“This one handles better on wet roads.”
Julian said nothing for a minute. “Were you worried about her too?”
It was his turn to choose his words. “Not worried as such. But I’ve been patrolling the village since the storm hit to make note of any flooded streets or downed power lines.” And giving quiet thanks last night that he wasn’t one of the highway patrol officers driving those dark roads in the wild country in this weather. “The Jumble and its residents are also part of my territory, so it was time to check up on them.”
“And to show the terra indigene that human authority isn’t ignoring someone they’ve taken an interest in.”
“That too.”
He turned onto the access road to The Jumble. Someone had removed the chain across the road. Had one of the boys, as Vicki DeVine called them, come out to do it? Or had it been down a while, maybe indicating that someone else had gone up to the main house?
“Julian?”
“We’re not walking into anything,” Julian said after a long moment.
Then he would assess the situation and decide if he should mention the chain to Conan or Cougar. After all, they were the ones who had put it up in the first place.
They got out of the car. Julian grabbed the three pizzas and Grimshaw grabbed the two bags of groceries. They closed the car doors and ran for the overhang protecting the front door. Julian juggled the pizzas and managed to ring the doorbell.
When the door opened, it wasn’t Vicki DeVine standing there to greet them. It was Cougar, and he didn’t look like greeting them was what he had in mind.
“We brought pizza,” Julian said.
“Hi, Julian,” Vicki said brightly, peering around Cougar. “You’re just in time!” She hesitated for a moment. “Officer Grimshaw.”
“Hope it’s all right for me to stop by,” he said. He wasn’t in uniform and had left Osgood on call for the evening.
“Oh, sure.” Vicki tapped her fingers against the Panther’s arm. “Cougar, let them come in out of the rain.”
They followed her to the kitchen—and Conan and Cougar followed them. He listened to Vicki and Julian wrangling about the cost of the groceries and paying for the pizzas while he put the milk and orange juice into the refrigerator. He noticed the Others were also listening to the wrangling, but neither male was showing any further sign of hostility toward Julian.
Vicki paid for her groceries and accepted the pizzas as Julian’s contribution for a social evening. Grimshaw took note that Conan and Cougar knew enough about the main house to know where to find the dishes, glasses, and flatware.
They piled pizza onto the plates, took plenty of napkins, and went into the social room. Vicki and Julian went back for the glasses and a pitcher of water. Grimshaw would have preferred a beer, but he was driving, and it wasn’t a night to have his reflexes even slightly dulled.
Then they all looked at the terra indigene’s version of Murder—and Grimshaw watched Julian Farrow pale.
“It’s The Jumble,” Julian said, sounding as if he were choking.
To give Julian time to recover before anyone started asking questions, Grimshaw pointed to what he hoped was a clean sock and said, “What’s that?”
“Fuzzy Sock Elder,” Vicki replied.
Crap.
He ate pizza and listened to the Others explain their version of the game. Land on a question mark and you pick a card that might allow you to take an extra move or allow you to escape a predator—or be attacked by one. The pair of dice were thrown to decide conflicts—an even number meant the player entering the room would not attack the player already in the room; an odd number equaled an attack and the number itself determined the severity of the attack. A low number indicated a small, nonlethal bite, while a high number equaled being eaten or at least desperately injured unless you had a “Doctor!” card and could get help or had a “Friend” card that meant the other player would now work with you instead of munching on you.
No way to get out of playing now, so he resigned himself to losing the game and reminded himself that he’d gotten pizza out of the deal.
And hoped he really wasn’t seeing the signs that Julian was sensing something terribly wrong now.
* * *
• • •
They agreed on the rules: the initial victim was a character from the original game, the weapon would be one of the human ones that came with the game, and the location would be one of the rooms on the board. But the Others insisted that they had to play by Miss Vicki’s rule that you had to bring the weapon to the room to make your guesses. Which would have been fine, except Grimshaw noticed almost all of the weapons had been scattered in the north, south, and east woods. The revolver was in the lake, placed on the last square located on the blue paper.
Six weapons, six players. They rolled the die and moved their pieces on the squares to reach one of the two doors that would get them outside to fetch the weapons.
“I could go out a window,” Aggie said, after rolling a two for the third time. “I’m a Crow. I could do that.”
“No squares under the windows,” Vicki said. “You can’t move your piece except on the squares, so you have to reach a door.”
Julian moved teeny Julian out the kitchen door and headed for the lake—and the revolver. Teeny Vicki went out the front door and headed for the garrote in the north woods. Teeny Cougar headed for the rope but got distracted when he landed on a square and had the chance to eat a fawn. He didn’t roll a number high enough for a serious injury so the fawn got away, and he growled softly about the missed kill until Vicki went into the kitchen and returned with the rest of the pizzas, much to Grimshaw’s relief since he was sitting next to the Panther.
They were still wandering outside, retrieving the weapons, when Grimshaw felt the first ripple of unease. Julian had been heading for the lake during his turns and had rolled a six—enough to reach the last square on the blue paper and get the revolver. Except Julian moved his piece to the last square on “land” and stopped. He stared at the “lake” and the female in the blue dress for so long that Vicki started to reach out and touch his arm. Then Julian turned his playing piece around and marched teeny Julian back toward the house.
“But you didn’t fetch the revolver,” Vicki said.
“No,” Julian replied, beads of sweat popping up on his forehead.
He’s afraid, Grimshaw thought. What is he sensing that would make him afraid? It’s just a game.
Could this game version of The Jumble be just close enough to represent the real thing? He’d never seen Julian react this way when they’d been in the academy.
Grimshaw landed on a question mark square and drew a “Friend” card, meaning when he finally entered a room or confronted a predator, he could use the card instead of rolling the dice to determine the outcome of a fight. Vicki also landed on a question mark square.
“Help from an Elder,” she read. She looked at the fuzzy sock guarding the north woods and smiled. “That’s a good card.”
“Yes,” Aggie said, not smiling. “It’s a very good card. You should keep it with you.”
Grimshaw fetched the revolver from the lake and Julian managed to bring the fireplace poker to the kitchen and seemed to be all right, had even regained his color.
Then Vicki landed on another question mark and drew a card that said, “A predator blocks your path. The next player chooses the predator.”
Aggie was the next player and didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the businessman with the briefcase and set him on the square right in front of teeny Vicki—the square that had the garrote next to it.
Julian leaped up and ran for the nearest bathroom.
Conan and Cougar looked at Julian’s empty place at the table, then looked at the board.
Grimshaw counted the seconds. When a full minute had passed, he rose casually. “I
’ll go check on him. Make sure he’s all right. Hope he’s not coming down with a stomach bug.”
Following Vicki’s directions, he found the powder room and knocked on the door. “Julian?” He didn’t hear vomiting. Didn’t hear anything. He turned the knob and was surprised it wasn’t locked. He opened the door a couple of inches. “Julian?”
“I’m all right.”
Grimshaw opened the door a bit more and leaned in. Seeing Julian bent over the sink, face dripping with water, he squeezed into the room and closed the door. “What happened?”
“Not now, Wayne. Not here.” Julian straightened and wiped his face with the hand towel. “Let’s finish the game and get out of here.”
“Are you reacting to the game?”
Julian hesitated. “I hope so.”
He studied his friend. “But you don’t think so.”
“No,” Julian said grimly. “I don’t think so.”
They returned to the social room and the game. Julian made excuses for his hasty retreat. Grimshaw didn’t know if Vicki believed him, but she pretended to and the Others followed her example. Figuring out the solution was a bit slapdash, but they finished the game and said their good-byes.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Vicki asked.
“I’m fine,” Julian replied. “Thanks for the interesting evening.” He ran to the car.
“I’ll persuade him to stay at Ineke’s,” Grimshaw said. “In case he does have a touch of something.” And if he couldn’t persuade Julian to stay at Ineke’s, he’d sleep on his friend’s couch at the cabin. One way or another, Julian wasn’t going to be alone tonight.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” Vicki said.
As they approached the intersection, Grimshaw said, “Which way? To your cabin or to Sproing?”
“Neither,” Julian replied. “Pull over here. Put your lights on so we don’t get rear-ended.”
Not sure of the condition of the shoulder, Grimshaw eased the right-side tires off the road and turned on the cruiser’s flashing lights.
Julian punched a number into his mobile phone. Grimshaw was surprised that it worked, but the storm was spent and would be cleared out by morning.
“This is Julian Farrow. Grimshaw and I were at The Jumble and we’re heading back to Sproing. I need to see you. Now.”
He waited until Julian finished the call. “Before you put that away, call Ineke and see if she’s got a room.”
Julian stared out the window for a minute, then called Ineke and arranged to stay at the boardinghouse overnight.
Grimshaw didn’t see another car on the road, didn’t see anything approach his car. But a few minutes after Julian made the first call, the back door opened and Ilya Sanguinati slipped inside.
“Is this a typical kind of meeting for humans?” Ilya asked.
“Sometimes,” Julian replied. “When there is a need for secrecy.”
“And what secrets are we sharing?”
Julian turned in his seat in order to look at Ilya. “What happened tonight has never happened to me before, so I can’t give you any assurances that what I sensed is accurate.”
“Understood.”
No questions from the Sanguinati about how or why Julian sensing something would be significant. Which meant Ilya, at least, knew Julian was an Intuit.
“A predator in a business suit is going to come to The Jumble,” Julian said. “Maybe more than one. When that happens, you need to get Vicki DeVine out of there. Not just have her stay with you or at Ineke’s while she fights to hold on to that place. You have to go along with whatever scam the predators are going to play and make them believe they succeeded in taking The Jumble away from her.”
Silence. His eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, Grimshaw saw the cold look on Ilya’s face and wondered if Julian realized how close he was to being killed. How close they both were.
“And why should I do that?” the Sanguinati finally asked.
Julian looked Ilya in the eyes. “If you don’t, Vicki DeVine is going to die.”
CHAPTER 38
Vicki
Windsday, Juin 28
I sat in Ineke’s kitchen and watched her cut up carrots for the Sproingers while I sorted out the order of the things I wanted to discuss. Should I start with the good news that had some concerns or the development that had me more than a little concerned?
Good news could wait. “Julian and Grimshaw are acting weird.”
“They’re men,” Ineke replied. “That’s normal.”
Clearly she hadn’t seen Julian in the past couple of days and didn’t appreciate the depth of my concern. And she probably hadn’t seen much of Grimshaw except for meals, and maybe not even then since Paige and Dominique usually served the guests in the dining room. “Weirder than normal.”
“Oh.” Ineke set the knife on the cutting board. “Well, that’s disturbing.”
“Ever since we played the terra indigene version of Murder—which, according to Aggie, changes from place to place—the men have been acting like Maxwell when he sees a duckling that has strayed too far from its mother.”
She raised her eyebrows. “They want to snatch you and hide you under the porch?”
“Okay, not like Maxwell.” The border collie was fine with the duck family that lived in the pond on Ineke’s property as long as the ducklings stayed close to their mama. But if one got so much as a collie-length away from mama, Maxwell snatched it and took it to the nest he’d made for himself under the porch, sure that the duckling was now orphaned and wouldn’t survive without his intervention. Of course, that resulted in skirmishes with mama duck on an almost daily basis.
I knew Maxwell could count at least up to ten; that’s how he knew when one of his people-sheep needed to be rounded up. Turned out the ducklings’ mama knew how to count too and didn’t approve of a dog being a duck-sitter.
Since Ineke had found dog, duck, and ducklings under the porch after the storm, snuggled together on the old quilt Maxwell had appropriated from the clothesline a few months ago, it was felt that the mama’s squawking was more for form’s sake than because she thought Maxwell would harm her little ones. And any duckling he did borrow he would herd back to the pond the next morning.
It was understood that if Maxwell didn’t come when called, Paige or Dominique would check under the porch.
“But they are acting weird,” I said. “And the weirdest thing is that Julian is rubbish when it comes to playing Murder, and this time it was like he was tuned to a different channel.” I thought about that and what I knew about Julian. “No. More like he was tuned between two channels; like he was seeing the picture of one show and hearing another, but the shows were close enough in story line that he reacted as if they were one and the same.”
Ineke finished cutting the carrots, put them in a container and the knife in the sink. Then she sat down across from me.
“You know what Julian is,” she said, not quite a question.
“An Intuit? Yes. And I wondered if he had sensed something about The Jumble and that’s why he’s been acting weird, calling a couple of times a day just to see how things are going, like something should be different. He’s never done that before.” Sometimes he had invited me to lunch when I’d been running errands in the village, and talking to him then had felt friendly and enjoyable. The phone calls didn’t feel like a friend wanting to chat. The phone calls felt . . . smothering, as if Julian no longer trusted me to be competent and able to take care of myself. And that was too strong a reminder of living with Yorick, who would review my list of plans for the day and then correct something to reinforce the belief in my inability to function on my own, despite my being the person who had the job that supported both of us for most of our marriage.
Had Yorick given up The Jumble because he expected me to fail, to be too incompetent to restore the buildings enoug
h to receive paying guests?
Ineke reached across the table and touched my hand, pulling my thoughts back to the here and now. “If Julian did sense something and told Grimshaw, maybe that’s the reason our police chief is also acting weird.”
Did Grimshaw know about his verbal promotion? Officially he might be a Bristol highway patrol officer on loan to the village of Sproing, but a whole lot of people now referred to him as the chief. Not to his face, of course. They didn’t want to spook him with the idea that his position was permanent before he had a chance to get used to the possibility. And there was a contingent of residents who wanted to see the back of him, blaming him for the Sanguinati ousting the bank manager and taking over the bank. Which wasn’t his doing.
“Then why won’t they tell me?” I said, getting back to my concern. “The Jumble is my responsibility, and if something might happen there, Julian should be telling me, not Grimshaw. Well, not only Grimshaw.”
“I don’t think an Intuit can always tell you why he, or she, feels what he feels. Why does someone back out of a leisurely boat ride with a group of friends because she feels uneasy about the weather when there isn’t a cloud in the sky or the slightest breeze—and ends up being the only survivor because a wild storm blew in out of nowhere and the friends on the boat couldn’t get to safety?” Ineke shrugged. “Julian may not be able to tell you why the game spooked him, but I think using his behavior as a barometer for trouble would be smart.”
Yes, that would be smart. Just like it would be smart to remember that Julian and Grimshaw weren’t new friends; clearly they were old friends reunited. Because of that, there were things Julian might be willing to say to Grimshaw that he wouldn’t say to anyone else. Even me, the person who was the reason they were acting weird.
So maybe Julian wasn’t trying to make me feel incompetent. Maybe he needed to make those phone calls and check on me for his own peace of mind, even if he couldn’t articulate why—at least not to me.
That made sense in an uncomfortable sort of way, so I went on to the other things that concerned me. “I have good news. I’m going to have more lodgers this weekend. A couple reserved one of the renovated lakeside cabins, and two couples have taken the suites in the main house. And they’re all coming in for a long weekend, arriving Firesday afternoon and staying through Moonsday.”