The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

Juni exchanged a glance with Jess, who was standing in the doorway. The man’s brow furrowed. Clearly uncomfortable.

Enid scowled. “What’s the matter?”

“Them,” Jess said. “Someone has to go after them.”

This gave Enid a sinking feeling. If she had just come back a day earlier, if she had just given up . . .

“Them?” Enid prompted.

“He took Kellan with him,” Juni said, and she had the gall to sound pleased. “Said the case was finished and he had to close it out. When you didn’t come back, he said he had to let someone know what happened to you.”

Nothing had happened to her. She glared, and they looked away. “I’m not missing and the case isn’t closed.” She studied the room, found Tom slouched up in the doorway next to his father, watching. She pointed at him. “He should only be a few hours down the road, yeah? Can you go after him, Tom? Take a hat and a bottle of water with you.”

“Tom, maybe instead you should get word to Everlast and bring a medic back?” Juni ventured.

“I don’t need a medic.” But when Enid tried to sit up, blackness crept around the edges of her vision again, and she felt suddenly nauseated. With Juni’s hand on her shoulder, she eased back down on the cot. Enid didn’t want this woman looming over her. “Tom, go now. Bring Teeg and Kellan back, that’s it.”

He nodded and rushed out.

Jess stared at Enid. “You know what happened. You figured it out.”

Suddenly frowning, Juni said, “Kellan did it. I thought the investigator decided that.”

“I won’t talk about it till Teeg is back.” Enid sank back against the pillow, pretending to be more calm than she was.

And now she had to wait for Teeg to return. Enid supposed she could do this all on her own, but she wanted witnesses. She wanted backup. If she rested now, maybe she’d be on her feet by the time Tom brought them back. She’d need to be strong.

She was annoyed with herself for ever thinking she could just walk away from this, from Ella’s body. Give up, like Teeg wanted her to. She’d have never been able to live with that. Not ever. She’d hold Serenity’s new baby and think about the girl who died. That someone else’s child had died, badly.

This case wasn’t impossible; it had just taken work. She was almost to the end of this one. Tomorrow. She could go home tomorrow.

By suppertime she was able to sit upright without wanting to throw up, but the washed-out feeling, like her lungs had been turned inside-out and shoved back down her throat, continued. She ignored it as best she could. Carefully managed her intake of water and Juni’s salty clam soup,

and waited for Teeg to return. Assuming he agreed to come back.

She almost would rather that he stayed away.

Someone was always sitting with her, Jess or Juni. Erik and Anna stopped by. Folk from other households drifted in, gawked at her, asked questions in hushed tones. Enid said as little as possible, enjoying stringing everyone along more than she should have.

No one from Last House came, though. What had the folk there said, when Teeg ordered Kellan away? The investigator would have threatened the household with dissolution, to get Kellan to cooperate. The whole scene must have been ugly.

Had word gotten to Last House yet that Enid had returned? What would they think?

Erik had asked a lot of questions during the Semperfi folk’s visit. “How far did you get? Did you see the outsiders? Where they live?”

“I did,” she said coolly.

“And they didn’t kill you?” Peety, the kid from Semperfi, asked.

“Apparently not,” she answered. Peety gasped, all amazement.

The stories the kids at the camp believed about the Coast Road hadn’t been so outrageous.

Later, she moved from the bedroom to the front stairs. Enid making herself visible. But she still didn’t say a whole lot. The sun sank, casting that strange late-day light across the marsh, a golden sheen that made the water flash. Gulls and shorebirds were specks, soaring in and out of the gleam. It was hypnotic. She tried to memorize the image, so she’d have something good to say about this place when she got home to Sam.

Jess shaded his eyes, studied the road out of the Estuary. He pointed. “There.”

Enid couldn’t see them at first, in the haze and slanting sunlight. When one of the three approaching figures set off in a run, the motion clarified their forms. Tom ran to the house. Didn’t seem at all exhausted. That was why she’d sent him.