Stranger on Raven's Ridge (16 page)

He squirmed again. “Ravenberry juice. It goes right through you.”

“You mean you want to be excused.”

“Only for a minute. I’ll use the porta-john.” He shuddered. “Just this once.”

“You’re a trouper, Fergus.” Raven’s grin was faint as her eyes rescanned the misty points of rock. “I’ll wait for you here.” Because—dumb, dumb, dumb—she’d promised Aidan she wouldn’t move.

She hadn’t, however, promised not to pace. Or to go over everything in her head for the umpteenth time.

George and Demars’s two favorite hit men were dead. No, strike that. One hit man was dead. Phil Herron remained a question mark in Aidan’s mind. No idea why.

Aidan believed that Demars had shot and killed Weasel. Weasel had had a mini cassette recorder and a tape in his backpack. A man’s voice had said, “Jason...” at the end of a previously one way conversation.

Neither Raven nor Aidan recognized the voice. At least they couldn’t connect it to anyone they’d met in Raven’s Cove. That didn’t mean Demars wasn’t here, merely that they hadn’t heard him speak. Or if they had, they didn’t have enough of the taped voice to identify him.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she walked back and forth on the rocky ground and tried to unkink the thoughts jumbled together in her brain.

Outside view, inside view, abstract view, none of her usual clarification techniques worked. All she felt right now was terrified for Aidan’s life and—weird, she realized suddenly. Now when had that sensation snuck back in?

Grill smoke blew by her in dense clouds. She couldn’t imagine why that should intensify the feeling, but it did, so she went with it and concentrated.

In was like déjà vu, but not quite. Connected to the food stalls, but not really.

“Fish,” she said softly. “Is it something to do with fish?”

A foggy, distant image floated just out of reach. Raven stood absolutely still, afraid if she moved, the partly formed memory would fade to black.

Was it a face, an object or both?

The grill smoke obscured her vision, yet in some strange way, it seemed to be aiding her memory.

Fergus’s voice repeated, “Gaitor loves smoked salmon...”

Smoked salmon, smoke in the air. Smoke and trees blurring her mind, taking her to another place and time.

“You need to eat, dear...”

“You should dance, Raven...”

“Would you like a canapé, ma’am? The topping’s smoked salmon...”

Like a light blinking on, the image solidified. It had a face, with features she recognized from two different places—Aidan’s wake, and here.

She hitched in a shocked breath.

Wait though. Was this a valid memory or merely her overworked mind drawing false pictures?

Raven sensed a presence behind her a split second before a small, hard object dug into her spine.

“Hello, Raven,” said a cold but familiar voice.

Valid, she realized as her lungs constricted and the blood in her veins turned to ice. Extremely valid.

The object—a gun not a knife—pushed in deeper. “Did you figure it out?” the voice asked. “Because you’re not moving, not saying hello back and you don’t seem the least bit surprised. I wondered if you might recognize me, but I told myself, no, she won’t even remember the big parts of that day, let alone a single insignificant person inside one of the smaller ones. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You do remember some of those smaller pieces, and you’ve put the pertinent ones together with the here and now.”

Raven wasn’t sure how she found her voice, but she did. “You’re not...” Then she lost the thought in panic and had to substitute an inadequate “Who are you?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, or worse yet, boring. You’re too smart to ask stupid questions. You know who I am, just as surely as you know what I’m going to do to you.”

One silent word repeated in Raven’s head, and it wasn’t polite. But it helped clear out some of the terror. “You’re not Johnny Demars, but you’re connected to him, and you’re going to do what I assume you’ve been promising to do since you discovered that Aidan was alive. You’re going to kill me and, like the soldier from the legend, have your revenge. An eye for an eye.”

Chapter Sixteen

“I must have jiggled something loose when I fell.” Gaitor played with his two-way as he and Aidan ran for the road. “Yours?”

“Stopped working after the last time I spoke to you.”

“Do you have your cell?”

“It’s in the Jeep—with Raven’s. Come on, Gaitor, where did you park?”

“Point your flashlight east. You’ll see the back end.”

Panic threatened to spike, but Aidan found he could block it. The wicked thrust of love was another matter.

Picturing the gruesome possibilities had already slowed his thinking processes. Unable to shut them out completely, he used them to leap from thought to disconnected thought.

He’d left Raven with Fergus—but Demars was resourceful enough not to see that as an obstacle. There was a crowd of people on the ridge—but Weasel had plucked her out of a crowd, no problem.

Switch to something helpful, he ordered himself.

He could strike anyone he’d met or seen who was under forty-five from the list of potential crime lords. Ditto the people Gaitor referred to as the faithful. Take away Raven’s distant relatives and Rooney’s friends. Nix anyone else currently living in Raven’s Cove.

That still left too many to count, and for all he knew, Demars hadn’t made himself visible during his tenure here. His instincts argued that point, but as Gaitor had said more than once, instincts could be easily skewed by food, drink and intense emotions.

“Praise the Lord,” his partner gasped when they finally reached the Jeep. He climbed in, panting. “Any brainstorms, yet?”

“No.”

But he continued to bounce the possibilities as he shoved the vehicle in gear and swung out onto the road.

Gaitor wasn’t quick enough to prevent the cassette recorder on the dash from hitting the floor. He picked it up. “Is this the machine you found in Weasel’s pack, the one with the man’s voice on it?”

“Yeah, but there’s not enough on the tape to tell us anything.”

Gaitor searched for the cassette that had fallen out. “I’ll take a stab at it while you drive.”

Although he nodded, Aidan’s mind was no longer on the tape.

He’d felt the wrongness of tonight’s pursuit from the start. Demars hadn’t achieved his current level of success by doing the obvious. Guy Biggs, George’s “big guy,” had been a decoy. So had Phil Herron, though he’d likely had nothing to do with either Biggs or Demars. He’d been a dupe, and he’d died. Which told him that Johnny Demars possessed virtually no ethics at this juncture, and would murder without compunction or remorse.

Why in hell, a far distant part of his brain wondered, should that surprise him?

Voices from Weasel’s recorder broke into the churn of his thoughts.

“You’re turning him into your clone,” a woman accused. “An adolescent Mini-Me.”

“I’m giving him insight into a world which, until this moment, suited you very well.”

Aidan frowned. “What is that?”

Gaitor nodded at the cassette recorder. “Tape fell out. I put it back in.”

Although he was tempted to bang his head on the steering wheel for missing something as obvious as playing the flip side of Weasel’s tape, Aidan settled for grinding his teeth and listening to the rest of the conversation.

“We’re talking about a child, Johnny,” the woman continued. “My child.”

“Yours and mine,” the man countered coldly. “This argument’s old, and it’s over. Jason is my future and the future of my business ventures. It ends here. He’s not a toddler who needs his mother to coddle him. He’s sixteen and more than capable of making his own choices. Now get out of my office. I have work to do.”

“No.”

One of them walked across the hard-surfaced floor.

“Get out,” he repeated. “Now. Before my temper snaps.”

“He’s my child,” the woman maintained.

“And mine.”

Aidan heard it a second later, the unmistakable thwack of two silenced bullets. Two bullets that didn’t ricochet or blast anything apart.

Something soft but solid hit the floor. Several seconds later, the feet moved again. This time, the steps were evenly spaced, the pace more deliberate. A deep breath heaved out.

And then the woman laughed.

* * *

J
OANNE
, R
AVEN
THOUGHT
as panic clawed through her. The woman had said her name was Joanne. No surname given, none requested. Why bother when they’d been searching for a man.

“Walk,” she barked now. “While you’re at it, put your head mask back on. Better for me if no one sees you leaving the festivities.”

Raven steadied her breathing. “Where are we going?”

“Far away from here. Make any sudden moves and know for a fact, Raven Blume, I’ll kill you where you stand. Are we clear?”

“Perfectly.” Keep her talking, Raven’s terrified mind whispered. “Is your name really Joanne?”

“You want to chat, do you?” The woman shrugged. “Well, why not? Yes, my name’s Joanne—Demars née Farber.” She poked the gun hard into Raven’s side. “You deduced the Demars part, I trust.”

“It made sense. A mother avenging her child’s death.”

“Jason was murdered, Raven. Call a spade a spade.”

She breathed in, then carefully out. “Where’s your husband?”

Joanne laughed. “Ah, yes, my sweet, devoted, faceless Johnny. Sweet to no one, devoted to himself, faceless at the outset by choice and now because nature has the most amazing way of dealing with dead flesh. Oh, but I don’t need to tell you that, do I, as you’re a doctor and would know all about the process of decomposition.” She gave a pleasurable sigh. “I planted him in the garden, under my petunias. Lovely flowers, a veritable riot of color every year. And you know, I’ve never added so much as a speck of fertilizer to the soil.”

A shudder ran through Raven’s body, but she kept her voice calm. “Did he die naturally, or did you kill him?”

“That would depend, I suppose, on how natural you consider a bullet—no, sorry, two bullets—to the skull to be.”

“About as natural as it was in Phil Herron’s case.”

“Herron was an irritant and an idiot. He tried to force himself on me physically.” She snorted. “As if.”

With the sound of the Reenactment fading, night sounds took over. The roar of the ocean, animals in the woods, the occasional whistle of wind.

Taking a chance, Raven slid her right arm from the sleeve of her cloak. Her two-way had been working earlier. Maybe she could play with the wires and make it work again.

To cover her movements, she kept the conversation going. “Would you have killed Herron if he hadn’t forced himself on you?”

“Oh, come now, Raven. You don’t give a rat’s furry ass about Herron. What you really want to know is, do I kill for pleasure. The answer in general is no. Unfortunately, a death was necessary here, and Herron simply fit the bill. It was imperative that you and your hubby be properly deceived.”

“So you did send a second shooter to the Cove. He just wasn’t Phil Herron.”

“Herron was an abrasive boob, nothing more. My second man was—and I trust still is—Guy Biggs. You know him. Small, wiry man with a long, gray braid and beard. Loves to mix fruit and alcohol in Mason jars. He slipped you the three feathers I’m sure you found in your pocket earlier. I thought it seemed fitting somehow. I warned Guy, via a text message, that he might wind up injured tonight. However, odds were no one would shoot to kill. Too many questions left unanswered that way. No, he’d be wanted alive. So I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. A little pain in return for an offensively large payoff.”

“And the possibility of a prison sentence didn’t factor in there anywhere?”

“No,” Joanne said, and slid the gun up Raven’s spine, “it didn’t. Anyone can be gotten out of a hospital. And on the off chance he remains injury-free—well, let’s say county jails are no more difficult to infiltrate than medical facilities.”

Was she insane, Raven wondered, or merely viciously cruel? Maybe she was both. Fighting the fear that made her stomach knot and her fingers stiff, she kept working the wires and buttons on her radio. If she was very, very lucky Aidan might hear them talking and find her.

Where, though? Find her where?

“Where are you taking me?” she asked again.

“To the far side of Raven’s Ridge.” Joanne chuckled, and the sound was more chilling than her initial threat. “I considered simply putting a bullet in you and tossing you onto the rocks below, but that seemed anticlimactic somehow. Oh, Aidan would find your body one way or another, sooner or later, and he’d suffer when he did, but the shock value wouldn’t be there, and I want that. I want to see his face when I blast yours off.”

Raven’s skin went clammy beneath her cloak. “He’ll find a way to kill you, Joanne. If you know anything about him, you must know that.”

“Did I mention I’ll be shooting you from the distant shadows, at night, with a silenced bullet? It’s been—tricky, what with anonymity needing to be maintained, but I’ve gotten Guy to teach me the ins and outs of using a rifle. It’ll never be my weapon of choice, but if I say so myself, I’ve become rather proficient in the handling of one.”

The mist thickened as they made their way to the more desolate portion of the ridge. Raven was tempted to scream, because—well, why not scream at this point? There was no one in the vicinity except her and Joanne Demars. Maybe a sudden shrill sound would startle the woman long enough for her to knock the gun away.

Another chuckle reached her. “Oh, Raven, I can hear your mind working as clearly as if you were speaking the words. You think you can throw me off my guard and get hold of my gun. But you’re hampered by that cloak you’re wearing, and given that your husband murdered my only son, I have an extremely eager trigger finger.”

Raven heard the venom at the end of her statement, the bitterness and the hatred. But she heard no sorrow and wondered how deeply Joanne must have buried her grief in order to continue running her husband’s criminal operation.

They’d reached the ruins of the west wing, and were heading for the jut of ridge directly behind Blume House. The thunder of drums and horns was far behind them now, and the spotlights were a mere glow of gold above the tree line. Even the woodland sounds were gone. There was only their feet on the rocks, and tendrils of white mist slinking like snakes around the boulders.

“You’ve gone strangely quiet, Raven, for a woman who’s about to meet her maker.”

“I’ve been—thinking,” Raven lied, “about how I would feel and what I might do if my only child had died the way Jason did. Maybe I’d bring the person I felt responsible to a desolate ridge and throw him or her over the edge in the shadow of a haunted house, too.”

“My, but you are a Blume, aren’t you? Such a theatrical mind. If you think for one minute I’m emulating the actions of a certain WWI soldier, you’re wrong. The setting simply suits my purpose. When we get to the lonely part of the ridge, I’ll contact your husband and have my revenge. My closure.”

What could she say? Raven thought. Except... “Did you know Weasel had a tape with your son’s voice on it? We found it in his backpack. It sounded like Jason was talking on the phone. We assumed he was having a conversation with your husband, but I realize now, he was talking to you.”

As she’d hoped, Joanne drew an annoyed breath through her nose. “Jason and I fought over Johnny’s death many times. I wasn’t aware back then that he’d recorded any of our fights.”

“He sounded angry.”

“He was angry, and so absolutely certain I’d killed his father that I thought he must have been hiding in the office that night and seen me do it. He repeated enough of the argument between Johnny and me that there could be no doubt he’d overheard us. But of course I understand now that his knowledge came from that cassette player of his. State-of-the-art was Johnny’s way, the newer the better. But Jason wasn’t like that. He loved electronic gadgets from any era. Still, it’s of no consequence in the end. However Weasel acquired the thing, he’s gone and so is his pathetic attempt at blackmail.”

“Is that why you killed him? Because he tried to blackmail you?”

“He said he knew who I was and what I’d done. He insisted he’d discovered proof of my misdeeds. The fool actually texted me to gloat. And here’s the astonishing thing. He wrote that text message while he was standing outside my food truck. I saw him hit Send. Then he laughed and ordered a raven burger with everything on it. From me.

“He signed his own death warrant then and there. He merely speeded it up when he disobeyed my orders and decided to have a little extracurricular fun with you. I don’t think he was as certain as he pretended to be, or if he was, that he would have done anything about it when he was sober. But he stole one of Guy’s famous Mason jars and consumed a little more of the contents than was wise. He was intoxicated when he sent that text and labeled himself a blackmailer. I didn’t need the problem he’d suddenly become. So I had Guy sic your husband on him—inasmuch as he could—then, when the opportunity arose, I eliminated him.”

She gave the gun a nasty twist in Raven’s back. Which hurt and caused her to twitch away from the tip. “What? Do you expect me to thank you for shooting him?”

Joanne’s laugh echoed across the ridge. “You’re feeling cranky and I understand that, but to answer your question, you should indeed thank me. Because, like Guy, Weasel had a fondness for sharp knives and soft female flesh. And whatever was going on in that sick brain of his, I don’t believe he thought for one minute that I was on his little rodent tail the moment he left the crypt to find you. Oh, the delightful irony of good timing. Or bad timing in Weasel’s case.”

The edge of the ridge came into view ahead of them. Blume House stood dark and daunting in the background. Beneath her voluminous cloak, Raven kept pressing buttons on her two-way.

A velvety purr emerged from Joanne’s throat as she stroked her gun along Raven’s spine. “I can only imagine the prayers that must be whizzing around in your head, Raven dear. You want Aidan to come and save you. Well, you’ll get half your wish at any rate. As you see, we’ve almost reached our destination. Once we’re at the edge, I’ll call him. All I have to do then is give you one tiny shove if he steps a foot out of line.”