Up the front steps. "Jackie?"
Silence. Kate stopped just inside, dripping on the small dirty boot rug that Caroline had told her was Navajo hand-woven, undyed wool in white and gray and black. Howinhell had that ended up in a Maine Goodwill thrift shop?
Focus. Her brain still spun. "Jackie? It's Mom."
Silence. Kate walked across the living room, wet boot-prints on threadbare carpet as old as the house. The kitchen waited, empty, chairs shoved under the table exactly as she'd left them last week.
Living room, hall, bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, master bedroom — all empty. Back in the kitchen, Kate stared at the basement door, opened it, reached in to flip on the lights, stared down. "Jackie?" Her voice bounced around the concrete into silence.
She hobbled down the steps, hip complaining. They'd never finished off the basement, so it was open space you could scan from corner to corner, furnace and oil tanks and a line of jackposts down the center, with her workbench along the back wall. Her tools lay on the concrete floor exactly as she'd left them, big Milwaukee drill and bit set lying on top of the coil of her heavy-duty extension cord. And Jackie wasn't there.
Kate hoisted herself back up to the kitchen, limping even more with despair. The room was still empty. She pulled out a chair, same chair Jackie had used, vinyl warm under Kate's hand, and sat. She rested her face in her hands. Wet face, from the rain or something else.
Those scars. Wounds like that, high-velocity slugs from an assault rifle, they'd probably kill. Not guaranteed, bullets and skulls and brains did funny things. But Kate had heard an AK-47 before, fired one out on the training range. That same sound had met Jackie on the far side of Tom Pratt's burning carriage house.
A ghost, that was what she'd seen, a ghost totally inside her own head. Just like around town, just like out at the stone circle. Wishful thinking from deep in a mother's brain, taking what she knew had happened and putting the best possible twist on it. Bringing back a Jackie who was still alive and functioning. A Jackie who smiled when she saw her mother.
You ain't seen hide nor hair of that Jackie in at least five years. Proof it was a delusion. Don't mention it to Alice — she'll have you on a shrink's couch within five minutes.
Kate shoved her face off the table and then her aching bulk out of the chair. And then she gimped her way down the stairs and grabbed the drill she'd come for, and hauled it and the extension cord and bit set out through the fading drizzling twilight to her truck. Then, hands free, she went back and locked and double-checked the door. As always.
Kate Rowley in a nutshell — lower your head and bull straight forward. It's the only path you know. Not smart enough to go around.
A white Ford Explorer splashed past in the rain, Kate's eye clocked it at five above the limit, no problem. Except, she knew damn near every car and truck within fifty miles of Stonefort. That was a stranger, and the tourists had all left with Labor Day. And Tupash had driven that kind of truck. Fucking mind-control bastard with his illusions and cocaine cowboy thugs, kidnapped the Morgan girls. She'd never understood that part, stuff that Alice knew and Kate didn't need to know, didn't want to know. All Kate knew was that she'd fired her .44 Mag Colt at him twice, and missed. He wasn't where she was aiming.
Tupash was dead. Cremated. She'd seen him die, twice over. Alice had been able to hit him in spite of the illusions. Kate dismissed him and the Explorer and climbed into her own truck, shivering now. Get the heater going. Even that worked better, clean core and new hoses.
Jackie would remember where to find the key.
Chapter Nine
Caroline hung up the phone and stared at it like it was one of those desert rattlesnakes she'd had to learn to take seriously because Maine didn't have any poisonous snakes. Heavy black wall phone, 1940s battleship tech, you could use the handset to smash a burglar's skull and still call the police to come collect the corpse.
Typical equipment for the House — if it works, don't mess with it. And the cell phones would not work in the House. Dead spot in the coverage, company said they'd have to install another tower. Or something. Microwave relays and water magic didn't mix.
Jumbled thoughts, her way of not thinking about the call she'd just had. Stretching the not-thinking further, she lifted a dish towel off two bread pans, releasing the warm yeasty savor of cinnamon-raisin bread into the kitchen. This time, baking had been her idea, not the House's. She gauged the level of the dough and decided she could wait another five minutes before stoking up the stove.
"You want to talk about it?"
Caroline turned around. Aunt Alice stood in the doorway to the parlor, face troubled, waiting to hear the other half of the conversation. Not eavesdropping, she couldn't help hearing this end. Caroline had nearly had to shout to be heard over the rez system line noise out in Arizona.
"Grandmother Walks is dying."
"Oh, damn. I'm sorry."
"That was her youngest daughter, closest one of 'em to a phone out there in coyote country. Didn't say her mother was dying. The Satapai don't say things like that straight out. Come at it by way of the back fence."
"Anything we can do? Pay medical bills, find a specialist?"
"She's about ten years older 'n God. And traditional. And damn near as pig-headed as you. No medical bills, not the kind of care she'll want, and the other traditionals owe her so damn much they'll have to line up
