Strange Country Read Free Page B

coffee in her cup, her cell phone laid on the table as if she’d just made a call or was waiting for one. She didn’t look up until he approached the table. “Nothing,” he said as he crossed behind her and retrieved his jacket. “The window was open in your bedroom,” he said. “I don’t think anyone could have come through or gone out that way.” He shrugged into his jacket and zipped it. “There’s no one up there now. Have you been in the attic lately?” he asked.
    She looked startled for maybe half a second; then she smiled, looked at the open cellar door, and said, “Yes. Last week, maybe?” Like it was a question he could answer. She added, “Cleaning, you know. Always something to put away.”
    “To put something up there or take something out?” he asked.
    “There’s nothing valuable in the attic,” she said, not actually answering his question. “There’s nothing up there to take.”
    “Maybe.” He paused. “This is an old house. Are you sure you heard something inside the house?” He found it difficult to believe she’d imagined the whole thing. Mostly because he didn’t think of people that way. But also because Prue Stalking Horse didn’t jump at shadows or mistake the sound of a creaking door for an intruder. And then, there was the question he didn’t ask, the one that hung between them—why did you stay in the house if you thought there was someone upstairs?
    Prue rose in a single fluid motion.
    “When you were upstairs, did you notice anything … odd?” she asked. The way she looked as she said it was unsettling, like it was at least partly for this, this question, that she’d made the call to central dispatch in the first place.
    “Odd in what way, ma’am?” he asked her. It wasn’t that he minded wasting his time—and this increasingly seemed like a waste of time—it was that it seemed like she did want something. She just wasn’t going to come right out and ask.
    She seemed relaxed and cool once again. She tilted her head. “You have certain … talents, don’t you?” she asked.
    For a horrible moment he thought she was actually propositioning him. Which had happened more than once. Women seemed to like him—until they figured out how much of a Boy Scout he really was.
    “I mean”—she looked amused—“psychic talents. So I hear.”
    “I’ve had … dealings,” he said. Hallie was the only person he’d ever talked to about his prescient dreams. Prue Stalking Horse wasn’t going to become the second.
    “This house has a certain … aura,” she said. “I thought you might sense it. And if you did, there might be something you could help me with.”
    “Ma’am,” Boyd said. “It is not appropriate to make nonemergency calls to emergency dispatch. People depend on me being where I’m supposed to be.”
    “Well, I do think there was someone,” Prue said, though Boyd wasn’t sure he believed her. “Just not … problematic.”
    “I’ll make another circuit outside,” he said, “before I leave.” He was tempted to issue her a written warning about the emergency call, but she’d just say she really did think there was a prowler and it wouldn’t go anywhere or make any difference to her anyway.
    She walked back up the hall with him. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said. “Maybe it was a raccoon.” She opened the front door and walked out onto the porch with him, flipping on the porch light as she came.
    Something poked at him, like the undercurrent of an approaching storm, something not right that he couldn’t articulate, about the way she was acting, about one of the rooms upstairs, about something he’d seen that didn’t entirely register. Prue opened the porch door and a blast of icy winter air rushed in. “Thank you for coming,” she said.
    He walked down the three porch steps, then stopped and turned back. He meant to tell her it was no trouble to come out, that it was his job.
    He meant to tell her to be careful.
    The crack