Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (5 page)

“Well, someone who has a dog like this can’t be all bad,” he said with a smile, the crows’ feet in the corners of his eyes making him look all the more rugged. He then stood and took a small notebook from his jacket pocket and turned his attention to Pam, who looked nervously over at her daughter.

“Katie, since you are done eating, why don’t you go up to my bedroom with Ellie Mae to watch cartoons,” Rhi suggested knowingly. “You guys can lie on the comforter and not have to hear us interrupt your show.”

“Okay Rhi. Come on Ellie,” the child chirped and jumped up to head for the stairs, the dog following obediently behind.

Rhi offered up another coffee mug to the invader, who accepted it with a bear-sized paw.

“Cream and sugar?”

He suddenly grinned at her sunnily. “Naw, I don’t like my coffee scared.” He leaned back to focus his attention on Pam. “I’m sure you know the details of what happened last night, Pam. Telephone, telegraph, tell Pam. You have been a running buddy of Marie’s, do you have any idea of who would want to do this to her?”

Pam sat back in her chair, the plate in front of her practically licked clean.

“I have no idea. I can’t see her making anyone that angry. She had a boyfriend who came up with her from the cruise ships in Florida, but he liked the money better there and took off a few months ago. I think the boat was out of Key West. He was kind of a jerk, but this?”

Nicholas nodded. “We are looking him up and going over her house. I brought her cat to you…” He trailed off, looking at Pam inquiringly. She was known for taking in every stray that wandered across her property and then relocating him or her.

“Drop it off at my house, I gave that cat to her. Bart knows how to get to the barn to keep warm with all of his buddies.” Pam sighed and patted her bulging stomach. “I’m glad I’ve got you to feed me, Rhi. I’m not going to be able to afford food with all of these critters taking over.”

The sheriff hesitated before speaking again, examining the hat in his hands closely as he spoke. “I hate to ask you this Pam, but I have to. You and Marie had a falling out, didn’t you? Where were you at about three thirty a.m.?”

“If you are asking if I killed her because Marie was a gossip, the answer is no. She tried to convince everyone I was dumping on the table to steal the pit supervisor’s spot from me.” Pam referred to the practice of “dumping” or reshuffling the cards on a blackjack table as soon as they grew cold to dump more money out to the players to generate more tip money. “The only one dumping was her and we all knew it. I might have told her that I was going to kick her ass, but it was a figure of speech. I was at work until one and then I picked up Katie at the sitter’s at three on this side of town. If you think I drove back into town with my sleeping daughter in the truck in a snowstorm to cut some girl’s heart out, you’re crazy. Besides, we’d made up. Hell, the last time she got snowed into town and couldn’t make it out to her place, she stayed here at my house. And before you ask me again if I know of anyone that had it in for her, the answer is no. Like most blackjack dealers, Marie has pissed off her share of gamblers that are under the delusion that we built casinos to let them
win,
instead of to make money. But I don’t recall her telling me about anyone more psychotic than the rest of the usual loons.”

“I had to ask, Pam, you know the rules.” Nicholas stood, his knees creaking, his eyes taking stock of the well-kept little A-frame. “You girls need to be careful out here. Someone nasty was in town last night.”

“I think we can handle it, sweetie,” Pam said, openly leering at him. “A locked door is nice but there is no substitute for a product from Smith & Wesson. You need to tell Rhi guns don’t kill people. There’s always a warm body pulling that trigger.”

He looked down at Rhi, who had now stuffed her mouth with pancakes and sausage. “Guns need a hand on the trigger that knows what it is doing and has respect for weapons. If Rhi doesn’t know how to use a gun then she doesn’t need one.”

Rhi sputtered, spewing pancake over the table. “
Mrff
…I didn’t say I couldn’t use a gun. I just never liked using one,” she said, standing to look him straight in the eye, which unfortunately didn’t work because her eyes were level with his chest and the top buttons of his flannel shirt. She noticed they were unbuttoned to allow some very manly chest hair to sneak out. “I
was
brought up in North Carolina. We like to shoot something every day, to keep our hand in.”

An unexpected grin covered his face as he looked down at her. “Then, living out here with the lions and tigers and bears, you might want to think about some firepower.” He pointed at Ellie Mae as she made her way back down the stairs. “Unless you want to depend on that mutant lap dog. How much bourbon have you had this morning, sweetheart?” he asked the dog, who leaned again against his leg, her giant brown eyes looking up beseechingly. “I guess I’ll have to scratch those sails which seem to pass for ears on you, girl.” He bent down to rub the dog’s golden head.

Pam asked, “Can we expect some police protection out here in the wilds?”

He looked up and cocked an eyebrow at the bony woman’s demure pose. “Since you’re the only female I know that I could drop off in a battle zone and pick up a week later looking like you had just visited a spa…no. Ms. Brennan,” he said, looking intently at Rhi, “it was a pleasure. Don’t let Pam eat you out of house and home.” He stood up and began the process of putting his cold weather gear on again.

Rhi stood to walk him to the door and, standing stiffly, she opened it. Ellie rushed out to jump in the bed of a police pickup in the driveway, eliciting a hissing sound out of the cat carrier in the bed. Rhi made a move to retrieve the dog but Nicholas breezed past her. “I think I can get my own dog if you don’t mind.”

“We wouldn’t want those delicate southern tootsies out in this cold, now would we?” he answered, reaching in the truck to grasp the dog’s collar. “Come on old girl, we can maybe go out for a cocktail later,” he whispered loudly to the dog as he led her back up the steps. The two women stood on the deck and watched as he got into his vehicle and started it up.

Inexplicably the hair on Ellie Mae’s neck rose and a low growl rumbled in her throat as Nicholas steered down the freshly broken path with his truck. Rhi was shocked at the sound coming out of the dog, who was looking into the woods off to the side of the house. Unsettled, Rhi clutched the dog’s large leather collar and made soothing noises.

Pam looked at Rhi with disgust. “You mean to tell me with us good-looking women here in this godforsaken forest, he asked out the dog?”

Bursting out laughing, both women turned toward the warmth of the house, Ellie Mae’s discomfort momentarily forgotten. Ellie was very protective of her mistress, but to Rhi’s recollection had never growled
that
way in her life.

“What do you think of Nicholas?
Look
at the testosterone oozing out of his body. I wonder if he thinks he has too much—because I could volunteer to lick it off.” Pam grinned salaciously.

Rhi shrugged.
He might be a good one for Pam,
she thought as she eyed her friend.

“Don’t look at me that way, I was kidding. He’s too pretty for me. I like a man with some mileage on him,” Pam said. “If you didn’t make men feel like they had opened up an industrial sized freezer when you first meet them, you might find something besides that dog to keep you warm.”

“You should go out with him,” Rhi said.

“He’s too young for me.”

Rhi laughed. “I’m pretty sure he is about ten years older than you.”

“I figure mentally all men are fifteen to twenty years younger mind wise than their bodies are. So he’s just past puberty.”

“So you need a fifty-year-old man.”

Now it was Pam’s turn to laugh. “Lord no. I’d kill the poor guy, being at my sexual peak and all.”

Suddenly Ellie Mae jerked herself free of Rhi’s restraining hand to bound, yelping loudly, into the grove of pines near the deck. The baying of the dog rose to a fevered pitch as Rhi and Pam ran to look where the dog was frantically sniffing. Ellie May looked up at her mistress pleadingly and whined.

“Oh no you don’t, I’m not chasing you to the Sangre De Cristos today,” Rhi said through gritted teeth as she felt the tops of her moccasins overflow with snow. She grabbed the dog’s collar again tightly. Bloodhounds were notorious for getting on a scent and following it to the end. Ellie Mae was an obedient dog and usually stayed close to her mistress. But the huge dog loved the thrill of the hunt and was desperately in need of a good long run.

Rhi gasped when she noticed Pam hunched down in the snow, digging at the fresh powder. The other woman looked up grimly. The snow crust beneath was colored a bright red, standing out in stark contrast to the fresh white snow and the deep green of the trees.

“Looks like you had a visitor last night. Probably a mountain lion with a fresh kill—somebody wasn’t watching their poodle.” Pam rocked back on her heels when a sudden movement behind them both startled her enough to fall over in the snow. Ellie struggled against Rhi’s hold as the trees rustled. The hound began to bay loudly, and Rhi whirled to see a man clad completely in black, white, and gray snow camouflage, holding a large shotgun, rise from the cover of several bushes.

Pam struggled to stand as he approached, one eyebrow raised. The man’s shotgun was tucked under one arm and a game bag hung off his shoulder.

Rhi took a moment to examine him further. He had to be most freshly pressed hunter she had ever seen. His army boots were shined to a mirror gloss, the sharply creased pants tucked neatly into them. The forty-four strapped to his side and the pump shotgun tucked under his arm were both beautifully cleaned. His heavy military issue parka had a crisp new look to it. The man’s salt and pepper hair had been buzz cut and his leathery forty-something face had the look of someone who had no acquaintance with SPF. Hard blue eyes took in the scene, widening at the sight of the stained snow.

“What have we here, ladies?” he queried, walking swiftly through the snow to examine what Ellie and Pam had dug up. “This looks fresh…but where’s the carcass? I don’t see any bits and pieces.”

Rhi’s stomach gave a lurch. She looked frantically at the snow around her, fearing she would see the worst.

“Maybe something was dragged after one of those big cats brought it down?” Pam suggested as she ran to Rhi’s aid, who still struggled with the dog, trying to hold her back. Both women succeeded in getting knocked down by the bloodhound, whose large form made a beeline for the visitor. He stood immobile, his empty hand held out for the dog to smell.

“That’s an interesting choice for a dog, ma’am,” he said in his gravel filled voice to Rhi, nodding at Ellie Mae. “Those dogs can smell or sense anything. Even ghosts.”

Pam answered for Rhi exasperatedly. “Bobby Wayne, if you’re trying to freak us out, jumping out of the bushes armed is good. You don’t need to add a ghost story on for good measure.” She turned to the house where Katie had come to the door to observe. “I thought I told you that you could hunt on the property but not near the houses. You’ll scare off my tenants.”

“I think this lady and me are your only tenants. Besides, I was just walking through. I was hunting up on the ridge.” He looked pointedly at Rhi then at Pam again.

“Oh, how rude of me. It must be the caffeine wearing off,” Pam exclaimed. “Bobby Wayne Bedford this is Rhi Brennan. Rhi, this is Bobby Wayne, psychotic survivalist who rents an old hunting cabin from me.” She whispered, in a voice loud enough to be heard in the next valley, “If you give him a chance, he will tell you about the end of the world and how he is stocking up for it. You too can survive.”

Rhi nodded at the intruder. He returned her nod then squatted back down beside the stain in the snow. He pointedly ignored Pam’s jibes, as if he had heard it all from her before. “The big question is the snow on top of the blood. Whatever left these stains did it during the storm last night. What predator in its right mind would be out hunting in that weather? But there were a few odd prints covered up with snow this morning,” he mused, digging about with his gloved hand.

Even his gloves look crisp
, Rhi thought then caught the intense look on Pam’s face. What kind of predator was crazy enough to be out in a snow storm hunting? But—as her father had once told her when she was a child—there was only one kind of predator that was truly crazy and killed for the fun of it. She shuddered and turned toward the house. “Mr. Bedford, you are more than welcome to breakfast if you’re hungry.”

“Bobby Wayne,” the man said as he struggled up out of the snow. “I would be honored, ladies.”

As the group headed back to the house, Pam whispered into Rhi’s ear, “Good thinking. Have no gun…feed the owner of the nearest one.”

Rhi served her new guest coffee and breakfast, and then sank into her chair to enjoy her own java and to tune in to Pam’s gossip of the day.

“What did you mean, Ellie can sense ghosts?” she asked after several minutes of listening to the news of the running soap opera that was casino life in Cripple Creek.

Bobby Wayne looked at her piercingly. “Pam, you haven’t shared very much of our town’s curse with our pretty newbie.”

“She has enough problems without loading her up with that horseshit,” their landlord snapped from where she lounged in her chair sipping coffee. “There’s no use bringing it up this morning.”

He ignored her and turned toward Rhi. “In answer to your question, darlin’, your dog is a descendant of an ancient breed of animals bred by the Templars during the Crusades. The knights were supposedly mixed up in the dark arts and it is rumored their dogs had abilities of a…supernatural nature. Certainly more than a mere tracking dog, which is what they are used for today.”

“Why would that matter to me?”

“Cripple Creek is supposedly one of the most haunted cities in the country. We have more ghosts than we do roaches,” he said between bites of sausage. “A dog like that might come in handy. Or if something nasty has gotten loose from the control of those idiots down at Fort Carson, she might give you some warning. You do know they let loose their Bigfoots in the area now and then to scare off snoopers around Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD.”