Johnathan froze, uncertain how to react. Alyse Shaw blinked at them, her confusion clear. The sleepiness quickly evaporated from her expression. A frown creased her brow as her surprisingly sharp gaze roved over his travel-worn appearance.
“Has something happened?” She addressed the question to Vic, who rocked back on his heels.
There was a giggle from across the room. Their presence appeared to have summoned Pastor Shaw’s full gaggle of children. A small cluster of boys and girls, varying in age, huddled in their night clothes around their open bedroom door.
Alyse’s frown switched to the children, centering on the oldest girl. “Maddy, get them back in the room,” she snapped.
The distraction gave Vic a chance to collect himself.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you. There was another murder. We believed you were the victim.” Vic blurted the words, his cool demeanor still thrown off balance. “It is clear there was a mistake.”
He gave a short bow to the stunned Pastor Shaw and turned, marching out of the house without another word. Johnathan caught the glance of confusion between father and daughter, though he was at a loss if he should attempt to explain the situation or complete their awkward exit.
Alyse Shaw rescued him from the ledge of bad manners.
“Pick your jaw off the floor and go,” she said. “I’ll get the story from Vic later.”
“You most certainly will not,” snapped Paster Shaw. Johnathan took that as his cue to leave, unwilling to involve himself in a family matter.
The door closed with a muted click behind him. Johnathan looked up to find Vic leaning against the carriage, his shoulders heaving. An odd tension crackled in the air between them when Vic slammed a fist against the side of the coach, hard enough for the wood to crack.
Johnathan silently gauged the thickness of the wood against the strength of a distraught man, but he climbed past Vic into the carriage, too tired to give proper weight to any misgivings or doubts. Dr. Evans’ admonishments echoed through his head as he settled into the seat. Vic clambered up beside him.
The coach traveled in pregnant silence. Johnathan was wide awake now, and after their encounter with a living, breathing Alyse Shaw, his mind spun with the image of her very deceased doppelganger. He didn’t fault the assembled townsfolk or Vic for the mistaken identity. The women could have been twins.
His gaze slid to Vic who sat stone-faced, his jaw flexing as he fought to control his temper. Vic’s countenance had been a pantomime of emotions when she appeared in the hall, his naked relief and shock followed by a brief yet fierce longing that seemed far too intimate for witnesses. Johnathan swore that if he and Pastor Shaw had not been present, the reunion would’ve been far more physical than Vic’s pining stare at the sleepy, confused Alyse.
Johnathan didn’t want to be the first to speak. He didn’t possess the right reactions for moments like these, painfully aware what he lacked in the department of human interaction. He knew the words that weighed down his tongue would be entirely inappropriate, his mindset far and away from the intimacy of lovers. He reached into his pocket to occupy himself, his skin cold and numb from the claw. He took it out to examine it as much as to relieve the pain of the biting aura it expelled.
Silence lent fluidity to time. The sky had subtly lightened during their long drive to Vic’s property, the first hint of the coming day, though dawn was still an hour or so away. There wasn’t enough light to read Vic’s conflicted features now, and Johnathan found he could no longer take the quiet.
“Are you angry Miss Shaw is alive?” he asked.
Vic startled at his words, but he managed not to jerk on the reins of the placid mare, who clearly followed a familiar route home. “What are you on about?”
Johnathan raised a brow. “You put a fist through your fine carriage, sir.”
“Back to sir?” The apparent amusement in Vic’s voice threw Johnathan. “I’m not angry she is alive, John. I’m angered at my relief. A family lost their daughter tonight, and I allowed my relief that it wasn’t Alyse to take precedence. Call it shame, if you will.”
He stared at the other man, surprised and cowed by his answer. In the confusion of mistaken identity, he, too, set aside the reality of the dead woman. Someone’s daughter, a lost child, torn to shreds, left exposed and alone on the street.
“Who was the other girl?” he asked.
Vic’s jaw flexed. “I don’t know.”
Johnathan fiddled with the claw, end over end between his fingers. “She looked exactly like Alyse Shaw.”
“The resemblance was rather striking,” Vic responded, his tone dry as dust.
“I wonder if the killer thought it was her,” said Johnathan. That time, Vic did jerk on the reins. The poor mare drew up with an indignant grunt.
“Sorry, Bess,” Vic murmured. His gray gaze lit on Johnathan with an unreadable expression. “I feel you are driving to a point, John. It’s been a long night, so forgive me if I don’t follow.”
“Is there anyone else in Cress Haven who looks like Alyse Shaw?”
Vic’s jaw flexed. “No. There isn’t.”
“Am I mistaken in my assumption this is a small community? Enough that you would know for certain?”
“I know every citizen who has settled in this town for the past five years I have lived here.” Vic looked over the road. “You believe Alyse was the intended target, regardless of the mistaken identity.”
Johnathan gnawed on the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he’d picked up from younger days. “Were the victims all young women?” This was what the dossier stated, but he needed to be sure, and the asking helped him maintain the appearance of an inquisitive newcomer.
Vic’s nostrils flared. His gaze slid to Johnathan and back to the road with a thoughtful flicker in the shadows of his face. “Three women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. Tonight marks the fourth.”
Johnathan frowned. “Were there any discerning features between them?”
“You look young, but you speak like a Bostonian detective,” said Vic. “Were you sent here?”
Vic’s tone was casual, but Johnathan’s cheeks burned. He’d overstepped, and he knew it. As he internally debated how much to reveal to his generous host, a sound caught his attention. A sound that wasn’t a sound.
An absence of sound.
Johnathan turned to the woods on their left, facing away from Vic. A prickling sensation slid along his skin, like a snake slithering over his bare flesh. He was being watched. This time, he was certain.
He searched back and forth through the shadows of trees.
There. His gaze snapped to a figure crouched between the tree trunks.
A set of eyes flared like crimson flame.
Johnathan’s gaze widened. His pulse pounded between his ears, a frantic hard thump that drowned out his other senses. He was an insect pinned down, his defenses stripped bare. There was a mental caress of claws, a violent promise whispered in his mind. The icy claw tore into the palm of his hand.
Johnathan yelped and clutched at his wrist as the claw landed on the carriage floor with a weighted thump. The pain was immediate, a spike of agony so intense his vision blanked. The awful roar of his heartbeat quickened to a thrumming flutter, fragile as moth wings in flight. His breath drew short at such a harsh sensation, caught off guard by its severity. He’d received bullet wounds on training missions that were less painful.
Vic swore and drew his mare up short. He yanked a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.
“How the hell did you manage this?” Vic guided Johnathan’s hand into his lap.
That touch was a momentary distraction that caused Johnathan’s racing pulse to jump. He found his gaze drawn to Vic’s long, elegant fingers carefully assessing the wound.
Vic frowned. “What the devil…” His words trailed off as he gently flexed Johnathan’s palm.
His reaction forced Johnathan to refocus his attention to the throbbing hurt in his hand. The puncture mark was clear, the flesh ice white at the edges, but to the shock of both men, the wound didn’t bleed, not a drop. The pain rapidly faded to an insistent ache. Johnathan forced more air into his lungs.
“The devil indeed,” Johnathan murmured. His gaze flitted back to the tree line, but the figure was gone.