“In my purse, which is in the break room.”

“Get it. Keep it closer.”

Now I was worried. “Should I warn Ineke to stay away from the shops today?”

Another hesitation. Then he offered a grim smile. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

Not really what I wanted to hear. “Right.”

I followed Julian to the back of the store and listened as he locked the back door. Then I dashed into the break room, fetched my mobile phone, and called Ineke. She couldn’t insist that her guests stay away from the shops on Main Street, but she assured me that she and Paige and Dominique would stay at the boardinghouse. After promising to call with regular updates—we made a lame joke about calling it the Julian Report— I ended the call and immediately made another one. This time I got an answering machine.

“This is Silence Lodge. Please leave your name and . . .” Yada yada ya.

I left a message for Ilya, then went back to dusting the shelves, setting my mobile phone on the book cart so that it was in easy reach.

I wasn’t sure how long Julian had been gone—I’d gotten a bit distracted reading the cover copy of a few books—when I heard someone fumbling with the lock on the back door. Figuring he had his hands full and that was the reason for the fumbling, I had just stepped off the stool, intending to help him, when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. “That was fast.”

Except it wasn’t Julian.

Before I could grab the mobile phone and even try to call for help, Detective Swinn shoved me against the bookcase, one forearm pinning me while his other hand rested on his service weapon.

“You’re coming with me. You’re not going to make a fuss or call any attention to us. Say it. Say it.”

I couldn’t say anything at that moment.

“If you don’t say it, if you don’t promise not to make a fuss, we’ll wait right here, and when Julian Farrow returns I will shoot him in the face. Not through the brain. I won’t kill him. I’ll shoot his face off. You got that, fireplug? He’ll spend the rest of his life with no eyes, no nose, no mouth. He’ll be fed through a tube, and it will be your fault.”

Swinn would do it. He wanted to shoot Julian, whether I cooperated or not. The only way to keep Julian from getting hurt was to go with Swinn and hope I would find a way to escape before he . . . hurt me.

Coward. I didn’t even want to think the word “kill.” He wasn’t taking me somewhere to hurt me, and we weren’t going somewhere for a chat. Yorick and his pals had decided I was a problem that needed to go away, and Swinn had been sent to fetch me.

Shoot-out in Sproing. It sounded like a frontier story, but I could picture the reality just fine. Shots fired on Main Street. Grimshaw running out of the police station, not seeing Swinn, a fellow cop, as a threat until it was too late.

Was Swinn’s arrival the wrongness Julian had sensed, or was it something worse, something more like what I was imagining? Except I could prevent what I was imagining.

“Say it,” Swinn growled.

“I won’t make a fuss.” At least not while we were in the village.

Swinn grabbed my arm and pulled me out the back door and over to the cruiser parked behind the bookstore.

“You stole a Bristol police car?”

“Borrowed. Get in.”

He aimed his service weapon at me and kept it trained on me while he circled to the driver’s side and got in. The windows were up; no one would hear if I tried to call for help. But the handful of Sproingers who visited the bookstore were at the edge of the parking area. Seeing me, they made the happy face. I made a sad face.

They hopped toward the cruiser.

Swinn drove off quickly enough to startle the Sproingers, then with more control as he turned onto Main Street and headed out of the village.

CHAPTER 71

Grimshaw

Watersday, Sumor 8

“Wayne, something doesn’t feel right.”

Having cleaned his service weapon and backup, Grimshaw wondered if he should clean the shotgun next or walk down Main Street to remind people of his presence. Hargreaves had called a few minutes ago to say that he and the CIU team were heading back to Bristol, along with the officers he’d called in for backup. The access road to The Jumble was still blocked by the destroyed flatbed trucks and construction equipment, but all the bodies had been removed.

Grimshaw pushed back from the desk and rolled his shoulders. He could use some fresh air. Besides, Osgood was already out patrolling and, most likely, had answered the beach question a hundred times, so it was a good bet that no one would be asking him if the beach would reopen tomorrow.

And Julian Farrow had called to leave a warning while he’d been on the phone with Hargreaves. “Doesn’t feel right” was a warning but not a cause for alarm. Not yet. Hopefully he could keep it that way.

He reached the door when the phone on his desk rang.

“Sproing Police Station, Grimshaw speaking.”

“Officer Grimshaw? This is Agent Greg O’Sullivan with the Investigative Task Force.”

Grimshaw’s heart bumped hard. “You have something for me?”

“Probably not as much as you hoped for. I couldn’t find anything of a criminal nature connected to the names on which you initially requested background information. That said, the men are known around the Hubb NE area as well-heeled entrepreneurs who have connections in a lot of businesses. Some of the deals they’ve put together look a little shady but nothing crossed the line into illegal, at least on paper, if you follow me.”

“I do.” Grimshaw swallowed his disappointment. He’d hoped the ITF agent would find some ammunition that proved Yorick Dane and his friends had used a forged document once before to take back property after enough money had been sunk into making capital improvements. “Thanks for your help.”

“I’m not done. Like I said, I didn’t find anything criminal connected to the names you initially asked the ITF to check, but the last two? Mark Hammorson runs a security business and has skated charges a couple of times for protecting a client’s assets with a little too much enthusiasm. And while no evidence was found, Tony Amorella’s name has been linked with a couple of suspicious deaths.”

“Gun? Knife?”

“Garrote.”

Grimshaw shivered. He pictured the Murder board as it had been the evening they’d spent at The Jumble, pictured Aggie setting a businessman on the square in front of teeny Vicki—the square with a garrote beside it.

Hearing an odd sound, he glanced toward the windows and froze. Sproingers scratching at the glass. Tumbling off their companions and climbing up again in an effort to look in the windows. Scratch scratch scratch.

“Grimshaw?”

“I have to go.” He hung up on O’Sullivan and opened the station’s door. A dozen of the critters crowded the doorway, with more Sproingers heading toward him.

He scanned the street and spotted Osgood jogging toward him. He saw Julian walk out of the general store, stop at the sight of the Sproingers, and then look toward Lettuce Reed.

Closed store. A woman inside, alone. A predator with a garrote. Oh gods.

He ran across the street and down the narrow driveway that provided access to the parking area behind the store. Seeing the open back door, he drew his service weapon and approached cautiously. “Vicki? Vicki, are you there?”

Julian rounded the corner, skidding to a stop when he saw Grimshaw.

“I didn’t leave that door unlocked. I didn’t use the dead bolt, but I engaged the simple lock on the door.”

“Could Vicki have let someone in?”

“Who?”

“Ineke Xavier?”

Julian hesitated, a silent acknowledgment of the possibility. He opened the screen door, allowing Grimshaw to slip in first.

“Vicki?” Grimshaw called.

“There’s no one here,” Julian said, pushing past him and rushing into the break room. “But Vicki’s purse is still here.”

Grimshaw moved forward. Bookshelves rising almost to the ceiling. Hiding places everywhere. “Julian, look at this.”

Books on the floor, as if someone had dropped them—or they had been pushed off the shelves. A mobile phone on the book cart.