Читать книгу Night of the Raven - Jenna Ryan - Страница 12

Chapter Six

If you believed local lore, the wind on Hollow Road was an echo of Sarah Bellam’s dying wail. A final protest, Amara supposed, against the unfair hand she believed she’d been dealt.

As a child, Amara had loved hearing stories about Sarah. As an adult—well, suffice it to say the last place she wanted to be was on a twisty, turny, extremely narrow strip of pavement that wound an impossible path to the edge of the north woods, listening to the wind howl like a raging witch.

She glanced out and up as the road forked. The left side made a steep and treacherous climb to the imposing structure that was Bellam Manor. The first time she’d seen it at four years of age, all the Gothic points, tall gables and arrow-slatted windows had struck her as extremely castle-like. Bad castle, not good. This was where Sarah had been born, raised and, most agreed, confined for the final years of her life. The locals of the day had branded her evil, and the description had stuck.

The same description could be applied to Jimmy Sparks. Unfortunately, even in prison, Sparks wielded sufficient power to have people murdered.

The picture of Lieutenant Michaels’s face that swam into Amara’s head caused pain to spike and spread. Had he died because of her, or had Jimmy Sparks wanted him gone in any case? Would she ever know? Would it make a difference if she did?

“So, Red, is it the wind, Michaels’s death or me that’s bothering you?”

McVey’s question shattered the beginnings of a dreadful memory. Amara pressed on a nerve at the side of her neck. “The death’s the worst. But as we get farther and farther from so-called civilization, I am starting to wonder why you’ve taken such an active interest in my welfare.”

A smile grazed his lips. “It’s my job to be interested, isn’t it?”

“It’s not your job to play personal watchdog. You could have fobbed me off to any number of relatives, including Yolanda and her extremely strange brother, Larry.”

“The sleepwalking streaker who spends his winters working at a Colorado ski resort?”

“He’s part of an avalanche control team. Helps bring the snow down before it gets too deep and dangerous. Nana said he wound up in the hospital with frostbite after one of his naked nighttime walks. I guess he knows his way around plastic explosives. Have you met him?”