Painter was still talking in my ear, babbling words I couldn’t understand. Phrases that wouldn’t sink in. Bastards. Dead. Blood. Missing. I could barely hear him over the static in my head, the ambient noise of my own denial.
“Faythe!” Ethan muttered. I blinked and shook my head, then forced my eyes to make sense of his face. “Slow him down. Make him give you the facts.”
Right. The facts.
And just like that, the world hurled itself back into focus around me, the entire barn tilting wildly for a moment before everything seemed to settle with an eerily crisp clarity. I met my brother’s eyes, thanking him wordlessly for the mental face-slap. “Take Kaci upstairs and get Dad. I think he’s in the barn.”
By the time I’d gotten a deep breath, Ethan was on the bottom step, one hand beckoning Kaci to follow him, the other flipping open his own phone, because he could call the barn much faster than he could get there, even with a werecat’s speed.
“Faythe?” Dan was shouting now and I took a moment to be grateful that I got a strong signal in our basement. “Are you there?”
“I’m here. Calm down and explain it to me slowly.” I stood, and almost lost my balance when one foot hit the concrete floor and the other sank into the thick mat. “Marc is gone, but you smell his blood. Is that right?”
“It’s everywhere,” Painter said, with no hesitation, and I pictured him nodding, though I couldn’t see the gesture over the line. “There’s a thick trail of it leading across the carpet to the front door. Like someone dragged him off.”
Oh, shit. Oh, noooo!
Stop it, Faythe. He’s lost a lot of blood, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Marc would be fine. We just had to find him.
“Where does the trail go?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm and even. If I panicked, Dan might panic, and we’d lose valuable time that would be better spent looking for Marc. “Does it continue out the front door?”
“Yeah. Across the front stoop, down the steps and over the grass. That’s how I knew something was wrong when I got here.”
“So, it ends in the grass?”
“On the edge of the driveway.” Painter paused, and I heard a metallic groan, as a screen door creaked open. “It looks like they put him in a car and took off with him. There’re big ruts in the gravel from where they peeled off too fast.” He hesitated again, then asked the question I hadn’t even posed to myself yet. “Do you think he’s dead?”
My eyes closed, and I inhaled deeply. Then exhaled slowly. “I don’t know.” I sucked in another breath and forced my concentration back to the work at hand, and away from thoughts I couldn’t bear to entertain. “Did they take his car?”
“No. It’s up next to the house. Along the south side, where he always parks it.” The screen door slammed shut with a horrid tinny screech, and Painter’s voice echoed slightly, now that it had four walls to bounce off again.
“Should I go look for Marc, or start cleaning up the mess?” Painter inhaled deeply, obviously trying to calm himself. “And the bodies…?”
I wanted to tell him to forget about the bodies and start driving around town on the lookout for Marc. Or into the forest, keeping an eye out for fresh tire tracks. But the truth was that if there were enough of them to take Marc down, there would be too many for Painter to handle on his own. Assuming he found them.
My mind was flooded by the possibilities. Maybe they’d taken him alive. But if so, why? And where?
Maybe they’d killed him, and had left to dispose of the body. My eyes watered, and my fist clenched around the phone, the nails of my opposite hand biting into my flesh. No. That’s not what happened. If they’d killed him, why not dispose of all three bodies at once? Why leave the others?
Unless the killers drove a compact…
“Okay, let’s take it one thing at a time.” My feet moved as I spoke, and I found myself on the aisle formed by two rows of weight-lifting equipment. “The other bodies. Are they strays? Do you know them?” I thought about going upstairs, but didn’t want Kaci to overhear anything that might upset her.
“Yeah, they’re strays. I recognize the scents, but don’t know the names.”
“There are two of them, right?” I ran my hand over the leg press, cursing silently when a flake of paint slid beneath my fingernail. “And they bled on the carpet?”
“Yeah.” Floorboards creaked, and I pictured Painter leaning over the bodies. “The carpet, themselves, each other. The biggest one has a huge gash on the top of his skull. Near the back. And the coffee table’s broken and covered in his blood. Looks like he fell and hit it. Or else someone hit him with it.”
Yeah, that sounded like Marc. An odd pang of pride and pain rang through me, as I hoped fervently that he was still alive to repeat that performance someday.
“What about the other one?”
“Side of his head’s caved in. Looks like someone took a rung-back chair to ‘im.”
“Okay, now I need you to sniff around. Concentrate. Do you smell any scents that don’t belong to either Marc or the dead strays? Did anyone else bleed in there recently? Or sweat? Or touch anything? Sniff the doorknobs first, then anything that might have been used as a weapon. Did you touch the doorknob?”
“Only from the outside of the door.” There was a pause on his end, and I thought I heard floorboards groan as he knelt. Or stood. “Yeah, there’s another scent on the front door. The wood and the knob. It’s another stray, but no one I know.”
“Faythe!” Ethan muttered. I blinked and shook my head, then forced my eyes to make sense of his face. “Slow him down. Make him give you the facts.”
Right. The facts.
And just like that, the world hurled itself back into focus around me, the entire barn tilting wildly for a moment before everything seemed to settle with an eerily crisp clarity. I met my brother’s eyes, thanking him wordlessly for the mental face-slap. “Take Kaci upstairs and get Dad. I think he’s in the barn.”
By the time I’d gotten a deep breath, Ethan was on the bottom step, one hand beckoning Kaci to follow him, the other flipping open his own phone, because he could call the barn much faster than he could get there, even with a werecat’s speed.
“Faythe?” Dan was shouting now and I took a moment to be grateful that I got a strong signal in our basement. “Are you there?”
“I’m here. Calm down and explain it to me slowly.” I stood, and almost lost my balance when one foot hit the concrete floor and the other sank into the thick mat. “Marc is gone, but you smell his blood. Is that right?”
“It’s everywhere,” Painter said, with no hesitation, and I pictured him nodding, though I couldn’t see the gesture over the line. “There’s a thick trail of it leading across the carpet to the front door. Like someone dragged him off.”
Oh, shit. Oh, noooo!
Stop it, Faythe. He’s lost a lot of blood, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Marc would be fine. We just had to find him.
“Where does the trail go?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm and even. If I panicked, Dan might panic, and we’d lose valuable time that would be better spent looking for Marc. “Does it continue out the front door?”
“Yeah. Across the front stoop, down the steps and over the grass. That’s how I knew something was wrong when I got here.”
“So, it ends in the grass?”
“On the edge of the driveway.” Painter paused, and I heard a metallic groan, as a screen door creaked open. “It looks like they put him in a car and took off with him. There’re big ruts in the gravel from where they peeled off too fast.” He hesitated again, then asked the question I hadn’t even posed to myself yet. “Do you think he’s dead?”
My eyes closed, and I inhaled deeply. Then exhaled slowly. “I don’t know.” I sucked in another breath and forced my concentration back to the work at hand, and away from thoughts I couldn’t bear to entertain. “Did they take his car?”
“No. It’s up next to the house. Along the south side, where he always parks it.” The screen door slammed shut with a horrid tinny screech, and Painter’s voice echoed slightly, now that it had four walls to bounce off again.
“Should I go look for Marc, or start cleaning up the mess?” Painter inhaled deeply, obviously trying to calm himself. “And the bodies…?”
I wanted to tell him to forget about the bodies and start driving around town on the lookout for Marc. Or into the forest, keeping an eye out for fresh tire tracks. But the truth was that if there were enough of them to take Marc down, there would be too many for Painter to handle on his own. Assuming he found them.
My mind was flooded by the possibilities. Maybe they’d taken him alive. But if so, why? And where?
Maybe they’d killed him, and had left to dispose of the body. My eyes watered, and my fist clenched around the phone, the nails of my opposite hand biting into my flesh. No. That’s not what happened. If they’d killed him, why not dispose of all three bodies at once? Why leave the others?
Unless the killers drove a compact…
“Okay, let’s take it one thing at a time.” My feet moved as I spoke, and I found myself on the aisle formed by two rows of weight-lifting equipment. “The other bodies. Are they strays? Do you know them?” I thought about going upstairs, but didn’t want Kaci to overhear anything that might upset her.
“Yeah, they’re strays. I recognize the scents, but don’t know the names.”
“There are two of them, right?” I ran my hand over the leg press, cursing silently when a flake of paint slid beneath my fingernail. “And they bled on the carpet?”
“Yeah.” Floorboards creaked, and I pictured Painter leaning over the bodies. “The carpet, themselves, each other. The biggest one has a huge gash on the top of his skull. Near the back. And the coffee table’s broken and covered in his blood. Looks like he fell and hit it. Or else someone hit him with it.”
Yeah, that sounded like Marc. An odd pang of pride and pain rang through me, as I hoped fervently that he was still alive to repeat that performance someday.
“What about the other one?”
“Side of his head’s caved in. Looks like someone took a rung-back chair to ‘im.”
“Okay, now I need you to sniff around. Concentrate. Do you smell any scents that don’t belong to either Marc or the dead strays? Did anyone else bleed in there recently? Or sweat? Or touch anything? Sniff the doorknobs first, then anything that might have been used as a weapon. Did you touch the doorknob?”
“Only from the outside of the door.” There was a pause on his end, and I thought I heard floorboards groan as he knelt. Or stood. “Yeah, there’s another scent on the front door. The wood and the knob. It’s another stray, but no one I know.”
