by Maria Lima
“Go,” I said, “let’s figure out what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
TWO BOYS, NO OLDER than fourteen or fifteen, were reloading their rifles just west of where we’d been. Hidden by a small ridge, we’d have never known they were there, had it not been for the gunshots. Fifty feet away from where they stood, the boys, or someone, had set up beer cans atop some rocks. As soon as I saw them, my tension began to drain. When the Rover topped the ridge and neared them, they turned, eyes wide.
Tucker barely stopped the car before he swung out and went into full parental mode. “You boys know you’re on private property? Did you not hear us yelling?”
“I … we …” The taller of the two boys blinked in the face of a six-foot-four Viking. Cowering behind his companion, the shorter boy mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“What was that?” Tucker demanded.
“We didn’t know.” The taller boy stood up straight, facing Tucker with not defiance but strength of purpose. “Sorry, dude, but we always come out here to mess around.”
I slid out of my seat and approached the group, motioning for the rest of the gang to stay inside the car. “Hi, boys, my brother here was just worried that someone was going to get hurt. This property is now privately owned, and the owners just haven’t gotten around to posting it yet.” I smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Keira Kelly, a friend of the owners.”
The tall boy shook my hand. “Josh Reeves. This is my brother, James.” I nodded to James and Josh. “Make sure to tell your friends this land is off-limits, okay? Folks are going to be camping here and I want to be sure no one’s shooting.”
Josh grinned. “Sure thing, miss,” he said. “We’ll let ’em know up at the church, too.” He pointed northeast.
“The church is over there?” I asked.
“Yeah, just over that ridge is the back end of the church property line. We’re not allowed to target practice on their land. Church kids come out here to shoot, so we figured it’d be okay.” He shrugged. “Sorry we messed things up for y’all.”
I glanced at the other ridge absently. There’s no way any vehicle other than a three-wheeler drove over that. Even my Rover would have some trouble. “You boys walk over here?”
James spoke up. “Yeah, we rode our bikes up to the lumber pile and then walked the rest of the way.”
Lumber pile? What the hell was he talking about?
“Is there construction on the other side of the ridge?” Tucker asked, his mood mellowed.
“Yeah, Pastor said something about building a new rec center and stuff. Weren’t paying much attention.”
“You boys seen any hunters hanging around here?” I asked, making a mental note to not only get someone out here with the NO TRESPASSING signs but to check out the building and land use permits as soon as possible. I knew there had to be some sort of easement between the church land and the wers’ property. I’d seen it marked on the plat map. That ridge was far too close to allow for a utility easement.
“Naw, not this time of year,” James said. “Bunch of the old farts come hang out in the back forty, just so they can shoot the shit and drink without their wives catching ’em.”
“The back forty?”
He tilted his head in the direction of the ridge. “That’s what we call the back end of the property. Nothing’s there but some piled-up boards and stuff. It’s kind of far off from the main buildings. My dad used to hang there with his buddies.”
“Used to?” Tucker asked.
The boy shrugged. “He got deployed to Iraq couple months ago.”
On that note, both boys slung their unloaded and open rifles over their arms. “Guess we’ll be going,” Josh said. “See ya.”
“Thanks, boys,” I said.
They trudged away from us, flip-flops flapping and kicking up puffs of dust.
As soon as they’d climbed over the ridge and out of most human earshot, I turned to face Tucker.
“I’m going to go over there and check for tracks,” he said.
“Three-wheeler?”
“Yeah. Send Rhys out, will you?”
I nodded and returned to the car. “Rhys, go with Tucker, please.” I filled the others in on what we’d learned, which, frankly, wasn’t much.
Luka studied the plat map and his phone as we all chatted. “Keira, I hate to tell you this, but it’s a good half mile from here to the main road where the church is. That’s a hell of a lot of property.”
“I thought that map only had your land on it.”
He gave me that exasperated expression that only teenagers master. Climbing over to the driver’s seat, he shoved the map at me, then showed me his phone. When I clued in, I nearly said the unvoiced “Well, duh” for him.
“GPS,” I said. “Of course.”
He punched a few more buttons and keys, then showed me the screen again. “Check this out. This is the Google Earth street view,” he said. “That’s the church building there.” He pointed, then scrolled down some. “There’s the ridge right there in front of us.” He zoomed in a little, and slowly scrolled back to the church. “See, that’s all full of live oaks, mesquite, some cottonwoods. Not a lot of empty land.”
“Not really conducive to driving a truck in, even if you did walk over the ridge,” I murmured. “Back west of the broken-down blind was even worse. No way to get a big vehicle in.”
“I suppose they could’ve walked,” Lev said. “We did.”
“Three-wheelers,” Tucker announced as he and Rhys returned. “Some tracks over the ridge, and beyond, but it’s tough to tell how old they are. Ground’s too hard, too dry. Saw some oil drips, but that’s about it.” He motioned for Luka to scoot back and entered the car. Rhys climbed in as well.
“So no incriminating cigarette butts with a unique shade of lipstick, or special aftershave scent?” I teased.
“Hell, even Sherlock himself would have a hard time finding anything unique about those tracks,” Rhys said. “We’re no closer than we were.”
“Could it have just been an accident? They hit one, and then panicked and killed the others?” Lev ventured, a note of hope in his voice.
“Three wolves? I doubt it,” Tucker said. “We’re fast as wolf and I’m sure you are, too. If they did this by accident, no human has the reflexes to think, point, shoot again, and kill three wolves without at least one of the wolves hurting the human first. No, this was a team effort.”
“I’m frightened as hell, Keira,” Lev said. “This land was supposed to be for expanding our pack, for peace of mind. Mark needs to know now. I’m going to call—”
“And do what? Get him out here for no reason? There’s nothing Mark can do right now that we’re not doing.”
“He’s Fenrir, he needs—”
“To chill and just let us do this,” I insisted. “Lev, I’m not dissing your instincts. You’re right, Mark is Fenrir, and the pack leader does need to know. We’ll tell him when we get back. No need to rush over here.” The last thing I needed was to endanger the pack’s Fenrir. Until I knew more, I wasn’t about to go any further.
“Tucker, let’s do a quick drive-around to the church?” I asked. “The map thing Luka has is cool, but I want to see the edges of the property. See what roads or dirt paths lead in and out.”
“Your wish is my command.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AS WE TURNED ONTO the main church road, after more than an hour wandering around property lines and trying to find access, I spotted Old Joe’s trash truck turning off the road ahead onto church property.
“Wonder if he saw anything?” I mused out loud. “He seemed to be staring at me with intent the night of the game.”
“Intent? What kind of intent?” Tucker asked.
I shot him a dirty look. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to wonder, would I? There’s just something … Tucker, go on, I’d like to talk to him.”
“Make it quick, okay? We’ve still got these bodies in her
e.”
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten but more that I was determined to figure this out right now. Talking to Old Joe shouldn’t take long. “Done, I’ll flag him down.” I rolled down my window and waved at the truck. The old man slowed the truck and pulled up alongside, his pale eyes steady on my face. Was it a trick of light, or did something flash behind the pale gaze? I blinked, the mid-morning sun too bright. Must have been a reflection.
“G’day, miss, sirs,” he said and nodded. “Y’all need Old Joe for something?”
As he spoke, I began to feel something odd, just a creeping-in feeling, as if what made Joe substantial flickered in and out, solidity nothing more than illusion. I rubbed my eyes and eyed him again but saw nothing amiss. A quick reach of my senses as I said the appropriate words. “Joe, could we possibly have a moment of your time?” Nothing, he was solid as the giant white rock jutting from the ground in front of the church’s main building. Nothing special about him, nothing special about it other than its size.
“Certainly, miss,” he said. “How’s about we pull on into the church parking lot so’s we don’t block traffic?”
Tucker nodded and complied, following the old man. I focused on the truck, trying to get past the metal shell, trying to feel out the weird vibe and define it.
We parked and both Tucker and I got out and approached Joe, who’d alighted from his own vehicle.
“What can I do you for today?” he asked, a genial smile on his face. His face … lines out from his eyes, laugh lines, sun lines, otherwise smooth dark skin as if carved from sea-polished ebony driftwood. It held a sense of being, of stillness, of character so deep that one could get lost in his knowledge, his wisdom. It was as if I was staring into the eyes of eternity and its innate serenity. Something in his eyes distracted me for a moment, as if he wanted to say something but politely waited for me to speak first.
“Joe,” I began, wanting to ask him of his origins, his birth, but a car drove past us, a man inside glancing at our small group. Instead, I asked him about the land, quickly inventing a cover story, that some campers had heard shots and were afraid of poachers.
His eyes followed the car as I spoke, then he turned back to me as if absorbing my words and trying to find the right ones to answer me with. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was absolutely odd about him. As the man who’d driven by us parked and opened his car door, Joe spoke. “Can’t rightly say, Miz Kelly. I just pick up trash and sort through it. I sell stuff at my roadside stand. Thursday through Saturday, I’m there. Pick up Sunday evenings after church, then Monday and Tuesday morning. Wednesdays, I go on up to the Methodist church in town, spend a day there with a few folks I know.”
“You know my name?”
Joe nodded. “You’re familiar.”
Familiar, huh. I suppose he was right. My family’d been around quite a long time.
“So you go to church here?”
“When I go. Sometimes I like to drive on over to Blanco. There’s a nice choir up there I like to listen to. I mostly go for the music.”
“But you haven’t seen anything weird around here—around this property that’s back of the church. Do you ever go round there picking up cans and bottles for recycling?”
“I do, but pastor says it’s okay for me to.” He nodded toward the car that had just parked. “He might be able to tell you more.”
“No, that’s fine, that’s not the problem,” I said. “Just trying to find out if you saw anyone suspicious hanging around? Some friends of mine bought this land as an investment, and we just wanted to make sure—”
“Oh my,” he says, “friends of yours? Well, I didn’t know that.”
“Know what?”
He opened his mouth, then got a simple expression on his face, as if he’d suddenly lost a hundred IQ points. The man might be old but he was in no way stupid. His accent turned into something out of a 1930s blackface talkie. “Now, y’all’s friends, they going to like it here, Miz Kelly, yes ma’am. Nice place the church. You tell ’em Old Joe sent you.”
A man approached us, the same one who’d parked. He was dressed in a conservative pair of khakis, topped by a short-sleeved, mid-range polo, something from Target or a mid-range department store, not a discount place or a designer shop. Like Gregor had described Mark, this guy was middle-middle, medium brown hair cut into a style out of a right-wing catalog. He greeted us with a smile that was closer to that of Fred Rogers than Pat Robertson. Hell, if it were winter, I totally could imagine this guy in the requisite cardigan and slippers.
“Hey there, folks, welcome. I’m Pastor Calvin Hagen, y’all new around here?” His smile grew larger as he saw my car close up. I could almost see the dollar signs floating around his head and the ka-ching sound echoing in his brain. Though not a luxury car by any means, my Land Rover was a collectible car, brought over from England and refitted with left-hand drive for me. It was one of a kind, really, and Pastor Hagen obviously knew trust fund money when he saw it.
“We’re just visiting,” I said politely. “Nice to meet you, Pastor. We just wanted to stop by and let you know that we found some kids out back, popping shotgun shells at cans. Not really that big a deal, but my friends just bought that property adjacent to yours. It’s not posted yet, but we plan on helping them put up the signs tomorrow. Could you please let your parishioners know?”
“Oh, my word, I am so sorry.” The pastor seemed put out that someone in his flock could have crossed a boundary. “I’m afraid it’s all my fault. You see, I’ve been letting our boys back there, thinking they could get some practice. We’ve been planning a father and son deer hunt for fall, you know. It’s really popular. I had no idea the property had sold.” He patted my arm, in that irritating condescending way some males have toward women. “Now, I’ll make sure to take care of it, Miss …?”
“Kelly,” I responded. “Keira Kelly.”
“So these are your …” He motioned toward Tucker and the men in the Rover.
“Brothers,” I said. “We’ve been away for a bit, but we’re all back now, in Rio Seco. Just up here checking out my friends’ land. We were thinking of a campout but it’s too darn hot.”
“That it is,” Pastor Hagen said. “Wanted to do a pool party with the kids next week, but it’s almost too hot to do that, so we’re holding a social tomorrow night instead. Y’all churchgoers?”
“Not really, Pastor.” Tucker smoothly stepped in front of me. “I’m sorry, I really hate to interrupt, Keira, but we have an appointment.”
“Oh my, I’m sorry, Pastor.” I smiled at the man, giving him my all-time sweet southern gal impression. “I’m afraid I let the time get away from me. My brother’s right, we must be leaving.”
“Well, I hope to see you folks in church sometime,” he said. “It’s not that far of a drive—and you’re welcome to come join us for worship or just socialize.”
“Thank you for the invitation,” I said. “Joe, thanks for helping us out. I was afraid I’d gotten us all lost.” There was no way I was going to get Joe into any trouble, just in case. His sudden slide into slaphappy Uncle Tom speak had been a warning I wasn’t going to ignore. Joe did not like this pastor person and was reluctant to be himself around him. Until I knew why, I figured we’d best play the game.
Joe nodded solemnly. “Glad I could be of help, Miz Kelly. Now y’all be sure to come visit the shack real soon, all right?”
I nodded back pleasantly, trying to convey Yes, damn it, soon as possible with my expression without raising the pastor’s suspicions. Joe climbed into his truck and rattled off.
As he pulled out of the drive, the pastor gave us another one of his large smiles. “Y’all sure you don’t want to come inside for a cool lemonade,” he offered. “It’s mighty hot out here and y’all seem plumb tuckered out.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have time,” Tucker said politely. “We do have an appointment and I’ve got to get my sister back home. Thank you for the offer, though.�
�� He shook the pastor’s hand. “That’s a fine display window you’ve got there,” Tucker said.
I shaded my eyes and looked toward the building. It was pretty far away from where we were parked, but my enhanced sight could tell that there were trophies lined up inside the window, as if it were a hallway display case.
“Trophies?” I asked. “Hard to tell from out here.”
“Oh yes.” The pastor grinned at us and nodded his head. “We have a vibrant youth group here. They’ve won numerous awards and competitions.”
“That’s commendable,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Wonder what kind of competitions they entered—how many nonbelievers could you convert?
“Well, thanks for your hospitality, Pastor Hagen,” Tucker said. “We’ll be seeing you.”
“I hope so. Y’all have a blessed day!”
We climbed into our car and Tucker drove out of the lot. I didn’t wait for long to ask him why he’d pointed out the window.
“Tucker, what was that all about?”
“Did you see what I saw in the display window?”
“The trophies? I wasn’t checking all that closely,” I said. “Rhys, Ianto?” Both shrugged. Since they’d stayed in the car, it would’ve been hard to see from how we’d parked.
“There’s a logo on each of those trophies,” Tucker said. “Seems a hell of a lot like that pin we found.”
“Say what?” I twisted in my seat, as if through the back window I could actually see into the display and see what Tucker was talking about.
“I looked,” Tucker said. “We were close enough for me to see a couple of the larger trophies. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same, but it could be.”
“I’m getting a really bad feeling about this,” I muttered. “Tucker, should we go back? Talk to the pastor some more? He seemed nice enough, not so smarmy as some.”