Sisters Of The Craft: Heat Of The Moment Part 14

Reggie started up from sleep with a woof, then stared toward the front door, head tilted. Owen went to the window.

"What's wrong?" Carstairs asked.

"He heard something."

"I don't hear-" Carstairs began, then stopped as the telltale wail approached. They both stepped outside as the Three Harbors Police cruiser shot past the Stone Lake cottages.

"Speak of the police chief," Owen murmured.

The cruiser continued into town, straight down Carstairs Avenue, where it slid to a stop.

"s.h.i.+t." Carstairs headed for his truck. "That's Becca's place."

"You expect me to believe there's a ghost named Henry in my apartment?"

You're the one talking to a wolf.

"Good point." I glanced at my phone, then back at Pru. Oddly it felt more right thinking of her as "Pru" than "my wolf." "You should probably lope off before I call the police."

Pru tilted her head like a dog that's heard a familiar word, but she wasn't looking at me, she was looking at Henry.

Beware the hunters.

"Okay." I pushed 9. The phone flew out of my hand and landed on the bed. I scowled at Pru. "Stop that."

I do not have the power to move objects with my mind.

"No one can."

You still believe that?

I hesitated. My phone had moved on its own twice, not to mention the aerial talents of my attempted murderer.

"You didn't do any tossing?"

I did not.

"Let me guess ... Henry did."

Yes. Fear for your life, for mine, helped him focus, increased his power.

Something small skittered across the floor and bounced off my toe, making the same clicky sound I'd heard after the cuckoo hit the wall. I leaned over, tensing at the idea of discovering a tooth. Instead I saw a ring-a really big ring with some kind of crest. I started to reach for it and drew back.

The police would probably want to dust that for fingerprints. Could they dust a ring for fingerprints? I didn't know, but if they could, I certainly didn't want them to find mine.

I knelt and put my cheek on the floor. My nose nearly brushed the object. From this position I could see the likeness of a snarling wolf that had been carved into its face.

I straightened. "Did this belong to the creepy creep?"

I don't know why I continued to talk to the wolf. Maybe because she continued to answer me. Make that, I continued to answer myself. But the answers were good ones.

Give it to the authorities. Have them call the FBI.

"The FBI?" I got to my feet with a laugh. "Why would they care that some nut broke into a vet's house and tried to kill her?" I was suddenly very dizzy.

Someone had tried to kill me.

I have to go.

As I'd been trying to get her to go I didn't argue. That she actually went after I'd imagined her saying she would, should have freaked me out but didn't. Stuff like that happened to me all the time.

Pru descended the stairs. I retrieved my phone, called 9-1-1, and requested help. At the open back door, Pru glanced up.

Beware the Venatores Mali.

I'd taken Latin in college, but it hadn't really stuck the way it should. Besides, I was still loopy. I hadn't thought I'd had my oxygen cut off by the pillow, but apparently I had.

"Something ... bad?" I translated.

Pru rolled her eyes. Not bad. E- Her head turned sharply forward. Oh, no! Edward!

Then she ran.

By the time I reached the parking lot, she was gone. And if there'd been anyone named Edward there, he was gone too.

Chapter 10.

A siren approached from the main highway. In the past day I'd seen more of Chief Deb than I had in the past month.

Tires screeched. I hurried from the back door to the front sidewalk as Deb leaped out of her cruiser. She'd parked kind of funky-facing the wrong way, with her left front tire nearly up on the curb and the a.s.s end hanging into the street. If anyone else had parked like that they'd be begging for a ticket.

"Calm down," I said. "No one's here any more except me."

And maybe Henry, but I'd keep that to myself.

Deb lowered her gaze from my apartment window and her hand from her gun. "Who was it?"

"No idea. He ... maybe she, wore a ski mask, hat, gloves."

She contemplated the street where the owners of the local businesses, as well as their patrons, had begun to spill onto the sidewalk. "Anyone see a person in a ski mask run past?"

Much head shaking ensued.

"You'd think someone like that would have been pretty obvious running down the street," Deb said.

"If he...?" I tilted my head, and Deb made a "yeah, yeah, go on" gesture to indicate she understood I'd just keep saying he instead of he/she, which had already become annoying. "If he wasn't a moron, he'd have run into the woods. And lost the ski mask."

Her gaze flicked to the shadowy tower of trees that marched right up to the edge of my parking lot then spoke into her shoulder mike. "George, I need you to go into the woods on the other side of town. Detain..." Her gaze flicked to mine.

"Six feet, maybe one sixty. Brown s.h.i.+rt." I spread my hands. "That's all I got."

Deb's eyes lifted to the heavens for help. That was the only place she was going to get it too. "Just grab anyone you find in the vicinity of six feet tall and detain them for questioning."

"Anyone?"

"Roger that. Send Billy to Doc Becca's for crowd control. Stat." She indicated the building. "Let's go."

"Front is locked." I headed around the side. My back door still gaped open.

"I'll a.s.sume it wasn't like that when you came home."

"Please do." I wasn't an idiot. My parents might not have locked their doors since the dawn of time, but I did.

"Was the door locked?"

"I used my key." I frowned. I'd just a.s.sumed I was opening it. Might it have been closed and unlocked? I had no idea.

Maybe I was an idiot.

"Don't touch anything." Deb used her shoulder mike again to ask for Ross Quinleven, Three Harbors Police Department's version of CSI.

"My prints are going to be everywhere already." It wasn't like I dusted the doork.n.o.b or the railing on the staircase. It wasn't like I'd dusted anything in a long, long time, which Deb was going to see for herself in a minute. I should probably be more embarra.s.sed about that than I was.

"I know, but you don't want to smudge anyone else's."

"He wore gloves," I repeated.

"We'll still follow procedure. Maybe he took them off so he could pick your lock." At my incredulous glance, she continued: "You'd be surprised what criminals do that they shouldn't."

"Like picking door locks then trying to kill people?"

"There you go."

I took the stairs to my apartment carefully. Once you were told not to use the handrail, suddenly the handrail seemed a lot more necessary than you realized.

The sight of the tossed bedcovers, the pillow on the floor, the table in pieces, the lamp tipped over, made me s.h.i.+ver. I'd always felt safe here. My mistake.

"Take me through what happened."

"Joe dropped me off."

"After Watley's?"

"Yes. No." I was so tired I was getting shaky. Or maybe my being shaky was making me more tired. "Owen dropped me at my parents' after Watley's."

"He was with you all night?"

"Yeah."

She lifted her eyebrows. I didn't elaborate. I only had so many more words left before my brain shut down. I wasn't going to waste them trying to explain something I didn't understand already.

"He dropped you at your parents' at what time?"

"Seven maybe? I had breakfast, and Joe brought me here."

"You didn't notice anything off when you came in? Anything where it shouldn't be? Doors closed when you thought you'd left them open, or vice versa?"

"You think he was already inside when I got here?"

"You tell me."

My gaze wandered the apartment. "It's a little small to hide in."

Kitchen, living, bedroom were all one. The only doors were to the outside, the bathroom, and the closet. s.h.i.+t. The closet. Had he been in there watching me undress? My s.h.i.+ver became a shudder.

Deb set her hand on my arm, and I jumped. "Calm down. It's over."

"Is it?"

That depended on why someone had tried to kill me. Because I was there? Did that mean once I wasn't, I was safe? I didn't think so.

Deb gave me an awkward pat. "What happened next?"

"I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and ... stuff."

"Shower curtain?"

"Yes. I mean no. Yes, I have one. No, I didn't look behind it." Had the intruder been behind my shower curtain watching me pee? This just got better and better.

Did people peek behind their shower curtain every time they went into the bathroom? Paranoid much? Maybe I should be paranoid more.

"Go on," Chief Deb urged.

My attention kept drifting. From the ease with which Deb brought me back to the topic, I wasn't the first victim to do so.

I was a victim. I didn't like it.

Deb snapped her fingers in front of my nose.

Whoops.