It bothered Rowenna more than she wanted to admit that Brad Johnstone had seen the cornfields in the crystal ball, the crystal ball owned by the man no one knew and no one could find.
“Does that sound good to you?” Jeremy asked.
“Sorry, what?” Rowenna asked, brought back to the present by the sound of his voice.
Brad had just gone in, and he had sworn that he would lock up and stay inside until the morning came. Now she and Jeremy were alone on the sidewalk, surrounded by the quiet darkness.
“I said we can just stay at my place here in town.”
“Oh. I…I can’t. I need to go home.”
“Why?” Jeremy asked, almost combatively.
She stared at him, her brows arching slightly. He was in a hardheaded mood, that was for sure. He seemed ridiculously tall, all of a sudden, even fierce, and she wasn’t sure why. Nothing about him had changed. He was just looking at her, dressed in the same jacket and jeans he’d been wearing all day. But his tone was hard, and she suddenly found herself remembering that he’d been a cop, so arguing with him wasn’t going to be easy.
She could just tell him to go to hell.
Sure she could—if she were eager to end a relationship she’d been aching to have….
“Jeremy, I don’t even have a toothbrush or anything.”
“We can find a convenience store, or an all-night pharmacy, if that’s your big objection.”
“I just got home,” she told him.
“And your home is way out in the country, and it’s late. And more important, I think we’ve both had enough of cornfields for the day.”
She needed to argue a little harder.
She didn’t have the heart.
Actually, once she got past her own stubbornness, she realized she was kind of glad he’d suggested they stay where they were. She was feeling seriously unnerved, and she really didn’t need to see any more cornfields tonight—or, frankly, ever. She’d been dreaming about those fields. Dreaming about the scarecrows, dreaming that they were the dead.
And now one of them was.
What really terrified her, though, was the looming fear that another body would be staked out for the crows before this was all over.
“I should go home,” she offered wearily.
“Yeah, well, not tonight,” he told her curtly.
“I still need a toothbrush. And I’ve never heard of a guy who traveled with an extra one,” she told him, managing a weak smile.
He smiled back. “Come on. Let’s go find you what you need.”
At least he wanted her with him, she thought.
Maybe there was hope for them yet.
And what a thing to be thinking, when she had found a corpse earlier today and Mary was still missing.
And when Brad had seen cornfields in a crystal ball, cornfields like the one where the corpse had been so gruesomely posed.
Cornfields like the ones she had seen in her dreams.
She didn’t say anything as they headed for the car.
It would do no good to tell him about her dreams. He’d made it plenty clear that he didn’t believe that dreams—or anything else, for that matter—could foretell the future.
They got into his rental car, and within five minutes, they came to a gas station/convenience store combo. Rowenna headed in to pick up a few essentials, while he put gas in the car. As she stood in line to pay, the heavyset woman in front of her was speaking in hushed tones to the elderly man behind the register, obviously talking about the corpse Rowenna had found.
“They haven’t identified her, but she’s not that woman who’s just been in the papers. It’s ghastly, just ghastly. But…” She lowered her voice even further, and Rowenna strained to hear. “But I’ve heard it’s happened here before.”
“When?” the old man asked. “I’ve been around these parts a long time, and I don’t recall hearing any such thing.”
“Well, it’s happened before, I can tell you that.” The woman let out a sniff. “It’s all those uppity wiccans,” she declared.
Despite the fact that she wasn’t a wiccan, Rowenna found herself indignant.
“Wiccans don’t practice ritualistic murder,” she said before she could stop herself.
The woman turned toward her, seeming to gain girth like a puffer fish. “Are you one of them?” she demanded.
Rowenna was tired, and the events of the day were wearing on her. “No,” she said, and added, “No, I’m a Satanist. We worship the devil, but we usually just sacrifice goats, or occasionally a small dog or a cat. Trying to honor the master but stay within the law. You know how it is.”
The woman’s jaw dropped.
Rowenna felt someone at her back then. Jeremy. He threw down a bill on the counter that would more than cover her toothbrush and deodorant, and drew her toward the door with him, apologizing as he went. “She’s off her meds, ma’am. I’m so sorry. Please excuse us.”
Outside, he spun her around to face him. “What the hell is the matter with you?” he demanded, eyes the color of a hurricane at full blast.