Firefly Rain (26 page)

Another roll of thunder came and went, and I lay back down. “Go back to sleep,” I told myself out loud. “It was nothing.” I wadded up my pillow and folded my arms across my chest. Slow breaths told me I was well on my way.

Outside, something growled.

My eyes flew open. “What the hell?” I muttered, and I waited for the sound to repeat itself.

It did. Something was out there, something angry and hungry, and it gave a growl like something not of this world.

Softly, I swung my feet onto the floor and stood. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath, and I took stealthy steps out into the hall. Maybe from there I could get a better sense of where the sound was coming from, or a better idea of what it was.

Another growl forced itself into my ears. It seemed to be everywhere, shaking the floorboards and rattling the windows. I turned in place, trying to get a sense of where it was coming from. Thunder mixed in with the sound, strengthening it and giving it a place to hide.

Through a window shade, I could see a brief flash. The lightning was getting closer, the thunder louder. The storm would be here soon.

The growling was getting louder, too. It seemed to be circling the house, moving from place to place. So help me, it felt like whatever was making it was looking for a way in.

I thought about that for a second. There were three doors and a whole mess of windows, most of them high off the ground. I couldn’t do much about the windows, but the doors were more in my power. I sprinted to the kitchen and checked the door there. Locked. Smiling with a grim purpose, I turned and hurried back down the hall. Every door I passed, I shut. Even if whatever it was out there got in a window, it would still have a door between it and me.

Bedroom door. Bathroom. Front door. Checked and locked. I went down the hall like a man possessed. Growls and thunder chased me along. One after another, they checked out.

The last door was the mudroom. I reached to open it, then hesitated. The door was already closed, after all. I didn’t need to open it, even if there was a door to the inside in there.

But there was a shotgun in there, too, and I suddenly wanted that in my hands very badly.

Gently, I turned the doorknob and pushed. The door slid open noiselessly. I could see the gun, gleaming in the dim light that came down the hall. Thunder boomed, but the growling, I noticed, had stopped.

Maybe it had gone away. Maybe there was nothing to worry about.

Maybe. I reached for the gun.

Something slammed into the outside door.

Startled, I fell back. The impact was repeated and the door shuddered. My hands stretched out instinctively for the gun as the door shook again, and a demon howl went up. Holding tight to the shotgun, I hurled myself against the door and threw my weight against it, just in time for another dull thud of impact. I could feel claws scrabbling at it, tearing into the wood. There was another slam, like a gut punch to the house, and then the rain came pouring down like the tears of God for His lonely children. It drummed down on the roof, thunder giving the sound accent and shape.

Outside, there was one last snarl, then silence. The only sounds were the voices of the storm and the pounding of my heart. My hands were clenched tight around the gun, my eyes wide open and staring. I sat there in the dark, listening, not daring to move, not daring to believe that whatever it was, it had gone away.

Eventually, I slept, and the sounds of the rain washed my bad dreams away.

I woke up with the shotgun still in my fingers, which is to say I woke up in a hurry.

I was still curled up on the mudroom floor, my back to the outside door. My back and my butt hurt like hell, and my fingers were cramped from hanging onto the gun so tightly. My head throbbed, and my neck made little popping sounds every which way I moved.

“Jesus, I feel old,” I said. I used the gun as a prop to help me up. Daylight peeked in under the door, just enough to reassure me that the door itself was still set on its hinges and hung proper in its frame.

Holding the gun in one hand, I unlocked the door with the other. It stuck a little bit, then came open. It swung in with a creak, and I gave a low whistle.

Something had done a number on it. The door itself was heavy enough—Grandfather Logan never believed in half measures—but whatever had been howling outside last night had done its damnedest to get through it. Much of the paint on the lower panel had been clawed off, and the wood was all torn up. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn someone had taken an axe to it. Most of the splinters had been washed away by the rain, but there were still a few on the half flight of steps that led down from where I stood. Some of them were a good four inches long.

The soldiers I’d placed out the night before weren’t that big. I’d skipped the mudroom, I remembered, but thinking about that was nothing but foolishness. A gesture in the dark to make myself feel better wouldn’t have done a damn thing, not against whatever had torn those gashes in the wood without half trying.

But I might set one in there anyway, once I’d dealt with other things. There was, after all, no sense taking chances.

Being careful not to disturb things too much, I took two steps down those stairs and looked at the ground around the base. The rain had turned it to mud, and old memories told me exactly how deep the mud around that part of the house could get. I had no intention of stepping in it, not if I could help it.

Besides, that would have messed up the very interesting prints that I could now see. The rain had blurred the outlines some, but the markings were still pretty distinct. Four toes, claw marks at the tip, and a broad pad in back—I knew that sort of print.

It was a dog. Damn big one, too.

I scooted down another step to get a closer look. The prints were near two inches long, the sign of a big dog indeed. They sank deep into the mud as well, which told me two things.

One, that meant the dog that had attacked my home last night was heavy as well as long.

Two, it meant that it had stuck around a while after the rain had started. I didn’t find that very comforting, seeing as I now realized he’d been there long after I’d thought he’d gone. He’d been prowling around those steps, waiting for something.

Maybe even waiting for me to open the door.

I shook my head to clear the image and peered down closer at the prints. A closer look confirmed what I already suspected. There was only one set of prints here, even though there were a lot of them. That meant one dog and one dog only.

Leaving the door open was a calculated risk, but I didn’t have my keys on me and I was afraid that if I went back into the house for them, I wouldn’t be quite so willing to come out again. So, wearing jeans and nothing else, I left the door open behind me and set out to follow the tracks.

They weren’t too hard to pick out. Here and there the ground had bare patches where the weeds had given up, and in those spots were enough paw prints to keep me on the track.

They led, unsurprisingly, up to the edge of the drainage ditch, and that’s where they vanished. I leaned out over the ditch, now graced with a fast-moving stream in its bottom, and checked the other side. Sure enough, there were a couple of prints, but not many, and they vanished into the gravel of the road.

I thought about hopping over myself but decided against it. Not the way my luck was going, no, sir. Instead, I walked down to the driveway, and then around to get myself a good feel for the road and how well it took prints.

The answer to that question was, Not well at all, and the gravel did a fine job of making me regret going out there barefoot. No, if the dog that had savaged my door had come out onto the road, there would be no way to pick up its trail again. It had vanished, though the heft of the gun in my hand made me think
that maybe I wouldn’t mind all that much if it came back. If it did, this time I’d be ready.

Satisfied and feeling my oats, I headed back toward the house. Playing the mighty hunter for a few minutes was one thing, but the day was starting to get on, and I wanted a shower, a change of clothes, and a cup of coffee.

What I got instead was Officer Hanratty pulling into the driveway behind me, screeching to a stop so close I could feel the tiny bits of stone her car threw up bounce off the back of my legs.

For a moment, I considered walking back to the house, but that would have done me no good, not with Hanratty. So instead I let the gun drop, then turned around to face her.

“Morning, Officer,” I said. “This is a pleasant surprise. What can I do to help you?”

“You can put a shirt on,” she said as she heaved herself out of the car. “And you can put the gun in the house. No sense scaring the neighbors.”

“Yes, Officer,” I said amiably. “Care to come in?”

She grimaced, a horrible thing to see first thing in the morning. “It’s either that or I stand out here and yell, so why don’t we do that?”

“Follow me, then.” I traipsed around to the back of the house and up the mudroom steps. She followed me, then gave a shout of surprise when she saw the door.

“What the hell happened here?”

“Dog,” I said, pointing to the tracks. “Wild one tried to get in last night. Tried real hard, too. Why do you think I’m walking around with this?” I patted the gun.

“I thought you were trying to blend in with the locals,” Hanratty replied sarcastically. “Though you do seem to be doing a better job of it than the last time I saw you.”

I thought about where Hanratty had come from, how long she’d been in town, and how she’d lectured me about what life was like here. I thought about saying something. Then I took a deep breath as quietly as I could and bit my tongue for a full ten seconds before trusting myself to speak. “Well, I fell asleep waiting for him to come back and was just checking his tracks before taking a shower. You might want to call animal control.”

“Assuming the dog is wild, yes,” she replied. She stood impatiently at the bottom of the steps. “Are we going to go in or what?”

“Going in,” I said, and I did exactly that. Hanratty followed, and the stairs complained as she did.

I led her into the kitchen, past all the locked doors, without comment. “Coffee?” I asked. She nodded, so I busied myself making a pot, double strength.

“So what brings you out here at this hour?” I asked as the coffee brewed. “Good news on the car, I hope?”

She sank into a chair and drummed her fingers against the tabletop. “More or less. A couple of kids spotted someone driving it around town last night. They didn’t get a good look at the driver, though.”

“Not surprising.” I poured two cups of coffee and brought them over to the table. “Cream and sugar?”

“Black,” she replied. “At least until noon.”

“Black it is.” I shoved her cup in front of her. My cup hit the table a moment later, and I took the chair directly across from where Hanratty sat. “So what part of town was the car spotted in?”

She pulled a notebook out of a pants pocket and flipped through a few pages. “Maynard and Hughes, according to the first witness. Right by the library building. It popped up across town a little while later, then was spotted heading east and out of
town. Needless to say, by the time anyone thought to call in, it was long gone.”

I blinked and took a sip of coffee I didn’t taste. “The library, huh? Weird.”

“Yup. Especially since you were there yesterday, too.”

Hanratty got one of my best long, slow looks, which didn’t faze her a bit. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, obviously having way too much fun with my discomfort. “It just means that the car was near the library, and you were near the library, and those are two very interesting facts.”

I leaned back in my chair and held the coffee cup in front of me with both hands. “It could mean that the thief is stalking me. Makes sense after what happened the other day.”

She nodded. “That’s one possibility, certainly.”

“I’d be interested in hearing any others you might have thought of.”

“I’m still working that part out.” She shifted in the chair, which groaned in protest. “I’ve got to examine all the possibilities, you know.”

I nodded like I understood what the hell she was talking about. “Of course. That reminds me, I saw Sam Fuller go into the station house after he dropped me off yesterday. He say anything interesting?”

The officer locked her face into a frown and waggled a round finger at me. “That’s none of your business, Mr. Logan.”

I shrugged and slurped down more coffee. It was almost cool enough to drink, but I wasn’t going to give Hanratty the satisfaction of a cough or a choke. “Just curious. I like Sam. He’s given me a couple of rides, and if he had some kind of trouble, I’d want to help out.”

“Sam’s got no trouble,” she rumbled, emphasizing his name just enough to let me see the obvious comparison. “This may surprise you, but in a town like this, occasionally folks are just friends with the police, and like stopping in to say hello sometimes.”

“Oh, come off it,” I sputtered. Hanratty looked up at me, shocked, but I didn’t give a damn how shocked she pretended to be. The cat was clawing its way out of the bag, so I decided to give it a swift kick in the ass. “A town like this and folks like these—who the hell do you think you’re fooling, Hanratty? You sound like you should be wearing a sandwich board for the local tourist bureau except, oh, wait, Maryfield’s too damn small to have one.”