Grant snarled, grabbed Brunswick's wrist and twisted it away from his chest. Brunswick yelped and half-turned, fell to one knee so his bones wouldn't snap.
“Cassie!” Grant shouted again. “I need to talk to you!”
“She ain't here.” Carl stepped out of the shadow of the hallway onto the porch.
Releasing Brunswick, Grant turned to face the skinny stoner.
Brunswick stood, rubbed at his wrist, as he grinned. “Ain't here,” he echoed.
“Where is she?” Grant asked.
Carl laughed, shook his head, and muttered something under his breath. Grant didn't catch the words, but the tone was amused.
“She's gone to stay with her aunt in Kingsville for a few weeks.” Brunswick grinned. “Said you was getting on her nerves, kind of stalker-like.”
“Bullshit. I dropped her off here last night. You know that. How could she have gone back to Kingsville?”
“I don't know, a car?” Carl, still chuckling, gestured into the house. “You wanna go inside and have a look around, smart guy?”
Brunswick glared at Carl, then his face softened as he cottoned on. “Yeah, that's right. Go on in, have a look around.”
Grant stared at them hard, trying to measure their intent. Were they hoping to lure him in so they could jump him out of the sight of witnesses? Then again, there wasn't anyone around to witness the act, and he doubted anyone in town would lift a finger to help or even call the police. Fuck it, he didn't care if that was their plan, he had no fear of these two stringy losers. Bracing for a brawl, heart pounding and all his senses alive, he strode into the house and started searching room by room. Carl and Brunswick stood in the hall, laughing at him. It didn't take long to search the whole place, small as it was, calling Cassie's name as he went.
He lingered when he got to her bedroom. It certainly looked like she'd packed up and left. The closet stood open, bare hangers dangling skeleton-like in the glow of the cheap lamp on the bedside table. The dresser drawers were similarly empty. There were no personal effects, no pictures on the wall, nothing. Only a door hanger spelling out “Cassie” in spangled script bore testimony to the room's former inhabitant. If she'd been abducted, they wouldn't have stopped to let her pack, would they?
He dismissed the doubts with a shake of his head. “Tell me where she is,” he demanded again.
“At her aunt's,” Brunswick said.
“In Richmond,” Carl said.
“Kingsville,” Brunswick corrected. He put his hand on the stoner's shoulder. “Carl, step outside for a minute, would you?”
Carl sniggered. “Oh yeah, Kingsville. Knew it was something like that.” He shot an unreadable glance at Grant. “Holler if you need me.”
Brunswick turned to face Grant. “Now, you listen good. I don't like you, and I don't owe you the truth, but here it is anyhow. Cassie couldn't decide between you and Carl and she felt like you was both putting too much pressure on her. She left, and I ain't telling you where she is.”
“Bullshit.” Grant felt his anger boiling. “Where the hell is she?”
Brunswick was suddenly serious, his face hard. “She ain't anywhere for you to find, boy. Now, I ain't gonna tell you again. Get outta here.”
A rough voice came from behind. “Problem here?”
Grant's blood ran cold. Jesse Stallard stood in the doorway. Beyond, through the open front door, Grant saw the other two Stallard boys lounging in their truck, parked at the curb.
He grimaced. Five on one odds were not good, especially with all three Stallards. They were a much greater threat than either Carl or Brunswick. Besides, as much as he wanted to bust some skulls, what he really wanted was to find Cassie.
He stiffened, looked from Stallard to Brunswick, and shook his head. “No. I was just leaving.” Summoning as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances, he strode directly at Stallard, who held his ground for only a split-second before giving way. Grant shouldered him aside, rather than brushing past him, but Stallard only chuckled. “City pussy.”
Something inside Grant snapped. “What the fuck did you say?”
Jesse grinned. “I called you a pussy, pussy.”
Grant growled and rushed the tall Stallard, his fist striking out with all his pent up frustrations and fear. The impact across the redneck’s cheek was a rush of satisfaction and Jesse cried out, stumbling drunkenly to one side, eyes wide in surprise. Grant followed him and delivered two more heavy punches and Jesse dropped unconscious to the floor. Cliff and Jed came racing across the lawn as Carl ran from the house, yelling incoherently.
Grant turned on Carl, landing one good shot on the rangy stoner’s chin before he was pummelled from both sides by the remaining Stallard brothers. He roared and spat, struck out left and right, letting all his anger go, beyond caring any more. He felt the impacts from all sides, but refused to go down, stumbling back and forth as he grit his teeth and fought back. No way was he going down without giving them something to remember him by.
“Enough!” The voice was a whip crack in the early morning air.
Grant was stunned when the fight stopped almost instantly. He swung a couple more shots even as all the boys moved away.
“Pastor Edwin,” Graham Brunswick said. “Ain’t nothing to worry about here.”
“That right?” Edwin said. “Get along, boys.”
Jesse Stallard moaned, coming around as his brothers picked him up, held him between them. They nodded at their father, grinning, more amused than chastised.
“This ain’t the time or the place,” Edwin went on. “Now all o’ya get along out of here.”
The Stallard brothers returned to their truck and Carl and Graham strode into the house and closed the door, leaving Grant alone on the front grass with the pastor. Grant panted for breath, his knuckles cut and throbbing, his face and body pulsing with pain. The pastor stared at him for a moment, his expression blank, then returned to his own house next door.
Grant stood alone, confused. What the fuck was that all about? The rush of punching out a Stallard was lost again in the fear and confusion of Wallen’s Gap. Grant limped back to his car. He needed to find Cassie. Nothing else mattered.
Chapter 12
Grant rolled into town, his mood as black as the clouds that hung low on the horizon. He knew Cassie hadn't taken off on her own, but the slightest doubt remained. What if she really had left? He couldn't entirely blame her if she had. Her life sucked. But he was sure he'd felt a connection between them, and she had indicated she was tired of Carl. Then again, she'd also indicated that she couldn't seem to shake the guy.
“What am I doing?” he said aloud. “Pull yourself together, Grant.” He steered the car into a parking space on the main drag and sat for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
He wanted two things: answers about Kaletherex, and to find Cassie. If Cassie had left of her own accord, there probably wasn't much he could do about it. If she hadn’t, he was convinced the key to finding her lay with whatever secret hid behind the sinister name. Maybe he was stuck in Wallen’s Gap for a while longer after all. After a few minutes' contemplation, he decided to give the library another go.
Since he already had a library card, he was able to avoid another annoying question-and-answer session with the aged librarian, and got right to work. Settling in at one of the computer stations, he decided to take a different tack. McKenzie had known something about Kaletherex, so he decided to start by researching the recently-deceased professor.
The first several results were accounts of the unsolved murder, sudden big news in the area, but at the bottom of the page he found a link to the professor's page on the college website. He skimmed the brief bio and list of publishing credits, and one title leaped out at him. Ancient Mysticism in Appalachia. That sounded promising.