Lake Silence

  Aggie

  Firesday, Sumor 7

  “Those police humans,” Jozi said as she and Aggie followed the footpath to the main house, leaving Eddie to watch the cabin. “Why do they keep chasing after us? We haven’t found any scraps, and it’s not like they want the food.”

  Aggie slipped an arm around Jozi’s waist. “The police are looking for clues.”

  They wouldn’t find any—if the Elders left any scraps for the Crowgard and other small forms of terra indigene, they wouldn’t leave them on the shoreline within The Jumble. But the police kept watching the Crows, and every time a Crow landed to inspect something near the water, one of the police ran over to see what the Crow had found. Very annoying. How could anyone look for a snack when another predator was waiting to snatch it?

  Of course, she and Jozi and Eddie hadn’t gone hunting for snacks because the police were paying special attention to them, with different men coming over to the cabin to ask if they had seen anything when the Hershel human ended up in the water. Didn’t humans talk to each other? Was that why they all asked the same questions? Or were they trying to . . . confirm . . . the information? Clearly humans weren’t as good as Crows when it came to remembering things. And the police here worked sooooooo slowly compared to TV cops, but Miss Vicki had said stories on TV had to condense all the time it would take in the real world, glossing over the waiting and thinking time in order to keep the story interesting for the viewers. Having spent the day watching the police scour the beach for clues, Aggie approved of glossing over.

  “What’s she still doing here?” The raised voice sounded rough. Must be the bruised-throat female. “Things are bad enough now, but as long as she stays around, being here will only get worse. You have to do something! Force her out!”

  Aggie retreated, tugging Jozi to come with her.

  “That’s so sad,” Jozi said as they walked back to the cabin. “The Heidi human lost her mate, and now they want to force her to leave. Do you think the other females are afraid she’ll try to steal one of their mates?”

  “I don’t think she wants one of the other males,” Aggie said. But the Heidi human wasn’t being included in the Dane flock anymore, had stayed alone in her cabin yesterday, not even venturing out to find food. And none of the humans who were supposed to be her friends had brought any to her.

  As Jozi said, it was sad that the human females were so determined to drive the Heidi human away when they had been her friends the day before. But as the Crows spent the rest of the day watching the humans wander around on the beach, Aggie had the uneasy feeling that she had missed an important clue.

  CHAPTER 70

  Vicki

  Watersday, Sumor 8

  “Are you having trouble figuring out where to shelve these?” Julian asked, eyeing the books on the top shelf of the cart.

  “No, no trouble.”

  “Then . . .” He reached for one of the books.

  “If you didn’t want me to look at the books, you shouldn’t have asked me to dust the shelves.” Helping Julian in the store for the past couple of days showed me why I could never work in the bookstore on a regular basis. I’d buy all the stock. “That’s the first pass. I’ll shelve the ones I’m putting back.”

  He considered the books. “Do you have a prejudice against authors whose names begin with . . .”

  I raised my arm and stretched as far as I could without falling off the top step of the three-step stool, demonstrating that some books were not within the reach of a short person, which was why I hadn’t selected titles written by authors whose names began with the first few letters of the alphabet.

  Did Julian offer to find a taller stool or even a ladder? No, he did not. He just grinned.

  “I’m going to the bank,” he said. “It’s a little early for lunch, but I could pick up a pizza while I’m out and about. Does that have any appeal?”

  “That sounds good. Thanks. Oh. Could you stop at the general store and pick up more carrots? I cut up the last ones for the Sproingers’ treat this morning.” I glanced at the books on the cart. “I’ll put some of them back. Promise.”

  “No need. If I paid you for helping me these past couple of days, I think we’d end up even.”

  I wasn’t sure about being even, but I didn’t argue because I really didn’t want to put any of them back. They were an escape from a shaky future. Maybe I should throw away all caution and look into going out west where you could apply to live in a town that was being repopulated. You had to be willing to work with the terra indigene, but I could do that. And leaving the Northeast should put enough distance between me and Yorick.

  Of course, I had no idea how a human applied to live in one of those towns, but Ilya Sanguinati might know. I’d slipped my medical information under his office door, including the name of the physician in Hubbney. No reason I couldn’t stuff the query about those towns under the door as well.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Julian hesitated and rubbed the back of his neck. “Something doesn’t feel right today.”

  “In the village?”

  “On Main Street. I’m not sensing anything stronger than that. Don’t always sense more than that until the trouble is almost at the door, so to speak.” He looked at me, his gray eyes dark with worry. “I’ll lock the back door when I leave. You have your mobile phone?”

  “In my purse, which is in the break room.”

  “Get it. Keep it closer.”

  Now I was worried. “Should I warn Ineke to stay away from the shops today?”

  Another hesitation. Then he offered a grim smile. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

  Not really what I wanted to hear. “Right.”

  I followed Julian to the back of the store and listened as he locked the back door. Then I dashed into the break room, fetched my mobile phone, and called Ineke. She couldn’t insist that her guests stay away from the shops on Main Street, but she assured me that she and Paige and Dominique would stay at the boardinghouse. After promising to call with regular updates—we made a lame joke about calling it the Julian Report— I ended the call and immediately made another one. This time I got an answering machine.

  “This is Silence Lodge. Please leave your name and . . .” Yada yada ya.

  I left a message for Ilya, then went back to dusting the shelves, setting my mobile phone on the book cart so that it was in easy reach.

  I wasn’t sure how long Julian had been gone—I’d gotten a bit distracted reading the cover copy of a few books—when I heard someone fumbling with the lock on the back door. Figuring he had his hands full and that was the reason for the fumbling, I had just stepped off the stool, intending to help him, when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. “That was fast.”

  Except it wasn’t Julian.

  Before I could grab the mobile phone and even try to call for help, Detective Swinn shoved me against the bookcase, one forearm pinning me while his other hand rested on his service weapon.

  “You’re coming with me. You’re not going to make a fuss or call any attention to us. Say it. Say it.”

  I couldn’t say anything at that moment.

  “If you don’t say it, if you don’t promise not to make a fuss, we’ll wait right here, and when Julian Farrow returns I will shoot him in the face. Not through the brain. I won’t kill him. I’ll shoot his face off. You got that, fireplug? He’ll spend the rest of his life with no eyes, no nose, no mouth. He’ll be fed through a tube, and it will be your fault.”

  Swinn would do it. He wanted to shoot Julian, whether I cooperated or not. The only way to keep Julian from getting hurt was to go with Swinn and hope I would find a way to escape before he . . . hurt me.

  Coward. I didn’t even want to think the word “kill.” He wasn’t taking me somewhere to hurt me, and we weren’t going somewhere for a chat. Yorick and his pals had decide
d I was a problem that needed to go away, and Swinn had been sent to fetch me.

  Shoot-out in Sproing. It sounded like a frontier story, but I could picture the reality just fine. Shots fired on Main Street. Grimshaw running out of the police station, not seeing Swinn, a fellow cop, as a threat until it was too late.

  Was Swinn’s arrival the wrongness Julian had sensed, or was it something worse, something more like what I was imagining? Except I could prevent what I was imagining.

  “Say it,” Swinn growled.

  “I won’t make a fuss.” At least not while we were in the village.

  Swinn grabbed my arm and pulled me out the back door and over to the cruiser parked behind the bookstore.

  “You stole a Bristol police car?”

  “Borrowed. Get in.”

  He aimed his service weapon at me and kept it trained on me while he circled to the driver’s side and got in. The windows were up; no one would hear if I tried to call for help. But the handful of Sproingers who visited the bookstore were at the edge of the parking area. Seeing me, they made the happy face. I made a sad face.

  They hopped toward the cruiser.

  Swinn drove off quickly enough to startle the Sproingers, then with more control as he turned onto Main Street and headed out of the village.

  CHAPTER 71

  Grimshaw

  Watersday, Sumor 8

  “Wayne, something doesn’t feel right.”

  Having cleaned his service weapon and backup, Grimshaw wondered if he should clean the shotgun next or walk down Main Street to remind people of his presence. Hargreaves had called a few minutes ago to say that he and the CIU team were heading back to Bristol, along with the officers he’d called in for backup. The access road to The Jumble was still blocked by the destroyed flatbed trucks and construction equipment, but all the bodies had been removed.

  Grimshaw pushed back from the desk and rolled his shoulders. He could use some fresh air. Besides, Osgood was already out patrolling and, most likely, had answered the beach question a hundred times, so it was a good bet that no one would be asking him if the beach would reopen tomorrow.

  And Julian Farrow had called to leave a warning while he’d been on the phone with Hargreaves. “Doesn’t feel right” was a warning but not a cause for alarm. Not yet. Hopefully he could keep it that way.

  He reached the door when the phone on his desk rang.

  “Sproing Police Station, Grimshaw speaking.”

  “Officer Grimshaw? This is Agent Greg O’Sullivan with the Investigative Task Force.”

  Grimshaw’s heart bumped hard. “You have something for me?”

  “Probably not as much as you hoped for. I couldn’t find anything of a criminal nature connected to the names on which you initially requested background information. That said, the men are known around the Hubb NE area as well-heeled entrepreneurs who have connections in a lot of businesses. Some of the deals they’ve put together look a little shady but nothing crossed the line into illegal, at least on paper, if you follow me.”

  “I do.” Grimshaw swallowed his disappointment. He’d hoped the ITF agent would find some ammunition that proved Yorick Dane and his friends had used a forged document once before to take back property after enough money had been sunk into making capital improvements. “Thanks for your help.”

  “I’m not done. Like I said, I didn’t find anything criminal connected to the names you initially asked the ITF to check, but the last two? Mark Hammorson runs a security business and has skated charges a couple of times for protecting a client’s assets with a little too much enthusiasm. And while no evidence was found, Tony Amorella’s name has been linked with a couple of suspicious deaths.”

  “Gun? Knife?”

  “Garrote.”

  Grimshaw shivered. He pictured the Murder board as it had been the evening they’d spent at The Jumble, pictured Aggie setting a businessman on the square in front of teeny Vicki—the square with a garrote beside it.

  Hearing an odd sound, he glanced toward the windows and froze. Sproingers scratching at the glass. Tumbling off their companions and climbing up again in an effort to look in the windows. Scratch scratch scratch.

  “Grimshaw?”

  “I have to go.” He hung up on O’Sullivan and opened the station’s door. A dozen of the critters crowded the doorway, with more Sproingers heading toward him.

  He scanned the street and spotted Osgood jogging toward him. He saw Julian walk out of the general store, stop at the sight of the Sproingers, and then look toward Lettuce Reed.

  Closed store. A woman inside, alone. A predator with a garrote. Oh gods.

  He ran across the street and down the narrow driveway that provided access to the parking area behind the store. Seeing the open back door, he drew his service weapon and approached cautiously. “Vicki? Vicki, are you there?”

  Julian rounded the corner, skidding to a stop when he saw Grimshaw.

  “I didn’t leave that door unlocked. I didn’t use the dead bolt, but I engaged the simple lock on the door.”

  “Could Vicki have let someone in?”

  “Who?”

  “Ineke Xavier?”

  Julian hesitated, a silent acknowledgment of the possibility. He opened the screen door, allowing Grimshaw to slip in first.

  “Vicki?” Grimshaw called.

  “There’s no one here,” Julian said, pushing past him and rushing into the break room. “But Vicki’s purse is still here.”

  Grimshaw moved forward. Bookshelves rising almost to the ceiling. Hiding places everywhere. “Julian, look at this.”

  Books on the floor, as if someone had dropped them—or they had been pushed off the shelves. A mobile phone on the book cart.

  “She wouldn’t leave without her purse,” Julian said. “And she wouldn’t leave without telling me, not after I’d told her that something didn’t feel right.”

  Hearing the screen door open, Grimshaw stepped into the aisle that ran from the back of the store to the front. But it wasn’t Vicki DeVine returning; it was Osgood.

  “The Sproingers are fair upset about something,” Osgood said. “They keep scratching at me.”

  “Vicki DeVine is missing,” Julian said.

  “Maybe there was an emergency? Did you ask Captain Hargreaves?”

  Grimshaw frowned. “Why would I?”

  “Just before the Sproingers started to mob the station, I saw a Bristol police car leave this parking area and head west out of town.”

  A car going to Bristol from that direction would turn onto the road heading south—the same direction someone would take to go to The Jumble.

  “Osgood, go back to the station. Call Captain Hargreaves and make sure he didn’t send a car for Vicki. I’m heading to The Jumble.”

  Osgood slipped out the door, tripping over Sproingers until he managed to get clear of them.

  “I’m going with you,” Julian said.

  “I’m not asking you—”

  “I knew something didn’t feel right, but I left her alone here, thinking it would be a safe place. I left her alone because I was going to be gone a short while. Window of opportunity. Someone saw it and took it. So I’m going with you.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 72

  Ilya

  Watersday, Sumor 8

  “Ilya? It’s Vicki. Julian says something doesn’t feel right on Main Street. I thought you should know.”

  He looked at the rest of the Sanguinati who had come in to report a different kind of feeling. Something dangerous. Something lethal.

  “Problem?” Natasha asked.

  “Yes. Boris, please bring the car. We need to get to Sproing.” Easier to travel in his smoke form, but the car would be necessary if he needed to quickly extract Victoria from the village.

  The phone rang
before he took a step away from the desk. “Yes?”

  “It’s Julian Farrow. Someone driving a Bristol police car abducted Vicki. The car was last seen heading west, so it could be heading toward one of the four-lane roads that provide access to bigger cities.”

  “But you think it’s heading for The Jumble.” Ilya wasn’t asking a question.

  “Yeah. We’re on our way there.”

  Ilya hung up and hurried out to the lodge’s multilevel deck, going down to the lowest level.

  “Do you still need the car?” Boris asked.

  On the other side of the lake, he saw the Crowgard flying up in alarm. “No. It’s too late for that.”

  Where would they take Victoria? Farrow and Grimshaw—because he understood that was what Farrow had meant by “we”—would aim for the main house. But killing could be done anywhere.

  Just before he changed to smoke to race across the lake and help with the hunt, Natasha grabbed his arm and said, “Look.”

  Shapes in the water.

 

  He wanted to argue. After all, turning The Jumble back into a viable terra indigene settlement was the Sanguinati’s responsibility—his responsibility—and that included keeping watch over the vulnerable human who was caretaker and Reader. But he knew better than to disobey a command when it came from one of them.

  “Ilya?” Boris asked.

  “We wait.” The words tasted bitter.

  “But our enemies are over there,” Natasha protested.

  He nodded. “So are the Elders.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Vicki

  Watersday, Sumor 8

  I pictured opening the car door and flinging myself out of the vehicle while Detective Swinn had to concentrate on something in the road. I pictured him punching me in the face if I reached for the door handle. I was in the front seat with him—couldn’t have me looking like a prisoner—but I didn’t know if a passenger could unlock the door. So opening and flinging weren’t good options.