A Thousand Yesteryears (32 page)

“Eve. Damn it. Stay away.” There was no question Caden was angry, his voice fueled by fervent emotion. She broke into a small clearing in time to see him stagger upright. Roger hovered five feet away, a shotgun leveled in Caden’s direction. The axe Roger had threatened her with was stuck through his belt. Where had he gotten the gun?

“Over there.” Roger motioned her toward Caden.

She was only too eager to comply, ducking under his shoulder to hold him steady. He held his free arm awkwardly, and a dark streak of blood slanted across his cheek. This was all her fault. “I should have listened to you. I got a phone call, and—”

“Don’t.” He silenced the breathless rush of her words with a single glance of his eyes. Raising his hand, he touched her bruised cheek gently. Dried blood stretched her skin taut, but it was fear and regret that brought tears to her eyes.

“I shouldn’t have left you.”

She shook her head and buried her face against his chest. It was unfair of life to end here when they hadn’t yet been given the chance to explore a future together.

“How sweet.” Roger’s voice dripped honey. “I’d hang around and prolong the show but circumstance dictates I kill you both quickly.”

“Like you killed Maggie?” The challenge in Caden’s voice was equal parts heat and ice.

Tension rippled through his body, transferred to her where she gripped his arm. Two blasts from the shotgun, and it would be over. Roger would kill Caden first, eliminating the greater threat, then her. Sickness churned in her stomach.

Roger shrugged. “Your sister saw something she shouldn’t have. She didn’t leave me any choice.”

“I’ll kill you.” No boast or bellowed threat, just a man’s cold promise.

Roger chuckled. “That might prove difficult since I have the shotgun.”

A low-level hum made Eve turn her head slightly to the side. Neither Roger nor Caden appeared to have heard the noise, intent on the power-play stretching between them.

“I called for backup.” Caden smirked, a twist of the lips that made Eve wonder if he was playing a game. “Pull the trigger, Layton, and you won’t make it out of the TNT alive.”

The humming grew louder. Caden flinched, indicating he’d heard, but Roger was too engrossed in defying the boast.

“Don’t count on it.” He raised the shotgun. “You’ve already provided me with transportation. I’ll be gone before your pitiful cavalry gets here, and you two won’t be able to say a word about what happened.” Grinning, he snugged the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder, raising the site to his eye. “Since you’ll be dead.”

A sudden screech erupted from the trees, a shriek so shrill and inhuman, Eve screamed in response. Startled, Roger looked toward the sky.

Caden used the distraction to tackle him around the waist and throw him to the ground. A single blow of his fist spun Roger’s head to the side. Quickly, he wrestled the shotgun from the banker, then backed away, raising the weapon to his shoulder. “Don’t move.”

Something large and winged hurtled into the clearing, blocking Roger from view. The powerful beat of enormous wings washed over Eve. A roar like a cyclone exploded in her ears and the wind sucked her breath away.

Roger screamed.

Horrified, Eve choked out a cry. All around her, the humming spun into a jarring drone, worming into her skull. Steady and low, it thrummed like current through a fat wire. The sound filled her head, throbbing and growing until it rattled deeper into her chest. Her field of vision was consumed by two almond-shaped eyes, dark red like aged wine. Lethal, clawed hands and massive wings, thinly-veined in white, loomed before her.

No face. The thing has no face.

That was the most terrifying element of all.

Roger tried to run, but the Mothman blocked him like a cat cornering a mouse. Beating its wings to stay aloft, the creature reached forward and gripped the banker by both arms.

Bones cracked.

“No!” Roger howled in pain and terror.

She didn’t realize she was screaming until Caden grabbed her arm and tugged her close to his chest. He bowed his head against hers, locking her in place. The droning intensified, then was joined with an inhuman screech and the punishing boom of the creature’s wings.

Roger screamed a final time. A wet, gurgling cry that signaled death. At last, the wings retreated. A deafening roar of thunder that was sucked into the night-blackened sky.

The rapid hitch of Eve’s breath was the only sound to break the silence that followed.

Eve sat in the back of the police cruiser, sore and too numb to move. The light bar mounted on the roof sent a red and blue stain leaping through the darkness. Earlier, Caden had rummaged a blanket from the trunk, wrapped it around her, then helped her to a seat where she wouldn’t be subject to prying eyes. A number of cars were parked along the road, Ryan and several deputies engaged in scouring the surrounding terrain.

Sheriff Weston had already questioned them about what happened. By mutual consent they’d agreed not to mention the Mothman—who would believe them?—or that the creature had killed Roger, carrying his broken body into the sky. Caden suggested the banker had grown disoriented in the darkness and was lost somewhere in the woods.

Even as Eve replayed the scene in her head, she wondered if the encounter was a figment of her imagination. She couldn’t understand why the Mothman, a terrifying creature of myth, would save them from certain death. Had it protected them, or was it merely responding to the threat Roger presented? A threat to the wild, rambling habitat it considered home.

She shuddered, recalling the intelligence she’d seen in the monster’s eyes. It was a perceptive being. One that calculated, planned, and hunted. The creature had left no visible tracks, and those belonging to Roger were muddied beneath her and Caden’s, revealing only that he’d crossed the same area. If his body was ever discovered, it would likely be miles away, dumped in a pond or left to rot in the empty shell of a derelict building.

Gathering the blanket, she huddled more deeply beneath the folds. A vision of the Mothman’s burning red eyes flashed into her mental vision.

No face.

She’d seen the creature up close but couldn’t recall a single facial feature other than those horrible blood-red eyes. Caden had said he’d felt a flood of emotion from the Mothman when he’d come across it in the TNT on that Halloween night so long ago, but she experienced nothing of the sort. In her fear, she’d probably been too focused on Roger’s blood-curdling screams, a memory that made her stomach clench even now. Thankfully, movement outside drew her attention to the window. In the next instant, Caden opened the door and bent down.

“Hey.” His voice was soft, accompanied by an equally gentle smile. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.” She managed a weak turn of her lips. “Just tired. How’s your arm?”

“Better.” He moved it somewhat experimentally to show her. “I’ll probably have a hell of a bruise.”

Far better than the alternative, a frightening reality she didn’t want to contemplate. “Can we go soon?”

He nodded. The blood on his cheek had dried, the cut superficial. “The search is going to continue through the night, but we’re clear to leave. Ryan got in touch with Katie at the hotel and brought her up to date on everything that’s happened. She’s anxious to see you and said you can spend the night with her if you’d like.”

Katie.

The thought of her friend sent a new ribbon of grief unfurling in Eve’s stomach. Traumatized by the arrival of the Mothman and the manner of Roger’s death, she’d forgotten why the banker had dragged her to the TNT in the first place.

“Caden, I completely forgot about what Roger told me earlier. Maggie wasn’t his only victim. Wendy Lynch was pregnant with his child and threatened to tell Aunt Rosie. Roger killed her to keep her quiet, and Maggie caught him in the act of burying her body. It’s why he had to kill Maggie.”

All trace of softness left his face, his features settling into a grim mask. “It seems to me the true monster here tonight wasn’t the Mothman.”

Mention of the towering birdlike creature made her flinch. With a cautious glance for the deputies milling beyond the car, she lowered her voice. “Do they know he was here?”

Caden shook his head. “But I’ll make sure they know about Roger’s crimes. All of them.” The rigid control in his voice was painful to hear. “His confession to you will make identifying the bones we found in the woods that much easier. Right now, I want to get you out of here.”

She nodded tiredly. “Right now, there’s nothing I’d like better.”

* * * *

Katie swept Eve into her embrace the moment she stepped through the door of the hotel.

“I was so worried,” her friend said. “I can’t believe that creep abducted you.”

Eve cast a glance over her shoulder to Caden. She needed time alone with Katie to tell her about Wendy and hoped he’d understand.

“I’ll go up to the banquet room,” he said as if reading her mind.

“No one is up there.” Katie stepped back, looking between them. “You don’t seriously think I was going to let a party continue with everything that happened tonight? Someone got wind of the APB for Roger, and the whole thing turned into a mess.”

“What about Lillian?” Caden asked.

“She hustled Jeremy home the minute things started to go sour.”

He nodded. Eve suspected he’d want to talk to Roger’s wife again and suggested he leave to handle the situation. “I’ll be fine here with Katie.” He appeared ready to object, reluctant to leave her, but she deflected the protest before he could voice it. “I’ll stay put this time, I promise. When I’m done talking to Katie, I’ll go upstairs and crash in one of the guest suites.”

“I don’t know,” he hedged. “You’ve been through a lot tonight. Maybe I should hang around.”

“Caden.” When she sent him a stern glance, he finally pulled her close and kissed her. “I’ll be back in a little while to check on you. Call if you need me.”

“I will.”

After he left, Eve collapsed onto the sofa in the lobby. “I can’t believe how tired I am.” Kicking off her shoes, she stretched her legs. The hem of her dressy slacks were ruined, ripped and shredded where briars had snarled them. She’d probably end up tossing the shoes, too.

Katie sat beside her and leaned forward to grip her hand. “Tell me what happened. Do you have any idea how frantic I’ve been?”

Eve lowered her gaze, chagrined to have put Katie through so much worry. “Roger was waiting for me when I got to Aunt Rosie’s house.”

“Why did you go there in the first place?”

Eve recalled the phone call that had triggered her ordeal. It was quiet in the lobby, the stillness of the hotel like a clinging shroud. The heavy silence made her think of ghosts and hauntings. “I thought Aunt Rosie wanted me to go.” She shook her head, too tired to explain the eerie call. “It doesn’t matter. I think I was supposed to send Caden and Ryan to the house, not go myself. When I got there, Roger—” She swallowed hard, shaken by the memory of how Roger had taunted her. “He told me he’d overheard our discussion with Lillian. He’d been in the lobby.”

Katie blanched. “The whole time?”

“Most of it. He thought I had the negative, and when he realized I didn’t…” Closing her eyes, she pinched the bridge of her nose. The memory of Roger’s ugly confession made her stomach roil. “Katie, there’s something I have to tell you. Something that won’t be easy to hear.”

Her friend drew back as if steeling herself. She regarded Eve warily. “It’s about Wendy, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She wished there were an easier way to break the news. “Roger said she was pregnant.”

Katie’s face contorted. “Not by him. Please, not by him.”

“I’m sorry.”

With a strangled cry, Katie lurched to her feet. “Why would she do something so stupid?”

The anguished sound of her voice made Eve tear up in sympathy. “Wendy was only sixteen, Katie. Roger was a predator, in his thirties. He seduced her. You can’t blame her.”

“I don’t.” Bowing her face into her hands, she wept softly. “I just wish I could have done something to stop her. He killed her, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Eve pulled the sobbing girl down beside her, wrapping her arms around her friend. She pressed her cheek to the crown of Katie’s head, and let the grisly memory of Roger’s death wash over her. “If it’s any consolation,” she whispered. “I promise he’ll never hurt anyone again.”

* * * *

Three days later a sheriff’s deputy found Roger’s body while scouring the TNT. The decomposing remains surfaced in a pond, the public cause of death listed as drowning after blunt force trauma. Secretly, Eve suspected the coroner had uncovered much more. According to Caden, most of the bones in Roger’s body had shattered. Deep gashes consistent with knife wounds were found on his arms and head, an ugly detail that made Eve recall the Mothman’s sickle-like claws.

By the end of the week, Wendy Lynch’s remains were buried in the local cemetery. Eve attended the service along with Caden, Ryan, Mrs. Flynn, and most of the staff from the hotel. As she stood at the graveside, offering silent support to Katie and Doreen Sue, she couldn’t help thinking of what Maggie had witnessed that day in the woods. When she crawled into bed that night and closed her eyes, she dreamed of her friend.

Eve sat on a grassy slope that slanted down to the creek behind Aunt Rosie’s house. The property belonged to her now. She’d made her decision to stay. Perhaps that was why she appeared as an adult in this dream, and Maggie was still a child. Her friend had never been given the chance to grow up.

Tilting her face to the sky, Eve drank in the fragrant scent of the honeysuckle and sweet clover that grew wild along the bank. The sun warmed her skin and danced upon the water in a flickering shower of gold. In that moment, the carefree innocence of summer felt like it might never end.

“You shouldn’t feel sorry for me,” Maggie said. She wore jean shorts and a pink T-shirt with a picture of Scooby Doo on the front. Her ginger-colored hair was caught up in a ponytail but several strands had wormed free, contouring the curve of her face. She tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “I’m glad the truth came out. About Wendy and why I was so scared.”