Raven's Cove - Jenna Ryan

by Intrigue Romance

  “Attics. Uh…” Riese tapped her shoulder. “Where did you say you saw a face?”

  “Outside my window. It was a head—disembodied.” She pushed the hair from her face, held it back. “That sounds crazy, but I swear it was there, bobbing in the fog. It wasn’t a normal face, either. It was all slack and distorted.” She took a final upward look. “There’s nothing there now.”

  “From the description you gave, there was nothing there before.” Snagging the belt of her robe, Riese hauled her in. “You had a nightmare. I’ve lived here forever, and I still have them from time to time.”

  “I wasn’t dreaming, I was standing.”

  “Exactly. At a third-floor window. I don’t know of any ladders in town that reach that far up, and even if one could, nobody could climb it without making enough noise to wake the dead, or get down fast enough that Rogan—I assume he’s out there—wouldn’t see him doing it. And the ladder itself would have to be an extension—huge and cumbersome, right?”

  “Right. Right… No, wait.” She swung back. “He used a rope ladder. He dropped it from the attic window, climbed down, freaked me out, climbed back up, pulled the ladder with him. It works. Or, no—better still, a full head mask. Attach it to a rope, lower it. I’m already talking to the killer on the phone, so now there’s a creepy face to match the creepy voice. I freak—dammit, that’s what he wanted—and he laughs. Score another one for him.” Spinning, she made an angry sound.

  Riese shook her head. “If you’re right about this, Rogan and Boxman are looking in the wrong place.”

  Fighting frustration, Jasmine raised her eyes to the ceiling before sliding them sideways. “Do you have a gun?”

  “Hello, uncle with a gun shop. But we can’t just run around the house waving loaded weapons.”

  Probably not the smartest thing to do, Jasmine agreed.

  Spotting Riese’s landline phone, she crawled over the bed to pick it up. Rogan answered halfway through the first ring.

  “Stay where you are, Jasmine.”

  She stared at the handset. “How could you possibly…? Never mind. Did you find anyone?”

  “Six in the morning, mood I’m in, you’d have heard the guy screaming if we had.”

  “What about the attic? He might have attached a mask to a rope.”

  “I had the same thought, so I went there first. No floor dust, no footprints, no mask, no rope.”

  “Same as the old house.”

  “Exactly the same. We’ll keep looking. Do me a favor and don’t leave Riese’s room.”

  She smiled into the phone. “You take all the fun out of a foggy autumn morning.”

  If he said something back, she couldn’t hear it over the shriek of instruments that blasted from the clock radio beside her.

  Riese jumped in and killed the sound, but not before it blew a hole in Jasmine’s left eardrum.

  “Gotta love Ozzy.” She curled into a cross-legged position. “Listen, what say we go downstairs and make pancakes before the other guests wake up?”

  Jasmine tested her ear for sound. “Do you have ice cream?”

  “Buckets. Come on. It’s something to do, and the guns are down there anyway. Not sure where the key to the case is, which could be problematic, but if we have to break the glass, we have to break the glass. I also have my trusty bat, and as long as we’re in the kitchen, there’s the cast-iron skillet. Come on, I’m starving. The dinner I made last night sucked.”

  Because cooking was better than sitting and she’d already messed up by following Rogan to the woods, Jasmine let Riese loan her a pair of black leather boots and listened to her nervous commentary as they made their way along the corridor toward the rear stairwell.

  “A little Ozzy’d be great about now, don’t you think? This carpet’s so dense, our feet aren’t making any noise. But then I remind myself, no one could get into this house once I’ve set the alarm.”

  Jasmine opened the stairwell door. “Are you sure you set it last night?”

  “Absolutely. Midnight comes, alarm goes on. You have a fob on your key ring.”

  “Yes. Rogan and I used it, and we reset the alarm afterward. But people aren’t always conscientious. What if one of your guests didn’t reset?”

  The other woman sent her something between a smile and a grimace. “Don’t you just hate what-ifs?” When a door slammed, she hopped back two full steps and clutched Jasmine’s arm. “Was that high or low?”

  Jasmine’s eyes went up. Prying Riese’s hand free, she whispered, “We need to keep moving.”

  A clatter erupted above them. A second later, a gun went off, and one of the stairwell lights blew apart.

  Jasmine gave Riese a push, then hissed and yanked her against the wall as someone, a man, judging from the grunts he emitted, hurtled past. She felt air on her cheeks and the brush of a jacket. Amid more grunts and thumps, the runner knocked into Riese, who stumbled and sank her fingernails into Jasmine’s arm.

  With little more than a thread of visible light, she lost her perspective as well as her balance. She bounced off a chest, Riese a shoulder. More grunts and shoves followed, but after receiving an elbow to the ribs, Jasmine was more irritated than intimidated.

  She caught hold of something, possibly a jacket, and let her body weight do the work of impeding whoever had shoved them aside.

  “Riese!” she shouted.

  “Above you. He’s all twisted around. I’ve got his pant leg, I think.”

  And he had a gun.

  A door slammed open below. Someone started up. Long strides, had to be a male.

  “Ro—gan!”

  Jasmine stammered out his name as the man they were holding grabbed her wrist and gave a vicious twist.

  Hell with that, she thought. Balling her fist, she plowed it upward in the general direction of his crotch. She knew she’d hit the mark when the man released her and dropped to his knees, doubled over. She also knew the arm that circled her waist a second later belonged to Rogan.

  Reaching past her, he grabbed the fallen man’s collar and hauled him upright. Or far enough upright for her to make out his features.

  For the second time in two days, she found herself staring at Cyrus Bowcott’s furious face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I wasn’t running away, I was in pursuit,” Cyrus confessed through clenched teeth.

  Jasmine watched Boxman, in his element yet again, lean over to offer a jackal’s smile. “We believe you, Cyrus. Or should I say Carl?” He raised his voice to Rogan across the kitchen. “Did we ever establish why the ex-cop who swears he’s not lying to us is using an alias?”

  Jasmine stopped measuring out ground coffee. “Is that the point?”

  “It’s a point,” Rogan replied.

  He was still bare-chested, and although the ancient stove was lit and making weird clunking noises, the air remained frigid.

  “I wanted to poke around town unnoticed,” Cyrus said. “Easiest way? Be someone else.”

  Boxman pressed his face closer. “Thought you were doing that already by impersonating your twin brother.”

  “We’ve had this conversation, Sergeant. Meanwhile, the guy I was chasing will have long since disappeared.”

  Rogan’s gaze swept the shadows on the cliff. “Why don’t you take us through your morning,” he suggested. “What you saw, what you did and why.”

  Cyrus grumbled, but obliged. “Right. 5:45 a.m. I got up to relieve myself, saw someone moving outside. Fog parted, I spotted a gun and a large pack. I got dressed fast, headed in the same direction as the movement. I circled the entire house, but there was no one to be seen. I figured maybe I’d been dreaming. So I headed back to my suite. Fog thinned again. I saw—I don’t know—something at one of the high windows. Then it was gone, and I figured okay, really seeing things. But I’m not prone to hallucinations, so I went inside, made coffee and kept watch. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, someone barreled past my window.

  “I thought I might
catch him this time. But he must have realized I was there, because he veered off. I heard a door, found the closest one. It wasn’t locked. I went in. I ran up a skinny staircase, then another, around some corners and finally down another set of stairs. Pursuit continued. I’d have caught him if I hadn’t bumped into a pair of female roadblocks.”

  Rogan looked at Jasmine. “Were there two people on the stairs?”

  After setting the coffeemaker to brew, she glanced at Riese, who merely held up her hands. “There could’ve been. Somebody shot out one of the overhead lights. …”

  “It wasn’t me,” Cyrus said. “Examine my gun for bullets. Sniff it. The thing hasn’t been fired. Check me. No powder burns.”

  Boxman braced his hands on the arms of Cyrus’s chair. “So what, you didn’t pull the trigger that took out the light. Doesn’t mean you’re not part of a killing team.”

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Smiling while his prisoner glared, Boxman asked Rogan, “You wanna call the sheriff, or should we take it upon our legally entitled selves to lock him up?”

  “For what?” Cyrus surged partway out of his seat. “Knocking a couple of women on their butts while in pursuit of a possible felon? Water in a sieve, pal.”

  “Amount of water held depends on how we slant the knocking.” Rogan rescanned the cliff.

  “I wouldn’t call it assault.” Riese pulled up the sleeves of her robe. “I’m not even bruised. What about you, Jasmine?”

  Because she seriously wanted to laugh, Jasmine wondered if she was a victim of delayed hysteria. “Seeing as Cyrus isn’t my paying guest, I’ll simply say that some of the injuries I sustained likely came from Riese’s fingernails.”

  Rogan’s lips twitched while Cyrus went one-on-one with Boxman.

  “Listen to me, you jackass. I did not fire that gun, and I’m not working with a murderer. Not every former cop goes over the edge.”

  “But you did buy yourself another phone.” Rogan’s eyes went from the iPhone he’d just dialed to the pocket of Cyrus’s jacket, which was ringing in short staccato bursts. “And you gave it the same number as the one you told us your brother accidentally took from a nightclub.”

  “Of course I got another phone with the same number. Unless the laws have changed, that’s not a crime.”

  “Laws haven’t changed.” Rogan gestured at his pocket. “Mind if I have a look?”

  Unflattering color mottled Cyrus’s face. “Yes, I frigging mind. You’re out of your jurisdiction, Rogan, and so’s your lackey here.” He kicked out a foot, but wasn’t stupid enough, Jasmine noticed, to connect with Boxman’s shin. “Go ahead and call the sheriff, but in the meantime, both of you, back the hell off.”

  Boxman squinted into his face at close range. “I think he’s pissed at us, Rogan. Why do you think that is? All you want to do is have a little look-see at his new phone, and suddenly he goes all prissy and possessive.”

  Cyrus maintained his belligerent stand. Brave of him, Jasmine thought, since Boxman appeared ready to shove his chair into the now red-hot oven.

  “I’m done with you two.”

  Cyrus might have attempted to thrust Boxman’s arms away if Rogan hadn’t come up beside him wearing a rather dangerous look on his face. “You’re not done with anyone, Bowcott, least of all with us. When you moved a moment ago, I saw something other than a cell phone in your pocket.”

  A chill sprinted along Jasmine’s spine as he drew a long black feather from Cyrus’s jacket. Only his eyes moved to stare at the man’s face.

  “I suggest, former detective, that we take this to an official setting and go through that story you told us from start to finish one more time.”

  * * *

  THE MORNING EVENTUALLY dawned to gray clouds and drizzle. After a hot shower, Jasmine donned a pair of worn jeans, a red cashmere sweater and her black trench. She resigned herself to accompanying Rogan and Boxman to the police station, then paced off her nerves in the front office with Costello, who’d been brought in as backup while they did whatever it was cops did to wear suspects down in tiny interrogation rooms.

  “Bowcott’s phone’s at least eighteen months old.” Kicked back in the late chief’s chair, Costello ran his finger over a series of scratches. “Contrary to the claim that he accidentally switched cells with Victor, this is definitely the property of one Cyrus Bowcott. Now, what, pretty Jasmine, do you make of that?”

  “I’d like to think it could be as simple as, I was wrong about Cyrus, and the killer’s been caught. But life’s seldom that obliging, so I’ll tack a maybe onto the second thing and cross my fingers that I’m right. You?”

  “Leaning. But I’ll need many more facts before I commit.”

  Jasmine stepped over Boris, who was curled up beside the desk. “Will you come and stay at Blume House now? I really don’t like you being out in the woods alone.”

  His eyes twinkled. “It worked for Grandma.”

  “Yeah, until a wolf ate her and took her place in bed.”

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  She smiled over her shoulder. “I assume we’ve left Red Riding Hood’s woods and returned to Cyrus.”

  “Who looks so much like Victor, it’s rather eerie.”

  “I agree, but you’re the one who swore they were—are—twins. And Rogan’s been all over the computer. Same conclusion.”

  “Yes, but are we sure which one of them Rogan and Boxman are currently questioning?”

  “Well, God.” With a humorless laugh, Jasmine pushed her fingers into the pulse points at the back of her neck. “I thought we agreed that Cyrus is here and Victor’s undercover in Baja.”

  “So deep undercover that no one, including his captain, knows his current whereabouts.”

  “Isn’t that normal?”

  “Can be.”

  “Just not necessarily in this case, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not really. I’m throwing the possibility out there more to keep it alive than because I believe it.”

  She stopped pressing to slide a mistrustful look between him and the back room. “Did you by any chance train Rogan?”

  Costello chuckled. “Sorry to say, that was Ballard’s burden. And I say burden because it wasn’t long before the student outshone the master. Rogan was born to be a cop. Ballard spotted it right off. Old Gus had an eye for people and situations. He handpicked the teams for the safe houses. Grit and muscle—that was Boxman. Cool head—that was me. Victor had the ears and the eyes. Carla was all about details. Dukes? Well, for lack of a better description, I’ll call him a worried old woman.”

  “And Rogan?”

  “Two steps ahead ninety percent of the time. Unfortunately, our situation in Raven’s Cove falls into the frustrating ten percent where we’re all reduced to the quickness of our reactions.”

  Jasmine glanced at the interrogation room door. “Rogan wasn’t supposed to be part of the safe-house team, was he?”

  “Initially, no. Ballard asked him to go in. Captain’s plan was to put him with Daniel, but Rogan said Wainwright was more likely to go for the lesser target with the thought of kidnapping and using it—you—to blackmail Daniel into not testifying. Turns out, he was right. Though to this day, none of us knows how Wainwright discovered our location. One or two fingers were pointed at Boxman, but my gut told me he wouldn’t sell out.”

  “Is your gut always right?”

  He shrugged. “About eighty percent of the time. Victor’s name came up briefly. No idea why. He’s always been a solid cop, and he was extremely protective of you. One night, Dukes spotted you coming out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. He liked what he saw so much that he made a few less-than-polite remarks. I put them down to cabin fever. Boxman said he wished he’d gone upstairs with Dukes. Victor called them both a few choice names and insisted we implement stricter rules where you were concerned before someone turned into a Peeping Tom, or worse. Couple days
later, Rogan showed up and the problem more or less resolved itself.”

  “Because everyone knew I was attracted to him?”

  “Probably more because we knew he was attracted to you. And you can believe me when I tell you, that was a rare—as in it never happened—thing to see. There’s a general apprehension from the start when you’re dealing with a rogue cop. Depending on the situation—volatile in the case of a safe house—they’re perceived as being a little unpredictable. On the other hand, a few of us regular cops weren’t behaving as professionally as we could have. I singled out the towel incident, but there were others.”

  Jasmine sighed. “So Dukes really wasn’t the teddy-bear uncle I envisioned.”

  Costello winked. “You gotta watch those teddy-bear types. The cuddlier they are, the easier it is for them to lure you in. Sometimes a switch gets triggered, and bam, off comes the fuzzy face and out pops whatever was lurking inside.”

  She returned to pushing on her pulse points. “I am so disillusioned.”

  “Wanna go back to Cyrus?”

  “Is that where we started?” Just about every part of her brain had gone off-kilter.

  “We were postulating as to whether or not he might be the killer.” Costello held up the scratched cell phone. “Easy to say yes and hope we’re right, but one feather and a few lies won’t get anyone convicted or, unfortunately, even arrested. We can question him. I doubt we’ll be able to hold him.”

  “He has no motive, does he? And if you say no motive that we know of, I’ll sic Boris on you. Tell me your gut feeling, Lieutenant. Guilty or not?”

  “Like Rogan, I don’t believe Wainwright’s alive, so why, if Cyrus is the killer, would he want to make it seem as if Malcolm’s calling the shots? It’s a big, important question. I’m going to want a big, believable answer.”

  “Is it possible he’s trying to cloud what is with what was…? Never mind.” She waved the question off. “Even if he is, that still doesn’t provide a motive.”

  “Your turn, Costello.” Rolling the tension from his neck, Rogan emerged from the back room. “Boxman’s got him ready to launch, but I’m thinking the countdown might stall out. Bowcott claims he found the feather on the ground while he was walking around the perimeter of Blume House. We can’t prove he didn’t, therefore, circumstantial evidence.”