Witching Moon (5 page)

Speaking slowly and deliberately, Adam started with the background of the evening before. “I like to nose around the park at night,” he said, liking the double meaning of the verb. “Kind of looking out that everything's the way it should be in my immediate environment, if you know what I mean.”

“Like the way I drive around town in my cruiser, just making sure everything's peaceful.”

Adam nodded, feeling a sudden current of kinship with the man. Probably that was what Delacorte had intended. “Last night I was out in the swamp, and I smelled something funny.”

“Funny—like what?”

“Like smoke. When I got closer, I realized the smoke was hallucinogenic, and the people who had kindled the fire were high.”

The sheriff sat forward in his seat. “Oh yeah?”

“As near as I can figure, they came out to the park to have a private sex and drug party.”

“With marijuana? Coke?” the lawman asked.

Instead of answering, Adam asked, “You have trouble with any of those in town?”

“Of course we do. Wayland may look like a sleepy little southern burg, but it's not the Garden of Eden before the fall.”

Adam laughed. “Yeah. Well, I don't indulge in anything stronger than herbal tea myself.”

“Why not?”

“That's a pretty direct question. But I'll answer it—because I don't have anything to hide,” he said, vividly conscious of the lie. “I guess you can think of it as an allergy. Or that my system's delicate. Anyway, drugs play havoc with my senses.”

Delacorte nodded, and Adam had the feeling the sheriff was taking the disclaimer under advisement.

Adam went back to the original question. “They weren't smoking joints or snorting anything. They were inhaling some kind of stuff that they dumped into the fire. I was trying to get close, and they discovered I was watching them.” He gave Delacorte a direct look. “And somebody started shooting at me.”

The sheriff's exclamation interrupted his narrative. “Holy Moses.” It was a mild curse, but about the strongest he'd heard the man use.

“I was unarmed. My only choice was to get the hell out of there—before I ended up as buzzard feed.”

Adam watched the lawman, judging his reaction. He knew that on the face of it, the tale sounded like the head ranger might have been indulging in some of the shit he claimed he never used, yet he could see Delacorte working his way through the story.

“They chased you into the swamp?”

“Yeah.”

“And then what?”

“Then I woke up the next morning wondering if I'd dreamed the whole damn thing. Only when I went back to the area, I found their fire pit.”

Adam realized his hands were clamped around the water glass. He also realized the sheriff was watching him intently.

“That drugged smoke,” he said. “It knocked you out?”

Adam shifted in his seat. “Like I told you, I've never been into mind-altering substances. So, yeah, I couldn't handle the smoke. That's why I can't give you any details about who the party-goers were.”

He saw the sheriff nod.

“You've had trouble in the park before?” he asked. “Before Ken White?”

“Yeah.”

“So would you mind cluing me in to what Austen Barnette neglected to tell me when he signed me up for this job?”

Now it looked like it was the sheriff's turn to decide what to say. Adam knew he was an outsider. And in a small town like Wayland, it took a while for a newcomer to be accepted.

On the other hand, he'd been willing to take a job in Nature's Refuge, after the last head ranger had died in the line of duty. He figured that should entitle him to the real scoop.

“We've had trouble in the Olakompa over the years,” the lawman said.

“Other murders?”

Again, Delacorte hesitated, then said, “About twenty-five years ago. A woman was killed.”

“Found in the swamp, like White?”

“She had a cabin about a mile north of here as the crow flies. It's a little longer by road. It happened there.”

“Who killed her?”

“The case is still listed on the books as unsolved.”

“You weren't the sheriff back then.”

“No. It was my daddy.”

Adam absorbed that choice bit of information—something everybody in town knew. “The sheriff's job in Wayland is hereditary?” he asked.

“No. I ran for the office and won it.”

Adam nodded, considering what Delacorte had chosen to tell him. “Do you think that old murder is connected to Ken White?”

Delacorte hesitated for a moment before saying, “I don't have any evidence to link them.”

“What's your gut feeling?” Adam asked.

The sheriff gave him a long look. “I'm reserving my judgment.” He stood up. “I think you'd better show me the location where you found the campfire—and the people last night.”

Adam set down his glass with a
thunk
and stood as well, certain that the sheriff had decided to end this phase of the interview.

He was pretty sure there was more to tell about Wayland's past problems. He was also pretty sure he wasn't going to hear about them this morning.

“You know the road at the east edge of the park?” he asked, and Delacorte nodded.

“There's a barrier across the lane. The fire pit was about a half mile farther up the road.”

“You got the time to carry me up there now?”

“I've got the time. I want to know what the hell's going on in my park.”

“I could station a deputy out here at night.”

“No!” Adam's answer was instantaneous, and he immediately regretted that he'd spoken so quickly—like a man with something to hide.

Delacorte held up a hand. “Just a suggestion,” he said, and Adam knew the sheriff was wondering if he was up to something unsavory at night out here. Like growing marijuana.

Probably he wouldn't like knowing that the head ranger was prowling the park in wolf form at night.

He'd thought that with his wolf senses, he'd be able to figure out what had happened to his predecessor. So far it hadn't turned out that way. But he did know that both Paul Delacorte and Austen Barnette had been expecting trouble. Unfortunately, the park's owner had chosen to withhold that information from his new employee.

“So, you have any choice suggestions for me?” he asked.

The sheriff hesitated for a moment. “Yeah. Don't sit with your back to the window.”

SARA WALKED INTO
the kitchen of the small cottage, turned on the tap in the sink, and let it run, waiting for the stream to cool before she drew a glass of water.

She downed it in several gulps, then stood staring out the window at the grove of trees that surrounded her rented house. There were black gum, sweet bay, and an old water oak hung with Spanish moss that must have been hit by lightning at one time. It was split up the middle. But somehow it had survived and grown in a lopsided fashion.

The trees would have been lovely if there had only been a few. But too many had grown up around the little house.

“Darkness at noon,” she muttered.

Even in the middle of the day, it was dismal under the canopy of branches, as though the sun had gone into a permanent eclipse. She'd never liked the dark. And here she was in a house where mold and moss grew on the roof and the siding, like insidious unwanted visitors.

A light breeze fluttered through the leaves and the moss hanging on the tree branches. It wasn't enough to do much for the damp, heavy air. But the rustling sound skittered over her skin like insect legs.

As if to ward off a chill, she folded her arms over her chest and rubbed her shoulders. This place gave her the creeps, and she had learned not to ignore her intuition. She wanted to throw her possessions into the car and flee. But that was not an option. Not when she'd effectively trapped herself here.

Granville Pharmaceuticals had written her out of the blue and offered her an enormous research grant. She'd been flattered and relieved to get a job. She'd taken a lot of the first payment and sent it directly to the outfit that held the note on her college loan, because the idea of being in debt for the next fifteen years made her throat close.

Of course, she felt that way now—closed in and smothered. And the sensation had nothing to do with her education loans.

The disquiet came from her immediate surroundings, this cabin and the wilderness around it. If she could, she would find another place to live and work. But she suspected that by the time she went through proper channels to move somewhere else, her stay would be almost up. So she switched on the kitchen light, then walked around the little house turning on the lights in every room.

They drove away the darkness but did nothing for the hot, sticky air.

The small dwelling had two bedrooms. She was sleeping in the larger one. The other was going to be her laboratory.

Granville had already shipped several long worktables, but some assembly was required, so she'd put that off until later. For the time being, the plants she'd dug up were resting in boxes on a plastic sheet, which she'd spread over the narrow bed in her makeshift lab.

She had pretentiously given Adam Marshall the Latin name of sweet flag. But she was just as conversant with the common names of the specimens she'd collected.

In addition to the irislike plant, she had lily of the valley, jimsonweed, and male shield fern. All of the latter were poisonous. And the jimsonweed was reputed to have psychotropic qualities, a fact she hadn't shared with Marshall.

She sighed, thinking she might as well go into the work room and start documenting the collection. Maybe she could even make some extracts from the leaves or the roots or the seeds and start testing them for antibacterial properties.

But instead of focusing on work, her mind strayed back to the morning in the swamp—to the moment when she'd met Adam Marshall.

She'd been so intent on the clump of sweet flag that she hadn't even been aware of him until he was almost on top of her. Or maybe it was the way he moved through the swamp, like an animal supremely adapted to the natural environment.

Those first moments had shaken her to her toes. She simply hadn't expected to meet up with anyone else out there in the middle of nowhere.

She'd taken in every detail of the man in those first charged instants. Somehow, when she thought of him, her mind filled with animal images. He was over six feet tall and as dark and dangerous-looking as a hungry bear. His eyes were black and deep set, glittering like the eyes of a bird of prey. He had a blade of a nose, nicely shaped lips, and dark stubble covering his cheeks and chin.

He'd looked like he'd had a hard night. Probably she did, too, she thought, her fingers unconsciously going to her hair.

She was in the act of smoothing back the unruly strands when she stayed her hand. What was she doing? The man wasn't even here, and she was fussing with her hair. Besides, it didn't matter anyway what he thought of her.

Even as the denial surfaced in her mind, she knew it was a lie. Some tender, feminine part of her did care what he thought about the way she looked.

She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking that a twenty-eight-year-old woman should have more experience with men. She'd dated, of course. But it was difficult for her to make connections with people. She'd always felt like there was a barrier between herself and them. A time or two she'd managed to overcome it. But often she hadn't felt like it was worth the effort. So her focus had always been on her studies or the things that interested her, like gardening or her art. And she'd had a good reason to study hard: she was determined to do well and she wanted to make Mom and Dad proud.

Now she was paying the price for her sexual inexperience—getting excited about a guy she met in the woods, a guy so different from the academics who had inhabited her world for the past ten years that she had no point of reference for him, besides the wild animal images she'd conjured up.

Above and beyond those images, she didn't like his manner. He'd practically accused her of being part of some drug cult, cavorting in the park at night. And when he'd stirred the blackened ashes of the campfire, a scene had flashed into her mind.

The darkness, the moon-drenched swamp, the wild gyrating of naked bodies dancing and coming together in the flickering firelight. It had caught and held her for only a moment, but it had shaken her to the core.

Against her will, the image came back to her now, and she squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to make the all-too-vivid picture vanish. She didn't want to see it. Didn't want to know about it. But it held her in its grip. And the most disturbing part was that she had put herself smack in the middle of the scene. She was one of the dancers. “No!”

She spoke the word aloud trying to drive the nighttime scene from her mind. But the denial did her no good. The world around her disappeared. She was transported to the nighttime swamp. To the campfire with its smoke that clogged her lungs and made her head go muzzy. She heard low, chanted words. Words that stirred her senses.

Unconsciously, she swayed from one foot to the other, no longer feeling the smooth surface of the kitchen floor below her shoes.

Instead, she felt spongy dirt and tree roots under her naked feet.

Dancers moved around her. The smoke obscured their faces. But she saw the sweat gleaming on their bare bodies. And saw that they were aroused. The women's nipples were contracted to tight points. The men were fully erect.

One of them reached for her. With a little moan, she slipped out of his grasp.

Then a man leaped into the firelight. It was Adam Marshall. He was nude and magnificent and aroused.

“Sara.” He called her name, called her to his side, and she swayed toward him, craving the feel of his body against hers. He pulled her into his arms, and the contact of naked flesh against naked flesh was glorious.

He drew her away, into the inky blackness beyond the reach of the fire. She knew that they were going to make love—in some dark, leafy place away from the rest of the group where they could have their privacy. And she knew that if she let it happen, her life would change forever.

“No.”

“Come with me, Sara. I need you.”

“No.” Somehow, with strength she didn't even know she possessed, she wrenched herself away. From him. From the vivid daydream that had hooked its claws into her flesh.

The kitchen blinked back into focus, and she stood there, gasping for breath, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs.

No, there was no smoke here. She was in the house Granville had rented for her. She closed her hand over the edge of the counter, feeling the hard surface digging into her palm, fighting a wave of unwanted sexual arousal that held her as she tried to figure out what had happened to her.

She'd had episodes like this before. Well, not quite like
this
. Nothing remotely sexual. But episodes where she seemed to leave the here and now and go someplace else.

The daydreams had been vivid. But they had never turned her on.

Lord, what had happened to her?

Adam Marshall had poked at the campfire. Maybe he'd stirred up some of the hallucinogenic smoke. Maybe the thick, evil stuff was still affecting her.

She'd felt it last night, too, she silently admitted. Felt some ugly presence reaching for her from the dark shadows of the swamp.

Now she understood what she'd sensed in the damp humid air beyond her grove of trees when she'd been awake in the dark hours.

Or was she making all that up? Not the feelings. But the images. Had they come from the overactive imagination she tried so hard to rein in all her life?

She gripped the kitchen counter more tightly, yet the frightening perception persisted.

“Stop it,” she ordered herself. “You
will not
let your imagination run away with you.”

The order did little to dispel the drowning sensations that threatened to overwhelm her.

Something was waiting for her in Wayland, Georgia— something she didn't want to meet. Adam Marshall was part of it. But only part. There was more, and she'd didn't want to find out what it was.

She had been staring out the window unseeing when a flicker of movement brought her back to the here and now. A figure darting between the trees. A man.

She went very still as her gaze focused on him. Her heart gave a little lurch when she thought it might be Adam Marshall. Lord, had she sensed him out there? Was that the reason for the flash of fantasy that had taken hold of her?

It took only seconds to determine that it wasn't his tall, muscular figure she saw. And she breathed out a sigh of relief—and disappointment.

This man was older and more slender.

He must have caught sight of her in the window, because he stopped in his tracks. Across fifty feet of swampland, they stared at each other.

What was he doing here on private property?

She saw then that a wicker basket dangled from one of his hands. And she realized that he must be gathering some kind of food or plants from the area. Which might make him a valuable resource.

He didn't look threatening, yet she had decided not to take any chances. So she turned away from the window and picked up her carry bag where she'd stashed her gun.

Then she headed for the front door. By the time she reached it, the man had taken several steps into what passed for the front yard of the little house.

As she walked onto the porch, he stared at her with wide, surprised eyes.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The basket in his hand bobbled as he came farther into the yard. “I didn't expect…” His voice trailed off. He was staring at her as though she'd dropped from the moon.

“Yes. Well, I'm renting the house for the next few months while I'm here for a research project,” she answered. Really, she didn't have to make any explanations. But this was a small town. And people were going to be interested in what she was doing here.

From her position above him, she could see now that his basket was filled with small, dark fruit.

“Blackberries?” she asked.

“Black raspberries. Blackberries don't come into season for a month.”

“Oh.”

She studied the man. His skin was weathered, but up close he looked more fit than her first impression. Probably he was in his sixties. Probably he made his living in the outdoors.

“Hello,” she said, making an effort to sound friendly. “I'm Sara Weston. I'm going to be here for a few months, investigating the medicinal properties of plants found in this area.”

“Hal Montgomery,” he answered, before backing away. “I'll see you around, Sara Weston.”

Moments later he had disappeared into the underbrush, moving as silently as a ghost.

 

ADAM
wiped his feet on the doormat that graced the wide front porch of the red brick mansion, feeling like he had when he'd been out in the woods and about to walk into his mother's kitchen. Well, not exactly the same. The tile floor in front of his mom's sink had been worn through. And the appliances were old and dented—from his dad's kicking them a time or two.

He looked at the gleaming white wood door frame and the leaded glass fan transom above the double doors.

Austen Barnette's southern mansion was a far cry from the modest East Baltimore home where he'd grown up. And a far cry from the two-room cabin that went with the head ranger job.