Carla Neggers: The Mist

The wind gusted and howled over the exposed hills and rocks, bringing with it a fresh rush of rain.

She shivered. Maybe that was all it was-a last gasp from the storm.

She heard a sound behind her and turned sharply. Across from her, a slender woman entered the ancient circle, her long, blond hair whipping in the wind. She wore an oversize Irish fisherman’s sweater that hung almost to her knees and, Lizzie suspected, belonged to Simon Cahill, because this had to be Keira Sullivan.

She slowed as she approached the low axis stone.

“It’s okay-I’m a friend,” Lizzie said quickly, not wanting to startle her. Maybe friend was a stretch, but she could explain later. “I know Simon. Simon Cahill. You’re Keira, aren’t you?”

The other woman’s eyes narrowed, her skin pale in the soft gray light. “I walked up here from my cottage. I came across the pasture-I’ve been restless. I was down at the old copper mines today and tried to blame the ghosts there, and the gale.” She frowned without any obvious fear or panic. “What was that?”

Lizzie had heard it, too-rustling sounds toward the cluster of trees on the hillside. It wasn’t the storm. Someone else was out there.

“It’s not ghosts or the gale,” she said, letting her backpack slip farther down her arm, ready to drop it and run, use it as a weapon-a shield. “We have to go.”

Black clouds surged down the mountains. Rain, hissing and cold, pelted Lizzie’s jacket and her bare head, soaked Keira’s hair and wool sweater. But Keira didn’t seem to notice the suddenly worsening conditions. “Who do you think is out there?”

“I don’t know.” Lizzie noticed the cow break into a run away from the trees. “We should hurry.”

Keira pointed in the same direction. “There.”

Lizzie had no time to answer. A man-compact, wearing a black ski cap-burst out into the open and charged through the gap in the circle.

“He’s after you,” Lizzie said. “Run, Keira. Run!”

“I can’t leave you-”

“I can fight. Go. Please.”

The man lunged for Keira, but she darted away from him, diving behind one of the standing stones.

He swore and pivoted after her. He had an assault knife in his right hand. Lizzie leaped into his path and swung her backpack hard against the knife blade, using her own momentum to add force to the blow. With a grunt of surprise, he lost his balance and stumbled backward over a protruding rock. Before he could regain his footing, she hit his knife again with her pack, following up with a sharp, low side kick to his left knee.

He yelped in pain and dropped the knife. Lizzie knew she had to press her advantage and quickly got in another low kick, scraping her foot down his shin. She stomped on his instep, not thinking, relying on her instincts and training. She’d practiced these moves a thousand times.

The attacker went down onto his back, writhing in the mud, manure and wet grass. Lizzie snatched up his knife before he could get to it and dropped onto her knees, putting the blade to his throat as he rolled onto his side and tried to get up.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said, “and don’t move.”

He complied immediately, his breathing shallow, as if he were afraid she’d cut him with the knife if he gulped or panted. One side of his face was pressed into the mud.

Lizzie turned the edge of the blade so that he could feel it against the thin skin over his carotid artery. “Do as I say or you’re dead. Do you understand?”

“Aye. I understand.”

He spoke with an Irish accent. A local hire, maybe. He could be faking the accent. Lizzie could manage a decent Irish brogue herself, and she was born in Boston. He was in his early to mid-thirties, with a jagged scar along his outer jaw that looked as if he’d earned it in a previous knife fight gone bad.

“You’ve broken my damn knee,” he said.

“I doubt that.”

Despite his pain, he spoke without fear, as if he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d get his knife back and complete his assignment.

Kill Keira Sullivan.

Lizzie had never killed anyone herself and hoped she never had to, but she knew how to do it. Her father had seen to that.

“I’ll check him for more weapons,” Keira said.

Lizzie nodded, breathing hard.

Keira knelt in the muck and patted the man down from head to toe with a steadiness and efficiency that didn’t surprise Lizzie. Keira’s uncle was a homicide detective in Boston, and Keira herself had stood up to a killer in June.

She produced another assault knife in her search but no other weapons.

Lizzie controlled her reaction even as her thoughts raced. Norman wasn’t waiting. He was acting now. Had he specified what he wanted done to the woman Simon loved? How he wanted her killed?

Undoubtedly, Lizzie thought. Norman would relish such details and control.

Was he going after Simon in Boston? John March?

Who else?

She maintained her grip on the knife. “The man who hired you isn’t just after Keira. Who’s next?”

He hardly breathed. “I don’t know anything.”

“My friend, you need to be straight with me.” She paused before asking again, “Who’s next?”

He tried to swallow against the sharp edge of the knife. “It doesn’t matter. You’re too late. I can’t stop what’s going to happen. Neither can you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He carefully spat bits of grass and dirt from his mouth. “Go to hell. I’ll not answer a single question you put to me.”

He was calling her bluff. Lizzie didn’t know if she should cut him-if it would do any good in getting him to talk.

She heard a dog growl just outside the stone circle, a low, fierce sound that wasn’t from Eddie’s springer spaniel.

With her would-be attacker’s spare knife in one hand, Keira stood back as a large black dog bounded into the circle and onto the prostrate axis stone next to her, directly in the Irishman’s line of sight. He nervously eyed the hound. A knife to the throat didn’t impress him, but a snarling black dog appearing out of nowhere obviously did.

Keira addressed the thug calmly. “Tell this woman what she wants to know. It’ll ease the dog. He senses the danger you pose to us.”

The man licked his lips. “I don’t like dogs.”

“Then answer me,” Lizzie said. “Who’s next?”

He hesitated a half beat. “The daughter of the FBI director.”

“Abigail,” Keira breathed, her blue eyes steady but filled with fear as she looked at Lizzie. “Abigail Browning. She’s a homicide detective in Boston.”

Lizzie knew all about Abigail Browning, John March’s widowed daughter, but kept her attention focused on the Irishman. “What’s the plan?” The rain had subsided to a misting drizzle, but she could feel mud and water soaking into her hiking pants. “Tell me.”

“I can’t. I’ll be killed.”

The dog gave a menacing growl and leaned forward on the ancient stone, lowering his head as if at any moment he might pounce on the man below.

“There’s a bomb,” the Irishman whispered, shutting his eyes, then quickly opening them again. He obviously didn’t dare lose sight of the black dog.

“Where?” Lizzie asked.

“Back porch.”

“It’s a triple-decker. Whose back porch?”

Keira gasped, but Lizzie couldn’t take the time to explain how she knew that Abigail Browning lived on the first-floor of a Jamaica Plain triple-decker she co-owned with two other Boston Police Department detectives, including Bob O’Reilly, Keira’s uncle.

Their attacker didn’t answer.

“Tell me now,” Lizzie said.

The dog bared his teeth, thick white drool dripping from the sides of his mouth, and the Irishman responded with a visceral shudder.