“Wait,” Grimshaw said as he pulled out his phone and called Osgood’s mobile phone.
“Almost there, sir,” Osgood said loudly. “I can see your car.”
“Don’t try to find me. Just get up to the main house and stay inside,” Grimshaw said. He ended the call and almost dropped the phone when Julian bolted, no longer able to wait. “Julian . . . Julian!”
But Julian was running toward the far side of the house, following only Mikhos knew what. So Grimshaw went around the other side. He wasn’t sure Swinn had brought Vicki DeVine to The Jumble. The man could have taken her farther down the farm track. Except . . . The damn fog. It was here and nowhere else.
He ran around the other side of the house. If Vicki was inside, he’d have to trust Osgood to deal with the situation as soon as the baby cop arrived. But he didn’t need to be an Intuit to have a bad feeling that Vicki DeVine was out here. Somewhere.
The fog around him cleared abruptly. That was the only reason he didn’t step on the body. Step in the body. Darren. Gutted. But not dead. Not yet.
He hesitated. Nothing he could do for the man, but it felt wrong to leave him alone in the fog where the predators waited. Then he heard a gunshot—and heard a man scream. That decided him. He ran to the back of the main house, heading for the dock.
Splashing, thrashing, screaming. He had a glimpse of Julian pulling something out of the water. Then the fog became a wall, cutting him off from everything except Vicki DeVine, running for the dock, and Yorick Dane holding something in his right hand and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”
Yorick reached the land end of the dock just as Vicki ran right off the other end and hit the water.
“Dane!” Grimshaw shouted. “Put the weapon down, now.”
Dane started to turn.
“Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”
Dane looked over his shoulder, his expression full of smirky disbelief. “You going to shoot me in the back? Won’t look good on your record, Chief.”
“If I shoot you here, no one will ever find the body, so I can write up the report any way I please.”
That wiped the smirk off Dane’s face. “It’s not a weapon. It’s just a wrench.”
“I don’t give a damn what it is. Drop it and put your hands behind your head.”
“Mooooonkeeey maaaaan.”
Dane dropped the wrench and put his hands behind his head.
Yeah, Grimshaw thought. Given the current choices, being arrested was Dane’s only chance of getting out of there alive.
“Vicki!” Julian, calling. “Vicki!”
Unfortunately, no one answered his call.
Grimshaw handcuffed Dane, then leaned in to speak quietly in the man’s ear. “Just so you know. I don’t care if you hire one of your tie clip pals to get you out of whatever charges come from all of this. I don’t care what anyone else says about your guilt or innocence. If Vicki DeVine’s body washes ashore, you and I are going to take a long ride deep into the wild country.”
CHAPTER 75
Aggie
Watersday, Sumor 8
Air rode Fog around The Jumble, making it harder for the humans to find anything. That was good. The humans . . . Well, she wasn’t sure what the humans had been doing before Air and Fog galloped into The Jumble, but it all felt sneaky.
<The Elders are hunting!> Eddie said.
Leaving the cabin’s door open, Aggie went inside, removed her clothes, and shifted to her Crow form. Looking human would not be a good thing today.
Going back outside, she flew up to the porch roof—a good place to observe whatever she could see but close enough to the cabin door if she needed a place to hide.
Then Miss Vicki ran along the path, heading for the beach.
“Caw!” Aggie shouted. “Caw!” Hide here! Hide here!
But Miss Vicki kept running toward the beach, and moments later, that mean police human Swinn appeared and ran after her.
<Gun!> Aggie cawed. <He’s going to shoot Miss Vicki!>
Miss Vicki swerved at the edge of the sand and kept running toward the dock, disappearing into a wall of fog.
Swinn stopped at the edge of the sand, turned toward Miss Vicki, and raised the gun. Before Aggie could call another warning, a big wave suddenly rose and flooded the whole beach, creating new shallows at the same moment Cougar raced out of his hiding place and pounced on Swinn.
The gun went bang! Swinn and Cougar landed in the water. Cougar leaped back to dry land—and Swinn began screaming as the Elders who lived in the lake, having ridden on the Lady’s wave to reach their prey, grabbed the human and began to tear and slash while they thrashed in the receding water, feeding until the Lady made the next big wave to help them return to the lake.
The next wave arrived at the same time that Julian Farrow reached the sand. He ran into the water and grabbed Swinn, playing tug with the Elders who continued to bite and feed as they retreated to the natural shallows. Then Julian let go of what remained of Swinn and fell back, clear of the waterline. But he didn’t leave, didn’t move farther out of reach of the Elders. Instead, he stared at something stuck in the wet sand.
Had Julian found a shiny? She couldn’t see what he had found, so she flew down to the beach. Coins sometimes fell out of torn pockets. Julian might share if there were several coins on the sand.
But it wasn’t coins that held the human’s interest. It was the gun. Did he need the gun? Why?
Another wave washed over the beach, higher than the usual waterline. Aggie saw the shape hidden in the water. Before Julian could lunge for the gun—and get in teeth-and-claw kind of trouble—Aggie flutter-hopped to the gun and closed one foot over the trigger guard.
“No!” Julian said, grabbing for the gun.
Water washed around her and Julian like they were rocks—and the Elder who had ridden in on that wave rose partway out of the water and took a swipe at Julian. He would have torn up Julian’s arm, but Cougar smacked the human, knocking Julian out of the way.
<He’s Miss Vicki’s friend!> Aggie said, trying to tug the gun out of the sand and away from the water.
The Elder stared at her with those strange eyes before thrashing his tail and returning to the lake with the receding wave.
Cougar came up beside her and pawed at the gun.
“Wait.” Julian’s shaking hand closed over the gun.
Aggie pecked him. He was too close to the water. It wasn’t safe to be human until the Elders stopped being angry.
“Have to put the safety on,” Julian panted, his hand moving over the gun. “Can’t have it go off by accident and hit someone.”
Yes. That was smart. Since she didn’t know how to do the safety thing, she stopped pecking him.
“Okay,” he panted. “Okay.” He let go of the gun and crawled up the beach until he touched the grassy edge. Then he looked at the lake. “Vicki! Vicki!”
No answer.
<Miss Vicki is in the water,> Eddie reported.