Page 124 of The Witch’s Orchard

Honey’s tires squeal as I pull from the highway onto Lilac Overlook Lane. The scent of the mountains pours in. The cold air burns my lungs.

Leo had called me a crow.

Susan had called me a knight.

In the end, I’m just a girl from the hills with a stubborn streak and a bleeding heart I wear on my sleeve. I am not big or strong. I’m not a crack shot or a genius. But I will do everything I can for Shiloh, and Max, and Mandy, and Olivia, and Quartz Creek itself.

And I will fight like a dog for the truth. Even if it kills me.

FORTY-ONE

IPULL TO THE TOPof the hill and stop. There are two cars in the driveway. The one farther back, a newer-model gray Buick, I recognize as the Zieglers’ car. It sits empty. I press my hand to the hood and find it still warm.

“What are the Zieglers doing here?” I mutter.

Deena’s Range Rover is parked in front of it. I approach, my hand around the back of my jeans on the grip of my gun. There’s no one behind the wheel, no one in the passenger seat. I look in the backseat and find a couple of decent-sized travel bags ready to go.

The mountaintop is nearly silent. Not even a breeze.

I leave Honey and walk toward the front of the house. My footsteps on the gravel path crunch in a way that feels too loud.

The front door is ajar, and I remember how Deena had left it unlocked the day I visited. I nudge it open, and my teeth bang together as I suppress a gasp at the sight of Bob Ziegler, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He wheezes and stares at the ceiling, clasping one of his big palms to his side.

“Shit,” I whisper, getting to my knees at his side.

“Bob? Bob? Can you hear me?”

He turns his head toward me, eyes wide, and stares.

“G-Gore? Am I hit?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes. You’re hit.”

I move his hand just enough to inspect the wound, but as soon as I take off the pressure, blood gushes out.

“She got me,” he gurgles. “She got me. I didn’t even see… all these years.”

The pink in his cheeks is gone, replaced by a sweaty buttermilk color.

“You’re gonna make it,” I say to him. “But you have to keep holding it. Can you keep holding it?”

“Yes sir,” he whispers, but he’s drifting off.

“Goddamnit,” I breathe. I yank at his belt buckle and thank heaven for slick wool and well-oiled leather as I jostle his belt out of his suit pants and back around his middle. I whip off my sweatshirt and wad it up tight, then secure it over the wound with the belt.

“Help is coming,” I tell him as his eyelids flutter. “Hold on, Bob. Help is coming.”

I pull my phone out. No service. I try 911, just in case, and get nothing. I type a text to AJ and send it anyway. I stand and look around for a landline. Try to remember if there was one in the kitchen.

“She’s a devil,” he says. “She’s a devil.”

“Bob, listen, I—”

But there’s a scream. Long and high and shrill as only little girls make.

Lucy.

I wipe Bob’s blood on my jeans and pull my gun. Rushing up the stairs, trying to find some balance between speed and silence and achieving neither, I sweep the second-story rooms, glad I’ve already been in here once and know the general layout. Guest bedroom. Empty. Second guest bedroom. Empty. Bathroom. Empty.