Deadly Harvest (24 page)

Rowenna grinned. “And I care about both of you, you know that. But it sounds as if maybe you two should see a marriage counselor.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “But if she comes to you about me, please, let her know how much I love her.”

“Of course,” she promised.

Adam had stopped walking. They were at the corner and the hotel was just across the street.

“I'll watch you go in, then go back for Eve,” he said.

“Thanks,” she told him. “It's—it's okay. There's a doorman outside. I'll be fine. You go on.”

“I'm watching till you're inside,” he told her. “So don't waste time arguing with me.”

The light changed, and a car stopped right in front of her, with another car stopping behind it. Suddenly there seemed to be people everywhere.

Some were even gathered around one of the hotel's front windows, reading the same missing persons poster that was up all over town.

The murmur of life was all around her.

She felt embarrassed. The fear that had sent her racing through the dark earlier seemed foolish, the curse of having too much imagination.

She squared her shoulders, smoothed back her hair and crossed the street. Just as she reached for the door to the bar, Jeremy came bursting out, a frown deeply etched between his brows. It eased the second he saw her.

He gripped her shoulders and pulled her close for a moment. She smelled the rich leather of his jacket, sensed the vibrant tension in his body, and she felt a bit like melting. It was too good. Too good to be true…

No, it was horrible. He was only here because his friend had disappeared and another woman was dead.

Still, for the moment, he was tall, handsome, solid and, most of all, real, so she smiled, determined
never
to tell him that she'd thought she was being chased by an evil shadow and had run into the cemetery to avoid it. He wouldn't understand. He
couldn't
understand. Real was real to him. The imagination was…suspect.

Yet he sleepwalked and talked to people who were only there in his dreams.

“Sorry, I got worried when you didn't show up,” he told her.

She smiled, and kept that smile plastered to her face.

She knew she should tell him the truth, even if he thought she was ridiculous. And anyway, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would want to comb the streets, looking for whoever might have been terrorizing her.

It was too late, though. If anyone really had been chasing her—if it hadn't just been the combination of darkness, the blown streetlamp and her nightmares preying on her mind—he was long gone by now.

Maybe sitting in some bar already, swilling down a beer.

“Sorry,” she told him. “Adam and Eve were just closing up, and she came out to chat. I knew you'd be worried. I should have extricated myself a bit faster.”

He held the door, and she stepped inside ahead of him. She recognized Eric Rolfe—thinner now, but still clearly the same guy she had known in high school—immediately and hurried over to say hi. He recognized her, too, and rose and gave her a big bear hug. Then he stepped back, and she saw him looking over her shoulder.

At Jeremy.

“Your friend thinks I'm a murderer. He doesn't like my masks,” he whispered.

Rowenna glanced back at Jeremy. To all outward appearances, he looked casual, just a guy out for a drink with friends, but she already knew him too well to be fooled. She could almost see the tension radiating from him and filling the air. He really didn't trust Eric, she realized.

She wanted to tell him that she'd known Eric since she was a kid.

Then again, she had grown up here. She'd known a lot of the locals since she'd been a kid.

And their killer was a local, she thought, then shivered.

Jeremy's phone rang. He waved at her to excuse himself and stepped through a side door into the hotel lobby.

Eric followed Jeremy's progress, then looked down into Rowenna's eyes. “Great timing on my part, huh? No sooner do I come back into town, bringing my masks with me, than a woman gets murdered and staked out in a cornfield right near my house. But come on. You know me. How can anyone see me as a killer?”

“Eric, I'm pretty sure they're talking to a lot of people,” she said. “And Jeremy's a good guy. Really.”

He rolled his eyes, then grinned at her. “He's good-looking, I'll give you that.”

She laughed.

“You two an item?”

“Yes.” She could feel herself blushing. Talk about ridiculous…

“Good. He looks like the protective type. Not a bad thing, what with everything going on around here. I bet he's good with a gun,” he said speculatively.

“He is, and he also plays the guitar,” Rowenna said.

Eric laughed. “Sorry, I just find that a little hard to picture. He's a pretty scary guy, if you want to know the truth.” He dropped his voice. “Not like me. I needed my scarecrows back in high school because most of the guys thought I was a fag. I had to scare them somehow.”

“So how are you doing
now?
” she asked him with a smile. “I haven't seen you in ages. Hollywood treating you well?”

He laughed. “It is, actually. I'm on an A-list for effects guys. I get paid really well to be my creepy self.” He grinned. “Not to make light of that fifty bucks I won for best scarecrow or anything. How about you? I've seen your name on the bestseller list. We've both made it. Cool, huh?”

She smiled. “Well, there's high school, and then there's real life.”

“Ain't that the truth?” he said, and winked. “Have a seat. I want to check out your boyfriend's artistic side.”

“Oh, Eric, I don't think—”

“Sit.”

He pulled out a chair, so she sat and watched him as he walked over to the band that was just setting up to play, motioning to the keyboard player.

She looked for Jeremy, but he hadn't reappeared. Brad was at the bar, talking to Hugh.

She got up and walked over to the bar. “Brad, how are you doing?” she asked him.

“I'm okay,” he said, but he didn't sound okay.

“Hey, Hugh,” she said, smiling.

“Hey, Ro,” Hugh replied, then headed off to serve another customer.

Brad leaned over and whispered something to her, but she couldn't make out what he said.

“What?”

“Is he a witch?”

“Hugh?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“There's something really freaky going on around here. I mean it. And I'm not just saying that because I'm drunk. Because I'm not. Drunk, I mean. The thing is…”

“The thing is what?” she asked.

Brad looked grave. “Jeremy doesn't believe me. I know he doesn't.”

“What are you talking about, Brad?” she asked. “What doesn't Jeremy believe?”

“Satan,” he said seriously.

“What?”

“The Devil. The Devil is here. I'm telling you, the Puritans weren't crazy. The Devil is alive, and he's here.” He looked around the room, then back at her. “He could be right here, drinking with us, right now,” he said gravely.

 

“…last name's Richardson,” Joe was saying over the phone. “There was no problem. He hadn't disappeared, wasn't in hiding. The Boston police picked him up coming off his shift—he's a construction worker. He's claiming he's innocent, of course, that they don't know what they're talking about, that it's not illegal to flirt and buy a girl a drink.”

Jeremy was glad he had moved out of the bar, into the hotel lobby. In the bar, he couldn't hear.

And he didn't want to be heard.

“Has he gotten a lawyer? They can't hold him very long, not unless they have something to charge him with.”

“They can keep him in the lockup overnight. They told him he could get a lawyer, of course, but it seems he thinks if he exercises his constitutional right and gets a lawyer, he'll look guilty,” Joe explained. “So…bright and early?”

Jeremy was surprised that Joe seemed to have taken him on as a de facto partner, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it was just Joe's way of watching him.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jeremy said. “But back up. This guy admits to spending the day in Salem with Dinah Green?”

“Yup. He recognized her picture right away. But he denied knowing anything about what might have happened to her.”

“He could be telling the truth.”

“Most murderers deny their guilt,” Joe said. “Hell, he was with the woman most of the day. We have his charge slip from the bar.”

“Yes, but—”

“He can't prove where he was on Halloween. Boston is a short hop away. His shift ends at three-thirty. He could easily have gotten up here in time to grab Mary,” Joe said.

That was true enough. Jeremy just didn't think it gelled. Why? he asked himself. There was no reason, nothing but his gut feeling that the murderer was somebody local.

No, there was evidence of a sort: the cornfields. No one but a local would know the fields well enough to have pulled off that scarecrow scene. It was logic, plain and simple.

If only it
were
Tim Richardson. Then they could—maybe—find Mary alive. They could end the fear, and he could stop looking at every person he met on the street—at Rowenna's friends—and wondering which one of them was a monster.

“Bright and early,” Joe said again.

“See you then. Thanks.”

He hung up, not certain why he wasn't more interested in a trip to Boston to question a possible murderer.

He knew the answer.

He didn't want to leave here.

Why not?

He knew that answer, too.

Because Rowenna could be in danger.

He hesitated, about to call Joe back and tell him to go without him, but before he could dial, his phone rang again. He looked at the number and smiled.

“Hey, bro.”

“Zach, good to hear from you,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah? Hope so. Aidan and I were just talking. We've been watching the news—about the corpse found in the field.”

“There's a real maniac on the loose,” Jeremy said.

“Sure looks like it. No sign of Mary, huh?”

“Not yet. I feel—I
think
the killer is local, and I think we're getting closer to narrowing down our list of suspects.”

“We?”

“The lead detective on the case, Joe Brentwood. He's let me in every step of the way. That's been a real blessing.” He hesitated and shrugged, though his brother couldn't see it, or the grudging smile that tugged at his lips. “He even listens to me.”

“Great,” Zach said. “Listen, I can come up, if you'd like.”

“Hell, yes!” Jeremy said. With Zach there, he wouldn't constantly worry about leaving Rowenna on her own. He could go with Joe in the morning, knowing Rowenna would be with friends, or even Brad. Undoubtedly Zach could book a flight that would get him in by tomorrow night.

“You can catch me up when I get there,” Zach said.

“I'll be asking you to do some bodyguard duty, if you don't mind.”

He heard his brother's soft chuckle. “So long as I'll be guarding a beautiful woman with black hair and amber eyes, that won't be a problem,” Zach assured him.

Jeremy grinned. “Great. Get here as soon as you can.”

He hung up and leaned against the wall. There was no one he trusted like his brother. He could accompany Joe tomorrow morning with a clear conscience. And after all, they would only be gone a few hours.

He looked up, still smiling…

…and froze.

A boy was standing against the opposite wall, near the check-in desk.

He was about ten, with brown eyes, and tousled brown hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“Billy,” Jeremy breathed.

The boy stared at him solemnly, a hesitant smile flickering across his lips.

A heavyset man passed in front of Jeremy, who moved to the side, trying to reach the boy. Then a luggage cart blocked him, a bellman and young couple alongside it.

When they had passed, the boy was no longer there.

Jeremy strode to the front door and then out to the street. He looked in every direction. There were plenty of people out, taking advantage of the mild autumn night.

But there was no sign of a boy.

Swearing softly, he headed down the street and around the corner.