I woke up without realizing I’d fallen asleep. The gray sunlight was shining on my face, and the bed jostled slightly.
Cynthia was sitting on the other side of the bed with her back to me. She was wrapped in the top sheet. I could see the iron gate on her back. The thing that had made me sick with anger last night now seemed like another unfortunate fact of life in Hammer Bay. Who was I to judge Cynthia? Or anyone? I was not exactly pure myself.
I reached out to her and touched her shoulder. She let me, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t seem angry or resentful. She simply didn’t react. I took my hand away.
“Last night was powerful,” she said in a low voice. “It was wild and strange and very powerful, but I don’t think I’m going to want to do that again. Not ever. It was good. It was great, in fact, but it scared me, too. I don’t want to visit that place again.”
“I understand,” I told her.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
She turned toward me. The look on her face made me ashamed. I wished I could start over again, more gently this time, but her expression said it all. Never again. “I’m sure.”
“Do you want some coffee?”
I nodded. She stood and dropped the sheet. I watched her put on pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I couldn’t help imagining her on the floor, screaming, as black steam jetted from the iron gate on her back. She told me that she would wait for me downstairs and left.
Alone, I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t see or hear anything. I looked inside myself and didn’t recognize what I saw.
I stood and dressed in the clothes I’d tossed onto the floor. My shirt still smelled of gunpowder, and there was a powder-burned hole in the center.
I followed the smell of coffee downstairs. Cynthia stood by the bubbling coffee machine with her phone to her ear. The clock on the wall said it was just after 11 A.M.
She hung up the phone. “You were right,” she said. “Phyllis left me a message asking if I was all right and saying she was sorry her people were so stupid. She offered to pay for any damages.”
“I thought as much.”
“What about you? Is she going to come after you? I could call her and tell her to leave you alone.”
“Thanks, but it’s better if you don’t get mixed up in that any more than you already have.”
“God, I nearly got shot last night. It doesn’t seem real.”
“It will when your next car-insurance bill comes.”
She laughed. I was glad to hear it. We stood beside the counter, about three feet from each other. We didn’t touch.
“How do you like your coffee?” she asked.
“I’ll have it however you’re having it. I don’t care.”
“Soy sauce and horseradish, coming up.”
This time we both laughed. She set our cups on the table, and we sat. I took a sip. It was very dark and very sweet. I liked it.
“So,” she said to me. “You never did tell me why you met with Able Katz.”
“Tell me about the seizures,” I said. “Have you ever had them?”
The remnants of her smile faded away. She stirred her coffee. “Is it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Am I supposed to give you dirt on my family? On my own brother?”
“I think you misread me.”
“It’s just a toy company, for Christ’s sake—”
“I don’t give a damn about the toy company. I don’t care about that.”
“You don’t care about a multimillion-dollar contract for your boss? Isn’t that why you came to town?”
“No, it isn’t. And you should know better than that.” She didn’t respond. “There are strange things happening in town, aren’t there? People being attacked by mysterious packs of dogs, for instance?”
I let her think about that for a minute. She stared at me, trying to guess how much I knew. “Why are you asking about Charles’s seizures? You think it has something to do with the people who have been mauled?”
“I won’t know until I ask.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” she said. She took another sip. “My father had them, and his father, too. Charles has them worse than Pop, but it’s a family thing.”
“Do you have them?”
“Not so far,” she said. “It’s always a possibility, though. Charles’s episodes didn’t start until two years ago. My dad never had them as a kid, either, according to Uncle Cabot. Scary thought, huh?” She didn’t look up from her coffee when she said it and she didn’t look scared.
“I’ve been having a lot of scary thoughts lately. What about the dogs?”
“It … I don’t know. I wish I did. I’d tell Emmett if I knew who was using those dogs. It’s a horrible, horrible way to go. I get shivers just thinking about it.”
I didn’t believe her. I wanted her to be on my side in this, and not only because of the help she could give me, and I certainly didn’t want to fight with her. “Are you sure you don’t know anything? Maybe there’s something about the killings that you would mention if you had a little time to think about it. Something funny about each one.”
“Like what?”
“Like, did these people have enemies in common? Did they die at the same time of day, or at the same sort of place? Anything in common? Anything unusual?”
“Stanley Koch died in the alley behind his bar. Wilma Semple ran off the road up the highway. That was just a car wreck, though, although they said a cougar got to her before the ambulance did. Henry the grocer was mauled on his loading dock along with his night custodian, a man named Johnson, I think.”
“What’s the town gossip?”
“When Wilma died, everyone thought it was Harlan. She had just divorced him and taken up with another man. And Stan had just barred him from his place for a month for bad behavior. But Harlan didn’t even know Henry. He did all his shopping at the Safeway.”
“Did Wilma own a business in town?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Then who had she taken up with?”
“Luke Dubois.”
“So you know the Dubois brothers are behind this.”
“Lots of people think so. Only a couple will say it out loud. Luke had been after Wilma for years, though. He was pretty torn up when she was killed.”
“You think she found out something that she wasn’t supposed to?”
“Like what? That the cops in this town extort protection money? The whole town knows that.”
“I mean, that the Dubois brothers are werewolves.”
She flinched. “What?” She was honestly surprised. I was relieved to see it.
“Werewolves.”
“Are you joking?”
“Phyllis Henstrick said it was obvious to anyone willing to believe.”
She stared off into space for a minute or two, holding the cup halfway to her lips. I took a sip, enjoying the warmth in my belly. It felt good to sit here with her like this. I tried to imagine myself sitting here day after day, talking to Cynthia while we shared coffee. I thought it would be a good life.
It was never going to happen. Not while Annalise was around, and not while Charles still had his “seizures.”
“Is that true?” she asked.
“I think it is.”
“What should we do about it?”
“We aren’t going to do a thing about it.”
“Okay, then. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to cure them, if I can.”
It was the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. As far as I knew, the only cure was the most permanent one.
“Wow.” That was all she said. “There’s so much ugliness in the world.”
I looked down at the table. Some of that ugliness came from me, and it was only going to get worse. “Tell me about the kids.”
The color drained from her face. She didn’t answer. She just gaped at me.
“Tell me about the kids in Hammer Bay who have been burning to death. Yeah, I know about it. I have the same tattoo you do. It twinges whenever Charles has a seizure, just like yours. Tell me about them.”
“I …” She wouldn’t look at me. She wouldn’t speak.
I reached out and gently took her hand. Whether that made her feel comforted, trapped, or both, I couldn’t say.
“Everything,” I said. “Start wherever you have to, but I want everything.”
She pulled her hand away, lifted her cup, and drained it.
“My best friend ever since I was six was Daphne. We went through grade school together, high school, everything. She’s divorced now. Her ex is a creep, but she had the most wonderful little girl. She was bold and adventurous—she drove Daph crazy. Daphne couldn’t keep up with her, but I loved that little girl, and I knew she’d grow up to be someone wonderful.
“One day I met Daphne for lunch, and she didn’t have her little girl with her. I asked if she’d found a sitter, and Daphne said her dogs could play in the backyard just fine. Her dogs. I asked who was looking after her daughter, and she said, ‘Who?’ Just like that. ‘Who?’ As if her little girl had never existed.
“Then she started talking about leaving Hammer Bay. What did she have to keep her here, besides a best friend? She had no roots, no family. She was gonna pursue her dreams while she was young enough to do it.
“Eventually, we got into a fight about it. Believe me, that little girl was worth more than any dream anyone has ever had. It was an ugly fight, and some of the people in the diner who knew us butted in. They kept telling me that Daphne didn’t have a daughter, that she’d never had one.”
Cynthia’s hands were trembling. She pressed them against the table. “Daphne started worrying about me. She thought I was having a psychotic break or something. She brought me to her apartment to convince me that she’d never had a kid. She walked me through the rooms, saying, ‘See? No one lives here but me.’ And all I could see were these little toys on the floor and Golden Books on the shelves.”
Her voice caught in her throat. She took a deep, quavering breath. “Daphne left town a couple weeks later. I should have gone, too, but I couldn’t. By then, I’d seen it with my own eyes.” She stopped talking. She looked down at her empty cup. “There was a baby in a baby carriage …”
She stopped again. She had said enough.
I stood and refilled our cups. I brought the sugar to the table. She scooped and stirred but didn’t look at me. After a few minutes, I asked: “What did you do about it?”
“I hired a private investigator. I told him that something strange was happening to the children in town. He thought I was crazy, but he was happy to take my money. He searched around, interviewed people, the whole thing. Emmett scared him away after a week. All I got out of it was a bill and a useless report.”
“Why do you think you can remember and no one else can?”
“My tattoo. Isn’t that what you already said?”
“I’m just making sure we’re having the same conversation. Cabot said you got it from your grandfather.”
“Why do you think he would put it there? So that we would know when something went wrong? If that’s so, I don’t think I’ve been much use—”
“I don’t think that’s why. I think it’s there to protect you and the rest of the family from that fire. Your grandfather was playing with dangerous magic, and he took pains to protect his own in case things got out of control.”
“I …” She couldn’t finish that sentence, and she couldn’t look me in the eye. “I don’t want to believe that.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. I don’t have a choice anymore, do I?”
An idea occurred to me. “You’re the one who gave the boarding school scholarship to Bill Terril’s grandson, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “I started the scholarship after the private investigator flopped. Well, after the relocation assistance flopped, too.”
“Hold on. Start over for me, please.”
She sighed and sipped her coffee. “The investigator was a waste of time. I didn’t know what to do. I knew people had to get their kids out of Hammer Bay, but how was I supposed to convince them to go? The truth sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.
“I started a relocation fund. I offered ten grand to any family with kids who wanted to move out of town. Only fourteen families signed on. This was right as Charlie’s toy company was taking off, and people thought I was trying to sabotage him. I got a lot of nasty looks, not to mention gentle lectures from concerned townspeople.
“It wasn’t enough, though. The kids … it was still happening. So I started a scholarship fund for boarding schools across the country. I wasn’t prepared for how popular that one was. I wrote checks for eighty-seven kids to go to Oregon, Massachusetts, even Canada. It’s not easy to find spots for that many kids.”
I remembered the empty house just next door to this one. “That sounds expensive.”
She still wouldn’t look up at me. “Not all of my assets are liquid. I had to scramble for some of that money, sure, but I could do more, if people were willing or if I knew what to do. I wish …”
“What? Tell me.”
“Before Daphne left town, I convinced her … actually, I paid her to get one of these.” She pointed to the iron gate on her shoulder. “I paid extra to have it copied exactly. Exactly. Daph didn’t like it, but she had already enrolled at the University of Washington and needed money. She was already leaving me.”
I knew where this was heading. “But it didn’t work.”
“No.”
There was more to casting a spell than tracing a couple of lines. If she didn’t know that, she didn’t have the spell book Annalise and I wanted to find. Hell, she might not even know it existed.
I was glad of that.
“What else could I do?” she asked. “I stay here because my family built this town. I own a good chunk of it. These families only stay because the toy factory gives them jobs. I’d firebomb the factory—hell, the whole town, if I had to—but Charlie …” She let her voice trail off.
“What? What did Charlie do?”
“He said he could fix it.”
That gave me goose bumps. “What do you mean?”
“He said he could turn the kids back into kids. He said he could cure them. He told me not to worry, that he was going to take care of it and that I didn’t need to give everything away to stop … He said a lot of things about this town and our family. But he told me to leave it to him, that he could undo it. I believe him. Do you think he can do it?”
I suddenly felt sick. Could Charlie Three undo the transformations that had struck the town’s children? If so, I’d made sure the little girl on the basketball court could never come back. If so, I’d killed her. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you can cure the Dubois brothers, can’t you? Maybe Charlie can cure all those kids.”
My fear and nausea turned into a hard little knot. I’d once tried to cure people of the predators inside them. I’d failed in the ugliest way I could imagine.
I looked into her eyes. Her face was full of hope that her problems were going to be fixed by someone else—someone with the power and authority to set things right. Mingled with that hope was the fear that she was passing the buck. I wished there was something I could do for her. “Maybe.”
“You don’t believe it, do you?”
“I won’t know what to believe until I talk to your brother.” She glanced at the phone on the wall. I shook my head. “Face-to-face.
“Do you think this is his fault? I know you do. You’re not that good a liar. But it’s not his fault. It can’t be. He would never do something like this.”
“Cynthia, his company logo has fire on it.”
“That’s not … when he was a kid, he had nightmares all the time about a burning wheel, and it … he’d wake up screaming from them.” She stopped talking and looked all over the table as if she expected to find a persuasive argument lying on it. “Can I tell you another story? About Charles?”
Hammer Bay seemed to be made of stories. “Go ahead.”
“Charles wasn’t the kind of kid to have a lot of friends, okay? He was a good kid, mostly, but it just didn’t work out for him. He did have the latest, most expensive toys, though, so a lot of kids wanted to play with him. See what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“So he had these dreams, okay? And he and a couple of the kids who played with him got the idea to roll these old car tires down the hill behind our house so they’d bounce into the trees. Being a kid and kinda dumb, Charles tried to impress everyone. He put something flammable on them—I never found out what—and set a couple on fire before he rolled it down into the woods.
“I don’t know if it was because of his dreams or if he was just being a dumb kid like every dumb kid, but he started a huge fire. Three families lost their homes, and Charles cried and cried. After that night, he became very sensitive to his place in this family. He understands what it means to be a Hammer in Hammer Bay. He put that burning wheel into the company logo to remind himself of his responsibilities. He would never do something to hurt the people in this town again. It just isn’t in him.”
“What if he thought he was doing more good than harm?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Her expression went far away for a moment, as if she was remembering something. When she looked at me again, she seemed less sure of herself. “He would never do something like this.”
“Cynthia, what if you’re wrong?”
She laid her hand over her mouth and her eyes brimmed with tears. I did not offer kind words or a gentle touch. There’s no way to comfort a person who suspects someone they love is a killer. Her secret fear had been spoken aloud, and she needed to face the naked truth of it. Or maybe I’m just a bastard.
“Is that really what’s happened?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet. But I want you to help me put a stop to this.”
She nodded. I was glad. If there was anyone who could get me close to Charles, it was her. I hoped she was ready.
The newspaper was lying on the table. I noticed the headline: TIME I DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. The subhead read: HERO MAYOR VOWS TO TAKE ON CORRUPTION IN HAMMER BAY!
“Oh, hell. That idiot!” I stood without thinking about it. “Have you read this?”
“No, I never read it. Why?”
I handed the paper to her. She glanced at the headline, then skimmed through the article. “I don’t understand. Frank Farleton is going to ‘do something’ about Emmett? From his hospital bed?”
“I need Reverend Wilson’s phone number.” I rushed to the phone and held it in my hand.
“The phone book is right in there.” Cynthia pointed at a drawer beside my hip. I pulled out the thin directory and flipped it open to W. There was only one Wilson in Hammer Bay: Wilson, Thomas. I called him.
The phone was answered by a woman who sounded elderly, probably his secretary. She seemed to be terribly upset. “He’s busy right now. He can’t come to the phone.”
“It’s an emergency. A real emergency.”
She sighed. She probably thought I was tempted by drink or that I was coveting my neighbor’s car. “Who should I tell him is calling?”
“Tell him it’s Raymond Lilly.”
I heard the phone clatter onto a desk. The wait seemed interminable.
“Hello?” he said.
“Reverend, it’s Ray Lilly. Listen—”
“Martha told me you didn’t really hold a gun on her. In fact, she was surprised when I told her you had one.” It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. “You should know,” Wilson continued in a slow, mopey tone, “that I’m composing my letter of resignation right now. It’s for the best, I think. I love her, but my congregation—”
“Hey!” I shouted into the phone. “Reverend, I don’t care. Understand? Don’t tell me about it, because it doesn’t matter. Have you seen today’s paper?”
“Uh … well, no, I haven’t.”
“The mayor’s life is in danger. Do you hear me? The mayor is going to die, if he isn’t dead already. You can save him. Are you listening?”
I wished I could read his face. His voice was flat and steady as he said: “I am.”
“This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to call four members of your congregation who own guns. They should be people with courage and faith in a reward in the next life, understand? Also, make sure none of them work for Phyllis Henstrick. You’re going to send them to the hospital. Tell them to walk in the front door with their weapons in plain view. They are to walk all the way to the mayor’s room. Two of them will stay inside the room and two will stay in the hall outside the door.”
“I don’t understand why—”
“You just told me, Reverend, that you’re listening. Are you still listening?”
“Okay. I am.”
“Get those people in position. No one, and I mean no one, is to go into the mayor’s room with a weapon.”
“Emmett Dubois is going to take a statement from Frank this afternoon—”
“Emmett is at the top of the list. If he tries to enter that room with his gun, your people are to shoot him. Understand me? This isn’t a joke. No one who works for Henstrick should get in to see him, either.”
I heard him rustle paper on his end of the line. “Lord preserve us,” he said in a low voice. “Peter Lemly has thrown a rock at the beehive. But can’t we just have Frank taken to another hospital? Emmett is—”
“We’re going to have him moved, yes, but that’s going to take time.”
“But guns in a hospital …”
“Reverend, listen to me. Last night, you could have gone out that back door. You could have slipped away from all that trouble and run. You didn’t. You stepped up and took charge. This is another opportunity for you. Dubois, Hammer, and Henstrick have been running this town into a shit hole; it’s time for you to step up and take your place. Hammer Bay needs you, and to hell with that letter you’re writing. That’s just another secret back door.”
It was a corny pitch, but I could hear Wilson’s breathing change. I had him hooked. I just needed him to follow through.
“You’re right,” he said. “Of course, you’re right. I’ll make some calls.”
We hung up.
Cynthia gaped at the newspaper. “I should have realized right away—”
I took the paper from her. “Do you have another car?” I asked. “One that doesn’t have bullets in the engine block?”
“Of course.”
The other car turned out to be an Audi TT. It was smaller than I would have liked, but I didn’t have a lot of choice.
Cynthia revved the engine. I slid the passenger seat back as far as it would go and climbed in beside her. I still had Cabot’s gun in my pocket.
“Where to?” she asked.
“The mayor’s house. You know where it is, right?”
She threw the car into gear and sped into town.
At the first red light, she turned to me. “Can I ask a stupid question?”
“Sure. I’ll bet I have a stupid answer.”
“Shouldn’t Wilson’s people have silver bullets?”
“Christ, I hope not.”
“You don’t know? What if they shoot Emmett and nothing happens? Won’t Emmett kill them?”
“I’m hoping Emmett won’t go that far into the open, but people do unexpected things when they feel cornered.”
“What about the silver? Do we have to have it?”
“I don’t know. And I’ll bet Emmett doesn’t know, either.”
The light turned green, and Cynthia peeled into the intersection. “What do you mean?”
“He’s probably never been shot with a regular bullet. I’m sure he knows all about the silver bullets and full moons and stuff, but that’s the movies. I don’t think he’d trust his life to something he saw in an old movie. I’m willing to bet he doesn’t know if he’s bulletproof.”
“Not know? How could he not know?”
“You’ve had a tattoo on your back your whole life. What can you tell me about it?”
“Um, it’s magic?”
“What’s the spell called? What does it do? Where did it come from?”
“Okay. I don’t know anything about it, except that it hurts when Charles has his seizures. But do you think Emmett is the same way? Just doing what he’s doing in the dark?”
“We’ll see.”
Cynthia swerved her car suddenly and slammed on the brakes. We skidded to a stop next to the curb. There were a lot of cars parked behind us.
“Frank and Miriam’s house is a couple doors back.”
We climbed from the car and walked toward a modest two-story house with a tidy flower garden in the front. The bay window was blocked by cream-colored drapes. It looked like a little old lady’s house. The car in the driveway was a huge Yukon that someone had painted tangerine orange.
I walked to the front door and rang the bell. Beside me, Cynthia sighed. “I’m not looking forward to this.”
The door swung open, and I found myself looking down at a little woman with steel-gray hair and a pair of cheap, safety-goggle sunglasses over her regular glasses. She shifted her position to bar my way.
Cynthia leaned toward her. “We need to speak to Miriam right away.”
“Who is it, Cassie?” a woman called. Cassie took one look at me and started to close the door.
I hit it with my fist, thumping it open.
I walked into the living room. Miriam Farleton sat on a little chair at the far end of the room. Seated all around here were seven old women, all dressed in what looked like their Sunday clothes. Cassie, at the door, made eight. Miriam’s eyes were red from crying, but her cheeks were dry. I guessed these were friends who’d come by to comfort her. Not one of them was less than thirty years her senior.
The ladies gasped as I bulled into the room, which was full of lace, delicate furniture, and little ceramic figurines. I was afraid to touch anything—I might have put a grubby manprint on it. “I’m sorry to barge in this way,” I said, “but there isn’t a lot of time.”
She didn’t respond. The woman sitting next to her struggled to her feet. She was a stocky little lady, and her hands were large and strong. She stepped between the mayor’s wife and me. “I don’t think you were invited here today,” she said, glaring at Cynthia. “Either of you.”
I tried to talk past her, acutely aware of the bullet hole in my shirt. “Have you seen today’s paper? I think your husband is in danger.”
“Threats, is it?” the stocky woman said. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call—”
“Who?” Cynthia asked. “Emmett Dubois? Emmett is going to kill Frank if you don’t let us help!”
This time the gasp from the room was followed by a lot of whispering. Great. The whole town would know what was going on by dinnertime. I turned to Miriam again and held up the newspaper. “Can we please talk privately?”
Miriam stood. “Yes.”
“Miriam,” the woman said, “you shouldn’t be alone with strangers right now.”
“Why don’t you join us, Arlene,” Miriam said. “If that’s all right?” I nodded. Arlene and Miriam led us through a swinging door.
The kitchen was pastel blue and decorated with duckling wallpaper. I wondered if there was a room somewhere in this house for Frank.
I showed the headline to Miriam and Arlene. “This,” I said, “is essentially a declaration of war against Henstrick and the Dubois brothers. Lemly put your husband’s neck in the guillotine. Yours, too.”
Miriam held the paper, skimming over the story. “Oh, Peter,” she said. She looked tired.
“What do you aim to do?” Arlene asked. I suddenly recognized her. She was the one who’d given Bill Terril a birthday card to sign in Sara’s bar—she had a grandchild at boarding school in Georgia. Small town.
“Reverend Wilson is already putting people outside Frank’s room to protect him, but that’s a short-term solution. We need to get him out of town to a place where they can’t find him. And we need to do it secretly.”
I glanced at the doorway. Miriam and Arlene followed my glance and understood. Arlene patted Miriam’s hand and started toward the door. “I’ll shut down the rumor mill for a little while. I’ll be right back.” She stepped through the door way.
Miriam looked me in the eyes. “Why don’t we call the state police,” she said quickly, “or the FBI?”
Call the cops, I thought. It wasn’t an idea that came to me naturally. “We will,” I assured her, “but that’s the long-term solution. They’re a bureaucracy and they move too slowly. Let’s get your husband to safety first, then worry about who to tell.”
“He’ll go to prison, you know,” Miriam said. I could hear Arlene reading the riot act in the next room, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. “Emmett opened an account in Frank’s name in Oregon. He’s been putting money in it every month, as though it was a payoff. Frank and I didn’t even know until Emmett sat us down and showed us a bank statement. He made it look like Frank is part of the whole thing. The FBI is going to go after my husband just as hard as they go after Emmett.”
There was a loud boom from the living room, followed by a crash of breaking glass. I charged through the double doors, almost knocking Arlene to the carpet.
The big bay window that looked out into the garden was shattered. The rod had fallen, and the drapes lay in tatters on the carpet. A woman sitting on the couch clutched at her shoulder. Blood seeped through her fingers. Another woman held her hand against the back of her head. I realized that people were screaming and that some of those screams were actually squealing tires.
Cynthia ran to the window. I pulled her away.
Arlene was examining the woman with the cut on her head. I went to the woman with a bleeding shoulder. “This isn’t too bad,” Arlene said casually, as though she’d seen much worse. “But we’ll still need to go to the emergency room.”
“This too,” I said. The woman I was examining stared at the bullet hole in my shirt and the tattoos beneath it. “Is anyone else hurt?”
I didn’t get an answer. I heard a door open. Two or three of the women, Miriam included, pushed through the doorway into the front yard.
“No!” I shouted at them. “Stay inside!”
They didn’t listen. So much for my leadership skills. I turned to Cynthia. “Organize a ride to the emergency room for these two. We have someplace to go first.”
I ran out into the yard. Miriam and her three friends stared up the street, trying to see who had fired at them.
As I came near them, I saw a long white van drive up from the other direction. The black barrel of a shotgun protruded from the back window. It pointed at Miriam.
I shouted at them to get down, but she and her friends simply stared at the van in bewilderment. They were as still as paper targets.
I was too far away from the van to use my ghost knife, but Cabot’s gun was still in my pocket. I jammed my hand inside and wrenched it up. The hammer caught on my jacket, tangling the gun.
I had already lost my chance. The shotgun had her in its sights. She was not going to survive.
But the weapon never fired. The van passed us, then squealed away down the road.
I couldn’t figure it out. Was this just a warning, or had someone lost their nerve? I hoped it was the latter; it would restore my faith in humanity a little to know that there were people out there who couldn’t shoot a bunch of women in cold blood.
I dropped the gun back into my pocket and ran to Miriam. She looked shocked.
“He didn’t shoot,” she said, sounding amazed. “I looked right into the barrel of that gun and I prayed it wouldn’t hurt too much, but—”
“Would you get back inside, please?” I couldn’t keep the annoyance out of my voice.
That startled her. She and the other women turned and bustled back to the house. I watched for the return of the van and saw something small rolling in the street. I ran toward it, keeping an eye out for vehicles.
It was a yellow hard hat. The name “benny” was written in all lowercase letters on the inside lining. I sprinted back into the house.
Arlene was organizing the others into their cars. She had a brisk honesty that I liked. “These two will be all right,” she told me as I entered. “Vera is going to drive them to the hospital to be checked up, but I think they’re more frightened than anything.”
“I found it in the street. It must have come from the van.”
A little woman I hadn’t spoken to yet grabbed my wrist and looked at the lining. “That belongs to my little brother, Benjamin.”
There was a general expression of astonishment. Arlene came over to us. “Vera, do you think he shot at us?”
Vera scowled down at the hard hat. “He’s always losing things. I knew he was in debt to that damn casino, but I never thought he’d go this far, or that Phyllis would ask him to.”
“We don’t know who was behind that shooting,” I said, “so don’t start rumors. Now let’s go. Vera, you’re taking the injured to the hospital, right? Cynthia and I will take Mrs. Farleton there in a bit. We have a stop to make.”
“I’m going with you,” Arlene said. She had a stubborn look in her eye.
“There isn’t room,” I told her.
“My car can squeeze in four,” Cynthia said.
“I know,” I told her.
“I’m going,” Arlene said.
“She is, or I’m not,” Miriam said.
I threw my hands into the air. How could I argue with these people?
I took the gun from my pocket. One of the women gasped, and I felt a little twist of nausea at her fear. I led Vera and the other women to Vera’s station wagon, where they all squeezed in beside one another. As they pulled away, I imagined Luke Dubois sneaking through Miriam’s back door and killing them all while I was out front. I ran back to the house and found them waiting for me.
I stood facing Miriam. I had her full attention. “Your husband seems like a good man. Do you love him?”
“What about all this?” I waved at the house, the furnishings, everything. “Do you love all this, too? Because it’s time to choose.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s time for you and your husband to get out. You’re going to have to leave a lot behind. Artwork, knickknacks, all sorts of stuff.”
“I can do that,” she said. “Staring down the barrel of a shotgun clarifies things.”
“Get your financial stuff,” I said. “Bank records, credit-card papers, mortgage papers, insurance stuff, what ever. And get photo albums and old love letters, too. Everything else you should leave behind. Expect it to be burned to the ground before you get back.”
She nodded and hurried up the stairs. Arlene started to follow her, but I caught her arm. “I have two questions for you: Do you have a reliable car? And if so, can she borrow it? They can’t run away in a tangerine Yukon.”
“Yes,” Arlene said. “Yes, of course.” She went off to help Miriam.
Cynthia and I stood in the living room. She smiled at me and squeezed my hand. I took a deep breath and relaxed. I was glad that she was helping me. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to cut the iron gate off of her, or worse.
Within five minutes, Miriam came back downstairs with a banker’s box in her arms. On top of that was an old leather-bound Bible. “I’m ready.”
“We’ll put them in the back of Arlene’s car. Arlene, we’ll meet you at the hospital. Ready?”
We went out the front door and loaded up the back of Arlene’s Forester. While Miriam pushed the box into place, Arlene tapped my elbow. “Who are you?”
“Raymond Lilly.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question.”
“I’m aware of that.” Miriam shut the hatch. “Go quickly, please.”
Arlene climbed in behind the wheel and pulled away. I made Miriam get into the backseat of the Audi and stay low. I felt silly rushing around like movie spies, but being shot at changes things.
“Where to now?” Cynthia asked.
“We need Annalise.”
“Your place, then.” She pulled away from the curb, and we drove quietly for a few blocks.
Miriam broke the silence. “Do you think Phyllis tried to have me killed?”
“I’m not convinced it was her. The hard hat was a little too obvious. And from what I’ve seen, her guys all carry the same snub-nosed .38.”
“I heard she got a deal on them because she bought in bulk,” Cynthia said. “She’s a real cheapskate.”
“But it was her sort of van,” Miriam said. “And I’m sure some of her men have guns of their own at home.”
I knew how easily a vehicle could be stolen. “It’s pointless to speculate. What matters is that we get you and your husband to safety.”
Five minutes later we had arrived at the motel. My room had been tossed and all of my clothes torn to shreds. I would have to make do with the bullet-hole shirt for a while longer. My detective novel had been destroyed, too. Bastards. Now I wouldn’t find out who the killer was.
Annalise’s room was empty, but it had also been tossed, and everything in it torn apart. Miriam peered over my shoulder into the room. “Mercy,” she said. “Do you think something has happened to her?”
“I’m not worried about her,” I said. “I’m worried about us.”
The van was gone, too. I wished she had given me a damn cell number I could use. I needed her, and I had no idea where she was or what she was up to.
Cynthia tugged on my sleeve. “Are we done here?”
I could have asked the manager where she’d gone, but I didn’t trust him to give an honest answer.
I was on my own.