Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(55)

Lon stopped midstep. His arm grew rigid on my shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Oh . . .” He was watching a truck pull into a space across the street. “Oh,” he said again.

“Lon?”

“The U-Haul . . .”

“Yeah?” I looked again. Nothing weird about it. I couldn’t make out the person in the cab and doubted Lon could, either. The side of the truck was painted with bright graphics—a golfer in Augusta.

“Golf,” he said with a dazed look as the Walk sign flashed. “Christ, Cady. I think I know where Bishop’s Polaroid was taken.”

It took us half an hour to get to the Redwood Putt-Putt Golf Center, located just off an old two-lane highway that once carried a good bit of traffic south of La Sirena before a shiny new bypass funneled it to a larger interstate in the mid seventies. By 1980, all the businesses that had grown up around the old highway had gone under, including two gas stations, the Lucky Roadside Diner, Maria’s Fruit Barn, and poor old Redwood Putt-Putt.

Though the rain had passed, it left behind a threatening steel-gray sky. The industrial-strength heater in Lon’s SUV had mostly dried our rain-damp hair, but I still wasn’t all that keen on stomping around a muddy, abandoned miniature golf course.

Lon spent most of the ride over exchanging phone calls with Dare. His cell rang one more time as we pulled in. He answered and didn’t say much of anything during the brief call. And all he said to me after hanging up was, “Dare’s got people watching the temple.”

Good. Maybe Merrin would be stupid enough to come back. A girl could dream.

Lon pocketed his phone and parked behind a crumbling sky-blue wall that once hid the putt-putt course’s garbage bin from street view.

“Was he lying?” I said as we exited the SUV.

Lon hit the alarm button on his key chain. “Who?”

“Frater Merrin.” I trailed Lon around the backside of the building as he inspected a chain-link fence threaded with green plastic privacy slats that surrounded the property. “Was he lying when he was blabbering about everything being pointless because ‘he’ would just try ‘it’ again? Could you hear his emotions?”

Lon stopped at a locked double gate and bent to inspect it. “I read him. He wasn’t lying.”

“Then maybe he’s not the Snatcher. Maybe it’s someone else entirely.”

“He definitely made it sound like someone else is involved, but he’s not innocent, or he wouldn’t have run from us.”

True. “He said ‘thirty years are nothing to him.’ Thirty years isn’t nothing.”

Lon poked at the gate’s lock and verbalized my thoughts before I could. “Unless you’re an Æthyric being with a long life span.”

“Exactly. I smell a rat. Or a demon. No offense.”

“None taken.” Lon reached inside his jean jacket pockets and retrieved gloves. “You got yours?” He nodded at my hands.

No fingerprints, right. I dug out my gloves and continued thinking out loud. “Merrin’s a magician. Merrin summons demons. What are the odds that Merrin made some sort of deal with one thirty years ago?” Lon didn’t answer. He was busy inspecting the fence. “Are you listening to me?”

“Always.” The corners of his mouth briefly tilted up into a gentle smile before he shook the fence several times. “A deal with an Æthyric demon usually means that the magician gets something out of it.”

“So now we have two parties exchanging favors, and one of those favors involves kidnapping young teenagers. Was the bargain unfulfilled thirty years ago, and he’s back to collect on it? Did Merrin try to worm his way out of a contract? And which one of them wanted the children and why?”

“Excellent questions. The only thing we know is that Merrin was snatching some of the children and biting them—or at least Cindy Brolin, anyway. Stay here.” He trekked back to where we started, then returned with a dented metal garbage can and settled it upside down in the mud against the shorter fence near the gate. He placed a foot on top and tested his weight.

“O-o-oh, no,” I said. “We are not climbing this fence.”

“See where the top is bent? This isn’t uncharted territory. We’ll be fine.”

“Just because someone else has done it doesn’t mean we need to!”

“I’m the one with the shitty back—what are you worried about?” He picked up a damp cardboard box, shook it off, and broke it down.

“I . . .”

“Yes?” He cocked a brow in amusement then draped the flattened cardboard over the top of the fence.

“Can’t you just shoot the lock off or something?”

“That only works in the movies. I’ll go first.” He balanced on the creaky garbage can, stuck a toe in one of the links, and pulled himself up, hesitating before going over the top.

“Be careful,” I warned. “There are a few parts of you that are important to me. Please don’t crush them.”

“I’ll let you check for damage once I’m over.” And with a grunt he kicked a leg up and jumped over to the other side, making a sploshy noise when his feet hit the ground.

“You okay?” I called out.