Authors: Carla Cassidy
Eventually when she chose the man she would marry, he'd be a warrior, proud of his heritage, strong in tradition and with the Cherokee loving heart.
Everything she had heard about Clay James indicated he was not the warrior her heart sought. She resolutely shoved thoughts of him out of her mind and focused on the fact that she had two lovely weekend days ahead of her to indulge in her first love … painting.
Thanks to Max, she no longer had to beg art galleries to showcase her work, rather she had galleries requesting showings.
She tucked away every penny she made, knowing that Native American paintings were hot now, but there may come a day when she wouldn't be able to give her work away.
Her parents had encouraged her talent and creativity from a very early age, but they had also instilled a level of practicality, which is why she had gotten her teaching degree despite the fact that painting was her first love.
She pulled down the dirt lane that would take her to her cottage, a sense of homecoming filling her up inside. The moment she'd seen the place, she'd thought of it as her own little enchanted cottage in the woods.
She'd known instinctively that it was a place where her creativity would thrive. The woods held a primal serenity that seemed to wrap her in its arms.
As she approached the cottage, she frowned. There was something on her porch … something that didn't belong there. She shut off her engine and sat for a long moment, trying to identify the dark bulk that was right in front of her front door.
Whatever it was, it wasn't moving. She got out of the car, feeling a bit unsteady on her feet as she approached the porch.
A deer. A doe, actually. Lifeless, with soft brown eyes staring toward the heavens, it looked pitifully small.
Tamara sent up a prayer for the soul of the doe, at the same time wondering how it had gotten on her front porch. Had it been hit by a car and somehow stumbled here, broken and bleeding?
She bent down to get a better look, to try to discern what injuries the poor thing had sustained: Her blood chilled as she saw the claw marks that marred the tan hide of the doe's side. The claw marks looked like the ones that had marked her classroom walls. What was going on?
Fear walked up her backbone with icy fingers as she looked around. The surrounding woods was beginning to take on the shadows of twilight, creating dark pockets of shadows that she recognized would make perfect hiding places.
With trembling fingers, she unlocked her front door and stepped over the dead deer. She stood in the threshold of her home, listening for a sound that didn't belong, smelling the air for an alien scent, needing to be sure the sanctity of her home hadn't been breached before she entered farther.
She heard nothing, smelled nothing, but was spooked beyond belief. She hurried across the living room, grabbed her cordless phone and punched in 911.
Chapter 4
C
lay had just left the lab and entered the police station when he heard Jason Sheller grumbling about having to go out to the Greystone residence because she'd found a dead animal on her property.
"She lives out in the woods, for crying out loud," Jason complained. "There's always dead animals out in the woods."
"I'll take it for you," Clay said.
Jason looked at him in mock surprise. "Ah, I forgot you lab rats were actually real cops who could take a report."
Clay eyed Jason with narrowed eyes. He'd never liked the man. He found him arrogant, self-centered and obnoxious. "You call me a lab rat again and I'll do an experiment on your face with my fists."
"
Geez
, lighten up, James." Jason backed up with hands in the air, the smug smirk that had crossed his mouth vanished. "It was just a little joke."
"I don't find your humor amusing," Clay replied. "Now, do you want me to take the call or not?"
"Sure, knock yourself out," Jason replied. He sank down at his desk. "Anything new on our
slasher
murders?"
"No." Clay gave his reports to the chief, not to individual officers. Glen would let the officers know what they needed to know when they needed to know it.
Besides, Clay was eager to get to Tamara's place and find out what was going on. She hadn't struck him as the type of woman who would freak out over some critter dying on her property.
Contrary to Jason Sheller's smart-ass remark, Clay and his team often worked as regular officers, filling in whenever necessary.
In a town the size of Cherokee Corners and with their limited equipment, there wasn't enough forensic work to keep the CSI team busy all the time.
He got into the van and took off for Tamara's place, his thoughts racing as he drove. After eating dinner with her and Alyssa, he'd gone back to the lab and had tried to make sense of the customer lists from quarries and landscaping services that had begun to come in.
Most of the places had simply printed off customer lists without pulling the ones Clay was specifically looking for. He now knew the decorative rock he'd found both at his parents' home and at the Frazier murder scene was called Dalmatian mix because of the unusual black and white coloring. Thankfully it was a high-end decorative rock, so not many people sprang for it.
From the lists he'd received so far he had a list of fifty-two names from
Oklahoma City
and its surrounding area. Who knew how many more names would be added when all was said and done.
And even then, being armed with a list of every person in
As he turned down the dirt road that led to Tamara's cottage, he tried to put it all out of his head. Instead his thoughts were replaced with the memory of Alyssa telling him about the vision she'd suffered the night before, the vision of Tamara being killed by a monster.
He knew his cousin had been particularly fragile over the last couple of months. Before the crime at his parents' house Alyssa had been experiencing what she said were the worst visions she'd ever had. She'd told him all she saw was blackness, but accompanying the dark was an overwhelming feeling that something terrible was going to happen.
Since the crime, Clay knew she blamed herself for not "seeing" exactly what was going to happen, for not "seeing" clues that would lead to the recovery of Rita wherever she was.
Alyssa was fragile and under stress, and he was certain that hearing about the damage to Tamara's classroom was what had prompted her latest vision.
Twilight was on its way out the door, leaving behind the deep shadows of night. It would be even darker around Tamara's place where the woods were thick and kept out most of the moonlight.
As the cottage came into view, he saw that there were no lights on. It looked as if nobody was home. He parked next to her car, then saw her seated behind the steering wheel.
She got out as he did. "Clay," she said with obvious surprise. "I didn't expect to see you."
"Since I was out at the schoolhouse, I decided to go ahead and come out here and take a report." She looked tense … frightened. "Is there a reason you're out here sitting in your car instead of inside?"
"I wasn't sure it was safe inside. I know it sounds silly, but I got spooked and just stepped in long enough to grab the phone and call the police, then I came out here, started the car engine and locked myself inside."
"It doesn't sound silly, it sounds like the intelligent thing to do." He leaned into the van and removed his handgun from the seat. "So, what exactly have we got here?"
"There's a dead deer on my porch." Her voice was low and steady. "At first I thought maybe it had been hit by a car and had somehow made its way to the porch, but when I looked more closely at it, I realized there were claw marks across its side like the ones that were made in my classroom. That's when I got spooked."
"Lock yourself back in the car and let me check out the house. Once it's clear, then I'll take a look at the deer."
He was glad she didn't question or argue with him, but instead did exactly what he asked.
When she was back in her car, he released the safety on his gun and approached the cottage. There were no lights on, but he could see just enough to step over the dead animal and push open the front door.
Gun firmly gripped in his hand and held up before him, he stepped through the door and flipped on the light switches that illuminated both the porch and the lamps on the end tables in the living room.
The room looked exactly as it had last night when he had been inside. Nothing appeared to be out of place, but he wouldn't be at ease until he'd checked every room, every closet, every place that a person might hide.
From the living room he moved into the kitchen, hitting the switch to light the room. Again, everything looked normal. He checked the small pantry, finding nothing more than canned goods, then left the kitchen and moved down the narrow hallway. The bathroom was tiny and the shower curtain hid nothing more than a spotlessly clean tub.
At the end of the hallway was the single bedroom. Clay turned on the light switch, tensed and ready for confrontation. Again he found nothing … except a bedroom that instantly assailed him on all senses, evoking thoughts that definitely had nothing to do with his job.
A bright red spread covered the double bed. Sprawled across the bed was a splash of yellow silk that he recognized must be Tamara's nightgown. Yellow and red curtains hung at the single window the room boasted, a window unit air conditioner filling the lower portion of the window itself.
The room breathed color and life and passion and it smelled like her … that mysterious blend of wildflowers and fresh rain and dark woods.
Dream catchers hung on the wall above the bed and Tamara's artwork—rich, bold and intense in stroke, color and content—decorated the remaining walls. A tabletop fountain sat in the center of the dresser and it was easy to imagine making love to the sound of the gentle, bubbling water.
He yanked open the closet door, irritated that the thought of making love in this room, to the woman outside sitting in her car, had even entered his mind.
There was nothing in the house to indicate that somebody had been inside other than Tamara. He returned to the front door, stepped over the deer, then went to her car. Before he could reach it, she stepped out.
"Everything looks okay inside," he said. "And now I want to take a look at that deer." He went back to his van and pulled out his kit, then carried it back to the front porch.
He was intensely aware of her just behind him, could hear the whisper of her footsteps in the grass, could smell the faint pleasant fragrance that seemed to wrap around her.
It irritated him, making it difficult for him to focus on the task at hand. "You go on inside. I'll let you know when I'm finished here."
His voice was sharper than he intended, but it served his purpose. She stepped over the deer and disappeared into the house, silently closing the door behind her.
Clay pulled on latex gloves and got to work. At first glance it appeared as if vicious claws had ripped the deer, but it didn't take long for him to discover that the cause of death had been a bullet in the chest. The claw marks had been made postmortem.
He took photos of the dead animal, then carefully measured the claw marks and took notes so he could find out if they matched the ones from the classroom.
It was difficult to discern when the deer had died, but it had been some time in the last twenty-four hours. He frowned and stood as he ripped off his gloves. Somebody had killed a deer with a bullet, then carried it here, to Tamara's porch, then had scored the hide with some sort of claws. Why?
He knocked twice on her door then pushed it open and entered the cottage. She wasn't in the living room, but he found her seated at the table in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in front of her.
She rose as he entered the room and went to the cabinet to retrieve another cup. She poured the coffee, then handed it to him.
"Thanks," he said and sat at the table. She returned to her chair across from him and gazed at him expectantly. "You've got a dead deer on the porch."
She smiled. "I didn't need a police officer to tell me that."
"The deer wasn't killed by being torn apart by claws, it was killed with a bullet."
"A bullet?" She looked at him in surprise. "A hunter? But why would he put the deer on my front porch? And what about those marks on the deer's side?"
She still wore the yellow dress that she'd had on when they'd had lunch, and he instantly thought of the yellow silk nightgown he'd seen splashed across the red of her bed.
He could almost envision that tiny piece of silk against her skin, the length of her long legs beneath the short nightie. He mentally shook himself, trying to remove the image of her wearing that little piece of silk.