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And where was Martin Gallagher’s body?
“What do you suppose that was all about?” Margaret asked.
I gave her a wry smile. “I have no earthly idea, but the best way to find something out is to ask.”
She glanced in Rafe’s direction. “Would you think less of me if I said I’d talk with Della while you..."
Her voice faded and I had to laugh. “Wish me luck.”
With a quick kiss on my cheek, she trotted across the damp grass. I smiled after her. We’d gone from strangers to affection more rapidly than I would have guessed, and I found I didn’t mind at all. I needed one bright spot in the midst of all this gloom.
The darkness had faded enough for me to see only empty waves where the sailboat had been. Empty waves and the stormcrow on the beach. There was nothing welcoming in Rafe’s rigid posture, so I approached cautiously, as if tiptoeing past a sleeping bear.
“Stop.”
His single command came when I was several feet away from him. Still at the edge of the beach, I waited for him to make his next move.
Which was apparently to wait for me to make my next move. After several fraught minutes, I gave in. “Who was that?”
Tension built in the silence. I was very close to trying another question when answered.
“His name is Oliver Stevenson, and he’s a witch.”
I’d assumed he’d had power – how else had we heard each other across the waves – and I made a mental note of the man’s name.
“If Seattle had a witches’ council, he’d run it, but he’s more talk than anything else.”
“It surprises me that a city as big as Seattle doesn’t have its own council.”
Another pause, this one filled with something like sadness. “Martin wouldn’t allow it.” His voice faded and some of the tension left Rafe’s posture. “Do you know what day it is?”
We’d arrived on a Friday, so “it’s Saturday.”
“The date?”
“Um…” I quickly counted on my fingers. “The twenty-second of October, I think.”
“That means we’re nine days from Samhain. You know what happens on Samhain?”
“The veil thins?”
“Yes, the veil thins, and the dead can reach through.Martincan reach through.”
His words held an anguish I couldn’t begin to fathom. I looked him over; tall, gaunt, and so very powerful. “Why would he do that?”
“For reasons too dire for you to understand.”
Good Lord. I bit down on a knuckle until I could say something diplomatic. “Then we need to make sure he can’t.”
He spun around to face me, the weak sunlight reflecting off his amber glasses. “There is nowe. You and your lady love will be on the supply boat when it leaves on Monday. Mother and I are more than enough to fight this on our own.”
I stifled a laugh, deciding to defer an explanation of the nature of my relationship with Margaret. “Fight what?” I waited until I was sure he didn’t intend to respond, then gave voice to a question that seemed even more important. “Why are you so afraid of help?”
His sneer hurt more than it should have. “Help? And what help would you offer?” He came toward me, taller and broader with every step. “I can sense what is in you. What you call magic barely deserves the name. When Mother sent word to Madam Munro, she had hopes that we would be sent real help, not some carnival barker and his lover.”
“Carnival barker?” I crossed the gravely beach faster than I could think.Enough is enough. I reached back to take a swing at him. Let my fist fly.
He grabbed my wrist with an iron-hard grip, his smoldering gaze sliding right over the top of my head.
