Secrets of Ugly Creek (5 page)

I’d heard that about faeries, but right now I was more interested in whether anybody was hurt. It seemed to be just a smoke bomb, but we were far enough back that somebody closer could have been hurt. I wanted to go to make sure nobody was. Okay, I especially wanted to make sure Mac was all right. He’d shielded me when we got rocks thrown at us, okay. And he is a fellow journalist after all. I got as close as I could, but the smoke was too thick, I couldn’t get through.

There was the sound of serious coughing, and then Mac appeared from the smoke. He saw me and his lips pulled into an almost-smile before he leaned over, his hands on his legs to support himself, and coughed some more.

I rushed to him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he croaked, then went back to coughing.

I don’t want to admit how relieved I was that he was safe. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like him. I wasn’t attracted to him. Not much anyway. Just glad he, and his crew, were okay. Honest.

The sheriff investigated for hours. The culprit was officially declared a smoke bomb, no clue where it came from. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but nobody saw anything useful either. Including me. What? No, I didn’t tell ’em a faery was standing right where the attack probably originated. Probably she was just watching. There was no point in me investigating the faeries. It was a smoke bomb, nobody got hurt.

Oh good grief, the journalist in me had apparently packed up and gone on vacation. What had I been thinking when I volunteered for this job? Actually, the answer to that was easy. Another journalist would have told the cops about the fairy.

Things were beginning to clear out when I caught a glimpse of Gibson McFain sitting in his chair at the center of the production area, looking like he needed to sleep for a week. My journalist self came back, at least that’s what I told myself, and I headed toward him. “Any idea who wants you shut down?”

“You think somebody is trying to shut the production down?”

“First you had rocks thrown at you, now a smoke bomb.” I shrugged. “Seems to me shutting down the production is the most logical reason for the two attacks.”

He took a moment to look at me, as if assessing my true feelings. “Those ‘attacks,’ as you call them, may not be related. And even if they are, that doesn’t mean they’re efforts to stop the shoot.”

“Either way, they have to have slowed you down.” Why did that bother me? It was because the sooner they got done, the sooner they’d get out of Tennessee. Nothing to do with liking McFain.

“We’ll make up the time.” It might have been my imagination, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“What if there are more attacks?” I asked, trying not to allow the worry to show in my voice.

“We’ll deal with them.” He put a hand to his neck and winced.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

He smiled weakly. “Just tired.”

“I can see why.e”

“Maybe I’m crazy saying this to a reporter, but I’m starving. Would you like to go somewhere and get something to eat?”

I smiled. “Sounds good.”

My cell chirped. I seriously considered not answering the dang thing. What did I care what whoever it was wanted? Then I looked at the readout. “Hello, Mr. Grainger.”

“I found a photographer for you. She’s new, her name is Haven Reyes, and she’ll be landing at the McGhee Tyson Airport in about an hour.”

“I’ll be there.”

The phone clicked and I closed my eyes and counted to ten twice before I turned to Mac. “Sorry, I have to head to Knoxville.”

Maybe it was my imagination, but he looked disappointed. “Some other time?”

“Sure thing.” Our gazes locked for a long, intense moment. Something clicked inside of me, something electric and exciting. He touched my arm as if he wanted to say something, and I felt a warm tingle. His hand dropped, and I gave him my best smile before I headed toward the parking area.

At my car, I sat for a moment watching Mac and wondering what was wrong with me. How could I be attracted to somebody who had done so much damage to other people, a man who was only interested in making money, who didn’t care who he hurt. I must be nuts. Maybe I was just reacting to being alone too long while my closest friends were married. Yeah, that was the answer. I just needed to find some other, less dangerous, guy to hang my pathetic need for a man on. Maybe Liza could set me up or something.

One thing was for sure, I wasn’t about to trust anybody with the safety of my odd, little hometown.

Another thing, Dani had been nowhere in sight during the smoke bomb and its aftermath. Ha, scooped you.

Chapter 5

“Are you sure that’s what you want me to do?”

My new photojournalist and I stood just outside town near a section of the forest we locals called “Ghost Hill” due to reported supernatural activity. Haven Reyes was five feet and a whisper, had light brown, shoulder-length hair, and was cute as a bug. Unfortunately, she had the self-confidence of a tree limb.

“Yes, Haven,” I said. “Just use your own judgment and grab some shots to go with my story.”

“What if I don’t get the right photos?”

“You will. Don’t worry.”

She frowned, and I didn’t know whether to hug the poor thing, try to slap some sense into her, or go sit in a corner and feel sorry for myself. How was I going to work with this unprofessional wimp?

“Haven?”

I turned toward the voice and saw Gibson McFain’s assistant standing near us.

“Katie!”

Haven and Kate Stone hugged as I watched in total disbelief. “You two know each other?”

“We grew up on the same street,” Kate said. She smiled, and I clamped my teeth to keep my mouth from dropping open. Kate Stone smiling was as unexpected as Gizmo talking to me. Maybe more.

“I’d better get back to work,” Kate said, hugged Haven again and headed back across the courthouse lawn toward the film crew.

“She’s a nice person.” Haven said, before she headed off. Hopefully to take some great pics.

I couldn’t believe my insecure photographer and the seriously self-assured assistant were friends. Very strange. Kate Stone wore expensive designer suits every day. In fact, she dressed in high-dollar designer from head to toe. I wasn’t jealous. Seriously, a person doesn’t have to spend a fortune to be fashionable. Okay, maybe I was a little jealous.

Then again, fashionably dressed or not, Stone seemed to be trying to live up to her name. Cold, hard, and unyielding. The woman always looked like she could bite the head off a shark.

“You can’t judge a heart by the body it’s clothed in.”

The familiar voice had me grinning as I turned. “Aunt Octavia! How are you?”

“I’m just fine, Madison.”

The tiny woman isn’t my aunt, but everybody calls her Aunt Octavia. Nobody knows how old she is, but I’d say eighty would be conservative. Today she was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. “So you’re riding your Harley today.”

“Yep, felt like stirring things up around here.”

I groaned. “Seems to me things are stirred up enough.”

She took my hand and turned it over to gaze at my palm. Yes, she reads palms, among other things. No, she’s not nuts. She’s a for-real psychic, and she was frowning. “Is something wrong?”

“Not wrong, just confusing.”

I almost laughed. “Aren’t the spirits always confusing?”

“Not the spirits. You.”

Well, that brought my eyebrows up. “I’m confusing? What happened to my aura of success?” The one I’d had since I was a teenager.

“It’s still there, but it’s swirling and changing.” Auntie Octavia rubbed my palm with her fingertips like she was applying salve. “Changes are coming in your life, and you will have choices to make. Listen to your guide.”

She let go of my hand and stepped back, leaving me staring at her like a kid who had just been told Santa Claus wasn’t real. “Guide? What guide? What are you talking about?”

“Hit the dirt!”

I was more confused than ever for a moment, but then I realized she had literally dropped to the ground and had her head covered with her arms. Before I could think much about grass stains and how much my pants cost, I dropped to my knees, leaned over, and put my hands on my head.

Two seconds later, a bang followed by screams answered the unasked question.

I started to help Aunt Octavia up, but she was already standing and brushing off her clothes. “Generator exploded. Thank God nobody was hurt bad.”

I didn’t bother to ask how she knew. Her spirits told her, like they tell her everything else. Like they told her about my confused aura.

Then I was running toward the production area, my heart banging hard against my throat. Somebody might be hurt. Oh, who was I kidding, Mac might be hurt. No idea why I’d care, but somehow I did. That dang man was making me crazy.

When I got there Mac was fine, but the technician who did the sound work had a nasty burn. Mac was examining the guy’s arm. “You need to go see a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” the guy said, though his face was becoming paler by the minute.

“No, you aren’t.”

“I’ll take him to the emergency room,” another member of the crew offered, and the sound tech took him up on the offer.

They took off, and Mac turned my way. He opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was drowned out by high-pitched squealing.

“Oh my God! It was horrible. We could have all been killed.” Haven rushed toward me, almost knocking me over in her hurry.

I grabbed her shoulders, as much to push her back from me as to comfort her. “It’s all right, Haven. Everybody’s okay.”

“I came here to take pictures of a documentary, not to get blown up.”

“Everything is fine now.”

The sound of sirens announced the arrival of law enforcement. “The police are here,” I told her. “They’ll find whoever did this.”

“What do I tell them?” Her eyes were widening again.

“Just tell them what you saw.”

A couple deep breaths later, she seemed to have calmed down. “Sorry.” She started to turn away, but stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “I think I saw something.”

Her expression sent shivers up my nerves. “What do you mean?”

“I think I saw a woman with wings. Should I tell the police?”

No!
“Just answer their questions and use your best judgment.”

She nodded and walked away.

I worked at holding back my own panic.

****

“We’ll have to shut it down,” Gibson McFain looked like the sky was crashing in on him.

Come to think of it, with the debris on the ground it almost looked like it was. We’d all been questioned and told the investigation was ongoing. Nobody had any idea what caused the explosion of the generator. Yeah, just like Aunt Octavia said. Also as she predicted, the only injuries were minor, with the exception of a moderate burn on the arm of the sound guy.

“We can’t shut down.” Kate Stone’s lips were clamped into a stiff crimson line. “We have a tight schedule.”

McFain stared at his assistant, blood vessels throbbing in his neck. “Kate, someone could have been seriously hurt.”

Stone spun to face the sheriff. “If you had done your job and found the perpetrators, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Sheriff Richards didn’t blink. “Number one, we don’t know if this explosion is related to the other incidents. Number two, this isn’t DC or New York or some other big city. Ugly Creek is a small town with limited resources.” He glared at her for a moment. “You knew that when you chose to come here.”

“He’s right, Kate,” McFain said. “We have to give them a chance to figure out what’s going on—but we can’t take unnecessary chances with the crew, or worse, the citizens of the town.”

She stared at him. “So whoever is doing this, whatever little punk is pulling these pranks, is going to win?”

“This isn’t a game.”

“You’re damn right, it isn’t.” Kate turned toward the wide-eyed Haven. “We might as well do lunch.”

Haven looked at me, and I forced a smile for her. “Go. There’s nothing to do here.” Presumably she’d already taken shots of the damage, provided she’d stopped with the panic long enough. Right now, I didn’t much care. I was just glad nobody had been seriously injured.

“So, any idea who’s responsible for all the problems?”

I turned to find Gibson McFain next to me. “If I did, I’d be beating the crap out of them right now.”

He chuckled. “Rather violent for such a pretty woman.”

My heart did a little quiver, and I bit my tongue to keep from asking him if he really thought I was pretty. “What do you think?” I finally managed.

“I think somebody really doesn’t like outsiders with video cameras.”

“I’m sorry you have to shut down.”

He looked at me, his dark eyes warming me as his gaze searched my soul. “No, you aren’t.”

His words washed cold over my body, and I’m quite sure the folks in the next town could read the shock on my face. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. You don’t want me here anymore than whoever caused that explosion.”