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Hairs on Violet’s neck stood at attention, and leaves crunched.
Twigs snapped.
Too loud to be a small critter.
Violet’s blood turned cold, and she crept toward the creek, slowly retrieving her weapon and scanning the area. She felt like a deer. Her hunter was camouflaged but keenly aware of her presence.
Near the edge of the water, something glittered. What was that? Using her core to keep balance, she finagled herself down the steep creek bank riddled with tree limbs and roots.
“What are you doing?” Fiona asked. “No one is out here. I think you’re just paranoid over this place.”
“You’re wrong.” She caught Fiona’s eye. “He’s out here. He’s watching us,” she whispered.
“Then let’s go get him. We have guns.”
Violet smirked. “We’ll never find him. These woods belong to him.” And he knew it. It’s why he kept to the shadows of the forest. A place he felt in control. Powerful.
But he had no idea that deep within her lay a predator too.
The crunches and snapping grew faster. He was running away. For now.
He’d be back.
Using the large stones as steps, she carefully trekked across the creek to the shimmering item in the water.
A tiny gold jingle bell.
It was attached to a piece of twine that had been tied around an old doll’s neck, as a makeshift necklace. The dark hair was wet and looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in decades. It was filthy, and the fingers had been chewed on.
She lay unclothed in the creek.
“Whoever was watching us dropped it when he ran.” Violet had heard the splash. She returned and held the doll upright for further inspection.
Its eyes opened. Rusted and red.
Like bloody orbs.
After bagging the doll with hopes of finding some kind of print or trace evidence, Violet led the charge up Imogene Boyd’s porch. The door opened without their knocking, and a woman in her late sixties appeared. Tall and slender with a short silver bob, the woman’s blue eyes were hard and the lines around her eyes and mouth were severe, but it was obvious she’d once been a striking woman.
“Help ya?” she asked.
Violet introduced herself and Fiona and showed her creds. “We’d like to talk to Imogene Boyd. Are you her?”
“I’m Wanda, her daughter. Mother’s inside rolling out dough. Come on in.” She opened the door wider, and they entered to the smell of lingering bacon, lemon and hints of maple syrup. The home was warm and cozy, a real wood fire burning in the corner. Hardwood floors and antique furniture fabricating the idea that they’d been passed down through the generations and might be as old as the cabin.
They followed Wanda into the kitchen. A woman about the same height and build with long gray hair in a braid down her back, flour from fingers to elbow, rolled out dough on the kitchen table. Her piercing blue eyes met Violet’s, and her smile was kinder, softer than her daughter’s. But she appeared equally weathered, as if life hadn’t always been easy. But in these parts, Violet imagined life wasn’t a cakewalk for any of them.
“Agents with the FBI, Mother.”
“I’d welcome ya properly if I didn’t have all this flour on me. Makin’ apple pies. Y’all like apple pie?” she asked, continuing to roll dough until it was smooth and thin. Then she placed it in deep dishes and began crimping the edges.
“I like any kind of pie,” Fiona said. “We’re obviously here about Atta Atwater. We hear she came by the night she might have died. To pick up a casserole.”
“She did. It was a chicken-and-broccoli casserole. Can I get y’all a cup of coffee or a biscuit and some bacon?”
“I’d take a cup of coffee,” Fiona said. “Black is great.”
Fiona always accepted drinks when offered. Not because it was polite, but because most people who offered didn’t really mean it, and Fiona got a kick over putting people out. And she called Violet sadistic. But the truth was put-out people generally lied in questioning, and those who had no problem serving a beverage had no issues with interviews. Not 100 percent of the time, but often enough.
