Chapter 36
Horrified, her heart trip-hammering, Nikki backed up a step.
The back of her legs touched something furry.
She jumped.
A low growl erupted.
Panicked, she whirled, leveling her flashlight at the snarling beast.
Arlo.
Crouching in the doorway, ears flattened, eyes glittering, he stared up at the suspended woman.
“Let’s go,” she ordered. “Go, go, go!”
She couldn’t stand another second in the grotesque death scene.
The dog took off.
Paws clicking, he raced effortlessly along the decaying wooden path.
Right behind him, Nikki, barely able to breathe, the image of Naomi’s suspended body seared in her brain, scrambled after him.
Slipping and sliding, clutching her flashlight, her bag bouncing against her, she ran.
Her heart was knocking so wildly she thought it might burst. Frantically, she ran along the rotting boards, past the dark swamp to the solid ground of Jeanne LaRoux’s yard.
Breathing hard, she stopped long enough to call for help, punching in the number with trembling fingers while still holding her flashlight. Her breathing was ragged as she fought panic, and her fingers trembled, but she connected.
A steady female voice answered. “911, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“This is Nikki Gillette,” she chattered. “I’m at Jeanne LaRoux’s house, and the address is … Oh, God, I don’t know, but it’s on a county road … and I … I’ve just discovered a dead body. It’s Naomi Kittle, the woman the police are looking for.”
“Hold on, Mrs. Gillette. I’m with you. Now, can you tell me your exact location?”
“I told you! I mean, I’m not sure …”
Think, Nikki, think. You saw the maps of the area. Studied them.
But her mind was all over the place. “The address is on … it’s on McCallister Road—look, you’ve got it on file.”
“If you’ll just stay on the line—”
“Just send someone to get here!” She cut the connection and immediately hit the speed-dial number for Pierce’s cell.
One ring
Pick up! Please, Pierce, pick up the damned phone!
Two.
Oh, come on! Answer!
She was breathing unevenly, heading to her car.
A third ring.
If voice mail answered, she’d have to leave a message and what? Call 911 again? Or Lily or—
“Nikki?” Pierce’s voice was suddenly loud in her ear. Her knees threatened to give way in relief. “Where are you?”
“I’m at Jeanne—”
“Put down the phone!” a deep male voice commanded.
Nikki froze.
Where? Who?
A dark shadow appeared, stepping around the corner of the porch of the LaRoux cabin. A big man, pointing a double-barreled shotgun straight at her. Not twenty feet away. “Put it down!” he said again. “End the call! Now!”
Her insides turned to jelly.
“Nikki?” Pierce’s strident voice was in her ear. “What’s happening?”
“Drop it!”
Oh, Jesus.
He repeated. “I said put it down.”
Eyes on the end of the long gun, she let go of her phone and prayed it wouldn’t disconnect. Please, Pierce, hear this!
“Now put down the flashlight.”
But she didn’t. Mustering her courage, she asked. “Who are you?”
“Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?” he shot back.
“Here?” she repeated, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “At Jeanne LaRoux’s place?” she said loudly.
Oh, God, let Pierce still be on the line.
“What the hell are you doing here!” the man shouted.
“Nikki?” Pierce’s voice sounded far away. Tinny. Coming from the phone dropped into the weeds. “What’s going on? Nikki?”
Please, please, Pierce, just come here! Come here now! Bring backup!
“Shit.” The end of the shotgun moved, hitching toward the tuft of weeds, where the phone’s illuminated screen was visible. “Turn it off!”
She couldn’t rely on anyone else.
There was no time.
She had to figure out how to disarm him. How to get away.
Think, Nikki. You’ve been in tight places before. Think, think, think!
“I said, do it!” he ordered.
“Okay, okay!” Eyes focused on the end of the shotgun, she slowly lowered herself into a crouch, scooped up the phone as if to obey, but instead of disconnecting, she picked up the phone, then fell to the ground.
In one swift movement, she shined her flashlight directly into the man’s eyes with one hand and hurled the phone at his face with the other.
“Hey!”
He ducked.
Too late.
The phone smashed into the bearded face of Granger LaRoux.
“Ow!” he howled, stunned and backing up a step.
Before he could pull the trigger, she rolled toward a fallen tree.
“Stop!” he ordered. “You fuckin’ bitch. Stop right there!”
She scrambled over the rough bole, to cringe, waiting for the shotgun blast to echo through the night and splinter the tree.
If she survived that, before he reloaded and aimed, she could sprint to her car.
Maybe.
She fumbled inside her bag, her fingers frantically searching for the keys.
As a deep growl erupted from the woods behind her.
She turned and saw a blur of motion in the flashlight’s weird light. Running at full tilt, Arlo streaked from the shadows and leapt across the fallen log.
Granger turned slightly, aiming his weapon at the dog flying toward him.
“Arlo! No!” Nikki cried.
But there was no resonating blast from the shotgun.
Instead, the dog knocked Granger to his knees.
The gun went flying.
Long fangs clamped over Granger’s arm.
“Oooww!” Shrieking in pain, he threw himself to and fro, trying to shake the dog off.
But Arlo clung burr-like, his canines exposed, clamped over the attacker’s arm.
“Fuck! Get him off me! Get him off me!” He was screaming in pain, trying to grab Arlo by the throat with his free hand as dog and man wrestled on the dirt.
Nikki vaulted over the tree trunk.
She yanked the axe from where it had been slammed into the stump. Sharp weapon in hand, she dived for the shotgun, snagged it, and sprang to her feet.
“Get him off!” Granger shrieked.
Breathing hard, she carefully set down the axe and leveled the long gun at the wrestling dog and frantic, bearded man. “Arlo, stop!” she ordered.
Still the snarling shepherd wouldn’t let go.
“ARLO, LEAVE IT!”
The dog froze.
“Leave it!” she repeated, and surprisingly, the shepherd obeyed, backing off, eyes still fixed on his target.
Granger, cradling his arm, gazed up at her from the ground, clearly shocked.
Blood had soaked through his sleeve.
“I need an ambulance,” he said angrily. “What the fuck’s the matter with your dog …” He glared at the barely restrained shepherd. “Oh, shit. Arlo? That’s Billy’s dog, isn’t it? Billy Huber’s. That goddamned mutt never did like me.”
“Well, he wasn’t too keen on me being held at gunpoint.”
“I wasn’t gonna shoot you,” Granger grumbled, acting as if he were the injured party, and maybe, considering how he was holding his arm, he was. “I just wanted to scare you off. I mean I didn’t even know who you were, couldn’t see your face over that damned flashlight.”
“But you do now?”
“Hell yeah, I do.” He sounded defeated. Miserable.
Already regretting what he’d done. “You’re that writer, right?
The wife of the cop. I’ve seen your books before.
Seen your picture on the cover.” He let out a long-suffering sigh and turned his eyes toward the starlit sky.
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Still clutching his arm, he rolled onto his back.
“I’m so screwed. I thought you were one of those kids that keep coming down here either to steal some of Mom’s artifacts or because they’ve taken a dare.
They do that. Challenge each other to go down to the witch’s place and steal some kind of magic token.
Like they’re gonna find a voodoo doll stuck with a million pins or something.
” He let out another disgusted snort. “As if!”
She wasn’t persuaded. She picked up the axe again and now was holding both weapons. “What do you know about Naomi Kittle?”
“Who? What?”
“The missing woman all of Savannah is looking for?” When that didn’t seem to register, she hitched her chin in the direction of the boardwalk stretching over the black water and added, “The woman who’s hanging over the fire pit in your mother’s shack down in the swamp?”
“What?” he demanded. “Are you crazy?” Then he saw that she was dead serious. “Someone’s hanging … down at Mom’s sanctuary?”
“Naomi Kittle, the woman you killed and hung upside down like a deer being dressed—”
“Whoa!” His expression altered from confusion to suspicion. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He was sitting up again, still holding his arm, but staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“She’s down there.” Nikki pointed with the shotgun. “In the sanctuary, or whatever Jeanne called it.”
He turned his head toward the shack and the swamp surrounding it as if he could see for himself. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who came here and trespassed.”
She wasn’t about to be derailed. “You don’t know about her?”
“A woman hanging in Mom’s shed? How the hell would I? And … and I don’t believe it.” He tried to struggle to his feet, then winced in pain, sucking air through his teeth. “I really need an ambulance. That damned dog near broke my arm. Maybe bit through an artery!”
“Listen, Granger. No matter what you say, the plain truth is that you’ve got a dead woman in your mom’s hut, and you’re here, threatening me with a damned shotgun. So, the way I see it, you’ve got a helluva lot of explaining to do.”
Her attitude must have finally convinced him that she wasn’t bluffing.
Even in the weird half light, she noticed that his eyes rounded. “No.” He was shaking his head. “I mean … no! No. Jesus, I don’t know what you’re even talking about!”
The dawning awareness on his face and the fear that followed—fear because he was trying to save his own skin—convinced her that he might be telling the truth. But he was dangerous.
Nikki kept the shotgun trained on him, while Arlo, quivering to be let loose and attack again, sat at attention next to her. His unblinking gaze was fixed on Granger, as if he were waiting for the man to make one wrong move.
Or for Nikki to say, “Sic ’em.”
“How do you know Naomi Kittle?” she demanded.
“I don’t!”
“Then how did she end up here?”