Hell Fire (20 page)

“You must have been terrified.” Saldana petted her as if she were a stray puppy he’d found.

She sniffed. “Yeah. But I couldn’t let her know how happy I was to see somebody who might be able to help, so that’s why I acted like such a jerkwad when we first met.” Jesse looked puzzled, as he hadn’t been on-site to receive Shannon’s rudeness firsthand.

I waved that away. Her “rebellious teen” act was the least of our concerns. Before I could comment on what the reporter had said, the waitress swung by to find out if we meant to order anything besides coffee. She was a stout woman with big, stiff hair, a pink polyester uniform, and sensible shoes. When she recognized Shannon, her brows pulled together like an angry centipede.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, Shannon Cheney? Does your mother know you’re gadding about with strangers?” Her disapproving gaze took in the way Jesse was holding the girl, and her mouth tightened.

I could have assured the waitress he didn’t have lascivious intentions, but I doubted she’d believe me. She also wouldn’t credit that Shannon was scared of Sandra, who looked like the perfect mother. Appearances could be deceiving—could they ever.

“If she didn’t before, she’ll find out the minute you get a break.” Shannon didn’t look concerned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her faith in us.

“Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want to be here when her mother showed up breathing fire and brimstone. She might not be able to physically remove her child, but she could—and would—make our stay in Kilmer unpleasant. I didn’t look forward to the inevitable confrontation.

“Check, please.” Jesse offered the waitress his best smile, but she glared at him.

We paid the bill, just coffee and Dale Graham’s peach pie, then made our way back to the Forester. It was a gray day, heavy and overcast. A cool, damp wind blew over us, carrying the scent of distant fires. I couldn’t imagine what anybody would be burning in the middle of the day, but it sent a shiver of foreboding over me nonetheless.

“Something’s going to happen soon,” Chance predicted.

“I wish that struck me as a good thing,” I muttered as I climbed into the SUV. “But it absolutely doesn’t.”

“Me either.” Chance seemed grim as he settled beside me in the backseat. “Dale said events are escalating.”

Saldana started the car, made sure Shannon had on her seat belt, and checked our surroundings in the rearview mirror. I felt like people were watching us from behind their blinds and curtains, planning something so bad I couldn’t conceive it. Though I wanted to tell myself I was being irrational, I couldn’t.

I’d
died
out in those woods. If not for Jesse Saldana, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I found it hard to get my breath. Since my mother’s death, Kilmer had shaped my bogeymen and my nightmares, filling them with dark beasts that knew my name.

I scowled in reaction. “He also said we could blame everything that’s wrong in Kilmer on breeding experiments instituted by J. Edgar Hoover, using genetic material recovered from the Roswell crash.”

Jesse laughed as he pulled onto the road. “He’d make a great poster child for antidrug campaigns, wouldn’t he? So where to?”

Mentally I tabulated our schedule. We needed to be at Miss Minnie’s house for dinner by six, and we should check in with Chuch, Booke, and Chance’s mom before the day got too much later. At nine, we would swing by Dale Graham’s house on Rabbit Road.

After a moment’s thought, I said, “We should check out Little Ed Willoughby, if Shannon knows where he lives.”

“They have a place in the old neighborhood, four blocks from the hardware store.” Shannon gave Jesse directions.

Since Kilmer was a small town, it took us only five minutes to get there. We pulled up outside a tiny bungalow that seemed hard-pressed to house three people. The place seemed still and quiet, but as we climbed out of the SUV and went up the cracked sidewalk toward the front door, I heard the sound of a TV or radio from inside.

Chance waved us on, circling around back. I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish until he came around the other side. “The car’s parked out back,” he said grimly. “Looks like we came to the right place.”

My heart gave a little skip. Now maybe we’d get some answers. I pounded on the door and then squeezed my hands together so they wouldn’t tremble. I’d never come to visit someone who had tried to kill me before.

It took almost five minutes before anyone answered. A muttered curse sounded as something thumped just inside. I braced myself.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of a young man hardly older than Shannon, sitting in a wheelchair. Both his legs had casts on them, signed with colorful get-well wishes. Little Ed Willoughby gazed up at us curiously, smiling with a touch of chagrin when he recognized Shannon.

“Hey, girl.” I could tell he was trying to look cool for her, actively hampered by several pounds of plaster and a tatty blue bathrobe.

Shannon seemed just as surprised as the rest of us. “What happened to you, Ed?”

“Fell off my uncle’s roof,” he muttered.

And broke both his legs? That took some doing.

I felt somewhat nonplussed. I could tell the casts hadn’t just been applied yesterday, and I didn’t think he could drive like that.

“Has anyone borrowed your car lately?” Jesse asked. Trust the cop to get the interrogation back on track.

Little Ed looked mildly alarmed. “No, why?”

“Because someone tried to run Corine over with a vehicle that looks like yours,” Chance put in. “Do you mind if we take a look in your backyard?”

“Not at all,” the kid said. If he had anything to hide, he was a hell of an actor. He seemed more confused than anything—and a little sweet on Shannon. “I don’t know of anybody else who drives an Olds Cutlass like mine. You sure it was blue?”

“Positive,” Chance told him.

Ed shrugged. “Well, feel free to have a look around. Come on back if you need anything else.”

We took him at his word and headed out back to inspect his car. It took Saldana only a minute and a half to put the pieces together. “This car’s been hot-wired. See the loose wires?”

I blinked at that. “So somebody stole Ed’s car, tried to run me over, and then brought it back when they failed?”

“What I wouldn’t give for a basic forensics kit, so I could take some prints, but then again, there’s no computer to run them through.” I’d never seen Jesse so frustrated. “This place is like living in the Dark Ages.”

Shannon sighed. “Well, that was pointless. It could’ve been anybody.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Just someone who wants me dead.”

On second thought, that didn’t narrow it down much at all.

 

 

 

 

After a fruitless stop at Little Ed Willoughby’s, we had plenty of time to do something that seemed inevitable. I marveled a little that I’d managed to put it off so long. There was one place we might find answers, however, as little as I liked it.

“What’s next on our list?” Saldana asked.

“Out of town,” I said, swallowing a wave of pain that threatened to drown me. Jesse cut me a sharp look over his shoulder and started to pull over. “Jesus, Corine, are you all right? What—”

“It’s okay. Drive.”

Shannon craned her neck to stare, as if starting to grasp that there was a silent subtext she couldn’t register. She didn’t like it, either. A frown etched delicate lines between her inky brows, out of place on a kid her age.

Chance regarded me with his tiger’s eyes, amber latticed through with gold and topaz. They were nothing so simple as light brown; in this moment they seemed to glow with lambent light and quiet secrets. “Are you sure about this?”

He knew? I hadn’t said anything. My face must have reflected confusion, for his expression softened, and he brushed a kiss against my temple. His look said simply,
I know you. I know how you think.
In a motion that seemed more than natural, he reached for me, offering physical contact easily, as he’d never done when we were together. God, he felt good; so hot and solid beside me. I drew in a deep breath, filling my lungs with Chance.

“About what?” Jesse’s tone reflected mild irritation.

“We need to swing by the place I used to live.” My certainty came from beyond my own powers and intuitions. Bleak, heavy knowledge pressed on me from somewhere else, but I didn’t want to be beholden to the thing in the woods. Loneliness flooded me, utter solitude. Since I wasn’t an empath, I knew it was targeting me on purpose. Loathing crawled through me. I didn’t want it helping me—I didn’t want it sending me hunches on the smoky wind. I didn’t want to be able to feel what it felt, and I didn’t want to go to the ruin where my mother died, but I
did
want answers.

She deserved justice.

With a sense of foreboding, I gave directions.

Over the years, the elements had reclaimed the wreckage of our former home. Birds nested in the ruin, and creepers had wound their way through the charred timbers, erasing man’s passage. Now there was nothing left but a few fallen beams, old ashes, and a sturdy foundation. The walls had long since fallen down, but in my mind’s eye, I saw the way the house once looked; I even visualized my mama standing on the porch.

It hurt like nothing I could have imagined—not even dying. I stood beside the SUV with lead in my limbs, feeling like they wouldn’t carry me forward. My left hand curled into a fist, and I rubbed my fingers across the brand from my mother’s necklace. To my surprise, it didn’t hurt but merely tingled a bit. I glanced down and found the mark had healed overnight. It was impossible; something Kel might’ve done to make me believe in his otherworldly origins. And yet I had an old brand on my palm.

“This is the place.” My voice sounded rusty.

I didn’t need to turn to know the others stood behind me, waiting for an explanation as to why we were here. I hadn’t done so
before
our arrival because I knew Jesse would object—and he was driving. Shannon didn’t know enough about my gift to understand the risk behind what I intended to attempt.

Maybe I was mistaken, but I felt as though my fleeting death had changed something in me. That might come from facing the worst and coming through unscathed. In the queer half-light cast by the surrounding trees, I felt different, shadow touched, and yet as if the reaper had no dominion over me, at least not here and now. Today I would be like water trickling through its bony fingers.

“Not much to see,” Jesse said finally.

Shannon agreed. “How long ago did you live here?”

“I was thirteen,” I answered. “So it’s been fourteen years.”

Nobody made a move to approach the house. I suspected they could sense the residual malice of what had transpired lingering in the earth itself. The woods seemed unearthly quiet, no chattering birds, not even the rustle of squirrels or chipmunks in the underbrush. It was as if the world itself held its breath for my return.

Well, I didn’t want to disappoint. Squaring my shoulders, I took the first step and then another, climbing carefully through the wreckage until I stood inside the space that had been our living room. Old anguish rocketed through me in a blazing rush. I didn’t want to remember how happy I’d been here, or what came after.

“Corine,” Jesse said. I knew he had to be suffering too, and I felt awful for putting him through this. “You don’t have to do this. We probably can’t learn anything here, not after all this time.”

“
You
can’t.” Chance’s voice sounded tight and fierce, as if he wanted desperately to protect me from myself. He also knew I wouldn’t let him.

Butch popped up from my handbag and yapped twice in agreement. He sank tiny teeth into the fabric of my shirt, as if he’d forcibly prevent me from doing so. I gently disengaged him and handed the dog to Shannon. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take his advice. I couldn’t opt out. We had to know.

Comprehension dawned in Jesse’s bitter chocolate eyes. I could see he wanted to argue against the wisdom of it. If a necklace imbued with the pain of my mother’s death killed me, what would the house where she died do? Maybe this time there would be no bringing me back.

I’d never attempted anything on this scale before, but it was an inanimate object, right? The principle should remain the same, and I needed its secrets. The tingle in my left palm became a steady pulse of heat, and following some instinct I hadn’t known I possessed, I sank down amid old ashes and sealed my hand against the foundation.

Pain scoured my nerves like wildfire consuming a dry forest. For interminable moments, I knew nothing but agony that spread in a black-red wash across my field of vision. I ceased to hear my own breathing, my own heartbeat. I might be dying again, but I couldn’t break the connection. The house wanted to own me in a complete and terrible way. I tried to fight—

It took me.

Stones crumbled; burnt wood fell to splinters and dust. I registered each tiny, disparate piece that made up the entirety of this ruin to which I’d joined myself. We sat, silent and untended. Nights ran into days; the seasons turned. Rain poured into my broken shell. I shivered at the cold and the solitude. Then the sun baked me until I felt dry and parched, thirsty unto death.

After eons of waiting, suffering, I remembered I wasn’t a rock or a roof tile. I was a woman, or I had been, a million years ago. Impressions came then, quick and fleeting. I didn’t want years of observations. I only wanted the one night.

The house didn’t want to yield to me. It wanted to suborn me and make me part of it for good. I’d never known an object to have a malign will, but this ruin did.

I imprinted myself on it—pure focus from years of training myself not to read objects with a casual touch.
I will know what you know
, I told it.
Show me the night you died.
For it perished, just as my mother did; the burning of the pretty little house where we used to live had given birth to this thing that squatted in its place.