Kit tucked the ragged scrap of silk into his breast pocket and passed the cup of tea back to me.
“I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance of persuading you to call in the police,” he said resignedly.
“Not the slightest,” I assured him. “I’ve had a hard enough time getting you to believe me. Can you imagine what a desk sergeant would say if I told him that a pseudovampire was stalking my sons?”
“You’re wasting police time, madam,” Kit intoned in a ponderous rumble.
“Something like that,” I said. “Then he’d remember the newspaper stories about Abaddon shooting me in Scotland, and he’d treat me like a crazy woman who sees stalkers hiding around every corner. He’d probably send me off to see a shrink.” I shook my head. “Sorry, Kit, but it’s up to us to find Rendor—if you’re still willing to help me, that is.”
“Do you really think I’d back out now?” Kit asked, reverting to his natural voice. “It’s my fault he’s still at large, Lori. I was careless on Sunday. I should have been more thorough when I checked out the boys’ story, but I’ve been…distracted lately.”
I thought I knew what was distracting Kit, but I decided to make sure.
“It can’t be easy for you,” I said casually, “having so many new employees to manage.”
“They’re hard workers,” he allowed, “which is surprising when you consider their backgrounds. They all come from well-to-do families, you know. None of them need to work.”
“Even rich boys will get their hands dirty when they have the right motivation.” I swirled the tea gently in the cup. “Annelise seems to think they’re trying to impress Nell.”
“Yes, well…It’s understandable, isn’t it? Nell is…” Kit’s gaze turned inward as his voice trailed off. He stared hollow-eyed at nothing for a few seconds, then shook his head as if to clear it and got to his feet. “Don’t move, Lori. Stay here with the packs and finish your tea. I’m going to prove to you that my tracking skills aren’t as rusty as you think.”
I could almost see Nell’s image dissolve mistily in midair as Kit tore his mind away from her and focused it on the task of tracking Rendor. It’s a start, I told myself contentedly. Next time I’ll mention how good-looking and well built the new stable hands are. Then I’ll wonder aloud why so many strong, handsome, hardworking, filthy-rich, and utterly besotted young men have failed to make so much as an inch of headway with Nell. That would give Kit something to think about.
While I was busy sipping tea and scheming, Kit was searching the cemetery for more clues. Now that his heart was in it, he was as single-minded as a bloodhound. He began at the stone bench and worked his way outward in ever-widening circles, bending frequently to touch a blade of grass or a vagrant twig. He seemed to take a great deal of interest in a clump of wild geraniums at the clearing’s northern edge. After crouching over it for some time, he called out that he would be right back and disappeared into the woods.
I was about to call Annelise, to tell her not to put lunch on hold for me, when my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my breast pocket, saw my husband’s name and number on the little screen, and reminded myself that he’d be much better off not knowing about my vampire hunt.
“Hi, Bill,” I said cheerily. “How’s the work on the Shuttleworth bequest coming along?”
“It’s like herding cats,” he said dismally. “Every time we lasso one clause, another three start yowling for attention.”
“I hope you’re not going to take out your frustrations on Stanley when you get home,” I said. “He worships you.”
“Stanley worships his food bowl,” Bill stated flatly. “As far as he’s concerned, I’m just a warm lap.”
“But you’re his warm lap,” I said, laughing.
Bill managed a weak chuckle, then said, “Enough about me. What are you up to?”
“I’m relieving Kit of his boredom,” I replied. “Emma ordered him to take a few days off, and he didn’t know what to do with himself, so I’ve taken him out for a hike.”
“In this weather?” said Bill. “How charitable of you.”
“Not entirely,” I admitted. “I have an ulterior motive.”
“I thought you might.” Bill sighed. “Go ahead, tell me the worst.”
Bill hadn’t heard about the situation at the stables, so I told him about Nell’s herd of young stallions, then outlined my campaign to show Kit the error of his ways and help him achieve his heart’s desire.
“I wish you luck,” said Bill when I’d finished. “Kit’s dug his heels in pretty deeply when it comes to Nell, but if anyone can budge him, you can. Where is he, by the way? He can’t be within earshot, or you wouldn’t be talking about him so freely.”
“He’s…hunting for wild mushrooms,” I said, because, I told myself, it could be true—Kit might find a mushroom or two trodden underfoot by Rendor—but I felt a stab of guilt nonetheless and hurriedly changed the subject. “Did you know that there’s a pet cemetery on Emma’s Hill?”
“I did not,” said Bill.
“I’m sitting in it right now,” I told him. “It looks as though it’s been here for ages. Some of the headstones are so old you can hardly read the inscriptions.”
“A problem foreseen by Mrs. Shuttleworth,” Bill said dryly. “She left instructions for us to set up a special fund to pay for the construction of a cat mausoleum. I won’t be surprised if it’s air-conditioned. Listen, Lori, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to touch base. I’m glad to hear that you’re having a better day than I am.”
“It’s just about purr-fect,” I agreed.
Bill groaned, promised to call again in the evening, and rang off, but I kept the cell phone out to call Annelise.
“You’re missing the boys’ lesson,” she informed me.
I clapped a hand to my forehead. I’d completely forgotten to attend the boys’ riding class as part of my cover story.
“Whoops,” I said. “Are they very disappointed?”
“Not at all,” said Annelise. “They think you’re hiding in the manor house because you’re afraid—”
“Of horses, yes, I know what they think,” I broke in, bridling. “Well, I’m not hiding in the manor house. I’m up on Emma’s Hill, hiking with Kit. I’m helping him to enjoy his time off.”
“If I had a day off, I’d spend it near a roaring fire instead of tramping through the woods,” said Annelise, “but I expect Kit wanted to get away from the stables.”
“I expect so,” I said. If Annelise was inclined to believe that Kit had come with me because he couldn’t stand watching the new stable hands drool over Nell, I wasn’t going to argue with her. “At any rate, don’t wait for me after the boys’ lessons. Just give them lunch and take them to school as usual. If it looks as though I’ll miss dinner, I’ll let you know.”
“How will you get home?” she asked.
“I’ll cadge a lift from Kit or Emma,” I said.
“Good,” said Annelise. “I’m going to do some shopping after I drop the boys off at Morningside, so I’ll stay in town until they’re ready to come home.”
“Have a good time,” I told her, and rang off.
I slipped the cell phone into my pocket and finished drinking the tea. I’d just returned the insulated flask to Kit’s pack when he strode into the clearing, looking both pleased and rather ashamed of himself.
“I should never have doubted you or the twins, Lori,” he called as he crossed to the stone bench. “Someone has passed this way. Come along—I’ve lots to show you.”
We donned our packs and headed into the woods, walking away from Anscombe Manor and toward the cleft between Emma’s Hill and the unnamed hill to the north, still following the level shelf we’d been following since we’d left the apple tree. We hadn’t gone far when I spotted a neon-orange plastic ribbon tied to a short length of stiff wire protruding from the ground beneath a fountain of damp brown bracken.
I pointed to the eye-catching ribbon. “Rendor didn’t leave a calling card for us to find, did he?”
“It’s mine,” Kit informed me. “I always carry a pocketful of flags with me. I use them to mark protected species of wildflowers, so Emma can find and photograph them when she has the time. Fortunately, they work just as well for footprints.”
When we reached the neon-orange flag, Kit pushed the withered bracken aside to reveal the unmistakable print of a long, narrow, pointy-toed boot.
“The bracken kept the print from being washed away by the rain,” he explained. “You can still see where Rendor bent a few fronds in passing.”
I gave a low whistle. “So I was right. I did find a footprint back at the apple tree.”
“You certainly did. And it was made by the same boot that made the print you see here. The toe marks are identical.” Kit plucked the flag from the ground and put it in his pocket.
“Good idea,” I said. “If Rendor comes back this way, we don’t want him to know we’re trailing him.”
Kit glanced over his shoulder, toward the pet cemetery, then let his gaze roam up and down the hill, as if he were taking stock of the terrain.
“This is the route I’d take,” he said, “if I wanted to move quickly without being seen. It’s not an established trail, so I’d run little risk of meeting anyone. The footing’s not bad, and there’s plenty of cover. I’d be far less exposed here than I would be along the ridgeline.”
“So I was right about that, too,” I said happily. “Rendor was sneaking around in the woods.”
“He was certainly behaving in a suspicious manner,” Kit conceded, and took off again. “Come along. I found more traces up ahead. I may be mistaken, of course, but I think I know where Rendor was going.”
We moved on, pausing every few yards to examine the telltale signs Kit had marked with his flags—a broken branch, a crushed plant, a partial boot print. If he wanted to impress me with his tracking skills, he succeeded. It would have taken me a month to find half the clues he’d discovered in just over an hour.
Gradually the shelf began to curve around the shoulder of Emma’s Hill, becoming narrower and narrower until it petered out completely on a ledge that overlooked the river valley to the east.
“I stopped here to go back and fetch you,” Kit explained, bending to pull the last flag from the ground. “If I’d continued to follow Rendor’s tracks, I’m almost certain that I would have ended up down there.”
He drew a wavering line through the air to indicate a sketchy trail that wound downward from the ledge and vanished in a dense grove of trees extending from the bottom of the hill outward into the valley.
“What’s down there?” I asked.
“Aldercot Hall,” he replied. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s nestled in among those plane trees.”
“Aldercot Hall?” I said, peering curiously at the stand of trees he’d indicated. “I thought I knew our neighborhood pretty well, but I’ve never heard of Aldercot Hall. Who lives there?”
“The DuCaral family,” said Kit.
“I thought I knew my neighbors pretty well, too,” I said, chagrined. “Why haven’t I heard of the DuCarals?”
“They live in the wrong valley,” said Kit, smiling. “You’re familiar with the families on the other side of the hill, the families in and around Finch, and they tend to be a bit parochial. As far as they’re concerned, Aldercot Hall might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Apart from that, the DuCarals like their privacy. They don’t go out of their way to mix with their neighbors.”
“If Rendor’s gone there, the family might be in trouble,” I said. “He might be holding them hostage or…worse.”
“I doubt it,” said Kit. “From what I’ve heard—” He broke off suddenly, turned away from the valley, and sniffed the air.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Look,” he said, jutting his chin toward the forest. “Smoke.”
I followed his gaze and saw a thin column of smoke rising above the canopy of trees.
“Good grief,” I said, astonished. “How could anything burn in this weather?”
“I don’t think it’s a wildfire,” said Kit. “It looks to me as though someone’s camping in Gypsy Hollow. Perhaps I read the tracks incorrectly, Lori.”
I gazed up at him, wide-eyed. “Do you think it might be Rendor?”
“It might be,” said Kit, “but leave your stake in your pack for now. We have some rough going ahead of us. I don’t want you impaling yourself—or me—if you stumble.”
I grinned ruefully, but my pulse was racing as we began our descent into Gypsy Hollow.