Skin Walk (A Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Book 2)

by Melissa Bowersock

  When Lacey saw the cheerful smirk on Sam’s face, she rammed her shoulder into his arm. He just laughed again, but draped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

  “You did great,” he said seriously. “Guess we know now that you still have the good instincts and reaction time of a cop.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she agreed. She shuddered to think how it might have ended up if she didn’t.

  Back in the hogan, Ben was already wrapped in blankets on his bed on the ground. He and Sam talked softly for a moment, then Sam headed for the door. Lacey got down on her knees and placed a quick kiss on the leathery brown cheek.

  “Good night, Ben.”

  He just smiled and patted her hand.

  “You want to follow me?” Sam asked as they approached the pair of trucks.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I could find my way back, but since you’re here, I’m just as glad to have you lead.” Another thought intruded. “You said you heard the shots. Were there others still there? Anyone else wonder what was going on?”

  “They were mostly gone. I can’t remember exactly; I just ran when I heard the shots.”

  “I was thinking we could compare who was gone—and could have been here—and who was still there, but it was all kind of a blur to me, too.”

  He opened the truck door for her, a surprisingly rare event. She could have remarked on it but was too tired. She just crawled in and started up the truck.

  The trip back was uneventful. Lacey paid close attention to what Sam did in the forward truck and matched his speed and direction. She didn’t even bother to look around for the baleful orange eyes. If they were right, if she really drew blood, the thing was probably holed up somewhere licking its—her—wounds. Lacey guessed they were safe enough for now.

  She was immensely relieved when they pulled up to the house and she saw no other vehicles. She was too tired for any more small talk, too tired to smile. She and Sam exited their respective trucks and pushed into the house.

  Roxanne was still in the kitchen and Gabe was cleaning up out back. Sam went to help him; Lacey pulled off her jacket to help Roxanne.

  “What?” Roxanne asked, startled at the sight of the shoulder holster. “Did you fire those shots we heard? Is that why Sam left like a bat out of hell?”

  Too tired to answer, Lacey nodded. She realized she needed to go stow her gun safely away, but couldn’t quite muster up the strength to walk down the hall.

  Roxanne took over. She guided Lacey to the couch and forced her down on it. “Give me that,” she said, motioning toward the holster. Lacey pulled it off and handed it over, and Roxanne laid it on the kitchen counter.

  “Wait,” Lacey said. “I need to lock that in my suitcase.”

  “Don’t worry; the boys are gone. Now, what would you like? Coffee, tea, soda?”

  “Um, tea would be good,” Lacey said. “I can make it.”

  “Sit,” Roxanne said. “I’ll get it.”

  Lacey didn’t protest. She leaned back into the couch cushions and relaxed for what seemed like the first time all day.

  Sam and Gabe came in, each carrying more trash for the already overflowing garbage can. Gabe got out a new trash bag and filled it while Sam tied off the original one. Gabe took both outside to toss into the truck bed while Sam snagged a soda floating in the melt water of the big cooler. He popped it open as he settled beside Lacey on the couch.

  “You awake?” he asked quietly.

  She smiled half-heartedly. “Barely.”

  “We won’t stay up late,” he said.

  Lacey glanced at her watch. After eleven. This day had felt like it was a week long.

  Roxanne brought her tea and she and Gabe settled into their chairs expectantly. Lacey sipped the tea and looked down the hall.

  “The boys?” she asked.

  “Having a sleepover at Andrea and Neal’s,” Roxanne said. “We can talk.”

  “So, Lacey, you saved the day,” Gabe said. Obviously Sam had filled him in.

  “What happened?” Roxanne asked.

  Sam retold the story as Lacey sipped her tea. It sounded strange to hear him recount the events. In her mind, it had all happened faster than Sam could tell it. The blink of an eye.

  “We were trying to think who had already left and who was still here when we heard the shots, but neither one of us were clear about that.” Sam looked to his brother and sister-in-law for help.

  “I know Modesto and Irene left first,” Lacey said, “and Felicity was next, I think.”

  “I think that’s right,” Roxanne agreed. “Sylvia was still here when you and Grampa left. Boy, was she giving you the stink eye when Grampa asked you to take him home.”

  “Me?” Lacey squeaked. “Why?”

  “I think she was jealous because Grampa likes you. She’s always kind of set herself up as a queen bee of sorts. I’ll bet it really chapped her ass that he came to you, an outsider.”

  “I did notice an air about her,” Lacey said. “She certainly orders Mike around.”

  “She has very little use for most men. We were in school together, and ever since we were twelve or thirteen she just had this… disdain for most men. Grampa’s about the only man she respects. And I’m afraid she’s infecting her daughter with the same attitude.”

  Lacey could imagine. What little she saw of the woman today seemed to fit that mold. She thought about the way Sylvia treated Mike when he had only offered to help with the marshmallows. Her low opinion of his abilities was evident, and Rachel was standing right there, hearing it all.

  “What about Carmen?” Lacey asked, switching subjects. “She was very quiet, but I got the impression there was a lot going on underneath. When I mentioned Sam’s abilities, she seemed disturbed by that. I almost expected her to make the sign of the cross.”

  “Carmen’s smart, but she’s had a tough time. She had to quit college in her first year to come home and take care of her sister and brother when her mother died. She had a lot of dreams, but had to put them aside.”

  “That is tough,” Lacey murmured. And probably a common story in an economically depressed area. She had a feeling few of these people had had a smooth or easy life. No help on the witchcraft subject, however.

  “So were any of them here when we heard the shots?” Sam asked.

  Gabe and Roxanne looked at each other. “Just Andrea and Neal,” Gabe said. “They were the last to leave, because our boys were packing up their video games to take with them. But I think everyone else had already gone.”

  “No help there, then,” Lacey said. “We still don’t know who it was. Unless we find someone with a bullet wound.”

  They all looked at each other thoughtfully.

  ~~~

  ELEVEN

  All four adults slept in. Without the boys to roust them, there was no reason to roll out early. Lacey luxuriated in the rare, uninterrupted quiet, and only got up when both her bladder and her stomach were clamoring.

  The door of the master bedroom was still closed when she padded down the hall to the kitchen. She peeked at the couch; Sam still slept. She started the coffee maker as quietly as she could, then went to the back slider and stared out at the cold, clear morning.

  The fire pit was nothing but a pile of black ash. She noted a few of the roasting rods atop the concrete blocks. The ground was hard-packed with the stamp of many feet. It was eerily quiet, the exact opposite of last night. A ghost zone.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.

  “Sorry,” Sam said when she whirled and flinched away in fear. “I thought you might have heard me when I got up.”

  She exhaled in relief. “No, I didn’t. Guess I was a million miles away.”

  “Lots to think about,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Too much.”

  Sam regarded her silently for a moment, his dark eyes clouded. “I’m going to grab a shower,” he said. “Then we can talk.”

  “Okay.” She wasn’t quite sure what good
talking would do, but she was open to it. Sam, still in his sweat pants, grabbed his clothes and headed up the hall.

  By the time he returned, clean and dressed, she had a cup of coffee and was sitting at the table. He poured himself a cup and joined her there.

  “So what are you thinking?” he asked her quietly.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. I was trying to figure shoe sizes last night, and the only two that looked close to mine were Sylvia and Carmen. But I didn’t get any bad vibes from either of them. Obviously the witch knows we’re here and why. I would expect to see some animosity: anger, fear, distrust. Unless she’s very good at masking her feelings. So then I wondered if she wasn’t here at all. If we need to widen our search.” She blew out a breath in frustration. “And if that’s the case, how wide?” She turned questioning eyes on Sam.

  He considered that in silence. Finally, sipping his coffee, he sat back in his chair and met her gaze. “That could be a problem,” he said. “People are scattered all over. It’d be pretty hard to run people down and interview them without making it very obvious why we’re here.”

  Lacey drummed her fingers on the table.

  “Something else I was thinking,” Sam said. “How long can we stay here? I’ve got to get back to work eventually; so do you. How long do we keep at it, especially if we’re not making progress?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve thought of that, too.” She glanced around. “I wouldn’t feel right about leaving without solving the murder, but…”

  “But we may have to,” he finished for her.

  That didn’t sit well. Lacey pushed away her empty coffee cup. “I’m worried about Ben. That thing last night—was it after me, or him? If it was after me, like the earlier times, but he’s now a witness to that, is he in danger? Every time I think about what might have happened if I hadn’t been there, or if I hadn’t had my gun…” She trailed off.

  “He’s pretty tough,” Sam said, “but I don’t think I’d want to pit him one on one against a witch. Not at his age.”

  “Exactly,” Lacey agreed. She turned in her chair to face Sam. “So I’m thinking we have to stay a while longer. Keep at it. I’m not sure exactly how we do that, but I feel like we have to keep going, at least for a few more days.”

  “I think so, too,” he said, but his voice held more frustration than conviction. “We’ll talk with Gabe and Roxanne when they get up. See if they’ve got any bright ideas.”

  It wasn’t much of a strategy, Lacey thought, but it was all they had for the moment. She rose and took her cup to the sink. “I need to call my folks this morning. They usually call me on Saturdays, and I had my phone off most of the day. I don’t want them to worry because they couldn’t reach me.”

  “I need to check in with my kids, too,” Sam said, following her to the kitchen. “Let them know we’ll be here a few more days.”

  Lacey went up the hall to her borrowed bedroom, feeling distinctly low. She’d had tough cases before, but not like this. Before, there always seemed to be a thread to follow, a line of investigation that led to real results, but this time… She reminded herself that they had, in fact, made progress. They’d deduced that the murderer was a family member, that it was a female, and that she was able to keep tabs on some of their movements. Some progress, but not enough.

  Not near enough.

  She grabbed her phone and her jacket and slipped out the back door to call her folks in Florida. It was two hours later there, so she wasn’t worried about waking her parents. She had to work to keep her voice light, to keep the depression out of it. She glossed over her activity.

  “I’m working on a case in Arizona,” she said. “A murder investigation. I can’t really talk about it much.”

  “Oh?” her mother said. “Are you working with Sam again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” her mother said. Lacey knew she loved hearing that she was teamed up with a man—any man, after the disastrous relationship with Derrick. “We’ll have to meet him some day. Maybe next time we come over to California to visit?”

  “Uh, sure,” Lacey said, not thinking that was a good idea at all. She knew her parents would be flummoxed by Sam. A long-haired Native American man who spoke to ghosts? Not exactly their notion of an ideal partner for their daughter. Well, she’d cross that bridge when she got to it.

  “So what’s new with you?” she asked. Sitting on the concrete blocks around the dead fire pit, she settled in to hear all about the neighbors, the weekly bridge game, her father’s woodworking hobby. It was much easier this way. She could mollify her mother with the occasional, “Uh huh,” and let the rest of it roll off.

  By the time her mother ran out of topics, Lacey was feeling the need to go do something productive. She stood and wandered the back yard, stretching her legs.

  “Okay, Mom, good talking to you,” she said. “Give my love to Dad. Talk to you later.”

  She ended the call and slipped back into the house. Sam and Gabe were talking in the kitchen; Roxanne was apparently still getting dressed. Lacey greeted Gabe and disappeared into her room to shuck off her jacket and put her phone into her purse.

  That was when she noticed the large envelope stuck in there.

  “What the—?” She grabbed a corner of the envelope and tugged it out from under the other paraphernalia that collected in her purse. As soon as she flipped open the tab and drew the papers part way out, she remembered.

  The file on Harlan Firecloud.

  She’d forgotten all about it. In her present mood, she felt doubtful that it would provide any new clues, but as long as she had it, she might as well look at it. She sank down on the bunk bed and pulled the papers out.

  The reports were listed in chronological order from most recent to least. Six months ago, he’d been picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct in the parking lot of a convenience store. Two years ago, he’d been cited for expired registration on his truck. A few years before that, he’d been warned away from Lou’s home, no doubt during or after the divorce, Lacey guessed; a couple of incidents there. A year earlier, there’d been a report of a fight at the house, but it was closed without incident. Probably tensions leading up to the divorce.

  She scanned on down the page. Parking ticket for leaving his vehicle parked on the side of the highway for three days, truck apparently broken down, needing repairs. She had a feeling life had not been easy for Harlan, or kind. He seemed to have been a hard luck kind of guy, things never quite going his way. She’d seen her share of these. There was always a problem, and always an excuse. A life that seemed to go nowhere.

  The last—or first—entry was dated 1992. The words jumped out at Lacey.

  Statutory rape.

  She leaned over the paper and read carefully. Suspect, twenty-six years old, arrested for statutory rape of a twelve-year-old female relative. Taken into custody without incident. Just two days later, charges were dropped. Victim recanted story; she and her parents unwilling to press charges.

  Name of victim withheld due to age.

  Lacey sat up and stared across the room. Statutory rape? A twelve-year-old female relative? This was no misdemeanor. No parking ticket. This was a serious charge.

  Victim recanted; charges dropped.

  So what did that mean? The victim had lied? Had the “rape” not taken place at all? Or had it been consensual? Lacey knew it wasn’t uncommon for alleged rape victims to change their story. They agreed to something in the heat of the moment and then regretted it. Or they cried rape when there was none to punish a man for perceived slights. There were any number of he said/she said scenarios possible here.

  She couldn’t readily see any connection to the murder twenty-four years later, but something about it jangled her nerves. She’d learned to trust her instincts over the years. She would trust them again now.

  Shoving the papers into the envelope, she strode down the hall to the kitchen. Roxanne was cooking breakfast: scrambled eggs, sausage an
d toast. Lacey set the envelope down on the counter and immediately pitched in.

  “Guess we all needed that extra sleep,” Roxanne said.

  “Yeah. That was nice,” Lacey said. She suddenly felt nervous about the revelation she’d be making. Sam had advised her against going to the police, and now here she was going to lay a bombshell on the family. She felt sure it would not be welcome information.

  “I’ll set the table,” Lacey said. She pulled plates out of the cupboard and got silverware from the drawer. As she laid things out on the table, she could see Sam and Gabe outside, talking quietly as they did a little more straightening up after the party. It was nice to see the brothers together; they suited each other. She and her own brother were so different, they had almost nothing in common. Seeing the closeness of the Firecloud brothers made her wistful.

  Lacey got napkins, salt and pepper, then glasses of juice while Roxanne finished with the sausage and eggs. While Lacey buttered the toast, Roxanne called the men in. The four of them settled comfortably around the table.

  By tacit agreement, they kept the conversation to simple things. Roxanne mentioned needing to do laundry, and Gabe asked Sam to help him troubleshoot some rough running of his truck’s engine. He said the weather forecast was for a winter storm to come in mid-week, and he didn’t relish having car problems during it.

  Sam glanced at Lacey, then back to his brother and sister-in-law. “Just want to let you know,” he said, “Lacey and I will need to get back to work in a few days, but we’re both still committed to this investigation for as long as we can be. We’ll just have to take it a day at a time, I guess.”

  That put a damper on the whole table. None of them, Lacey was sure, wanted to admit defeat. Spurred by the thought, she cleared her throat.

  “I, uh, I have some new information,” she said tentatively. “I’m not at all sure it’ll have any bearing on the case whatsoever, but I feel like we have to consider it.” She got up and retrieved the envelope, then sat back down.

  “Sam, I know you told me not to bother with the police, but I couldn’t ignore a chance to gather more information.” She apologized with her eyes, but at the same time her jaw was set. “I requested the police records on your cousin. This is it.”