Either he has the stones for this work or he doesn’t. “The trail to reach the main house has been marked. If you don’t see us, get up to the main house and hold anyone who’s inside. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Julian ended the call and handed the mobile phone to Grimshaw, who tucked it in its spot on his belt as soon as he got out of the car.
“Damn,” Julian said softly as they started up the trail.
Fog swirled around them as they hurried toward the main house. Not a thick enveloping fog, but almost . . . flirtatious, veiling and revealing. Just enough that Grimshaw couldn’t see the ground, couldn’t see something that might trip him up enough that he’d sprain an ankle or wrench a knee—injuries not normally life-threatening, but either would leave him useless and vulnerable.
Once they reached the access road, they ran toward the main house but stopped, frozen, when they heard a hideous scream.
Grimshaw took a step toward the sound. Julian grabbed his arm.
“No,” Julian said. “We can’t go there.”
The look in Julian’s eyes. He’d seen it at the academy—and he’d seen it on the streets before they’d been assigned to different stations. “Are you seeing the real place or The Jumble as it was represented in the Murder game?”
“They’re the same now.” Julian shuddered, then headed for the main house. “They’re the same.”
Not good.
“Vicki!” Julian shouted once they reached the main house.
Female screams coming from the back of the house.
“Wait,” Grimshaw said as he pulled out his phone and called Osgood’s mobile phone.
“Almost there, sir,” Osgood said loudly. “I can see your car.”
“Don’t try to find me. Just get up to the main house and stay inside,” Grimshaw said. He ended the call and almost dropped the phone when Julian bolted, no longer able to wait. “Julian . . . Julian!”
But Julian was running toward the far side of the house, following only Mikhos knew what. So Grimshaw went around the other side. He wasn’t sure Swinn had brought Vicki DeVine to The Jumble. The man could have taken her farther down the farm track. Except . . . The damn fog. It was here and nowhere else.
He ran around the other side of the house. If Vicki was inside, he’d have to trust Osgood to deal with the situation as soon as the baby cop arrived. But he didn’t need to be an Intuit to have a bad feeling that Vicki DeVine was out here. Somewhere.
The fog around him cleared abruptly. That was the only reason he didn’t step on the body. Step in the body. Darren. Gutted. But not dead. Not yet.
He hesitated. Nothing he could do for the man, but it felt wrong to leave him alone in the fog where the predators waited. Then he heard a gunshot—and heard a man scream. That decided him. He ran to the back of the main house, heading for the dock.
Splashing, thrashing, screaming. He had a glimpse of Julian pulling something out of the water. Then the fog became a wall, cutting him off from everything except Vicki DeVine, running for the dock, and Yorick Dane holding something in his right hand and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”
Yorick reached the land end of the dock just as Vicki ran right off the other end and hit the water.
“Dane!” Grimshaw shouted. “Put the weapon down, now.”
Dane started to turn.
“Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”
Dane looked over his shoulder, his expression full of smirky disbelief. “You going to shoot me in the back? Won’t look good on your record, Chief.”
“If I shoot you here, no one will ever find the body, so I can write up the report any way I please.”
That wiped the smirk off Dane’s face. “It’s not a weapon. It’s just a wrench.”
“I don’t give a damn what it is. Drop it and put your hands behind your head.”
“Mooooonkeeey maaaaan.”
Dane dropped the wrench and put his hands behind his head.
Yeah, Grimshaw thought. Given the current choices, being arrested was Dane’s only chance of getting out of there alive.
“Vicki!” Julian, calling. “Vicki!”
Unfortunately, no one answered his call.
Grimshaw handcuffed Dane, then leaned in to speak quietly in the man’s ear. “Just so you know. I don’t care if you hire one of your tie clip pals to get you out of whatever charges come from all of this. I don’t care what anyone else says about your guilt or innocence. If Vicki DeVine’s body washes ashore, you and I are going to take a long ride deep into the wild country.”
CHAPTER 75
Aggie
Watersday, Sumor 8
Air rode Fog around The Jumble, making it harder for the humans to find anything. That was good. The humans . . . Well, she wasn’t sure what the humans had been doing before Air and Fog galloped into The Jumble, but it all felt sneaky.
Leaving the cabin’s door open, Aggie went inside, removed her clothes, and shifted to her Crow form. Looking human would not be a good thing today.
Going back outside, she flew up to the porch roof—a good place to observe whatever she could see but close enough to the cabin door if she needed a place to hide.
Then Miss Vicki ran along the path, heading for the beach.
“Caw!” Aggie shouted. “Caw!” Hide here! Hide here!
But Miss Vicki kept running toward the beach, and moments later, that mean police human Swinn appeared and ran after her.
Miss Vicki swerved at the edge of the sand and kept running toward the dock, disappearing into a wall of fog.
Swinn stopped at the edge of the sand, turned toward Miss Vicki, and raised the gun. Before Aggie could call another warning, a big wave suddenly rose and flooded the whole beach, creating new shallows at the same moment Cougar raced out of his hiding place and pounced on Swinn.
The gun went bang! Swinn and Cougar landed in the water. Cougar leaped back to dry land—and Swinn began screaming as the Elders who lived in the lake, having ridden on the Lady’s wave to reach their prey, grabbed the human and began to tear and slash while they thrashed in the receding water, feeding until the Lady made the next big wave to help them return to the lake.
The next wave arrived at the same time that Julian Farrow reached the sand. He ran into the water and grabbed Swinn, playing tug with the Elders who continued to bite and feed as they retreated to the natural shallows. Then Julian let go of what remained of Swinn and fell back, clear of the waterline. But he didn’t leave, didn’t move farther out of reach of the Elders. Instead, he stared at something stuck in the wet sand.
Had Julian found a shiny? She couldn’t see what he had found, so she flew down to the beach. Coins sometimes fell out of torn pockets. Julian might share if there were several coins on the sand.
But it wasn’t coins that held the human’s interest. It was the gun. Did he need the gun? Why?
Another wave washed over the beach, higher than the usual waterline. Aggie saw the shape hidden in the wate
r. Before Julian could lunge for the gun—and get in teeth-and-claw kind of trouble—Aggie flutter-hopped to the gun and closed one foot over the trigger guard.
“No!” Julian said, grabbing for the gun.
Water washed around her and Julian like they were rocks—and the Elder who had ridden in on that wave rose partway out of the water and took a swipe at Julian. He would have torn up Julian’s arm, but Cougar smacked the human, knocking Julian out of the way.
The Elder stared at her with those strange eyes before thrashing his tail and returning to the lake with the receding wave.
Cougar came up beside her and pawed at the gun.
“Wait.” Julian’s shaking hand closed over the gun.
Aggie pecked him. He was too close to the water. It wasn’t safe to be human until the Elders stopped being angry.
“Have to put the safety on,” Julian panted, his hand moving over the gun. “Can’t have it go off by accident and hit someone.”
Yes. That was smart. Since she didn’t know how to do the safety thing, she stopped pecking him.
“Okay,” he panted. “Okay.” He let go of the gun and crawled up the beach until he touched the grassy edge. Then he looked at the lake. “Vicki! Vicki!”
No answer.
Nothing the Crowgard could do for her there.
Aggie shifted to human form, picked up the gun, and ran to where Julian lay on the wet sand. She set the gun beside him, remembering from stories to point it away from him, then shifted back to Crow and studied the human. Water leaked from his closed eyes. He was not paying attention. That wasn’t smart with so many of the terra indigene feeling angry toward humans.
Did she care? Did it matter?
He was Miss Vicki’s friend. And so was she.