I didn’t run into Swinn. But as I caught a glimpse through the trees of what I thought was the main house, I did run straight into a man wearing a business suit—and thin black gloves. I’d come around a blind curve in the trail and bounced off him, stumbling back a couple of steps. I didn’t recognize him, but I saw the tie clip—one of those weird moments when time slows down and you fixate on one detail. So even though I didn’t know him, I knew he wasn’t a friend. Not to me.
I dodged him when he lunged at me. Don’t ask me how. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. I was already puffing, so he wouldn’t have to work hard to catch me. And I was sure that him catching me would be bad for my health.
Not having any sensible ideas of how to evade the man, I waved a hand over my head as if I was holding a ticket and wheezed, “I have the ‘Elder Helps You’ card!” Which shows you that, while adrenaline is an amazing thing, it can produce wonky thoughts in the brain, showing me a flashback of the Murder game we had all played that one evening.
Except . . .
I saw nothing, but I swear I felt fur brush the bare skin on my arm as something big rushed past me. As it passed, it gave me a negligible swat/shove/toss/take your pick that had me airborne. Reminded me of when I used to do the running long jump when we had the track-and-field segment in gym class. Not that my long jump was long. But this? I was flying. I had plenty of time to remember there was a safe way to fall and roll when I landed. I didn’t remember how, just that there was a safe way and then there was the tumble the rest of us took.
At the moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a hideous scream—a terrified, mind-breaking sound. With my concentration shattered, I landed in a heap. Couldn’t think about what had just happened. Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t.
As I pushed to my feet, I felt a sting in both knees, a sharp pain in my left wrist, and a queer feeling of sticky air along my right side. Couldn’t think about that either.
I needed to be out in the open. The main house was probably stuffed with Yorick’s friends, so I couldn’t shelter there. But the beach? If I got to the beach and yelled for help, the Crowgard would hear me. Maybe even Conan and Cougar if they were hunting nearby. Someone would see me, would know what happened to me.
I ran and made rash promises to exercise more if I lived. Of course, if I died, exercising would be a moot point.
As I ran past the main house, following the path to the lakeside cabins and the beach beyond them, several things happened. A voice that sounded like Julian’s yelled “Vicki!”; tittering female screams, not the I’m-being-eaten kind of screams, came from the screened porch; and Swinn, waving a gun, fought his way between a couple of bushes and came at me.
I was in sight of the lakeside cabins, sure that Swinn was going to shoot me at any moment, when fog suddenly started playing hide-and-seek with the ground, with objects, with people.
“Caw!”
“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”
Aggie and her friends? I hoped so.
The fog thinned, revealing the sand.
“Bitch!” Swinn’s voice, too close.
Sand would slow me down. So would the water unless I could get far enough out to be safe from bullets.
I changed course and ran for the dock. Was that sensible? Who knows? It’s what I did. Behind me, I heard Swinn yell; I heard a big splash. A gun went off. And someone started screaming.
I was almost at the dock when Yorick ran toward me, waving something shiny and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”
I didn’t know what he was holding. I just knew I couldn’t let him get his hands on me.
Men with guns and other weapons behind me. Ahead of me? Something else.
The fog might have messed with my sense of distance, but it wasn’t the reason I ran to the end of the dock and kept running until I hit the water.
CHAPTER 74
Grimshaw
Watersday, Sumor 8
Spotting the smoke, Grimshaw slowed the cruiser. “I need to call this in.”
“I’ll call it in,” Julian said, plucking Grimshaw’s mobile phone out of the console. “We need to reach The Jumble.”
He glanced at Julian’s pale face and stepped on the gas. They weren’t more than a couple of minutes away, but a couple of minutes could make a difference in saving a victim or standing over a corpse.
“I don’t know what’s burning, but it’s on the farm track between Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble,” Julian said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “If the wind picks up, the whole area could be in trouble.” He ended the call. “Volunteer fire department is on its way.”
The mobile phone rang. Julian answered. “Officer Grimshaw’s phone. Wait. I’ll put you on speaker.”
“Sir?” Osgood.
“We’ve already called the fire department to handle whatever is burning on the farm track, in case that’s what you wanted to tell me.”
A beat of silence. “No, sir. I called to tell you Captain Hargreaves is boiling mad. Seems two of the officers who came with him as backup let a fellow officer borrow their patrol car. The captain was mad enough about that since they didn’t tell him about it, but when he threatened them with disciplinary action, they admitted they loaned the car to Detective Swinn. That’s when he really got mad. He’s on his way back with, and I quote, reliable officers.”
“Tell Captain Hargreaves it’s likely that those officers owe the Bristol station a car,” Julian said.
“Why?” Osgood asked.
Grimshaw pulled to the shoulder near the game trail that they’d been using to reach the main house at The Jumble. “Because that’s probably what’s burning on the farm track.”
“Do I have to tell him?”
“I’m heading up to the main house with Julian Farrow. You can tell him that.”
Another beat of silence. “You should have backup. I’m on my way.”
Grimshaw hesitated, then thought, Either he has the stones for this work or he doesn’t. “The trail to reach the main house has been marked. If you don’t see us, get up to the main house and hold anyone who’s inside. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Julian ended the call and handed the mobile phone to Grimshaw, who tucked it in its spot on his belt as soon as he got out of the car.
“Damn,” Julian said softly as they started up the trail.
Fog swirled around them as they hurried toward the main house. Not a thick enveloping fog, but almost . . . flirtatious, veiling and revealing. Just enough that Grimshaw couldn’t see the ground, couldn’t see something that might trip him up enough that he’d sprain an ankle or wrench a knee—injuries not normally life-threatening, but either would leave him useless and vulnerable.
Once they reached the access road, they ran toward the main house but stopped, frozen, when they heard a hideous scream.
Grimshaw took a step toward the sound. Julian grabbed his arm.
“No,” Julian said. “We can’t go there.”
The look in Julian’s eyes. He’d seen it at the academy—and he’d seen it on the streets before they’d been assigned to different stations. “Are you seeing the real place or The Jumble as it was represented in the Murder game?”
“They’re the same now.” Julian shuddered, then headed for the main house. “They’re the same.”
Not good.
“Vicki!” Julian shouted once they reached the main house.
Female screams coming from the back of the house.