Page 32 of Blood Moon

“I didn’t prevent it, either. She was disposed of God knows where. Now get in the damn boat.” As an afterthought, he said, “Please.”

It was a nameless bayou, but to Beth it felt like the Rubicon as she reached out and took his hand.

She’d grown up near swamps, had gone into them on school field trips, had even ventured into them on a date or two. But those excursions had always been in the daytime. With sunlight filtering through the cypresses, the swamps were beautiful and, so long as one was careful, benign.

It was a different story at night when the swamp was wrapped in darkness.

Of the three in the boat, she appeared to be the only one bothered by the skeletal silhouettes of the trees, the sudden screech of a small animal captured by a nocturnal predator, the startling flap of great wings when an owl took flight.

Curled up in the bow of the boat, Mutt had gone to sleep. After his oblique statements in reference to Crissy Mellin’s sad end, John had said nothing more. Sensing that he wouldn’t welcome her asking what more he could have done to prevent Crissy’s fate, she hadn’t engaged him in further conversation—which was awkward since they sat facing each other in a vessel smaller than an average size sofa.

He’d helped her into the boat and made sure she was seated as securely as possible on the wood bench that spanned the hull. He’d then moved to the stern and used one of the oars to shove them off into the channel. He rowed without vigor, but with sure and steady hands.

If he had a destination, Beth couldn’t fathom how he would be able to locate it. The bayou was one of a countless number of identical waterways that formed an aquaticlabyrinth studded with islands of various sizes. Some could be crossed with one giant step. Others were much more sizable.

John navigated around all of them smoothly, somehow avoiding collisions with the knotty knees of cypress trees that jutted out of the water. It was obviously an acquired skill that he’d practiced often.

After being on the water for half an hour, she broke the silence. “How can you tell where you’re going? It all looks the same.”

“Not if you know where you’re going.”

“And you do?”

“Um-huh.”

She tried to read her wristwatch, but it was too dark to see the hands. “What time is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“If I’d been on that flight this afternoon, I’d have been home long before now. If Max doesn’t hear from me, he’ll be worried sick.”

“You can call him when we get there.”

“When will we get there, and where isthere?” Her patience at an end, she said forcefully, “John, I’m entitled to know what happened back there and why we left the way we did. It felt like an escape.”

“It was.”

“From what? Something Mutt heard outside? That’s what dogs do. They react to noises.”

“Not Mutt. He’s never growled. Not once. Not since I’ve had him. Just last night, a friend dropped by. He walked in unannounced. I wasn’t even in the room. Mutt never made a sound.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have growled at a friend.”

“He’d never met that friend. But Mutt sensed that he wasn’t a threat. I don’t know any of my neighbors. They’re strangers. They come and go without ever rousing him. Up till tonight, I thought he was useless as a watchdog. I’m glad I was wrong.” Appearing lost in thought, he pulled on the oars a few times before adding, “Mutt sensed a threat, and his instinct was right.”

“You saw someone?”

“From the shed. I have peepholes in all four walls, and I have the shed for just the purpose it served tonight. To watch someone who came there to watch me.”

“Is that what he was doing?”

“He walked around the house, looked through the windows.”

“Did he go inside?”

“No.”

“Any idea who it might have been?”