Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(11)

Wedding? Oh, Christ. Bruno and Lily’s wedding had been put off because of Spruce Ridge, and the premature birth of their son. They had rescheduled for . . . what day was today? He thumbed around on the smartphone. Oh, f*ck. Today. The wedding was today.

He let out a long, whistling breath of real dismay. That he felt. Keenly. Even through the shield.

He didn’t have to go to the wedding. He could just load up some more supplies, and drive on. To another mountain range. A farther one.

Yeah, and never call his mother back again? That was a big deal to wrap his head around. Kind of like suicide. Considering that he was teetering on the edge of certifiable mental illness already.

He had a voice mail message, too. He didn’t recognize the number.

He clicked on it. “Hello, Miles.” It was a cracked, quavery old woman’s voice. “This is Matilda Bennet. I know you said you did your best trying to find poor Lara. Well and good. But I did some more digging on my own, and I came up with another line of inquiry that I think you could do something with. I’ve reached the end of my resources, but maybe you could push it further. If you have any interest in hearing about this matter, call me back at this number.”

That call had come in a week before.

Huh. That was unexpected. He’d met Matilda right before Spruce Ridge. She’d worked at Wentworth College with Lara’s father, the Professor Joseph Kirk. She was the one who had originally set Miles upon this quest to find Lara.

Matilda’s words were calculated to sting him into action, but the barbs did not get through his shield. Just a weird, fluttering sense in his belly, that Fate was playing tricks on him. There was something he should be noticing here, some pattern that eluded him.

It should be obvious. If he weren’t so goddamn thick.

Lara’s dead. Let it go, man. Don’t drive yourself any further into crazyland. Don’t sublease yourself a f*cking condo there.

Yet, he clicked the number the message had been sent from, and hit “call.” It was brutally early, but Matilda wouldn’t want to wait for a callback, not about this. The phone rang twelve times. He had almost given up when the line clicked open. There was a brief pause. “Hello?”

It was a youthful female voice. Not Matilda.

“Hi, sorry about the hour. Can I speak to Matilda?”

A breathless squeak answered him. Nothing comprehensible.

“Hello?” he prompted. Then more loudly. “Hello?”

A male voice spoke into the phone. “Hi. Who am I speaking with?”

“My name is Miles Davenport,” he said. “I’m looking for Matilda.”

“Well.” The guy’s voice was heavy. “She’s, ah . . . she’s dead.”

Miles’ mind flash-froze. “Huh?”

“Like I said. A week ago.”

“A week . . . ?” That was the day Matilda had made the call. Miles struggled to organize his thoughts. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mike Stafford. Her granddaughter’s husband.”

“I see. I . . . I’m sorry for your loss. How did she die?”

The guy paused. “Haven’t been watching the news lately, huh?”

“No,” Miles admitted. “I’ve been out of town for a few weeks.”

“She was murdered,” Mike Stafford told him. “Home invasion. Some drugged-up * broke in. Threw her down the stairs.”

The news sucked him down. The gravity load on his guts tripled.

“Ah . . . I’m sorry,” he stammered. “Could you tell me the name of the detective who’s got the investigation?”

“You know something about it?” The guy’s voice sharpened.

“No,” Miles said. “But Matilda called the day she died, and left me a message. I didn’t take the call, but the cops might want to know.”

“Calm down, Amy,” the guy muttered, evidently to his wife. “Okay, don’t see why not. His name is Detective Barlow.” He rattled off a telephone number, which Miles committed to memory.

“The funeral’s today,” the guy went on. “Six P.M. at the Merriweather Presbyterian Chapel. If you want.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Miles groped for words. “Give my condolences to your wife. I gave her a jolt when I asked for Matilda. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, man. Not your fault. It’s okay. Whatever.”

Miles closed the conversation with what grace he could, and sat there, eyes squeezed shut.

Holy f*ck. Matilda Bennet? Tension mounted in his body.

He’d thought he was as cold as ice, an orbiting satellite. Free at last, in his own lonely, f*cked-up way.

But he wasn’t. His belly clenched over the sick, greasy nausea roiling there. A wedding, a murder, a funeral. A desperate ghostly entity locked in his own head, pleading for help and rescue. A cryptic voice mail message from a murdered woman.

It didn’t matter how hard he tried to stay anchored in reality.

Reality was getting royally f*cked, from every single quarter.

Mud and rocks spat and flew as his tires jolted him out of the ruts and bounced him down the road, faster than conditions permitted.

Who could have wasted Matilda? She was a harmless old lady, built like a brick, stumping along with her dowager’s hump and cane. He didn’t need emotion to be outraged about this. It was outrage on every level, even that of cold logic. A scumbag who killed nice old ladies needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. Like the polio virus.