Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  There, secured under the wire springs of the bunk above me was a sketch pad. I pulled it out, sat up on the bed, and began thumbing through.

  It turned out that Nancy had been quite the little artist. Most of the sketches were still lifes of the island: spruce trees and granite cliffs, foaming ocean and soaring sea birds. I paused at the sketch of a girl with long hair and wide eyes, her mouth serious. A self-portrait? What had she been thinking, when she made the trek out to that pit with her family? Did she have a sketch pad with her then? Had she known she was about to die?

  I pushed aside the image of Nancy and her family as I’d seen them last, dead and abandoned, and flipped through the rest of the pages.

  About three-quarters of the way through the sketch pad, the tone of the drawings changed. The shading was darker, the shadows more ominous. In one, a cross stood at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. In another, a blue-eyed angel emerged from the sea, water streaming from her wings. A chain was clenched tight in the angel’s teeth. At the end of the chain was a pocket watch with a broken face, what looked like blood seeping from its cracks.

  The angel watches over you, Erin… but she also watches you. Isaac Payson’s voice came back to me, his face close to mine as he laid a blue-eyed angel in my lap. I was four, maybe five years old, but I was well aware what that meant. This was my angel.

  Time doesn’t exist for the Lord, Isaac had told me. There’s no escaping the eyes of the Almighty. It doesn’t matter how old you are, where you are or what you’ve done… The angels are always watching.

  The bed dipped beside me as Diggs sat. Juarez stood in the doorway, looking miserable and out of place. He wasn’t paying attention to us, though, his gaze fixed somewhere off to my right instead. I followed his line of sight. His eyes were locked on Nancy’s angel marionette, now hanging from the bedpost in full view.

  Something roiling and dark burned in my chest.

  I turned to the next drawing.

  And nearly dropped the sketch pad.

  The picture was a sketch of Christ on the cross. Behind him, a thousand warriors stood in flames, their eyes black with terror and pain. Diggs took one look at the drawing and took the pad from me, closing it quickly.

  “We should go,” he said.

  “What are the drawings?” Juarez asked.

  “Nothing,” I lied. Badly, I might add. “Just random kid stuff. Unicorns, rainbows. The usual.”

  Diggs looked at me, trying to figure out why the hell I wasn’t telling Juarez what we’d just seen: An exact replica of one of Isaac Payson’s paintings, once hanging above the hearth at the Payson boarding home.

  Juarez didn’t believe me. I saw his eyes slide to the marionette beside the bed again, and my thoughts catapulted back to Payson Isle. Or, more specifically, to a day in Littlehope when Juarez and I had been investigating Payson Isle, last spring.

  I stood abruptly and pulled Diggs with me. “I think we’re about done here. But do you mind taking the radio down and checking in with Jamie?” I said to Diggs. “Let her know it’ll be another few minutes, and then we’ll head back.”

  He knew I was up to something, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he looked at Juarez, then back at me, and nodded. “Yeah, sure—no problem. I’ll be right back.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll meet you down there. Just give us a minute.”

  He agreed after another second of hesitation, but there was no doubt that he had some concerns. I didn’t blame him—I had some concerns of my own.

  Juarez and I didn’t speak until I heard Diggs’ steps on the floor below.

  “You’re remembering, aren’t you?” he asked me.

  I felt that same niggling unease I’d felt earlier, back in the boat on the way over. Almost unconsciously, I took a step back. There was a draft coming in from the window, ice cold on the back of my neck. I didn’t answer his question, choosing to ask one of my own instead.

  “The blue-eyed angel—the one I found in your things, back last year in Littlehope. Where did you get that?”

  A flicker of surprise touched his dark eyes before he chased it away. “Matt,” he said. “I just assumed the doll had been Zion’s—that maybe Rebecca had given it to him for safe keeping after the boy died.”

  Matt Perkins had been kind of a surrogate uncle to Juarez when he was growing up. Over the course of our investigation last spring, we’d ultimately learned that Matt’s devotion to Juarez—an orphan from Florida Matt had literally picked up off the street—was intricately tied to the man’s link to the mass murder of the Payson Church. I had assumed the same thing about Juarez’s connection to the angel I’d found while going through his things last spring: that Matt had passed it on to him, just one more way that Juarez replaced Zion in the old man’s mind. Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so sure.

  “You told me once that you don’t remember anything before you woke up in the hospital at thirteen,” I said. “Everything before that was a blank slate. None of those memories have come back, still?”

  “Not really, no.” He hesitated. “What does it feel like for you, remembering the Payson Church? Not the memories you had before, but the flashes you’re getting now. Do they seem real? Are they whole?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Diggs told me you started having them when we were in Kentucky. He was worried—is worried. Answer me, please,” he said, urgent now. “Are the memories whole, or just pieces?”

  “They’re just flashes: pieces of conversations, images that are just now coming into focus.”

  “Do you recognize everyone in those flashes?”

  It was too specific a question not to have some significance—something that was resonating with him, but he wasn’t ready to share yet.

  “When did you watch Scooby Doo?” I asked. Juarez looked baffled at the sudden change of topic. “You said earlier that you never liked Scooby Doo,” I explained. “But it seems weird that you would watch something like that as a teenager—especially considering that the years you do remember, you were basically raised in a convent with a bunch of nuns. Maybe I have outdated ideas about Catholicism, but I’m pretty sure the church isn’t wild about the Scooby gang.”

  “I don’t know when I watched,” he said after a moment. “There are things that I know: songs I like, shows I’ve watched, places I’ve been, but I don’t know where the knowledge or those experiences came from. My life is like one endless déjà vu.”

  “And Scooby Doo is part of that.”

  He smiled dryly, his eyes distant. “Yes. Scooby Doo is part of that.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he fell silent. There was something there, though—something behind his eyes, a truth he wasn’t willing to reveal, that chilled me. I wasn’t used to being shaken by Jack Juarez.

  I didn’t much care for it, either.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Jack? Diggs says you two talked about J. Enterprises, but he doesn’t think you’re telling us everything you know.”

  Five seconds ticked by, endless in the silence. Just when I was sure he was about to speak, Diggs shouted up to us. We both jumped. I took the time to pull myself together as Diggs ran up the stairs. A second later, he was at the door.

  “We need to get back—no one’s answering my call at the station.”

  There was no argument, no discussion; we raced for the stairs without another word. Our footsteps echoed through the still house. Shadows lurked in every corner as I sprinted down the hallway, thinking of all the ghosts these tragedies had left behind. I’m not really the superstitious kind, but with this much blood, I figured there were bound to be some restless spirits on the island tonight. I just hoped none of us were about to join them.

  An instant before I reached the front door downstairs, Juarez caught up to me. He grabbed the doorknob before I could, practically knocking me out of the way.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Potentially keeping you from racing straight into
an ambush.”

  “If they’re in trouble at the research station—” I began.

  “Then us getting killed on the way there won’t help,” Diggs said. He joined Juarez, both of them barring me the door now. They were really taking this whole bromance thing too far these days.

  I forced myself to take a breath. “Okay. Then what do you propose?”

  “Slow and easy,” Juarez said. “I’ll go out first and check the perimeter. When I’m sure it’s clear, we’ll head back.”

  I started to argue, but Diggs stopped me with a look. Reluctantly, I had to admit they had a point: Any lunatic could be outside that door waiting for us.

  Juarez drew his gun. A blast of cold air hit us when he opened the door. He braced himself, went into a crouch, and crept into the night. Diggs kept the door open a crack after he’d gone. We watched until Juarez was completely swallowed by the darkness.

  “What was that about upstairs?” Diggs whispered when we were alone. “That sketch—we’ve seen that before.”

  “You really think now is the time to talk about it?” I asked.

  “You have something better to do?”

  Neither of us are the most patient people in the world; waiting in silence was unlikely. He had a point.

  “Okay… yeah, we’ve seen the sketch before—out on Payson Isle.”

  “And why are we not letting Juarez in on that, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I can’t shake. He’s tied up in this somehow— you said it yourself. He knows more than he’s saying.”

  Diggs stood behind me at the door, his breath warm on my neck, his hand on my hip. There was no sign of Juarez. No sound but the waves pounding the shore far below.

  “You don’t think he’s behind the attempts on your life, though,” Diggs said. “I mean—I agree, the guy is holding something back. But this is Jack Juarez we’re talking about. He would never hurt you. And when we found the Melquists…”

  “I know,” I said with a shake of my head. “Relax—I’m not trying to besmirch your boyfriend’s honor.”

  “Besmirch?”

  I elbowed him in the stomach. “You know what I mean. Look, it’s not like I’m saying Jack is secretly in cahoots with Jenny Burkett or something. Or even Cameron, for that matter. But something’s up with him.”

  “Agreed,” Diggs said. He peered past me, out the door and into the darkness. “Where the hell did he go? Have you heard anything?”

  “Other than you yammering in my ear? Not so much, no.”

  Between the darkness and the fact that he was standing behind me, I couldn’t actually see him roll his eyes, but I felt it. He moved in, his fingers gliding along my hip to pull me closer.

  “I do a lot of things, Solomon, but I’ve never yammered in my life.”

  The way he whispered the words in my ear started a little fire in my belly, which quickly spread lower when his lips brushed my earlobe. Count on Diggs to turn a life-or-death situation into an opportunity to cop a feel.

  “You ready to go?” Juarez asked. He appeared from nowhere, nearly sending me into orbit.

  “Jesus, Jack. I know stealth is important right now, but you couldn’t give a little warning?”

  “Just trying to keep you two on your toes. There’s no sign of anyone out here, but we should go. I still haven’t been able to raise the others on the radio.”

  Any thought of inner fires fizzled. Diggs and I got into formation behind Juarez. Diggs drew his Glock, but the idea of trying to navigate the island in the dark holding a loaded Ruger in my trembling paw was too much for me.

  “But you have it with you, don’t you?” Diggs said when I protested.

  “The only person I would end up shooting is one of you lunkheads,” I hissed back. “You really want that?”

  “It’s all right,” Juarez interrupted. “Two guns are plenty if we’re sticking together. Now, let’s move.”

  We moved.

  The combination of plummeting temperatures and a day of fresh slush and wet snow on the ground was deadly; it was like hiking over an ice rink. In the dark. With guns. The air was so cold it seared my lungs every time I took a deep breath. I put my scarf over my mouth and nose, and concentrated on staying on my feet.

  I kept waiting for a sign of someone behind us: a branch snapping; footsteps or falling rocks or Jack’s scream just before his throat was cut. What the hell had I been thinking? Why would we leave Kat unprotected? Sure, she was a pain in the ass—she was still my mother. I wanted answers, true, but was it worth getting her killed in the process? Was it worth getting any of us killed?

  Halfway back to the station, I slipped and fell, hard. When I landed, my weight fell on the wrist Will Rainer had broken the summer before—the wrist that had taken three surgeries to repair. The wrist that still wasn’t one hundred percent, even with a pin in it. Pain shot up my arm. I bit my lip to keep from screaming.

  When I looked up, I saw a figure in black lurking behind the trees. I shook my head, disoriented by the pain. The figure stepped closer, moving toward me. By the light of the moon and a snow-covered island, I caught a glimpse of a man: tall, lean, a black watch cap on his head. All I could make out of his face was the beginnings of a beard and kind, concerned eyes. It had been fifteen years since I’d seen him last, but I knew him in an instant.

  “Dad?”

  He turned and ran. I felt Diggs’ hands at my side an instant later, pulling me to my feet.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.” The pain in my wrist was still enough to make throwing up a very real possibility, but I pushed past that. I had other concerns at the moment—namely, why the hell my father might be here.

  “We can slow down,” Juarez said, joining us. “We’re almost there.”

  “No,” I whispered. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

  I took off at a run again, more focused than before on the icy path at my feet. My father had gone in the same direction, bound for the research station. I heard Diggs and Juarez say something—no doubt cursing my name—before they took off after me again.

  We stopped short at the edge of the woods, fifty yards from the station. There had been no sign of my father since I’d spotted him when I fell. Already, I was starting to question what I’d seen.

  I had prepared myself for the worst when we got back—a raging fire, maybe a few bodies strewn on the ground. Instead, we watched from the woods as someone sat on top of the picnic table in front of the house, smoking a cigarette. Cheyenne, I thought. She had the dogs with her, the three of them idly snuffling the snow before Einstein caught my scent and came running. Phantom and Casper lagged behind. Cheyenne looked up.

  “Hello?” she called, her voice wavering.

  “Can we go ahead?” I asked Juarez.

  “Hang on.” He went out first, greeting the dogs only briefly before he continued on—searching the night, gun drawn. I dropped to my knees to greet Einstein. All the while, I kept waiting for someone to come; for a shadow to emerge from the darkness and open fire. My father was no more than a memory now, as ineffectual as a ghost. We had real things to worry about.

  Juarez reached Cheyenne without incident. I heard them talking, too low to make out the words. A few seconds later, he waved us over with an “All clear!” that echoed in the stillness.

  I straightened. Diggs and I loped over to the picnic table while Einstein and the other dogs circled, back to snuffling the grounds.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked as soon as Cheyenne was within hearing range. “Why didn’t anyone answer the radio for the last check-ins?”

  “Sorry,” she said roughly. Her eyes were wet. I realized she must have been out here crying. “I forgot. I just—I can’t get those kids’ bodies out of my head. Every time I close my eyes, I see that little girl with the baby. I just needed some fresh air.”

  “But everyone’s fine in there?” I pressed. “No one’s hurt?”

  She wipe
d her eyes with the back of her hand, clearly mortified at having been found this way. “Yeah. Everyone’s fine. Your mother was still asleep when I checked on her last. Jamie and the guys are playing cards.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out in a disgruntled huff. “You scared the shit out of us. You couldn’t have let someone else take over the control room before you decided to—”

  “Let it go, Sol,” Diggs said. “Everything’s fine. That’s what’s important. Now, why don’t we go inside, check on your mom, and see if we can get some sleep before the troops show up tomorrow.”

  I got the message: stop being a bitch and let the chick having a nervous breakdown off the hook. Move on.

  In this instance, I knew he was right. I patted Cheyenne’s shoulder awkwardly. The adrenaline had run its course. Now, all I felt was weak-kneed and rung out. “Sorry—it’s fine. I know this hasn’t been an easy day for anyone.”

  “I’ve had better,” she agreed. She finished off her cigarette and stubbed the butt out in the ashtray. “See, this is why I like dogs. They may fight every once in a while, but at least they’re predictable. People are nuts.”

  I couldn’t disagree.

  Once she’d pulled herself together, we all filed back into the station. Despite Cheyenne’s assurances that everything was fine, I half expected another disaster to greet us at the door. I wasn’t sorry to be wrong.

  “There she is,” Monty said when I came in. He barely looked up as he dealt a fresh hand of cards. “I was wondering where you got off to, baby girl. Thought we’d need to send the cavalry out.”

  “Nope,” I said. “We’re fine. Any excitement here?”

  “We tried to talk the girls into a little strip poker,” Monty said. “Jamie here ain’t no fun, though. Says she into candy, not co—”

  “We can deal you in if you want,” Jamie interrupted, shooting a glare at my pal. Monty just grinned at her, unfazed.

  “Let me check on Kat first,” I said. “Then I may take you up on that. Especially if there’s chocolate involved.”

  “She was sleeping when I looked in on her last,” Carl said. “Forgive me for saying, but your mother is much easier to handle when she is unconscious.”