She'd been awakened twice by a dog howling, and just before dawn thunder had rumbled even though there was no storm. This morning her neighbor's pet rooster had faced her own front door while crowing, which meant a stranger was coming. She'd spilled salt three times in the last two days, so even doing what she could to immediately negate the bad luck wouldn't get rid of it all.
And a bird had struck the window of her breakfast room, a dove no less, breaking its poor little neck. Since she lived alone, Liz assumed she was the one whom death was hovering near.
Alex would shake his head when she told him, but Liz's grandmother had been Romany and she herself had been born with a caul — and she knew what she knew.
Bad was here, and worse was coming.
So before Liz had ventured out of her house today, she'd made damned sure to put several amulets in the medicine bag that hung around her neck on a black thong: a couple of ash-tree leaves, a clove of garlic, bits of lucky hand root and oak bark, and several small stones — bloodstone, carnelian, cat's eye, garnet, black opal, staurolite, and topaz. She also carried a rabbit's foot in her purse, and her earrings were tiny gold wishbones.
None of which protected her from Justin Marsh, which was a pity.
"This is blasphemy, Elizabeth," he declared, waving a book beneath her nose.
She pushed the book gently back far enough to bring the title into focus, then said mildly, "It's a novel, Justin. A made-up story. I doubt very much if the author is trying to persuade anyone to
actually believe that Christ was a woman. But if it makes you feel any better, you're the first one I've seen even pick it up."
His pale brown eyes glittered in his perpetually tanned face. The healthy thatch of white hair and the customary white suit made him look like a televangelist, she thought. He sounded like one too.
"Books like this one should be banned!" he told her stridently.
Liz noted that few of her other early-morning customers even looked up, as accustomed to his tirades as she was herself. "We don't ban books around here, Justin."
"If innocent minds should read this—!"
"Trust me, innocent minds don't venture into that section of the store. They're all three rows over reading stuff about ninjas and how to hack into computer systems."
He missed the irony, just as she had expected.
"Elizabeth, you're responsible for protecting impressionable young minds from corruption such as this." He waved the book under her nose again.
Behind him, a deep voice said dryly, "No, their parents are responsible for that. Liz just runs a bookstore."
"Morning, Alex," she said.
"Hi. Coffee would be heaven, Liz."
"You got it." Leaving Alex to deal with Justin, she went behind the counter to pour a couple of cups of the Swiss-chocolate-flavored coffee Alex had recently become addicted to. By the time she joined him at their customary table near the front window, Justin had vanished.
"If he's over there tearing up another book ..."
"I warned him the next episode would mean a fine and jail time, for all the good it'll do." He blew on the coffee automatically, but began sipping before it had a chance to cool. "I don't know why he can't go away somewhere and start a nice pseudo-religious cult, leave us the hell alone."
"He isn't charismatic enough," Liz said definitely. "Just a not-too-bright kook, and it's obvious. It's Selena I feel sorry for."
Alex grunted. "I never heard she was forced to marry him. Besides, the way she looks at him it's obvious she considers him the Second Coming — if you'll forgive the blasphemy."
"I guess every town has to have at least one Justin Marsh. What else would we have to talk about otherwise?"
"Murder?" he suggested dryly.
Liz looked at his tired, drawn face and said slowly, "I heard it was Adam Ramsay's body this time."
"Sheriff says it is. Doc says it isn't. We'll know for sure when Doc compares the dental records."
"What do you think?"
"I think Randy isn't often wrong." He shrugged, frowning down at his coffee. "But if she's right this time, something very weird is going on, Liz."
Without thinking, Liz said, "The leaves told me that this morning."
Alex looked at her with resignation. "Uh-huh. Did they happen to tell you anything else? Like maybe if we have a vicious killer in this nice little town of ours?"
"You don't think it's one of us?" she exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
He smiled at her with an odd expression she couldn't quite define. "Liz, Gladstone might as well be the town that time forgot. Or at least the town travelers bypass. How many strangers do you notice in any given week?"
"Well... not many."
"Not many?"
"All right, so strangers are rare, especially if you discount insurance salesmen. But that doesn't have to mean one of us is doing these terrible things, Alex."
"I don't like to think it either, you know. But how likely is it that a stranger picked Gladstone as his base of operations to begin killing teenagers?"
"When you put it like that..."
"Yeah."
After a moment of silence, Liz said reluctantly, "Whatever is going on, it isn't over, Alex."
"Tea leaves again?"
"I know what I know." It was her standard response to doubt or disbelief.
"Because your grandmother was a gypsy? Liz—"
"I know you don't believe, but you have to listen to me this time. I've never seen so many dark omens and portents. There's evil here, real, literal evil hanging over this town."
"That much I'll buy. Have you checked your crystal ball lately to see how it'll all turn out?"
"You know I don't have one of those." She hesitated. "But I do know someone's coming. The leaves showed me that. A dark man with a mark on his face. An outsider. He'll come to help, but for some other reason too, a secret reason. And I think ... I know . . . he'll give his life to save one of us."
TWO
Miranda let herself into the small, quiet house not far from downtown Gladstone and went directly to the kitchen. It was a bright room most of the time, but last night's rain had left the sky overcast, and not even the airy yellow-and-white color scheme and gleaming white appliances could do much to cheer the room.
Or Miranda.
She went to the coffeemaker and turned it on, warming the remains of last night's pot because there hadn't been time earlier that morning to make fresh, and Mrs. Task was coming in late because of a doctor's appointment. The reheated coffee would be unbearably bitter, she knew.
But it would suit her mood.
Fresh coffee awaited her at the office, but she'd wanted to stop here first, if only for a few precious minutes, away from ringing telephones and anxious deputies and frightened townspeople. She thought Alex had probably detoured as well, though he would have gone to Liz's place rather than his own home.
They all took their comfort where they could.
"Randy?" A girl of about sixteen, her resemblance to Miranda striking, came hesitantly into the room. She was wearing a nightgown and robe even at ten in the morning on a school day, but that was explained when Miranda spoke.
"You shouldn't have gotten up, Bonnie. Doc said sleep would help you more than anything."
"I feel much better, honest. It's only a cold, nothing major." Bonnie watched Miranda pour very black coffee into a cup. "Was it. . . ?"
Miranda sipped her coffee, then nodded.
"Adam Ramsay? Just like you saw?"
"Just like I saw," Miranda confirmed bitterly.
Bonnie shivered and bit her lip, then walked to the table in the center of the room and sat down. "I didn't really know him. Still ..."