Shade moved beneath the table and laid his head on Tyler’s feet. The ghosts were gone, then. As he studied the pages, he realized Amanda was right-the animal in the prints looked a great deal like Shade.
A familiar sensation came over him, and he began to understand the sense, if not the word-by-word meaning of the text. “This seems to be presented as a folktale. It’s about a ghost dog known as ‘Wraith’ that was seen in local cemeteries. There were many indications that the dog was a ghost. No one could get close to it. Its black coat allowed it to disappear into darkness. No one knew who fed or cared for it, or where it lived during the day. But at night, it was known to protect graves from any who would try to rob or vandalize them. It was thought to have a special friendship with the dead. Once or twice it was seen in a home or a church. Some said that its appearance outside a cemetery presaged a death.”
“I knew it was about a dog like Shade! I mean, they obviously made some stuff up, but it’s a dog like him, isn’t it?”
Shade got up and sniffed at the book.
“Well, Shade, did you ever know this Wraith?” Tyler asked.
Shade wagged his tail.
“I guess we needed to know this other dog’s name,” Tyler said, then frowned. “Which can only mean there’s no human, no Messenger available, to introduce us to it-it’s without a companion.”
“I wonder what became of that person?”
“Hard to say. All I know right now is that Adrian wants that dog.”
“And he also wants that ring back?” she asked.
“Yes, without a doubt. Given what Brad said about him, I suspect Adrian’s not yet mobile. He would have no need of these henchmen, and he wouldn’t be hiding in a foul-smelling basement.”
“So the dog isn’t his yet?”
“No. He’d be preening in broad daylight. But very likely he did send Daniel and Evan to look for the ring, and perhaps to search for some of his other former belongings.”
“Former? Will he see it that way?”
“I don’t care. Adrian’s descendants and others who lived on his estate paid a high price to ensure that he couldn’t reclaim those items.”
Amanda paced. “I wish I had known all this when I saw the dog this afternoon.”
Tyler carefully turned a few pages in the book, then took a long look at one of the prints, which showed a woman standing beside the dog. The woman appeared to be slightly disfigured by a mark or scar near one eye. Almost a replica of the scar on Amanda’s brow. He waited, hoping that some part of the accompanying text would become clear to him. It did not.
He turned the page, unsettled. Shade protected him. Was he keeping Amanda from her own protector? Keeping Shade from a companion of his own kind?
“Shade has been watching the woods at night,” he said. “I thought it was because of ghosts-even before you told me about your ghosts, Colby mentioned that the woods were haunted. Now I wonder if the dogs have been trying to get together.”
“But the fence stopped Wraith?”
“If it’s a cemetery dog, fences are no real barrier.”
She shivered, then straightened her shoulders. “Well. Let’s go looking.”
“Are you afraid? Would you rather I looked for it alone?”
“A little, I guess-but I want to come with you. I’m more curious than scared.”
“As you probably know, there’s a gate leading from the fence into the woods. I’ll get a pair of flashlights and we can look around. Whatever we do, we have to make sure Adrian doesn’t get his hands on that dog.”
41
As he drove, Evan complained about Adrian, which was nothing less than what Daniel expected. Still, it added to his depression. He looked out of the passenger-side window, hoping Evan would get the hint and shut up.
He had no real hope of that. Or of anything else, he realized. Even when he had been in prison, he had not felt so trapped. There, at least, he knew he would eventually get out.
As they continued up the now familiar road, he began to think of this woman they were after. What would become of her?
He shook himself, as if to throw off the thought.
Why should he care?
Hadn’t bothered him to beat the crap out of Brad. That rich little snot. This was just another superwealthy useless bitch.
He heard Evan mention the word “gun” and refocused his attention. “What did you say?”
“Brought a gun. Picked it up this afternoon while I was running errands for His Royal Roachness.”
“Are you nuts? You know what he said about guns! They’re too noisy, they’re not subtle enough. You can take a girl without a gun, can’t you?”
“I know Adrian wouldn’t approve, but hell if I’m gonna try to stop that dog with a knife.”
“Guns make noise,” Daniel repeated.
“I’ll risk having to explain a few pops out of a gun if it keeps that dog from setting me on fire.”
Daniel knew Evan well enough now to realize that argument would be useless.
Daniel wondered if a bullet could stop the dog. If the dog came charging after him, he wasn’t so sure he would try to resist meeting Eduardo’s fate. Let the dog come at him. Let it free him.
As Daniel thought this, Evan made the turn up onto the canyon road where the woman lived. In a few miles, they would be near the place where Eduardo had died.
He felt a jolt of fear. Daniel quickly began to murmur a prayer, then stopped as he became aware of what he was doing. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Strange. He hadn’t prayed since he was really little. Where had that come from?
He glanced nervously at Evan to see if he had noticed his reaction, but Evan was still talking about how much he hated the way Adrian looked now.
A Lexus passed them. Evan called the driver a dickhead, but the car was too far ahead by then for the driver to have heard him.
Other cars came down the canyon road. “Lot of traffic,” Daniel said.
“Too many cars. We’ll never pull this off with this many people around. As usual, he’s screwed up the planning. He has no idea what the outside world is really like. We’ll have to wait. If he wasn’t such a control freak…”
Daniel tuned out the complaints and focused on their surroundings. They had previously scouted out most of this road, so when they came to a narrow strip of asphalt marked PRIVATE DRIVE, Evan turned down it and stopped just out of sight of the road. Farther down the drive, still nearly hidden from their view by tall eucalyptus and pines, was a darkened house.
Evan parked, lowered the windows, and turned off the engine. He turned off the headlights and the two of them sat listening, watching for any sign of life from the house. It remained silent and still, and no lights came on. Daniel pulled a map of the area from the glove compartment. They didn’t need it, but if someone should ask what they were doing there, they would claim to be lost, looking for a street in the next canyon over.
After a few minutes, Evan lit a cigarette.
“I thought you quit,” Daniel said.
“I did. Started again today.”
“You know that’ll kill you.”
“I can only hope that’s true, but I doubt it. I’d prefer cancer to whatever Adrian has in mind for us.”
“You think maybe he’s going to try to kill us?”
Evan rolled his eyes. “Maybe? Try? I have no doubt that’s exactly what’s going to happen to us.”
“He needs us as his slaves.”
“Does he? Once that creepy-crawly thing has strength in his legs and a little bit of skin on him, we’re goners.” He took a deep draw on his cigarette and stared ahead in moody silence.
Daniel went back to his own thoughts. He could not shake the memory of Eduardo and the dog.
42
Tyler and Amanda made their way down the steep slope below the deck and reached the gate without any sign of the dog, which they referred to as Wraith. Shade made his way alongside them, although at times Amanda could not see him in the darkness.