The Inn(61)

SUSAN AND I couldn’t find the source of the smoke anywhere inside the house, so we crept to the front door. The night was still and silent, silver and blue in the light of the moon. The smell of burning wood was unmistakable. I looked at the clock in the entryway; it was 4:00 a.m. I ran to the basement to get my coat and gun while she ran up to her room to get hers.

We met at the door, and the air misted at my lips as we crept across the porch and down the stairs. The eeriness of the stillness before me set my teeth on edge. My mind turned a hundred shapes into the silhouettes of men with guns. I wanted Susan to follow me, to let me guard her, but she walked ahead, her gun out, following the smell of the burning. I looked up as we passed beneath Effie’s window and saw her thrust open her curtain, the smell having reached there, her enormous rifle tracking me as she identified my shape in the dark. I waved at her to stay where she was. She nodded.

In the darkness, I spotted the firepit on the east side of the house. The fire was lit. On the bench in the light, a man sat with his arms resting between his legs, his head down. Shadows picked at his shoulders and the dark pattern on the front of his dress shirt.

Susan stepped to the side and we stood before the man, our guns trained on his head.

“Don’t move,” I said. I kept my voice low. All I needed was for the household to wake in panic at another attack in the dark hours. I didn’t know who else was out there in the night watching. Had this man come alone, or was his presence and the fire a decoy for an ambush? I noticed Susan’s pulse was hammering in her neck.

“What do you want?” Susan asked.

The man didn’t answer. I stepped closer and realized the dark pattern on the front of his shirt wasn’t a design.

It was blood.





CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR





“HE’S DEAD.” SUSAN shuddered. Her hand fluttered near her mouth, but she regained her composure quickly. We rounded the fire on opposite sides and went to the man. He was small, thickly built. His head was bruised and scabbed with wounds at least a day old, but a huge, smiling gash across the front of his throat was new, still wet. I looked out into the dark forest, saw no one. There were drag marks in the dirt and leaves leading up to the bench. I fished in his back pocket and drew out a small leather wallet.

“Stanley Turner,” I said. “This is one of Cline’s guys.”

“What is this?” Susan was out of breath, on the verge of panic. “A sick present?”

“He’s been dead a little while.” I ran a hand over the body. He was cold in the back and warmed in the front by the fire. “Killed somewhere else. There’s no blood on the ground.” I looked back at the house, thinking, oddly, of Angelica. The sight of a body with a gaping neck wound propped up a few yards from her bedroom would send the fragile author into conniptions. A strange, detached consideration in the peak of my terror; I supposed my mind was seeking safe ground.

“What do we do?” I dragged Susan out of the light of the fire in case we were being watched. “Is Clay here?”

“No, not that I know of,” she said. “I think he was going back in tonight to work on the case.”

“We’ll do a lap of the grounds, see if—”

“Hey!” A voice in the blackness. Susan and I turned, training our guns on a figure emerging from the dark. Nick put his hands up. He held a pistol in one of them. “It’s me. It’s me.”

“Jesus,” I said. I wanted to grab Susan to me, shield her, shove her inside the house. But that was more of my over-protective bullshit. She had told me she could take care of herself.

“I smelled the smoke, saw the stiff, and did a patrol of the area.” Nick glanced toward the forest, his eyes wide. “There’s no one out there. Not that I can see.”

I was so angry it was hard to unclench my jaw. “He’s trying to intimidate us. Scare us. Dropping one of his guys on our fucking doorstep. He’s a coward.”

“Are we absolutely certain this is one of Cline’s guys?” Susan asked.

“He’d had his head bashed in pretty bad, and not tonight. This is probably the guy Clay stomped on in Dogtown,” I said.

“Cline hasn’t even stuck around to watch us freak out.” Susan was breathing deeply, trying to calm her nerves. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not about watching us be scared,” I said. “I think it’s about sending the message. These guys, they’re just commodities. They’re disposable. If I can do this to my own men, imagine what I can do to you.”

We stood, all of us lost in thought. Nick was tapping his gun against his thigh, his eyes searching the ground. I looked at him. The muscles in his shoulders were ticking with tension.

“I’m going to go inside and call Clay,” Susan said. “This is a crime scene.”

“Yeah, you report in,” Nick said. “We’ll take care of things here.”

Susan frowned slightly at the comment, then jogged back toward the house. Nick walked a few paces away from me, turned to the forest, and murmured something. He shook his head as though telling someone no.

“Nick, are you all right, buddy?”

“He’s not going to give us anything. We’ll have to find out ourselves. Tell Rickson to load up and you cover the door. I’ll take care of this.”