seventeen

The wipers were at their highest setting but still they battled the rain sheeting down the Jeep’s windshield. Death leaned forward, trying to see out. Randy, clutching the chicken grip, cracked his window and craned his neck. Their breaths were fogging up the inside of the glass, but with the window down, the rain driving into his eyes nearly blinded him as well.

“Man, can you see at all?” he asked.

“Hardly. Help me watch.”

“I am. Okay, the road’s coming up. You’re almost there. Turn now.”

Death eased a right turn onto the gravel. The road leading to the vet’s camp was narrow and rough, but the trees lining both sides gave them a windbreak and the rain lessened enough that he could turn the wipers down a notch and still have improved visibility.

Lightning flashed almost continuously, painting fleeting, grotesque pictures of the sodden landscape. They climbed a hill, the ditches on both sides running like creeks, and passed the carcass of the abandoned church on their right. Another fifty yards and a long series of lightning bolts showed them the gravedigger’s angel.

She—Agathe—looked almost alive in the dancing white light. She peered out at them, across the underbrush and across the decades, in windblown robes. She held her hair out of her eyes and offered them a ladle dripping with rainwater; victim of the War To End All Wars, reaching out to a soldier of the war that came a hundred years on.

The road dipped down again, crossed a culvert where the stream had risen nearly to the surface of the gravel, and they came at last to the driveway into the camp.

The driveway curved before it crossed the little bridge over the gully. Death eased the Jeep down and around it, through a shallow, puddle-filled dip in the road and out into the gravel parking area. The lights were on in the Robinsons’ cabin and in the barn and he could see, in the stormlight, horses and humans running in the pasture beyond.

Death and Randy went through the barn and found Nichelle, dripping, in the paddock arguing with Kurt.

“It’s okay,” she shouted over the wind and the rain. “They’ll be fine!”

“Just stay here while I get the others!”

Sugar and a little roan mare were in the paddock, still saddled. Three other horses ran in the pasture, wild with the lightning. To Death, they seemed more energized by the storm than frightened of it.

Kurt had run back out, calling to them. The Bogart brothers turned to Nichelle.

“What’s going on?”

She shrugged helplessly, turning up her palms to the sky.

“We went out for a ride in the rain. It was peaceful, you know? We didn’t realize a storm was coming up. We were clear over by the river when it got bad. Thunder and lightning, they freak Kurt out. He feels like we’re under fire and he’s not happy until everyone is safe under cover. We rode home as fast as we could, and now he’s trying to get the rest of the horses in out of the weather.”

“We can help,” Randy said.

Robinson was coming back, leading two prancing mares. He walked between them, his hands tangled in their wet manes, and Randy hurried to open the barn door so he could take them inside.

Death went out into the pasture, where one horse remained. He recognized her as Leia, a paint filly he’d petted when they were out the day before. She wasn’t saddle broke yet, and was too young for an adult to ride, in any case. A beautiful animal, she was going to be a show-stopper some day. Water dripped off her mane and tail and off Death’s nose and the near-constant lightning created a disco effect.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “Let’s get inside, out of this storm.”

She butted him playfully and pranced away. He had just gotten hold of her, her wet mane tough and wiry in his grip, when a massive bolt of lightning struck on the hill above and the thunder washed across the valley. Leia jumped and tried to run, her eyes rolling in terror, nearly pulling his arm out of the socket. And then Robinson was there on her other side, and between the two of them they were able to coax her back to the paddock and the safety of the old barn.

Nichelle followed them in, leading Sugar and his mate, still saddled. Death closed the door. Outside, the storm raged on, muted but hardly silenced by the thin barn walls.

Kurt Robinson was still on edge, bustling around trying to take care of everyone at once. To the right of the paddock door, opposite the stalls, there was a desk with a hanging light over it and a chest of drawers. He went to the chest and started pulling out towels and tossing them at the other three.

“Here. Get dried off. You’re dripping wet. Randy, can you help me rub the horses down? Sit down, sweetheart, I know your leg’s hurting. Death, you need to get out of those wet clothes. Go ahead and strip down and I’ll get you a blanket to wrap up in until we can find you something else to wear.”

Death blinked. “You want me to just take my clothes off ? Right here?”

“Yeah, man. With your lungs the way they are, the last thing you need is to wind up with pneumonia. What? You’re a Marine. You mean to tell me you’re shy?”

“It’s just a little rainwater. I’m fine. You’re fine, Nichelle’s fine, Randy’s fine. The horses are fine. Just calm down and breathe for a minute.”

Nichelle and Randy were putting the other horses in stalls, draping rough blankets over their backs and making sure they had food and water.

“Dry off yourself,” Nichelle told her husband. “Randy can help me get these guys settled. Can’t you, sweetie?”

“Glad to help,” Randy agreed. “What else do we need to do? These other two horses need their saddles and stuff off ?”

Sugar and the mare were still out in the common area. There were two empty stalls waiting for them, but one of those was the one from which Sugar had been taken by the drunk in the dead man’s uniform. Both animals were staying well away from that part of the barn.

“Yeah. Here, we’ll start with Sheila. I’ll show you what to do.”

“But—” Robinson protested.

“But nothing. Just sit down and take it easy now.”

While Nichelle and Randy worked to rid the mare of her tack, Death went back to the other door, cracked it open, and peered out across the dark parking area and toward the road beyond.

“What are you looking for?” Kurt asked. “What’s the matter?”

There was no one in sight, and no sign of headlights on the driveway or up on the road. Death held up a hand for silence and listened, but he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the rain beating on the barn’s tin roof.

“I was looking to see if there was any sign of a police car,” he said. “Deputy Jackson is supposed to be on his way out.”

He turned back to find the Robinsons staring at him, wide-eyed and wary.

“I know where August Jones’ cell phone is,” he told them. “I know where it is and how it got there.”

_____

Wren toed off her left shoe, leaned down to pull her sock off, and then stuck her bare foot back into the wet sneaker. She was standing next to the pool table, and she reached down into the corner pocket, took out a pool ball, shoved it into her sock, and tied the top of the sock to make a cosh. It occurred to her that she was ruining a perfectly good sock, but that, at the moment, was the least of her worries.

The pool cues were in a holder on the wall and she crossed the floor carefully, avoiding the random boxes full of games and things that she had stacked there earlier, ready for auction. There had been no further sounds from within the dark house since she’d heard breaking glass. She wanted to think it was a coincidence, a windblown tree branch shattering an aged window pane. She didn’t believe it for a minute, though.

Someone had taken her spark plug wires. Now they, whoever that person was, were here, inside the dark house with her, stalking her under cover of night.

She considered the room she was in, trying to remember the layout and examining and discarding her options for hiding places. There were no closets in this old house, none at all. It had been built at a time when closets were taxed, so people had relied on chests and wardrobes instead.

There was a trunk in the room. She’d been admiring it earlier. It was carved from cherry wood and served a dual purpose as a coffee table and a storage place for vintage jigsaw puzzles. It wasn’t nearly big enough to hold a human, though. The liquor cabinet had a glass front and was, in any case, still filled with liquor.

It occurred to her that she could make Molotov cocktails, but she couldn’t think of a single scenario, given her current situation, where that would be anything but a terrible idea.

Otherwise, there was nowhere to hide except for behind or beneath the pool table. Either place would be obvious to anyone coming in. Neither would offer more than minimal cover if the intruder was armed, and hiding under the table would hamper her own ability to maneuver.

From somewhere in the depths of the house there came a light thunk, as of a cabinet door closing.

A pair of sturdy side tables flanked the door of the game room and Wren turned her attention to them. Climbing on a table would put her at an unexpected level and perhaps give her an edge. Plus, being just inside the door would allow her to strike at someone as soon as they came in.

The door opened inward, so waiting on the hinge side meant she would be hidden behind it when it opened. The open door would keep her from striking immediately, though, and anyone with an ounce of sense would check behind the door first thing, weapon at the ready.

A door opened and closed nearby and she could hear someone moving through the morning room next door. They were searching, opening drawers and dumping out her carefully packed boxes. They weren’t even trying to be quiet.

Wren pocketed her useless phone and the charger and climbed up on the table next to the door. She stood with her cosh in her left hand and the pool cue in her right. Her back was against the wall.

The footsteps left the morning room and crossed to the study. She could hear them searching in there, dumping things out and throwing things around. The intruder seemed angry. When they left the study, they slammed the door behind them. The vibrations travelled through the walls and shivered up her back. A heavy tread approached the game room. Yellow light showed under the crack in the door, casting a fleeting beam across the faded rose carpet.

They were so close, Wren could feel their presence. The doorknob jiggled and turned and a tall, gaunt man came in. He held a flashlight in his left hand and a gun in his right.

The light, after the darkness, made Wren’s eyes water. From her odd, high angle, his features were a sharp silhouette against the glare. She didn’t recognize him, though she felt she would if only she could see him properly. She was to his left, so his gun hand was on the other side. He’d have to turn and point it across his body to aim at her.

She leaned down and struck swiftly, before he had time to register that she was there. She swung the cosh at his right hand, as hard as she could, catching him in the meaty part of his palm and forcing his arm to fly out and hit the solid old door.

The gun went off as it flew out of his hand, skittering away among the confusion of boxes. A sound of breaking glass and a glugging, dripping noise suggested that the bullet had lodged somewhere in the liquor cabinet.

The cosh, on the rebound, caught the tip of the flashlight and broke the lens, plunging the room back into sudden darkness. The intruder was bent forward and hunched slightly by the force of Wren’s attack, and before he could straighten up, she struck again. She swung the pool cue down with all her strength, aiming for his head, but she managed only a glancing blow that caused him to stagger but did not fell him.

She swung it a second time, holding it vertical this time and striking him between the shoulder blades with the butt of the cue. He fell forward and scrambled awkwardly away from her, into the room. She jumped down and bolted into the hall, still carrying her weapons and pulling the door closed behind her.