Her bluntness startled him. He wasn’t prepared for an honest question. He decided to reply in kind. “Yes.”
She thought about this for a moment. “I would suspect someone in the Emerson family, too.” She turned her back on him, patted the horse’s head, and walked away. “Come. Walk with me.”
50
Robert held his breath as Abbey and Mathers passed beneath him. He was certain they heard the snap of the twig when he shifted his weight, but as they walked under his hiding place, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was still undetected. Sweat poured out of his underarms and ran down his sides and he cursed himself for not being more prepared. But he had purposely waited until he saw the last of the townspeople leave the glen and that wretched creature, Livia, do a final walkabout with the crazed Boo before setting foot on the grounds. He knew that once those two had left the scene, he would easily have an hour or two before that insane maniac, Boo, returned with her damned blue paint and bloodlust. Didn’t that insipid woman ever tire of hacking things to pieces?
When the two witches left the Faire grounds, he quickly raced from his hiding place on the far side of the access road where Joshua had left him (he must remember to remove that CD player from the limo) and into the Faire grounds. He dawdled slightly when the sound of a car drew his attention. Without looking at the car’s driver, he climbed the nearest tree and settled into the crook of the two huge limbs directly over the portable toilets. Here he had sat patiently for the past twenty minutes. First, he watched Mathers as the detective walked the area, then strained to hear the conversation between him and Abbey.
Damn, those toilets stank! Everyone knew the vendors used them during the day while they arranged their tents and tables. He imagined Livia, the money-pinching wench, demanding that they be left reeking until Friday’s festivities. The woman had no class.
He put a handkerchief over his nose and breathed through it while he waited for the two to walk farther away. What was Abbey doing out alone? Why did the witches let her go riding without supervision? His spy inside the Bastille told him the witches knew he was after the girl. He replaced the handkerchief into his breast pocket and his fingers brushed the knife’s sleek handle, filling him with a reassuring courage. He looked around the glen. From his vantage point, he could see no other people. Wonderful! It would be a disaster to be caught this close to the end of his quest.
Suddenly, a realization flooded through him—he could kill the detective and take Abbey on his way out. Abbey weighed little and it would be no great chore to carry the girl back to the limo.
He smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be a wasted trip after all.
51
“You suspect that I lie,” she said.
“I never said that.”
Abbey responded quickly in a sharp, efficient tone. “You think it.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“Because that is what I would think.”
“Then you are a suspicious woman.”
“Am I?” Her voice sounded miles away. “I wish I could remember.”
“If you can’t remember, then how do you know what you’d think?” He intended it to be a joke, but the look in Abbey’s eyes was anything but amused.
“While it is true I cannot remember much of the things that happened to me, I know who I am.”
“Oh?”
She thought for a moment before answering. “I know that I do not like liars. I do not find evil acts against others acceptable. The mere idea of injuring an innocent person causes my heart to ache. Does that not say something about who I am?”
Mathers turned this over in his mind. Years of patrolling the streets showed him how cruel people could be to each other. As a detective, he witnessed brutal acts that made him surmise pure evil did exist. Did he see too much? “I think you can’t change the spots on a leopard.”
She grinned and her whole face lit up. “When I was in The Meadows, there was a man named Mr. Graves.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of him. His family owns a chain of Burger Kings. Very wealthy.”
She nodded. “He was a fierce man. Frightening to look at. Prone to violent outbursts. Many of the others were afraid of him. But one day, after my first recollection of…” she paused and her eyes lowered. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “…I fled down the corridor to my room and I stumbled into him. Usually, Mr. Graves dislikes people touching him. It sends him into fits of fury. But he stood aside and let me pass. Later I asked him why he did not lash out at me. Do you want to know what he said?”
Mathers shook his head and she continued, “He said, ‘It ain’t honorable to kick a person when they’re down.’ Amidst all the chaos, pain and confusion that he endures, he still could not violate a truth of his soul.”
“Is that true with everyone?”
“I have to believe so. Otherwise, why would any of us continue?” She looked at him and he realized she wanted an answer.
“I don’t know why we continue living.”
She stopped. “We are all part of God’s plan. Our souls remember who we are, Detective. Even when the mind has forgotten.” She looked away for a moment, then quickly back to him and smiled. “God has planted a seed inside each of us that, given the chance, blooms into the flower.”
He smiled. “I’ve been a weed before…”
“A weed is a flower to God.” She reached out and touched his shoulder and Mathers felt like a small child.
52
Robert ducked behind a large bush and pulled the dagger close. The sun hinged on the horizon and in a few moments it would be dark. He gripped the dagger in the palm of his hand as he weighed his options. She didn’t have a sword, but he had a gun. He would have to kill him first and hope she was so startled that she couldn’t react in time to protect herself.
He had killed people under worse circumstances. Just as he headed out from around the bush, he heard hoofbeats in the distance. Someone was coming.
At the sound of the hoofbeats, Mathers jerked himself out of the semi-trance state he had fallen into and stepped away from Abbey.
“That must be one of my aunts,” she said with a sigh. “It was so good to see you again, Detective Mathers.” She held out her hand.
He took her hand just as a rustle of branches erupted from behind him. He spun around and thought he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye.
“Must be jumpy,” he said.
He pulled away from her just as the woman on horseback arrived, flanked by two large Saluki dogs.
“Good evening, Detective Mathers,” Tomyris said, brushing a feather away from her face.
“Good evening, Ms. Emerson.”
“Tomyris, please. I don’t do fucking formality.”
He nodded. “Tomyris.” He noticed she had changed her belly button jewel. A huge diamond flickered in the fading light.
“You are missed,” she said sternly to Abbey. “Your aunt sent me to find you.”
“I needed some air.”
Tomyris’ eyes darted between Abbey and the detective. “Uhhuh. Sure.”
Before Mathers could respond in Abbey’s defense, the dogs stopped their sniffing of the ground and set off at a run towards the Faire grounds. Tomyris jerked her head up and said briskly, “Go to the Bastille. The horse will be dealt with later.” She turned and sped off into the darkening woods.
As Tomyris galloped away, Mathers saw Abbey looking at him. “Abbey,” he asked, “are you…all right?” Abbey cocked her head, questioning. “I mean with your aunts. Are you…do you feel safe with them?”
She nodded. “With them, yes.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but instead of speaking, she jumped on the horse’s back, grabbed the reins and, in a flash, was riding back towards the mansion.
Mathers turned his attention back to the Faire grounds. He pulled his gun from its holster and ran after Tomyris.
When Robert saw the Salukis, he turned and fled, inadvertently rustling the bush. He did not intend
to tangle with those insane beasts one more time despite the fact he could have killed the detective. He made it as far as the Honey Buckets when he heard the dogs barking. Damn those things! The next time he could, he would kill these last two. He would kill them very slowly. He took stock of his situation; if he tried to make it to the road, the beasts would overtake him. If he stayed, he would not be able to triumph over two huge dogs and whichever witch was on horseback. The barking was coming closer.
He spied a folding table with several coolers, packages of paper cups, and various culinary items. Next to one of the coolers was a huge can of pepper. He snatched it up, opened it and poured the contents on the ground, making sure to cover his footprints with the spice. Then he opened the door to one of the portable toilets and went in. He closed the lid of the toilet and stood with one foot on either side of the toilet seat. He put the knife in his mouth and pushed his hands along the sides for additional support. He heard the dogs outside. They began to bray loudly, bark and sneeze. A moment later, he heard a horse approach.
“What is it?” the voice asked—Tomyris.
She began sneezing along with the dogs and the horse neighed loudly. Robert chuckled to himself. He wished he could see the spectacle—the view must be priceless!
“Whoa, Fire. Down! Down, boy!” Her voice sounded frantic and he heard the horse kick and stomp. The dogs were going wild, braying, barking and sneezing in a cacophony of confusion.
Then he heard a dog clawing at the door of the toilet. Suddenly, loud banging came from all around, as if the beasts were hurling themselves at the toilet’s sides. He felt the small shed shift slightly as the horse reared and pounded on the structure.
“Fire! What are you doing?” Tomyris’ voice screamed over the racket.
The horse neighed violently, Tomyris screamed, the dogs bayed and Robert felt the square porta-potty tipping over onto its side. As it crashed down onto its back, the toilet seat opened and the brown, fetid contents splashed everywhere, covering him in days-old piss and soggy turds. Outside the capsule of feces, he heard the dogs’ howling and the hoofbeats of the witch’s steed fade as they retreated into the distance.
He pried himself off the wall of the structure and felt his clothing sticking to the plastic. After slipping in the slimy liquid a couple of times, he managed to push the door open and climb out, where he fell with a plop onto the grass of the glade.
53
“You should have told us, dear,” Aunt Ruth chided as she slid a waffle onto Abbey’s plate. “We were terribly worried! Do you want blueberries or strawberries, dear?”
“I am sorry, Aunt Ruth,” Abbey replied, avoiding Aunt Boo’s eyes by staring at Ruth’s Star of David.
Boo screamed, slamming her fist onto the table and sending the glasses rattling. “Have you gone daft as well as blank?” “Boo,” Ruth patted Boo’s hand, “go easy on her.”
Boo jerked her hand away. “Have I taught you nothing this past week?” With a grunt, she turned and stormed out of the kitchen. Ruth shook her head and sighed. “You must excuse Boo. She’s been… tense lately.”
“I know,” Abbey whispered as she picked at the blueberries.
“So,” Ruth said, pulling out the measuring cups from under the counter, “you have not spoken to me about what happened inside the airplane.” She stared at Abbey while measuring out the flour.
Abbey picked up her fork and began pulling her waffle apart. Ruth waited patiently for the girl to choose her words. “I saw something. A plane crash.”
“Yes….”
“I felt as if I were watching a terrible experience.”
“That would be a memory, dear.”
“It wasn’t. Memories trigger emotions…feelings.... I did not feel anything. I… saw a terrible crash, but felt no emotion…this is so difficult to describe.”
“So you isolate yourself from us.” Abbey nodded. “Dear, dear Abbey. How hard this must be for you.” She emptied the flour into the bowl and opened the sugar container. “Take care, sweetheart, as when the visions do evoke an emotional response, the results will be devastating. Do you think I should use honey instead of sugar?” Without waiting for an answer, she reached for the glass bear filled with the amber liquid. “I shall.”
A crash reverberated through the house. Ruth wiped her hands and motioned for Abbey to follow. “Not again! I shall never complete all my baking!”
54
“Robert?”
He turned around and glared over his shoulder, squinting against the car’s bright headlights. “Miss Swanson?” He heard a car door open and footsteps on the hard pavement moving towards him.
“You look terrible!” she lied. He had stripped down to a pair of shorts. Tiny shorts. Shorts that left little to the imagination, or, in Robert’s case, a lot to the not-so-imaginative imagination. His toned body was covered in fine chest hair, muscles rippled around a tight six-pack. He looked fucking fabulous. She took a step closer when the smell hit her like a brick. “Oh, God! You smell worse. What happened to you?”
Robert tried to keep his phony smile plastered to his face. “One of my clients… let us say, she is angry with me.”
“I would imagine so!” Lynn turned away, gagging. “You can’t walk around like this in the middle of the night. Here,” she pointed to her car, “I have a tarp I use for firewood. We’ll put it on the back seat and I’ll drive you home.”
He watched her walk back to her car. She wore baggy jeans and a loose sweatshirt with frayed sandals that showed her fiery red nail polish. A baseball cap hid her hair, which, he guessed, lay hidden in a frenzied mass.
“You stay there until I spread it out and roll down the windows.” She motioned for him to stay.
“How can I ever thank you?”
“By not leaking that…whatever it is…onto my back seat. What are you doing out so late?”
He shrugged. He normally abhorred signs of weakness such as a shrug, but his experiences in the twenty-first century taught him that a shrug had become an acceptable form of communication. Ambiguity had replaced critical analysis. “Client emergency. You?”
“Oh, Fung Shi bit someone,” she chuckled. “Never mind. Long story. Just take it from me—what you don’t see can hurt you.” She closed the trunk and hauled a thick green canvas tarp to her rear door and handed him a gallon of water along with a towel. “This is my winter emergency water. It’s not winter and, let’s face it, you’re an emergency.” She began spreading the tarp onto the back seat.
“You keep unusual hours, I see.”
“Well, I’m on call a lot, if that’s what you mean. But it’s okay…The Meadows is flexible. I’ll be working this weekend at the Faire, then take Monday off. It all evens out.” She finished spreading the tarp and leaned against the car’s roof.
“The Faire?” He felt his heart beat faster. “You are attending the Bastille’s festivities?”
“Yes, some of the folks from The Meadows are participating in a field trip. Community service kind of work.” She patted the top of the car and motioned for him to get in. “It’s ready for you.”
He remained frozen to his spot. “I thought the Faire was by invitation only.”
“Well, over the past couple of years, the ladies have been rather lax about ‘invite only.’” She smoothed her sweatshirt.
“Is that so? I assumed it was strictly enforced.” She motioned for him to rinse his hair and he began pouring the water over his head.
“It was for a long time.” She frowned. “But for some reason they began to loosen up the rules a bit. Now, almost any of the townspeople who want in can manage it. Don’t say anything, though. It’s a small town secret.”
An idea came to him and he smiled broadly. “Had I known that, I might have gone last year.”
“Well, there’s always this weekend.”
“Yes.” He flashed his smile and locked eyes with her. He held his gaze until she broke it.
“You…” her voice sounded quiet and hes
itant. “You could always join us.” She cleared her throat. “The clients have jobs…juggling, passing out free pastries…things like that…but I’m there to supervise.”
“You will have plenty of free time?” he asked. She nodded. “I would like that.”
“Good. Then we can meet you at the main entrance…the archway. Do you know where that is?” He nodded. “We’ll see you there. Come on. Get in.”
He sloshed his way towards the car and she moved around to the driver’s side.
“Oh,” she said as an afterthought, “I forgot to tell you. You need to come in costume.”
“Oh, that will not be a problem,” he said, sliding into the back seat and wrapping the towel around his shoulders. “I have many costumes.”
His nipples poked out from under the covering and Lynn wondered what they would taste like. Maybe just a little nibble. She wiggled into the front seat and slid the key into the ignition. As the car started up, she thought she heard Mr. Graves’ voice and jerked her head to the passenger seat. Feeling stupid, she put the car into gear and pulled out onto the road. She could have sworn she heard him whisper, “Angel of Death.”
55
“Her hair will do,” Helen said, shoving her glasses up onto her nose. “Unless you want to get a skin sample?”
Mathers laughed. “No. Here.” He handed over some of the hair samples he had snatched from Abbey’s shoulder and Helen took them gently, as if she was handling fine china. While she placed them into a small plastic bag, he looked at the charts hanging near the metal tables and craned his neck to read them.
“Don’t snoop.” He pulled away.
“Simple DNA analysis. We need time, though.”
“Time, we don’t have.”
She shrugged and yawned. “Depends on what you want, I guess.” She looked at the phone and suddenly screamed, “RING ALREADY!”
She shrugged. “Sorry. Just had to say that.”
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