Demon Crossings (4 page)

It had been too long, she thought. She didn’t want to depress herself by taking the time to count exactly how long it had been since she’d slept with a man. That was all this was, sexual frustration finding an outlet in a casual flirtation. Nothing could ever come of it. She was on a job here, and Aiden might be connected to the case. All they could share was breakfast.

She turned and leaned against the counter, closing her eyes and taking a sip of surprisingly good coffee. Iowa wasn’t so bad. She thought of Aiden, his old-fashioned manners and his work-hardened body. Clearly, there were compensations to living in the middle of farm country. She probably shouldn’t have offered to buy him breakfast. She should have gotten in her car and driven off, tracked down an address for Maia and called it in. But it was only breakfast, a simple way to say thank you, just a small delay. Not even a delay. Aiden would lead her directly to the diner Maia had just stepped into, maybe even give her an excuse to speak with the girl. After all, it was Aiden she’d seen through Maia’s eyes. And when was the last time she’d gone out to eat with someone? Other than Mike who kept telling her she needed to get out more.

Grace passed through the living room, taking the time to look around. The room where the doctor had treated her last night was little more than an alcove. The other side was bigger with a fireplace filling part of the wall, another leather sofa with a coffee table that looked as if it was made out of old barn wood. Two upholstered chairs and a reading lamp were positioned under a big bay window.

He’d tidied up, because the Oreos were nowhere in sight. There really wasn’t much fodder for snooping around. The only thing not put away was the rental case for a Star Trek movie. She paused when she saw a cluster of framed pictures on the mantel. Glancing over her shoulder, she stepped closer to check them out. The first one was a black and white of an older couple. Mom and Dad. The man shared Aiden’s pale eyes and reserved smile. The woman had her arm wrapped around the man’s waist, beaming up at him. They looked happy. Grace smiled wistfully and turned to the next picture. This one was more recent, of a young girl. Her heart thudded hard in her chest as she reached for it, thinking at first that the girl looked familiar. About five years old with blond hair. Oh, no…

There was an instant of relief when she realized it wasn’t Maia and then her stomach bottomed out.

Cold that cut to the bone. No escape. Blue ghost fire that did nothing to light the darkness. No sun. No trees. Only icy rock and howling desperation. Howling. They were coming.

It took everything Grace had not to drop the picture as if it burned. Carefully, with her hands shaking and her vision blurring, she replaced it on the mantel and stepped away. She couldn’t stop staring though. The girl sat on a horse looking proud of herself. Pretty, long, pin-straight blond hair, gray eyes and a huge grin on her face that made you want to smile back. Which only made it more awful.

She didn’t hear Aiden come in until a floorboard creaked behind her.

“My daughter. She passed away last year.”

Grace half opened her mouth to correct him before snapping it closed. The truth could be no comfort to him. Unless he was lying.
Please, no.
Fear pulsed through her body, an echo of that vision, telling her to flee. Even after she put the picture down, it still choked her mind like black poison. Nearly sentient, it wrapped tight around her and wouldn’t let her go.

She needed to get outside before she threw up.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, bracing herself before turning around to face him. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the picture and whatever momentary thoughts she’d had about him being somehow responsible for that girl’s pain disappeared when his grief hit her so hard it nearly dropped her to her knees. She shouldn’t be picking this up. That wasn’t how her gift worked. She controlled who she opened herself to and even then it was never this strong. Something about this place ramped up every psychic sense she had, tearing through all her shields. It had to be a lingering effect of the head injury. She grabbed onto that explanation like a drowning woman.

She took a step away from him, closer to the door. He shook himself and summoned a faint smile.

“Thank you.” Aiden ran a hand through his damp hair. He’d changed into a nicer shirt, one hand was shoved in his jeans pocket and his eyes were flat and very old. He tipped his head toward the kitchen. “Let me go grab the keys.”

She handed him her coffee cup. “I’ll wait outside.”

As soon as he turned around, she bolted for the door. His daughter wasn’t dead but wherever she was, she was scared and alone. And for the first time in her life Grace had no idea how to get to her. It was almost as if the girl was here, walking beside her.

She tripped down the steps and hit the unlock button three times before triggering the release to the car. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. In her line of work, she’d dealt with some really messed up things but nothing like this. As strong a connection as she’d gotten from Maia but with an unnatural quality. She thought of that thing on the road and couldn’t dismiss it as a deer anymore. She should get in her car and go home, forget breakfast, forget Maia, return the Lindens’ retainer and fly off to Hawaii. She could give the grandmother the name of this town as a lead.

Because…suddenly Maia was the least thing wrong about this place.

The sunlight made her flinch and she paused for a second, undecided. A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye but she turned to see nothing but rows and rows of green corn. The wind stirred through the stalks, there was a noise like a small animal scurrying away and then Aiden stepped out onto the porch.

She looked at him standing there, hands tucked into his jeans, watching her as if he knew she was thinking about running and was waiting to see what she’d do. She thought about monsters and missing children, the look on Aiden’s face as he stared at that picture. She could still feel an echo of the girl’s fear all the way down to her bones. Trapped. Scared. Alone. All of it as familiar to Grace as an old friend. It couldn’t be real. That vision. It couldn’t possibly be real…but what if it was?

She tossed her bags into the car, slammed the door behind her and walked toward Aiden’s truck.

They were a couple of miles from the house before either one of them spoke. She’d been staring out the window at the wildflowers in the ditch, purples and yellows blurring together as they drove down the gravel road. Considering that vision, the animal on the road last night, Aiden. She spent a lot of time considering Aiden and his daughter, how she didn’t know anything about him. How even though she wanted very badly to believe there were good people in the world, her own experience demonstrated that this wasn’t necessarily true.

“You look spooked,” he said. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? If you’re not up to this…”

She summoned a smile. “I’m fine. The sun got to me for a minute out there. It’s hot today.”

He nodded, not looking entirely convinced.

When he opened his mouth to ask another question, she beat him to it. “It’s beautiful.” And, she realized with some surprise, it was the truth. The woods to their left rose on a steeply sloped hill. To their right, the land opened up on a vibrant green field. The wind pushing through the soy crop made it look like the ruffled fur of some giant creature. Wholesome. Quiet. Middle of America heartland. “Have you always lived here?”

He glanced at her then back at the road. “I grew up in that house. After I graduated and before my father died, I thought about taking another job for a while just to try something else.”

“But you decided to come back?”

“Yes.”

Another car was heading toward them and Aiden nodded at the passing driver, lifting two fingers from the wheel.

“Do you know everybody here?” She wondered what that would be like. Having roots that deep.

“Them? No. There’s a state park that borders the next town over. They’re probably just campers.”

“Why’d you wave?”

“Just being polite.”

“How close is the campground? Maybe that’s what I saw the other night.” She’d been looking out the window as they talked, at a farmhouse set a little ways from the road and wondering if it was Maia’s. But his sudden silence brought her head back around. “You don’t believe me…about the lights.”

“I do, but it could have been anything. Probably just kids messing around.”

But no matter how she tried to convince herself she’d been imagining things, part of her knew she hadn’t been. Her skin tingled. And Aiden, she realized, didn’t believe it either. He was trying to placate her and he was an uneasy liar, staring straight ahead with one hand clenched on the steering wheel.

They rounded a corner and she could see the town up ahead. Ragnarok, the sign said, population 850. Someone had a sense of humor too. Painted below the town name beside a folk artsy hex sign were the words
If you lived here, you’d be home now.
A little blue sign hanging below it showed the profile of a man in a horned hat that declared this the home of the Vikings, state champions 1981.

As they rolled into town, she felt as if she’d slipped back in time even further than that glory year. Main Street was uncommonly wide and about two blocks long, without a single street light. The few houses they passed were close-set but well kept. An elderly man out mowing looked up at their approach and waved. There was a post office. A tiny library and grocery store, not yet open. The biggest building in town housed a bowling alley-bar-restaurant and beside that, attached, was the little diner.

She glanced over when Aiden pulled into one of the angled parking spots in front of the bowling alley. He smiled at her again in that way that touched his eyes but not his mouth. “You want the tour?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s smaller than I expected.”

He raised his brows a little and she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to have expected anything. She was supposed to be on her way to Madison. But he didn’t comment and she got out as he came around the front of the truck. The sidewalk was raised, likely a throwback from before they’d paved Main Street. The rusted iron ring fixed in the concrete would be perfect if you had to leave your horse for a few minutes while you ran in to the bank. For all she knew, people still used it for just that purpose.

They walked up the steps and he held the door for her.

“I am physically capable of opening a door you know.”

“I never doubted it.”

He paused inside the door and nodded at someone behind her. The hair lifted on the back of her neck when she felt people watching. There was a hitch in the conversation but as she turned around, it resumed all at once. Her head buzzed as if she could feel them wondering about the strange woman who’d come in with the local boy, bright and early on this Saturday morning.

Under the hum of conversation, the clink of silverware on ceramic plates and the sizzle of something frying formed a constant backdrop. She glanced around the single open room filled with about a dozen tables, half of them occupied, and at the big front window painted with a stylized red coffee cup. A small, sunny restaurant, a little on the retro side but clean. At a counter to the left another four people sat on stools. One of them was Maia.

She was eating pancakes, swinging her legs and laughing at something the man seated to her right said. The dad. He had the same mischievous blue eyes as his daughter.

“Booth?” Aiden asked, drawing Grace’s attention back to where he was watching her curiously.

“Can we sit at the counter? I haven’t done that since…I don’t think I’ve ever done that.”

He nodded and placed his hand on the small of her back to usher her forward. His heat sank into her, settling low in her belly, and she realized that he hadn’t so much as brushed against her since the night before. Startled, she looked at him and he held her gaze until she dropped her eyes and stepped away.

“Aiden.” A woman with a coffeepot grabbed a cup from beneath the counter and started to pour. She turned that warm smile on Grace next. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Grace sat down next to Maia, cutting Aiden off to do it. He stopped and took the seat next to her. When she hazarded a glance his way, under her lashes, he was looking at her. And yep, that was speculation there. She shouldn’t have invited him along. One look at a set of washboard abs and here she was jeopardizing her case. Maybe her sanity.

Before he could ask the question in his eyes, the waitress set a notepad on the counter. “Who’s your friend, Aiden?”

A flush stained the base of his neck. “Marly, this is Grace. Grace, this is Marly. She owns the place.” He indicated the kitchens. “Her husband, Eddie, is the cook. I highly recommend his sausage gravy.”

“On what?”

His eyes glinted with humor and he slid a menu across the counter. “On everything.”

That didn’t sound healthy. How did he stay in shape with a diet like that? Marly turned her way and Grace gave the woman one of her friendly, innocent trust-me smiles. “I had some car trouble last night and Aiden was kind enough to let me stay at his place.”

There was a flash of surprise in Marly’s eyes but then her smile widened and she leaned on the counter, propping her chin on her hand. “Is that so? Like a knight in shining armor, our Aiden.”

“I thought so.” Grace didn’t know why she was defending Aiden’s reputation or even if that’s what she was really doing. The truth just seemed important. And she’d noticed how the conversation around them had fallen silent as people strained to hear her answers.

“And you trusted him after meeting him the first time? Honey, you can’t go around letting strange men take you home, not even around here. Where are you from?”

“St. Louis.”

Marly shook her head and tsked. “Then you should definitely have known better.”

“I was injured.” Grace touched the bandage on her head. “And I wasn’t in any condition to be picky. Dr. Greene stitched me up and Aiden was a perfect gentleman.”

Marly must have heard the regret in her voice because she laughed. “Well…maybe you’ll get lost again soon. What can I get for you both?”

Aiden ordered steak and Grace glanced around, saw the syrupy puddle on Maia’s plate and asked, “How are the pancakes?”

“They’re delicious.” Maia leaned forward to see past her. “Hey, Aiden.”

“Pancakes?” Marly asked and Grace nodded.

Marly turned to put the order in and Aiden’s expression softened. “Hey, Maia. How was the lake?”

“Great. Dad let me take my own kayak out. We’re going on a paddling trip next month. Do you want to come too?”

He shook his head. “I’ll be too busy next month. Maybe next summer if you like it.”

When Maia started talking to her dad again, Grace leaned close. “Are you related?”

“No.”

“Oh, I thought there was a family resemblance.” Which was a lie. They didn’t look anything alike, but at this point most people would fill in the blank about how they knew each other.

Aiden didn’t. “No relation.”

It would be easier if she had a name to go with the address when she turned the information over to the local authorities. The name on the divorce papers was for a man who’d ceased to exist as soon as the ink had dried. Clearly, Maia’s dad had reinvented himself here but as who? She couldn’t keep pressing. Aiden was already suspicious. He’d gone quiet and watchful as soon as she’d started chatting up Marly so she let it drop. Instead, she concentrated on her steaming stack of pancakes, a generous dollop of real butter already half-melted and sliding down the side. She poured warm syrup over the top and ignored Maia for a while.

The dad had turned on his stool and was speaking to a young man behind her. Grace smiled to herself and dug into the pancakes. She’d found the girl. This one, at least. Maia was safe, happy and she’d be going home soon. Grace’s smile faded a bit.

Now she had to figure out what exactly had happened to Aiden’s daughter.