Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,154

of people saw Kelley this morning.” Saw him walking out of the hotel with that bitch Dina. Saw them talking and holding hands.

“I’m sorry, Abby.”

“Me too.” She put on a brave face but made sure her lip trembled. Had Kelley taken a room there, or had he and Dina met at the hotel for a meal? It didn’t matter now that she had a plan.

While Barb and Jana had been busy feeding the cats that morning, Abigail had followed the susurrus to a closed room that held a desk and a wall of books. A study or office? Didn’t matter what it was. Didn’t matter who had lived there. What mattered was the small wide bowl that held the stones.

Obsidian. Onyx. Hematite. Jet. Black stones. Protection stones.

Abigail had held one hand over the bowl.

They hadn’t protected the person who had used this room from anything. And they wouldn’t protect anyone else. Even properly cleansed, these black stones had absorbed too much anger. They would remain dissonant and draw the dark things instead of repelling them.

She’d read her cards that morning, and she knew the black stones were coming. Her father, her uncle, her brother, Judd McCall. She’d run from them, but there was no place to run anymore. There was, however, a way to sour things for them once they arrived.

Obsidian. Onyx. Hematite. Jet.

She would offer to help the girls who cleaned the hotel rooms, and she would hide these stones in the rooms that were reserved for guests who were passing through.

Let her father and the rest of the Blackstone Clan experience a run of ill fortune and see how they liked it.

* * *

* * *

“Why do you think she’ll know?” Virgil asked when Jana finished the call asking Candice Caravelli to meet her at the sheriff’s office.

“I don’t know if she’ll recognize our victim,” Jana replied. “But we didn’t find anything in the house or the other backpack we found that would identify him. Everyone carries an identity card, even if it’s a fake. Everyone carries a ration card, even when they’re traveling.”

“There is still plenty of food in Bennett.”

“Supplies are more restricted in the Northeast and, I imagine, the other regions too. We’re lucky that we have pantries and freezers of food available.” Of course, eggs were becoming scarce and whatever milk Fagen’s team found in the houses now had spoiled. She’d never thought she would look at a glass of milk as a luxury.

“My point is that I doubt anyone who came from Lakeside would recognize this man, which means we need to ask everyone who lives in Bennett who didn’t come from Lakeside.”

“Didn’t you howl to other police?”

“I sent a picture of the man to every police department I could reach. I even sent it to the communications cabin to send on to the police in Lakeside, Great Island, and Talulah Falls just in case I’m wrong about him coming from that area of the Northeast.”

“Sweetwater too?” Virgil asked. “There is a human town near there.”

She’d thought Sweetwater was too far out of the way and too far west, but in frontier stories, outlaws often chose places that were out of the way and overlooked. So Virgil had a point. The human town near Sweetwater was called Endurance. If that wasn’t a name for a hole-in-the-wall place, she didn’t know what was.

“I’ll send the picture to Jackson Wolfgard.” Jana looked over as Candice walked into the office.

“Sheriff,” Candice said warily.

Virgil stared at Candice, then pointed at Jana. “Talk to her.” He walked into his office and closed the door.

“Am I in trouble?” Candice asked. “I didn’t mean for that man to get killed. It’s just, he” —she waved a hand in the direction of Virgil’s office— “scared me.”

“He tends to do that.”

Candice gave her a wobbly smile. “I bet his bark is worse than his bite.”

“You’d lose that bet,” Jana said quietly. “Look, we found another body. We think it was one of the men who were at the Dixon ranch. Some things you said about your ex got me thinking, so …” She pulled out the crime scene photo she had cropped to just a head shot.

“That’s Charlie,” Candice said after a moment. “Charlie Webb. I guess he came hunting for me after all.”

“I don’t think he knew you were in Bennett. He was with three other men when he hit the ranch. Was he strong enough to be the leader of a gang?”

“No. After I’d known him for a while, I had