Page 67 of The Witch’s Orchard

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Nothing can be awful all the time. Otherwise, we’d all go crazy.

“You wanna hear the choices?” AJ asks. “There are many fine dining options in beautiful Quartz Creek.”

“Nah,” I say, laughing. “Surprise me.”

He chuckles, and I’m about to hang up when I see a glint in one of the upper windows. The window itself is mostly gone, a few shards of glass clinging to the frame. I think maybe I’m just seeing things. Maybe just a shift of light and shadow. Maybe a reflection caused by the way the sunlight cuts through the fog on the mountains. Maybe there are swallows nesting inside. Maybe bats.

“AJ,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“The DrakeCo factory…”

“What about it?”

“What happened after the factory shut down?”

He sighs heavily and says, “You mean like socioeconomically or—”

“No, was the building ever bought by anyone else?”

“No,” he answers. “No one wanted to set up shop in Quartz Creek. The factory sat defunct most of the time I was a kid. It was up for sale for a few years but, after a while, it was in such bad shape that it was abandoned and condemned. Then it was just… You know how much it costs to demolish a building?”

“And now it’s mostly used by stoners and stuff?”

“Uh, yeah?” I hear him shuffling papers around at a desk, the sounds of the sheriff’s department going on around him, a phone ringing, people talking.

“Was it not locked up?”

“No, it was. Mostly kids hang out outside, but it’s not a fortress. Lately it’s been a rougher crowd around there. Fewer stoner kids, more serious addict types. Someone could’ve got in. What’s going on?”

I see the flicker of light in the glass again and I get out of the car, phone still in hand.

“Well—”

I pause, freeze in place, at the sound of shattering glass. A yelp.

BANG!

A gunshot.

My heart leaps and all my old reflexes come alive, firing, ready. I duck beside Honey, pull my gun with a whispered, “Shit!”

BANG!

Another gunshot.

Into the phone I hiss, “Gunshots in the factory. I’m going in.”

“Annie—” AJ says.

I hang up, slide the phone into my back pocket.

There’s another pop and boom. Another high, yelping scream. It’s a woman’s voice, I think, but I can’t be sure. The quality is thin and hoarse. There’s a frantic, pained quality to it, and, before I can reconsider, I’m running.

I slam into the front doors, yank against their old handles. They’re locked. Chained from the inside. I run around the east side of the building, searching for an entryway. Nothing. All the windows here are boarded up. I push against each one, but they don’t budge. I round the corner. There’s a loading bay in the back. Locked. A small door up a set of stairs. Locked. There’s a nearly new Chevy pickup parked on the crumbling concrete, but it’s empty. On the other side of it is a little multicolored Honda. Mandy Hoyle’s car.