Lake Silence

CHAPTER 57

Grimshaw

Windsday, Sumor 5

Sitting on Julian’s porch, working on his second beer, Grimshaw looked at the nearest cabin. Curtains in the windows; a chair and small table on the porch; the large pots of flowers placed along the walls that bordered the front yard. Vicki’s car was parked on the gravel rectangle that served as a driveway.

He’d eaten dinner at the boardinghouse, mainly to get a look at the new guests. A couple of salesmen who routinely stayed in Sproing to take orders from customers in the area. Two couples who wanted to get away for a few days and chose the village where they could see Sproingers and visit wineries. Nothing about any of those people made him think he needed to take a closer look, so he’d driven over to Julian’s cabin in order to sit back and have a beer—and to check on Vicki DeVine.

“She need any help?” he asked when Julian joined him on the porch.

Julian shook his head. “Yesterday afternoon, Cougar and Conan provided the muscle for setting up the bed and placing the heavier pieces of furniture, and Ineke came over today to help Vicki set up the kitchen and put up curtains, things like that. When I went over after work to see if she needed any help, she sounded shaky, which isn’t surprising, but she said she was okay.”

“I didn’t want to serve that eviction notice. It was bullshit.” Grimshaw took a couple of long swallows of beer. “Got to hand it to the terra indigene, though. They picked up on my warning and got a message to Ilya Sanguinati fast enough for him to arrive at The Jumble by the time Vicki opened the door to that dickhead Yorick Dane and his slimy friends or business partners or whatever they are.”

“You’re letting your ire surface, Wayne.” Julian sipped his beer. Then he sighed. “Truth is, I’m glad she’s out of there.”

“I had the impression that most of the people in the village were glad she had taken over The Jumble, including you.”

“We were all glad to see her doing something with the place. Having The Jumble up and running would be a shot in the arm for all our businesses. I mean, gods, have you seen the public beach on the weekends when everyone is looking to cool off or row out on the lake to fish?”

“I’ve been a little too busy to even think about fishing,” Grimshaw said.

Julian eyed him. “Do you fish?”

“Nope. But I’ve been too busy to even think about it.”

“You should come by some morning. We can walk down to the creek and throw in a couple of lines.”

“Why?”

“To look like we’re doing something in order to do nothing.”

“Ah. Best reason I’ve heard to go fishing.” He spent—or had spent—his workday with his ass planted in the cruiser, so he preferred physical activity during his downtime. In his mind, fishing wasn’t the same as lifting weights, or playing basketball during adults’ night at the school gym.

Did they do that here? Not that he would be around much longer.

Julian snapped upright, tense and alert, a moment before a gust of cold air hit them.

“Crap,” Grimshaw breathed. “I didn’t hear anything in the weather report that said we’d get a blast of air coming out of the north.”

“This isn’t cold air coming from the north,” Julian said quietly. “It’s getting too cold too fast. This isn’t natural. Something’s changed.”

Grimshaw touched the medal under his shirt. Most of the time, weather was just weather. But sometimes it was more—and it was devastating when it struck because there was something guiding it, shaping it. Creating it. “The Elementals?”

Julian nodded. Grimshaw’s mobile phone rang.

“Osgood?” he said, wishing he’d tossed a jacket in the car. “You’re on call tonight.”

“One of the women was attacked.” Osgood’s voice shook. “At The Jumble. They said a hand came out of the bathroom sink and tried to choke her.”

“Did anyone at The Jumble call the EMTs or Dr. Wallace?”

“Don’t think so. One of the men called the station. I’m not sure which one. He was shouting and hung up before I could get any more information.”

“You call Dr. Wallace and the EMTs, then stay at the station as a relay. I’ll head to The Jumble.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julian drained his bottle and picked up the empties. “You’re going to answer a call after having a couple of beers?”

“I’m not sending Osgood out there. Besides, it’s getting dark. I should have been on my way back to the boardinghouse before now.”

“I could make some coffee.”

“You could quit stalling.” He wouldn’t bring the baby cop with him, so why did he expect a man who quit the force years ago to back him up?

Because the man was Julian Farrow.

They stared at each other as the wind that swirled around them carried the sharp, cold bite of winter.

“I told you The Jumble wasn’t a safe place,” Julian said.

“Well, it looks like you were right.”

The EMT vehicle and Dr. Wallace’s car were parked on the side of the road near the entrance to The Jumble, waiting for him. Their unwillingness to answer a call for medical help without police backup confirmed what Julian had said—The Jumble wasn’t a safe place anymore.

The EMTs waited in their vehicle, ready to take someone to Dr. Wallace’s office or to the hospital in Bristol. Dr. Wallace went into the main house, sandwiched between Grimshaw and Julian.

“What took you so long?” Yorick Dane demanded.

“Where is the woman who was injured?” Dr. Wallace asked.

When Dane didn’t reply, Trina finally said, “She’s in the kitchen. I’ll show you.”

Grimshaw did a mental roll call. Vaughn and his wife, Trina. Darren and Pamella. No sign of Hershel and Heidi, but there were two other men in the hall. “Detectives Swinn and Reynolds.” He turned to Dane. “Since you have two members of a CIU team here, why did you bother to call the station? I’m sure the detectives could have sorted this out.”

“We’re not here in any official capacity,” Swinn snapped. “We’re on leave, visiting friends.”

Vaughn didn’t look pleased to be labeled a friend, but he didn’t contradict Swinn either.

“Where are your other friends?”

“They’re staying in their cabin,” Darren replied. “Not enough rooms in the main house.”

“But they called just before you arrived and said someone was outside their cabin, taunting them,” Vaughn added. “They wanted to come to the house instead of being out there by themselves, but they don’t want to walk over on their own. While you’re waiting for the doctor to finish his examination, you should go to the cabin and escort them here.”

“No,” Julian said. “If they stay where they are, if they stay inside until morning, they should be all right.” He looked at Grimshaw. “Going to the cabins in the dark would be a mistake.”

When they were rookies, how many potentially lethal calls had he survived because he’d listened to Julian?

Grimshaw focused on Vaughn. “Tell your friends to stay put until morning.”

“Coward,” Swinn muttered.

“You’re carrying, and you were here,” Julian said. “But I don’t see you going out there to help your friends. And doing that doesn’t require that you act in any official capacity.”

Swinn sneered at Grimshaw. “What’s he doing here anyway? He washed up as a cop, so was he your date tonight?”

Snickers from Darren and Pamella.

“Officer Grimshaw?” Dr. Wallace walked toward him.

Grimshaw hurried to meet him, then cocked a thumb at the office. “Let’s talk in here.” He looked back at Julian, reluctant to leave his friend alone with that nest of vipers. But Julian wandered away from the rest of the people, putting a clear distance between them.

Getting out of the line of fire?

He closed the office door. “Doc? Are they trying to cover up a domestic dispute with a story about a hand coming out of the sink?”

Wallace studied him. “You worked highway patrol before coming here.”

“I’m still officially part of the highway patrol.”

“Then you’ve seen things. Know things about what lives in the wild country.”

A chill went down Grimshaw’s spine. “I’ve seen things. I know things.”

“I wish I could tell you the bruises on Constance Dane’s neck were consistent with a man’s hand, but they’re not. Too slender, for one thing. For another . . .” Wallace took a couple of deep breaths, as if to prove he could. “The man who served as the Northeast Region’s governor before Hannigan.”

“What about him?”

“There was a rumor going around the medical community that he died when water entered his lungs and then froze while he was taking a bath.”

“What does that have to do with Constance Dane?”

“She was facing her assailant. And whatever grabbed her did so with a hand so cold it was like touching bare skin to a metal pipe when the temperature is below freezing. The hand not only grabbed her hard enough to bruise her neck; it pulled off a couple of layers of skin when it released her.”

He and Wallace returned to the kitchen, where Trina and Pamella were hovering near Constance Dane but not getting too close, as if they were afraid to draw the attention of whatever had attacked their friend.

Grimshaw took a seat at a small table. Julian had mentioned that there was a couple who ran a used-goods business, everything from incomplete sets of dishes to furniture that was usable but not of sufficient quality to be considered antiques. Had someone made a run to that place to pick up the chairs and table, the dishes he saw piled on the counter in need of a wash before they could be used? He wondered which of the women would end up being the designated scullery maid.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked Constance.

Pretty simple, as long as you didn’t think about it. She and Yorick had taken the manager’s suite—meaning the efficiency apartment in the main house that had been Vicki DeVine’s home until yesterday morning. Constance had been in the bathroom, washing her face at the sink, when she realized the water was draining so slow the sink was filling up. She started to tell Yorick that they needed to have the plumber look at the sink when they could get someone to show up. Then a hand made of water rose out of the sink and grabbed her throat, squeezing so hard she could barely breathe. And then it was so cold, so painfully cold. She tore free and managed to run out of the bathroom. By the time Yorick went in to investigate, the sink had drained and there was no sign of anything except some clumps of Constance’s skin around the drain.

Grimshaw went through the motions of collecting evidence and taking statements. They might be despicable people, but they were still humans he had sworn to protect. Not that he had a chance of arresting Constance Dane’s assailant. Or assailants. After all, Water couldn’t have turned into a frozen hand without the help of an Elemental like Winter. And the thought that something had woken up Winter during the second month of summer scared him spitless.

It was full dark when he walked out of the house with Dr. Wallace and Julian. The EMTs were still there, in their vehicle, waiting for them.

The men looked terrified.

“The lash of cold has disappeared,” Julian said as he opened the cruiser’s passenger door. “It feels like the temperature is warming up, returning to normal for this time of year.”

“Monkey man.” A whisper in the dark.

Grimshaw paused, one foot in the cruiser.

“Mooooonkey maaaan.” A different voice whispering the words. Mockery or threat?

“Wayne, let’s get out of here. Please.”

Was this the reason Hershel and Heidi had called their friends in a panic? Were these the voices they had heard?

“Wayne.”

He heard the plea in Julian’s voice.

No mercy in the wild country. No safety in the dark. As long as Dane and his friends stayed inside, they should be all right. But the doc and the EMTs were his responsibility, and a cruiser escorting another vehicle had the best chance of ensuring that everyone reached safety.

He drove back to Sproing, lights flashing to indicate he was on official business. The EMTs drove to the firehouse, where they would bed down until morning. He and Julian escorted Dr. Wallace to the man’s home.

Julian had been unnervingly quiet throughout the drive, right up until they reached his cabin. Smoke rose from the chimney at Vicki’s cabin. She must have figured out how to work the woodstove that heated the place. If Julian didn’t start a fire in his own cabin, he would be in for a chilly night’s sleep—if he slept at all.

“I wonder what those things are,” Grimshaw said. “There were two of them.”

“Five.” Julian stared out the windshield. “There are five of them.”

“How do you know?”

“I recognized the voices. Five of them come in once a week to buy books. They’re the terra indigene who named the bookstore. I don’t know what they are beyond that.”

Grimshaw thought about that. “You don’t feel threatened when they come into the store?”

“No.”

“But you felt threatened tonight?”

Julian hesitated. “Not really. We didn’t try to reach the cabins, so they had no reason to attack us. And those whispers? A warning, I think.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.” He just wished he knew where the line was that would tip a warning into an attack.