Читать книгу Night of the Raven - Jenna Ryan - Страница 11
ОглавлениеLock it away, Amara cautioned herself. Bring it out later—because how could she not? But she’d kissed men before and would again, so...not a problem.
Unless she acknowledged the fact that ten minutes after she’d dragged her mouth from his, her senses continued to zap like an electric wire gone wild.
Did McVey feel the same? They were in his truck, driving. She couldn’t read his profile, and he hadn’t really looked at her or talked to her, so who knew?
There was that other thing, too; the part about her face having been in his head for fifteen years. What was she supposed to do with that weird knowledge?
He finally glanced over as they neared the outskirts of the Hollow. “You’re annoyed, aren’t you, Red? I can feel the vibes taking bites out of me.”
Amara flicked him a similar look. “Don’t flatter yourself, McVey. It’s been a very bizarre night. I was torn between kissing you and kneeing you. It just so happens I’m a pacifist.”
“Is that why I have four gouges in my left cheek?”
“You tackled me in my grandmother’s house. Maybe you’re renting it at the moment, but I didn’t know that going in.”
“Breaking in.”
Her lips curved. “I’m fairly certain that using a key to enter a property can’t be construed as a break-in. However, to answer your question, yes, I’m annoyed, just not for the reason you probably think.” Lowering the visor, she regarded the tangled mess of her hair, sighed and began rooting through her shoulder bag for a brush. “I liked it.”
“I know.”
She heard the amusement in his tone and told herself not to react. “I know you know. That’s why I’m annoyed. Tell me—” she worked the brush through the tangles “—do you eat midnight snacks?”
“Not anymore.” He swung onto Main Street, made a wide U-turn and stopped in a no-parking zone. “You might want to stay behind me when we go inside. I see two broken windows.”
“I see four. I hope whoever broke them likes mucking out stables. Male or female, when it comes to serious property damage, Uncle Lazarus is a tyrant.”
“You know your family’s a little scary, right?”
“Which side?”
“Take your pick,” he said as they approached the front door. “Now, unless your repertoire contains a curse for every occasion, remember to stick close when we go in.”
Low lights tinged with red burned throughout the bar. Kiss rocked the jukebox and glass crunched like pebbles underfoot. Oh, yeah, Amara thought, Uncle Lazarus would be plenty pissed.
To the left of the entryway, behind a long line of pool tables, a dozen broken chairs and tables sat in a cockeyed heap. Groups of customers continued to hurl insults back and forth across the remaining tables. Amara spotted more than a few drops of blood both on the people and on the floor.
“Well, hallelujah, Chief, you made it.” A tall man with receding brown hair, heavy stubble and bean-black eyes pushed through the crowd. He wore a tan T-shirt, a shoulder holster and a frown that became a sneer when he spied his newly arrived Bellam cousin.
“Spit and I’ll suspend you,” McVey warned, not looking at him. “I assume you two have met.”
“I know who she is.” A muscle twitched in Jake’s jaw. “She don’t look much different than she did the night she gave my brother Jimbo the screaming meemies up on Raven’s Ridge.”
“I imagine that was unintentional, Deputy.”
As a wave of people began to enfold him, Amara shrugged. “It wasn’t, actually. I meant to scare him, and it worked.”
“Jimbo was a year and a half younger than you,” Jake accused.
“He was also forty pounds heavier, six inches taller and trying very hard to coax me into jumping off the edge of the cliff.”
“You could’ve said no.”
“He said he didn’t like that word. Push, though...he liked that word a lot.”
Jake thrust his chin out. “He was a kid.”
“So was I.”
“He still half believes one of his spooky Bellam cousins can talk to ravens and make them do her bidding. Frigging witch.”
Losing patience, Amara regarded him through her lashes. “Don’t tempt me. I’m older now and less...tolerant.”
Jake showed his teeth but didn’t, she noticed, utter another word.
“Smart man.” Through a crowd that was now vying loudly for his attention, McVey indicated the carnage in the corner. “How many arrests have you made?”
Jake dragged his resentful gaze from Amara. “Six. When you didn’t show, I called the Hardens in to help out.”
“Part-time Hollow deputies,” McVey said over his shoulder. “Twins.”
“Thick as bricks, the pair of them.” Jake snarled at a trio of men who elbowed him aside and began pleading their cases to McVey. “The Hardens are kin to Tyler Blume. No idea why he took the job, but Tyler’s the police chief here in the Hollow.” He raised his voice. “A town we Cove cops are being forced to watch over while he’s off snorkeling with his new Bellam wife.”
“That would be my cousin Molly.” When McVey shifted his attention from the squabbling men to arch a brow in Amara’s direction, she let her eyes sparkle. “It gets complicated very quickly if you start talking relatives around here. Think of me and Nana as the link between two feuding families.” Without missing a beat, she offered a placid, “Say missing link, Jake, and you’ll have hemorrhoids by the end of your shift.”
She felt the deputy’s glare before he pushed his way to McVey’s other side.
A man with a pockmarked face and no neck shouted over Amara’s head, “Was a Blume who started it, McVey. Called our beer donkey—er, well, anyway, he accused Yolanda of cutting it.”
Amara poked McVey’s hip. “Does Yolanda Bellam manage this bar?”
“More or less.... Yeah, Frank, I heard you.... From your expression, I’d speculate you and Yolanda aren’t BFFs.”
“Put it this way, if I’d known she was here, I’d have taken my chances with the shooter up at Nana’s.”
On cue, a high female voice sliced through the predominately male grumbles. “Amara? My God, is it really you?”
Her cousin had a little-girl drawl, glossy pink lips and red-blond curls clipped back at the sides to show off her angelic face.
Yeah, right, angelic, Amara thought, tipping her lips into a smile as a pair of wide blue eyes joined the mix. “Hey, Yolanda. It’s been— Well, years.”
Her cousin pushed a man out of her path, slung the dish towel she carried over her shoulder and spread her arms in welcome.
“Cousin Ammie’s back. And isn’t she a living doll? She brought me the best present ever.” Those welcoming arms knocked Amara aside and wrapped themselves tightly around McVey’s neck. “How’s the handsomest lawman on the East Coast tonight?” Her eyes and mouth grew suddenly tragic. “You’ll make them pay, won’t you, McVey? I tried, but I couldn’t get any such promise out of your mean-mouthed deputy.”
Amara’s opinion of Jake shot up ten full points. She wasn’t so sure about McVey.
To his credit, however, he removed her clinging arms, sent Amara a humorous look and headed for the pool tables, where three men with pierced body parts were holding their cues like baseball bats.
Yolanda pouted after him...until someone stepped on her foot and then the pout became a snarl. “You still nipping chins and lifting butts?”
Unruffled, Amara smiled. “Why? Are you looking for a freebie?”
“I wouldn’t come to you if I was.”
“Only because we apply the word in different ways.”
Yolanda’s fists balled. “I could blacken both your eyes, you know.”
“I’d say the same, except you’ve already done it yourself.”
“I— Damn!” Wiping a finger under her lower lashes, Yolanda scowled. “Some dumb Blume threw a beer and got me square in the face.” She gave her other eye a wipe. “Talk to me, Amara. Why have you come here after fifteen years of not here?”
“I wanted to see Nana.”
“In that case, Portland’s an hour’s drive south and have a nice flight. Nana’s in St. Croix. Or maybe it’s the Cayman Islands. Anyway, you’ll find her if you look hard enough.” With the speed of a striking snake, she grabbed Amara’s trench coat and yanked her forward to hiss, “He’s mine. You got that?”
Amara pried her hand away. “I got it when you turned into a barnacle a minute ago.”
Her cousin’s eyes flashed. “I can make your life hell.”
“You can try.” And, she admitted silently, might have succeeded if Jimmy Sparks hadn’t beaten her to it. “In an effort to keep the peace, Yolanda, if McVey says he’s yours, he’s yours. And welcome to you.”
A finger jabbed her shoulder. “You can’t stay at Nana’s house while you’re here.”
“Yep, figured that one out, too.”
“Can’t stay with me and Larry, either.”
“Your brother, Larry, the nighttime nudist? Uh, no.”
The overhead lights surged and faded and caused an icy finger to slide along Amara’s spine.
“Stupid wind.” But Yolanda observed her more keenly now. “A little raven told me you had some heavy court action going on down south. Saw someone die who wasn’t on your operating table when it happened.”
She didn’t need this, Amara thought, but rather than snap at her cousin, she shrugged it off. “I saw. I testified. It’s done.” When the lights faded again, she added a quick, “Uh, how’s Uncle Lazarus?”
Yolanda sniffed. “Still pays me next to nothing to manage this rude branch of hell, but he’s a Blume, so what do you expect?” Her lips quirked. “Word is the man you testified against is the mean and powerful head of a family that’s into all sorts of nasty things. Extortion, weapons, drugs—murder.”
“My, what big ears you have, Grandma.” His pool-player problems apparently dealt with, McVey surprised Amara by dropping an arm over her shoulders. “Some analogies go on forever, don’t they, Red?” Before she could answer, he made a head motion at the crowd. “I’m seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces, Yolanda. They drifting in for the Night of the Raven Festival already?”
Amara knew her cheeks went pale. She glanced at a nonexistent watch on her wrist, then at the walls for a calendar. “Is it—? What’s today? The date,” she clarified, still searching.
“May 10,” McVey supplied. “Why?”
“What? Oh, nothing. I forgot...an appointment.”
But damn, damn, how on earth had she forgotten about the scores of strangers who drove, bussed, cycled and hitchhiked to Raven’s Hollow to take part in the three-day celebration known as the Night of the Raven?
The Night festival was the Hollow’s once-a-year answer to the Cove’s once-every-three-years Ravenspell. Although the story at the root of the events was the same, it was told from two very different perspectives. Over the years both events—the Cove’s in the fall and the Hollow’s in the spring—had become a magnet for every curse-loving fanatic in and out of the state.
This was, Amara realized, the worst possible time for her to be in either town.
Her smile nothing short of malicious, Yolanda drew a raven’s head in the residue of a spilled beer. “Bet the Cayman Islands are looking better and better about now, huh, Amara? Say the word and I’ll get right on my little computer and book you a flight out of Portland.”
When a shrill whistle cut through the crowd noise, she banged her fist on the bar. “I’m not a dog, Jake Blume. What do you want?”
He wagged the receiver of a corded wall phone. “Boss man’s on the line and he’s in a crappy mood.”
“I hate that man,” Yolanda breathed. “Both men. Remember the spiders, Amara.” With a lethal look for her cousin, she snapped the dish towel from her shoulder and vanished into a sea of bodies.
“She put a jar of them in my bed,” Amara said before McVey could ask. “Well, I say she, but Yolanda only had the idea. Jake and Larry collected and planted them.”
“In your bed.”
“Under the covers, at the bottom. She told them to leave the top off so the spiders could crawl around wherever. The things were big. I freaked and refused to sleep in that particular room again.”
McVey tugged on a strand of hair to tilt her head back. “Did you tell your grandmother?”
“No need.”
“Do I want to know why?”
“Because all three of them, Jake most particularly, are terrified of snakes.” She swept an arm around the room. “Is the fighting done?”
“For now.” He nodded at a row of dull brass taps that glowed an eerie shade of red under lights that continued to surge and fade. “Do you want a drink before we leave?”
“Poison is a witch’s weapon, McVey, and Yolanda’s a Bellam. But thanks for the offer.”
“Festival slipped your mind, didn’t it?”
She ran her hands up and down her arms. “Unfortunately. The prospect of eminent death must have pushed it out. I’ve only ever been to one Night celebration myself. If it’s of any interest to you—and it should be—the Hollow’s Night of the Raven isn’t quite as civilized as the Cove’s Ravenspell.”
“Translation, Tyler Blume deliberately planned his honeymoon so he’d miss it.”
“If you’ve met him, you know he did. On the other hand, Jake should be in his element.” She glanced up when the lights winked off. “Uh...” Then back on. “Okay, my nerves are getting a way bigger workout than they need.”
She heard a familiar double beep beneath wailing Tim McGraw. As she hunted in her shoulder bag for her phone, she saw McVey pluck a mug of beer from a much larger man’s hand.
“You’re over your limit, Samson. Unless you want to join your buddies in jail, go home.”
The man’s face reddened. “Gonna get my wife to put a pox on you, you don’t give that back, McVey.”
“Do it, and I’ll get Red here to put one on you.”
“My wife’s got an aunt who’s a Bellam.” The man jerked his stubbly chin. “What’s she got?”
Staring at her iPhone, Amara felt her brain go cold. What she had was a text message from a man who’d sworn he would only contact her in an emergency.
“Beat it, Samson.”
Giving the mug to the bartender, McVey turned her hand with the iPhone and read the name on the screen. A name Amara’s terrified mind didn’t want to see or to acknowledge. Willy Sparks.
* * *
SHE PACED THE back office of the Raven’s Hollow police station like a caged tiger, dialing and redialing her cell. At the front desk Jake muttered about the Harden brothers being allowed to go home while he had to ride herd on a bunch of drunks in a town that wasn’t his and didn’t even supply its officers with a decent coffeemaker.
On his side of things, McVey was seriously wishing he’d never made any kind of deathbed promise to his father. Raising his eyes, he watched Amara pace. Okay, maybe not so much wishing as wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with this mess.
“Come on, McVey, give me one good reason why I can’t haul these boozers to the Cove. Cells there are way more comfortable than here.”
McVey scrolled through a list of New Orleans police officers. “Paperwork, Jake. Triple the usual amount if we start shuffling prisoners around. And you’ll be doing every last bit of it.”
The deputy gave his rifle a resentful pump. “I could get me a job in Bangor, you know.”
“Any time you want that to happen...” A raven-shaped wall clock told McVey he’d been on his iPhone for more than forty minutes. Out of patience, he took a procedural shortcut to a friend of a friend on the New Orleans force. “Samson’s texted me three times since we left the Red Eye,” he said absently. “Wants me to pay for the beer he didn’t get to drink.”
Amara kept pacing. “Sounds as though Samson’s spent some time around Uncle Lazarus.... There’s still no answer at the lieutenant’s apartment, McVey. I’ve tried his BlackBerry and his landline a dozen times each.”
McVey flicked her a look but said nothing. Didn’t need to; she knew the score as well as he did.
It took the better part of an hour to connect with someone in a position of sufficient authority to have Michaels’s apartment checked out. Another hour and a blistering headache later, the captain from the lieutenant’s parish contacted him personally.
“Michaels is dead.” The man’s tone was lifeless, a condition McVey understood all too well. “Officers found him on his back, staring at the ceiling. He had both hands clamped around his BlackBerry.”
“Cause of death?”
“Given the situation, I’d go with some kind of off-the-radar toxin that simulates a stroke. Forensic team’s scouring the apartment as we speak. I’ll let you know what they turn up.”
Amara rubbed her forehead with her own phone after the captain signed off. “Michaels is dead because he helped me get out of New Orleans. This is my fault.”
Figuring sympathy wasn’t the way to go here, McVey countered with a bland, “You know that’s a load of bull, right? And if we all just went with it, Willy Sparks would go on killing cops and civilians ad infinitum.”
She shot him a vexed look. “Thanks for the shoulder.”
“You don’t want a shoulder, Amara. You want to pound your fists. If I tell you it’s not your fault, you’ll get angry and say it should’ve been you, because that’s who Jimmy Sparks was gunning for.”
“He was. He is. And as emotional releases go, angry words are better than furious fists.”
“Not always. Back on point, what if Sparks’s nephew, godson, second cousin—whatever—had killed you instead of Michaels. Then what? True, he’d get paid, maybe bask on a tropical island for a while, but what he’d really be doing is waiting for Uncle Jimmy to crook his finger again and point it at a new target. The way things stand, this job’s not done. In fact, it’s a good bet Willy Sparks is either en route to or has already arrived in whatever Raven town the lieutenant entered into his BlackBerry.”
Amara frowned at her cell, then at him. “He said he buried the destination and phone number.”
“There’s buried, and there’s buried, Red. The phone wasn’t taken, therefore there was no need to take it.”
“As in the killer got what he wanted from it before he left.” She closed her eyes. “My ex is a geek. He could hack into just about any device.”
“Geeks can murder as effectively as anyone, Amara.”
“So it seems.” She looked around the office. “I need to leave before he gets here.”
McVey regarded his iPhone screen, shook his head and pushed off from the windowsill where he’d been leaning. “You’re not getting this, are you? Skip past the beating-yourself-up part, Amara, and think.”
“I’m not beating myself...well, yes, I am, but that’s because I feel responsible.”
“Did you kill him?”
“You’re joking, right? I’m a doctor, McVey. Psychology doesn’t work on me.”
“Fine. Here’s the reality. You leave town, Willy arrives. He’s pissed off to start with. Then he stops and thinks. And being a pro, sees a golden opportunity to draw you back.”
“By hurting members of my family.”
“Wouldn’t you, in his position?”
“Let me think. Uh—no.”
“Put your mind in his. We’re talking about a killer here.” When she didn’t respond, McVey held his arms out to the sides. “Look, if it’ll help get you past the guilt and make you see reason, you’re welcome to take your best physical shot. All I want in return is a handful of Tylenols, a couple hours of sleep and no argument from you about where you’ll be spending the night. You have two options. Come with me to your grandmother’s place or hang with Jake on a cot in the back room.”
“That’s quite a choice. Seeing as I know all the hidey-holes at Nana’s house and wouldn’t trust Jake not to sell me out for cab fare, I’ll go with the lesser evil and take you. As for the gut punch, I’ll take a rain check.”
“Excellent choices,” McVey returned.
Although it felt like a betrayal of sorts, he deliberately neglected to tell her about the text message Michaels’s captain had sent him less than a minute ago. But it continued to play in his head like a stuck audio disk.
In the captain’s opinion, if one of his most experienced detectives could be taken out as easily as Michaels apparently had been, then it was only a matter of time—likely short—before the fourth person on Jimmy Sparks’s hit list followed him to the grave.
