Scarlet Nights (Edilean 3)

“Yes, you,” Ellie said. “Merlin’s Farm is old and mysterious. It’s right up your alley. You’ll stay outside while I negotiate terms with Mr. Lang, but that shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

But it had taken over four hours, and during that time, Sara had wandered about in her little pink dress—given to her by her aunt Lissie—and had fallen in love with the old farm. She’d made friends with Mr. Lang’s two dogs, had mingled with a flock of geese that were nearly as big as she was, and had explored every old buil

ding on the property.

When her mother was ready to leave, it seemed to Sara that she’d spent only minutes there. But not so her mother. She was the most angry Sara had ever seen her.

Behind her came a short, heavy man whose back bent forward so much he reminded Sara of a storybook character: the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was trailing behind Sara’s angry mother and smiling as though he’d won a prize.

But when he saw Sara standing by the car, he stopped and stared at the little girl, and his round face recomposed into a look of menace.

“She looks just like her,” he said in a deep, wiggly voice that, to Sara’s mind, was funny. If he hadn’t been scowling at her so hard, she would have giggled.

Ellie was opening the car door, and in her agitated state, she dropped the keys. As she picked them up, the old man removed the sneer from his face so that when Ellie turned, he was merely gazing at the child. “You mean my aunt Lissie. Yes, Sara looks like her and is like her.” She flung open the back door of the car and waited for Sara to get in. Ellie got in the driver’s seat and started the engine.

In the back, Sara looked out the window at Mr. Lang, and she knew her mother didn’t see the way he glared, and certainly didn’t see the way he pointed his finger at her. Just as her mother sped away, the old man made his hand into a gun and pulled the trigger.

Sara slid down in the seat in sheer terror and listened to her mother complain all the way home about what a “pirate” Brewster Lang was. “He might as well have held a gun to my head,” her mother said—and her words made Sara slide down farther.

Sara never told anyone what Mr. Lang had done, with his hand firing a shot at her. Over the ensuing years, she was able to separate the beautiful old farm with its butterflies flitting about from the scary old man who seemed to hate her because she looked like her aunt Lissie. One day Sara asked her great-aunt about the old man, but all Lissie would say was that Sara should stay away from him. “Remember, dear, you must never believe anything Brewster Lang says.”

After that, Lissie refused to say another word about Mr. Lang. Aunt Lissie had believed in the power of positive thinking so deeply that she absolutely refused to allow bad words to cross her lips. It had always amused Sara that some people in Edilean remembered this trait with great fondness, while others said Lissie made them insane.

So now, it was afternoon, and Sara was once again visiting Merlin’s Farm. This had come about because at two she’d been outside sewing when she saw Luke walking about Edilean Manor garden with a little man. She didn’t think about it until she felt a chill go through her. She gave a little shudder, rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, and looked up. Standing just a few yards away from her, glaring at her in what she could only describe as hatred, was the boogeyman of all her dreams: Mr. Lang. She hadn’t seen him up close since she was a child—she’d made sure of that—but he hadn’t changed much. He was still ugly, his head as large and round as a pumpkin. Maybe he was a bit shorter and his face had a few more wrinkles, but he was essentially the same.

And yet again, just as he had before, he made a motion as though he was shooting her. But this time, Sara wasn’t a little girl. She gave him her sweetest smile, then lifted her second finger at him. He smiled back at her in a way that made the goose bumps return to her arms, then he turned away and trotted after Luke.

After that, try as she might, Sara couldn’t continue sewing. She gathered her things, went back into the apartment, and locked all the doors and windows. When she’d finished, she remembered that Mike was staying with her and he’d not be able to get in.

With the thought of Mike, everything fell into place. Last night at dinner he’d been so nice, listening hard to her reasons of why she should go with him to see the old farm. She’d gone to bed confident that she’d persuaded him. Since she’d first seen Merlin’s Farm, she’d dreamed of going back, but only if “he” wasn’t there. When she’d had the idea of going with Mike, a detective who probably carried a gun, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity. She’d even thought about what she’d wear and the food she’d pack for a picnic.

But it looked like Mike had never had any intention of letting her go with him. “After all I’ve done for him!” she muttered in anger. That she couldn’t think of anything she’d done for him didn’t stop her anger. She knew Mike had arranged for Luke to babysit old Mr. Lang while he, Mike, went to see the farm. Alone.

“Two can play at this game,” she murmured, then called her mother’s store manager and asked that they make a picnic lunch for two. Sara knew the news that she’d ordered a basket full of food would spread all over town within minutes, but that was fine with her. She was truly sick of men treating her like she was too delicate to hear the truth. Greg refused to tell her what had happened that was so urgent that he’d had to leave immediately. And now Mike had made it clear he thought she couldn’t handle visiting a farm! With the help of her relatives, he’d gone there a day before he said he was going.

Twenty minutes later, Sara had the picnic basket in her car and she was on her way to Merlin’s Farm. When she saw Mike’s car partially concealed under the big oak tree, it made her even more sure she was doing the right thing.

For herself, she refused to sneak about. She drove in through the gate, parked her car in front of the farmhouse, and got out. If she saw Mike fine, if she didn’t, that was all right too.

As she picked up her handbag, she felt her phone buzz. Her mother had sent her an e-mail saying she had the dried molokhia Mike wanted, and Joce had texted to ask her to come over and tell her all about the dreadful little man who was following Luke around the garden. And Tess had left a voice mail asking how she and Mike were getting along. And there were four e-mails from clients asking when their clothes would be ready. Sara put her bag back on the seat, took her cell, and as she walked, she rapidly pushed buttons to answer everyone.

8

MIKE WAS IN the loft of the old barn using a pitchfork to search through the dried-up hay. He’d already found two leg traps in the barn, one homemade and one that was probably old in the Civil War. The tine of the fork caught on something by the overhead door, and he bent to look at it. There was a long, ragged tear from the hem of his jeans where he’d nearly been caught by a snare that sent steel darts flying. The only warning he’d had was the sound the lethal projectiles made as they came toward him. He’d dropped and rolled and the darts had whizzed over his head and embedded themselves in a nearby tree.

Mike had cursed as he pulled the darts from the branches and reset the trap. As much as he hated doing it, he was keeping with his decision to not let ol’ man Lang know anyone had been there.

Now, it was late afternoon and Mike was almost ready to leave. He’d found traps and snares everywhere. He hadn’t visited any building or garden that hadn’t been rigged to hurt an intruder, to maim, and even, sometimes, to kill.

He had only the barn left to go through and he’d be finished. Mike didn’t flatter himself that he’d found all of the contraptions, but he’d certainly made a dent in the number of them. And during the hours that he’d been searching, he’d learned a great deal more than just how to rig a homemade killing device. He’d seen that Lang was a clever—and strong—old man who had no conscience at all. In his blind obsession with protecting what he saw as his, he was ruthless—and without any concern for the consequences. If a child had sneaked into the orchard … Mike didn’t want to think what could have happened.

It was obvious that Lang cared only about keeping out whomever was trespassing.

Mike heard a noise below, inside the barn, and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Instantly, without a sound, he went flat onto his stomach and looked down to the floor below, but he saw nothing. Damn! Luke said he’d keep Lang away until four.

Mike lay absolutely still, thinking how he could get out without Lang seeing him. Behind him, above the open window, was a big post with a rope suspended from it. He didn’t know much about barns but he figured it was there to help haul bales of hay up to the loft. Turning only his head, he studied the rope and the beam. They looked to be sound, but after what he’d seen today, he wouldn’t be surprised that if he swung out on it, it would break.

He looked back down through the cracks in the floorboards, and what he saw shocked him. Sara was blithely walking into the barn with her head down as she concentrated on the keyboard of her BlackBerry.