Laws of Nature -2 (15 page)

Molly waved an apologetic hand. "No. We just . . . didn't know where the music was coming from. Sorry to interrupt."

"Just killing time," Tina revealed. "Someone's got to be around, but I get so bored sitting behind the desk."

"I can imagine," Jack said, mainly to have something to say as he drifted closer. "Hey, Tina, do you know if the Empire shows films in the afternoon, or just at night?" The book on the table in front of her, he could see now, was
The Turn of the Screw.

The guitar thrummed beneath the motion of her hands as the song picked up speed. When she spoke now, it was between beats. Jack marveled at her skill.

"You're in luck," Tina replied. "There are afternoon shows Saturday and Sunday. What happened, did you overdo it up on the mountain?"

"You could say that." Jack waved to her as they went back into the lobby. "Thanks."

Upstairs, once they were in their room with the door closed behind them, he let out a short sigh of relief and shook his head, still a bit taken aback by the developments of the day. Though nervous about carrying them around, they had brought their guns in from the glove compartment. Molly handed hers to Jack and he put them both in a drawer beneath his clothes.

"All right, so what do we have here?" he asked.

Molly studied Jack carefully, then raised one finger to her lips, though he thought it was a gesture of contemplation, rather than an attempt to hush him.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You want to go to the movies this afternoon?"

Just the tone of her voice made Jack smile and chuckle. Molly, however, did not seem to appreciate his amusement. His grin disappeared and he scratched his head idly.

"Let's come back to the movies in a minute, okay?" he suggested. "This other stuff is more important."

Molly nodded once, emphatically. "My point." Then she shook her head slowly, a self-effacing smile surfacing. "Sorry. I'm just . . . I feel like we should have been able to stop this last one, you know what I mean? We come up here, poking around, like there's something we can do, but we couldn't save this Mr.

Oberst."

The pain and confusion in her voice stopped Jack cold.

"This isn't our town, Mol. No matter what happens, we can barely scratch the surface around here," he told her. "But that doesn't mean we can't help. If somebody here knows what's really going on, they're not gonna tell us. We could just pack up and go home. And that's what I'll do if you want me to."

"Oh, no," Molly said quickly, shaking her wild red hair back over her shoulders. "We're not going anywhere."

Jack nodded, paused a moment in his pacing. "All right, then. Good. So, what do we know?"

Lips pressed together in a tight line, Molly let herself flop back on the bed and she stared at the ceiling. After a moment she cleared her throat.

"The spot on the map where there was a cluster of victims, and supposedly some sort of ruins, seems like the best place to start looking for the lair," she replied. "From there we can check the other murder sites we haven't visited yet. The vandalism at the diner probably means the ghosts were right about this book that was supposedly stolen from the Prowlers. The vandals didn't take anything else, so it stands to reason that they made that mess because they had to be looking for the book."

"My guess is they didn't find it or they wouldn't have had to trash the whole place," Jack added. "Also, if they killed Oberst and trashed the diner all in one night, they're either not afraid of getting caught . . . or there are more of them than we thought."

Molly wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. "I don't like either option." Her gaze locked on Jack's. "So, what next?" she asked at length.

"Next, we call Bill, get him and Courtney caught up. Then we have lunch, and then head over to the surveyor's office and look into those ruins. Tomorrow we hit the mountains again, try to have a look at them and at other locations we think might be their lair."

"Courtney won't like us getting that close without Bill," Molly reminded him.

"Who says we're going to get close? We might not even find the right place. But if it makes you feel better, I'll lay the whole thing out for them and get their feedback."

Molly nodded slowly, considering. "All right. So what do we do tonight?"

"You wanted to go to the movies, get our minds off of all of this."

Molly rolled onto her side on the bed and stared at him. He could see that she was spooked, that the speed with which things had begun to happen around them had also unsettled her. And he did not blame her.

"I'm not sure anything would get my mind off this. Not until we're on the way home."

"Hey, it's Humphrey Bogart," Jack reasoned, his tone light.

"Oh, well, that makes all the difference," Molly teased.

"It does!"

Silence descended upon the room. They stared at each other for several long moments before Jack went over to the phone between their beds. Jack dialed the number at Bridget's Irisk Rose Pub. Bill was more likely to be down at the bar already than to be up in the apartment. On the third ring, a female voice answered. It took Jack a second to place it as belonging to Kiera Dunphy.

"Kiera, it's Jack," he began, then forged on before she could ask him if he was enjoying his trip. "Can I talk to Bill?"

Molly stood up from the bed with a creak of springs and he could feel her eyes on him as she went to the bureau to click on the television. The volume was low, but he could hear the
pop-pop-pop
of her changing channels.

"Jack?" Bill said as he came on the line. "What's happening up there?"

There was something odd in Bill's voice, a tension Jack hadn't heard before. Certainly, Bill was worried about them - that had been evident all along - but this was something different.

"What's going on down there?" he countered.

The bartender paused for a second or two before responding. "Nothing. Business as usual. Did you find what you're looking for?"

"Yeah," he replied, still concerned by Bill's tone. "Yeah, they're here. In force, I think. There's been another killing."

He explained how they had gone about creating their map, and that they were going to be out searching for the lair the following day. Jack was fairly certain Bill was going to insist that they wait for him, and at this point, he was certainly not going to protest. But when he finished, there was only silence on the other end of the line.

"Bill?"

The bartender cleared his throat and it sounded almost like a growl. "I don't want you to do anything until I get there, but I can't come right now, Jack."

The words chilled him. "Why not? What the hell's going on?"

"Give me twenty-four hours. Forty-eight, tops. Then I will be there. You two can lie low for a while, go sightseeing or something if you want. Go up to Lost River Gorge; that's up there somewhere. It's amazing. Trust me."

"We should come home," Jack said quietly, all sorts of dark and ugly images forming in his mind.

"No," Bill almost snapped. "No, don't come home, Jack. That would be bad."

A cold fist clenched in Jack's gut. "Jesus, Bill. You've got more down there." It was not a question. "Courtney . . ."

"You trusted me to watch over her, Jack. I'm doing that."

"Jesus," Jack whispered again. He leaned over as though he might be sick and put a hand to his forehead.

He felt the bed shift as Molly sat down behind him. She laid a hand, long fingers gently reassuring, on his shoulder.

"Twenty-four hours, Jack," Bill said. "Just keep your head down. Don't do anything stupid. I'll take care of business here and then I'll be up."

Several courses of action occurred to Jack in a heartbeat, but he dismissed them all. It was not that he did not trust Bill to protect Courtney - despite what Bill was. It was that Jack felt that it was
his
responsibility to keep his sister safe. That particular emotion had been with him since Courtney survived the accident that had taken their mother's life. It was not going to be easy to shake.

Jack was about to insist, when Bill spoke again.

"I think you'd be walking into the line of fire if you came back right now. But if I don't deal with it in the next twenty-four hours, you can come home then, all right?"

"All right," Jack agreed, voice thick with emotion. "I don't think I could handle it if anything happened, Bill."

"I know," Bill replied. "I know."

They said their good-byes and hung up. Slowly, still shell-shocked, Jack turned to Molly. He opened his mouth to explain but she held up a hand to forestall him.

"I think I've got it," she said, sympathy and warmth in her eyes. "So, Humphrey Bogart, then?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed slowly. "First, though, I think we need to have a talk with Maria Von Trapp downstairs."

Alan felt as though the whole world were turning upside down. It may not have been the worst day of his life, but it was certainly the strangest. He thought it was almost perverse that the weather was so damned beautiful on a day when so many dark things were taking shape in Buckton.

Though he knew the sheriff 's expectations - and those of the townspeople - meant he ought to be out questioning people to try to find a single witness who saw something useful, Alan had stopped at the inn first to see Tina.

He needed to see her, if only to remind himself that there were parts of his life that could not be tarnished even by the ugliest business.

As she strummed her guitar, he sipped a lemonade he had poured himself from a pitcher, and listened to her play. It soothed him. Just watching the way her fingers moved, the expression of peace, of bliss, on her features, he felt better. Alan Vance was a law officer, but he had to remind himself sometimes that he was also just a man. He could only do what he could do.

"Hey," he said, voice low.

Tina looked up and stopped playing immediately. He leaned toward her and she lifted her chin so that he could kiss her. Their lips grazed sweetly, and then he kissed her again, with more passion.

"You're a good man, Alan," Tina whispered.

His heart felt lighter already.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are we interrupting something?"

With a start, Alan turned to see Jack and Molly standing just inside the bar area. Jack looked uncomfortable at having walked in on them, but Molly - who had spoken - had a mischievous smile on her face.

Alan wasn't in the mood. "As a matter of fact - "

"Not really," Tina interrupted. "Just commiserating. Alan's having a bad day at work."

"They know," Alan said quickly. "They saw the mess at the diner." He stood up and hefted his gun belt on his hips, then mentally cursed himself. Tina always told him he looked like a cartoon deputy when he did that.

"What can I do for you two?" he asked.

Jack scratched the back of his head. "While we were hiking yesterday, we ran across what was left of a house. It's a cool spot, so we thought we'd try to picnic there today, but couldn't find it. That's half the reason we came home early. We were worried about getting turned around. Anyway, we thought we'd look up the property so we could be sure to find it again. We'd do that at the surveyor's office, right?"

Alan chuckled. "In a town this small? The survey map books and all of that stuff is in a room at the library, but they close at one o'clock on Saturdays." He glanced at his watch. "You've got fifteen minutes."

The reaction that news got out of the two city kids surprised Alan. Both of them grimaced as though the information was much more important to them than just a place to picnic. He studied them a bit closer and realized that both of them seemed edgy. Even more so, he thought, than might be expected given the events of the day.

"I don't suppose they're open Sundays?" Molly asked.

"Sorry," Tina said.

"Not that big a deal, I guess," Molly said. "Oh, one other thing. Are there any good bookstores in town?"

"There aren't any bookstores in town," Tina said. "Nearest one's in Dunning, about fifteen minutes from here. Maybe twenty."

Molly frowned. "So, other than the diner, there's nowhere in town to get books?"

"Just the library," Alan supplied. "But that doesn't help you this afternoon."

Though there was still something off about Jack and Molly - and he kept Sheriff Tackett's instructions to watch them in mind - Alan knew he had better get on with investigating the break-in at the Paperback.

"I guess that's my cue," he said, then glanced at Tina. "As long as nothing
else
happens, we're still going to help Trish later on?"

"I'll be there," Tina promised.

Once more Alan waved good-bye to her and then started for the door. Behind him, he could hear her begin to play guitar again, picking out the first notes of an old song by the Eagles, "Hotel California." On his way out, he caught Molly's eye.

Something sparked in his mind, and he stopped.

"By the way," he told her, "you were right. We had a third murder just last night. A local guy. Ken Oberst. He was old, but people were fond of him."

"That's awful," Molly replied quickly. "I'm sorry to hear it."

"Still no idea who's behind it, huh?" Jack asked.

Tina played as if none of them were even there.

Alan sniffed. "We're getting there," he lied. "Only a matter of time."

A few minutes after Deputy Vance left, Molly and Jack stepped out of the inn. On the sidewalk, they hesitated.

"I feel like we've hit a dead end," Molly confessed.

"Today at least," Jack agreed. "We'll have to find that place just based on the map we've got. We're going to have to start our expedition early tomorrow. It may take a while."

Molly nodded, deep in thought.

"What?" Jack asked.

She gazed at him. "If there's nowhere else to buy or borrow books in this town, and that diner was ransacked last night for the reasons we think, it seems to me it's only a matter of time before they hit the library."

"Might even be tonight," Jack suggested.

"If there's nowhere else for them to look, and they didn't find what they wanted, it stands to reason. Alan said they think the place was vandalized sometime after midnight."