Brad swallowed down two whiskeys, neat, before they ordered. Rowenna joined him for the first, and Jeremy found that the beer he’d ordered was gone in a matter of seconds, as well.
Now, far away from the cornfield, with a few hours between them and the awful discovery, the world was just beginning to seem normal once again.
Jeremy had seen a lot. Hell, he’d once thought that nothing would ever dislodge the image of drowned children as the most awful thing he’d ever seen, but this had done it.
Or at least now there were two images to fill the horror chambers of his mind.
Rowenna set a hand gently on Brad’s arm when the waitress brought his third whiskey in less than ten minutes. “Let’s thank God it wasn’t Mary,” she said softly.
He drank, and his own hand trembled as he set his glass down. “The thing is…” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “The thing is…there’s a psychotic killer out there. And now Mary’s out there, too.”
“You can’t let yourself think that way, Brad,” Rowenna said, and glanced at Jeremy.
He wondered how he had ever managed to keep his distance from her. The empathy in her amber eyes when she looked at Brad was remarkable.
But the way she was looking at him…
She looked as if she wanted to say something but was holding back, as if certain that he wouldn’t approve.
He tilted his head at an angle, questioning her silently.
She looked back at Brad. “I have…I have a feeling that Mary is alive,” she told him.
Brad tried to smile, but no one could have called it a complete success. “Yeah? Well, I hope you’re right. I thought so, too, but now…” He shook his head as if he didn’t know what to think anymore.
It was clear from her expression that she was still struggling with what and how much to say. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but you can actually ask Joe Brentwood about it. I get…feelings about things sometimes. And I feel that Mary is alive.”
Jeremy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She really did believe in all that stupid paranormal crap. He almost said something, but he stopped himself in time.
Brad managed a real smile that time, and he lifted his glass to her. “From your lips to God’s ears,” he said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. He sat up straighter and offered her his hand. “You know, we were never formally introduced. I’m Brad Johnstone.”
“Rowenna Cavanaugh,” she returned, shaking his hand.
“And you’re from…?” he asked.
“Right here in Salem. I’m a native,” she said.
Brad actually managed a slight but genuine laugh as he told her that she didn’t have an accent. She responded in turn that he didn’t sound like a Southerner. Brad told her then that he was a Jacksonville native, and that she should never believe people who said that Florida was only a state of transients and newcomers, because his family had been in the area since the early 1800s.
It was good to hear Brad carry on a normal conversation, Jeremy thought, but at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling oddly anxious, as if he were waiting for a bomb to drop.
Except that a bomb had dropped, in the form of a corpse in a cornfield.
He leaned back in his chair, sipping his second beer. Soup came—they’d all ordered the New England clam chowder the area was famous for—and was followed by fish.
Without discussing it, they had all decided on fish. White flaky meat that didn’t resemble anything that had ever been a mammal.
They had almost finished their meal—with Brad and Rowenna carrying on most of the conversation, discussing anything and everything except local history, Halloween, Mary or the body in the cornfield—when Jeremy looked up to see Joe Brentwood standing in the doorway.
He looked old, Jeremy thought, as if he’d aged ten years in the course of one day. Old, tired and worn.
Jeremy straightened, wishing he could keep Joe from seeing them, and Rowenna and Brad from seeing Joe.
But that was impossible.
Even as the thought flashed through his mind, Joe turned toward them. He caught Jeremy looking at him, and he offered a weak smile and walked over to their table.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked.
There was nothing he should want more than a meal with the detective on Mary’s case, Jeremy thought, but logic didn’t matter, because in fact there was nothing he wanted less, right at the moment.
“Joe,” Rowenna said welcomingly. “Of course we don’t mind.” She started to rise, but Joe stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Sit, sit, thanks,” he said, and pulled out the fourth chair and sat down himself. He ran his fingers through his white hair. “Long day. Really long, really bad day.”
“Have you come up with anything you can tell us? Anything at all?” Jeremy asked him.
“Besides the press breathing down my neck? And me praying that the CS Unit doesn’t give away details that may foul up the investigation? No.” He glanced quickly at Rowenna, who was studying him with concern. “Ro?” he said softly. “How about you?”
She shrugged.