The Deep Wood (Sunshine Walkingstick Book 2)

by Celia Roman

  “I got a friend,” I said, careful to keep my voice casual and innocent. “He won’t mind having company for a few days.”

  One hand crept to her throat and her fingers toyed with the ragged edge of her sweatshirt, like it was pearls instead of fabric. “Oh, I couldn’t impose.”

  “No imposition,” I said right off. “Besides. I need to camp out here for a while and see if I can catch another glimpse of that critter. Won’t rightly know what it is ‘til I do.”

  “You won’t know,” she said faintly, and I grinned, not even bothering to hide the triumph shining through. I hooked her good with that’un, and hooking her was the hard part. Once Teus got a gander at Miss Jenny Brookshire, he’d forget all about pursuing scrawny ol’ me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I promised Miss Jenny I’d meet her later on that night at her house so I could get a key to the door and she could grab some clothes. Didn’t tell her about Teus. Forewarned was forearmed, and the less prepared she was to meet a guy looking like him, the more susceptible she’d be to his charm.

  That was my theory, anyhow, and it seemed as good a one as any.

  Soon as I saw her off, I headed toward Jazz and BobbiJean’s. If I remembered correct, they was on their honeymoon still, but the least I could do was check in on their laying hens.

  I stopped by Aunt Sadie’s on the way and found her cabin empty as a plate licked clean. Thin smoke drifted outta the chimney and spiraled toward the ground on a light breeze. Rain later, maybe. She’d probably had a neighbor cart her to the grocery store to fill her cupboard before the weather set in.

  We sure did need it.

  I ambled along to my original destination, and sure enough, Jazz and BobbiJean was nowhere to be seen. A note was tacked to the front door, addressed to me. I tore it loose and skimmed the nigh on illegible scrawl.

  Sunshine of my heart.

  I snickered. That Jazz. Poor BobbiJean had her hands full there.

  Gave the chickens to a neighbor to care for while we’re gone. Whatever was getting ‘em moved on, or left the biddies alone one. See you soon, darling. All our love.

  I folded the note and stuffed it into a back pocket as I strode around the side of the house into the back yard. Wouldn’t hurt to take one last look at the scene of the crime, so to speak, even if whatever’d et them chickens skeedaddled.

  The coop was empty and clean, though a faint aroma of chicken poop and corn feed lingered. I picked my way around it, setting my feet careful like in the dry as bone dirt surrounding it. A faint impression of a pawprint caught my eye. I knelt beside it and traced a fingertip around its edges. The metacarpal pad, the equivalent of the ball of a human’s foot, was bigger’n my palm.

  The critter what set his paws down musta been Mastiff huge, easy, maybe bigger.

  Weren’t no painter done that, nor Ol’ Blue and Lady.

  I sighed and brushed my palms off on my thighs, stood and scouted around for another print or sign of some sort. A few feet toward the woods, beyond the protective fence out in the grassy verge separating the garden from the yard proper, the yellowing grass bent, forming a swooshed vee. Something’d walked along here, likely the critter, but the vegetation was too thick, the ground too packed for it to’ve left much of an impression.

  I followed the trail anyhow, trying to gauge the size of its stride, its weight, anything what might shed some light on its nature. The trail ended inches from the creek bank. I squatted there and studied another pawprint, this’un a hair deeper’n the one left at the coop. It’d stopped here, that critter, and balled its muscles up for a jump, ‘less I missed my guess. I glanced across the narrow creek, judging the distance, and shook my head. Surely it hadn’t made the leap in a single bound.

  And I weren’t wading the creek in fifty degree weather in my favorite boots to find out.

  I heaved myself upright into a long stretch, scrubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Reckon I told BobbiJean a whopper when I promised to catch the critter what’d et her and Jazz’s chickens. I’d keep after it, for a while anyhow. A promise was a promise, and I done my best to keep what few I made.

  I tromped back to my car and pulled out my cellphone, thumbed into my contacts and dialed David’s number. He answered on the third ring, just as I was settling behind the IROC’s steering wheel.

  “Hello, darling girl.”

  I twisted the key in the ignition and waited for the engine to roar to life. “David, honey pie, sweetie.”

  “You want something.” Humor lifted his voice into a near laugh. “It must be dire for you to flatter me with sweet nothings.”

  “Close enough. You got Teus’s number?”

  “You’re calling me for another man’s phone number? I’m wounded, darling, positively cut to the quick.”

  “Oh, lay off,” I said, but laughter underscored the words. I manhandled the seatbelt across my scrawny torso one-handed and locked it in place, then shifted into reverse. “I got somebody I want him to meet.”

  “Do tell.”

  In the back of my mind, I could just about see David leaning his elbows on his kitchen counter, preparing to indulge in a good spate of gossip. Just like old times, it was, before I busted up the Greenwood Five’s little side business and singlehandedly ruined David’s relationship with a good man.

  Well, not singlehandedly, but near enough.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and steered the IROC around ‘til it pointed in the right direction, and away I went as a better idea formulated itself. “You busy tonight?”

  “Terribly. There’s the laundry and the mopping and the—“”

  “Oh, now, I ain’t got time for your shenanigans, David Eckstrom. You want in on the action or not?”

  “A case?”

  “Yup. Got a critter scaring a local schoolmarm.”

  “Dangerous?”

  I mulled that over as I turned onto Warwoman Road. Seeing Teus’s pet catfish swimming around ‘neath the surface of Lake Burton scared a coupla years off poor ol’ David. Maybe taking him on a stakeout weren’t such a grand idea, ‘specially when I was clueless as to what shape and form the critter took.

  “I’m in,” he said before I could take it back. “Anything to get out of laundry duty.”

  “Dress warm. Bring a gun.”

  Static stretched between us for a minute, then he said, real quiet like, “You really are in it this time, aren’t you, Sunny?”

  “Could be. I reckon we’ll find out. Meet me at my house around four, wouldja?”

  “Of course, darling. Anything for my sunshine.”

  I shook my head again and hung up, and tapped the gas pedal for good measure. The IROC lurched forward on a surge of power, slicing through the wind like a stallion charging into battle.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At four sharp, David rapped on the trailer’s door, then stuck his head inside. “Hello, hello.”

  I turned away from the kitchen counter and the mess of pre-packaged snacks strewn across it, and waved him in. “Ready for your big adventure?”

  “I was born ready, darling.” He shut the door behind him and jerked his chin at the critter sitting quiet and calm in its cage. “Should I even ask?”

  I grinned. “You could, but I ain’t got no answers for you. A client caught it in her garden. Give it to me to identify.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll do your best.” He shrugged a compact, black backpack off his shoulder and dropped it onto the couch. “Please tell me you’re not planning on bringing that junk food along on the stakeout.”

  “We gotta eat.”

  “Which is why I whipped up a healthy meal for us.”

  I eyed his bag like it was a snake coiled to strike. “Not them fancy do-dads.”

  “Would I do that to you?”

  “Depends on whether I done something to you first.” I shifted back toward the mess of snacks and began shoving bags back into their original packages. I’d never admit it ‘less I had to, but ev
en David’s fancy do-dads was better’n most of this junk. “You took the part serious.”

  “Black is de rigueur on a stakeout, darling. Even a city boy like me knows that.”

  And he done it up in style with a sleek, form-fitting turtleneck and cargo pants under a serviceable black jacket.

  “You bring a gun?” I asked.

  “Even better. I brought a camera.”

  I rolled my eyes and shoved the last of the snacks away. “What good is that gonna do when you got a critter breathing down your neck?”

  “Distraction.” He crossed the room, wrapped his hands around my upper arms, and propped his chin on my shoulder. “I brought a gun.”

  His voice was oddly sober, not like him a’tall.

  “You know how to use it?” I asked.

  “What’s the point of having a tool you don’t know how to use?”

  “You got me there.” I nudged my elbow into his midriff and eased away from him. “Shake a leg there, Detective. We got a long night ahead of us.”

  He snorted and grabbed his bag whilst I strapped on the 1911 and snagged some extra ammo. I done filled a satchel with the basics and topped off the critter’s water bottle, not that it ever seemed to use it. Still, it was in my care and care for it I would, leastwise ‘til I figured out what else to do with it.

  A few minutes later, the trailer was shut tight and we was on our way, rolling along toward Miss Jenny’s house in the IROC. David fiddled with the radio station and landed on a classic rock station, and I grinned my approval at him.

  It was like he said the first night we met. Me and him was gonna be the best of friends. We sure was working our way around to it, wasn’t we, and me, well. I was glad for his company. He mighta joked about the camera being a distraction, but really, he was just as big a one. With Riley off fighting fires, way too close to Snowbird for comfort, and the other worries on my plate, I sure did need a good distraction.

  When we pulled into Miss Jenny’s driveway, Teus was standing on the front porch facing the road, one sculpted shoulder propped against a support post, not seeming the least concerned about any potential damage he was doing to the charcoal gray suit he wore. Danged if he didn’t look like he stepped outta the pages of GQ or something.

  Soon as we piled outta the IROC and got close enough to converse, he said, “Really, Sunshine. What use is it to mark you when you insist on using the telephone to call on me?”

  “Weren’t taking no chances on where I’d end up this time,” I retorted, and scowled at the slow, knowing smile easing its way across his mug. “’Preciate you dropping by.”

  “You said it was urgent.” He shrugged his free shoulder, let it drop. “Aside from the ghastly stench of Suburbia, I fail to see what’s so important I had to interrupt my evening for you.”

  Lordy, sometimes I forgot how snooty he could be. I shook it off and said, even as I could, “We’re getting to that.”

  David coughed into a fist, not hiding a smile in the least. “You haven’t told him?”

  “’Course not.” And I weren’t planning on spilling word one ‘til I absolutely had to. Maybe this little surprise would learn Teus not to meddle so much. I turned back to him and waved toward the woods surrounding Miss Jenny’s home. “You sense anything outta place around here?”

  He tilted his regal head, them weird aqua eyes fixed on me. “Tit for tat, Sunshine. Why am I here?”

  A purring engine growed loud enough to interrupt, and Miss Jenny’s car appeared ‘round the bend leading to her house, doing exactly the posted speed limit and not one bit more, I’d wager. I waggled a thumb over my shoulder at it. “That’s why.”

  Teus arched an imperious eyebrow. “An automobile?”

  “The driver,” I said with the last of my patience. Honestly, he knowed how to push my buttons. “Be good.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  David hid a laugh behind his fist. I just shook my head and wandered over to where Miss Jenny was sliding outta her car, dressed exactly like I expected her to be, prim and proper and just so. Gone were the ragged sweatshirt and comfortable jeans. In their place, she wore a pink twinset paired with sharply pressed gray slacks and honest to god pearls at her neck.

  She glanced at me over the roof of her Prius, then her gaze wandered to the two men standing in her front yard. “Who are they?”

  “The blond headed feller is my friend David. He’s here to help with the stakeout. That other guy is the one with the room to spare.”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You didn’t say the person I’d be staying with was a good looking man.”

  Since I done that on purpose, I jogged around the side of the car and took her elbow, encouraging her gentle like to abandon her white knuckled grip on the driver’s side door.

  “You’re gonna love him,” I said, a mite more forceful than I intended. “He knows more about the ancient Greeks than any two folks combined.”

  Her arm relaxed under my hand. “Really?”

  “Wouldn’t lie.”

  By the time we got to the yard proper, Teus’d stepped down off the porch, his expression suave and smooth and charming. He held out a hand to Miss Jenny, clasped her limp, pale fingers in his, and danged if he didn’t bend over her hand like she was the Queen of England.

  “Enchanté,” he said, and her cheeks flushed pinker’n her sweater.

  Her free hand fluttered around her chest as she murmured a polite hello. David’s gaze met mine and he give me two thumbs up.

  Like I didn’t already know I done good pairing Teus off with Miss Jenny. Them two was a match made in Heaven.

  “Miss Jenny,” I said, “this is Abercio Okeanos.”

  “Teus, please.” He held onto Miss Jenny’s hand as he stood. “Find a Wampus Cat, Sunshine.”

  “Eh, what?” I asked.

  “A Wampus Cat will know how to deal with the creature troubling Jena. You already have the means within your grasp to find one.” He tucked Miss Jenny’s hand into the crook of his arm and stared down at her like a cat eyeing a canary it was about to gobble up. “I have reservations at BoccaLupo in Atlanta. Would you care to join me?”

  Miss Jenny fingered her pearls, her gray eyes wide as saucers. “I have class tomorrow.”

  “We will return well before bedtime.”

  I didn’t like the smarmy charm in his tone one bit. “Teus,” I said, a warning even a deaf man coulda heard.

  “No fretting.” He leaned down and bussed my cheek, and murmured, “Her virtue is safe, until she chooses to forsake it.”

  I relaxed as they walked away, why I don’t know. A man like Teus… No, a deity like Teus could have nigh on anything he wanted with the snap of his elegant fingers. That said, he always been good on his word before. No reason to suspect he’d be any different now.

  Miss Jenny slipped her fingers into her pants pocket and pulled out a key. “My spare.”

  “Thank ye kindly,” I said, then Teus led her away toward her car, and I was pretty sure she forgot all about me and the reason she was having to stay somewhere else for a while.

  David stepped up beside me and draped a casual arm around my waist. “I’d love to take you to BoccaLupo’s some time.”

  “Now, why’d I wanna go there when I got you to cook me all the fancy do-dads I can eat?”

  It weren’t ‘til Miss Jenny and Teus drove away in her car, him driving, that I remembered she hadn’t packed extra clothes. I shrugged it off. Teus’d do for her. If he didn’t, he’d have me to answer to, and that’s all there was to it.

  Soon as Miss Jenny’s car disappeared around the bend, me and David did a walk-through of the house and grounds, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Other’n what I already found, weren’t nothing suspicious what jumped out at me, and it shoulda, seeing as how it was still full-on daylight.

  So I backed the IROC to the end of the drive, where me and him would have a clear view of the front of the house, and we settled in as the shadows snuck
slow as molasses outta the mountains into night.

  David dug out his cellphone and went tapping away at it whilst I scanned the surrounding area. Tree line, porch, garage, neighbor’s house peeking through the forest, then the same in reverse, moving my gaze slow and cautious back and forth. Ever once in a while, I twisted ‘round and searched the road and what lay beyond it or glanced up at the sky, judging the time against the lengthening shadows.

  About half an hour after we settled into the car, David grunted. “Found it.”

  I slid my gaze across the rooftop and beyond. “Found what?”

  “The Wampus Cat.”

  Was that a shadow moving to the left of the house? I focused on it for a minute, trying to discern one object from another. A housecat sashayed around the corner and I refocused elsewhere, continuing my scan of the surrounding area.

  “What about it?” I asked after a minute.

  “Says here the Wampus Cat is a Cherokee woman who wore a booger mask to scare off an evil demon.”

  I shifted around in the seat and eyed him. In the half-dark night, the light from his cellphone lit his face, casting shadows around the laugh lines bracketing his mouth. Made him look a little mischievous, truth be told, but seeing as how he already got a good dose of that, I ignored it and leaned toward the cellphone’s display, trying to get a good gander at the website he was browsing. “What’s a booger mask?”

  He strummed a fingertip along the cellphone’s surface, shifting the view. “Hmm. The face of a mountain cat.”

  “How in the devil am I supposed to get one of them?”

  A sly grin stretched David’s mouth and he cut a side-eyed glance at me. “You wouldn’t happen to know any shamans, would you?”

  I grimaced at him, then turned back to my surveillance. “No, I don’t, Mr. Smarty Pants.”

  But I knowed somebody what might. Libby’d left in a good mood t’other day. Maybe she’d know where I could get a booger mask, or hire the services of somebody what wore one. I opened my mouth to say so when my cellphone buzzed, notifying me of a text message.