Moon - New Moon Part 56

"What in the name of G.o.d are you doing?" she shouted.

They both stared at her as she pointed the hose away from them and adjusted the stream of water to a trickle.

"I came to get Lance's help," Logan sputtered as he pulled away from his brother.

"Well, you sure have a funny way of going about it," Savannah observed.

He scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping off the water, then shot Lance an embarra.s.sed look. He was relieved to see that his brother looked just as abashed.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Yeah," Lance responded.

"You were going to tell us why you're here," Savannah suggested.

"Yeah. Right. I..." He started to explain what had happened and suddenly became aware that he didn't know what he wanted to say. Rinna had told him... told him...

He blinked, and in that terrible moment, he understood that Rinna had tricked him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

RINNA'S HEART POUNDED in her chest as she circled high in the sky, high above the patch of woods. Off to the left and the right she could see houses among the greenery. Houses sitting out in the open, unprotected. There might be guns in this world, but the people felt safe enough to live outside a high fence. That simply wasn't true back home. Only the desperate lived without protection.

Finally she could also see a tent in the distance. Falcone must have set up camp.

It was so tempting to take her chances here and just keep flying-away from Falcone. Away from danger. But that would leave Logan in serious trouble. She had to follow through on the plan she had devised. But now that she was back near Falcone, the thought of landing made her insides churn.

Still, she had no choice. She had known that in the back of her mind as soon as she had seen Haig and Falcone and the soldiers marching through the woods.

Maybe she had even known what was going to happen when she'd landed beside the detective. Maybe a premonition had prompted her words to him.

She knew she was stalling.

But the thought of facing Falcone as a naked woman made her stomach roil. So she widened her circle, flying over the houses, her sharp eyes searching for one of those lines where people hung clothes to dry-right out in the open where anyone pa.s.sing by could take them.

She was beginning to think she would have to find an empty house and break in when she finally spotted what she needed. Of course, the line was near the windows, and now it was broad daylight. Well, too bad!

She flew down, landing directly on the clothesline, a.s.sessing her choices. She saw men's s.h.i.+rts. And pants that probably belonged to a woman. They were wider than the men's slacks. But the legs were short.

Praying that her luck would hold, she pulled the pins from a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, then went after a pair of pants.

But before she was finished, the back door opened, and a blond-haired woman wearing a shapeless dress came out of the house, brandis.h.i.+ng a broom and waving it angrily at the bird on the clothesline.

At least it was a broom, not a gun, so Rinna kept working frantically to free the pants.

"Get away, you d.a.m.n thief. Get away," the woman shouted as she advanced with the broom.

Rinna plucked at the clothespin and finally managed to pull it loose, then dodged as the broom came down next to her, thwacking the line and making her almost lose her balance.

"Go on. Git."

Rinna hated to add violence to thievery. But it looked like that was her only option if she wanted to be dressed when she met Falcone. Turning, she spread her wings to their impressive width, then came at the woman, squawking and flapping.

AFTER getting coldc.o.c.ked, Jake Cooper knew he should be in bed. After a few hours of restless sleep, he checked his pupils in the mirror and saw that they were contracting normally. Then he washed and dressed and climbed back into his unmarked.

He'd had a bad night, starting with a trip to the emergency room after he'd come to in front of the convenience store. He'd kept telling the doctors and nurses that he was okay. But because he'd been unconscious, he hadn't gotten out of the place until they'd x-rayed his head and done a CAT scan to make sure there was no internal bleeding.

Now he was supposed to be taking it easy. Instead he called Lieutenant Donaldson and said he had information that there could be some kind of attack on the convenience store.

The Lieu had been skeptical. But Jake had spun out a story about an informant claiming that a group of terrorists were planning to go after the place.

An informant? He gave a harsh laugh. Would that be the big white bird who had found him lying on the concrete in front of the store? The idea had come to him while she'd been there.

But she couldn't have anything to do with it, could she? And why did he think of the d.a.m.n bird as she?

Getting Donaldson to agree to close the place and send in a bomb squad should have satisfied Jake. But he'd made the mistake of stopping by the office and found the information he'd been waiting for sitting on his desk. Logan Marshall's fingerprints were on the can of pork and beans that someone had used to brain the guy trying to rob the store.

Marshall was a hero. He should be taking his bows on the evening news. And maybe getting a reward from the company that owned the store. Instead he didn't want to get involved. But Jake was going to use all the leverage he had to get some information out of the guy.

He'd done a background check on Marshall. He was a landscape architect with a good reputation in his field. He took frequent trips to collect plant specimens, which he used in his work. If he were moving illegal goods, he could have used the trips for that purpose. But he had no criminal record and nothing about his background or his lifestyle seemed "off." He paid his bills on time. His credit was excellent. And he minded his own business, except the night he'd happened into the Easy Shopper during a robbery.

One interesting fact, however, was that he didn't appear to be married. So why had he claimed that the woman named Rinna was his wife? Had he smuggled an illegal alien into the country?

It seemed unlikely, although Jake remembered that her speech did have a slightly exotic tinge. But whatever was going on with Marshall and his "wife," Jake was going to find out.

AS the large white bird went on the attack, the woman with the broom screamed. Dropping her weapon, she covered her blond head with her hands as she ran back into the house.

With the frightened homeowner in retreat, Rinna gathered up the pants and s.h.i.+rt, dragging them behind her as she flew a little way into the woods. After a short rest, she put another hundred yards between herself and the house.

When she had stopped panting, she changed to human form, then hastily pulled on the s.h.i.+rt, which came down almost to her knees. After dragging on the strangely short pants, she looked down at her feet. She was shoeless, but her body was covered.

Now that she was dressed, she had no more excuses. Still, it took all her resolve to dredge up the courage to find Falcone.

Grimly she started back through the woods, heading for the location where she had spotted trie tent. Haig had been leading a troop of soldiers toward Logan's house.

She moved in a circle around the soldiers, approaching the old man from the side. But he had already stopped and was staring expectantly in her direction.

She was pretty sure he couldn't see her in the thick patch of brush where she hid, but he came right toward her, making her heart pound and leap into her windpipe.

He looked sick and shaken. But she saw no physical marks on him.

Gathering her resolve, she stepped out from behind the tangle of brush, then waved her arm.

He went stock-still.

As they stared at each other across twenty yards of charged s.p.a.ce, she managed to say, "Were you looking for me?"