Then she thought that maybe Adam had wandered that way.
She turned the corner, and as she did, she had the acute feeling of being watched. She stopped and turned around. A couple of schoolkids, out for the afternoon, were dancing around outside the joke shop behind her, laughing. The elderly wiccan who owned Lamp, Bell and Candle walked by in a long black cape and smiled at Rowenna. “Blessed be, Ro.”
“Blessed be,” Rowenna echoed, forcing a return smile.
There were people out now. The streets were not inconveniently empty. But she still had the sensation of being watched.
She looked up the block toward the cemetery.
She could have sworn she saw a large shadow rising at the back, but the people walking through didn’t seem to notice anything strange.
At least, most of them didn’t seem to notice.
Rowenna saw an attractive young blond woman somberly studying the grave markers where several children of the same family, who had all died very young, had been buried. Then the woman looked up suddenly, as if disturbed.
The shadow seemed to be lumbering toward her.
Rowenna could have sworn that she heard the old children’s song in her head.
Don’t fear the Reaper,
Fear the Harvest Man…
She hurried into the cemetery and up to the woman. “Hello,” she said.
The woman didn’t seem to hear her, even though she was standing right in front of her.
“Excuse me,” Rowenna said, trying again. She reached for her arm and touched her gently. “Miss?”
Startled, the blonde turned and stared at Rowenna. “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you speaking to me? How odd…. I just had…Oh, never mind. What can I do for you?”
“This may sound silly, but it’s getting close to dusk and—” She broke off. A lie would have to do. She couldn’t very well tell the woman that a shadow was after her.
“I saw a man in a dark cape and hat watching you, and it just made me uneasy. If you’re alone, I think you might want to go somewhere with lots of people, or…even go back to your hotel for the night.”
The woman smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m with my husband. He just went to buy a new camera battery before I meet him for dinner.”
Rowenna’s heart sank. She was certain that the woman had been about to be a victim.
Of what? A shadow? In broad daylight, with people all around?
But the woman had clearly been under a spell of some sort, which she had only shaken off when Rowenna forcefully caught her attention. She wondered what the woman had been seeing.
A vision of a hill and cornfields?
Rowenna was sure the blonde was going to politely tell her goodbye, but she didn’t.
“I’m supposed to meet him at the Clam Shack at the waterfront. Can you tell me the best way to get there?”
“I’ll walk you over,” Rowenna told her.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’m not real sure of the streets here.”
“It’s easy. I’ll show you.”
“I hate for you to go out of your way.”
“Not a problem,” Rowenna assured her.
On the way, they introduced themselves and Rowenna discovered that Sue was from New York. When they reached the restaurant, Sue’s husband was outside, enjoying the view of the docks. They asked Rowenna to join them, but she demurred, waved goodbye and hurried back. Adam should have shown up by now. And if he hadn’t, Eve was going to be having a fit.
She hurried back to Eve’s, avoiding the cemetery, but that uneasy sensation of being watched returned. And she knew that those unseen eyes were definitely hostile. She kept moving quickly, and she made sure to keep where there were crowds.
At the shop, she pushed the door open. “Adam? Eve?” Nobody answered. She kept calling their names as she peered into their little reading rooms behind the drapes, and then back in the storeroom. Neither of them was anywhere to be seen.
They never left without locking the door. Never.
A wave of unease swept through her. She was alone in the store. And she was certain someone out there had been watching her.
Following her.
She started for the door, planning to go straight to the police station, and on the way, she was going to get back on the phone and get hold of Joe—no matter what.
But as she neared the front of the shop, a shadow loomed outside and the door began to open.
Police were called in from all the surrounding cities. Joe was furious; warnings and instructions had been sent out to all the farmers, and in his opinion, the bodies should have been discovered already. Precious time was elapsing, precious time for Mary Johnstone—if she weren’t among the dead already.
As Jeremy had expected, the crime-scene crew weren’t hopeful of finding much, but they were grateful that he and Brad hadn’t trampled the scene once they’d found it.