Out for Blond Read online

  I got a kick out of picturing it, because, man, he wouldn’t know what was coming. No one in his life really told him off, I didn’t figure. When you’re a cult leader, pretty much everyone spends all their time being super nice to you, so there was no way he’d be used to being insulted. I was going to give him the surprise of his life.

  And I was going to tell them that I hoped he rotted in jail, and that I was going to do everything within my power to make sure that he got locked up for the rest of his life.

  Ooh, while I was in the car driving, I was hot. I was on fire. I had it all worked out, and it was going to go really smoothly.

  But when I arrived at the farm (miraculously without any incident, given my drunken state), I started to feel less sure of myself.

  Turning into the driveway was like turning into some kind of dark hole of nothingness. They didn’t use electricity on Clayton Farm, so it was pitch black. Blacker than black. The kind of black that I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. I wasn’t used to that kind of darkness—I don’t think I’d ever realized how much light that electric lights gave to the darkness, how much they lit up my nights.

  Suddenly, pulling in to that driveway, my headlights barely making a dent in the dense blackness, I felt cold and unsure of myself.

  But I’d come this far. I wasn’t about to stop now.

  I parked the car and got out. Slamming the door after myself, I started for the main house. My legs were unsteady from drinking, but I was doing fine.

  Until the dome light inside the car flicked off thirty seconds after I’d walked away.

  And it was dark.

  I swallowed. I couldn’t see anything. I stumbled—startled at the curtain of inky darkness that had fallen over me—and then stopped completely. I hugged myself, mired here in the dark, unable to go forward or backward, stuck like a ship lost in an ocean of nothingness.

  But then my eyes began to slowly adjust. I could see the stars above me, and I began to make out the barest outlines of shapes in the distance. I could see which way the main house was again.

  I looked back for my car, but it had been utterly swallowed by the shadows. I knew it was back there, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything back there, and I realized that anything could be lurking in the darkness, waiting for me.

  Unbidden, the image of Tess Carver’s mangled and mottled body swam to the forefront of my brain. I remembered that her skin had been purplish, her wounds puckered, her eyes glazed and colorless.

  I shivered. Why hadn’t they shut her eyes? Was that something they only did in the funeral home, not the morgue? I tried to remember other dead bodies I’d seen on the examining table in my time as a police officer, tried to remember if their eyes had been open.

  Bad idea. Now I was drowning in images of dead people, their pasty skin and lifeless limbs. Gray lips, pallid stomachs…

  I shivered again, harder.

  Maybe this was a bad idea, coming out here.

  But no, Gunner was a son of a bitch. He really deserved a piece of my mind.

  I started for the house, taking shaky steps in the direction of its outline. My drunk legs wouldn’t allow me to be steady. As I walked, though, I became aware of just how bad off I was. That was the way it happened sometimes. I’d be drunk off my ass, but I wouldn’t quite realize it until it was too late, and I was doing some damn fool stupid thing.

  I stopped moving.

  I looked back in the direction of my car.

  Man, where the hell was it? I couldn’t see anything. Everything was just blackness—pitch black on pitch black.

  Except—was that movement?

  My gaze snapped in the direction, and—unwillingly—I pictured Tess Carver walking toward me.

  She was dead and contorted, her wounds open and gaping. She looked blue in the darkness, her blood black. It was as if I could get lost in those wounds—those open, angry gashes on her body. I could get sucked down into them, and she was coming for me to pull me inside.

  Into the darkness.

  I shook myself.

  Geez, this was no time to let that kind of stuff get to me.

  Tess wasn’t out here. The movement that I’d seen was the breeze shaking the branches of a shadowy tree.

  There was nothing out here. I was fine.

  But my heart was pounding and my breath was shallow.

  Maybe there was no real reason to talk to Gunner tonight. Maybe I should head back to town.

  No, maybe I should sleep this off in my car. It probably wasn’t a good idea for me to be driving. I was way too drunk, after all.

  But at the thought of sleeping out here in the dark, I went cold all over. Goosebumps appeared all over my skin. I didn’t like being here.

  I thought about the loony loyalists talking to me in the jail, explaining that they’d sacrificed Tess to gain the favor of the Great Spirit. There were threats from the outside, and once they did this sacrifice, the farm would be safe. I thought of Kellen’s awful face, the blank way he’d delivered the information to me.

  “Get a grip, Ivy,” I muttered. “There’s no Great Spirit.”

  But if I was going to try to do everything in my power to put Gunner away for the crime, then I was now an outside threat, wasn’t I?

  I swallowed, turning in a circle.

  My palms started to itch, then sweat.

  I had a flash of all those dead bodies that I’d pictured before circling around me. Dead bodies coming for me. Some had been cut open for autopsies and their entrails seeped out of the t-incision, dangling out and dragging on the ground as they staggered for me. All of them had wide-open eyes, empty eyes, colorless eyes, and they were all reaching for me.

  I whimpered.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “It’s all in your head, Ivy. It’s all in your head.” I didn’t believe that Gunner and the others had somehow gotten in touch with some ancient Native American spirit. All of this was ridiculous, and I needed to get hold of myself.

  I opened my eyes. I still couldn’t see anything.

  But my car had to be in that direction. I was sure of it.

  I turned to look at the outline of the house, which now had taken on a sinister cut against the starry sky. It loomed overhead like a menacing angel, ready to strike at me and destroy me.

  That was the house there, right? So, then, this was the direction of the car.

  Right?

  My stomach felt sour. I couldn’t be sure, not anymore.

  Augh, why had I drunk so much alcohol tonight? And why had I come out here in the first place? I was an idiot.

  I began to walk in the direction that I thought my car was in, taking careful steps into the blackness, feeling as if I was wandering into the void, into nothingness. I was cold. I shivered again.

  Behind me, a noise.

  I whirled.

  I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, only the outline of the house, the tops of distant trees, the stars overhead.

  I could see Tess Carver coming for me again, reaching out her arms, which were covered in gory symbols, her mouth stretched into a maniacal grin. I was consecrated to the Great Spirit. Now it’s your turn.

  “No,” I said aloud, my voice coming out quavery and weak. I was starting to panic. I couldn’t get to my car, and I was alone out here, and I was terrified, and—

  The noise again, closer.

  I drew in my breath, hugging myself.

  “Ivy Stern?” said a deep and gravely voice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was so startled that I tripped over my own feet in my haste to get away. I went sprawling onto my backside.

  Well, okay, the amount of alcohol in my system might have contributed to my lack of balance.

  I scrambled to my feet, wishing like hell for a gun. I didn’t have one, because of permit issues with the county. Pike had promised to try to get things moving along for me, but I still hadn’t heard anything. Something really needed to give on that front, though, because
I was far too vulnerable without a gun.

  “Who—who’s there?” I called, and my voice still sounded like watered down coffee.

  “It’s Gunner,” said the voice, and he stepped closer to me. It was too dark for me to make out his features, but I could see a man-shaped bit of darkness moving towards me, and I recognized it as him. “What are you doing out here at this time of night?”

  “Motherfucker,” I said. “You shouldn’t sneak up on someone in the dark like that.”

  “Sneak up? You’re the one who doesn’t belong here. I was just taking a late night walk on the farm. Where I live.”

  Right, right. Of course. He was home. I wasn’t. I dragged a hand over my face.

  “So,” he said, “what are you doing out here?”

  “I…” I took a steadying breath. I still felt vestiges of terror leaving my limbs.

  “I didn’t even think you were still on the case,” he said. “Laura told us you stormed out earlier this afternoon.”

  “I did,” I said. “But I was coming back because—”

  “You were having second thoughts?” he said, a note of hope in his voice. “You’ll change your mind and work for us again?”

  “Not a chance,” I growled. “Actually, I was coming out here to give you a piece of my mind.”

  “Oh.” He folded his arms over his chest. I couldn’t see his face, but I was pretty sure he was grinning.

  Goddamn him. “You lied to me,” I said. “That’s not an amusing matter.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “About the Ocapotactu,” I said. “You claimed you didn’t know anything about them, when in fact you’ve been giving sermons on them to the entire farm.”

  “Sermons? What? Hardly.”

  “Don’t try to deny it. I have a notebook full of notes taken while you gave these little talks.”

  “Talks is definitely a more appropriate word,” he said. “I don’t give sermons because I’m not a religious leader. I’m a dreamer, sure. I’m a seer. I help people. But that doesn’t elevate me above anyone else. If the smallest among us is set up against the greatest of us, then we can all say we are truly equal.”

  “Oh spare me all your ‘we’re equal’ bullshit. I know better, okay, so don’t think you can fool me. And don’t think that just because we had sex that I’ll fawn over you and believe all your lies.”

  He sighed. “I should have told you about my interest in the Ocapotactu.”

  “I know why you didn’t. If you did, it would have been obvious how guilty you were.”

  “That’s just it, Ivy, I’m not guilty,” he said. “But you’re right, I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to appear guilty, and I knew that it looked bad for me.”

  “You expect me to buy that?” I said. “You lied to me.”

  “It was more like I left things out,” he said.

  I snorted. “Nice try.”

  “Okay, okay. I messed up. But we could really use your help here. If you could just try to overlook the fact—”

  “Overlook the fact that you were giving talks on the farm about ritual sacrifice?”

  “Hey, I didn’t talk about ritual sacrifice.”

  “Like I said, I saw the notebook. The whole business with Tess being killed to appease the Great Spirit and protect your farm from threats? The crazy stuff that the folks are saying in jail? That’s in there.”

  “Look, you’ve got this wrong.” He rested both of his hands on my shoulders.

  “Don’t touch me.” I wriggled out of his grasp. It suddenly occurred to me that I was alone in the dark with a murderer. Much like I had been with Ralph. I’d gotten out of that situation, but I wasn’t sure I was going to be so lucky twice. I gulped. Maybe I should be running for my car right now. But which way was my car? I struggled to see the outline of the house.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry,” he was saying. “Look, I admit that I talked about that ritual. But it wasn’t in a serious way, like I didn’t tell the people on the farm that I thought we should actually kill people. And I wouldn’t have wanted Tess dead. I never would have hurt Tess.”

  I backed up. I was pretty sure that the car was this way. If I just kept moving, I’d run into it.

  I hoped.

  “You had a motive to hurt Tess,” I said. “You admitted that she was keeping your son from you.”

  “No,” he said, “she was bringing my son back. And since she died, I haven’t been able to see him. Everyone thinks I’m a murderer, and they’re keeping him from me. So, that really hasn’t helped me at all.”

  I kept backing up, but I began to think that maybe I wasn’t in danger yet. Because if he was just going to go ahead and kill me, he wouldn’t bother trying to convince me he was innocent.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Nowhere,” I said, continuing to back up.

  He came after me. “Wait a minute. We’re not done talking.”

  “You stay right there!” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice.

  “Wait,” he said. “You’re not… afraid of me, are you?”

  “No,” I said and took another step backwards.

  He stopped moving. “Oh,” he said, and his voice had changed. He sounded sad and tired.

  Shit. I was an idiot. Now, he knew that I suspected him, and he was going to realize that he couldn’t change my mind and kill me after all. I should have played along and pretended to believe him. Then maybe he would have allowed me to get into my car and drive away.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  “Ivy, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I debated just breaking out into a run. The only problem was that I really wasn’t sure where my car was, and I didn’t want to run and get lost out in the dark.

  He was still talking. “I didn’t kill anyone, and I’m certainly not going to start now. But I can see that you really do think that I’m guilty. So, I’m going to back off.”

  He was? Yeah right, he was. He was just trying to lure me into a false sense of security. When I thought I was safe, he’d pounce. I tensed.

  “Except…” He was thinking. “Wait a second, no. You don’t think I’m guilty.”

  “What?” I said. “Of course I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You said that you came here to give me a piece of your mind, right? You were angry with me, and you wanted to tell me off?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “because you lied to me, and I think you’re guilty.”

  “You think I’m guilty? So, you came to yell and tell off a murderer? I don’t think so. Deep down, you must have realized that I wasn’t guilty, or you would never have felt comfortable enough to yell at me. You trusted me enough to know that I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  I hesitated. He had a point. “I was just drunk,” I said, but even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t necessarily true.

  “I’m not a cult leader,” he said, closing the distance between us, “but I do have some basic insight into people, and I know that you aren’t truly afraid of me.”

  Damn him, he was right. After all, I wouldn’t have slept with him if I hadn’t thought that he was safe. But then, I wasn’t necessarily the best judge of character when it came to choosing sexual partners. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t actually guilty.”

  “Come on, Ivy, you knew most of this stuff before you took the case. You didn’t know about the Ocapotactu, but you still thought I was innocent. Why did you think that?”

  Why had I thought there was a case? Abruptly, the body of Tess flashed before my eyes again, but she wasn’t a menacing monster this time, just a dead body, a piece of evidence, and I realized what it was about her that had piqued my curiosity in the first place.

  Of course. How could I forget? The symbols looked like they’d been carved by two different knives.

  “Gunner?” I said. “When you say that you told your people about the ritual, but that you didn’t mean for them to take it seriously and actually kill someone, are you fair
ly sure that they understood that?”

  “They aren’t my people.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Well, I can’t be positive, of course, but I don’t think it was someone on this farm that committed this murder.”

  “But it could have been? It could have been Kellen and the others?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I really don’t.”

  Damn it, where the hell was my car? I needed to go home and sleep off all this liquor. Then I needed to get up in the morning and find out a few other things about this case. I needed to be sure about my theory that two people had killed Tess. I needed to talk to Odette and the others in jail again, ask them some more questions.

  “Hey, if you’re asking me that question,” he said, “does it mean that you’re back on the case?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not. Because you could still be guilty.” I wasn’t going to tell him about my two-killer theory, because if he was involved, he didn’t need to have that information.

  “You know I’m not,” he said. “You know it.” He sounded frustrated.

  “Do you have a flashlight or something?”

  “Admit that you know I’m innocent,” he said. “Why do you need a flashlight?”

  “My car’s parked around here somewhere, but I can’t see it,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Lost your car?”

  “Not lost exactly. I just don’t know its precise location. But I’ve got the general idea.”

  “Usually, if people park off the driveway, they park over there,” he said.

  “Are you pointing? Am I supposed to be able to see that?”

  He laughed harder, taking me by the shoulders and turning me.

  Oh. That way, huh?

  Really?

  * * *

  “Come on, Odette, level with me,” I said. “I know that the Ocapotactu ritual was part of talks that Gunner was giving on the farm. So, I know that you guys heard of it from him. That means that you all think he’s the murderer, and that’s why you’re here in jail. You’re covering for him. Right?”

  Odette gazed at me coolly through the glass that separated us. She clutched the phone so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. “Gunner didn’t commit this murder,” she said. “We did it. Why won’t you believe us?”