LITMIR.BIZ

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the roof. While Jasmine continued tossing God knew what into a case for the night, he zeroed in on her ex-husband’s location as it related to the message she’d received. … Rather, he would have if she hadn’t emerged from the bedroom pulling a large suitcase and carrying a second overstuffed bag.

       His eyes rose to her face. “You’re joking, right? I said pack for a night, not a month.”

       “Promises, promises.” She handed him the carryall, swung her trench coat on and shouldered her purse and laptop. “Any more than three nights, and I’ll have to call Gunther to water the plants.”

       Amusement warred with exasperation. “You get a death threat, and you’re worried about your plants?”

       “My mother’s plants.” She dug out her iPhone and pressed the screen. “Very old and in some cases very rare. Gunther’s a good friend, and…” She regarded the screen. “This is the third time I’ve tried Daniel’s number. He’s not answering.”

       Rogan made a motion that had Boris trotting to the side door. “A college-educated man, still technically within the confines of the witness protection program, gave you his number?”

       She smiled at his tone. “Daniel’s not a complete ass. He used a cell to call me. I imagine he has several and ditches them as he sees fit. Still—” she dropped her phone into her purse “—he must have known I’d call back. He was trying to tell me something when we were cut off.”

       “So you said.”

       She caught his arm while he tucked a gun into the back of his waistband. “We have to make sure he’s all right.”

       “I know.”

       “You do?”

       A smile crossed his lips as he scoped out what was visible—not much—beyond the front window. “If I didn’t know both of us better, I’d be offended by that.”

       “Do you have a contact in Raven’s Cove?”

       “Not yet. But give me a few hours and a break in the storm and I will.”

       He felt the visual dagger she aimed at his back. “I’ve met that diabolical mind of yours enough times to know who it is you trust and therefore who that so-called contact will be. We’re heading north, aren’t we?”

       He couldn’t resist. Turning his head, he brushed a kiss across her cheek, then let his lips stray to her ear. “North to Raven’s Cove, love. Into the heart of a three-hundred-year-old legend.”

      * * *

      A POSSIBLY NOT-DEAD CRIME lord, a phone call from Daniel, another from a potential killer, a death threat, a black feather and now a remote New England town complete with a legend. Why not? Jasmine wondered as they crossed the border from Massachusetts into New Hampshire. It wasn’t as if she’d had any plans for the weekend.

       They were traveling in a fully equipped Ford F-350 truck. Rogan drove it with ease and seemed unfazed by the extreme weather that encompassed the whole eastern seaboard.

       “We’ll be in Raven’s Cove in a few hours, right?”

       “Give or take.” He reached out to turn down the volume on AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “The town’s on a tricky point of land north of Portland and well off 95. Well off any of the state highways, for that matter.”

       “So basically, right off the map. We’re talking paved roads here, I hope.”

       “In the town proper.”

       “Meaning you’ve either been there or you’ve done your homework. Oh, sorry, I mean research, because you don’t actually have a home, do you? Captain Ballard called you a rogue cop with links but no ties to anyone or anything, just an uncanny sense of when and where you need to be.”

       She saw the beginnings of a grin in profile. “You want to know why I was in your condo tonight.”

       “Why, how long, how you got in—though that one I can guess—who sent you and any other details you think might be pertinent to the fact that I’m sitting in your truck en route to a town where both a three-hundred-year-old legend and, apparently, Daniel live.”

       His features remained inscrutable. “My uncanny cop sense tells me you’re pissed off about pretty much all those things.”

       She regarded Boris, comfortably settled on the seat behind them. “Whether Wainwright’s dead or not, Rogan, Daniel gave his testimony. Threatening me won’t change what went down afterward.”

       “I agree. Is there anyone else you can think of, besides Wainwright, who might want you dead?”

       “Not unless one of the artifacts I’ve acquired has a curse from a vindictive witch attached to it.”

       “I think we can safely rule that one out.”

       “I don’t know.” She rocked her head from side to side to alleviate the tension knots. “A few of the witches I’ve heard about uttered some pretty nasty things before they passed on. For instance, one of them was caged and left hanging in the woods to die of thirst and/or exposure. When everyone was sure she was gone, the town magistrates had her buried, cage and all. Two nights later, the cage was back hanging from the tree. The following day, the man who’d buried her fell into a grave he’d just finished digging and broke his neck.”

       “Let me guess. No one wanted to touch the witch’s cage and/or her remains again.”

       “You’re making fun of the story, but within a month, all three of her accusers choked on their tongues while they slept.”

       “Sounds more like poetic justice than a curse.”

       The amusement that rose felt good. A little out of place, but good. “Okay, we’re way off topic, so last word on this particular witch. The inquisitor who’d passed sentence on her had a fatal accident exactly one month to the day after the so-called trial ended. His horse threw him into a ravine. He landed faceup, eyes open, staring at the bottom of her cage.”

       “Or more likely his wife pushed him into the ravine after someone let it slip that he’d been—let’s keep it polite and say he’d been having an affair with said witch, whom he probably offed because she threatened to have a chat with his wife if he didn’t set her up in the seventeenth-century version of a Salem penthouse.”

       “Cynic,” she returned on a laugh. “I should have known you’d reduce a perfectly good story to a case of sexual spite. I don’t suppose you could do the same thing with that feather I got. …” She moved a doubtful hand between him and the dash where the feather sat, saw the expression on his face and gave her fingers a resigned flick. “Nope, guess not. The feather’s real, and for reasons as yet unknown, so is the threat.”

       Superbright headlights came toward them, the first they’d seen in thirty minutes. “The caller wants me to suffer the way he did before he died. Any way I look at it, the name that best fits that threat is Wainwright’s. He went to prison, he escaped, he crashed, he died. Allegedly.”

       “Seven other people have been murdered since the crash.”

       “Did they suffer beforehand?”

       “From what we know, I’d say probably not.”

       “So that honor’s reserved for me.”

       “Brings us back to my question.”

       “Have I pissed anyone off to the point where he or she would want me dead? Answer’s no. Now it’s your turn. Where, when, why, how, what?”

       The grin he shot her disarmed but didn’t deflect. “Maybe I just wanted to see you again. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

       “And maybe my mother will meet Bigfoot, but I doubt it.”

       “Meaning you believe in witches and curses, but not myths and legends.”

      

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