Demi wrote down the password and laid it on the keyboard. “All yours, Chief.”
She got up from the chair. The feeling came over her very fast. She had to sprint for the downstairs half-bath. She made it just in time before she threw up. Not that she had much inside her, just some coffee, but her belly wouldn’t stop heaving.
Afterward, she splashed water on her face and patted it dry with her sleeve. Eric and Chief Bristol were on the front porch when she emerged, so she went out to join them.
She sank down onto the porch swing. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up anymore.
Chief Bristol walked over to stand in front of her. “Demetra.” He sounded wretched and apologetic. “I have, ah…even more bad news for you.”
Demi let out a peal of bitter laughter before she could stop herself. “Really, Chief Bristol? You think you can top the morning I’ve already had?”
“No, I do not,” he said quietly. “But I am very sorry to add to it.”
Demi flapped her hand at him. “It’s okay. I think I already know what you’re going to tell me. Dad paid those guys to kidnap me. Is that what they told you?”
Chief Bristol looked miserable. “Honey, I am so, so sorry.”
“Granddad was supposed to fork up a ransom. And Dad intended to steal it.”
Bristol shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “How do you know?”
“One of the kidnappers threw it in my face on the boat. It’s true, right?”
His mouth tightened. “That’s their story. We’re still investigating. It’ll take a while.”
Her belly cramped again. Like it was a surprise. She’d taught herself not to let Dad hurt her, but he’d upped his game. He’d won this round. The ultimate burn.
He’d never been able to handle the fact that she saw through his games, his mask. He had charmed and manipulated most of the people in his life with ease, but not her. She’d somehow seen him for exactly what he was, even when she was little.
And he’d always hated her for it.
“One of them said that Ben had hired them to do this job before, about three years ago,” Chief Bristol said. “That your dad called it off at the last minute. Lost his nerve.”
“Three years,” she said. “When Mom died. Just like this.”
Eric kneeled beside her and seized her hand. “Your Mom died of a heart attack?”
“Yes,” she said. “Also while packing for a trip no one knew about. Also while shoving things into a suitcase every which way. Oh God.” She leaned over, her head whirling, stomach lurching. “Mom…must have found out what he meant to do.”
Could Dad have…no. Not possible. Bad as he was, he couldn’t have been that bad.
“Don’t get yourself worked up,” Chief Bristol urged. “What happened to Elaine was sad, but it was years ago, and it has nothing to do with what happened today.”
“I found her, Wade,” Demi said forcefully. “I saw her suitcase. She’d taken a framed photo of the two of us. From when I was a kid. That’s not the kind of object that you take on a spontaneous weekend getaway.”
“Demetra—”
“She found out that Dad was going to stage my kidnapping, and she objected. Then she died, right next to a hastily-packed suitcase. Maybe those guys pointed that thing at her chest, too.” Demi pressed her hand to her mouth, rocking. “Oh God. Mom.”
“Don’t get yourself all worked up,” Chief Bristol soothed. “You don’t know that for a fact. You’re just speculating.”
Eric squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
She looked up into Eric’s calm, resolute face, and realized something, in an intuitive flash of pure dismay.
With all this death raining down on her, that obstinate fool was still planning on sneaking up to GodsAcre today, all alone.
He winced when she grabbed his shoulder. She’d gripped the bruised one. “Come stay with me in my townhouse now.” She tried to keep her voice calm, but it sounded shrill and desperate. “I’ve changed my mind about that. I need the company. Right now.”
Eric looked straight into her eyes. “Soon,” he said. “Just a couple things I need to take care of first. We talked about this already.”
“Seriously?” Her voice cracked. “After this?”
“Especially after this.”
No. Not possible. He wasn’t walking into that goddamn death trap all alone. She couldn’t lose him, too. Just couldn’t.
“They can wait,” she said wildly. “Or someone else can do them. You can’t, Eric. You can’t leave me alone today.”
He pulled her into a hard embrace, kissed her and gave her that straight-on, unwavering look. When Eric Trask made up his mind about something, the sky could fall and the world shake apart into chunks and he would not budge one single fucking inch.
“Stay with me. Damn it, Eric.” She knew it was useless. She was just hammering on him to no good purpose now, but she just couldn’t help herself.
He pressed a hot kiss against her knuckles. “Soon,” he repeated.
“Fine.” Demi pulled away from him, her throat clenched like a fist, and got up onto her shaky feet. “Chief Bristol?” she said, her voice thick. “Would you give me a ride back to my house, please?”
“I’ll give you a ride to the station,” Chief Bristol said sternly. “Where you will wait until Henry comes to pick you up. I’m afraid I can’t be budged on that. Not now.”
“I see. Well, then. One second while I grab my coat and purse.”
“It’s just a few hours, Demi,” Eric said. But she could read the rest in his eyes.
Don’t tell Chief Bristol where I’m going.
* * *
Chief Bristol fixed him with a baleful look while they waited. “What the hell are you doing here, Eric?”
“Looking out for her,” Eric replied.
“That remains to be seen. She needs someone to step up for real. Not some lightweight who’ll let her down again, like everybody else. Too damn much bad luck for that girl. And you accounted for some of it yourself, if you recall.”
Eric felt the wind bite against his suddenly hot face as he imagined stepping up.
Not letting Demi down. Forever. What that would look like. Feel like.
It would be incredible. It would change everything. Night and day.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Not without her.”
“A nice start would be to stand by her now,” Bristol scolded. “She shouldn’t be alone. She was just attacked, and bereaved, and betrayed. All at the same goddamn time.”
He let out a mirthless laugh. “Sounds like one of Otis’s lectures.”
Bristol grunted. “Well, then. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” Eric told him. “And I will step up. I will stand by her. Until the end of time. I just have to take care of a couple things today. It won’t take me long.”
Demi slapped the screen door open, descended the porch steps and stalked past him, her face stiff.
“I’ll come to you as soon as I’m done,” he told her.
“Don’t bother,” she said coolly. “I’ll be busy planning a funeral. I’ll be at Granddad’s anyway, so it would be better if you stayed away. You make him nervous.”
“Demi—”
“Have a great day. Thanks for your help. Come to the funeral, if you’re still in town. Watch the paper for the announcement. Chief, shall we go? I’m all done here.”
Chief Bristol gave him a disappointed look. “Looks like it, hmm?”
Demi didn’t look at him as the patrol car pulled away.
Fuck. He didn’t blame her for being angry, but he couldn’t make a plan of action if he didn’t check GodsAcre out. And he couldn’t delegate that task to anyone. The death tally was already growing.
And Vaughan? For fuck’s sake. What a towering scumbag. Above and beyond Eric’s worst expectations. But being angry at a dead man was an exercise in frustration.
The Prophet’s Curse couldn’t h
ave laid its spectral finger on a shittier guy. If only the Curse had struck a couple of days earlier, before Vaughan got around to his crowning achievement in selfishness and cruelty.
Demi deserved better. From everyone, including himself. But he couldn’t start something important with her after weaseling out of his responsibilities.
She was in danger. All of them were. The whole town, maybe even beyond it.
If the Prophet’s Curse was anybody’s mess to deal with, it was his. And Mace’s and Anton’s, of course, but they weren’t here, and this couldn’t wait another second.
People were dropping dead, for fuck’s sake.
He drove back out to Otis’s house, and started to prepare. He rummaged in the hall closet until he found the forest camo coat they’d gotten Otis for bird-watching with its many deep pockets. It was too narrow in the shoulders, but the extra concealment was worth the discomfort. He found a faded olive drab hoodie to cover his head and put the small digital camera with Otis’s GodsAcre photos into one of the coat pockets. He hung another of Otis’s cameras around his neck, and a pair of Otis’s powerful bird-watching binoculars. The Glock and some full magazines went into one of the pockets. He filled a water bottle, grabbed the keys to the four-by-four and his silenced phone, and took off.
He stopped at the turn-off to Kettle Canyon Road for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, and looked at it for a moment, thinking of Otis. And Terry.
He was doing this for Demi. For the hope of a future with her. He wished he could make her understand that. He could barely explain it to himself, but he knew it would never work between them unless he broke the Curse somehow. Whatever the fuck it was.
She was mad and scared and grieving, but time was short, and shit was getting weird really fast. He put the truck in gear, and surged forward.
He was between a rock and a hard place, just like always. Braced for pain.
Bring it on. He wouldn’t let himself flinch this time.
19
Demi didn’t remember much about the ride. She just realized, at a certain point, that they were parked outside the police station, and that Chief Bristol was patting her arm. Timidly. Like she was a bomb that might explode in his face.
She got out of the car and had to hang onto it for a second while that sickening, ice-cold sucking feeling pulled at her, making her vision dim.
“…okay? Demetra? Should I take you to the ER?” Chief Bristol’s anxious voice.
She managed a wan smile. “Fine,” she said. “Just a little head rush.”
“Come on in and have some coffee while you wait for your grandfather to get here. He’s already on his way.”
Oh, yikes. She loved Granddad with all her heart, but he’d been agitated already after the attack. This fresh shocker about Dad’s betrayal and death was going to throw him into full-on rant mode. Granddad had never liked Dad. God knows, she understood why like never before. But today was not the day to hear his list of grievances again.
She had her own list to ponder.
Demi stumbled into someone at the door. She mumbled an apology but her words cut off when she looked up and she met Boyd Nevins’s startled eyes.
Blackened eyes. His face was puffy and discolored, and his nose was bruised and swollen like a potato. Butterfly bandages covered a cut on his cheekbone. He looked awful.
He deserved it, the jerk. “Boyd,” she said. “Hey.”
Boyd’s eyes darted around frantically. He looked hunted.
She stood squarely in the middle of the door, leaving him no easy way to slide by.
“Hi, Demi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. It was none of her damn business, of course, but who cared? She didn’t give a shit about manners today, and she wanted to know.
“I just came down to see if, ah, the rumor was true,” Boyd said nervously.
“You mean, about my dad being dead? Not a rumor. It’s a fact. I saw his body.”
Wow. Her words sounded cold and uncaring. But that was where she was right now, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to fake it for this clown.
“So Holly told me. Um, my condolences, then,” Boyd said awkwardly.
Demi stared intently at his battered face as he tried to sidle past her. She shifted smoothly to block him. “Wait,” she said. “Tell me something, Boyd.”
He looked alarmed. “Ah, not today, Demi. I gotta go—”
She grabbed his wrist. “This won’t take long. Just tell me. Were you really driving my dad’s Porsche that day seven years ago? Did you pick Eric up and drive him to Peyton State Park?”
Boyd’s mouth twisted. “Jesus, Demi! Is that all you can think about? Today, of all days? With your dad lying in the morgue?”
Icy clarity settled over her. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “Look at you. You’re trying to make me feel guilty for asking you that. Today, of all days.”
“This is not the time or place to—”
“So it’s true,” she said. “Eric really was set up. By my dad. And you helped him do it. You lying, cheating shithead.”
Boyd pressed past her more urgently. She snagged his wrist and hung on.
“I am not having this conversation with you right now, Demi,” he said stiffly. “You’re upset and irrational, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry for your loss, but I—”
“Dad organized it, right? Gave you the Porsche? Told you exactly what to do? Did he pay you? Or offer favors? That job with Shaw Paper Products, in Spokane? Was that a payment for services rendered? And the Granger Valley job, later on?”
“Demi, it’s over! He’s gone! It’s ancient history! What’s the point of this now?”
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I couldn’t believe Dad was capable of that. But he was. All along, he was.”
Boyd broke away and hurried out just as her grandfather was coming in. He slammed right into Granddad, almost knocking the elderly man over.
“Watch your step, for God’s sake!” Granddad snarled. “Damn idiot.”
“Sorry, Mr. Shaw. My condolences for your—”
“Do not condole me for that no-good, lying, thieving piece of shit,” Granddad snarled. “I’m glad he’s dead! He can burn screaming in the flames of hell and good goddamn riddance to him!”
Boyd backed up, bewildered. He turned tail and fled, in a stiff, limping trot.
Demi met Granddad’s eyes, and the two of them both shook with a burst of nervous, stifled laughter.
Granddad was the first to recover his self-consciousness. “Stop it,” he muttered, his gaze darting around. “People are looking at us. It’s unseemly.”
“It’s cool, Granddad. You can be as nuts as you want if you’re as unlucky as me.”
“Oh, honey.” He pulled her into a tight hug. “It’s just not right. You’re such a fine girl. You didn’t deserve any of this.”
“I know.” She pulled away, wiping her eyes. Hugs were dangerous right now. The Shaw’s Crossing Police Station was no place for a fit of wild sobbing. “Let’s get home, okay? I could use some privacy.”
Predictably, Granddad started ranting as soon as they pulled out of the parking lot. Demi tuned it out as they drove through the town, sorting through the painful jumble of her thoughts. She watched the stores on the downtown shopping strip go by with odd, crystal-sharp clarity. Her restaurant, the bookstore, sporting goods, jewelry—
“Stop!” she said.
Granddad jerked to a halt. “What is it? Are you sick?”
“I just need to do something, real quick. Wait for me. Just a sec.”
“What the hell? Where?”
“The jewelry store. Wait here for me, Granddad.”
“Does this seem like the time to shop for trinkets? For God’s sake!”
The thud of the car door closing muffled the rest of Granddad’s scolding.
She ran across the street and pushed open the door of the jewelry store. Marlee Steigler was at the front counter, Art
hur and Trudi Steigler’s daughter. She’d been a few years ahead of Demi at school. Her eyes widened when Demi came in, her mouth forming a nervous little O. “Demi! I was so sorry to hear about—”
“Thanks, Marlee. Look, can I ask you something?”
“Ah, sure.” Marlee looked doubtful.
“Seven years ago, did Eric Trask put an engagement ring on layaway here?”
Marlee blinked, puzzled. “Ah…I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t working here back then. I was living with my boyfriend up in Bozeman. Mom’s in the back, though. You want me to ask her?”
“Please do,” Demi urged her. “I’d appreciate it.”
Marlee disappeared in the back. Demi waited for a couple of minutes, staring at the glittering trinkets in the glass cases.
Trudi Steigler came out from the back, a big, heavy lady with a ruddy face. Her white eyebrows were knit with puzzlement. “Demi. I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Steigler. Please, I know this is an odd question, and not really my business, but I just need to know if it’s true that Eric Trask had a ring on layaway here.”
Trudi Steigler hesitated, studying Demi’s face with a worried frown. She let out a sharp sigh. “Ah, well…yes,” she said heavily. “He did. One moment.”
She disappeared again into the back, and soon came back with a small paper bag, stapled closed with a receipt. She ripped the bag open, shook out a ring box and held it out to Demi. “I suppose I really shouldn’t show you this. But I felt bad about it ever since. He only had two hundred and seventy-five dollars left to pay on it, but he never came back, after his troubles. So I kept it, in case he ever returned. It’s a boulder opal.”
Demi moved in closer to look. The ring that the jeweler held up was a slim band of white gold. The stone was an irregularly shaped blue-green opal ringed with tiny diamonds. She picked it up, watching the fire in the opal flash that intense, unearthly pale blue. The exact color of the glacial water in the streams where they had made love.
That was why he’d chosen it.
Demi stared down at the glowing point of blue. It all hit her, full force. Dad, lying dead on the floor, after lying to her and selling her out. So fucking awful. It burned her heart. All the love and hope and effort that Eric’s ring represented. All the lies and hate and ugliness that had crashed into it head-on, trying so hard to kill it.
Headlong: The Hellbound Brotherhood Book Two Page 19