Hollow Back Girl Read online

“What?” I asked. “No, Reid. He doesn't live here; he's just visiting.”

  “Only Owen I know is Mathers. He was a grade below me. Kind of a jerk. He's got whatever Carter's got, though, so at least maybe karma's on his ass.”

  “He's sick, too?”

  “Yeah. He's Troy's brother. The guy who's got amnesia?” Thom pushed the door open enough to peer through at Carter and I felt worry cloud his brain. “Owen went to see Troy at the hospital, because, I mean, he’s not that kind of jerk and came home and got the whole family sick.”

  “Is everyone around here sick? Is that why half the town’s shut down?”

  “Maybe,” Thom said, before considering my suggestion as if hadn’t occurred to him to connect the dots. “Could be Owen’s fault, actually—not your guy pal, I’d assume. But, once he was starting to feel better, he came in—well, he was sent in by his mom for tea but, being an ass, he coughed on a bunch of the teapots. Could see him doing that all around town because he hates being ordered around but won’t, you know, move into his own place or anything.”

  “Sounds like a peach. And you think he got Carter sick?”

  “Well, Carter had to clean everything up so no one else would get sick, but I think he probably got hit.”

  “Just Carter?”

  “I think so. Karen and Bobby are fine, though they don’t come in much. Ginger—the girl Carter was seeing for awhile—hasn’t been around much, but I just figured things had fizzled.”

  “Have you been to visit the guy—Troy, was it?”

  “Nope. I didn’t really know him and once his family all got sick, rumor got started he caught something from wandering the woods in the cold and no one wants frostbite or dysentery or whatever.”

  “I don’t think frostbite is contagious.”

  “No, I know,” Thom said with an eye-roll and a grin. “But no one really knows what he’s got, just that everyone in his family has caught a bad cold or the flu or something. Plus, like I said, Owen’s sort of a dick, so I can see him scaring everyone off just by being himself.”

  “You hear anything else about any of Troy’s friends, the other kids who went missing? No one’s found them or anything, right?”

  “Not that I know of,” Thom said, his shoulders slumping. “I hope they’re okay. There were search parties for awhile, but no one can find any trace of them, and Troy can’t even remember where they camped. They only guessed where to start looking cuz they always took the same path in, you know? And they can’t even be sure they didn’t, like try a new site or something.”

  “So everyone could be looking in the wrong spot?” I asked, worried Owen had been on the wrong trail when he and I had gone a-wandering.

  “Maybe. I heard that Troy had maps of different areas and stuff, like maybe they were gonna head to another section of the forest, but no one can be sure. They can’t even find their car.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “Since when do you care about all this home-town gossip?” Thom asked, frowning my way, before leaning in close. “Are you really in the CIA?”

  “Come on, Thom. What’s your source?” I punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t make me rough you up.”

  He laughed at the image and stood up tall. “Carter heard it from someone who heard it from someone, you know? You’d have to talk to the family or the cops to find out for real.”

  “So you don’t believe it?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest. It’s just sort of something to chat about during downtime. And lately, there’s a lot of downtime. We had a run for awhile, lots of people in buying herbal teas and honey stuff but that’s mostly slowed down.”

  “Okay. Well. I’ve gotta make a call, but you stay safe.”

  “I’m sorry?” Thom laughed at my dramatics, pushing open the storeroom door to let me out. “Is something out to get me?”

  “I hope not. Just take some vitamin C or something. Echinacea, or whatever it’s called. I’ll see you at home. Carter, go home if you’re sick,” I called as I passed him. Instead of the response he meant to give, a hacking cough exploded out of his throat, making me wince as I fled.

  Halfway down the block to my car, I yanked my phone out of my jacket pocket, held it up so I could get a better look at it against the glare of the bright, autumn sun. Unfortunately, it looked like the buildings or my phone plan or maybe even a plate in a passerby’s head was killing my service.

  “Ah, dammit,” I grumbled. I couldn’t call Owen and tell him what I knew. I couldn’t even call Chloe and tell her what I knew.

  I paused near the passenger side of my mother’s car and wondered what exactly I did know. We’d learned that the forest was an odd place lately. Campers and hikers were disappearing, little kids were snaking lumpy gold coins from their parents, and people—lots, and lots of people were getting sick.

  I unlocked my phone again, hoping I’d left whatever dead spot I’d been through, but found it was still useless.

  “Dammit,” I mumbled, tucking it into my pocket. I felt a flash of amusement from my left as I moved to step off the curb, and then a hand grabbed my arm, holding me in place.

  “Phone, please,” a familiar voice said. I turned to find Kincade standing next to me, a pleasant smile on her strong face.

  “Hi?” I asked glancing around. She didn’t let go of me, didn’t change her position. I felt a certain smugness in her and it made me glance down the line of her free arm. She was holding it in front of her belly, something clutched in her grip. It took me a moment to understand that I was seeing a very small knife protruding from her fist.

  “Your phone, if you please.”

  “You need my cell phone?”

  “I’m assuming you don’t carry around a rotary phone, so yes. Your mobile, please.”

  “Why?”

  “Because otherwise I’m going to stab you with this knife and you’ll be poisoned.”

  She was dead serious and enjoying herself to boot. I tried to take a step back, but she gripped my arm harder, leaned slightly forward.

  “I have no interest in keeping your phone,” she lied. “You’ll get it back once we go somewhere to have a talk.” That, perplexingly, was the truth. I swallowed thickly, glanced at my mother’s sedan as if it would turn into Bumblebee and save my butt. When nothing transformed or ground out a metallic battle cry, I sighed.

  “You’re not going to hurt me?”

  “Probably not,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, which led me to believe she wasn’t planning on hurting me but she wouldn’t shy away from it.

  “Shit,” I sighed. She laughed, but kept her eyes on mine. Slowly, I slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. The few people who passed us barely noticed; we were just two women chatting on the street. She pocketed the phone and then shifted her footing.

  “I’m parked a bit down the street. Shall we walk?”

  “I’m assuming I have no choice.”

  She cocked her head at me, her dark eyes sparkling. She was enjoying herself too much for my liking.

  “Come on.” She tugged my arm a bit to turn me, fell into step when I started walking. Remaining silent for a few stores, she waited until we’d rounded a corner down an alley and paused. “Now the keys.”

  “Ahh,” I groaned. My phone was one thing, but I didn’t want to hand over my mother’s keys. If I lost the car, I’d be in trouble. Dad would give me so much hell. “Do I have to?”

  “I’ll give them back, of course. Unless I have to kill you.”

  “Goddammit,” I groaned, forking over the keys. We started walking again, the blade still a threat to my life. We crossed through the alley, across a gravelly parking lot, and she led me to a white SUV parked rear-in. The doors unlocked with an audible thunk and she pulled open the back door. I sighed.

  “You’re seriously kidnapping me?”

  “I have some questions for you is all.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because Ow
en doesn’t just sleep with someone for no reason. He’s in town on a job, possibly related to the job I’m here doing. If he’s spending time with you in a bar while doing that job, you know something about it. Get in; buckle up. We’re going for a drive.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “So,” Kincade said from the driver’s seat. Her voice was conversational, her expression mild as she glanced at me in the rearview mirror. She’d handcuffed me to the handle jutting from the roof and I was watching the scenery pass, fearing the worst. “What can you do?”

  “What can I do?” I repeated, lifting a brow. “I eat a mean cake, but that’s about it. I’m not terribly skilled.”

  “For Owen,” she said. “What good are you to him?”

  “Ah,” I grunted, hoping she wasn’t asking about what I thought she was asking about. “Like you said, fuck buddy. It’s sort of a mutual benefit, actually.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re being deliberately dim but, if you are, I’d advise you to stop.” We turned another sharp corner and I watched the last of the buildings on our path disappear behind a copse of trees. We were headed into the forest where the people had gone missing and where Owen had taken me to investigate. She let time stretch on, maybe enjoying my unhappy expression as I watched us drive toward unpopulated nature.

  “If you’re just trying to get information out of me, why are you taking me to the forest?” I asked finally. I couldn’t see her whole reflection from my position, but I could see the smile wrinkling her eyes.

  “Once you tell me what you do for Owen, I’ll tell you what you can do for me.”

  “That sounds ominous and vaguely rapey,” I said. She snorted.

  “I promise you, I have zero sexual interest in you. Now,” she said, as she pulled over to the side of the road well away from where Owen and I had parked before. Yanking up the e-break, she turned, produced a small gun from somewhere and aimed it at me. “Tell me what it is you do or I shoot you in the kneecap.”

  “I don’t like this game,” I said. She waved the gun slightly to the left, talking with her hands.

  “You’re human, but that’s not all. You a healer? Mind reader? A telekinetic?” Her eyes lit up. “Pyrokinetic? What can you see or sense or do?”

  I didn’t want to tell her everything. I don’t know why, but the idea of letting her know the full extent of my powers scared me. I’d seen Owen kill a succubus and feel nothing; if Kincade was in the same league, I wanted her knowing as little about me as possible.

  She’d been telling the truth when she’d said she had no interest in sex with me. I knew Owen had no interest in hurting me, partially because we were sleeping together and partially because he would gain nothing from it. He knew about my empathy, but I’d only used it to help him.

  I didn’t want Kincade expecting me to help her; I doubted she’d persuade me in quite the same way Owen would.

  “I can …” I trailed off, trying to decide what to say. I went with a partial truth. “I can sense when there are creatures around.”

  “Creatures? What types?”

  “Um. Fairies, werewolves, vampires, that sort of thing.”

  “Interesting!” Her voice went up an octave and she smiled. “That must be handy.”

  “It’s pretty useless, actually. And kind of a pain in the ass with some creatures.”

  “No, I have just the use for that. You got your walking shoes on? We’re going for a stroll.”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “Haven’t eaten in a few hours. Feeling a little faint. I’ll stay here, you go ahead. Just leave the radio on, will you? Maybe some smooth jazz?”

  Climbing out of the car, Kincade moved around to my side, yanked the door open. Somewhere around the rear of the car, she’d holstered the gun under her own jacket, produced a tiny key. She unlocked my cuffs, stepped back.

  “Come on, lover. Let’s go.”

  “You can call me Gwen,” I said. She lifted a brow and I felt a bit of amusement come. “Otherwise I’ll just get my hopes up.”

  As I dropped out of the car, Kincade grabbed my wrists, cuffed them together behind my back. She gave me a little nudge, started walking as if she expected me to follow. When I didn’t, her disappointment pelted against me like a rotten apple, making me sigh. Without looking back or stopping, she yelled over her shoulder.

  “Your brother’s pretty cute. I may have to go introduce myself later, get a little side dish of my own in the area.”

  More and more, I was starting to feel like a character in a cheesy action flick. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any hidden fighting skills or a giant, impressive gun collection. In that moment, I didn’t even have a snappy comeback.

  “Yeah, all right,” I said, pushing on. She continued walking, her eyes scanning the forest as she did.

  “Let me know if anything comes around.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like anything that isn’t a deer or a bunny rabbit. Like something that might want to eat your face, or offer you a deal you just can’t refuse.”

  “So I’m looking out for Dracula and The Godfather?”

  “Yes,” she deadpanned. “I’m extremely concerned we’re going to be attacked by a rabid pack of Coppola movies.”

  Like the last two times I’d been brought out into the forest, it was awhile before I saw anything except trees or felt anything except normal wildlife. Kincade seemed content to walk, not bugging me or rushing me to find something I had no control over. I kept poking at her emotions, trying to dislodge something that would give me an edge or tell me something about why she’d picked me of all people to drag out here, but nothing came except a faint whiff of boredom.

  “How’d you know where I was,” I asked finally, my gaze on the ground, watching for poison oak. She glanced over, a spurt of pompous amusement hitting me as she did.

  “You gave me your name, you idiot. It wasn’t hard to find where you live and check in on you until you did something interesting.”

  “Going to see my brother was interesting?” I skirted around a low bush, wished I had my arms to help me feel more balanced; they were starting to get a little sore cuffed behind my butt.

  “Not in an of itself, but you seemed distracted, like maybe you knew something interesting. I switched on my phone jammer, waited for you to get far enough away that no one would notice, and here we are.”

  Cell phone jammer: genius. I sighed, wondered why movie villains never thought of that one.

  “How did Owen figure out about you?” she asked. I eyed her for a second, discerned she was genuinely curious.

  “Pretty much the same way as you. He observed … something different going for me, asked about it. Although,” I grumbled. “He was a lot nicer in how he asked.”

  “I don’t doubt it. While he’s no sucker for a pretty face, he likes the ladies.” Hooking a hand onto the trunk of a skinny tree, she swung around it, paused when she was facing me. “You’re far from the only woman he’s seeing; I hope you know that.”

  I lifted a brow, watching her blankly for a moment. Was she trying to make me angry, trying to get me to turn on Owen in some way? Dropping her hand from the trunk, she continued to watch my expression intently. On a sigh, I shrugged.

  “I know. He’s not the only man I’m seeing, either. It’s mainly just an excuse for the two of us to have sex.”

  When her smile grew and her curiosity abated, she turned to start walking again.

  “What about you?” I asked. “When you two knocked boots did he claim you were the love of his life?”

  That she found genuinely funny. Tossing a smile my way, she shook her head. “Not at all. Neither one of us is that naïve. It was just, like you said, an excuse to have sex.”

  “Well, then we’re even. You can stop with the attempts at mind games.”

  “Mind games?” she asked, still facing forward. “I’m just wondering about you, that’s all. You’re taking this remarkably well for someone who’s been threatened, handcuffed, and
dragged out into the woods.” An annoyance was growing inside of her, but that wasn’t the only thing I felt. The closer we got to the river, the more I could feel a familiar, faint emotional signature. When she twisted to put her back to the sound of the water to smirk at me, the emotions beyond her started vibrating.

  I stopped walking; she didn’t.

  “You’ve got something going for you other than an awareness of other creatures, Gwen Arthur. I can—”

  The tree to her left moved when she crossed its path. A great creaking sounded as the bark of the ancient fir tree twisted, pulled away from itself. The moss along the bark shifted and I caught sight of amber eyes before one of the lower branches swung around in a swish of needles. Kincade caught something telling in my expression and threw herself into a roll, diving away from the tree to come up in a crouch. She lifted her right hand, causing the hard-edged, steel rings on her four fingers to glint a bit in the light. A smirk tugged at her lips before she yanked something out of her pocket and threw it at me.

  “Ow!” I cried. Something hard hit the edge of my brow, not quite breaking skin but hurting enough that I felt it into the bone. Before I could demand to know what she’d done, I heard more creaking, turned my gaze back to the tree.

  A womanly creature had pulled away from the trunk. It was a bit taller than me, but otherwise just about my size, with long limbs and wild hair made of pine needles shiny with moisture. Had it not been made of bark and moss, I would have been pretty damned jealous of the lady tree's vivacious bod.

  The tree bark curved in all the right places, forming perky mounds where a human would have breasts, sloping away from a small waist into wide hips and shapely thighs that met under a mossy knoll. White fungus grew from her strong calves, further lines of bright green moss decorating her wooden flesh like decorative tattoos. Her face was angular and beautiful with thin scars in the wood where eyebrows would be and dots of amber resin making up her eyeballs.

  As the curiosity and irritation of the tree creature joined the smarting sensation where I'd been hit, the lady fir turned slowly to me, tipping her angular face. The resin in her eyes shifted color from amber to a slightly transparent golden as the cracks in the wood above them lowered. Whatever this wooden woman was, she had the capacity for anger and I could feel it burbling. I heard more cracking and creaking as she pulled completely away from the tree, leaving bare, smooth wood spanning the trunk, and took a single, heavy step toward me.