Night of the Raven (13 page)

“I can’t tell. Maybe. Yes.” She breathed deeply, in and out. “Yes.” And turned to locate her jacket. “Someone’s at the door.”

He swore again, focused and heard the banging fist.

“McVey! Amara! Answer something! Phone, door, whatever!”

Amara dug out her phone and frowned. “Brigham?”

“Open the damn door!”

The latch jammed. In no mood to finesse the thing, McVey kicked the stuck metal panel until it flew outward. “What?” he demanded.

Brigham stuck a hand in, grabbed McVey’s shirt and pointed with his cell. “One of the trailers fell off its blocks. The owner, Rune, went out to level it, and the whole edge of the ravine gave out. It took half the trailer down and trapped Rune underneath. I can’t get to him. I’m too big and too heavy to shimmy down with a rope. But someone has to do something fast or he’s a dead man.”

McVey didn’t think. He just took the jacket Amara shoved into his hands, said, “Show me” and went out to do his job.

* * *

T
HAT JOB HAD
drawbacks and benefits, and McVey experienced both over the next two hours. It turned out that only Amara had been able to slide between the precariously balanced trailer and the rock wall that formed the outer edge of the ravine.

A chain of men and women had held the rope that had held him while he’d lowered her inch by inch toward the stuck man. She’d managed, after three failed attempts, to loop the end around his chest and pull it snug.

Braced just over the edge, McVey had seen her thumbs-up and pulled. Behind him, Brigham had provided a solid anchor, with everyone else holding him.

Rain had come down in sheets and caused them to slip more than once. But finally, after a grueling tug-of-war, the nightmare had ended. Several backslaps later—and after a stony once-over by a woman who looked like Mother Time—he and Amara found themselves in the well-camouflaged raven tamer barn.

Fires roared in a trio of woodstoves, tarps closed off the entire rear section and the Grateful Dead pumped from an old boom box at ear-splitting volume.

While Amara sat cross-legged on the slatted floor and put twenty stitches into the rescued man’s leg, Brigham came over with two jugs of raven’s blood and an assortment of mugs. He plunked his makeshift tray on a tree stump, uncorked the jugs with his teeth and poured double handed.

“Marta says you’re ‘common.’ Means you’re welcome in.”

Chuckling, McVey took the mug Brigham thrust at him. “The logic being, if I’m welcome in, I’m less likely to bust anyone for whatever’s behind those tarps. My guess is five or six stills and an illegal winery. Marta’s a smart woman.”

Brigham sampled the wine. “You don’t live as long as she has by being dumb.” He raised his voice, “You’re common, too, Amara.”

“I bet that’s a first for a Bellam.”

“It’s a never-gonna-happen-again-Blume-blood-be-damned, so finish the patch job on Rune’s leg and prepare to drink yourself stupid.”

She cast an amused look in McVey’s direction. “The logic being that on the off chance someone did follow us here, I’ll be so ratted I won’t care if my head gets blown off.”

McVey sampled the bloodred wine—and found it surprisingly good. “Willy Sparks doesn’t blow heads off, Amara. He’ll toss you into the ravine, or try to. But he’ll have to get past me and fifty raven tamers to do it.” Raising his mug, and hoping like hell his system was up to the challenge, he grinned. “To being common.”

* * *

T
HE BRIDGE WAS
a nightmare. Willy made it back over, but shuddered in spasms until the lights of Raven’s Hollow came into view.

The bitch was going to die in agony for this. The cop, too, for involving himself and making everything ten times harder than it should have been. Who played white knight in today’s world? What kind of person put his or her own life on the line for a complete stranger? Yes, Amara was lovely, but they were talking life and death here. Cops didn’t really want to die, did they?

Whether he did or not, McVey would be toast, right behind Amara Bellam. Unfortunately neither death would be taking place tonight. For the moment, they were on opposite sides of the bridge to hell.

So...what to do in Raven’s Hollow that might be fun and end with a little consensual sex? When in doubt, the locals said, head to the Red Eye.

Gonna get me some tonight,
Willy decided. And if the drink caused anything to slip out that shouldn’t, well, more than cops and witnesses could be eliminated. What was it Uncle Jimmy liked to say? Practice made perfect.

Once again, Willy reflected, what better place to start than the Red Eye?

Chapter Eleven

“This isn’t your fight, Annalee....”

The words wound through Amara’s head like bright silver threads that tangled into a ball and eventually turned black. She saw a pot—a cauldron?—and smelled coffee, but no way did she plan to drink it.

The scene shifted. Where was she now?

A raven with a pink beak sat in a duct-taped chair, filing its talons.

“You’re so naive, Amara,” it rasped. “I told you McVey was mine. Why didn’t you listen? You never listen. You’re headstrong. Just like Uncle Lazarus said.” One of the talons snaked out to snare her wrist. “How hard did you make him laugh...?”

Another shift, and in the swirl of thoughts flooding her mind Amara saw a woman covered in black feathers. She had Hannah’s waxen features—and her lifeless green eyes. Only her mouth, thin-lipped, chalky and trembling, moved.

“Why am I in this part of the manor? Why didn’t I die in my own bed?”

Like a scenery screen yanked sideways on a stage, everything changed again. The black pot that had nothing to do with Hannah popped back in. Thick red liquid bubbled up, spilled over. A woman’s hand reached inside, pulled something out, held it up to look.

Amara’s breath stalled. Her heart gave a single hard thump.

The hand was hers. So was the face that stared in fascination at the...whatever it was. Some kind of dripping black root.

Lips that were hers, yet not hers, moved. A voice that was definitely not hers emerged.

“Evil spirit, good spirit—no and no. Man becomes raven, yes, but the spirits that bring this transformation about are human, in action and in form. You will remember nothing of this night, Annalee...”

Amara woke with a suppressed hiss and every muscle in her body clenched like a fist. Who the hell was Annalee, and why did the name sound so familiar?

Falling back on Brigham’s lumpy mattress, she regarded the dented ceiling and tried to decide if she was feeling the aftereffects of the raven’s blood wine she’d consumed last night or reacting to the dream it must have spawned.

“Did you scream?”

The unexpected question had her wincing before she levered up onto her elbow.

Well, hell,
her bleary mind sighed. McVey, wearing jeans and nothing else, filled the doorway of what could only be called a bedroom by virtue of the fact that there was a bed in it. One bed, four thin walls and now an überhot cop on the threshold.

“I’m, um...”

She’d seen a half-dressed man before, right? Maybe not one who was quite so sleek and sexy, who wore his hair too long and whose sleepy eyes didn’t look entirely awake, but still...

“Did you see something?” he asked. “Someone? A pink elephant?”

Amara wondered vaguely if she was wearing anything. “I think I’m good.” She glanced down. Nope, not a stitch. “I had a dream. A very bizarre dream.”

“Doesn’t everyone who drinks devil’s blood?”

“Raven’s blood.”

“Devil’s whiskey, then.”

Holding the sheet to her breasts, she regarded him with a blend of surprise and amusement. “You drank their whiskey, too—and you can walk?”

“Not especially well right now, but it’ll come back to me.” He’d set his hands on the door frame above his head. Whatever his condition, his dark eyes gleamed when he spied the arm banded across her chest. “This is the strangest hangover I’ve ever lived through, Red. I keep seeing ravens in my head. Beautiful talking ravens.”

“That’s because we saw talking ravens last night. Preview of coming attractions. Pretty sure they weren’t real. I remember them having red eyes.” She released a slow breath, rolled her head. “That wine has a wicked kick.”

“You could say.” McVey’s pressed briefly on his eyelids. “If my brain goes south—very likely at this point—remind me when we’re back on our side of the bridge to contact Lieutenant Michaels’s captain as well as the county lab. If there was poison in Michaels or the coffee, I want to know about it.”

“Happy thought. On a brighter note, Brigham says the raven tamers are going to do their Main Street Kickoff-to-the-Night parade on Friday.”

“Yeah, I got the memo. Now that I’m ‘common,’ Marta informs me I’m honor bound not to notice what they’ll be selling at the end-of-parade market. Or at what she’s calling the preparade teaser on Thursday”

“The tamers will sell what they sell, McVey, with or without your approval. They’ve never had any trouble getting around Ty. And yes, I know, you’re not Ty. Making you ‘common’ doesn’t mean they’ll be overt, only that they won’t feel the need to post sentries. Anyway, I feel better knowing they’re on our side. Now, having said that, can I please get up?”

He dropped his hands, grinned. “If you can’t, I’ll be more than happy to help you.”

A rush of heat, Amara reflected, should not consume her because of a single suggestive remark. In fact, sex should be the furthest thing from her mind. She twirled a finger for him to turn, then stopped and nodded forward. “I believe your jeans are beeping, Chief. One, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause...”

“You can stop the count, Red.” He pulled his phone out and tapped the screen. “It’s Westor.”

Curious, Amara bundled the sheet around her body and scooted off the bed. “Why’s he contacting you?”

“He wants to meet me tonight at the Red Eye.”

“Are you sure he’s not a killer?”

“He never was.” McVey shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he can’t be bought.”

She glanced through the bedroom window at the dissipating morning mist. “Why does this side of Bellam Bridge suddenly seem a lot safer to me than it did last night?”

Capturing her chin with his thumb and forefinger, McVey dropped a light kiss on her lips. “Don’t get too comfortable here, Red. My observations at the manor told me that although a blow to the head was in fact responsible for Hannah Blume’s death, that blow wasn’t inflicted by a fall. Someone hit her.”

* * *

I
T GOT CRAZIER
by the minute. Who would want to kill a harmless hermit of a woman?

“I’m going with a Bellam as the perp.” Scowling fiercely, Jake strode back and forth at the Raven’s Hollow police station. “There are loony bands of them all over the north woods. Tell me you’re not thinking the same thing, McVey.”

“I’m not thinking anything perp-wise. All I said was that Hannah Blume didn’t fall and hit her head.”

“Which you know because?” Amara asked.

He glanced up from his computer. “Any way you spin it, Red, the body position was wrong. You said yourself the blow would have killed her instantly. Means she dropped like a stone—in this case parallel to, yet away from, the corner of the counter where we found the dried blood. The facts contradict themselves.”

A muscle in Jake’s jaw jerked. “This bites, McVey.”

Amara paced away from him. “Be glad you don’t have to tell Uncle Lazarus. Be equally glad you haven’t been forced to cross Bellam Bridge twice in eighteen hours. There must be another way on and off that mountain.”

“Why don’t you ask your new raven tamer friends?” Jake sneered. “If there’s another way, they’ll know about it.”

She stopped pacing to frown. “Why the hostility? You’re related to most of them.”

“They tame ravens. That’s unnatural. They brew hooch. That’s illegal.” He planted his hands on the desk across from McVey. “What I want to know is why we’re not questioning them about Hannah’s death.”

“Because.” McVey looked past him to Amara. “Coffee’s a negative, Red, and the forensic team on Michaels’s case is still testing for toxins.”

She pushed on a pressure point in her neck. “You have to figure it won’t be an easy find. I need to talk to Uncle Lazarus.”

“His nephew who lives with him—R.J., I think—said he was in Bangor and wouldn’t be taking calls while he was gone.”

“I wasn’t planning to tell him about Hannah on the phone, McVey. I’ll wait at his place until he gets back.”

“R.J. said he might be late.”

She faced him, dropped her hands. “You want me to go to the clinic, don’t you?”

“It’ll keep you busy.”

“It’ll keep me surrounded with patients.”

“Patients and my deputy.”

Amara told herself not to laugh at Jake’s expression, which was equal parts outrage and horror.

“I’ve got work, McVey, over in the Cove.” Jake’s voice lowered. “I don’t want to be around a bunch of sick people.”

“You’re assuming, Jake, that a bunch of sick people will magically discover there’s a doctor on the premises and come flooding in.”

“Word spreads fast.”

“Like measles.” McVey turned his attention back to Amara. “Ever since his electrical panel bit the dust six months ago, Lazarus has been living at the old Raven’s Nest Motel off the even older inland highway. There’s nothing else out that way.”

Amara drew a mental map. “Isn’t his sister’s house out that way?”

“His late sister’s abandoned house. The last guest at the motel signed the register back in March. He stayed for two nights and tried to skip without paying.”

A nasty smile split Jake’s face. “I remember that. We had us a high-speed chase that ended with him sideswiping a tree. Guy was tanked. Kept threatening to sue the tree for damages.” He snickered. “As if a 1972 Pacer with bald tires and rust everywhere you looked was worth spit.”

Amara rubbed her arms now. “So fond reminiscence aside, and getting back on topic, you’re determined that I should hang around town for the rest of the day.”

“I’m meeting the county sheriff in ninety minutes,” McVey told her. “Meeting’ll last at least two hours. Lazarus might or might not be home for dinner, word does spread, and as a reward for clinic duty, Jake’ll be happy to hear I want him to spend the better part of his evening shift at the Red Eye.”