Wide Open (25 page)

Hallie listed them, added a few more. When she couldn’t identify them by name, she described them. Boyd wrote it all down in a neat precise hand. He flipped the page, turned the notebook sideways, and made three quick drawings. He showed them to her. “Like this?” he asked. He’d drawn a stag like a petroglyph, a Celtic knot, and a pentacle.

“Yes.” Hallie traced the lines with her finger.

Boyd nodded. “I see these in my dreams. The same symbols. I looked them up. Not just these, but the other ones, too. They represent power or magic in different cultures.”

He flipped back to the list, checking symbols off as he spoke. “Lakota. Celtic. Japanese. Germanic. This?” He tapped the page. “It’s some kind of Finnish weather god. Uku or Ukko.”

“Seriously?” Blood and power and weather. “So the blood binds it together? The different powers or magics?” Magic. Crazy. But then, so were ghosts and invisible tattoos, lightning bolts without storms, and fire giants.

“Do you believe in magic?” he asked.

“I—” No. She wanted to say no. But, holy shit, who were they—the girl who saw ghosts and the Boy Cassandra—to deny magic. Then she stared at him because, “Prue asked me that.”

“Who?”

“Prue Stalking Horse,” she said impatiently. “Down at Cleary’s.”

The two of them stared at that little notebook for a moment, like they didn’t know what to do next. Which was actually the truth. What did you do about someone who could make fire and control the weather?

The sound of the phone ringing practically knocked Hallie off her chair. Not because it was so loud, but because it was unexpected. She’d forgotten she was sitting in the kitchen at all.

Boyd reached behind him, like he did it all the time, picked up the handset, and handed it to her.

“Hello?” There was no one on the other end. “Goddamnit,” she said, sick to death of everything, of ghosts and fire and Martin and people who couldn’t be bothered to stay on the line long enough to talk. She got up, slammed the phone back into the cradle. Then she paused, dug out the phone book, and called Cleary’s.

“She’s not here,” a male voice she didn’t recognize told her when she asked for Prue. “She had to leave. Like an emergency or something. Said she wouldn’t be back until it was over one way or another. Whatever that means.”

Hell.

Hallie slammed the phone back into the receiver a second time and crossed to the window.

There were lights everywhere, though it was difficult to see much through the reflection of the overhead fluorescents against the windowpanes. What she could see were lights from the fire truck, from portable spotlights the firefighters had set, from the yard light. People were still coming up the drive and leaving—to see if they could help or to find out what was going on—for most of them, probably both. Hallie was sick of them all, sick of people who helped, who were kind, who were curious, sick of everything.

Dell danced off her right shoulder, cold along her whole right side. She was sick of that, too. Sometimes she thought about when this was finished—and it would be finished—there would be no more Dell, no more ghost, no more reminders.

But there would be justice. There would be an end.

That would have to do.

27

Hallie turned away from the window to find that Boyd had gotten up and left the room. She found him in the dining room, looking at the pictures on the wall again. She put her hand on his back. His shoulder blade twitched underneath her hand, but he didn’t look at her.

“Did you ever see a mountain lion?” he asked her. “I saw one in Nebraska a couple of years ago. Not even where you’d expect—it was south of Omaha in this wildlife area just off the interstate. Practically in the city. It was early morning—cold, clear. I don’t know. I just—I thought it was a dream, after.” He looked at her. Her hand tightened on his shirt. Dell was on his left, staring directly at him, like this one time she could actually see him.

“They say—” Boyd turned and reached a hand toward her face, then stopped. “—that if you hear a cougar’s cry, that it’s a harbinger of death.”

But I already died,
Hallie wanted to say.

He took a breath and rubbed his hand across his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, you should—” Dell was still looking at him, and Hallie found herself staring at Dell staring at Boyd. Maybe it was a trick of light. Or the angle that made it look like Dell was watching him so intently.
Talk to me,
she thought. And wasn’t sure whether she meant Dell’s ghost or Boyd.

“Goddamnit,” he said. “I don’t know how to do this.”

The sharp sound of the dog barking from upstairs alerted Hallie to the crunch of heavy tires on gravel. More neighbors, she figured. “Look—,” she began, then stopped because she couldn’t figure out what to say; nothing in her experience so far had prepared her for Boyd. She wanted to say,
sleep with me
or
thanks for helping
or
go away, don’t come back, leave me alone.

Maybe all of them at once.

Instead she just said, “Shit.” And went back into the kitchen to dig out a thermos and fill it with coffee for the firefighters outside.

She walked outside a few minutes later with Boyd behind her and the ghosts behind him. There were three vehicles sitting in the yard—two pickup trucks and a black Suburban with tinted windows and a license plate that read
UKUONE
.

Martin
.

She didn’t spot him immediately, which was just as well—laser beams straight out her eyes would have killed him dead.

Boyd grabbed her arm. “Don’t—”

She shook off his hand and headed toward the burned-out barn, didn’t even realize the moment she started running. The ghosts were right with her as she rounded the corner and saw Martin talking to Tom Hauser with Pete a few paces away, kicking at a pile of burned rubble.

“What the
hell
are you doing here?” Hallie said as she came even with them. “You’re not—” She couldn’t maintain it, more civil than he deserved. “Get the hell out.”

Martin’s voice was as smooth and calm as ever, though his eyes glittered behind his glasses. “I’m so sorry,” he began.

“Get. Out.” Her hand was actually shaking, too much anger with no way to release it. She clenched it into a fist. Pete saw it and moved closer.
Oh yeah,
she thought,
push me.

Martin ignored her and spoke to Tom, like she was just … upset. Or crazy. “Terrible thing,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do…” He looked at Hallie, looked back at Tom. “Anything at all.” He spread his hands, like nothing would be too much—future of the community, neighbors helping neighbors.

Jesus
.

The ghosts surrounded Hallie in a rough half circle, like armor, like a shield. She welcomed them, welcomed the cold, wanted to reach out and embrace them, what they meant and what they told her. She stepped forward. Martin took a quick step back, frowned at her as if she’d surprised him. “Did you suddenly become hard of hearing?” she asked. “Leave.”

Boyd reached them then, and Hallie thought if he stepped in front of her, tried to “protect” her, she would hit him, too. “Hallie—,” he said.

Martin stopped him. “No, it’s all right. Everyone’s upset.” He looked at Hallie. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“No, you damn well won’t,” Hallie said. “Never set foot on my property again.”

Martin took a step toward her. If he touched her, she was going to flatten him. He stopped, looked at her intently, like there was something about her he hadn’t expected. His face hardened. She could see it in his eyes, dark and shadowed. He was through playing games.

The ghosts maintained their circle around her. She saw Martin through a haze of mist and cold, but she could read him fine, could read the threat in his sharp features and hard eyes.

He reached out his hand, but jerked it back as if he’d been scalded when he seemed to brush against one of the ghosts. He took two quick steps backwards. His voice had an edge that hadn’t been there a moment ago, as if he was now, finally, irritated. “You be careful, Hallie,” he said.

And that, she understood, was what he’d come to say, to make sure she knew whose fire it was and what he was capable of.

“I am never careful,” she said. “Just so you know.”

He stared at her hard for another moment or two, and she willed him to start something, wanted him to start something so bad, it was like fire burning underneath her breastbone. He took a knotted handkerchief out of his pocket and said something under his breath. He looked at her like he was waiting for something, looked back at the knotted handkerchief in his hand. He frowned.

“Get out,” Hallie said, because enough was enough. He stared for a long moment, as if seeing her for the first time; then he left, like he was just a guy, just stopping by to help, just like everyone else.

“That’s what neighbors do,” Tom said mildly to Hallie once Pete and Martin had disappeared around the corner, followed a dozen feet behind by Boyd. “Offer to help.”

Hallie was still looking in the direction Martin had gone. “I don’t like him.”

Tom’s laugh was low, almost inaudible. “Neither do I.”

That made Hallie look.

Tom shrugged. “I know he’s popular and he’s done a lot of good things for the county. Helped out the Sigurdsons a couple of years back, before he’d even moved back here, when they almost lost the ranch and Aggie Donner over to Templeton when that car of hers burned. And my wife says he listens to people, like he’s really listening, not just pretending to because he read in a book somewhere that’s how you get ahead. But the thing is, he never gets his hands dirty. It’s all money or sending someone to help or buying something, and … yeah, maybe it’s not right, but I’m a hands-on kind of guy.” He looked down at his soot-coated hands and laughed again.

Hallie rubbed a hand along the back of her neck. Martin was so confident, she thought, that she wouldn’t, couldn’t, had no way to touch him. And yet, if there was nothing she could do, would he have burned the tractor shed? Would he have killed Dell? She didn’t think so.

“Hey, you want some coffee?” she asked Tom, holding up the thermos.

“Nah,” Tom said. “Got a thermos and some sandwiches in the truck. But Hack wanted me to tell you that the arson investigator’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. So, if you can hold off on any cleanup. In fact,” he added, “if you can wait for the heavy lifting, Jake and I’ll bring the big truck out. Haul the poles and all that sheet metal out of here.”

“Sure,” Hallie said. “My dad would appreciate that.” Because she’d be gone by then, back in Afghanistan. No matter what, that moment was fixed. She had to remember that. Even with her father in the hospital. Even with the barn burned.

“None of us think your daddy did it,” Tom said as Hallie turned to go.

“What?”

“No one thinks your daddy set that fire himself. For the insurance or anything. I’ve known Vance a lot of years. He wouldn’t do that.”

Hallie wasn’t sure what to say.
Thanks for not thinking my father is a criminal?
“Okay,” she finally said. Then added, “Thanks for doing this. I mean, I know you volunteer and all, but I—we—appreciate it. Really. Staying all night and all. It’s … thanks.”

Tom put his big hand on her arm. “That’s the way it is,” he said simply. Then he winked at her. “If you ever come back for good, you know, we can always use new blood.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hallie said. Maybe her ghosts could freeze the fire to death, she thought.

28

Hallie came back around the smoky remains of the barn to find Boyd talking to Jake Javinovich. Unidentified Ghost Number Four floated just off Jake’s left shoulder. “So I came out to get the keys from Tom,” Jake was saying.

He acknowledged Hallie as she came up beside them. “Because Tom’s out here, and that means I’ll have to open the garage tomorrow,” he said. Like she’d need an explanation. “Anyway, I gotta go. It’s getting late, and I bet you’re wishing I’d just get out of here already, you know?” He lifted his hand and dropped it, nervous and trying not to be.

The ghost drifted after Jake as he left, drifted back to Hallie, then drifted away again. Jake met Tom halfway up from the barn, they talked for a few minutes, then Jake left, crossing the grass like he had someplace important to be and he was already late. The ghost drifted, alone, halfway up the rise, like it couldn’t decide where it wanted to be.

“You gotta understand about Jake,” Tom said as he approached Hallie and Boyd. “He hasn’t been the same since Jesse.”

“Who?” Hallie asked.

“Jesse Luponi?” Tom made it a question. “His fiancée. Or … not quite, I guess. She disappeared, hell, I guess it’d be about three and a half years ago now. Jake says it was the day before he was going to ask her to marry him. They thought it was him, of course, at the time. Threw him in jail for two weeks, but they had to let him out because they didn’t have any evidence, and no one really knows what happened to her anyway. He got in a bad car wreck soon after. Hasn’t been the same since.

“He was—” Tom watched Jake climb into his car, an old Lincoln. “—he was sharp before, ambitious, going places. Now—” He shrugged. “—nobody’ll give him a job but me. But he’s okay, you know. He’s all right.” Like Jake was his responsibility, and he didn’t want anyone to hurt him or be hurt by him.

“Let me get this straight,” Hallie said. “Jesse Luponi disappeared three and a half years ago and Sarah Hale disappeared just this year and no one thought anything about it? No one noticed?”

Tom frowned. “Now, Sarah Hale, she wasn’t from here,” he said.

“She
disappeared
here,” Hallie said. She’d include Karen Olsen in her list, too, except there wasn’t any reason anyone would know about her. Except Boyd. And what had he done? When it was all talked out and gone over, what had he really done?

She did not have time for this shit, for people to play games with her.

Tom looked at Boyd. When Boyd didn’t say anything, Tom said, “I don’t think it’s a question of no one did anything. This guy here”—he jerked a thumb at Boyd—“he was asking questions all over the county. Didn’t turn up anything, though, did you?” he directed the question at Boyd.