Cold River - Carla Neggers [31]
“What about Bowie? Is it possible he knocked that rock over on you?”
“Why would he?”
“Just because you’re not afraid of him doesn’t mean you don’t have reason to be.”
Hannah’s teeth were chattering now. “I can’t stand this cold any longer.” She shuddered against the brutal windchill. “I’m going to my car.”
She was already marching up Cameron Mountain Road to the corner. She heard Sean take in a sharp breath. He fell in next to her, not shivering at all. She reminded herself that he hadn’t been outside as long as she had—and her shivering wasn’t just from the cold. She was tired, hurting and unnerved by what had happened at the crypt.
And reassured, she thought, to have Sean with her, even if he didn’t entirely trust her.
“Thank you,” she said as she crossed the road to the old tavern.
“For what?”
“For charging through the cemetery after me.”
“I heard the rock falling, and I heard you scream—”
“I was startled.”
“And you were scared,” he said.
Lights were on in the tavern’s front windows. Hannah pictured the McBanes pulling back the curtains and checking out the goings-on by the cemetery. Had they called the local police? Would Jo?
When they reached the driveway, she looked at Sean in the dim light and noticed that the shadows of the fading afternoon highlighted the stubborn set to his jaw and the black lashes of his Cameron blue eyes.
She gestured down Ridge Road. “You can’t see the lodge from here. It’s too far.”
He settled back on his heels. “You mean this isn’t a good place for someone to have waited and watched for Melanie Kendall to get in her car.”
“It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? That Bowie—”
“I’m not thinking anything. I’m trying to figure out what the hell just happened.”
“So am I,” she said, past the point of being reasonable. “You can tell Jo and Elijah I’ll be at the café.”
With his index finger, Sean touched her cheek just under the swelling. “If Beth’s not there, call her. Let her check you out. Promise me.”
She nodded, softening. “All right. I promise. You’re being a little unfair, you know.”
He let his finger drift to the corner of her mouth. “Who’s to say what would have happened if I hadn’t come along?”
Hannah opened her car door. “I might have caught the little bastards who knocked over that rock on Bowie and me.”
Sean stood back and watched her as she got into her car and shut the door. As she turned on the ignition, she acknowledged that she was reacting to being so close to him for the past few hours. First in the cabin, then on the trail down on the mountain, in Elijah’s truck. Had she ever been in a vehicle with him?
Nope, she thought. She’d remember.
Then, in the cemetery. She still could hear the intensity with which he’d called her name, grabbed her—kept her safe.
And just now. Touching her that way.
Her fingers aching, her face and wrist screaming in pain, she turned up the heat but knew she’d probably be back at the café before the car was warm.
Would Jo and Elijah believe stone blocks and debris had toppled over on Bowie by accident?
Did she believe it?
If law enforcement was looking for someone in Black Falls who’d make an ideal local recruit for a network of professional killers, Hannah knew that Bowie O’Rourke would be at the top of their list.
As she turned down Cameron Mountain Road, she glanced to her right and saw the oldest headstones, flat rectangles silhouetted against the snow and the gray.
Whoever or whatever had whispered her name in the shadows, she and Bowie hadn’t been alone in the cemetery.
Nine
Sean reached into the truck’s glove compartment for a flashlight. Behind him, Lester McBane shuffled down the walk in a worn parka and unlaced boots. He wasn’t wearing a hat, but his fine white hair wasn’t much protection against the dropping temperatures. “Everything all right out here?” he asked.
“Everything’s fine, Reverend. Some rock and debris Bowie O’Rourke left behind after he worked on the culvert came down