Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (70 page)

Not exactly a witch's castle
, Nick thought. He pulled up in front of the trailer and parked; his headlights illuminated two vehicles: Alena's red pickup with the camper shell and a white Chevy TrailBlazer.

When he stopped the engine, the barking of the dogs became deafening. He looked at the kennels and tried to count them, but there were too many and they wouldn't stand still—the frantic animals were roiling like maggots on a corpse. The black dog outside the driver's door planted its two huge paws on the window and began to make a deep, bellowing bay. Nick leaned away from the window—he wasn't sure the glass would support the dog's weight. The dog outside the passenger door reared up on its hind legs as well, and then Nick felt the car rock back a little; he looked in the mirror and saw the third dog straddling the trunk and howling through the rear window.

A few seconds later a porch lamp switched on and the door to the trailer swung open. Alena stepped out and looked at the car. She charged up to the driver's-side window and stared in at Nick, and Nick offered a feeble wave back. She stood in the rain for a few moments as if she were considering what to do next—then she snapped her fingers and made a wide, sweeping gesture, and every dog in the compound fell instantly silent.

When the guard dogs backed away from the car and assumed sitting positions, Nick cautiously rolled down his window a few inches.

“What do you want?” Alena demanded.

“I need to talk to you.”

“You just don't get it, do you?”

“Things have changed, Alena. We need to talk—now.”

She glared at him in silence.

“Please, let me come in. I promise, I won't hurt you.”

She rested one hand on the massive head of the dog beside her. “I know.” She finally nodded, then turned on her heels and headed back into the trailer without a word.

Nick looked at the dog—it was still sitting outside his door, staring at him without expression. He wondered what the dog was thinking; he wondered how disciplined he really was. Alena had given him the “sit” command, but Alena was no longer there—was the command still in effect? Would the dog remain in its sitting position until instructed to do otherwise or was it a free agent now—free to make its own decisions? He looked into the dog's eyes.
Insects have no expressions
, he thought— no moods or dispositions to tell you what they plan to do next. But this was a much larger animal with a more highly developed brain; surely he should be able to look into the dog's eyes and tell
something
.

He looked again, and he thought he saw the dog smile.

The trailer door opened again with a bang. “Are you coming in or not?”

Before Nick could open his mouth the door swung shut again. He looked at the dog, took a deep breath, and slowly opened his door.

The dog made no movement toward him. Nick briefly considered allowing the dog to sniff the back of his hand but decided not to press his luck; he climbed out of the car and moved quickly into the trailer.

When he stepped through the door he found himself facing a wall that ran the length of the trailer; the double-wide was apparently made of two separate units joined in the middle, giving the interior a long, tunnel-like appearance. He looked to his right and saw a kitchen and a narrow breakfast nook tucked against the far wall; he turned to the left and found a simple living room occupied by an old sofa sectional, a coffee table, and crowded bookshelves lining the interior wall. At the end of the room was a doorway—
probably to the bedroom and bath
, Nick thought.

Alena was nowhere in sight, but there was a figure seated on the sofa looking back at Nick: Gunner Wendorf.

“I didn't expect to see you here,” Nick said.

“I suppose not,” Gunner replied.

Nick paused. “Come here often?”

“From time to time.”

Nick was hoping for a little more in the way of explanation, but Gunner offered nothing else. Just then Alena entered through the doorway with a white hand towel and threw it at Nick; it landed across his left shoulder like a sash. Alena moved to the sofa and stood beside Gunner with her fists on her hips, glaring at Nick with one wary eye.

“Thank you,” Nick said. He used the towel to blot his face and neck and dry his hair. Alena waited until he was finished, then held out a plastic bag with both hands.

Nick looked down at the bag. “I'm not radioactive—that radiant glow is just good health.”

She held the bag and stared at him until he dropped the towel inside, then she sealed the bag and set it aside.

She turned to him again. “Well?”

“I wasn't expecting you to have company,” Nick said. “If you don't mind, I'd like to have a word with you in private.” He looked at Gunner. “Is that okay with you?”

“That's up to Alena,” Gunner said. He reached out and took her right hand. “Are you okay with this? Do you feel safe?”

“I'm not afraid of him,” Alena said.

“I don't think you need to be,” Gunner said. “I've met Dr. Polchak before, and I believe him to be an honorable man.” He looked at Nick. “Am I right?”

“I braved wild animals to get here,” Nick said. “That should tell you something.”

Gunner turned to the coffee table where there was a small mahogany box lined with maroon-colored satin; it held a glass bottle with a round lid, four small glass cups, and a pillbox-sized container made of brass. Gunner quietly closed the lid, stood, and tucked the box under his left arm. “I still owe you that beer,” he said to Nick.

“I'm looking forward to it.”

Gunner stopped in the doorway and looked back at Alena. “If you need anything else, you know how to reach me.”

“Send in Acheron when you go,” she said, then took a seat on the sofa.

A few seconds later, the huge black dog came trotting into the trailer and sat down next to Alena.

She looked up at Nick. “Just so you know: Before you could ever lay a hand on me, Acheron would tear out your throat.”

“I got a sample of what Acheron could do the other night,” Nick said. “Believe me, I'm happy right where I am.”

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the sofa.

“Is that an invitation or a command?”

She didn't reply.

Nick looked down at the dog. “
Acheron.
If I remember my mythology, Acheron is one of the rivers that surround Hades—the ‘river of woe,' isn't it? It's an unusual name—how did you happen to pick it?”

“He picked it,” she said.

Nick raised one eyebrow. “He picked it?”

“That's right.”

“You were taking a big chance, weren't you? Most dogs would have picked ‘Woof.'”

Again, no response.

Tough room
, Nick thought. He turned to the bookshelves and began to examine the books. “How do you happen to know Gunner?”

“I live here, remember?”

“I thought you hated the folks down in Endor.”

“Most of them. How do you know Gunner?”

“I stopped by his church the other day. I was looking for information about a mysterious woman who lives alone up in the mountains. People say she's a witch.”

She paused. “What did he tell you?”

Nick looked at her. “Apparently a lot less than he could have.” He slid a book from the shelf and opened it. “Gunner thinks you can tell a lot about people by their books; I agree with him. Take this book, for example:
Scent and the Scenting Dog
, by William Syrotuck. It has chapters on ‘The Human as a Scent Source' and ‘Atmospheric Factors and Airborne Scent.'”

“So?”

“Not exactly a book of spells and incantations, is it? This doesn't look like a witch's library at all; in fact, it's the sort of library that might belong to a behavioral scientist.”

Alena frowned and got up from the sofa. She took the book from Nick's hand and replaced it on the shelf, then turned to him and shook the hair back from her face. “What is it you want, anyway?”

Nick blinked. Alena was standing only a foot away from him, looking directly up into his eyes. This was as close as he had ever been to her; it was the first time he had seen her face in the light and both of her eyes at the same time. She was beautiful, and Nick was more than a little surprised. In the dark shadows of the woods, she created such an eerie image that Nick had imagined the worst. He had assumed that the hair hanging down over her face was intended to cover some hideous blemish—but he saw no blemish here. He had assumed that her skin would be pale and sallow, but now he realized that it only appeared that way by contrast with her jet-black hair; up close he could see that she had a light tan and a spray of fine freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her most striking feature was her eyes—they were large and almond-shaped, and they were an astonishing shade of emerald green. One eye alone had looked haunting in the moonlight; both of them together were almost overwhelming.

“You should pull your hair back more,” Nick said. “You have a very nice face.”

She immediately dropped her head and shook her hair down a little. “I asked you what you want.”

“For starters, I want you to trust me.”

“Trust you? How did you get up here tonight?”

“I drove.”

“I'm not stupid—I saw your car, remember? How did you get through my gate?”

“I cut the lock off.”

“What? Who gave you the right to—”

“I did it for your own good. If you'd shut up and listen for a minute, I could explain.”

She raised her eyes again—they were still overpowering, but this time they were filled with anger. “You climbed my fence and I told you to go away. You came back again and I had to have my dog take you down. You talked me into helping you, and you said no one would ever know, and I had to stand there and be insulted by that—that
woman
.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Nick said. “I never meant for—”

“And now you cut the lock off my fence! What does it take to get through to you, anyway?”

“I had to walk all the way back to Endor the first time,” Nick said. “The second time I had to lay there and let your dog slobber all over me—and now I have to stand here and let the ‘river of woe' stare at me like a lunch meat buffet. Do you think this is some kind of fraternity initiation, Alena? Do you think this is fun for me?”

She hesitated. “Then why are you here?”

“Because I think your life might be in danger.”

Her eyes softened. “What?”

“The woman you met at the Patriot Center—the obnoxious one with the dehydrated dog—I think she might be dead.”

“You think she
might
be?”

“Let me ask you something: Would you ever leave one of your dogs locked in a cage all day without food or water—without letting it out to relieve itself ?”

“Never.”

“Do you think she would?”

Alena considered. “No—even she's not that evil.”

“Well, I found her dog locked up that way this evening.”

“That doesn't mean she's dead.”

“Her car is still in the parking lot.”

“Maybe she's in a hospital somewhere—maybe she just went off her rocker. I could believe that, after meeting her.”

“You're right, she might turn up somewhere—if she does, she'll eventually come back for her car and the dog. I'll put the word out—I'll ask around and see if anybody knows where she is. But if she doesn't show up by tomorrow, I'm going to the police.”

Alena studied Nick's face. “You don't think she's coming back, do you?”

“No, I don't.”

“You think somebody killed her.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It smells that way.”

“What?”

“Instinct—I just have a feeling.”

“But why would somebody want to kill her?”

Nick looked at her. “Because somebody thought she was you.”

16

Alena opened her eyes and looked at the clock. She blinked once, testing her eyelids to see if they were heavy enough to sink shut again, but they remained open. She listened and heard the wind howling through the woods; she could hear the oaks and hickories rocking back and forth, sweeping the night sky with their great leafy brooms. A powerful gust caught the trailer broadside and flexed the metal wall with a soft boom; she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the sheets tighter around her neck.

The wind began to tease the trailer, buffeting it with sticks and twigs and the brittle shells of old acorns, making ticks and clicks and soft dull thumps everywhere. She heard something land on the roof and slowly roll across—or was it walking? The harder she listened, the more each sound seemed to take on life: The ticks on the walls became tapping fingers; the pummeling wind contained muffled voices; the shadows that flashed across her window became figures stealing by.