Jenna Ryan - Night of the Raven

“She put a jar of them in my bed,” Amara said before McVey could ask. “Well, I say she, but Yolanda only had the idea. Jake and Larry collected and planted them.”

“In your bed.”

“Under the covers, at the bottom. She told them to leave the top off so the spiders could crawl around wherever. The things were big. I freaked and refused to sleep in that particular room again.”

McVey tugged on a strand of hair to tilt her head back. “Did you tell your grandmother?”

“No need.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“Because all three of them, Jake most particularly, are terrified of snakes.” She swept an arm around the room. “Is the fighting done?”

“For now.” He nodded at a row of dull brass taps that glowed an eerie shade of red under lights that continued to surge and fade. “Do you want a drink before we leave?”

“Poison is a witch’s weapon, McVey, and Yolanda’s a Bellam. But thanks for the offer.”

“Festival slipped your mind, didn’t it?”

She ran her hands up and down her arms. “Unfortunately. The prospect of eminent death must have pushed it out. I’ve only ever been to one Night celebration myself. If it’s of any interest to you—and it should be—the Hollow’s Night of the Raven isn’t quite as civilized as the Cove’s Ravenspell.”

“Translation, Tyler Blume deliberately planned his honeymoon so he’d miss it.”

“If you’ve met him, you know he did. On the other hand, Jake should be in his element.” She glanced up when the lights winked off. “Uh...” Then back on. “Okay, my nerves are getting a way bigger workout than they need.”

She heard a familiar double beep beneath wailing Tim McGraw. As she hunted in her shoulder bag for her phone, she saw McVey pluck a mug of beer from a much larger man’s hand.

“You’re over your limit, Samson. Unless you want to join your buddies in jail, go home.”

The man’s face reddened. “Gonna get my wife to put a pox on you, you don’t give that back, McVey.”

“Do it, and I’ll get Red here to put one on you.”

“My wife’s got an aunt who’s a Bellam.” The man jerked his stubbly chin. “What’s she got?”

Staring at her iPhone, Amara felt her brain go cold. What she had was a text message from a man who’d sworn he would only contact her in an emergency.

“Beat it, Samson.”

Giving the mug to the bartender, McVey turned her hand with the iPhone and read the name on the screen. A name Amara’s terrified mind didn’t want to see or to acknowledge. Willy Sparks.

* * *

SHE PACED THE back office of the Raven’s Hollow police station like a caged tiger, dialing and redialing her cell. At the front desk Jake muttered about the Harden brothers being allowed to go home while he had to ride herd on a bunch of drunks in a town that wasn’t his and didn’t even supply its officers with a decent coffeemaker.

On his side of things, McVey was seriously wishing he’d never made any kind of deathbed promise to his father. Raising his eyes, he watched Amara pace. Okay, maybe not so much wishing as wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with this mess.

“Come on, McVey, give me one good reason why I can’t haul these boozers to the Cove. Cells there are way more comfortable than here.”

McVey scrolled through a list of New Orleans police officers. “Paperwork, Jake. Triple the usual amount if we start shuffling prisoners around. And you’ll be doing every last bit of it.”

The deputy gave his rifle a resentful pump. “I could get me a job in Bangor, you know.”

“Any time you want that to happen...” A raven-shaped wall clock told McVey he’d been on his iPhone for more than forty minutes. Out of patience, he took a procedural shortcut to a friend of a friend on the New Orleans force. “Samson’s texted me three times since we left the Red Eye,” he said absently. “Wants me to pay for the beer he didn’t get to drink.”

Amara kept pacing. “Sounds as though Samson’s spent some time around Uncle Lazarus.... There’s still no answer at the lieutenant’s apartment, McVey. I’ve tried his BlackBerry and his landline a dozen times each.”

McVey flicked her a look but said nothing. Didn’t need to; she knew the score as well as he did.

It took the better part of an hour to connect with someone in a position of sufficient authority to have Michaels’s apartment checked out. Another hour and a blistering headache later, the captain from the lieutenant’s parish contacted him personally.

“Michaels is dead.” The man’s tone was lifeless, a condition McVey understood all too well. “Officers found him on his back, staring at the ceiling. He had both hands clamped around his BlackBerry.”

“Cause of death?”

“Given the situation, I’d go with some kind of off-the-radar toxin that simulates a stroke. Forensic team’s scouring the apartment as we speak. I’ll let you know what they turn up.”

Amara rubbed her forehead with her own phone after the captain signed off. “Michaels is dead because he helped me get out of New Orleans. This is my fault.”

Figuring sympathy wasn’t the way to go here, McVey countered with a bland, “You know that’s a load of bull, right? And if we all just went with it, Willy Sparks would go on killing cops and civilians ad infinitum.”

She shot him a vexed look. “Thanks for the shoulder.”

“You don’t want a shoulder, Amara. You want to pound your fists. If I tell you it’s not your fault, you’ll get angry and say it should’ve been you, because that’s who Jimmy Sparks was gunning for.”

“He was. He is. And as emotional releases go, angry words are better than furious fists.”

“Not always. Back on point, what if Sparks’s nephew, godson, second cousin—whatever—had killed you instead of Michaels. Then what? True, he’d get paid, maybe bask on a tropical island for a while, but what he’d really be doing is waiting for Uncle Jimmy to crook his finger again and point it at a new target. The way things stand, this job’s not done. In fact, it’s a good bet Willy Sparks is either en route to or has already arrived in whatever Raven town the lieutenant entered into his BlackBerry.”

Amara frowned at her cell, then at him. “He said he buried the destination and phone number.”

“There’s buried, and there’s buried, Red. The phone wasn’t taken, therefore there was no need to take it.”

“As in the killer got what he wanted from it before he left.” She closed her eyes. “My ex is a geek. He could hack into just about any device.”

“Geeks can murder as effectively as anyone, Amara.”

“So it seems.” She looked around the office. “I need to leave before he gets here.”

McVey regarded his iPhone screen, shook his head and pushed off from the windowsill where he’d been leaning. “You’re not getting this, are you? Skip past the beating-yourself-up part, Amara, and think.”

“I’m not beating myself...well, yes, I am, but that’s because I feel responsible.”

“Did you kill him?”

“You’re joking, right? I’m a doctor, McVey. Psychology doesn’t work on me.”

“Fine. Here’s the reality. You leave town, Willy arrives. He’s pissed off to start with. Then he stops and thinks. And being a pro, sees a golden opportunity to draw you back.”

“By hurting members of my family.”

“Wouldn’t you, in his position?”

“Let me think. Uh—no.”

“Put your mind in his. We’re talking about a killer here.” When she didn’t respond, McVey held his arms out to the sides. “Look, if it’ll help get you past the guilt and make you see reason, you’re welcome to take your best physical shot. All I want in return is a handful of Tylenols, a couple hours of sleep and no argument from you about where you’ll be spending the night. You have two options. Come with me to your grandmother’s place or hang with Jake on a cot in the back room.”