Jenna Ryan - Night of the Raven

“McVey, wait.” She grabbed his arm. “I don’t want you taking a bullet for me.”

“Don’t sweat it, Red.” He risked a second look into the woods. “Chances are only fifty-fifty that those shots were fired by someone in Jimmy Sparks’s family.”

* * *

HE DISAPPEARED SO QUICKLY, Amara had no chance to ask what he meant. Or to wonder if she’d heard him correctly.

For a moment she simply stared after him and thought that somewhere along the line she must have fallen down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe where police chiefs looked like hot rock stars and any vestige of reality had long since been stripped away by a raging northeaster. Who was this stranger with the wicked sexy body and dark hypnotic eyes?

“More to the point,” she said to her absent grandmother, “why didn’t you mention him when I called you last night?”

Knowing she needed to think, Amara tucked the question away. Three bullets had just been fired at close range. A glance through the rear window revealed nothing except the moon, a scattering of stars and no flashlight beam. Actually—had McVey even taken a flashlight?

“I need you to step on it, Chief.” Jake Blume’s unexpected shout sent Amara’s heart into her throat and almost caused her to drop the phone she’d speed-dialed without thinking. “You there, McVey?” the deputy yelled again. “Come on, what’s taking you?”

“McVey’s busy.” As she spoke she pulled the key out of the ignition. “My name’s Amara. We’re still at Shirley Bellam’s place.”

“You fooling around with my superior officer out on the edge of the north woods ain’t exactly my idea of help, sweetheart. Now, I don’t give a rat’s ass why you’re in possession of McVey’s phone. I just need you to put him on it.” He waited a beat before adding a reluctant, “Please.”

Amara tried one of the smaller keys in the glove box lock. “What you call fooling around, I call dodging bullets while your superior officer goes all Rambo and takes on an unidentified shooter in the woods. Trust me, his plate has more on it than yours does at the moment.”

“Wanna bet?” The deputy’s tight-lipped response gave way to a resounding punch. “You said Amara, right?” Another punch. “You wouldn’t be that little witch bitch who used to come here in the summer, would you? Because if you are, you scared the bejesus out of my kid brother by telling him you could talk to ravens.”

“Does it matter if I’m her?”

“Makes us cousins is all.”

Since he practically spit the words out, Amara assumed the idea didn’t sit well with him.

Behind her, three more shots rang out. She shoved another key into the lock—and breathed out in relief when the compartment popped open to reveal a 9 mm automatic. “Thank God.”

“Depends on your point of view,” Jake muttered. “As I recall, your last name’s Bellam.”

Irritated, she regarded the phone. “Did I mention someone’s firing a rifle out here? I’ve counted six shots so far.”

“Rifle shot, huh? Could be Owen thinking the sky’s fixing to fall on his cabin. Old Owen ain’t been right for years.”

Parallel world, Amara reminded herself. “Will ‘Old Owen’ know the difference between McVey and a piece of falling sky?”

“I said it could be Owen,” Jake countered. “It could just as easily be one of your backwoods cousins looking to shoot himself something feathered for the upcoming street barbecue.”

Now she frowned at the phone. “You people are deranged.”

She heard a grunt and a punch. “This from a raven whisperer?”

“I can’t talk to—” She spun in place as three more shots sounded. “The whole world’s deranged. Later, Deputy.”

Tossing the phone aside, she firmed up her grip on McVey’s gun and slid cautiously from the truck.

The wind blew in wild circles and made pinpointing the shooter’s location next to impossible.

Amara searched the dark woods. Would Jimmy Sparks abandon all discretion this way? She didn’t think so, but then, what did she know about the man’s psyche? Maybe he’d sent a hothead after her.

Heart pounding, she worked her way along the side of the truck. She hissed in a breath when the tips of a broken branch snagged her hair like claws. She had to stop and untangle herself before she could continue.

Continue where, though, and do what when she got there? Her grandmother had taught her how to shoot clay pigeons, but she doubted the owner of the rifle would move in a high, wide arc for her.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The question came from close behind her. Snapping the gun up, Amara spun on one knee and almost—almost—squeezed the trigger.

When she saw who it was, her vision hazed and she lowered her arms. “Jesus, McVey.”

“Have you gone mad?”

“Don’t you dare glare at me. I counted nine shots, none of which came from a handgun. For all I know, you could’ve been dead or bleeding to death in the woods.”

“I also could’ve shot you in the back. You want to protect yourself, you use the best cover you’ve got. Case in point, my truck.”

“I’ll remember that next time someone decides to fire a rifle in the middle of nowhere, during a windstorm, while a cop with a much bigger weapon than the one he left behind disregards his own advice and takes off in pursuit.” Pushing aside the hand he held out to her, she stood and dusted off her jeans. “I talked to your deputy while you were gone. He seems to think the rifleman might be someone called Owen, worried that the sky’s falling.”

McVey ran his gaze around the clearing. “It wasn’t Owen.”

“Figured not. A Bellam bird hunter was his second suggestion. Looking for barbecue night’s winged entrée.”

“Red, the most common birds in these woods at night are owls, and not even a grill can make a screech owl taste good.”

Moving her lips into a smile, Amara dropped the gun into his free hand. “I keep telling myself that at some point this night will end. Whether any part of it makes sense when it does remains to be seen. Moving on, if not Owen or someone who likes to hunt owls, are we back to a member of the Sparks family as the prospective shooter?”

He kept scanning. “Not necessarily.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Yeah, you did, but think deeper. Sparks wouldn’t want you taken out in such an obvious fashion. It’s true, Jimmy has moments of blind rage during which he loses all control, but that’s the reason he gets people with cooler heads to do his dirty work.”

“There’s good news. Look, McVey, if you think the shooter’s close enough to be watching us, why are we standing here having his discussion?”

“Shooter’s gone.” He made a final sweep before bringing his eyes back to hers. “If he wasn’t, we’d be dead.”

Spreading her fingers, she gave a humorless laugh. “I am so out of my element right now. Is there any chance you’re going to tell me what you think just happened here?”

“Someone fired a rifle nine times, then took off.”

“And you know he’s gone because...?”

“I heard his truck.”

“Are you—?”

She saw him move, but not in time to avoid the fingers that curled around the nape of her neck.

He stared down at her. “The only thing I’m sure of, Amara, is that we need to get something out of the way before it gets both of us killed.”

“What? No.” With the truck at her back, she had nowhere to go, no escape. “Don’t you dare do this, McVey. I’m messed up enough already without adding sex to the mix.”

A dangerous grin appeared. “I wasn’t thinking sex quite yet, Red, but I could probably be persuaded.”

She planted her palms firmly on his chest. “You’re messing with my mind.” And tangling everything inside her into a hot ball of... She wasn’t sure what, but something that wanted very badly to take things a whole lot deeper a whole lot faster than she should.

“Lady, you’ve been messing with my mind for fifteen years.”

“Don’t go there.”

“Not planning to.” Eyes gleaming, he lowered his head until his mouth hovered a tantalizing inch above hers. “If you really want to stop me, Red, this is your last chance.”

“Seriously, McVey. We shouldn’t... I’m not...” She exhaled heavily. “I hate you.” Casting caution to the still-howling wind, Amara took his face in her hands and yanked his very sexy mouth down onto hers.

* * *

LIEUTENANT ARTHUR MICHAELS mopped the back of his neck as he climbed the stairs to his Algiers apartment. He’d taken a roundabout route from Jackson, Mississippi, to New Orleans—by way of Arkansas and an old friend, who’d given him both a bed for the night and a name: Willy Sparks.

Rumor had it Willy could outthink a fox, outmaneuver a weasel and poison an enemy so neatly that the best forensic teams in the country were left scratching their collective heads as to why the corpse they were examining didn’t simply get up and walk out of the room.

And speaking of rooms... He saw right away that the door to his apartment was still marked with the tiny paper he’d placed between it and the frame before leaving town. Absurdly relieved, he went inside, shed his jacket and cranked the high windows open.

One of his neighbors was having a party. Boisterous jazz, led by trumpet and saxophone, drifted through the openings. The smell of gumbo made his mouth water and his system long for a cold beer. Being a cautious man, however, he settled for water from the jug in his fridge.

He didn’t hear the sound behind him as much as sense it in the light brush of air on his neck.

It only took him a split second to unholster his gun, spin and aim at— Nothing, he realized. Funny, he could have sworn...

Several rapid eyeblinks later, he lowered his arm.

He continued to blink as the edges of the apartment fuzzed. His fingers lost sensation. The gun clattered to the floor.

“Son of a...”

“Ah, ah, ah.” One of the long shadows came alive in the form of a wagging finger. “Don’t be rude, Lieutenant, or I’ll go against orders and add unspeakable pain to your death. It’s a well-known fact that Willy Sparks’s mother is not what you were just about to call her.”

He couldn’t move, Michaels realized; not anything except his eyes.

He slumped to the floor. Hands groped his pockets, then rolled him onto this back like a discarded doll. He heard a series of beeps beneath his neighbor’s music. When they stopped, a low chuckle floated downward.

“You have a most obliging BlackBerry. Raven’s Hollow, Maine. That’s very far north, isn’t it? But you know, Lieutenant, I’ve heard the water’s much safer to drink up in Maine than it is here in the Big Easy.”

The BlackBerry hit the floor. Water gurgled down the drain. The music played on. His apartment door clicked shut. And Lieutenant Arthur Michaels thought of ravens....

Chapter Five

Lock it away, Amara cautioned herself. Bring it out later—because how could she not? But she’d kissed men before and would again, so...not a problem.

Unless she acknowledged the fact that ten minutes after she’d dragged her mouth from his, her senses continued to zap like an electric wire gone wild.

Did McVey feel the same? They were in his truck, driving. She couldn’t read his profile, and he hadn’t really looked at her or talked to her, so who knew?

There was that other thing, too; the part about her face having been in his head for fifteen years. What was she supposed to do with that weird knowledge?

He finally glanced over as they neared the outskirts of the Hollow. “You’re annoyed, aren’t you, Red? I can feel the vibes taking bites out of me.”