He shook his head, disgusted with all of them. “Hear those sirens? That’s the Bristol police and fire department coming in to help. You all do what you want. I’ll inform the CIU team that you’re all alive but there are burned bodies that need to be identified. I imagine someone will come in soon to talk to you. It would help if you could provide the names of the loggers you hired to illegally cut down those trees.”

“Now, see here,” Vaughn protested. “We did nothing illegal—”

Grimshaw held up a hand. “I’m not interested. That’s for someone else to figure out. Just remember that the someone who is going to decide isn’t a member of your damn club.”

Ignoring their protests and vitriolic opinions about his parentage, Grimshaw followed the bridle path, then chose a game trail heading in the right direction. A few minutes later, he reached the road.

The firefighters had contained the blaze and were hosing down the surrounding grass and trees—and no doubt would continue until the water tank ran dry. They were being thorough because, like sweat and ash, fear was a taste in the air.

CHAPTER 64

Vicki

Thaisday, Sumor 6

As soon as the Bristol police arrived to assist Grimshaw, Julian drove back to Sproing and picked me up at Ilya Sanguinati’s office. We stopped at Pops Davies’s general store and bought some food that wouldn’t spoil if we didn’t eat it for a day or two. Then Julian drove us to the Mill Creek Cabins.

Beer wasn’t my favorite drink, but I didn’t say anything when Julian offered me a bottle before settling into the other chair on his porch. I could see the water mill from where I was sitting. It looked quaint, peaceful. I wondered if I would ever feel peaceful again.

“I feel bad about the men who died,” I said. “Their boss might belong to that stupid club, but that doesn’t mean those men did. They came here to do a job, just like any other job, and they died because Yorick and the rest of those . . . men . . . thought they could take whatever they wanted.” Like Yorick had done with me. “And I keep thinking about all the men I had hired to renovate the main house and the cabins, the men who had brought in the bulldozer and backhoe and all the other equipment to replace the septic system. They could have been killed.”

“I don’t think so,” Julian replied. “You were very careful about what you were doing. I remember you saying that you had reviewed the terms of the property agreement with all of your contractors to make sure you, and they, didn’t violate the terms. And, Vicki? You hired firms from Crystalton, which meant you had hired Intuits. It stands to reason that at least one of the men on those crews would have known before the first shovelful of earth was dug up if they were doing something dangerous. The terra indigene wanted The Jumble restored, and you were doing that. And who was your first lodger? One of the Crowgard.”

“A test.”

“Probably.”

“I thought she was a girl who had run away from home and needed a safe place to stay. Until the whole eyeball thing.”

Julian sipped his beer. “I bet you didn’t charge her anywhere close to what you could get for a week’s stay in one of those renovated cabins.”

I shrugged, unwilling to admit he was right. I’d wondered where she kept getting the money for the weekly rent, but she paid promptly and didn’t cause trouble—and I didn’t hear about any houses in the village being burgled, so I thought she’d tucked some money away before leaving home.

Come to think of it, I still didn’t know where she got the money for the rent.

Thinking about the men who had done the renovations and the big improvements made me wonder about something else. “Why didn’t the men Yorick hired look at using the farm track and the grassy lane that my contractors had used?”

Instead of taking another sip, Julian lowered the beer bottle. “What?”

“The farm track that forms the boundary between the Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble—where Aggie found the dead man. The crews I hired came in that way. The foreman said it was the long way round but the grassy lane going into The Jumble was wide enough for them to reach the meadow where the septic tank was located.” I frowned. “No, that wouldn’t have worked. The lane ends at the septic tank.”

“That grassy lane that connects to the farm track. Is the turnoff before or beyond where you found the body?”

I looked at Julian, who foolishly waited for an answer.

“You have no clue,” he finally said.

“The only time I saw the lane was when the foreman drove me to the meadow to show me the new septic tank before they covered it up. Aggie and I followed a path in the woods to reach the body.” I sounded defensive. I felt defensive. I tried, I really did, but the You Are Here map that everyone else seems to have in their head? I didn’t get one.

“Vicki.”

It was a soft warning. I followed the direction of Julian’s gaze and saw Aiden walking along the road accompanied by a chubby brown pony with a storm-gray mane and tail.

I thought about the men who died today because the person who had hired them had knowingly broken the rules set down by beings who had no interest in the kinds of petty games humans played with one another. I thought about the men I had hired to do work in The Jumble. And most of all, I thought about the friends whose actions might be misunderstood.

I would never be able to rebuild my life again if a friend died because of me.

I set the beer bottle on the porch. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Don’t,” Julian said softly.

An expression of concern for me or a warning that he sensed something might happen? Either way, doing nothing was not something I could do and still believe I was a good person who deserved good people as friends.

I walked up to the gate in Julian’s enclosed front yard, reaching it at the same time Aiden came abreast of the cabin. He stopped and looked at me. Maybe it was the light last night, or the lack of it. Maybe it was the shock of being evicted and scrambling to move into the cabin. Today, in daylight, I couldn’t pretend Aiden was human.

“I wish I was stronger,” I said. “I wish I was braver. But the truth is, even though you helped me yesterday, I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of what you can do.”

“You should be.”

No attempt to tell me that what I felt was silly—because it wasn’t silly.

“Your species has some things in common with the shifters in how you touch, and are touched by, the world,” Aiden said. “My kind of terra indigene? We’re connected to the world in a way you never will be. We may tolerate your kind, even feel friendly toward some of you. But we’ll never be your friend, Vicki. Not like the Crows or even the Sanguinati.” He took a few steps, then turned back, giving me a hint of a smile. “But if you need help lighting the woodstove, ask one of the Crows to contact me, and I’ll come by to get the fire started.”

He and Twister walked away, heading toward the mill and the creek. I returned to the porch and took a healthy swallow of beer. Julian and I sat quietly, not feeling a need to fill the silence with unnecessary words, giving me time to think about my recent encounters with the terra indigene in general and the Elementals in particular.

Friendly but not a friend. I understood the distinction. I just didn’t know what that distinction would mean for the humans in Sproing in the future.

CHAPTER 65

Them

Thaisday, Sumor 6

Hershel stumbled out of the cabin and grabbed one of the posts that held up the porch roof. Feeling legless wasn’t due to having too much to drink. It turned out fear had a way of keeping a man sufficiently sober. And fear could make a man feel weak.

Well, screw that. Screw all of it. Should have known a putz like Yorick Dane couldn’t put together a solid deal, but Vaughn had said the property had potential. Even after they found out that Dane had given up the property, Vaughn didn’t want to let go of a chance to have shares in a resort on one of the Finger Lakes since the human places around those lakes were so limited. And he had considered how Yorick’s hanky ex-wife—the one who could be used until she was used up and then thrown away—could be worked to do the initial improvements before they came in to take over and build a real resort. But Dane had screwed up big-time, had glossed over the real reasons why his family hadn’t done anything to develop what should be a prime piece of real estate.