Page 13 of Witch and Tell

Ijolted awake. Dawn was still a few hours away. Something had disturbed me. Next to me, Rodney raised his head. I listened but heard nothing save the wind rustling the leaves of the cottonwoods by the river.

Normally I was a solid sleeper, and if I did wake, I luxuriated in the warmth of my bed and the knowledge that I was safe with nothing to do but let my mind wander while the world around me drowsed. Sometimes I summoned the books, and words that brought me comfort—say, Emily Dickinson’s poems, or books I’d loved in childhood likeRamona the Pest—would read in soothing voices.

Tonight was different. The books were quiet. My breath quickened a notch. It wasn’t that the books had nothing to say; it was that I couldn’t hear them. Words garbled and muffled at the edge of my awareness, but nothing made it through. I sat up.

A thud sounded from downstairs, like a rucksack of firewood hitting the floor. Rodney jumped from beside me and went under the bed. I swung my legs from the covers just as the sound of crows cawing filled the night sky. My pulse beat double time.

I forced myself to open the door of my apartment and peer over the railing to the atrium. The moon was new, and I couldn’t make out much from the scant light shining through the roof’s stained-glass cupola. The portrait of Marilyn Wilfred over the front entrance was cloaked in darkness. Something black and sizable lay in the atrium—I thought it did, anyway.

“Hello?” I said, my voice wavering. “Is anybody there?”

I heard nothing but the relentless cawing of the crows. The books remained silent. Despite the summer night’s heat, my skin prickled. I swallowed and turned for the service stairwell.

At ground level, the lump became clearer. It was a person, inert, lying on his side.

“Hello?” I ventured again. Nothing. Even the crows had stopped their shrieks.

I crept closer. A man, dressed in black, faced away from me. Did someone break in and fall—drunk, perhaps—on the floor? Gingerly, I edged around the form, keeping my distance in case he should leap up.

Now that I saw him, it was clear there would be no leaping up—not now, not ever.

I’d found Ian Penclosa at last. And he was dead.

Gasping, I backed away. I couldn’t bear to stay in the atrium. Not with Ian’s lifeless body staring up at me from the floor. Instead, I’d call the sheriff from the phone in my office. On my way, I glimpsed Sam’s SUV through the window in the kitchen door. He was home.

This was better—more immediate—than calling. I ran across the garden between our houses and hurried up the steps to Sam’s front porch. The door’s beveled glass showed nothing but darkness. Natural at this hour.

I pounded on the front door. After a moment, light appeared in the hall’s depths, light from upstairs. Then there he was. Sam, in hastily pulled-on jeans and a T-shirt, opened the door. I hadn’t seen him in days, but I could deal with that later.

“It’s Ian,” I gasped.

“Slow down, Josie. What’s this about Ian?”

I drew a shuddering breath. “I heard noise downstairs and went to check. I found Ian on the atrium floor.”

“You said Ian is in the atrium?”

“Yes. Sam, he’s . . . he’s….” I wanted to bury my face in his chest. Shivers wracked me. “He’s dead.”

Sam was all business. He grabbed his phone and led me back to the library. We went in the service door and crossed the old dining room to the atrium. He stopped short.

“Where?” he asked.

I couldn’t look. “On the floor. Near the table where Lyndon puts the flowers.”

“There’s no one here.” Sam’s voice was cold.

My eyes flew open. “That can’t be.”

Yet it was. The place I’d seen Ian’s body was empty. The atrium was still, silent. No body, no sign anyone had been there.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I heard a noise, and I came downstairs. Ian has been missing for a few days. He was right here.” I stood, uncomprehending, and stared at the floorboards.

Sam looked at me with an inscrutable expression, then shifted his gaze to the spot on the floor where I’d pointed. “There aren’t any scuffs or marks here.”

I could only nod dumbly.

“Ian uses a wheelchair. I don’t see it.” Sam popped into the kitchen and crossed to the foyer. In a moment, he was beside me again. “No wheelchair and no sign of one having come in.”