Cold River

by Carla Neggers

  “What kind of work are they having done?” Sean asked.

  “Carpentry and some masonry work on the exterior and the chimney.” Bowie winced as Hannah tightened the bandage on his cut hand. “It’s not a tourniquet, you know.”

  “You want it tight enough to help stop the bleeding, especially if you’re not getting stitches.”

  “Doesn’t need stitches.”

  “Dr. Bowie…” She stood back, examining her handiwork. Blood was already oozing through the gauze. “If you won’t get medical attention, at least stop at your place first and clean these wounds and put on fresh bandages.”

  He grinned at her. “Sure thing.”

  Hannah didn’t say anything more. Bowie wasn’t accustomed to having anyone worry about him any more than she was.

  “I work in stone,” he said, zipping the black bag shut. Poe was back out of sight again and quiet. “I’m used to getting cut. You should get moving before you freeze. I’ll come by later and take a look at your cellar leak.”

  “If you feel up to it. Are you sure you can drive?”

  “I can drive.”

  “Jo will want to talk to you,” Sean said.

  “Anytime.” Bowie peeled the bandage off his face with his uninjured hand and balled it up. “I like talking to the law. Agent Harper knows how to find me. If she wants to arrest me for being stupid and knocking over a pile of rock on myself, she can have at it.”

  Hannah ached, the cold exacerbating the sharp sting of her scrapes and bruises. “No one’s accusing you of anything.”

  Bowie shut the van’s passenger door. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt any worse. I’m sorry you were scared. Next time you hear Poe barking, let him bark.”

  “It’s cold out here. If I hadn’t investigated, maybe you wouldn’t have survived.”

  “Me? This sweatshirt’s warm as sin.” He grinned at her and winked. “And I know sin.”

  He headed around the front of the van to the driver’s side. Hannah stood back even farther, almost bumping into Sean, as Bowie got in behind the wheel, started the engine and made a U-turn back to the corner, then headed across Ridge Road and up Cameron Mountain Road. It was getting dark fast, the stark trees creating long shadows on the snow, the mountains a deep blue-gray against the darkening sky.

  “I’m not afraid of Bowie,” Hannah said without looking at Sean next to her.

  “Why not?” His tone wasn’t demanding or hostile, but it wasn’t gentle, either.

  “He’s had his run-ins with people around here, and he’s made mistakes and paid for them, but I grew up with him. I didn’t grow up with Camerons and Harpers.” She crossed her arms, wincing at the pain in her wrist as she added softly, “I don’t expect you to understand. We may be from the same small Vermont town, but we’re from two different worlds.”

  “Los Angeles and Black Falls are two different worlds. Black Falls and Black Falls are the same.”

  “To you.” She dropped her arms to her sides. “You’re just stalling until Jo and Elijah can get here. Jo may be a federal agent, but she doesn’t have jurisdiction over falling rock, snow and ice.”

  Sean didn’t respond at once. “We can go across the street and wait where it’s warm.”

  Hannah looked back toward the wooded hillside, feeling shaken and off balance. The cold, the wind, the exertion and adrenaline were all taking their toll. So was being around Sean Cameron, but she didn’t want to think about that now. “It could have been kids. They could have parked down the hill and come up the trail through the woods. They ran into Bowie and then me and decided to hide and have some fun. It’s a cemetery. I can see a couple of kids playing ghost, thinking they’re funny. Why not?”

  “They’d know your name?”

  “Sure. Toby’s still in high school, and Devin just graduated in June.” She felt a sudden twinge of pain in her side where she’d slipped getting out of the way of the falling rock. “It makes more sense than a lot of the alternatives.”

  “What about Bowie? Is it possible he knocked that rock over on you?”

  “Why would he?”

  “Just because you’re not afraid of him doesn’t mean you don’t have reason to be.”

  Hannah’s teeth were chattering now. “I can’t stand this cold any longer.” She shuddered against the brutal windchill. “I’m going to my car.”

  She was already marching up Cameron Mountain Road to the corner. She heard Sean take in a sharp breath. He fell in next to her, not shivering at all. She reminded herself that he hadn’t been outside as long as she had—and her shivering wasn’t just from the cold. She was tired, hurting and unnerved by what had happened at the crypt.

  And reassured, she thought, to have Sean with her, even if he didn’t entirely trust her.

  “Thank you,” she said as she crossed the road to the old tavern.

  “For what?”

  “For charging through the cemetery after me.”

  “I heard the rock falling, and I heard you scream—”

  “I was startled.”

  “And you were scared,” he said.

  Lights were on in the tavern’s front windows. Hannah pictured the McBanes pulling back the curtains and checking out the goings-on by the cemetery. Had they called the local police? Would Jo?

  When they reached the driveway, she looked at Sean in the dim light and noticed that the shadows of the fading afternoon highlighted the stubborn set to his jaw and the black lashes of his Cameron blue eyes.

  She gestured down Ridge Road. “You can’t see the lodge from here. It’s too far.”

  He settled back on his heels. “You mean this isn’t a good place for someone to have waited and watched for Melanie Kendall to get in her car.”

  “It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? That Bowie—”

  “I’m not thinking anything. I’m trying to figure out what the hell just happened.”

  “So am I,” she said, past the point of being reasonable. “You can tell Jo and Elijah I’ll be at the café.”

  With his index finger, Sean touched her cheek just under the swelling. “If Beth’s not there, call her. Let her check you out. Promise me.”

  She nodded, softening. “All right. I promise. You’re being a little unfair, you know.”

  He let his finger drift to the corner of her mouth. “Who’s to say what would have happened if I hadn’t come along?”

  Hannah opened her car door. “I might have caught the little bastards who knocked over that rock on Bowie and me.”

  Sean stood back and watched her as she got into her car and shut the door. As she turned on the ignition, she acknowledged that she was reacting to being so close to him for the past few hours. First in the cabin, then on the trail down on the mountain, in Elijah’s truck. Had she ever been in a vehicle with him?

  Nope, she thought. She’d remember.

  Then, in the cemetery. She still could hear the intensity with which he’d called her name, grabbed her—kept her safe.

  And just now. Touching her that way.

  Her fingers aching, her face and wrist screaming in pain, she turned up the heat but knew she’d probably be back at the café before the car was warm.

  Would Jo and Elijah believe stone blocks and debris had toppled over on Bowie by accident?

  Did she believe it?

  If law enforcement was looking for someone in Black Falls who’d make an ideal local recruit for a network of professional killers, Hannah knew that Bowie O’Rourke would be at the top of their list.

  As she turned down Cameron Mountain Road, she glanced to her right and saw the oldest headstones, flat rectangles silhouetted against the snow and the gray.

  Whoever or whatever had whispered her name in the shadows, she and Bowie hadn’t been alone in the cemetery.

  Nine

  Sean reached into the truck’s glove compartment for a flashlight. Behind him, Lester McBane shuffled down the walk in a worn parka and unlaced boots. He wasn’t wearing a hat, but his fine
white hair wasn’t much protection against the dropping temperatures. “Everything all right out here?” he asked.

  “Everything’s fine, Reverend. Some rock and debris Bowie O’Rourke left behind after he worked on the culvert came down on him and Hannah. They got a little cut and bruised. Nothing serious.” Sean flicked the flashlight on and off to check the battery; it was fine. Of course. It was Elijah’s flashlight. He kept his tone casual as he continued. “You see much of Bowie out here?”

  “Some. I think he’s finished up work on the culvert. He’d start early and seemed to work hard.”

  “By himself?”

  “He’d hire help when he needed it. I’d walk over and talk to him when it wasn’t too cold. He’s very knowledgeable about stonework.” The old minister shuddered in the dropping temperature but made no move to head back inside. “There are those of us who do things in the moment that we later regret. We have a conscience. We suffer the consequences of our mistakes, but we learn from them.”

  “That’s what you think Bowie is—a guy who made a mistake he regrets?”

  “What do you think he is?”

  “He’s a bad-tempered ex-con with a grudge against half the town. I’ve seen him in enough fights to know I don’t want to get into it with him, but it doesn’t matter what I think.” He thought of Hannah and started to say more. “Never mind. You should go back in where it’s warm.”

  McBane studied Sean a moment. “You’re worried about Hannah. She has a blind spot when it comes to Bowie. Everyone knows that, but she’s always been levelheaded.”

  “She hiked up to my father’s cabin alone today. How levelheaded is that?”

  “She could have known you’d go after her.” The old man paused, then added, “She could have hoped you would.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Sean muttered.

  McBane barely reacted to a gust of wind that seemed to blow straight across from the cemetery. “Your father and I would sometimes walk among the old graves together. It’s a peaceful spot.”

  Sean almost smiled. “There are a lot of peaceful spots around here where people aren’t buried.”

  “You live, you make mistakes, you see your friends die. You don’t worry so much about taking an afternoon walk in a cemetery.” The old man grinned suddenly. “Or being in the ground yourself.”

  “Did my father say anything that in retrospect suggests why he was targeted by those two killers?”

  “No. He was introspective. Thoughtful. He knew he had fewer days ahead of him than behind him. He said he was looking forward to being a burden to his children.”

  Sean smiled. “That sounds like him.”

  “He was proud of all of you, Sean. Rightly so.”

  “Did you talk to him about Bowie?”

  McBane shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I don’t think we had one of our walks after Bowie’s arrest.”

  “What about Hannah?”

  “Ah. She’s another story. Drew was like the rest of us in that he wanted to see her happy. There isn’t anyone in Black Falls who doesn’t wish Hannah well, but she doesn’t know it.”

  “She thinks she’s on her own and we’re all out to judge her.” Sean noticed car headlights far down Ridge Road. That would be Jo and Elijah. “You should go back inside, Reverend. Lock your doors just in case.”

  “Just in case what, Sean?”

  “That it wasn’t a ghost or the wind that knocked over that rock onto Bowie and Hannah.”

  “Hannah’s good to us. So are you.”

  Sean smiled in spite of his uneasiness. “Well, don’t tell anyone and ruin my reputation.”

  McBane shuffled back up the sanded walk. Sean was aware that, by his own design, very few people knew he had bought the former tavern a year ago and made the McBanes life tenants. They paid for utilities and basic upkeep and were entitled to live there rent-free the rest of their days. He’d run and biked past the tavern as a kid and pictured it fixed up, with vegetable gardens and fruit trees and a clothesline, with a tire swing tied to the sugar maple near its old stone wall. Wanderlust hadn’t gripped him yet, and he’d yet to even hear about the people who parachuted into wildland fires out west—or to experience January in Southern California versus January in Vermont.

  When he’d heard the McBanes were struggling to stay in their home—after decades in parsonages—he’d knocked on their door and made them an offer.

  He’d told them he liked the idea of owning a haunted house.

  He headed back across the road and took the shortcut through the cemetery, as he had when he’d heard the falling rock and Hannah’s yell of pain and surprise. He hadn’t seen anyone else, human or animal—just the tarp blowing in the wind, and then Hannah leaping for the wooded hill. Would she have been as sure of herself if it’d been anyone but Bowie’s van, Bowie’s dog barking?

  Sean didn’t turn on the flashlight until he came to the crypt. Jo would have his head if he interfered with a crime scene. He circled the beam of light at the rock and debris, the tarp, the splatters of blood. Bowie’s blood. Hannah hadn’t bled as much.

  The thick wood door to the crypt was shut, its only “lock” a stick shoved into the latch where a padlock should have been. Sean removed the stick and managed a smile at what passed for security. The door creaked as he opened it, shining the flashlight into the dark, windowless space. It was surprisingly high—at least eight feet, presumably to provide space for stacking coffins.

  With a grimace, Sean stepped inside. There was no electricity. He shone the beam of light into the corners of the crypt, just to make sure a raccoon or other animal hadn’t somehow taken up residence there. Heavy metal scaffolding provided spots for coffins, but despite the cold weather, no bodies were yet being held over the winter for spring interment. A wooden shelf kept coffins from having to rest on the concrete floor. The walls were laid stone that had been pointed and in some places sealed with cement. The ceiling was framed in, plastic-backed plywood added as a protective measure against moisture.

  It was one dark, dank and creepy place, but there was nothing there.

  Sean returned to the lane. Maybe Bowie had a point. He was a stonemason. Stonemasons got hurt.

  Jo and Elijah arrived, greeting Sean briefly, and he filled them in on what had happened. When he finished, Jo squatted down in front of the fallen rock and debris. Blood had splattered on chunks of ice.

  “Is Hannah with Bowie now?” Jo asked without looking up.

  “They left separately.” Sean glanced at his brother. “I’m not jumping to any conclusions. Bowie hit his head. He could have called Hannah’s name and not realized it. This all could be nothing.”

  “You know Jo,” Elijah said. “She loves to check out nothing.”

  Sean lowered his flashlight beam to the end of the trail that led down through the woods, impenetrable now in the dark. “Bowie’s still on probation. It’s easier for him if it was just the wind that knocked over the pile and had Hannah thinking she heard someone whispering her name. Maybe it’s easier for us if it wasn’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jo asked sharply.

  “The investigation’s stalled,” Sean said. “We’re all getting restless and impatient.”

  “I’m not.” She waited, as if she expected Elijah to argue with her, then said, “I just want to know what happened here.”

  Sean sighed. “I know. Something’s not right with Hannah.”

  Jo stood up next to Elijah, both looking at Sean as if he’d been hit on the head with a rock. “Sean,” Elijah said, “you want to tell us—”

  “No. I don’t.” He nodded to the stone, dirt and ice, the tarp still now that the wind had died down. “Bowie needs to get some equipment up here and clear out this mess before someone else gets hurt.”

  Sean recognized Rose’s Jeep out on Cameron Mountain Road. She stopped in front of the church and ran across the road with her golden retriever, Ranger. When they got to the crypt, Elijah quickly explained the situatio
n. She listened, pacing but not interrupting. “Ranger and I can take a look in the woods, if you like,” she said. “We can see what we can turn up.”

  “It’s best you stay up here,” Jo said.

  Rose nodded. Her hair, the same medium color as Elijah’s, was tangled, and she was pale and pensive. She’d gone to the Midwest in November after devastating tornadoes and hadn’t been in Black Falls when Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall had turned their sights on two teenagers. A.J. had been the one to call her and give her the news that their father’s death hadn’t been an accident after all.

  A.J. had called Sean in California, too.

  Rose rubbed the top of Ranger’s head. He sat at her side, patient. Rose didn’t look at her brothers or Jo as she spoke. “Hannah’s used to handling things on her own and being judged—”

  “No one’s judging her, Rose,” Jo interjected.

  Rose didn’t back down. “Being up at the cabin, seeing for herself where Devin and Nora and you and Elijah were almost killed, had to be emotional for her.”

  Elijah opened the heavy door to the dark crypt and looked inside. “Rigby knew what he went up the mountain to do. Things worked out the only way they could. Him dead. Jo and those two kids alive.”

  “And you, too, Elijah,” Rose said.

  He glanced back from the threshold of the crypt and grinned at his sister. “Well, yeah. Goes without saying.”

  That was Elijah, Sean thought. His soldier brother was a survivor, something their father had believed and in which he’d found comfort—until the final weeks of his life. He’d called Sean in early April. “I just don’t have a good feeling,” his father had said. “I think Elijah’s in Afghanistan, but who knows? Sean…I’d trade my life for Elijah’s. For yours or A.J.’s or Rose’s. I swear I would.”

  Sean had tried to reassure him. “We know that, Pop. Don’t worry.”

  “Elijah’s seen combat. He can’t talk about most of it, but he’s never been seriously wounded. What if his luck’s run out?”