“The other car is about halfway up the access road,” Julian said. “It’s facing this way, so I’m guessing the driver backed up that far in order to make a fast getaway after . . . The driver’s door is open, but the interior light isn’t working, so I couldn’t see . . . But I saw enough.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Gods above and below, Wayne. I didn’t think . . .”
Grimshaw held up a hand, stopping his friend. Better for all of them if Julian didn’t voice any regrets about his special customers. “Let’s find out what’s going on first. Then we’ll know what comes next.”
“Besides the EMTs and the doctor?” Ilya asked dryly.
“What?” Julian yelped.
Seeing Julian’s hands shake was confirmation enough that they would need help from the funeral home more than the EMTs or Doc Wallace, but he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “What about the boys? Can’t leave them in the car on their own.” It wasn’t that they weren’t old enough to be left in the car. It was just too damn dangerous—although maybe not for them.
“They’ll come with us,” Ilya said.
Car doors opened and closed. Viktor and Karol joined them. Karol held a flashlight and Viktor had the first aid kit that Julian usually carried in the trunk of his car.
“I put it on the back seat before we left the store,” Julian said. “Just wanted it within reach.”
Grimshaw went back to the cruiser, opened the trunk, and removed his big flashlight, a couple of road flares, the first aid kit he carried, and a roll of yellow crime scene tape.
“Everyone is at the main house, and they’re okay except for the guest who got swatted,” Viktor said.
“Do you know which guest?” Grimshaw asked.
A moment’s silence before Viktor shook his head. “Aggie told Eddie, who told Kira, who told me, but Aggie didn’t say which guest—or Eddie didn’t tell Kira that part.”
Grimshaw gave the Sanguinati teenagers a hard look. He felt the seconds ticking by, but caution was better than dying. “In stories, there’s always a baby cop who forgets his training because he wants to be a hero and rushes into danger, ignoring the orders of his commanding officer. Because they’re stories, half the time his actions save the day and he gets out of it with just a flesh wound. In the real world, most of the time that baby cop ends up in the morgue. Hear me. I don’t care that you’re Sanguinati and think you’re invincible. You don’t go dashing off, no matter what you think you see. You stay with us and you follow orders, or your internship with Julian and me ends tonight. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Viktor said.
Karol looked at Ilya before saying, “Yes, sir.”
We’ll have to watch that one, Grimshaw thought. He’s got the vibe that he has something to prove to someone.
After giving each boy a road flare, Grimshaw took the lead, with Julian a step behind so that their flashlights covered most of the road. The boys walked behind them, and Ilya came last—defense and warning in case something followed them.
As they approached the vehicle, Julian blew out a breath and whispered, “Was that easier than puncturing a couple of tires to make sure he couldn’t get away?”
Grimshaw looked at the tires and understood what Julian meant. That car wasn’t going anywhere, because the tires were sunk halfway into the road. No possibility of rocking the car out of those tire-size holes.
Car door open. No interior light on. When he shined the flashlight on the driver’s side of the car, he expected to find a body. But seeing what the Others could do to a human body was always a mental and emotional blow.
Grimshaw swallowed hard. The boys crowded close to him and Julian, and he wondered if they would be safer in their smoke form or if that wouldn’t matter to the terra indigene who had savaged that body.
“They were angry,” Ilya said quietly.
“Broke the promise,” a voice sang out of the dark.
“Vicki wouldn’t have—” Julian protested.
“Not the Reader,” another voice sang. “This one did—and someone else.”
“The police and the Sanguinati will find out who broke the promise,” Grimshaw said.
“Victoria asked for assistance from other humans to fix a wounded human up at the house,” Ilya said. “Will you allow it?”
“The Reader asked?” A third voice.
“Yes,” Ilya replied.
A pause. Then: “Humans should listen when the Reader yells at them.”
Grimshaw didn’t know what had prompted that remark, but he heard the threat under the words.
“In The Jumble, the Reader decides,” a fourth voice sang.
He didn’t hear anything—not the snap of a twig or the rustle of crisp leaves on the ground—but he felt the danger move away. That was when he realized he hadn’t even considered shining his light toward those voices, that he—and Julian—had known on some instinctive level what would happen to all of them if he had seen the Five in their present form.
“That’s Peter Lynchfield in the car,” Julian said. “He’s one of the professors staying at the Mill Creek Cabins.”
“Then what is he doing here tonight?” Ilya asked coldly.
Grimshaw looked at the Sanguinati leader. “And who told him there might be something to see?”
Taking the road flares from the boys, he lit them and placed one in front of and one behind the car. Then he moved on. Nothing he could do for Lynchfield. What he needed was a better idea of what was going on at the main house—and who was Lynchfield’s accomplice.
CHAPTER 44
Vicki
Watersday, Novembros 3
Call one man and get all three. How great was that?
Not so great, since there had been screaming before I called. Lots of screaming.
“Hey, Chief.” I smiled at Grimshaw. Thought I did, anyway, but the look on his face told me my face hadn’t gotten the smile quite right. “Some human was being stoooopid. Did you confiscate his camera?” I frowned and pinched a black fluff feather out of the glass of orange juice I was holding. “Could have been a her camera. Stupidity is an equal opportunity, you know.”
Julian crouched near my feet and placed a hand on my ankle. “Vicki?” he said gently.
“In shock, I think. I found her sitting here, and Eddie brought her some orange juice.” That was Michael Stern’s voice.
I looked up. Way up. Why were people so much taller than they’d been that morning?