Whispers in the Mist (25 page)

He pulled over, fetched out his mobile, and navigated the Internet until he reached the Firebird Designs contact email form.

You might as well answer this message, Malcolm. I know you’re playing at being the talented Mr. McIlvoy. Are you making the jewelry now too?

FORTY
-
TWO

G
EMMA’S FULL BLADDER FORCED
her out of a fitful sleep. It took her a second to remember where she was and how she’d ended up curled under a fallen tree trunk inside a den dug by some enterprising woodland creature. She blinked at mist-enshrouded conifers, a mix of pine, larch, and fir that a diligent forester had planted years ago and then let go to their natural state. Normally, the dank but beautifully green smell of vegetation, both fresh and rotting, soothed her nerves.

Listening to the increased fluttering and creep of animal life readying for the coming night, she tried to decipher sounds that hinted at danger. Beyond the trees, cows lowed and magpies chatted. Closer by, leaves rustled overhead. Unsure but desperate to relieve herself, Gemma eased herself out of her cramped position. After peeing behind the fallen tree, she made her way toward the edge of the forestry lands. A broad vista of farm fields stretched out before her. In the distance a farmer led a small herd of cows from one field to another. She hesitated, picturing watering troughs, then retreated back into the trees. Her thirst would have to go unquenched until nightfall.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Her initial terror had waned to a low-grade jitter. She felt herself on the edge of either healing or madness, each attractive in its own way. Health was the ideal, but madness had kept her safe. It had insulated her from most of life’s turbulence. It had comforted her. How to quit such an addictive habit?

She swiped away a tear—not for herself, no, because she was used to herself, but because of Ellen. She reviewed the previous evening and found herself wanting. Utterly useless. Why couldn’t she have offered Ellen reassurance after her husband left with Mandy and Petey? Instead, she’d retreated to the kitchen, to sudsy water and sponge, and cleaned each plate until it squeaked. She’d just started on the first water glass when she heard a knock. Ellen had called out something that Gemma hadn’t caught over the sound of running water. After that, footsteps and another voice, one that froze her as solid as the glass that fell from her floppy fingers and sank under the suds with a quiet
plonk
.

Her throat had worked against itself, traitorous as ever. She’d dropped to the kitchen floor in sheer terror and crawled toward the back door. Rational thought vanished. All that remained was,
Get out now
. After that, her memory turned hazy, as if the bottomless well had sucked it away from her. All she knew for sure was that she had not helped Ellen, that she’d hidden and then fled.

She wasn’t sure she’d recognize the man’s voice if she heard it again. She wasn’t sure if it was his voice or something he’d said that had panicked her. This is how her memory went—a traitor. She’d even stared at the artist’s statement picture of John McIlvoy when she visited the gift shop with Merrit, willing the image of him to jump-start her memories. She’d always hated the floppy leather hat he wore, but all she’d gotten for her efforts was nauseated.

She leaned against a pine tree and inhaled its sharp tang. The scent stirred something within her, cozy yet uneasy, and she willed herself to examine the sensation of it knocking against her faulty memory banks. Other scents intruded from memory: lavender and detergent overlaying an older mustiness. And an image of her mam hand-washing three generations’ worth of antique lace, yellowing and fragile as spider webs. And another image of the cedar linen chest that sat in the kitchen beside the door to the den.

Her mother’s annual cleaning-out of the linen chest, yes. Each lacy doily, baptismal blanket, and fusty table runner had had a story, a memory she associated with her lean but contented childhood. She’d set to hand-washing each scrap of the past, telling Gemma that the mementos were as good as a photo album for her—better even. Gemma now recalled their filigreed mosaic swaying on the breeze. She remembered how she’d dance beneath them while they dried on the line, watching clouds pass behind their lacy spaces.

Such a lovely memory. It didn’t make sense that she’d forgotten it until now—did it?

A twig cracked. Gemma pressed herself against the pine’s rough hide while, around her, twitters and rustlings paused and then sprang back to life. A squirrel chattered a warning and a scuffling animal made a trail of waving fern fronds. In the misty twilight, Gemma thought she made out a human shadow merging and parting from the tree shadows. She dropped to the ground and crawled toward her safe haven under the tree trunk.

FORTY
-
THREE

O
N THE EDGE OF
the forestry land Alan caught Bijou’s head and ducked it back into the sock bag.

“Come on, come on,” he said.

He was tempted to call out for Gemma except that he knew that Bijou would take the sound of his raised voice as a sign for play. For all Alan knew, his voice or Bijou’s clumsy thrashings through the undergrowth might scare Gemma off. He pictured her as a woodland animal, skittery and wary. No, worse. He imagined her as a traumatized woodland animal after trusting mankind once too often. He didn’t like to think she’d fear him, but then he didn’t know what last night’s violence had reaped in her mind. In the end, he preferred to approach her in a gentling manner, if possible.

He completed a circle along the perimeter of the woods in hopes that Bijou would smell Gemma’s entrance point. No such luck. To his right, dull grey twilight slanted over the countryside. To his left, misty outlines of trees fell into a wooded black hole. He stepped left into the forest.

He sensed her proximity like a homing beacon. Peculiar or not, he had a gift for stalking. In a low voice, he sang a French children’s song, hoping this would entice her out. “
Dans la forêt lointaine on entend le coucou
.”

Singing about a cuckoo in a faraway forest, he felt a bit cuckoo himself. Nevertheless, he continued in the half-light while intermittently forcing Bijou’s nose up against the socks. She liked what she smelled, if her wagging tail meant anything, but so far she hadn’t shown extraordinary interest in anything but rolling in mushrooms and suspicious decaying matter. The painkillers were working wonders on her morale but not on her tracking abilities.

Rustlings and crackling up ahead caused Alan to freeze. “Quiet,” he whispered to Bijou and she stood at alert, ears pricked. There was something up ahead. An alarmed
kuk
-
kuk
-
kuk
from a squirrel dittoed the sentiment.

Alan carried an electric lantern, but he hadn’t turned it on yet. He could still make out the shadows of tree trunks against the gloaming. He eased forward with Bijou at heel. Pine needles brushed his cheek and the moist oily scent of resin wafted through on a cool breeze. Above him the trees whispered and everywhere he turned his ear brought new, undefined evidence of unseen life. Faint squeaks, ghostly chirps.

And something else. He stepped forward at the sound of agitated rustlings. At his side, Bijou gave a low woof and just about tore his shoulder out of joint in a sudden lunge that yanked the lead out of his grip. A few seconds later, her yelp ricocheted off the trees.

“Bijou!” Stooping, he groped around in the near dark until he felt her. She lay on her side, but she lifted her head to lick his hands. “What just happened, girl?”

A movement caught his eye, a distinctly human-shaped shadow melting into the murk. Alan had dropped the lantern somewhere among the ferns, so he aimed himself in the direction he’d seen the shadow. Up ahead, the foliage came alive with thrashings and footsteps. Two people—men, by the sounds of their grunts—flattened a stand of ferns as they writhed against each other. One of the men rose up with a furious roar. The man held a thick branch high over his head and began swinging it in a frenzy while his opponent shimmied backwards.

The attacker’s grunts and growls turned into words. “You—” He swung and the branch hit a tree with a resounding
thwack
. “Son of a fecking whore.”

Alan grabbed the man’s leg, and the attacker crashed down against him. He straddled the man and spied the would-be victim already swiping dirt off his suit.

“Well,” Malcolm said, “I always knew you were nothing but a grub.”

A strange guttural sound, like someone being strangled, silenced Malcolm. The squirming man beneath Alan went still. All of them, including Alan, froze as a new shadow disengaged itself from the trees near Bijou. A moment later, the light from his own lantern seared Alan’s retinas, forcing him to look down at Nathan Tate’s face. Nathan’s gaze had hooked on the person holding the lantern. “Is that—?”

Alan blinked toward the lantern, attempting to make out who had joined their unlikely threesome. Trees and other foliage leaned toward them and away as the lantern swayed.

Gemma. Her hand shook, and as the light swung toward her, Alan caught sight of dirt streaking her face and mats weighing down her usually bouncy hair. Terror worked itself around Gemma’s face in muscle spasms. Her mouth worked, her eyes bulged, and Alan cringed at the warped and tortured noises that found their way out of her.

“What, Gemma, what are you trying to say?” Alan said.

Gemma’s scratchy voice tried and failed to claw its way out of its long-held silence.

“Nothing but a grub,” Malcolm said.

Nathan shoved Alan off him and lunged toward Malcolm. Leaving those two to fight their own battle, Alan made his own lunge, trying and failing to catch Gemma as she collapsed.

FORTY
-
FOUR

D
ANNY FOLLOWED THE TREE
line along its western edge. His torch barely penetrated the blackness of the deep country night.

“There,” Dermot said from behind him.

Light mingled with the foggy ground cover and created a hazy glow through the trees. “Alan?” he called.

“Hurry up then,” Alan called back. “Took you long enough.”

Dermot ran ahead toward the lantern light, almost braining himself against a low-hanging branch in the process. Danny grabbed tree trunks for purchase as he followed. He stepped around a tangle of branches and made out the outline of the lantern. A few steps on, he stopped. He’d expected Gemma. That much was the point of this outdoor adventure. What he hadn’t expected was Malcolm and Nathan Tate fighting like a couple of hooligans.

At the sight of Malcolm, Danny had to swallow back the urge to pull him aside for a wee chat. Nathan stood over him, brandishing a branch as thick as a man’s arm. Further on, Gemma and Bijou lay atop a mass of flattened ferns, back to back, both breathing in shallow pants. Alan knelt beside Bijou, while Dermot brushed back Gemma’s hair and whispered in her ear.

Danny approached and shone his torch at Malcolm and Nathan. They appeared wilted. A nasty bump rose out of Malcolm’s temple.

“This is outrageous,” Malcolm said. “I came out to help search for Gemma. I did say I have excellent night vision.”

“The hero, you are,” Nathan said.

“Quiet, both of you.” Danny studied their ripped clothing and oozing scratches. Malcolm straightened his jacket while Nathan shifted from foot to foot.

“He attacked me,” Malcolm said. “I want to press charges.”

Dermot stumbled to his feet. Before Danny had a chance to stop him, Dermot had yanked the branch out of Nathan’s grasp and raised it like a bat. “Which one of you did this to Gemma? Tell me now or, on my mother’s grave, I’ll kill the both of you.”

“No one touched her,” Nathan said.

Danny pulled the branch out of Dermot’s grasp. He didn’t look like he had the energy to use it, but it wouldn’t hurt to lessen the chances.

“Malcolm, Nathan, I need you to sit down while we wait for the guards. And don’t move.”

Malcolm buttoned his suit jacket. “I’d prefer a bath. I can meet you at the station.”

“Sit. Down.” With more force than necessary, Danny grabbed Malcolm’s shoulder and pushed. “Now.”

Malcolm smiled. “Ah, Danny, you’ve heard about my alibi, I see. No matter.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the bloody lump rising out of his big, bald head. “I assume you will be getting me an ambulance as soon as possible.”

Danny retreated while Dermot hovered near the two men, not letting them out of his sight. Danny called the station while staring down at Gemma’s curled form. Her back rose and fell but otherwise she didn’t move. With a whimper, Bijou struggled against Alan’s restraining hands. “Son of a bitch hit Bijou.”

“Which son of a bitch?” Danny said.

“Nathan was the branch-wielding madman I saw.”

“I told you, that was Malcolm,” Nathan said. “I got the branch away from him.”

Malcolm sighed. “Believe me, I was aiming at Nathan. I had to defend myself.”