by Kay Hooper
Grayson struggled to explain what he knew was an incomplete, hardly understood concept. “It doesn’t feel the same as with those crows up in the woods. He’s curious, interested, but I don’t feel that same . . . watchfulness. But he wants something.”
Geneva’s eyebrows rose. “Wants something? From us?”
“From Nellie,” Grayson answered without thinking about it.
Nellie, who had been listening intently, frowned. “What could it want from me?”
“Your help.” Grayson spoke slowly, but with a certainty that came from God only knew where.
“My help with what?” That was almost snapped, in the tone of one who was holding on to something other than her temper.
“I think you know.”
For a moment, it seemed she wouldn’t respond. Her lips firmed, and those sharp brown eyes seemed to darken. But finally Nellie said, “You’re wrong. I don’t know. I’ve never known.”
He knew what the answer would be but asked, “Have you ever tried to sense them?”
“They’re birds.”
“Leo’s a dog, but you have a connection with him.”
She looked startled for just a moment, then frowned again. “Dogs bond with their people. Everybody knows that.”
“I somehow doubt all dogs can tell a psychic from a nonpsychic unless a psychic touches their minds to teach them the difference.” Again, Grayson wasn’t quite sure where the words were coming from, and it was beginning to bug him.
“I’m not an empath. And I don’t—don’t use the telepathy. I’m clairvoyant. If I . . . I pick up anything from Leo, it’s like that. Not touching his mind, just knowing . . .”
“What’s in it?” Grayson supplied dryly.
“It’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“Well, what I’m getting from that crow on the balcony railing is that he and his . . . feathered brothers and sisters . . . need your help.”
“My help with what?” she repeated, less sharply this time.
“They’re trapped somehow. You can free them.”
EIGHTEEN
“I don’t have any idea how to do that, even assuming you’re right about any of this.” Her voice was calm again, in that way that said she was forcing it to be.
Ignoring the protest, he said, “So you’ve never tried to contact another creature? Like that crow?”
Nellie drew a deep breath and let it out, then began speaking. Quickly at first.
“All my life, I’ve seen crows around. Not all the time, just now and then. Perched on something close enough for me to notice, but not so close that it bothered me. I mean . . . they were just crows. Just birds. Thought it was normal, until other kids started pointing and wondering. And even then—well, just a few crows. Then my father was killed more than ten years ago, and . . .”
Geneva leaned forward a bit, studying the other woman’s oddly still face. “Nellie?”
“It was a single-car crash.” Nellie didn’t turn her head, and she was staring straight ahead, not looking at either of them or even, it seemed, anything in the room. Her voice was very steady. “No slick roads, no alcohol or drugs or anything like that. Nothing mechanically wrong with the car. The cops said—it looked like just a moment when his attention strayed, maybe, and he lost control. The car went off the road, hit a culvert, they said. Flipped. Rolled.
“But the thing I never understood, the thing the cops really couldn’t explain, was that there were black feathers all around the wreck. No birds, dead or alive. And no feathers actually touching the car. Just . . . all around it on the ground. Hundreds of them. From crows.”
It was Geneva who broke the silence, and with a characteristic remark.
“Now, that is what I call creepy.”
Nellie turned her head, looked at her. Saw her. And a wry smile twisted her lips. “Yeah, well. After that, there were more crows around me. All the time. Didn’t matter if I was in the city, at my office or condo. Even at the beach, or in another state. I’d see crows. Almost always more than one. And all watching me.”
“If you don’t try to sense them, what do you do?” Geneva asked.
“I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring them. Only . . . on the drive here, I stopped at a motel for a couple of days to think, to ask myself one last time if I really did want to come here. And there were crows. Every time I took Leo out, there was one here and there. I think . . . I think at night there were a lot. It was like they were waiting for me to make up my mind.
“When I finally checked out of the motel and got ready to head for Salem, there were crows everywhere. On the motel’s sign. Streetlights. Tree branches. The fence between the motel and the road.” She drew a breath, let it out slowly. “I loaded up the car, got Leo in. Got in myself. And when I pulled out of the lot, all the crows were gone. I didn’t see another one until I got to Salem.”
* * *
—
FINN DIDN’T DARE openly show his interest in Nellie, especially so soon after she arrived, by going to the B and B to seek her out. But from his office window he could see most of downtown Salem, and he kept an eye out all morning, fairly certain she’d at least bring her dog out for a walk and hoping she’d come toward town and the small park within the town limits.
If only because of the weather. Though light snow was forecast overnight and into Sunday, and thick gray clouds hung broodingly over the town, no snow had fallen as yet. God knew it was cold enough, he thought, but that was hardly unusual in Salem in January. The joke had long ago worn thin that everyone in town bought thermal underwear for January.
He had no plans to attend church tomorrow. He also had no intention of offering Duncan any excuses as to why he wouldn’t be present. The older man had yet to directly challenge him, in part because Finn had made very sure there was no reason.
He’d been lucky in that only his own loyalist militia members had been with him on patrol that night and knew that he’d kept Geneva Raynor captive for a couple of days. That they were uneasy about that, and even more so now because she had escaped her prison, he knew. They expected her to, at the very least, file a complaint with the county sheriff.
She had, after all, been abducted and held prisoner.
The fact that she had not done so, nor had she packed up and left town, Finn knew also disturbed his men. But he had told them, quite calmly, that he had “taken steps” to make sure that all she remembered were the foggy bits and pieces of a really strange dream.
They believed him—but they were still wary, because very few of those with the Talent to alter memories had even been born in Salem in all its long history, and it was also not one of the usual Deverell Talents.
But he had made some small demonstrations of that particular Talent in recent years, little things he made certain his men were aware of. So they would, at the necessary time, believe he could.
They believed well enough now to keep their mouths shut about Geneva Raynor.
Restless, Finn moved to his window to look again down on Salem, and immediately spotted Nellie walking in his direction from Hales B and B with her dog.
Alone.
He wasted no time in getting his jacket and heading for the stairs, wondering why she was alone (except for Leo). He was a little surprised that Raynor and Sheridan, once they made contact, had not insisted at least one of them remain with her. They knew enough to take that precaution, he thought.
Then again, one or both might have been following her, and he doubted he’d see them if they were.
The building was nearly silent on this Saturday, with only a few hardy souls working since the Chronicle had a weekend edition that came out on Friday, and the work for the Monday paper was usually completed on Friday and Saturday morning. Mostly on Friday. It was a small town.
So there was no one to notice Finn leaving, and even if anyone had they wo
uld have thought nothing of it. Like all of the militia, he was apt to come and go abruptly, often at odd hours, and the people of Salem accepted that as normal.
They accept too damned much as normal.
He pushed the thought away, or maybe it was blasted away as the cold of the early afternoon hit him the moment he went out the front door. He didn’t zip his quilted jacket—January in Salem meant layers like his flannel shirt and sweatshirt underneath jackets and coats—but instead just shoved his hands into the pockets as he set off toward the park. He could see Nellie some distance ahead of him, and he didn’t hurry as he followed after her.
By the time he reached the fenced area of the park that was for off-leash dogs, she had unclipped Leo’s leash and was standing near a bench, watching as he made friends with an Irish setter and a Rottweiler, both of whom seemed happy to have a new friend.
Their owners were standing some yards away near another bench, bundled against the cold and talking to each other.
Nellie also wore a quilted jacket and a knitted scarf, though her head was bare, brown hair gleaming even in the gray winter light. Like his, her hands were in her pockets; those black leather gloves hadn’t been designed to keep her hands warm.
Finn let himself in, closing the gate behind him, and didn’t waste any time in approaching her. “Hi,” he said.
She didn’t turn her head to look at him, saying merely, “I thought that was you behind me.” She sounded resigned, like someone accepting the confirmation of a dental appointment.
In spite of everything, he felt his lips twitch. “Well, I wanted to talk to you.” He kept his own voice casual, pushing humor aside. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“It’s freezing out here.”
“You brought Leo out, and it’s clear he wants to play for a while. We can talk while he does.”
She glanced up at him finally out of guarded eyes, but turned and sat near one end of the bench, keeping her hands in her pockets.
Finn joined her but made sure there was a foot of space between them. He had thought about this more than once, what to say to Nellie, how to explain what she needed to know. But when he spoke, nothing that he had planned came out of his mouth.
“Your father was murdered,” he said.
Nellie’s head jerked around and she stared at him. “What?”
He thought there was shock in her eyes—but not as much as there might have been. Perhaps not as much as there should have been. Seemingly going off on a tangent, he said, “It all started with him when I was only a toddler, according to my father. The struggle, I mean.”
“What struggle?”
“Within the Cavendish family. Thomas was the younger son in the direct line; we all have cousins, extended family, but there’s only one direct male line in each of the families. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.” He had her full attention now.
“Yeah, only one. And that’s usually the one who has the strongest Talent in his family. Stretching all the way back to the people who founded this town. Of course there are offshoots, different, usually weaker, and sometimes highly unusual Talents from males and females both within and outside the direct lines.”
“Is that supposed to make them superior?” Nellie asked. “Being in the direct line, I mean.”
“All Talents are considered valuable, assuming the person holding them has some control. Which isn’t always the case.”
Finn shrugged. “At present, I’m the . . . designated head of the Deverell family. My father was the eldest son in the direct line. He has two younger brothers, my uncles, but neither was or is ambitious, so they didn’t want to head up the family when he was killed about three years ago. And neither has the Talent.”
“The Talent?” It sounded like a reluctant question. It sounded like she already knew the answer.
“Psychic ability.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It runs in all the five families; you must know that by now. You probably knew as soon as you reached Salem, if not before.”
“My father never said—”
“Once you were here, you felt it. Clairvoyance was always one of the strongest of the Cavendish Talents.”
“Talents . . . plural,” she said slowly.
“In most of the families, it’s only one Talent inherited by two or three in each generation, rarely more than that, and usually it’s the same one, though occasionally something different turns up. The Deverells with the Talent, for instance, are almost always empaths.”
“So you’re an empath.” It wasn’t really a question.
He answered anyway. “Yes, I am. I also have a nephew with the same Talent, also in the direct line.”
“Is he ambitious?” she asked somewhat wryly.
“Well, I’m not worried about a hostile takeover.” He smiled. “Robert and I get along very well. Things haven’t always gone so amiably for your family.”
“Because of ambition. And . . . more than one ability?”
He nodded. “In a nutshell. Ambition can be channeled or even countered. But the Talent is more difficult to manage, especially if it’s strong in someone. When you combine both, and the Talent comes in several forms . . . well, let’s just say the Cavendish family has been . . . troubled . . . more than once because of that.”
“Troubled? Like that struggle you mentioned?”
“Yes. Thomas’s older brother, Duncan, was born with multiple Talents. And ambition. A great deal of ambition.”
Nellie was frowning. “But my father wanted to head up his family?”
Finn shook his head. “That wasn’t what the struggle was about. There were . . . several reasons, but what disturbed Thomas most of all was that Duncan was ambitious for more than what he was entitled to. More than any one man in Salem is entitled to. He wanted . . . control. Wanted the other families to follow him, the heads of those families to defer to his wishes. He wanted power.”
“And that had never happened before?” she asked slowly.
“In the early days, but not for a long, long time. For the most part, each family has what they want, the business they’re raised up in and comfortable with. Everything balanced. One of my aunts runs the paper mill, loves the work, and she’s doing well with it. I know business in general, the newspaper business in particular; put me on a dairy farm, or ask me to sell real estate, or to be in charge of producing electricity for the town, and I wouldn’t really have a clue.”
“How about finance?”
Finn had to mentally tip his hat to her. She was following his lead, rambling though it must seem to her, not breaking in with impatience to ask what any of this had to do with her, but simply drawing the story out of him the way he wanted to tell it. He had a strong hunch that Duncan had no idea his niece was a hell of a lot smarter than she looked.
“Finance too,” he answered. “I have an accountant to balance the books and a broker who invests for the family; my interest in finance other than knowing as much as I need to know in order to deal with both of them is nil.”
She threw him a sudden curve. “Your broker doesn’t live or work in Salem, does he?”
“No.” Deliberately, he added, “Nor are most of my family’s liquid assets on deposit in the Cavendish bank.”
“Except for a personal checking account or three,” she offered. “Maybe a business account to take care of payroll and other expenses. Just for . . . appearances. And common sense.”
“Yeah. Except for those.”
Nellie nodded, then returned the focus of the conversation to one overly ambitious man. “So everybody is happy with their particular place in Salem. Except for Duncan Cavendish.”
He noted the present tense, but said, “According to my father, who had no reason to lie to me, it wasn’t a question of leadership so much as it was goals. Duncan had his own ideas about what kind of place Salem should
be, and in all those ideas he was in charge of everything. His word law. His leadership unchallenged. Centuries of history didn’t matter to him, except that he recognized that the . . . insular nature of the town and its people could be used to his advantage.”
“How?” She turned her head slightly to watch as a large crow landed almost silently on the fence a few yards to their right, then looked back at him, her expression of polite inquiry unchanged.
Bonus points. And he hoped her control really wasn’t easily shaken.
“Superstition,” he answered. “It’s easily come by in these mountains, especially in places where present generations are descended from original settlers who had plenty to fear.”
“Witchcraft?” She asked the question almost idly.
“Nothing so defined. What Duncan wanted everyone to believe was that the Talent wasn’t just an inherent ability as natural to us as the color of our eyes and whatever physical or mental aptitudes we could boast of. He wanted them to believe it was God-given. And since he had more of it than anyone else—”
“They’d follow him. Where? To what?”
“Where every false prophet eventually leads his followers,” Finn said without any particular emphasis. “To hell.”
* * *
—
“STILL CAN’T READ him?” Grayson asked.
“From here? No way. Maybe if I’d been able to read him before, if there was some connection. But, no. Walls. Thick ones. I wonder if Nellie has any sense of him.”
“I doubt she’s trying.”
Grayson glanced again through the big window at their booth in the restaurant, from which they could see the end of the park with its fenced area for dogs, three of which were running and playing happily. One of the dogs was Leo. They could also see Nellie sitting on a bench, with Finn Deverell sitting at what Grayson judged to be a careful distance from her on the same bench.
The restaurant they had chosen for its view was beginning to get busy as people drifted in for lunch. Perhaps more than usual, Grayson thought, because of the forecast.