Deadly Harvest (32 page)

But there was horror in his eyes nonetheless.

“We've hit the jackpot,” he said bleakly. He was trembling.

Jeremy suspected Brad was as afraid as he was to keep searching. They had found two bodies now.

How the hell many more could there be?

 

Rowenna couldn't reach Jeremy. He must be on the phone or out of range, she thought, because her call went straight to voice mail, which made her decision easy. She had to call Joe. But he didn't answer his cell phone, and when she reached the station, she was told that he had gone out on an emergency call. She hesitated, but she didn't
know
that Adam was a killer, so she could hardly say so in a message. She asked the officer to please let Joe know that she had called as soon as possible.

At a loss, she wandered around the corner, wondering how Eve and Adam would react if they caught her peeking through the door at them. She certainly didn't want to make the situation any worse.

If Adam was a killer who had blackouts, should he be alone with his wife?

She walked to the shop, but the Closed sign was nowhere in evidence, so she took a deep breath, opened the door and walked in.

Eve was behind the counter, straightening out a jewelry display. She looked up when Rowenna came in. “Hey,” she said, then hesitated, studying Rowenna. “You look as if someone stole your Thanksgiving turkey.”

“Where's Adam?” Rowenna asked.

“He ran out about fifteen minutes ago. Said he had an errand to run. He should be right back. Why?” Her tone rose at the end; Rowenna could tell that she was worried.

“Oh, I saw him, that's all. I thought he'd be back here by now.”

“Rowenna, what's going on?”

“He's…he wanted to talk to you himself.”

Eve frowned, looking angry. “Wait a minute, there's something going on and my husband told you first?”

“He's afraid. And he loves you.”

“He's afraid of what? And
love
is just a word,” Eve said, growing visibly tense. “Rowenna, what the hell is going on?”

Rowenna looked outside. There was still no sign of Adam. “He came and told me that he's been having blackouts. He's afraid there's something seriously wrong with him, but he's scared to go to a doctor and scared to tell you. He's afraid he'll lose you.”

“Blackouts?” Eve said, her tone skeptical. “He isn't having a ‘blackout' when he flirts,” she said, sounding hurt.

Rowenna felt uncomfortable. She wished she hadn't come, hadn't spoken.

She wished to hell that Adam had done what he'd said he would do and told Eve himself right away.

“I'm going to go look for him. And once I find him you two need to talk. Not argue—talk,” Rowenna said.

She hurried out before Eve could say anything else. Suppose Adam was having neural issues? The pressure of coming to her might have brought on…something. Or maybe he had chickened out and gone to get a drink to shore up his courage before talking to Eve.

She hesitated when she got to the cross street that led to the cemetery. She felt as if she was being drawn there, but she told herself that the feeling was absolutely ridiculous.

Then she thought that maybe Adam had wandered that way.

She turned the corner, and as she did, she had the acute feeling of being watched. She stopped and turned around. A couple of schoolkids, out for the afternoon, were dancing around outside the joke shop behind her, laughing. The elderly wiccan who owned Lamp, Bell and Candle walked by in a long black cape and smiled at Rowenna. “Blessed be, Ro.”

“Blessed be,” Rowenna echoed, forcing a return smile.

There were people out now. The streets were not inconveniently empty. But she still had the sensation of being watched.

She looked up the block toward the cemetery.

She could have sworn she saw a large shadow rising at the back, but the people walking through didn't seem to notice anything strange.

At least, most of them didn't seem to notice.

Rowenna saw an attractive young blond woman somberly studying the grave markers where several children of the same family, who had all died very young, had been buried. Then the woman looked up suddenly, as if disturbed.

The shadow seemed to be lumbering toward her.

Rowenna could have sworn that she heard the old children's song in her head.

Don't fear the Reaper,

Fear the Harvest Man…

She hurried into the cemetery and up to the woman. “Hello,” she said.

The woman didn't seem to hear her, even though she was standing right in front of her.

“Excuse me,” Rowenna said, trying again. She reached for her arm and touched her gently. “Miss?”

Startled, the blonde turned and stared at Rowenna. “Oh, I'm sorry. Were you speaking to me? How odd…. I just had…Oh, never mind. What can I do for you?”

“This may sound silly, but it's getting close to dusk and—” She broke off. A lie would have to do. She couldn't very well tell the woman that a shadow was after her.

“I saw a man in a dark cape and hat watching you, and it just made me uneasy. If you're alone, I think you might want to go somewhere with lots of people, or…even go back to your hotel for the night.”

The woman smiled. “Don't worry. I'm with my husband. He just went to buy a new camera battery before I meet him for dinner.”

Rowenna's heart sank. She was certain that the woman
had
been about to be a victim.

Of what? A shadow? In broad daylight, with people all around?

But the woman had clearly been under a spell of some sort, which she had only shaken off when Rowenna forcefully caught her attention. She wondered what the woman had been seeing.

A vision of a hill and cornfields?

Rowenna was sure the blonde was going to politely tell her goodbye, but she didn't.

“I'm supposed to meet him at the Clam Shack at the waterfront. Can you tell me the best way to get there?”

“I'll walk you over,” Rowenna told her.

“Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm not real sure of the streets here.”

“It's easy. I'll show you.”

“I hate for you to go out of your way.”

“Not a problem,” Rowenna assured her.

On the way, they introduced themselves and Rowenna discovered that Sue was from New York. When they reached the restaurant, Sue's husband was outside, enjoying the view of the docks. They asked Rowenna to join them, but she demurred, waved goodbye and hurried back. Adam should have shown up by now. And if he hadn't, Eve was going to be having a fit.

She hurried back to Eve's, avoiding the cemetery, but that uneasy sensation of being watched returned. And she knew that those unseen eyes were definitely hostile. She kept moving quickly, and she made sure to keep where there were crowds.

At the shop, she pushed the door open. “Adam? Eve?” Nobody answered. She kept calling their names as she peered into their little reading rooms behind the drapes, and then back in the storeroom. Neither of them was anywhere to be seen.

They never left without locking the door. Never.

A wave of unease swept through her. She was alone in the store. And she was certain someone out there had been watching her.

Following her.

She started for the door, planning to go straight to the police station, and on the way, she was going to get back on the phone and get hold of Joe—no matter what.

But as she neared the front of the shop, a shadow loomed outside and the door began to open.

 

Police were called in from all the surrounding cities. Joe was furious; warnings and instructions had been sent out to all the farmers, and in his opinion, the bodies should have been discovered already. Precious time was elapsing, precious time for Mary Johnstone—if she weren't among the dead already.

As Jeremy had expected, the crime-scene crew weren't hopeful of finding much, but they were grateful that he and Brad hadn't trampled the scene once they'd found it.

Harold came out. There were so many mitigating circumstances that he was reluctant even to hazard a guess at either woman's date of death, but when pressed, he estimated that the first woman had probably been dead six to eight weeks, and the other one, possibly three months.

A cry went up while Joe and Jeremy were talking with Harold.

A third set of bones had been found.

Harold groaned, and they all winced.

Spotlights went on, because the light was starting to fade, and the third set was scattered.

The police kept searching, and in the end, parts of a fourth victim were found. She was going to be hard to identify, because her skull was missing….

“Who owns this field?” Jeremy asked.

“I don't know,” Joe said. “We'll have to check the county records. I know Ginny's land stretches pretty far, and the Rolfes owned land out this way once, too, but I'm pretty sure Eric's mother sold everything but the house when she moved to Florida.”

One of his men cleared his throat. “Sir, this is MacElroy land now. They picked it up, since it bordered Ginny's land.”

“Makes sense,” Joe muttered, shaking his head. “Ginny hires people to work it, and folks who are hired aren't as thorough as folks who own.”

Dr. MacElroy deserved some scrutiny, Jeremy thought. Could the kindly pediatrician be a killer?

He'd heard of stranger things.

Jeremy looked up to the sky. The last of the day's light was going. He turned to look out across the nearby stretch of bracken. The last rays of sunlight must be playing, because he saw the boy again. Standing there, just looking at him, looking like a real live boy, with his tousled hair and T-shirt, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans.

Jeremy shook his head, as if to clear his vision, and told himself that the obvious explanation was almost always the right one. No doubt there really
was
a boy out there. There were houses around here. Somewhere. Farmhouses. And farmers had sons.

But then the boy moved, pointing toward the sky, as if to draw Jeremy's attention to the fading light. Then he pointed again, toward Jeremy's car.

He was a good distance away, but Jeremy could swear that the boy mouthed a word.

“Hurry.”

And then he vanished.

It was almost dark.

Rowenna. He had to get Rowenna.

He knocked Brad in the shoulder. “Let's go.”

Joe looked at him. “You're not hanging around?”

“I've got to pick up Rowenna,” he explained.

“Something else may turn up here,” Joe said. “I'll call you later if we find anything. You get going.”

His stride long as he hurried, heedless of the rough ground, Jeremy tripped over something as he passed close to where they had found the first body. When he looked down as he caught his balance, he noticed something sticking out from under the rock that had nearly brought him facedown in the field. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and carefully picked it up.

He frowned. It looked like a business card, but it, like the body, was the worse for the elements. It would probably have dissolved already if it had been paper, but it had been laminated.

In the fading light, he could just make out the curlicue writing, the pentagram in the upper left and the fairy on the right.

It read Magick Mercantile, Adam and Eve Llewellyn, Proprietors, followed by the store's address and phone number.

Anyone could have dropped a card, he reasoned. But there was something stuck to the back of the card.

It looked like gum. Old, dried-up gum.

And Adam Llewellyn was always chewing gum.

It would have to be tested, to see if his guess as to its identity was correct.

But even though he didn't know for sure, Jeremy's blood chilled in his veins.

“Joe!” he shouted.

“Hi, there, Ro. You working for the Llewellyns now?”

She felt frozen where she stood. She'd been just about to reach for the doorknob when the door had opened, and she'd jumped back to avoid being hit by it. But now she couldn't move.

It was Eric Rolfe. He had looked like a menacing giant seen through the glass of the door, but up close he was merely a fairly tall man in a big Windbreaker.

“Ro? You look upset. Is everything all right?” he asked.

“I…I can't find Adam or Eve,” she said.

Eric frowned and looked at his watch. “I had an appointment to meet Eve here. She was going to give me a reading. I can't believe she would just stand me up.”

“I can't believe she would, either,” Rowenna said, and started behind the counter.