Heat of the Moment (18 page)

“Yeah.” He dropped his hand. “I do.”

“Th-th-that's your mother?”

Reitman crouched in the tiny corner formed between the stone fireplace and the wall. Owen couldn't bring himself to answer. He didn't have to.

“Mrs. McAllister?” George shouted, and she flinched.

“She isn't deaf,” Becca said.

“She also isn't Mrs. McAllister.” Owen's parents had never been married. Owen wasn't sure his mom even knew who his dad was.

“Mary?” George said in a normal voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Baby boy,” she cooed. “Come to Mama, sweetheart.”

Becca glanced at Owen.

“She isn't talking to me.” His mom wasn't even looking at him but at the empty hallway, and she'd never once called him “baby” or “sweetheart.”

Reggie appeared in the entryway, and Reitman cursed. “Keep him out of here!”

“Talk about a baby boy,” Owen muttered.

“His hair will contaminate the crime scene.” Reitman's prissy voice reminded Owen of Miss Belinda, the ancient librarian who'd never allowed him and Becca to sit on the same side of the table in school. Had Belinda been her first name or her last?

“The crime scene is three ways from fucked already,” Owen said.

However, he did tell Reggie to
“bly'b,”
though the dog had ignored the order to stay already or he wouldn't be in the house. They were going to have to do some retraining before they went back to Afghanistan.

“Baby boy,” Owen's mother murmured again, and Reggie inched a little closer.

“Seriously?” Owen asked the dog.

Reggie hung his head as if he understood, even as he scooted ever nearer, as though he couldn't help himself.

Animals liked Owen's mom, and they, in turn, calmed her, as she was calmed by little else but heavy medication. Becca had always had a dog or a cat or two, which had followed her everywhere, including to Owen's house. They'd usually wound up on Mary's lap, or curled next to her wherever she'd passed out. Too bad they'd never been able to afford pets. Might have helped more than therapy ever had.

“Go on.” Owen flapped his hand in his mom's direction, and Reggie's head tilted. “You know you want to.”

Reggie promptly sprawled across Mary McAllister's filthy crazy-house slippers. From their worn appearance she'd walked here, which was a pretty damn long walk. The Northern Wisconsin Mental Health Facility was a half-hour drive from Three Harbors.

“You think he smelled the blood on her?” Reitman asked.

Owen stiffened as if he'd inherited Reitman's stick. “Excuse me?”

“I suppose she's washed up since she did this.” The doctor indicated the pentagram and everything beneath it.

“She didn't do that.”

“She's got a knife.”

“So does three quarters of the town.”

“She's here.”

“So are we.”

“She's obviously off her rocker.”

“So are you.” The guy
did
believe he was a witch. “She's barely able to function. She certainly didn't have the capacity to snatch all those animals without someone seeing her.”

Although she had escaped a secure mental institution, and Owen really needed to find out how. When? And why he didn't know about it.

“These are domestic animals,” Reitman continued.

“Your point?”

“They wouldn't be hard to snatch. They'd probably come right to her.” His gaze went to Reggie. “He did.”

“She's not a killer, especially of animals.”

Becca cast Owen a quick glance, which he ignored. His mom hadn't killed anyone. Yet. Apparently she hadn't given up trying.

“Consider the dog,” he continued. “He's trained to know what a killer smells like.”

“Can he smell a witch?” George asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Owen demanded.

George shrugged.

“She's a witch?” Reitman glanced at Becca.

Becca shook her head. “They called this the witch's house when we were kids.”

“Still do,” George offered.

Becca gave George a dirty look before returning her attention to Reitman. “You know how small towns are.”

“Not really,” he said.

“What difference does it make if she is a witch or if she isn't?” Owen blurted. “You said this wasn't witchcraft.”

“I said it wasn't Wicca.”

“What's the difference?”

“Wicca is a religion. Witchcraft is a skill set.”

Owen blinked. “Huh?”

“Witchcraft is a craft. Spells and magic.”

“Magic,” Owen repeated. “You think this is magic?” He waved at the mess nearby.

“I don't know what it is, but that”—Reitman pointed to the inverted star—“hints at Satanism.”

Owen thought it did more than “hint” but he wasn't the expert. Didn't want to be.

“My mother definitely isn't a Satanist.”

Reitman eyed Mary. “You sure?”

“Fuck you.”

“That's helpful.”

Owen let out a breath. “She worships narcotics not the devil. She'd rather drink vodka than blood.”

“Who said anything about drinking blood?”

Owen considered giving the guy the finger, but that would be redundant.

“She was the local crazy, who lived in a broken-down house in the forest,” Owen said. “Hence the name ‘witch's house. '”

Reitman's forehead crinkled. “I don't get it.”

“Where are you from?”

“L.A., originally.”

“They don't have witches there?” Owen asked.

“They call them something else. Starts with a
b
.”

“You can say
bitch.
No one will wash out your mouth with soap.” Though it might be fun to try.

“Bruja.”
Reitman's lips tightened. “In L.A. they call them
brujas.
”

“What. Ever.” Owen's lips tightened too. “My mother isn't one.”

“We still don't know that she didn't kill these animals.”

“I do. You're the one who doesn't believe it.”

“Convince me.”

Owen toyed with another bout of “fuck you.” Then Becca touched his arm. “You should probably call the mental health facility.”

“You should probably call a lawyer,” George said. “Attempted murder is pretty serious.”

“Good luck with that,” Owen returned. “She's certifiable.”

A judge had said so—although in more legal-type terms—and one continued to say so every year when the order to keep Owen's mother in the mental facility came up for renewal.

“She's also committed,” Becca said. “She didn't check herself out, especially dressed like that. You need to find out what she's doing here.”

“They won't know the reason.” Owen considered his mom, who was still whispering to Reggie. At least she was occupied. “I doubt she does.”

“I meant when did she escape? Why don't you know about it?”

“Right.” He'd already wondered that and gotten distracted by … everything. He pulled out his cell, pushed the contact number for the mental health facility before he remembered. “No service.”

Becca pointed upward. Owen headed for the stairs. He hadn't taken two steps when Becca cried out. Reggie woofed. Owen spun, hands up, expecting his mom to barrel into him and body-slam him to the ground. Wouldn't be the first time. When she was lit up, she'd thought Owen was all sorts of strange things.

However, his mom remained right where he'd left her. The dog stared at Becca. Becca, Reitman, and George all stared at Owen's leg.

Owen glanced down. Considering their expressions, he half expected to see blood darkening his pants. But everything looked normal, or as normal as it had looked since he'd gotten out of the hospital in D.C.

Ah, hell. He was walking like a peg-legged pirate. All he needed was a parrot and an eye patch.

Becca stepped toward him, hand outstretched, concern all over her face. “You're limping.”

“I've been limping for months. Limping is pretty much why I'm here.”

“You said … I thought … You haven't…”

“I know.”

“I never saw you limp until now,” Reitman said.

“And don't think I don't appreciate it.”

“How have you avoided walking without my seeing?” Becca asked.

“Wasn't easy.”

“It's impossible.”

“Not.”

“You weren't limping when you grabbed me behind Becca's place,” Reitman pointed out.

Owen doubted that. He also doubted the guy had been noticing anything besides Owen's hands around his throat.

“You walked from my parking lot to your truck before, and I'd have noticed if you were doing that.” She jabbed a finger at Owen's leg.

Owen's hand fell to his thigh, and he rubbed at the ache. The movement made him remember Becca's palm landing in the same place only an hour before when he'd helped her stand. An accident, but he'd enjoyed it.

In times past the simple brush of her fingers would have made most of his blood pool north of his thigh, leaving none in his leg to pulse and pain him. That hadn't happened today, but he liked to remember the days when it had. Maybe the memories, the distraction, the shock—who knew—had caused him to forget the pain for a few minutes. It was back.

It didn't matter why he hadn't limped before, he'd done so now and Becca had seen. She pitied him. So did Reitman and George. If his mom had any brain cells left, she might as well.

Owen had to get out of this room—recoup, regroup, recon.

“I'll make that call.” He gimped his way into the hall.

Becca followed. “I could do it.”

“They aren't going to tell you anything. Privacy rules.”

Her gaze flicked to the stairs, then back to him.

“I can manage the stairs, Becca. If I was that bad off don't you think you'd have noticed I had a limp before now? In a few weeks I'll be good as new. I just need more rest.”

“You aren't getting any here.”

“Not today,” he agreed.

Thankfully the stairs wound upward, disappearing from view of the hallway after Owen had climbed the first three. Then he could start taking them with his good leg, pull the bad one up, use his good leg, pull the bad one up. Rather than alternating right, left, right, like the rest of the world.

Two miserable minutes later he reached the porch, wiped the sweat that had sprouted during the stair-climbing portion of the program from his brow, and called the mental health facility. He asked for Peggy Dalberg, his mother's caseworker.

“Missing anyone?” he asked when she picked up the phone.

“How do you know?”

“Starin' right at her.” Or close enough.

“Where?”

“Her house in Three Harbors.”

“She's never gone there before.”

“What do you mean ‘before'?”

He had the presence of mind to lower his voice, rather than shouting like he wanted to. He didn't need anyone else knowing about this.

“She's escaped two times. Three if you count today.”

“And no one called me?”

“I thought you were in Afghanistan.”

“The phones still work.”

“What would you have done from there?”

“I still should have been told.”

“You would have been if we hadn't found her fairly quickly. We always have.”

“How long has she been AWOL this time?”

“Late last night.”

“You're sure?”

Peggy drew in a long breath. “Since she got all the way there, yes. Unless someone gave her a ride. We post signs on the highway that people shouldn't, but no one reads as well as they should. Or maybe they don't comprehend as well as we hope.”

Owen grunted. Preaching to the choir there. “From the looks of what's left of her shoes, she walked.”

“She was definitely here at lights out.”

“Okay.” His mom was clear for the animal sacrifices, as Owen had found them yesterday afternoon. And, according to Peggy, she'd never come here before.

That they knew of.

“When was the last time she escaped?”

Papers rustled. “A month ago. Or near enough. Not unusual. The full moon is like that.”

“You lost me.”

“The full moon sets some people off.”

“Werewolves?”

She laughed. “Good one. Ask any nurse, psychiatric worker, cop, waitress about the full moon. Makes normal people twitchy. Makes twitchy people a lot twitchier.”

Owen would take her word for it.

“Has she always escaped on or near the full moon?”

Papers rustled again. “Yeah.”

“Where's she gone the other times?”

“Small towns nearby. No rhyme or reason to them that we can tell. If she lived in any of them before, it isn't in her record.”

“What are they?”

She ran through the names.

“Never heard of them.”

“We thought she was just running, trying to get as far away as she could. There were some issues with the voices, telling her things. You know how she is. But maybe she was trying to get home all the time and never made it until now.”

“How has she been escaping?”

“If we knew that, she wouldn't be able to keep doing it. It's like she's being beamed out.”

Owen pulled the phone away from his ear, frowned at it, put it back. “Who is this?”

“Not funny,” she muttered.

“Neither are you. My mom is a danger to others, which is why she's incarcerated.”

“I know why she's incarcerated. I just don't know how she's getting out. It's a little hard to get good information from people who think tinfoil hats are more than a shiny fashion statement.”

“What have they said?”