More Than Magic (27 page)

Jamie nodded.

“Do
not
stop for anyone else, Jamie Lynn. Not the Taggarts or
anyone
. Go into the woods if you have to. Just go down to the Carters and get the sheriff,” Grace repeated, her voice firm and steady. “If it starts snowing hard, get off your bike if you have to and keep walking. It’s not far beyond your house. You can make it.”

Jamie nodded again vigorously. “What’re you gonna do Dr. Grace?”

“I’m going to take my truck and go get Mr. Nick and bring him home. And I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s all a misunderstanding. He’ll be fine.”

“Well, if my notebook caused it, you tell ’em I’m sorry. I told Mr. Nick that Mitch took—that I
thought
Mitch took it. He was real interested in that, I’m telling ya.”

“What does your notebook—” Grace stood up. “Never mind, it’s not important now. Just go, okay? And be more careful than you’ve ever been in your whole life.”

“Yes ma’am. You be careful too, please?”

“I will, sweetie.”

Grace watched Jamie run toward the house, and signaled Pooka to go with her.

“Pooka, go with Jamie. Now!” He circled for a bit and whined, but when she pointed again, he went. She didn’t need a protective hound to worry about in addition to Nick and everyone else on the mountain.

Looking down at Nick’s handkerchief still clenched in her hand, she gazed back up toward the ridge, then tucked it in the inside pocket of her jacket over her heart.

Everything she ever believed about the Taggarts was naïve and stupid. But if anything she had sensed in that room this morning was real then Nick was in real danger from one or all of them.

The first heavy wet snowflakes started to fall as she took off for the garage.

Mitch Taggart was proving to be as stubborn as he was dense. Twice Nick had tried to use the cover of slipping and falling to surreptitiously get to his gun, and twice Mitch had threatened to shoot him just for falling down.
 

The second time, Nick had faked an injury trying to get Mitch close enough for hand-to-hand, but the kid wouldn’t fall for it.

Mitch seemed to know the precarious position he was in, trying to handle someone alone using a shotgun. They don’t leave your hands free.

That was the reason Mitch hadn’t tried to search him yet, which was a good thing since he still had his gun and his sat phone. But the kid was so scared, Nick was afraid he might get shot by accident before they got wherever they were going.

Nick’s hands were freezing and his shoulders had cramped by the time he caught a glimpse of the old Victorian through the trees, but every time he attempted to lower his arms or shrug, Mitch made warning noises. The first flakes of snow started falling, wet and heavy, as they approached the clearing.

“What the hell are you doing, you dumb son of a bitch?” It was Boyd Taggart, stalking toward them from out of the woods to the left.

“That’s what I keep asking him,” Nick said. “I think this is all a misunderstanding of some kind.”

“It ain’t. I caught him looking at our trash real close. You said nobody should see it, so I brung him.”

“Where the hell?” Boyd barked.

“Your trash? That’s
your
trash? I thought someone else was dumping it on the property and you were just cleaning up,” Nick hoped Boyd would grab the line that Mitch had missed. Time enough later to determine whose trash it was, when there were no guns being waved at him. “Can I put my hands down now? My shoulders are killing—”

“SHUT UP!” Boyd yelled at Nick, then he spun on Mitch. “Where the hell’ve you been putting the trash? We told you to put it over in the Pisgah.”

Mitch looked downcast. “I got tired of going way over there. I’m tired of lugging trash all over the place. I wanna use the GPS and do the stuff Evan gets to do.”

Nick sighed and flexed his fingers, trying to keep the feeling in them. Well, that tactic didn’t work. He was still trying to figure out who was the brains of this outfit. Maybe it was this Evan Veatch. Mitch was definitely the mule.

“Where’s the other shotgun?”

Oh good,
another
shotgun. Nick tried not to think about what kind of shot they had in those things, if they were bringing down bears.

“In the house. You brung it down from the lab before Evan—”

“What
else
you told him?” Boyd advanced on Mitch, who back-pedaled, the gun swinging away for a moment.

Nick took a step away from them, lowering his hands a fraction.

Boyd grabbed the gun from his brother and aimed it very steadily at Nick’s chest.

“I knew you’d be the one who’d fuck this up, you stupid shit-for-brains retard!” he yelled, keeping his eyes on Nick the whole time.

“I didn’t fuck up. I brung him,” Mitch said reasonably. “And I’m the one found that notebook in the first place.”

“You shut up too!” Boyd barked at Mitch. “I gotta think.”

Even with the snow coming down heavily now, Nick could see the back of the house and he wondered if there was any chance Old Annie might hear or see what was going on. And what she would do if she did? The phones were out. Not much she
could
do.

But Jamie and Grace were safe, and hopefully they would bring the cavalry. Till then—
 

“This is some kind of joke, right? A practical joke on the city guy who writes about drug dealers? Ha ha, real funny. You guys are a barrel of laughs. If I admit you scared the crap out of me, can I take my hands down now?”

“I told you to
shut the fuck up
!” Boyd yelled.

Nick glanced toward the house.

“What? You think our Memaw’s gonna come flying down them steps and rescue you or somethin’?” Boyd snarled. “That’s a good un.”

“She—” Mitch began.

“I told
you
to shut up too!” Boyd yelled.

“Look, if this is a joke, it’s not funny anymore,” Nick said, making his voice sound shaky.

“Go get that other shotgun and bring it.” Boyd jerked his head toward the house.
 

Damn. Boyd wasn’t buying the joke angle either. He poked the gun in Nick’s direction and motioned with it up the slope to his left. “Move.”

Nick headed back into the woods, almost due north.

Grace hefted her backpack onto her shoulders and took the loaded shotgun out of its rack, checked again to be sure she had chambered a round, then slung it over her shoulder. She tried hard not to think of anything but the next step. If she did more than that, her brain would create all kinds of worst case scenarios and she would freeze up and forget what she was doing. She had almost forgotten the survival pack and had worn her usual bright colored hat and scarf as well, without even thinking about how visible she would be in them. But the hood of her jacket would cover up the hat, and she could tuck in the scarf.

Locking the truck usually seemed pretty silly this far up the mountain, but not today. She pocketed the keys, then looked down the road. The snow was starting to stick and, from the look of things, this was going to be one hell of a storm. Jamie would get to the Carters soon and help would be on the way.
 

But probably not fast enough.

Pulling up her hood, she struck out north, parallel to the ridge. She’d wanted to just drive into the hollow and walk up to the house and demand to know what was going on. But she had thought better of it, and decided to approach through the woods on the northwest side, just to see what was what.

The Taggarts might be drug dealers and creeps, but they weren’t murderers.
Just like you told Jamie, Nick will be fine.

It was a comforting thought. But other things kept trying to crowd into her head.

How could the Taggarts have hidden a drug lab on their mountain? Pops would have known.

“There’s something wrong with our mountain, Gracie-girl.”

Pops
had
known. He had tried to tell her.

She had felt it in her bones.
Poison.
And she had heard it.
Off-key and out of tune.
It had slithered through her dreams.
Filthy blackness boiling along the forest floor, devouring everything in its path.

Threatening everything, everyone she loved.

She blinked back tears, pulling her scarf up over her nose and tugging her hood further down against the cold air. If they had touched Pops—

No. They weren’t murderers.
Nick will be fine.

She’d been so wrapped up in trying to understand her gift scientifically—trying to analyze it—that she hadn’t been listening with her heart, listening with that part of her that could hear what the dreams were telling her. There was poison on the mountain. It was so obvious now. Grace could see the clearing off to her right. There was no activity in front of the house, so she kept her course right along the edge, up in the trees. The heavy clouds had turned the afternoon into a dim dusk and the trees gave her enough cover, especially in her dark gray jacket. Even with the snow, in the shadows no one would see her unless she wanted to be seen.

When she got close enough to the house, she hunkered down, carefully cradling the shotgun and listened. The whole hollow seemed unnaturally quiet. She could hear the snow hissing down. Then, off to the north, she heard voices. Muffled by the snowfall, but clearly people were arguing up there. Careful not to be seen by anyone who might still be in the house or trailer, she headed in that direction, staying far up in the tree line.

It was Mitch, walking backward with a cardboard box in front of—Old Annie? She peered through the falling snow in disbelief.

The tiny figure bundled up in a puffy coat and hood could have been a child, but she wore orthopedic shoes and walked with a cane. Annie hadn’t used a cane in a long while, at least not in Grace’s presence. She’d insisted she couldn’t get two steps without her walker, and staggered around the kitchen to prove how unsteady she was these days.

Here was the proof of what Grace had sensed back at the house, Annie stalking along in Mitch’s wake, in the snow, with a cane, looking as strong and spry as could be. From this distance, Grace couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Annie was giving Mitch an earful, shaking her cane for emphasis.

Grace frowned. Before, she might have thought that Annie would be the one to talk sense into the boys, stop all this before it escalated into something they couldn’t control. But not now. She couldn’t trust Annie or anyone else at this point.

Except the mountain.

A noise to her left, deep in the forest further up on the ridge, froze her in her tracks. When she looked around, there was the slightest suggestion of a shape, black-tipped gold against the rime-coated gray of the rocks, tail flicking, then it was gone.

Grace didn’t move or breathe for a long moment. When she thought the big cat had moved on, she looked back down. There was no more arguing going on. Mitch was walking slowly by his grandmother’s side, thoroughly chastened. And when Old Annie looked back at the house, Grace spotted the shotgun she was carrying cradled in her other arm.

Taking one last look up where the big cat had appeared, Grace worked her way further up the ridge to get around Old Annie and Mitch without attracting their attention.

The snow was falling furiously now and there was so much moisture in the air that fog had formed. Nick couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, if he could have, in fact, moved his hands in front of his face. He had managed to lower his arms an inch at a time to keep them from going numb. Now he was clenching and unclenching his hands and fingers, trying to keep them flexible. When he had attempted to move his shoulders and neck around to stop the agony in those muscles, Boyd gave a warning, so he stopped.

But now he couldn’t see where they were going at all. There could be a damn drop off into oblivion for all he knew. And hell, if
that
was the way they planned to get rid of him, he intended to take Boyd and his shotgun down with him.

Staggering to a halt, he waited for the barrel of the shotgun to poke at him again.

“Move!” Boyd shouted. Predictably, the shotgun prodded Nick’s ribs.

Nick’s answer was to drop his hands and not move another step, rubbing furiously at his wrists and fingers.
 

“Hey!” Boyd jumped around in front of him, slipping a bit on the snow. “What’re you doing?”

“I can’t keep them up there any longer. Go ahead and shoot me. You’re going to anyway.”

Nick watched as Boyd looked anxiously back the way they had come.

Boyd wasn’t going to shoot him…yet. Boyd was waiting for the boss. Evan?

“Too bad Old Annie doesn’t feel the same way about poaching as she does about doing drugs.”

“Them as take them evil drugs deserve what they get. It’s like a plague on the earth sent by the Almighty to strike down those who ain’t righteous.”

No. Evan was just another mule like poor Mitch.

Feeble old Annie was the brains. And he would bet that she wasn’t as feeble as she put on. It all fit. Annie was the reason the boys didn’t take drugs. Annie was the reason they sold drugs to the addicts in the big city. He could picture her cackling over making money off the sinners. He would bet she thought up this whole operation, and she was lucky that these two managed to cook the meth without blowing themselves up, much less—