“Lyle?” Weston huffed a guess.
“No.” Caden turned his back on the window behind Eve’s desk, blocking a view of the Ohio River. Fifteen years ago, the tall towers of the Silver Bridge had commanded that vantage point. “The Bradley brothers just came into the River Café, going on about the Mothman.”
“Aren’t they always?”
“This is different. Duncan says he shot the thing. Might have even injured it enough to kill it.”
A loud clatter echoed over the line. Small wonder if Weston dropped something. “He’s certain?”
Caden scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “As certain as he can be.” An excited babble of voices drifted beneath the closed door, alerting him a crowd gathered in the lobby. Apparently, word had spread from the café to the hotel. “Duncan said he and Donnie were scouting in the woods when the thing burst out of nowhere. He put a bullet in it when it soared over their heads.”
Weston spat a curse. “Let me guess. They’re getting everyone fired up to go into the woods with them.”
“Something like that. I’m still at the hotel. I left Ryan in the café trying to keep a lid on things. A lot of it’s just swagger, but some of these guys are going to be piling into their cars and trucks with guns to go Mothman hunting.”
“I hear you.” Weston exhaled noisily. “Rosling’s at the station. I’ll call in and have him put a patrol together. With any luck, this whole thing will blow over in one night. If we’re going to have a lot of idiots running around with guns, we need to be visible.”
“I’m headed there as soon as I hang up.”
“Good.” Weston paused, and Caden had the sense he was mulling something over. “What do you think? Did Duncan really hit the thing?”
“Hard to say.” The thought lay like a rock in his gut. The Mothman had saved his life more than once. How did you wish death on a being like that? His gaze dropped to his forearm where the marks the creature branded him with peeked from beneath his sleeve. “I’ll radio if I find anything.”
“Do that.” Weston’s voice was gruff. “We don’t need this turning into a circus. If the media gets wind of it—”
“I hear you. Gotta run.” Caden hung up the phone as Eve stepped into the office. A din of voices rose behind her before she muffled them into silence by closing the door.
“Word’s spreading.” She moved closer to the desk, absently twisting the diamond ring on her finger. Her eyes appeared overly bright, the corners of her mouth stretched in an anxious line. “I’m worried, Caden. What are you going to do?”
“My job.” There was no time to go back for a patrol car, but he kept a .38 locked in his glove box. If the thing was dying, then he needed to end it humanely before some half-assed hit squad splattered the TNT with the creature’s innards.
“Tell Ryan where I’m headed.” Rounding the desk, he gave her a quick kiss, then headed for the door. “Do me a favor and keep an eye on Evening. Something about that guy doesn’t add up.”
“He already left.”
“What?” Caden stopped in his tracks.
“He left the café not long after you did.” Eve twisted the ring again, worrying it back and forth. “It’s crazy out there. There’s a crowd growing in the lobby. Mostly guests, but people are starting to wander in from the street. And Duncan and Donnie are trying to round up a hunting party to go into the TNT.”
“Great.”
“Ryan read them the riot act and told them to keep away from the place, that the sheriff’s office would handle it. Some of the guys aren’t buying it, and Shawn Preech is telling everyone whoever finds the Mothman is going to be famous. Mr. Evening left right before things got hectic.”
“Ryan’s going to have to deal with it. If he has to, he can call city police.” Caden needed to get to the TNT and find the damn creature before someone else did. If word spread through town, it wouldn’t only be hunters headed to the old munitions site, but reporters too. Weston didn’t want a circus, but there wasn’t much they could do to stop the frenzy. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He opened the door and stepped into the lobby—directly into the chaos of rumormongers and camera flashes.
It took a good hour for the lobby to clear out. Katie was thankful when most everyone who remained congregated in the café. The majority of the curiosity seekers had left, a few snapping pictures of the famous Mothman photo that hung in the lobby. It would be interesting to know what Glenda and George Whitmore thought of the latest uproar. Eve had told them they could stay free whenever they wanted thanks to the business their photo brought the hotel. It had certainly drawn a lot of attention tonight, even if Katie did think it looked like an indiscernible gray blob. Enough papers and science-fiction journals had splashed it on their front page, that everyone from fanatics to the mildly curious viewed it as the holy grail of Mothman evidence.
A muffled din of conversation drifted from the River, as she busied herself straightening up the lobby. Donnie and Duncan had left with eight to ten others, all of them hyped up on the idea of tracking down the Mothman.
“There’s gotta be a blood trail,” Donnie had said. Others agreed.
Ryan left a little before they did, headed for the TNT to rendezvous with Weston’s patrols. Most who remained simply wanted to coast on the wave of lingering excitement. When she’d popped her head in the eatery a few minutes ago, some of the older patrons were sharing tales from the ’66 and ’67 sightings. Mothman fever was back, and it looked like it was going to be a while before the flurry died down.
The sound of the front doors opening drew her attention from the magazines she was arranging on a table by the window. She straightened in time to see Suzanne Preech step inside and sweep a hand through her hair, taming her platinum curls.