Panther's Claim (Bitten Point #2) (13 page)

“I wouldn’t get too excited yet,” Daryl cautioned.

Her excitement plummeted.

“Don’t get that look. I’m just saying that her bike being here doesn’t mean she is. For all we know, she was taken from here and they left her stuff behind.”

Good point, but she still couldn’t help a little elation that they’d finally found some clue that Aria was in the area.

The hours for the B&B were posted on an engraved plaque alongside the doors. Registration from one p.m. until nine daily.

That was what the sign said, and here they were, almost five p.m., yet the door would not budge when pulled.

Daryl rapped his fist against it and then stood back to wait. They all waited. However, the only signs of life were in the buzz of insects around them. The bloodthirsty suckers went after the city girl with evil intent. Cynthia needed to get away from them, say like inside a house with doors and windows bearing screens. A problem remained, though. The door was locked, and no one seemed inclined to answer.

“Maybe the front desk person went to the bathroom?” she ventured.

“And locked the door so no guests could get in?” Daryl snorted and shook his head. “The only way this wouldn’t be open was if we were mistaken and this place isn’t a B&B at all.”

“But the sign says—”

“That sign is old and was probably never removed when she shut down.”

She couldn’t refute Daryl’s logic, given the plaque appeared fairly tarnished.

“Something’s not right.” Constantine uttered the words while looking off in the distance. A frown creased his brow, and his body was tense.

No, something wasn’t right, and she didn’t mean just the state of her hair in this humidity. The whole place oozed of creepiness. She would know. She’d watched her fair share of horror movies, and the one thing they all taught was don’t go into the spooky, abandoned house.

Her inner canine whined.
Danger.
Eyes watched. Menace lurked. She shouldn’t let paranoia get the better of her. Or should she listen to common sense?

“Maybe we should leave.” She tucked herself tighter to Daryl, and he put a reassuring arm around her, but it couldn’t dispel the chill.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, but Constantine is right. I don’t feel right about this place. Maybe we should call the cops and let them come check things out.”

“But what about looking for Aria? She was obviously here.”

“You said it. Was. Her bike’s been parked there for a while.” The intricate spider web in the wheel rim with its desiccated catches said so. “She’s obviously not in there.”

“Or she is, but can’t get out,” Daryl countered, playing devil’s advocate.

“Hey, guys, do you see Princess?” Constantine asked.

“Not me,” she replied.

“Me either.”

Constantine craned to look around. “Princess! Where are you? Come to Daddy.”

The incongruous appearance of the giant Constantine baby-talking his dog proved hard to ignore, and she bit her lip lest she snicker. It was a battle she didn’t fight alone, given Daryl’s snort.

A sharp bark lightened the expression on Constantine’s face, and he moved quickly around to the side of the house. They found a decent-sized yard with taut vinyl strung from the house for about thirty feet to a tree that served as a post. Laundry flapped from it, some of the fabric hanging by only a single pin.

Bark
. The sharp sound drew their attention to Princess. The small dog stood on a wooden stoop, pawing at a door. It had a window set into it, covered in a flower-patterned curtain.

Instead of rapping on the door, Constantine peered in.

“See anything?” Daryl asked.

“Nah. It’s just some kind of mudroom with a washer and dryer. I am going to go inside to check it out,” Constantine announced.

“Should we? I mean, isn’t that breaking and entering?” Cynthia whispered. She couldn’t have said why she kept her voice low, maybe to avoid disturbing spirits, or because if conspiring to commit a crime, she probably shouldn’t shout about it.

“It’s only break and enter if the door is locked.” Daryl pointed at the splintered jamb. “Looks like we’re not the first ones to want in.”

The realization only increased the size of the knot in her stomach.

Don’t go in!

Her wolf really, really thought it was a bad idea. Funny, Cynthia did, too, but to not follow meant staying outside. She cast a glance at the bordering swamp vegetation, most of it thick enough to hide any number of threats.

She clasped Daryl’s hand tightly. She was sticking to his side and hoping they didn’t run into anything dangerous, especially since she no longer had any needles. The supplies she’d brought had gotten toasted in the fire.

That won’t be cheap to replace.
But considering she’d escaped alive and unscathed, she was still ahead of the game.

Constantine put himself to the side of the door and, with one hand, pushed at it. It remained closed. It took a firm shove to swing it open.

She held her breath, her body tensed… Nothing jumped out.

Princess showed no fear and scampered over the sill. The big guy slid through next, Daryl at his heels, and since she held his hand, Cynthia followed as well, a choice she regretted with her first step into the house.

Ugh,
Cynthia thought.
Ooh, dead thing,
was her wolf’s addition. Sometimes, having a wild animal with different ideas about good and bad provided an interesting mindset.

While her nose wrinkled at the stench of something wrong, and she didn’t mean just wet-dog wrong, her wolf wanted her to follow the smell that made her gag.

Don’t puke.

“What is that smell?” she gasped, and why was it so hot? It seemed the air conditioning in the place wasn’t working, the indoors just as hot and humid as the outside. Hotter perhaps even.

“AC is off. Actually, I think the whole power to this place is.” Constantine flicked the pair of switches by the door, but the overhead light remained dark.

As they slipped from the mudroom into the kitchen, the smell grew stronger. Cynthia filtered some of it by having her T-shirt pulled up over her nose. She glanced around, noting the flies that buzzed around a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Fruit in a bowl, barely recognizable, made a great science experiment.

It seemed someone had left without cleaning first.

In here there was more evidence something had happened, and not recently, given the fridge, when opened, showed moldy food. The power had obviously been gone for some time.

“Where should we check first?” Daryl asked.

Other than the mudroom, there were two options in the kitchen. One archway led to the dining room, the other to the hall. She could spot the rails on a staircase leading to a second level.

“Let’s check the registration desk first.”

Cynthia wanted to vote for the dining room. She could tell the stench was stronger out in the hall. She could almost see the miasma of wrongness in the air.

Death
, her wolf advised.

Death and decay, and the culprit was the body they located on the floor behind the front desk.

Cynthia slapped a hand over her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. While she could handle sewing wounds and minor operations and even blood, what she saw on the floor? That sent her running to puke outside.

I
nstead of chasing after Cyn
, who was looking to fertilize nature with her breakfast, he yelled after her. “Don’t go far from the house and keep Princess with you.”

Cyn wasn’t the only delicate lady in need of fresh air. Daryl kind of wanted to join them. However, outside wasn’t where the clues were.

As for letting her out of his sight? The dogman scent trace wasn’t recent, just like this body. Judging by the lilac-colored pants and matching blouse, the corpse was probably what remained of poor Mrs. Jones.

“Looks like an animal got to her,” Constantine observed without touching the body.

“Animal, or one of our new friends?” The stench of decay proved too strong to pinpoint if it was the dogman or dinoman that got to her, yet given he’d not scented anything reptilian, he was going to lean toward the canine.

“We should search the house. See if there are any more victims.”

“Think we might find the guy who did this?”

Constantine shook his head. “This wasn’t done by no guy. Only a monster could do something like this.”

True. “Should we stick together or split up?”

“Want me to hold your hand, too?” Constantine snickered.

“Fuck off,” was Daryl’s reply. “It’s a valid question, given those dudes are tough as nails.”

“If you run into one, then let out a scream.”

“Excuse me, but don’t you mean bellow in a manly fashion?” Daryl retorted.

A snort left Constantine. “I’ll check out the main floor.” His friend stalked into the living room area.

“I take it I’m checking the bedrooms then,” Daryl muttered, not that anyone heard. With a quick peek out the window, and spotting Cyn pacing, her expression pale, Daryl went looking for more bodies—and really hoped he didn’t find a particular one.

While Cynthia was holding it together pretty well, given her friend’s strange disappearance, he knew finding Aria dead would crush her.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.
I care too much about her to see her hurt.

Gag. And, no, it wasn’t because of a hairball. He was thinking and feeling things he’d never imagined for a woman, and it came without effort or even thought. It was all so damned freaky, but he couldn’t stop it, nor did he want to.

I want Cyn in my life.
Even more, he wanted her happy.

The fact that the decaying smell receded as he tread carefully upstairs proved somewhat reassuring. The line of closed doors? Not so much.

When the first knob he tried wouldn’t cooperate, he didn’t think twice. He lifted a booted foot and kicked.

Bang
!

So much for keeping their presence secret. Nothing came charging out of the other closed doors, although Constantine did yell, “Do you need Princess to save you?”

“I hope she gives you fleas,” he hollered back. The joking served to ease some of his tension, but he truly breathed a sigh of relief when he realized the room he’d entered might have feminine belongings scattered, but no body.

But that doesn’t mean they’re Aria’s.

After a quick peek in the closet and attached bathroom—both empty—he headed back into the hall. Three more doors to go.

The next one he kicked proved empty, the bed neatly made, the bathroom empty of toiletries. Not so for the next two. The first one, while tidy, did have a suitcase in the closet and clothes neatly hung. The other room was more of a disaster with men’s apparel strewn all over, not out of violence but more a slovenly nature.

With their discovery, he’d go out on a limb and wager the first room belonged to Aria, a guest of this B&B, who wasn’t alone in being missing. What happened to the other two occupants?

Utterly strange, yet he didn’t pause to check it out further, not when he realized there was still a third floor. The spiral steps at the end of the hall wound upwards, but he couldn’t see what lay above him. He emerged onto a small landing lit by a porthole window set in the side of the house. The paneled door didn’t impede him. A swift kick took care of it.

The entire third floor, which might have begun as an attic, had been transformed into an apartment. The open area contained a living room with a small kitchen area. On one side, he found a bedroom, the scent of lilacs strong. The faded quilt on the bed reminded him of the one his mother kept in the linen closet because her grandma had made it. The dresser, made of carved wood, held an array of crystal bottles, perfume in some. Others seemed to hold only colored water. Even though he smelled nothing in here that seemed out of place, he checked the closet.

Nothing. So he headed to the other side where the first door yielded a bathroom. Nothing strange there.

But the next room proved sad
.
Pictures of a boy, awkward-looking with a stiff smile, lined the walls, the progression in age easy to follow. There was a twin-sized bed in here, covered in a navy blue comforter. Figurines—
Star Wars
and wrestlers and other comic book icons—were spread across the dresser and the two shelves hung on the wall.

A bedroom shrine to the son Mrs. Jones had lost.

He backed out and shut the door. No use in stirring up ghosts.

As he strode to the large diamond-shaped window, intent on peeking outside—
oh admit it, you want to check on Cyn—
he peered around Mrs. Jones’ living space. Certain details popped out at him such as the fact that it was decked out in posh furniture, the leather on the couches real and buttery soft. Hung on the wall he noted a television to make even the biggest man drool. The carpet underfoot proved thick and lush—no cheap Berber here—just like the appliances gleamed with newness. Daryl had to wonder how big her husband’s life insurance policy was because there was no freaking way this remote bed and breakfast brought in the kind of money needed for luxury at this level. If it did, then he was in the wrong business.

Nothing stood out in this space, apart from the largesse, so he returned to the second floor and stepped in the room he’d pegged as Aria’s.

Cyn stood at the foot of the brass railed bed, hugging a bright scarf to her chest, her eyes bright with tears. “These are Aria’s things.”

He moved close enough to wrap an arm around her, pulling her close to his body. “We’ll find her.”

“But will she be alive or like that—that—” She couldn’t say it, and he didn’t even want her to think it.

He pressed her face into his shoulder, letting the fabric of his shirt absorb her tears. Soothing noises hummed from him as he stroked her back until, with a sniffle, she lifted her face.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccupped.

“Don’t be sorry for caring. You’ve done great so far. I mean, look at everything that’s happened to you. First, you’re a drugging kidnapper, then a pillow-smashing thug, then a bumper car survivor. And let’s not forget femme fatale.”

She snorted, the sound watery, but already getting some of her spirit back. “Okay, that was stretching it. And you forgot coward. I totally tossed my cookies downstairs.”

“But stopped to rinse your mouth,” he noted with a quirk of his lips.

Her nose wrinkled. “I did, and I popped a mint. I saw them in a jar on the counter. Oh God. I just ate a dead person’s candy.”

Before the tears could start again, he said quickly, “Sniff. Tell me what you get.”

“I can’t. My nose is stuffy.”

However, the excuse gave her a chance to collect herself, and he really wondered how bad he had it for Cyn, given she honked her nose loud and hard, but he thought she was still the cutest damned thing he’d ever seen.

Shoot me now.

It was with their asses in the air, and their snoots to the ground, that Constantine found them.

“Pete and a few deputies are on their way. They’re not announcing it on the airwaves because they want to check the scene first in case there’s something we need to hide about our kind.”

“Of course he’s not announcing it,” Daryl grumbled, trying not to sneeze at the dust that hadn’t seen a vacuum in a while. “Announcing it might let people know there’s a killer amongst us.” It still bugged him that their own sheriff was going along with the secrecy.

“I don’t smell the dog guy in here,” Cyn announced, sitting back on her haunches.

Daryl leaned on his heels as well and frowned at the room. “I don’t either, yet there’s something here. Something that doesn’t belong.”

“Wasn’t this the shirt she was wearing in the picture?” Constantine said, holding aloft a crimson top and touching his nose to it.

Cyn snatched it. “Yes, and there’s that chunky pendent she wore with it. So she did come back here that night.”

But what happened to her next?