by Brant, Kylie
But he’d never seen orbs for himself. Was a long way from admitting that he’d seen them this time.
But he damn well had seen something.
“It’s freezing this close to the woods. Since there’s nothing to see here, let’s go.”
“Step back ’bout ten feet and you’ll be a lot warmer,” he instructed absently. He went down on one knee to pull his notebook out of one pack, used the illumination from the camp light on his cap to jot down some notes.
Forty-five degrees. Six inches to the right. Forty-eight degrees.
He swept the area slowly, taking frequent measurements and making notations. The contrast was stark. There was at least a twenty-degree difference between the area he thought the lights had emanated from and the space several feet away from it.
Next he set the EMF meter down and flipped it on, watched the needle sway wildly before settling well into the elevated range.
“Stryker.”
He looked up absently from the notes he was scribbling to be practically blinded by Ramsey’s light. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for elevated levels in the electromagnetic fields. Need to come back here tomorrow for a control check,” he muttered, scribbling another note. He’d also have to look at the proximity of any electrical wires, which could play havoc with the EMF meter. But they were a good distance away from the cabin. And he didn’t see any poles in the vicinity.
“You know there are a dozen possible explanations for those lights, right?”
“At least,” he agreed. He made a mental note to check how close the nearest airport or radio tower was. Although the lights had seemed to skip rather than sweep, he needed to be thorough. “What color would you say they were?”
“The lights?”
“Yeah.”
“White.”
He looked up then, his gaze direct. “Did they look totally white to you?”
She hesitated. “From a distance, they appeared to have a purple haze around the rims. But what possible difference does that make? They’re reflections from something or someone inside the woods.”
“So they’re the same thing you saw here last night?”
This time her pause was longer. “I couldn’t swear to it, but yeah. Seemed like it.”
“At least we can be fairly certain they don’t have anything to do with Rose. At her age, there’s no way she could have gotten to the woods in the time it took us to walk to the car. And she wasn’t carrying a flashlight.”
He rose. “I’m goin’ back to the car to get the gaussometer. And I really want to measure the ion activity in the area.”
“Stryker.”
Moving toward her, he continued, “You better come with me. I don’t want you waitin’ down here alone in the dark.”
“Stryker.”
He tried for a note of humor. “I know it’s probably not the most romantic date you’ve been on, but you have to give me marks for originality, right?”
“Stryker!”
Close enough now to see her outstretched hand, he turned, baffled, in the direction she was pointing. Felt a spike of pure exhilaration when he saw the lights again, this time glowing from a spot deeper in the interior of the woods.
“C’mon. Let’s check it out.” He grabbed her arm and started toward the trees. Felt her dig in her heels like a lamb being led to slaughter.
“Not a chance.”
“Well, there’s no way I’m leavin’ you out here alone,” he countered. Dev had no way of knowing what the hell was going on here, but there weren’t any scenarios that had him comfortable with stranding Ramsey while he ran ahead into the woods.
Curiosity got the better of chivalry. Grabbing her arm more firmly, he fairly dragged her into the woods alongside him, his eyes on the lights that danced ahead.
Chapter 15
For an instant, past and present collided with enough force to make the two all but indistinguishable. Ramsey fought wildly against Dev’s careless grip as he urged her into the trees. As if by breaking free she could divest herself of the hold the past had upon her, as well.
The fronds and scrub brush scraped at her naked skin as she crouched low behind the huge pine. The surrounding trees hemmed her in. The darkness wrapped around her like an inky smothering beast. She was afraid to breathe. Afraid the sound of it would give away her hiding place.
He was close enough to reach out and touch. And the thought of what awaited her if she failed turned her blood to ice. Her skin frigid.
“I know you’re ’round here somewheres. I can smell yer cunny. Why doncha just come on out and you and me can have ourselves a time afore them other assholes find us. Ain’t settlin’ for sloppy seconds this time. C’mon, bitch, you know you want it. Quit wastin’ time.”
She came out. Swinging the tree branch at his head with all her might.
“There now, I’ve let go of you, see? Damned idiocy to go barrelin’ into the woods this time of night, anyway. C’mon, now, Ramsey. We’ll just walk out and get on back to the car, shall we?”
It took a minute for Dev’s low soothing voice to reach her. Another before his words registered. When they did, when her wooden muscles would respond, she swung the flashlight in his direction. And what she saw in his expression had mortification firing through her.
Pity. Mingled with wariness. And why wouldn’t he be wary? She’d acted like a certifiable crazy woman on her way to being fitted for a straitjacket.
Jesus. She hauled in a deep shuddering breath. Wished she could still the rocketing of her pulse. Based on her reaction, she wasn’t so sure she wasn’t straitjacket material. Damned if there weren’t still shudders chasing up her spine, racking her body.
“I’m okay.” She was. Anger finally chugged through her system, battled with the remnants of fear.
“Sure you are.” Dev began edging toward the direction they’d come. “But all of a sudden, I’m not crazy ’bout chasin’ through the woods. Can’t do a damn thing tonight that I couldn’t do in the daylight. Why don’t we head back to town?”
There was an instant when everything inside her leaped at the chance to take the easy out he was offering. To allow him to pretend that it was he who’d changed his mind. He who couldn’t face the thought of running deeper into the shadowy woods after night had fallen.
And the strength of that longing stiffened her resolve. Even if it failed to batten down the trembling that still shook her limbs.
She shook her head violently. “It’s okay. I’m fine now.”
“But I’m not.” Dev looped an arm loosely around her waist to guide her gently back to the clearing. With her teeth firmly clenched, she ducked away from his touch and took a step deeper into the woods.
“The lights are still there.” Did they seem dimmer now? Farther away? Her body quaked at the thought of following them.
“Ramsey.” Dev’s voice at her side was as gentle as she’d ever heard it. And the sound of it made something inside her wither in shame. “You don’t have to do this. Neither of us do.”
“Are you coming?” Her foot felt like it was encased in lead as she lifted it for a step forward. Her breathing shallow, she forced herself to take a second step. And then another.
It took everything she had not to flinch at the slight noise he made coming up slightly behind her. To not cringe away when he slid his arm through the crook of hers. This was Tennessee, not Mississippi. It was Dev, not . . . them.
And she was no longer fifteen.
“The lights are drawing away,” he muttered, his stride beginning to quicken.
“Almost like whoever is holding them is running away.”
Dev reached up to push a low-hanging branch out of the way. “Doesn’t make sense. If the lights are from some man-made illumination, they’d have to be on a person’s back to be visible if they’re running.”
There was a low croak from somewhere to their side, and her flesh prickled. There wasn’t a swamp in the are
a, she assured herself. And they were a good distance from Ashton’s Pond.
“Maybe it’s clothing with some sort of reflective strip attached,” Ramsey suggested. It was a fraction easier to keep placing one foot in front of the other when she was distracted from where she was. What she was doing. She couldn’t imagine what someone could wear that would cause the lights either, unless . . .
“Or fiber optics.” She gave Dev’s arm a jerk where it was linked with hers. It helped to focus her attention elsewhere. Eased nerves a bit that were already raw. “Like those Christmas trees that have different-colored lights fading in and out. Or what about those novelty sweatshirts that have little light-bulbs flashing on them? How do they work? Watch batteries or something?”
The screech that sounded behind them then was inhuman. The echo of prey meeting predator. And it was so close that Ramsey all but jumped in Dev’s arms, startled obscenities tumbling from her lips.
“Shit, they’re gone. God dammit!” Dev swung his head from one direction to another, temper emanating from him like steam off a boiling pot. “Do you see them anywhere?”
Ramsey shook her head, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. The only illumination came from Dev’s camper’s light on his cap and the beam of her flashlight. She swept the area in front of them with its beam slowly. Once. Back again.
And barely caught the swift movement of long shadow joining with shadow. For an instant, everything inside her froze as she beat back fears that had been born well over a decade earlier.
“Ezra T., c’mon outta there.” Dev’s voice as he reached for her flashlight was firm. “I know it’s you. Heard the animal noises you’ve been making for the last little while. C’mon now. We’re not gonna hurt you.”
Ramsey held herself stock-still, her limbs thick with tension. She felt like if she eased them, she’d fly into a million pieces.
There was a drawn-out silence. Then finally a voice sounded. “Ain’t Ezra T.”
“Yes, you are. Now come on out. I’m not foolin’ ’round with you.”
Even in the shadows, Ramsey immediately recognized the man who slipped from behind a tree trunk to sidle a bit closer to them before taking cover behind another stout oak. If she didn’t miss her bet, he was dressed exactly as he’d been the first time she’d caught a glimpse of him behind the Tibbitts’ house. His brown hair was stringy and matted and stuck up in odd tufts over his head. With his several days’ growth of whiskers, he looked older than his years.
“You din’t know it was me.”
“I’ve seen you before. You were watchin’ me down at Ashton’s Pond a few days ago, weren’t you? Those bird calls of yours sound just like the real thing.”
“Yer Stryker. Duane told me all ’bout you.” Ramsey could feel the man peering at her in the darkness. “You been bad, missy?”
Despite the chills still skating over her flesh, she stepped forward. She’d been wanting to talk to this man since she’d first heard about him. “My name’s Ramsey, Ezra T. You know these woods pretty well, don’t you?”
“Gonna get butt sex if you’re bad,” he babbled. Dodging around the other side of the tree, he disappeared from sight for a moment. “Yessiree.”
“Have you seen anyone in these woods lately, Ezra T.?” Dev had warned her about the man’s intellectual capacity. Rollins, too, when she’d asked him whether he’d questioned the man. But even a child could give valuable information if it was extracted properly.
The other man didn’t appear, but he stabbed a finger around the trunk in Dev’s direction.
“So you saw Devlin when he was at the pond. Did you see anyone else before you saw him?”
“Saw the cops.” The voice seemed disembodied, floating as it did from his hiding place.
“I’ll bet there were a lot of them at the scene.” Without conscious thought Ramsey moved closer to the tree trunk he was hiding behind. “How about before the cops were there?”
“Dead is dead. She be dead. She bad.”
Ramsey stilled. “Who, Ezra T.? Who was bad?”
“But now she back. All the time screamin’. Can’t you hear her screamin’?”
Dev’s voice was low. “Ramsey, he can’t help.”
But she was unconvinced. Keeping the flashlight pointed at the ground, she moved around the tree until she had the other man in her sight. “Did you see the woman dumped in Ashton’s Pond, Ezra T.? Did you see who put her there?”
“Make her stop screamin’.” His voice was growing shrill, both hands clapped over his ears. “Make her stop.”
“You heard her screaming? Was she crying for help? Who was hurting her, Ezra T.? Did you see who put her in the pond?”
“Only one way to make her quit screamin’. Make her dead. Make her stop.” His words were coming faster, more frenzied. And the expression on his face had the ice forming anew in Ramsey’s veins.
“Did someone make her stop screaming, Ezra T.? Did you see who it was? Did you . . .”
Suddenly, he lunged for her. She dodged too late. Stumbling backward, Ramsey caught her foot on her tree root and nearly fell. His arm was around her throat in an instant, hauling her back against his chest with a surprisingly strong grip.
“Yer bad, too!” He smelled of body odor and the faint scent of decay found in the woods. Grimacing, Ramsey fought to break his hold without hurting the man. “Yessiree. You gonna get dead. But don’t you start screamin’, hear? No more screamin’.”
Dimly she was aware of Dev at her side, shouting, trying to break Ezra T.’s grip. But spots were beginning to dance in front of her eyes as he pressed more tightly against her windpipe. And any remaining concern about the man abruptly vanished.
She jabbed her elbow into his gut with all the force she could muster. He gave a surprised mewl, the sound oddly child-like, and his grasp loosened. Dev wrested Ezra’s arm from around Ramsey and pushed her farther away.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Ezra T.? You know better than that!”
“She bad, she bad,” he jabbered, his finger pointing in Ramsey’s direction. “She gonna get dead.”
“Ezra T. . . .”
The other man bolted then, his movement as swift and sudden as a bird taking flight. And when Dev started after him, Ramsey said, “Let him go.”
He glanced back at her, his expression as grim as she’d ever seen it. “You were right. He’s got some explainin’ to do. Now more than ever.”
Wearily, she shook her head. “No, you were right. You and Rollins both said he was useless to question. He can’t help. Let’s go.”
His reluctance clearly showed as he moved back toward her. But then he paused in front of her, his fingers gentle as they brushed her neck. “Did he hurt you?”
His tenderness, on top of the other blows tonight, turned her bones weak. To stiffen them, she shrugged. “I’ve had worse than this chasing down a pissed-off crack whore.”
“A vivid mental image.” Placing an arm around her waist, he headed with her toward the clearing. It occurred to Ramsey that the events with Ezra T. had completely distracted her from her reaction to the woods.
Somehow she couldn’t feel it in her heart to be grateful to the man for that.
“I’ve told you, I’m fine. And as . . . unforgettable as this date has been, I need to get back to work.”
Imperturbably Dev waited for the microwave to ding and then opened it to extract the mug. “Marshmallows?”
“I said . . .” She stopped to look harder at him. “Marshmallows?”
“As a kid, I never did think hot cocoa quite hit the spot without a few marshmallows melted on top.”
“I’m not six, Stryker.”
Taking that as a no, he picked up the Bailey’s, gave the contents in the mug a stiff shot, then stirred the concoction before setting it in front of Ramsey.
She eyed it suspiciously before transferring her jaundiced gaze to him. “What’d you put in it?”
His mouth kicked up. “As an adul
t, I never did think hot cocoa quite hit the spot without a belt of a li’l hundred proof.” To allay her fears, he reached for the mug and sipped from it before setting it back down in front of her. “Drink.” Her fingers clenched around it, as if soaking up its warmth. Given the chilliness of her skin, she still needed it.
“And I thought Cripolo had some colorful characters.”
“I’m sure they do. We’ve got our share here, too.” Because she seemed to need the reminder, he nudged her hand until she brought the mug to her lips for a swallow. “I never expected Ezra T. to go off like that. I’m sorry he hurt you.”