Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [824]
He believed her, when every other person in the place was dismissing her with polite—and some not so polite—looks of confusion.
“It’s not a joke at all,” Alex told the residents of Harmony. “I’ve never been more serious, I swear to you—”
“I’ve heard enough,” Big Dave announced. He started lumbering toward the door, several other men laughing among themselves as they followed him outside.
“I know it sounds crazy, but you have to listen to me,” Alex said, desperate that she be believed, now that she’d laid the truth out for them.
Part of the truth, at least. If they wouldn’t take her word about the track she saw in the snow, they would never accept the even more incredible—more terrifying—truth of what she feared was to blame for the murders of Pop Toms and his family.
Even Jenna was gaping at her as if she’d just gone off her rocker. “No one could survive in that cold without proper clothing, Alex. You couldn’t have seen a bare footprint out there. You know that, right?”
“I know what I saw.”
All around them, the meeting began to disband. Alex craned her neck to try to find the stranger, but she couldn’t see him anymore. He was gone. She didn’t know why that thought should disappoint her. Nor did she understand why she felt so compelled to search him out. She was impatient with the need, and desperate to get out of there.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Jenna stood up, giving Alex a sympathetic, if bewildered, smile as she caught her in a tight hug. “You’ve been through a lot. The past couple of days have been rough for everyone, but I’m sure especially you.”
Alex pulled back and gave a vague shake of her head. “I’m fine.”
The church door opened and closed as another group of people walked out into the brisk night. Was he out there, too? She had to know.
“Did you see that guy in the back of the church tonight?” she asked Jenna. “Black hair, pale gray eyes. He was standing by himself near the door.”
Jenna shook her head. “Who are you talking about? I didn’t notice anyone—”
“Never mind. Listen, I think I’m going to skip Pete’s tonight.”
“Good idea,” Jenna agreed as Zach stepped down off the raised platform of the pulpit and walked over to join them. “Go home and get some sleep, okay? You’re always worrying about me, but right now you need to give yourself a little TLC. Besides, it’s been a while since I had a burger and a beer with my old fart of a brother, just the two of us. He’s been avoiding me lately, making me wonder if maybe he’s got a secret girlfriend or something.”
“No girlfriend,” Zach said. “Don’t have time for that when I’m married to my job. You all right, Alex? That was seriously weird and not like you at all. If you want to talk about what happened, with me or even a professional—”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, getting irritated now, and thankful for the anger that was letting her put her troubling past on the back shelf where it belonged. “Look, forget what I said tonight. I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just messing with Big Dave.”
“Well, he’s an asshole and he deserved it,” Jenna said, looking more than a little relieved that she wouldn’t have to call in the white coats after all.
Alex smiled with a lightness she didn’t really feel. “I’m gonna go. Have fun at Pete’s, you guys.”
She hardly waited for them to tell her good-bye. Her rush to the door impeded by a trio of little old ladies talking and walking in slow motion, Alex’s pulse was racing by the time she got her first lungful of the frigid night outside. She stood under the snow-laden eaves of the log-cabin church and glanced in all directions, looking for the striking face that had burned itself into her memory that first instant she saw him.
He wasn’t there.
Whoever he was, whatever had brought him to Harmony when the rest of civilization was barred by bad weather, he’d simply walked out into the darkness and vanished into the thin, cold air.